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Jun. 19th, 2006 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
h_hollisterHips was not big on greeting card holidays. She loathed Valentines, Earth Day, Arbor Day, Flag Day. She couldn't stand the innumerable 'buy people close to you cards at £2.50 a pop' days, bank holidays, religious holidays... and she most especially hated the ones devoted to dear old mom and dad.
Her adopted homeland doesn't have anything to do with the official Father's Day celebrated state side. This is because Brits have a healthy dollop of common sense.
But she knew when it was anyway.
She actually managed to let the whole day pass by without incident. Just... ignored it. Haw haw. Sucks to that, she had metaphorical fingers in metaphorical ears la la la.
It wasn't until the day after, today, right now, that she finally let herself think about her father.
There was nothing else in this world that could reduce her to a scared little girl faster than the spectre of her father, dead for three million years... or not yet born, depending on how you looked at it.
Even that small bit of 'revenge' that she got while in Better Than Life wasn't enough to make that pain really vanish. Even talking about it, getting it out to other people after twenty three years of sitting on it in silence didn't help. Especially since so many others had... almost dismissed it. Called it 'not that bad in comparison to THIS' or something along those lines. She supposed, in a way, they had a point. She could have had it much, much worse. She knew that, intellectually.
Emotionally, though, was quite another story by far.
She knew that there were those who would scoff, say 'well, at least you HAD parents.' Or say 'bitch, please, it's long over, let it die already.' That wasn't much of a comfort. She would have gladly traded places with an orphan as a child if it meant getting shut of her parents. Even when they kicked her out and sent her to juvvie, they were still there, simply because she was trapped there at their say-so. The school might as well have been called 'Peter Hollister's Custom Made Hell for His Only Daughter.' Or 'Aphrodite Hollister's Convienient Way to Hide Her Drug Problem From Her Only Daughter.'
And what had she done after she'd managed to beat feet from school? Enlisted in the military organization that her father so desperately wanted to be a part of. That he'd been denied due to his weight. Even then, he followed her. Even in that choice, she was trying so very hard to win his approval. Or piss him off. Or provoke him. Or SOMETHING.
Polly,
Your father is gone. I'm sorry it took me so long to get up the courage to write you. He left me half a year ago for another woman. I'd like very much for you to come home. Things haven't been the same here without you.
Mom.
Those words were sketched onto her retinas. Thirteen years later, and they still were there. And if her stares could set fires, she would have burned all of Chicago to the ground, like a modern day Mrs. O'Leary's cow, just from looking at that brief letter.
Aphrodite,
Get bent. I'm enlisting.
~Hippolyta.
She'd been a week short of her eighteenth birthday when she got the note. She'd been three days short when she sent her reply. And at midnight on November 11th, 2352, she simply walked out the front door of Miss Pratchett's school. Didn't bother sticking around for a return note from her mother. It had taken her three whole weeks to screw up the courage to actually walk into the recruiting office of the Jupiter Mining Corporation. Three weeks spent on the streets of Chicago, in the cold, late fall air, no money, no regular meals, no home. All she had were the clothes on her back, her state issued ID, and a deep, seething hatred of her parents to get her through that.
She was incredibly lucky that the JMC recruiter hadn't minded her apperance. Or smell. Or how she'd raided the company donuts immediately upon spying them. Or the fact that she had no diploma. Or permanent address.
When she first set foot on the Dwarf, on Christmas day, even, there was a tiny thrill of smug glee, of knowing that from here on out, she would be getting further and further away from them both. But especially him.
She hadn't counted on the fact that her uncle looked just like her father, only a bit slimmer.
And for the next nine years, she served under him, steadily hating him more and more and more.
God, her family sucked. And she was just the latest generation of suck.
She sat in her living room, staring at the television but not seeing it. As always, her PINpoint was tucked into her pocket, and Holly's watch was tucked in next to it. As her hand reached in to fish out the latter, she was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to get the former out and get away for a bit. No idea where. Maybe the Dwarf.
In fact...
Television still going, her seat cushion slowly sprung back into place as she vanished back to her dead ship.
***
"C'mon, there's gotta be something."
"Those files are classified."
"Against WHO? They're all DEAD, Holly."
The genius computer sighed dramatically.
"Ya know, 'at's the same line Lister used on me."
"Right, of course. Because it's LOGICAL and CORRECT. C'moooooon. Spill it."
Another CGI sigh, and then a quiet, "Retrieving," acknowledgement. A few seconds ticked past, and then Hippolyta was looking at her uncle's personal logs and communications. There was lots to slog through. She skimmed over most of it, even foregoing her usual snoopy buttinskiness to gloss over some of the more embarrassing and juicy bits. She was on a mission. And she found what she was looking for about half an hour into her weird little search. It was one line buried in a long letter from brother to brother.
H. is settling in very well, and her career prospects are high. She just got her first promotion. You should be very proud.
She stared at that for a moment, not really believing she was seeing it. She figured her uncle was in touch with her father, but never had solid proof. Not until right then. Blinking at it, she almost deleted it, but then shrugged. What would be the point of that?
...Then it occurred to her to try and find a reply.
...
When she found it, she read it over three times, just to make sure she didn't miss anything. But no. No, her father hadn't said anything in reply to that bit of news. Didn't acknowledge his daughter's existence in the least.
She closed the files. She stood up. She made sure she had everything. She was going home. There was nothing more she needed to know.
Then she sat back down again and cried.
Her adopted homeland doesn't have anything to do with the official Father's Day celebrated state side. This is because Brits have a healthy dollop of common sense.
But she knew when it was anyway.
She actually managed to let the whole day pass by without incident. Just... ignored it. Haw haw. Sucks to that, she had metaphorical fingers in metaphorical ears la la la.
It wasn't until the day after, today, right now, that she finally let herself think about her father.
There was nothing else in this world that could reduce her to a scared little girl faster than the spectre of her father, dead for three million years... or not yet born, depending on how you looked at it.
Even that small bit of 'revenge' that she got while in Better Than Life wasn't enough to make that pain really vanish. Even talking about it, getting it out to other people after twenty three years of sitting on it in silence didn't help. Especially since so many others had... almost dismissed it. Called it 'not that bad in comparison to THIS' or something along those lines. She supposed, in a way, they had a point. She could have had it much, much worse. She knew that, intellectually.
Emotionally, though, was quite another story by far.
She knew that there were those who would scoff, say 'well, at least you HAD parents.' Or say 'bitch, please, it's long over, let it die already.' That wasn't much of a comfort. She would have gladly traded places with an orphan as a child if it meant getting shut of her parents. Even when they kicked her out and sent her to juvvie, they were still there, simply because she was trapped there at their say-so. The school might as well have been called 'Peter Hollister's Custom Made Hell for His Only Daughter.' Or 'Aphrodite Hollister's Convienient Way to Hide Her Drug Problem From Her Only Daughter.'
And what had she done after she'd managed to beat feet from school? Enlisted in the military organization that her father so desperately wanted to be a part of. That he'd been denied due to his weight. Even then, he followed her. Even in that choice, she was trying so very hard to win his approval. Or piss him off. Or provoke him. Or SOMETHING.
Polly,
Your father is gone. I'm sorry it took me so long to get up the courage to write you. He left me half a year ago for another woman. I'd like very much for you to come home. Things haven't been the same here without you.
Mom.
Those words were sketched onto her retinas. Thirteen years later, and they still were there. And if her stares could set fires, she would have burned all of Chicago to the ground, like a modern day Mrs. O'Leary's cow, just from looking at that brief letter.
Aphrodite,
Get bent. I'm enlisting.
~Hippolyta.
She'd been a week short of her eighteenth birthday when she got the note. She'd been three days short when she sent her reply. And at midnight on November 11th, 2352, she simply walked out the front door of Miss Pratchett's school. Didn't bother sticking around for a return note from her mother. It had taken her three whole weeks to screw up the courage to actually walk into the recruiting office of the Jupiter Mining Corporation. Three weeks spent on the streets of Chicago, in the cold, late fall air, no money, no regular meals, no home. All she had were the clothes on her back, her state issued ID, and a deep, seething hatred of her parents to get her through that.
She was incredibly lucky that the JMC recruiter hadn't minded her apperance. Or smell. Or how she'd raided the company donuts immediately upon spying them. Or the fact that she had no diploma. Or permanent address.
When she first set foot on the Dwarf, on Christmas day, even, there was a tiny thrill of smug glee, of knowing that from here on out, she would be getting further and further away from them both. But especially him.
She hadn't counted on the fact that her uncle looked just like her father, only a bit slimmer.
And for the next nine years, she served under him, steadily hating him more and more and more.
God, her family sucked. And she was just the latest generation of suck.
She sat in her living room, staring at the television but not seeing it. As always, her PINpoint was tucked into her pocket, and Holly's watch was tucked in next to it. As her hand reached in to fish out the latter, she was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to get the former out and get away for a bit. No idea where. Maybe the Dwarf.
In fact...
Television still going, her seat cushion slowly sprung back into place as she vanished back to her dead ship.
***
"C'mon, there's gotta be something."
"Those files are classified."
"Against WHO? They're all DEAD, Holly."
The genius computer sighed dramatically.
"Ya know, 'at's the same line Lister used on me."
"Right, of course. Because it's LOGICAL and CORRECT. C'moooooon. Spill it."
Another CGI sigh, and then a quiet, "Retrieving," acknowledgement. A few seconds ticked past, and then Hippolyta was looking at her uncle's personal logs and communications. There was lots to slog through. She skimmed over most of it, even foregoing her usual snoopy buttinskiness to gloss over some of the more embarrassing and juicy bits. She was on a mission. And she found what she was looking for about half an hour into her weird little search. It was one line buried in a long letter from brother to brother.
H. is settling in very well, and her career prospects are high. She just got her first promotion. You should be very proud.
She stared at that for a moment, not really believing she was seeing it. She figured her uncle was in touch with her father, but never had solid proof. Not until right then. Blinking at it, she almost deleted it, but then shrugged. What would be the point of that?
...Then it occurred to her to try and find a reply.
...
When she found it, she read it over three times, just to make sure she didn't miss anything. But no. No, her father hadn't said anything in reply to that bit of news. Didn't acknowledge his daughter's existence in the least.
She closed the files. She stood up. She made sure she had everything. She was going home. There was nothing more she needed to know.
Then she sat back down again and cried.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 04:40 pm (UTC)