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| Scene Title | Stone Soup |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Gillian and Kaylee seems to come to an understanding and seem to bury the hatchet. |
| Date | December 07, 2010 |
There are some days that it's nice that they have some sort of roofs over their heads. Outside is bitterly cold, making the chilly interior of the castle not seem so bad. Tucked in a corner of the common room, Kaylee Thatcher is seated on the floor, backside protected from the icy stone floor by a blanket. She sits with her legs folded, making a sort of seat for a much smaller blonde to huddle into.
"'If you will not give me something to eat, will you give me a stone?'"
The telepath has a small smile, the words spoken softly, with a small smile on her lips. When she seems to pause the toddler reaches over to turn the page of the book they are reading. The hard bound book looks like it once lived on the shelves of a library. The corners worn and frayed, the words 'Discard' written on the surfaces.
The little girl looks up at Kaylee with wide eyes and points to something on the pages. "Well, you'll have to wait til I read more. If I told you why he wanted a stone that would ruin the story wouldn't it?" The tiny girl seems to consider this and looks back at the book settling in again. "Okay then. We'll keep going." The telepath seems rather amused.
"'A stone?' said the old lady. 'What will you do with a stone? You cannot eat a stone!'" As she reads Kaylee even manages to pitch her voice just right sounding a little like a snobby Victorian woman. She has had experience with those. "'Ah,' said the young man. I can make stone soup."
Kaylee can't help but chuckle as the little girl looks up at her with a surprised look. "See… just had to be patient."
Of all the things to walk in on, Gillian tilts her head to the side when she steps into the common room, footsteps loud enough that her movement can be heard in part. She doesn't speak at first, listening to the old story with the performance tones. That she's speaking outloud is a surprise, but she waits til that part of the story is done before she raises her chin, to try and draw attention.
"Don't let me interupt if you're not done yet. But I thought the little girl was deaf— are you projecting what you're saying outloud?" Even if she's letting Brian handle most the in and outs of the Lighthouse, or whatever it will be called in the future, she took it upon herself to get to know something about this special little girl that will be added to their ranks.
"Mute." Glancing up form the book, Kaylee offers Gillian a smile even as she corrects her. "A little bit of hearing loss in this ear or at least what can be determined." Glancing at the little girl who blinks owlishly at Gillian, Kaylee tickles the edges of one ear. The little girl scrunches up her shoulders and gives a breathy sound that seems like it should be a giggle. "But she hears," she adds a hand brushing over the girls white brown curls. "And you're not interrupting. She seems to like to hear stories. Her and Doyle should get along well once he gives one of his puppet shows."
Closing the book and putting it aside, Kaylee lifts the little girl to her feet, still clad in those bright blue shoes she picked for herself. "Emily. This is Gillian." She introduces the the dark haired woman. "Gillian. This is Emily."
"That'll be a little easier on the tutors," Gillian admits with a small smile, moving up closer and settling down on the floor and offering a wave of her hand. "Nice to meet you, Emily. We'll still have to teach you sign language— and some of the kids how to read it, but as long as you're not both I think we can get past the language barrier." Deaf would have been far more difficult, though mute's not exactly easy either.
"Lance is mute when he uses his ability, and sometimes it goes out of control— the two of you will probably get along. But please, continue the story if you want. I just wanted to talk to you a bit, when you have some time." But the fact she's sitting down and not walking away means Gillian's not in a hurry to rush off anywhere. Much better than the time they'd first met each other, certainly.
Emily gives Gillian a shy smile, head ducking down, before she moves to shyly sit in Kaylee's lap again. "I think sign language will go a long ways." Kaylee admits, still not picking up the book. The little girl to distracted by this new person, thumb going into her to mouth.
"I might sit in on all that… I mean… if that's okay." Kaylee is studying Gillian now, not in a judgmental way, more curious then anything. "I may be able to talk to her without it, but keeping it in practice would be a good thing."
She's quiet for a moment or two before Kaylee glances down. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for backing me there at the meeting. I — know things hadn't been great between us in the past." She hazards a glance to Gillian giving a sheepish smile. "It's going to take a lot of prove to people I've got the network and these kid's best interest in mind. I always have, but… people can't see past certain things."
"Then they're stupid," Gillian says outloud, before looking at the young girl and grimacing. She doesn't really want to talk about all this in front of the child, no matter the age, so she shakes her head a little and looks back at Kaylee. "As far as I'm concerned you're welcome to come by whenever you want, though I'm sorry I can't speak entirely for Brian— I'll let him know that I think you're okay, though. I never doubted you had the best interests of the kids and the network… I just… didn't want to be around you while you were…"
Her voice trails off and she looks down toward that book, as if to have something to look at, chewing on her lower lip.
Closing her eyes, she focuses on her mind and tries her best to project her thoughts outward. She's not sure if the woman's really listening but she hopes she is. Thinking loud should do the trick, she hopes. I guess it's like … you must wonder why some people are trusted more quickly than others. Everyone here has bad pasts, but you must feel like some are trusted more quickly than you, when you did things just as bad as them, but some much worse. …Like Gabriel, Eileen… She didn't mean to send that last part, it seems to have come in passing.
The idea of you being around just made me wonder what was so wrong with me that I couldn't… That thought trails off. "It doesn't matter anymore. It's the past, and it wasn't worth it to begin with."
"No. I get it. I do." Kaylee says softly, arms crossing in front of the little girl briefly. And.. I'm sorry, for being so stupid not to really understand. The words echo slightly in Gillian's head, obviously she heard her. Blue eyes lift and she gives Gillian a strained smile, a touch of sadness in her eyes. He tossed me out cause I wouldn't give up the Ferry. Wouldn't stop helping them. There is a small shrug of her shoulder. It was the right thing.
I'm just sorry it caused problems. It took her five years to really understand it, being faced with something similar back then. Just like you, those feelings will be there, but… The next thing goes to something vocal. "He wasn't for me. I needed someone who understand all this." A hand lifts as she speaks to waves around them. "Who understands me. Who trusts me to know what I'm doing." Clearly there wasn't enough of that.
"So… I am sorry," Kaylee offers softly and sincerely.
"I don't really want to know what went wrong between you two," Gillian says, a little bothered by what little she's heard, and how… inconsistent it really is with what had actually been going on with Peter. "Even if it went wrong, for a while… you had exactly what I would have given pretty much anything for. And it doesn't matter that I would have given up everything for it— he never wanted me to be with him like that."
She shakes her head. It sounds defeatest, but it's really not. It's more… accepting. "Like I said, it doesn't matter." Whatever went wrong… it still hurts. It will probably never not hurt.
"So what do you like to do, Emily?" she asks of the little girl, looking directly at her, even if the answer will likely have to come from the now older blonde woman.
There is a small timid nod, but Kaylee drops it without any real hesitation, not wanting to hurt the small bit of truce between them. Not the only one that the mention of Peter is a touchy subject. Instead she glances down at the little girl, who has been watching Gillian all this time.
The question isn't ignored, but Kaylee doesn't speak out loud yet, but her arms do unfold from around the little girl. Emily seems to be considering the question, before she leans forward and awkwardly pushes to her feet. This involves tiny hand on the ground and pushing her but up and then crouching again before standing.
There she pauses and stares at Gillian for a moment.
Kaylee glances past the girl to Gillian, giving a smirk. "She thinks your hair is very red." That conveyed, the toddler takes a few steps and crouches again near the book. That is then held out to Gillian, with a shy look.
"She likes being read too." Kaylee's eyes unfocus a bit as she listens to the girls thoughts. "Playing with Alicia and Missy." Eyes narrow a bit in thought. "She liked playing with Mala and some of the other kids." There is a blink and the telepath focuses on Gillian again, a smile touching her lips. "But then… that's what's happened in the last few day."
"Well it won't be that way much longer," Gillian admits, reaching up to touch where she knows her darker roots are peeking through. "I'm going to dye it something different. I'm thinking a reddish brown, nothing quite so bright as what this was before it started growing out," she explains, before glancing back at Kaylee.
"You ever consider going dark? You'd probably make a really good looking brunette." There's a hint she considered using another word there, but she kept it in, to keep it PG rated for the kid. Not that 'sexy' is that bad, really.
"I'm sure Mala and the others enjoyed playing with you too— and they'll play with you more now that you're going to come live with us."
Kaylee's brows lift a little at the mention of her hair color. "I… I dunno." A hand lifts to touch the bound up hair, only Joseph has really seen it down in it's current state. She plans to get it cut while she's on the mainland. "I'll have to think about it, maybe make sure Joseph won't give me a face about it." The idea has some appeal to it, obviously.
The little girl, however, looks a bit uncertain and the reason becomes clear when Kaylee grimaces, hand falling away from her hair. "No. Emily I'm not going to live there too, but…" She holds up a finger when the toddler looks back at her. "I'll visit as often as I can to see you and the other kids."
That's a promise and she plans to keep it.
"And of course Doyle." Kaylee sighs a bit at a thought and focuses her attention on Gillian. "Your brother seems… still ill at ease around me. I guess he still sees me as that girl that was idiotic enough to hang around Adam Monroe. That hasn't been me for sometime."
"I'll talk to Brian. Like I said— people here all got a past. If we didn't we wouldn't be here," Gillian says, reaching out to touch the young blonde girl on the upper arm. "She'll visit no matter what, I promise. And you'll have a bunch of new friends, and everyone will take very good care of you— and read to you every night. Cause I love reading. I even made sure I had a few good books I could read that you should be able to understand…"
Though kids don't need to understand everything, sometimes they just like hearing voices, even if they don't get all the stories.
"I want to read all the Wizard of Oz books to them— I managed to find a collection of all the books in one. I figure that's something a lot of the kids can enjoy hearing before bed at night."
"Pretty sure she'll like that." Kaylee says softly, with a small nod, her eyes on the tiny blonde toddler who seems fairly intent on Gillian. She's even so bold as to reach out and touch red hair curiously. Kaylee seems lost in thought. "When I…" She starts, then stops coming back to herself.
"I spent a lot of time with a little girl. Her mom had to work long hours and the girl needed looking after." When exactly this was, she doesnt say, but the memory makes her sad. Maybe it's the though that the little girl lived and died already, never knowing what happened to her. Like so many of them.
"Read to her often. She loved my cookies, of course." Kaylee smiles a little. "I guess Emily brings some of that back for me, so I feel bad that I can't take her on full time." A hand reached out of tug down the back of the toddler's jacket, where it has ridden up in the back. "Like… a bad person, even if I know the opposite is true."
"That's not why you can't," Gillian says simply, hand sliding up to touch the girl's hair before she pulls her hand back into her lap and focuses her eyes on Kaylee. "You could probably have her now, but it wouldn't be what's best for either of you at the moment. What you want isn't always what's good for you." And that, she speaks from experience. "When you are ready to have her, she'll be here for you. Just like you'll be here for her, when she needs you too." It sounds so simple.
"No matter what, you'll have the option, to take her home with you, once you have a home built, a steady job— everything that makes you capable of being her mother… And then she'll know that she was wanted, and that you were ready for her."
Cause right now, none of them are ready to be parents. But someday…
"You're right, of course," Kaylee admits softly. "Thought about it a lot, so it wasn't a lightly made decision."
Then out of no where she adds, "You know… a hundred years ago, women our ages would be considered old maids?" Kaylee chuckles softly. "Of course, back then we'd already be married with a bunch of kids." Then it's there a glimmer of moisture in her eyes and she shakes her head. Looking down her head shakes again. "Sorry," she murmurs her voices strained.
"A lots happened since you and I talked last." Admitting that is hard at times, even if Kaylee's proud of the changes. "I'm still adjusting to some of it."
"I'm glad I live now. But I think I'd rather be an old maid than settle for less than the happiness I deserve. Same to you," Gillian says to the now older woman— once younger, now older. Strange how that works out. "And I know I'll find it one day— I just have to be patient enough to allow it to happen, and observent enough not to miss it when I have the chance at it. I already missed it once or twice, while clinging to something else."
Something she's not sure was ever supposed to be.
"Anyway, I do you want to continue reading? I'm sure Emily would like to hear more. And I'm not going anywhere. I've never heard the rock soup story before."
There is a surprised look at Gillian. "Never?" Kaylee sounds fairly shocked. "I think I had it read to me every year in elementary school." Leaning over she moves to take the book from Emily who watches her expectantly. "And we made it in class."
Eyes on the book, she runs a hand over of the rough surface of it. "Might be something to do with the Lighthouse kids." Kaylee sounds thoughtful. "I know they are struggling with being out here. Might do them good to hear this story and maybe make it for everyone out here."
Glancing up at Gillian, Kaylee gives a little shrug of her shoulders. "Judge for yourself though." Emily moves to sit next to Gillian, dropping heavily. Head tilting back to look at the redhead, the toddler smiles at her. "She wants to hear more of the story," the blonde offers for the smaller one, the book making a small cracking sound as it's opened.
"A young man was walking. He walked and he walked…."
And so the story starts, the telepath with an unexpected audience. It's a story about cooperation and generosity even in a time of scarcity. Something the people on Pollepelli Island know all about.