Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters. Beside Hope and a few others though no one could really tell anyway. ::shrug::
Rating: G - PG
Pairing: Undetermined. You tell me.
Author's Note: This came into my head a while back and I found it again and decided to finish it for once. ::gasp:: So yeah. ::cough:: I have one challenge for you all. Tell me who they are. Cause honestly? I don't have a clue.
Dedication: To Ems. I hope you like it.
Dragonflies.
She had always loved them. More so than butterflies, than ladybugs. Dragonflies were the misunderstood insect in her opinion. They were beautiful, with their thin bodies and iridescent wings. They were built for flight, for speed, unlike butterflies who could only swoop slowly through the air, or ladybugs who were always predominately the same - crawling about or using their wings like a hummingbird's, trying to gain air..
No, she loved dragonflies.
It was really a mild obsession when one thought about it. There were worse things to be addicted to. And hers had started out quite simply too. It was all her dad's fault, if he hadn't given her the dragonfly mobile when she was a baby, then maybe, just maybe she wouldn't have fallen in love with them. She wouldn't have spent hours at night, while her parents thought she was fast asleep, staring at the fuzzy, shining bodies and imagining them soaring. Even at two weeks she was already dreaming of soaring away.
Her obsession grew through the years, at their old house, her childhood home, she and her mother had painted dragonflies along the border, had picked out dragonfly bedding, drapery, lights, and picture frames. That was when her mother began to worry slightly, wondering why her daughter was drawn more to blue and green than to pink and purple.
She would sneak outside when everyone was busy, dragonfly clips pinning her thick hair back from her face, a dragonfly necklace hanging from her neck. It was a birthday present from her grandmother. She would skip through the ornate gardens of her grandparents yard and stop when she came to the ponds where her loves would flit back and forth across the glassy surface and over lily pads and flowers, catching the bugs for lunch.
Her mother would find her here, laying in the grass, watching the insects with wide eyes as she dreamed of flying with them, skimming lightly over the water, watching it ripple beneath her tiny legs. With a gentle word her mother would collect her, picking her up and carrying her back to the house where she would be watched for the rest of the day, all the while playing with her dragonfly necklace.
She was four-and-a-half, very proud of her age, when the news came. Lying in her brand new "big girl" bed she stared at the acrylic dragonflies painted onto her headboard and wondered about the colors. How could something so small be so sparkly, she wondered calmly to herself. That was when her parents entered with a soft knock, and sat on either side of her bed, her mother playing with her hair in the motherly sort of way she always did. They told her about Daddy's big promotion, about the change approaching, and they told her, quite calmly about the approaching move.
She didn't understand at first, her mind wouldn't and couldn't form around the concept of leaving home and never coming back. It wasn't like visiting a place where you stayed for a week, this was permanent they told her calmly, trying to make her understand. She protested and cried, asked about the dragonflies and they assured her that they would be at the new house, in the new city, in the new country. Hundreds of miles away, though she couldn't understand math and distance at the time.
They left her in her room, hugging a dragonfly-shaped toy to her chest and inhaling the jasmine scent deeply from when she'd taken it through the gardens. She closed her eyes and tried to envision a new house but couldn't picture a room other than her own. She learned to hate her Daddy's work for making them leave.
At five her parents brought home a surprise for her, though they had tried to make her understand before hand what was going to happen. She had a baby brother now, they told her calmly, she had to take care of him and teach him things, they intoned. She didn't see why, he was loud and smelly and when he got bigger he pulled her hair.
Mommy was always busy with him, telling her to wait a moment or come back in a few seconds but she never seemed to grasp what a moment or a second was. She would sit and stare out the front windows at the passing landscape, wondering about the other children outside, as they played on bicycles with their smiling mothers. She saw her first dragonfly eleven months after they had moved to the new house.
Daddy said she was to big to sit on his lap anymore. Instead he took over for Mommy with the baby and Mommy would go to lie down in her room or start dinner. They never played with her much anymore. She retreated to her room, still white from the move, and play with her dragonflies, staring at the books she had with pictures of tiny bodies and iridescent wings, still unsure of what all the words said exactly.
At ten she celebrated her birthday in another house, in another country. Dad had been transferred yet again, to another place, another neighborhood. Mom brought cupcakes in to class to celebrate. Chocolate with blue and green swirled icing and purple sprinkles, to give it a feminine touch. They sang her happy birthday though most stumbled over her name, still not used to the strange syllables issuing between their lips.
One boy, shy with blonde hair and large blue eyes, sidled up to her as they ate their cupcakes. He stared at her curiously and asked her why she was wearing a dragonfly necklace. She glared and told him it was a present and none of his business. To her embarrassment, he leaned in and kissed her while her brother danced around Mom's legs chanting about her new boyfriend.
She punched the boy in the nose after school that day, after chasing him down the sidewalk and tackling him into a rosebush. Late that night she lay in bed, under the iridescent wings of painted dragonflies, and begged for Dad to get transferred again. She didn't want to face the school again.
At thirteen they moved once more, last time dragonfly, Dad told her. He promised her, ruffling her hair as she crossed her arms, staring at their new house. She didn't want to be here, she could remember her childhood, being happy in the gardens and staring at dancing dragonflies. She could remember wanting to stretch her own imaginary wings and fly away, off to the horizon.
She was sent to a boarding school, in the town they lived in, where she commuted between the house and school. On the first day of school she wore a dragonfly bracelet and hair clip, keeping her bangs out of her face. She was hesitant, unsure of life at another new school. As she entered the halls she realized why, watching the kids gossip and chat with one another. They lived here. They knew each other. They probably all shared rooms and probably had gone to previous boarding schools together.
She was an outsider.
At lunch she sat by herself, beneath a spindly tree in the courtyard, watching a dragonfly dance hesitantly a few feet away. It was the first one she had seen in awhile. A shadow fell over her and she looked up, already preparing the smile but stopped when she saw the girls. They laughed at her and called her childish, stole her lunch and pulled her hair clip, stomping it into the cobblestones. She didn't cry then, she refused to.
When her parents got home that night they found all her dragonflies in the garbage can, smashed or cracked. On top of it all was the necklace her grandmother had given her. Worn and smooth, the chain glittering in the fading light. Her mother looked concerned and picked the necklace up. When they entered her room they found the walls painted a light green, looking bare and desolate with most of her things missing. Mom approached her, touched her lightly on ths shoulder. She shrugged her off and wouldn't speak about what had happened.
After her parents left she looked up to see her necklace on her dresser.
At fourteen she moved again.
To another boarding school.
She unpacked the necklace and looked at it late one night, marveling at the sparkles still glittering faintly on the small body. And once more she wished passionately that she could fly away.
At sixteen she was doing better, she had friends, close friends now. It was the last time her grandparents visited, they were killed five months later in a train crash. On her birthday they took everyone out to eat, her friends included. It had been fun, if slightly bittersweet. She had worn her old necklace, to show her grandmother that she still cared, still appreciated everything.
After dinner they retired back to her house, to watch movies and listen to music. Grandmother smiled kindly and approached her with a box wrapped in silver paper, smiling at her kindly. She was surprised. Her parents had told her not to expect anything from her grandparents. They weren't rich anymore.
She opened the gift slowly, after much urging from Grandmother. Inside lay a dragonfly bracelet, delicate as the insects they mirrored. She fingered it slowly, smiling to herself, and then at her, her tears expressing her emotions better than words could. Her friends were surprised, they hadn't noticed her dragonfly love before, because she had hidden it so well.
She wore it to the funeral, as a reminder of the people who finally got their wings, while she stayed stranded on the ground.
At eighteen she moved.
Her parents were shocked when they learned of her acceptance to a college far from their home. They thought she would have wanted to stay someplace familiar. She saw no point in it, she told them, when all her friends were leaving as well, splitting up into separate directions and disappearing within days of each other.
The day she left there were only two of them left. He was going elsewhere, leaving an hour after she was. To Norway or Belgium, she couldn't remember his destination. He took her out that afternoon, for lunch before her flight. They sat in a small café, sipping cocoa and eating pizza as they watched the rain drizzle down, promising a wet winter. If she thought back on it now, she wouldn't have been able to say what they had spoken about, but she knew it had been comforting, a lot of promises they both had intended to keep.
At the airport he gave her a box wrapped in blue paper, shining in the florescent lights. At his urging she opened it, tearing into it like she was five once more. He smiled as she opened the blue box, eyes wide when she say the necklace inside. It was beautiful, gold and sapphire, emerald and diamond. A dragonfly, wings iridescent, on a thin gold chain. He had clasped it around her neck and told her it was time for something new.
She hadn't realized he'd known her obsession.
It rained on the gathered group, fat drops that soaked them under the umbrellas. She was twenty-four, standing with her father and mother in the cemetery as family and friends gathered near, quiet and mournful. It was fitting weather, she decided, for a funeral.
The cherry wood casket sat gleaming in the faint light beneath an awning as the priest blessed it, commenting on how one so young had passed on to God's Kingdom and would be received there with open arms. She had received the call a week ago, when she had just finished finals and was free for the summer.
Her brother had died, her mother told her.
When it was her turn to place the rose in the casket, she laid a dragonfly next to it, to remind him that she would always be there for him, he would always be in her memory. She thought she felt him smile as the cold, metal insect touched his cold, flesh hand. She realized then that she had loved him, no matter how much of a pest he was, no matter how much he had enjoyed torturing her. He hadn't deserved to die.
She didn't tell her parents that she had gotten her Master's of Science a year early.
At twenty-eight she got the invitation to the Reunion. She was tempted not to go, she had her life in order now. She was a biologist, specializing in entomology with a minor in teaching science in case she needed to fall back on something. All because of those dragonflies that had so enthralled her when she was small. Besides, you didn't have to be social to be a scientist.
He convinced her to go though, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his head on her shoulder. He had told her to go, to reacquaint herself with her friends. He would go with her if she wanted. She had protested feebly, saying she had to much work to do, but in the end, he had given her a look and she had agreed.
The night before her flight she reached for the phone, dialing a number she had thought was long forgotten. He picked up on the second ring, sounding tired and she wondered briefly what time it was there, where there was. When he found out who it was he seemed more animated, laughing weakly and trying to find out about her life, excited about seeing her at the Reunion and for the chance to reconnect. She didn't tell him she had a boyfriend. He didn't tell her he had a girlfriend.
Her phone beeped and she had to put him on hold, listening as her father rambled on, about how her mother had died. They had both known she was unstable, ever since her brother's death. They were surprised she had made it four years. Her father told her haltingly that her mother had swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. Her funeral was in three days.
She hung up with him, crying quietly and switched lines again. He sensed her anxiety at once, her sorrow, wanted to know what was wrong. He had always listened even if he hadn't been that talkative. She told him, faltering, that she wouldn't make it to the reunion after all. He said he was sorry, said he understood. She cried harder and hung up without a word.
She changed her plane ticket that night.
At twenty-nine she was engaged.
It should have been the happiest time of her life, but it wasn't. Instead she simply gave small, shy, slightly sad smiles at people who asked about the ring on her finger, who exclaimed and asked when the wedding was. Eight months, she would always reply, a faint smile tinting her lips. She had to agree with them though, the ring was beautiful.
It was three months before the wedding when she finally lost it and packed a suitcase. He had looked up in surprise, asking where she was going. She told him on a trip and slung the bag over her shoulder. When she arrived at the airport, she was uncertain for a moment on where to go, but finally bought her ticket and waited at the bar until her flight was called.
When his door opened he stood, staring at her, surprise evident in the way his eyes widened slightly. He was like she had remembered him, dark hair falling into his eyes and still serious, brooding almost. He asked her why she was there and all she could do was shrug. She had no real answer. He let her in, still surprised, and smiled, happiness replacing the surprise, asking how she was.
She told him crappy and that was when he noticed the ring on her finger.
It was shaped like a dragonfly, not the typical engagement ring, but her fiancé knew of her love of the insects and had wanted to please her. Sapphire wings and a diamond body on a band of gold. He stood and stared for a moment, forced a smile and told her congratulations, told her he was happy for her and would she like to sit down? She broke down crying in his arms.
She returned to her house, it really wasn't home, to her fiancé, a few weeks later and didn't think of him again. She had felt happy and contented at his house, it had felt more like home, and she had enjoyed the time they spent together. But it hadn't been fair. To any of them. Her fiancé waiting at home, calling her cell each night to tell her he loved her, because he really did. To him as he sat, watching her, his expression telling her plainly that he was torn between her and his girlfriend, who was visiting family out of town. To herself for allowing some small amount of happiness back into her life.
He gave her a dragonfly necklace the night before she left, to remind her he'd always be there.
She couldn't stay away though, never should have gone in the first place to him. It had been a mistake, she was paying for it now. She shivered on his doorstep, two weeks before the wedding, tears streaming down pale cheeks as he opened the door, confusion evident in his every movement. He invited her in, told her that Olivia, that was his girlfriend's name, was working late, asked her what was wrong, offered her hot chocolate.
She felt like a child.
He sat and listened as she held his hand, sniffling into the cup of hot chocolate, and telling him about her life, what had gone wrong and how she wished she could go back and change so many things. He asked her what she would change and she met his eyes for the first time that evening. Everything, she told him. He squeezed her hand and she cried harder, still looking him in the eyes. I would have kissed you at the airport. Not goodbye, but hello, she told him firmly.
She left a few hours later, more broken than when she had arrived but wouldn't tell him that, she had known he wouldn't leave her, wouldn't leave Olivia, for someone he hadn't seen in years. It still hurt though.
A month after her marriage she discovered she was pregnant. Her husband was ecstatic, grinning and twirling her, telling everyone they knew or met, her friends said it was sweet. The women wished their husbands had been that joyous when their own children had been born. She shook her head though, unsure. No one noticed the dread she carried alongside the child. She knew it wasn't his.
Her daughter was born three weeks after her thirtieth birthday.
She counted fingers, toes, and smiled at the innocence that seemed to be inbred in small children, the bright eyes taking in the world after adjusting to the bright lights. Her husband was shocked, staring at the child, unsure but trusting. A little girl born with brown hair. The nurse said it wasn't unusual since the mother had dark hair and he had light. She didn't dispute the nurse.
She named her Elizabeth Ainsley Hope. She called her Hope. Her father called her Lizzy and couldn't understand why she wanted to call her Hope. She couldn't tell him the reason, couldn't tell him that her daughter was her hope, hope of a better life, hope that she wouldn't make the same mistakes. She only smiled and said it was short and no nicknames could come off of it. He pointed out that it was a nickname.
She ignored him and focused on the small bundle in her arms. Her hope.
When Hope was four her husband left on a business trip. It happened to be the same day that he showed up. In her door this time. He told her, haltingly, that Olivia had died from a seizure in her sleep. She gave her condolences, trying to ignore the way her stomach turned and flip-flopped at his very presence.
Hope entered the room then, small and curious, the mirror image of her father. Dark hair hung in much-to serious eyes to belong to a young child. He stared at her, stared at the child, then back at her, words came strangled and far apart but she nodded to his questions, couldn't help but smile as he held the child in his lap and stroked her dark hair. She felt at peace, at ease, but knew that it would just be that much harder when he left. He was only passing through he had said.
Her daughter questioned her later, asked her about the strange man who had looked like her. She had told her he was a friend, a very good friend, and left it at that, only pausing to ask her what she thought of him as she tucked her in. The little girl nodded, eyes serious and dark as they looked at the ceiling. She didn't care for the dragonflies like her mother did.
She liked butterflies.
Hope lay in bed that night, her "big girl" bed and stared at the butterfly nightlight her mother had searched high and low, far and wide, for. She could hear her mother down the hall, crying in her room and knew it had something to do with the strange man who had come to their house, the one who had looked like her. She moved deeper under the covers as a monster crawled along her wall, trying to understand the incomprehensible world of grown-ups. She finally decided it was the strange man's fault for making her Mommy cry and knew she should be angry with him, though she still wasn't sure why.
She continued to stare at the butterfly, watching the colors blend. She loved butterflies, elegant insects of the sky. They came in bright colors and funny shaped wings and tickled you when they walked on you. She wanted to fly, just like a butterfly. Cocoon herself and come out into the world of butterflies and be a normal child. Wanted to feel the wind in her hair, against her pale cheeks, as she mixed in with her classmates and became one with them.
She loved butterflies.
Author's Note: Er right. The part where it says "Her hope." was the original ending but I tacked the last bit on at the end. I was debating whether or not to but...::shrug:: it seemed right. At the time. I don't know, what do you think?