a_littlefaith | August 12

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh, jeez," she says, laughing. "You sure are all about the flattery. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were tryin' to butter me up for somethin'." She hooks her guitar case onto her shoulders, still pleased she'd decided to get one that doubles as a backpack, making it much easier to carry through the streets without having to ask anyone for help. And she doesn't really think he's trying to butter her up or get anything out of her, but most of the time she still doesn't know what to do when someone is so complimentary. It's not that she expects people to be cruel, especially not her friends, because she really does believe the best of people, but she's not used to such nice things being said about her.

Especially not about her music.

"It'd be nice to buy a house, though," she admits as she leads the way toward the door. "I like the apartment well enough, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like enough space for the three of us. Judith is still just a baby, but she's gonna get bigger and bigger." Sometimes she still can't quite believe she and Carl, one of them still a student and the other just barely out of her teens, are responsible for a child.

Nate grins, shaking his head. "Nah, just trying to live up to that whole nice thing that you think I am." He feels like he should probably offer to carry the guitar case, but she already has it on her back and Nate has spent enough time around Elena and Chloe to know he'd probably just get an eyeroll for his trouble. God, he misses them.

"You're looking after kids?" he asks, surprised. He doesn't know how he missed that, doesn't know how in all his time talking to Beth they've never talked about the fact that she's having to be a mom here when she's barely out of her teens herself. "Christ, I'm an idiot." He should help more, that's something that occurs to him, but he also thinks he'd be a terrible dad so maybe the best help is to stay far away.

Nate pushes open the door to the bar for her, getting a hit of cold wind in his face. It's almost welcome in comparison to the hot heat inside, and he lets her through first before he follows her outside. "You ever need anything, or, well. You have my number."

"You're not," Beth says, looking at him sternly. "And just one. Carl's a teenager, he'd be so mad if I ever referred to him as a kid I was takin' care of. Judith, though, she's just little. She's Carl's sister and he mostly takes care of her, but since he's underage, I'm her legal guardian."

She smiles as they head out into the night, brushes some of her hair back and then looks over at Nate, her appreciation clear in her expression. He might not know what to do if she did call him with some questions about Judith, but she's also got no doubt in her mind that he means it sincerely. He'd do what he could to help her if she was really stuck.

"It's actually pretty great most of the time," she admits. "It can be a lot of work sometimes, but I'd much rather they be around than not be around. They're the last people I have from home."

Nate doesn't know if anyone from his home is ever going to show up here, but he's selfishly glad that there would be no possibility of surprise children. He struggles to look after himself on the best of days, let alone a child. Maybe if Elena were here, things would be different, but there are so many things he could say that about.

For a brief moment, he allows himself to wonder if she misses him at all, whether she's written him off as dead in the desert or is out looking for him somewhere. He shoves the thought away quickly enough.

"Except for Daryl," he says bluntly, after a moment of thought. He'd been meaning to ask her, and now seems as good a time as any. "I saw he's back."

Daryl is the last thing she wants to think about tonight, especially after he'd yelled at her the other day, but she draws in a deep breath, holds it there for a second, then lets it out slowly as she nods. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, he's back. It's been a little while now, a couple of weeks, but I... it's been weird. He's different."

She's quiet for a moment, chewing on her lower lip as she thinks about the situation, about what she should even say about it. Nate knows the world she comes from, how bad it really was, how scary, and he's believed all of that without batting an eye. She thinks he'll believe all this, too, but that doesn't make it sound any less crazy when she starts to consider the words in her head.

"He doesn't remember bein' here," she says quietly. "He showed up in the park, he'd been shot, and I thought... I dunno what I thought. That he'd been missin' or somethin' and I asked where he'd been, but he didn't understand. Later, after I got him to the hospital, I realized he didn't remember Darrow at all. He's from later, too, from... from way after when I died. When he got here and saw me, it must've been so scary for him. Like seein' a ghost." She takes another deep breath, then looks at Nate. "But all the stuff that happened here? He doesn't know it. Me and him... that never happened. I didn't know how to tell him, but he found out anyway and he shouted at me and I haven't seen him since then."

He can tell immediately that he's made a mistake with the way she breathes, like she's preparing herself for something. Nate perpetually has his foot in his mouth but he's already trying to work out ways to extract it as she speaks. He came here to be her friend, not to make her talk about thing she doesn't want to.

Nate's heard of people leaving the city but he's never really heard of them coming back. The idea that Daryl has come back without his memories, maybe a different person to the one he was when he left, is unsettling. Building a life with someone and having to watch them disappear is bad enough, but having them come back with no memory of it? Nate's not sure he could handle it.

"He'll come around," he says, because it's easier to focus on that than the prospect of what this city can do to their lives. Nate has never liked being someone else's plaything, and he's getting the feeling that that's all they are, here. "Must be weird for him, too."

"Must be awful for him," she agrees. "As far as he's known for ages now, I was dead, and he shows up here suddenly, which is scary enough, but then I'm not dead, not here anyway, and someone else tells him that he and I were together, that he was here before and he doesn't remember it. That must feel like... like goin' crazy."

She has no idea what it's really like for him, she can only imagine how hard it must be, how frightening, but she doesn't know how to help that either. She doesn't know what to do for him, how to fix it. There's a big part of her that knows she can't, a part that understands there's really no going back, there's only figuring out a way to go forward and that doesn't necessarily involve fixing, but she still wishes she could.

"If he doesn't come around, that's okay, too," she says, even though it hurts. "He doesn't have to do anything he can't deal with. It'll suck, but... well, I need to let him do what he needs to."

August 12

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject