Dante's House, Limbo City, Sunday

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Last night after finally exiting the tower, they had made their way back to Dante's place in Limbo City. Kathy had been half-tempted to get a portal back to the island, worried about Eliot, wanting to be home, but she'd been too sore and exhausted to do much more than look at her phone before letting it fall back to pocket.

At least her texts to Raven had gone through, even if she probably seemed like a madwomen in them.

Exhausted as she was, she didn't manage to sleep much past sunrise. Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many feelings crowding close to keep her asleep. She got up, limping a little unevenly downstairs, scrounging to see what kind of breakfast she could make from the remains in the kitchen.

The answer was apparently coffee, so she set that to perking and went to sit in front of the big window, staring out at the street, eyes blank and seeing very little.

[For them who are in Limbo City with her! SP for forever because BDE and also brain.]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

She still didn't like it. She felt exposed and raw and anxious and, yes, afraid. She wasn't a badass, she was just a stupid, stupid girl feeling way too much about shit that didn't even concern her, grieving all over again for someone that hadn't even been hers to begin with.

"I don't know how to give you want you want."

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"You need safe, I get that," Dante said quietly.

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"Yeah," she said, dully. "Maybe I'm spinning in place, but sometimes knowing I can survive whatever on Fandom is all I've got. It's what gets me through the day."

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"It drives me insane," Dante said, just as dull. "Like it's wearing away on my fucking edges a little more every day and if I don't get out soon I'm gonna stop feeling a goddamn thing."

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"You think I don't know that?" Kathy asked, turning to look at him. "That I don't see it? You think I haven't thought, even once, about begging you guys to stay, to not leave me? But I didn't, because I know it's killing you and I never wanted to put you in the position of having to make that choice."

It was a shitty position to be in and a shitty choice to make. So she'd kept it for herself.

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Dante shrugged.

Just... shrugged, his shoulders dropping heavily after he raised them.

"This is me, Kat," he said quietly. "This is my home."

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"When have I ever argued against that?" she asked.

It just wasn't hers.

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"I never said you did," Dante said.

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"Then I don't know what you're getting at," Kathy said, closing her eyes. "I know you want to go. I've spent the whole summer tying myself in knots trying to make me want it, too. The best I've got is not blaming you for needing to leave. I'm sorry I'm a coward, I'm sorry I need safety, I'm sorry that I'm still just working on survival, okay? I'm sorry I'm never whatever it is you need, I'm just not."

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"I'm sorry I can't be what you need here, either," Dante said quietly. "I'm sorry that being with me is gonna mean you're going to have a little bit of this place no matter how much you hate it."

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"I can do a little bit," Kathy said, with a laugh that cracked in half. "Shit, I can even do some. I just can't do all."

Not yet. Maybe not ever.

"Not being here, not being with you was never in the cards."

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"I just can't promise you safe, Kat," Dante said. "I'm not feral anymore but I'm not a housecat, either."

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"And if I were a different person, I'd let you keep me safe," Kathy said. "I'd be the happy homemaker, staying in the house all the time, content to let you and Anders live while I stayed put and prayed that no demons ever got the bright idea of attacking you directly here."

Hell, for a few months after she'd gotten back, she would have liked nothing more.

"But I'm not. I'd go just as stir-crazy trying to do that as you would living on the island. Because I want a life, too."

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"I think you can have a life here," Dante said quietly. "I think you stand your ground just fine. Better than most people in this city."

He shrugged.

"But I can't make you feel that way."

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"You can't, she agreed, shaking her head. If I tried right now, I'd be trying for you." She sighed, staring out the window again. "If you said that our relationship depends on me moving here, my shit would be packed tomorrow and I'd be picking out what room is mine in this place. But it wouldn't be good, it wouldn't be healthy, and I'd come to resent you for it. Same as you, if I begged you to stay."

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"I'm probably gonna be here for the rest of my life," Dante said, after a long pause. "We're gonna have to deal with that sometime."

Another pause.

"But not today."

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Not today. Kathy had a whole slew of things she was trying to wrap her head around that still got her hackles up, but they were all under the heading of 'not today.'

They'd somehow wrapped themselves in an uneasy truce and Kathy was unwilling to break it again.

"Well, no matter what happens, I'm still willing to try," she said, voice soft. "And--I'm sorry. This isn't how I wanted the morning to go. This wasn't how I wanted to be."

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"But you are," Dante said, "And I am."

He shrugged again.

"We can't apologize for that."

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"I've spent my whole life doing just that," Kathy said with heavy irony. "Don't see why I should stop now."

She drained the last of her doctored coffee. "But I was talking about my behavior, not who I am."

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"Yesterday was a shitty day for everybody," Dante said.

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"Yeah, but especially you," Kathy said. "Anders and I were just kind of there. You were up against..."

She handwaved, not wanting to bring up what Dante already knew.

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"Think you got a fair share of garbage too," Dante said simply.

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"But it wasn't really mine." That's what she was trying to tell herself anyway. "He wasn't my dad. He was hers. That was all just..." More handwaving. "Transference. Putting my shit on top of the shit already going on."

Didn't stop those shots from echoing in her memory all night long, or the noise his body had made when it hit the ground, or the feeling of unreality when she'd stumbled across his body for the first time, but maybe if she hammered on the This wasn't about you button hard enough, she'd stop feeling like she'd watched her own father get killed.

That she had any right to a measure of Lady's grief.

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"He wasn't your dad," Dante agreed. "Your dad was just a garden variety dickhead who got killed by some bullshit. And I don't know what Lady's deal is other than this, but she ain't you."

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Kathy's gaze flicked back over to him and swallowed the comment on her tongue. Uneasy truce, dammit.

"Yeah," she said. "I know. Just some parts of that are easier to make stick in my brain than others. He died wearing my dad's face. And the girl wearing mine killed him. If I wrote it up, Dr. Lecter would tell me to be a little more subtle with my Freudian imagery."