I didn't want any flowers,
I only wanted to lie with my hands turned up
and be utterly empty
How free it is, you have no idea how free
-Sylvia Plath
Sunny couldn't say for sure why she went to find Olaf.
There were a thousand possibilities, each one worse than the last. But Sunny didn't pause to question her motives, didn't bother digging into her psyche, trying to wrangle her thoughts into order.
Those days she existed solely in extremes. None of the grey murky area in between that proved impossible to navigate.
She refused to sleep until the skin beneath her eyes darkened, resembled burst plums, until her ears echoed with phantom noises. And then succumbing to exhaustion, remained trapped between thin sheets for days on end. Staring at the water stained ceiling above her head, committing every crack to memory because thinking of anything else took its toll and Sunny was scraped hollow already.
She refused to eat even when her stomach turned on itself, gnawed empty and unsatisfied, until her limbs shook, until spots appeared across her vision. And then stuffed her mouth with everything in sight only to throw it up moments later.
Sunny didn't do things by halves. Her equilibrium shook loose and the only way she knew she was alive was skating that dangerous area between too much and not enough. The same area that her sister had existed in for years.
And Olaf, more than anything else, was an extreme. Had cemented himself as such the first time he tried to kill them. And a hundred times since.
More than that, he was only one left who knew Violet and Klaus like she had.
The only one who had his plans foiled over and over by the genius of Violet's inventions or the deep well of Klaus' knowledge.
The one who had been witness to years of their bravery and cunning.
Of their goodness.
But in the end, when confronted in the harsh light of day with the truth, Sunny hoped that seeing Olaf would bring out the right pieces in her. Her virtue incited by his villainy because at the moment she didn't feel honorable or brave. Nothing at all like a Baudelaire was supposed to be.
The festering anger that she felt ever since Violet and Klaus hadn't lessened like she hoped it would, hadn't turned into grief. Instead it bubbled white hot, threatening to spill violence, against herself, against others, she didn't know. Was scared to find out.
Under her skin, Sunny felt something new brimming. Something dark.
Olaf's eyes still shined like marbles. It was the first thing that popped into Sunny's head when he opened the door. How they glittered at her, black holes that betrayed nothing. Looking wholly unsurprised to find her on his doorstep.
She'd forgotten the rush of fear that accompanied his presence. Strange that in the end that was the thing that provided a small semblance of comfort.
Sunny is dead on her feet when she finally makes it there, completely soaked through, mud splattered across every inch. Tremors that reach into her bones even though she isn't cold. A high fever burns two bright spots on her cheeks.
Olaf's theatre troupe is nowhere in sight. Dead probably. The house behind him is utterly still and quiet and for several long seconds, they are the only two people left in the world.
Those eyes don't move away when she pushes her way inside. When she drops her bag and pretends to look around. It's all so close to what she imaged that she feels dejavu course through her, feels like she's stood in this exact spot before.
There's a hundred problems with the house that Olaf obviously has no interest in fixing. Crooked shelves, mold growing in dark patches along the ceiling, unwashed plates, dozens of empty bottles rolling on the floor.
Sunny takes it all in quickly but it's his face that her eyes find again, drawn like a magnet.
Same curling smile from her nightmares before she discovered there were worse things out there to dream about than a greedy murdering Count. Same smooth, drawling voice that demands attention.
Same tattoo just barely peeking out from beneath his pant leg, faded along the edges.
Time hasn't changed him like it has her. He's still utterly recognizable, still fits into the imprint that she recalls from childhood. A distinct Olaf shape.
He doesn't touch her when she searches out a spare room, when she informs him in no uncertain terms that she will be sleeping there tonight. She stands ramrod straight, chin jutted out, daring him to react. To push or pull or use the barbed words that he reserves for orphans with fortunes. Not that she has one anymore.
She waits for the slap, for the knife, for history to start again. A repeat and this time she knows the right steps. She knows how to play this game.
But Olaf just smiles at her like he plucked those thoughts straight from her mind with those gangly calloused fingers. When he walks out and shuts the door behind him, Sunny's breath catches inside her throat, a sound like a whine escaping before she can wish it back.
He doesn't even slam it, doesn't make the beams rattle, doesn't make a single sound and Sunny feels there is something deeply unfair about that.
He was supposed to be the villain, bring into obvious light the differences that existed between the two of then. To prove that Sunny could still be good without her brother and sister there to show her how. Needs him to prove that all her morals weren't intertwined with theirs.
Because they were dead and she was not.
And Olaf doesn't even give her that.
Sunny debates killing her old guardian. She sits up that first night, turns the idea over in her mind the way Violet would turn over a challenging puzzle. Plans it right down to the weapon, the force it would take, the struggle he might put up, the creaky step she'd have to jump over on the stairs. Certainly not easy but doable.
And it wouldn't even be murder because she would just be protecting others from him. People that Olaf would hurt in the future because it's an undeniable truth. Siblings die. Fire burns. Olaf destroys everything he touches.
There are countless strangers out there that would no doubt shake her hand and thank her, praise her as a hero if they could. If they knew. If they could only see what he was, what he's done to her, to her family.
Violet and Klaus had this same chance pass them by. Had that rare opportunity to see Olaf defenseless and they hadn't killed him and look where it got them. They should have known then and Sunny does now, learned the hard way. She sees it all a hundred times over until it's been perfected. Go go go. Do it.
She bites down on her knuckle until she tastes blood, until she smells the sharp tang of copper, tries to keep the sounds trapped behind her lips.
Sunny sits on that rickety bed the entire night and doesn't move.
In the end, she doesn't kill Olaf, not yet.
In the end, she starts a fire.