Nancy

The bench is cold through Nancy's skirt, but the afternoon sun is warm enough on her face that she's been sitting here for an hour without moving. It's a decent spot — a little off the path, back against a tree, the kind of bench nobody else bothers with. She's got both arms through the straps of the Danny Phantom backpack, hugging it against her stomach like a pillow, and she's been humming the second OP to Nichijou for so long that she's lost track of where it loops.

Her bangs are in her mouth. She notices, spits them out, and notices again thirty seconds later.

She doesn't notice the guy until he's close.

"Hey — that's a nice bag."

Nancy looks up. Boy, maybe seventeen. Baggy jacket, hood up despite the sun. He's smiling the way people smile when they want something, and she's never been good at telling which kind of wanting it is.

Oh. He likes it too? "Yeah!" She curls forward, chin on the mesh. "It's Danny Phantom. See, it's got the logo and the little —"

"Yeah, cool. Let me see it."

He reaches past her shoulder for the strap.

Her hands move before her brain catches up. Both arms clamp around the backpack, elbows locking tight against the polyester, and she twists away so hard she cracks her knee on the armrest. The smile is gone. So is the humming.

"Hey!" She pulls the bag up against her chest, underneath her chin, and shuffles down the bench out of arm's reach. Her voice comes out higher than she meant it to. "That's — no. That's mine."

The guy's still standing over her, hands loose at his sides, glancing left and right down the path like he's checking who's watching.

"Relax. I just wanna look."

"No." Her fingers find the zipper pulls inside her sleeve and hold on. She's aware, distantly, that she looks ridiculous — a grown woman in a crop top and fingerless gloves hunched over a cartoon backpack like it's a baby. She doesn't stop. "No, it's — you can look at, I'll hold it, you can look from there —"

He takes one step closer.

There were warnings that the cold snap was going to be bad. The worst in over a decade. It was going to get -20f or -28c, depending on who you asked.

Nancy didn't really care about the difference between celsius and fahrenheit. She cared that she might get stuck outside. She could usually handle the cold, but she'd never actually had to live in it, and she knew that the shelters would be jam packed. People always died during these snaps. She knew that, too. She'd seen it on the news, and she really didn't want to become another statistic.

So that's how she found herself where she was, standing on a corner with a cardboard sign. She'd drawn "Just need a place to stay for the cold snap, please." in a rather neat scrawl, considering she used her eyeliner pencil for it.

She'd actually had a few people offer... Then ask what she would do for it, and she had asked them to please go away.

"Being trapped in the basement was better than this." she said out loud, and then snorted a small laugh. It definitely wasn't.

She continued to hold her sign.

Nancy ambled through the mall. She kept her hands tucked deep inside the sleeves of her oversized black hoodie, humming the Gravity Falls theme song as she walked. The mall was a good place to be. It was warm, it smelled like Auntie Anne's pretzels, and as long as she kept moving, the security guards usually left her alone.

She slowed her pace as she approached a storefront bursting with primary colors and loud pop music. Build-A-Bear Workshop. Nancy stopped, swaying slightly on her heels as she peered through the glass. There were bins full of deflated animals just waiting to be brought to life. She smiled, chewing absentmindedly on her bangs.

"Hey there!"

Nancy jumped, her sleeves flopping as she pulled her hands up to her chest. A young man in a blue apron had stepped out of the entrance. He held a basket full of unstuffed bears, offering a practiced, blindingly bright retail smile. She spat her bangs out, and blushes furiously.

"Would you like to build a bear today?" he asked.

Nancy’s eyes went wide. She looked left, then right, just to make sure he was actually talking to her. People didn't usually talk to her unless it was to tell her to move. "Me?" she asked, her voice soft.

"Yeah! We've got a couple of new ones in stock. You want to come make one?"

A warm, fuzzy feeling bloomed in Nancy's chest. He was just... offering? Just because she was standing there? People could be so incredibly nice. "Oh. Wow. Yes, please!"

She followed him inside, her boots squeaking on the floor. She spent a solid ten minutes agonizing over the bins before selecting a black cat with bright green eyes. The employee—whose name tag read Tyler—guided her to the stuffing machine.

"Alright, step on the pedal when you're ready," Tyler said, hooking the deflated cat onto the metal nozzle.

Nancy stepped on the pedal, watching in awe as the cotton spun around inside the machine and filled the cat out, making it plump and soft. Tyler pulled it off and handed her a small red satin heart.

"Okay, before we sew him up, you have to do the heart ceremony," Tyler instructed, his tone slipping into a rehearsed rhythm. "Rub it on your head so he's smart. Rub it on your tummy so he's never hungry. And give it a kiss so he knows you love him."

Nancy did exactly as she was told, taking the instructions with absolute sincerity. She rubbed the little fabric heart against her forehead, then against her squishy stomach through her hoodie, and finally pressed it to her lips. She tucked the heart carefully into the cat's back.

After Tyler sewed it up, Nancy carried the cat to the clothing section, her heart racing with excitement. She picked out a tiny black leather jacket and a pair of dark sunglasses, dressing the plushie with careful, reverent hands. She couldn't believe her luck. She hadn't had a new toy in... well, she couldn't remember.

"He looks awesome," Tyler said as she brought the finished cat to the front counter. "Did you make a birth certificate at the computers?"

"No," Nancy said, smiling brightly. "But his name is Edgar."

"Edgar. Cool." Tyler tapped the screen of his register a few times, scanning the tag on the cat's ear, and then the tags on the leather jacket and sunglasses.

The machine beeped.

"Alright, so with the clothes, Edgar comes out to forty-eight dollars and seventy-two cents," Tyler said, looking up at her expectantly. "Cash or card?"

Nancy froze. The bright, genuine smile remained plastered on her round face, but her breath caught in her throat. She stared at Tyler, then down at Edgar, who was sitting perfectly on the counter in his little leather jacket.

"Oh," Nancy whispered. She kept her hands buried in her sleeves, her fingers curling into tight fists against her palms. "I... I thought..."

She didn't have forty-eight dollars. She didn't have one dollar.

"I have to pay?" she asked, her voice trembling just a fraction. "But... you asked if I wanted to build one."

The good thing about parks after six is that everyone goes home. Moms pack up the strollers, joggers finish their loops, and Nancy gets the whole grassy expanse plus one oak tree with roots like bent knuckles to lean against.

She's got her back against the bark, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around her backpack with her hands tucked inside her sleeves. Only her fingertips poke out past the frayed cuffs now and then. She hums the Danny Phantom theme—quietly, mostly in her throat, switching without noticing into the second Bleach opening when she loses the thread of the first one.

Skateboard wheels announce them before anything else. Two boards rolling across the path, then kicked up and carried by four kids who've clearly spotted her from the basketball courts. Middle schoolers. Loud the way only middle schoolers are at dusk, when they think no adults are listening.

"Yo. Yo. Look at this."

"Is she sleeping outside?"

"She's literally sitting in the dirt."

Nancy looks up and smiles at them, because people are people. "Hi!"

That gets a bigger laugh than anything. The tall one—a buzzcut kid with a bike chain hanging off his belt loop—crouches down a few feet away, forearms on his knees, studying her like she's an exhibit.

"How old are you? You look forty."

"Twenty-six." She says it cheerfully. "Wear sunscreen. That's the real secret. Well—that and genetics, I guess, my dad had great skin until the drinking."

"...What?"

A girl in the back already has her phone up, sideways, filming. "Say hi to TikTok."

Nancy lifts a hand and waves. The sleeve flops with it. "Hi, TikTok."

"Why's your hair like that?" another boy demands. "Half and half. Did you get tired halfway through?"

"Oh—" She reaches up to tuck her bangs back and ends up with a strand between her lips without noticing, chewing the end thoughtfully while she considers the question. "I used to dye it. Black. But I haven't found anywhere to do it lately, so..." She gestures vaguely at the blonde grown out to her shoulders, fading into the black below. "Free highlights?"

"You're eating your hair."

Nancy plucks the strand out of her mouth instantly. Her face goes hot. "...No."

The girl lowers her phone just enough to look at her directly. "Okay but like, real question. How'd you even end up out here? Where's your family?"

"Oh, my mom's in prison." Bright, matter-of-fact, like reporting the weather. "She kept me in a basement for a while. A long while, technically—I dunno, there wasn't a clock. Or a lightbulb, after a bit. So when the police finally came I didn't really have anywhere else to be—" She shrugs one shoulder. "Long story. Short version: basements."

Three of them laugh, the way kids laugh at things they've decided are jokes. The fourth—the quiet one—doesn't. Buzzcut's grin stays on but shifts into something more interested, more experimental.

"That's not true."

"Mostly true," Nancy offers. "The lightbulb part is true."

His eyes drop to the backpack hugged against her chest. Black, scuffed, and across the front pocket, faded but unmistakable, a screen-printed Danny Phantom mid-phase, white hair and green glow.

"Yo. Is that a little kid's backpack?"

"Oh!" Her whole face lights up, and she squeezes it tighter without thinking—which is exactly the wrong thing to do, because now all four of them are looking at it. "You know Danny Phantom? He's the best one. Gravity Falls is up there, but—"

Buzzcut stands up out of his crouch and takes one step closer, so his shadow falls over her legs. His shoe lands right next to the strap lying in the grass.

"What's in the bag?"

Behind him, the girl raises her phone again.

Nancy emerged from the gazebo and looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun that peeked out from behind the clouds.

It had been raining quite hard, but she knew it was gonna, so she found a little shelter. It had rained for like, an hour straight.

She spat her bangs out of her mouth with a soft "pthew" and hooked her thumbs into the straps of her Danny Phantom backpack. She began to make her way out of the park to head to the soup kitchen to see if it was open. She was a bit hungry.

She exited the park and was walking along the sidewalk, humming the Bleach Season... 3? Or 4... OP, when she saw a car switch lanes, which in itself wouldn't have been noteworthy... Except she saw the massive puddle of water just ahead of her, and her brain connected the dots a bare moment before the car plowed through the water.

The water sprayed through the air in a massive wave that deluged her from head to toe.

She was soaked now. Her eyeliner that she had bothered to put on was likely halfway down her face already.

She looked down at herself as tears came to her eyes, more hurt than angry.

But why? she thought as she turned to watch the car take the next turn.

She looked forward once more, head hung slightly.

She didn't hum again.

She just kept walking in the direction of the soup kitchen, watching her shoes and occasionally looking up to make sure she didn't walk into anyone or anything.

Nancy bent down and picked up the scratch-off ticket. She flipped it over, inspecting both sides. It hadn’t been scratched off.

“Oh, cool,” she murmured. She walked over to the curb and sat down, taking her bag off and digging through it until she found a quarter. It was a 2004 quarter she had found the other day, so that was cool.

She used it to scratch off the ticket.

She stared at it, dumbfounded, unable to believe what she was seeing.

$50k. She had to be seeing it wrong. There was no way.

She flipped it over again and read.

Prizes over $599 but under $5,000,000 must be redeemed at a Lottery Claim Center, by mail, or through the app.

She chewed her bangs, staring at the words.

She had an expired ID. She had a feeling that it wouldn’t be good enough. And what if someone else had already claimed it somehow? It had to be sitting on the ground for a reason...

She stood up, slung her backpack on, and went into the store.

She walked up to the counter, and the cashier gave her half a glance, seemingly unperturbed by her less-than-stellar state of being.

“Uhm, hi... Can... Can you scan this, please?” she asked, her voice soft. She held out the ticket.

The cashier didn’t say anything. He just looked at her face and raised an eyebrow when he saw her bangs in her mouth. She spat them out with a blush as she handed over the ticket.

Her hands retreated inside her sleeves as he scanned it.

“Says here you... won fifty thousand,” he said, sounding both interested and a little bitter. He held it back out to her. “Congrats,” he added dryly.

She took it with trembling fingers and looked at him, eyes wide.

“W-what do I do with it?” she asked, her voice flat, her mind completely blank.

The cashier huffed at her. “I don’t know, man. Hookers and blow? You gotta claim it at a center or whatever. I can’t cash it out here.”

She flinched slightly at his tone but otherwise didn’t move.

“Can you tell me where a claim center is?” she asked, her voice still a bit flat.

“Uh, yeah. I guess.” He pulled out his phone and googled it, then held it out to her. “You gonna be able to remember?”

She took the phone with a nod. “Y-yeah. Should be fine. Thank you.”

She looked. The claim center was only a few miles away. Nearly a straight walk. She could find it. She could ask for help when she got closer.

She gave the phone back and smiled widely at him. “Thank you, sir. I... I won’t forget you. I’ll come back and give you some, okay?”

She turned and hurried out of the store, leaving the bemused cashier behind.

“Sure,” was all he managed to say before she was gone, clutching the lottery ticket fiercely to her chest.