Third Floor Common Room [Monday evening]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

Celia was not sad that the little girl had left. Not at all. She was relieved -- she'd been exhausted by Margaret's exuberance, and mystified by who her father could be, and all Celia could talk about for the last two days was how much she was looking forward to sleeping the rest of the week.

But now that she was gone, and she'd touched her hair and asked Celia to come with her, and Celia could still remember the feel of her daughter in her arms...well. It was a little different, and she found herself wishing she could take back some of her complaining.

That was why she was sitting on the common room couch with a bowl of strawberry ice cream -- she'd picked a gallon up on her way back to the dorms, after saying goodbye. There had been other flavors, but the selection was overwhelming. She was vaguely watching the television, too, but she couldn't have said what was on.

She wasn't sad. She was just -- regretful, she supposed.

[open cr is open, come be sad or not-sad that your kids are gone. also: ice cream.]

Comments

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Hey, Celia," Jessica said. She didn't have any kid sadness, but she did have some pretty weighty topics on her mind. So she could use some social behavior tonight. "Watching anything specific?" She didn't look like she was.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I have no idea what this is," Celia admitted, gesturing vaguely at the screen. "Feel free to change it. How are you, Jessica?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Conflicted and carrying the full weight of the world on my shoulders, just like all high schoolers," Jessica said, mock-dramatically. "You know how it goes."

She probably didn't, actually. But Jessica wasn't exactly sharing specifics about being asked to join a black ops team.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

She could guess, at least. Though Celia's conflict usually came from an entirely different source than it did today. "Is it typical for our age, then?" she wondered. "I've never been around other teenagers before. I didn't know we were generally so angst-ridden."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Turn on the CW. Odds are you'll get some kind of dramatization of how angst-ridden fictional teenagers are. Real teenagers aren't as bad in some ways and way worse in others," Jessica explained.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I mean, I know how I feel," Celia said, flipping to the channel with the little C and the little W in the corner. "I always just thought I was a bit dramatic."

Not any more than the average teenager.

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

Joker waved a hand vaguely at Jessica. "Kids, amirite?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"You're right, there were kids," Jessica joked. "I didn't have any, though."

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Oh, man, how are you not just laughing at the rest of us? I had an abomination straight out of the darkest depths of bad self-published sci-fi."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"A combination of empathy and not wanting to test the fates," Jessica said. "I mock you for having a bratty kid, who knows what happens to me next."

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Ooooh, good point. Hadn't thought of that. Karma might be something that, y'know, actually happens, here." Joker shrugged. "Every other damn law of physics gets broken in this place, after all. So, how'd you get so lucky? The island charmed by your pretty face?"

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Oh, thank goodness, ice cream," Joker said upon entering the room. "Please tell me that's for sharing?"

Because, let's be honest, if he started drinking tonight he probably wasn't going to stop. Ice cream was a good substitute. This fucking island.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I can even make more appear with very minimal effort," Celia said with a small smile. "Share away."

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Why, thank you!" Joker told her with a grin. "Are we commiserating, or celebrating, here? Because, let me tell you, I am all KINDS of relieved."

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I'm mostly relieved," Celia decided. "Because I definitely do not want to permanently have a six year-old clinging to my hand. But she was sweet enough that I miss her, a bit. Same for you? Or did you have a little terror running around?"

She could see it going either way, honestly.

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, try 'unnatural abomination'," Joker declared. "Well-behaved, wicked sense of humor, and utterly fucking creepy. In order to miss him, I'd have to acknowledge his potential existence, and that? So not gonna happen." He shook his head dismissively.

"But... hey, you miss your kid, I get that. Maybe yours might actually happen one day. Who knows? Besides, with a mother like you, I'm sure she was adorable."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

Eleanor had noticed the sudden quiet settling on the dorms. She could guess at its cause; selfishly, she was relieved, even if most of the other students were possibly heartbroken.

"Margaret left?" she asked, lingering in the doorway. "Are you all right?"

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I'm all right," Celia said after a moment, sighing. "I spent most of the weekend wishing she wasn't here, and now that she's not...."

She trailed off. "Ice cream?"

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"Yes, please," Eleanor said, quickly. "She seemed very sweet. I imagine it would be hard saying good-bye to your own child. Do you still know nothing about her father?"

Anyone else, she might ask if it was perhaps someone she knew from home, but Celia's childhood had been as isolated as her own.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"His last name is Alisdair -- or at least hers is -- and the me of her future has very dark hair and no scar," Celia said, holding up her left ring finger as she spooned out some ice cream for Eleanor. "Other than that...no, no idea. I don't suppose I've met him yet."

She eyed her friend curiously. "Did you not get any little visitors?" Celia had been so busy trying to wrangle Margaret earlier that she hadn't asked.

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"But isn't that ... that scar is for ..." She didn't want to say it too loudly, but Celia had mentioned a challenge, once. A binding contract, marked on her finger. So that was gone? "Did you win, then?"

She shivered a little, thinking about the rest. "I didn't ... expect to," she admitted. "I'm not ... my genes aren't exactly stable. It's not really something ..."

She gave an odd gesture and hoped that covered better than words would.

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Well, hello!" Joker called to her. "Did YOU get saddled with anything this weekend? I am so glad for that to be over!"

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"I got skipped on this one," Eleanor said, offering Joker a wry smile. "I suppose I should have expected that."

It didn't sting any less, for all that.

"What were your children like?"

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Expected? No. Hoped for, wished for, thanked your lucky stars for? That's more like it. I got stuck with a freakish abomination that even the worst sci-fi writer couldn't have dreamed up. Thank goodness he's gone."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"You shouldn't talk like that," Eleanor said, a small laugh escaping her all the same. "I imagine you were every bit the hellion, at his age."