Boston Mariott, Thursday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy...Kathy wasn't doing so well. She had a whole slew of reasons why she wasn't doing well, from her realization she remembered everything about being dead, to finding out Raven had killed her family, to her run-in with Ezra at the Coterie-run bar when she'd just wanted to drown her sorrows the old-fashioned way, it had been one thing after another after a-fucking-nother.

Which was why the phone call at ten pm found her putting the last touches on her makeup and hair for an evening out on the town. Her outfit left very little to the imagination and even less as protection to the elements, but she didn't care. Hell, that was the whole point. This was the third night she was in Boston and the third night of making questionable choices in the pursuit of getting her brain to shut down so she wouldn't have to think about any of the things she didn't want to think about. Sure, it was a weeknight in the dead of winter, but Boston was a college town. There were always people willing to party.

Though that didn't explain how Eliot knew what was going on. She listened to his message with a frown and immediately called him back. The only person who knew she was here was Ezra, so who'd gone to Eliot, carrying tales?

[Eliot's thread is chronologically first, but open to phone calls or that guy in Boston if he'd like! NFB for off-island shenanigans. Content warning for alcohol as a coping mechanism in the comments.]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy didn't lie! Not when she didn't have to anyway!

"Well, I mean, I haven't seen any evidence that they noticed me or cared?" Kathy said. In that no one had coshed her over the head and abducted her, as she wasn't really going out of her way to pay attention. That went directly against her 'party till you forget' plans. "So it's probably nothing to worry about."

[vdistinctive]

"Then why do you think they might be interested in ya in the first place?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Because I went to their bar and met up with an old friend who told me to get out because the last thing I wanted was to attract their attention," Kathy said, glum. "So I left."

Eventually.

[vdistinctive]

Kathy, none of this was helping Eliot's urge to track you down and come get you.

"You need any help?"

He was trying really hard to trust her. He was.

[spin_kick_snap]

At least she wasn't pregnant?

Oh wait. That would be fixable. Hmm.

"I don't know. I mean, not for that." Honestly, the Coterie didn't even rate right now. "Just..."

She didn't know what to do. What to think. How to feel. Which was why she was chasing forgetfulness so hard. Because then she wouldn't have to do, or think, or feel anything.

[vdistinctive]

"I can come get you," Eliot offered. "If you want me to."

[spin_kick_snap]

"And do what?" Kathy asked. "Here, there, nothing changes. I don't even know what to do about the apartment. At least here, I don't have to make a decision about that."

[vdistinctive]

"True. But you're just puttin' off the inevitable. You know that, right? Running from your troubles, it can't last forever."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I dunno, I've never tried it before," Kathy pointed out. Mostly because she was feeling sulky and stubborn, dammit. "Maybe I'm the one person it will work out for."

Sorry, Eliot. But sometimes Kathy was very nineteen. Well--eighteen. She hadn't really spent most of eighteen alive.

"What do you say to the person who killed your family?"

[vdistinctive]

She really, really was.

"I ain't gonna tell you you gotta forgive her. . . ." Eliot said gently. "But I s'pect that depends on why she did it."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was quiet for a very long time.

"...Because she came home from watching me die to see my dad eating what was left of Sarah," she said when she did finally speak. "After having hurt my mom. Pretty badly."

There. The reasoning Kathy hadn't wanted to face. Because it moved the culpability from Raven to her.

[vdistinctive]

Or, you know, onto her father, and the world, and the jackass who'd thought maybe if he just kept quiet about starting the zombie apocalypse, it would all be okay.

"That can't have been easy to hear," Eliot said. "I'm sorry, darlin'.'

[spin_kick_snap]

Sure but none of them had the specific responsibility of keeping her family safe. She had.

"And while she was talking, all I could think about was this kid--a teen--that I...chased down. And--and--" Don't make her say it, Eliot. "He kept screaming that he had a little sister to take care of, but I didn't--I just--"

Oh fuck, here were all the tears. See? This was why she'd wanted to forget!

[vdistinctive]

Really? Her father hadn't had the responsibility to keep his family safe? By, say, not getting bitten by a zombie?

"So you ran," Eliot said. "Don't know many who won't. Guessin' it hasn't helped much, though."

[spin_kick_snap]

Her father had steadfastly refused to believe in zombies even up through the president's announcement of ex-humans. He'd clung to calling them terrorists, probably right up till one bit him.

"No," Kathy admitted with a watery sigh that turned into tears again. "I don't know what to do, Eliot. What am I supposed to do?"

[vdistinctive]

Which, again, was his own thickheaded fault.

"There ain't a formula for this, darlin'," Eliot admitted. "There ain't gonna be a quick fix. But this, what we're doin' right now. The talking? That's good. It's a step."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Except all I do these days when I talk to someone is bitch, whine, and moan about how hard I've had it," Kathy said. "When everything's my fault in the first place! I ran off, got killed, got my best friend stranded, broke my boyfriend's heart, left everyone else grieving, and I couldn't even save my own family!"

Kathy felt like she was careening between anger and sadness, grief and guilt, bouncing from one emotion to the next like Banzai in freefall. And the harder she worked to control it, to throttle it all down, the more out of control she felt.

"I used them as an excuse, when the guys came to fetch me home like an errant puppy. I told them that if I left LA and my family died, I'd never forgive them. I should have saved my breath for the fucking mirror."

[vdistinctive]

"You have had it hard. Everyone else havin' it hard doesn't change that." Eliot really wished she were in front of him instead of just over the phone. Sophie might be able to talk her down from this far away, but he wasn't sure he could. "What would you have done different? To keep your family safe."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Gotten them out," Kathy snarled, frustrated. "Gotten them to the island while there were still portals. Kidnapped my dad if that's what it took. You're a retrieval specialist! I would have had you go retrieve them! LA was lost long before I went home. I should have just gotten them out and left the city to die."

[vdistinctive]

"You really think you coulda done that? Left the rest of your city behind? Your friends from school before you came here. Your neighbors. All those people you saved from the Seventeens before everything went down."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Didn't have any friends before I came to Fandom," Kathy muttered, quibbling because he was more right than she wanted him to be.

[vdistinctive]

"I don't believe that for a second. And I don't believe you woulda been able to leave all those folks behind if you thought you had even half a chance of savin' 'em." Eliot sighed. "You made your choices, darlin'. You made them because you can't know the future. Because you can't control everything that's gonna happen. And your friends, your family, they made theirs. Take the blame that's yours, darlin', that you can maybe learn somethin' from. But don't try takin' anyone else's. All that's gonna do is hurt."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I really didn't!" Kathy protested. "Just Sarah! I was too quiet in school, only spoke up when I was answering questions. No one got to know me. Same on my gymnastics team."

Again, quibbling. Because if she could focus on what was wrong, she could ignore what was right. Guilt was easier than blame. Guilt meant she'd had control and failed. Blame meant it was all out of her hands.

"Then what blame is mine?" she asked. "If it's not all of it..."

[vdistinctive]

"What happened after you got bit?" Eliot asked softly.

[spin_kick_snap]

"We went to 'Genny's infirmary," Kathy said. "It took us awhile to get there. We kept fighting. I kept fighting. There were always people to save. We got there and 'Genny checked me out. I told him I'd gotten bit less than an hour before. I was a little dizzy, but the bite had stopped bleeding and gone kinda numb. He said that people took about twelve hours to turn and that I'd be okay for a few hours while he took care of some of the more time-sensitive patients. I told him that was fair, they brought me to a room and that was the last time I saw him till just before..."