[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

[st_oriedqueen]

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."

Comments

[st_raighttovampire]

Caroline shrugged and tipped some of her bottle into River's cup. "That was smart. We're going to be short on pastries unless someone else wants to take up the role. I don't know if anyone else bakes. Ignis and Carlos cook, but they left the baking to Dot."

Her brain wanted to start planning, but she knew that if she let it, it would begin to wonder about bartending schedules and how to keep the horses. And then things would hurt. She drank more instead.

[st_everybodylives]

"I'm not sure anyone needed as many cookies as that young woman baked." There were any number of them in the freezer, along with cakes and pies and an assortment of other goodies.

"I think the novelty of a real 'American refrigerating machine'," that last bit was a direct quote from Dot but there was no sarcasm in River's voice. "May have pushed her over the edge. Modern marvels freezers and she made use of ours."

River wasn't much of a planner, more of a figure out where you needed to go and leap for it sort. She sipped her alcohol laced tea.

"Should I ask who you lost?"

[st_raighttovampire]

"No one important." Just a guy she'd like more than she should have and a girl that she'd hated for being the only piece of home here. "I'm just thinking about all the roles we're going to have to fill now. Have you noticed that the staff is doing less these days?"

Lies, but Caroline wasn't in a sharing mood. She was in a drinking to forget mood. "How about you? Anyone you've lost?"

[st_everybodylives]

"I still have a ready supply of towels so I hadn't noticed," River admitted with a half smile.

"And there was a man, blushed a lovely shade when teased. I'll miss him." Not what could have been, because that way lay madness.

[st_raighttovampire]

"They're good at the towels. It's the other stuff." Caroline had a list, and had seen how when a guest took on a task, the staff would cease doing it. She didn't know if they'd pick it back up with the guests gone. Something told her it wouldn't. "I'm sorry. A lot of good people went home this time."

[st_everybodylives]

"Well, I can't bake but if there's anything that needs doing you're welcome to see if I can mange it." River mostly didn't have a job, she kept busy but she also had experience just existing without too much on the to do list. prison could be like that, her adventures with the Doctor not withstanding.

"Do we assume they went home?" River isn't entirely sure where home would be at the moment, but she knows it is an important idea for many people.

[st_raighttovampire]

"Assuming they went home keeps me from running screaming into the night," Caroline answered after another long pull from her whiskey bottle. "Really, who knows where they've gone. Maybe the Other Side. Maybe they're in Limbo. Maybe we're all dead like on Lost."

She was. Dead, that is. But she'd been dead for years and weirdly better off for it.

[st_everybodylives]

Really dead didn't really mean anything to River, nor did Lost for that matter. She'd met any number of dead people.

"I hadn't considered that this might be some sort of holding place for souls in flux, I've mostly been leaning toward it being some sort of experiment with us as the mice."

[st_raighttovampire]

"That's possible too. Or a curse. Does it really matter? We can't leave." She held out the whiskey. "Want some more?"

[st_everybodylives]

"Well obviously we can leave," River drained her teacup and held it out for a refill. "We just don't seem to be in control of when. Which is more than a little... vexing."

[st_raighttovampire]

Caroline poured. The bottle was remarkably empty but she hardly felt it. That was vampire metabolism for you. "That's like saying you can leave prison. Leave implies an option that isn't really there."

[st_everybodylives]

"Prisons are far easier to leave when you want than people make it seem." She'd broken out of the highest security facility in the universe so often they didn't even go looking for her after a while.

"I mean I always went back when I was done. But actually getting out was a snap."

[st_raighttovampire]

Caroline raised her eyebrows. "You were in prison?" she asked incredulously.

[st_everybodylives]

"In and out." She smirked from behind her teacup. "Out more than my jailers would have liked."

There was a pause and then she said with all seriousness, though it would be hard to tell if she was being truthful or not.

"I was innocent, of course."

[st_raighttovampire]

Caroline laughed, as she was supposed to. "That's what all the guys my mom arrested said too."

[st_everybodylives]

"I could provide references, but.." she waved a hand to indicate the inn.