strangetrip | [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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He was silent again, but he didn't go away.

"I can't love her. However much I may want to. I made a bargain for the life of a woman I loved, the cost was that love. My ability to feel love for anyone. I hurt another woman by being unable to love her, and I won't do that again so I didn't hide it. She knew. But knowing doens't stop you from feeling more, when I realized we were getting too close, that she was on the verge of feeling more for me... I ended it. I hurt her, but waiting... letting her fall in love when i can't love her back, that would have hurt her more."

If you love me, I'll love you back.

A child's bargain, made when Snow was eleven years old. She'd spat in her hand, like her father had done when he was buying horses, and held it out to shake. Mrs. H had avoided the spit, and had wiped her hands after, but she had shaken on it. It was something, looking back, where she should have seen that the bargain had never been struck at all. Her stepmother had let her think it, but it wasn't real.

Snow had loved and loved and loved. And she was far enough away to see that for all the words that came with the beatings and the starving and the baths of ice-cold milk, her stepmother had never loved her back.

So she could at least respect Dyson for not shaking hands on the bargain at all. She nodded once. Not pleased, but satisfied.

He wasn't pleased either, and that would be evident from his tone and body language.

"I doubt you're out here screaming at the sky because I broke up with Regina."

"No," she agreed. That hadn't had anything to do with why she was screaming, but everything to do with whether or not she might tell him why.

After a long pause, long enough that it wouldn't have been wrong to wonder if she'd say anything else, she shot out, "Yasmeen's gone."

That stung, and he frowned both at her words and at the fact that Yasmeen's going bothered him. He barely knew her really, but then she had KNOWN him and that had been the part that mattered. He wasn't sure they were close but they'd been something.

Friends maybe.

"How?" Though he figured there we no more answers to that than how they got here.

Snow shrugged. "Checked out." That was all the innkeeper ever said when this happened. "And Raleigh. And a lot of others."

"How is..." he stopped before he said Regina. He knew that this would not be something she took well. Being as it was out of the thing she could control. "Your mother."

"Rebekah's gone," Snow said. "She's taking it hard." Snow had not particularly cared for Rebekah, though she hadn't had a particular reason. Certainly it wasn't a matter of disapproval, but still the woman had not been any friend of hers.

He hadn't known Rebekah himself, but he knew enough to know Regina had felt a closeness to the girl. Was girl the right word?

He swore quietly.

"How many did we lose, in all?" Because, he thought, one was bad enough. But multiple... Regina and Snow wouldn't be the only two out of sorts.

"Fourteen," Snow answered without stopping to count. "Fourteen in all."

He swore softly, under his breath then eyed her thoughtfully.

"You going to be okay out here if I go to see how the others are?" He didn't specify Regina, again. Still he knew that the woman would prefer he help Snow if she needed it.

Snow only shrugged. "You don't need my permission." Though her eyes said it for her, that if he hurt Regina more she would find a way to fucking end him.

"Wasn't asking for permission kid. I was checking in to make sure you aren't going to start yowling like someone stabbed you again. We both know she wouldn't forgive me for leaving you out here like that." And that should be obvious enough that he has no intention to hurt Regina.

Snow thought about that. And then she gave the only honest answer she had. "I don't know."

He knew better than to try to offer comfort, even if she would accept it.

"Anyone I can track down and send to keep you company?"

Snow shook her head. "I'll be fine."

Fine enough.

He gave her a long look, nodded once and then loped off toward the main building of the inn.

[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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