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Post by Holly Ashdown on Dec 15, 2009 16:53:36 GMT -8
 your name | andy
your age | 20
contact information | PM, email, YIM and shouting loudly in the direction of Wales!
characters | fiver rye & mihira
  full name | Holly Lorcan Ashdown
nicknames & titles | Not the kind of person who gets nicknames, she is generally known as Holly; she sometimes gets monikers and pet names, but they haven't stuck yet. She gets called 'Mum' a lot, though.
Her records also list her as 'Holly Egress' due to her short marriage, but she reverted to her maiden name after her husbands death.
age | 30 ; 21/04/80
sexuality | heterosexual
occupation | Holly has been working since she could - before she turned 16, she had a paper route and some illegal cleaning jobs. Then she started waitressing, delivering food and still cleaning houses - she gets a small grant from the foster care system for the kids she looks after, but she still has to hold multiple jobs to afford everything she and her family needs. Right now, she is employed by Torchwood to do general maintenance like laundry, cleaning, cooking etc but she still holds down a couple of other cleaning jobs, and a night shift at the local 24-Hour supermarket.
family information | - Ebenezer Benbow Ashdown; father, deceased. Drank himself to death, before dying of a heart attack when Holly was 14 - she had spent her childhood looking after him as well as her siblings, and he serves as the awful warning that keeps her from touching alcohol.
- Florence Rose Ashdown, nee Andre; mother, deceased. Died when Holly was 8; she was a kind but quiet woman, who spent her life being a barrier between her brusque husband and her children. It is Holly's belief that her father's drinking, depression and anger issues were almost directly responsible for her mother's death.
- Nathaniel Eamonn Egress; husband, deceased. Though their relationship was brief and there was a significant age gap, Holly will always love her reserved poet. Diagnosed with terminal cancer before they met, she married him knowing that he was likely to die within a year. She doesn't like to talk about it, but still sets a place for him at dinner every Christmas.
- Andrew Artan Ashdown; brother, 35. Left home at 16, leeching off rich friends to survive. Now has a respectable job selling cars - Holly doesn't speak to him, usually only at Christmas, because she believes he abandoned them.
- Alexander Hogan Ashdown; brother, 33. Favourite brother, helped look after the family when their mother died. Works as a mechanic - Holly loves him, but knows he could be more than a grease monkey.
- Rory Duncan Ashdown; brother, 27. Youngest and wildest, Rory is always getting in trouble - usually of the illegal kind. The first of the family to finish school, he is being put through college by Holly and Alex, but resents the pressure to suceed.
- Melinda Grace Mason; adopted daughter, 19. The first of Holly's foster charges, Mellie was 8 when she met Holly. They have a close relationship, though Mellie sometimes takes advantage of her mothers generous nature. She is now living in a small flat with her twin brother, and working at a restaurant that Holly once worked for and studying literature.
- James Evan Mason; adopted son, 19. Came to Holly with his twin sister aged 8, and is the more caring of the two. Quiet and withdrawn, he works at a local childrens center with disabled kids while studying to become a teacher. He and Holly get along perfectly, and he often drops by to see her at home, to help with his foster brother and sisters.
- Franklin Abel Dannyfer; adopted son, 16. After losing his hearing when his mother pushed him down a set of stairs, Frankie was put into the foster system with his sister. They were seperated when Frankie when went into specialist care - when he came to Holly, she convinced the foster system to let her have his sister too. He remains the most rebellious of her children, but quick to defend his foster family.
- Maria Joanne Dannyfer; adopted daughter, 15. Coming from a broken home, Maria was shunted around foster families and care homes because of her continued truancy and silence. When Holly gained her care and reunited her with her brother, Maria knuckled down and started attending school regularly - she still speaks only rarely though.
- William Dean Moore; adopted son, 10. Quiet and bookish, Billy was placed with Holly at three years old, after his neglectful parents died in a car crash - Billy was in the back seat and the crash left him with burns across his chest and back. He is easily scared, often hiding behind Frankie or Holly.
- Jane Vesta Wolfe; adopted daughter, 09. Brought to Holly after being found abandoned in a library, Jane was two years old and as she grew, it became clear that she was autistic, though highly-functional. She is home schooled by a friend of Holly's, rather misophobic, and has a fascination with sleight of hand magic.
Though she has official and permanant custody of her adopted children, she has never been able to get the money together to afford the deedpolls needed to change their surnames to Ashdown.
residence | Born and raised in a small valley outside Cardiff, she commutes into work. She lives in a small miners cottage halfway up a hill - her kids go to the schools in the small town at the bottom of the valley, and she takes the train into Cardiff. Her cottage has three bedrooms; the large downstairs room is Holly's main bedroom which she shares with Billy and Jane, while Frankie and Maria have bunkbeds in the bigger upstairs room - the third and smallest bedroom is used as Holly's work room, for her housework and crafting. Their house is small and cold, though Holly's penchant for knitting and quilting makes up for the dodgy heating - the bathroom is taken up almost entirely by the huge clawed footed bathtub that her mother saved up to buy, so much so that there is only room enough for a small sink in the corner. Fortunatly, being a very old cottage, it has a seperate toilet in a smaller building at the bottom of the garden - hardly modern, but they manage.
physical description | Holly is the shortest in her family, standing at [just about] 4"11 - this makes her shortest in all her other social circles as well. A testament to her epic cooking skills, she comes down on the curvier side of 145lbs; she is woefully insecure about her weight, which had lead to her comfort-eating being followed by purging. Of course, cooking as often and enjoying it as much as she does, Holly doesnt seem to count 'taste testing' in her diet plans - which might account for her less than athletic figure, though her encroaching eating disorder makes her lighter than she should be.
Inherited from her father's side of the family, Holly's hair grows in a sheet of bright copper; intense red, bordering on orange in the sun, the colour is striking and yet natural. Quietly but incredibly proud of its bright colour, she keeps it in immaculate condition; however, her pragmatic attitude means that the most styling it affords is a quick sweep into a simply ponytail. When uncomfortable, she has a tendency to run her hand through it or curl auburn tendrils round her fingers.
An english lord once wrote "those true eyes/ too pure and too honest in aught to disguise/ the sweet soul shining through them", and he could have written that for Holly. Almond shaped and full of wide eyed innocence, her eyes are childlike, always filled with compassion or concern; their colour made brighter by her [sincerely] ever-hopeful expression. Her eyes are a pale slate blue, with just a small cloud of sandy orange near the pupil; by their nature, her grey eyes are rather cold but the warmth in her expression lessens this, melting cold steel into soft mercury.
Holly is, very slightly, near-sighted - while it doesn't affect her life normally, she does need her glasses for reading and can often be found cleaning them nervously.
Holly has an oval face, with a squared jaw and a rounded chin; her features are slightly more masculine than she would like and retain some of the soft roundness of childhood; her skin is pale as porcelain and spattered with sepia freckles. Her lips are thin but nicely shaped, and shaded light pink; her smile is wide and guileless, drawing dimples and making apples of her cheeks.
In her childhood, Holly's looks were constantly compared to a rabbit; cute and innocent, while having big teeth and pointed ears. It led to her one and only nickname which, fortunatly, didn't survive childhood - Thumper. While she does have buck teeth, Holly is hardly rabbit-like - though her often-hidden ears do curl up to a slight point, and her grey eyes are often alert and filled with worry for others.
Her few close friends say that Holly is a truly remarkable woman, and yet she is truly unremarkable. She is not a great beauty, has few scars left over from childhood antics, and any birthmarks are lost under the freckles that speckle her pale skin. Her most distinguishing feature, aside from her kindess, is probably her red hair; a recessive gift from grandparents she never knew, she is the only redhead in her family and loves it. Though crushed that she will never pass it on, it is her one vanity and definatly makes her easy to pick out in a crowd.
Holly really isn't one to obsess over her clothes - she doesn't have the money or the time and - since anything she wears tends to get covered with flour, vomit or crayon - nice clothes don't seem worth the money or the dry cleaning bill.
Normally she can be found wearing jeans, which she owns any number of, and usually pairs them with one of the many brightly coloured loose tops she owns - all her shirts tend towards the floaty, baggy style as she is incredibly self-conscious about her figure. She is also fond of t-shirts, since they're simple and colorful and come in affordable packs. And, of course, being as sensible as she is, Holly always has a cardigan or jumper to stave off the cold.
played by | felicia day
personality |
- THICKER THAN WATER
It is no hyperbole to say that Holly would die for her family - of course, the people she considers family number many more than just her blood relatives, and it wouldn;t be untrue to say that Holly would probably die for a stranger as well. Fortunatly she has never been put in any situation that would test this.
Her blood-kin consists of her three brothers; she looks after them as best she can, cooking dinner for them on occasion and helping out with the housework. Though partially estranged from her oldest brother, Holly maintains that if he was in real need, she would help him - despite the bad feeling between them. Her other brothers she remains in almost constant contact with, sharing at least one phonecall a day with them.
Her children consist of permanant and trasient foster kids. In her time as a foster parent, she has adopted six children; Holly would do anything for them and would defend them to her last breath. Like a mother ewe protecting her lambs, she is utterly harmless, until faced with wolves; if anyone threatened her children, she could easily defend them with lethal force. She might be a pacifist, but on behalf of her children, she is capable of anything.
In her wider view, Holly has family all over - she has friends who she counts as siblings, the children of close friends call her 'Aunty' to her insane delight, and many more besides.
- BABY MINE
Holly is a natural mother; she loves children and, eventually, they love her. Eventually, because she will give to children in her charge exactly what they need - which is not always what they want. She is frimly dedicated to bringing up her children, no matter how short a time they are with her, in the best way possible - this doesn't mean indulging them. She loves to make children happy, but won't do so to the point of spoiling them; while she happily rewards good behaviour, she will also, albeit reluctantly, discipline them.
Her love and protectiveness of children does not just extend to those in her care - while Holly is hardly the most forceful person in the world, if she sees a child being mistreated she will move heaven and earth to stop it. No matter where she is, she will not hesitate to intervene if she sees bad parenting. She has gotten into quite a few arguments over this particular trait - fortunately her quiet manner usually wins over. In the cases when it doesn't, an authority usually has to drag her away from the child, which is why her criminal record includes assault charges [though no convictions].
- TAKE MY LIFE
Holly lives to help other people – she has been living for her family since she was eight years old, and this seems to have engendered a natural selflessness about her. She rarely thinks about herself - in fact, her devotion is so ingrained now that she considers thinking herself selfish, when there are so many more worthy of attention.
She is kindness incarnate and as such, the right person could take complete advantage of that fact. Her natural acceptance of others, and willingness to see the best in them, makes her a naïve target for exploitation – her complete inability to tell when someone is lying only compounds this. She wants to trust people - or rather, wants them to be trustworthy - and this leaves her wide open for manipulation.
Holly often works herself to sickness, depriving herself of sleep to make sure that she can be everything to everyone. She works multiple jobs, helps out her brothers and her friends, looks after her kids ... all for no thanks, because she needs none.
- CRAFTY AREN'T YOU?
Knitting, sewing, crocheting, quilting, embroidery; Holly is well-versed in every one. A hobby she picked up from her mother - or at least, the few memories she has of her - crafting has been her dedicated hobby, since she was young. As a child, she was often seen with knitting needles hanging out of her coat pockets or picking bits of thread and wool from her clothes.
Holly's house is covered with evidence of her hobby - intricate quilts on every bed, crocheted throws cover the couch, knitted toys and embroidered handkerchiefs. Her short bouts of free time are spent in these exploits - usually knitting warm wear for her kids or darning their clothes, though every Christmas she launches into the creation of a mulitude of soft toys, to be donated to the Children's Ward at the local hospital.
- HURT NONE
Whether her own or other peoples, Holly doesn't deal with pain well. On her own behalf she avoids pain; with pale skin that bruises like a peach, she usually deals with pain with whimpering and a string of the most conservative cuss words ever heard, followed by chocolate. Lots of chocolate.
Other peoples pain, however, is another thing completely - she cannot bear to see someone else hurting, whether emotionally or physically, and will do everything her power to help them. She is the soul of kindness and feels all the ills of other people, so much so that she will even inconvenience herself for complete strangers.
To Holly, violence is as abhorrent as pain - even more so, since it is the cause. She hates the very idea of hurting someone and, while she understands the need to fight back, she thinks that it can only beget more violence. She is of the firm opinion that the saying, 'the best defense is a good offense', is about as useful to human existence as anthrax.
- GOOD THINGS, SMALL PACKAGES
Not even five foot high, Holly is only tall compared to toddlers and house pets, and her height is a sore point. Having been teased since before she can remember, it has become a permanent bruise on her sunny personality. While she may not dissolve into broken tears at jibes about her diminutive stature, Holly feels them all - palpable hits against her already bad self-image - she can quite happily ignore them in public, but anyone who knows her well enough will see her smile tighten and her back automatically straighten, to give her than extra millimetre.
- NOTHING BUT LOVE
A true old-school hopeless romantic, Holly would like nothing more to be swept off her feet by a brave and handsome stranger on a white charger - the key word in this sentence being 'hopeless'.
Holly has the worst luck when it comes to men, and so buries herself in romantic paraphernalia - she likes nothing more than to curl up on the couch with a huge box of chocolate and several choice films. Her favourites are Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Moulin Rouge - the latter she always turns off early, so that it has a happy ending. Her absolute favourite is 'A Matter of Life and Death', which she can often be found crying over when she's had a bad day, She also finds vicarious solace in passionate poetry and novels, and window shopping in the more expensive stores - though she can't afford any of the wares on show, she can fantasize any number of wonderful suitors buying her such things, and it gives her a short-lived thrill.
The way to hurt Holly is to hit at her heart – she is a loving person, with deep and abiding ties to her family and friends. To aggravate her, one need only mock or insult her family - she will feel such barbs as surely as if the attacks were aimed at her. She is devoted to them, and it would simply destroy her if they ever came to harm - but to manipulate Holly one need only appeal to her romantic sensibilities. More than one person has taken advantage of her heart - it hasn’t taught her anything; when it comes to men, Holly truly is a hopeless romantic and an equally hopeless optimist.
- BEADY EYED DEVILS
Perfectly at home with practically every other form of life, including spiders and rats, Holly is plain freaked out by chickens. Quite happy to make them all kinds of tasty once dead, Holly has never been comfortable with the living kind. She has no idea why, she just can't stand the things - with their beady eyes, fat little bodies and that creepy warbling noise they make.
- WATER BABY
Despite never learning to swim, Holly loves water - though she would probably panic if she was ever out of her depth. Holly has always loved water, from watching running taps as a child to just washing dishes.
Though she can hold her breath for over 2 minutes - a skill which she keeps to herself, owning to the amount of dirty jokes that tend to follow it - Holly doesn't swim. However, she does have a very odd habit of submerging herself underwater - her kids are quite used to brushing their teeth while their mother lies, fully clothed, in a full bathtub. When asked, Holly can't really explain why she enjoys this odd ritual - though she thinks it has something to do with the silence and warmth.
- BRONZE COURAGE
Holly loves her tea - she loves making it, serving it and, obviously, drinking it. It is not only her first action on returning home from work, it is also her first instinct when she is upset or uncomfortable - no one ever sees Holly cry if she can help it, but if the surfaces start filling up with un-drunk tea, you can be sure something is wrong.
No matter where she goes she is certain to have a flask of sweet tea on her person, and will happily share it with anyone and everyone - she probably has biscuits to pass round as well.
- DRY AS A BONE
The daughter of an alcoholic father, Holly hates the stuff - she has never touched it and never will. Her brothers are not so lofty but thankfully her example has kept them from the extremes her father went to. She won't try to reform drinkers, since she just about exhausted herself with her father, but she won't think twice about watering bottles down or simply pouring it all away.
- REGULARLY SCHEDULED
As an adult, Holly is still in love with the characters and shows that she adored as a child - dvds of the Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Sesame Street, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Playdays, Dangermouse and many more, can all be found in the living room of her tiny cottage. As a foster parent, this has put her in good stead with the younger children who come to stay with her, and Holly herself likes nothing ore than to curl up with someone to watch children's films like Disney and Don Bluth classics.
Holly especially loves the Muppets, as evidenced by her Animal bath-towel and cuddly Kermit, who still sleeps on her bed with her. This remains a constant link between her siblings and herself, since they all grew up watching the Muppets - Rory and Andy have matching Elmo keychains and Alex has a tattered cuddly Big Bird stuffed under his pillow.
- LOVE IN MY TUMMY
Holly began cooking at a young age; when her mother died just after her eighth birthday, it became evident that her father was in no shape to look after his children. While her father wallowed in his grief, it fell to Holly to look after the household and her brothers; she fed and looked after them, and learned to cook from her mother’s recipe book so that her father wouldn't starve.
She loves to cook, especially when it comes to baking - you can rarely pass her house without smelling fresh cookies, cakes or pies. How much she bakes is directly related to how happy she is - when she's in love or suffering under a major crush, you can't see the kitchen for the cupcakes. She cooks by hand and from scratch - she thinks that food should be made with love, and that the tastiness is directly related to the amount of effort that goes in.
- SING A LONG
While she would might die of embarrassment should anyone hear her, Holly loves to sing. Whether she is cooking, sewing on a button or just folding freshlu laundered clothes, if no one is around Holly can usually be found singing quietly to herself. While by no means wonderful, her voice is sweet and tuneful - pleasant to listen to if not a tour de force. While her children and brothers can easily coax her into singing to them, she finds her unconscious bouts of song rather embarassing. Mortifying even.
- ENVY & INSECURITY
Besides her naive and generous heart, Holly's greatness weakness is her insecurity. Being born rather heavy and not traditionally pretty, Holly is woefully insecure; her entire life has been lived in the background, being constantly passed by for taller, prettier girls and put down by the men who have taken advantage of her. All compliments are taken with a smile and a blush, but never really believed. Building upon an already shy personality, all this has made Holly timid and neurotic to the point where she is almost constantly blushing and thinking up new ways to lose the weight she imagines she has. Holly's insecurity is slowing drawing her into unhealthy compulsive beahviour - she already comfort eats, but her negative body image has lead to her throwing it back up again on occasion.
Holly is also incredibly envious, which builds upon her bad self esteem to make it worse. She sees other people living their lives and she wants what they have; she sees tall, beautiful women being pursued eagerly by equally tall and handsome men, and she envies them. She sees mothers leading their toddlers around by the hand, or fathers lifting their children up onto their shoulder – she envies them as well, more even. Holly is always looking at what she doesn’t have, always sees what she perceives as lack in her own life – not that she would ever mention it. She is incredibly grateful for what she has - her family and friends, her jobs and her house - and feels intensely guilty about coveting other peoples lives, which only compounds her insecurity and makes it worse.
- IRON HEART
Though Holly is quite a soft and gentle person - about as dangerous as a marshmallow air strike or a kitten when it gets really angry - when it comes down to the centre of her, the heart and soul of her, she is made of tempered steel. Buried beneath the quiet attitude and the embarassed blushes, Holly has an iron core – the part of her that would happily charge into the face of an army to protect her family, that would die for the child of a complete stranger. Holly, when seriously tested, is made of unbreakable metal – when the 456 incident happened and she had to hide with her children, she was fully prepared to kill to keep them safe. Fortunatly, she hid very well.
greatest fear | Holly fears letting someone - anyone - down, by not being there. She worries about not being at home for her children, she worries about not being at work for her friends, she worries about not being available to help her brothers - she works herself to sickness, trying to be everywhere for everyone because she is terrified of the day she won't be there when she is needed.
greatest desire | Despite finding out as a teenager that she was unable to bear her own children, Holly still clings to the desire to do just that. She dreams about being pregnant, carrying a life so deeply connected to her own - she loves her foster children as deeply as anyone loves their children, but she still wishes for a child of her own flesh and blood.
personal treasure | Her family. Nothing is more important to Holly; she would give her life for them, has already given up her life to them, and doesn't regret a moment of it.
biggest secret | Holly's greatest secret is her growing eating disorder - she would hate for her family to know that she has such a problem. She does everything she can to hide her compulsive eating, as well as the fact that it sometimes leaves her throwing up. What makes it so painful for her is not that her family might pity or scorn her, but that she might disapoint or worry them.
best memory | Christmas Eve, when Holly was seventeen and married. It was her first Christmas away from home, though she and Nathan did spend the day at her family home. The night before however, they simply curled up against the radiator in Nathan's flat; happily entangled against one another in a blanket, with Holly's favourite old movie on the television. They drank hot chocolate and moved to to the couch when the got sleepy, finally dozing off amid the mass of blankets there.
worst memory | It was late May, the sun had just gone down and it was cold - in Holly’s memory it is far colder than it was, and a lot darker. Eight year old Holly climbed the narrow stairs, carefully carrying a tray holding hot buttered toast and a pot of tea.
Her mother, who had been ill for a few days with headaches, was lying on the bed – the covers were drawn up, her golden hair fanning the white pillow like a halo. When Holly entered, she sat up, smiling tiredly - then something happened. A slight confused frown flitted across her delicate features, a deep sigh escaping her as she fell back against her pillows. Holly dropped her tray, panicking in the face of the unknown and rushed away to find the doctor - finding her father didn't even cross her mind.
That was the last moment of Florence Ashdown's life - later, it was confirmed that a weak wall in a major artery in her brain has collapsed, causing a fatal aneurysm; she had felt no pain, losing consciousness almost instantly. The image of her mother's body still haunts Holly; while her husaband's death weighs heavy on her heart, Nathan had prepared her for it and so she had a chance to say goodbye, unlike in the instance of her mother's death.
history |
Holly was born into a poor family. Her father and mother ran a pub someone else owned, and didn't earn a whole lot; they lived in the tiny flat above the pub, so long and loud nights were par for the course. Eben Ashdown was a hard drinker, and his lock-ins were legend in their small valley community.
Florence would tend bar, her two boys running round her feet - Andy and Alex were 5 and 3 respectivly when Holly came along, and used to following their mother almost everywhere. When Holly finally arrived, she stayed at home full time to look after the new baby - she became a full time mother, as her husband became a full time drinker and their buisness started to fail.
Holly's childhood was incredibly ordinary; she was a quiet baby that grew into a quiet child. She was often put into her brothers care while her mother saw to the housework. Florence was always knitting or cooking, or caring for her children – when Holly was 3, Rory was born, meaning that her mother had two young children to look after, while running her older boys down to the school in the valley each day.
When she followed her brothers into primary school, it became apparant that Holly wasn't the smartest cookie - she never really applied herself in school, always helping others and anxious to get back home to her mother and new baby brother. Weekends were spent with her mother - watching her cook, clean and mend her brothers clothes.
As a child she became aware of the depth of her fathers drinking; she remembesr sitting with her brothers at the top of their narrow stair, listening to Eben rail at his placating wife as he sat in the bar below. She can also remember vividly the bouts of violence that showed how little her father cared for his children - he would quite often backhand his children out of his way, apathetic as to injuring them, and had a habit of picking up his children by their throats to carry them to their room, to 'get them out of his way'.
Holly was already old beyond her years when her childhood ended, just weeks after her eighth birthday – her mother’s death was sudden, with no more warning than lightning, and it left their family shattered. Eben was distraught, seeming to completely forget his children in the light of his loss – his drinking became constant and degenerative.
As the oldest, Andy cut back on school to make sure the pub ran as usual - or as close to usual as a 14 year old could manage. Andy was tall for his age and already coming into his whiskers, so it wasn't hard for him to fool newcomers about his age. Holly took care of the basic hosuekeeping, cooking and cleaning and making sure her younger brither got to school. Holly began to miss more and more school, though she tried to keep up – she would recite her times tables over the sink as she washed up, her handwriting lessons were filled with grocery lists, her reading became stories to read Rory to sleep with.
This went on for six years, until Ebenezer died. 11 year old Rory found him, slumped behind the bar - he had suffered a heart attack while getting yet another drink. Andy had already left, going to live off rich friends and letting Alex take over as 'head of the family' - Alex had dropped out of school at 16 to get a job at the local garage. Learning to fix up cars while trying to run the pub, while Holl brought up Rory.
When Eben died, everything changed; they couldn't keep the pub and so bought a tiny falling-down cottage with the money from their fathers will. Alex continued to work at the mechanic shop, but there was barely enough money to feed them, let alone pay the bills.
While Alex refused to believe that they couldn't cope, Holly was more practical. She saw how exhausted her older brother was and knew he couldn't take any more hours at the garage; Rory was just starting in secondary school, and Holly was determined that he would complete school. It was a panicked moment, after a particularly cold autumn and looking forward to a colder winter with no heat, when Holly first stole something. Her teacher had left his jacket on the back of his chair during lunch - Holly didn't think, she just found his wallet and took the few notes she could find.
It became a habit; she scoped out where students would leave their bags and coats, then grab the loose money, mp3 players and expensive phones that she would never have been able to afford. A few hours in the library and she had an ebay account up and selling the stolen items, all carefully wiped by one of Alex's friends. She never told her brother, and swore his friend to secrecy.
Eventually she was caught and expelled, but Holly had already put her families needs far before her own. Her oldest brother was still technically her guardian, but he couldn't be found - she left school, starting to work a few temp jobs while she looked after her brothers. She kept stealing, shoplifting food for the most part - less groceries bought meant more money for heat and decent clothes for Rory. Holly was determined that her youngest brother would go to university, though his wild nature seemed set against it; she gave up stealing, and took more and more temp work, holding down mulitple jobs to add to Alex's income, now that he was a certified mechanic.
Thanks to her honest face and height, Holly was able to bluff the police into letting her off with cautions - though she has a criminal record, her family remain unaware of what she was willing to do to support them.
Aged sixteen, complaining of pains in her lower abdomen, Holly found out she wasn't able to conceive - she would never be able to get pregnant, never have her own child, and the knowledge nearly destroyed her. She thanked the doctor and was admitted to hospital where they treated the infection that had destroyed her uterus; she was there for two or three days, was visited by her brothers and co-workers, and seemed to everyone perfectly happy.
They discharged her with meds and follow-up appointments all booked, and she went home. She walked into the living room of their cottage, sat down the couch and collapsed into a ball of tears and anger and pain. When Alex brought Rory home from school, they found her curled on the floor, sobbing dryly.
They carried her up to the bed, where she stayed for a week; she didn't eat, just slept and woke, and stared at the ceiling. Then Alex and Rory came home to find he up, dressed and making muffins - no one mentioned what had happened again.
It was during her stay in hospital that Holly met Nathan.
Nathan Egress was 24 and he was charming; warm and funny, with a soft voice and kind eyes. He was a terminal case, in for one of his many and varied check ups – adorably absent minded, he wandered into her ward while looking for the children’s ward. He said he liked to take them books, since the children’s library at the hospital seemed to be all picture books – nothing over the level of ‘see Spot run; run, Spot, un!’ which he felt was a disaster. He sat with her and talked for a while, leaving with well wishes for the children and Holly’s phone number – she never was sure about how he gained it, but she was never gladder that he did.
He visited again the next day, bringing her a well-worn volume of poetry – he read to her, his slow soft voice lulling her to sleep or just into a pleasant relaxed haze. She didn’t learn for a long time that he was occasionally reading his own work, from bits of paper he had pressed between the pages.
She went home and didn’t hear from him for a week – he had called several times, but her depression had blocked out all her brothers had told her. When she recovered, she finally called him back – she told him everything, even that which she couldn’t bear to tell her brothers. For once, she was completely honest about how truly broken and worthless she felt – Nathan came right over and helped her make dinner. In fact, he was a terrible cook but Holly appreciated the gesture.
They dated for four months before he proposed, and Holly accepted without a second thought – Holly’s brothers did not approve but said nothing, after all, he was a dying man and he loved her. There was no doubting that. They married two months later and, for a while, Holly lived at Nathan’s apartment down in the valley – they were happy.
Three months before Holly’s 19th birthday, Nathan was admitted to hospital. The cancer than was liquefying his brain was winning the battle, and the doctors started using terms like ‘making him comfortable’ and ‘getting his affairs in order’. Holly was brave through it all, sitting by his bedside and reading to him.
Finally, he passed away – quietly, in his sleep, with his wife stretched out beside him o the bed, he just stopped breathing. For the second time in Holly’s life, someone she loved died while she watched; utterly helpless in the face of it. That week she moved back into the family home, bringing with her only her late husband’s books, his favourite leather jacket and a strange wooden box he had kept under their bed. It was made of a dark wood and had an odd opalescent shimmer; there were no visible hinges or lid, it seemed to be just a block of wood. Except that when she moved it, she heard the sound of sliding objects and the rustling of trapped papers.
When Holly turned 19, Alex moved out; he was 23 and had found a small flat of his own in Cardiff, and a steady better paid job at a garage there. 16 year old Rory would spend 2 weekends a month at his older brothers, a brief respite from the studying he was made to do at home.
As soon as Alex moved out, Holly began rearranging - she had already applied to become a foster parent, and when the agency checked out her house, they found it more than adequate with all the changes she had made. Of course, the foster system was rather strained and so they couldn't really afford to refuse such an obviously dedicated young woman.
Her first foster children were brought to her the year after - Melinda and James Mason, 8 year old twins. They were sullen at first, but Holly soon won them over; she would pack their lunches every morning, walk them down to school, go to work, pick them up from school every evening and while she was working late shifts, Rory would take care of them both. Holly would come home in the early hours to find them sitting up awake, curled amongst the knitted blankets and throws that covered the couch, watching old films with Rory. The first time James called her 'Mother' in his quiet voice, she nearly cried.
Rory turned 18 and moved in with Alex to be nearer Cardiff University; he was sad to leave Holly and his foster-siblngs, but his wild spirit delighted at the idea of living in the city. So he left, and Holly planned for additione to fill the space he had left in her home. She contacted the foster agency, who were happy to arrange further additions - they were seriously overtaxed and in need of qualified carers. So Holly went to night classes, learn first aid and basic care for children from broken homes. She learnt basic sign language, practising while she waited tables or cleaned houses.
Then Frankie Dannyfer arrived; a scared 7 year old boy, deaf from being pushed down stairs by his mother and suffering head trauma, spearated from his sister by the system. Conditioned to distrust and hate adults, the first few weeks were difficult - the twins were only two years older and unsure about how to deal with the disabled and unfriendly boy. With Holly's encouragement they reached out to him - her own determination to learn sign paid off, earning some respect. She took him, on the train, to the special school in Cardiff every morning and was there to pick him up - all the while she lobbyed the foster agency to allow her to find and foster his sister. It turned out well; his sister wasn't dealing well with the seperation and had started skipping school, had stopped speaking altogether. She was shipped around the system, a bad penny that no one could keep.
Later that year, Holly arrived to pick Frankie up from school - 6 year old Maria Dannyfer holding her hand.
Since the four children seemed more than happy to share a single room together, when Holly was approached a year later to take on two toddlers, she happily accepted. The spare room was converted into a nursery of sorts, and soon Billy and Jane arrived. Billy was three years old and utterly quiet - he had come from a world of neglect, his body smaller and frailer due to malnourishment and now covered with burn scars from the crash that had orphaned him. Frankie and Maria, being both quiet souls themselves, were eager to help their mother with the new arrival - this would become a lasting bond, with Billy becoming part of the pairs small family group. Jane was two years old, and Holly had been warned that the baby girl was already starting to show signs of developmental problems - this is fact turned out to be autism, though highly functional.
Holly was now living with 12 year old twins, nine and eight year old brother and sister, a shy 3 year old and a two year old who demanded her contsant attention. Was she daunted, or regretful?
Not even a tiny bit.
Life continued on - Holly worked all the hours she could, hile still being the best mother to her motely brood that she could be. James and Mellie moved into their own flat after their 16th birthday, moving down into the valley town to be closer to their jobs and the college they now attended; James was working towards becoming an early years teacher and Mellie was studying textiles and costume design, while working nights at a restaurant. Frankie [now 13] and Maria [12] had their own room and were going to school regularly and, though Frankie had demanded being allowed to go to 'normal school' with his sister, their grades were still very high. Seven year old Billy was coming out of himself and even had a few friends in the valley, though he still prefered being at home. Jane, now six and being home schooled, was as erratic as ever but was never too upset if Holly was around. The two young children still shared a room with their mother, but they were not so dependant on her as they had been.
It was perfect - then came 'the 456 Incident', as it would come to be known.
Frankie, Maria and Billy were amongst school children across the world who stood still in their yard and began chanting. In the middle of her daily lesson, Jane did the same. Holly, like all parents, took their kids out of school and watched as the world they knew seemed to skew around them. Holly wasn't simple - she was practical. Over the years, she had seen and accepted what so many had dismissed as hoaxes. She didn't think Big Ben was crashed into by a small plane, didn't think the metal men and flying creatures had been her imagination.
Fortunatly for Holly, she then recieved a phonecall that she would be grateful for til the day she died.
For the last two years, Holly had held a temp job as a delivery girl for a Thai food restaurant in Cardiff. She worked the night shift, preparing and delivering the food - and their best customer was a man named Ianto Jones. Over those two years, she had formed a close friendship with the awkwardly shy man in his designer suit. They would stand in the dingy tourist office and chat over the food, until she decided to invite him to lunch. SUnday roast at her house. He met her kids. She'd bake cupcakes to deliver with the next order - which was far too much for one man in such a tiny office - and, walking through Cardiff, she saw him having drinks with a woman. That is how Holly met Gwen Cooper, and found out that maybe Ianto wasn't just tourist information.
Ianto phoned Holly, telling her that her children weren't safe and that she had to hide - and she trusted him. The safety of her children at stake, Holly was not about to ask questions; she hung up, got the kids into their coats and headed up into the valleys. Holly had explored every inch of those hills as a child and, armed with the poker from her fireplace, she herded her kinds up and away from the lights of the spare houses. At the very top of the hill was a war memorial and, half buried in curling trees, an old church.
They hid there, eating the food that Holly had swept into her bag when they left, until Holly finally got a text from Gwen, telling her it was all over.
They went home.
A week later, Holly attended Ianto Jone's funeral. She stood with Gwen and Rhys, tears streaming down her face as she watched the man who had saved her children be buried. She never got to thank him.
After the service, she took Gwen to one side and demanded firmly to know what had happened to Ianto, why her children had been in such danger...and what she could do to help. She knew that Gwen and Ianto had been part of something, something important - and she wanted to know what.
Gwen told her.
Holly couldn't quite believe it - not that aliens were real, but that she had been hiding from their own government. Tight-lipped and determined, she asked what she could do to help. After long talks with Gwen, which involved not a little shouting, Holly finally wrestled a promise out of her that if she could use Holly, she'd call her.
Less than a year went by before Gwen rang Holly - she had begun again, recruiting new team members and rebuiding the base. It was all happening now - but Gwen was torn between work and being a new and nervous mother, which was were Holl came in. The new team was an odd mix and all of them were dangerous in their own way - Gwen repeatedly warned Holly against getting involved, but she had made up her mind.
So Holly began working at Torchwood; she was there to do everything that was too unimportant for the team to do. She was there to keep the base clean, keep the fridge stocked, the clothes clean. Of course, Holly sees her job as much more than simple maid work - Torchwood saved her children, and thousands more, from a fate worse than death. Anything she can do to help, she will.
But she's only human, and officially she has been listed as a liability and breakdown risk - normal people only last so long after coming into contact with Torchwood.
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