fandomhighdorms | The Gym, Sunday Afternoon

So. Kennedy had heard the radio last night. Part of her was bummed about not getting to go along, but another part of her-- adjacent to if not necessarily the same part that was pummeling the crap out of the heavy bag right now (or trying to; she still wasn't hitting that thing nearly as solidly as she wished she could)-- had a feeling it was a good thing she hadn't.

She'd spent a good chunk of the morning on the phone with Constance, who'd been way more than a little alarmed when Kennedy'd barely waited until hellos were exchanged to start in on a barrage of questions about people coming back from the dead, but had, to her credit, explained fairly patiently what a very bad idea that typically was. (In their world's terms, anyway, which of course were terms toward which Constance was pretty strongly biased, and Kennedy had been too agitated to pay much thought to subtleties like other worlds maybe not following those rules.)

She knew she should be glad, and maybe she was. Just... it'd brought everything back: the frustration, the trauma, the anger at being used the way they had. All of that drowned out the relief, and if it was petty of her she didn't care. She should be happier about this, but mostly, right now what she wanted was to go off on Raven for letting all of this happen-- not just to her, to all of them, but she was still selfish enough that she was furious about the part she'd had to play.

Here was where the wacky came in: she was actually aware of the fact that it'd be a bad idea to do that.

Thus the gym, and the heavy bag, and the trying to wear herself into exhaustion or just burn all the anger off. Probably not the most constructive use of her time, but she cared less about constructive and more about venting.

[[cranky potential is cranky, but open gym post is open! i'm still doing the con thing today so I may be slow, but free con wifi is happy. ironically i may be around more than i usually am on weekends.]]

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By this point, Kennedy was pretty damn close to it.

"I was kinda going for that," she admitted, easing off on the bag; a faint smile crossed her face for a moment. "Hey. Should've known you'd find me here."

"You like your routine like that," Tara said with a little shrug. "At least being here is ... productive."

She leaned back against a padded section of wall. "Are you doing okay?"

She didn't ask if Kennedy had heard. It was safe to assume she had.

"Ask me in the morning; I'm gonna be so sore," Kennedy tried to crack, but it fell short of her usual humor. Also, it was a clear and uncharacteristic avoidance of the question.

"You, uh. You heard too, huh."

"Radio," Tara said. "And then I talked to Dolf, and, uh, he pointed out I should probably call Raven before I bothered Jono or whatever -- just in case the s-squirrels were just being mean -- and she called back and..."

She mutely passed her phone to Kennedy after she'd hit the keys to bring up her most recent message. "We're having coffee tomorrow."

She sounded all kinds of uneasy about that one.

"That... sounds fun." Kennedy gave her a concerned look, but took the phone to listen to the message. "Oh, man. That's gonna be..."

Better Tara than her, honestly, even though she was concerned about how awkward it'd be for her girlfriend; she was still half convinced she'd yell a lot the second she saw Raven in person.

"You gonna be okay doing that?"

"Yes," Tara said, brushing her hair back in a way that suggested she wasn't quite as confident as she was trying to sound. "She ... says she can explain? And Dolf can be a buffer if things get weird, kind of."

She shrugged. "Besides, it'd be weirder trying to avoid her forever."

"That makes you a better person than me," Kennedy said quietly; she recognized the gesture for what it was. "I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet. If you need me after, though..."

She figured Tara would know how to find her.

"It's a miracle, right?" Tara said, with a thoughtful squint. "She died, and came back. It's ... not how things are supposed to work. I have to be curious. Plus, she probably needs ... people" Which was as much philosophy as she could muster.

"And," she added, "thank you. I have no idea what it'll be like."

"You'll do fine," Kennedy said; the need to reassure her was a reflex. "Can you, um... tell her hi for me?"

No, it wasn't how things were supposed to work, which was throwing Kennedy's concept of everything out of whack, and contributed to the perplexed look on her face as she slumped against the wall near Tara.

"Freaking miracle, yeah. Wow. I'm glad, but..."

But something she couldn't quite sort out yet.

"But you want to know how it happened?" Tara asked, hoping and guessing they were on the same page. "'Cause that's ... kind of what I want to do first. That and, um, maybe yell at her a little bit. But I won't."

"Kinda do. Like a lot." Kennedy gave her a tired little smile. "The yelling part... that's kind of what I want to do more, though."

The amount of self-control she was learning was impressive.

"It's not like she chose it," Tara said, trying hard to match the smile as she reached out to touch Kennedy's arm. "She wasn't controlling it. Anymore than we were. Right?"

The demon thing made it hard for her to totally believe that, was the problem. But she would try.

Kennedy absently brought her other hand up to cover Tara's as she shook her head. "No, she wasn't." But-- yeah, there was the demon thing, and years of what was tantamount to indoctrination that kept tempting Kennedy to think that maybe they never should've trusted Raven in the first place because of it. "I keep trying to tell myself that."

Even unspoken, the but it isn't working so well rang fairly clear.

"Me too," Tara said, slumping a bit. "It's just hard. Especially with the whole thing where ... she could have told us something was wrong and she didn't."

They'd been over this ground before. Tara knew that, hence the rueful lilt to her tone.

"I can't believe she would have done it to us on purpose, though."

"No," Kennedy said slowly, as if it took effort to sound at least that convincing. "I don't want to believe that."

Which admittedly didn't stop her from being nervous about this meeting.

"...hitting things is so much less of a headache."

"She'd probably let you hit her if you really wanted to," Tara said. "I mean, it is still Raven."

Not that that would actually help.

Kennedy let out a tiny groan and tugged lightly at Tara's arm. "Been there, done that, don't want the frequent guilter miles."

Plus yes, it wouldn't help.

"Let me know how it goes, yeah, baby?"

Tara laughed a little (a very little) at the groan.

"Of course," she promised. "I'll call youthe second we're done ..."

She gestured vaguely. Coffeeing? Yelling? Making Dolf regret his offer?

"Talking."

Kennedy leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. "Thanks," she said with a lot more relief in the word than she usually expressed. "You're the best, baby. And you're gonna do fine."

The Gym, Sunday Afternoon

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