Returned to Sender - Scarlett Johansson

Part 50

Scarlett's POV

New years flew by, choosing to spend the night in and watch the ball drop on the TV with Sawyer over a party as she got over her ear infection. Today marks the first day of press for Age of Ultron, and to say I am stressed is an understatement. I have arranged for other cast members to come with me behind the stage when I have an interview. 

Sawyer isn't in to try to disguise who she is to me, and apparently, in the interviews we are in together, we are not to sit next to each other. Otherwise, it's too obvious how much she looks like me. Everything has been planned out, yet I'm still worried something is going to go wrong.

While I triple-checked her backpack for the day, Sawyer was reading her Spanish book on the hotel bed. Today is the first day of the press junket, and Sawyer's interviews are split between being with Lizzie and Aaron and being with Robert, Evans and me. 

"Mama, I can hear you stressing from over here", Sawyer grumbles softly, breaking my daze, as she closes her book and walks over to me, pulling me into a tight hug. "Mama, everything is going to be great. You just need to relax," she cooed, making my shoulders drop as I brought her into a tight hug, all my worries melting away.

So, when I was thinking about my worries today, I hadn't even considered this, which was awful. 

Sawyer is currently curled up into a ball in the corner of her dressing room in a flood of tears because I stupidly forgot to warn the makeup artist that she had to talk Sawyer, or in this case Nola, through the process of what they were going to do before touching her. 

She had seemed so remarkable since what happened on Halloween that I forgot. 

How crap of a parent can I be that I forgot that unknown people touching her is a trigger? 

I mean, it's a miracle she would let anyone touch her at all after everything she's been through. So here I now am crouched down in front of her, trying to calm her down as she is obviously stuck in a memory, mumbling incoherent words every couple of seconds.

It took us a while, but eventually, we were ready for our first interview; luckily, it was one of the ones we had together, so I could keep an eye on her for a while. "BESTIE!" I heard Chris scream as we walked into the room, making me wince at his volume. Sawyer was clinging to me still as her life depended on it, but she looked up to Chris with a sad smile as we approached him. 

Sitting down in my chair for the day, I smoother Sawyer's hair out of her face. "Baby, you want me to ask them if you can skip the interviews, or that you do them all with me, or you can sit by me? What works best for you?" I coo as she cuddles into my chest. "I'll be fine, remember I'm Nola," she replies softly, hugging me tightly before sliding off of my lap and jumping onto Chris's lap, cuddling into him just as the interviewer came in.

The interview was going well. This guy was sticking to the fundamental questions and hadn't really said anything to Nola. That was until he noticed her playing with Chris's hand nervously, a habit she had picked up on between takes while shooting. 

"Do you have a strong connection with the cast, Nola? I can see you and Chris must be close," he said, nodding towards her fidgeting hands, making her immediately drop his hand, making all of us look at her, confused about her action, as she started playing with the fiddle ring. I got her for Christmas instead. "It is such an honour to work with them all. I loved all of the previous movies, and they are all even more amazing in real life," she answered, giving the man a forced smile as she shifted uncomfortably. 

The man just nodded at her answer before turning to me. "What sort of diet did you have to go on while filming Scarlett?" He asked, making me freeze. I mean, as awful as the question is, I have unfortunately grown familiar with sexist questions. What makes me freeze is that Sawyer has to listen as I am asked questions like this. I try my best to not get annoyed as I answer, but when the guy asks me another question after asking the boys about filming stunts, my blood boils.