Once Upon a Time
Twoshot. Post JE.
Disclaimer: I only own the children and Richard.
She doesn't remember why she had gone back to school. Somewhere in the depths of her memory, she vaguely remembers waking up one morning with questions in her head; what was she going to do with the rest of her life? Be a temp for an office? Flit from one place to the next, lengthy resume in hand? Why those particular questions had popped into her head upon waking that one morning also eludes her. A dream, maybe? She doesn't know, even now. But she does remember suddenly finding herself on the campus of a university, asking for admission papers that very same morning.
That was over ten years ago.
Donna recalls the shock on her mother's face when she had told her about the university. She had been hesitant about disclosing the news, so used to being discouraged and shot down, but was surprised to hear her mother's support and encouragement on the matter. She remembers thinking, 'Who are you and what have you done with my mother?'
Her grandfather had been nearly twice as supportive, grinning and going on about how proud he was of her. Donna remembers wondering what she had done that could have possibly made him so proud to begin with; she'd spent most of her adult life scrounging for jobs and being... well, average. Before now, she'd led an average life, had average jobs and earned an average salary. There was nothing she could remember that would have made him act the way he did. Perhaps, she thinks, he had just been feeling particularly optimistic that day. She might never know.
Donna had graduated from the university with a major in journalism, nearly six years ago. Now, she worked for a newspaper and did a fair bit of travelling; flying from place to place to interview people and get the story on whatever was happening. It is a busy life, most of the time, but she enjoys it and she's never regretted having gone back to school. It's how she had met Richard, anyway, and that had been an upside of her work if nothing else.
It's night-time now and she's sitting on the couch in her living room, sipping coffee and watching the news on low volume. There had been quite a bit of 'alien' activity during the past month – she had even written a report on one of the incidents a week or so before – quite a lot of it seemed a little far-fetched, if not completely fantastical. People had become paranoid, Donna thinks, blaming every weird coincidence or strange happening on creatures from outer-space. She'd been assigned to so many of these 'alien encounters' that she was now glad the hype is finally beginning to die down. There are less and less of these incidents – at least for now – and Donna has finally been able to catch a break from work.
She's never really believed in all those stories about the earth being snatched straight out of the solar system and invaded by aliens or the entire world being polluted by the Atmos system or the thousands of blobs of fat that had simply fallen off of peoples' bodies and walked away because of something called Adipose. Where had she been during all of that, anyway? She couldn't remember any of it. Perhaps the world is going mad and she's the only sane one left. Donna frowns a little, hardly paying attention to the weather forecast on the news. Or maybe it's the other way around, she thinks, and I'm the one going insane.
Lost in her thoughts, she slowly becomes aware of the figures standing just in range of her peripheral vision, and she turns her head to see two identical little faces peering at her from the hallway. Realising they've been caught, the five-year-old twin boys come out from behind the wall and bound over to the couch, clad in matching pyjamas.
"What are you two doing out of bed?" She asks them, setting aside her coffee; she welcomes them into her lap, despite her reprimand. They crawl up onto the couch to sit with her.
"Can't sleep," John announces, clutching a fistful of his fleece navy blanket. His brother, Jack, turns his wide, blue-green eyes on his mother. Their father's eyes, she thinks, corner of her mouth quirking upwards.
"Tell us a story," John's twin, Jack, demands, tugging on Donna's shirt. Donna smiles a little and ruffles his hair. She's tired, but the dual sets of wide, pleading eyes are too hard to resist.
"Oh, all right," she sighs, still smiling. Her boys both cheer and jump up to bound back to their room. Donna rises, flipping off the television and draining the last of her coffee before following the eager twins down the hall.
Jack and John – both names she had come up with herself, finding she liked them quite a lot for apparently no reason – clamber into their separate beds, eager to hear whatever tale their mother will tell them. In only moments both of them have hunkered down to listen, thick duvets pulled up to their chins and eyes wide with anticipation.
Donna makes her way through their room, stepping carefully around the various toys and legos and whatever else happens to be lying in the floor. She makes a mental note to have the boys pick up their room tomorrow.
Sitting down in the floor between the two beds, Donna makes herself comfortable and begins to think about what kind of story she could tell to her little boys.
"Alright then," she says, looking from one boy to the other. "What would you like to hear?"
The answer is announced by both Jack and John at the same time, perfectly simultaneous. "Aliens!" they exclaim. Aliens; a topic Donna has somehow been expecting. An extra sense that comes with motherhood, maybe, or perhaps it is simply because of recent events. She puts it down as the latter, leaning against the bedside table between the boys' beds.
Donna has never been known to have a vivid imagination, being one for facts rather than fiction. She thinks, for a good few moments, about a tale with aliens. At first she comes up with the traditional "little-green-men" story, but then a second idea appears in her mind, and the former one vanishes. Suddenly she has it: an idea for a story that has popped up from out of nowhere.
"Here we go," she says, feeling strangely eager to share this fascinating new idea. A smile twitches a her mouth as she begins to speak, imagining a man in a suit and trench coat she'd never seen before in her life; a man with a big grin and brown eyes and unkempt hair; a library full of shadows and a little girl. But with every idea she thought of that same man – a traveller – that lived among the stars.
"Once upon a time..."
Part One complete. I'll start Part Two soon.
-Dots