Title: And Now for Something Completely Different
Author: Evil Little Dog
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: This is a derivative work, and, as such, I make absolutely no money writing this. Darn the luck.
Summary: Susie comes to see Calvin and Hobbes in a different light.
When she was six, Susie met a boy named Calvin. He seemed...well...like a boy. Loud, obnoxious, often trying to gross her out. He was rude, he was crude, he was annoying, and despite all that, he was one of her few real friends.
When she was fifteen, while walking to school, a car ran a stop sign and hit her. In the three (count them, one two three) seconds she was in the air, Susie saw a tiger. Awareness flickered in those seconds - she had enough time to think, That's odd before everything exploded around her.
When she was fifteen and some odd months and days, Susie spent some time in a coma. She didn't spend it alone. Calvin was there. With a tiger. An articulate tiger with a gentle sense of humor. And both he and Calvin worried about her.
When Susie came out of her coma (and after all the excitement from her parents and the tests from the doctors), she wasn't surprised to find a stuffed tiger guarding her from hiding place between a bunch of flower arrangements. He had a kind of a rakish air to him, despite the patchy fur. Maybe it was the patch over one eye. Still, she would've recognized him anywhere (and the idea Calvin had kept his stuffed tiger - and brought him in to her hospital room - warmed her heart and en-gooed her stomach).
When Calvin came to visit, Susie's heart raced. He brought Hobbes to the bed and they sat down with her. "Hobbes told me you were awake," Calvin said.
Susie nodded. "He's been keeping me company." She squeezed Hobbes' paw.
He wrapped his digits around her fingers and smiled. "I'm happy to do it."
"Me too," Susie said, taking Calvin's hand with her free one.
When Susie was sixteen, she ignored the other girls who made fun of her about hanging out with that weirdo Calvin. When she was seventeen, she, Calvin, and Hobbes went to the prom. When she was eighteen and getting ready for college, Calvin gave her Hobbes.
He was better than the promise rings all the other girls were collecting.
~ end ~