tampered | Log: Completed

Log: Completed

When; Late at night, July 8
Rating; PG
Characters; Julia (

notapreacher)
Summary; Things that were supposed to stay buried never really keep quiet.
Log;

"Private Eckener."

If drugs have a face, this is what they look like: nameless, shapeless, but not unrecognizable: there are eyes and fangs and claws, and they loom up from the darkness and he's... strapped to the table and can barely move: how did they get him here? Why didn't he fight? Why is he back on Pluto? Who turned him in?

"Private Eckener."

The thing about drugs is this: when that needle gets close enough, a person can taste what's inside the syringe and he wants it so badly and yet he doesn't want it at all, and he knows exactly what it's going to do to him and more than anything, he craves that. Once an addict always an addict, but didn't he kick this years ago? Cold and alone, in solitary? Didn't he sweat it out of his system? Didn't detoxing just about kill him?

"Private Eckener. Hold still."

The face, void of emotion, stoops there with the hypodermic needle in hand -- claw -- and he knows that once that needle pierces his vein he'll be helpless to fight it. He got clean once, but going cold turkey is something he's pretty sure he can never, ever survive again.

Where will the music go? Where did it go last time? He can't remember. All he knows is the hand on his arm and the poke of the needle and there's nothing, nothing, nothing he can do but surrender to the one thing he wants the least and most. There's no fighting it: the blackness filters in quickly and from somewhere far, far away, he's pretty sure he hears laughter.

"Double up the dosage."

"But that could kill him."

"I know."

Fuck, fuck, fuck: he hasn't sat up in bed so fast in years. The light goes on; his hands are shaking. In fact, he's shaking all over: that was so real. The first thing he does is check his arms for track marks but there aren't any and that's a relief but he's shaking.

He's shaking badly, so he gets up out of bed and dresses and turns on every light in his apartment and paces and paces, but he can't stop shaking, and even though it's the middle of the night he finds himself at Julia's door knocking insistently.

"Julia. Open up."

Please. I need you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(It's going to rain. Just like it did the day she left Tharsis. And the day she met Spike again.

And the last time she and Spike had a drink together.)

She's in a thin low-backed dress the color of blood. Her hair is swept up; the familiar weight of a holstered gun hugs her right thigh. The city is full of fog. Real fog, something she's never really seen before. It looks like low-lying clouds, feels like thick cool mist that clings as only the most possessive of lovers would.

She can hear a slow sweet saxophone solo coming from somewhere nearby.

She can feel the presence to her left before she actually sees him. Vicious is wearing slate gray, and the rose in his lapel is the same deep red of her dress. The katana is on him, as almost always, the one thing he could have at his side that could never be anything but loyal.

(She doesn't want to be here.)

They walk in silence, sides just barely not brushing, to the source of the music, the outline of a building, windows and doorway lit up. They walk along, it seems to her, more like a pair of battle-ready warriors in formalwear than the dressed-to-the-nines lovers they once were. Tension is in the air.

She can feel it.

Inside the building they enter is the most extravagant party she's ever been to. She recognizes people she hasn't seen in years -- the syndicate's presence is practically palpable -- and it seems the room could hardly get more crowded.

There's only one person on her mind.

She looks for him as discreetly as possible: a casual turn of her head, a slow sideways look, an eventual glance back over her shoulder.

(He's not here.)

"Julia." There are four men whose voices she can instantly identify. Vicious will forever be one of them. "There's someone I want you to meet."

"Another associate?"

"Yes."

It's a simpler answer than she expected, and when he moves away from her, her eyes take the opportunity to stray from him again.

She takes a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, only given a moment's pause by the sunglasses he's wearing.

She's distracted when Vicious comes up again with a blonde-haired blue-eyed man she's never met. His tie's askew; his smile's too confident. Vicious introduces them to each other by name. The blonde man holds his hand out to her, and she takes it automatically.

"We'll be working together as partners from now on."

As partners?

This... isn't how things are supposed to be.

"What--" She catches herself, unable to finish the question.

"About Spike?" Vicious's lips stretch into the ominous smile she's ever seen. "Didn't you know, Julia?" She's heard the tone before; the words keep dreaming, Julia invade the back of her mind. His new partner easily pulls a gun out of his coat pocket -- in contrast, she feels like she's moving in slow motion -- and holds it level with her heart. "A dead man can't be a Dragon."

Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. The waiter with the champagne steps up beside her, only two glasses left on the tray he's balancing on one hand.

"More champagne?" His free hand reaches up and lowers his glasses on his nose. When he winks at her above them, his open eye bares teeth.

She's only been up about fifteen minutes.

Long enough to tug on a robe, put her gun -- safety on -- in one of the pockets, and sit down tensely at the kitchen island with a glass of water.

It was just a bad dream within a dream, she tells herself, but the knock on her door startles her more than she'd like to admit. Her hand slides into her pocket to rest on her gun, and not even the sound of Gren's voice relaxes her shoulders.

Still, she's quick to gather her robe around her and open the door for him.

"What's wrong?"

That dream felt so real. It's like he's waiting for the drugs to start working, to get him to that point where he doesn't give a damn about anything or anyone, where all the fight's taken right out of him. But that isn't what he wants and his heart's pounding and his eyes are widely frantic and his mouth set in a grim line of determination: this was never supposed to happen again.

Never.

He's so... distressed he can barely talk and so he studies her eyes, her face. Looks down, away, past her, at his hands stuffed into his pockets so they don't shake. Finally, on the third try, he manages to coax out a few valuable words.

"I need you."

Immediately she closes the door behind him.

There's something a little wild in his eyes. It's almost familiar.

She's never seen him so upset, never heard him say anything remotely like I need you, and her mouth opens... and then closes again without a syllable leaving her lips.

Nothing much has changed since Spike disappeared, but things are different. Every now and then, especially late at night, she wonders what happens when a person leaves this place. Do they just disappear? Do they know what's happening? Can goodbyes be said? Is it sudden?

(Why did he love her?)

She can go through the motions as well as anybody and much better than most -- all of her sadness, even at its most obvious, has been dry-eyed for years now -- but two feelings have been battling for dominance.

One is the feeling that there is no longer a silver lining to this place. Even Gren, despite being the closest and dearest friend she has here, is...

...not Spike.

The other feeling is that she's been doing for three long years exactly what she's doing now: surviving as best she can. No matter how relative the term is these days. And it's the only thing she knows how to do.

(It's all a dream.)

Her hand, feather-light, touches Gren's back. Chances are he'd have let her know already if she needed to spring into action. "Come into the kitchen. I'll get you a drink, and you can tell me what else I can do."

Breathe, breathe, breathe, he tells himself: this was just a dream. Just a dream. Hands out of his pockets, he examines his arms again: still clean. He doesn't feel drugged, not any more. And so he follows her into the kitchen, her hand still on his back, and it's that touch that he needed. It grounds him, centers him, makes him forget that he woke up in an absolute raging panic.

"Thanks."

Words are still expensive; he uses them sparingly. But he'll have to tell her what's going on. It isn't until he sits at her table, hands spread palms-down on its surface, that he's able to really speak.

"I'm sorry for waking you up but I... Oh, Julia, for two years after I got away from Pluto I had dreams like this -- about prison -- almost every night but I thought they were gone. I thought I'd finally gotten them out of my system. So why now? Why did I have to have one tonight?" As an experiment he lifts his hands; they're still shaking, although not as violently as before.

He's never told anyone what really happened to him on Pluto. Julia knows some of the basics, but no one's ever gotten all the details and she certainly doesn't know anything about how he got away from Pluto. He's not sure he really wants to share details now, but this is Julia. If she asks, he'll tell her.

"And look. Look what I did: I woke you up over a stupid dream. I'm so sorry."

Her eyes stay on him even as she opens a cabinet to get a glass for him, but when he apologizes for waking her, they dart to her own telltale glass of water, half-empty and waiting on the counter. "Don't be. You didn't wake me."

Temporarily abandoning the cabinet, she steps toward the table.

"I had a dream of my own." It's no consolation for him, she knows, and for just a moment she rests her hand on his shoulder. His shaking hands are more than proof enough of how rattled he is. "It could be some kind of curse."

Even now that she's been around long enough to acknowledge them as a regular part of life in this city, she's not really used to them.

"What can I get you?"

First things first. Once he has something in his hands that's more real than the dream was, he's free to tell her whatever he'd like.

"Methadone." It's a terrible attempt at a joke; he shakes his head in disgust. Medicating himself with alcohol will just prove that he's no less of an addict than he was on Pluto, won't it?

Yes.

"Do you have any tea?" He's sorry to put her through the trouble of heating the water, but he remembers exactly how it felt to have to crawl back up and get clean and right now, he doesn't want anything that can be construed as a crutch. At least he has that much sense going for him.

So this might be another curse: that's small comfort. "If it's a curse, then your dream was probably pretty awful too."

The least he could be doing is comforting her. Some friend he is. But he's so rattled that it's literally all he can do not to put his head in his hands and weep. Maybe tea's the worst possible choice, but he's sticking with it.

Her head tilts to one side at his answer, and she takes a moment to push those wayward strands of hair out of his face. The hint of affection behind the gesture stays unspoken, and she doesn't react otherwise to the word or the unhappy shake of his head.

"Strawberry tea. How does that sound?"

She doesn't dislike tea, but she only ever seems to drink it when she's with Gren. Tea cups are something she doesn't own, so she pulls out two mugs when she returns to the cabinet.

"It was..." She doesn't continue the thought. Just a dream is what she'd say, and she suddenly doesn't want to say it aloud. Hers felt real enough. Clearly Gren's did, too.

And she's all too aware right now of what her last words in Tharsis were.

For all the things about the dream that she can easily explain away by pointing to things that have happened to her or around her, she hates thinking about it at all. And she can't help but think about it.

"It could've been worse."

Two years ago on Callisto, he and Julia became friends. It was a friendship forged of necessity with one striking common bond: Vicious. During the month he knew her he learned a bit about what her life was like. He heard about Vicious a little and Spike a lot. He learned that she wasn't really free to go where she wanted, but for reasons different from his. He found out about the music box and was able to put missing pieces of his own story together with her help. But the link that really joined both of them -- as far as he could tell -- was the single fact that both of them were dead people if they were caught. Her death would have probably come about at someone else's hands but his... well, if he'd gotten caught, he would have done the thing himself.

He was never going back to prison.

And now they're both dead, for what it's worth; he nods an appreciative thank you to her for the strawberry tea offer and listens as she wrestles with her own description. Julia's quiet. She doesn't give much away in conversation but he knows that it's what she doesn't say that speaks volumes. He might be good at keeping secrets, but she's masterful at it and he doesn't want to pry, but he wants to help if he can.

That's how he's always felt about her, even though there's been precious little he could ever do on her behalf. When push came to shove, he couldn't even tell Spike her whereabouts, and Spike's Gren, tell me where Julia is, I've got to find her was so plaintive that it about broke his heart. He wishes he'd known.

He wishes he could have helped.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" If she says yes he'll be glad to listen and if she says no, he won't pry. Her dreams are her business and hers alone.

Busying herself with getting water ready to boil and then taking out the tea, she hesitates -- almost imperceptibly -- before saying anything else.

It isn't because she's uncertain of her answer.

"I think I'd rather not talk about it."

There's nothing personal about it, although she hopes he knows her well enough not to take any offense. Beyond Gren, there's no one else whose presence she's so open about taking comfort in. She'll go listen to him play at Lux, she'll go out for pool and a drink more than once a week, she'll go to work every day and get groceries when she needs to, and it's not a matter of just going through the motions, but... she's still not willing to sit around and talk to anyone about Spike's disappearance.

While she can't blame Vicious for any part of it -- for once, he very genuinely had nothing to do with it -- the dream still hits too close to home.

Leaning back against the counter, she picks up the glass of water she set aside when she got up to answer the door and then aims a hint of a smile at Gren. "But anything else is wide open for discussion."

Her cigarettes are on the table and practically calling her name.

He made the offer; all he can do is nod quietly. He... loves Julia in his own way; she's his best friend. But he'll never ask her to tell him something more than once.

"Anything's fair game?" He's not quite ready to smile yet, but just being here is making him feel better. "I'll tell you one thing for sure: I don't miss Pluto at all." Protectively, he rubs his own arms; there's a long moment's pause. The place is on his mind, and it's a hard subject to shake off once it wedges itself in there. "I wasn't there all that long in the grand scheme of things, but it really changed everything about my life. And I thought Titan had already done that."

Who needs nightmares when he has those kinds of memories? It took a long time before he stopped seeing partially decomposed corpses in the sand and hearing the zing of bullets flying past his ears. And that was just basic stuff from Titan, never mind what came after.

But they don't have to talk about that. It's the middle of the night -- exactly what time he's not sure -- and that's a terrible time for thinking about these kinds of things; he tests his hands for shaking and they're not as bad as they were because... he's breathing again. He's breathing again and he's not alone with his nightmares.

"War is bad enough."

Gren's been through a lot. The decision to fight on Titan was his, but he didn't sign on for anything that happened to him beyond the time he served.

How was he to know that he'd be accused of being a spy, that he'd go to prison, that he'd be given experimental drugs? She's fairly certain that any worst case scenario he came up with before leaving for Titan couldn't have matched what actually ended up happening.

She puts the glass in the sink. The water for their tea will be ready soon.

"If nothing had happened when you left Titan, where would you have gone?"

"I was on my way back home to Mars Colony. They arrested me at the spaceport there." It was... a really horrible scene. "I remember getting off the shuttle and you know how it is: you look around for familiar faces and you're so glad to be home, so glad the trip's over. I knew my mom was going to meet me there and it took me a long and pretty stupid minute to even register the fact that she was surrounded by military police. What you don't expect can't really be happening, right? So I saw her and smiled and she gave me this look -- what a look -- and the next thing I knew, I was being hauled off. I didn't know what was going on. They took me straight to the nearest Army base, which was the one in Alva City. A couple weeks later I was on my way to Pluto. I couldn't believe it."

And he never did get to talk to his mom.

"But yeah, if that hadn't happened I would have gone back to Mars Colony, or maybe Tokyo or L.A., found a gig. Instead, I had to wait for that until I got to Blue Crow and managed to smuggle my sax over from Mars." Now he leans back a little in the chair, somewhat lost in thought. These details... he doesn't share them. It's true Faye asked him if he was a preacher, said she felt like she was in a confession booth, but he's not used to being the one giving up all the details.

It's not the worst thing that could happen, at least as long as Julia's the one doing the listening instead heaven knows who out there on the network.

Looking for familiar faces and being so glad to be home? She smiles gently, but it doesn't last more than a second or two as he goes on.

She doesn't think she really knows how it is, but she can imagine. And he paints a heartbreaking picture for her. It almost makes her sorry she asked the question she did, but... she didn't ask it to pry. He didn't have to talk about getting arrested if he didn't want to. The problem is, she's sure, the dream dredging things up, bringing everything back to the surface.

As if winding up here wouldn't have done that enough.

A whistle lets her know the water's ready, and she starts pouring it into their mugs.

"Mars-Tokyo is a nice place." A teabag in each mug, and she picks them both up, delivering one to a spot on the table in front of Gren before taking a seat across from him. "I could see you there."

"I always liked it." The mug is warm in his hands; he cradles it as if it's a precious gem or a baby bird. Gently, but with intention, and it's the same way he holds his saxophone. There are few things that matter to him, but that sax is one of them. It's kept him going in some of the darkest moments of his life. "The last boyfriend I had before I went to Titan grew up in Tokyo. He took me there a few times. There's this one part of the city that's just... filled with nightclubs. Music clubs. Jazz, rock, pop, disco, country, j-pop, you name it. It's all there. From what I know of Earth's New York, it's ike a Times Square for music instead of theater. Since he wasn't living there any more, I figured it would be fair game, and a good place to start again. It's not all that far from Mars Colony, so I could have made visits home on holidays, my mom's birthday, things like that. But..." He shrugs and it's entirely without recrimination, although there's sentiment attached to it. "I got Blue Crow instead, and that ended up being the perfect place because... if I hadn't been there, I wouldn't have met you."

The tea bag swirls invitingly in the mug; looking into it, he smiles for the first time since he got here. "They say everything that happens happens for a reason. Maybe it all worked out the way it did so you and I could be friends."

Probably, there are kinder ways all that could have come about but he'll never know. It was such a blessing to find Julia at this place. She's the first person in a long time who's voluntarily taken care of him.

His shrug is easy enough, but there seems to be a softness to his eyes. Some unspoken kind of affection, maybe.

She knows not ever getting in touch with his mother after prison had to be difficult. His bounty was close to expiring, he's said. He came so close to freedom.

(Live. Be free. It'll be like watching a dream.)

She's never considered herself much of an optimist, but her own expression softens at his theory. They became friends because things had worked out a certain way. They're getting reacquainted because...

Because life as she knows it seems to be a never-ending cycle. Dream after dream after dream.

It's not quite a smile that's on her face, but it's nearly one. "I wish we'd met under different circumstances... but I'm happy to take what I've been given."

"Yeah." The way he nods into his teacup is pretty wistful; after blowing across the top, he takes a sip. The tea's good but the company's even better.

"It was great having you there on Callisto, didn't you know? You were like a voice of sanity in a world of insanity, a breath of fresh air in that stagnant place." What she did, whether she knows it or not, was help make sense of things that had never made sense to him.

And he doesn't just mean the business with Vicious and the music box and the solar transmitter, although that's the most obvious suspect. No, she helped him make sense of himself and he hadn't been able to do that since his body changed in prison. He'd been looking at himself as a freak, an anomaly, a travesty. Julia was the first person to know about the drugs and their effect and having someone to tell was liberating beyond belief. It occurs to him that she might not have any idea what a big deal that was: after she found out, she didn't treat him any differently. She didn't look at him like he was all wrong.

She's always treated him like Gren. No more, no less. If he hadn't shared his secrets with her he wouldn't have been so cavalier around Faye and if he hadn't been so cavalier around Faye, he would never have let himself get into a situation where he'd have to tell Abby anything.

Slowly, he sets down the mug and reaches across the table, resting his fingertips on her hand. "There are a lot of things I regret about my life, but being friends with you -- no matter what the circumstances -- has never been one of them."

As quickly as they got there his fingers retreat to the sanctuary of his tea mug. It's just a nightmare-induced moment of honesty but still, he means it. Neither of them are perfect human beings, but they're mostly all right. Julia's long been one of his favorite people.

The gesture is a sweet one, and now she actually does smile at him.

"I could say the same thing."

And she doesn't mind doing it. Whether they're up in the middle of the night because of nightmares or having a perfectly normal -- or as normal as possible -- day in the city, unaffected by whatever curse is the flavor of the day.

Sometimes literally.

The tea itself is a little on the sweet side, too, and pink-tinged in her mug. It's not half bad, and with some tea in her and Gren for company, she's not feeling quite as troubled as she was when she woke up.

She pushes her hair back over her shoulder and raises her mug to her lips again. "I'm glad you came."

It's another one of those things: the reasons leave something to be desired, but she's glad he came to her door. She'd been prepared distance herself as much as possible from the dream she had on her own terms, by herself. The past three years have made her more than accustomed to doing that.

That gets her a satisfied and pretty private smile. "You know the funny thing? I didn't even think twice about it. I had this... dream, and it was so real even though I knew it couldn't have been, and I just... found myself walking over here. Like it was the only logical thing to do. I know other people in the City, but no one else even came to mind."

More than anything -- now that he's feeling a little more stable -- he's glad he didn't disturb her. He's not happy that she was already awake for the same reason as him, but he's glad she doesn't mind.

His hands aren't shaking any more. Despite that, he's pretty sure he won't be sleeping any more tonight. The tea's good, though, and he needed it. It had to be something clean, something non-addictive, non-alcoholic. "I guess that saying about every cloud having a silver lining might have some merit."

As long as he has a say in the matter, he's never taking drugs again.

The way she looks at him over her mug is more thoughtful than appraising, and she smiles slightly even though she doesn't go so far as to say that she agrees.

There's something about Gren that's always seemed a little bit optimistic, and she doesn't believe every cloud has a silver lining. She may be an opportunist -- from her first theft to joining the Dragons to being just open enough about herself to get a fitting job here -- but she's not an optimist. She can make the best of what she's got. There are just situations she can't see anything good about.

She can't help it.

She doesn't envy Gren of the ability to come across the way he does, but she appreciates it. And she appreciates it in him in a way she might not in other people, if only because she knows what she does about him.

After another drink of tea, she puts her mug down, one hand still curved around it and the other unable to resist the call of her cigarettes any longer. "I was going to see you at Lux again tomorrow night and ask if you wanted to go out for dinner sometime, but it looks like I can do that now."

"Are you asking me out on a date?"

Laughing, he shakes his head: he knows better. It's just that he's a pretty hard-core flirt and that's not something he can just shut off any longer. It's too ingrained, too much a part of who he is and more than that, how he is. "Seriously, though, I'd love to go out for dinner sometime. I get tired of my own company."

He hasn't been quite as alone as all that. "I've met a few people who seem pretty decent and one who I think is trustworthy."

It's at that moment that the weight of what he's saying hits him full force and, coupled with the nightmare, he almost can't stand it. He sets the mug down abruptly and covers his eyes with one hand. It takes three slow deep breaths before he can even talk again. "God, some shrink could have a field day with me."

Actually, they already have. He's in no hurry for a repeat performance, either.

"That dream was more upsetting than I realized." But it will go away: it was just a dream. Like he has to verify that fact, he pushes up his shirt sleeves and examines his arms again, and almost asks Julia if she ever wanted something so badly that it frightened her. But he doesn't have to. He knows her answer.

And she knows his, but she might not know just how strong a yes it is.

The amused look his question puts on her face disappears, but she's not surprised when he turns serious again, the dream on his mind.

If he was shaken enough to come to her apartment, rattled enough to have shaky hands, disturbed enough to want tea and company... it's not going to go away that easily. Even when someone's schooled themselves into showing little emotion, it simply doesn't work that way on the inside. And in the time she's known Gren, she's known him to be more open about his feelings than she is.

With an unlit cigarette between her fingers, she puts the pack back down again, watching him look down at his arms.

They look fine, of course, but the weight of the gun in the pocket of her robe wouldn't let her find fault with him for checking even if she wanted to. Her apartment here has proven safe so far. There's no reason she should feel any need to have the gun on her right now.

But she does.

"We could go out right now if you think it might help."

Most places will be closed, but that's not important. Just being out, as physically removed from the dream as he can get, could be better.

The funny thing about facing one's fears, he knows, is that no matter how far you try to run from them, they always catch up with you in the end. Julia's offer is sweet beyond measure, but it's the middle of the night and he's already inconvenienced her enough.

"It's tempting, but I don't think we have to go that far. I have to face it eventually, so maybe the sooner the better. What I should do is finish my tea and let you get back to sleep."

She doesn't know. She doesn't know how obsessive and single-minded and driven he can get about things, and why should she? For the past six months of his life when he spent his time plotting a sure-fire way to get to Vicious, she wasn't there. She doesn't know how the thirst not for revenge but for answers consumed him, and the lengths he went to. The plan was a failure, of course, and he still doesn't have the answers he needs, and maybe that's the only thing that will stop his nightmares for good: he doesn't know.

But he does know that he doesn't want to go back to the way he was the past six months. Talk about crazy. And if that's the case, what's worse: nightmares about his past, or the very real way he lived? He's not sure. And he won't figure it out by taking up all of Julia's time.

"Tell me instead where you're going to let me take you for dinner. Let's plan something a little happier."

Getting back to sleep will be easier said than done, but she doesn't bother commenting on it. It's not because of his visit -- even if he hadn't come, she wouldn't be back to sleep by now -- and she doesn't intend to make him feel worse by bringing it up.

"I don't remember saying I was going to ask if you wanted to buy me dinner." The look she gives him is sharp, but there's a telling curve to her lips. "You'll just have to return the favor sometime."

As far as she's concerned, they can take turns buying each other dinner every week. Or they meet up weekly and split the bill every time. But this week was her idea, and it was going to be her treat.

She knows she's stubborn, and it's a trait that hasn't always served her well but isn't likely to change. Even now.

"Do you like seafood?"

"You know me." He smiles down into his tea. "I like everything." Seafood, vegetables, steak, pasta. Tea, vodka, fruit punch, club soda. Chocolate, cotton candy, pie, popcorn. Jazz, blues, classical, rock, pop, country. Men, women: everything.

Everything but nightmares.

He wishes he'd never even heard of Titan. But because there's a hint of smile on Julia's face -- he loves that smile: so sad, so beautiful -- he tucks away the bad things into a little pocket he can open and examine at leisure some other time.

"Seafood's great. And so is returning the favor."

For as long as he can remember, he's liked knowing there was going to be more of a good thing.

There's that smile of his again. It's a little bit gratifying to see it return, and if she could do more to ease his mind, she would.

She's certain she can't do much more to help, but that doesn't mean she won't continue doing what she can.

"I discovered this cozy little restaurant a couple of blocks from work." She finally lights her cigarette, having put it off about as long as she can stand to, and she pauses mid-thought just long enough to exhale smoke. "Their grilled salmon and fried shrimp are as good as you could find at any five-star place on Ganymede."

With so much of the planet covered by water, Ganymede does have a certain reputation. It's for mostly unrelated reasons that it's a personal favorite in her travels.

That sounds great, not that he ever went to any five-star places on Ganymede. In fact, he never even got to visit the planet, although it used to be on his list of places to see after he got out of the Army. But, of course, that didn't happen and now he won't ever get the opportunity.

Regret over not seeing Ganymede and the rest of Jupiter's moons besides Callisto is pretty low on his more current list of things to regret in this city. Being dead probably tops the charts, right up there with killing Lin by mistake and never getting the answers he really wanted before all that happened. But those things can resolve themselves in nightmares the next time he goes to sleep if they really want; for now, the idea of dinner with Julia is a much more attractive option.

"That sounds perfect. I could meet you there if you want; I'm free on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday and... expensive the rest of the week." He musters a little laugh for her. "Or we could go early one of those other nights: whatever you want. And when we do, I'd like to hear all about your favorite five-star restaurant on Ganymede."

There's so much about her he doesn't know and while he realizes it's mutual, he's hard pressed to think of anyone he'd rather spend time with. That's no slight against his other friends, but Julia... well, there's just something about her.

He loves her. Just a little bit.

It's slow and almost in spite of herself when she smiles, but it's still genuine.

"I won't spare a detail."

She's teasing, but she'll gladly tell him about it. Gren has a way of getting her to talk about things sooner or later as it is. Not through pushing. Not even through trying hard, in her experience with him.

She didn't tell him everything, but he's the only one she ever opened up to about Spike.

"How about Tuesday?"

It's the first he's free, and she has nothing planned that night.

"Tuesday it is." He takes a final sip of sweet strawberry tea and sets down the cup: it's really probably time to start facing whatever demons he has to but hopefully the nightmare was a one-time deal and if he does fall back asleep, it will be into this blissfully undisturbed rest.

Right: it was the Earth author George Eliot who said Hell is oneself; Hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone. Years and years of church-going have him convinced that the things he's done are so horrendous there's no place for him but some sort of hell, and he's never really escaped the solitude in which he found himself after Titan. Maybe George got it right when she penned those words.

But maybe there really is no hell without heaven, and maybe this place, this... afterlife he finds himself in is a blend of both. The good things taste so much sweeter after a taste of the horrid and vice versa, and all of life is a balancing act, and...

Enough.

"Are you going to be okay? Do you want me to stay a little bit longer?" He's not the only one having nightmares.

She nods as if to seal the deal.

When he puts down his cup and asks if she's going to be okay, she can't help feeling just a tiny bit amused.

"I'll be fine."

It's what she'd answer regardless of how she really felt -- by now Gren might recognize that as well as she does -- but she's not just trying to put his mind at ease or play down her feelings. Not this time.

She's as okay as she's getting tonight, and she won't ask him to stay longer.

"If you think you're ready to go back to sleep, you better take the opportunity while you can."

For a measure of it they'll both be fine; he doesn't labor under any illusion that nightmares don't linger because they do. Especially when you're living one, but... no, no, that was three years ago, not now. It only feels real because the dream was so vivid.

"I'm not so sure about sleep, but I know all about opportunity." And about overstaying his welcome, although she hasn't even hinted at that. Still, he's a big boy and can take care of himself... now. "If you hear music, though, that'll be me doing my best to keep the neighbors awake all night long."

Because misery loves company, right? But he gives her a genuine smile as he stands and takes his cup to the sink and rinses it out: nothing says she has to clean up after him.

"Thanks, Julia. There aren't many people whose door I'd knock at in the middle of the night." She might not know exactly how grateful he is right now: tonight, she's been his lifeline to sanity.

He doesn't have to rinse his mug out in the sink, but he knows that very well.

He has a stubborn streak of his own, she's noticed.

She stands up, leaving her cigarette smoking in the ashtray on the table, and when he thanks her, she touches her hand to his arm, just below the elbow, and then lets it slide down to his hand. Her fingers tighten around his for a second.

There's no romance in the gesture, but there's no lack of quiet affection in it.

"The door's open for you any time. Even if nightmares aren't involved."

She's so sweet to him that it's almost enough to bring tears to his eyes, but he's also tired and distressed and that could be part of it. He returns the squeeze to her fingers, then leans forward and kisses her quickly on the cheek.

"It goes both ways. I'm right upstairs if you need anything." And he does mean anything at all: Julia's one of the few people who could be the exception to every single one of his I don't or I won't or I can't rules given the right circumstances.

...Maybe.

"Take care." He can show himself out: the way is clear for the time being.

Now, to face those dreams down and see who comes out the winner, although the battle might not seem quite so clear-cut for a while. Or ever, maybe, but at least it'll give him a chance to wrestle -- yet again -- with the concepts of heaven and hell, sin and salvation, good and evil. Oh yeah, and life and death. Just a few of the minor issues floating around in his brain.

(Something tells him it's going to be a long night.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Log: Completed

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject