A/N: This is one of those 3am stories you write when you read a really good book and you're like YEAH inspiration, but then you look at it and you're like…hm, seemed a lot better when I was writing it.
She doesn't know how to do it.
It's like she's suffered from amnesia and she has to learn it all again, right from the beginning, right from the time when it wasn't a task and when it came as naturally as breathing. She knows it will take time; she knows that it will take patience, and yet she persists because she knows that this is her only chance. She's had to do it alone for so long that she's forgotten what it feels like to be carried rather than being the one who does the lifting.
They come to her in January, when the leaves on the trees have long since disappeared and there are fresh cuts and bruises all over her body which serve as a reminder that she is always going to be this. It almost seems crazy that they let her stay on that first night, and she wonders why these people always feel guilty enough to offer up an extra sofa, an extra plate, an extra smile. She eats lasagne and she watches a family be a family and it makes jealousy rage in the pit of her stomach, she almost thinks that they want her to be jealous because she has never seen a life this simple.
The first lesson she learns is honesty because she makes a mistake when she sneaks away to fetch Jude and she nearly hurt them in the process, which normally wouldn't bother her so much because it's Jude and she is supposed to protect him. But they don't shout, they don't even throw her out. They tell her to be honest and it feels like she has said her first word after amnesia.
When her bruises begin to heal, she starts to get comfortable, despite her unwillingness to do so, and they teach her lesson two: trust. This house is different than the other houses because they manage to teach her a lesson without the aid of a fist, or a bottle of liquid courage. It feels as though she's beginning to construct sentences, and the amnesia is starting to fade.
Later, when the leaves begin to bud on the trees and the air gets warmer, they offer her a bedroom in the house and she gets to unpack her suitcase for a few months and it makes her feel a little safer knowing that she is here. They teach her lesson three without knowing they've done so, and the lesson is safety. Because the house is painted warm colours and they make good mac and cheese and ask how her day has been and it's everything she's been looking for her entire life because they don't have to make an effort to smile in her direction or to talk to her about what she's been up to, they just do it. The warm sheets, the warm smiles, the warm colours: They all feel safe. It's like learning to dance.
Then comes one of the most important lessons she will learn in this house, which is support. She's never opened up about it, she's never talked about him. His name is like poison, like dirt, like evil. It's hard and it's exhausting, but she tells them nonetheless and, rather than wonder about whether or not it is the truth, they hug her and they phone for immediate action and then they watch in court with supportive smiles on their faces while she loses the case and it feels as though she's finally remembered how to smile.
It takes her a while to realise exactly what it is she's learning to do.
Like she knows she is being taught a lesson, without really being taught a lesson, and she knows she has to pay attention, but she's never really understood what the exam is going to be on.
The day she learns her last lesson, everything fits into place.
Love.
They tell her that they want to adopt her and it's like everything she's learned along the way just fits into place because she wants to sing and dance and smile and laugh and thank them a million times because the want her, they are choosing her and she's never felt this way before.
She realises that amnesia isn't always the end of existence; that you can learn to be again, that she managed to learn to love again.
That they taught her.