Sneak peek of a possible fic I came up with last night! This scene would be way down the line in it, but I'm too excited not to share it because there's no way I'm getting to the fic itself for a while.
The main pairing in this fic is Helen/James/John/Nikola/Ranna.
(Word count: 1,062)
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Chapter ? of: Isn't it Lovely?
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Helen felt her lip quiver slightly as she faced Nikola.
He made no move to come closer to her. He stayed feet away from her, hands in the pockets of his coat, staring at her warily, as if she were crazy for being here. As if she shouldn't have been here, when he was the one that shouldn't have been.
"Helen." he repeated her name, shifting.
If he turned away, Helen swore she was beat him to a bloody pulp on the sidewalk. She wanted to. She wanted him to turn away so that she had the excuse. So that she could make him hurt and bleed, to show him a fraction of the pain he had caused.
"How….how are you? How are the others?"
She swallowed, taking a breath and letting it out, trying to contain the rage and the pain that filled her now.
She thought of bloody hands and blanket forts and grief in the dark.
"You left us."
Nikola winced, his expression changing, as if she had greatly hurt him for immediately bringing it up. As if he wished that she hadn't. As if he had expected to get away with what he had done.
"You left us, Nikola."
Her voice shook and Helen wanted to tell herself that it was in anger, but it was in grief. In wanting to demand why. To scream at him and cry and release all the pain that he had added to. He hadn't been the initial cause, but he had doubled it in one night.
"I know."
"You left us!"
Since he wouldn't close the gap, she did, marching closer to him, fists balled in the pockets of her coat, though she wasn't sure if it was to stop them from shaking or to stop herself from hitting him in the face.
"I know what I did."
Nikola's voice was quiet.
"Then why did you do it?"
Nikola's shoulders curved and he looked down.
"Why?"
"I couldn't take it, Helen. I couldn't…I couldn't stand it. I had to go."
"You couldn't stand the people that love you grieving? That's why you left us?"
He flinched and Helen had to swallow a hot ball that had formed in her throat.
"It wasn't you. It was me."
"You selfish bastard."
Nikola didn't respond this, looking weary.
Tears stung Helen's eyes and she forced them back.
"How are they?" Nikola asked quietly.
"Grieving James. Grieving you."
He looked smaller at the last words and Helen felt a sick sort of pleasure at this. She wanted to tear him open, drip poison into the wounds, because there was no way that he had as many as the rest of them.
"We lost you, just after James. Do you know what it's like, Nikola, to wake up the day after the funeral and find another person gone? A bloody note on the kitchen counter? To wake up and lose another person that you love? To have to face that they chose to leave you?"
A tear ran down her face.
Nikola made a strange jerky motion, as if he were going to come closer and stopped himself.
"How are you?" he pressed, as if he were desperate for the information.
"I had to come to New York to track you down, you bastard. How do you think I am?"
Helen clenched her jaw, hardly able to stop herself from screaming the words at him.
"I never hid where I am."
"You never returned any calls either."
"Are you here to ask me to come home?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because they need you."
"Why?"
"You want to know how they are, Nikola?"
Helen stalked closer, even though there was no one else around to hear what she was about to say.
"John has been seeking….revenge for James. He comes home with blood on him. We clean him up and I stitch up any injuries, so no one knows."
Nikola's eyes widened in alarm, in shock.
"He--"
"Yes."
Nikola dragged a hand through his hair, shaking his head in denial. As if he couldn't believe that a man such as John had turned to such a darkness.
Helen no longer remembered if she had been surprised that seemingly gentle, uncertain John had become a killer, but she supposed her reaction had probably been the same.
"And…and Ranna?"
"She's carrying a child that's already lost two fathers. How do you think she is?"
Nikola cringed.
"They need you, Nikola. You may not deserve to come home, you may not deserve them, but they need you."
Her tears ran down her face freely now and Helen hated herself for it.
She was supposed to be the strong one. She was the one that was supposed to be steady, for the others. She was the one that had come to New York to bring Nikola home.
She wasn't supposed to be crying now.
He moved closer now, as if to take her in his arms, but Helen threw up her hand to prevent him from doing so.
Nikola's eyes searched her face, expression pleading.
"What about you, Helen? Do you need me?"
"What I need doesn't matter."
Nikola's eyes scanned her, lingering on her face.
"You're sick, aren't you?"
His voice was so soft it was nearly lost despite their proximity.
Helen swallowed and nodded.
Nikola's expression broke and she saw the fear and the pain.
"Do they know?"
"Yes."
"Do they know how serious it is?"
"No."
"Can you survive?"
"Perhaps."
Nikola grasped her shoulders and stared her in the eyes, terror in his.
"What are you planning, Helen?"
"Protecting my family."
She shrugged him off, seeing the tears in his eyes. That was something she couldn't stand.
"Come home, Nikola. Stop being a coward when people love you."
He kept staring at her and Helen had the impression that she had taken a hammer to the cracked world he had been living in since they had been told of James's death.
She smiled as the rain began in earnest.
Good.
He would have no choice but to come home now.
"Helen--"
Helen turned and began to walk away, ignoring him even as she kept crying.
Her mind was already far away from where they were, back in a blanket fort and warmth and safety, which was more than the man behind her could give her now.
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I used to live with this woman that have a table full of small figurines. The first day I was told not to touch it, as some of them were old and valuable. One day, tho, helping her clean the house, she told me to clean the wood below the figures. Take the dust of them, that sort of thing. So I move every one of them with care, which mind you there were like fucking thousand, and put them in another table after cleaning. I clean the wood, put the figurines back and I think okay, more or less looks like before. No, it didn't. She yelled at me that I mess up her order, that some figures needed to be facing the windows for energy or the interior for good luck. So I tried to put them back as she told me. Days later, she'll moved one of them and throw me a look. Reminding me that I alter her "order" forever. Glad I'm not living with her anymore.
Anyway, this will be my last contribution to the Bookish Appreciation Week. I run out of ideas and I got my period so I'm dying inside right now. That said, thank you @fuckyeahbookish and @sarcasticsciencefictionwriter for being so supportive. And everyone who collaborated or just keep in touch with the event. You absolute goats.
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Trottie's favorite color has got to be red. Her shop is red. Her bedroom is red. Her fingernails are painted red. The most consistent color in her wardrobe is red.
I imagine that they will later reveal her favorite color to be blue or something in the show.
The ring that Trottie is always wearing on her right hand has a red stone.
And even when she went to save Book in the police station, her fingernails were painted red. (Though I will allow that this was probably just not removing the actress's fingernail polish between scenes).
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Tagged by both @tinknevertalks and @samsanalien, thank you!
The last fictional character in your photo library, is the person you gonna sit next to in a 8 hour flight!
Trottie Book from Bookish! (I'm lucky, I was editing pictures to make the red pop, lol). Could be quite fun, I think. She's friendly, she'd probably talk to me, and we'd have stuff to talk about, she has lots of stories. This is also assuming that she's been moved from the 1940s to present day, I guess. XD
No pressure tagging: @tina-mairin-goldstein, @zeldamacgregor, @lanistas, @disguised-as-a-flamingo, @misscrazyfangirl321, @romanaisalive and anyone else that wants to play!
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I have decided to headcanon that Trottie is afraid of the dark. Whenever we see her bedroom, all the lights are on and are shown to still be on in the morning when they weren't needed. I think there's about four or five lights in her room, maybe more, and all of them are on in every bedroom scene.
Book is shown leaving her room once she's asleep/mostly asleep several times and he never turns out any of the lights. He just quietly shuts the door.
This makes me wonder if Trottie, for whatever reason, hates the dark/is afraid of it. Whatever the reason is, Book knows it and respects it. Book's room by contrast has.... I don't know, two lights? The ceiling light and a table lamp, I think.
So. That is my theory until canon proves me otherwise.
