(Untitled)

[angela_edmunds]

[after this...]

Angela doesn't quite know what to do. She just feels...sad and sort of confused and upset.

She wanders around the bar for a while before going to a booth and sitting there with her head leaning against her hand, looking very depressed and like she's trying not to cry.

Comments

[_righthandman_]

Chase and Kim are in the booth right behind her, talking quietly and intently, though loud enough for their voices to be recognizable.

[angela_edmunds]

Angela can hear them and there's a few moments of awful self-doubt and fear before she makes herself get up and head over.

She stands beside their booth, fingers rubbing at the table, looking down at her feet.

"I need to talk to you guys?"

[_righthandman_]

Chase looks up, startled--he hadn't noticed her there.

"Sure, Angie, what's wrong?"

He could use a moment's break from thinking about Curtis' death.

[angela_edmunds]

Angela is actually pretty freaked out, and, still not looking at him or anything else but her hands, she tries to ask what she wants to ask.

She's just not sure how.

"I heard. Something, and I need to know. If you and Mom..."

Angela's eyes begin to burn.

"...think I'm a mistake?"

[agirllost]

Her breath catches in her throat and she covers one of Angie's hands with her own.

"Did Melou tell you that?" Her voice is almost a whisper.

[angela_edmunds]

That makes Angela laugh though the tears that are aching in her eyes. "No, Mom. No. I..."

She swallows. "I went out of the bar to help these kids, and..."

Her voice and her entire body are trembling.

[_righthandman_]

Chase wouldn't put it past Melou, whom he's never liked--and surely he wouldn't give Angie that impression himself, would he?

His eyes narrow.

"Angie," he says firmly, "nobody thinks you're a mistake."

But all the same--he can't just end this conversation there. There's more that will need to be said, he can tell.

[agirllost]

"You went out of the bar? To another world?" Her hand tightens on Angie's, as if she can keep her near by sheer force of will.

And too many other emotions are making it difficult to think clearly and she keeps seeing that final image of Curtis -

Her grip relaxes and she hopes she hasn't hurt her.

"Never a mistake."

[angela_edmunds]

Angela still isn't looking at anyone.

"Thought I could help, but that was stupid. I can't help anyone."

Much less myself.

"There were bad things. Nightmares."

[_righthandman_]

"We all have nightmares."

He still remembers--vaguely; it was only a dream--a nightmare from his first few weeks in the Bar. Angela had been an infant, nine months old.

"You can't let them make you think that way, Angie."

His voice is even firmer, to the point where its edge is almost hard. Tough love; that's Chase.

[agirllost]

Her eyes widen slightly at the mention of nightmares and she can't ask how real they felt or if it was physical or if she heard that haunting laughter.

Kim's free hand absently touches her collarbone, remembering when she woke up with the imprint of teeth and the smell of blood.

"They can't hurt you," her voice is stronger than she feels and without realizing it she's grabbed onto Chase's arm.

[angela_edmunds]

Angela recognizes the tone in her Dad's voice, and almost smiles. That's her Dad all over.

"It was all so real and everything was so dark..." She swallows. "And it sounded like you, Mom, so it was easy to believe you might not have...wanted me."

She's still standing by the table, still not looking at them.

"It's all stupid."

not stupid, I'm scared and I don't know what to ask and I don't want the answer

[_righthandman_]

Think we might not have wanted you?

"You think we might not have wanted you?" he echoes. "You think Kim and I raised you, loved you, sacrificed for you, but we didn't want you?"

He shakes his head. That hurts. It doesn't just sting, it's...not right.

"I gave up my career so that you wouldn't have to grow up with a father who never came home until you were in bed," he says, his voice low. "So you'd have someone to take you to the park on weekends and pick you up from sleepovers and be around while you were growing up. I gave up field work so you wouldn't ever have to worry about losing me. Kim and I gave that up because we didn't want you to grow up without the things we didn't have. That is what we didn't want, Angela. Not you. You don't know how much we both gave up because we wanted you."

He can feel the tension in Kim's body beside him, and he can't blame her.

[agirllost]

More than tense, she now knows how her Dad felt when they fought and she'd say that one line that knocked the wind out of him.

Chase is answering and he feels far away because if Angie still doubts her love and commitment, no words will ever work.

She thinks of the little girl at home, the one that they have had to leave with Miriam and her Dad, because the threats are so large. Is her Angie curled up in bed and thinking that she's not wanted?

"If it was easy to believe then there's nothing I can say," her voice comes out soft and she can't look at Angie.

[angela_edmunds]

Angela, for lack of a better word, flails.

"No...no, that wasn't what I meant," she says, becoming more upset. "It was a nightmare and it was dark and it was grabbing at me."

She sinks down into the other side of the booth. "I know you guys love me. There's no way I could not know."

After everything? Of course there isn't.

"It's just...I didn't know about your jobs. I didn't know that."

And hearing it confirmed just freaks her out a little more.

[_righthandman_]

Chase sighs, distractedly clenching and unclenching his hand.

"I quit field work because I wanted to," he says, looking up at her. "Not just because of my hand. I was planning to leave before that happened, because I wanted to be there and be a good father to you. Not 'cause I felt...obligated to, or anything like that. I wanted to be there for you. I don't regret it."

It occurs to him, thinking, that maybe she's getting confused about things.

"Sometimes...I wonder what would have happened...you know, if things had happened differently. But Angie--that isn't the same thing as regretting it."

But he knows how real nightmares can feel sometimes.