Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 61st cycle. Now cycle 62!
TOP 15 COUNTDOWN - Something I do once in a while, if you will recall, where I take my favorite characters, ships, friendships, series (from my daily stories) and put them in order, the number 1 of which gets a seven-chapter story in the end :)
Coming in at number 2: Marley Rose
"No Fear Greater"
Marley; Millie Rose
Marley would have run straight for the cafeteria if it were up to her, but the police had made them all go outside instead, so she had followed Jake and the rest of the Glee Club, looking forward and back and left and right, hoping to catch a glimpse of her mother.
"Marley," it had been Sam who had spotted her and signalled back. Marley followed his finger, and she felt her heart swell when her eyes landed on her mother. Jake had let her go on, and so she had cut across the crowd, never stopping until she could get her arms around her mother's neck.
"Mom…" she cried, feeling her close her arms around her as well. "I was so worried, you weren't answering your phone."
"I couldn't," Millie Rose cried. "Couldn't get to it or you know I would have," she promised before pulling back to look at her daughter's face. "Are you alright?" she looked her over. Marley nodded, doing the same to her.
"Can we go home now?" she begged.
It had felt like an eternity still before they had gotten to walk through the door and be secure in the knowledge that the whole mess of a day was over.
Neither of them had much of an appetite despite having spent so much time there in their respective hiding places, but they had managed to have at least a little something of a late dinner. They could hear every fork scratch against the plate, a glass raised, glass lowered… Neither of them knew what to say.
"You know, every time you wrote to me…" Millie had started, looking at her daughter, lost in her world. "I knew it was you. It told me you were alright."
"But what if you'd been caught?" Marley tried to see what her mother said positively, but what if…
"Marley…" Millie reached for her hand.
"You're all I've got," she tried not to cry. "You know what I mean," she sighed, thinking that might not have come out the way she'd intended.
"I do," Millie assured her. "And that goes to you, too," she squeezed her hand. "So let's both of us be more careful from now on. Then we get to hang on to each other."
"Okay," Marley smiled.
She'd spent so much time in that room being worried for her mother, but she remembered at one time thinking about her father.
What if something had happened to her mother? Would he have come for her? She missed him more when she was little, but as she'd grown without him, she didn't miss him as much as she used to. She had her mother, and Millie Rose was good enough for two parents in and of herself. She had said this once in class, fourth or fifth grade, she couldn't remember. A boy had laughed and said she was big enough to be both parents alright. 'That's not what I meant!' she would shout, but it was too late. Everyone was laughing, and they couldn't hear her anymore. If they'd had any idea how good Millie was to have as a parent, they wouldn't have laughed, not one of them; they would have wanted to join her.
She hadn't needed her father, not even a little, not in so very long, but what if she hadn't had a choice? To even think about life without her mother made her feel like she should be crying or plugging her ears. To lose her and end up living with the father who had left them, well that would have been insult added to injury. She would have refused. She would have chosen strangers over him; he was already that for her anyway, at least the actual strangers would not have abandoned her.
When there was nothing left to do but go to bed and try to sleep, neither her nor her mother could bring herself to get up from the couch, turn off the television and go. They had stayed there, leaving it up to sleep to come and grab them, in whatever way it would.
Her mother had drifted off to sleep eventually. Marley stood, grabbing a blanket to drape over her. She tried to make sure she would be comfortable before reaching to lower the lights and then the volume on the television. She hoped she could sleep through the night… Marley didn't know that she could realistically hope for as much for herself.
She sat back on the couch, putting her legs up and pulling a second blankets over herself. She clicked through the channels until she had gone through the entire lineup something like four times before she left it on an old sitcom. She needed not to get so invested in anything like plot, so she had a fighting chance of not fighting sleep.
Her phone's chirp had made her leap, both for the surprise and for the realization she hadn't silenced it; she didn't want to wake her mother. She grabbed her phone and there discovered she had gotten a message from Kitty. She couldn't sleep any more than Marley could. They were all in the same situation on this, and she couldn't leave her hanging, so she texted back. It had gone on like this for maybe an hour, she wasn't sure. When she felt like she might have been able to close her eyes and sleep, she had curled in, phone still gripped in her hand.
She had to remind herself that they were safe, both of them, her mother and her. They were safe, and they would continue to be. They needed each other. They had always been there, and Marley didn't care who heard it: Millie Rose was as good as having two parents, all on her own. She loved her that much, and knowing that she was just a foot or two away that night, she knew, was probably the reason she got any sleep in.
THE END
A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!