Chapter Text
What is the past? Technically it is everything that happened before this very minute. This very moment. Technically you’re living in the past. Everything you do is something that happened in the past. Every single movement. Every single breath. Every single word you speak. It all lies in the past. It is over. It is over and can never be undone. There is no now. There is no present. Everything either lies in the past or future. There is no inbetween.
How can something so endless like the past be condensed into such a short word? Four letters to describe our entire existence.
Noodle stood on the porch, pondering.
What is time? Does something like it exist in the first place? Or is it just movement? Constant movement to progress the state of existence? Like the clockwork of a watch. Not time, but cogwheels and pins making the hands of the watch keep a neverending beat. Like the human body. Flesh growing and falling apart soon after reaching maturity. Like the rising and setting of the sun. Just the Earth turning and turning. Even after the last one of them would perish into nothingness, it would continue to turn, until the planet itself would eventually fall apart, making place for new life, or nothing at all.
She had woken up in a sweat, legs tangled in her bedsheets, hands shaking.
It had taken a few minutes for her to calm down from the nightmare. No. No nightmare. The memories, her past.
Memories from a time long gone. Memories that still haunted her, may it be at day or at night. Her past that still caught up with her until this very day. One would think she would be able to put it behind her. She had a new life now. She had been given a second chance.
Why did she still look back?
It’s because she couldn’t forget.
At first she had accepted it. She had been a child.
But the older she got, the more she understood.
Why her? Why not anyone else?
23.
It could have been anyone else.
So why her?
Was it fate? Was it coincidence?
Whatever it was, it saved her.
It saved her and gave her a chance at living a normal life. A life without pain. Yet here she was. Trapped in her past, shaped and defined by it.
Almost every night a painful reminder of what has passed, another agonizing few minutes stuck in her head reliving moments she would rather leave behind.
She hid it well. The others didn’t need to know these thoughts were still plaguing. After all, she was dealing with it. She could do this on her own. She always did.
She let out a shuddering breath.
She always did.
Until now.
2D walked up behind her, his steps heavy and slow, the floorboards beneath him creaking underneath his weight.
“Wha’ are you doing Noods? Iz too early.”
“Nothing,” she smiled at him “Just thinking.”
“‘bout what?”
He leaned against the railing next to her.
“Just stuff?”
“... Stuff.”
“Yeah.”
She sighed. It was no use hiding things from 2D. He might not be the smartest person out there, but he could always tell when there was something off about her or the others.
“Nightmare,” she admitted after a few seconds of silence.
“Hmm… A really bad one?”
“Yeah.”
She glanced towards the blue haired man. He was struggling with keeping his eyes open, slowly blinking while staring at the grey early morning sky. Goosebumps were covering the bare skin on his arms, the cold air making his hair stand straight.
“Thanks for coming out here. You didn’t have to.”
“Couldn’t leave you out here, alone with your thoughts, right?”
She chuckled.
“I would have been alright.”
“Of course you would.”
“Yeah.”
“You know you don’t have to be?”
He let out a sigh, the small breath of air curling like a gentle fog, tilting his head towards her, his face barely showing through the morning dawn. 2D took her clenched fists, smoothing them out with gentle hands.
“How about we do something else?” he muttered as he stood up straight, stretching his back. With a tired smile he held out his hand for her. She accepted it.
The door opened with a creaky groan, the hinges damaged by time, the very time which also kept tormenting her, over and over again. Just for now, she decided to forget about it.
Their house was dark but with careful steps he led them both to the living room corner where their tree sat near the hearth.
Together they settled down on the floor; With his tongue stuck between his teeth 2D crawled up to the stack of clumsy wrapped gifts. He plucked a small box from the top of the small stack and gingerly handed it to her.
“Go on now,” he gestured towards her and she had to squint to kind of make out his features.
With slow movements, she tore the paper, the sound drawn out horribly from her trying to be as quiet as possible. A small box was revealed in her hands.
“Open it.”
With a crack, she popped open the lid and the house filled up with lights.
In surprise, she looked up and turned her head in wonder, bathing in the warm LEDs.
Her eyelids fluttered, looking for 2D amidst the shining lights. His arms were raised, in his grasp a little necklace with a mistletoe at the center.
Slowly she reached towards the pendant, tracing it carefully with her right thumb.
Only her willpower made her able to look away from it, into the glowing eyes of the man sitting across from her. His smile was illuminated by the shining fairy lights around him.
“I think,” she whispers, “I like this present.”