C'est la mort. (Open)

[lazyinlove]

Date & Time:Tonight, around 7.
Location:The viewing windows.
Characters:Anyone who knew Peace or who might stop to pay respects at a memorial even if they didn't know her.
Summary:A memorial gathering for an Exsile who ceased to exist with the most recent world change.
Warnings:Tears, cursing, bitterness? Not sure yet. People can label threads as they come up. Everyone is free to make their own and jump around. Prose and action are both fine.


It's a waste of emergency torches, but there are a few set up around anyway, lit that soft unearthly blue of emergency lighting. The flowers are paper, clumsily folded from discharge sheets, some from the prison, some from the clinic. There are no photos. All of the ones she was in before are empty spaces, or pictures of Stanley or others who'd been holding her at the time. The music is strings, playing softly from a haphazardly tossed tablet. There are no chairs. Instead, every pillow from 144 is on the ground as seating.

Stanley isn't sitting on one, though. He's standing at the window, staring down at the planet so far below. Today, he's combed his hair. It's still in his eyes because it's too long, but he's made the effort to tame it at any rate.

He's not sure how to start things off, but if someone shows up he'll greet them. That's what you do, right? So that's what he does.

"Thanks for coming."

Comments

[controlledvariable]

[She keeps near the walls, in the background, fading into the shadows cast by the torches because she doesn't feel like she has a right to be here, when so often her presence makes Stanley uncomfortable.

But he invited her, and she owes it to Peace, so here she is. She'll talk to people if approached, but otherwise she keeps to herself, expression sad but - almost calm, a little detached. She doesn't have the energy to be as sad as she thinks she should be, and she's run out of tears.

It isn't until things start winding down and people start drifting away that she approaches Stanley, offering him a thin, rectangle parcel, wrapped in simple brown paper.]

It's not much, but I thought it might help a little.

[Inside is a framed drawing of Peace, smiling and holding her hands up, like she might reach out of the paper. Steph isn't the artist, she sat with Donny for a while and described Peace to him, so he could draw it for her, because he's much more talented than she is. She owes him one; the drawing is beautiful, if heartbreaking.]

[lazyinlove]

[He accepts the parcel, but it doesn't even occur to him to open it. He stares at it for a long moment instead, and then back up at Stephanie. He's supposed to thank her. That's how it works. Someone gives you a gift and you thank them for it. It's just that when he tries, nothing comes out. He can't muster up any words for her, so he gives up and nods instead. Sure, it might help. That response will have to do.]

[controlledvariable]

[None of that surprises her, and she doesn't mind, either. Maybe it's better if he opens it in private, anyway.]

Donny drew it, not me, I just hope-- [What? She shrugs, then:] I'm sorry for what we've done.

[They have to take responsibility, as horrible as it is to think about, because they've always known this is what would come of time travel. It's not the first time someone disappeared and it won't be the last, this time just hurt because Peace was part of their lives.

It feels a little bit selfish, but she doesn't say that.]

[lazyinlove]

Me too.

[The response is soft, but this time it's there. With No small amount of guilt laced through it. He hadn't known about this. None of it. Not until that anon post a few days back. To have it proven so suddenly, painfully, personally true is a slap in the face. But bigger than that. Harsh and brutal and senseless. An avalanche. If all of the horrible things don't even end well, how are any of them supposed to live with themselves?

If Steph wanted to gloat now, she could. She was right. He'd fucked up by taking Peace. He'd known it since that first day on the moon. But he couldn't just put her back. There wasn't a back. There was nothing, and less of it all the time. They just kept breaking everything they touched.]

[controlledvariable]

[Gloating is the furthest thing from her mind; she thinks it was a mistake to bring Peace up here, but she knows that it wasn't Stanley's intention, that he did his best despite the terrible circumstances.

What she does do is lay a hand on his arm, the touch light and careful, like she's scared he might bolt.]

Why don't you go get some rest, I can pack everything up.

[It's the only thing she can think to offer.]

[lazyinlove]

No.

[It's nice of Steph to offer, but he's not going anywhere. There's all this room to sprawl out in his bunk now, and no one accidentally kicking his throat in the night. Jesse's in jail, Lisbeth is a ghost, and Mike never has much to say. It's silent there. It feels empty and cold. He doesn't want to go back there anyway.]

[controlledvariable]

[This isn't a grief she's familiar with. She knows how to help people coping with trauma or anger or the kind of frustration at the world that claws in and chokes you, but she's never lost anyone. She was the one being lost, and being confronted with someone else's grief is a little painful.

If this is how Stanley looks over a girl he knew for months, how must her mom have been?

(She tells herself that giving her daughter up wasn't the same, because she's not gone, just out of reach.)

She swallows the thoughts down, watching Stan instead, trying to work out the reason behind his denial; does he not want her touching the things set up for Peace, or does he not want to go back to his room?

She takes a guess at the latter.]

You need to get some sleep eventually.

[Her voice is gentle, laced with concern.]

[lazyinlove]

[He glances back up at her, then. And frowns a little, unsure. This whole situation is painful and unfamiliar territory.]

I was tired before, but... now I'm not.

[controlledvariable]

I know.

[She won't say resting will make him feel better, because it won't, but he still should try to get some sleep. Running on empty doesn't make any of it easier.]

You should try anyway. Is there somewhere else you can go, if you don't wanna stay in your room?

[lazyinlove]

...Did Lisbeth say something?

[Crap, do people not want him in the room while Jesse's away? That's a problem he never even considered. But it seems worryingly plausible. Jesse invited him there, Lisbeth mostly seemed to resent him being there, and Mike....Mike thought he was an idiot. Oh, man. He's so not interested in sleeping in the corridors.]

[controlledvariable]

[Her confusion is obvious, if he's capable of looking for things like that.]

No? I just-- I thought it might be too hard, the reminders.

[Of Peace; going somewhere different can help, a little bit.]

[lazyinlove]

[That's a relief. He sags, and leans against the wall, slowly sliding down it. Getting kicked out would've sure been the turd on top of this crap sundae. Stanley drops his face into his hands and rubs at his temples. The headache really isn't going away.]

I dunno. It'll be fine.

[He'd imposed on Giovanni once back on the planet, but people didn't have sofas here. It wasn't the same situation.]

[controlledvariable]

[And she drops into a crouch in front of him, balanced on the balls of her feet and arms folded across her knees.

She's worried, and she wants to help, but she knows there's so little she can do.]

There's plenty of people who care about you, Stanley. Don't be afraid to ask if you need somewhere, people won't think you're imposing.

[She'd offer the spare bed in her room, but even she's not staying there right now, not with Joel and Ellie such a mess. The last thing she'd want to do is throw Stan into the mess.]

[lazyinlove]

[It's an easy mistake to make. Lots of people care about Steph, probably. Lots of people care about Jesse, definitely. There might even be people who care about Lisbeth and Saul and Mike.

But Stanley isn't good at making friends. He's just always had them, and now they're a thousand years in the past, and he's here. He had Peace, but now he doesn't. It's his own fault. It has to be, if everyone else can make new friends and cope and he can't. But he hasn't, and he isn't.

He's not about to admit that to Steph, though. She already thinks he's a screwup. No need to prove her right.]

Okay.

[controlledvariable]

[She doubts he's really listening to her, but she can't blame him and she can't change it. She's pretty sure he wouldn't believe her if she said that she cares about him, because it feels like he's still too scared of her.

Which she can't blame him for, but still.]

Okay.

[She reaches out again, gives his shoulder a brief squeeze.]

I meant what I said before, if you need anything, you can just ask. It's not a hassle or anything.

[She wants to do what she can.]

[lazyinlove]

Like toaster pastry and sticky notes?

[Stephanie, not being privy to his thoughts on these things before, probably won't understand the reference. It's just that he hasn't figured out what it is he's supposed to ask for to make people feel better in these situations, when they offer things like that. There's gotta be some standard thing that he's just never heard of, or they wouldn't all ask. ]