CHAPTER TWO: THE WOMAN IN THE ATTIC
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Another cracker snaps in half under the pressure of the peanut butter dipped knife, Susanna giggling as her mother lets out a sound of frustration, continuing to smear it on the cracker anyway as she accepts it's just going to have to get on her fingers.
"Sorry, kid, I'm trying." She tells Susanna as she's perched on the counter beside her.
Rosie gives her the garbled cracker and the child pops the whole thing in her mouth as her mom makes another one for herself before doing the same.
The two of them chew and chew and chew, looking at one another in their struggle.
"Too much peanut butter." Rosie tries to say with her mouth full as Susanna replies, "no such thing."
They make eye contact as they chew, the eight year old getting a serious look on her face before she leans towards her mom, and Rosie does the same, their cheeks packed and their foreheads pressing together in an intense staring contest before the two of them burst into a fit of giggles, pulling away to try to swallow it down.
Once they've managed to do just that, their mouths feel as if there's cotton balls shoved in them, Susanna trying to get remaining peanut butter crackers from between her teeth with her tongue as Rosie grabs them a glass and some water.
"I'll make it this time." Susanna insists after taking a drink of her water, reaching for the knife in the peanut butter jar.
"Be careful." Rosie warns her, watching her closely.
"It's not sharp." Susanna reminds her of it being a butter knife.
"You can still get cut." Her mother states, holding the jar still as she gets a glob of peanut butter on the knife and Rosie hands her a cracker to spread it on.
As she goes to spread it on, the cracker snaps in half and she startles, dropping the knife.
Rosie's quick to move her foot, but there's no need to.
It never hits the hard wood floor, and Rosie looks down to see it suspended in the air, wavering slightly in it's place, and she looks at her daughter.
Susanna's got her hand out as if controlling it, the realization coming over Rosie that she is controlling it.
Rosie's hand reaches down to grasp ahold of the knife, she can feel the small buzzing of energy surging through it before it stops, Susanna relaxing once it's safely in her mother's hand.
"You two are up late." Peter's voice says from the doorway, having watching the exchange — more so control it, unbeknownst to Rosie.
"Susanna got hungry." Rosie puts the knife on the counter, still reeling from the experience occurring seconds ago.
"Mom got hungry." Susanna says back, mimicking her mother's voice.
"We should get you to bed, little miss, 'mom got hungry'." Her mother says next, plucking her daughter from the counter, keeping her on her hip as she walks to Peter.
"Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite." He says softly as he pokes at the child's nose and she giggles, Rosie smiling at their exchange as it fills her with peace.
Stepping up the stairs, opening the door to Susanna's room, she carries her to her bed cloaked in the soft pink, fluffy, bedding, and helps her climb under the covers.
"Do you think we woke Bobby up, too?" Susanna whispers as Rosie's hand smooths down her thick curls.
"Your brother could sleep through hell splitting open, Susanna." Rosie informs her, her knuckles brushing against her cheek. "Dad...not so much." She adds.
"Thank you for the snack." Susanna says next, yawning, her blue eyes welling with sleepy tears as she breathes out and snuggles deeper into the covers.
"I am here anytime you need someone to butcher your peanut butter crackers." Rosie assures her.
"Anytime?" The way she asks it brings a small wretch to Rosie's heart, as if she really needs that reassurance.
"Anytime, anywhere." Rosie promises, poking at her nose the way Peter had, bringing a small smile to her lips. "I love you."
"I love you."
Rosie kisses her cheek while Susanna's arms wrap around her neck tightly, and when she releases her, Rosie's turning off the lamp and stepping to the door, leaving it ajar and cutting the hall light on for her daughter.
Making her way up the small flight of steps to get to the room she shares with her husband, she takes her hair from the braid it's being held back in.
He's laying on top of the bedding, focused on content of the book he's reading as she crawls up the foot of the bed to lay snuggly beside him, and he gladly welcomes her.
Not taking an eye off the pages, he shifts his arm to wrap around her shoulders, her cheek pressing against his bare chest as he flips the page, brows dropped low in concentration.
They lay together quietly for a moment, Rosie trying to read along with him in her mind as he turns another page of the in-depth study and comprehension of Arachnids — spiders in particular — each page filled to the brim with words in a small font to attempt to fit more in the space.
After he turns another page, she's resting her chin against his skin, looking at him.
"I didn't realize Susanna was like you." She says to him, interrupting their silence, and his jaw clenches before he's briefly looking down at her.
"You've known, Rosie." He says it as if he's slightly confused by her.
"I have?"
"You knew when she was born. You said it yourself that she was." He explains, flatly, and she furrows her brows.
The very faded memory comes to her mind, as foggy as it is, but she now remembers it.
"Oh." She relaxes some. "How could I forget that?" She asks him, next.
"Well, she doesn't do it often, Rosie. Only a handful of times in her life, really. Not to mention you've had a lot on your mind, lately." He raises his own brows. "Perhaps you're just a little overwhelmed."
She doesn't see how that could possibly be. As far as she's concerned, she's been consistently happy and content it seems.
She hasn't felt stress or the doom of being overwhelmed in years — not since she had stopped working at Hawkins Pediatric Hospital to be a stay-at-home mom.
"Maybe." She still weighs that possibility, rubbing her lips together as he continues to read, and she watches him with a small smile on her lips.
His fascination with spiders is something she's always found precious, as intimidating he can be at times, to think he enjoys learning about such little creatures that are often disregarded.
It's also an appreciation their son has developed, the two of them jar the creatures and observe them and feed them...Bobby sometimes taking the opportunity to chase Susanna around with one while his mother and father scold him.
"Goodnight." Rosie says, pressing a kiss to his jaw before going to roll away from him, but he won't let her go, tossing the book onto the night table beside him, he rolls on top of her, asking, "Goodnight?!" in a playful tone, trapping her under him and she laughs.
"That's all I get? Just 'Goodnight'?!" He adds.
"Well, you're reading, I didn't wanna interrupt." She explains as he presses a kiss to her cheek.
"You've been interrupting me for the past nine years." He tells her, kissing just below her ear.
"I've been interrupting you?" She raises her brows as he gives a chaste kiss to her lips, pulling away to look at her.
"I recall minding my own business when you waltzed into a particular hospital." He reminds her.
She vividly remembers their first time meeting.
Peter had been an orderly in the psych wing of the hospital, stepping into the cafeteria for a brief break when he first caught the sight of her at a table laughing with another nurse about something.
He had stared at her without realizing it, not until she met his gaze.
Her laughter had halted under such an intense glare of attention, and it was then that he stopped looking at her, pulling himself out of whatever haze he had found himself in.
Three weeks later they were married, their children arriving nine months after that.
"Technically it was you who waltzed in." She retorts, her finger tips brushing against his cheek, to his hair line, before threading through the soft blonde locks.
The illusion painted in her mind isn't entirely a lie despite the fact that he had intricately rewritten their history throughout her memory.
They did meet in a cafeteria — though not at the imaginary Hawkins Pediatric Hospital — and it had only taken a single look shared between the two of them for each of their curiosity to be piqued, and only three consecutive weeks of Rosie completely ignoring the advice of her Uncle to stay away from the orderly, before the two of them began their love affair in secret.
And it remained a secret until Rosie got pregnant.
"Do you ever wonder what it might've been like if we hadn't met?" She asks him at random, pulling his attention from her, his lips leaving the skin of her neck.
"What?" His dark blonde brows furrow, taken back by the question.
He shouldn't be, being as she's always asked borderline-irritating questions at the most random times.
She always had.
In the midst of trapping every part of her mind, he discovered she simply thought too much about things — unimportant things, at least.
The more serious situations that should be thought over thoroughly were the ones she always failed to proceed with caution...obviously, being as he's able to captivate her entire being from a different dimension without her even trying to fight against it.
But still, it's the first question regarding their past that she's asked while under his spell...and if she's to ask many more, she may become very aware of what's happening.
"Where do you think we'd be right now if we hadn't met, I mean." She uses her finger to trace along his shoulder, and he pretends to think in the hopes of amusing her momentarily and then changing the subject.
"I'm not sure." He says. "You'd probably be married to a stock broker or something, and I'd be..." He trails off.
It's impossible for him to imagine being anywhere else other than where he's at in this moment.
He hadn't wanted to become what he is, banished to a hell he knows so well now, but having the mass amount of power and ability that he does that surpasses anything and everything Dr. Brenner could try to recreate is something he finds difficult to even think about not possessing.
He leaves the question unanswered for a moment before he gets a sarcastic smile and says, "I'd be somewhere heartbroken because I wouldn't have had the pleasure of ever knowing you."
"Oh, please, Peter." Rosie rolls her eyes at the response before he chuckles, leaning down and catching her lips with his, leaving no more room for the conversation to continue.
He watches her intently as she sleeps, wrapped in nothing but the bed sheets while her long, thick, curly hair is splayed across her pillow.
He's still trying to figure out where exactly she fits into all of this, knowing he can't take her with him.
Not logically, anyway.
Her life cycle had included being a good companion for him in his time as Peter Ballard, making his time at Hawkins Laboratory more bearable, to now being a means of practice to test the limits of his abilities as the being he's become.
She had made it easy for him in the beginning due to her weakened state, worn down from years of untreated mental illness, and her desperate longing to be reunited with him and their children.
For nearly a year now she's allowed him to fully submerge himself into the inner workings of her head without a fight — knowing something about it feels off-putting and unnatural — and in doing so it's deteriorated her grasp on reality, and has further corrupted her mind, will, and emotions.
She had sold her soul to him, little by little, in exchange for the guarantee of being with him and their children indefinitely, and because of this, there was no possibility of her returning to the spell bound body of the young woman still standing in the attic of the abandoned Creel home.
Eventually she'll just be another sacrifice he'll have to make.
She can't accompany him in what he has planned once he's strong enough.
His hand brushes against her cheek as she continues to sleep, before he's disappearing from her, opening his eyes to hell as she opens her eyes to an empty bed.
Thank you for reading!
Guest: Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, next one is a doozy!
WashedUpInNewYork: I'm glad you like it so far and YES I've been looking for 001 fics on here too and it's been dry. And I'm taking that as a compliment bc that show's plot was a work of art so if anything I write remotely gives the same vibe I'll gladly admit it's one of the bouts of inspiration in this story.
firstofhername: thank you for reading! I hope you liked the new chapter!