Participants:
| Scene Title | Come Back |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A reassurance, from the vantage point of a future that hasn't happened yet for Colette; a demand, or perhaps a plea, when Tamara leaves sooner than either would prefer. |
| Date | September 12, 2010 |
Gun Hill: Colette's Apartment
Sunday mornings are good for lounging around, but there's too drastic a difference between relaxation and being crippled by indecision. The latter of which has Colette Nichols staring up at the ceiling of her apartment where a tiny, brown water spot has formed over the last two months. With one bare arm draped over her forehead, Colette keeps her messy and shaggily grown out bangs from her face, eyes partway lidded and equally unfocused despite the water spot being their point of attention.
That she's taken the day off from work is evidenced by the boots sitting unworn near the front door, the loose pair of black track pants with two white stripes down the side of the legs she wears and the snug fitting white tanktop that shows bare shoulders and unfortunate tan lines on her biceps.
She'd lay here all day if she were allowed to, having forgotten about her keys she left in the door of apartment 404 just last night. If left to her own devices, Colette would continue to sink into thought, worry and helpless indecision about what she's been asked to do.
Thankfully for Colette, she won't be left up to her own devices.
Candidly, Tamara would almost rather leave the brunette to her own devices. Or at least be able to do so, and in doing so take time to relax herself. But life never does work that way. She came home last night, not actually late — in terms of time of day — but disappearing so quickly and completely into her own room that the blonde may as well not have been home. Sleeping, as only the exhausted do.
"Don't let it drip on you," the seeress says from the open doorway, her voice a muted echo of the ebullient cheer she would normally deliver that instruction with. The measure of how hard she's been pushing herself is in the dark circles that not even upwards of twelve hours of sleep have removed from beneath Tamara's eyes; but someone had the good sense to tie up her hair, back before it could get all tangled, and so the blonde strands aren't a complete mess. Just tousled, where it hasn't escaped the restraining band.
That someone probably wasn't Tamara, and it definitely wasn't either Colette or Tasha.
Stepping into the room and crossing over to sit on the edge of the bed, Tamara has her hands full; and while the small brown paper bag in her left hand might be for the seeress herself, the coffee mug in her right definitely isn't. She's still wearing the clothes she came home in — cutoff shorts and an incongruously long-sleeved navy-blue shirt with a rampant griffin outlined thinly in silver just below her left collarbone.
Surprise is slow to dawn on Colette today, probably because her eyes for once match Tamara's, if only in the tired circles darkening them. The upturn of her brows and purse of her lips implies sympathy for the devil, as it were. Rolling onto her side, Colette pushes herself up into something of a seated position with one arm, the other raking back too-long bangs from her face, brushing unruly locks of hair off of her neck where its grown out enough — in some places — to touch her shoulders.
"I'll get Toby on fixing the leak," is the best way to ensure a small spot doesn't get big enough to drip. There's a smile, weary as it is, that Colette offers to Tamara as she reaches out with her free hand not to take the profferred coffee, but to touch her palm to the sybil's cheek, brushing her thumb beneath one pale eye, fingers curling around her jaw delicately.
Sitting up straight, Colette scoots across the bed to Tamara's side, reaching out to take the coffee wordlessly, then slouches one shoulder against Tamara's, letting her hand fall from the girl's cheek, fingernails down the side of her neck before the hand comes to rest on the blankets and wrinkled sheets beneath them.
The seeress leans back against Colette, just enough to produce a counter-pressure, breath huffing out in a quiet sigh. She doesn't say anything for a while, letting silence weigh in with its own form of communication. For her part, Tamara considers the wall before them, and the half-open door through which she entered. There isn't much to see in either case.
"You're worried," she finally says, not looking at the younger girl but leaning her head over to rest against the other's shoulder. Paper crackles as she adjusts her grip on the bag, ever so slightly. "Do you want to talk about it?" the blond continues, offering Colette the choice even though she knows what will probably be decided. That it's a direct and clear question… could be good, depending on one's chosen interpretation.
Slowly nodding, Colette presses her nose down into Tamara's unruly blonde hair, switching hands with her coffee so that she can snake one arm around the seer's back, drawing her into a tired embrace. "I'm scared," Colette hardly needs to clarify as she whispers into Tamara's hair. "I don't know… I don't know how so many things can be going wrong at once. I— I'm scared. I don't— I don't even want to believe that this is happening, on top of everything that's about to go down in November…" Curling her fingers into the fabric of Tamara's long-sleeved shirt at one shoulder, Colette reaffirms the tightness of her embraece.
"I don't wanna believe that he can do what he says he can… I— " Colette stops herself, closing her eyes and brushing her nose from side to side against Tamara's scalp, breathing in the scent of her hair. "Tell me what I should do," implies that trust and neediness that defined Colette for so many years. It isn't that she can't make decisions on her own, but rather that it was so much easier when she blindly followed whatever it was Tamara asked of her. Better days, greener grass, all of those truths.
There are any number of things Tamara could say, as Colette's nose presses against her hair; any number of replies, and all of them are true.
"No one wants a lot of things," the seeress says softly, tiredly. "That doesn't make them just go away." Her free hand finds a rest of its own on Colette's shoulder, fingers brushing through her unruly dark hair. She doesn't acceed to the younger girl's plea: doesn't tell Colette what to do. "There's a moment's musing silence on the heels of her first reply, before Tamara continues. As is her wont in many circumstances, she turns the demand around into a question directed back at the speaker. "What do you want to do?"
From where Colette sits, that isn't really a fair question. "To be a family," is her whispered answer into Tamara's hair, "be happy… not let you go," and pleadingly, Colette's arm around Tamara tightens slowly as she kisses the top of the sybil's head. "I just… I know people expect me to do all this stuff, to— I don't even know. How're Elaine and I supposed to fix something, they— they were talking about assassins and— and people who can change history. I don't even know how a person's supposed to be able to do anything against that…"
If Colette is guilty of one thing today, it has been over-analyzing the situation. Though presented with the reality of a mutable history like she has been, it's not entirely unexpected. "What if he tries to unwrite me? Or you? Or— or what— I— would I just wake up one day and— and never remember you?"
Colette turns, wrapping her arm holding the coffee around Tamara as well, precariously balancing the cup in her hand. "I don't know how to do what I'm supposed to do. I'm— " with the hesitation opens the real worry. "What if I make things worse?"
Drawing in a breath, Tamara leans her cheek against Colette's shoulder — and the younger girl can feel the way her lips curve, telegraphed against skin. A moment later, she pulls back, an errant tendril of blond hair falling across her face as she meets Colette's gaze. Still smiling, there's a definite affectionate amusement in the seeress' expression. It's the kind of look that says you're going about this all wrong… but that's okay. Leaning forward again, Tamara's lips brush against the brunette's ear. "Do you want to know a secret?" she murmurs, whispered invitation to conspiracy.
Were it not for the smile, for the look in Tamara's eyes and the tone of her voice, those words could've sent a chill down Colette's spine. Instead her mis-matched eyes fall shut, her cheek brushes against Tamara's jaw and she remains motionless in the seer's proximity, holding the blonde with that fragile embrace, as if afraid to let her go that she might flit away like a hummingbird.
Colette's silent nod is wordless recognition of what Tamara asks, though the lump in Colette's throat and the butterflies in her stomach imply that she's anxious of what the secret could be. But when the modern-day Oracle of Delphi offers to whisper secrets into your ear, most people don't take the time to consider if it's the prophet's whispering or the snake.
Colette could never imagine the latter, and somehow that trust is still there.
A slight exhalation tickles through Colette's hair, the seeress not moving to disrupt the contact between them any further. Tamara briefly kisses the ridge of cheekbone just beside the younger girl's ear, then, still whispering, finishes the thought of her secret.
"You did come back."
No further elaboration or clarification than that, just four gently-spoken, reassuring words.
Just like that, Tamara indirectly tells Colette what she has to do. She has to go. The sigh that Colette exhales comes with a nod of reluctant acceptance and a lingering smile that — despite herself — crosses her lips. Leaning back slowly, Colette offers a concerned look to Tamara, her half-blinded eyes drifting up and down the sybil; in lack of an answer or a response, she finally brings that coffee up to her lips, taking a slow sip and letting her expression shift mercurially from worry to appreciation, then something that's a bittersweet mix of both.
Drawing her teeth over her bottom lip, Colette looks down to the paper bag Tamara's been holding since she showed up, then back up to the sybil. "Breakfast? Or— time travel supplies?" There's a crooked, teasing smile at that which is only slightly imperfected by the sudden worry Colette has about what to bring to the past.
"Please say breakfast," is added in a worried tone.
Tamara laughs softly, leaning forward past the coffee mug to plant a kiss on Colette's cheek. "I don't have to say anything at all," she proclaims, almost loftily, as the bag is dropped with a crinkling rustle into the younger girl's lap. Her smile also quirks to one side, more rueful than not. "Don't worry about it," she instructs, "ghosts are ghosts." But is that truth, or a perception induced by the peculiar blinkers of Tamara's ability?
The seeress slides off her perch, stockinged feet hitting the floor with a quiet thump. "The boy was waiting," she tells Colette, perhaps by way of excusing her impending departure; brushes her fingers over the brunette's hair, then steps back towards the door. "You'd better get some sleep."
Jealousy alarms fire all at once. "The who?" Both of Colette's brows shoot up to her hairline, oblivious as always and leaping immediately to the so wrong conclusions. "You— the— " Colette slides forward on the bed, carefully trying not to spill her coffee everywhere, it's largely a success.
"What— what boy? I mean— you've— " Colette's brows furrow, color graces her cheeks and she toys at her lower lip nervously. "N-not that I really— I mean— are— what's his name?" Fluttering anxiety butterflies around behind Colette's breastbone and down in the pit of her stomach as she glances to her coffee, then the paper bag and up to Tamara.
"Can— can it wait?" One brow lifts expectantly, "I mean," she looks down to the paper bag, then the coffee, then up to Tamara. "I can cook you breakfast, or alternately I can be absolutely quiet and promise not to— to ask any questions or anything. We could both use an extra hour of sleep, right?"
Anything but being alone in the apartment with her thoughts.
"One hour isn't that much to ask, is it?" Says the girl who views time in a straight line to the girl who views it all at once.
Stockinged feet pause, then move forward, one step each. Words are a deceptive, treacharous muddle; Tamara doesn't answer with them. Instead, she reaches down to brush unruly bangs back from Colette's face, fingers sliding back into the brunette's hair before the older girl leans down to kiss her, regret and reassurance mingled. "The river runs ahead," the seeress murmurs against her lips. "It wouldn't slow down for the mirror to catch up."
It never does.
Mis-matched eyes flutter shut, fatigue exhaled in a sigh and worry following after it in the way her back tenses up. Reluctantly, Colette offers a nod of understanding, even as she ever so slowly leans back after the kiss, her eyes opening only partway, regarding the seer through the fringe of her lashes.
"Just make sure you come home…" Colette whispers in the small divide of space between them, carefully studying Tamara's blue eyes and her reflection in them, "because I don't want to come back to a place where you aren't." A promise should be enough, their shared words should be comfort, Tamara's response should help settle Colette's nerves. But some things are a constant, the river will flow, Colette will worry, and Tamara will try her best to put her mind at ease. It should be enough.
It never is.