Sisters Grimm Oneshots

Of Dresses, Skirts, and the Girl Who Wears Them

The older Sabrina gets, the more often she wears skirts.

It's not that she's ever had a problem with dresses, per se - in fact, when she was younger, she would prance around in the things all the time, ripping them when she tried to play baseball with the big kids, but still beating the pants off them.

What it is is that for two years, it was just... impractical for her to wear anything but pants. Even if she'd been able to buy her own clothes, even if she hadn't spent half her time in an orange jumpsuit, she'd have chosen pants. After all, she could never be sure when she'd be called on to fight another foster kid, or run from a monster in the woods, or climb down the side of a building to get away from a foster parent, and these things are simply easier in pants.

So once she's thirteen, and back in NYC, and her mother suggests some skirts while they're back-to-school shopping, Sabrina shrugs and takes the things.

But she finds it very hard to actually put one on and wear it.

At first she tells herself it's because you never know when Puck will pop by for a visit, and she isn't sure she wants him to see her looking feminine, for some reason. Then she says it's because it's cold out. It takes her a long time to understand why she really won't do it.

Then the dresses become a sign for her, a symbol. That's the first reason she wears them. Every day she can put on a skirt, it's a day she knows she'll come back to the apartment and her family will be there. It's a day she knows she can call her grandmother on the phone and just talk, and nobody she cares about will be hurt or in the hospital. It's a day when her house is still standing. It's a day her mom will offer to take her to Faerie, and will look disappointed when she says no. It's a day she'll let her stay anyway. It's a day her father will cook dinner. It's a day when it won't just be her and Daphne. A day she can be a kid.

At first, she doesn't wear skirts very often.

Then, as she gets older and stays short and skinny (malnutrition, the doctors say, what happened to you, child?), her skirts get shorter, too, to remind everyone that she is a grown-up girl, even if Daphne's catching up fast, and getting just as curvy, even if she doesn't wear any makeup.

Henry puts a stop to that, fast, though, and Sabrina's skirts go back to being a length he considers more appropriate.

But then they become a sign that she can do anything the boys can do, and do it in a skirt, too. She's been getting some flack from Puck, and from the boys at school, and even from Pinocchio and Basil, a bit, about how girls need to be protected, and skirts are impossible. So, because she's Sabrina and the surest way to get her to do anything is to tell her she can't, she starts wearing skirts to run, to spar, to play sports again.

Veronica looks at her daughter and laughs, remembering the old days, when Sabrina would do exactly this. Henry wraps and arm around his wife and says, "She reminds me of you."

Then Sabrina decides to be a lawyer, and she wears skirts to remind people she's a girl. She makes them feminine dresses, too, not pencil skirts under suit coats. Most of the other people in her field are boys, and she wants to remind them that she's a girl, and better than them at everything.

And when Sabrina's security disappears again, when her grandmother dies and her on-and-off boyfriend disappears in the same week (I knew he was bad news, Henry says when he thinks she can't hear, I knew he'd break her heart), she wears the skirts to prove she's still strong, to prove she's a big girl who can take care of herself, to prove she still knows her parents will be home every time she visits, to prove she knows Daphne will always answer the phone, even when she's on a date, to prove that she doesn't need Puck to feel stable.

When she meets Bradley, she wears skirts to feel pretty and feminine, which she's never been too sure of.

Then Puck comes back, and Sabrina's skirts almost all end up in the trash with the wedding dress Bradley told her she didn't need anymore (I love you too much to make you choose, he says, looking at her with as much heartbreak in his face as she's feeling, because I know you still love him, even if you do love me). Because she could take him leaving, but she can't take him coming back without her world crumbling under her feet - he brings up too many things she never wanted to deal with.

When the nightmares come back, though, and the panic attacks threaten to come back, too, she brings the dresses back out to prove she's strong. Every night she wakes up not knowing if she screamed or not, every morning she jumps when the trains go by, every afternoon someone like Cinderella comes into her office wanting to sue an abusive parent, every night Daphne's just a little too busy to deal with her sister (I know you're hurting, she says, but I can't pick up the phone on the first ring just because you're scared, Sabrina. This has been going on long enough), Sabrina puts on a skirt to prove to herself that she's strong enough to deal with this.

After she finally gives in and agrees to marry Puck, the dresses are because she's happy.

When she's pregnant it's because they're more comfortable than maternity jeans. After, it's because she doesn't quite fit in her pants any longer (Look at that, Sabrina, you finally have a butt!Puck, ever mature, points out. And she does. She's proud of her new curves). And pants are expensive.

She wears dresses because she can. She wears them to show she's strong.