Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jennifer Honey pushed herself up from her knees and brushed the dirt off of her jeans. It was spring and the weeds were as happy about the recent rains as her flowers were, and more abundant. Jenny had a nice stack of them beside her wilting slightly in the mid-afternoon sun. She hefted a bundle of them and tossed them into the nearby wheel barrow, but when she turned back to the pile, it was gone. She twisted around eagerly.

"Matilda!" she cried in happy surprise. Because there Matilda was, standing awkwardly at the gate that lead to the back yard. With a soft womph, Matilda dropped the pile of weeds she was levitating into the waiting wheel barrow.

Jenny smiled to see her use her power like that. Matilda had discovered some sort of scientific reason for why she could do what she could do, but Jenny still considered it a miracle. She'd tried to explain it to Jenny once but after about two minutes of listening to words used in contexts she'd never known they could be used in, she'd simply told Matilda that if she had wanted to become a physicist, she would not have gone to a teaching college right out of high school.

Matilda had been been fifteen then, and it was soon after that that she had taken the job at AudeamusCORP and disappeared out of Jenny's life completely. She had graduated College with a double major in Physics (emphasis in Quantum Mechanics) and 19th century Literature. They were two passions in her life, neither of which she would forgo for the other. Matilda had had the pick of the post graduate institutions she wanted, but she had turned everyone down in favor of  AudeamusCORP.

Just who AudeamusCORP was, Jenny had never been able to find out. They had public records, but these were as bare as bones. They were a research and tech company, with an emphasis on research, but what they specialized in was a mystery. The name held no clue;  it translated to "let us dare." 'Dare to do what?' was the question.

She hadn't learned about any of it until the day of Matilda's graduation. That was when Matilda had told her, clearly and without room to argue, that she was leaving, now, and not tomorrow. She would not say where. As to why, she only said that what she would be doing was important. There was no way to make her change her mind. Jenny, knowing as she did about Matilda's power, had even feared something like mind control. Matilda had smiled a small smile and said, "Nobody can control the human mind."

Jenny had started to tear up when the black sedan with no license plates had come to take Matilda away. Matilda had not. She had looked resolute, and a little scared, but she didn't waver. She had hugged Jennifer and told her, "These are good people, and what I will be doing with them is good, I promise."

At first, Matilda had called home every day. Her telephone calls were monitored, and the time between what she said and what Jenny heard was lapsed about half a second. Matilda had explained this to her on the very first call. Only once, Jenny was certain something had been censored. Jenny had asked if what she was doing had to do with her powers. There had been no response and then the phone had simply cut off.

Matilda had called again the next night at the same time and Jenny had gotten the message: she wasn't allowed to ask Matilda about anything that she was involved in. But that itself had been all the answer she needed.

But after the first few weeks, her calls had started to be fewer and further in between. Without being to talk about her secret activities, there wasn't much to talk about. For her part, Jenny had her garden and her students, and while both kept her going from crazy in the next two years, they did not yield much conversation.

It had been six months since Matilda's last call. Even so, Jenny had never failed to be somewhere near the home phone in between the hours of five and six.

Matilda seemed awkward, as if she didn't know what to do with herself, but Jenny knew exactly what to do. She stripped off her gloves and pulled Matilda to her in a hug, glad tears falling out of her eyes to fall on Matilda's shoulder.

"Jenny. Jennifer. Jenny," Matilda murmured, her face draped in Jenny's hair. She breathed in deeply as if to get a full breath of Jenny's scent, and Jenny recognized the feeling. Clasping Matilda to her, her body felt the changes that had occurred in the girl. Two years and she'd grown at least two inches, maybe more. She was still shorter than Jenny by half a head. Adolescence had nearly finished its miraculous transformation of girl into a woman in the two long years that had passed during which Jenny's heart had begun to believe she'd never see her again.

She stepped back to get a real look at the young woman, holding her in place with her hands firmly gripped around her shoulders. She was still Matilda, her Matilda, but the shape of her face had lost even more of its baby fat. She had dark circles under her eyes. Even her small smile had a hint of stress in it, as if it was an expression that rarely left her face and only grudgingly ceded its post.

"Come inside," she told Matilda, grabbing her hand. She didn't seem to want to let go of her, as if afraid that if she did then Matilda would disappear on her again.

Mutely, Matilda followed. That was something else different about the girl. Matilda chattered. She loved to talk about the most inconsequential things, loved to bring up anecdotes from life and from the books she read. This new, sad Matilda was a stranger to her.

She sat Matilda down at the kitchen table and put a tea kettle on to boil. Then, her hands pressed behind her to the counter top she leaned against, she said, "Matilda, I'm glad you're home."

Matilda smiled, her very special smile that lit the whole room and Jenny's heart with it. "I'm glad to be home too," but then she frowned again, "I'm not going to be here long though," she said regretfully.

"You're leaving? When? Now? Not so soon, I hope."

And the scared look on Jenny's face, Matilda shook her head. "No, I've got till Monday. We all have three days off."

"We?" Jenny asked carefully.

"Me and the others on the project. And, no, I can't tell you what we've been working on, not yet."

"Well, you got me at a good time then, Spring break started today."

"Is it spring?" Matilda asked, curious. Then she looked through a window and saw the bright blue day, "Oh, of course it is."

"Where have you been?" Jenny asked, and then when she saw the closed off look on Matilda's face, "Never mind. I won't ask. I'm sorry. I'm just so glad you are here."

She sat down beside Matilda and grabbed her hand again, drawing on it lightly. Matilda looked down curiously, and Jenny blushed, and pulled her hand away. She knew she must seem strange, but she wanted to touch Matilda. Less than three days - she had only today, tomorrow and some of the next day before the girl would be gone again.

The tea kettle whistled, and Jenny hid her agitation by standing up to pour tea for them both.

She found herself measuring Matilda's usual amount of milk and sugar into the cup (a whole lot of both) and then looked up at Matilda. "I'm sorry, I didn't ask. How do you take your tea?"

Matilda, whose gaze had gone distant, focused and smiled. "Exactly like that, actually. I haven't changed."

"Yes, you have," Jenny said, gently, and Matilda sighed. Instantly, it seemed like the years had fallen off her shoulders.

"Not too much, I hope," she said shyly.

"Of course not." Then Jenny looked at her intently. "So, what do you want to do while you are here?"

Matilda looked surprised at the question. "I don't know," she said, "They just said, 'go,' so I went."

"You didn't want to come?" Jenny asked, feeling her heart thump painfully.

"I... I did! But it's hard, knowing what I know and pulling myself away. Jenny," she said seriously, "I wouldn't have left if it hadn't been so important."

Jenny shrugged, pulling in on herself. "I know that," she said, "and I always knew that you would leave some day. I just didn't expect it to be so soon and so fast, I guess."

"Well, I'm here now," Matilda said brightly, if a little forced, "and you know what? I want to explore the house."

So that was what they did. They roamed around the old house, creeping up the stairs exactly as they had the first time they had visited together. They became so intent on their game, so caught up in the trespasser ambiance, that Jenny actually shrieked when Matilda mischievously slammed a door behind them.

After catching her breath, Jenny wiggled her fingers and turned on Matilda.

"I'll get you for that!" Matilda shrieked with laughter as Jenny found the old familiar tickle spots, giggled uncontrollably as Jenny grabbed for her, "You little...you little..." 

Matilda twisted out of her grasp and dashed down the stairs. 

"You little Minx!" Jenny finally called; following right on the girl's tail.

They crashed into the front door, Jenny mercilessly using what she knew of Matilda's weaknesses, as Matilda squirmed helplessly and tried to open the door. Finally, she got her hand around the knob and they both spilled out onto the veranda.

A mother with a baby in a stroller was on the sidewalk outside, and she glared at them. Matilda molded her cheeks into a funny face and glared right back. The baby giggled. The mother looked offended and hurried past.

Jenny had slumped onto a bench, and there she now sat, attempting to control her breathing. Her heart was thumping wildly. She felt alive in every place that had brushed against Matilda. To still herself, she clasped her hands over her knees. Matilda slumped down beside her.

"Thank you," she breathed, still half giggling, "that was wonderful. I haven't played that hard in ages!"

"I hate to see you grow up too fast," Jenny told her.

"Don't worry, I'm not. No faster than I have to, at least. We even play too, actually, we play a lot, practicing with our power-"

She stopped, looking pale.

Jenny put her hand on her best friend's knee. 

"Matilda, I know what you are doing has something to do with your Telekinetic power. I'd be dumb if I hadn't guessed that by now."

Matilda blushed, and moved her knee slightly. Jenny dropped her hand immediately, fingers curling together and feeling like they wanted to hold on to something. 

"I know," she finally said, "It's just that secrecy becomes a habit. It's hard to drop. Someday though, I'll tell you the whole story, I promise.

"I'll hold you to that," Jenny said.

----

The next day, Matilda woke up in her old room and cried. It hurt to be here. Dr. Mehta had had a hard job convincing most of her Talents to leave the Audeamus Center, which was the half underground building they had been housed in. Most of them had not been outside in daylight for a year or more, so that alone was a challenge. When she ordered them to reconnect to their old lives, it was like ripping out the stitches on wounds that had barely begun to heal. 

And Matilda had it hardest of all, she was a scientist too. She could help with the last stages of the project before it went into action. It was her paper on Honey Bodies (and wouldn't Jenny blush to know she had named them so) and how they could be affected by will alone that had lead to the breakthrough that meant they even had a chance at succeeding at all. And it wasn't until 6 months ago that it had seemed like they might succeed.

In four days, the window would open. At that time, if they did not succeed... There was no way around it. They just had to succeed.

Which is what she was doing here.

"Will," Dr. Mehta had opened with, "The human will. You know how powerful it is, because among the human race your wills are the most powerful in the world. Some of you can lift buildings with it, others of you can barely do more than affect the role of the dice. What we are trying to do is simply to affect the role of the dice more in our direction. Go home, all of you. Go connect with the world. Perhaps we shouldn't have cut you off so, but at the time it seemed necessary. But now the fate of the world depends on how much you love it. Go home! Reconnect with what you love most in the world. What is so special about it that deserves to be saved?"

So across the country, across the world even, Talents had been flown then driven home in whatever version of the anonymous black car that was most common in that part of the world. Most of them were young, children and teenagers, a few men and women in their twenties. The oldest Talent was George, a friendly and rather boggled little elf of an old man whose mind had been taken by drugs during the 70s. But his talent was strong. He alone had stayed at the Center with the scientists and technicians who even now were studiously working on the project, attempting to iron out any bugs or intuit any problems before they could occur. Before coming there, George's home had been the streets of New York. Since he had bonded with some of the Techies, he'd stay with them.

So, Matilda looked around her old room and wanted to be back within the walls of the Center. She missed the creamy off white walls, the low grade carpet. She missed her fellow Talents and her fellow scientists. Dr. Talent they had called her, half jokingly. It had taken a while for the Doctors to accept her, of course, within their predominantly old and bearded ranks. But Dr. Mehta had stood up for her until they believed she could stand on her own two feet.

Matilda dressed and went down stairs. It had been easy to dress, all her clothes were still in her drawers, her room was exactly as it had been. Strangely, it made her mad. She'd been gone for two years. She'd changed! But Jenny was exactly the same as she had been before, and her house had not changed a bit!

Matilda kicked the staircase banister hard with her bare foot, then yelped. That had hurt. She felt somebody's eyes on her, and found that Jenny was staring at her with an odd expression on her face.

"It offended me," Matilda said by way of explanation, flushing.

"I see that. I made pancakes."

Matilda was in the kitchen in two seconds flat. Halfway through her 2nd pancake, Matilda licked her fork and said blandly, "Cafeteria food sucks."

Jenny smirked, "That's a self-evident truth if I had ever heard one."

Once the breakfast was done, Matilda helped clean the dishes. She levitated them to the sink, turned on the hot water, and soaped up a sponge all without even getting up from her seat. At Jenny's look of shock, she explained that it was habit. "It was really important that we Talents learned to use our powers skillfully. One of ways they had us practice was to give us all the chores and expect us to do them with as few broken dishes and other things as possible."

Jenny really wanted to ask exactly why it was so important that the 'Talents' needed to be skillful. But she wanted to hear as much as possible about Matilda's life for the last two years, so she didn't pry. She felt that Matilda was much more likely to tell her things if she wasn't reminded of the rules she was breaking by something so direct as a question.

Today, Matilda had decided to do as many household repairs as she could fit into the day. She fixed the leaks on the roof, wielding hammer and nails both with her powers. Jenny didn't know what she thought about that. Matilda had always been able to use her power, but did it rarely. Now, she completed even simple tasks with it, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. 

Jenny had a habitual maternal concern that Matilda was learning a habit that would leave her helpless in an unpowered world, but her daughter was still fit though, and Matilda had confessed that she had spent most of her free time in the gym, or rereading the books in the library. All the computers connected to a closed network, so she had not had internet access.

Jenny stayed close the entire time, doing other chores. The day passed swiftly. And then it was night. They had 16 hours left until Matilda was supposed to be picked up.

Matilda looked out of the window and smiled. "I like the night," she said.

"Shall we go on a walk?" Jenny asked. Strange as it seemed, with less than a day left to have her, Jenny didn't know what to do with Matilda now. If she was going to be staying here for good, she and Matilda would probably have curled up in front of the fireplace with a book and enjoyed each other's peaceful company. But since she couldn't keep her, Jenny wanted to do something more active with her.

Matilda was happy to agree. They took the old path, one they often used to take together. Their backyard had a gate, and that gate led to a park and on the other side of the park was a wild wooded meadow. There was no moon, but the stars were very bright, so they didn't bring a torch. Halfway across the park's soft lawn, Matilda grabbed Jenny's hand in her own.

Matilda's warm hand stirred something in Jenny's gut, a strange feeling of something turning over inside. It wasn't quite an uncomfortable feeling, but it was disquieting. She swallowed it down and tried to concentrate on not tripping.

They got to the meadow. Matilda didn't let go of her hand, just stood looking up at the stars with an expression that Jenny could not read.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"The stars. They are so much closer than they seem."

Jenny didn't know what to make of that, but she saw Matilda shiver. She pulled her closer. To her surprise Matilda hugged her, burrowing her face into her shoulder. Jenny brought her arms around and stroked her back. They stood there like that for a long time, Jenny staring up at the stars as Matilda sought comfort in her arms.

Eventually, Matilda made a motion to pull away, but Jenny wouldn't let her. She sat down, and pulled Matilda down to sit between her legs, wrapping her arms around Matilda's waist and placing her head on her shoulder. Matilda must have still been cold, because she was shivering, practically trembling in Jenny's arms. In response, Jenny pulled her closer and tighter still. Her lips found Matida's neck and she kissed it.

Both of them froze.

"Oh, god, I'm sorry!" Jenny said, pulling her arms away and trying to stand up, but Matilda grabbed her hand and wouldn't let go, so she ended pulling Matilda up with her.

Matilda stared at her, her eyes wide in the starlight. "Jenny..." she murmured.

Jenny tried to pry her hand away, but Matilda let Jenny pull her toward her, then transferred her grip from her hand to her waist.

"It was the starlight..." that made me do it, the starlight and these feelings that have been burning inside me since the moment I saw you in my garden. Matilda, I want to touch you. Jenny didn't say anything but the first part. She was Matilda's guardian, though she hadn't been able to keep her safe from AudeamusCORP. She was Matilda's adoptive mother, though it had always been Matilda that saved and protected her and not the other way around. She was older and there were other reasons why she should not do this, but none were as pressing as the feel of Matilda's mouth against her own.

Out there in the starlight, far away from the rock of ages bearing down on them, on all of the small dramas, ever shifting constellations of bright sparkling hearts, the lovers kissed. Two friends, two hearts, and yes, a chosen mother and her chosen daughter, whose love had been stretched apart like a rubber band by time and then brought together with a snap, at just the right moment, the carefully chosen time, the right time, to be expressed now as passion and later as a commitment to the future, a reason to try to make it work.

Let us dare to stop the fate of the dinosaurs from coming down on us. Let us have love enough for each other to do the work. Let us be brave enough to believe we can change the future.