Participants:
| Scene Title | You Don't Choose Them |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The problem of parents is you have to love them even if you don't like them. Tasha and Colette discuss the Vincent problem and then find ways to not think about it for a while. |
| Date | May 10, 2010 |
Running upstairs and into the room she shares with Colette, Tasha succeeds in increasing the physical distance by only a couple of dozen square feet — but the emotional distance between herself and her father has never been greater.
Once the door is shut, she stands with her back to it for a moment, the room a liquid blur of salt water. She does not fling herself on the bed but instead picks up from the desk the book Colette lent her, then a pillow and the extra quilt that is folded at the edge of the bed. Finally she pulls out her paperweight of a cell phone to use as a flash light.
The room is dark, so if Vincent followed her, either in vapor or corporeal form, he would enter a vacant dark room — and hopefully not look in the closet for the tearful teen, who curls up with pillow and blanket and book, losing herself in the winding, labyrinthine words of Mark Z. Daniewelski in an attempt to shut out the problems of her own collapsing world.
Smoke monsters don't typically use doors, so the distant sound of a creaking door opening and closing is less likely to be one Vincent Lazzaro. The floorboards have a familiar squeak to them, same too do the bed springs, groaning when a slight weight is placed on them. Ther'es a rustling of the blankets, and then a click as a thin line of light shines beneath the closet door from the bedroom lamp being turned on.
Footsteps approach the closet hesitantly, the knob twists, and when the door opens just a sliver there's no reproachful parent standing there, just one slim and tired-looking brunette with puffy, red eyes and a smile she's mustering just for the girl she's looking down at. "I thought I already got you outta' the closet once?" Colette says with the best effort to be cheerful and jokey as humanly possible, all things considered. They've both had a rough night.
Tasha's eyes had closed for a moment of a nodding sleep, before the door's creak and floorboard's squeak. Her eyes flutter open and she glances up at Colette in the closet doorway, smiling a little at the joke. Handing the pillow and quilt to Colette so she doesn't trip (again,) Tasha stands, ducking the garments that hang down over her head in the small space.
"Is he gone?" she asks, stepping out of the closet and into Colette's arms, enclosing the other in her own to offer a hug in exchange for the one she needs. "D-did you see… did you see how he looked at me, Lettie? And Magnes… what did he do to Magnes that makes Magnes hate him — he almost k-killed him…" The words stutter out against Colette's shoulder, Tasha's head bowed there though for now it seems she might be cried out.
"Magnes is dumber than a sack of rocks," Colette begins to use as an explanation, kind've pissed at him at the moment. "I don't know. I'm gonna' talk to him tomorrow when I don't wanna' punch him in his stupid face." Hugging the blanket and quilt to herself, Colette slides her free arm around Tasha's shoulders and hugs her close, nussing her nose down into her hair with a tiny peppering of small, plucking kisses against dark locks. "Your— your dad's gone. We talked for a little bit…" implying that she actually shared words with him a little. "Cat's on the couch downstairs, gonna' talk to Gillian in the morning…"
Just standing there, one arm around Tasha and holding her close, Colette brushes her nose from side to side above Tasha's ear, breathing in the scent of her hair again. "It's okay…" she whispers, smoothing her hand up and down Tasha's back before letting it find the back of her neck, laying there gently, "it'll be okay, alright? He— he came here to help."
It's hard for Colette to try and walk that fine balance of comforting to Tasha and truthfulness. "C'mon… lay down with me?" There's a nudge of her nose into Tasha's ear, a little snuffling noise and then a kiss to her earlobe. "We'll talk about it if you wanna'."
The shorter of the two first shakes her head at the insistence it will be okay — but then follows with a nod toward the request to lie down. She sets her book and cell phone down on the small writing desk in the corner and heads to the bed, climbing in first so that her back is to the wall and she can watch the door. "It's not … I know he's here to help Ferry, though I don't get why he came to talk to Cat when it's not like Cat's been here. He must have creepy stalked her from the city and that's … that's creepy, you know? What if she went somewhere he wasn't supposed to know about? A safehouse he shouldn't know about? Wireless didn't want him coming here, I don't think, and … now he knows that you and Magnes are affiliated with Ferry, maybe, unless he just assumes you're Lighthouse people."
"It's more that… I can't make it right, now, you know? I … I lied to him, and I know I was going to lie to him more, but like, now he knows and … did you see how he looked at me?" Tasha repeats that, closing her eyes as if to block out the cold look of his black eyes when he saw her. "We haven't been close for a long time, but I feel… I feel like I've lost something all over again," she whispers, her voice small.
"Creepy stalker dad," Colette admits with both dark brows lifted. She affords a look down to Tasha, then tosses the pillow to the head of the bed and shakes out the blanket she'd been holding to drape over Tasha's legs. Then, settling down on the edge of the bed she offers a look over to the lamp, too lazy to get up and turn it off manually, just concentrates enough for it to dim to a more comfortably dull illumination. Turning to look bacj at Tasha, Colette scoots back and then lays down, rolling onto her side to face her, one arm snaking around her back, pulling her close as she has so many times before.
Leaning in wordlessly, Colette places a small, soft kiss to Tasha's lips and them brushes her nose across the other teen's in comforting gesture. "I saw, but I saw how he looked afterward too. I know— I know this isn't right, or easy… or… " there's a noise in the back of Colette's throat, a little tight and emotional. "I know this isn't how you wanted it. But— sometimes we just gotta' roll with it, with all the crap life throws at us, y'know?" Nosing at Tasha's cheek, Colette places another soft, warm kiss there. "He knows, the worst part's over now. He knows what he saw, but I think he just knows. I told him some stuff, nothing 'bout you, but some stuff… and… I wanna' trust him, 'cause you need to, an' it'll be easier if we both trust him."
Brushing her lips back and forth in featherlight kisses across Tasha's cheek and jawline, Colette snuggles up close to the young brunette, lifting one of her legs to hook around Tasha's, to they can lay closer together. "No sense in doing anything but tell him the truth. He deserves it… so d'you. Truth, I mean."
Tasha's eyes close and she nods, leaning into the kisses and soft touches, one hand coming up to rest on Colette's cheek. She rests her forehead against the other's and smiles at the earnestness of the other in trying to reassure her. "I just… I've lied in the past, but I don't think he's ever caught me in so blatant of one… I didn't think it was really possible to disappoint him anymore than I already have, but …" But there was that look. "To be honest, I didn't know I cared, either. I mean, I was worried about him knowing but more because of … you know. All the connotations that we're terrorists or vigilantes or whatever else, and that would cause problems for him in his job, if they found out his kid was in Ferry. I didn't think I'd … I thought I was over it all, you know? The family stuff."
She sighs and snuggles closer, away from the wall and toward the middle of the small bed. "If he's helping us… I know he's not a bad man, even if he … if he did that stuff Magnes said, I don't know, I guess he does bad things sometimes for work. But he's not evil or anything. I know that, Colette. If he's helping, it's a good thing, probably, and you can probably trust him. I don't know if he'll trust me ever again."
Lips meet lips in a gentle show of affection, and Colette allows herself to softly pluck a kiss from Tasha, sliding fingers up into the hair at the back of her head before pressing her nose in a bump against the brunette's. "You can't judge people just by what anybody else says, maybe he had a good reason for what he did, maybe he didn't. We'll find out though, 'cause m'not going to make you go do this all by yourself. I care about you, so much… m'not going to make you have to deal with this all by yourself." She squeezes herself to Tasha with that affirmation of solidarity. "I'll be right next to you," Colette adds, lifting her chin up to press a kiss to Tasha's forehead.
"Your dad… he's just worried about you. He wanted to tear half the city apart to find you, it means he cares. An' you still care, 'cause otherwise you wouldn't be so upset 'bout stuff. You're gonna work it out… you just… you gotta be you. Be the sweet, wonderful girl I've got here in my arms, and ain't nobody gonna' ever do anything but love you."
Colette's lips brush down Tasha's forehead, down the bridge of her nose all the way to the end. "I love you, an' I ain't the only person who does. You just gotta' not push 'em away. An— an if anything goes wrong, we'll figure it out together."
Dark lashes flutter on cheeks still red from crying, and brown eyes open to peer into green. "How can you only be six days older than me and be so smart?" she teases, in mimicry of Colette's words from a couple of weeks past. The hand on Colette's cheek traces a heart, similar in shape and size to the one Colette painted on Tasha's cheek in Grand Central.
"Love… with parents? It's complicated. It's like, you have to love them, even if you don't like them sometimes. And the other way around. Family — you don't choose them but you love them anyway, even when you kinda hate them."
She leans forward to brush her mouth against Colette's cheek, tracing the invisible heart with her lips. "It's not like… like being in love. That … you like the person you love at the same time. You choose to be with them and they choose to be with you — not just because of blood ties, you know?" She kisses the cheek more fully.
"I know…" Colette responds in a whisper, her eyes shut and lips curled into a smile from the kiss. The closeness, the affection, it's the kind of reassurance she always wanted for herself when she was hurting, but never felt comfortable with. Here in Tasha's arms, she hopes that her own needs are reflected in the girl she cares about, the one she's found herself physically and emotionally entangled with over these brief few weeks. "I know."
Making a soft sound in the back of her throat after that whisper, Colette just wraps her arms around Tasha and holds the other girl close, a tender and warm embrace. Tonight is a night for mending wounds, for being the shoulder to lean on and the warm body to hold. "Don't let anyone else try and change the way you feel about your dad either… you only get one dad, and he only gets one Tasha."
A long deep breath is taken and then exhaled against Colette's neck as Tasha curls up closer yet, hand still on the other girl's cheek, tracing the line of Colette's jaw with her thumb. "Thank you for understanding. And being there. And … not thinking I'm a bad person for lying or for being … afraid." Her lack of courage — with her father, in the snow with the dog — it's a recurring theme. She's chosen to be part of a war that she isn't sure she's strong enough for at times.
"Can you imagine more than one Tasha?" she says with a giggle, and her hand on the other's waist moves to tickle playfully. "What two Tashas could do… I wonder if I can get me a clone…"
Snorting out a laugh before breaking into a giggle at the tickling, Colette's face reddens and her lips part in a toothily goofy smile. Nuzzling her nose against Tasha's cheek she breathes in a slow and careful breath and then exhales a sigh. "I think I can imagine," Colette offers with both brows lifted and a very coy smile pursed on full lips. "I think I had a dream 'bout that once…" there's another laugh, a goofy, bubbling giggle before she nips her teeth at Tasha's bottom lip gently, then brushes her lips across the other girl's in a soft, playful kiss.
There's plenty of ways to distract from the seriousness of the night, plenty of ways to take Tasha's mind off of her problems. Colette, really only knows one good way.
"Lemmie tell you about it…"
That'll do.