Not Quite OOM

[theresnodoor]

It's about space and time.

And how neither pass, when you spend your days in Milliways.

And nights.

And mornings.

And evenings.



Rachel copes. She doesn't live, she doesn't thrive. She just copes. Gymnastics and magazines and people who pass in and out of the door. The occasional trip to the Labyrinth - with company - and the effort she goes to in order to make sure no one notices just how often she walks into it herself.

Sleeping in a bed with a hawk perched nearby, pretending she can't feel the way he watches her.

Pretending she has nothing to hide from him, not anymore.



But today?

Today Rachel is swimming in the lake. It's a good day for it. Nice and sunny, even outside the Caribbean beach. The water is cool but it's easy to get used to. And Bar even gave her a nice one piece.

Comments

[theresnodoor]

When you don't have anything nice to say...

Rachel skips a rock, listening to it splash after two.




"I hate every second of it."

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph nods, flicking another rock out across the lake. It seems to go on forever - both lake and rock.

She loves Milliways. Loved it then, loves it now. She was so glad for another chance to live, she found family here, people who truly cared about her. She'd never had that before.

If you'd had something better, before ...

"What was it like? Before? For you?"

[theresnodoor]

Conversation is hard but not impossible. She goes along, saying what feels most appropriate, trying to fix it when she's wrong. Her mind can always offer one or two possible responses and she chooses from what's available.

Except for that question.

Just that one.

And there's no good response at all.



"I don't know. Different."

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph flicks another stone.

"... I'm sorry. I'm not ... I mean, even when I'm not dazed, I kind of talk a lot. You don't have to actually answer or anything, I'm totally aware that I talk too much. I mean, I've had enough therapy to have been told it in so many words."

Chattering as a defense mechanism.

Which works really well except when you run into someone like Rachel, who doesn't just let it wash over her, who listens to Steph's words and hears what she's not saying, too.

[theresnodoor]

There's one word that makes Rachel look at her, stunned.

Therapy. A girl in a war goes to regular therapy.


"I'm, um...





"I don't talk about it."

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph glances up at her, sideways.

Dry, a little amused: "I'd never have guessed."




She's not a girl in a war any more. She's a girl who's been sidelined for months. She's a refugee now. It's different.

[theresnodoor]

Rachel does not smile. She is not amused.

She just looks at this girl beside her, young and pretty and blonde and scarred, who talks and chatters and works her way through life.



"We never talked about it."

[alwaysroomforhope]

"You don't have to." Steph glances over at her again, then back to the lake. "I'm not trying to get you to talk, I'm just, you know, bad at not talking. You can tell me to shut up. God, it's not like I'm gonna try and dictate how anyone deals with - with anything."

With the kind of shit that gets heaped on girls in wars.

[theresnodoor]

Well, now she's smiling. Just a little, for that babbled panic.

"You're fine."

Rachel just needed to do her own explaining, while she had the words for it.

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph smirks at her, just a little. "I know."

In a few ways. She will be. She was. She ... will be.

"When I can move properly again, I'm gonna make sure you know how to jump that balcony."

It's important.

[theresnodoor]

She lifts an eyebrow, then glances back at the building, the balconies.

And grins.

"You want me to do it now?"

[alwaysroomforhope]

"No," Steph complains, but she's grinning. "I'd be sickeningly jealous."

[theresnodoor]

"I have that effect on people."

[alwaysroomforhope]

It's funny because they both know how much they've got to not make people jealous about, too. Steph's grin is genuinely friendly. "Fine, then. C'mon up, I'll show you the best runup."

[theresnodoor]

"You're going to blame it on practice time when I beat you later, aren't you?" Rachel accuses, grinning as she gets to her feet. "You'll be all healed, perfectly fine, and whining that I only won because I had more time to practice. Well, I'm onto you."