Room 209, Tuesday night

[can_be_more]

After John's phone call, Aeryn opens the door so he can just come in, and takes a seat again. At the desk. Not that she's expecting anything, but just in case.

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[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

John forgets the sea monkeys. Whoops.

He slips inside Aeryn's room and smiles at her. He closes the door behind him.

"Hi."

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"Hi," she says. "I have a couple questions for you. What's a clown?"

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's a weird way to start off a conversation. He takes a seat on her bed.

"A clown's something usually associated with a circus. They wear face paint and funny clothes and try to make people laugh."

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Aeryn makes a note of this on her scribbled-on notebook where she's been trying to do her ACJ homework.

"Another question. What," she says, and pulls some paper out from under the notebook, revealing a picture Rory sent her from Advanced Journalism, "the frell are you supposed to be here?"

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

John winces. "I'm a mutant dog," John says. "I have no idea what I am. I'm something ugly, that's for sure."

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Aeryn places the picture face-down on the desk. "I didn't see those at the zoo," she says. "I'm going to choose to believe they'd rather not scare the children by having them."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"I'll agree with you on that one," John says. "It wasn't a pretty sight. Sorry you had to see that."

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"I should just give her suggestions," Aeryn says, shaking her head. She looks at his hands, devoid of sea monkeys, and raises her eyebrows.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"They were sleeping," he says as a means of explanation.

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Aeryn frowns at him. For obvious reasons.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"I'll bring them next time," he promises. "I just forgot. How're you?"

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"I'm all right," she says, though now she is questioning hia motives being here. "You?"

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"All right besides having been a scary animal," he says. "Think I did okay on my journalism midterm and nothing else eventful happened."

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"Good," she tells him.

She pauses, and... there's really no way she can get out of this conversation. It has to happen and she's not avoiding it. "Look, about the other night."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

He stops smiling but doesn't go so far as frowning. "What about it?"

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"We, um. We may have moved a little fast with that," she says carefully.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"You didn't want to do it?" John does frown this time. "Why didn't you stop me?"

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"It's not that," she says quickly, because she would have stopped him if she didn't want to, and that really wasn't and isn't the case. "I don't think we're ready to pick things up where we left off."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"Why not?"

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She's been thinking about this a lot, so she knows what to say. "Because I'm not the same," she says flat-out. "I can't just step right back into things."

She pauses. "And there are things that I didn't say and let slide because I didn't want to break up. Which means that that's all still there. Maybe this is a chance to actually fix them without that threat."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"What things?" John asks because he can't help it.

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There's probably nothing she can answer honestly that won't hurt at least a little. "You have trouble dealing with an entire part of who I am," she says. "Until I came back I couldn't even get you to ask a question about my life back there."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

He squirms a little and looks down at the floor. "I've never been exposed to something like your background," he starts to explain. "I didn't ask because I can't really understand them, their values and their ways."

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"They're my values and ways," Aeryn says, because no one seems to understand that. "I might..." She pauses, starts again. "I might disagree with some things, but that's part of me."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"I know that now," he says. "I think I always knew it but chose to ignore it."