Chapter Text
Christine's laptop sat open atop a cardboard box, ‘Bedding’ crudely written in permanent marker adorning the side of her makeshift coffee table. If her back hadn't ached from lifting them all day, sitting criss-cross in front of a screen for the past hour definitely made sure of it.
The only thing that illuminated the bare, ivory walls of her living room was a lamp that had been so lovingly gifted to her as a ‘housewarming gift’— lavender and adorned with whatever Disney princesses were popular in the early 2000s. Their faded smiles seemed to mock her as they inched into her vision from behind the monitor, attempting to break her concentration.
It had been over a month since she woke up in that same abandoned building.
All she remembered from her last moments was her vision going hazy and a loud static noise blaring into her conscience.
Just when it had been almost unbearable, the feeling was instantly replaced by darkness and the frigid concrete underneath her, the only sound left to hear coming from the traffic in the distance.
It's funny how multiple weeks in the circus had only been about 10 minutes in reality. If by funny, you mean horribly confusing and disorienting — especially with an immediate phone call from her mom asking for her to pick up dinner on the way home — like it was just another day.
Of course that place had one more cruel joke to play on them.
Apparently, it had been over an hour for the curly haired redhead on the screen.
“So… how are things? Like, for you now?”
“Oh, you know, back to normal! I think… uh, making sales, spending time with my horses, you know me!” she answered nervously through an appeasing smile, chestnut eyes darting around as if to somehow avoid eye contact through video chat before they returned back to the camera. “What about you?”
“Well I just moved into a new place, actually.” Christine stammered out, panning the laptop screen around to show the stacks of boxes scattered and piled around the room. “I got a pretty decent job offer here and I figured, ‘why not?’”
she glanced down, picking at her fingernails before muttering out, “not like I have anything else to lose” an awkward chuckle escaping along with it.
It was much easier, putting it that way.
After coming back from the circus, living at home in her old childhood room at 25 just felt… wrong? Being away from it for so long made her realize that she hadn't made many changes to it since high school. It was like a time capsule, not truly encompassing her currently at all. Not that she cared much when she moved back into her moms house after college, but all of that felt like a lifetime ago now. She couldn't handle feeling stuck, and this life just… didn't fit her the way it did before.
The generous pay raise was just the cherry on top of this situation.
Ragatha let out a forced chuckle. “Ya, you can say that again!” She moved nervously, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Well, congrats on the new job. uh, I'll let you go for the night.” Her eyes softened. “But, if anyone reaches out, could you let me know?”
“Of course! I'll make, like, a group chat er- something…”
“Thank you. I'm glad I found you… Christine.” She reiterated her name in a quirky tone, chewing on the foreignness of it.
With what Christine knew from doing her own research, they didn't have much information that they could find the others with. ‘Amazing digital circus’ and ‘VR circus’ were dead ends, and it's not like they could remember the actual names they had gone back to.
Luckily, Ragatha had remembered Pomni mentioning her affinity for abandoned buildings and went looking for her youtube channel until she found a voice she recognized.
“No problem. It's nice to know that you guys, you know, actually exist. It's uh, nice to meet you… again.” Christine trailed off, trying to subtly glide her finger along the touch pad so that the woman's name popped up on the screen. “...Ellie?”
“Ya… It's gonna take some getting used to, that's for sure!” she said, reaching over to her computer to end the call. “Well, goodnight! Good luck on your new job!”
“Thank you. I'll keep in touch.” Christine assured.
She stared at the ‘call ended’ screen for a few moments, her hand instinctively flying to her mouth to bite at her nails.
She opened a new tab to edit her most recent video, posted 3 months ago at this point, and made sure to leave her personal email in the description so that the others can just reach out to her there instead of in the comments like Ellie had.
Not that it mattered much. She was sure that the 15 views it'd had for the past couple months weren't hell bent on messaging her anytime soon.
Regardless of if it made much of a difference, she had also gone into the tags to add ‘Digital Circus’ and ‘Pomni’, followed by each of her friends' old names.
Her fingers hovered over the letters to the last name she put down.
‘Jax.’
The last conversation she had with him was… their fight.
She couldn't help but wonder how he was doing. Just being out of that place had done a huge improvement in her general well being, she could only hope it was doing good for him too. Still, she just couldn't imagine him even wanting to find her or the others though, definitely not right now.
That hadn't stopped her mind from wandering.
She just… didn't expect to be yanked away from it all. Just like that. Not that she'd complain, but…
Christine closed her laptop and moved it to the floor, peeling the tape apart from the cardboard beneath it to grab some sheets for her bed, the only piece of furniture she had set up already.
Digging past the pillows and plethora of fuzzy throw blankets, Christine dragged out the maroon sheets her mom had folded and placed down in the box first.
She made her way into the equally bare bedroom, bringing her laptop with her and sitting it down on the boxes against the wall that formed a temporary mock desk as she began to unfold the sheets.
‘I’d move on. And probably forget about you.’
The words rang in her ears as if she had just heard them yesterday.
Well, at least that would make one of them.
As much as Christine tried to help it, her mind had been floating back to that argument every so often for the past month. She knew most of what he said wasn't true. It couldn't be.
She also knew racking her brain about it all this time later was a waste of time.
He cut it off, he didn't want her looking closer, why would he ever reach out? And even if he did… She's not even sure what she'd say at this point. Maybe they were better off just leaving it as is.
But it would've been so fun if things just… kept going like they were. Maybe if she had never pushed. If she just had more time…
Christine brushed away the thought entirely.
She left the dark room in search of pillows and a blanket to sleep with, returning with 2 smaller ones, a body pillow, and her plush grey comforter, throwing all of them haphazardly on the sheets.
She flopped face down without bothering to situate the bedding further, letting out a deep sigh and patted the bed around for her phone. Grabbing the blanket along with it, she twisted herself so that she was laying on her back, making a makeshift cocoon for herself.
Gnawing at the inside of her lip, her brows bunched together as she stared at the ceiling. She couldn't help but wonder if she had passed through Jax's mind as much as he passed through hers.
Everyone does. She had so many unanswered questions. She wanted the chance to know them without the stress of an adventure to wade through. But it's not like she could do anything about it if they wanted the same from her.
Ragatha did at least. If none of them remembered her, at least she had someone to talk to who understands. It's not like she could just sit down with a therapist and unpack her time in the circus without being sent to a mental health facility or something.
Though, if all of their conversations are gonna go like that… She might just take her chances.
Christine lifted her phone to check the time.
1:57
She really should already be sleeping. It's a good thing the office was only a 5 minute drive from her house, because she was definitely not waking up any earlier than she had to.
She set her alarm for 7 and rolled over, closing her eyes, spending the next few hours tossing and turning, trying to turn her brain off before finally drifting off.
✯
The seat belt alarm chimed, breaking Christine out of dissociating in the driver's seat of her car.
Her first day had been as much of a success as it could have been. The receptionist of the construction company politely showed her around the office, and another coworker trained her a bit. She had spent most of her day setting her computer up, working on general personal paperwork, and getting a proper work ID.
She also spent it kicking herself for not setting up her coffee machine yet.
Turns out procrastinating unboxing her stuff bit her in the ass big time this morning. She was absolutely not looking forward to scrounging up the scattered clothes off of the floor from frantically trying to put an outfit together 2 minutes before she had to be out the door. She had landed on a basic black button up and matching slacks, throwing a beige cardigan over herself for good measure.
Christine fished her phone out of her backpack, bringing up the GPS to look for anywhere around her she could pick up food for dinner.
A certain melancholy sunk in as she put in the name of a city that she didn't fully recognize yet, let alone spell properly.
Somewhere in the formal coworker talk and cold fluorescent lights from her day, it had begun to sink in how little thought was put behind all of this.
It's not like it went smoothly the first time she moved out on her own. She still cringed thinking about how she probably traumatized her roommate her first semester in college with the tearful phone calls to her mother every night.
That might have been ‘cute’ when she was 18 — It's not as cute for an almost 26 year old to be doing the same thing.
After taking a couple deep breaths, Christine pulled out of the parking lot en route to the nearest McDonald's.
She was probably just hungry and tired. It's going to be fine. She's fine. There's so many people her age doing this no problem. She just didn't expect it to feel so… hollow. That's all.
This feeling would go away.
After ordering her food, she pulled into a spot in the corner of the parking lot. Her phone rang as she took the first bite, the contact name ‘Mom’ lighting up as it vibrated against the passenger seat. She hesitated for a moment before eventually picking it up.
“Hey stranger! How was your first day?” Her moms voice echoed as she set Christine on speaker, the pitter patter of nails on tile and twinkling of metal nametags in the background. Figures, it was dinner time.
“Good, I guess” she said, her voice quivering unexpectedly. Christine could only hope she couldn't hear how embarrassingly pathetic it came out over the phone.
She coughed to clear her throat before speaking again. “I just hope I can keep up, it seems like a lot more paperwork than I'm used to.”
“Oh, you know you're gonna do great, Hun. It's only been one day.” Her mom assured her instantly.
She continued to eat as the sound of rustling bags and kibble hitting the stainless steel bowls filled the silence before her mom’s voice became clearer.
“Is the office nice?”
“Oh, ya. It's not a very big place, but I have my own cubicle now. It's pretty neat.” Christine spoke in between bites of her cheeseburger.
“I mean, it's a job. The people are nice.” Her voice grew weaker as she hurried to change the subject.
“How's my boy?” she said in the best sing-song tone she could muster. She couldn't help but let out a half-hearted giggle at the exasperated sigh that came from the other end.
“Well, he's definitely missing you as much as the rest of us. He just keeps following me around and whining.”
She heard her mom pick up the phone and hold it up to his nose, followed by some sniffs into the mic. “Here, your mother wants to speak with you, whiney!”
Christine rolled her eyes and let out a soft chuckle before speaking in a silly voice. “quit the whining, young man!”
She could hear a bark immediately after that, resulting in a fit of giggles as the dog presumably began to eat his food, judging by the distant sound of kibbles crunching in a tiny mouth.
She finished her food and crumpled up the wrapper, throwing it in the paper bag it came in as the shared laughter dissipated into awkward silence once again.
“So… have you started unpacking yet?” Her mom questioned.
Christine sighed. She tried her hardest to console herself before she spoke, focusing her gaze on the sea of car windshields sparkling in the early evening sun outside.
“...Not really.”
She could already tell by the newfound tenseness what was coming — the very destination that most conversations with her mom ended these past couple of weeks.
“You know, it's never too late to come back home.”
Her eyebrows bunched together as she flopped her head back onto the headrest. “Mom, I signed a lease. I'm not moving back. At least for a year.” she sputtered out matter-of-fact.
“I know. I just… I know how you get with this stuff, honey." Christine could feel herself cringing as she talked down to her, in that odd loving way her mother does.
This is setting a good reminder as to why she wanted out of the house in the first place. After coming back, all she had gotten from her mom was her incessantly questioning her and trying to get to the bottom of why she was acting so differently.
“I did this in college, I know what I'm doing, ok? I'm not a teenager.” Though, judging by the way her defenses poured out, she sure was sounding like one.
Her mom let out a groan as she continued. “That's why I'm worried. This is your first time really on your own, no one can get to you in an emergency. You had Lucus then, and as soon as that blew up, y-”
And there it was.
“Mom, seriously?!” Her head flung up as she blurted out, biting back the tears beginning to sting her eyes without her permission.
Of course. This is exactly the conversation she wanted to be having right now.
The silence on the other side of the phone was evidence that she had been loud enough to get her point across.
Christine pinched the space between her brows, shakily taking a deep breath before speaking again. “I just… Could you have a little more faith in me?” she asked sadly, trying to get her mom to understand where she was coming from.
“I do, sweetie. I'm sorry.” her mom said, her voice more quiet. “You know you can talk to me about this stuff, right? I feel like you've just been getting more and more distant. I never know what's going on with you.” Her voice grew sickly sweet, as if she was coaxing an injured animal.
“Did he reach out to you again?”
“No.” Christine answered shortly, hopefully ending this broken record of a conversation.
“I'm still in my car, mom. I need to drive home, so… I'm gonna let you go.”
A few seconds of silence passed before her mom replied. “Ok… I love you, Hun. Please keep in touch. And if you need anything-“
“Love you, too. Give Neo some kisses for me.”
Christine had cut her off before she could loop back into another suffocating lecture and hung up the phone, swallowing the lump in her throat.
Wiping away a few stray tears, she turned on her car and pulled out of the parking lot.
She drove home silently the same way the GPS had told her to this morning. The sun set on the horizon, casting the passing buildings in a hauntingly beautiful pink and purple haze before she finally pulled into her neighborhood.
Walking through the front door, she glared at the piles of clothes on the floor, overwhelmed by the reality of being in yet another place that didn't feel like home.
No place really did anymore.
As the door closed behind her, she slid her back down it until she reached the floor, hugging her knees.
And finally let herself break.