A/N: So...this was actually the first piece of fanfiction I ever wrote; I found it in an old folder and thought this was a good time to dust it off and smooth it out and share with you guys. Felicity was always my absolute favorite American Girl (and I was always positive Ben and Felicity were meant to be...which, frankly, I still like to believe. ;) ). Anyway, enjoy the trek down memory lane! (I know I did.) :)
{You know the drill; I neither own American Girl nor American Girl's characters.}
Life is not made out of a single moment; 'tis made out of many that make a whole.
Sometimes the important things are not as loud as gunfire or as clear as a good whistle. Sometimes the important things are as silent and simple as lifting one's face in the wind or sharing a secret smile.
Felicity Merriman realized this fact gradually.
~FM~
All was quiet at the Merriman household. Night had comfortably settled in.
The children had been tucked in their chambers long ago, and Mr. and Mrs. Merriman had been asleep for quite some time. There was not a soul to be seen on the street - for everyone respectable was at home - but the moon cast its soft light upon the road anyway. The stars twinkled brightly over the large colonial home as the wind blew its sweet, warm breath through the trees and the fragrant April blooms.
And all was quiet.
But someone was awake. And not about to slip into dreamland again anytime soon.
Seventeen-year-old Felicity Merriman sat at her cherry-toned oak vanity, dressed in a flowing, embroidered white night shift. She tugged at the forest-green silk ribbons that held her hair up and the long auburn waves tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. In the light of the candles illuminating her vanity mirror she blinked - slowly - and gazed hazily into her own emerald eyes.
She sighed, twirling one of the ribbons around her left thumb. Again.
It was now roughly an hour ago since she had woke up - gasping, shivering, and very cold.
It was only a dream. Nothing more.
Nothing more, yes, but it was enough. More than enough.
Felicity didn't often have dreams that troubled her. In the last frightening dream she had - and that had been at least two years ago - she was a ghost.
As a ghost she could not eat or drink, she could not sleep, she could not grow or age. She could never marry and have children. But most frightening of all, she could never die. Thus she could not go to heaven; she couldn't ever be with God and Grandfather. And, of course, everyone she knew and loved eventually died. She would never see them again. All she could ever do, for the rest of time, was lifelessly watch other people's happiness. It had filled her with a smothering despair.
But that dream had been terrifying only when she was actually in it. The instant Polly had run into her chamber that morning calling her to breakfast, reality had rushed back and the terror had evaporated, never to return.
Not at all like this one.
This dream, a whole hour dead, still echoed inside her. At first, after the dream had jolted her awake, she had lain in her bed for minutes unable to move, unable to sort real life from the dream, unable to cry.
And quite definitely unable to go back to sleep.
So, once a measure of sense had returned to her, she had slid out of her soft canopy bed, lit the candles, and sat down at her vanity to try to sort through her tangled mess of emotions as she practiced a half-bun Mother wanted her to try.
It wasn't going very well. The sorting, that was. This past hour had - wonder of wonders - made her almost an expert at the hairstyle.
Felicity sighed again and glanced about her chamber, watching the flickering shadows dance on the wardrobe and on the walls. She replayed the dream in her mind for the twentieth time. It truly made less than no sense. It honestly shouldn't be bothering her this much; it was way too ridiculous to be too haunting.
But why would this be nagging her so deeply?
It was silly.
But the images kept rising in her mind: one very dead Ben Davidson.
Which in itself was silly; it wasn't an image of Ben dead on a battlefield or something that could have been plausible; it was Ben the summer of 1775. That summer at King's Creek - he was just a young teen-aged boy, about to make the most foolhardy decision of his life: abandoning his apprenticeship to join the militia. She tried to stop him from breaking his word but - unlike how it had played out in real life - Ben didn't turn himself in.
No, indeed.
In the dream, she didn't return to the woods to warn Ben when she overheard the bounty hunters.
She didn't, but not because she didn't intend to.
She just didn't have the time.
They had already found him.
And in the nonsensical way of dreams, she had seen into the woods without taking a step. And something must've gone awry, because - instead of something logical like the bounty hunters dragging him back - he was lying under that tree with an oddly bloodless hole in his chest.
And that was all there was to it.
It was utter nonsense, in every sense.
And why would she start thinking about that time now?
Was it because Ben would be returning to fulfill his apprenticeship with her father?
Because he'd be back, like old times?
'Tis not as if the world stopped – or started – turning just because he was coming back home.
But still, the dream brought a thousand little moments to the forefront of her mind - starting at the beginning.
The way she thought him so aloof when he first came to live with them…The way their friendship had formed over her Penny secret...
Oh, their arguments over the position of tea when she had first began lessons...She had actually had grown to enjoy having him as an escort, though she hadn't known it at the time…
Sounding the alarm when the gunpowder supply had nearly been raided...
That afternoon in the rain, in the woods of King's Creek... she had snapped at him because she was so infuriated at the thought of going home without him...so afraid of what the bounty hunters might do...
(Obviously that fear had stayed somewhere deep down inside of her, even though everything had ended up completely fine.)
The way she and Ben had managed the store the times Father was out of town... it had been exciting; it felt so important...they had managed like grown-ups...
And then they were grown-ups. Practically, at least. And then Ben was off...a full-fledged Patriot soldier.
And she missed him. She missed him so much. She missed having someone to argue with and to tease. Elizabeth was occupied with her fiancé, and besides, she had never understood Felicity's humor the way Ben had.
She missed having him at the store – she missed being able to shoot him a smirk when an irate customer would came in. She missed him at dinner time. She missed him when she brushed down the horses. Honestly, she just missed knowing he was there.
And as Felicity blinked at her reflection in the mirror, she realized just how much she missed Ben.
It was late. It was late; that was all. Feelings, those kinds of feelings, for Ben? Nonsense. It had to be nonsense. Brought on by a traumatic, abstract dream.
In the morning, she'd feel the same as she always had, she told herself.
But deep down she knew that, nonsense or not, things changed. Colonies could become countries, and feelings could change.
She sighed. She rose from her stool, blew out the candles, climbed back into bed, and shut her eyes.
Thanks for reading! As old as it is, this piece has a lot sentimental value to me. Review - let me know if you enjoyed it! :)