Chapter Text
With a weary sigh Wednesday eased herself out of bed and allowed her feet to slowly touch the cool wooden floor of her bedroom. The darkly stained boards let out an ominous creak which made her feel a little at home, but overall the house was an inferior substitute for the level of dreariness her parents mansion afforded.
It at least was hers to control and be herself in, she could be thankful for that.
She padded to the bathroom and turned on the cold water to have her usual freezing shower, now improved by the honey shampoo and hand made soap Eugene sent her on a regular basis, to thank her for bankrolling his startup company.
A suitably scratchy towel was used to dry herself, Wednesday immediately putting her silky jet black hair back into the now single chunky braid which reached almost to her waist.
After dressing she spent a few minutes touching up her nails and added a touch of makeup - black of course - before heading down the grand staircase to her kitchen as the first warm rays of sunshine flooded in through the large window that covered almost all of one of the walls of the kitchen. It looked out into the rear garden, stretching for a few hundred feet down to the stream, past rose beds and her orchard, then the vegetable patches and to her secret writing cabin next to the water.
It was clearly going to be a very warm day, and Wednesday was already irritated by it.
The irritation turned ever sourer as she found her fridge bereft of anything nutritious to eat, which wouldn’t normally bother her, but finding the coffee supplies empty was too much. She would have to go shopping, not something she liked doing at the best of times and having to do it before caffeine was almost intolerable.
It was a warm day as she stepped out of the house and marched stiffly to the local convenience shop, the fresh English air scented with freshly mown grass and blossoming wildflowers. England was different in so many ways to her home country, but Wednesday would never have guessed that its smell would be the one characteristic that she would enjoy so much. It was addictively relaxing, especially in the morning summer sun, and it lifted her mood a considerable amount, no mean feat considering she hadn’t consumed her usual quad over ice and was already uncomfortably warm.
In an effort to escape the cruelly punishing end to the relationship with her far-too-short-term girlfriend Enid Sinclair, Wednesday had decided to move across the Atlantic to put as much distance as possible between them. It had been the single most devastating period in her life, and the dramatic move halfway across the world was a desperate attempt to reinvent herself to try and trick her brain into some semblance of peaceful thinking.
She had chosen a little sleepy village in England to make her home, her father assisting with the purchase of the old Manor House on the outskirts of Little Kilton for her to reside in on her behalf. It was cold, drafty and gloomy, just as she preferred, but at night the lack of warmth from Enid turned her mood sour nearly every time. Curse that girl for making her yearn for more than her own solitude. At least the pain of the break-up was starting to subside and her strict routine was helping her recover, to the point where she was even writing again.
The locals were achingly boring and middle class, but that suited her just fine. They didn’t pry into her life - not that she cared if they did - and she returned the favour, happy to be the weird young woman rattling around the old dusty Manor House. She had seen on the local chat groups (thanks to Enid she knew how to access them, at least something a little positive from that relationship) that the villagers were happy that someone new had moved into the old place, and didn’t seem to care about who she was or where she came from.
Wednesday has also secured a part time job in the local records office. She didn’t need the money but the free use of civil service records would be very useful for her writing, which was now more thoughtful and introspective than her Viper trilogy. This was adult fiction on a whole new level, and she hoped it would sell well despite being a departure from the usual style her fans loved.
As she stood waiting to cross the road opposite the convenience store she watched the locals walking down the sidewalk - correction pavement. They all seemed lost in their own worlds and didn’t notice her, the short dark-haired girl dressed in black, her face relaxed into its usual slight scowl. She glanced around the little village square, the houses mostly all older than her home country, mismatched and so picturesque they could be featured on a cutesy jigsaw. A lot of residents even had hanging baskets of flowers which were still dripping from their early morning watering, pedestrians dodging around the mini waterfalls as they headed off to who-knows-where.
As the cars all finally passed by Wednesday was about to step off the curb when she was abruptly knocked to her hands and knees in the gutter.
“Oooh sorry my dog is pulling so hard I didn’t mean that, are you ok?” a sweet voice blurted out before Wednesday had a chance to turn round to confront her newest sworn enemy.
Any insult she had composed quickly faded away as she looked up into an oddly familiar - yet previously unknown - pair of intensely blue eyes bracketed by a concerned frown.
“I-I-I am f-fine, th-thankyou” stuttered Wednesday as she got up and quicjky stepped back onto the pavement before the next car passed by
“Oh that’s good. Sorry again.” the girl replied, a big grin spreading across her face, her eyes twinkling with delight. She bounced on her toes and thrust a hand towards Wednesday.
“I’m Pip by the way.” she offered.
Wednesday stood perplexed, a weird feeling of deja-vu creeping across her thoughts. Pip had a little of Enid’s sunny smile, and the captivating eyes were familiar, but everything else was different. No layers of makeup, her hair was a deep chestnut wavy shoulder length style instead of bleached and dyed. Pip wore some brown shorts and scruffy sneakers, with a crop top and blue sleeveless jumper on her top half. No bright pink skirts or jackets or crazy jewellery either, just a watch on her left wrist. She looked relaxed and comfortable in her own skin. standing with a confidence which was immediately captivating.
She was different.
She was gorgeous.
Wednesday tentatively took Pip’s hand and shook it gently, determined to make a good first impression.
“Wednesday, Wednesday Addams.”