Author's Note: I hadn't updated Northern Stars in so long and unfortunately lost inspiration for it. This fic - Faraway Dreaming - is a replacement fic. It's centrally Haleb, though he other girls/ couples will be featured from time to time. It takes place years after the tumultuousness of 'A' and 'A' is there no longer. I hope you enjoy! :) Read and Review. More reviews is a faster update!
The darkness in which she stood was lit by the penumbral light of the descending sun; it was falling down, toppling over the cumulus clouds, and taking with it a few cottony wisps while giving way to the crystalline luminescence of the moon.
She watched from a proximal distance, a small child, her beautiful baby girl, frolic upon the warm, textural sand as its granules trapped themselves within the petite chasms of her toes, painted a light pink.
"Alexa." At the sound of her name, the little girl turned around, her shoulder-length brown hair - a chestnut colour - gently caressing her face with a slapping force. "Yeah mommy?"
Her dark eyes were no longer so bright, their limpidness far gone as a tiered fog set in. It was time to get her to bed.
"Time to go sweetheart. I promise we'll come back another time."
Hanna watched her reaction with a careful eye, wondering if tonight was going to be like the many others before it, ending with a petulant tantrum; those consisted of protestant squeals and cries, leaving her heart-shaped lips in a string of heretical incoherence, their audibility muffled by the antecedence of heavy sobs.
It was a surprise however, when Alexa just nodded, walking quickly into her mother's awaiting arms. "I'm pooped," she stated, the strength and energy her tiny body had possessed all at once depleting as she fell against Hanna's chest.
Hanna sighed softly, biting her lip as she affectionately stroked the top of the child's head. "Me too baby girl, me too."
Her gaze fell onto the ocean, the waves tepid and rippling. The lighthouse was quite far out, though even so one could almost always see the sparkling light above the water; it danced along its wrinkles, the aureate circle splayed out atop its salty blue.
It was impossible, and Hanna knew as much, but it comforted her in ways not many could understand; the belief that her mother was still here, watching over her, and her daughter, in the reified form of this angelic light.
Alexa saw it too now, and she pointed, with the thumb that had been in her mouth, at the golden orb.
"It's grandma, right mommy? You told me that whenever I see the lighthouse light, that it is grandma."
Hanna nodded mutely, gingerly taking Alexa's thumb from where it was once again placed.
"Honey, hasn't mommy told you already? No more thumb-sucking. Okay?"
"Mhm," she responded, leaning against her mother's side as though to push all of her weight up against Hanna's hip. "I'm tiered. Can we go?"
"We sure can," Hanna smiled, blowing a kiss out towards the water and watched as her daughter did the same, albeit with a more languid motion as her eyes began to droop sleepily.
"Night Night grandma," Alexa whispered, little voice becoming befogged as she yawned.
"Goodnight mom, I miss you," Hanna murmured, taking her daughter's hand in hers as they walked now towards their parked car.
Ashley Marin died prematurely, suffering from a spontaneous heart attack a few years after Hanna's eighteenth birthday, a few months before Alexa had turned five. She had been complaining of constant chest pains, brushing them off as nothing more than indigestion for a few weeks before it happened. It was in the Dilaurentis' office, and Jason was present in time to see her laying there, on the floor, already dead. They say she passed away instantly. Her heart just...stopped.
As her only daughter, Hanna inherited the property, and, because she lived in the house where she'd grown up, thought of her mother constantly; memories circled the fan in the living room - as it rotated in an oscillating movement - cooling the room and alerting her of a ghostly presence.
Once Hanna and her daughter had gotten home, it was after seven thirty - Alexa's bedtime - and the little girl was feeling the effects; her head was laying on her mother's shoulder, eyes closed, and the trip upstairs was lulling her into a what was to be a heavy sleep.
"Goodnight Lex," Hanna whispered, kissing the forehead of her little girl. "I love you."
After tucking Alexa into bed, Hanna walked back downstairs, curling up on the armchair with a fuzzy blanket pooled at her feet, feeling too warm already without the extra heat of the fleecy throw.
Hanna felt particularly nostalgic on this night. She yearned, without reason, for the tangibility of such happy memories, and as she began turning the pages of one photo album, fingers playing mindlessly with the yellowing edges of each, she became wistful too, for those that weren't so happy.
"Caleb," her voice was quiet, tentative, unsure.
There she stood, in a cable-knit sweater, its creme color seeming very wintery against the chilled redness of her cheeks. "I don't think I can - I don't think we should..."
"Don't you say that Han."
She shook her head, curls bouncing the smallest bit in her adamancy. He looked at her as though she'd killed his very reason for living - with large, darkened eyes, adjectival to a wounded puppy. "I won't let you."
Hanna turned quickly around, to avoid seeing his face any longer. She walked with faded breaths, each one a foggy observable in the pitch of the sky. "You just did."
Allowing her hand to make a small print on his photographed face, she sighed upon wiping away the tear that had fallen on its surface. In this picture, Caleb was smiling, unlike the one before, where she and him stood outside the Rosewood church - he with a stoic expression and her seeming pained, the emotion making a visible crease along her cheek. That was the day of Mona's funeral - a day she remembered all to well.
This next photo however, the smiling one, depicted a happier time.
She screeched and squealed due to his fingers running along her stomach as he laughed, finding her sudden embodiment of a little girl to be humorous.
"Babe, shush. We're in a public place. What are you, five?"
Hanna giggled, "close. I'm turning six in three months Daddy. You're wrong."
Caleb smirked, holding her tighter to him, becoming almost proprietary as he placed a smoldering kiss to her supple lips.
"I'm sorry Princess, that's what I meant," he apologized, spinning around before sitting on the nearby bench with her on his lap.
Hanna stood up abruptly, taking him by surprise. "Can we get some ice cream?"
"Of course," Caleb obliged as he too rose to his feet, taking her hand.
The couple took relaxing strides across the scorching pavement, their flip-flops and beating hearts attuned to one another.
They'd spent the majority of the hot summer day at the county fair, eating hotdogs and riding every roller coaster, indulging in an unspoken togetherness as they screamed in terror - finding great enjoyment in adolescent behavior.
Now, licking their ice cream cones in an amicable silence, Caleb grabbed for her hand once again, intertwining their fingers. "Today was fun," he began as a means of conversation.
Though Hanna didn't feel like talking. She just leaned against his sturdy body, biting into the crunchiness of her cone with an affirming nod.
With a swipe of her hand, Hanna moved on to the next picture, watching as the Farriswheel, with its colorful exterior, disappeared from view as a baby grand piano took its place.
She smiled softly, the movement upturning her lips into a ruminative slope. It was this picture.
Hanna stood affronting the piano, her black and white color scheme matching its keys. She had a radiant grin on her face, its grandiosity heightening her cheekbones some, and with her hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail, her petite forehead was exposed. Caleb was beside her, arm wrapped loosely around her waist as though to be cautious of her porcelain delicacy, tiny features reminding him much of a doll.
On many occasions, he's whispered in her ear these exact words, but never before with such lustful sibilance. "Wanna take a little nap babydoll?"
She shivered, his boozy breath pinpricking the smooth skin of her neck. "I'll lay you down."
Hanna looked to her friends lounging with such sociability around the bar. Spencer was leaning against Toby's chest, nursing the same daiquiri she'd had since the night began. Virgin one no doubt. Rolling her eyes, she looked to Aria who was gaily nattering about this book she and Ezra had read, cheeks flushed with inebriation. Ezra's arm was gripping his girlfriend's waist and this saved her, multiple times, from tripping on nothing but her own feet. Emily was sitting on a barstool, twisting around and around as she downed another fireball, her eyes misty with a drunken haze. She threw her head back in obstreperous laughter, a cackle that made even the evilest of witches cringe.
Focussing her gaze on her boyfriend, Hanna grinned wanly, ready to open herself to him in a way she hadn't yet.
Suddenly, Hanna shot forward, shoved by a man with beady eyes and greying hair. Sans apologizing, he took a seat at the piano, beginning to play without word.
Caleb reciprocated her smile, gripping her hips as though to steady her swaying frame. The song Lay Me Down emanated in a lower pitch from the instrument, the litheness of the man's spindly fingers coming as a surprise.
"I love this song," Hanna murmured, her head resting on Caleb's chest. "And I love you, so yes."
"You want to?"
"I want to."
Hanna grabbed his hand, turning around to glance one last time at her friends, all intoxicated and happy. It came as a fleeting thought, disappearing as fast as it appeared, that, just maybe, she was in that same state: unable to fully process her actions and its repercussions.
When the sunrise dabbled with a painter's hand along her face, submerging her surroundings in a yellowish tinge, the room was one she didn't recognize; however, the boy pressed against her - skin-to-skin - was clear as day.
"Mommy?" Alexa's voice reached her slowly, like it was traveling through molasses- thick and gooey.
The little girl stood at the foot of the stairway. Her chocolate eyes were rimmed red and filled with a damp rheum. Her hair was mused from sleep and there was evidence of tears along her weathered cheeks, streaks darkening her fair skin tone.
"I can't sleep. I had a nightmare. Is my daddy a monster who wants to eat me?"
Hanna gasped, letting the photo album fall to the ground as she stood. As it fell, it remained open to that last photo she had been looking at.
"No Lexa," she'd semi-admonished, careful to keep her voice from bridging into hysteria. "He's the greatest, most gentlest, man ali-I- he's amazing baby."
Alexa nodded mutely, allowing her mother to carry her back upstairs and into bed. When she was enveloped in the covers with her many stuffed animals flanking her sides, Alexa tugged lightly on Hanna's blonde tresses, capturing her attention.
"How come daddy doesn't live with us? A normal family has a mommy, daddy and a baby. We're not a normal family. I want to be normal Mommy, please."
Hanna sighed, growing exhausted from the strenuous effort of keeping face. She wanted so badly to break down in tears, curl up in a ball, and never get back up as long as she lived. Her daughter was the only thing that kept her going, her grounding force.
"Alexandra Phoebe Marin. We are a normal family. I promise you. I love you so, so, much. My love is enough for both me and your daddy," she sighed again, voice cracking, "if it will make you happy sweetheart, I will take you to meet him. I will."
Alexa reached her arms up, hugging her mother close. "Thank you Mommy. I hope he loves me as much as you do."
Hanna kissed her daughter's cheek, wiping tenderly at the few tears that hadn't dried. "I know he will baby girl."
Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter :) Any predictions as to what has happened to Caleb? Yes, he is Alexa's father. :)