Work Text:
Every day felt like screaming.
See, Jaiden had gotten used to miss Bobby. Her son had been taken, and she would have done almost anything to get him back, but what had been a sharp pain (what ? no. no he isn’t gone. he’s right there. let him come back with us. let me come with him !) had dulled into something more bearable. In a house surrounded by thousands of flowers, Jaiden had firmly refused to let her son fade away, and she’d gotten a reprieve from her grief.
Bobby was here (but not here !), in every memory she carried of him, in all his drawings up on the walls, in Roier that was so worried about her, in each egg that watched her carefully. Bobby was missed, but he was right there, and as long as she protected the eggs and Roier, he was gonna be there forever.
Being back was different.
Waking up on the train had terrified her. She’d been shaking in a corner when the rest of the group had taken down the wall (for a second time). She’d been silent when everyone had found each other and met and partied and built houses together.
It had taken a few days for the shock to wear off.
Jaiden was seeing people long gone and the echoes of her family that she wasn’t a part of (yet ? right ?).
Slime was there. He was joking around and singing little songs alongside Wilbur in La Suidad de Sacapuntas. She wanted to warn him, to tell him to pay attention. She wanted to tell him that little eggs were fragile, that egg beds were susceptible to misclicks. She hadn’t seen him since he’d gone into exile. He was happy. She didn’t dare.
Quackity was prancing around, flirting with everyone and everything, far from his obsession with Wilbur in the later days of the SMP. Jaiden saw him, and realized how much Tilin’s death had hurt him then. From plots to kill the eggs, spontaneous marriages that were never real, his obsession with Wilbur and Tallulah, his meddling in other’s love affairs… This Quackity was far from that.
Jaiden wanted to shake him, make him promise that he would never go to the deep end like he’d been, spare Wilbur the confusion and suspicion he’d felt when he first came and found a Quackity unhinged by grief. Spare herself the sight of a grieving parent announcing the horrors to come (it feels familiar, doesn’t it ?). But Quackity was harmless, and Jaiden felt more like his future self than he was. She shut up and let him be.
She crossed paths with a BadBoyHalo that wasn’t paranoid. Philza was relaxed and made bent dirt blocks to make it the roof of his house. Foolish hadn’t changed that much. Fit was at the beginning of his lava cast structure, but retained the same sharp eye he usually kept on Ramon to watch the other islanders. Reassuring, in a way, to see that Jaiden wasn’t the only one suspicious (with good reason, with very good reason !) of the island.
Nobody was scared of Cucurucho – or Osito Bimbo as people called him often now – or hated him. Some claimed him as a friend, most poked fun at his fuzzy bear outlook, and nobody was scared. Jaiden kept her distances. She didn’t know if time travel was considered breaking the Federation rules, but… As much as she didn’t believe Osito Bimbo to be evil, she wasn’t gonna risk being kidnapped like Cellbit had once been (he wasn’t even here). She wasn’t scared of disappearing or dying, but… Coming back different like he had, that was something she refused to even entertain the idea of.
She kept her distances from Maximus. He was goofing around like the others were, but she remembered his suspicions towards her, when she’d been nothing but transparent, accusing her of something she hadn’t done, and as much as she didn’t blame him… The hurt had been real. Max was a good person, and probably the one who’s past-future she would move on from the quickest, but for now, she wasn’t gonna get close.
She missed Baghera. One of the most investigative server members that had given her her trust back. She missed Forever and his plots to DNA test Cucurucho, barely concealing his mistrust towards her to give her a chance to earn her redemption (it wasn’t about bobby, about failing bobby as a mother, no the redemption was for working to keep the eggs safe, why did they-). She even missed Cellbit, and his desperation to please Roier, his crazy plots and his pretty castle (but he came back from the federation and he hurt her family-).
She missed Roier.
She missed Roier, and he was right there, and that tore her heart in half.
When she lost Bobby, she knew she wasn’t alone in that. A hoard of friends had fought for him, had surrounded her in condolences, and her partner had been right next to her, feeling the same pain. It had been her choice to go far away and build a sanctuary, spend time alone and avoid all those that reminded her of her son.
Now, she was surrounded by the same people and none of them remembered that she had had a family.
Every day she paid Roier a visit, goofed around, and quite literally inserted herself in his circle. She knew him. She could see how bemused he was by her constant attention, but he never vocalized it, showing himself as upbeat as ever. Spreen was still around, and one day asked her if there was a crush involved. Her dry answer of “I’m not interested in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship” shut down that train of thought.
She never stayed long. She loved Roier, but she didn’t like Spreen, and every time Jaiden let a reference of their time with Bobby slip and Roier looked at her clueless, she felt like crying.
She wanted to yell “I am your family !”
She wanted to say “I care about you, but Spreen doesn’t. He’s gonna kill your dog.”
She wanted to cry “Please remember me.”
She never did.
And every day, Roier was kind, but he didn’t know her, and every day Jaiden felt like screaming.