CELEBRATION
"Christmas is for families and I don't have a family anymore." A Christmas Special that follows Etta throughout the many Decembers of her life.
The first Christmas she will remember is the one the world celebrates just months after the Invasion.
War is being waged, families are torn apart and food is scarce. Faith, religion and hope have no place in the world. Words like celebrations and holidays are no longer in use, relegated to a corner in everyone's mind labeled before, associated with vague memories that turn grainier with each passing day of darkness.
She is in a home with two dozen other children, hiding from the world as the Purge rages on. The only protection they have against alien, advanced men from the future is an elderly lady with a connection to the earliest form of the Resistance, who provides them with information and the occasional supply box.
Then one day, they receive four boxes.
There are boxes and boxes of cookies and candy, things no one has even thought of in months. Everything is long past its sell-by date but that makes no difference to the children, who cheer and smile and dance. Their caretaker – Alma Robins, a woman she will remember for the rest of her life -announces that it's Christmas and brings out hand-me-down sweaters and old toys and for once, nearly everyone is happy except for Etta, who sits in a corner clinging on to a teddy bear for dear life. Alma crouches down next to her, brown eyes wide and concerned.
"What's wrong, dearie?"
"It's Christmas." She sobs into the bear. In the years that will follow, she will often think of the way Alma pulled her, teddy bear and all, into her lap – just like Mama used to.
"Yes, it is." Alma agrees, waiting for the little girl to elaborate; all of the other children are ecstatic over the festivities, shrieking with laughter as they play with their toys and sweaters and empty cartons.
As an adult, Etta will find herself saddened by the fact that she can't remember the exact thing that had made her young self so upset. She will remember what she told Alma, she will remember why she was crying in a corner but she will struggle to recall the exact memory she had sobbed over, the details of her second Christmas. Memories that had once filled her with such sorrow and longing will be lost to her forever.
"Christmas is for families,"She hiccups, trying desperately to be strong because Daddy always called her his little angel and Mama used to say 'goodnight, my strong girl' and Grandpa Walter told her once that good and strong girls don't cry, just like Mama. But the tears just won't stop – she wipes at them in frustration and covers her eyes with her little hands to block out the world because if they can't see her crying then her family won't, either. They won't see her crying and being weak and giving up.
"And I don't have a family anymore."
"Oh, sweetie," The woman sighs heavily, pulling Etta closer. In that moment, what she needs is for Alma to protest, to tell her that of course she still has a family and that someday she will find them and everything will be okay again. But in their new world, one filled with kind words from cold Invaders, promising rewards and order in exchange for loyalty and submission, they do not lie. And so Alma is left with little in the way of comforting a distraught child.
"We're your family, Etta. We're your family." She says instead, and Etta peeks her little face out of the mountain of teddy bear fur to sneak a glance at Alma, and her friend Jenny, and her other friend Tim, and all the other kids who have lost their families yet are able to laugh and dance and play. Because they still have a family. Because they are with their family right now.
And she wants that, to have a family and to laugh and to be happy, so she nods and smiles bravely and that night, she celebrates Christmas with her family, just like she always has.
Two days later, Invaders storm in with Loyalists flanking them and Etta watches from a cupboard in Alma's bedroom as they take her family from her all over again.
The next December, her foster parents tell her that they don't really celebrate anything.
It doesn't really matter by then. She's lost two families; she isn't about to accept another one just because someone once told her third time's the charm. So she smiles her little front-toothless smile and shrugs it off, and Mimi – it sounds close to Mommy, close enough that she can get away with calling the woman by her name – smiles and pats her tiny blonde head, calling her a good girl. She's sent to her room a short while after as Resistance members gather in the living room, the way they do once a week.
In the room she's still hesitant to call hers even after six full months – she keeps count, expecting her little bubble to pop each and every single morning that dawns with her tucked away safely in bed – she curls up in bed and clutches the raggedy bear that is her only material possession in the world, wondering if maybe Gene – she remembers the name, and a cow, and Grandpa Walter and the lab and being safe and happy and her parents' smiles – is her only family left.
She quickly shakes the thought away because then it'll just be a matter of time before she loses Gene the Bear.
In the darkness of her room – it's underground and electricity comes and goes these days –, soft strains of words and melodies strung together pierce the silence, tempting Etta to scurry up the stairs and maybe take a peek out of the only window Mimi and Kent haven't boarded up. But that would be stupid, and she doesn't do stupid things. People who do stupid things get killed.
She wonders if caroling in the harsh winter night while their world is being torn apart and purged of its residents counts as a stupid thing. Her question is answered when an off-key rendition of We Wish You A Merry Christmas is abruptly cut off and the outside world lapses into eerie silence.
The Observers ban Christmas two days later.
When she's eleven, an Invader tries to read her.
She doesn't know why this is happening. She's done everything Mimi and Kent have taught her to. Keep your head low, your eyes down. Keep silent and keep your opinions to yourself. Keep quiet and blend in.
Keep everything inside, basically.
But the Observer singles her out from a crowd of fifty children and begins to poke at her mind in a foreign way that somehow feels predictable.
She's never been read. She knows she's never been read - she's certain of it. Even now as she's being read, she knows with absolute certainty that she has never experienced this violation before. So how does she know just what to do? How does she know his next move, the next corridor in her mind that he will push his way into? How does she know to throw up wall after wall of distractions, keeping him occupied while she scrambles to guard her most important thoughts?
But in her frantic quest to hide her most important thoughts, she allows the Invader access to her most precious memories.
Walter's Christmas records. Mistletoe in Gene's stall. Astrid's homemade gingerbread men. Her daddy's jazzy Christmas tunes and her mom's rules – one present on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas morning.
By this point, there are no faces, just names and feelings and snatches of laughter.
The Observer grows tired of searching through her seemingly clueless mind and tilts his head to one side quizzically.
"You are thinking of Christmas." He states in a flat tone that somehow manages to indicate a query.
"My family." She corrects in mumbled words, her eyes focused on the pavement as she fights the urge to look this piece of scum in the eye and challenge him. "Memories are all I have left." She feels inclined to sound like a sad, lost child – they have no sympathy, these monsters, but they do tend to leave innocent children alone. It's just another poor attempt at placating the Natives.
He stares at her downturned face for a brief moment, his cold, calculative eyes studying her. And then he's gone just as abruptly as he had showed up and she waits for him to turn around the corner before she's running, running against the flow and across the pavement and home, where she hurries inside and locks the door behind her before flying down the set of stairs that lead her to her room, ignoring Mimi's cries of what's wrong, are you okay, did something happen.
Yes, something happened.
Sure, she had fooled the Observer and gotten him off her back without revealing any important Resistance information, and she's even discovered a new, unusual, priceless gift for blocking the Invaders. But she's lost something.
Already the sound of Walter's records seem faint, distant, as if heard underwater. She can't remember the smell of Gene's hay, or Astrid's baked goodies. She's long forgotten her parents' faces but now she can't even picture her father's twinkling eyes or her mother's chiding voice. She knows the Observer will recall everything with perfect clarity, that he has discovered, in that one scan, more than she's ever noticed in the snippets she has played on a loop all day, every day for most of her life. He will remember her family, stolen images and memories and laughter to be filed away under an inconsequential title for inconsequential information.
They just keep taking from her.
The year she turns sixteen, she leads her first raid.
It's unusual, certainly. Not unheard of – in these desperate times, willing fighters with talent and smarts are hard to come by and no one would let one go because of something as trivial as age – but definitely unusual enough to generate buzz and have everyone pin their hopes and expectations on her.
She does not disappoint.
They storm into a warehouse, a mere two dozen of them, and begin taking down Loyalists left and right until all seventeen guards a source had told them would be on duty are nothing but crumpled bodies on the ground. She keeps cool even though this is the first time she's shoot someone just because and tells herself that they had it coming, that this is what happens when you sell out your own, that they died a long time ago, the day they surrendered their will to the Invaders.
Nothing makes her feel better but she pushes on and starts inspecting their spoils. Kent was right – these would have caused devastation amongst their ranks. There are torture devices and weapons, tech that she has never seen and some that she had wished she would never see again. She swallows the bile that rises to her throat and barks out orders, having the worst of the torture tech destroyed on the spot. Some lines are not to be crossed – this is how they will differentiate themselves from the Observers and justify fighting for their cause. This is how they will be better.
The rest of the crates are transported into the vans that wait outside, sorted by purpose and which branch they'll be sent to. Everything is under control and running smoothly.
And then three Observers show up.
She doesn't stop to think, doesn't stop to alert the others to their visitors. Her guns – yes, two – are in her hands within ten seconds and the bullets are flying away from her within fifteen. She has good aim but only two hands, and she knows the third one will be able to escape, attack or even ambush her by the time she gets a clear shot at him.
He crumples to the ground just two seconds after the taller one she's just shot and Etta's eyes widen in confusion and shock.
A man stands in front of her, previously obscured by the Invader who is now lying motionlessly on the cold cement ground. He grins in satisfaction, a glint of rebellion in his eyes.
The first words Simon Foster ever says to her are 'Merry Christmas'.
And even though he's about three days too late, she grins and appreciates his humor – honestly, going against the Observers by celebrating Christmas would be the safest thing to do right now, considering the fact that they're in an off-limits area, stealing from the Ministry after killing twenty of their men in cold blood.
She learns that day that Simon will always, always know just what to say to piss off the Baldies.
A year later, she tosses Simon a bag of Red Vines and sits down on the ground, leaning against the wall that faces him.
"Honestly," He rips into the bag of licorice as she checks her gun for what must be the eleventh time that night. "The fact that they still make these baffles me."
She shrugs casually and doesn't tell him how glad she is that they still do because it's her last tenuous link to her family. "Maybe they made a deal with the Devil." She grins, cracking open a canned beer before rolling another can across the floor.
Simon salutes her with the drink in lieu of expressing his thanks and she merely nods, taking a large gulp of her black-market alcohol before scanning the view outside the tiny window she's found. They're technically here on Resistance business but she has a feeling their contact is a no-show.
"Think he wimped out?" She questions almost absent-mindedly, staring outside at the falling snow. They haven't been getting much snow these past few years, atmospheric changes and all that, and she finds that a part of her has missed it.
"Probably," Simon concedes after a moment's thought and she scowls.
"Wasted night," She grumbles, taking another swig of beer.
"Maybe not," He suggests. "We could still drive back. It's only-" He consults his watch and falters for a few seconds. "Midnight." He says flatly. They're stuck here then, unless they're stupid enough to risk being stopped at a checkpoint well after curfew with no letters of transit.
"Merry Christmas, Etta." He slides the bag of licorice across the floor with a smile. One hand automatically shoots out to catch it and she pulls a Red Vine out of the bag, biting off a good quarter and buying herself some time as she chews.
No one's actually said that to her in a long time. Sure, Simon had actually been the last person to wish her that just a year ago, but it had been more sarcastic and born of defiance than anything. This time he's just her friend, wishing her a merry Christmas the way friends do, or the way they used to, anyway.
"Merry Christmas, Simon." She smiles, trying to cover up the fact that she'd paused just a little too long. He's noticed – Simon always does – but he doesn't say anything and so they eat licorice and drink beer and watch the snow fall, and it becomes a Christmas tradition of sorts.
It's not homemade cookies and pretty presents under a tree but her family would have enjoyed this, she thinks.
Walter loves Red Vines and Dad loves beers and so does Mom, and Astrid is content with the sight of falling snow.
The lab feels and sounds and smells all wrong, with no festive cheer and no Christmas records and no fresh cookies but that's not the reason for the sudden onslaught of depression and loss that she is battling. She just can't put her finger on it… well, more like she's splayed her fingers across her face to cover her eyes and distort her vision of the one person whose absence is painfully obvious.
Her grandpa goes on and on about maybe just making 'some slight modifications, son – no one would even notice!' and her father is quickly losing patience after the fourth time of denying Walter. Her mother sits in a corner, sipping at her beer while observing the two Bishop men fondly and Astrid sits next to her in a rare moment of close friendship. Etta has always known of Astrid, and she's been a part of the family for as long as the girl can remember, but somehow she'd never really noticed her mother's friendship with Astrid. It's not as obvious as one would think, taking into consideration the fact that for years, they had no one but each other to turn to for sane company while spending time at the lab. Her mother's friendship with Astrid is subtle, but it's there and sometimes she is lucky enough to catch glimpses of it.
She wishes she were lucky enough to be a part of that friendship.
Even now, amongst her own family, she still feels like she's looking in from the outside. There's her grandfather and there's her father, and there's her mother and there's her aunt, and she's just leaning against a wall, too intimidated by her grandfather's ramblings to join her father and too sheepish to sit next to her mother, making small talk with the woman as her baby girl offers her alcohol.
Things will never be the same, she realizes with a painful jolt to her heart. She's gotten her family back but they will never, ever have another Christmas like the one they had when she was just a child, the one she can't even see clearly anymore. And there will be no more Christmas in an orphanage of sorts, an overcrowded safe house with twenty-odd friends. And there will be no more hiding in a dark room one day each year, trying desperately to fool herself into believing that the footsteps above her were her parents, not Mimi and Kent.
And there will be no more bad jokes over beer and Red Vines in rundown safe houses, waiting for informants they know will never show up.
She's gotten her family back now but things have changed. She has changed. She's grown up and lived and celebrated Christmasses of her own. And of course she would have to lose her only family to regain the one she'd lost.
Now her family is incomplete, because that is the life of Henrietta Bishop, forever missing a part of her life.
~ MERRY CHRISTMAS! ~
Apparently Etta has taken up permanent residence in my mind and likes to utilize what little free time I have to write her biography in holiday-themed pieces. I apologize if this is a tad depressing, even more so due to the holidays, and would like to make it up with Polivia fluff and Walter-insanity. All Christmas-themed, of course. Keep an eye out for these; they should be up within the next few hours. Before the end of the day, definitely.
So… gift exchange? Etta's memories for reviews and thoughts?
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus!
E Salvatore,
December 2012.