Writing at 4am is a great idea.

[sic-semper-trex.livejournal.com]

Title: Leave the Cage Door Open
Genre: Angst, I guess. More 'kind of sad' than angst.
Rating: G?
Summary: A short (VERY short, about 500 words) fic that takes a slightly more cynical and bittersweet approach to Fakir writing Ahiru back into a girl. I posted this mainly because I told Sammie I'd post SOMETHING tonight.
Warnings: It was written at four in the morning. Typos and OOC likely abound.

 

He had finally written her story, repaid her for the sacrifice she had made in order to save them all when he couldn't. He had written it with a fountain pen, a far more modern implement than Autor had insisted he use. He had drunk coffee and water, not tea, when he needed something in a cup beside him on long nights spent laboring over his work, revising and fine-tuning it until, finally, his efforts bore fruit. He had done it his way, and it had worked.

Fakir sighed and looked over the scattered pages that littered his desk, watching the corners of the topmost papers lift and flap in the slight draft moving through the room. He drummed his fingers over the one place on the desk not covered in the tools of his work, thoughtful. It had been a great victory, granting Ahiru her humanity, but not an easy one. More than once he forgot to eat or sleep while working late into the night.  At times, he had become so absorbed in trying to write Ahiru's story that he neglected his promised visits to her pond.

On that day, it had worked. In the early hours of the morning, with Ahiru asleep by the light of the stove in the kitchen as she usually was on cold or rainy nights, Fakir had written down the last words to the story that now lay spread out before him for what felt like the ten thousandth time. On that day, after years of trying, it worked. Fakir had never been so happy to see a naked girl standing in the middle of his house.

It was evening, now, and just beginning to rain again. Fakir wondered if the three years spent 'communicating' with someone who couldn't speak had allowed him to forget just how talkative Ahiru had been as a girl. She had certainly had a lot to say to him.

"I missed talking to you. I missed talking at all!"
"Thank you, thank you!"
"Do you think anyone will remember me?"
"You could have visited more often."

It had been that last statement that had led to this. He had gotten defensive, insisted that he had been working for her whenever he missed a visit. Sometimes he was staying late at class, but it was almost always the writing.

"God, you were grateful all of a half hour ago."

Another draft stirred the papers as Fakir wondered if, perhaps, those had been the words that had brought them to their current states. A tense moment passed between them in silence before Ahiru announced, rather abruptly, that she was going to test out her new legs by taking a walk. Without another word, she had walked out the door in the little makeshift dress she'd made of one of his larger shirts, and left the door wide open in her haste.

Noon had come and passed in the time she was gone, and dusk as well. Fakir could not bring himself to go and shut the door.

He picked up his cup and took a long, unpleasantly cold swig of coffee, and returned to his other projects.