[ It's. It's actually kind of hard to pick berries one-handed, who could have guessed? Melissa lets Hannah focus on getting the branches off while she plucks as many berries as she can hold in her palm before dropping them into her bag and repeating the whole process over. Some of the berries end up slightly squashed in her grip, but squashed is better than nothing.
It's good they found the bush. Not only because it means more food back at camp but because it gives Melissa something to look at that isn't Hannah's face as she says, ] Edwin is the guy Lottie killed? Your... friend?
[ It wasn't like she'd been the one holding the axe, but she feels the same squirmy kind of guilt as if she had done it. In a way, it's on all of them. ]
[ Collecting berries might just hide the pain that flashes across Hannah's face. She nods, more for herself than in any hope that Melissa might see it in her peripheral vision. She needs a second. She's been actively not thinking about him, because if she does, she'll stop moving, stop contributing. There will be no reason not to kill her. ]
Yeah. My boyfriend, actually.
[ How many little branches has she snapped off by now? She should've been counting. Good data makes analysis easier. ]
It's like Melissa has been swimming in the lake and suddenly slipped into one of those cold pockets without warning. Her whole body feels it, and she watches numbly as her fingers go still on one of the branches. As usual, she doesn't know what to say, but she has to say something. After a moment she turns to look at Hannah. ]
Shit. I am... really sorry.
[ It occurs to her that Hannah should want to kill them. All of them. She has every right to. She came out here with her boyfriend to study frogs and walked into a fucking nightmare filled with a bunch of hateful little freaks masquerading as teenagers, and now she's on her own. ]
[ Hannah is decidedly not fine right now, but she can pull herself together. She's faced worse, she's lived through worse, right, she'll be fine if she can just keep her breathing steady through the sudden hot-and-cold sensation flowing through her limbs.
She has no idea what to say. It's harder than when she first told people she was pregnant, because at least that, while putting an end to one phase of her life, heralded a new beginning, and a new person to meet and love, and things could still proceed as they'd been planned for with some adjustments. There is no positive to this particular death, though. It wasn't strictly an accident, but it wasn't murder, not really. It was just-- it was just-- ]
Thank you. [ Another breath. She has to steady her voice. She has to be reliable. Melissa got shot with a crossbow that same night. It wasn't Melissa's fault.
But it wasn't Lottie's fault either. Lottie is unwell in a way that Hannah has no idea how to address. It's all just-- it's just so-- ]
I'm not angry. Lottie was just trying to protect you guys. Or something. Here, let me get that.
[ She reaches over to snap off the branch Melissa was just working on. The sharp, thin crack it makes plus Hannah out of her thoughts some, brings her back to the fact that they're foraging so they have more food in reserve as winter approaches. ]
[ Wordlessly, Melissa takes the broken branch and stuffs it into her bag. Not angry? She doesn't see how. Not that she thinks Hannah's lying, exactly. It's deeper than that. Like maybe Hannah really believes what she's saying, but maybe she hasn't let herself really stop and think about what happened for too long, either. Because if she did... ]
You should be angry. I'm angry. [ She gestures wildly at her immobile right arm, which could be permanently fucked up now for all she knows. But she does know that none of it would have happened if Lottie had just—ugh, stood back for a few seconds and let Natalie or Van talk. ]
Lottie's not protecting us. She loves it here. [ Melissa's voice is quieter now, and she glances off to the side as if she almost expects someone to have been following them, listening. Maybe that makes her just as paranoid as Shauna's getting, but... maybe it's not the craziest idea either. ] Shauna too. They ruined everything. We almost got to go home and they—ruined it for all of us.
[ Right, so, telling Melissa about Edwin was not Hannah's best idea, but she can't take it back now, so she sets aside regret for now and focuses on Melissa. Everything is so delicate here, and her own position is especially precarious, which makes everything feel like a huge risk.
But she doesn't know what else to do, and her heart aches for this scared, struggling kid, so Hannah reaches out and gently touches Melissa's right forearm. ]
They're scared. I'm scared too. I'm sad, and if there's anyone I'm angry at, it's myself. [ She should've listened to Edwin. If they'd gone south, they wouldn't have stumbled onto the Yellowjackets' camp. ]
We'll find a way home. The university will send someone to look for us, or at least for their equipment. [ It's expensive. It was so hard not to beg for it in the grant proposal, good lord. ] We just have to take it day by day. Okay?
[ Out here it's easy to forget how young they really are. They handle things; they don't cry, or if they do, they do it in secret, during the strange, stretched out hours between nightfall and sunrise. It's been so long since somebody older than her has reached out to offer comfort that Melissa feels herself wanting to lean into it, to revert to some younger state where the adult tells you it's going to be okay and you believe them just because. ]
Okay.
[ And maybe Hannah's even right. Maybe the university will send people, and those people will find them, and a few weeks from now these memories will be fading like a bad dream. But she's already thinking past that, to the long winter ahead of them and Shauna with that rifle at her side all the time. ]
[ Hannah nods, softly squeezes Melissa's arm, and nods again-- for herself, for both of them. The university should've sent someone by now, but will they find them? Or will they leave her little research team for dead even more quickly than the media abandoned the Yellowjackets?
They have to survive. No matter what, they need to make it through the winter. Then, when it's spring, Hannah will volunteer to set out and find help. She'll figure something out. She has to. She has to at least try to make good on her word. They'll get home, somehow. They have to. ]
I think I can help with your shoulder. You know, with some stretches? PT? A little bit, anyway. It won't be fun, but it'll be worth it to try.
[ Melissa wants to cry at the soft little squeeze of her arm. It's such a mom thing to do, all comfort and reassurance, not the kind of gesture anybody else in the wilderness would make. The corners of her mouth turn down and she blinks a few times, quick. But this is a really shitty time to start getting homesick. She knows Hannah wouldn't judge her for crying, she seems way too understanding to be weird about it, but the last thing Melissa wants to do is walk out of the woods with puffy eyes and have Shauna notice and assume it's because of her. She takes a deep breath. ]
Really? That would be awesome. This whole thing seriously blows. [ The sling. It's so freaking cumbersome. She can't even pull a shirt over her head by herself or do her own hair right now. The thought of her range of motion being permanently screwed up has Melissa anxious. Only one functioning arm and she'd be almost as bad off as Coach Scott. Not trapped-in-the-animal-pen bad, but definitely most-likely-to-get-eaten-next bad. That thought makes her squirm, and she blurts out, ] Can we do it soon? I'm worried it's going to, like—get stiff, like when you break a bone and the muscles get all weird from not using them? Have you ever broken an ankle or something?
[ Or maybe Hannah's daughter has. Kids break bones all the time! ]
[ The wounds have closed up. They can take it slow. And if Melissa wants or needs to cry when they're working on her shoulder, she can go right ahead. It's going to be really painful without painkillers. No one can call her weak for that. Let them get shot by a crossbow and start doing PT for it.
Hannah starts back on getting branches off the berry bush. What a nice find. That should help group morale a little. ]
The cold might numb the pain a little. But right now, just moving around is good for it. You're young, your body can repair itself really well.
[ That, at least, is something Hannah can feel optimistic about. They've eaten better in the summer than they must have last winter. All that protein will come in handy. ]
[ Misty took the Red Cross babysitting course (twice) or whatever, but she's no doctor and Melissa gets creeped out remembering how little hesitation she had when she chopped off Coach's leg right after the crash. Not that Hannah is a doctor either, but it's nice to at least feel like there's someone around who more or less knows what they're doing and isn't going to pull any weird shit. With a relieved, self-conscious little smile, Melissa goes back to picking berries. ]
So, like... what made you decide to be a scientist? I swear to god I almost puked when we dissected frogs in biology last year.
[ Even if she hadn't decided not to bring up Edwin again, Hannah would still keep her own terrible lab experience to herself. He played too big a part in it. The memory belongs to her, to soothe the despair that pervades life here. Besides that, this is a topic she likes. ]
I guess I just can't stop asking questions. I wonder about the way our bodies developed to make these precise sounds so we can communicate, how adaptable we are because we can make and use tools, how we use fire. I look around and see how everything... in all the chaos of nature, in the violence of it, there's beauty.
Like this bush. It doesn't have consciousness, right, but it evolved to keep its species alive. It adapted to the light, the climate, the soil, the wildlife. Will it outlive us? We've been around for so little time on the scale of the known universe. And look, we can use so much of it, it's not poisonous. It's going to help us survive.
[ Oh no she went full nerd. Hannah laughs and glances at Melissa, embarrassed. ]
Sorry. I kind of love, you know, all of it. I wish I could live three times as long, just so I could keep learning.
[ The way Hannah explains it, it makes sense. Melissa gets it, especially out here. Once they started building up the campsite, it had been kind of fascinating seeing all the ways they could use the environment to help them instead. Animal furs for the winter, the huts, they can even make wine now. Pretty incredible. ]
Did you ever think about being a teacher? You'd be good at it.
[ You know what, that's fair. And teenagers kind of suck, so she can't exactly argue with not wanting to spend every day trying to hold their attention when the alternative is catching frogs or hanging out in a lab.
Melissa laughs a little and shakes her head. ] I don't know, maybe business? Something boring and normal. All I know is my plan was to get far away from New Jersey, but um. Kind of already did that, so.
It's just an option. [ Hey, we can't all be scientists, okay. The world needs people doing boring things all day too. ]
So if your daughter disappeared for like two years, came home, and then turned around and chose to go to college out of state, you wouldn't be pissed? [ Melissa's half calling bullshit, half actually asking. She just can't imagine anybody being cool with that. ] I mean, I know they can't stop me if I'm eighteen, but it seems... fucked up.
Hannah sits on a nearby patch of clearish ground. Her calves ache a little, so she stretches out her legs as she thinks about the question. ]
If she did, I'd think it's because she believed she needed to leave. I couldn't be mad at her. I might be hurt, and I would be sad, but... I would hope I've done a good enough job raising her that she knows I'll always be there for her, support her, believe in her.
And honestly? I'd just be glad she lived. That she made it out. You have to live life for yourself even when you don't go through something like this, you know?
[ And really, Hannah isn't letting herself think about how she'll be when she gets home. If she'll become overprotective, or distant, or maybe both in turns. If she'll be enough. ]
[ Melissa plucks a couple more leaves and adds them to the supply. Then, with a little sigh, she sits cross-legged across from Hannah. It feels a little bit like the first conversation they ever had, except this time there isn't the added anxiety of Shauna popping up out of fucking nowhere to yell at them. ]
You're a good mom, you know? [ Just 'cause it's obviously the truth, but nobody ever says it to the people who need to hear it the most. ]
After the crash, like... once it became clear that people weren't coming to rescue us, I stopped thinking about what it would be like to go back. I didn't really think about it again until you guys came. And I obviously want to see my parents, but I think it's going to be really... different.
[ It feels wrong to accept that compliment, to believe it could be true. She was a kid who had a baby, what the hell did she know about being a parent? But it also feels really good to hear it. And now here she is, skipping ahead to being the responsible adult for a small classroom's worth of teenagers, and she can't even fall back on her own high school years, because they weren't normal.
She does know one thing, though: kids of any age need support. They need to feel safe. Hannah figures none of these kids has felt safe since their plane went down, so if she can give them a moment or a place to feel safe, then maybe she's better at this than she believes herself to be. ]
Oh. [ "Different" says so much there. ] I'm sure they'll be happy to see you...?
[ If not, then excuse me but what the fuck. Melissa is a great kid. ]
[ Melissa utters an awkward little laugh, not sure how to explain just what she means. It's not like her parents don't love her. They just want her to be a certain type of person and since she's been out here, she's realized she can't. It's something that would've happened anyway, she's sure, but it should've happened when she was off at college or something, not coming home with all the added scrutiny of having been missing for over a year. ]
Just, like, certain stuff doesn't really matter out here. It's going to be weird going back to a place where people care, you know?
[ Even in the short time since getting here, Hannah can see what Melissa means. Grades and procedures don't matter out here, and neither do things like "no indiscriminate murder" and "tying people up and putting them in the animal pen is at least a little bit wrong." To say nothing of what they experienced before she joined the group. ]
To think this is kind of how human society started forming. Early on, all that mattered was surviving, not who's following the newest fashion or wearing white after Labor Day.
Yeah. We're like, back in the old times when people prayed to the trees and shit.
[ Literally, they are. Except they're doing it wrong, because they can't seem to totally escape the world they came from, either. Instead they just balance on the weird edge of it. Unsustainable. ]
But for the record I think I'm staying pretty fashionable out here. [ She's kidding, obviously. But she does rock the skirt-over-your-jeans thing. ]
[ And fire, and the sun, and water. Strip away all the trappings of so-called civilization, and what ends up happening? What's important changes. It's fascinating and not helpful at all right now.
Fashion, though. Hannah laughs. ]
I've seen undergrads wearing way worse than muddy clothes, trust me. You're ready for a catwalk.
Seriously? Okay. [ Melissa laughs, even if she doesn't believe it. She knows Hannah's just trying to make her feel better. ]
What's college like?
[ Blah blah blah nobody's experience is universal. She knows that but she doesn't care. She hasn't gotten to watch TV in over a year, the only reading material they had was an issue of Sassy and a bunch of porn magazines and those all burnt up in the cabin fire anyway, and they make Van act out the plots of movies for entertainment on nights she is willing (less often, these days). Melissa needs this. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It's good they found the bush. Not only because it means more food back at camp but because it gives Melissa something to look at that isn't Hannah's face as she says, ] Edwin is the guy Lottie killed? Your... friend?
[ It wasn't like she'd been the one holding the axe, but she feels the same squirmy kind of guilt as if she had done it. In a way, it's on all of them. ]
no subject
Yeah. My boyfriend, actually.
[ How many little branches has she snapped off by now? She should've been counting. Good data makes analysis easier. ]
no subject
It's like Melissa has been swimming in the lake and suddenly slipped into one of those cold pockets without warning. Her whole body feels it, and she watches numbly as her fingers go still on one of the branches. As usual, she doesn't know what to say, but she has to say something. After a moment she turns to look at Hannah. ]
Shit. I am... really sorry.
[ It occurs to her that Hannah should want to kill them. All of them. She has every right to. She came out here with her boyfriend to study frogs and walked into a fucking nightmare filled with a bunch of hateful little freaks masquerading as teenagers, and now she's on her own. ]
no subject
She has no idea what to say. It's harder than when she first told people she was pregnant, because at least that, while putting an end to one phase of her life, heralded a new beginning, and a new person to meet and love, and things could still proceed as they'd been planned for with some adjustments. There is no positive to this particular death, though. It wasn't strictly an accident, but it wasn't murder, not really. It was just-- it was just-- ]
Thank you. [ Another breath. She has to steady her voice. She has to be reliable. Melissa got shot with a crossbow that same night. It wasn't Melissa's fault.
But it wasn't Lottie's fault either. Lottie is unwell in a way that Hannah has no idea how to address. It's all just-- it's just so-- ]
I'm not angry. Lottie was just trying to protect you guys. Or something. Here, let me get that.
[ She reaches over to snap off the branch Melissa was just working on. The sharp, thin crack it makes plus Hannah out of her thoughts some, brings her back to the fact that they're foraging so they have more food in reserve as winter approaches. ]
no subject
You should be angry. I'm angry. [ She gestures wildly at her immobile right arm, which could be permanently fucked up now for all she knows. But she does know that none of it would have happened if Lottie had just—ugh, stood back for a few seconds and let Natalie or Van talk. ]
Lottie's not protecting us. She loves it here. [ Melissa's voice is quieter now, and she glances off to the side as if she almost expects someone to have been following them, listening. Maybe that makes her just as paranoid as Shauna's getting, but... maybe it's not the craziest idea either. ] Shauna too. They ruined everything. We almost got to go home and they—ruined it for all of us.
no subject
But she doesn't know what else to do, and her heart aches for this scared, struggling kid, so Hannah reaches out and gently touches Melissa's right forearm. ]
They're scared. I'm scared too. I'm sad, and if there's anyone I'm angry at, it's myself. [ She should've listened to Edwin. If they'd gone south, they wouldn't have stumbled onto the Yellowjackets' camp. ]
We'll find a way home. The university will send someone to look for us, or at least for their equipment. [ It's expensive. It was so hard not to beg for it in the grant proposal, good lord. ] We just have to take it day by day. Okay?
no subject
Okay.
[ And maybe Hannah's even right. Maybe the university will send people, and those people will find them, and a few weeks from now these memories will be fading like a bad dream. But she's already thinking past that, to the long winter ahead of them and Shauna with that rifle at her side all the time. ]
Yeah. We'll do what we have to do.
no subject
[ Hannah nods, softly squeezes Melissa's arm, and nods again-- for herself, for both of them. The university should've sent someone by now, but will they find them? Or will they leave her little research team for dead even more quickly than the media abandoned the Yellowjackets?
They have to survive. No matter what, they need to make it through the winter. Then, when it's spring, Hannah will volunteer to set out and find help. She'll figure something out. She has to. She has to at least try to make good on her word. They'll get home, somehow. They have to. ]
I think I can help with your shoulder. You know, with some stretches? PT? A little bit, anyway. It won't be fun, but it'll be worth it to try.
no subject
Really? That would be awesome. This whole thing seriously blows. [ The sling. It's so freaking cumbersome. She can't even pull a shirt over her head by herself or do her own hair right now. The thought of her range of motion being permanently screwed up has Melissa anxious. Only one functioning arm and she'd be almost as bad off as Coach Scott. Not trapped-in-the-animal-pen bad, but definitely most-likely-to-get-eaten-next bad. That thought makes her squirm, and she blurts out, ] Can we do it soon? I'm worried it's going to, like—get stiff, like when you break a bone and the muscles get all weird from not using them? Have you ever broken an ankle or something?
[ Or maybe Hannah's daughter has. Kids break bones all the time! ]
no subject
[ The wounds have closed up. They can take it slow. And if Melissa wants or needs to cry when they're working on her shoulder, she can go right ahead. It's going to be really painful without painkillers. No one can call her weak for that. Let them get shot by a crossbow and start doing PT for it.
Hannah starts back on getting branches off the berry bush. What a nice find. That should help group morale a little. ]
The cold might numb the pain a little. But right now, just moving around is good for it. You're young, your body can repair itself really well.
[ That, at least, is something Hannah can feel optimistic about. They've eaten better in the summer than they must have last winter. All that protein will come in handy. ]
no subject
[ Misty took the Red Cross babysitting course (twice) or whatever, but she's no doctor and Melissa gets creeped out remembering how little hesitation she had when she chopped off Coach's leg right after the crash. Not that Hannah is a doctor either, but it's nice to at least feel like there's someone around who more or less knows what they're doing and isn't going to pull any weird shit. With a relieved, self-conscious little smile, Melissa goes back to picking berries. ]
So, like... what made you decide to be a scientist? I swear to god I almost puked when we dissected frogs in biology last year.
no subject
I guess I just can't stop asking questions. I wonder about the way our bodies developed to make these precise sounds so we can communicate, how adaptable we are because we can make and use tools, how we use fire. I look around and see how everything... in all the chaos of nature, in the violence of it, there's beauty.
Like this bush. It doesn't have consciousness, right, but it evolved to keep its species alive. It adapted to the light, the climate, the soil, the wildlife. Will it outlive us? We've been around for so little time on the scale of the known universe. And look, we can use so much of it, it's not poisonous. It's going to help us survive.
[ Oh no she went full nerd. Hannah laughs and glances at Melissa, embarrassed. ]
Sorry. I kind of love, you know, all of it. I wish I could live three times as long, just so I could keep learning.
no subject
[ The way Hannah explains it, it makes sense. Melissa gets it, especially out here. Once they started building up the campsite, it had been kind of fascinating seeing all the ways they could use the environment to help them instead. Animal furs for the winter, the huts, they can even make wine now. Pretty incredible. ]
Did you ever think about being a teacher? You'd be good at it.
no subject
[ If a teenager says that, then it must be a little bit true, because it's way too easy to bore a teenager. ]
Maybe someday. I want to do more of... [ she gestures at the surrounding woods. ] Field work. Hands-on research.
[ Minus the whole actual hard core survival thing. ]
Hey, what about you? What do you want to go to college for?
no subject
Melissa laughs a little and shakes her head. ] I don't know, maybe business? Something boring and normal. All I know is my plan was to get far away from New Jersey, but um. Kind of already did that, so.
no subject
[ It's... really easy to fall into mom mode, including the vocabulary, oops. ]
I can't think of anything more boring than business school, so it sounds like you're set for life.
no subject
So if your daughter disappeared for like two years, came home, and then turned around and chose to go to college out of state, you wouldn't be pissed? [ Melissa's half calling bullshit, half actually asking. She just can't imagine anybody being cool with that. ] I mean, I know they can't stop me if I'm eighteen, but it seems... fucked up.
no subject
Hannah sits on a nearby patch of clearish ground. Her calves ache a little, so she stretches out her legs as she thinks about the question. ]
If she did, I'd think it's because she believed she needed to leave. I couldn't be mad at her. I might be hurt, and I would be sad, but... I would hope I've done a good enough job raising her that she knows I'll always be there for her, support her, believe in her.
And honestly? I'd just be glad she lived. That she made it out. You have to live life for yourself even when you don't go through something like this, you know?
[ And really, Hannah isn't letting herself think about how she'll be when she gets home. If she'll become overprotective, or distant, or maybe both in turns. If she'll be enough. ]
no subject
You're a good mom, you know? [ Just 'cause it's obviously the truth, but nobody ever says it to the people who need to hear it the most. ]
After the crash, like... once it became clear that people weren't coming to rescue us, I stopped thinking about what it would be like to go back. I didn't really think about it again until you guys came. And I obviously want to see my parents, but I think it's going to be really... different.
no subject
[ It feels wrong to accept that compliment, to believe it could be true. She was a kid who had a baby, what the hell did she know about being a parent? But it also feels really good to hear it. And now here she is, skipping ahead to being the responsible adult for a small classroom's worth of teenagers, and she can't even fall back on her own high school years, because they weren't normal.
She does know one thing, though: kids of any age need support. They need to feel safe. Hannah figures none of these kids has felt safe since their plane went down, so if she can give them a moment or a place to feel safe, then maybe she's better at this than she believes herself to be. ]
Oh. [ "Different" says so much there. ] I'm sure they'll be happy to see you...?
[ If not, then excuse me but what the fuck. Melissa is a great kid. ]
no subject
[ Melissa utters an awkward little laugh, not sure how to explain just what she means. It's not like her parents don't love her. They just want her to be a certain type of person and since she's been out here, she's realized she can't. It's something that would've happened anyway, she's sure, but it should've happened when she was off at college or something, not coming home with all the added scrutiny of having been missing for over a year. ]
Just, like, certain stuff doesn't really matter out here. It's going to be weird going back to a place where people care, you know?
no subject
[ Even in the short time since getting here, Hannah can see what Melissa means. Grades and procedures don't matter out here, and neither do things like "no indiscriminate murder" and "tying people up and putting them in the animal pen is at least a little bit wrong." To say nothing of what they experienced before she joined the group. ]
To think this is kind of how human society started forming. Early on, all that mattered was surviving, not who's following the newest fashion or wearing white after Labor Day.
no subject
[ Literally, they are. Except they're doing it wrong, because they can't seem to totally escape the world they came from, either. Instead they just balance on the weird edge of it. Unsustainable. ]
But for the record I think I'm staying pretty fashionable out here. [ She's kidding, obviously. But she does rock the skirt-over-your-jeans thing. ]
no subject
Fashion, though. Hannah laughs. ]
I've seen undergrads wearing way worse than muddy clothes, trust me. You're ready for a catwalk.
no subject
What's college like?
[ Blah blah blah nobody's experience is universal. She knows that but she doesn't care. She hasn't gotten to watch TV in over a year, the only reading material they had was an issue of Sassy and a bunch of porn magazines and those all burnt up in the cabin fire anyway, and they make Van act out the plots of movies for entertainment on nights she is willing (less often, these days). Melissa needs this. ]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
🎀?