Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It didn’t make any sense.

The sounds of fire engines and shouting voices, strange voices- new voices, filled her head, echoing and rattling all through out. She felt this heavy weight, something metal and cracked right on the back of her neck, her wrists trapped under. She could barely drag her nails through the exposed dirt underneath her, the circulation was nearly totally cut off.

-But she could feel her hands.

She could feel the pain of her cells crying for blood, the scrapes on her thighs and the bruise that would no doubt leave her abdomen rigid and purple for weeks. If she was lucky enough to avoid massive internal bleeding anyways. And that- that sharp, slow growing pain, as she realized her right leg bad been snapped back in the fall, twisted around the way it often swiveled when toddling about the warehouse.

But now it wasn’t painless, it was real. And it was…exhilarating.

Oh, not the pain, no the pain was terrible.

But being able to feel again, to freely shed tears onto the frown, shiver in pain-

She was really alive.

She could hear heavy footsteps, but it was drowned by anxious men shouting instructions to one another and murmuring crowds.

“Alright miss, the emergency team’s here,” A voice muffled by whining ambulances grew louder, until she saw an iron tipped boot beside her face. She could only twirl her eyes around, barely able to see higher than where he tucked his fire pants into the cuffs of his boots.

“You’ll be out soon, don’t- “The surly man paused, he breathed in deep- she must’ve been a scary sight. Torn up like a rag doll.

That strange mix of realization and relief was all it took for her adrenaline to lose control and the sobbing to begin, full, deep cries- crying out hard and loud. In a way she never had before.

More voices, more footsteps- the searing voice of a crane slowly chugging its way to the bent barrier, half crushed by a derailed cart. Through tears, she tried to make out any bodies, any sign of the others. Of life, of a corpse. But she couldn’t fight back the salt water, her vision blurred.

It wasn’t fair, she didn’t want to be alone again.

“Calm down miss, this is going to calm you down,” A new voice spoke loudly, and she felt a sharp stab in her neck, followed by a burn. She winced, hissing through grit teeth, she could taste blood- but a slow warmth spread from her neck through her head. All that fear and pain, it was slowly fading to nothing.

It was terrifying.

But at least it made the noise of the crane and jacks around her head bearable, as they snipped at the metal piece by piece until it was light enough for the firemen to lift from her shoulders. Suddenly flipped upside down onto something solid and smooth, a brace slid around her neck, a belt strapping her down to the gurney.

“The choir…” She forced through parted lips, finding it hard to speak- her neck must’ve been crushed worse than she thought.

“They’re fine, miss, your friends are okay- they’re going to be right behind us in the next bus to Uranium General, okay?”

“What?”

Were they lying? Karnak said…only one…

It couldn’t be a dream, this pain, this delirium was all too real.

He must’ve been lying.

To make her feel better, if just for a few moments.

It actually made her feel worse.

What if they were still trapped in the cart, under rubble and the collapsed railings and fencing? Still wailing out for help from the EMTS?

If they were still dead, at least they’d feel no pain.

They didn’t deserve that kind of pain.

“Alright, let’s get her in- “

“1-2- “

She found herself weakly mumbling a familiar tune, “…1 2 …3 4…”

“Hold on young lady, we’re just gonna lock these wheels and be off,” A warm voice filled her ears, hot white lights pressing against her skull so tightly- the ambulance wasn’t as comforting as she imagined one would be.

Maybe it was just that the situation was too dire for a cozy atmosphere.

“Let’s get this makeup off her face so we can clean that laceration…”

“Huh?” She squeaked.

A cold wipe was dragged along her face, the alcohol stung her cheek.

“Huh.” The nice EMT echoed, going in again with a gentle dabbing motion. But it still her squirm and whine.

“Get that face paint off yet?”

“I can’t get it to… maybe it’s just staining? Lack of blood flow to the head?”

“Hmm,” A deep voice echoed in her ear, and she felt a pair of thick, rough fingers tap her face, forcing her eye lids as far apart as they could go.

He shone a flashlight in her eyes, and forced flat on her back, she could finally see how solemn the older EMT was…and how confused the other was.

“Ma’am? What kind of make up did your mascot company provide? It may have leeched into your skin.”

“No..no makeup…”

“These contacts…” He tsked softly, slowly probing the muscles around her eye, but his stern expression turned to concern. He did everything but poke her in the eye to see if her eyes were real flesh and blood.

“This is beyond blood shot… how many vessels have to burst to turn the eye black?”

“The nerves around the cornea…” He slowly closed one eye lid, pressing his finger down to feel it dart about subconsciously in the dark, “And the reflexes are healthy…”

“W-What…what’s wrong…”

“Relax miss, must just be a broken pupil from the impact with the ground, they’ll fix it up for you…”

“Dude I still can’t get this white shit off her face- “

She blinked, trying to fight the belts holding her down and the drugs coursing through her veins.

“Now miss, please- you have to stay down you were in a traumatic accident- “But those words fell on deaf ears, and it was almost disappointing, how easy it was to pull the straps off her neck and push the EMTs off of her. She wasn’t a dainty girl, but they were way bigger than her- that shouldn’t have been such a breeze, especially with how much pain still raked her soul.

Then again, women flipped cars off their babies thanks to surges of anxiety and panic-based adrenaline production. Was she finally able to feel enough to freak out?

She tried twisting her side to the left after sitting up, she didn’t even react when her right leg flopped loose besides the other, completely twisted around.

Her focus was on her reflection.

In the glass, amongst the vials and syringes and emergency reserves, black eyes pierced into her.

Pale white skin.

Painted, heart shaped ruby lips.

Rosy pink cheeks.

Thick black eye lashes.

Blonde curls tickled her ears.

Her brows furrowed, a gasp, then a deep breath left her throat.

“No…no…”

That was the hardest sob she released, the pain of a broken leg and some bruises was nothing compared to the stranger staring back at her.

Her face twisted as she barely deflected the EMTs, being slowly laid back onto the gurney as she sobbed. She pulled her arms up to her rib cage, pressing tight, her forearms heavy after the drugs.

She was still Jane.

A Jane Doe.

No no…

She was supposed to be Penny.

She had to be Penny!

She was Penny!

Penny!

But as the EMTs stuck her with a needle, and the warm flush of liquid turned her anguish into exhausted groans, she could only imagine her painted doll face, staring back.

She was stuck.

She was Jane doe.

It had been a strange blur- a terrifying whirl of light and darkness, cold flashes and hot- before the dull ache of the crash informed the 5 St. Cassian Choir members that they were no longer dead.

Of course, when that dull ache grew to a searing pain, they wished they had still been in limbo. There was no time to think or ask one another why Karnak lied- why they weren’t in whatever hell or heaven was waiting for the teenagers. Because there was no time to think at all.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” Constance repeated over and over again under her breath, the way she’d crashed, a deep hunk of metal was prodding into her abdomen.

Ricky cried wordlessly, his ability of speech gone, his arms twisted behind him- his legs trapped beneath the seat Noel laid in.

Noel was silently hyperventilating, his breathing quick and frantic, eyes darting about- he couldn’t even cry out loud. The deep gash in his forehead left blood running down his cheeks and into his mouth, only making him panic worse.

Mischa and Ocean had been thrown from the cart in the crash, Mischa’s face bloodied and bruises- having landed mouth first onto the support beams that held up part of the Cyclone. He was lucky if he didn’t have much more than a concussion, but the teeth strewn about his sweater would say otherwise. He sobbed in Ukrainian, begging for his long dead mother.

Ocean had been thrown onto her back, her arm cranked backwards- like she was a stop motion figure waiting to be posed for the next shot. She breathed shakily, everyone was here- no one should be here.

Everyone got to live.

By the time Ocean had finally passed out from the pain, she could hear the deep voice of an EMT shout something about a girl crushed under iron bars, and footsteps shaking the ground, filling her ears.

“Penny…”

So, when that ache, that pain- just vanished, Ocean woke up terrified.

Something heavy was weighing her down- but she couldn’t have known it was all the drug’s being pumped into her arms through the IV. Frantically spinning her head around, she sighed in relief.

She thought it was just a trick, a brief glimpse of misery.

But just because she was being medicated and had her arm wrapped in a thick, white cast, didn’t do much to relieve her fears.

All that time, floating through space, sitting in a dingy warehouse- she always had the choir around. Her parents hadn’t shown up, they may not have even been called considering how rarely they paid the phone bill-

She doubted they would come at all, considering she was in a government controlled hospital-

And if they did come, it would just be to drag her off to some other hippy commune with magic healing beans, or whatever bull crap they threw at her next.

She just wanted someone to walk in, a friendly face, a nurse- her damned parents, anyone.

The stars shining through the hospital window weren’t comforting when you’re alone.

Mischa was still murmuring in his native tongue, nothing the doctor’s gave him could quiet his chatty, bloody mouth while he slept.

The pain gone, he dreamt of his mother.

He dreamt of Talia.

Their wedding in Ukraine, a sight to behold, holding her in his arms as they danced through streams and sang to the world.

“Talia, my darling,” He crooned softly, holding her close before looking out to the men and women dancing around them.

Noel Gruber, his best man-

Ricky on the squeeze-keys, Constance and Ocean dancing together as the sun started to dim and the sky turned golden.

Someone stood at the arch of flowers where they exchanged rings, but her head was overwhelmed by the light of the sun.

He flinched at the burning intensity- but Talia’s soft hands pulling his face quickly distracted him, and with an enthusiastic kiss, they returned to dancing.

Noel woke up to his mother’s tears, so dramatic and mournful- he thought he had woken up at his own funeral.

Would be a cool way to make a comeback.

But realizing the hospital bed he was sunken into was no silk lined coffin, and he was wearing anything but his best tuxedo, just confirmed he was alive.

But it wasn’t just his mother’s cries he heard, the drama seemed to continue just on the other side of the curtain that halved the hospital room.

“Oh, Connie baby!” A warm voice from the other side of the curtain was all it took for Noel to muster all his strength, fighting against the amazing cocktail being pumped into his blood, to draw back the fabric.

“Constance?” He croaked.

“Noel!” His mother cried in surprise.

“Noel?” Constance whispered, eyes glazed over, laid back flat.

“You really should try laying down, your head might fall off,” A smirk took up her face, slow giggles worming their way into everyone’s ears.

She was most definitely high.

“My head? Please,” Noel scoffed, moving to pull back his hair- but found nothing there.

He could feel the soft gauze and smooth tape, a slight headache where he prodded-

But no hair.

His head was as smooth as his face, clean shaven-

“Oh my god, what have they done to me!” Noel screeched.

He was bald.

Bald.

It would take a year to grow back his hair to that nice, floppy length he enjoyed flipping back and forth so much!

While Noel screamed and cried, Constance just kept laughing; both sets of parents confused tremendously.

"Oh shuuut up!" Constance’s tone was jovial, that smile stuck on her face. “It’s just a little hair!”

Noel turned slowly, fully facing the girl with her abdominal patched and held together by stiches and sponge.

“I’m going to punch you so hard.” He threatened, slowly tilting his head.

The young lady tried her hardest not to-

But all she could do was laugh.

Ricky had been enjoying his dream of the Zolarion escapades, after he’d been given enough morphine to make the full body cast he was rocking bearable enough to sleep in. His parents at his side, for once forcing themselves to actually speak out loud to the doctors while still signing towards Ricky, in case he woke up or wanted to know how severe the accident had been on his body.

They were especially worried that the accident might aggressively trigger his disorder, or forward him to immobility sooner than originally lined in his pediatrician’s estimates.

But Ricky was only concerned with the sultry woman grabbing at his lap, begging for his attention and love after he’d successfully talked down a warring commander with his smooth words alone.

No one in the room had been aware of the girl in the hospital bed behind the blue curtain, because no one had come to check on her. Whenever one of Ricky’s nurses went behind it, his parents always just assumed it was to check on some old hag who wanted to be left alone, from the way she cried and begged in that hollow voice.

With his parents out of the room, and no nurses coming by to change his catheter dressing- he was just barely roused by a harsh hiss of pain.

Like someone just ripped out their IV.

He could barely move his head, lucky that his neck was the one thing not wrapped in hard plaster, still heavy with dreams and fantasies. He could just barely see the shadow of a girl, her arms locked in an awkward position- but he couldn’t make out any bulky cast.

He blinked hard, it wasn’t like he could call out to the figure.

There was a strange tapping sound followed by a drag, like someone was dragging a sack of meat along the tile floor- and he could hear slight sniffles.

Those sniffles turned into sobs, he could see her silhouette holding her head in her hands, chest heaving; struggling to keep balance on a bad leg.

Poor girl-

His eyes snapped wide.

Penny!

Penny!

His whole body jerked excitedly, but it was hardly noticeable inside his white shell.

That tap and dragging sound returned, her silhouette growing larger and more disheveled as she lumbered towards the curtain.

She shouldn’t be out of bed!

He realized, within moments, her shadow was right beside him.

She was just behind the fabric, but Ricky couldn’t reach out.

Couldn’t speak.

She definitely could, as her hand snaked through the blue fabric, reaching the controls of his morphine drip.

“Ssssssh,” She whispered in that soft, sing-songy voice- increasing the dosage.

“Go to sleep Ricky, you need your rest,” She cooed, but there was a heavy sadness behind her tone.

He wanted to grab her hand, hold it- show her the comfort she was offering him.

But the morphine…

It was too strong, he couldn’t fight back.

As his eyes fluttered closed, he just barely made out the shadow of Penny, limping past his bed towards the door.

Last person who should be out of bed was the girl who’d lost her head.

Chapter Text

It had been maybe a few days or so before anyone was well enough to see one another, Ocean was the first to bother the nurses about getting her a wheelchair so she could leave her room. She would’ve much rather walked the length of the hallway of course, she only had a broken arm- and sure the internal bleeding in her kidney hadn’t been great, but she wasn’t going to lay around all day. Her parents called but refused to come to the hospital; afraid they’d be targeted for their alternative lifestyle by the doctors, and Ocean was still 17- child protective services would have a field day after seeing all the vaccines and regular check ups she missed out on.

If no one was going to come to her, she’d be strong and go to her friends.

She’d been a little annoyed when the chair was brought to her and she wasn’t allowed to push herself around, but the nurse was nice enough to humor Ocean and let her thing she was helping when she dragged her bruises hand along the wheel. It would’ve been hilarious to see her turn herself in circles, her arm bound in blue and white plaster wasn’t going to help her get around too well. She was already upset about having her IV stand toted around; redheads bodies handled chemicals way faster than most, she felt like a drug addict- even if it was keeping her from sobbing in pain.

“Is Mischa awake yet?” Ocean glanced up at the older woman pushing her around, as they neared a darkened room with Bachinski scrawled in marker on the whiteboard.

“He’s been in and out of consciousness, sweetie.” The admitted, rolling her up to the doorframe, giving her a full view of the Ukrainian boy in bed.

It looked like someone had taken a bat to his face and went wild, but- it was just the result of falling fast first more than thirty feet off the ground. Most of his teeth had been knocked out or imbedded deep in his gums, he was still getting surgeries to pull them out and repair the broken bones in his face- his sockets were deep purple and swollen, his face green and red- he looked like a rotten fruit.

Out of everyone, he had it the worse no doubt. A broken jaw, going to need fake teeth put in- you didn’t even had to look at him to know that. Those brief hours of the day when he wasn’t in a deep fog of drugs, Ocean could hear him moan and sob from all the way down the hallway.

“Is he…always in that much pain? When he’s awake?” Ocean asked, her eyes laser focused on her wounded friend.

“Not always, but when he’s not crying… well, none of us speak Russian or Estonian,” The nurse shrugged, totally clueless.

He hadn’t spoken of word of English since the accident, but Ocean wasn’t surprised- he must’ve been in too much pain to do the mental math of translating his every thoughts.

“Talia…” He murmured, just barely able to make a ‘t sound with what was left of his teeth, but the way he turned his head and sunk into his pillow, he must’ve been talking in his sleep again.

He always whispered Talia when he fell asleep in History class.

Ocean felt her lips tug against her cheeks, a strange feeling overtaking her. She was relieved, thankful- terrified, upset, destroyed, seeing her friend laying there in bed like that.

He should’ve been dead.

She should’ve been dead.

The fact all of them were okay was just…bizarre.

Felt almost cruel that the nurses didn’t tell them anything about Penny’s recovery, she was the only one who’d been voted to live. Her name was never written on the boards that lined the nurse’s desk, but neither was Ricky’s- he was still up in intensive care because of the nature of his condition and injuries. Maybe she was up there with him, and she just didn’t have the chance to wake up and tell anyone who she was.

Ocean had to believe that was the case, why else would none of the nurses know about her?

Next was Noel and Constance’s room, neither were allowed to move around still- Constance especially, as the stiches that held her stomach closed and her organs in place still had to heal. Just laughing too much could burst her open like a red balloon if she wasn’t careful- at least, that’s what Ocean feared. Constance had to be weary of infection, not eat food too fast, make sure she didn’t stretch too far back when she went to bed-

That’s what the nurses told her, so that’s what Ocean told her.

“How you holding up you guys?” Ocean asked as the nurse gently nudged her chair over the stop in the doorway, seeing the curtain open and the lights on Noel’s side of the room off.

“SSSH!” He hissed, stuck propped up against the wall; still sporting his fashionable white bandages, a new layer after he bled into his brain a few days ago. He was lucky it hadn’t been worse, Noel didn’t have any brain damage or worrying signs- but he had forgotten the accident entirely. He couldn’t recall the Cyclone, their performance at the Fall Fair, the days before- it was blank. Sure, he mixed up some words for others, and some he just couldn’t get to come out of his mouth right away, but at least he was in one piece.

At least he didn’t remember the crash.

“He’s still being a whiny baby,” Constance scoffed, a big grin on her face. “At least he gets to go to the bathroom by himself, they won’t even let me out of bed to wizz!”

“Gross,” Ocean wrinkled her nose, “Even I’m allowed to do that.”

“Maybe if someone didn’t have a big tunnel running through her gut, she wouldn’t have to use a bedpan,” Noel grumbled in a mocking tone, getting a shocked gasp from Constance.

“Well at least I don’t have to do brain tests every hour!” She stuck her tongue out.

Noel just closed his eyes and sighed, misery all over his face.

“They ask me if I know what a truck is like I’m some kind of five-year-old.”

“They just want to make sure you’re the same grumpy bitch you’ve always been,” Constance smiled warmly.

“Constance!”

“What?” Noel rose a brow, “I don’t want to suddenly become a Johnny Regular because of a little blood in my skull. I’d take grumpy bitch any day.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna change,” Ocean’s eyes grew big at Constance’s joke and how quick Noel was to laugh along, Constance was more…forward, since the accident for certain. Maybe it was just the drugs, but she never saw her best friend as the kind of person to make such vulgar jokes with Noel of all people. Sure, they gushed about musicals and old films- but Constance never messed around like that with Ocean before the accident…

Ricky was the last stop on Ocean’s trip about the hospital, it was the only floor she needed explicit permission before. She had to get into full gown and gloves like she was one of the other doctors, but with her cast- it looked like she had a big lumpy tumor around her ribcage. Apparently, he’d had a bad reaction to the medication and his immune system tanked, and with his present condition- the doctors and Mr. and Mrs. Potts weren’t keen on taking any chances.

She didn’t know how he could even catch a cold with his whole body in a full cast, but she wasn’t one to doubt medical professionals. Even if her parents raised her to, none of the hippie, naturalist bullshit could sway her; considering they did a pretty good job keeping their daughter from dying. Why wasn’t that a good enough reason for them to put aside their fears and visit her? Was her safety not enough motivation?

Her heart ached when wheeled into the hospital room, Mr. and Mrs. Potts hovering at his side, speaking and signing to him- even though his eyes were shut. The way they stroked his hair and wiped his face carefully with a cloth, talking to him like he wasn’t deep asleep; Ocean was jealous.

No one had visited her in the past week.

Hell, her parents only bothered to call when they were near a toll booth with change already inside.

Nobody was texting her and asking her if she was okay; except Noel and Constance, but they were worse off than her.

The parents finally took notice of Ocean, still sat in her chair at the far end of the room. His mother gasped excitedly, turning quickly to the unconscious teenage boy.

“Hey Ricky, your friend’s here, the ginger girl,” she said excitedly, gently patting his cheek.

“Ocean- “His father piped up.

“Ocean! It’s so good to see you sweetheart,” She cooed softly, breaking from Ricky’s side to wrap the girl in a soft hug. She was a heavier woman, kind of looked like Constance now that Ocean thought about it- definitely hugged the same way. Her voice was raspy though, like she never spoke at all. Was the rumor that his parents didn’t speak since his disease progressed really true?

“How are you holding up, young lady?” His father pat her on the shoulder, he was so tall- would Ricky have been that tall if his legs were healthy enough to hold his full weight?

He kept rubbing her back, and the gentle touches from both parents; even with the obnoxious sound of latex gloves rubbing on blue, tarp-like fabric, overwhelmed Ocean immensely.

Just this little bit of physical contact had tears flood her eyes.

She didn’t have to say a word, both mother and father wrapped her up in strong arms, just making her blubber harder and louder.

This was awful, this was absolute hell-

Her friends’ bodies near destroyed, Mischa’s face unrecognizable-

Constance bed bound.

Noel so forgetful, so lost on the accident.

Ricky nearly mummified.

She couldn’t even think of what could’ve happened to Penny, the thought of asking them if they’d seen the girl completely gone- her brain flooded and her voice thick with pain while wrapped in Mr. and Mr. Potts gentle embrace.

Penny was freezing.

Jane felt every leaf brush against her skin.

Penny felt every thorny branch drag through her bloodied clothes.

Jane was terrified, but she couldn’t show it. Not the way half her wanted to.

It was a terrifying, confusing sight for every bird and squirrel in the wilderness that cradled Uranium and separated the city from the suburbs and the farms. A girl in a uniform so ripped and bloodied, whatever accident she was in; she shouldn’t be walking. Peaking through the stained red fabric of her blouse was what little the doctors got to bandage before the patient vanished from bed one night.

She had read Jane Doe on the clip board when she hobbled out of her room.

Penny screamed.

Jane choked back sobs.

She was thankful it had been so dark when she left, no one saw the girl slip into the cover of the woods; aimlessly wandering for somewhere to go.

Somewhere to hide.

Her dress skirt, once soaked in her own blood had dried into a deep dark brown, matching the scattered dirt and stains on her ripped stockings. Her knee kept clicking, it stung just to step down- but Jane ignored how much it hurt when she found her calf swiveling round 90 degrees.

The pain was almost exciting, she was alive, she survived-

But then she’d get a glance of herself in a stray puddle, a metal fence post that hadn’t rusted with age.

She’d see blonde, tight curls, mocking her. Her face white and smooth, rosy cheeks she tried so hard to rub away, bushy black eyelashes cradling big, black eyes.

She at least hoped to see…someone, anyone else, every time she met her reflection now that she knew her name. Penny Lamb.

She was Penny Lamb, she knew that.

Bits and pieces, anyways.

She had tried telling the nurses, but-

“I’m sorry dear, we have no record of a Lamb family in Uranium. Are you from out of town?”

She'd been so upset but- it made sense when a painful rush of thoughts struck her head again.

Her parents never let her out of the house. She'd never even been to a doctor, her mother found science against their nature, despite how beautiful and wonderful Penny found the brief lessons during homeschooling. Her father said she didn't need to go anywhere but church and straight back home. She did not argue with her father.

She remembered she hadn’t been in St. Cassian’s very long when the accident happened. Everyone else knew each other, she’d been invisible.

It was nice to be invisible. It was better than being a freak with no name. With no history or future.

Where her father couldn't hit her.

Where her mother couldn't see her.

The way everyone stared at her, avoided her gaze in the warehouse-

She flicked her eyes to the side, the long glance of a bird had her on edge, and her shoulders raised and tightened against her neck. She wrapped her arms tight around herself, her brows pushing together as a deep, ugly frown took up her face. It was so hard to…express. It had been the same in the warehouse, but her head hadn’t been clouded with all these feelings and emotions before. It was…sadly very empty, until the whisper of a sensation from her body reached her ears. That connection was much stronger, but God- her face hurt every time she took a moment to lean against a tree and sob.

She did that a lot, taking breaks from blankly shuffling through the woods now and again.

Every time her leg twisted the wrong way and she collapsed onto her heel especially.

It was …relieving, to cry.

It felt familiar but all so new, the way her cheeks became sticky not long after the tears dried, her nose ached, the headache that came soon after from poor hydration.

How crying from pain wasn’t quite the same as crying from… sadness.

Was this sadness?

Jane wasn’t sure.

Penny thought it was more than that.

What gave her a worse headache than just the dehydration as she stumbled about the brush was these glimmers of memories. Glimpses between every blink, stopping her vision for just fractions of a second. Faces she couldn’t put names to, places just vaguely familiar.

She’d been small once, no taller than the scuffed doll she cradled in her good arm. On her ass in unfamiliar clothes, her knee red and raw, crying for a parent just about to reach back.

The memories of…herself? Of Penny, were much heavier on her brain than the memories she had as Jane. Years wandering a warehouse in limbo, light as a feather. Having a real body, one with weight, which could bleed again-

Jane was terrified.

Penny was exhilarated.

Real breathing, hard and deep, out of breath from intense screams of emotion into the night had been a soundtrack for Jane through the night.

She didn’t know where her feet were taking her, vague, heavy memories of empty fields and tin rooves flashed through her eyes. It brought a warm, quiet feeling. She decided that was where she would go, even if she didn’t entirely know or understand where it was, a goal was better than shuffling and moaning through the woods like a ghost.

She must’ve walked a full mile without falling and stumbling- when she’d gotten her bad foot stuck under the root of a tree. Twisting it did no good- it only had the joint go loose again and grind against her socket, bringing her plummeting to the ground. Her doll fell out of her hands and hard with her into the dirt. The exposed flesh of her ripped leg, and her face were suddenly caked with pebbles and mud, little bullets to her senses.

She raised her chin, realizing her arms were empty- because her doll had fallen down the hill through the brush. She gasped, scrambling to push herself up on her palms and drag herself away from the gnarled route, but she wasn’t ready for a sudden, steep roll downwards. The leaves and bushes hid the sudden drop, bringing her rolling over herself down a couple yards, bouncing against jutting rocks and collapsed logs. She felt something hard and sharp poke into her abdomen when she finally came to a stop, cutting through the waistband of her dress.

When she pulled herself to the side, she expected to see a rock.

But she was met with the crushed face of her doll, porcelain shards still hanging onto her blouse and protruding through her skin when she pulled back.

She gasped, too shocked to scream.

Penny was outraged.

Jane was devastated.

Her hands fluttering from her own face to Dolly’s, trying to put the bigger pieces back in place- she was always met with the unfortunate clatter of shards falling into her hollow head. Squeaks and sharp breaths cut through her lips, growing more frantic the more she tried to complete the puzzle and failed.

Reaching down, she grasped the last shard still cutting through her stomach, pulling it out with only the faintest shriek, she brought the bloodied white glass to Dolly’s face, it had been the crest of her cheek before.

Now it was just ruined.

Dolly was destroyed.

Dead.

That was the hardest she cried that night, wrapping herself around the pieces still held loosely together by a tattered lace dress, ignoring the sharp edges that poked and cut through her skin. She wept so hard, her collarbones felt like they were on fire, her neck burned. She’d fall asleep in a small puddle of dirt water and soggy leaves, cradling what remained of her doll tight to her breast.

Jane was lost.

Penny wanted to go home.

“Gone?!”

Ocean shriek cut through the halls, fury on her face as she slammed her cast-less arm onto the counter top, nearly making the poor nurse in front of her yelp.

“What do you mean she’s gone? Penny Lamb! The girl they brought in first- she shouldn’t be gone!” Ocean’s face was nearly as red as her hair, disheveled and greasy from a few nights of bed rest.

She didn’t like being in top student-body president condition at all.

She liked hearing that the girl they saved was missing even less.

Chapter Text

Jane was confused.

Utterly, totally lost.

Her precious porcelain doll, broken and cracked, laying beside her in the pile of leaves once she had woken up from a tearful sleep.

She’d dreamt of breaking a doll before.

Penny had remembered her doll being broken.

A man Jane didn’t recognize, one Penny knew all to well, she called him Father and would close her eyes when he touched her face, when he grasped the back of her neck so tight, she thought she might die.

Jane was slowly becoming acquainted with the pains in her neck, the way her head weighed down on her body, felt like a burden. Penny had lived with that her whole life.

Penny hadn’t known fathers were supposed to love their daughters until she’d gone to church and heard how God loved all his children, listening to Father Marcus’s preaching every Sunday, sometimes even Wednesdays if she’d been good and her mother was too tired to berate her. She knew her mother loved her, because she said it all the time, but Penny wasn’t certain she felt it back. It didn’t feel warm and gentle the way Father Marcus had been when she confided in him of her beatings, her fears of failure.

Jane didn’t understand these feelings, these memories. They didn’t match with the facts she knew, the absolutes of science and the universe. She knew fathers were supposed to love their daughters, mothers were supposed to love their children unconditionally without harsh words and spankings, without using an unseen god to justify their faults and hers.

But that pain Penny felt…infected Jane.

The physical pains seemed hollow compared to what was soaking her reformed brain and oozing down through her body.

To Penny, the pain was an old friend.

To Jane, it was a new tormentor.

It poisoned her every other thought, something she thought she would be able to take solace in- find joy, being able to string along ideas along all on her own, with no help or assistance from the stardust around her.

It made the sight of Dolly, broken and crushed in, especially more painful. More than the bits of porcelain that had sliced her skin in the night while she sobbed over the little doll. Her head hurt, not only from the awful, radiating pain in the back of her skull, or the sharp ache whenever she moved her neck- but a throbbing headache that began to grow.

Jane knew that it was dehydration, crying without a constant source of water to replenish water levels would induce headaches.

But she hated it.

Penny despised the added stress it caused.

Jane just wanted to go home.

Did she have a home?

She knew she’d been heading somewhere, her mind set on tin rooves and farmland hours ago. A place of red leaves and an iron fence that housed chickens, something that sparked a warm feeling in Jane’s chest that she hadn’t understood. That must’ve been home

It was home, Penny remembered. It was where her father was, probably waiting to tell her she should’ve died. It was where her mother was, sobbing herself to sleep, if she cared at all for Penny’s death.

Jane didn’t understand- it was common for people to be excited about returning to where they were born, homesickness- the polar opposite of wanderlust. It seemed all Penny had wanted was to wander, but Jane had been doing that for…what felt like decades.

However long she’d been dead. Did it even matter how long?

Penny was not homesick. She wanted to go home, not for comfort or reassurance. She knew there was none there. She wanted to lay in a bed and go to bed and wake up- and be whole again. To simply be Penny Lamb.

Jane wanted to look in the mirror and see anything but blonde curls and black eyes. She wanted to see the brown braids and green eyes she remembered staring back at her in a mirror.

Jane wanted so badly to be Penny Lamb.

Her fingers rooted through the pile of chipped glass and painted plastic, picking up leaves and twigs along the way. Her heart ached for Dolly, she finally had her head back- and it was ruined. She would have to bury her somewhere nice, memories that hurt her eyes told her she’d never gotten to bury her dolls before- always thrown away or ripped apart by Penny’s father.

She cradled the little doll close to her chest, gently pulling at the tattered lace, wishing just a few pulls would bring the stitching back together. But she knew wiser. She brushed off some dirt that clung to her little shiny shoes, and started to drag her foot through the brush, starting again for a home she wasn’t sure was hers.

She had walked precisely 3 and a half miles when she finally reached a clearing, no longer shadowed by wet, suffocating trees. It was a little farm, all alone on a sad little hill, that curved down and up into the next hill over, where a little house sat. Crooked, barbed fence lined every single acre, only coming up to Jane’s waist. She towered over the flimsy wires and rotting wood, but a weird ache racked her soul.

Penny was scared. She remembered being no taller than a Billy goat, staring up at that fence with the shiny spikes and alluring curls. She remembered her father telling her there was no point in trying to climb or crawl it. Her mother told her nobody would want to adopt a homely girl with cuts and bruises all over her skin. Penny had become used to those hard words, but they were fresh and tainted Jane’s mind. Why would someone say that to her?

Jane didn’t understand it, she shouldn’t be scared of a fence. But she wrapped Dolly tighter to her chest and whined, looking around the vast plains for any alternative to scratching up her Dolly’s dress any further.

A yew yards down, she saw a red truck crashed through the fence and into a tree, creating a big opening a couple feet wide, as the fence wasn’t strong enough and had folded into itself upon impact. She dragged her bad leg over, forcing it up into the air with a hard swivel when she realized she wouldn’t be able to lift it over the flattened fence. It didn’t do her very good, she still caught her foot on some of the flattened wire and could feel the little needles drag against the sides of her Mary-janes. But even with the blood from her opened ankle seeping out and ruining her already browned stockings, Jane went on, satisfied Dolly’s corpse wasn’t further scathed.

The farm she strolled towards had very little vegetation, Jane couldn’t see any cornstalks or planters. But there weren’t the pens or double fences that would suggest this was a meat farm either.

Penny knew why there was nothing growing.

It may have been a farm once when her mother was a child. She could remember photos on the walls of horses and pumpkins growing all over, in stark contrast to the empty fields Penny grew up with. When it was just her mother and her family, it had been a bustling farm. It seemed her mother hadn’t cared for the toil and farmer’s work the way her grandfather had, or her uncles; so, it made no sense to Penny why she was the one who inherited the farm. There was a few goats and a sheep in the barn, but they weren’t kept for milk and wool, and they were nothing like the cows and pigs Penny had seen in old, black and white photos that adorned the walls.

Jane wondered why a lively farm would become little more than a dead graveyard.

Penny knew that’s what her father wanted it to be.

The farm was nothing more than a little prison, a way to keep his family in, away from Uranium City and anyone other than the church.

The barbed wire hadn’t lined the fence until her father appeared in photographs.

Jane dragged her body, cold and shivering, towards the barn structure. It smelled terrible, Jane’s new sense of smell unfamiliar with the stench of wet fur and animal dung. Penny was used to it.

It was dark and much too loud despite being so empty, the swinging chains and wood structures burned Jane’s ears. The bleating of sheep, the heavy clicks of hooves on wood and dirt-

She had no idea what prompted her to keep walking inside, one arm clutched tightly around Dolly, the other had a death grip on her ear. She passed goats in pens who approached and stood on the gates, expecting something from her, almost greeting her.

Has her father fed them since she’d been in the hospital? Her mother never came down here, her brother was too young to be with animals alone.

Penny was certain he hadn’t.

Another upset bleat from the tallest goat made Jane jump, it was so loud. Too loud-

“A-Are you upset?” Jane questioned loudly, getting a stomped hoof in response.

“Ok ok…” She repeated, softly echoing herself as she stumbled around in the dark, suddenly walking into something soft and very scratchy. She released her hand from her ear to touch the shapeless mass; it was pokey and deceptively sharp in places. It was straw.

She gingerly placed Dolly upon one shelf of hay, patting her hair and making sure every crushed piece of porcelain remained in her skull, so it wouldn’t become lost to the haystack. She didn’t want to bury Dolly without every piece of her, it wouldn’t be right. She bent down to grab at the loose piles under her feet, just bending over made her neck crack and her head feel like it was on fire. But the sounds of upset animals was too much; she at least wanted one pain she could control to be done and over with.

Memories of doing this exact task in grand daylight guided Jane across the barn. She remembered the structure having wide open windows, a oil lamp- why would they all be closed in the middle of the day? The goats must’ve been so scared in the dark, locked up in their pens, alone and starving. Jane was happy to toss piles of the itchy straw over the fence and into their pens, quickly quieting the goats and lambs, the sound of nibbling echoing the dark walls.

A little quiet, music to Jane’s ears.

She didn’t have to hold her hands over her ears when she hobbled back into the daylight, Dolly back in her arms, pressed tight to her breast. She took comfort in the temperature-less contact, so small against her skin, but a huge solace in her mind.

She barely recognized the dirt road she found herself climbing from one end of the hill to the other, leaving the dark brown barn for the pale, white house on the top of the climb. She could see the barren, dry rows of dirt that had been plowed years ago, but never sowed. Piles of former fences and sheds littered the farm, nothing more than firewood now for a few, stray birds to perch upon. Jane found it so sad. This was her home? It didn’t feel like a home, maybe it would be more obvious to her when she got to the top of the hill and opened the front door.

Penny knew it wouldn’t.

The paint on the siding of the house was chipped, frames with empty flower hangers, shutters on their last hinges, drifting in the breeze. It looked dead, no lights inside, all the curtains drawn and bars on the inside of the windows. It looked more like a prison to Jane. But Penny knew it was her house, her feet carrying her, albeit unsteadily, right to the door.

Jane’s fingers, stiff and pale, wrapped around the brass handle- she didn’t expect it to be locked. Was there a key somewhere? Above the doorframe, under the stoop?

Penny knew it was going to be locked, it was always locked. Grey memories of waiting for her father to unlock all five locks while her and her mother were in their Sunday bests made Jane frown. She didn’t understand, what had she done that was so bad, that she wasn’t allowed to come and go as she pleased from her own home? She’d done nothing.

When the third jiggle of the doorknob did nothing, Jane finally unwrapped her claw from the metal, and curled her fist to knock upon the wood.

Nothing.

Penny knew her father never answered the door, but Jane didn’t.

She knocked again, a little harder.

There was some rustling inside, but- it could’ve just been the wind or an animal.

She didn’t realize her father was ignoring her.

Jane settled for a steady, hard knock on the door; maybe she was just doing it in too short of bursts.

So, she knocked.

And knocked.

Knocked, knocked, knocked-

Heavy, scrambling footsteps came from the other side, but she couldn’t hear them- not until the door was suddenly swung backwards and she lurched forward over the step.

She didn’t even get a chance to properly fall to her knees or land, a big, thick hand pushed her back; rough against her breast.

“Can’t you read the signs, bitch? No trespassing.” His voice was thick and heavy, but when Jane looked up at the man’s face- he was anything but that. He was a little older, maybe fifty, but he wasn’t particularly muscular or had much weight to him, his extreme height made him look lanky, almost malnourished.

He was veiny all over, from his arms to his forehead, his neck tight and sinewy as he glared at the girl only a few inches from his height. He was blonde, thinning, short cut hair, little, near invisible hairs littered his arms and what part of his chest peaked from his button down. He looked dirty, and scratched up- his arm was bandaged, a bruise just under his chin. Big, brown eyes, unfeeling, stared at the battered girl, who gawked and held her mouth open dumbly.

Was this her father? He was familiar, she recognized his face- a reoccurring demon in the painful flashes of memories that came and went. If her memories said he was, he must’ve been. But he was so… hard, and cold, even to just a stranger.

Penny couldn’t recall him ever smiling. Not at her, or her mother. Her brother only occasionally. Jane wondered if he had been the favorite.

Penny knew she’d never be his favorite.

“Hello? The fuck are you doing here?” The man scoffed, despite how thin he was, he took up the whole doorway.

Jane opened her mouth again, clutching Dolly’s caved in face tight to her chest, she didn’t know what to say. No one had spoken to her like this before, but Penny had heard this kind of language from her father all the time.

Suddenly, he was inches from her face, barely leaned down and snapping his fingers beside her ears.

“Hello? What are you deaf? What are you doing here this is private property- can’t you fucking speak?” He wasn’t shouting but his voice was so sharp it made Jane shudder, staring blanky into his face. He leaned back, that angry look turning to pure disgust.

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you wearing? It’s not Halloween kid, we don’t even celebrate it here so don’t expect any candy,” He slapped his hands against his thighs as he stood tall again.

Jane nearly forgot until then what she looked like. Still a doll’s head atop tanned, freckled shoulders. Though she looked a total mess, leaves peaking out of ringlets, most having flattened and uncurled on one side when she slept in the rain. She looked no better than Dolly. Her cheeks were still streaked and sticky with tears, her chin all cut up.

Her father grew tired with her silence, and began to turn to shut the door, “I don’t have time for this- “

“…Father?”

Her echoing, tiny voice forced the man to stop.

He slowly turned, confused-

Penny could see a glimmer of fear in his eyes, that only lasted a second, before turning into a rage Jane had never seen before. One that slowly bubbled up from his chest to his face, lighting his brown eyes on fire. Suddenly he swung an arm out and pushed Jane so hard- she landed at the bottom of the steps in the dirt, flat on her back.

“You are not my daughter. I don’t even have a daughter, I never had one to begin with.” He waved his arms wildly, storming down step by step to stand over Jane, shaking violent in the mud.

“Penny is dead. You don’t even fucking look like her, you look like a fucking clown,” He reached down, and whether Penny was just really weak or her father was particularly strong wasn’t clear, but he lifted her up so easily by a chunk of her hair.

He pulled her close, “Now get off my property, before I send you running home to your poor father.” His teeth bared, but his voice so soft- it sent shivers up Jane’s spine.

She couldn’t even squeak when she was shoved down again, hitting her head much harder into the dirt ground this time-

God, having a head was so painful.

She was still slowly writhing in the mud when she heard her father slam the door on her, slowly finding the strength to lift herself into a sitting position, her leg twisted backwards. It was concerning that it didn’t hurt as much anymore, but Jane couldn’t think about that. Her heart ached, her head was swimming with memories and thoughts that she knew were hers- but didn’t feel like she owned them.

Silent tears ran down her face, holding back sobs.

This was supposed to be her home.

That was supposed to be her father.

Penny had expected this to happen.

Jane didn’t.

Ocean didn’t expect this to happen, not at all.

It was a miracle alone that they were all alive, that wasn’t supposed to happen.

She expected to float in space for the rest of time, or until she was reincarnated, or the universe finally absorbed her soul into pure energy.

She hadn’t expected to be sitting in a hospital hallway, a cast on her arm and around her leg, red in the face from screaming.

Ocean’s throat was sore from shouting at the nurses and the social workers, so she’d finally given up on her hourly lecture on losing a patient- a particularly important, recently crushed by a roller coaster patient, specifically.

A girl who was supposed to be safe.

She sat solemnly in the hallway in her wheelchair, watching nurses and doctors pass her by without a passing glance, silently glaring at each and everyone. Did they even know a girl was lost on their watch? Did they even care?

A nurse had given her a juice box and muttered something about how her blood sugar must’ve been low- what did that have to do with a missing girl? They were nice enough not to send her to psych when she had started rambling about the afterlife and Karnak and Penny losing her head, but a juice box couldn’t solve this. And their blasé attitude wasn’t helping at all.

Was Penny worthless to Uranium just because she wasn’t in their records or books? Was simply knowing her name not enough? Ocean had been homeschooled until middle school- was that what Uranium thought of their future student body president? Just a ghost in their town, until she became a part of the community.

All the girls named Penny in their database just didn’t match. Wrong names, heights, too old to be Seniors in St. Cassian’s, others far too young.

There’d been a Penelope Marcus born around the same time Penny would’ve been- but it was followed swiftly by a death certificate, and there were very little notes on the mother or father, other than that the names had been forged.

She couldn’t just give up.

Ocean had no intention of letting Penny slip through the cracks of time, not again.

With a juice box crumpled in her hand and swiftly chucked into a nearby recycling bin, she started to push the wheels of her chair, awkwardly chugging along the hallway. Ocean O’Connell-Rosenburg was on a mission, no nurse was going to stop her.

Mischa and Ricky both being passed out from prescribed medications after another surgery, Noel getting a CAT scan, Constance high off her ass and giggling like a demon; that was going to stop her.

Only for a short while.

As soon as they were all on their A-game; or slightly less knocked out, she would have her team up and running in no time.

Chapter Text

Ocean tried Mischa first to start a game plan that evening, but-

“Oh my face, моє обличчя, моє гарне обличчя,” He’d sobbed, unable to hide the tears that poured down his swollen, black and blue face- since the slightest pressure could pop his stitches. He’d had enough mouth surgery to last a lifetime and more on the way, his lip split, still missing a lot of teeth. He’d been furious that the accident took his ability to talk properly, in the bursts of time when his medication wasn’t so strong, he was hallucinating and not so weak he was sobbing in pain.

Maybe it was a silly idea, going to Mischa first for planning when he was the most in and out of consciousness; but Ocean wanted someone to rage with. Someone who she could yell at and would yell back, because neither of them could yell at the people that failed them and their friends. She wanted to be furious and passionate, a ball of fire like Mischa always called her. Just not alone.

So, when Mischa asked to be alone to wallow by himself and mourn his beauty, Ocean didn’t refuse or fight back, she wheeled herself out of the room.

Ocean’s next choice was Ricky, he’d gotten along best with Penny- Jane- Penny when she was Jane; maybe he’d have an idea of how she liked to wander.

But-

“Um…” Ocean bit her lip, tapping her knuckles on her knees to avoid itching her cast with her free arm, her wheelchair right beside Ricky’s bed.

Her eyes met Ricky’s again for the fiftieth time in a half hour. He looked so bored, so exhausted, anger in his eyes. It was hard enough not being able to talk for nearly all of his teenage life, to not walk for all of it- but a full body cast felt like a cosmic punishment. The boy who would eventually lose all control of his body, what little he still had before a sudden illness could cut that time in half- restricted to something that was supposed to heal, supposed to bring you back control. He couldn’t move his legs, his neck or his head, his arms-

His hands.

That’s what made this especially painful, Ricky couldn’t sign to Ocean. He couldn’t tell her what he saw that he saw Penny’s silhouette hover over him after she’d ripped her IV out her arm and lumbered out of bed and just- left. Left without an explanation or more than the kind suggestion that he get some rest while she upped his morphine that night.

He could only talk with his eyes, green, furious, terrified eyes.

And Ocean could read them like an open book, they both had the same questions.

Where had Penny gone?

When his parents came back with lunch to feed Ricky, Ocean said goodbye and rolled herself down the hall.

She examined Constance and Noel’s room.

She saw Noel clear as day, sat up right with the most uncomfortable perfect posture she had ever seen. But his bed was on the other side of the room, she should’ve spotted Constance first the moment she could see the door was open. But Constance’s bed was empty, her sheets still messy like she’d only just disappeared. Hopefully she was just in the bathroom, Noel wasn’t exactly who Ocean wasn’t to stress with a treasure hunt right now.

“What do you want, Succubus?” He groaned.

Even with the lights dimmed and enough drugs to put down an elephant, Noel’s surgery left him with headaches like no other. He was getting cat scans nearly every few hours to make sure his brain didn’t continue bleeding, there was always someone checking that he wasn’t pulling the stitches and bandages on his head when he got forgetful, Noel was either in a constant state of bitching or moaning.

Normal Noel behavior, of course. But him forgetting things, the last few days, weeks- simple words and conversations. That was not like Noel. That was not her second-best friend in the world, that she hated and loved, would quip, and bicker and occasionally fight terrible with. She never wanted to knock Noel while he was down, and this was- this was all the way down.

“Hi Noel.” Ocean whispered, trying to roll her wheelchair in as smoothly as possible so it wouldn’t make too much noise on the tile floor.

“Hey, Osh.” He sighed, his voice heavy and exhausted. His natural bags under his eyes looked almost purple, he’d been so beat up by his brain when he landed headfirst in the accident.

“Noel…do you…” She stopped a foot away from his bed, seeing the turning of gears in her chair made him wince.

“Do you remember the warehouse?”

“What warehouse?”

Ocean sighed, “You know…all of us, in the choir, in a warehouse…after the crash…”

Noel pursed his lips, “Oh my god,” He scoffed and closed his eyes, “Again with the warehouse?”

“Noel, it really happened! We really did die a-and we got to sent to some cheap, crappy depot,” Ocean’s voice sped up, she’d had this conversation with him ten times already, “T-There was t-the broken track and- “

“And the creepy animatronic fortune teller and the dancing and singing, yeah yeah yeah,” Noel finished her sentence, almost making her hopeful he was remembering.

“So you- “

“Remember?” His voice turned sticky sweet, for just a moment.

“No! I remember all the times you’ve badgered me about it and Connie’s told me I made out with Mischa like, a million times,” Noel rested his head back against the pillow. “It’s just a bad dream you guys had, Ocean, you got to accept that.”

“How can it be just a bad dream if we all had it?”

“Well, I didn’t have it.”

Ocean snorted, “That’s just because you can’t remember!”

“Yeah- a lot of people can’t remember their dreams, Ocean! Most people just don’t obsess over the ones they do as much as you.”

She forced herself not to yell at Noel for being a jerk, biting her lip so hard she thought it would split open again. Swallowing her pride, she asked in a strained voice, “Do you remember the Kiwanis competition yet?”

His pointed tone faded, “…no.”

She sighed, and leaned forward, both hot heads accepting the silence.

“…Well, we didn’t win.” She said after a long, long time.

“Ha, shocker…”

Ocean chuckled weakly, “Yeah… but the fair was fun. You made us all go on the Ferris Wheel, you knew I hated heights but, it was one of the rides we could really do all together for cheap. You made us all get into one basket- well, you, me, Mischa, and Constance.” She smiled sadly, Ricky and the new girl- and Penny had to get into a basket on their own.

“You held Mischa’s hand after he dropped the tough boy act and almost had a panic attack at the top of the wheel… he made us go to the game section immediately after as payback, you spent like, fifty bucks trying to win a giant teddy bear with a beret and a little mustache,” Ocean tilted her head, “Mischa won like- every game, somehow, so he gave you one of the sunglasses he won and a French flag beanie baby.”

Noel’s eyes lit up, his pale cheeks getting a little color again, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Ocean nodded, smiling proudly seeing a change in Noel’s demeanor, from sour to hopeful.

She hoped soon enough he would be able to remember the day on his own, without prompting and clues from Ocean and Constance. That he’d remember things from that day none of them could’ve experienced but Noel, not just hear things echoed back at them unenthusiastically.

“…did I kick your ass at ring toss again like last year?”

Ocean giggled, “Mhmm.”

When Noel became too tired to keep asking about their day at the fair, Ocean left to let him sleep. Passing Constance’s empty bed made her chest ache a little, where was her best friend? Had her stitches popped, was she bleeding out into her abdomen? Did she get an infection from the huge chunk of roller coaster that impaled her a few hours ago?

“Hey! Do you mind changing the channel?” Constance’s voice echoed out into the hallway from far away.

She’d been a lot less soft spoken since the accident.

“Golf is absolute ass, come on- give me the remote, I want to watch something fun!”

Ocean hoped it was just the pain killers.

When she rolled past the nurse’s station to the little waiting room, she found Constance, her wheelchair propped up beside the cushioned chairs, and her IV taking up the little path around her. The TV in the waiting room was nowhere near as nice as the ones in the hospital rooms, still that old, fat plastic that had to be held up by several metal bars to keep it from collapsing onto a patient. A vending machine, a coffee machine; but no family or strangers to use them. Just Constance, struggling with a bag of cheesy chips you’re probably not supposed to have after having a serious surgery inches away from your stomach and days after near total death. Ocean huffed, ready to scold and pushed her chair up to hers’.

“Connie? What’re you doing out of bed? You’re not supposed to be out of bed or eating foods your doctor didn’t put on your meal plan.” She murmured haughtily, immediately met with a big smile.

“Aw, it’s sweet you care, Ocean,” Constance giggled, still battling with the plastic, her fingers loose from a heavy dosage. Ocean sighed, she’d seen her parents have similar trouble with their motor skills after long nights of bongos and chanting. Her parents still hadn’t visited.

She wished they would.

“Ugh, give me that,” The redhead snapped, snatching the little red and yellow bag from her friend to easily pop open the top.

“Thank youuu Oshie,” The nickname made Ocean flush, just wordlessly passing over the snacks while she looked up at the TV.

The channel kept changing, Constance must’ve gotten the remote from one of the nurses’ a few feet away behind the counter, and they seemed too busy with their own paperwork to care about the obnoxious channel flipping and increasing grainy volume. News channels, cooking shows, commercials for sports equipment, a hockey match, a news channel just for the hockey match, bad soap operas-

God, no wonder her parents didn’t buy a TV. Well, they also said the set would emit radio waves that would turn their brains to mush and force them into the 9-5 life of corporate Canada. God, if that was true, Ocean’s life would go from a hippie nightmare to a conventional paradise. Television had so much crap, though Ocean could think of a few dreamy teenage rom-coms she’d enjoyed while sleeping over at Constance’s house.

“How are you feeling?” Ocean piped up after another 20 channels had been passed over, and another 20 more on the way.

She shrugged. “Like shit.”

“Constance! Language!”

“Oh relax, Oshie! We’re not in school, it’s just a hospital! They use more vulgar language here than most girls do in the cafeteria,” She chuckled lowly, getting an unsatisfied huff from her best friend.

“I guess,” Ocean sighed, “I did hear them talk about…b-o-w-e-l movements when I was leaving Ricky’s room.”

“You mean shitting?”

“Oh- Constance!” Ocean threw her hands up in the air, getting an excited laugh out of her friend.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry! Oh, it’s just too easy with you,” Constance chuckled into her hand, wincing with every other snort and breath. Laughing still hurt, it hurt real bad if she laughed real hard- but Ocean was an absolute clown.

“Ugh, why are you out of bed anyways?” Ocean leaned over to steal a cheesy chip, “Noel was in your room all by himself.”

“He was whining because his head hurt too much, I couldn’t watch TV in there without Noel asking me to turn the volume and the brightness all the way down! At that point it’s just watching a bunch of shadows play charades,” She shook her head, “So I asked a nurse to take me over here, and we both get what we want. I get to watch violent TV, and Noel gets to take his nap.”

“I guess so.” Ocean shrugged, “But you should be getting rest too, you- “

“Had a big chunk of metal scaffolding spear me through my lower gut?” Constance asked with a smug smirk.

Either she was really high, or Noel was teaching Connie his wicked sense of humor while they roomed together.

Ocean grimaced, “Yeah…that.”

“I’ve rested plenty,” Constance shrugged, flipping through channels again, the Uranium City Fair Grounds flashing on screen for just a moment- but was quickly followed by cooking shows and more tripe.

“Hey wait!” Ocean’s free hand hit Constance’s shoulder, not meaning to do it so hard- but the girl was quickly becoming frantic after registering what she’d seen. “Constance go back! Change the channel!”

“Owwww, Ocean,” Her friend just whined in response, nursing the skin under her nightgown.

“Come on Constance!”

“Okay okay, fine!”

Constance threw up her hands and let out an exasperated sigh, pressing the back-channel button over and over until they landed in UC25. One of Uranium City’s best news channels.

Uranium City’s only news channel.

It was an on-sight cameraman and reporter Lacey Cook, the one with the blonde hair and a mole near her ear, at the fair. Construction crews, fire fighters, the police- their blaring sirens and flashing red and blue lights replaced the noise and brightly colored bulbs of the fair rides easily. They were pushing through crowds of workers to try and reach the Cyclone- Ocean recognized the sign for the line instantly. The whole site was taped off and barred with reflective orange stoppers, a giant, yellow claw from a nearby machine was lifting fallen debris.

The cyclone was just barely still being held up with assistance of the fire department’s trucks, the track that sent their cart flying completely cracked and collapsed onto the dirt below. Past one pile of fencing the workers knocked down to get their machines into the lot, the camera got a brief shot of the cart. The way it crumpled in on itself, some seats completely flattened- it made Ocean shake. The dried blood on the red and yellow siding, on the ground, the pole Mischa hit face first- Ocean gagged when she made out a few loose teeth still sitting in the upturned soil.

“Oh my god.” Constance whispered, her grin completely faded, horror on both girls’ faces.

“That’s where- “

“That’s where we died.” Constance finished Ocean’s sentence, but Ocean was in no mood to complain about being interrupted or recall how normally- Ocean was the one finishing thoughts for her friend. The chill in her shoulders, the hot lump in her throat that made her all too aware of her tongue and made her gag was too distracting.

Constance shivered, a similar cold washing over her entire body- she hoped it wasn’t sepsis for a moment before the weight of the situation overwhelmed her sense of humor. She started giggling, nervous and low, her eyes glossy and her breathing hard as the camera casted over the landing site again. Whatever the news caster was saying was totally lost on Constance, the brief imagery of blood and broken metal had her deaf to the world, her heart the only thing pounding in her ears.

Ocean, however, couldn’t hear anything but the TV, blaring after she ripped the remote away from Constance to hear it better.

"Hello Mark, sad day at local Uranium City Fall Fair; after six teens were thrown from the tracks of beloved ride The Cyclone on Sept. 14th at 6:19 pm.” Her voice was sick with sympathy from the very start.

“Eyewitnesses say the ride was operating normally until 6:17, when the St. Cassian’s Preparatory Catholic School Choir boarded, and there was a noticeable shaking in the structure. They had just come back from contending in the Kiwanis International Choir Competition, coming in second place; no one could have expected this turn of events.”

The camera cut to several people lined behind police tape, describing what they saw. Some said before 6 o’clock, the coaster wasn’t shaking at all, no one had any idea or indication that the supports would fail and cause a whole line of track to shift, sending them plummeting to the ground.

“You know I thought I saw a guy going through the fence area before their cart took off. He could’ve been another carney, but he wasn’t as big as the guy operating it.” One person said, scratching their chin before it cut to the studio.

A deep blue overlay on top of an overhead shot of Uranium made up the backdrop for the news casters, sat behind their desk with papers no doubt rendered useless by whatever teleprompters was being highlighted in their eyes.

“There actually have been multiple eyewitness reports of a man fitting that description going past the employee’s only gate to access the roller coaster before that ride, police are currently investigating into this possible suspect. One happy family inadvertently caught the man on camera while filming home video, their footage shows an older man with blonde hair in a blue and red button down. He was seen entering the gate clearly labeled do not enter, typically locked by employees between maintenance, but the man was seen pushing into the gate with no problem. It was later discovered the man in charge of locking that gate was intoxicated and did not notice he had left the door unlocked.”

It cut to the woman at the other end of the table. “When the Uranium Police Department approached security for their tapes or records of a man fitting that description entering the park, it was found that an incident just hours before went undocumented by the staff; after a man fitting that same description was seen entering the park without a ticket to attack beloved local priest- Father Louis P. Marcus.”

“Footage recovered from the security office showing the man charging after Father Marcus close to the concessions stand at the entrance of local Uranium’s fall fair, where the man is seen getting into a verbal argument with the priest before throwing a fist after the man tried walking away.”

Ocean and Constance couldn’t hold back a gasp seeing the overhead camera angle of a man, skinny as a twig and tall as a tree, approaching Father Marcus and cussing him out. He violently swung his hands around before he even aimed to hit their priest; why hadn’t Father Marcus told them he’d been attacked?

“The suspect fled before he could be questioned by security, identified as Abraham Lamb by the priest who refused to press charges.”

Ocean furrowed her brow.

“Wait a minute…” She started to mumble, but the screen quickly cut back to the woman on the scene, standing beside a fireman fully decked out in his reflective coat and hat.

“Hi Mark, we’re still on the scene- we have Fire Marshal here who believed that there is extensive evidence the damage to the coaster was caused by a person, and not general age. Fire Marshal O’Brian,” She stuck the microphone into the man’s face, all blown out by the intense light from the camera in the dead of night.

“There’s extensive battering to the beams that are supposed to keep the track in place we’ve found, that can’t be caused by rusting or prolonged use like in some coaster accidents we’ve seen here,” he said, his voice thick and Canadian, genuine shame on his face. “My team and I are confident when we say we believe the coaster was sabotaged, possibly by the use of a hammer or another piece of framework.”

The microphone was pulled away, and again, it returned to the folks in the News station, heavy with sadness on their face. “With five injured teens and one presumed dead, the police are currently on the hunt for Abraham Lamb in the Uranium City area. He will be charged with tampering of the roller coaster, endangerment of a minor, aggravated assault causing bodily harm, and manslaughter for the death of missing student and daughter, Penny Lamb.” The man said, before the woman nodded and added.

Penny’s name was thrown across the prompter and quickly forgotten by the news cast who went on to discuss previous coaster accidents in the fair’s history and give their condolences to the family, discussing how they were giving the families space and not asking for comments- but, no mention of her relation to the man who caused such grievous harm to an entire choir.

How, how could they not care? Not be furious as Ocean was, when they learned it was a member of the choir’s father who caused the accident?

She wished they would reach out, come marching to the hospital with all their cameras and microphones, so she could tell them Penny Lamb wasn’t dead.

She wasn’t!

She was alive- they made the vote, and they all came back!

They news said it themselves, the body of Penny Lamb was never found, having been “lost” on route to the hospital- Penny had come back and she had survived.

She lived long enough to get dragged to the hospital and drag herself out.

Ocean breathed in deeply through her nose, practically fuming. She wanted to throw her remote at the TV screen, she wanted to kick over every chair in the waiting room, knock over the snack machine- she wanted to scream.

“He will also be facing charges for the assault and the manslaughter of Father Louis P. Marcus, who died seven hours later from a heart attack in response to the news.”

Ocean’s face went white.

She didn’t want to scream anymore. In fact, she wanted to cry.

“Father Marcus is dead?” Constance croaked, her cheeks stained with shiny tears, her face stuck in a state of shock and horror Ocean never saw on her before.

“Father Marcus is dead…” Ocean whispered, “…what the fuck.”

“Ocean?” Constance broke from her lethargy for just a moment, the student body president, even at her lowest moments, never broke her own rules on swearing. Her eyes followed Ocean as she forced herself out of her wheelchair, slowly walking on unsteady, pale legs with stupid light blue socks the nurses gave her. She started to pace back and forth, itching the cast on her arm.

“What the fuck...”

Father Marcus was attacked by Penny’s dad.

“What the fuck.”

It wasn’t a random accident.

It wasn’t poor management or the result of neglect on the fair runners.

Penny’s dad was the one who caused their accident.

“What the fuck.”

Penny’s dad killed them.

Ocean gripped her temple so tightly with her fingers, she nearly tore the skin before screaming, horrifying Constance with her high voice and disregard for vulgar language. And Ocean didn’t have a possible excuse, she wasn’t high, she didn’t have bad enough injuries like everyone else to warrant a heavy dose of morphine or happy juice. Ocean O’Connell-Rosenberg had just broken.

“What. The. Fuck?!”

Chapter Text

Penny had been the only one in her family currently alive to tend to the goats and the sheep in the barn, a job given to her at the age of four by her mother once she was old enough to walk a little and drag around a plastic pail. It was the one place for years she’d been allowed to go by herself, not even to church until she’d turn 16 and her father made it very clear that he didn’t believe any choir boys would hit on a girl as homely as her. Everyday she would get up as early as four in the morning to sweep the pens, check their hooves, give them fresh hay and water, brush their coats, sheer their wool, milk them- every day. When she’d gotten strong enough, she was able to do it with ease, and would stay out in the barn hours longer than it truly took her to complete all her chores with the animals. It was her only alone place, where she knew it was safe.

So, Penny Lamb had known it would be vacant enough to hide in after her father threw her down the stoop and slammed the door on her face.

Jane Doe had only known it was a structure with lanterns and a water pump she could clean Dolly with, though Penny’s memories were heavy in her skull, the emotions in them still hadn’t clung to her soul as they had before the accident.

The memories of turning and running when the name Penny was called deeply confused Jane, especially after being told she was not Penny Lamb.

She knew she was supposed to be Penny Lamb- so why wasn’t she Penny Lamb?

The name, the voice; seemed all that remained in her brain of who she once was. Like a guide or narrator that told her which chickens she could pet, which goat was a boy, which sheep liked to chew on her hair.

So Jane had followed her little narrator to the barn when told, and had stayed there all day after being thrown from her home. She let her legs carry her to the very back where they hay was stacked most high, collapsing into a loose pile, met with scratches and pokes to her already raw skin almost instantly. It was not comfortable, it was itchy- she knew she was supposed to be laying in a bed inside. She knew there was mattress, firm and cold with thread bare sheets, in a green and pink room with little more than a dresser and a table, that belonged to Penny Lamb.

But if Jane was not Penny Lamb- it was not her bed.

But she was Penny.

And yet, she wasn’t.

It was the confusion, the repeating question of who she was- which girl she was, that left her pulling her hair and rocking back and forth into the bed of hay for hours. Then all of a sudden, like an asteroid hitting earth, a sound from outside the rotting structure spooked her still. A heavy impact that had echoed through the farmland and into the barn, causing one lamb to stop its grazing and stare at the high-rise window, long boarded shut.

Jane slowly tilted her head towards the entrance, leaning forward to try and hear if anyone was near the barn.

No footsteps, no rolling wheels, or stomping hooves.

Penny did not want to check it out.

Jane’s curiosity had already lifted her dirty form from the hay pile and towards the light.

The sun through the cracks in the wooden boards was bright, and as she was only feet from touching the handle- Jane could no longer see the steep shadow of the barn outside the door, the sun directly overhead. Noon, it must’ve been.

An ache in her head, a memory- something Jane was still getting used to.

Penny recalled that noon was when her mother returned from dropping her brother off at church, she’d be home for an hour or so, kiss or fight with her father, and then be off to pick up Ezra from his class.

Did her mother know she’d been in an accident? Penny knew there was no TV in the house, but someone at church must’ve asked by now, the accident would be all over the news. Did her brother even know? Had he worried when she didn’t come home that night with a prize from the fair to give him, no bedtime story, no hug goodnight?

Jane carefully poked her head out the barn door, looking up the hill at the disheveled house and the ancient beetle car that her mother inherited with the house. She was definitely home, her father refused to get in that thing, said it was not fit for a grown man’s image.

The wind chimes were still rustling from the impact of the door closing, she must have just gotten home.

Something in Jane caused an intense ache she was not familiar with, a longing for interest. She gripped the side of the old wooden post tightly, staring at that red rusted beetle, confused why it caused her chest pain.

Penny knew it was heartache, she always felt that when she looked at her mother. Ever since she was a little girl, the woman was keen to ignore or put her down for simply being alive, a reason Penny never understood. Then suddenly, she was three years old with a baby brother, and she’d watched her mother dote and coo over Ezra Lamb, the anguish began.

Jane was puzzled, how could just a car make her feel that way? It was a steel motor vehicle; it would not cause chest pain unless she inhaled too many exhaust fumes or was rolled over by it square over her breasts. And what was this feeling, if it was not caused by a heart murmur or her body slowly coming out of shock from a broken leg and a near severed head? Was it jealousy? Envy? Did she want to be her brother, did she want this woman’s love? Why? All the memories Penny gave her was of snide comments, slaps to the face, side eyes and put downs. Why did she want love from a woman who’d never loved her?

Jane thought reasoning the feelings over in her mind would make them go away, but they didn’t, and that only made her stare at the red beetle with bigger, sadder eyes.

Her feet carried her into the harsh sunlight of the day, despite the protests at the back of her mind.

Penny did not want to go back to that house, she knew what her mother would do if she caught a stranger on the porch. What her father would do when he saw Jane had trespassed twice in one day.

But Jane didn’t stop dragging her leg through the dirt road, as dry and rocky as the rest of the farm. She walked up that steep hill until she was right beside the red beetle, cocking her head to look inside.

Several crosses hung from the rear-view mirror, a bible on the passenger seat. A small card stuck inside of the dashboard, with a painting of St. Peter and a transcript of his prayer. Jane’s eyes caught onto a few words in particular that made her eyes droop and a sigh pass her lips.

“Complete detachment from myself.” Was one of the things prayed for.

Penny found that hilarious.

Jane found it incredibly sad, why would anyone want to part with themselves. To be whole seemed like a wonderful privilege she was excited to have, when she figured out who she was again. When she could connect Jane and Penny into one being again.

She dragged on towards the window, scrambling through the dry bushes so she could be right beside the glass, wincing when the branches tore her sleeves and pinched her arms. Memories told Jane it was the kitchen window, that was where her mother spent the most time- not cooking, no.

Penny could recall the kitchen normally smelling of cigarettes, it was where her mother smoked most. Not outside, she said it would be a waste of a pack to let it out into the air, not caring that her children would be baking in secondhand smoke as they ate their cereal for breakfast. Her father said it was a disgusting habit, one Jesus would be ashamed of her mother for keeping up and wasting the body he gave her, but her mother never said anything back. And just as soon as she was insulted, her father was complimenting her cooking and the two would share a loveless kiss at the dinner table.

Penny understood it was a show, an act for her little brother. Because they had never kissed in front of her when she was a baby, never pretended, never kept up appearances inside their own house. Why hadn’t she been worth the illusion of love?

She was tall enough that she didn’t have to do much to look through the windows, though her height probed the problem of being too easily seen. The solution to Jane was to force herself down in the spikey bush, so she wasn’t framed from the bust up by yellowing glass, trying to ignore the thorns that were becoming deep in her skin. She wanted to see what was inside, what she’d been trying to come home to, understand what her home was. She couldn’t do that from the barn.

Penny remembered the kitchen always being yellow, but not because of butter colored paint or carefully waxed tiles. It was because the nicotine and tar released by the cigarettes had clung to every surface of the kitchen, absorbed itself into the carpets and turned every dust bunny into a little ashen pile. No one was allowed inside the Lamb house, certainly not in the kitchen- or else they’d see the decay that had long taken over the home from years of neglect. Her father said it was a woman’s job to clean, but no matter how often Penny tried, she couldn’t make the house sparkle like the church, her only other reference for cleanliness for nearly all her life. Even the school, for the brief time she snuck in to follow Father Marcus to the fair, had been cleaner than the Lamb house; there was no mold lining the ceiling she couldn’t reach, no cobwebs or water stains that seeped into every surface. It didn’t smell at school, or at church, the way it did at home. Even just on the other side of the glass Jane could smell thick tobacco and rot, itching her nose.

There were empty cereal boxes everywhere, dirty bowls and plates, the sink piled high. Normally Penny would clean the dishes and take out the trash- is this how little her parents cared for the house in her absence?

The ashtray was overflowing onto the table, but when her mother came in to start a light, she didn’t care at all for the fire hazard. Jane didn’t duck down, as much as she wanted to, seeing the short and frail woman stroll through the kitchen. She was plain and curly haired, exhaustion darkened her face like rouge and eyeshadow, long hair loose and cascading over her shoulders. She was in one of her church dresses, but it was just as plain as every other frock in the home, a pink blouse with a burgundy skirt that reached to her ankles.

The woman did not look friendly, not while she glared into space and lit a cigarette to bring to tight, frowning lips.

But Jane desperately wanted her attention, love from the woman that memory told her was her mom.

Penny did not, because she knew, she would not get it.

Not looking like this, Jane’s reflection suddenly becoming more important to her than staring at the depressing woman through dusty glass.

It made her frown deeply, her brows furrow, eyes crease- just as it did every time she saw her reflection in a loose tin can or a puddle of water. A blonde, pale stranger, with impossible ringlet curls and black eyes she shouldn’t have been able to see with, with pink cheeks and red lips she couldn’t seem to rub away, as desperately as she tried. The permanent gaze of a porcelain doll made Jane want to cry. Though a night in the woods and a morning in the barn had her curls messed up and filled with leaves and twigs, her face scratched up and dirty, the skin under her eyes red and swollen from countless hours sobbing. None of those things made her look anymore like she was supposed to, however. No number of scrapes and brushes or bloody noses would make Penny Lamb’s face come to the surface.

Her mother would never approach her if Penny looked this way, let alone a stranger like Jane. She would be pinched and slapped for ruining her dress and looking a mess in front of her parents, reminded she could only be pretty if she was clean, because an ugly girl with a dirty face was not worth a dime in the lord’s eyes.

Jane wrapped her arms around herself, she didn’t understand these thoughts that already stung her eyes with tears.

Why had she been spoken to like that? What had she done wrong? And why did she still want something from this woman, if the result would only be more pain?

She was able to look past her reflection for just a moment, back at the woman who stared at her ash tray vacantly.

Her mother looked lost, almost sad.

Penny remembered her mother always looking sad if she wasn’t furious with her daughter or doting on her son.

Jane could not be this woman’s daughter, even if she was from the neck down- she looked more a stranger now than she ever did before.

Her mother took a long, hard drag, her fingers shaking, her eyes red.

Was she crying?

Jane could recall nights where a low sobbing came from her parents’ bedroom, and it most certainly was not her father’s- men were not allowed to cry, the lord would not stand such weakness, he said. But why was she crying now? What was there to cry about?

Surely she did not miss Penny Lamb.

She never loved Penny.

Not that Penny could recall, or Jane could interpret.

Perhaps it was just the stress of an unfulfilling life that brought Mrs. Lamb to tears, that made Jane shiver uncomfortably. She didn’t want to watch a woman cry, not a woman she couldn’t comfort. She tumbled out of the dead bush like a collapsing mannequin, hitting the dirt hard while the branches sliced her body. Her dress, already damp and muddy and torn, was only further ruined by a branch that pierced the fabric and ripped her skirt to the thigh, blood trailing down her leg where it finally met skin. Her broken leg was swollen, purple bruises peaking through soaked stockings that never seemed to dry no matter how many hours in the sun passed. She let out a pained whimper, trying to nurse the limb that kept twisting backwards; but even the slightest tap shot daggers into her bone.

But she held her lips tight together, Penny would not cry.

Not so close to her mother, even with a thick wall and glass between them.

No, Penny forced Jane to keep her mouth shut, even when the pain of putting weight on her bad leg made her want to sob, or when she landed on her foot wrong going down the hill and rolled her ankle. Penny would not let Jane cry.

Not until she had shambled back in the cool, darkness of the barn.

Jane’s-

Penny’s-

Her body finally gave out, falling hard on the floor.

She curled up into a ball, holding her good leg tight, sobs causing her chest to bob and heave. Her eyes burned, her leg felt like it was dying, her head felt like it was full of an ocean that wouldn’t stop raging.

Emotions hurt, pain hurt; an idea Penny understood all too well, but Jane did not.

It was all too much, the broken leg, violent memories, the torn ligament, desperation, being thrown from the stairs, her crooked neck, her wrong face, Dolly-

She let out a sound that was almost more of a scream than a sob, bending in tight on herself, gripping her hair so tight she could feel some strands rip from their roots. She didn’t want to be Jane Doe; she didn’t even want to be Penny Lamb- she didn’t want this pain. She wanted to come home to a family that loved her, that were furious she’d left the hospital and not that she’d simple existed, that hugged her tight around her waist, not her neck.

In the warehouse, not remembering anything, feeling anything- seemed like a nightmare.

But knowing so much about a person you were supposed to be, a person you couldn’t be, you were supposed to be? That was even worse than the feeling of her knee popping in and out of its socket with every other violent sob.

She could hear the bleating of sheep, a soft thumping of hooves on hay grow louder. Something with a wet, fuzzy nose sniffed her ear, and there was the sound of chewing and ripping from behind her. One of the goats had started chewing on a scrap of dress hanging to her skirt by just a thread now, but Jane didn’t care or try to bat the Billy goat away. She’d become distracted by the multiple sheep she opened her eyes to, crowding her and staring at her with deep, black eyes and blonde curls dusted with dirt.

She sniffled, her face wet and raw, running mucus drying out her nose.

“Hello?” Jane croaked, her voice weak and small. Were they hungry? Why else would they circle her like vultures, though, they were not scavengers; it was not a sheep’s nature to circle and wait for an animal to die for its meat. They didn’t even eat meat.

One sheep stepped closer, pushing its face against her head, jostling her curls about before pulling away and staring.

She blinked; her pain momentarily forgotten. Jane was utterly confused by this behavior.

Even more so when another sheep approached her to headbutt her shoulder, pressing its smooth face deep into her shoulder. A goat behind her prodded her side with its hoof, a lamb bleated right in her face; Jane’s head swung back frantically to try and face every creature surrounding her.

What was this? Had she done something wrong?

She slowly sat up, wiping her eyes with the back of her palms but the animals only barely backed up. The goat behind her had totally stripped the loose fabric from her school uniform, working its way to the more solid parts of her skirt- not at all concerned with Jane’s movements.

She was met with another headbutt to her shoulder, startling Jane immensely.

Penny found it comforting, Jane found it all so confusing.

Still, her fingers slowly worked their way up to the tight curls of the sheep’s wool, gently working through to the skin underneath. It grained its neck upwards, bobbing its head excitedly while a lamb settled to sit beside her, and another circled to find a spot to sit in the growing pile. Their bodies, heavy and warm against hers, relaxed Jane, even if only a little bit.

Her sighs calmed to sniffles, her chest didn’t hurt so much anymore, though all that crying left her eyes dry and her forehead tight.

This was why Penny liked the barn, why it was her alone place.

Jane finally understood why Penny felt safe in here.

Chapter Text

The red beetle left the farm at two to get Ezra, and returned at three, waking Jane from her deep nap in the hay both times. She didn’t know what to do but sleep or stare at the walls and watch the animals do the same, and with how much her head ached for rest, napping seemed like the best option.

But that red beetle chugged and coughed into Jane’s ears a second time, reminding her that this time- Ezra would be in the car, coming home.

Her brother.

Something in Jane switched on, a sudden burst of energy forcing her into scrambling off her rear in the hay pile. Limping as fast as she could to the other end of the barn, she pressed her face to the wall just beside the crack in the door, peaking out at the car struggling up the low hill. It parked just beside the where it always did, Penny’s mother never deviated in her routines; she only deviated in her enthusiasm for her children.

She got out of the car grinning and smiling, saying something inaudibly to Jane as she shut the car door behind her and went to the passenger side. The door opened, and a head of curly brown hair popped out, and for a moment- Jane held her breath.

That was her brother, Penny’s brother.

She had a little brother.

It excited Jane to no end, the concept alone. Penny however was mournful, sad, excited eyes following the pre-teen as he picked his bag from the car. He looked way more like their father than Penny ever did, his gaunt face, freckled face, gawkish figure; but Ezra had been Penny’s favorite person in the world nearly her whole living life. He was funny and odd, he picked the strangest things from what books and media they were limited to, but he was never scolded for his out their questions like Penny was. If he questioned the lord or religion, their mother and father would chuckle and answer kindly enough Ezra wouldn’t ask anymore.

If Penny asked, her knuckles were struck with a wooden spoon, or she was sent to the closet to pray for forgiveness for questioning the saints.

He was a friendly old face to Penny, those same smudged up glasses and his sallow cheeks.

He was a familiar face to Jane; he looked a lot like Ricky- if the boy grew out his hair to his neck. Ricky had been kind to her, and if her memories with Ezra were accurate- of if her impression of the spaceman had already imprinted onto the boy’s face- her brother must’ve been kind too.

She could see puppet shows in her head of strange worlds and characters beyond what the kids in their limited upbringing could imagine, no talk of sinners or gods or Jesus and angels- just people.

Her father never talked of people, only God and what he would do if Penny didn’t shape up.

Her mother only talked of people if they had annoyed her or disgusted her, unless it was Ezra- then she had nothing but sweet words for the boy. And who could blame her, Penny had nothing but good memories of Ezra. He never cried when he was a baby, never stole her toys or pulled her hair like Penny read in books. Penny found his silence, his philosophical obsessions and plays normal. Jane found his silence confusing, atypical of the facts and truths of science that buzzed through her brain in place of personality.

Still, what did it matter to Jane beyond another interesting question she hoped to get answered by what remained of Penny in her brain? She quickly was quick focused on the Ezra outside of her mind again, but he was a fleeting presence as he shut the door behind him and followed their mother inside.

Penny wanted to run out of this barn.

Wanted to beat down the door until the hinges gave out and run upstairs to their bedroom.

Penny wanted to hug Ezra so tight.

Wanted to ask if he knew where she’d been.

If he’d been scared or missed her.

Wanted to promise to never leave him alone.

Jane wanted to follow him into the farmhouse.

Wanted to ask Ezra so many questions Penny already knew.

What was his favorite color?

Did he like school?

Was anyone picking on him?

Did he prefer peanut butter or chocolate?

Did he have a favorite game?

A favorite song?

How old would he be in the spring?

What would he want for his birthday?

But Penny did not try to move. And neither did Jane.

She just stood there, staring forlornly at the house on the hill.

When the sun had dipped behind the farmhouse, Jane ventured further from the barn door once more and up the hill.

Right now, at 6 o’clock sharp, was always dinner time in the Lamb house.

Penny knew this fact well, if she was too early, even just five minutes- she’d be refused food and water for being greedy. But if she was too late, as little as a minute, she’d be forced to sit at the corner of the room until everyone else had finished and could have leftovers.

She hated dinner.

She hated that dining room, even climbing up the hill and only seeing a sliver of painted walls and candlelight, she hated every bit she could see.

She hated the creaky chairs and the table that dipped to one side her father refused to have fixed.

She hated the tobacco smoke that would fall onto her roast as soon as mother lit a cigarette.

She hated the sound of forks on plates, of ruffling napkins awkwardly onto her lap to try and fill the silence.

Penny found it to be a worthless meal.

Of course, Jane knew it was not worthless. And she knew it was not meant to be a ritual of walking on eggshells and maintaining eye contact with her father before he had to demand it.

Dinner was the last meal of the day, the main source of nutrition that carried you through the night into morning.

And from the pain in Jane’s stomach, the slight pull at her abdominal muscles that had been growing since yesterday, she was hungry. A pain Jane hadn’t experienced before, it wasn’t like the cuts and bruises on her skin or the broken bones in her leg, or that constant headache that weighed down on her neck so fiercely. It was a pain she understood couldn’t be waited out. Two, maybe three days of nothing but wild berries and puddles of water would leave a normal girl drained.

But Penny hadn’t been a normal girl.

And Jane wasn’t one either.

She wasn’t so quick to flinch this time when she got to the house’s walls and pushed herself into the dying bushes, though some dry branches opened up hours old cuts. She was much too keen on getting a look inside to care about what cuts were old and which were new, or if the hole in her dress was threatening to completely half the skirt.

Everything inside was familiar to Penny, distant to Jane.

The kitchen table, just barely dusted to make room for tinted green plates and copper forks.

Little salt and pepper shakers, hand made and bought from a church sale; two little angles complete with halos and feathered wings.

The tablecloth, ironed and pressed, only ever used for dinner and holidays. Though, it wasn’t as perfectly steamed as father would have liked it, and had stains that must’ve been days old. Yellow blotches at her father’s end of the table, if not hemp oil, certainly a distant neighbor’s home brewed ale.

Her Father, roughed knuckles tight in prayer, his brow heavy and kissing the bridge of his nose. His lips moving, old prayers to bless the household and its occupants.

That didn’t include Penny tonight.

Her mother, eyes open during prayer; a cardinal sin according to their father, but her mother never cared about father’s rules when it concerned her.

Ezra, cape on tight and his hands bound loosely, rubbing his thumbs together as he squeezed his eyes tight. He did this every dinner prayer, like the religious mumbling of their father was the equivalent of wishing on a shooting star.

Penny’s chest ached.

Her throat burned, the way it always did when she used to climb to the window to see how family dinner went without her. She said she didn’t care- and she didn’t. Obviously.

But normally, there was always the promise she’d come back the next night at the back of her skull.

She’d never be allowed to come inside looking like this.

Jane would never be invited to dinner, her father hated visitors, forbade it. Her mother would sooner toss a rotten tomato a neighbor’s way, a shriveled skin at a stranger even, than share a meal that didn’t come with an approving smile from the pastor. Her brother, neurotic enough to be a concerning case of future undiagnosed schizophrenia in such a backwards, tiny town- would scream and hide from anyone or anything not human enough. A face of porcelain, plastic hair and hollow eyes on a set of meaty shoulders was not human enough, not even for Jane.

Her own reflection in the dingy glass made Jane’s eyes hot, her cheeks steaming.

Jane felt a sharp pain becoming all too familiar as the day had passed, hunger was such a confusing sensation. Why did it grow worse seeing food plated and pressed by the teeth of a fork? Food Penny knew was quickly smothered by the falling ash of her mother’s cigarette?

That was flavorless, undercooked on one end, overcooked the other, and smothered in grease?

That wasn’t right, Penny knew her mother was a neglectful housekeeper at times, but never a bad cook. Her father would throw a fit at imperfect meals, raw or burnt, and her mother knew the risk of his temper. But he wasn’t saying anything about it. Just grimacing, forcing down steak of varying degrees of black and pink.

Why wasn’t he lashing out?

Why were her mother’s hands shaking? While her face was steady and aggravated as always?

Another shot of pain in her abdomen rocked Jane from the window, swallowing her curiosity.

Questions Penny had would have to wait, but would not go forgotten in the bruised and rattled head of Jane as she shirked her skirt out of the thorny bush and back onto her waist. She’d never find food just watching outside like a junkyard dog.

Perhaps the sheep feed would have to do tonight.

Chapter Text

The next morning, though only seven hours after Ocean had completely broken down in the waiting room and had to be guided back to bed by the nurses, at 5 am- police showed up to each and every member of the choir’s hospital rooms for questions about Abraham Lamb.

Not Penny Lamb.

Not what kind of girl she was before she died, what were her dreams, what life she led- something juicy for the news reports.

Only about the man who caused their deaths in one life, and nearly maimed them in this one.

Ricky, still unable to sign and never able to speak, could not speak with the police officers and tell them that Penny Lamb was alive. That there was a sick girl with a head injury out in Uranium somewhere, possibly close to death and at risk of being paralyzed. The Mounties asked what they could from Mr. and Mrs. Potts, but-

“I’m sorry, we don’t really know Penny or her father that well, Ricky said she’d been homeschooled until this senior year, and there’s no Abrahams in our church circle,” His mother told, her voice weak.

Mischa, completely out of it from another minor dental surgery to prepare him for one of the bigger implants coming later in the week, had been able to speak any English. Not that what he was saying in Ukrainian made much sense anyways, as he spoke of his wedding to Talia, their honeymoon- all the things he dreamt during surgery and full heartedly believed to be real. His stepparents had actually come; though Mischa would have no idea that the couple were at his bedside most hours of the day, always either in a state of delirium or pain too strong to push through. But just as they knew so little of the young man that taken room in their basement, they knew just as little of Penny Lamb.

“We didn’t even know our son was in the choir…” His stepfather admitted, deeply embarrassed.

“We thought he was in an afterschool detention program.” His wife added.

Noel wasn’t able to help at all, unfortunately, he still had no memory of the competition, the fair, the cyclone- he couldn’t even recall if there had been a sixth member of the choir. Penny had joined so late into September, just a week before the competition really, but he would have no idea.

It was all a blank, so he had to answer every question with a sad shake of his head and apologies, before being met with the chorus of-

“You got this son.”

And-

“You’re so strong.”

And Noel’s personal least favorite-

“God bless you.”

God certainly didn’t bless him or anyone else in the choir, or they wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. They talked to him like he was a child, just because he couldn’t remember anything, because of the ugly scar on his head, all language he’d heard directed at Ricky years before when his illness first progressed, until Uranium City got bored with Ricky Potts’ life ruining muscular dystrophy.

The Mounties hoped Mrs. Gruber would be able to answer where Noel could not, but the single mother was just as clueless.

“I don’t know any Lambs, I’m so sorry, I’m new to the congregation and Noel’s never mentioned a Penny or an Abraham before.”

Constance tried to help when the Mounties asked if they knew anything about Abraham or Penny Lamb. She started explaining their day when they first rode the Cyclone. Their crash, their deaths, circling aimlessly in space and landing in a warehouse limbo for days, months, possibly years outside of time. Of Karnak and his wicked game, making them sing and dance to prove their lives worthy of a second chance.

She excitedly described the vibrant colors and cabarets and European rap and alien cat-human hybrids. Of the girl with the headless doll, with blonde hair and rosy painted cheeks, who flew in the sky and sung so mournfully.

The Mounties didn’t write any of that down, assuming she was high from medication. And she was, but only a little. Not enough to fabricate any of her story, but enough to tell it with a smile on her face the whole time, even when describing hitting the dirt and concrete at the bottom of the coaster for a second time.

Her parents thought the same, telling Constance that was a nice story and to tell her little brother while they spoke to the police.

“We don’t really know Penny Lamb- “Mr. Blackwood stammered.

“A couple named Abe and Eda Lamb used to go to our church when Constance was first born, but it’s just been Eda for a long time now with her little girl and boy.”

“Should be the same girl, she’d be Connie’s age now- “

“But Eda homeschooled her children.”

Ocean had been the last to be seen by the Mounties, but she did not let them ask her any questions. Not when she had so many for them that she demanded to be answered right away. When they asked her where her parents were, she’d lied and said they were at home taking care of her brother who was sick. Ocean didn’t have a brother- but she was not in the mood to be the center of attention for once. Not for her amazing academic record or her neglectful alternative parents and their hippie house of horrors. Penny should’ve been their only concern.

Penny.

Not Abraham Lamb, what a dumb name.

A stupid fucking name.

She was seething every time she got a vague answer or an honest admission of ignorance. The veins in her forehead practically bursting when every few minutes she had to shout and remind them that Penny Lamb was not dead, there was no body- Penny was alive, Ocean knew it.

They told her they understood she was going through a hard time, that it was a traumatic experience, and she needed some rest-

She wanted to tell them to fuck off, but she’d begun to fully sob after the third cop started giving her the therapist routine she’d heard every day on and off. Hot fury came out in buckets of tears, and drowned out her voice, causing the Mounties to leave in awkward silence with little information they found useful.

Ocean sat in bed, red from the neck up, forcing her cries out hard and fast- like her feelings were just an annoyance, a piece of lint caught to her uvula that made her gag. She rubbed her cheeks a little too hard when wiping the tears away, causing her to wince- but the tears kept coming. Why did she feel so bad? Why did she feel so much?

She didn’t even know Penny Lamb-

She just barely knew her when she was Jane Doe.

Maybe it was from nearly two weeks trapped in bed with no family visits, and three days without a call from her parents that had her so sensitive. Or the drugs that her body went through like a camel devouring a fresh stream, with increasingly brief moments of relief from the discomfort in her arm and the back of her skull, before it flushed out her system and the spiraling pain returned. It could’ve been loneliness, or discomfort that made her so passionate on the case, a distraction from the accident and the limbo that still felt too real to Ocean.

The idea that it was genuine empathy, genuine fear for another would strike anyone who’d known Ocean O’Connell-Rosenberg before the accident as out of character.

What if Ocean’s vote didn’t matter, and the girl was lost to the world again? What if the life they saw flash across their eyes, of a woman growing up and growing old- would be stripped away from Penny, because of their return? Would the years the rest of the choir lived impact Penny’s? Would every year Ocean lived be one year off of Penny’s mortal timesheet?

If Ocean was Penny…she’d be miserable. Nothing scared Ocean more than being worthless, even appreciating now the life she had, the life she’d been able to return to and change- making no impact terrified the ginger to no end.

Penny’s first 17 years of life had left no impact on Uranium City, on anyone in her family as far as Ocean saw it- and though the impact of a life shouldn’t be measured on fame or political charity; the life the choir watched her lead certainly touched hundreds of lives just by being.

It wasn’t fair if Penny came back and she didn’t get to impact anyone, if her sad song in death was quickly followed by a sad song in life, lost to wander the forests of Uranium injured and alone. How the news found it not at all noticeable or mournful that Penny’s own father had caused their accident; their death in another life- shook Ocean deeply. In their last life, had Uranium even found out about Abraham Lamb’s tampering? Probably not, Jane Doe was evidence of that, a girl wronged and hidden away by her own father for his freedom.

Even Ocean’s parents wouldn’t do that. She hated them, hated their dependency that she didn’t understand, their loose morals and spirituality that made life seem like one endless party with no chaperones, hated the life they made her live, hated the way they judged her for her ambition- but they would never actively try to harm Ocean.

They wouldn’t cause her death, she hoped- as often as she grumbled her parents would be the death of her, they wouldn’t kill her.

Chapter Text

Hello everyone! Long time no see/read, it's been a long time ((nearly a full year)) since I have uploaded or written ((without rewriting and deleting over and over again)) a chapter for my RTC fics. I want to thank all of you for being so sweet with your comments and kudoses and sharing it with friends while I've been inactive, it's so cool to see the fandom still alive and pumping.

I had lost motivation due to depression and poor medication doses, a very bad May, etc.- I felt like I couldn't like RTC anymore for some reason. Like it was something I wasn't allowed. But it came back in full force with my mental health improving, and I found I've been able to write a lot more than I had in the winter; even if it's just segments of paragraphs and dialogue or post it notes with bad jokes.

Expect a slow return!

The Penny series is definitely going to be updated, slowly transitioning from the light stuff into the real topics of ED and relationships affected by it I had planned. It had originally been based on my own eating disorder and of the anecdotes from friends that inspired things like familial food shaming in Noel's family, etc; and it still is all those things, but I hope and believe will be more than the surface level crap I feel my original story outline entailed. Thank the medication for that.

This series however, I have much more trouble continuing.

I feel like it is not my best work, too scattered, too segmented in a chunky way- and originally yes that had been the idea, jumping from Jane to the choir to Jane and back and forth, but now it reads ((to me)) as too jumpy; and segments are too short to be on their own as chapters.

I believe this will be on a semi-permanent hiatus, though I have been considering donating or collabing with any writer interested on continuing the story ((and sharing my story outline I still have that I could not go forward with))

This was originally, a thirteen chapter story. The last chapter would've followed with Ezra and their mother abandoning their father in the night, police coming to the farm and taking him away while Jane hid in the barn- the kids seeing the arrest- with a jump by a few months after the choir was mostly well enough to be physically outside of the hospital most of the time. It would go on with a basic telling of Penny/Jane's survival in the dilapidated farmhouse and barn during the fall/winter, and the choir following clues of the rumored "doll girl" seen in the woods, limping with bags of trash in her hands.

The last three-four chapters were meant to be about Jane's recovery ((months late)) and rehoming with the Blackwoods, which are chapters I still am focused on drafting and finishing. Mostly because it follows into what was meant to be the lighthearted sequel, all filler/fluff, about a sisterly bond forming between Constance and Jane, a series I am currently writing, but don't consider seperate from The Most Forgettable Girl in Town.

The crush series- of course, is still continuing. ((Seperate continuity entirely))

I have wrote and deleted and rewritten the final Constance chapter over and over again but I believe I have franksteined something satisfying; a bit of an analysis of physical appearence focused relationships ((All of the parts of the crush series were meant to show how different each character is in their sense of language and attraction/love, excluding Noel's section of the series, which is purely just Noel watching everyone be infatuated with Penny who's, either unaware or uncomfortable depending on the person/chapter))

Not including the Pischa chapter, where, of course, Noel is horrifically jealous and annoyed with Mischa splitting his attention between himself and Penny ((Nischa is canon AF in nearly everything I write))

But thank you all again, so so much for being just- amazing and patient. Im sorry I've drawn more on my instagram than I have written, the two art forms are way different in my brain for me; its way easier I found to scrawl bad Jane Doe sketches than to type a whole paragraph doing the same thing.

If you have any questions at all, about any of the stories I've written, but especially this one, feel free to ask here!!

And again, if you are interested or have ideas for this story and would like/be interested enough to finish/complete the chapters and bring something new to this, kind of dry, boring table, please message or DM me

Love you all,

Smokey

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Hello hello might be back back for real this time

This story is just a bit hard to write again ESPECIALLY since I got back to ao3 and have seen how so many people wrote this idea and executed so much better!!! Honestly missed you talented people