Until Dawn

Familiar Faces

"Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones" ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

***

Present Day...

It's been about nine years since Leo and Genevieve were born. And if you were to ask Alice, raising them was no picnic. She had taken the burden of taking care of them herself for the most part, but there were times Ratchet would lend a helping hand.

Considering the precious hours of sleep she lost to a baby crying, she was more than a little tired. There was even an incident where she was awake at an ungodly hour of the night dealing with both children at the same time.

All the proof you needed was the dark circles under her eyes.

Yep, it was not easy for her.

Thankfully, Alice also got help from Talwyn, who came occasionally to help take care of them.

Even though she was beyond grateful for the extra help, it still wasn't necessarily a walk in the park.

But soon the hard part was over, and they grew up to be beautiful twins; both of them acquired stripes on each side of their faces, and Genevieve, now called Gigi by her mother, had long brown hair like her maternal grandmother.

The only thing they had in common was their eye color. Both of them had sapphire blue eyes like their true father, but Genevieve definitely had her mother's personality.

Leo, on the other hand, became kind of reckless like his adoptive father figure, much to Alice's chagrin. ("I swear he's going to be the death of me.")

He strived to become an inventor and create gadgets like Ratchet, so sometimes the Ranger did help the boy out in his projects, most of them ending in disasters.

If you ever come to his apartment and find the burn marks on the ceiling, do not ask him where it came from.

Even though Alice was pretty sure that her son was giving her premature gray hairs, she was still supportive and loving to him.

But she would be lying if she said she didn't necessarily favor one child over the other.

It should be noted that it wasn't a huge attention gap (what kind of mother would do that), but she connected more with her daughter than with her son in terms of their interests.

Whenever she had free time (that was not burdened by work), she watched Genevieve draw whatever interesting thing she could find in the house.

Long ago, Alice noticed that her daughter had an exceptional talent for art when she saw small scribbles on napkins on the table during one of their daily family dinners.

So she bought a small sketchbook for her to see how artistic she really was.

She were utterly amazed, to say the least; sketched fur was extraordinarily detailed and pencil drawn metal shone brilliantly on paper. Genevieve was very proud of them; sometimes she even hung up her drawings on her bedroom wall.

Every time her mother would walk into her room, all she could see was multiple sheets of paper decorating all four walls, and even one large painting on her ceiling above her bed.

It definitely touched her heart to see her daughter so passionate about something, and apply it to her daily life.

Especially after what happened four years ago.