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[isdelta]

It seemed like a long time since she had last thought about her mom.  One day she was a sort of dead beat mom who came around from time to time, left money on the kitchen counter for food and stuff, and then the next day she wasn't there

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[isdelta]

When she was first called down to identify a body she didn't really want to think that was actually a thing. Like, sure, she knew that on cop shows and everything that they would pull people down to personally ID someone if they weren't sure, if there was no formal identification on the body but she went down there thinking that it was some sort of joke, that they were going to show her something and she was just going to walk away. Her mom, in this place? Under some white sheet on some cold an impersonal metal table?

Not her mom. Never her mom.

Her mom was somewhere warm and sunny with a fruity beverage on her hand having wild sex with some handsome, potentially younger guy.

Not stabbed and beaten, dead, waiting to be found.

Maybe it's not really her, maybe she didn't get a good enough look, the face is so weird, so different, alien and inhuman, empty of life and blood. And she wants to make sure but she can't stare at that for so long, she just can't.

Her stomach rolls over and she sort of takes a step backward, away from the window, into Andy's arms. "I don't . . ." know? care? what to do?

[isdelta]

Dylan just sort of leans against him, her eyes open, blank, staring, sunken in to a dark, haunted hollow. Never before has she felt so old, so tired. She was so, so mad when her mother went away and suddenly she, Dylan, was thrust into a new role as adult, as someone who had to try to go to school and had to try and work in order to just to get something to eat. Dylan hated the woman, but her hate never extended to this conclusion and now she feels achingly lost, achingly guilty, it eats away at her insides, gnawing on her bones and kicking vicious feet into her nerve endings till it becomes a very real pain to her.

She opens her mouth to say something when he says that he'll take care of it. Oh, Andy, so big and so strong, he'd take on the world for her if she asked. Her arm slips around his waist and she leans into him, against the big and broad of his chest and shakes. Her fingers wrap in the fabric of his shirt and clench hard.

"It's not your responsibility."

[isdelta]

"We don't have the money for a funeral." Which seems kind of a cold thing to say but it is a solid thing to say. It's something that she can control, or, can't control but is a statement of fact. Maybe her mother had life insurance, that makes sense. Maybe there would be money in that to cover those expenses and have a little something left over for them.

Oh God, what a horrible thought.

They need the money though, she doesn't, she never really needed it. Someone was always looking out for her, for the ex-Mrs-Foster, and now Dylan had to look out for herself, for Andy.

Who will have to lead her from the viewing room. It's possible that she got smaller while he got bigger, she has always been sort of tall and skinny, but she feels a lot smaller and more fragile for some reason. "I don't know," she says again, randomly.

[isdelta]

She doesn't have the strength to tell him that they can't work it out. It's just too much. There is just so much that they already have on their plate and this just pushes it over the edge. All the work, the school, the bills, and now this, and this is something that is bigger than everything previous.

Everything hurts. Inside out, everything has taken a vicious beating, body, soul, all are down for the count and she doesn't even know where to begin with mending all of that.

"What if I'm wrong? I could be wrong," she straighten up a little bit and moves to go back into the room and up to the glass. Of course she has probably 200 pounds of Andy holding on to her, and the massive wall that is Bobby Goren blocking her.

[isdelta]

The world isn't a very easy place for most adults. For two barely adults who don't have degrees, its damn near impossible and they have a lot of support. Andy's family, Bobby, Lisbeth, and they also have some sort of way to make money and Andy is in the process of getting a degree. Which is to say they have a lot going for them, but not enough it seems. They make it work, but it is staggeringly difficult.

And suddenly all their struggling and working seems to be nothing, at least for Dylan. What's the point of it all? Why fight and claw for everything when they just end up like her mom? Dylan gasps and then breaks out with a sob as she turns back into Andy and gets her legs to move too the exit.

Her tears are as much for them as they are for the dead woman. Dying is easy, living is hard. Though, from the look of it, her mom didn't die easy. "Who? Why? I don't know why..." And her voice cracks and takes on a small quality.

"I want my mom."

[isdelta]

Dylan curls herself up against his chest, hiding in his arms and against the soft and familiar scent of his shirt. That makes things better, his arms around her, the strength of his arms and his words. And yeah, her rational mind knows that they won't figure out who did this, what happened. That job is police work and neither Andy nor Dylan are at that level and they probably don't want to be.

Still, it's nice to hear it from him, that he wants to figure it out, that he realizes that she is hurting and needs to hear something like that.

It's all tears and sniffles in the fabric of his shirt, her head and heart pounding in wicked pain. Her eyeliner, mascara making a mess of her face, all black and watery. So carefully applied that morning.

Bobby would have some damn solid leads, the professor boyfriend, hell, even Dylan's dad. Maybe he got tired of paying the bitch for leaving him.

"I want to go home."

[isdelta]

The world feels insanely, intensely cold outside. Outside of the building, outside of his arms. She flinches away from the cold and the sun and sort of curls herself into her jacket and body. Wiping her face off with the sleeves of her coat she sniffles and cries quietly her steps shaky and an uncertain weave, like she is drunk and not just blind with grief.

All she wants to do is curl up in bed and get very, very lost in something other then her thoughts and the misery that is suffocating her. Maybe she'll throw up, that sounds like a solid idea, or get really, really drunk so that she feels horrible the day after. Anything so she doesn't feel the way that she feels right now.

"I never thought... I just thought she was... Gone because she didn't want me anymore."

[isdelta]

His coat might be magic. It wraps around her and she is warm and safe, shielded from the rest of New York and the prying eyes of people who pass and possibly stare at the two teenagers who, at times, look a few shades next to homeless. She clings to his side and continues to cry softly, hidden with the great big folds of his coat, in the darkness and protection that provides.

Yes, she wants to curl up. She doesn't know if she wants to be alone or not, but she'll curl up. He'll probably not want to stick around for her curling up session but he will if she asks. Half of her wants him to stay, the other half knows that all she'll be doing is sobbing into a pillow and she doesn't want to subject him to that. She sounds small from inside the great coat around her. "Do you think she was alone for a long time? Waiting for someone to find her? Maybe I could have done something to help her, what if I could have?"