strangetrip | Two Women, Two Books (OTA)

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Two Women, Two Books (OTA)

It was a nice day out and the sun was shining bright.

Liz Parker took up residence in one of the lounge chairs by the pool, clad in jean shorts and a t-shirt, and was currently writing in her journal. She had a lot of thoughts about what she had learned with her readings with Emma. Several days after the initial news, Liz was no longer prone to crying if she dwelled too long on the subject of Max and Tess and Tess' pregnancy. Still, she hadn't quite gotten around to telling Kitty or Poitr or anyone else she might usually confide in. Only Peter knew.

I can't believe out of everyone at the Inn, the first person to know about my heartbreak with another guy is my boyfriend.

Meanwhile, a pregnant red Tiefling sat on the edge of the pool in a above-the-knee blue maternity dress. Her legs swished around idly in the water as she held up the What to Expect When You're Expecting. She was particularly looking for any sort of information on twins because, apparently, that was what she was having - they did run in the family, after all.

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Kitty'd had a late night at the bar, so when she sat down beside Liz at the pool, she had both coffee and water. "It's been awhile since I've seen you writing so much so fast."

A slight pang of guilt rushed over her as Kitty spoke. She hadn't told Kitty. She hadn't told anyone except Peter and now she thought that was a mistake too.

"I'm... trying to process a lot of things." Writing things down helped to center her.

Liz paused.

"Max slept with Tess, or he will, and she'll get pregnant." Somehow it was easier to come out just now.

"You know you don't have to explain yourself to me, right?" Kitty asked from over the rim of the coffee she was drinking. "I asked because I care, but I'm not entitled to explanations. If it helps to talk, then go ahead, but you don't owe me."

Besides, some of the stuff that Liz was dealing with, honestly, no one could help with. Not really. She just had to live it and sort it and cry if she felt like it.

"But since you did tell me--" Kitty glanced over to where Kash was being the most attentive father-to-be in the history of human-Tiefling relations or something (like she would know). "I'm guessing that's not a comfortable thought for you."

She knew she didn't owe Kitty anything, but she wanted to talk to someone and Kitty was good at listening. She also knew most of the issues in her life anyways.

Liz's gaze followed Kitty and she was quiet for a moment before her gaze returned to her book. "...Peter's very adamant that we're going to one day go back home to our own worlds." Which was hard enough to think about and say out loud, but Peter said it enough now that Liz knew where he stood on the subject. "And he keeps talking about how he wants me to be happy.... and even though I know what I know about me and Max.... I still sort of thought - I thought we'd somehow get back together back home, in the end."

"You and Max, you mean." She wanted to be clear on this, because while the problem 'one true love and happy endings' was the same regardless of the person Liz was pinning her hopes on, the possibilities and ramifications were entirely different.

She looked at her hands. "I want it to be Peter." She'd pretty much do anything for that to happen. "But Peter keeps telling me I need to be happy back home without him, so..." So naturally she thought of Max.

"Can I be real with you about this?" Because God knew, teenaged forever love was the worst idea anyone ever invented. Witness: Romeo and Juliet. "I promise I'll hug you and help you afterward, but some things just need to be said."

Liz paused. Something inside of her told her she should say no, but Liz felt herself nod instead.

"You and Peter and Max. It feels like the end of the world right now. Because you're sixteen, and everything feels like the end of the world."

Except the literal end of the world, which generally felt like a clusterfuck with a blood chaser.

"And I know that you think you and Peter, or you and Max, are different, destined, forever. I won't say you're not, because maybe in some worlds that's a real thing. But it never has been in mine. Me, Yana, Piotr, all of my friends, everyone we've ever thought was the One turned into a creep, left, or died.

"I'm twenty-two and I just figured out that I like girls as much guys."

She took a breath--and another sip of coffee. "You and Peter, we talked about this. You're living in each others' pockets. So of course every single thing that happens feels like it's proof of forever. And it has to, because someone told you that loving one person for your whole life is how this works and if you don't have that, there's nothing worth living for.

"Do yourselves a favor, honey. Don't make Peter or Max or anyone the anchor of your destiny. That's the surest way to lose them, and the fastest path to insanity."

As Kitty talked, she drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them as she listened. Her mom had said some of this stuff before, especially when she started 'skipping school' to hang out with Max, though that had been more 'because of aliens and the FBI' than teen angst. The part about them dying, though. That was a fear she had most of the time, for Max and for Peter. It had almost happened to both, too. Max in the White Room and Peter on the station with the bomb.

"I know I'm going to sound like a stupid kid... but thinking like that is. It's really sad." She rested her chin on her knees. "I don't... need Peter to be happy. But being around him, being with him... it makes me feel like everything makes sense. And... I feel like a better person. I want him in my life. I want... I want to be able to go back with him." She'd do it, too. She'd leave her friends behind for Peter.

"Even if all your... your ones. The ones you were so sure of. Even if it hurts and they're gone, would you give them up?"

When Liz didn't bridle or bark or cry, Kitty relaxed a little. "You don't sound stupid." She could give her that much, at least. "You're missing the subtle point that it's a shitty thing to do to another person to put that much of your happiness onto them. But if you know you don't need Peter or Max or any other person to be happy, and you believe it, then you'll learn it in time."

Mostly because there would inevitably be a fight where someone just got sick of something stupid, like covers-hogging or slurping and suddenly the relationship felt like it was crumbling for good.

She stretched out her legs and flexed her feet at the ankles, thinking about what she did want to say. What was honest. "It's never wrong to love someone with your whole heart. Don't think I'm saying that. And it's always okay to fight for what and who you love." She'd fight like hell to get Lara back or any of the people she'd lost.

"I'm not telling you to give up on this being forever just because you're still young and we're stuck in a human proton trap--" Had she even seen Ghostbusters? "I'm telling you not to make yourself and Peter crazy over what we don't know will ever happen. Learn, plan, think, be smart, but try to live for the way you feel when you're with him, not the way you might feel if you ever lose him."

Liz knew, even as Kitty said it, that it was easier said than done. It was hard feeling so happy and right and then occasionally be reminded that it could all be taken away in a blink of an eye. Liz held onto the words 'learn, plan, think, and be smart' though. She had decided a while ago there had to be some way to try and get back to Peter's timeline. She took Kitty's words as a sign that she should definitely look more into that sort of thing.

"Just him and me and here and now." Almost like she was committing the idea to memory.

Something in how Liz said it made Kitty extremely uncomfortable. Like she'd just created a time-space vortex for teenagers in love.

She frowned and said, "Earth to Liz. Come in Liz. Are you receiving signal?"

She blinked and looked over to Kitty, then blushed, ducking her head. "Sorry. I was just... sometimes when I'm studying and I really want or need to remember a concept, I repeat it out loud a lot."

"Yeah," Kitty said. "That's what I'm afraid of. Tell me what you think you heard me say just now?"

Because her smart teenagers blow up the X-Mansion senses were tingling.

"... To focus on the here and now?" Liz wasn't sure she understood the question entirely.

She paused. "Has anyone ever come back to the Inn after they left?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. But try not to do it to the exclusion of everything else, okay?"

And she really ought to have seen that question coming from the conversation they were having. Blame her disaster-sense for distracting her with the bait and switch.

"And, uh, well there was a Dean Winchester here, then he left. Now we have another Dean. He's not the same Dean, though." She hadn't talked to the kids about her Easter 'gift' and she didn't really want to open the door at the moment, but maybe she could head something off at the pass here. "This pendant I'm wearing was here before, left with Lara, and came back in my Easter gift, so theoretically, it's possible."

Liz's interest was suddenly piqued. She searched Kitty's face for a moment. "So... there's a chance, right?" And really, all Liz needed right now was hope and an idea. "I mean, it could be a sign, right?"

"What did I just say?" Kitty snapped, looking at Liz incredulously. "Not to the exclusion of everything else?" she demanded.

"I just told you something incredibly personal and intimate about a necklace I haven't had off since it arrived, and a woman who you haven't met when I told you not ten minutes ago I just realized I liked girls and boys this year, and your response is 'there's a chance about me and Peter'?"

She shook her head, unsure which of them she was more annoyed with. Liz for being a dumb teenager or herself for walking right into it.

Her eyes widened and the dread and surprise on her fave was evident. She hadn't made that connection at all, but then Liz realized that maybe she hadn't been paying enough attention and just waiting to hear for something that fit her narrative.

She closed her eyes, almost grimacing. She felt really bad. Her head ducked a bit, chin tucked in and brought a hand to her face. "I'm sorry, Kitty." She frowned as she brought her hand away from her face and looked over at the woman. "You're right. And that's - that's not..." Liz wasn't sure what she wanted to say, really. "I'm being a bad friend." She settled on that, even though she didn't think it adequately explained how she felt.

"My necklace is not your sign," Kitty replied softly, her fingers curling protectively around the jade that needed no such protection. Kitty's heart, her love for Lara, Lara herself...those were a different issue.

It took her a good long minute to be willing to meet Liz's gaze again and when she did, what she said is, "I don't expect you to be a good friend or a good support. We are friends, but you're my student. What I expect is the bare minimum of attention to the fact that the speculative details of your someday have actually played out for me and any number of other people in this inn.

"Every time you say 'well I think that's sad' or 'we're different' or any of the incredibly idealistic and naive things you say, what you are actually saying is 'Kitty your life experience isn't relevant but I'm going to keep asking for your opinion anyway.'"

Liz hardly ever gets angry at people, at least in any big sense of the word. She especially usually didn't get angry at people she considered authority figures. She understood what Kitty was saying, but at the same time, couldn't help feeling like Kitty wasn't giving into the idea that her situation might actually be different.

"I want to listen but sometimes - sometimes I feel like you just treat me like a kid who's over-emotional and doesn't know how to read my own feelings. Like... Like how this is just was sort of puppy love that, even if we we're stuck here for decades, it wouldn't last because Peter and I are just teenagers and that's not real love." Her voice was higher than normal, and a big angrier. Yelling for Liz though not really yelling for most. "I feel like it doesn't apply sometimes because - because it feels like you're not really actually considering this might be real. I don't know about your world or Peter's or whoever else, but I know in my world love is real. I know that because I can see things when I kiss Max. I feel what he feels. And I've seen and felt it with Peter too. I know how he feels about me. I know what he thinks about me. It's all real. I'm not some stupid kid who can't tell the difference." She was now sort of just repeating herself and getting herself in s tizzy. Her eyes were watering a little and when she stopped to take a breath, surprise registered on her face. She paused...then stood up awkwardly. She couldn't quite seem to make eye contact.

"...I'm sorry." She turned to attempt to leave.

Kitty let her finish, but when Liz stood, Kitty was already standing. Where Liz couldn't meet her gaze, Kitty forced it and held it.

"Of all the people you talk to, you choose me to pull this bullshit tantrum on? I don't think so. Where the hell do you get off telling me I don't know real love? Where the hell do you get off expecting me to be impressed because you have some jumped-up off-brand empathy when I know ten people who could tell you your entire life in a blink of an eye, but wouldn't because they respect your mental and emotional integrity--even though you're sixteen and you don't respect it.

"Fuck you, little girl. I am living your 'maybe-someday I'll lose him' and I am not the only one. Fuck you, seriously, child. Go to your room."

She wasn't necessarily surprised at Kitty's response, or at least that she had one like that - her mom responded similarly to when Liz got like this on the rare occasion. But Liz was surprised at some of the things she said. She didn't really realize Kitty was actually hurting that much over someone and what made it more confusing what she said 'he' instead of 'her'. And yet, she couldn't quite prevent the stinging hurt she felt about what Kitty said about her ability - one she didn't even want and caused so much trouble.

Liz pressed her lips together, grabbing the journal from the seat and hugging it tightly to her chest as she walked away, only letting herself cry quietly when she was facing away from Kitty.

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Two Women, Two Books (OTA)

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