Chapter Text
Everything was too bright, and she didn’t understand what was happening. The aliens that had taken her - she was still having trouble wrapping her mind around it - had been moving her around so much, always talking to her, prodding at her, giving her things to eat and wear, and she just accepted all of it numbly. A bit too numbly, she thought in her moments of relative lucidity.
It had all happened so quickly after Carl broke up with her all those months ago. The panic that had gripped her in that moment had never let go, and neither had her regret and anger at Carl, at Brad, at herself. Right when she had almost gotten home, her ‘take-me-back-I-love-you’ and ‘take-me-back-or-else’ speeches both mentally prepared and practiced on the flight (she hadn’t been sure which strategy to go with, and had figured she could pick when she saw Carl’s face), everything had collapsed. The months after were a blur of tears and survival. Mostly tears. She knew the others in the survivor’s camp were at their wits end about her not pulling her weight but she just couldn’t bring herself to care. Everything was gone. Her parents, her friends, her home, her Princess Donut. And Carl. What was the saying? You don’t know what you have until it’s gone? She’d always thought it was cheesy and had laughed at it with her friends over drinks once because one of Trixie’s ex-boyfriends had yelled it at her while crying. She wasn’t laughing now, and the devastating truth of it had burned into her veins. God, what had she done? What had she been doing?
Something was going to happen today. Probably. She wasn’t really sure what ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’ and ‘yesterday’ were these days.
The first and only time she’d successfully picked a fight with Carl, it was about her decision to sell Princess Donut to be bred. “ I don’t care if you get another cat, but why do you have to give Donut away?” was what he’d said. Why indeed? An absurd part of her wanted to tell Carl that Donut would feel betrayed and replaced and that it would be better for her to retire and earn them some money in the process. The more rational, less acknowledged part of Bea knew that it was because her mother had drilled into her that a showcat past its prime simply wasn’t worth keeping. That she had to get a new cat and win new trophies to show her mother that she was good and deserved recognition.
It had taken the apocalypse for Bea to realize that outside of cat shows and gossipping, she had no connection with the mom she had spent her entire life trying to impress and surpass. After a tense family dinner last year, Carl had muttered something about how the only thing Bea and her mom talked about was other people’s failures. She had gotten pissed and given him the cold shoulder the next day. Now she realized that he’d struck a nerve. Her mom had never taken any interest in her other hobbies, her friends, the trips she went on, the men she dated, the way she saw the world and all that emotional shit. Bea had never once in her adult life called her mom for advice, had never visited to relax and watch a movie, had never cried on her mom’s shoulder while she held her. It just wasn’t what they did.
When Ferdinand, the infuriating tomcat she’d kept rigorously away from the Princess had shown up at the camp, she’d broken down and embraced the creature. He’d been all she had left, and had clung on to him despite the scratches and Brad wanting to get rid of him. She’d missed her own cat, her Princess Donut with her soft, shining fur as she’d stroked the half-feral beast. Ferdinand and Brad. What shoddy replacements.
There was someone (something?) in her room. It was talking to her. Something about a show and a dress she needed to put on.
Bea’s dad obviously hadn’t been better than her mom, as he had always been off on work trips and busy with clients and meetings when home. One particularly cold night in the survivor’s camp she’d tried to remember the last time her dad had asked her a question that wasn’t something along the lines of “Bea, can you pass the salt”, and had cried when she couldn’t. Maybe it had been when she was in high school and had acted out by skipping class and partying. He’d asked; “Why are your grades slipping, Bea?”, and that was it, no questions about her feelings, dreams, needs, aspirations, her anything. It had broken her heart right down the middle, though she hadn’t realized at the time.
There was grumbling around her as something with appendages that decidedly weren’t hands delicately helped her into her new clothes. Should she feel violated? She continued staring into the wall. Maybe if she did, she’d find some kind of pattern or meaning in what was going on.
She’d been periodically considering therapy in her adult life, but had always shied away from it - only people who had something seriously wrong with them went to therapy, right? Only losers who didn’t have their life together. How laughable in retrospect. Now it was too late to talk to her parents about how much and how deeply they’d hurt her, too late to do anything with that pain but feel it and weep in the cold tent she shared with Brad, the man she’d ruined her relationship with Carl over. Oh God, Carl.
The alien was saying something about Carl. Asking her if she remembered that she was going to talk to him tonight, whether she remembered the videos they’d shown her. It all seemed so far away and too close all at once, numb and overwhelming. Didn’t they know Carl was dead? She knew. God, did she know. She’d mourned him for months now.
The first time she’d cheated on him it was mostly to see if she could get away with it. When she’d discovered how easy it was, it had taken most of the thrill out of it but she continued out of habit. Why not have the best of both worlds? Carl was dependable, solid, kind and warm, but sometimes she just wanted someone wild and exciting. When she felt the need to spice up her sex life, she could just call someone on her roster and get it on. No need to have any awkward conversations with Carl and how she resented how little it took for him to be satisfied with what he had. No need to talk about how she wished to God she could just be satisfied one single day of her life.
They were talking about Princess Donut and that reached through the haze. The stabbing feeling that was mostly dulled these days tore through her again. She’d been able to mostly stop thinking about her, and now one of her many wounds tore open again. She hoped the cat had been sleeping on Carl’s neck when everything ended. That they’d at least had each other.
She’d been surprised at how angry Carl had gotten at her when she’d told him her and her mother’s plan for Princess Donut. She’d thought he barely tolerated the cat, with the way he always complained about her sleeping on his neck and her habit of throwing up exclusively on his pillow, interrupting them during sex and while he played online games with his friends. Instead of sharing her own doubts with him, she’d gotten mad and defensive and had doubled down. She’d felt him pull away and had frantically considered orchestrating another pregnancy scare to make him stay, but it hadn’t been necessary. He’d stayed.
She was in a bare kind of room. They told her that she was going to be projected into a show, that everything would look real, but that she couldn’t touch it. She nodded vaguely the second time the alien to her right asked her irritatedly if she understood what he was saying. She didn’t, not really.
She wished she could take it all back, every betrayal and snide comment, every cold shoulder and word. She wished she could do it all over again. If she’d talked to Carl about how she truly felt, what she carried around inside her, if she’d just let him in she was sure he’d have embraced her. He was loyal like that, loyal, steadfast and she’d ruined it all and it was too late to fix it because he was dead. How fucked up was she that it took the end of the world for her to realize how badly she’d fucked it up? If she’d just let him in. Maybe he would have returned the favor and told her about his mysterious past and the parents he never talked about. She could have worked up the courage to tell him about his half-brother in exchange for the promise that he wouldn’t leave her behind to take care of him as she’d feared he would. Someone who went out of his way to help strangers to the degree Carl did would surely have moved the heavens and the Earth to help his newly discovered younger brother. Could they also have kept Princess Donut? Dwelling on these thoughts was too painful, and it was all she could do. What if, what if, what if…
Everything appeared in front of her so suddenly she couldn’t help but flinch. She could hardly make sense of her surroundings. She shook her head, trying to collect her scattered thoughts. Behind a desk sat an alien with a bug head, crab body and absurdly large breasts. On the sofa beside the desk sat a bare-footed large muscular man in heart-covered boxer shorts and a beautiful cat with a dainty tiara and a butterfly charm on her collar stood beside him. They looked familiar. Carl had boxers like that, her brain supplied.
…
Carl?