Author's Note: For BonesSarah, who requested fluff. I'm not sure that this qualifies, but I tried...
Comfort: Whenever I go on a trip, I think about all the homes I've had & I remember how little has changed about what comforts me.
oOo
In my first home, the one I lived in when I was a little girl with a different name, it was a swing. Designed for a baby, someone must have always had to lift me into it. I do not remember that part. I only remember that no one else could fit, and it was mine alone, and it let me soar.
As I grew, it was the second chair on the left at the dining room table. It was my spot- for breakfast, for dinner, for completing my homework. It did not have to be stated. Everyone knew where I belonged.
When everything familiar was taken away, and I was sent to live with other children dazed from loss, it was beneath the branches of a weeping willow. Through the curtain of leaves, I could watch without being seen. I could be present without being involved. I could think without having to feel.
In high school, it was a janitor's closet. No one ever understands that one, but it makes me question how many janitor's closets they've actually visited. In a janitor's closet, everything has its purpose and its place. Everything has its value. When you take into consideration its potential as a hiding spot and the freedom it allowed me to explore my interests, you can see that it was perfect.
At Northwestern, it was the library, with its shelves of books and its open-door policy. It was quiet, and serious, and I fit. It was a place to learn. It was a chance to become indispensable.
In D.C., I'd always thought it was the lab- a place of science. A place where everything made sense. If not the lab, then surely my apartment. The place that was all my own. The place that was proof of who I was.
That was what I'd always thought.
But coming home tonight, after being gone for a few days too long, working in a place with a few too many sad stories... I don't know. I wanted to be in a place that allowed me to safely soar. I wanted to be in a place where my spot was never in question. I wanted to be in a place where I would be protected. I wanted to be in a place where I had value, where I was indispensable. I wanted to be in a place where everything made sense.
I wanted to be home. Which was why I found myself making my way to the diner. Not because I had a regular spot by the window, not because the waitress knew my name, and not because they always knew my order without having to ask. But because he was there...and home, I've finally come to accept, is wherever he is.
