Room 238, Thursday early afternoon

[can_be_more]

Aeryn's learned one really important lesson in the last year or so, namely that there is a big difference between random emo and dealing with the fallout of being under a lot of stress. And despite yesterday's talk, she's okay with taking some extra time to do her usual run around the preserve a second time. She'd had a lot of energy she just needed to burn off.

So she's in a better mood when she comes back to the room, though she's not sure how long that will last, if today's anything like yesterday.


[For John.]

Comments

[can_be_more]

"So that's the end of it? I didn't tell you what you wanted to hear so you stop talking?" Aeryn asks. "If that's the way it's going to be, fine, but don't expect me not to want to get out every once in a while and don't expect me to do what you won't."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"You didn't tell me anything," he says. "You're not telling me so many things. Not just the Vader thing. I've got no secrets from you. None."

[can_be_more]

"Such as?" she asks. If she's keeping other things from him, she honestly doesn't know.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"You don't like the way I handle my family situations, do you? What about everything with your mother?"

[can_be_more]

"You want to know things? Ask me," she says, closing the door again and folding her arms.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"I've tried that in the past," he says carefully.

[can_be_more]

"Ask me," she says again.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"What do you think about how I deal with my family?"

[can_be_more]

He's not going to like it, but she told him to ask. "I don't like when you ignore them," she says. "It worries me that you've been there once in well over a year and it was only because you had to go."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"Why does it worry you?"

[can_be_more]

She presses her lips together once before answering, "Because it makes me wonder when you'll start ignoring me the same way."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

He stares at her for a moment and then laughs humorlessly.

"Well, then."

[can_be_more]

"You wanted to know," she says.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"And obviously you don't know me at all," he says, stung.

[can_be_more]

"You talk about marriage and children and then talk about how you're going to visit the family you have and you never do it. I still haven't even met them. How am I supposed to interpret that?"

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"You interpret that that I like being with you more than I like being with them," he snaps. "You intrepret that in the way that I'm driving to be out of my damn father's shadow."

[can_be_more]

"If you don't want to be around them, why even bothering to convince your father to like me?" she wonders. "The way it seems to me is that I'm never going to meet him again so there's no reason to worry about it." She pauses and says, "Unless you think I'm going to ruin what you have done to fix it."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

The last bit stuns him almost into silence. "You really don't know me."

[can_be_more]

"That's what it looks like from here, John," Aeryn says quietly. "I'm completely on the outside of a situation I know nothing about and you don't talk about it and you make such a big deal about me going with you- twice now- and it's never happened and I can't understand any of it."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"Things have happened," he says tightly. "Things are not good right now and I've told you this. I don't want to bring you into that and I've told you this."

[can_be_more]

"I know it's difficult, for you're entire family, but you shut me almost completely out of it and I'm supposed to be okay with that after all this," Aeryn points out. "And yet you want to know about my family, like that's such an easy subject."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"You've shut me out before too," he says. "Don't act like what I did was new. Don't."

[can_be_more]

"Fine," she says, nodding. "You don't want to be shut out, keep asking me questions, then. Since this is going so well. Maybe I'll ask some back."

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

"Fine," he snaps. "How in the hell could you think I'd end up ignoring? Do you know what that does to me?"

[can_be_more]

"You can talk about creating a family within a day of saying you don't want to see the one you have," she replies. "What would you think if I could say that?"