Gwen Blake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
packapunch) wrote2025-11-30 04:56 pm
packapunch) wrote2025-11-30 04:56 pm
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(no subject)
It isn't that she's here. It's that she's back. Even if she hadn't already had these niggling, bone-rattling feelings of déjà vu, the signs are everywhere. There's even a photo of her and Neil, beaming like total fucking dorks, in a frame that she remembers buying.
It's been coming back to her in bits and pieces, like a puzzle filling itself in.
There's a girl here. Her friend. Gwen can see her dark hair and the curve of her nose. She can see a forest of umbrellas in front of a lake. A van lifted from the water, but that isn't Darrow, that's a dream. For a moment, those memories overlap Camp Alpine memories — a metal barrel, a forest of pine overlooking the frozen lake it's been hiding in — and Gwen isn't sure if she's sobbing or laughing when she realizes how similar their lives ended up being after all.
Hilde. That's her name. The more Gwen thinks about her, the clearer she gets. Hilde and Gwenny, they'd been inseparable with their naturally rhyming names. Gwen's been walking the city all afternoon, trying to find more of those puzzle pieces, and her feet start taking her towards the Children's Home like it's instinct. She stops short, though, and frowns up at the street sign, then turns and instead starts walking a different route.
This is right, she thinks. Hilde doesn't live at the Home anymore. She lives with...
Gwen doesn't even want to say the name. She doesn't have a problem with this Bill, but the name still sits sour on her tongue. Still, she goes there, keeping her left hand in her pocket so she doesn't have to swing it too much. The stitches are still a little numb, but she doesn't need to make it any worse.
Well, any worse than she already is by wandering the city instead of resting with her arm pillowed beside her. She just couldn't sit still. Not knowing what she knows, not feeling what she feels. Maybe that's a character flaw, but she isn't going to worry about that right now.
Right now, she's looking up at a townhouse door, stepping up to ring the bell. She feels nervous, but it isn't totally a bad feeling.
It's been coming back to her in bits and pieces, like a puzzle filling itself in.
There's a girl here. Her friend. Gwen can see her dark hair and the curve of her nose. She can see a forest of umbrellas in front of a lake. A van lifted from the water, but that isn't Darrow, that's a dream. For a moment, those memories overlap Camp Alpine memories — a metal barrel, a forest of pine overlooking the frozen lake it's been hiding in — and Gwen isn't sure if she's sobbing or laughing when she realizes how similar their lives ended up being after all.
Hilde. That's her name. The more Gwen thinks about her, the clearer she gets. Hilde and Gwenny, they'd been inseparable with their naturally rhyming names. Gwen's been walking the city all afternoon, trying to find more of those puzzle pieces, and her feet start taking her towards the Children's Home like it's instinct. She stops short, though, and frowns up at the street sign, then turns and instead starts walking a different route.
This is right, she thinks. Hilde doesn't live at the Home anymore. She lives with...
Gwen doesn't even want to say the name. She doesn't have a problem with this Bill, but the name still sits sour on her tongue. Still, she goes there, keeping her left hand in her pocket so she doesn't have to swing it too much. The stitches are still a little numb, but she doesn't need to make it any worse.
Well, any worse than she already is by wandering the city instead of resting with her arm pillowed beside her. She just couldn't sit still. Not knowing what she knows, not feeling what she feels. Maybe that's a character flaw, but she isn't going to worry about that right now.
Right now, she's looking up at a townhouse door, stepping up to ring the bell. She feels nervous, but it isn't totally a bad feeling.
no subject
She steps inside, watching Hilde'a face. Unlike Neil, Hilde isn't trying to hide surprise or hope or pain. She just has that smile on her face, maybe the tiniest bit of confusion and a little concern, too.
She didn't know.
The Gwen from three days ago might have been offended by that, but the Gwen standing here today isn't. She's relieved. Hilde wasn't missing her, wasn't crying or trying to figure out whether to grieve or not. She was blessedly unaware.
"There's something I need to tell you," she says.