news [for Kate]

[inabmovie]

[dated November 16]

Will had asked Magnus to marry him and she'd said yes. It was the next day and Magnus hadn't changed her mind and Will hadn't changed his mind (not that he thought he would change his mind, obviously, but he wasn't chickening out) so he was pretty sure this was a sure thing

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[inabmovie]

"No," he said. He noticed the way her smile's not what it was a little while ago and her hands are doing this restless thing, but he wasn't sure what to make of it so he didn't say anything about it. For now. (Sometimes he wished he wasn't the kind of guy to notice all the little details.) "I just found these papers, things about my dad. He didn't really do too well after my mom died and he did a lot of stupid things. Gambling, fraud, ripped a lot of people off. He went to federal prison for a while--might still be there, I don't know. We don't really talk anymore.

"So anyway, I found these papers, some of the evidence the FBI had on him from back then, and it got me to thinking about him a lot. And you know, I don't even remember him being around much before my mom died. He was there, but not really. Anything I remember from back then is just her, not the two of them together, so maybe he wasn't there for my mom anymore than he was for me, you know? And I don't want to be that kind of guy. I don't to be the kind of guy that just takes someone for granted."

[girlsolo]

Will's dad was a con. Like her. Kate's hands go still in her lap and she can't look at him. Everything goes still except her thoughts trying to make sense of all of it and she just can't. It's too much. She's not Will to put everyone else first. She's not Will to put anyone else first.

Except Will, right here and now. Right here and now this has nothing to do with her. No matter how fucked up it all feels. She doesn't know dick but she knows one thing: "You're not that guy, Will. You could never be that guy."

[inabmovie]

Will watched her for a moment, taking in the way she went from restless to still and wouldn't look at him. It was weird in a way that didn't quite sit right with him, but it wasn't like he could call her out on it, because what could he say? Why are you clamming up on me? seemed pretty crappy, and he couldn't come up with anything better.

Eventually, he chalked it up to all the time he'd lost, not knowing her as well as she knew him, though he wasn't sold on it and knew he'd be coming back to it later. "Maybe not," he said carefully. "But my dad couldn't have always been this way. Maybe he started out just like... you know. A regular guy. And then let things slide."

[girlsolo]

Kate can feel him looking at her. She always can. Just like she always knows when he's not buying what she's selling. Now's one of those times when he's seeing right through her. She breathes a little sigh of relief when he lets it go. It's just for now. It's always just for now with Will, but she'll take what she can get.

"Will." She puts her hand on his arm. "You're not your dad." I'm not my dad. "You don't know the definition of 'let things slide'." Even though it's hard for her, she looks him in the eyes. "I know. You're not that guy." Kate trusts him. She had a kid with him in another timeline. He can't be that guy.

[inabmovie]

The thing was, Will didn't really think he was that guy. He kept things on the straight and narrow and could sometimes have a stick up his ass about things. But there were times when Will slipped, and he wasn't proud of those, and not just because it made him kind of a hypocrite.

"My dad was arrested when I was finishing up at Quantico," he said, after a minute. "I looked over all this evidence, everything they had against him. And you know what? There was a mistake. It wasn't a big one and it didn't really matter, just a clerical thing. But I told my dad--" He snorted, a sound that wasn't exactly a laugh, but more of a self-deprecating sound. "I told him I'd go in and make it look like something more. A bigger mistake. Something to get his case thrown out. And he wouldn't let me do it. We argued and argued over it and he wouldn't budge and I just stormed out." And that was the last time Will had ever talked to him.

[girlsolo]

"I'm glad he didn't let you," Kate says quietly, immediately, almost before he gets the words out. "Really glad." It's important. She needs him to know how important it is. Important enough that she's voluntarily about to talk about herself. "It only takes one mistake, Will. It only takes one lie, one bad decision and then you have to start covering for yourself. Even if you have the strength to never do it again, the guilt eats at you, the regret eats at you, and you're already a bad seed, so what does it matter?"

She glances over at him and shrugs, tight, head ducked low. "You're stronger than me. Better than me. But once you start down the road, it's a long way back."

[inabmovie]

Will didn't like the way she looked so tight and closed in on herself. He wouldn't have liked it anyway, but on top of the weird vibe he got from her earlier... it was just pinging him in all the wrong ways. So he slid his arm around her shoulders again and said, "I hope when you say this 'you're stronger than me, better than me' stuff, you don't actually mean that you're not."

[girlsolo]

"Quit it. Stop with the head-shrinking." Kate hates when he pulls that crap on her. Even if sometimes she might need it. Without shaking his arm off, she gives a little warning snarl. "I'm not saying anything except I'm glad your dad didn't let you compromise yourself for him. He might've been a fuck-up the rest of the time, but he didn't drag you into it."

[inabmovie]

Will almost pulled away, but since she hadn't actually bitten him yet, just snarled, he didn't actually do it. "Okay," he said. "And I'm glad too, really, I just wish that wasn't the last time I saw him."

[girlsolo]

Kate almost reaches for his hand, almost threads their fingers together. She wonders if this is how it happened in that other world. Magnus gone and the two of them telling secrets, an unbreakable team.

"Sucks, I know. Last time I saw my mom I was telling her off for wanting to take me and Thad to Mumbai. She might even have been there when..." Sigh. She'd almost forgotten how much of their history Will doesn't share. She shakes her head. "We took down Forsythe." It's the most neutral version she can come up with.

[inabmovie]

"Forsythe. Right." Will only had the vaguest clue what she was talking about, from the tiny bits about his future he'd gotten from her which were in a way, more than enough. It felt weird to know things about his own future and he tried not to ask, which was easy with Kate, because she seemed not to want to tell.

He drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and prayed she wouldn't lash out at him again. "Look, Kate... are you okay with this?" It wasn't quite as crappy as why are you clamming up on me?, but it wasn't much better, either. The problem was, he didn't know how to address this weirdness without tackling it head-on, and if something was going on with Kate he didn't want it to fester and come between them. She was too important to him.

[girlsolo]

Would it matter if I wasn't? rides the tip of Kate's tongue but it's only one of a dozen different doors the question opens that she doesn't want to walk through. She feels suddenly like a house of cards or delicate crystal, one stiff breeze or wrong tap and she falls and shatters. Or maybe just lost, and every direction to turn is the wrong one.

She's quiet for a really long time, hands in her lap and plucking at the fabric she'd been toying with when he showed up. Her head tips forward and finally she shrugs. "You and Magnus? Yeah. I am, really. You being happy's pretty much the best thing this island can give me." She means them both, but right now, she really just means Will. "It's just...not the easiest thing. For me. You know?"

This is going to get confusing, fast. She knows it. She's pretty sure from the way he's talking, he knows it too.

[inabmovie]

Will wanted to kick himself. That other future Magnus told him about, the one where she was dead and he and Kate were married and had a son... there were times it ate at him, but he never thought that it might eat at Kate, too, at least not like this. He was just guessing at the source, but it seemed likely. "Yeah, I know," he said quietly. "Because of..." He trailed off and wondered if he should move his arm away. In the end he decided not to move, and to stay close to her, because he knew body language said more than words sometimes and he didn't want Kate to get the wrong idea. "You know."

[girlsolo]

Abruptly Kate's struggling with a flood of emotion so strong her instinct is to run fast and far and stay away. How is she even supposed to talk about this? Her lips press together and it's really not enough to stop the tears that want to come.

She blinks and closes her eyes to force the emotions back. She guesses they have to start with the thing he's probably worrying about. Neatly, it's kind of the only thing that's easy to talk about about this. "It's not... I'm not jealous, if that's what you think. Path not taken, whatever, no big."

[inabmovie]

"No," he said quietly. "I didn't think that. That you would be." The problem was, he didn't know what to say even though he knew they had to say something or it would become some kind of Thing that fucked them all up. Anything he could think of to say felt like it would be arrogant or condescending or just plain wrong.

[girlsolo]

"When I'm the one who has to do the talking, we're so screwed," is what she finally says after a few more minutes of them both just staring at nothing and not knowing what to say. "Um, so. Here goes. I guess. Can we... is this okay to talk about?"

Someone, somewhere, some other version of Will, probably, or maybe the versions of them that are together somewhere, are laughing at them. Kate can almost hear it. Perversely, that makes her feel better.