75 Godiva Street, Way Too Early Friday Morning

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy could hear the noise all around her. Worse, her jaw ached from all the clacking she was doing herself. She wanted to stop, to push her way through the endless mob of dead people, to get somewhere she could be alone and not HURT anyone, but her body wouldn't do what she wanted. It just dragged itself forward, gliding through the other exes with a grace that seemed wrong for a corpse to have. She was faster than the rest, able to sprint while they only staggered, and somehow that speed translated into an ability to slide through crowds like mist.

Because of that, the dead girl that had once been Katherine Hana Li made it to the center of the mob, where all the exes in this location had turned their unblinking attention. Only one thing could cause this kind of focus in the dead: fresh meat. Where the living Kathy now realized that she was looking at the remains of a stocky man in a green bandanna and pair of sweats, the dead Kathy only saw food. She knelt on the hard pavement and did as her undead brethren were doing; she reached out and grabbed her own portion of that fresh meat and hot blood, bringing a handful of something wet and slippery to her mouth--

Kathy managed to wrench herself out of the dream, stifling the gasp that would surely wake Raven if her thrashing hadn't already done so. She lay still for a moment, frantically swallowing--not bile, which would have been nice, but saliva. If she really wanted to, she could remember the taste and the smell of that dead Seventeen. Most of her recognized it had smelled awful, that nothing smelled good with its insides on the outsides.

A small part of her, the part that came to the forefront whenever she remembered dreamed about the past eight months, thought it smelled delicious. She was afraid it always would.

Silently, she slipped out of the guest bed and made her way to the bathroom where she could rinse her mouth out and brush her teeth again. It was the only way to get the imagined taste of salt and pennies out of her mouth. And then to the living room, where she snagged the laptop Hardison had given her and called up a queue of cute animal videos. She'd stay up till dawn before sneaking back into the guest room to catch another hour or so of sleep. Or, at least, to pretend to so nobody asked questions about why she was up so early.

[Open for housemates!, text under the cut NFB, warning for zombie-typical violence]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

"We did." Eliot smiled at the memory. "Not a puppy or nothin'. We went to the pound and adopted a grown up dog who was gettin' close to bein' put down. That was important to my mom -- if we were gettin' a dog, we were saving one." Then the dog had outlived his mom. Stuck around just long enough to comfort Eliot and Trudy while they were grieving. Eliot's smile faded at the edges.

That'd been a rough couple of years.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't think Furnado does anything like that," Kathy said. "Maybe--if I do decide to get one--I'll venture into Baltimore. I think an older, steady dog would be better than an excitable puppy."

Though the idea of going into Baltimore scared her, funnily enough. Too many people.

[vdistinctive]

"They're no-kill," Eliot confirmed. "Or they were, when I adopted this girl." He stretched out his leg to rub Val's lower back with his foot. She playfully nipped at the cuff of his sweatpants. "I ever tell ya about that?"

It was a nice story. One likely to take Kathy's mind off things for a bit, since she didn't seem much interested in talking about what was actually bothering her.

[spin_kick_snap]

Nooooo. Kathy was definitely not interested in talking about that. She was still clinging to the belief she was successfully pulling off her facade as being her happy, cheerful, old self.

"No, you didn't," she said, turning to him. She was just happy to have something to focus on that wasn't inside her own head. "What made you decide to adopt her?"

Kathy's hand found the velvet of Val's ear and scritched.

[vdistinctive]

Val was in heaveeeeeeeeeeeeen! She scrambled up onto the couch and flopped herself down happily at Kathy's side, belly totally available for rubs any time. Her paws wiggled in the air. Aaaaaaaaaaany tiiiiiiiiiiime. . . .

Eliot snorted at his goofy-ass dog. Really, it was like she wanted people to think she was touch starved.

"Actually, it kinda went the other way around. She showed up at the diner one day about -- hell almost two years ago exactly. Once I made sure she wasn't a student, I took her over to the shelter so she could get herself adopted up proper." He smiled at the memory of inspecting the place top to bottom to make sure they were secure and well-kept before letting them take the puppy from him. "Trouble was, she kept escapin' and poppin' up on my door step."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Awww, has someone never been petted in her entire life?" Kathy cooed, the lines of tension around her mouth and eyes loosening ever so slightly. Her hands fell to Val's belly and she scratched gently. "I guess not. I guess not!"

And then she was offering a tentative grin Eliot's way. "Of course she did. She'd found her person." She did a bit of quick mental calendar checking. "Val short for Valentine?"

[vdistinctive]

"'Sright," Eliot agreed. With the name, not with the idea that Val had never ever been petted before ever. No matter what dramatics the dog was getting into on the couch. "The last time she popped up, it was right at the start of that snow storm we got. She had this old card in her mouth, all 'be my valentine'." He shrugged. "I wasn't gonna let her freeze. Day of, she took down a gremlin right there in the kitchen, and well. I kinda ran outta arguments against her."

Specifically the one where he thought he'd up and die on her and leave her pining away all alone with no one to feed and protect her.

[spin_kick_snap]

Hey, Kathy knew for a fact that Val had been petted and loved before. She'd done some of that petting and loving herself.

"So, basically, your whole life is having people decide that you belong together and you finally coming around to the idea?" Kathy teased.

[vdistinctive]

"Not my whole life," Eliot said. "Just . . . you know. The last several years of it."

Once upon a time he'd been able to make decisions for himself. He was sure of that.

Admittedly, a good chunk of his life had been spent finding one person after the other to order him around, though.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, your whole life as it is now," Kathy said, leaning down to press her face against Val's soft tummy. Sometimes you just needed a dog belly to rub your face against, right where the skin was thin and easy to bite though...

Her stomach growled and with a horrified cry, Kathy flung herself away, right off the couch, bouncing her way into the corner where she covered her face with her arms and trembled.

SHE WAS TOTALLY OKAY!

[vdistinctive]

Val yelped and skittered away herself, crawling half under the couch. Eliot, who'd startled himself at the reaction, reached down to stroke her nose and make sure she was okay, then went over to where Kathy was huddled. He crouched down, just outside of arm's reach in case it'd been a proximity reaction, and tried to get a look at her face.

"Kathy. Darlin'. Just try to breathe through it, alright?" He'd seen this kind of visceral reaction before, though not knowing what set it off had him worried. "In and out, baby. Nice and easy. Can you do that for me?"

[spin_kick_snap]

But she was hyperventilating really well! Really, really well!

"Don't come near me!" The order came out in a shrill whisper among shallow, uneven breaths. She glanced up at him, face pinched with fear, pale and white and trembling. "Oh god, Eliot, stay back!"

[vdistinctive]

Shit.

Eliot was terrified for her, but refused to let it show. He had a lot of practice at keeping fear tucked down nice and tight and hidden, and some damn decent training from the world's greatest grifter to back it up.

This wasn't even that surprising. If anything, he was amazed it hadn't happened sooner.

"I ain't comin' any closer than this if you don't want me to," Eliot promised. "I just want you to breathe with me, darlin', that's it. In and out. In." A count of five. "Out." Eight count. "Feel your breath, darlin'. Feel your heart beatin'. You're here. You're home."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head, dark hair flying. "But I shouldn't be," she wailed, tears pouring down her face. "I'm dangerous. I nearly--I thought about--" She couldn't finish, couldn't bear to see Eliot's revulsion when he looked at her.

God knows she deserved it. She was revolted by that impulse.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot thought back to what she'd been doing before she freaked out, and yes, for a moment, he blanched.

That was his dog.

"But you didn't do it," he said. "Val's a little scared, but that's because you ran off." He shifted his weight so he was sitting on the floor instead of crouching. He had a feeling they were going to be here a little while, and his knees weren't what they used to be. "Ain't gonna lie and say thinkin's harmless. But it ain't unusual, either. Hell, first time I meet anyone new, part of me catalogs how to take 'em down. Doesn't mean I do it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't want to do it!" she said. "I just want to puke at the very thought of it. But--But I have these dreams..." She wouldn't call them memories. Maybe it was just her brain dealing with the detritus of life after death. She didn't know. Right? Right. "And when I wake up, sometimes they linger." She was still crying, still curled up in a knot so tight it hurt to look at. "I would never hurt her, Eliot, I swear, never ever ever!"

But the impulse was there.

[vdistinctive]

"I know, sweetheart. I believe you." He wanted to pull her into a hug, but he'd wait for her to uncurl herself first. He was pretty sure she'd freak again if he got any closer. "This kind of thing, it ain't about wantin'. Your brain's like any other part of you: it does something over and over the same way, it gets good at it. Your's spent months thinkin' this kind of stuff. It'll take awhile for it to make new habits."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I didn't think," Kathy spat. "I wasn't alive to think!"

Which was true. But what she didn't know was that the virus that had turned her into an ex had also kept her cells alive on a certain level--a level that was enough for the formation of memories and reflexes, as Eliot had said.

"I shouldn't be like this! I came back wrong!"

Which was just a short step from I shouldn't have come back at all.

[vdistinctive]

"You were alive enough to eat," Eliot said softly. "It doesn't take much to build a habit. You're not wrong, darlin'. You're just . . . different."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't wanna be different," Kathy muttered, her head resting on her knees. "I just wanna be Kathy. The same Kathy that left. That's who everybody else wants me to be. That's why you all came for me. To get her back."

But Kathy wasn't the girl anymore. No matter how much she tried to be. And, dear god, was she trying. And with every fake smile, with every bit of forced cheer, she felt like she was fraying further and further apart.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded. Val started creeping back out from under the couch, but Eliot raised his hand, giving her the gesture to "stay". Val looked from him to Kathy, then settled back down, just a few feet closer. Eliot flashed her a smile, then turned back to Kathy.

"I know what it's like to look in the mirror and not see the person you want to see. I wish there was somethin' I could say that'll magically make that better, but there ain't. You're gonna miss that old Kathy every day, maybe for the rest of your life." He ducked his head, trying to get eye contact, and held out his hand. "But you got the rest of your life back, darlin'. That's the important part."

[spin_kick_snap]

Yeah, Kathy could not with Val right now. Not feeling this guilty, anyway.

"How did you do it?" she asked, peeking at Eliot with one tear-reddened eye. "How do you put yourself back together?"

[vdistinctive]

"I didn't," Eliot admitted. "I ain't seen the person I used to be in more'n twenty years. But that's okay. 'Cause I ain't the person I turned into, anymore, either. You ain't the girl I met two years ago, but you ain't the one I fought last week in LA, either. You got a lot in common with both of those girls, but you're someone new."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't want to have anything in common with her," Kathy muttered. "She was a monster."

[vdistinctive]

"Afraid that part you don't got a choice on," Eliot said. "She's part of you. How you deal with her is up to you, but she's not gonna go away." He sighed and bit his lip. He'd touched on this stuff with her before, especially with the whole deal with the Butcher, but he didn't think he'd ever told her just who he'd been, once upon a time. He didn't go out of his way to hide it, but he'd always downplayed it with all but the most important people.

But that's who Kathy was. One of the most important people.

"Look, I can't know exactly what you're goin' through. I don't know if anyone out there can. But I've been a monster. And unlike you, I was the kind that had a choice in what I did. Comin' out the other side of that -- it's scary enough most folks won't even try. But I believe you can do it. And I'm gonna help you as much as I can. Alright?"