[oom] Room 6620

[lady_bols]

[ cont'd from here ]

She dreams, fitfully. The same anguish plays itself out on her face, and at one point, she calls out. His name, desperate and pleading, as if willing him back from the edge of some precipice.

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[lady_bols]

"Thanks." She swipes a hand across her eyes, resting her head on his chest again. "I feel better now, knowing your liver is immortal."

She inhales deep and lets her breath out in a long shuddering sigh. "I wonder what happened to him. If they caught him. If they even knew who he was..."

[the_gene_genie]

For a minute, he thinks she's talking about the Layton in 1981. But that doesn't make any sense, so he forces his sluggish brain to do some work.

'You might find out, one day. Or maybe never. You can't wonder, luv. You'll drive yourself mental.'

[lady_bols]

She huffs a tired laugh. It's getting easier to force down the tears. After three years, she would hope so.

"Too late..."

[the_gene_genie]

He doesn't think she's mental. He thinks she's coping pretty well, actually. Most of them have long forgotten what happened to them, and don't remember before they get to the pub. For someone who never got to forget, the fact she's not permanently hysterical is a pretty big thing.

'Don' say that. Don' do yourself down.'

[lady_bols]

She's quiet for a long moment, and he can feel her shift. If there was any light at all, he could see her peering up at him, confused.

"Are you telling me... You don't think I'm mental anymore?"

Her tone is quiet, and not a little baffled.

[the_gene_genie]

He blinks into the darkness. Again, he's struggling to comprehend a bit.

'Well...you acted weird 'cos of - all this, didn' you?'

Maybe not.

'I expect all the stuff just from being you will carry on, though.'

[lady_bols]

'So, you don't think I'm completely mental, just the usual...women are incomprehensible kind of mental.' She's had her world view shaken enough without that.

[the_gene_genie]

'...yeah?'


He's completely lost the thread of what she's getting at.

[lady_bols]

Good. Yes, okay. The world rights itself a little, and she settles back.

After a moment, she shifts again, one hand resting in the center of his chest to steady herself. She listens to the sound of his breath to orient herself, and this time the kiss is not as tentative. It's gentle and chaste, wrought of a genuine affection.

[the_gene_genie]

...things are just getting even more bizarre.

Still. He lets her, and responds, albeit without moving into it or doing more than pressing back with his lips. Just for a moment.

And after - quietly, very quietly -

'What you doin', Bols?'

[lady_bols]

She is quiet for a long moment, settling back into the crook of his arm, the tension not leaving her body this time.

'I have a second chance.'

Her fingertips trace a tiny circles on his shirt.

'I can't let it slip by me this time without -- '

The words fade in her mouth, because she doesn't really know what she's doing. It felt like the right thing to do.

[the_gene_genie]

He stares up at the ceiling, aware of the patterns being drawn on his clothes, and the weight of her on his arm. He doesn't know what to say to that. He has a lot of questions, but they're not making much sense in his head. He's at the point of exhaustion where he's starting to hear things, random words and snatches of imagined conversations when he turns his head, hidden in the rustling in the folds of the quilt.

's'different now, isn' it?'

Well? Isn't it?

[lady_bols]

'What's different?'

Her voice is quiet, not quite willing to disturb the blanket of darkness or whatever spell that's made it okay for her to be lying here in bed with him, almost nose to nose in the dark.

[the_gene_genie]

He blinks, slowly.

'I'm not what you thought I was.'

[lady_bols]

Another moment passes as she parses that sentiment.

'You are still who you are. And that's all I care about, really.'

She can't begin to address the fact that the man she's fallen for has actually been dead for thirty plus years, and that his entire adult existence happened through the lens of other troubled souls and their unfinished business. But she's known him for three years, in times both good and bad, and in her mind, she could no more walk away from him now than she could walk away from Molly when she first turfed up in 1981.

[the_gene_genie]

He's pretty sure it isn't that simple, though he can't for the life of him think why at the moment. He just knows that it matters to him. What he is is so tied up with who he is, it's difficult to see them as different.

'Can we talk about this some other time?'

He's not blowing her off. But he can't think straight, and he doesn't want to get it wrong.

[lady_bols]

'Of course.'

Her hand slips around his middle, and she gives him a squeeze, nuzzling against him a bit. She's content to let that conversation happen at a much later date.

But there's one question she'd really like to know the answer to, if he even has an answer.

'Why did you wait for me?'

[the_gene_genie]

That one's easy enough.

'I waited in case you came.'

Nothing more he can say. He could no more have left with the possibility of her turning up hanging over him, than she could leave now. He can't articulate exactly why, other than he'd never have forgiven himself if he'd walked out that door without waiting to see if they'd let her in.

[lady_bols]

She nods against him, her body now pressed tight against his side.

"I'm really glad you did."

The rest of it can sort itself out in the morning, she thinks. He's here, warm and solid against her. They're battered, surely. The whole world has been turned upside down, for both of them.

But they're together. All the rest of it, she thinks, can wait till the light of day.