All was dark. Natalie felt groggy, or perhaps in a trance. At the very least she noted with annoyance that she was having trouble thinking. She sighed, but something was wrong. Her breathing felt labored, and the air too warm.
Then there was movement. She was sliding and her body felt warm and sticky. Suddenly there was a bright light, accompanied by the sound of a baby crying and a strange, slow but constant "BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...". It took her a few seconds, but Natalie realized the baby cry came from her, very strange. She tried to focus and figure out what was going on, but her mind just drew a blank.
There was a large leg to her left, Natalie's eyes bulged a bit at the size of it. However two giant figures directly in front of her, but shrouded in shadows quickly caught her attention. One leaned forward and Natalie's brow furrowed, he looked a bit familiar. Her suspicions were confirmed an instant later when he spoke. The voice was crystal clear, that of her dad, James. "A girl Catherine, it's a girl!" His mouth was obscured by a surgical mask, so Natalie couldn't see his lips move. "Hello there little girl, I'm you daddy... daddy!" He was addressing her, but Natalie was confused. She was not a baby. Still, James continued. "Your mom and I have been talking. You're going to need a name. What do you think about... Natalie... hmm, yes, that sounds like a winner."
James turned and said something Natalie couldn't hear to the other figure, who was now clearly a woman. As if on cue, a monitor on a mechanical arm swung down. James turned back to speak once more, "The gene projection's finished. Let's take a look at what you're going to look like all grown up!"
The screen flickered to life, the blankness replaces with a stunning image of Natalie's face, her current age if she guessed right. Her deep black, shoulder length, somewhat ragged hair had a nice contrast with her piercing green eyes. She couldn't help but mentally smile, or maybe even smirk slightly as she looked upon her own soft features. Not like Natalie knew many people, but she figured she was definitely quite the looker. "Damn sexy if I do say so myself Dad," she thought as she snickered, prompting strange baby noises to come out of her mouth, only serving to make Natalie laugh harder at the absurdity of what was going on.
James then pressed a few buttons and began reading some of the other information the monitor displayed, "Hair like your mother's, her green eyes too, though I must say I see a lot of myself in there too. Estimated height... five nine, or maybe five ten, depending on how your environment affects your development. IQ estimate... 130, not bad, but remember sweetie, just because you're IQ's high doesn't mean you don't have to work at it. You still have to try." From behind her there was a feminine laugh. "Oh, silly me Catherine, lecturing her already. Best to wait until she learns to speak before I begin to hassle her for academic performance." Another laugh was heard, but Natalie was feeling sleepy, her attention started to wander.
Natalie looked around the room, but her neck felt quite stiff. The effort almost wasn't worth the trouble, especially as the room was so bright. She sighed, getting a bit frustrated, when something happened. The owner of the giant leg, her mother she guessed, started calling for James in a distressed tone of voice. "James... James! Something's happening..."
"What, Catherine, what's wrong?" He whipped around quickly as the steady beeping started to pick up speed. "She's going into cardiac arrest! Get the baby out of here!"
Natalie felt a sudden rush to her head, almost enough to make her want to vomit. She was moving backwards, pushed by the woman. "Huh, wait, I was on a cart? Wasn't I on the same thing as that leg, er... with mom? What the..." Natalie's thoughts were interrupted by a bright flash that continued even after she shut her eyes, followed by a sharp pain from behind her left ear. "Fuck, headache!" Natalie hissed loudly and gritted her teeth, thought she didn't hear a sound for some reason. Fortunately, the pain quickly faded, that didn't usually just happen. The light was fading, too, and with it came her dad's voice again, calm again.
"Don't look right into light sweetie, you'll hurt your eyes." The sound of his voice made it easy for her find him. James was kneeling across a playpen from her, arms wide. "It's just something you get used to down here. Now, like before, come to daddy!"
Natalie didn't know why, but she felt compelled to do as he said, forgetting for a moment the strange surroundings, though taking note of some other oddities. She was feeling a form of vertigo from having her eyes at such a lower level then usual, apparently because that's just how tall she was right now. "Dude... why am I so small... What... what is WRONG with my legs!" She staggered back and forth as she crossed the distance, just like a toddler. Natalie couldn't help breath a sigh of relief when she landed safely in her dad's arms.
"There we go! My my, hardly a year old and already walking!" The two locked gazes, Natalie's eyes bugging out at how huge James seemed, though he didn't seem to think anything was amiss. The embrace lasted a few seconds, but then he released Natalie and stood up. "I have to check a few things in the lab, but I'll be back soon." Natalie just stood in awe of the size difference as James shut the gate to the playpen and locked it.
It took a moment for Natalie to regain her senses, but eventually she snapped out of her trance. "Huh, what's going on. I'm a toddler? Where the hell am I?" Even as she thought, though, Natalie felt her mind working faster. "This is... the vault, yeah, okay... our housing unit... maybe... some of these things are familiar..."
As Natalie surveyed the room, she spied a chest full of toys. She smiled lightly. Part of her felt like acting the part, maybe a bit of hidden nostalgia. "Hmm, well if I'm a toddler, I guess I better go act like one." She toddler walked over to the gate, still a bit frustrated with how weird she was feeling, but deciding to put up with it for now. It was a simple matter to unhook the latch, so easy that Natalie almost wondered how it could contain anyone for long.
Stumbling over to the chest, Natalie first dug out a rattle, shaking it a few times, before then taking out a big rubber ball and batting it across the room. There actually wasn't that much in the chest, she could see now, and Natalie quick grew bored. However, then a bright, colorful book caught her eye. It was on a nearby chair, and Natalie thought she recognized it. "Is that... that stupid 'SPECIAL' book? I remembering finding that in storage once... man that was lame. Who comes up with this crap? No wonder little kids are so naive. They get fed crap like that."
Natalie was now truly bored. Unfortunately, she really had no idea how to get back to normal. Mentally cursing a bit she stumbled over to the rattle, wanting to take her anger out on something and vaguely remembering times when she'd bopped someone on the forehead as a child. Not like there was anyone here to hit with it, but she had nothing better to do then retrieve it.
When she turned back around, Natalie saw something else that caught her eye. A bright red Nuka-Cola toy truck up on a shelf. "Oh wow, I remember that! Dad never let me play with that, because 'you might break it, it's very delicate'. Well too bad, I'm getting it down!" By this point Natalie was getting the feeling none of this was real, anyway, so why not. Even if she respected her dad, most of the time, she highly doubted there would be any consequences from this.
Positioning herself just right, Natalie wound up for a big pitch and hurled the rattle at the truck. She hit it just fine, but Natalie would not have time to regret her action. The truck, and shelf, were knocked into the air, only to come crashing back to the ground. Unfortunately, the path the debris took placed Natalie's face directly in the way. She never knew what hit her, literally. The impact sent her sprawling back, cracking her head hard against the cold metal floor.
This time the flash was black, not bright. Natalie found herself out in the hall, a bit dazed, with her eyes back at a "normal" height. Groaning, she looked around, quickly discovering that she was back in her own, familiar body, though she still didn't feel exactly right. "Uh... what happened... I'm... out in the hall... why?"
Natalie slumped against the wall trying to recover a bit. She didn't get to rest long, though, as a few seconds later James came back down the hall and humming a tune to himself. Natalie called out, hoping he'd take her to the medical wing and see what was wrong with her head, and why she was feeling nauseous.
"Hey dad! Dad!... Dad?" James kept walking, so Natalie stepped out in front of, scowling that he didn't notice her. "How the hell can he not see me, the hallway's tiny and I'm waving my arms like an idiot." James didn't slow down as he approached, looking as if to walk right through her! Natalie opened her mouth to yell at him again and tried to jump backwards, but it was too late, he DID just walk right through her. "Dad! Wa...! Ahhh! What the fuck! How the... he just walked right through me..." She stood there, dumbfounded as James rounded the corner into their housing unit and headed for the bedroom. Natalie was starting to get seriously freaked out, but at least it was making her more alert. As she collected her thoughts once more she quickly darted after him, noticing she could pass through the furniture too. She didn't pause, afraid to lose sight of her dad.
When Natalie caught up James was standing still in shock. She quickly followed where he was looking to a prone form of a toddler, dressed in a pink dress type garment. The young girl wasn't moving and had the Nuka-Cola truck across her face. "Shit! That's me isn't it! Am I... a ghost..." Natalie shook her head to clear her mind, something still wasn't adding up. She wasn't a toddler, and even if she was, why would her ghost be an older girl, one that she clearly remembered being.
One thing was certain, Natalie felt for this girl on the ground, though she wasn't sure what she was feeling, or should be feeling. Her mind locked. Was it sympathy, fearing for the girl's well being, sadness, a mix, or maybe something else entirely? Saying Natalie did not do well with her emotions was a major understatement. She preferred to avoid dealing with them if she could.
As Natalie stood frozen, James sprung into motion. He was a trained medical professional, after all, and knew how to handle an emergency. Natalie watched as he carefully picked up the truck and then tossed it across the room. He checked the toddler's vitals and seemed to calm down slightly, before sliding a hand around the back of her head to check for any damage. His gulp was audible a moment later, Natalie guessed he found something. James then made sure there were no more injures, especially ones that would make it danger to move her. Satisfied with the quick check, he took a deep breath and carefully picked up the toddler. He rushed, but didn't run. Dropping the child was the last thing she needed. Natalie followed behind, feeling her heart rate pick up from the tension.
Halfway to the medical wing they found Jonas, James' young assistant. Seeing the doctor's hurried pace and grim expression he rushed over to see what was up, uttering a small curse when he saw Natalie unconscious. He opened his mouth to say something but James shook his head. "No time for an explanation. Start prepping the scanners!"
"Right Doc!" Jonas nodded and went ahead. When the injured toddler arrived Jonas would already have the proper equipment turned on and ready. The patient was slowed by having to be carried up stairs. James was obviously mentally berating whoever designed vaults to have stairs instead of ramps as he carefully maneuvered the last leg to the medical wing.
When they arrived James rushed the toddler right to the prominent medical bed in the middle of the suite. He checked her vitals again as the monitors swung down from their mount above. "Don't worry sweetie, everything is going to be okay." His words were more for himself then her. As he started to work Jonas came up behind up.
"Don't worry Doc, you're the best this vault's had in well... probably ever. You'll pull her through." James didn't say anything, grimly looking at the monitors.
Natalie stood on the other side of the bed, looking down at the unconscious body, when suddenly a revelation hit her. "Oh, I remember now! Dad told me about this once. This is why I have these damn headaches..." She felt her body relax, reassured now that she knew what was going on. As the emotion faded, it was replaced with a new one, anger that she was getting worked up about something like this. "Seriously... how could I not have figured it out sooner... and getting all excited like that, fucking embarrassing."
She didn't have the chance to sulk long, though, as there was another blinding flash. Natalie felt another sharp stab in her skull. "Speak of the fucking devil." Her face twisted into a highly annoyed look. Her expression fit perfectly for the situation Natalie found herself in as the light faded again.
Her eyes were once again low to the ground, but not as much as before. Within a few seconds her vision cleared, revealing the vault's cafeteria, decorated for a child's birthday party. As soon as the scene finished registering in Natalie's mind she was nearly pushed backwards by a chorus of "Happy birthday!" directed right at her.
The force was enough to make Natalie lean back a bit, blinking a few times, prompting a comment from the crowd. "Stanley, you turned on the lights to fast! You blinded the poor kid!" Natalie recognized the voice as that of Officer Gomez, Freddie's dad. He was standing at the back of a small crowd under a large 'Happy Birthday' banner. In front of him were her dad and her best friend, Amata.
"Happy birthday sweetie, I can't believe you're already ten. I'm so proud of you, if only your mother could..." Her dad had come forward to congratulate her personally, but the overseer had arrived, rudely interrupting.
"Yes yes, happy birthday. Now that you're ten, you're expected to work in this vault. As such, I hereby present you with your very own Pipboy." He handed Natalie the device, which her dad helped her snake her arm into. "Take good care of it, you'll get your first work assignment tomorrow." His tone started pompous and slowly degenerated into a smooth, smug sound. His two default modes of expression in Natalie's experience. The overseer walked away, to sit across from old lady Taylor in one of the booths.
Natalie's arm twitched a bit. She hadn't realized she hadn't been wearing one. After awhile it just became a part of you, or at least felt that way. This was a really vivid memory. Natalie belatedly realized she was dreaming, probably. "Whoa, this is really realistic. I haven't had a dream like this in a long time... hmm... I bet I could have some fun with this." Movement from the side reminded her that her dad, or the dream version thereof, was still present.
"Happy birthday sweetie, enjoy the party."
"Oh I will dad, I will." Natalie grinned devilishly with her reply, though to James it probably just looked like standard little girl cuteness, or something else similarly sickeningly sweet. Not like it mattered if she did anything out of place. She was actually counting on that.
Before Natalie could act, though, Amata rushed over excitedly. "Surprise! You should have seen the look on your face! We got you real good, didn't we?" The young girl giggled at Natalie's new look of surprise, or what appeared to be surprise. Truth be told, she had quickly thought up something fun to try, and talking with Amata hadn't been it. She supposed it could wait though.
"Uh... yeah... I had no idea... Hey, you got me something, right?" Natalie didn't exactly remember what Amata had given her for her tenth birthday, but maybe her subconscious would feel like letting her make things interesting.
"Of course! You'll really like it! I bet you can't guess what it is." Amata had a sometimes annoying habit of playing games like this. Natalie didn't like it, but admitted it gave the girl some personality.
"Oh... is it a date with Freddie Gomez?" She blurted the first thing that came to mind, one of her own annoying habits. She had only been half paying attention to Amata while planning out what kinds of things to attempt now that she was pretty sure this was a dream.
"Huh, I didn't even know you liked boys..." Natalie snickered in reply to her friend's comment. At her apparent age of ten, she wondered if Amata got the meaning someone post-puberty would. The girl's face twisted into an expression of mixed shock and a hint of childlike disgust. Natalie smirked in response.
"Oh just tell me already." As fun as it was to gross out Amata, reliving childhood conversations with her friend was not high on Natalie's priority list.
"Fine. I knew you wouldn't guess." Amata had been hiding something behind her while they talked. She handed it over now and Natalie could see it was a comic that she used to enjoy reading. While Amata looked at her expectantly, Natalie's smile fell a bit. The dream let her down with that gift. She decided it was time to move on.
"Yeah, that's cool and all, but hold on to it for me, 'kay?" Natalie pushed past her friend rather abruptly before a reply could be given. She didn't care if she slightly offended Amata, it happened often enough anyway. Doing so in a dream would hardly make a difference. Besides, she wanted to do something fun before her mind decided to transition to someplace else, and she had just the thing in mind now, confronting Butch and his group.
However, before Natalie got there, old lady Taylor stopped her. "Hold up a minute there, birthday girl. Ten already... it seems like only yesterday that your father came..." Natalie spaced out as the elderly lady started to ramble, wondering if she should just give up and punch the woman right then and there for daring to interrupt, knowing the ensuing hilarity would be almost as good as punching Butch. She sighed, about to just ignore the old coot and move on, but the woman seemed to take the cue. "Oh goodness, listen to me, here you are waiting for your present patiently."
"Yeah, whacha get me?" Her impatience was seeping into her words by this point.
"Well!" Old lady Taylor was momentarily taken aback. "In my day, children were more respectful of their elders! Fine, here's your gift, a sweetroll I baked just for you." She wasn't too grumpy, though, and handed over the small item.
"Um, thanks..." Natalie tried to remember if this was what she'd gotten from old lady Taylor way back then or not. "Eh, whatever. I can probably make this taste like whatever I want." She thought of strawberries, her favorite flavor, and practically inhaled the sweetroll. She gagged a bit as either she was horribly off in her imagining or this was all real and the old coot had burned the thing.
Natalie dealt with her momentary discomfort just in time to see Andy, the vault Mr. Handy, cut the cake, or try to. He used a metal buzz saw, comically spraying icing in the process. Natalie took a hasty step back just in time to dodge as some landed on the floor where she had just been standing. Quite vividly she remembered that this had indeed happened, and Andy's antics wasn't just a spur of the moment thing her mind had cooked up.
What came next also popped into Natalie's mind. Butch had tried to take her sweetroll, which she hadn't eaten yet the first time around. "Not this time". Natalie smirked as the memory only make her more eager to get some revenge.
The kid was almost done turning to complain about the cake when Natalie's fist connected with his face. Butch hit his head on the booth's table. While stunned, it wasn't from the impact. But from Natalie's sheer audacity. The look on Butch's face pure shock, very gratifying.
Dream Butch collected himself fast, though, then launched himself at Natalie. "Hey! What the hell was that for!" He was easily slapped down again, though. Another right hook and he was on the floor. Any fight in her dreams was of course biased in Natalie's favor.
Taking a moment to stand proud over Butch's groaning form, Natalie glanced around to see if anyone had a problem with what she had just done. None had even noticed, as she expected. "Ah, I love lucid dreaming. Kind of petty though, I guess." Defeating Butch hadn't been nearly as fun as she imagined. "Too easy, and it doesn't even really matter, this isn't what happened..."
Natalie's mood was actually turning sour pretty quickly now. Her dad came over, said something, and opened the door for her as if they were going somewhere. If she remembered correctly, this was when she'd revived her BB gun. That had been a fun time, but the fondness of the memory was tainted by how fast the experience had gotten old. It had been great having a weapon at first. She'd always been aggressive and such. However, all she'd ever had to shoot were targets and the occasional radroaches. Granted, there had been more radroaches as of late, but Natalie lamented that she would never have the chance to really prove herself a capable fighter. "We are born in the vault, and we die in the vault." Natalie's thoughts echoed the overseer's often said phrase with venom. She would never have the chance to do more then slave away at the vault's systems and pick the odd fight here and there like a common low life.
As if sensing her brooding, another bight flash and twinge of pain assaulted Natalie. She was too annoyed to really protest this time, only grunting slightly as the sensation quickly faded again. Smoother then before, but she was still disoriented upon regaining her sense of self again.
Blinking back to awareness, Natalie felt more normal now. She was standing in front of her dad, eyes level with where they normally were. She felt a bit cold and realized she was in her underwear, though it was quickly apparent why when she noticed James had his medical instruments out and was reading her clipboard.
"Well, from what I can tell, you're a perfectly healthy sixteen year old girl, though I must say, your acting skills have really improved lately. You're doing a good job of looking the part." He looked at her intently, but Natalie was too dazed to respond. "Give it up honey, you have to go take your GOAT exam today, no getting out of it. It's just something you have to do."
The mention of the GOAT exam snapped Natalie back to reality, or dream reality. She remembered that day, only three years ago. She didn't remember this specifically, though, and highly doubted she tried to fake being sick to get out of it. That sort of thing was for the weak, and Natalie would never sink to that level. "Must be my mind dwelling on my bad mood, and those imagines from before... ugh..."
With a sigh Natalie turned to leave. James chuckled a bit, assuming she had just been admitting defeat, unaware of her continued internal sulking as she walked off.
What happened that day was actually one of Natalie's biggest regrets, though she'd never admit she had any regrets to herself. She had joked with Mr. Brotch about how little the test actually meant. She'd been surprised when he agreed and offered to let her just mark whatever she wanted on the evaluation sheet. Then she'd made the mistake of letting her resulting good mood get the better of her, marking unrealisticly high qualifications and scores. Mr. Brotch had no choice but to tell the overseer she cheated, giving Natalie a one way ticket to the maintenance department. Eventually she may "redeem herself", as the overseer put it when she was chewed out in his office afterwards, but that would be a long time in coming. Plus the maintenance department liked her as she was pretty competent with machines anyway, so they didn't really want to let go of her.
Natalie made it to the door and was exiting into the hall when there was another white flash, seemingly triggered by her deepening scowl. "Again, seriously... I'm getting pretty fed up with th..."
The fade back in was very fast this time. Natalie found herself laying on her back, nice and warm under a bunch of blankets. The shift in position made her dizzy, interrupting her thoughts like slamming into a concrete wall. She felt achy all over. Groaning softly she went to lay her head to the side, only to have it gently cushion against something soft and warm. Natalie stiffened as she realized she wasn't alone in the bed.
"Oh wow, that was good..." Natalie instantly recognized the voice as that of Freddie Gomez. "You were right... this wouldn't just be a birthday present for you..." He snuggled up closely against Natalie's side.
She remembered this. There was no way she could forget her first time. Two years ago on her birthday she decided to escalate her flirtatious teasing of Freddie. She had felt the need for quite some time and the frustration had just been getting to be too much. Freddie was just the type of guy she wanted, probably the only one in the vault too. Sure, he tried to act tough and hung out with Butch and all that, but it was pretty clear he had a nice, soft, gooey center that Natalie could toy with with ease. On top of that, he wasn't bad look at all either. She had been right with her assumptions and Freddie had soon been right in her pocket, so to speak.
Freddie tried to wrap an arm around her and Natalie quickly shrugged it off. They way he acted was cute, though annoying at times. He happily let her lead, though sometimes needed to be reminded of his place.
"Ugh... don't tell me you're going to go all emotional on me Freddie..." Natalie inhaled deeply, reliving the smell of the moment.
"Oh... uh... sorry. It's just... does this make us... you know... now?" Freddie was very apologetic, but his voice also contained a lot of hidden excitement that he was trying to suppress. He tried so hard to seem macho around others. It added to his charm, sometimes.
"We are NOT boyfriend and girlfriend." Natalie felt Freddie tense a bit. Even while asleep it was uncomfortable to be too hard on him. Sighing, she continued, "Don't worry, we have something special, if that's what you want. I picked you for a reason." Freddie laid his head down on her neck, breathing much easier now.
Natalie remembered this was also the first time she smoked. She'd red, and seen in videos, that sometimes people liked to light a cigarette after sex. Smoking was usually frowned upon in the vault, where the air was recycled and purified almost completely, but she'd managed to find some in storage after looking for a few days beforehand.
She glanced over to the nightstand. Sure enough, there was a pack, as well as a lighter. Lazily she reached over and lit up one up, bringing it to her lips and taking a big drag.
"Eww, you smoke! And we're in my room, they'll think I was doing it!" Freddie hadn't been too enthusiastic about the idea, but he got over it after a few times.
"Shut up. You should be happy just to be in bed with me. Besides, I'll change the filters tomorrow without telling anybody. No one will know." She had a soft spot for him, as much as she hated to admit it. While they never showed any "affection" towards each other in public, there were rumors that they had a thing for each other.
Natalie hated it when anyone hurt Freddie. She would make sure anyone that did would have a hard week. Even if there was no way they could connect the dots that they were being punished, it still felt good to see them squirm under her retaliatory efforts. The vast majority of the time it would just look like some random misfortune, a heating unit breaking for a few days, the door jamming and trapping someone in the restroom for an hour or two, that kinda thing. Natalie didn't need credit. She was just defending her territory, so to speak.
She continued puffing on the cigarette and Freddie quietly fell asleep behind her. Natalie didn't smoke often, probably once a month, but that was more then enough in the two year span since to get used to it. She remember when this actually happened the smoke had given her a coughing fit, triggering one of her headaches. It had been a really bad one, incapacitatingly so. She'd reluctantly let Freddie give her a massage and cuddle with her. No doubt he'd had fun, seeing it as "taking care of his lover when she was in need", or some kind of emotional drivel like that. Of course, thinking like that was somewhat hypocritical when she herself gave Freddie special treatment, but Natalie loathed showing weakness like that. She did not like being humbled.
Just recalling that particular headache brought one back to Natalie. "Oh for crying out loud, can't I get any peace around here." She rolled onto her side more. If she positioned just right she could sometimes stop a headache before it began. Not this time, though, as the pain continued to grow, joined by a constant, buzzer like sound. At first Natalie almost thought it was the heart monitor, from earlier in the dream, but as it continued she could focus on it more clearly. "Oh... damn... the alarm clock..."
Natalie slowly opened her eyes. She was in her own bed, under the sheets, but in an awkward position as if she'd been tossing and turning pretty bad. Mumbling curses under her breath she reached up to slam the top of the alarm clock, taking a few tries to hit the correct button.
The headache was still present. Natalie rolled out of bed, taking only a moment to stretch before shambling over to the first aid kit on the wall. Being the doctor's kid, she had access to a lot of medicine. The vault didn't have any hard core recreational drugs or anything, but in addition to the normal stimpacks Natalie hid a few choice pills from her dad's office in the box. Right now all she cared about was her special prescription, heavy duty pain killers that specifically targeted migraines. She grabbed the bottle, quickly opening it and downing three pills with a dry swallow. The dose was technically two pills, but three wouldn't hurt. This felt like a big one anyway.
Know she'd have relief soon, Natalie walked into unit's small common area. She was scheduled to help in the medical wing replacing some parts on the x-ray machine today, so James said he'd be here with breakfast at the usual time her alarm went off. Strangely, he was nowhere to be seen. Natalie checked the clock again just to make sure he hadn't set it to another time as a prank. It wouldn't be the first time. All seemed as it should be, though, and there was no place to hide in the small apartment.
"Oh well, guess I'll just get back to bed." Natalie didn't have anything else on her schedule until after lunch, so she could afford to take a nap and let James wake her up when he got back from wherever he was. "Weird that Dad's late... not like him at all... eh, maybe I'll have time to dream about something nice now, instead of that depressing monstrosity of a montage".
Natalie didn't even bother to cover up, just flopping back down on top of the ruffled blankets. The medicine kicked in and soon she was drifting off again, this time with a smile on her face.