Happy -happy-happy birthday, right from me to you! [faye-faye]

[radical_cowgirl]

[Dated August 14th]

Edward had planned everything. She hoped. She remembered birthdays from living with the Sister. She always tried to remember them and make something special for the kid having the "special day". Not that Edward really understood what made it so special, it was just another day, but if it meant the Sister made extra-special food, Edward was not going to argue.

After a trip to the bookshelf, Edward had found a magazine with a picture of a birthday party. It was very different from the birthdays Edward remembered, but she had tried her best, getting up early-early and putting up all the colorful paper cut-outs she had made the day before. She had made little hats for each of them, and she even sent Ein to go bother the Spike-person since she knew that Faye-Faye didn't like barking in the morning.

With a hat on her head, she crept into Faye-Faye's bedroom, holding a muffin she'd appropriated from the bakery. She hadn't found a real candle, but Edward had managed to make a paper one that was almost as good. Faye-Faye was going to have the best birthday, Edward would make sure. Taking a deep breath, she started singing at the top of her lungs, "Happy-happy-birthday, right from me to you. I hope you have a great day, and a great year too! Happy-happy-birthday..."

She thought it would be a nice way to wake up, so she kept going.

Comments

[attitude]

"Oh, it's still you," Faye tried to reassure Edward straight off the bat, though there was an uncomfortable twinge in her stomach, one which wondered if perhaps she'd gone a little too far. Personally, she thought that the look was... objectively, an improvement. Maybe it didn't fit the personality that Ed had, always wandering around everywhere, not necessarily with rhyme or reason, but there was always a time and a place for a look like the one she'd just teased out of Edward's hair, and she hoped that the girl realized that. "Just a different look, that's all."

Still, she found herself asking. "Like it? Or is it too much?"

[radical-cowgirl.livejournal.com]

"Ed doesn't know." Which was the simple truth. The look was very different, her entire life she'd never spent any time on her appearance. She wore what she could find, cleaned up only when she had to, and ignored the looks people gave her. She didn't need them anyway.

Here was different. Here people needed each other. Chessmaster Toly-man needed his kids, so he played chess with Edward to feel better. Circus-girl and Coraline needed to laugh and play so Edward played with them and laughed with them. Faye-Faye needed... well, Ed was working on that, but for now she could do birthdays.

Edward didn't know if she needed anything yet, not really (okay, so maybe she did a little, but that wasn't anyone's business but Edward's). So she was going to keep on being the things other people needed, like on the Bebop.

"If Faye-Faye likes it, Edward likes it." She smiled, putting her uncertainty back behind the big wall. It could hide there until later.

[attitude]

Slumping further back on the bed, Faye laughed, a soft sound as her hair splayed over the pillow. Keeping up an appearance was always a painstaking process, but it wasn't one that Faye had been built with from the start. There was once a time when she allowed herself to wear whatever she had, whatever her mother chose for her, simply being fortunate enough to have hair that remained relatively tamed throughout it all. But that time was no longer. These days, every morning was a process, of putting on a mask, of making sure that it remained secure.

Faye honestly wasn't sure if she wanted that for Edward.

"I'll like it once you like it," she replied glibly, curving an arm under her head. "Frankly, if it's not something you want to do every day, then don't. Sooner or later, you'll know how you want to dress, how you want to look. Until then, there's nothing wrong with the way you look now."

[radical-cowgirl.livejournal.com]

"How does Ed know?"

Faye-Fay wasn't making much sense to Ed. If someone didn't tell Edward how she looked how would she know if she liked it? Liking things was Fay-Faye's job, she always let Ed know if she liked something or didn't, and even then Ed got it wrong sometimes. Like the polish. She said she didn't want blue, but that's what Ed had put on her toes once. But Faye didn't get angry and Ed never did it again. But blue was bad, so Ed didn't like it either. Not on toes, anyway.

She really didn't understand the adult-people sometimes, well, most of the time. She wished someone would just tell her all the things so she wouldn't get the looks she got. The crazy-strange looks. Ed should stick to computers.

[attitude]

"You'll know," Faye reassured, even as she knew that the explanation itself was lacking. But what other way was there to put it? Identity wasn't something that could be haphazardly tossed around, wasn't something that one could precisely shape for anyone else. For Ed to be truly happy with her identity, she'd have to chase down the surety herself. It felt like so long ago, now, since Faye had last questioned the little details, the cut of her hair or the color of her clothes. Everything that she'd toiled over ran deeper than that.

Clothes were just to paint the picture. What laid underneath, that was far more difficult to pin down.

"We're all just trying to figure who we are. What feels right. What feels real," Faye continued lightly. "Go with your instincts."

[radical-cowgirl.livejournal.com]

"But Ed wants to know now."

It would be easier if someone just told her all the things. She wasn't a patient person, except with chess. But chess was different. She didn't want to try and try and try and try, it sounded boring.

"Can Faye-Faye help?"

[attitude]

"Well... I can try," Faye conceded with a purse of her lips, though she reached out to gently brush through Edward's hair again, wondering how best to explain it all. It wasn't an easy concept. It wasn't direct, it wasn't black and white in a way that Edward seemed most prone to dealing in. "But Edward, you have to learn some patience, too. It's not a card that I can just pull out of a hat."

Her gaze brushed over the ceiling. "Becoming an adult is difficult business."

[radical-cowgirl.livejournal.com]

"How does Edward do it?"

She tried to stay still, she really did, but she couldn't help shift a little under the attention. If there was a trick to being an adult-person she'd learn it. She had to. If Edward wanted to stop being crazy-Edward and be adult-Edward she she had to get started.

[attitude]

"If I told you, that would not only be ineffective, it would also be cheating," Faye pointed out with a raise of her brow, watching as Edward fidgeted, no doubt uncomfortable with the idea of having to wait. If there was one thing that she'd learned in the time that she'd known Edward, it was the fact that the young girl really did have a tendency of running a mile a minute in every way.

And that she needed answers.

"You do it just by living, Edward, it's not exactly something that can be planned out for you."

[radical-cowgirl.livejournal.com]

"Fine, if Edward has to wait, Edward will wait. Ed can wait. Ed can do anything."

She hoped. This growing up business, so serious, so confusing, Ed just didn't know how she would deal with it.

Maybe there was someone else she could talk to. Maybe the Toly-man. He was like the father-person and father-people were supposed to be wise. Ed would maybe talk to him. If she remembered.

"What does Faye-Faye want to do with the rest of the day? It's your birthday, Faye-Faye gets to decide."

[attitude]

Whether or not Edward really believed it, Faye didn't know. She hoped that Edward could. There had been a time when Faye believed that anything was possible, if only she spared the time, if only she was patient. An idealistic train of thought which still remained in her, though it was buried, tempered, almost bent out of shape. It wasn't a matter that she wanted to dwell too much on, not that day, and so she reached out to run her fingers through Edward's hair, ruffling it just a touch, though she left the hair ribbon where it was.

"Let's go swimming," Faye decided, eyes narrowed in thought. "Closest thing we'll get to weightlessness, anyway, around here. And better than staying cooped up in the hut all day."

[radical-cowgirl.livejournal.com]

"Yay!"

She couldn't exactly swim, but Edward was one heck of a floater. And a splasher. But the water was fun and Faye-Faye was right, it was nice being weightless. For a little while. It wasn't like space, but it was still fun.

Bouncing off the bed, Edward headed out the door to get her swimming clothes. She paused only long enough to pause at the door and look back.

"Happy Birthday, Faye-Faye!"