strangetrip | [GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

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Once upon a time, the sight of all this suffering would've warmed her wicked heart. She'd have chortled victoriously--

And ignored the ugly unending emptiness that no amount of suffering seemed to banish.

It wasn't once upon a time anymore and she wasn't the Evil Queen. She knew these people and cared about their suffering. She wanted to help. Even though she'd lost two of the people she'd counted dearest to her. That was definitely now and not once upon a time, but also now was that she hadn't the slightest idea how to help.

Or who would welcome it.

But as soon as she heard the sobbing, it somehow didn't matter. She turned and sought the source of the sound--

And when she'd located it, it all but broke her heart. To see Corbie, who'd comforted Rowan and so many others through these kinds of losses, broken and curled in the same position she'd coaxed so many out of.

Regina crouched, awkward in body, but for once, reasonably pure of intention, and stretched out a hand to pet the girl's hair.

Corbie's head snapped up at the touch, surprised. The pressure of her arm against the wall had been her anchor, but nothing grounded her like a touch.

She did not stop crying, but she relaxed into the hand on her hair and looked at least less miserable.

For a long while, Regina didn't say anything. She didn't make any cooing noises or offer reassurances. She didn't tell Corbie it would be all right, because when it came to trying to be nice, Regina was a terrible liar.

She just stroked Corbie's hair and rubbed her shoulders until her legs started to cramp up. Then she pushed up to her feet and offered her hand down to help Corbie up. "Ice cream and Irish whiskey. Then, maybe, we'll try talking."

For Corbie, it was enough. She was a girl who needed touch like she needed water and air, and slowly she calmed down and her breath came slower and more evenly.

Her face was still a blotchy red mess, something that came from the pale complexion she must have inherited from her father, but at least she wasn't sobbing anymore. She accepted the hand up and let Regina help her to her feet. "Okay."

When she stood, Corbie looked so miserable that Regina couldn't stand it. Sighing and even rolling her eyes a little bit at herself, she drew Corbie into an embrace. It wasn't as awkward as it might have been. After all, she had learned to be a mom.

Corbie made a little noise of surprise, but her body caught up before she did and she all but melted into the embrace with a sigh, her head on Regina's shoulder, her eyes falling closed.

After a long moment, she dared to hug back.

A visceral memory of sitting with her back to the door and her arms around her knees, weeping over Robin crossing the magic line, assailed her, brought bitter tears to her eyes and with it the urge to wretch up the pain. Nothing could have helped then except Robin sweeping her up into his arms, and even that would've brought as much guilt as joy.

The only thing she'd wanted was to stop hurting. No amount of ice cream or whiskey could do that. Even a hug couldn't do much. Not once you realized Mama couldn't really make the world better. Maybe that was why she always hurt. She'd never thought her mother could do anything but make her more miserable.

So all she could really do was choose to stand with Corbie against the pain and stroke her hair.

It had been a long time since Corbie had had a proper hug. Even longer since anybody had held her. Instinctively she turned her face into Regina's neck, which was at once the right and the wrong thing to do because it was something she used to do with her gran, and Regina wasn't her. Didn't smell like her.

All the same, she held on tight and breathed deep, letting herself linger for a long moment. After a time she nodded and lifted her head. "I'm okay." She wasn't, but she was better, which for now would have to do.

Okay was the art of being better than not and nothing more. In her estimation, Corbie hadn't gotten there yet, but she would in time. So she stepped away gamely and straightened her skirt to put herself right.

"Should we see about the ice cream, then?" It certainly wouldn't hurt anything.

Corbie nodded again. "Yeah. I think so." Sweet things usually made her feel better, and something like ice cream... well, that was a rare treat at home. A luxury that girls like her didn't often touch. She managed a twitch of a smile. "And prolly the whiskey, too."

"That went without saying." Regina shot her a sharp, knowing smile. Whiskey didn't make it feel better, but it did make it feel less. And sometimes feeling less was exactly what a woman needed.

"A booth in there, I think. I don't want to be where Snow can't easily find me."

Corbie nodded her understanding and, after taking a moment for a last sniffle to try to clear her nose up and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, she made for the bar. She didn't particularly like losing her shit in public like that, but letting the storm out seemed to have done her some good. She wasn't bouncing, but she wasn't dragging, either.

A word here, a summoning spell there, a thank you in Kitty and Ignis's general direction, and Regina and Corbie found themselves seated in the back corner with water, vanilla ice cream, and Irish whiskey.

"Try the whiskey on the ice cream," Regina suggested, recalling her own introduction to the treat. Simple, but the vanilla smoothed the sharp whiskey and brought out its bouquet. Emma hadn't explained it like that, and neither would Regina. It was enough to say, "It's good."

Corbie blinked and considered that idea for a moment. Then she shrugged and poured the liquid over her scoop of ice cream. It was all going to the same place anyway, and it wasn't like she'd never put anything questionable in her mouth before.

Her doubts went away when she tasted it.

She grinned. "Oh, this is dangerous."

Edited 2017-10-09 23:55 (UTC)

"More to your waistline than anything else," came Regina's amused reply. "Then again, a witch with heartache's always dangerous."

Witch. Sorceress. They didn't make distinctions in her world. But Corbie had always insisted, so Regina amended, "Wizard, in your case."

Corbie smiled around the spoon in her mouth. When she'd swallowed, she explained, "Where I'm from, calling someone a witch is rude. Maybe not from someone annemer, but from another wizard it's basically calling someone a backwoods hick." And all that implied from bad education to worse manners.

"Ah." That, Regina understood. She used it derogatorily more often than not. She just happened to include herself when she did. A bit of reclaiming the word and a bit of flying her bitch flag. "If I'm being that kind of rude, I call people 'peasant'."

Not sure what exactly to do with this information, Corbie only shrugged. "Annemer sometimes use it, too, but they don't mean the same thing. Mildmay'd use it when he was referring to someone with a specialty. Nature witch. Blood witch. Everybody else's a 'hocus.'"

Regina nodded and bit at the inside of her mouth. She'd met Mildmay and Felix each a few times in passing, and Corbie missed them so much, it was tempting to tell her. But she didn't want to upset her again today.

"Have you had enough ice cream for me to ask what drove you behind the chair?"

Corbie paused, her lower lip disappearing into her mouth, and she worried it with her teeth. "Phryne," she said finally. "And Joanna. And Harry."

Two people she'd avoided like the plague and one she'd avoided like a stomach flu. Regina sighed and supposed Joanna would have been surprised to be someone Regina preferred to literally anyone.

"A witch, a wizard, and woman of the world," Regina mused aloud. "Mentors? Regardless, I'm sorry for the loss."

Corbie nodded. "Joanna wanted to teach me. Harry did, too, but I wasn't ready for that. I was finally ready to talk to him again and ask what the fuck he was talking about."

And Miss Fisher, she supposed, had understood Corbie's liberal attitudes toward sex. Probably she'd shared her history with the woman. This reminded her, she did want to find a way to let Corbie know it wouldn't bother her.

But the reference to Harry rattling on provoked a sigh and pursed lips. "What did he say?" Regina couldn't begin to imagine, or, more precisely, she could and she would very much prefer she couldn't have.

"He knew I had magic before I said anything," Corbie mused, frowning into her bowl. "He said he already knew me. I got scared and I ran. But I been watching him and he didn't seem like a bad guy and..."

"Oh for fuck's sake," slid out of Regina's mouth before she had a chance to stifle it. "For a wizard, that man had the brain of a crack-addled goldfish."

She sighed then and gave Corbie a tender, almost maternal look. "And you never found out what he meant by already knowing you, is that right?"

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