August 12

[a_littlefaith]

It's been over two months since she realized she was dead. Almost eight weeks since Daryl disappeared. A little over four weeks since he had come back and she'd realized he was another person entirely, not the man she had been set to marry. It's a lot to have happen to anyone in a two month period and for a time she'd felt completely lost, faltering in a way she hadn't liked. It had just seemed easier to crawl into bed and pull the blankets over her head so she wouldn't have to face the world or maybe to take after her father and drink herself into a state where she wouldn't have to care about any of it.

In the end, it's Maggie's example she'd decided to follow. One morning about two weeks ago, she had taken off the moonstone ring Daryl had given her, taken it off for good, and placed it back in the box it had come in. Then she had carefully, lovingly tucked the box in the drawer beside her bed and closed it away. It's what Maggie would have done. It isn't giving up, because Maggie never would have done that, but it's accepting the reality of what is instead of what used to be. Nothing she can do will change the Daryl who's here into the Daryl who left, she has to accept that.

Her sister would have told Beth to look after herself, not to forget about her own needs, so she'd put the ring away, knowing it's the fairest thing she can do for herself and for Daryl. Until she can talk to him about what they used to be, having that reminder of what had come before doesn't do anyone any good. So she takes the ring off and she tries to get back to normal.

Friday night rolls around and she has a gig at a small bar, about thirty minutes worth of material she's written in the past several months. None of the songs are about Daryl, she's been very careful about that, but she likes what she's written. Maybe some of this pain is worth it if it gives her good song writing material. When she sings she feels a little less childlike, a little more like an adult, and she has to wonder how much these past few months have forced her into growing up.

It's scary to think she hadn't felt this much like an adult before and it's sad to think that's what pain does to a person.

But she's smiling by the time she wraps up and her heart feels lighter than it has in some time. Her curls are clinging to her cheeks and her forehead and the back of her neck, the bar hot and damp, the night air warmer still, and as she heads away from the bar -- maybe she'll go home or maybe it's time for a weekend visit to one of her friends -- she finds she actually feels good. Not better, not normal, but good.

[I set it up to let people find her in a variety of places, whatever works best. Out on the street, in the bar where she's playing, at her apartment or their apartment if they'd want her to come visit.]

Comments

[a_littlefaith]

"Well, you don't gotta worry about that, I'm never gonna stop responding to you," she answers with a grin and that's entirely true. She doesn't a single other person she can have entire conversations with that are based entirely on the little emojis and maybe it's a little silly, but she doesn't care. Being able to talk to Kili about serious things, but also being able to have entirely ridiculous conversations with him is a big part of why she loves him so much. He's there for her in all facets of her life.

When he offers his bow, she thinks he's mostly joking, and she thinks she probably should head home and get some rest, but she really doesn't want to.

"It's not too dark for that?" she asks, although they had to hunt in darker than this back home. With no electricity, the world had seemed a lot darker than it ever gets in Darrow, even out in the forest. "I kinda want to do somethin'. I don't think I'm really ready to go home just yet."

[willnothide]

"It may very well be," Kili admits, "but I'm happy to do whatever it is you'd like."

He's not quite certain what all there is to do this evening. His attendance at certain events tend to arise from invitation or because he'd just happened to stumble upon something or another. Occasionally, he and Tauriel do go out on dates, but he doesn't keep track. His only plan tonight had been to show up here in support of Beth. Wherever they go now, it'll likely be entirely unplanned, and Kili finds he prefers that.

"Perhaps we can wander until we find something that catches our eye," he suggests. "It's summertime, there's bound to be something going."

[a_littlefaith]

"Yeah, okay," she agrees. "Sorta like an adventure."

Nothing has felt like much of an adventure lately. Not the good kind anyway. Everything seems like it's just a little too hard, like she's been moving through quicksand, and she knows no one is to blame for that, but she can't help but be angry sometimes. There are days when she's angry at herself, days when she's mad at Daryl, days when she's just angry at this entire city. None of that helps, of course, but she can't seem to help it.

There are days when she wants to just shove it all aside and pretend it isn't happening. That's what she thinks Maggie might have told her to do. Or maybe she can't pin that on her sister, maybe it's just her own decision. It's not like she hasn't been prone to bottling things up before.

We don't get to cry anymore.

That's how she feels now. She's tired of crying.

"Let's go to the boardwalk, I bet there's somethin' happening there," she decides.

[willnothide]

"To the boardwalk it is," he says, leading the way to the door, not bothering to check if she's followed.

Once they're outside and headed in the direction of the boardwalk, weaving through the folk who have come out to enjoy the start of their weekend, Kili glances up at her his friend.

"Have you spoken much to Mister Daryl as of late?" he asks, clearly tentative, both wanting to allow her to speak of it if she wishes or decline to discuss it entirely. If she wants to steer clear of anything that has to do with her former betrothed this evening, that's perfectly fine with him; he just knows how dangerous it can be to keep the darker thoughts that come with life to one's self. He'd done just that after he'd woken up from his permanent slumber to a new existence in Darrow, and he'd hurt his brother deeply once the truth had come out.

While this is different, while Beth isn't keeping life-changing secrets from him (at least, he doesn't think she is), Kili does think it would be better for her to speak her mind. She's always been good at that, after all, it's one of the things Kili so greatly admires about her. Of course, he won't push her if she isn't ready or willing to talk about such things right now, he just wants her to be aware that he'll be here when she is.

[a_littlefaith]

"Mm, no, not since last weekend," she says, falling into step beside Kili and then falling silent for a moment as she thinks about it. There are very few people she feels she can talk to about this, but Kili is one of them, and she knows no matter what she says now, he isn't going to judge her for it. She's not hesitating because she's afraid to tell him about what happened, but because she still isn't entirely sure. It feels too complicated for words and then somehow too simple all at once. There's nothing either of them can do to change anything, the situation simply is what it is and tonight she feels very ready to let go of it all.

"He found out he'd been here before," she tells Kili. "I didn't tell him, I didn't know how, and I knew someone else was going to tell him at some point. That they'd see him and he wouldn't know 'em and the whole thing would come out and it did." She shrugs thoughtfully. "I feel sort of bad that I'm so relieved it wasn't me, but I am. I didn't know how to say it, I didn't wanna be the one to do it, but he knows now. He's mad I didn't tell him and I guess I don't blame him. More than he's mad, though, I think he's scared and I definitely don't blame him for that."

But she's tired of worrying, she's tired of being sad. She's compartmentalized before, she's had to in order to survive and she thinks she can do it again now. As far as she can tell at the moment, it's her best option.

[willnothide]

Kili hums, thinking over all that she's told him and carefully considering how he might have reacted if placed in Mister Daryl's position. Already, he knows he would have done exactly as Beth had. If Tauriel were to disappear then reappear in the city, ignorant of all they'd been through together in Arda yet again and furthermore, how their relationship has developed here, Kili doesn't think he'd have the heart to recount it to her. If she were to discover the truth then surely she would be displeased with him, but the pain would simply be too great. To love her and lose her not once but twice is unthinkable, it sends a sharp pang through his chest that he pushes aside.

"I understand why he's angry, I suppose," Kili says, "but it wasn't your responsibility to tell him. It isn't easy for you, either. In fact, I daresay it's all the more difficult to have him come back to you a different man."

He's quiet for a moment as they walk, his eyes downcast as he chews on his bottom lip. "You remember, don't you, when I told you how upset my brother was that I hadn't told him about my fate in Arda before coming here? He wouldn't speak to me for days, he couldn't even look at me, but I--" Kili gives a slight shake of his head, almost tempted to glance over his shoulder, as if Fili might be standing right there behind him. "I wouldn't tell him, given the chance to do it again. All it'd done was cause us pain we shouldn't have had to face. Still, Mister Daryl will see reason soon enough, I'm sure of it."

He tilts his head up at her, curious about the answer to his next question. "Do you think you'll take up with him again? I know there can't just be picking up where you left off, not with things as they are, but... do you think you'd want to fall in love with him again?"

[a_littlefaith]

Everything Kili says makes her feel a little better about everything. She's spent so much time second guessing herself and all the decisions she's made since Daryl has come back, wondering if she's doing the right thing, wondering if maybe she's wrong, if maybe she's only making things worse by not having been honest right from the start, but she has no idea how she could have been expected to. Having Kili tell her he'd not only make the same decision in her place, but that, in a very similar situation he'd made the same choice and would make it again makes something in her heart constrict happily.

She isn't alone in this, no matter how lonely it feels from time to time. There are people who understand what she's done. She reaches over blindly, looking for his hand, and squeezes it tightly once she's found it.

The question he asks is almost painful with how weighted it is and she struggles with it for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't know," she says honestly. "I love him so much, but he's so different, he's not... he's Daryl, of course, but he's not the Daryl I'm in love with, even if he looks the same and has the same history. So much else has changed."

There's no way for her to know for certain, she can't see the future, but right now, it's not something she can imagine. "It's too much," she says. "There's just too much that makes it complicated. I don't think I could do that."

[willnothide]

"Indeed," Kili murmurs, the corners of his lips tugging just slightly downward. It isn't difficult to see Beth's side, having to rebuild all of what she'd had with the previous Mister Daryl of Darrow would not just be difficult but likely closer to impossible. She knows now, what had happened to her in her world, and Mister Daryl had been there to see it all. That, in itself, changes things between them. It makes things a bit darker, knowing there had been no hope of being together then, and Kili had faced the same thing when he'd arrived to find Tauriel but they've only been together once.

Even in Arda, they hadn't had the chance to truly share in a relationship and the truth of it is, Kili doubts it could have happened, in the end. Had he survived, he knows where his loyalties would end up. As much as he'd loved her there, his kin would come first, as it always has. He'd take up his place as Prince of Erebor, for his uncle and his mother and his brother; he'd be heartbroken over it for the rest of his life, but he would have done his duty if he'd had to choose.

He's not bound by that here. While the name of Durin means the world to him, it means nothing to Darrow itself, and he'd struggled with that but has come to accept it. That his name isn't recognized here doesn't change who he is, it only changes his circumstances. The same can be said of Beth, he thinks.

"You don't have the luxury of forgetting all you've been through," Kili tells her. "You're the same woman you were when he left, now it's just a matter of adapting to what new things he'll bring into your life." He smiles up at her, hoping it's reassuring in some way. "You'll be just fine, Beth. It may take time, it may even be longer than you'd like before it stops hurting just to look at him, but you'll be fine. I know that because I know you. You never stop fighting. That's one part of you that will never change."

[a_littlefaith]

The way Kili says it makes it seem so easy. Not that he expects it to be easy for her, but like he sees things she can't because she's so close to the situation, and his words give her much needed perspective. Things are hard now, of course they are, but just because Daryl isn't the man she was in love with doesn't mean he can't still have a place in her life. Before she had even told him how she felt, she'd been so afraid, because she thought there was a chance she might lose him entirely and that would have been so awful because of what he means to her.

They don't have to get married for him to still be important.

"Thank you," she says, because she doesn't know if she can say anything else without bursting into grateful tears, and she wants to hold onto this good feeling she's been carrying with her all night. Kili always makes that easy, though, he makes it so easy to be happy, to be thankful for his friendship, he makes it so clear every single time they speak why they've found their way to each other and one day she thinks she'll know how to say that without crying, but not today. It's too much today, so for now she'll have to settle just for thanking him.

"I think it's harder on him than it is on me," she admits after giving herself a moment to collect her feelings and thoughts. "I guess he feels like we've got all these expectations of him or somethin'. I just want to help him get settled." But she doesn't even know if this Daryl can settle.