Beneath the Mask
Rating: PG
Pairing: Tim/Calleigh
Spoilers: Can't think of any.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net); anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Appearances are deceiving
Author's Notes: Response to the LiveJournal Writer's Choice theme, Appearances are Deceiving.
You know what people think when they look at her; you admit that easily enough. After all, it's what you once thought about her too. You're aware that people see the clothes, and the three-inch heels, the cascade of blonde hair and the perfect makeup, hear that sassy Southern accent of hers, and they get a picture of her from that.
They see the picture and they think they know who she is, what she's about.
You know that, and you know they're totally and completely wrong.
They don't know that she grew up a tomboy, that she only started caring about what she wore and how she looked when she realised that if people were looking at her clothes, they were less likely to be looking at her arms, her legs, the places where bruises were most visible. Just like they don't know that she started wearing the high heels from around the same age, in part so that she could appear taller when she stood up to her father in one of his drunken, abusive rages, in part so that she could quite simply feel taller. Nor do they know that she's so adept at moving in those same three-inch heels because she had to learn fast how to move in them; it was that or be hit.
They see her and think the perfect makeup is to do with vanity. They don't know that she used to use lipstick to cover up the split lips that she got with regularity. That the heavy foundation and blush covered up bruises, and that the makeup on her eyelids did a great job of detracting attention from the dark circles underneath, or occasionally, the concealer hiding her black eye.
They think the toss of her long blonde hair and the sassy comebacks that she flings around are the mark of a confident woman, that her appearance shows the same confidence. They're not to know that it's a mask she presents to the world, one that she feels comfortable hiding behind.
They don't know that she doesn't look in the mirror every day and see a beautiful woman staring back at her.
Instead, she sees a scared little girl who can't get her daddy to stop beating her and her brothers, who can't get him to stop drinking. A little girl who's just old school Southern enough to know that she has to hide all this from the world, who learns how do it and do it well, and who's never dropped the habit even though she doesn't live in that world anymore. Even though she's not that little girl anymore either.
They don't know that she wakes up at night in a cold sweat, heart pounding, exhausted from having run away from her father in her dreams. They don't know that she's afraid of ending up like her parents, a drunk or a lunatic.
But it's ok that they don't know those things, because you do. Because you're the one who wakes her up when she can't wake herself, who holds her when she cries, who tells her that everything's going to be all right. You're the only one who's seen her without her makeup, who's seen her in her oldest, rattiest clothes, the only one who saw tears glisten in her eyes when you told her that you still thought she was beautiful.
You know she doesn't believe you, but that's ok too.
Because you've got all the time in the world to convince her.