Apartment Above Lukes, Friday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was prepping for Pride over the weekend. Most of the merchandise she was planning for the booth had already been boxed up at the store, but she was folding pamphlets and making bracelets out of embroidery floss and beads that she'd picked up from Hobby Lobby when she'd taken a trip over there to discuss which store was going to hand out the birth control. The bracelets all corresponded with the various Pride flags; it was like an eighth grade craft project up in here.

But it was fun and relaxing and made for nice breaks between constant pamphlet folding while still letting her feel like she was being productive. Win/win.

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[vdistinctive]

"Better?" Eliot asked. "Or easier?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Is it so bad?" Kathy asked. "Wanting something to be easy for a change?"

[vdistinctive]

"Nah. If that's really what you want, I ain't gonna stop you. But it's gonna start to chafe. I'm thinkin' it already has."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy looked away rather than admit out loud he was right.

"But shouldn't how much I freak out before and after be a sign that maybe this isn't the best idea I ever had?" she asked.

[vdistinctive]

"All it means is that you're doing something hard and scary, and you know it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Never used to feel that way," Kathy muttered, but that was a stupid thing to say and she knew it.

But it also felt good to say. Eliot was the only person she felt like she could throw a tantrum around. Everyone else, it felt unfair to subject them to her feeling petulant and childish and obnoxious, but Eliot...Eliot might roll his eyes and tell her to grow up or something, but she wouldn't worry that inwardly, he was telling himself We got her back for THIS?

She didn't have to be mature and grateful to Eliot. That was freeing.

"I hate feeling grateful," she said abruptly. "I hate feeling like I'm expected to be grateful."

That was an abrupt change of topic, Kathy. Warn a guy next time, jeez.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot raised his eyebrows, surprised, then nodded slowly.

"Feelin' like you owe your life to someone can be tough," he said. "You know that ain't why any of us did it, right? So you'd owe us something?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"It's not even about you saving me," she said. "It's about me dying in the first place. I left and I died and now I feel like I have to make up all that hurt and anguish you suffered. Like I owe you all for being willing to forgive me."

[vdistinctive]

Oof.

Eliot let that one hang for awhile, too, taking his time processing it.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I never should have made you feel dying was your fault."

[spin_kick_snap]

"But it was my fault," Kathy said. "It's like you said. I went in unprepared and everyone told me so." She waved her hands. "It's not like you were the only one. Because it was."

At least Eliot hadn't ever straight up told her it was.

[vdistinctive]

"Death ain't some just punishment for actin' like a teenager." Eliot shook his head. "Somethin' I learned a long time ago, long enough I guess I forgot everyone doesn't know it yet: the only person at fault when someone dies is the one who killed them."

See how easy it'd be for him to remember that if/when Hardison or Parker -- or Kathy -- got killed on his watch. . . .

[spin_kick_snap]

There had been a BDE a few months ago that suggested not at all, actually.

"But it's like you said, you warned me. I went in unprepared and stupid and I got exactly what I was courting."

[vdistinctive]

Yeah, but the guy who killed that Hardison was Eliot! Just . . . not this particular Eliot.

"You were reckless," Eliot agreed. "You made a mistake. A big one. But that doesn't mean you deserved to die." He tilted his head. "'Sides, I seem to recall a magic healer type who managed to completely fuck up gettin' in to help you in time. Same one who actually started the whole goddamn mess in the first place."

See, Kathy? Don't blame yourself when there's a perfectly good douchebag ready made to take the blame for you!

[spin_kick_snap]

"I can't think about him," Kathy admitted. "Or I get so mad, my teeth start to clack. I want to hurt him. More than that. I think I could actually kill him. Definitely could, if it would undo everything. I've never--I've never been that angry before. That I wanted to really, really hurt someone this bad. Not in cold blood."

[vdistinctive]

"He destroyed your home," Eliot said. "It'd be weird if you didn't want to kill him."

Admittedly, Eliot was maybe not the best judge in the world on when murderous thoughts were an appropriate reaction.

[spin_kick_snap]

"You're not supposed to hate in Buddhism," Kathy said, unclenching her hands from where they'd become fists. "You're supposed to let go, forgive, make peace."

She stared down at the indents in her palm from her nails. "I was always a pretty shitty Buddhist in the first place."

[vdistinctive]

"Now I ain't an expert or nothing," Eliot said, "but aren't supposed to work on doing that? If you could be zen without trying, what's the point?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't know if I want to, though," Kathy said. "I think I'm happy hating him and hoping that they threw him over the walls to give the zombies a never-ending buffet."

She probably didn't mean that. Possibly. Maybe.

[vdistinctive]

"You ain't gonna get any argument on that from me."

[spin_kick_snap]

That took Kathy aback a second. "Well...good," she declared.

"...What were we talking about before I started ranting?" Beat. "This time?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot shrugged. "Guitar lessons, I think."

[spin_kick_snap]

"You still up for a lesson on Friday?" Kathy asked. "I'll try to be less ranty. And emotionally all over the place in general."

[vdistinctive]

"I'd be up for it even if you were," Eliot assured her. "Pretty sure that's part of the whole 'trying to be a good father' deal."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy smiled when he said 'dad' which was an unfamiliar reaction. When the word had come up before, she'd had to try to control a grimace.

What would she have been like if she had been raised by Eliot? Or, at least, this Eliot?

"I'm sorry to be such a trial of a daughter," she said. "I really am trying to do better."

But he'd been the shoulder she'd cried on from the beginning.

[vdistinctive]

"You kidding? This is nothing. Your cousin apparently dropped out of school to be a blacksmith."