Work Text:
When she was a child, the high fences and gates which surrounded her house were a form of comfort. They were the walls which kept her safe. No one could get in if they were not invited, the moment she was home and the main gate slammed behind her she was safe, nothing could get to her, it was her and her parents in their own world- their world.
As an adult, had none of those same feelings. Instead, she felt like the one of the outsiders the fences were put up to protect from in the first place. They gates were high, daunting, would slam behind her loud enough to shake the ground beneath her feet as soon as she worked up the courage to walk through it.
The car which had dropped her off had already disappeared down the street, leaving her standing on the pavement, staring at the long driveway before her, the house she had grown up in just over the hill.
There was no one at the gate to let her in, but she could see that it was unlocked. It was at least confirmation that her parents knew she was coming, that they hadn’t ignored the series of messages she had sent since the launch, when she first realized she had no real place to go.
Though there was no one around to see her, it did not take long for Eva to decide that she had stated at the gate much longer than was acceptable for a grown woman who had spent the better part of the last decade trying to save the world from falling apart. She would not be defeated by a single gate she had encountered so many times before.
The hinges screamed as she pushed her way through, shaking unsteadily as it slammed back into place.
She started her walk up to the house, glancing around like she might see the gardener who she had grown up with, but the overgrown hedges and rampant weeds proved that no gardener or groundskeeper had been present for a long time- much less her old friend.
The day outside was grey and cool, the cold seeping through her thin sleeves into her skin. It didn’t bother her much. The days were coming where it would be much colder, a cool breeze was little compared to what the world was soon to face.
When the front of her house came into view she could not help but stumble in her steps, leaning on the luggage she was carrying with her to remain standing.
Years ago, when the line was first discovered and the vote was taken to elect her to head the project, she had gone to visit her parents. In all the work that had occupied her before she had not had many chances to see them aside from holidays, but she knew that the project was going to become her life, knew that she would not have a chance to visit them, barely a chance to think about them.
When she left, they had been… fine, they still had the staff of the house, they still had their friends and their family, horses roaming the land and ponds of colorful fish to watch in the quiet hours.
The house before her looked just short of abandoned.
The plants were overgrown, the porch piled with fraying boxes, curtains drawn in every window with no hint that there might be lights on inside.
For a moment, she just stood, like the world might start morphing before her back into the home that she knew.
Nothing changed, nothing got better- nothing would ever get better, not for a very long time.
She took her steps slowly as she continued, the house only growing darker, more towering, as she made her way to its front steps, creaking beneath her feet as she ascended them.
She did not raise a hand to knock, did not look for the bell to ring. Her hand went straight to the knob, which turned easily, swinging in to the house.
“Mama?” she called out, leaving her bags by the door as she glance around the entry hall, looking for some sign that the place was being lived in.
There was no response to her yell, so she continued into the house, trailing her finger across the tops of old displays, frowning at the dust that collected there. As a child, dust had never been allowed to collect for more than a day. It did nothing to ease the tightness in her chest.
“Papa?” she tried, glancing into the study where she so often found her father as a child. Like the other rooms, it looked mostly untouched.
She crossed her arms over her chest, shivering against the draft in the room from the open window. On the desk sat a notebook that was still open, dusted over like everything else in the room. She walked over to it, unable to ignore the tremor in her hands as she reached out to brush her fingertips over the page.
The handwriting was one that she knew, but one that had changed. Her father had written everything down, hundreds of notebooks from the years of his life piled into boxes somewhere in the house. He left Eva a note each morning as he left for work. His handwriting was one she knew as well as she knew her own.
The one in front of her, dated nearly two years before, was her fathers, but the letters were shaky, awkwardly spaced, words were spelled wrong, and sentences made little sense. She looked back at the date in the bottom corner, wondering how accurate it truly was.
Exhaling unevenly, she lowered herself into her father’s chair, hands clasped over her stomach as she tried to gather herself, to prepare herself for walking further into her house, for facing what she might find.
The air was thick, the quiet too still.
“Eva,”
Eva jumped, having been gazing out the window, and turned to find her mother standing in the doorway, her breath catching in her throat.
It had been over five years since the last time she had laid eyes on her mother, but the change was still jarring.
For the first time in her life, Eva thought her mother seemed old. Leaning against the doorway, cane clutched at one side, the wrinkles in her face new, her hair faded to a pale white.
“Mother,” Eva stood, suddenly nervous. She could stand in front of half the heads of state for the entire planet without a second thought, but the intense gaze of her mother was nearly enough to make her cower.
“It is been a long time since you have made a visit,” her mother side, not a hint in her voice that she might be happy to see her daughter returned. No, all that was there was resentment.
Eva nearly flinched. Her mother had never spoken to her like that before. Her parents had not planned on a child, had not been practically equipped to care for a child, and at times not all that thrilled at the actions their child took, but never once had they made her feel like they didn’t want her there, like she was the thing that had ruined her life, that they would rather have her gone.
Her first instinct was not apologize- though she was not yet sure what for- but there was something much more pressing on her mind that she could not have apologized without it coming out of her mouth first. “Where is papa?” she hated the sound of her own voice, hated the fear in it as the prospect of what the answer might be.
“Your father is upstairs,” her mother answered simply, scanning Eva up and down. “In the sitting room,”
Eva could not help the sigh of relief. Her father was there. Her father was alive. The knot in her stomach started to loosen.
Her mother stepped out the doorway, allowing Eva to get through.
Eva took the main staircase two steps at the time, landing in the upper hallway and bounding past rooms she had spent her entire childhood in, mind only on one thing.
The door to the sitting room was shut, but she did not wait before opening it, the light flooding into the hallway around her as the door swung open.
The sitting room was one she had loved as a child, the floor to ceiling windows giving her an unobstructed view of the ground behind the house, the rain pattering against the glass on the darker days. Often, she had spent hours on its floor, reading a book, playing with a few of her toys. When her father joined her- which was most evenings- he always chose the same spot.
Eva knew where to look as soon as the couch came into view. And there was her father, sitting in the very same spot, elbow propped up on the armrest, chin resting in his palm as he gazed outside.
“Papa,” she said gently, excitement creeping into her voice. This was home, no matter what the outside looked like, it was a home that would always take her back.
“Marie?” her papa said, eyes stilled glued to the window, shifting in his seat over so slightly.
Eva’s brow furrowed, “No papa, it’s Eva, I am back,”
Her father hummed for a moment before turning around her look at her, “Eva?”
“Yes, it’s been a long time, but the launch was successful and- “
“How do I know you?”
Eva froze. “What? Papa, you know me,” she stepped further into the room, like the sight of her might be clearer.
Her father seemed to think for a moment before shaking his head, “Are you the new carer?”
“No- no papa, it’s me, Eva, your daughter,” her words were beginning to grow frantic.
He scoffed, “I don’t have a daughter,”
“Yes, you do. It’s me, you have me, I'm your daughter,” she crossed the room to stand in crouch in front of him, hand on his knee. He jerked away from her, but she kept her hand where it was, praying that there would be some kind of recognition in her eyes.
None ever came.
“No, who are you?” he asked, his voice beginning to grow frantic to match Eva’s “Who are you!”
“Eva! Your daughter, it’s me papa, please,”
“No, no! Marie! Marie!” her father began to scream for a woman she did not know.
“Papa! Papa! It’s okay, it’s just me, you know me,”
“I don’t know you! Who are you?”
“Papa!”
“STOP CALLING ME THAT!”
Eva flinched backwards, nearly losing to her balance, tears gathering in her eyes faster than she could try to stop them. Never once had her father raised her voice at her, never once had her father looked at her and his eyes been filled with anything but love. “Please…”
“Leave him alone Eva,”
Again, her mother had appeared in the doorway, having taken all the time Eva was in the room with her father to get to them. She heard the shouts from both of them, knew what had happened. She had known what would happen from the moment her husbands mind started to slip.
“Mama I can’t- “
“Come out here, Eva, you need to let him have his peace,” Eva’s mother spoke firmly, but calmly, not trying to make him any more worked up than he already was. It was already going to take long enough to get him calm again.
“Eva. Leave him be, he does not need this right now,”
Eva glanced between her parents so rapidly it was dizzying. The pieces were there, and she knew what they meant, she knew what was going on, but her mind refused to connect them, to allow her to process what was in front of her. “I don’t- “
“Eva! Now,”
It was enough to get her moving, standing from where she was still crouched on the floor, walking on shaky legs out of the room and into the hallway. As soon as she was out her mother slammed the door shut, leaving her totally alone in the dark hallway.
She backed up until her back hit a wall, her legs buckling beneath her as she slid down to the floor.
Faintly, she could hear her mother trying to calm her father, but she could not make out any of the words being said. It didn’t matter anyway, she would not hear them, her brain would not allow them, no matter how loud they might be.
------
There was no telling how long it had been before her mother returned to her, standing over her as Eva held her head in her hands.
“It is unlikely he will be able to relax again today; I need to call one of the carers,” her mother said, but did not make a move to walk away to find a phone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Eva asked, looking up at her with desperate eyes, “I would have come- “
“Would you have?” her mother demanded, nearly shouting again, “Would you? Because ever since you left for that project you have not given us a single other thought. You haven’t visited, you haven’t checked up on us, you haven’t even called. Not once! In all these years!”
“I couldn’t mama, the project was too much, I didn’t have time,”
“You should have made time! We raised you, we took care of you, we gave you everything you have ever needed for all your life, and you abandon us like we are nothing!”
“I wasn’t abandoning you. The world needed the project and the project needed me. I didn’t have a choice!” Eva stood, facing her mother, praying that she would understand.
“You expect me to believe you have not had a single chance to reach out in this many years, since you went away from us?”
“Yes, I do, it’s the truth,” If Eva had time for it, had time to let her mind slip back into the life she had before the protect started, she would have done it without question.
When she was voted to head the project, there was no question in her mind that was it something that she had no choice but to say yes tom and she knew that from that moment forward her entire life would be the project. She couldn’t linger on the things that she had left behind, the life that she had once had that she had left behind. All of those things had to be cut off if her mind was to be on saving the world, at whatever cost it might bring.
Eva watched as her mother’s eyes darkened, a finger knocking into her chest with each word her mother spoke. “You- you are a selfish, selfish girl,”
The words landed between them, and for a moment, Eva’s chest refused to expand, finally able to force out a breathy, “Mama, please,”
“Save it. Have you even thought about us since you left? Have you thought about what you're doing to us? Since you took up your little project, we have been alone, no one here to help us, no one to comfort me as your father’s mind began to slip. Staff quit; people came screaming at the fence; family doesn’t want us around anymore. You have no idea what it feels like to be the person who raised the woman who is destroying the world for the smallest of chances that the project might bring something,”
Eva just stood stunned for a moment. No, she hadn’t thought about it. She couldn’t bring herself to. “The project is all the world has left, there’s nothing else we can do,”
“The project is going to bring nothing, all you have done is kill us all sooner,” her mother turned, like she was starting to walk away.
“The project- “
“You are killing people!” her mom whipped around to face her, so close to her that Eva could feel the breath from her screams, “You understand that? All these deaths caused by using up half the words nuclear arsenal, paving the damn Sahara, and whatever the hell use you’ve done for this, the blood is on your hands?”
“I- I understand that,” Eva said, and she did.
“How are you able to sleep at night?”
“I'm not,” and it was the truth.
“Why are you doing all this? You know the project isn’t going to be worth it; you know that the world is dying and there’s nothing you can do about it but speed it up. Why? For the glory? So that in the earths lasts days they can look at you and still pray that they have a savior? You have left behind everyone else in your race for recognition,”
“None of this has been for glory, it never has been. I didn’t want this power, I didn’t want the world’s fate to rest on my shoulders, but it does,”
“And you have become a murderer because of it, you are no longer welcome in my home,”
------
Hours later, Eva found herself in a hotel on the outskirts of a town she had never visited. It was safest setup she could manage given she no longer had a security team.
She had not eaten, not since the snack she had managed before she boarded the plane for Germany- before she had ever encountered her parents- her head pounded because of it, but she made no move to get out of the bed she had found herself in.
Her plan had been wrong from the beginning. She should have never tried to go home, not when there were three people on the Hail Mary who would never so much as see the planet of their home again.
She had tried to go home, tried to absolve herself of the guilt of what she had done, had tried to rid the thoughts of what was coming from her mind.
But she couldn’t.
And that was what she deserved.
She didn’t get to go home anymore than any of the others did, the others who didn’t get to leave the project behind and run home to their mama and papa.
She should have never tried.
Her mother was right.
She was a selfish, selfish girl.