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

[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.