Chapter Text
You think it’s all over
Get up and try again
You’ve got to act your age, darling
Before you fall back in
Vacations
The world is grey.
When she wakes up in her new room in the morning, the sky is iron, the air is stifling, the walls are bleak. She gets dressed—well, her new mother dresses her. Her mother is red, a beautiful one, she smiles at her at every second. Anya can hardly smile back, she’s just waiting for the end.
Then she goes for breakfast, and the food has a different taste. It is strange. Food tasted all the same before. Tasteless. Different homes meant different tastes, but they all were the same for her. Anya tries to remember what the taste of the food of her first mother—her real mother—was before. She can’t. Anya chews on her food and feels insistent eyes on her. Her new father. Her father is blue and yellow, like dry gold, a silver sky. She looks up and he’s smiling at her, patient, as if waiting. Anya doesn’t know what he's waiting for.
“Would you like some more, Anya?”
Her mother smiles at her. A red smile. Anya almost thinks she’s pretty enough to let her wander her thoughts. “No, thank you”, she answers—all polite and calm, like she has been taught before. In her previous families. In the lab. In the nowhere where she belongs.
Her new parents smile. It’s all they do.
Next to her, a big white dog looks at her, and whimpers. Anya doesn’t understand why he’s sad.
She chews on her food. It tastes good.
She finishes eating and goes back through the gray.
Time is a fickle thing and the novelty of being alone begins to wear off. Her new parents are always there. They take turns from their jobs to take care of her. Her father buys her peanuts and she finds herself eating them in a minute—she likes peanuts, she says in a neutral voice, yet it is enough to make him smile again. He gets her more. He’s always watching over her.
“You can call me ‘papa’, Anya”, he says one day when they’re watching television.
“Father”, she says.
“Very well, then.”
He sounds defeated. Anya wonders why. All of her homes wanted her to call their parents with respect.
The television is gray. Spies and cartoons dance in her eyes. Time is endless.
One day, a new little girl comes to visit her. She calls herself ‘Becky’ and claims that she’s her best friend. Anya never had one—so she doesn’t know what it means. In her gray-pink room, they play. Becky seems full of an energy that Anya can barely follow. In the middle of their games, she stops, and suddenly she starts crying.
Anya wonders.
“You have changed”, she sobs. Anya doesn’t understand.
“I don’t even know you”, she answers, without meaning any harm, but somehow her words make the little girl cry harder.
They come to pick her up earlier than intended. Anya watches her leave in the car and waves. Becky does not wave back.
It has been a month.
That day, Anya gets visited by a man named Franky. He plays with her in the park. It’s fun. There, the big white dog named Bond tries to play with her as much as he can. For the first time, Anya lets out a laugh.
Dinner. They eat at the little table, filled with all the food she likes. Her father makes all the food, she wonders why her mother doesn’t. They talk about their day and Anya listens. She smiles a little, which makes her parents smile back. It seems perfectly normal. Anya wonders when will they get tired of her and return her to the orphanage. She always wonders.
Her thoughts wander there. To the nothingness.
When she comes back to reality, they’re looking at her. They look sad. They look very sad.
Anya tries to smile again. It does not work.
She comes back to the gray.
“Do you like castles, Anya?”
She looks up from her drawings and stares back at her father. “I do.”
There’s no sparkle in her voice, no excitement, but he smiles.
“I can get you one, if you want.”
She tilts her head. “You mean toy castles?”
“A real one.”
Anya tilts her head, confused. Is her father rich? They don’t look rich at all. She wonders if he’s lying—he probably is. Anya spares his feelings and comes back to drawing, answering without looking at him.
“Anya prefers a toy.”
Her father says nothing. He just stares at her. Blue eyes against the gray around them.
It’s a watercolor.
“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
His voice sounds little. Anya doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the afternoon.
Little bits of memories come back to her like atoms in the air. She learned about atoms in the lab—the men in the white coats had forced her to. Anya can remember ghosts of rain and white rooms around her as she slowly grew up. She was lost in the sea. When Anya thinks that, spread in her pink bed of her pink room, she tries to remember the last time she ever saw the sea. She never did. Anya wonders how blue it is, how wide. She wonders all the time.
And to her, the sky, like the sea, is so vast . It is most of the world. She knows she has come from there and that, someday, she will go back. Returned. Abandoned. That’s what she was told in the lab—but everything was for world peace, they said, even though Anya isn’t really sure what it is. And then—what are days for? To wake up, to put between the endless nights. What are the nights for? To fall through time in another world.
Anya closes her eyes and goes back to the gray.
She can’t sense her father watching over from the door, eyes endless like the ocean.
“How old did you say you were, sweetheart?”
Anya blinks. She comes back from her wandering thoughts. Right—she’s at the doctor. She doesn’t know she has to come, but her father comes with her. He’s there, sitting in silence, watching over her. He’s always watching over her. Anya wonders when he will get bored and return her to the orphanage, or to the lab.
“Oh”, she blinks, her hands in her lap. “Nine.”
The doctor writes something and smiles. She reminds her of the people at the lab. She wonders if she’s going to put her stuff on her head and study her like these people did. What did they do it for, anyway? Did Anya get something out of it? She tries to remember. Nothing. She just remembers escaping, running, until her little body couldn’t take it anymore. Then she grew up in different homes. And then… What happened then? Her forest eyes stare at her new father and wonders. She woke up in a hospital, and for whatever reason he was there.
Crying.
Then, one day to another, he was presenting the papers of adoption.
Anya tries to remember what she did in the previous years. Where was she? Lost in the sea.
Wandering.
That’s where her thoughts go. To nothing.
“Anya”, her father’s hand rests on her back and looks at her with serious, patient eyes. “The doctor has asked you a question.”
“Oh, uh, sorry”, she moves her head and bows her head.
The lady giggles, “It’s alright, dear. That will be it for today.”
Her father doesn’t seem happy. Whenever Anya isn’t looking, he never does. She wonders.
She wonders all the time.
They come back in silence. He says something about going to the park, and she agrees. The world is still gray. When he offers to hold hands back home and she refuses, something flickers in his eyes . Anya wonders. She notices that they’re very blue, like the sea. There’s a calm sadness in her father’s eyes. They walk, without her holding his hand. They walk.
Another kid comes to visit her.
He calls himself Damian.
Anya notices that his eyes are yellow. Very, very yellow. Like dry gold—she likes them very much, and when she lets those thoughts out loud like nothing, she wonders why he’s blushing. Next to him, his pretty mother giggles together with her own red mother, and they almost make her laugh as well. Almost. Anya learns that Damian’s mother is very friends with her own one, and they share tea as Anya guides him to her room to play.
He still blushes. He doesn’t push her away, even if he looks rude. Almost holding himself back.
Anya tries to remember how kids are supposed to play. In the orphanage, she was a bit of a loner. But, why was she? She tries to remember. She can’t. She’s lost in the atoms and the sea again, floating in a little paper boat. She liked to draw, she still does. And then… What else? What else had she been doing? She wonders. She wanders in the water, alone, a sea where no one cares to listen to her.
She wonders.
“Are you bored?”
Anya blinks. She comes back.
From the shore, Damian looks at her. But she can’t swim, she’s unable to.
“No, sorry”, Anya takes a look at their little wooden horses, touching her own one. “Was just thinking.”
“What about?”
Yes. What about? She wonders. For a moment, she panics. Anya tries to take another topic.
“Is it true your dad is in prison?”
Damian blinks, opening and closing his mouth too many times. For a moment, he looks angry at her. And then sad. Then defeated—but he does not get up and leave her. He doesn’t yell. She wonders. “I see you still have a big mouth”, he mumbles.
Anya blinks. “Still?”
He looks everywhere but at her, nervous. “I mean… Other kids have told me this too. It’s annoying.”
“Oh… sorry. People tell me I’m car-less with my words.”
“Careless.”
“What?”
“It’s careless . And don’t worry, I never even liked my dad anyways.”
He falls silent, and she follows his silence. They play for hours and Damian even laughs sometimes, making her laugh with him. His eyes shine when he laughs. She likes that, Anya lets the words out again and he blushes. Then he mumbles she’s very pretty too, but their mothers come to the room before she can answer.
Then he leaves. He waves from the window of the car, and Anya waves back. Her mother smiles next to her, taking her hand. “Did you have fun, dear?”
Anya just stares at the endless gray-yellow scenery.
“Yeah, he was fun. I liked him.”
She doesn’t notice her smile.
She once hears her father crying.
Anya doesn’t mean to. But she does. And when she peeks through the door, he’s hugging her mother tightly while he tries to calm his sobs. He still looks more angry than sad, but somehow, it gives her a new feeling Anya never had. She holds herself back from stepping in and hug him—a natural instinct swimming in her.
She runs to her room. To her gray-pink room. When she falls asleep, she dreams that her father is swimming in the water with her.
It has been nine months.
Her father says it’s her birthday. Anya doesn’t remember when her birthday was really—but she believes him. Anya doesn’t want a party, but she will have one if Damian can come. Her father agrees, nodding, commenting how Damian will be eager to come.
“We can go on a vacation, the four of us together. What do you say?”, he smiles one day as he prepares dinner.
“Sure.”
“Where would you like to go?”
Anya doesn’t have to think. She looks at his eyes, and they’re blue. Very blue. They remind her of something like home. Then she slips from her words.
“The sea.”
Her father overworks a lot. Anya wonders what does he even do for a living—sometimes, she thinks he does stuff he has to hide. She wonders. When she awakes in the middle of the night, alone and wandering in the darkness, she finds him sleeping in the couch—still dressed from work. Anya tip-toes to her room and comes back with a blanket, placing it over him. She thinks, for a fleeting moment, that he seems like a lost child. Anya understands him. She pats his head and goes back to bed.
Even though she’s ten years old, her father still tucks her in bed. The one time she complained, he looked upset—so she didn’t anymore. Sometimes, it’s her mother who does. Other times, it’s both of them. Anya can see them kiss and go to their own room together afterwards.
Anya is watching him put her toys from the floor to her desk in silence, and suddenly the question slips from her mouth before it even spreads on her mind.
“Am I getting returned?”
He turns to look at her, confused.
“Returned?”
“To the orphanage.”
Her father looks at her in dismay. “Is that what you think will happen?”
She nods slowly, hiding half of her face under the covers. Anya wonders if she made a mistake. A huge one. Perhaps she is going to be returned now, or sent back to the lab. She wonders. She’s afraid.
Her father overthinking for a moment. She wonders what is going through his mind.
It would be weird to look inside.
“Anya. That will never happen. You’re my daughter. Do you understand? You have always been my daughter.”
Always.
That’s a big word. Even Anya knows that.
“Do you understand, Anya?”, he insists. Anya wishes she could read his mind.
On the shore, her father waits for her. She can’t reach. And somehow, he throws himself to the sea, looking for her.
Saving her.
“I think… I do."
He sits on her bed, arms relaxed on his legs. He looks calm, composed, but Anya can see the storm. “Good. Because that’s all you have to know, Anya. Always remember this: you’re Anya Forger, and you have always been papa’s daughter.”
She blinks, confused. He smiles.
“Go ahead, repeat it.”
“Uhm…”, she blushes. “I’m Anya, and I have always been papa’s daughter.”
His smile somehow widens and he rests his hand on her head, patting her.
“Good. From now on, don’t say these things again. You will make your mother sad.”
“Alright.”
His hand stays in her hair for some time. Anya doesn’t want him to go, but she doesn’t say it out loud. When he gets up and exits the room, smiling at her one more time, she doesn’t feel so lost in the sea anymore.
She finds the lighthouse he has built for her.
The world is a watercolor.
Anya learns it during the next few weeks. Her mother is a pretty shade of red that Anya grows to love, her dog is white and black and she loves resting her head on his fur as they sleep against the sun of the afternoon. Her father is blue. Endless blue. Anya grows to love the color.
She never tells him.
It’s on the winter afternoon when the watercolors fade away and she returns to the gray.
Anya hears them murmuring in a room. Their room. She has lost all fear of being thrown away, and she overheads. She picks up words, like little withered flowers in an empty field. It’s too late for her now, a voice says, father’s voice. But we’re still happy, it’s been so long, mother insists. It’s still too late. And there’s a hint of sadness in his tone. Defeat. Emptiness.
The dust of childhood returns to her.
Anya remembers the voices of her old families whenever they got tired of her. Why did they get tired of her? Why did they return her? She can’t remember. She tries to think what she has done wrong this time—she can’t. And it is not enough, never never never.
Anya runs.
There’s only water and flooded houses and darkening skies. The world is brown and silver. A universe in dual tones. The sky is an endless mirror.
Gray.
Anya runs until she’s far-away, wandering alone. Emptiness. She keeps running. She goes farther and farther, the only spark of life in a perfectly still world. In fact, she never felt so alive. In the worst way possible: pain, exhaustion, fear. She fears everything.
The lab. The houses. The names.
All the names she had.
Anya is tired of having so many names—she wishes she could be a Forger. But she can’t.
Heavy breathing and panting, she finds herself on the shore of the river. On the other side, there’s another town. Perhaps a better town—where she can start afresh. She will always start, always a different place. Stepping carefully, she holds herself on the slippering rocks to not fall. Water. It reminds her of the sea. She can’t be lost, she can’t wander again. She puts her little hands on the rocks.
A voice suddenly calls her. It’s her blue father’s. Anya steps further into the river, afraid. She enters the freezing river, feet, calves, knees, it's getting dark. There is a wall and the door is open but it is flooded to the lintel. It is the only way in. Grey, mud, cold. She can’t swim.
“Anya!”
Papa.
The dust of childhood returns to her.
Atoms float.
The sea.
On the other side of the water, her father waits for her. He calls, he calls, he calls. Anya feels little again, and a memory returns. It slips from her little hands, just like her feet on the river.
She falls. She can’t swim.
The world is black.