The Inception (Book #1 of The Inception Trilogy)

chapter twenty-two

(early update because why not? also, I have Criminal Minds to go cry over, so do enjoy this chapter while I enjoy/immensely loathe this episode. I really loved writing the second half of this chapter, just saying... love you all & thank you for your continuous support <3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EVELYN FINALLY FORCES HERSELF up after being unable to fall asleep the entire night. It's early morning when she opens her eyes, the sun barely peeking over the treetops. The sky is a light pink blended with blue, a comforting combination that has her gazing upwards so long her neck begins to stiffen. She rubs the knot out of it, then scans the camp to see if anyone else has mustered the strength to stand.

Only Harry, which is no surprise.

What is a surprise, though, is the meaty buck laying by the ashes of last night's fire. Also something she didn't expect to wake up to is him crouched with the same twig from last night in his hand. The tip of his tongue sticks out the corner of his mouth as he frowns, deep in concentration. Evelyn isn't sure if she should interrupt him or not, but she doesn't have to decide. With his adept hearing, he knows she's awake.

"How many letters--that's what they're called, right?--are there?" he asks in a voice just loud enough for her to hear a few feet away.

She walks behind him, staring over his shoulder. He's written both of their names in different sizes, testing out each curve of every letter. He's angled some in awkward swoops and others in ways that make it seem as if he's always known how to write, which she supposes in his other life, so to speak, he has. She crouches beside him, sweeping the mass of leaves to the side to reveal the dirt beneath. She finds another twig and begins to write all twenty-six letters, capital and lowercase.

"It's call the alphabet," she tells him. "Twenty-six letters. You use the big ones when you're naming things or starting a sentence..." She trails off when he gives her a confused look. She can't help but chuckle quietly. "A sentence is just a string of words. Didn't you say you could read?"

He nods. "I can... ish. Most of what we needed to be able to read was military code, so we didn't have every letter or 'sentences.' But I do know that when you get to one of those little dots, you stop before continuing. That's how they always broke up the code, anyways."

"Periods," she clarifies. "Those little dots are periods, which marks the ending of a sentence."

"What about these?" He draws a small dash in the air.

It takes Evelyn a minute to realize. "Oh, you mean an apostrophe. Or a comma? An apostrophe is at the top, a comma is at the bottom."

Harry furrows his brow and turns to look at her. "Both."

She teaches him basic words, barely touching on the apostrophes. Most common words he's never seen. He drew some of the code symbols he would see often on the field, but those made about as much sense to Evelyn as the difference between "weather" and "whether" to Harry. He had argued that since they sounded the same, they should be spelled the same, and how did kids learn so many words so young? It had been quite amusing to listen to him.

When the baby wakes Liana up, which nearly wakes up everyone else, Evelyn sits with her legs crossed and turns to Harry. He's currently rewriting the alphabet, trying to do it by memory. She points out that he missed the "m" before the "n." Harry doesn't like those letters. He thinks they look too similar. He also doesn't like "c" and "k" because they make the same sound, which he figures one of them as pointless to even be included.

"You're so tense," she teases, unable to bite back a smirk. "It's only grammar, Harry. I bet Robbie could even teach you."

He frowns. "It all seems... redundant."