gonna_live (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gonna_live) wrote2009-01-04 01:52 am
gonna_live) wrote2009-01-04 01:52 am
(no subject)
The first question Kaylee gets asked is how do you feel about being here?
She has to think about it, and finally answers, Ashamed. I reckon.
There's a tremor in her voice.
***
Earlier:
She paces around the flat, arms folded tight as she can get them. Her chest is tight -- like something's sitting there, like she can't get her breath. Maybe I'm dying, she thinks. Simon's going to get home and find me dead on the floor. Can I do that to him? Really? I should -- I'm sick. I feel like I'm dying. I'm sick.
The last gets said out loud.
Kaylee raises her hand to her neck, finds her pulse, looks at the timepiece, counts. It's high. This isn't right, she tells herself, again out loud, and sits on -- falls down on -- the sofa.
She tries to work it out. It's not this bad all the time. It gets worse when I'm upset. I don't know why I'm upset. Nothing happened to make this happen. Did it? And I know what this feels like, and I want to -- I can't do this any more, I don't know -- When her thoughts dissolve into pure panic, she starts to cry, and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. She tries to catch her breath. She tries to think.
The logic is like this: if she calls Simon, she loses. They both lose. He needs to be able to feel like he can be in his classes and not worry about her. She needs to be independent enough to handle this on her own. She needs him to leave her to handle this -- to believe that she's capable of taking care of herself. That she's not a failure, not a waste of time, a waste of space and resources.
It's not this bad all the time, she says aloud. She tries to breathe evenly.
If she goes back to Serenity, to Milliways, she loses. It's not the world Simon comes from, it's hers. And that's not the point of this whole thing with Osiris. Not really. The point is for her to prove that she can do what he did: leave without a second thought, and without looking back.
Kaylee can't do it on her own any more. She can't manage it. Whatever this is -- it's won. And she doesn't know who to go to, now that she's given up.
Sitting on the couch in the thin winter light, Kaylee stares at the wall.
The answer comes to her then, easy and clear, like a whisper in the room that's otherwise silent:
Peter.
After a moment she eases herself up, shakily, and goes to the Cortex. Ten minutes later, she's out the door.
***
At the hospice center they don't look at her like she's dirt on the bottom of their shoe.
A woman holds her hand while she explains haltingly how her friend like them helped her, and how she knows she's probably not in the right place, but if they could point her where she needs to go --
The woman even walks with her down the block to the office they recommend, and when Kaylee looks back later she figures that there had to have been some strings pulled, because (as she finds out later) not everybody gets to see the head doctor the same day they realize they need one.
Peter, she thinks when she looks back later, would approve. Kaylee figures he would have done the same thing for her that they did. She was in the wrong place. They help people die; Kaylee's not dead yet. Far from it.
Over her cup of tea out on the balcony, in the cold, under the leaden sky, Kaylee thinks about him (and it doesn't matter that he doesn't remember who she is any more, not really), and she's near overwhelmed by gratitude.
***
When Kaylee says she feels ashamed, the counselor (a thoughtful-seeming woman named Diana with long, iron-gray hair that hangs loose almost to her waist) nods, and doesn't act like she thinks any less of Kaylee for it.
"That's actually pretty normal," Diana tells her. "Here's a thought. Sometimes talking formally like this isn't the best way to go about things. How long has it been since you've drawn anything?"
Kaylee looks blank.
There are laugh lines around Diana's eyes; they crease now. "We'll get out the oil pastels. It's a good day for them, I think."
And Kaylee -- eyes puffy, nose stuffed, hair a mess (because that's what happens when you walk out of the house half-crazed and all desperation) -- cracks a smile.
**
Simon, she thinks when she gets home that afternoon and makes that cup of tea to take out to the balcony, doesn't need to know about this. Not yet. If it goes anywhere -- if it helps -- then maybe.
There's a vial of pills in her handbag: anti-anxiety medication. A little scrap of digital paper with the pills serves as a reminder that her next appointment is at 0815 two days from now.
For now this can be her secret.
She has to think about it, and finally answers, Ashamed. I reckon.
There's a tremor in her voice.
Earlier:
She paces around the flat, arms folded tight as she can get them. Her chest is tight -- like something's sitting there, like she can't get her breath. Maybe I'm dying, she thinks. Simon's going to get home and find me dead on the floor. Can I do that to him? Really? I should -- I'm sick. I feel like I'm dying. I'm sick.
The last gets said out loud.
Kaylee raises her hand to her neck, finds her pulse, looks at the timepiece, counts. It's high. This isn't right, she tells herself, again out loud, and sits on -- falls down on -- the sofa.
She tries to work it out. It's not this bad all the time. It gets worse when I'm upset. I don't know why I'm upset. Nothing happened to make this happen. Did it? And I know what this feels like, and I want to -- I can't do this any more, I don't know -- When her thoughts dissolve into pure panic, she starts to cry, and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. She tries to catch her breath. She tries to think.
The logic is like this: if she calls Simon, she loses. They both lose. He needs to be able to feel like he can be in his classes and not worry about her. She needs to be independent enough to handle this on her own. She needs him to leave her to handle this -- to believe that she's capable of taking care of herself. That she's not a failure, not a waste of time, a waste of space and resources.
It's not this bad all the time, she says aloud. She tries to breathe evenly.
If she goes back to Serenity, to Milliways, she loses. It's not the world Simon comes from, it's hers. And that's not the point of this whole thing with Osiris. Not really. The point is for her to prove that she can do what he did: leave without a second thought, and without looking back.
Kaylee can't do it on her own any more. She can't manage it. Whatever this is -- it's won. And she doesn't know who to go to, now that she's given up.
Sitting on the couch in the thin winter light, Kaylee stares at the wall.
The answer comes to her then, easy and clear, like a whisper in the room that's otherwise silent:
Peter.
After a moment she eases herself up, shakily, and goes to the Cortex. Ten minutes later, she's out the door.
At the hospice center they don't look at her like she's dirt on the bottom of their shoe.
A woman holds her hand while she explains haltingly how her friend like them helped her, and how she knows she's probably not in the right place, but if they could point her where she needs to go --
The woman even walks with her down the block to the office they recommend, and when Kaylee looks back later she figures that there had to have been some strings pulled, because (as she finds out later) not everybody gets to see the head doctor the same day they realize they need one.
Peter, she thinks when she looks back later, would approve. Kaylee figures he would have done the same thing for her that they did. She was in the wrong place. They help people die; Kaylee's not dead yet. Far from it.
Over her cup of tea out on the balcony, in the cold, under the leaden sky, Kaylee thinks about him (and it doesn't matter that he doesn't remember who she is any more, not really), and she's near overwhelmed by gratitude.
When Kaylee says she feels ashamed, the counselor (a thoughtful-seeming woman named Diana with long, iron-gray hair that hangs loose almost to her waist) nods, and doesn't act like she thinks any less of Kaylee for it.
"That's actually pretty normal," Diana tells her. "Here's a thought. Sometimes talking formally like this isn't the best way to go about things. How long has it been since you've drawn anything?"
Kaylee looks blank.
There are laugh lines around Diana's eyes; they crease now. "We'll get out the oil pastels. It's a good day for them, I think."
And Kaylee -- eyes puffy, nose stuffed, hair a mess (because that's what happens when you walk out of the house half-crazed and all desperation) -- cracks a smile.
Simon, she thinks when she gets home that afternoon and makes that cup of tea to take out to the balcony, doesn't need to know about this. Not yet. If it goes anywhere -- if it helps -- then maybe.
There's a vial of pills in her handbag: anti-anxiety medication. A little scrap of digital paper with the pills serves as a reminder that her next appointment is at 0815 two days from now.
For now this can be her secret.