with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

Leave any mail or email for Jenny here.

It seems as if nothing has stopped for a moment since they first brought the twins home from the hospital. Jenny might have expected as much, really, having read up as much as she could while she was pregnant, but caring for two newborns is not an easy task. For all that she thinks the idea of there being some latent maternal instinct in women is nonsense, she certainly feels like she's fallen prey to something, enraptured with her daughters from the moment she laid eyes on them, not half as crazy now as she could be with how little sleep she's been getting.

Even staying in the house, she hasn't minded thus far, mostly because she's been too busy and too tired to stop and think about things she could be doing instead. Her body needs time to heal, anyway, and it won't be too long until she's able or willing to get out a bit more. Still, she can't pretend that she doesn't miss being able to see her friends, so she's jumped at the chance to have Beth over to meet the twins.

Only because Beth is a close friend, someone she's sure will understand with all she's done to help take care of Judith, Jenny doesn't bother trying to clean too much. It wouldn't last long anyway, and it isn't like it's a total nightmare in here — nothing close to what she would typically consider to be suitable for visitors, but not as bad as it could be for the time being. She's going to have to learn to be alright with such things; she may as well start now.

Hearing a knock at the door, she rushes to answer it, Jacqueline tucked into the crook of her arm, Annalise in her carrier in the living room. "Beth!" she says delightedly when she's opened the door. "Oh, it's so good to see you."

It's probably ridiculous to be nervous. Jenny is fully aware of that, knowing that this is nothing out of the ordinary, simply something routine, but it hasn't stopped her from feeling like her heart is about to beat its way out of her chest while she waits for the doctor. For weeks now, she may have started to adjust to the idea of being pregnant and actually having a child — when she and Cameron have wanted this for some time, that part isn't particularly difficult — but it's still seemed a little surreal. Even if there won't be much to see in an ultrasound this early on, she suspects that having one done will change that. It may be a little thing, but it's still a milestone, and she isn't sure she realized just how much she wanted this until finding out she was pregnant to begin with.

Everything is going to change, of course, but she meant what she said when Cameron first brought the subject up. If ever there were a time to do this, it's now, when she hasn't yet figured out what she wants to look for in terms of a job and they're young and they're financially secure. Around here especially, things can change so quickly, so easily, that they ought to make the most of the opportunity afforded to them. Besides, he'll be a wonderful father, and in her case, being a mother doesn't mean only being a mother. The fact of that alone makes the idea far more appealing than she ever found it back home.

"I know they must be busy, but do you think there's some sort of law that medical staff have to keep everyone waiting as long as they can possibly get away with?" she asks, mostly to keep herself momentarily distracted. "Or is it just a coincidence that this always happens?"

It starts as a day like any other. That is, perhaps, the strangest thing about it, how utterly noteworthy it seems, though then again, that seems to be how such things work. Jenny never saw herself as the sort to become a housewife, and she still doesn't intend to stay one, but while she's in the process of figuring out what she wants to do with her hard-earned degree, it isn't such a bad thing after all. There's always something to be done around here, anyway. She spends Saturday morning — late morning, that is, when there's no reason for her to wake up too early — straightening up the house a little, the dog jumping around her ankles; she calls it a day and moves to the kitchen in the afternoon to make lunch, not unlike what she does most weekends. Cameron bringing in the mail, usually delivered around this time, fits the same description.

It's comfortable, but not boring, familiar, but not yet grown tired. Once, she wouldn't have thought that such a balance could exist. No one ever spoke of one back home. Everything came down to choices, picking one path or another; before him, before they were here, Jenny never considered that all of these things could coexist, that she could have her degree from university and live in a house with her husband and have time to decide what she wants to do, not shoehorned into one of only a handful of boring jobs simply for the fact of being an educated woman. Maybe she'll never travel like she wanted to, but she also knows that if he could make that happen, he would. Anyway, she doesn't need that, not really. She's still living much like she always wanted to, content, not feeling like she's lacking anything. He makes good money, they have a nice house, he indulges her whims and knows how much she likes pretty things, and they will, with any luck, be starting a family soon. She isn't sure what more she could want, at least that's within reach.

Standing at the counter, she glances over her shoulder when Cameron says that he thinks they must have gotten someone else's mail by mistake, not thinking much of it as she moves back over to the table so she can start sorting through it. Usually, it's all just junk mail, anyway, catalogues or credit card offers to be thrown out — there isn't much need to send letters in a city this small, when it's so easy to communicate by phone anyway — but she might as well see what it is.

She flips past a few envelopes, a couple of bills, something clearly asking for money, a menu from a restaurant that's opened nearby, and then her heart drops into her stomach.

Mr and Mrs David Goldman, the address reads, and there are any number of them. She knows without having to remember vividly what the specific pieces of mail looked like that she's seen them before, found them crammed into a glove compartment while she was merely looking for a cigarette, about to celebrate her engagement to a man she didn't know was already married.

It isn't as if she never thinks about him. He crosses her mind more often than she cares to admit, usually just fleeting thoughts, mostly ones pertaining to how lucky she's gotten. Cameron is honest; he doesn't have a secret wife somewhere; he doesn't need to steal to make a living; he can actually get her off when they have sex and make it last more than two minutes. Maybe it's because of how fortunate she is that she doesn't often go back to that night and the ones that followed anymore, the disaster that her life turned into in the span of an instant. She'd been left with nothing. That may not have held true, as she knows now, but it was then, and seeing these, she's there again, the weight of it hitting her all over again, as if she's seeing them for the first time.

She's on her feet and the mail has fallen to the floor before she's realized it, her face pale, breaths shaky. "This wasn't a mistake," she says, quiet and stunned. "This — I was supposed to see these."

It's almost strange to think about, how the past year has felt at times like it's gone impossibly slowly and too, too fast. When she was stuck in classes and studying for exams, so close to the end of her last year of university, it seemed practically interminable; now that it's over, her graduation a few months behind her, a diploma in her possession, Jenny isn't sure where the time went at all. Once, long ago, she hadn't thought this would be possible for her at all. Even now, it still seems a little surreal to be finished with all of it, to be partway into August and not preparing for school.

Strange, too, in another sort of way, is the notion of having been married for an entire year. As much as it is, obviously, a significant event, something exciting, in a way, it's also not like anything has changed for it. She and Cameron lived together for a long time before they were married, and there was never any doubt in her mind about their being able to make it this far. Their circumstances are different now than when they first got here, and they've settled into the house they bought not long before the wedding, but just as has always been the case, Cameron is a solid, steady presence, something that's been the case since they first started dating years ago, in another world entirely.

That doesn't make this any less of an occasion to celebrate, and from where she's seated on the couch, her feet propped up, she grins up at him. "So where are we going?" she asks. "Assuming we are going somewhere."

Gradually, these past couple weeks, the weather's been starting to change, and Jenny's not sure she could be more grateful for it. Back on the island, it wasn't something she let herself think a lot about, in large part because they had that month and a half of winter that provided a break from the usual tropical climate, but here, as it gets cooler, the temperature dropping significantly at night and a distinct crispness to the air, she finds herself something like relieved. It feels more like home. She might not miss the place itself, but in the year before she showed up here, she missed having proper seasons, or just something other than the persistent humidity that had come with living on an island.

Let out of class a little early, she's wrapped in a sweater as she makes her way back to the apartment that's grown more and more comfortable in the time since she got here, stopping on a whim in a coffee shop to get herself something to drink. There, it's the pastries arranged behind a glass display case that give her an idea. She'll still have the place to herself for a little while when she gets back, she thinks, and she might as well do something else productive when she doesn't need to dive into any assignments for a while yet.

They already have everything she needs, fortunately, ingredients she spreads across the kitchen counter so she can keep track of everything. Working from memory might not be the most reliable way to bake anything, but for all that she never had any interest in most conventions of her time, this is one thing she's always been good at, and she's already figured out that being in a different world or whatever this is doesn't have any effect on how the recipes she's familiar with come out. (It would have been irrational to think otherwise, she's pretty sure, but then, she doesn't know how she could be expected to make any guesses about this, either.)

Mixer in hand, she almost doesn't hear the door open over the sound of its whirring, and she doesn't look away even when she does. "I'm in here," she calls anyway, as if that much weren't obvious enough already.

Things have been slow since the musical ended, which isn't much of a change from the norm except that, for a little while, Jenny had been busy, with something to actually be working on. Now, though, it's business as usual, which means afternoons without plans, what could have been refreshing at first but, she knows, is quickly going to grow boring. Most of the time, it isn't that she dislikes this place. There are good people here, and she's been spending more and more time with Cameron since his brother disappeared, who would easily be the island's saving grace if she had to pick one. It's just that, when everything isn't absolutely mad, it's just as dull as Twickenham was, and without even the potential to go elsewhere. Back home, there was always something nearby. Here, it's just day in, day out of the same thing.

What it does have, though, is considerably better weather. In the year that's passed since she was pulled from home, Jenny has gradually gotten used to the way fashion has changed since her own time, and begun to shift her own wardrobe accordingly. Besides, it isn't like she's especially modest, as proved by her recent theatrical pursuits. Now, as she's done many times in the past, she's gone out to the beach, stretched out on a towel in a bathing suit, a light sweater and a pair of shorts in the bag beside her for when she decides to head back. Under the warm sun, in a place that's relatively quiet, it's easy to all but drift off, lulled into relaxation by the rhythmic crashing of the waves.

Half-out of it, she doesn't know how long has passed when she finally realizes that something is different. The sun beating down is just as warm, the smell of salt carried in the air all but identical, the beach just as quiet. There's something off, though, in the way the light shifts with the coming evening, and when she sits up, glancing behind her to where there ought to be trees, she's greeted to a sight completely different, a boardwalk and buildings off in the distance. It isn't right. She's seen the island change before, or at least woken up to it looking completely different, but this doesn't seem like that at all. It's utterly unnerving, panic seizing her all at once, making her throat constrict.

Reaching into her bag for the clothes she has with her, she shrugs the sweater on and wriggles into the shorts, as disturbed by what else she finds there as she is by the rest of it. She'd brought a book, but with it now is her copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that appeared just a few days ago, and an envelope that looks weighty. Ignoring it for the time being, she gets to her feet, dusting sand off herself and leaving her towel behind, heading in the direction of the first stranger she sees. "Excuse me," she calls, bag slung over her shoulder, "but I think I may have gotten lost. Do you think you could tell me where I am?"

The man looks at her like she might be crazy, and Jenny isn't entirely sure he's wrong. "Darrow," he says, the word unfamiliar to her, which must show on her face for the way he continues. "God, don't tell me you're one of those people who just appeared here. It's so creepy."

"I —" she starts, cutting herself off and trying not to let herself blush. There's no reason why he ought to be so unkind about it. "I am, actually. And, you know, you aren't being very helpful."

She turns on her heel, preparing to walk off and find assistance elsewhere, but pauses when he calls after her. "There should be a packet of information for you," he says, his tone itself making clear that he's probably rolling his eyes. "At the train station, if not anywhere else."

That, she reasons, must be what's in her bag, but she doesn't say so. She doesn't thank him, either. He's given her a name and an answer, but otherwise hasn't actually done her any good, and there's clearly a lot she has to catch up on. If there's one thing she can be sure of, it's that she isn't where she was when she woke up this morning.

With all the people around and the commotion accompanying midnight, it takes a few minutes for Jenny to lead them through the crowd and off towards the stairwell leading to her room (up now, instead of down, which is strange but not unwelcome. She wouldn't want to be living underground when it's this cold, and she likes having windows to be able to see the snow-dusted streets outside, the atmosphere that she honestly thinks she'll miss a little when it changes back to normal. Not all of the Victorian setting has suited her, but she's much more cut out for a place like this than a beach). If she's honest, she's grateful for that. It isn't like she's having second thoughts — far from it, especially considering she doesn't precisely know what's about to happen — but that doesn't make her any less flustered by the prospect of what she could do, and this brief while allows her to let her heart rate slow a little, breaths coming steadier by the time they reach their destination. This is right, she knows it is, feels it with a certainty that surpasses even her decision to lose her virginity on her seventeenth birthday. She just hopes that she isn't the only one who thinks so, that his going slow has been for her benefit like she believes it to be.

"Well," she says as she opens the door, keeping close to Cameron all the while, fighting off the urge to just kiss him again on the spot. "Here we are." For the first time, it occurs to her to be glad that Santana's moved out, leaving her with the room — or the set of rooms, as the case may be now — all to herself. The last thing she wants is an interruption at a time like this, when they came up here for some privacy in the first place.

There are times — rare, but they exist — that living in the Compound actually proves to be an inconvenience. On the whole, Jenny prefers it by far to the possibility of living out on her own in the middle of the jungle, especially having a roommate here that she considers herself fairly close to, but for all that the building itself tends to be a center of activity, it also leaves her a place apart from everything, often oblivious to things that happen until after the fact. So it is with this particular change of the island's. Having no Saturday classes, Jenny had slept in as she's found herself prone to doing on days off, taken her time in getting dressed and leaving the room, only to overhear, after wandering into a notably quiet kitchen, someone mention to someone else about rides outside, after which, of course, she'd made her way outside, only to find the whole island seemingly transformed, and herself finding out about it probably hours after the fact.

Now, of course, she really has no choice but to make up for all that lost time. Jenny hasn't been on the island for very long, comparatively speaking, but she's been around enough to know that this probably won't last, and she means to take advantage of it while she can. She's never really even seen anything like this; there was the occasional nearby fair back home, but nothing remotely to this scale, everything big and bright and updated from her own time. Between the rides and the food, she's barely been able to figure out where to start, wanting to try absolutely anything. She'll probably wear herself out, but it will be worth it. She can always take tomorrow for schoolwork, anyway.

She's wandering down the boardwalk, looking for the start of a ride with a container of popcorn in one hand, when she catches sight of Cameron a little ways off, and then she's practically beaming, smile pulled even wider than the island's present state has been able to prompt from her. "Cameron!" she calls, bright, bouncing on the balls of her feet before she heads in his direction, not even bothering to try to look less pleased. "This is wonderful, isn't it?"

It's not a date.

Jenny has been telling herself the same thing all day, since they first set a date, since they first made vague future plans at all. It isn't a date, and she's grateful for that, because she wouldn't want to be on a date anyway. They're entirely too serious, and even if she were looking for something like that, she's not in any position to, whatever different ideas people here seem to have. In theory, it should be simple, self-explanatory even. The problem is, it's anything but.

Whatever feelings or attraction or anything else one might call it she has for Cameron — she refuses to refer to it as a crush, the term entirely too juvenile — she decided a long time ago not to let them get in the way, and now will be no exception. It isn't like she has any intention of ever acting on them, or like they somehow prevent her from enjoying his company, distracting though they can sometimes be. This is just a dinner between two friends, nothing more, and that's a good thing, because she has few friends here as it is, and Cameron is easily her closest.

No amount of reasoning through it can keep her from being nervous, though, as she prepares to meet him, wearing a dress that she thinks will be casual enough while still looking nice. It's just the Winchester, nothing really special, but she couldn't very well show up in a t-shirt and jeans, especially not when she has no idea what he'll be wearing. (It will look good, she's sure, whatever it is.) With no advice from her roommate except to climb him, which she has no intention of actually listening to, she waits, trying her best to keep any nerves at bay.