Apartment Above Luke's, Tuesday

[spin_kick_snap]

It was Tuesday. Kathy knew she was supposed to be getting to work sometime this afternoon, doing stock or cleaning or trying to find people to come work for her or any number of countless, pointless projects. She had a routine and routines were important, at least according to what little poking around she'd done on the computer for Helpful tips when you're a basket case. But she couldn't summon the energy to get up off the couch today. Hell, getting out of bed had been a titanic struggle and the only reason she'd managed a shower at all was because she'd sat on the floor of the tub and just let the water run over her for most of it.

It sucked. She'd really thought she was doing better. She'd been okay for a few days there, genuinely happy and smiling and laughing. The kids had been great distractions while they'd been there, but they were gone now, leaving a hole in Kathy's heart and the promise of a future that seemed further away than ever, today. From 'okay' to 'utter distaster' in just twelve hours, only this time she didn't even have the outlet of fighting in Baltimore to try to channel some of this bullshit into. All she had was Hulu and about a million seasons of Hades' Kitchen to get through while she tried very hard not to think about what Saturday had been or her alternate reality daughter with her dead sister's name.

"You're never going to impress him with that mess," she informed the TV from inside her comfy cocoon of blanket. "It looks like you threw up on a plate. Way to just hand the victory to the blue team, ladies, jeez."

[Open, though I'll be off to bed soon.]

Comments

[soniaroadsqueen]

"I don't know," Ringo mumbled.

Except that she did. A choice between the heartbreak of rejection and the shame of being Crazy Apple, well, not much of a choice. Shame hurt for a lot longer than heartbreak.

So, yeah, it was pretty unlikely that Kathy didn't know Ringo's real answer.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy pushed her. "Try again," she said. "Or I'm pushing you off the couch entirely. Keeping the bakery box though."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Greedy," Ringo accused brattily.

But she sighed and nodded.

"I don't like being her at all." Another sigh. "So I guess that's worse? But I don't want either!"

Couldn't everything just work out perfectly all the time? That'd be so much easier!

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy would have been fond of that option. But she'd be the first to say that wasn't how it worked.

"There's a lot of stuff nobody wants," she said. "But we don't get a choice in it. Our only choice is how we deal with it."

Or not deal, as the case might be.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Yeah." Ringo didn't have to be happy about the concession, but she did admit it.

"I'll do better." Or at least she'd try.

She took a deep breath.

"Okay. So, really I should feel kind of embarrassed. I came to apologize, and to listen to you, and all we've done is talk about me."

Ringo offered Kathy a slightly embarrassed smile and fidgeted with her hands. "Sorry."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Don't be," Kathy said. "Easier to talk about someone else, you know?"

She sighed and got up off the couch, trailing a blanket behind her like a broken queen. "It was a year Saturday, you know. I think most people lost track. I don't know how that makes me feel. Any of it. A year ago today, though...I lost everything. My life. My family. My sister. I'd trade everything to get Sarah back. I'd let all of LA burn to get her back. I'd go back to being dead or worse, an ex, if I knew that would bring her to life again."

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo nodded, but the movement was small. She couldn't look away from Kathy, eyes locked on a girl who looked so familiar, but didn't move like she once had.

"I understand." Ringo had sisters of her own, after all.

[spin_kick_snap]

A lot of the fluidity, the hard-worn comfort in her own body had deserted Kathy. She moved a little too carefully, like she was tired.

Or like she wasn't entirely sure she fit into the body she was inhabiting yet.

"I figured you would," she said.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Well. I guess I don't really," Ringo admitted. "But I think I can kind of imagine, at least?"

Which was sort of a sign of growth. Ringo wouldn't have recognized a real difference between those two when she first came to Fandom.

[spin_kick_snap]

A brief smile crossed Kathy's face. "That's what I assumed you meant," she said. "You became the Sonia Road Queen for your sister, didn't you?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Yeah." Ringo nodded.

"Rika, well," she shrugged. "I couldn't watch her keep pushing herself the way she was." Another year or two in the role, and Rika probably would have accumulated enough joint damage to make it hard to walk, much less ride.

[spin_kick_snap]

"So you stepped up to spare her, even seeing all the damage it had done to her," Kathy said. "You get it."

She understood the impulse, if not the actual decision.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"It was worth it." All the regrets Ringo might have, sparing Rika what might have happened wasn't one of them.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded. "I know." Her smile was bitter. "Or, at least, I can imagine."

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo blinked, pulled from her reverie by Kathy's tone.

Oh.

"Sorry," she murmured guiltily.

"I didn't--" She hadn't meant for it to sound like that.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "No, Ringo, it's not--" She tugged on her hair. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just...bitter and miserable. But not at you. Or because of you. That's just kind of what I am now."

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo shook her own head. "No, I-- I think I get it. But it's like," Ringo had never been all that great at metaphors, but she was going to try anyway. "It's like you've got a bad cut or a bruise or something, and I just poked it."

Her voice softened. "I should be more careful."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Except I'm all bruises right now," Kathy told her. "Sometimes I don't even know what's going to sting until it happens. And if we avoided every topic that caused a pang, we'd be limited to, like, reality TV or something."

They watched a lot of that in this apartment.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Maybe I can just kind of, um, be more careful? I mean, like you said, we probably can't avoid all of them, but." Maybe she could at least be more aware of what she was doing, instead of just flailing around?

[spin_kick_snap]

Well, that was probably just a good idea in general.

"I'm just extra sensitive right now, too," Kathy said, though she nodded along with Ringo's idea anyway. "Saturday made it a full year. Not that it feels that way to me."

A year for everyone else. Three months for her.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Yeah." Ringo's voice was soft. She looked like she might say something, then shook her head.

"I missed you, you know. In case I haven't said it often enough."

She looked a little unsure for a moment, then pushed on. "I'm glad you're back. Any you." She was still trying to figure out the extent of the changes Kathy had undergone, but it didn't feel like Kathy was gone. Just different. And that meant Kathy was still her senpai as far as Ringo was concerned.

[spin_kick_snap]

"There's no limit on how many times you have to say it," Kathy said with a small smile. "But...Ringo...weren't you ever angry at me? Or resentful? Or...whatever? It's okay for you to have complicated feelings about me being back. Or having left in the first place."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Um."

Ringo considered the question.

"I don't think I was ever angry?" she ventured after a couple of seconds.

"I did feel, I don't know, excluded I guess? Like everyone else knew so much more about what you were doing in LA than I did. Like, uh, like no one felt like I mattered enough to be in on everything everyone else was?"

She shook her head. "But, but, I knew that wasn't really true. That everyone was just, you know, focused on their own stuff."

That last part didn't sound totally convincing, no matter how much Ringo wanted it to be accurate.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy looked a little confused. "What was there to know beyond I was fighting zombies?" she asked. She wasn't trying to to invalidate Ringo's feelings, she just had no idea what went on here after she'd left.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo took a deep breath, shaking her head very slightly.

"I didn't know. Um, I mean, about the zombies. Until almost the very end. Just that you were back in LA taking care of something that had unexpectedly come up."

It had been a chaotic time, Ringo knew, and it wasn't really fair to still be hurt about it, but Kathy had asked, and it felt like Kathy deserved her honesty.