#sweet dreams til sunbeams find queue

[wanderinginksplot-writes]

Clone Trooper Rambles

Because everything is a little more interesting with imaginary clone troopers hanging around.

Warnings: Frustration about post-surgery recovery (long-term).

---

Singing Again

“Thanks for listening! We’ll see you guys next time.”

The podcast ended and flipped immediately to the next song on the playlist. Rex eyed me from the passenger seat. 

It had been months since the surgery. I could speak normally again - as long as I wasn’t talking for an extended period of time - but singing was still out of my reach. I had been fixating on this podcast when I was driving or doing mindless work around the house. 

But that day, I hadn’t loaded another episode of the podcast to play. I didn’t like messing with my phone overly much while I drove, especially to do something as involved as finding the right episode and adding it to my queue. And the weather had decided to go from sunny to a torrential downpour in the last few minutes, so my concentration was firmly fixed on the road. 

And so I let the song play. It was Ella Fitzgerald’s Dream a Little Dream of Me, a song I had loved for as long as I could remember. I had a similar vocal range as Ella in that particular song, and it always gave me chills to hear her beautiful voice dance up and down the notes.

We drove in a cocoon of quiet - Louis Armstrong’s trumpet and Ella Fitzgerald’s voice filling the car as the rain drummed on the roof and windows. Rex’s attention was on the road ahead. Boss was watching the scenery fly by from the back seat and Trapper seemed to be nodding off in beside him.

“But in your dreams, whatever they be, dream a little dream of me.”

The words had burst from me in a uncontainable stream and I was horrified… until I realized that I sounded okay. Not just okay; I had actually hit the correct notes!

I laughed delightedly as the troopers swiveled their attention to me. As Louis and Ella scatted back and forth in the background, I asked, “Did you guys hear that? I think my voice is back!”

“We heard,” Boss told me. 

Rex nodded. “That sounded great.”

Trapper waved me on. “Keep going!” 

“Sweet dreams… til sunbeams find you, keep dreaming

Leave the worries behind you

But in your dreams, whatever they be

You’ve gotta make me a promise

Promise to me

You’ll dream

Dream a little dream of me”

The song ended, fading into nothingness. My smile was so wide that my cheeks were starting to ache, but I couldn’t have been happier. 

“How do you feel?” Rex asked. 

“Light,” I answered without thinking. Then, when I realized that didn’t make a lot of sense, I added, “I feel like I could fly the rest of the way home.” 

“You look like it, too,” Boss said. “Happy for you, kid.” 

I kept smiling as Trapper leaned forward to pat me on the shoulder. I felt so good that I wasn’t even going to object to being called ‘kid’.

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Author's Note - As a reminder, I write these a long time before I ever post them. This moment happened quite a few months ago, but it was a delight to revisit. Thank you for reading!

[troiings]

Hicsqueak 1 + 42!

historical au + big damn kiss

(sort of a fic, sort of a fic summary?)

**

It’s the late 1950s. Pippa relocates to [insert town here] and is out for drinks with a few friends one night in a not-too-ritzy nightclub, and the next singer is introduced, quite simply, as Evangeline (to a great deal of applause and whistling from the audience). She’s curious - glances up, but doesn’t pay much mind.

And then she’s singing (a house arrangement of ”Dream a Little Dream of Me,” Pippa registers distantly), and her voice is a rich, low mezzo that dips down into the contralto range in a way that sends shivers down Pippa’s spine in the best of ways, and she looks a little closer. Sees a sheet of raven-black hair much longer than the vogue, falling to the base of her ribs in perfect finger curls. Red lips, a dark-lined eye, and a familiar face. The makeup highlights certain features Pippa remembers being much softer, but it’s her, without a doubt. Her childhood best friend, who’d left her side at seventeen without even a word of explanation.

Who Pippa is definitely not madly in love with. Who she definitely hasn’t been madly in love with for years.

She hasn’t heard from Hecate since boarding school, since Hecate ran off without so much as a note of apology. She has heard rumour that Hecate was at Bletchley Park during the war (Hecate isn’t exactly a common name, after all) while Pippa was elbow-deep in grease (turns out, she’s a mad genius with pretty much any engine).

She keeps coming back to the club, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. Keeps coming back to see Hecate - Evangeline. Listens to her sing Patti Page and Teresa Brewer, “Wheel of Fortune” and “Secret Love”.

Hecate never sees her, or if she does, she doesn’t recognise her. Not until Pippa speaks to the manager, sings for him, and finds herself a slot singing just before Hecate one evening.

She finishes her set with “You Belong to Me,” and when she passes her in the wings Hecate is gaping openly, red lips parted. As her stage name - her mother’s name, Pippa recalls - is called from the stage, Pippa smiles slightly, murmurs: “Break a leg. Not that you need it - everyone here loves you.”

*

Nothing happens. Nothing, except that maybe Hecate catches Pippa’s eye during a performance or two after, while Pippa sits in the audience. Pippa queues to sing after Hecate, hoping to catch her in the wings, but all it takes is a moment of distraction and Hecate is gone without a trace. So she sings before her again, and ends her set with “Broken-Hearted Melody.”

Maybe it means something. Maybe it’s nothing.

Hecate is softer while she waits for the band to set up, but confused.

“Why are you here, Pippa?”

A beat. “I don’t know.” She doesn’t. “I never meant to be. Please talk to me, Hiccup. After?”

“Not after. I can’t, after.”

“Then when?”

“Next Tuesday. Before.”

“Six o’clock?”

“Fine.”

It’s short, but not unkind. And then Hecate is gone, to a roar of approval from the crowd.

*

She doesn’t come. It’s been twenty years, and maybe it’s absurd, stupid even, but she doesn’t come and Pippa thinks her heart might break all over again. Because maybe, just maybe, she felt like some of Hecate’s songs were for her too. And maybe, just maybe, she’s let herself fall a little too far into memories of the girl she wanted to kiss and kiss and kiss for their last two years of school, but never had the courage.

Pippa keeps coming back, and maybe it’s self-sabotaging, because Hecate has made her point, but Pippa doesn’t try to speak to her. Tells herself she will do nothing, just listen and watch. Because how can she not, now that she knows?

And then one night, she is certain-sure that their eyes meet while Hecate sings the final verse of “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Positive that she sees a flush creep onto Hecate’s cheeks. That sweet dreams til sunbeams find you is for her, for Pippa.

So she speaks to the owner again. Sings for the crowd again. Makes regular appearances. Sometimes just before Hecate. Sometimes on nights she isn’t there at all.

One of those nights, she thinks she sees Hecate in the audience, and she’s simultaneously certain and uncertain, because the face she sees is both more and less familiar than that of the woman on stage. Face a little plainer, eyes lighter, lips darker. Hair drawn back in an elaborate chignon that somehow belies its length.

Sometimes Pippa sits in the audience and just listens too.

Sometimes she thinks they are singing for each other.

It goes on for weeks. Weeks and weeks, and they’re stealing glances and singing other artists’ love songs and more, and finally one night Pippa stops Hecate on the way out the door.

She’s managed to cover herself quickly, a long coat hiding most of her dress, a scarf tied around her head.

“Wait,” Pippa says, reaching out to lay a hand on Hecate’s arm. “Can we talk? Please.”

Hecate is out the door, Pippa following close behind. Hecate doesn’t look at her for a long moment; stops beside a blue Vanguard—there’s a woman in the front seat, Pippa notices, maybe a decade older than them—and eyes Pippa cautiously.

“Get in,” she says, opening the driver’s rear door and slipping inside.

Pippa doesn’t question; instead, she circles around the car and slips into the backseat beside Hecate, and only speaks after the woman—Ada—and Hecate have exchanged greetings and they’re off down the street.

“Where are we going?”

“Home,” Hecate says, voice a little short, almost clipped.

Hecate and Ada live across town. They’re neighbors. Were at Bletchley together, Pippa learns as they talk about nothing and everything. Trivialities. Time after school. The war. Stilted conversation interspersed with Ada’s warmth and offerings of more tea. Pippa thinks she’s here as a sort of safety net for Hecate.

She doesn’t mind.

“It’s an escape, I suppose,” Hecate says when the subject of her singing arises. The explanation is halting at best. “Everything was so heavy. And I know… I know it’s just other people’s songs in a nightclub, but other people have known names just for that. I don’t want to be known.”

And a few extra quid never hurt anybody.

Ada drives Pippa home, and Pippa presses a few notes into her hand for petrol.

*

To an untrained ear, there’s nothing wrong with Hecate’s voice at all when she sings “It’s Been a Long, Long Time.”

To Pippa, her voice sounds strained. Just a little.

But their eyes meet across the crowd when Hecate sings: you’ll never know how many dreams i dreamed about you / or just how empty they all seemed without you. And Hecate drops her gaze with the words:  so kiss me once then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again; it’s been a long long time.

And Pippa knows.

And now they really are singing for each other. To each other.

And maybe she’s a little frustrated that Hecate still doesn’t seem able to speak to her in more than songs she sings while playing a different version of herself when she walks onto the stage and finishes her set with ‘Cry Me a River.”

Out in the wings, Hecate looks at her like a kicked puppy.

And then she runs.

Pippa follows, takes her by the arm in the alleyway behind the club, pleading all the way. “Hiccup, please,” she says, fingers finding Hecate’s dress, clinging to her as she turns. “I’m still crying!”

Hecate is too.

“Pippa...”

When Hecate trails off, Pippa doesn’t wait: just launches herself forward without thought, clinging to Hecate’s hips, and kisses her.

Hecate kisses back, hard. Cups Pippa’s face in her hands and kisses her, to the tune of a muffled jazz beat from the club behind them.