earlgreytea68 | Fortuna's Story

Title - Fortuna's Story (1/1)
Author -

earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs
Spoilers - Through the end of S2
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary - Fortuna explains her life as the youngest.
Author's Notes -

jlrpuckis my totally awesome and extremely talented beta.

Thanks also to Kristin and

bouncy_castle79for all the read-throughs and story ideas.

The gorgeous icon was created by

swankkatfor me, commissioned by

jlrpuckfor my birthday.

When I was a little girl, my brother Brem would tell me this story. And I mean, when I was little, just a baby. When Mum was sleeping, and when Dad was lost doing something to TARDIS, and had told us to occupy ourselves, Brem would sometimes tell Theenie and me stories. Brem is an excellent storyteller. There are some things Brem is not good at. For instance, he is rubbish at skipping rope, he really is, and don’t let him tell you it’s because the jump rope doesn’t properly obey the laws of physics because that is just not true. But he’s really good at telling stories and he knows a lot of them. Brem’s like Dad, he reads all the time, he claims to have worked his way through every book in the library twice, but Theenie and I don’t know whether to believe him or not. Theenie and I like to read but not the way Brem and Dad do. They are just obsessed with it.

Anyway, my favourite story that Brem would tell was about me. The day he met me. I always think it’s so funny, the way it’s not about the day I was born, but the day he met me.

“Dad was holding you,” he would say, “and you were all bundled up in a million different layers because it was winter.”

“But I wasn’t born in the winter,” I would say, and then Brem would respond, “It was winter where you were born.”

I love that part, because it makes me sound like some fairy tale princess who came from a place very, very far away, a magical world of almost-always-winter. Like Narnia! Before the kids saved it! (These are the kinds of books Theenie and I read, and Brem makes fun of them. It’s not that we can’t read the boring stuff he reads, it’s just that it’s boring.)

“So Dad unwrapped you,” Brem would continue. “Layer upon layer upon layer. You had looked so big, but by the time he got you out of all your layers you were tiny. Like one of Theenie’s dolls.”

“That’s not true, she was bigger than one of my dolls,” Theenie would interrupt, and I would say, “Shh!” because I hated for the Story About Me to be interrupted and Brem would say, “You don’t remember it, anyway, I do,” which Theenie has no response to because it’s true that she doesn’t really remember it, just that vaguely there was a time when I wasn’t around so there had to have been a time when I arrived. Theenie is always more focused on the fact that Mum came back that day, but Mum came back from having me, so I’m not sure why I don’t stand out more in Theenie’s memory. Theenie can be very dismissive sometimes, between you and me.

“And you had blonde hair,” Brem would say, and I would twist one strand of that blonde hair around my finger. “And I said, ‘She looks like Mum!’ And Daddy said that’s because Mum’s genes were stronger, for once.”

I like that part, too, that I am the special one who got Mum’s genes. Anybody can look like Dad.

“And then Dad said that you were my miracle and I was to take care of you forever and ever.” Brem is not usually affectionate. He loves us, we know that, but he’s not into hugging and kissing. But he does always tug my hair at the point in the story, which I know is the same as a bear hug from Brem.

“And will you?” I would always ask there.

And he would smile at me and say, “Only if you stop being so girly.” By which I know Brem means that yes, he will take care of me forever and ever, so that if anything should ever happen to Mum or to Dad we are in good hands. Theenie tells me that we are, because she can remember a time when Mum wasn’t there and Brem had to take care of her. “Where was Mum?” I would ask, and she would say, vaguely, “I don’t know…” “And where was Dad?” I’d persist, and she would say, looking confused, “I don’t remember…I just remember it was Brem who…” But that tells me that Brem knows what he’s doing and could probably fly the TARDIS if he had to.

Not that anything will ever, ever, ever happen to Mum and Dad. Dad will never let anything bad happen to Mum, and Mum will never let anything bad happen to Dad, and they will never let anything bad happen to us, and so we’ve all got several layers of protection there, which is good, because sometimes we need it, when things go pear-shaped and Dad has to yell, “Run!” at us. These are the times I know that Brem will take care of me forever and ever, because it is Brem who always turns and grabs my hand to make sure I don’t get left behind. It’s a little insulting, because I can run just as fast as the rest of them, but it makes him feel important so I let him do it.

“Tell me about the next morning,” I would always say, and Brem would continue his story.

“And the next morning, while Mum was still sleeping, Dad made us pancakes with chocolate chips and let all of us drink hot tea, except for you and Theenie because you were both babies—”

“That means only you and he drank hot tea,” Theenie would insert, “why do you have to make it sound like there a million people drinking hot tea?” and Brem would say, with long-suffering patience, “I am trying to tell Fort a story.” Theenie and Brem adore each other, they really do, this is just how they show it.

“Dad made us pancakes,” Brem would continue, “and he was being silly, he kept dancing around and throwing the pancakes up into the air and trying to catch them on his plate, and you were laughing, you were laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe, and you were clapping your hands, and then Mum came in and she was crying. And we all said, ‘Why are you crying, Mum?’ except Dad called her Rose. And she said it was the first time she had ever seen you laugh, and then Dad hugged her and told her that she shouldn’t cry, and he promised her that he would make you laugh, every day, every hour, to make up for all the days you didn’t get to laugh.”

And this is the part of the story that perplexes me. “Why didn’t I laugh?” I would always ask Brem.

“I don’t know,” Brem would answer. “You were…sad, I guess.”

“But why was I sad?”

“Because you missed Dad, I think,” is Brem’s explanation for this.

But I don’t understand why I missed him. I don’t understand where he was and where I was that I had to miss him. He never seems to leave. I asked Theenie once, “When Brem was taking care of you, was it because Dad left?” and Theenie said, “No. Dad would never leave. He just…I don’t think he could take care of me, for some reason. But he was here. I remember him being here. It was Mum who wasn’t.”

“And where was Mum?” I asked.

“She’s here now,” Theenie answered, abruptly. “She’s here now, so it doesn’t matter.”

Theenie doesn’t like to talk about it, and Brem will only talk about it while he tells me the story of the day we met. If I ask him about any time before that—the day before the day before we met—Brem gets upset and goes off in a corner to sulk (he says he doesn’t but he does). If I asked why I missed Dad, why he wasn’t with me, Brem tells me that the story is over and we all lived happily ever after. Once I pressed the issue and Brem got angry and snapped at me, and that ruined the whole story-telling experience, so I don’t press the issue anymore.

I feel like I can remember, the time before I knew Dad. But I don’t really understand how. I just know that there was a time when the world was silent and flat and gray, all around, and so cold, and so big, and so lonely. Mum was there, I know, and Mum’s great and all, but then Dad showed up and he was…Does everyone remember that time before you knew what colour was? The moment when you discovered what music sounded like?

I asked Brem and Athena that once.

“Do you remember when the world was silent?”

They looked at me.

“You couldn’t hear anything?” Theenie asked me.

“No, I could, just not the way I hear it now, it just didn’t sound…”

“Was it quiet?” Brem asked.

“No, it was…it just had nothing to do with me,” I realized. “That’s what it was like: like it had nothing to do with me.”

They just continued to stare at me.

“What about…colour?” I asked, getting frustrated. Why am I the only one who remembers these things? “Do you remember when you first realized how bright everything is? Or how everything is…not flat? Alive?”

They just kept staring at me.

I shook my head, annoyed. “I just remember when it all felt that way, and then Dad showed up. But before he came, it seemed…wrong.” I was pleased to locate a word that felt perfect. “It seemed like the wrong world. Like it wasn’t the world I was supposed to be in.”

“Anyway,” said Brem, quickly, “I was thinking we might want to go make a snack.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Theenie agreed, and then we went off and had snacks and I didn’t bring it up again.

I’d like to ask Dad about it. I feel like Dad would know. Dad knows everything. He’s amazing like that. And Dad says that I am his special girl. I know he loves all of us, but he says that I am the special one. I am Brem’s miracle, I remind him, and he smiles and agrees with me. “You’re so special, I still can’t quite believe you’re here,” he tells me, and then he winks at me, and then he does something daft to make me laugh. I always laugh whenever I know he’s trying to make me, because according to the story he promised Mum to make me laugh, and I know he’s just trying to keep that promise.

I always make a point of laughing with Mum, too. I can’t believe that I never laughed until the day Dad made me pancakes. And I know Mum probably tried to make me laugh, since she was apparently so happy when I finally did laugh. I must have been a mean baby, I think, to have made Mum think that she wasn’t funny. And Mum is funny. She’s beautiful, too. And she always smells really good. And she’s really good at cuddling. Dad’s not so good at cuddling. He doesn’t sit still long enough.

Someday I’m going to figure out what happened when I was born, I really am. I think maybe they thought I was going to die. Or maybe they thought Mum was going to die. That happens sometimes, with mothers and babies, and maybe that’s what they thought. I’m sure that makes them sad and they don’t want to talk about it and that’s okay, I can see why, and I’ll wait and they’ll tell me eventually.

But that doesn’t explain why I can remember that time of darkness. What was that? It was horrible and I hope I never have to feel that way again, and if I knew what had caused it I could avoid it. I will have to ask Dad about it someday, but I’m worried it will make him worry, and I don’t want him to worry, not just now when he’s okay. Sometimes Dad worries so much that he frightens us, overwhelming us with how much he worries about all of us and the rest of the universe. Dad cares about every single thing in the universe. Every single thing in the universe, and yet I am the most special of all. “My special, miraculous Fortuna Jacqueline,” he says to me sometimes, before wrapping me in a hug, and Dad is such a good hugger, “do you feel how you feel right now?” And I know how I feel, in those moments and always, like everything is bright and shiny and happy, like I love everyone around me and they love me back, like I’ve found the right world. And I can always feel Dad, wrapping around me like a blanket, inside me and outside me. And he whispers at me, “You will feel like this always. You will never feel alone again.”

And I know that he knows how I felt once, even if I’ve never told him, and that someday he’ll tell me why. And that, until then, he will just make sure that I never feel it again.

And I believe him. Because that’s what my dad does: He makes the whole universe right.

Fortuna's Story

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