Learning a new language from scratch is rough. She couldn't afford to take on learning Swedish without knowing whether the Lindholms would take her in or not while also keeping her grades perfect. It's why she only knows about thirty words of the language when she first sets foot in her new home. It's why the Lindholms put her in a class with German as primary language in spite of her protests that she could handle going to school like normal. She spends the next two months all but locked inside her house learning, regardless. Mrs. Lindholm helps; the most with the language, but other subjects also, so that she's prepared for the test that is to place her in the new school system.
Angela doesn't think much of her results when they come in. Not until Mrs. Lindholm tells her she apparently skipped ahead two years of school.
"Are you sure you want to do this? There's no rush."
Angela sees the question for the trap it really is. After all, why would anyone want the child in their care to do anything but their utmost? She's not lazy, she'll show them! Surely, any lingering doubt on their part will pass once they see how well she's doing.
There is some awkwardness when the school year starts. Not having to strain her lacking Swedish to carry a conversation with her classmates is nice, she'll give Mr. and Mrs. Lindholm that. On the other hand, the other children don't seem to know how to act with someone seemingly six years their junior in their midst, and tend to ignore her. It's no big loss. All that the older kids ever talk about are: war, gossip, movies, games, and politics - none of which hold Angela's interest. In itself, that is no issue. Those are the very same topics everyone wasted their time on back in Germany, Angela included. The difference is, they're actually being serious here, lacking a sense of bitter cynicism underlying their every statement. Like it's not all one big joke to take their minds off things.
At least nobody expects her to keep up with the rest in PE that she now has to attend after having switched not just schools, but school systems altogether.
It's all fine. What's the point of making friends she can't connect with, anyway? Could they even really become friends in the first place? She'd much rather read about the latest find in the Mariana Trench than listen to which latest show is crap and which isn't (and not only because as far as Angela is concerned, most of them are). At least the music they link on their class chat is nice for background noise, perhaps precisely because she can't understand any of it whether it's in German or English or Swedish with all the percussion and screaming and growling.
It's not like she's lacking in things to do at home, either. Angela does her homework first thing after coming home, which with the exception of Swedish is still a breeze even after skipping two years forward. After that she usually makes dinner for Mrs. Lindholm, or helps her with cooking it if the woman finishes work early. Whatever chores there are to do, she also helps with. This in spite of Mrs. Lindholm's insistence it's unnecessary. As if. It drives Angela up the wall whenever she sees the woman doing housework for her. Like she's a guest to be serviced until she leaves, not someone living here with her own share of responsibilities.
"Angela, it's fine. I'm used to taking care of the house on my own since I was home alone so often with Torbjorn away. There's no need for you to help me with this."
"But… you're no longer alone?" Angela points out, anxiety twisting her insides. She's here too, now. Has she been doing this wrong?
"N-no. I guess I'm not." The woman's words are thick in her throat, yet she smiles as she says them.
Admittedly, much as Angela makes sure to help where she can, she much prefers helping Mr. Lindholm in his workshop to vacuuming on those unfortunately rare occasions he's actually home. His frequent absence puts in perspective all the visits to Germany he had found the time for just for her.
On the matter of Mr. Lindholm's workshop - she knew of it before coming to Sweden, but it's fair to say the man understated exactly what he meant when saying workshop. Uncle's lab was something, but this is something else. It's the size of a classroom, with another so sized room serving as storage for it. It all looks so… crisp and sturdy, too. A polar opposite to what she got used to in Uncle's laboratory where the only thing keeping everything from falling apart, and barely at that, were kilometres upon kilometres of duct tape. It's bright, without any old bloodstains or dirty tools to be seen anywhere.
It still makes her stomach churn the first few months.
It's also where she first learns of the concept of safety hazards.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Lindholm tell her to be careful around the workshop, especially in the beginning when it's she who gets more help from them than the other way around, while still familiarising herself with all the machinery. Angela finds their concern entirely unwarranted. After all, she'd spent years helping her uncle in his lab, she's not a baby.
Then again, a baby wouldn't have been able to turn on the forge.
She's not actually trying to do anything in particular when it happens, just sate her curiosity about the metallic slag lazily bubbling in its tank; get a bit of it out, poke it with a stick, maybe use it like plasticine once it cools down enough. She's seen Mr. Lindholm use it enough to know how the dispenser works, how to unlock the leaver and then- ah, but of course. The man makes it look so easy with his massive arms and the strength of ten or twenty Angelas, if not more. She, in contrast, has to throw her entire weight into pulling the lever down.
Once it does finally give, Angela's moment of triumph lasts an entirety of the split second before the splash from the unthrottled slag catches her left arm and side. She must scream, as much in surprise as pain. The lever snaps back the moment she lets go as she's falling to the ground, instinctively clutching at the pain. It's a mistake she only realises when the pain sticks to her other hand. She curls up into a ball on the ground, wheezing, for once not even noticing the normally unbearable heat blossoming under her melted skin. It's- not the worst that she's ever been through, her lungs hurt worse after the gas, but it's up there.
"Angela?" She raises her tear-stricken face just enough to see Mrs. Lindholm standing in the door with a shocked expression. "Angela!"
Funny, Angela thinks, that between the two of them it's the older, unharmed woman that panics and not herself, who's got melted metal eating through her arm. Ah. She should do something about that before it heals with the metal still there.
"No! Don't touch that!" Mrs. Lindholm grabs her arm as she makes to scrape the rapidly cooling sludge off. Good thinking. They're in a workshop, after all.
"Can I get a knife, please?" She forces out through her teeth, wiping her less burned hand on her ruined shirt, leaving bits of skin on it along with the slag, to the naked horror of her caretaker.
"What?"
"Or-or a screwdriver or- something. I need to get this off."
"I-, no. Angela, we need to get you to hospit- don't touch it!"
A grimace overtakes her face. By the time they would get to a hospital either her skin would be fine, or in need of peeling off. She's been burned before. Not quite like this, but she knows she will recover as long as she gets the material off.
"I'm fine, I just need-" She's cut off as two deceptively strong hands grab her by the shoulders.
"Angela! Listen to me. You're in shock. You're hurt, and touching that is only gonna make it worse. Do you understand?" In the privacy of her mind, Angela thinks it's the woman who must be experiencing shock. Small wonder. If the stories she's heard of the Swedish child protection services are true, her getting hurt like this could well get Mrs. Lindholm in trouble.
Which is why she needs her caretaker to understand there won't be any.
"No. I'm fine, just need to get this off, see?" She shows her right hand palm up, the red light there already dimming and the skin looking healthier by the second. The skin that was not there a moment ago. That, finally, does get through to the woman.
"I… what?" she asks after a moment of stunned silence.
"Can I explain later? I promise I'm fine, just- can I get that knife?" It's already hurting less and less. They need to hurry or she'll really have to cut out healthy skin.
When Mrs' Lindholm relents, it's on the condition that they go to the hospital later regardless. They procure the tools and sit on the floor to gingerly pry the offending metal from Angela's arm, before taking to scraping off the dead, molten skin. Mrs. Lindholm doesn't take the sight very well, but for once, Angela finds herself not caring, far too absorbed with the work of expelling every bit of foreign material from her arm and side. With that and with panicking.
Her arm feels and looks fine. In fact, it looks precisely the same as it did this morning. That is a problem. Without the long sleeve to conceal it, the scars Uncle put there are on display for Mrs. Lindholm to see while she's helping her to scrape the slag off.
It's not that she never considered the possibility of her caretakers finding out, and her having to explain the situation to them in some capacity. She has, she'd be stupid not to. But while not clueless about what to say, Angela would still rather not have to say anything at all.
She's never told anyone of what happened to her. The police asked, sure, but even now she can't say whether she'd tell them that even if she was not at the time dedicated to saying nothing at all. So, what now that the cat is out of the bag? She briefly entertains the thought of pretending to not know anything at all, but if Mrs. Lindholm catches her lying… truth it is then. How much of it is the question.
Minutes pass in silence, Mrs. Lindholm is clearly still absorbing what she's just witnessed. Angela, for her part, is in no rush to have this conversation.
"First, I want you to know you're not in trouble," the woman says, voice still shaky, and eyes singularly focused on her own. "And I'm glad that whatever that light was, it seemed to help you, but-" she pauses, clearly searching for words. "That said, I need to know. What was that?"
Angela hesitates a moment more, still unsure how to phrase her answer.
"Uncle gave me some medicine four years ago. It has been like that since."
Mrs. Lindholm swallows. "Medicine, as in?"
Angela's eyes fall on the adult's trembling hands, her dilated pupils, her tense posture.
"An injection."
"Just an injection?"
It only occurs to her that she shouldn't have nodded after the deed is done, once contradicting it would expose her for a liar. But… that is what Mrs. Lindholm wants to hear, isn't it? Just an injection isn't so bad.
"And this?" She points at the newly regrown neat scar running the length of her inner forearm. Very clearly not a result of an injection, and clearer still not that of any burn.
"I- had an accident in the lab once. When I was eight." Angela looks to the ground,
A heavy silence falls between them, each second adding to the weight such that Angela's whole body is trembling with effort to keep herself upright.
"...Okay," Mrs. Lindholm whispers, and suddenly, Angela can breathe again. "Okay."
Another silence falls between them for the few moments the both of them take to breathe, before Mrs. Lindholm speaks up again.
"Does this… is this why you haven't been growing?" Ah. So she has noticed.
Angela shrugs, keeping her eyes downcast. What is she supposed to say? Probably?
The woman lets out a shuddering breath, and the next thing Angela knows, there are arms around her in a tight embrace. For her part, she goes stiff as a board. When was the last time someone gave her a hug? Seven, eight years ago? She knows it were her parents because who else, but can't actually remember it other than knowing it must've happened. What does she still even remember about her parents? She knows she loved them, that she loves them, and that they surely loved her back because- because… because she was their daughter? Because she doesn't remember anything bad from that time? She barely remembers anything from that time! She can't-
She sniffs the snot back up her nose, tries blinking away the tears that won't stop coming, and finds her arms clutching at the warmth before her entirely by their own will. Her chest hurts with needle-like pain. Her breath grows ragged, her nose clogs up, and soon she can do nothing about it but hide her face in Mrs. Lindholm's sweater. Why is she crying? She got over all this years ago. Her parents aren't coming back, and she's got a future ahead of her now - there's no reason for this. She's not even upset, so why is she smearing her snot and tears into this woman's clothes? She doesn't get it. She doesn't want it. She wants it to stop.
It's hard, unreasonably so, and takes her the better half of an hour to get herself under control again with seemingly nothing to push back against. Not sadness. Not anger. Not anything. Just the tears that won't stop.
"Mrs. Lindholm?"
"Hmm?" The woman murmurs, her fingers gently stroking Angela's hair.
"Can I still use the workshop?"
Mrs. Lindholm chokes out a wet laugh.
"We'll see, sweetheart. We'll see."