Chapter Text
And now she went continually onwards, far, far to the very end of the world.
Then she came to the sun, but it was too hot and terrible, and devoured little children.
Hastily she ran away, and ran to the moon, but it was far too cold, and also awful and malicious, and when it saw the child it said,
“I smell, I smell the flesh of men.”
— from The Seven Ravens by The Brothers Grimm
I must have known what she was going to say, because I was chilled; all this day had been building up to what Helen Clarke was going to say right now. I sat in my low chair and looked hard at Constance, wanting her to get up and run away, wanting her not to hear what was just about to be said, but Helen Clarke went on,
“It’s spring, you’re young, you’re lovely, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world.”
— from We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson
It’s becoming comical by the third time that snow from the branches above almost puts out their fire again. Spring is well on it’s way, so the cold isn’t what they need a fire for the most. It’s the possible stalkers in the night; tracking them as they draw closer to whatever Sid’s home used to be.
“So the whole crew’s at breakfast, chatting and stuff, when the one guy that had his face attacked shouts like he’s been stabbed!”
A smaller audience, but now Van is at least sure that the listener has never seen or heard of Alien. If she slips up or forgets a detail, it’s really not a problem if she puts the right spin on it after. On her end, she’s rarely seen the real Jackie be so captivated by her movie recaps, but it’s nice to pretend.
Sid’s not really shown her ‘true form’, or whatever to call it, out here. Van’s pretty sure it’s to keep those other guys on the flip side fooled, but it still has her thinking.
“Do you like being her?” Van asks when the sky’s getting dark and her eyes become tired. Night isn’t a good time to enter their target for the heist, so they’ll spend it out here, in the woods. Sid snorts — the “I can’t believe you said that, Shauna” Jackie snort — and rubs her neck in thought.
“I think ‘like’ isn’t really the right word, but… yeah I guess I don’t mind it that much anymore.”
“As in you used to hate it?”
“Not really,” Sid shrugs, “it took some getting used to, but I picked up a thing or two that made more sense for me so I might keep that. I don’t need to justify it to anyone, or whatever.”
The bridge is there for Van to mention something; that whole thing about the future. Where the Yellowjackets will go, where Sid will end up, how Jackie will be.
“Are you worried that they could…?”
“Kill me, or something?”
“I guess.”
“It’s whatever it’s going to be. I don’t know if they have a plan for when I come back, or if they don’t care at all. I’ve heard nothing in a while.” Sid smiles. “Whatever it is, it’ll be fine on your end, so don’t worry about that.”
Van knows the feeling all too well. Looking in the face of death this many times has left its mark upon her. “Don’t say that. We’d care.”
“Appreciated.” Sid shoves her shoulder, amicably. “Don’t think about it too much, though. You could use the sleep.”
“If you say so, boss.” Van stretches her arms over her head and cracks her neck, sneering at the disgust Sid flashes her way. With the fire here, with someone else around, it makes it somewhat better to be out in the open. The knowledge of there being more dangerous things out here makes the wolves look like puppies.
#
“Yo, can you turn into a wolf?”
“… Sure? Do you want me to or—”
“Oh no, please don’t. I was just curious.”
They rise at a similar hour as that Nat and Travis must be leaving the cabin to hunt. The lavender haze of dawn makes it harder to find their path. Sid’s sure of where to go, but the practicality of slipping with the wrong placement of a foot will slow them down in the early hours of the morning. They’re not taking the entrance closest to the cabin; the one that Tai would slip off to at night. This one is further into the woods, but safer. Like a proper heist, Sid’s taking the opposing team into account.
Van snaps branches to use as markers on the way back. The idea of it is daunting, and neither is sure what state Jackie will be in when they’ll fish her out.
“What is for sure is that you’ll have to go back without me,” Sid says once they’re all packed up and got the campfire out. “I can’t help you from over there.”
Van thinks of the floating specters above her pyre. Colorful shapes just out of focus enough for her to see who exactly was watching over her. Maybe they’d already been there, watching their every move and ready for any mistakes.
“Why did you decide on Jackie?” Van asks. “Why not Taissa when she went on a stroll? Why not Javi when he ran away?”
Sid shrugs. “Why do you wanna know? It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
“I don’t know…” Van looks down at her shoes as they track through mushy dirt. Spring. She didn’t expect it to be almost here. The dull winter glow had made the season appear so endless. “I guess because she wasn’t the easiest, right in front of our doorstep.”
“That’s true,” Sid replies.
Van thinks that’s all, already turning her arms to snap the next branch on their path.
“But putting it bluntly, it was worth the risk.”
“Stone cold, dude.”
“Maybe. I didn’t know you all that well back then. It was better for me not to think about it too much.”
Taissa would say something about that not being an excuse, and to be fair, Sid looks like there’s more to say on this than she’s letting on, but Van keeps her mouth shut. She’s not one to question things that will be met with walls. If Sid feels like there’s something to say, Van’s sure she would hear it.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss, after all.
“Well,” she starts instead, “I hope you had a fun enough time with us out here in crash-land.”
Sid glances back, a careful smile forming. “Sure. I think I did.”
The rest of the walk is dotted with smalltalk. What tree is that? Oh yeah, this edible plant should be growing here come spring. If you ever have to move, there is a clearing in that direction. Future is a fickle topic, but they discuss it still.
Sid stops them when twilight is coming close.
“Okay, so we’re almost there,” she says, biting her lip. “I know I technically don’t need to ask, but you’re still okay on going through with this?”
It’s somewhat sweet. “Yeah, I’m sure.” Jackie both left and saved her ass, so Van’s felt a bit like making up for her own part in the ‘let’s evict Jackie’ night.
“Okey-dokey,” Sid says, more matter-of-factly than the word usually is.
It’s another mossy tree that is their point of entry. Sid urges her, before entering, that Van should turn back at the smallest sign of danger.
“Like I said, I don’t think they’ll catch on quickly if they don’t expect us, but I want at least you to make it back.”
Almost unconsciously, Van takes hold of Lottie’s bone amulet thing that’s under her layers of shirts. The tunnel is they go through is damp and mossy. Soft, but uncomfortably so. The air turns clammy for a moment before turning dry again. Little cold lingers in the air, not the intrinsic kind of mid-winter weather. This time it feels like a draft wafting in from a warmer place.
There’s a light at the end. Sunlight. Fractured through canopies of green into what feels like hundreds of distinct shades on the equally overgrown forest floor that they step onto.
“What the fuck…” Van mumbles, but is tugged along before she’s managed to take it all in.
“This way.”
Sid doesn’t have much time, it seems, as they walk through this lively world at a quick pace.
Birdsong follows them, but nothing else. No animals roam the foliage or dart away; no other sign of life appears where ever Sid drags Van towards. Van’s still mentally putting markers wherever they go for the way back. Sid’s a little on edge, but Van’s not going to let that mess with her own state of mind.
Fantasy goat people be damned.
“There’s this place, and you can’t come too close to it.” Sid begins explaining the next steps as they walk on. “I’ll get her out and take her place there, so if they come by you’ll have a head start. You’re gonna need it, because I’m pretty sure she won’t be up to walk for a while.”
Ugh. Van can already feel her arms aching.
Sid finally slows them down at the edge of what Van feels is her capacity to find the way back again. All in all they may not have walked for long, but the liveliness of the world around feels as disorienting as being on a holiday in a strange city. Sid’s listening; holding a breath and looking around between the trees.
“Okay, we’re clear.” It sounds out of breath from relief. “Wait here.”
She stops Van fully with both of her hands, holds up a finger for silence. It feels like the dropping-down-via-cable-through-lasers part of this whole thing. The part where one wrong move will blow this whole thing up in their faces.
Van can spot the edge of what Sid must’ve been talking about. An area full of flowers. Poppies, probably, if Van had to guess.
“That it?” she whispers with a hiss when Sid is a step away from it.
“Yeah,” Sid answers quickly, making shushing motions again. Her steps are awkward and high. Vine-like bundles of stems in the overgrowth catch her shoes here and there as she makes her way through with effort.
Van’s a good five feet away. Stepping closer she doesn’t dare, but the urge is there when Sid reaches a depression in the sea of green and red. Nerves jitter through her feet. Healthy goalie instincts to spring forth at the first sign that she needs it.
Sid digs through the green; rooting up and tearing away until an arm is loose with that familiar yellow sleeve around it. It’s not enough to really get her freed. Sid goes to work on the other side and then drags her out from underneath a whole layer of those flowers. Limp in her arms like it’s nothing.
Jackie Taylor, the same as the day she walked out into the great wide open.
Sid hoists her up at the shoulders so that they’re somewhat level before she picks her up bridal style and makes the way back to Van.
It’s uncanny, seeing the same face twice. One with improvised winter-proof clothes and a hardened look, calloused hands and longer hair. The other without wind-swept skin or the gauntness of a long winter, or clothes showing signs or wear and tear despite Akilah’s precise work with a needle and thread. The real one feels all the more like an impostor now.
Van swings the sling with the remaining bits of jerky they packed as provision to the front of her body so her back is free when Sid’s reached her.
“She good?”
Sid nods, kicking away some stray petals. “Think of it as sleeping. Like I said, it might take a while, so don’t worry too much if she’s still out when you reach the cabin.” She puts Jackie down on the moss to pick the last remaining flowers off her. “Can’t be too careful, though.”
Van feels useless standing here. It’s a point of saying goodbye that feels like a ‘but we’ll call for sure!’ and knowing that’s never going to happen.
“So, is this gonna be goodbye?” She asks, more or less as confirmation.
Sid looks up at her, and stands. “I think so.”
The atmosphere is awkward and Van can’t really find anything to blame for it. She didn’t really expect trading one Jackie in for another, one that she felt some sort of respect for over the past weeks swapped out for someone she’s not sure how to feel about with all that’s happened. For now, it’s sympathy, but who knows how that might turn when she’s still stuck in her old nagging ways? Hypotheticals. Taissa’s said before not to think in those. The future comes one day at a time.
Van makes a small decision in stepping around Jackie to pull Sid into a hug. Tight, the kind that betrays how tense Sid is, and the moment that fades out when she puts her own arms on Van’s back.
“I’ll be fine. Just get out of here.”
Van reluctantly agrees with a squeeze before she pulls back.
Sid helps with getting Jackie on her back so it’s easy to carry her, but Van still has to hope her legs won’t sour before she’s out in the wilderness again. The faint warmth of Jackie’s breath tickles her ear at even intervals.
“Here,” Sid says as she takes the fur-lined jacket off. “To keep up appearances.” She flashes a wry smirk while standing there in just the sweater. It’s all the same: those stripes, and the jeans, and the dirt-stained tennis shoes.
“See you around?” Van asks when Sid steps back into the poppies again, finding the spot to lie down. Her eyebrows rise in question, but she grins still.
“Sure thing, Van.”
And waves a brief goodbye.
Hector’s grip is weak, but at least he’s still here. Shauna’s been with him ever since Van and… Sid left. Briefly she doubted her choice to push it in this direction. What if it was all lies and they’d lose Van, too? It was everyone else that had to convince her of having some trust, but it was hard to gather together.
She’d been lied to. For weeks. Weeks on end of finally having some place to put her feeling, some sense in whatever it was that she had with Jackie, and then it all got warped into something it wasn’t. Writing to a penpal who wasn’t who they’d made themselves out to be. An entirely different person that she simply did not know.
Shauna knows there was a part of her that had known, somewhere, from the very beginning, that things were off.
Maybe she secretly wanted to keep up this act for her own selfish reason. There’s nothing to lose if you don’t acknowledge it ever going missing.
If Sid told the truth, then, well…
Hector holds her index finger tighter, and she sighs.
“At least there’s you, huh, Bug?”
He makes a grumbly noise. It could mean anything.
The door opening behind her feels like a release from purgatory; the endless waiting finally being interrupted by something. Lottie’s there, stepping inside and closing the door to the back room they’re in hastily behind her.
“Van’s back,” she says.
Shauna whips around to see her wide eyes, and has to stop herself from saying ‘already?’. She thought it would take longer. Such journeys weren’t meant to be over so soon.
She doesn’t feel like it should come to her so easily.
Gently her finger is pulled away from Hector, who is too asleep to notice its absence. Shauna follows Lottie, around the corner to the back door that’s out of sight from most of the others, and indeed sees them coming into the clearing again. Van’s there puffing air with a reddened face while Taissa is at her side for support. Shauna rushes through the half-melting snow to meet them and almost slips on the way there.
“Jackie?!”
Van complains with a groan when Shauna steps in their steady path to the cabin.
“Gee, Van, glad to see you’re back in one piece. What was the weather like over there?” She doesn’t halt to offer Shauna a chance at getting a good look, so instead she trails behind them with growing impatience.
They enter the cabin with heavy steps. Everyone is hissing directions and cues and overall make it an incomprehensible mess. Nat’s still out hunting, leaving nobody to knock some sense into the situation, but they manage to reach the room with Hector so Van can almost sprint to the bed to drop Jackie from her shoulders. The thud is loud and has Shauna cringe, but Jackie doesn’t respond.
There’s a cold grip of something in her chest. “Van, is she—?”
“No! It’s cool, even if it doesn’t look like it.” Van stops explaining to catch her breath. “I really need some water. What the fuck.”
Lottie’s on her way before Tai can offer.
“We should give her time, is what she said,” Van continues as Shauna sits at the side of the bed, observing the steady rise and fall with each breath.
She has to believe it this time. This time she’s real.
Shauna takes the piece of horn from her pocket with one hand, and Jackie’s nearest hand with the other. She’s still not one for Lottie’s kind of faith in the forces out there, but superstition is hard to keep fully away with what they’ve been going through. Shauna presses the hard material in the limp palm, and holds it with both her hands; feeling like she should say something and blanking for the right words.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly when Tai and Van leave to take Lottie’s cups of water outside. “And I love you.”
On day five, Misty carefully broaches the topic of comas that go on for too long. Not good for the brain activity, she shares like it’s a fun piece of trivia. They take her away before Shauna can get snappy and then maybe violent.
She stays there, with Jackie, with Hector, and the brief interruptions when others bring in food, or questions, or talk, or simply good company. Shauna’s not sure how much of each night she spends actually asleep. She always wakes up, that’s for sure, but without remembering when sleep won in her struggle to keep looking for any sign of active life.
Shauna does talk, of course. Her mom had said that there was something about what they said in the movies about talking even when there’s no response. A couple of times she brings Hector to the bed when he’s looking more present than the bleary baby he is on other days.
“He’s holding on, you know. Silly bug that he is.” She glances up and still feels dejected by the lack of change. “I’m sure he’ll like you. He did so before, and it’s not like he’ll know the difference.”
On day seven there is the briefest thought of grieving what might be to come. At some point they must think about it being a lost cause. Admit that they were fooled! Once again! The only thing keeping hope with her is that Jackie’s otherwise still breathing, still there with a steady pulse and warm skin.
Still there still there still there.
“It was always about you.” She says it on night number ten, when outside the cabin the blizzards have turned to gusts of rain beating against the wood.
“I don’t think I ever would’ve admit it if you’d been around all the time. I gained some perspective, which sounds stupid, and it is, I guess. In hindsight it took way too long, and I did the wrong things because of it. Which isn’t an excuse, I know. I didn’t want to risk it, or have you know what it could be about. In short I feel so stupid that I didn’t do anything good about it. It took all this for me to admit it to myself, and to you, and to whoever else might have a reason to know. Do you get how that sounds? That it was a crash and all that bullshit that finally pushed some pieces in the right spot?”
Shauna listens with her head on a shoulder and an arm loosely around Jackie’s waist. The silence isn’t new. This time it might just give her a blissful moment of self-reflection.
“Sorry for rambling. I don’t feel much like writing these days.” She pulls closer, leaving enough room for Hector between them, in the crook of her elbow.
“I promise I’ll tell you whatever I’m thinking from now on. No more secrets.”
Hector crying wakes Shauna again from a sleep that snuck up on her. She holds him closer to shush him, and is caught off guard by the other hand already softly stroking the soft hairs on his head.
“Jackie?”
Her eyes are barely open, but they’re blinking against the morning sun. “He’s loud enough to be a cricket, huh,” she mumbles.
“Is it really you?”
Shauna lifts her up at the chin, trying to find something, a little piece of familiarity that she can put all her worries away with.
“Don’t ask me that now, Shipman.” Jackie’s nose scrunches up. “I had this fucked up dream, you wouldn’t believe it.” Her hand brings up the tip of horn and she turns it over in fascination. “But I guess you might be able to explain some things.”