internalised | for misterdoctorstrange

The people who had disappeared didn't leave behind any ghosts. And then the spirits from before became less and less because, well, the local death rate slowed when there were fewer people to die. Besides, Harper was pretty sure that most people were happy to leave their current existence behind with things the way they were. For Harper, it was as if someone had pressed a mute button on her life. Her hectic, upside down world was suddenly empty. Ironically enough, if was bereft of the life it once had.

That had been hard.

Losing Stephen Strange had been harder.

She'd waiting for weeks inside the Sanctum, but he never returned.

For five years Harper closed herself off from the world more than ever. She cute herself off from the few people she knew who still existed. She went to work, performed her perfunctory duties, and went home. She didn't even bother with late nights in clubs and one night stands like she might have once upon a time. Losing Strange was one loss too many for a girl who had been abandoned her whole life.

In the end, it was the cats outside, in the ally behind the store. She heard the clatter of a trash can, and upon inspection found a whole pack of them digging for food in the bin. Before, maybe she'd see one stalking along the streets, but never so many at once. Not since...

Harper's hands trembled, and her heart raced as she ran to the front of the store. The streets were filled with confused people with wide eyes. People who hadn't been there in five years.

She'd finished her shift, gone home and buried herself in bed. As the hours ticked by she could hear the celebrations all around, but she wanted none of it. She couldn't dare to let herself celebrate - to hope. She couldn't do it anymore.

Threaded | Flat

Even after it was all over there was a lot to take care of. As much as Strange had wanted to take care of person business first there were things like the safety of the Realm that had to be considered. Fortunately with half of reality suffering the same losses as Earth the threats were as diminished as the protectors. Still, the hours seemed to stretch on for an eternity and he didn’t even have a cell phone that he could use to contact Harper.

Finally an irate Strange had told everyone to stop bothering him because he had some important business to take care of that trumped their increasingly minor concerns and questions. Strange knew that Harper had survived the snap, he’d been able to check that much. What that had done to her he couldn’t know but he could guess. She wasn’t a woman he trusted easily, not after all she had lost, and Strange had disappeared for five years. She had taken a chance on trusting and it had ended poorly for her. Again.

Traveling to a very familiar home, one that it seemed like ha he visited only a few days ago he hesitated for just a moment before knocking. It would be more than a little awkward if she had moved in the meantime but he didn’t think that was the case. Might she want nothing to do with him? He felt that was a far more likely scenario.

no subject