Author's Note: This is the original version of If You're Lonely Press Play. In the years since I posted it, the story has been edited multiple times to sound less wordy, have a more cohesive storyline and overall give the reader a better experience. That version is over at my AO3 (link is in my profile) so I'd prefer if you would read that version. If not, this one is still readable, and I hope you enjoy.

Beatrice was looking out the parlor window again, a habit she had picked up in the last few days. Much to her relief, none of the members in her large family commented on this new pastime she indulged in, because they were all too busy rediscovering life back in their original bodies. She too was enjoying the perks of having fingers, toes, and pale pink skin dotted with freckles- freckles she had almost forgotten about when there were blue feathers covering her. But mostly, since using the witch's scissors to transform herself and her family human again, Beatrice simply wanted to stare out the window.

"Wishing you were a bird again?" The voice that surprised Beatrice, causing her to jump up slightly from the chair she sat in, was being facetious. It was a well-known fact to everyone that this was not true. No one missed eating worms and dirt. Well, maybe her youngest brother did, but he wasn't the voice of the majority.

Beatrice ignored her mother's tease and continued to look at the scenery just outside the windowpanes. It was inevitable that this would happen sooner or later. Beatrice knew that someone would finally mention her long periods of gazing, but why did it have to be now? She wasn't ready to admit anything to anyone. With a sliver of hope pushing against her heart, Beatrice imagined her mother walking away. Maybe if she wished hard enough it would happen.

Please, please leave me alone.

"Is it that boy? The one from the tree?" Her question was more pointed this time and conveyed a mother's intuition.

"No," Beatrice grouchily replied, even though it was a lie.

She hadn't told her mother, or anyone for that matter, about Wirt and his brother … about what she had gone through with them. But they had briefly met the older sibling of the two boys she had journeyed with and eventually befriended. It was assumed she was the one who had brought that boy to their tree during a snowstorm, although there had never been any outright admission to this assumption held by her family. Beatrice never answered them when they asked, choosing to keep quiet about Wirt and Gregory. Her feelings of loss were very strong and she anticipated that talking about her friends would only make that feeling swell inside her until it became too much to bear. It already felt like it was too much.

Her mother came to stand beside Beatrice's chair, but that stubborn streak she had displayed so well as a child had only grown stronger in Beatrice's adolescence and she refused to turn away from the window. She didn't want to give her mother the satisfaction. Although, there was a deeper hidden truth that kept her facing forward. It was the truth Beatrice worried was very apparent on her face. The truth she didn't want her mother to see. That she missed them. She missed him.

A gentle hand came to rest upon Beatrice's shoulder and she did her best to ignore the childish urge to shrug away. "If you ever feel the need to tell me what it is you are thinking of when you stare outside like this then I'll -"

"I know, I know," Beatrice rudely cut her off. "You'll be there to listen." She waved her hand flippantly at her mother, still refusing to even give her a glance.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed her mother nodding and then slowly the older woman turned to leave, but before she could make a step in the opposite direction, guilt began to worm its way through Beatrice. She wasn't treating her mother very kindly and that little awakening she had experienced while with the two brothers- realizing how cruel she could be to others- was rearing its head.

She had thrown a rock at a bird for goodness sake. If that wasn't mean spirited than what was? Certainly the witch who had turned Beatrice into a bird for her cruelty thought that character trait deserved to be cured with a good lesson. Although, becoming the same creature as the one she had tortured wasn't what had truly transformed her. It had been her new friends. They were the ones that pushed her to see the truth and eventually gave her the courage to change. Swallowing her pride, Beatrice grasped her mother's arm to keep her from leaving. "I'm-I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to talk about … that boy yet or his brother."

"Oh, that's right. He did have a brother. Did he ever find him?" her mother inquired with renewed interest.

Beatrice's brow furrowed and a retort telling her mother to stop prying nearly made it out of her mouth, before she realized that would be rude. "If only I'd had more time with them. I miss him. I miss them both," Beatrice sighed.

Truthfully she had never had very many friends before and it had taken her time with Wirt and Gregory to recognize why. She was rude and bullied others. In fact, she had been unkind to Wirt at first and the regret Beatrice felt for that would probably stay with her forever. But she wasn't like that anymore. She hoped she wasn't like that anymore.

"I assume, since we haven't seen him since that day, he must have gone away. Why don't you try and write to him?" her mother suggested.

"It's not that easy," Beatrice mumbled. Yeah, having him disappear over the wall into a place she couldn't follow definitely meant there was no way to send letters.

"Well, if you don't want to write to him, then why don't you write to yourself?"

Beatrice skeptically raised an eyebrow. "What does that even mean?"

"You can write how you're feeling in a letter and not send it. Keep the letter. Maybe it will help you feel better if you transfer your emotions out onto paper, instead of keeping them locked up inside."

What her mother said made sense, but that didn't stop Beatrice from replying sarcastically, "Okay."

There was a gentle squeeze on her shoulder from her mother as she replied, "It was only a suggestion."

"Yeah, go write your beau. I'm sure he wants to hear from you. He must miss you so much." The voice that had intruded on Beatrice's very private conversation with her mother was that of her brother. She had so many that it was hard to recognize who was speaking at times, and it forced Beatrice to twist in her seat to see the culprit with a smirk on his freckled face.

"Shut up, you idiot!" She pulled one of her hands up and curled it into a fist, threatening the teasing brother, but he only made kissing noises in response, causing Beatrice to jump from her chair to enact revenge.

Later when she was in her room- sent there as punishment for the bloody nose she had given her brother- Beatrice stared at the piece of paper she had pulled out and laid on her desk. In her hand was a pencil. Her fingers kept bringing the writing tool closer to the paper and then pulling it away at the last second. "What am I so nervous about?" She rolled her eyes at her dithering and then finally managed to write something.

Dear Wirt,

So, how is your dumb face?

Beatrice quickly crossed out the sentence and crumpled the paper into a ball. Sarcasm didn't always translate well into written words and even if she wasn't actually writing Wirt, Beatrice thought she should be kind and also honest, something she hadn't always been with him. After a few more false starts, Beatrice finally decided to start out her letter being as honest as was possible for her.

Dear Wirt,

I miss you.