The Tale You Tell

[andhiswife]

It's been a difficult week.

That's actually an understatement. But she can't let the full weight of it settle on her, not when she's out in public like this. So for as long as she's out here, doing some shopping, it's just been a difficult week.

She's told Baz and Simon about her situation. They'd offered to give her time off, but that wasn't what she wanted. The Gardens are one of the few places where she doesn't feel like climbing the walls. There's too much else going on, too many other things that require her attention. It's everywhere else that's the problem. Her apartment is too quiet and too empty and too immaculate; she can't even justify housework anymore because everything that could possibly need doing has already been done thrice over.

And she knows she has friends who would help her, who would be happy to provide company or distractions or whatever she needed. But that would require telling them. Repeating the story wouldn't make it any more real than it is already, but the thought of burdening anyone else with it -- and how could something this heavy not be a burden? -- turns her stomach. So much so that she's been politely deflecting the invitations she's received, rather than try to face anyone.

She'll say this for texting: it makes it easier to lie.

The thought of food rather turns her stomach, too, but she's getting groceries, anyway. Even if the chief appeal of cooking is making a mess that she would then have to tidy up, it's still a necessary chore. Her clothing is starting to hang a bit looser than it ought to, and she doesn't want to make new garments for what she knows, distantly, to be an impermanent state of affairs. So, groceries. She can do this.

[Find Greta looking terrible either at or en route to a grocery store, or on her way back to Candlewood. Closed unless we've spoken; hmu if you still want in.]

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[andhiswife]

There's some hypocrisy inherent in the offer; she knows that. One could argue that it's silly to get hung up on a finer detail of this inevitable disappearance. It could even be selfish -- as if, from Jordan's perspective, what Greta might or might not be going home to would matter more than the fact that she's gone. If sparing the girl the possibility of a painful parting was Greta's only concern, she wouldn't have indulged her in the first place. But she had, because something was better than nothing.

And then nothing had suddenly loomed so large that it's been hard to really see anything else. Rather ironic, really, that she feels so much closer to death for having dodged it. This is all she has, now. Her life in Darrow is the only life she has left. And she can tell herself she's trying to do right by the friends she's made, but maybe she's not doing anyone any favors by withdrawing or isolating herself. As if there's nothing left to do but shop for a coffin and--and wait.

God, she's so sick of waiting.

Sam has his head on straight, at least. This is exactly what she needs: someone to be sensible while she's still reeling. She slumps a little after he speaks, feeling both reassured and lightly chastised, though she knows that wasn't his intent. It's more that the offer seems foolish (or pointless), now that's been refused. "Don't really want to see less of you, either," she admits.

His arms are still around her, his hand warm against her back. She can easily imagine listing back into him, tucking her face against his neck. And there's even less to stop her now than there was the other times she'd been so tempted. It trails through her mind like an afterthought, then doubles back and settles itself: no more marriage to be faithful to, no more Village-specific social mores to observe. None of it matters.

But that's been the problem for long enough that she can't quite bring herself to embrace it as a perk. Not yet. Not while she's like this, tired and grieving and all squashy-feeling from yet another crying jag. No, thank you. Besides, it's not as if they've been singing any bloody duets.

She rubs a hand over her face and lets out a quiet, exasperated groan, not unlike the sound she made after she came back to herself in his apartment (now, of course, the reason she'd panicked over the height is obvious). "I need to put the groceries away." And splash some cold water on herself. "Can I--are you hungry?" She's hungry, a feeling that tends to fade into nausea when she's miserable and then reassert itself when she's feeling a bit better. She's also itching for something to do, some small way to confirm that she, too, can be useful and pragmatic.

She also might be looking for an excuse for him to stay for a while, without having to ask outright, or act so needy that leaving would be cruel. She's had enough of the latter. But she does like having him here, and things are always worse when she's alone.

[improvises]

It's so sudden, such an abrupt change of tone, that Sam lets out a surprised huff of a laugh before he can help himself. If he was hungry, it isn't something he's been thinking about now, far too preoccupied with Greta and what she's told him. He'd already forgotten that she was carrying groceries when they came back here, everything having seemed to stop for a few moments or minutes or however long it's been. (Now that he's wondering, he isn't entirely sure of that, either. As long as there's someone to watch Jordan, which there is, then he doesn't particularly care.) She's not wrong, though, that it's probably a good idea to put them away sooner rather than later. It's a good idea, too, to stop and breathe for a moment, coming back to himself a little, pushing one hand over his hair as he does.

"I can't believe you're thinking about food right now," he says, about as close to teasing as he can get under the circumstances. "But yeah, if you were going to have something, I could eat." It is, maybe, a little less about actually eating and a little more about not wanting to leave her alone with this too abruptly, giving everything a chance to settle a little back into something like normal instead, but regardless, it's still true. If he were in a hurry, he wouldn't have made a point of passing by her building anyway, or coming back up here to hear whatever she had to tell him.

Sam doubts he'll be able to get any of this — any of it — out of his head anytime soon, but it wouldn't be fair to look at her and only see a ghost when she's alive here, and that's the only way he's ever known her. To the best of his knowledge, it isn't even all that uncommon a phenomenon, people showing up from a time like that, when they weren't supposed to have been anywhere at all. God knows he has the sense not to wish for anyone from his own life who died to show up here, when doing so would only likely lead to him getting hurt, but it happens, has happened, so often in his life. Sometimes he still gets stuck on that. In a strange way, with that being the case, this isn't surprising at all. It sort of almost just stands to reason.

"Here, I can help you put stuff away."

[andhiswife]

She wasn't expecting a laugh. A bit of self-deprecating humor might have been the distant goal, but she still feels too wretched to get much beyond the 'self-deprecating' part. The sound helps lighten the mood, though, and she smiles in return. It's small and shy and a little embarrassed, but it's there, and it's genuine.

"I probably haven't been thinking about it enough." There's a wry edge to that, too, because it goes without saying. One of the downsides to making your own clothes is that they fit perfectly until they don't, and then they look twice as wrong as something that was never made to fit perfectly to begin with. She hasn't lost enough weight for it to be alarming, but it's still evident in the way she fails to fill out her dress.

"But it's better with you here," she adds, going for brisk and businesslike as she rises to her feet. It's too sudden a move, and she has to pause and wait for a moment of light-headedness to pass before making her way into the kitchen. "Feeding you means I have to have something, otherwise it'd be rude." Well, maybe not rude so much as weird. Semantics. Doesn't matter.

She could add that it's just harder, cooking for one. All that effort for such small portions. Making more and freezing the extra is an option, of course, but it's one she's already taken advantage of to the point where her little freezer won't hold much more. And thawing small portions might be the only prospect more dismal than making them from scratch. Though she will admit, at least to herself, that the minimal amount of effort involved has proved fortunate on her worse days.

It's not a great haul as far as groceries are concerned -- none of it even needs to go in the fridge. It's not a task that really requires two people. But she's grateful for the offer. More than that, she's just grateful he's still here, and showing no signs of leaving.

Some small part of her is already dreading the part where he leaves.

But that's a ways off, yet, and she refuses to fixate on it. Instead, she stays him for just a moment with a hand on his arm, lingering long enough to say, "Thank you," and to meet his gaze squarely so he'll know that she means it. Her thumb skates a light arc over his skin, more muscle memory than anything conscious or deliberate. Then her lips twist in wry acknowledgment -- yes, she's being soppy, she knows -- and she releases him, moving to put the kettle on. Tea's easy to start, and then she can figure out what to tackle for food.

"D'you want some tea? Or coffee?" She still hasn't developed a taste for the stuff, herself, but she has some instant on hand for guests. "Or whatever's in the fridge," she adds with an absent flap of her hand. There are at least a few bottles of beer that she's been studiously avoiding, as if 'drinking alone' would be crossing a boundary into territory too pathetic even for her current state. But they're not out of date; otherwise, they would have fallen victim to one of her cleaning sprees.