She was late.
The sun was just about to rise. And she was late.
Squawk had made it to the park bench just in time, but she had expected company to have arrived much earlier.
Perhaps the explanation for the absence was all too simple.
This was very much past her bedtime.
Just as Squawk began to entertain those thoughts however, she could a series of thunderous thuds echoing through the vicinity.
A gargantuan shadow loomed over her; she tilted her head upwards and met eye contact with the behemoth before her.
A large stuffed pink teddy bear crouched down, and from its paw, deposited a moody gothic looking young woman with luscious jet black hair and a commanding frown that captivated Squawk.
"You're a bit taller these days" she said.
"I thought you'd be quieter" Dawn Crumhorn responded.
"Only a few words and you demand silence, you remind me too much of myself whenever I'm working in the lab" Squawk replied.
Dawn perched herself on the edge of the seat and held out her hands.
"You expecting something?" she asked.
"She's insisting" added Mr. Snuggles.
Squawk sighed, and dug deep into her handbag, pulling out a set of sewing needles and a large round ball of wool.
"Knit to your heart's content" she said.
As Dawn set to work, Squawk looked at her watch, the hands striking five minutes to six.
Joggers dashed past them, eager to get their daily fix of exercise and clean air.
"You're wasting your time you know" Dawn spoke to her.
"I'm putting it to good use, it's telling me precisely what to expect"
"Don't you mean 'who' to expect?" Dawn responded.
"You know who it is; you just don't know what sort of things that person brings with them"
"Don't you always think all that entire person ever brings with them is trouble?"
Squawk could feel her feet throbbing in the heels she was wearing; she slipped them off and dug her toes deep into the park soil. It helped ease the tense knots she could feel in her stomach.
"Whenever there's too much trouble, I always know when to call time on it. That's when I clear the room, that's when I clear my mind"
"I don't want a tidy room or a clean mind, I make time for trouble, I make trouble, I am trouble"
"You're good for him. You know that?" Squawk replied
"I know it, he doesn't, and that's what I prefer"
"For always?" Squawk asked
Dawn gave her a sharp look, Squawk stared past the daggers in her eyes, and she could see just a faint glimmer of sincerity in them. She knew deep down, despite the cold and callous bravado, there was consideration, there was care.
There was love.
"For now" Dawn concluded.
She finished knitting and handed Squawk her finished work, a plush doll of Bumpsydaisy
"He'll love it" Squawk uttered.
"One of us has to" Dawn replied.
"You still haven't watched that film since the night you and he...you know..."
"I prefer the moment we lived over the movie. The facts over the fantasy"
"He knows, he felt it too, it's one of the moments I guarantee he's thinking about now on his way back to us" Squawk revealed.
Dawn folded her arms and stared back at the rising sun, a new day about to start, another morning, then afternoon, then night, and morning come again. Watching, hoping, and praying for sign things weren't all that troubling.
"If he's on his way back at all" she said.
"He's come back from worse" Squawk assured her.
"How much worse?" Dawn asked, curious.
"I could rattle off a list, you got all day?" Squawk asked.
Dawn mischievously grinned.
"I've got the whole hiatus"