Anonymous

1

soooooo all of these chapters up until 24 were written between 2015 and early 2017 and transferred from ao3 after that point they'll be recently written

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The sky was overcast and stormy, rain bouncing off the bonnet of the car that was crawling up the congested road. A small crowd of young people in raincoats much too bright for the weather sprinted past the little green car Bonnibel was in, probably trying to get out of the rain as quickly as they could. Bonnie didn't blame them.

Bonnie's temple was rested against the chilled window on the passenger side of the car, her hands fiddling with the rough strap of the pink backpack containing her most important personal belongings. The car ran over a bump in the road and she felt a small thud of pain in the side of her head; that'd leave a bruise.

There was a small clear spot left in the condensation on the cold window glass as Bonnie lifted her head up. She stretched – the pink bag strap falling from her hand, pushing herself up in her car seat; a motion made harder by the tight black seatbelt over her torso. "Are we nearly there?"

Peter, her uncle – a diminutive man with fiery red hair dusted with grey – gripped the steering wheel tighter, as though it would make the car skip all of the road's congestion and get them to their destination immediately. If only that was possible. "Nearly. We have to take the next right and then it'll be about half an hour when we get there."

Bonnie let out an irritated groan and back towards the window – she was certain she'd been staring at the same tree for around half an hour, and it was becoming rather tedious. "Why can't people just hurry up? I'm so bored."

Peter let out a warm laugh and sent Bonnibel the same excited smile he'd been flashing all week – probably an attempt at cheering her up. He knew she wasn't happy about this move. "It shouldn't take too long. I can see the exit from here. We'll be at the new house before you know it."

Bonnie tried not to be too bitter about the move. She couldn't blame him for taking a promotion that paid more, but of course the job had to be situated on the other side of the ocean. "Okay. Wake me up when we get there."

Bonnie rested her head back against the cool, clouded up window. Why it was raining so heavily, Bonnie didn't know, but she wasn't accustomed to American weather. Maybe this was a freak storm or something. Wasn't it supposed to be hot all the time here? Or was that just on television?

Another thing she wasn't used to was the time zone. She was five hours behind her body clock, and had been half asleep for most of the arduous drive from the airport. It was 8PM, but to her it was midnight – usually she'd be in bed in her home in England, probably trying to stay up a little longer to finish a chapter in her book.

She found the strap of her pink backpack, nervously fiddling with it again. This was all so weird. It wasn't like she hadn't moved before, but to another country? It felt wrong. Like she was only supposed to be here for a few weeks for a holiday. Not like she was meant to live here. Everything looked so alien, like she'd crash-landed on a different planet. How was she supposed to fit in here?

Bonnie twisted to the right in an attempt to get herself comfortable in the car; she'd never been able to sleep well in them. Sitting upright and leaning against the window gave her a dull ache in her back, and as the car went over little bumps and trembled with the purr of the engine she tended to be pulled away from that hazy near-sleep and knocked back into reality. Peter didn't need to wake her up when the car came to a stop and the engine cut out; Bonnie jolted up and looked out of the window. "Are we here?"

Peter nodded, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at the reasonably sized house they were parked in front of. "Yes."

Bonnie felt her chest ease with a sigh of relief; she could finally go to bed. "Good."

"We've got a lot of unpacking to do." Peter ruined her evening as he pointed this out while quickly pulling his raincoat on – the rain had reduced to a lazy drizzle, but they'd be in and out of the house a lot to get their stuff from the moving van.

Again, Bonnie groaned, rubbing her tired blue eyes with the back of her hand. "Seriously? I'm so tired."

Peter laughed as his niece pulled the hood of her purple raincoat over her strawberry blonde hair and pushed open the car door, "I'm not saying we have to unpack everything. We just need to bring the things in the moving van inside and get our beds set up."

"Isn't that the drivers' job?" Bonnie asked, looking towards the two burly men in the front seat of the moving van that had followed them with their belongings since the airport.

Peter sent Bonnie a scornful look and she bristled. "Bonnibel. I feel like we should help out as well. It's only fair."

Bonnie let out a long huff as she tightened the drawstrings on her purple coat to shield her from the cold pinpricks of the drizzle. She stifled a yawn and followed Peter to the moving van; her eyelids felt heavy and she kept having to muffle yawns every few minutes.

It had been a long, arduous day. She'd been awake since 8AM UK time for the drive to the airport – they'd had to go all the way from York to Heathrow since that was the only place they could get a direct flight – and the flight itself was five hours, plus the long drive to the new house. All Bonnie wanted to do was sleep, and if she didn't get her bed set up in the next two minutes, nothing would stop her from curling up in a ball on the floor. That's how desperate she was.

"Bonnibel, could you get this box for me?"

Before she could respond, a big cardboard box was thrust into her hands and she quickly blinked in a weak attempt at waking herself up, probably looking quite dazed and disoriented. Actually, that was how she felt. She kept her eyes on Peter as he walked towards the house and unlocked the door – a smaller box balanced on one arm – and she dumped the box on the ground before she could fall asleep walking and broke whatever was tucked inside of it.

Robotically, Bonnibel helped Peter bring in multiple boxes, not even bothering to look around her new house – she'd do that tomorrow when she wasn't falling asleep walking and could actually pay attention to detail. She did glance around the room for a few moments to take things in – plain, cream coloured walls, boxes everywhere. So many boxes. Bonnie had nearly tripped over at least three when bringing things in.

She didn't hesitate when the men from the moving van brought in the couch - she collapsed on it without a second thought, the world around her drowned out by calm embrace of sleep.

-

Bonnibel felt a pair of hands on her shoulders and she jolted awake, her eyes searching in the darkness for something to help her work out her location. She made out the outline of Peter in front of her and her face fell into a frown, "What? Where am I? Peter?"

He laughed at her, helping her up into a sitting position. "In the new house. We've got your bed all sorted. Come on."

She let him virtually carry her up the stairs and into a fairly large bedroom that seemed to be located in the loft - she hadn't really been paying that much attention. It was bare – the only thing in it was a bed, a working bathroom and boxes. Those damn boxes was one of the only coherent thoughts that ran through Bonnie's mind when one of the sides of one scraped against her leg as Peter helped her across to the bed.

Not even bothering to get changed, Bonnibel slid under the sheets of her bed, her head falling against the soft pillow.

In an attempt to comfort her, Peter squeezed her shoulder, "Goodnight, Bonnibel. I'll see you in the morning."

She mumbled a goodnight into the darkness and rolled over onto her side, closing her eyes in an effort to get back to sleep. Even though she was so sleepy she was having trouble thinking about anything other than how weird this all was, she could appreciate the familiarity her bed gave her.

At least it made her feel like she was home.

(Sort of.)