truth and beauty are wonderful words but shrapnel is shrapnel
[20:48] * Elizabeth hasn't been to the bar in...forever. It's late and she's tired and she's still carting around pictures of houses and pros and cons lists and her assorted Very Organized plans, which she drops on the bar in search of a drink.
[20:50] * Threnody comes in from the back, and stops when she sees Elizabeth. "...hey."
[20:51] Elizabeth: "...hey! Hi. Hello." Elizabeth smiles, sort of hesitantly - they haven't spent a lot of time together lately and she's missed Threnody, but things have been...odd. "...I'm making coffee, did you want some?"
[20:52] Threnody: "Ah--yeah, sure, sounds good. How're you?" Thren sits at the bar.
[20:52] Elizabeth: "I'm good. Busy! It's nice, just - tiring." If she slept more and wasn't a stick figure, she might not tire out so easily. "How about you?"
[20:56] Threnody: "Uh--the usual, I guess." She leans her elbows on top of the bar. "Bills, all that. The girls are good?"
[20:58] Elizabeth: "The girls are good," Elizabeth confirms, getting mugs out. "We're...looking at houses at the moment."
[20:59] Threnody: "Oh. Really?" That...startles her, but she guesses--well. Okay.
[21:00] Elizabeth: "We're not going far," she says, determinedly not Making A Big Deal, "I don't want to be far away from anyone and I don't want to uproot Jessica and Jazz from their school already, but it'll be...good." There's a pause. "Nathan's coming with us."
[21:06] * Threnody 's expression shutters, and she's very still for a few seconds. "Big happy family, huh?"
[21:16] * Elizabeth inhales, and pours coffee. "Something like. I don't think he's got any illusions about being a father." Or...any desire, she thinks briefly of Nicholas and then doesn't.
[21:24] Threnody: "We'll see." She's all sharp edges and all twisted up in her chest, and she wants out of this conversation and maybe this entire bar, right now, but she doesn't move. Instead she just shrugs. "Good luck with that."
[21:25] Elizabeth: "Thank you." Elizabeth sort of murmurs it, and pushes the other cup of coffee toward Threnody. "I'm sorry I've been so antisocial," she adds, carefully.
[21:31] Threnody: "I haven't been any better," Thren admits, "But hey, PTSD or whatever. It happens."
[21:34] * Elizabeth smiles sort of, and sips her coffee, leaning against the bar. "Well, I've missed you."
[21:37] Threnody: "It's been a while. But with Chas gone and everything, I've just got al ot of shit to do, you know."
[21:39] * Elizabeth nods. "With the bar, and...everything?"
[21:42] Threnody: "Yeah." She looks down at her coffee like this will somehow make things less awkward. Help, coffee.
[21:49] * Elizabeth taps her fingertips against the bar for a second, and then says, "My car turned up, also. Apparently it was also used to smuggle some kind of monkey, though...I don't know."
[21:50] Threnody: ".../what/. What the hell for?" O_o
[21:51] Elizabeth: "I have no idea, actually - when I went up to help Maria move in, in New York, I was interviewed about it. It was surreal."
[21:53] Threnody: "Rare and exotic pets?" She rolls her eyes. "New York is fucking crazy."
[21:56] Elizabeth: "That's a constant of the multiverse." Contemplative pause. "In places that have a New York."
[21:58] Threnody: "Haven't been many places that don't." But maybe she should, someday, because she's sick of anything resembling her own society.
[22:02] Elizabeth: "Even home still had one when we left, I think." Not that Elizabeth was really coherent at the time.
[22:06] Threnody: "Home." That kind of entertains her in a wry way.
[22:06] Elizabeth: "'Dead planet that I'm originally from' takes longer to say," Elizabeth observes, a little wry too.
[22:08] Threnody: "Oh, is it dead now?"
[22:09] Elizabeth: "From what I understand."
[22:24] Threnody: "Sucks," she offers, sympathetic but still kind of unsure of herself.
[22:27] * Elizabeth misses it sometimes; the people, more, but...well, she doesn't like to talk about that on the best of days. She ducks her head over her coffee, for a second, and exhales. "Yeah. Well - I should get home, soon - I'll come by and bother you this week." Decisively, with a kind of...anxious 'we can't be awkward FOREVER I will subdue it with the force of my affection' underneath it.
[22:30] Threnody: "You should." She means that. And maybe she'll even try to be less--this, because she feels guilty for not being different. "Not like I've got anything planned."
[22:30] * Elizabeth puts her coffee down, gathers up her paper, and ... hugs Threnody, because she really did miss her and she really will. "I'm going to. Have a good night, Thren."
[22:32] Threnody: "...you, too." Thren bites her lip and watches Elizabeth. She hopes she's been eating.
[22:32] * Elizabeth smiles and slips out.