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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"I know how to swim." But this wave was heavy, thick. She didn't like it. I reminded her of the things she had lost. The things that had been taken from her. "I learned young."

She was silent for a long moment, "Leaves a hole when love leaves. Can't be filled by someone else. Have to stitch it together with memories." There would be spaces for others, but the empty space could not be filled. It had to heal.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, but with a sad little smile. It shouldn't be strange anymore that River understood, maybe better than anyone else, but somehow it was. Both strange and good.

"It's better for her to be somewhere else." Somewhere anemic boyfriends didn't stand out, say. Or where there were more like her, for her own safety. "I'll miss her, but it's not like... Jess." He'd never mentioned Jess to River, but it was hard to guess what she'd picked up and what she knew. "I already knew one of us would probably disappear someday. It just...sucks."

She didn't know who Jess was, but the name, when he said it... she felt the loss, the anger.

"Sucks is an inadequate word."

That got a small laugh from Sam. "Dean and I used to say that something sucked 'out loud' when it was really bad." Where that had come from, he had no idea, but Sam had always thought the 'out loud' added the emphasis that it was bad enough for them to actually say something about it.

"Or it sucks and blows." His mouth twitched with a little grin. "Sometimes the inadequate words work better."

She considered that, then nodded.

"Because the thing is too big for words. You don't have the vocabulary for it."

She slid off the stool and agile as a cat was up and over the bar in a thrice and obtained a new bottle of beer which she opened and handed to him.

"A little," Sam agreed and took the beer with a nod of thanks.

"But there's also something about cutting the problem down to size, you know? If you start using words like 'existential angst,' it seems like you'll never get through it. If you say it 'sucks', well, losing your wallet sucks, but it's not that big of a deal in the end."

She considered that while she found a ginger ale for herself and opened the bottle, deciding that he had a point.

"That is a logical course of action." Drinking until she had to haul him bodily back to their room did not, but she didn't comment. instead she considered leverage and various weight bearing devices she might use to assist her.

"Were you close with any of the ones who checked out?" Sam asked after a few moments. Feeling sorry for himself never did any good, and as much as he wanted to rage and punch things, other people had suffered too.

"We can find you things to punch." She pointed out.

Mostly though she didn't really want to feel her own loss, it was far easier to let it mix up with what other people felt. She couldn't keep any or it at arms length but it was less... personal that way. Still, she answered after a long moment of silence.

"Joanna was... restful. Her flowers will need to be monitored."

Sam sighed at the response to his thoughts and instead of answering aloud thought quietly that wanting to rage and punch things was pretty rhetorical. Even inside his brain. It probably wouldn't hurt to punch stuff, but he was more likely to hit the weights.

Instead, he focused on what River was saying about Joanna. He nodded. "She seemed like a nice woman. Will you take care of her flowers or should we find someone else to do it?" Caroline or Regina would know who...and crap Henry had plants too.

The Captain, Mal that was, had often provoked fights just to be able to rage. So rhetorical it isn't, not always.

"Me?" Did she want to be responsible for the flowers? She frowned, it wouldn't have occurred to her if he hadn't suggested it, both that she might enjoy it or that she could do it on her own. "Yes. I would like that."

Though, she might need to be reminded sometimes.

"We can mark a calendar in the room." He'd been around her plenty long enough to know she had trouble with routines, and they'd begun to adapt. Where he could, he made his 'help' as unobtrusive as possible, and it felt like, in return, when he did need to be overt, she accepted it better.

"And maybe you could ask Regina to check in on the magical ones, too."

She glanced across the room at the woman, then back at Sam, then back at the woman.

"When her mood is improved."

Sam didn't know Regina all that well, but she'd seemed to treat him more like a colleague than anything from the beginning. And with her being so close to Rebekah, he'd gotten a few insights into the woman that he didn't figure most people, even telepathic people, had.

"She's upset because there's nothing she can do to protect us and she doesn't know whether the people who left are safe or in more danger. I'm pretty sure she'd really appreciate someone asking for her help right now or showing her something that she needs to do."

"Protection is not her job," but she understood the woman from his description. She was like Mal. His people, his responsibility.

"I will inform her I am continuing Joanna's work and request her assistance with the special plants."

That decision made she assessed him, "Do not drink too much, you are too large to carry."

And then she was gone, slipping from behind the bar to go find Regina.

"I'll manage," Sam muttered but with a quirk of a smile and then returned his attention to his drink.

Finding Regina proved a simple matter. For most of the day, she'd not stirred from the bar. She'd only slipped out for a moment to use the restroom and now returned.

She sat, as she had, facing outward so that she could watch and keep an eye on the room.

And then in her line of sight was River.

"I require your assistance."

Regina tilted her head slightly, surprised both by the request and by the phrasing. Of course she knew that Snow's friend was a bit unusual, but they'd rarely interacted.

"Of course, River. What can I do for you?" That was both the 'right' answer and the one she wanted to give.

"Joanna maintained the gardens." And now she was gone. "I am not as adept as she was but I will do my best. There are some plants that require..." She didn't believe in magic, but she knew Regina did as Joanna had.

"They have magical properties and will require care by someone who understands."

Oh.

Regina's hand lifted to her chest to still the surprised flutter of her heart. River had said she wanted her help, but somehow Regina hadn't expected her to genuinely ask for something that Regina could actually do.

"I...yes, of course. I'll have to look into what she and Henry were both growing." She'd have to move the plants from the terrace of Joanna's old room unless the Inn would let her move into it.

"Why would I ask for your assistance with something you were not capable of doing?" She was confused.

Regina blinked and then told herself not to think about the fact River had plucked that thought out of her mind. She'd get angry and she didn't want to be angry.

"Today, everyone wants something I can't do. To bring their people back or to send them home. It's...good," she decided was the right word. "To be asked to do something I can say yes to."

Also, River can't help it. Getting angry would be useless.

"It is illogical and unfair to ask those things of you. You are not responsible for this place."

"Perhaps not." But she had been responsible for one very like it. And she had been a queen, if not always a very good one. "But it doesn't stop me from wanting to be able to do them."

She nodded, "Simon does the same. He is a doctor, not a deity but he insists on trying."

[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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