(no subject)
Title: Happy Family
Author: mina_kat9
Theme/Set: 10 Happy Family/CI
Rating: G/K
Claim (+ additional character(s)): Alex Eames (w/ others)
Warning: n/a
Summary: Choices(Note, I'm taking a decidedly AU approach for this claim. So don't freak. Or, do, 'cause it's pretty freaky, really.)
The Eames clan was close. It was the first thing anyone commented on. Brother and sisters lived in each other’s hip pockets and always had. Johnny Eames watched over them with the same close attention he had when they were children. And they all watched out for Emily Eames, especially since her stroke.
Alex Eames sat at her parent’s kitchen table, shucking peas, exactly as she had as a child. Her father sat across from her, patiently working on his taxes, only swearing occasionally. Finally he pushed the papers aside and swore creatively.
“Language, Johnny, honestly.” Emily laughed. “I don’t know why I bother.” Alex didn’t either. The swearing was the least of what he should be doing.
Her parents were still reeling financially from having to pay back fifty thousand dollars worth of pension that he’d mistakenly received. They were of the opinion that he was lucky not to be charged with fraud, but she got an angry, empty feeling in her stomach every time she though of it. He was a good man, who’d worked hard for the city. Anyone who ever mentioned him did so with respect. And now he sat worrying where their next dollar was coming from.
In the other room she could hear Bill and Allison talking. They were laughing but there was a forced quality to it. He’d been talking about the Catholic school he’d finally buckled down and sent his daughter to. Public school was just too harsh for her. A good school in a good parish, but it cost a pretty penny and he and his wife were juggling to keep afloat.
And Ally. Her baby sister who wanted nothing more than to be a mom. Alex didn’t even begin to understand why *anyone* would want that, but her sister did. And they were talking about how much adoption cost.
Money. Every decision in this house was bound up in cold, hard cash. She looked down at her clothes. At that very moment, boots included, she was wearing almost five thousand dollars worth of clothes. The boots alone were almost a thousand. And all she’d done for them was, what? Agree to listen to something she would have anyway? Agree to repeat it into an ear that might actually *do* something about it?
If she asked him, he’d pay for it all. Money only mattered to him for what it could do. And doing this would put her even further under his control which would undoubtedly please him.
She got up from the table, handed her mother the bowl of peas and went into the living room. She couldn’t sit across from Johnny Eames and contemplate selling her soul for thirty pieces of silver. It would kill him.
It would kill all of them, she knew. Looking at her siblings, she rejected the idea firmly and completely. What was between her and him had nothing to do with this happy family. It was born of a darker, more primal place.
“Hey, sis, Ally was just asking-you coming over next weekend? Dad wants to try out that grill I got, cook up a healthy part of a pig or something.”
She shook her head, smiling at the image.
“Sorry, can’t make it. I’m going to the country with a friend for the weekend.” She chuckled, remembering. “Going to go antiquing.”
Table thingie
Author: mina_kat9
Theme/Set: 10 Happy Family/CI
Rating: G/K
Claim (+ additional character(s)): Alex Eames (w/ others)
Warning: n/a
Summary: Choices(Note, I'm taking a decidedly AU approach for this claim. So don't freak. Or, do, 'cause it's pretty freaky, really.)
The Eames clan was close. It was the first thing anyone commented on. Brother and sisters lived in each other’s hip pockets and always had. Johnny Eames watched over them with the same close attention he had when they were children. And they all watched out for Emily Eames, especially since her stroke.
Alex Eames sat at her parent’s kitchen table, shucking peas, exactly as she had as a child. Her father sat across from her, patiently working on his taxes, only swearing occasionally. Finally he pushed the papers aside and swore creatively.
“Language, Johnny, honestly.” Emily laughed. “I don’t know why I bother.” Alex didn’t either. The swearing was the least of what he should be doing.
Her parents were still reeling financially from having to pay back fifty thousand dollars worth of pension that he’d mistakenly received. They were of the opinion that he was lucky not to be charged with fraud, but she got an angry, empty feeling in her stomach every time she though of it. He was a good man, who’d worked hard for the city. Anyone who ever mentioned him did so with respect. And now he sat worrying where their next dollar was coming from.
In the other room she could hear Bill and Allison talking. They were laughing but there was a forced quality to it. He’d been talking about the Catholic school he’d finally buckled down and sent his daughter to. Public school was just too harsh for her. A good school in a good parish, but it cost a pretty penny and he and his wife were juggling to keep afloat.
And Ally. Her baby sister who wanted nothing more than to be a mom. Alex didn’t even begin to understand why *anyone* would want that, but her sister did. And they were talking about how much adoption cost.
Money. Every decision in this house was bound up in cold, hard cash. She looked down at her clothes. At that very moment, boots included, she was wearing almost five thousand dollars worth of clothes. The boots alone were almost a thousand. And all she’d done for them was, what? Agree to listen to something she would have anyway? Agree to repeat it into an ear that might actually *do* something about it?
If she asked him, he’d pay for it all. Money only mattered to him for what it could do. And doing this would put her even further under his control which would undoubtedly please him.
She got up from the table, handed her mother the bowl of peas and went into the living room. She couldn’t sit across from Johnny Eames and contemplate selling her soul for thirty pieces of silver. It would kill him.
It would kill all of them, she knew. Looking at her siblings, she rejected the idea firmly and completely. What was between her and him had nothing to do with this happy family. It was born of a darker, more primal place.
“Hey, sis, Ally was just asking-you coming over next weekend? Dad wants to try out that grill I got, cook up a healthy part of a pig or something.”
She shook her head, smiling at the image.
“Sorry, can’t make it. I’m going to the country with a friend for the weekend.” She chuckled, remembering. “Going to go antiquing.”
Table thingie