Ephemeris, Ch. 2-A post-For Better or Worse (6 x 23) Caskett multi-chap WIP
Title: Ephemeris, Ch. 2
WC: ~1500 this chapter, ~3900 so far
Summary: "Every time, Martha listens, quiet and unshakeable. Every time, she is the same, immovable object. She's a grown woman. She's his daughter. I can't keep it from her, darling. I won't."
Kate stares at the neat line of Martha's bags waiting by the door.
There's movement upstairs. Martha's heels tapping back and forth. Last-minute things, though Kate would like to think she's stalling. That she won't leave with this fractured mess between them.
That she'll listen.
But she has listened. It's the knife that twists, and Kate hates the unkindness in herself. The sharp edge of fear that won't let her admit it, even inside her own mind. Martha's done nothing but listen. She's nodded and let Kate say her piece, time and time again since she came down the stairs to find Kate motionless at the dining room table. Yesterday. Just yesterday that she let the words leave her own mouth for the first time.
It's not him. Martha, it's not him.
Martha has been quiet. Steely after the initial rush of joy and even that was almost wordless. Almost.
Alexis. My God. Kate, it's . . . I don't care what time it is in California.
She's heard everything since then. Every word Kate has managed to choke out.
That they don't know anything, really. That he could be dead anyway. Some other place. Some other way. He could be dead, and it's cruel to make anyone else live like this. To make her live like this.
She's listened to every argument. That it could jeopardize the investigation. It could put Alexis in danger, because they have no idea who's involved or what they want. Who or what else they might use to get it.
Every time, Martha listens, quiet and unshakeable. Every time, she is the same, immovable object.
She's a grown woman. She's his daughter. I can't keep it from her, darling. I won't.
Martha appears at the top of the stairs, fastening on an earring. Zipping something into the case dangling from the crook of her elbow. Kate raises her eyes, hopeful to the last, but it drains away in the lift of Martha's head. In the set of her shoulders. She's not stalling. She's going.
Kate's chin drops to her chest. The floor swims before her. Everything in her burns. Everything hurts so badly that she's not even aware that Martha is near until she's limp in her arms, sobbing.
Martha waits for her to quiet. Silent herself until Kate stills at last.
"I'm sorry, dear." She catches a few stray tears with her thumb and smooths the hair back from Kate's face. "I'm truly sorry."
"You're sorry." Kate straightens. Pulls away. Her voice is a wreck like the rest of her. "But you're still going to tell her."
It's flat and cold. Cruel enough that Martha flinches. Cruel enough that Kate breaks a little more.
She expects Martha to leave. To go without looking back. It's no more than she deserves, but she's motionless at Kate's side. Wounded, patient, and silent.
"Martha . . ." Kate turns to her, more than half afraid to look, but Martha gives her a weak smile. She opens her arms like always. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Martha soothes her. She lets a few tears of her own slip. She speaks. Tentative. Not the words themselves, but how to say them. What she has to say has the solidity of something long in coming. Kate realizes it's the first time. That for all the hours Martha has spent listening, she's never explained. She's never said her piece.
"I watched, you know, darling." It's her story-telling voice. Some wan, thinned-out version of it. She's as exhausted as Kate is. Worn out with hope and fear and the distance that stretches taut between them over this. "I watched Richard fall in love with you. And I watched him lie to you. Every time with the best of intentions. To spare you, to protect you. To save face and keep some place in your life when he thought you'd never love him. When neither of you would see that you already did."
The words sink to the pit of her stomach. She's sick with it. Every memory like a new wound. But she listens. She owes Martha that at least.
"I begged him-every time, I begged him-to be honest with you." There's frustration in it. Still, after all this time, though it's softened to something closer to sadness. Gentled for her sake. For Kate's, because what's coming next is harder still. "And I held his hand every time another lie blew up in his face. His and yours."
Martha looks down at her lap, surprised to see their hands knotted tight there. Kate's surprised, too. That even in this-even after the way this has battered the two of them-they come together.
"I don't claim to know better. I don't know if two people as stubborn as you had to go through it all like that. If you'd have burned each other to ashes years ago otherwise, or if maybe you would have had . . ." Her voice breaks. "If you would have had more time."
Kate's eyes close. A brilliant fantasy on the back of her eyelids.Time. The thousand things they might have done with it. All the ways they might have wasted it. But time.
"Katherine, you and Alexis are all the family I have left. For now. Maybe for good." The steel creeps back into her voice. Conviction. The immovable object. "I have heard every word you said. I know everything we don't know and how little we have to go on. But it's more than Alexis has. And I can't let her go on with nothing."
Kate is unmoving as Martha uncurls her fingers, gentle as ever. She's still, the scent of powder and perfume filling her mouth and nose as Martha leans in to kiss her cheek in her own silent goodbye. Frozen until she hears the tumble of the lock.
Her eyes open, then. A decision made.
"Can you bring her home?" The sound of her own voice is alien. Far away and so unsure. "Can we tell her together?"
They decide on the Hamptons. Martha decides, really, and Kate is tugged along. She has no idea how to do this. It's what Alexis wants, anyway, and Kate is surprised. Startled and envious of the girl's certainty that this is where she wants to come home to. Aching underneath.
Kate will leave. Whatever happens-however it goes-she will go back to the city and the two of them will stay. That's the subtext, and it hurts.
Martha goes alone to meet the train from the city.
Kate wanders the house, trying not to feel frantic. Trying not to think of coming exile. She's so unprepared for this. So unprepared, but it's easier than she feared it might be. Easier here. It wraps around her. The certainty and relief of this place, wholly altered and wholly the same.
She traces her own steps. She turns the same pages and curls up in his robe. She leans her forehead against the glass and sees storms rolling in the way he always did. A vivid cast of characters in the swell of clouds and the skirl of wind over the water.
She's not really angry. She was worried.
He'd pulled her in front of him, closer to the window to watch the clouds part and the sun stream through. Silver and gold piercing the grey as the storm broke up and drifted away.
Worried?
Worried. See how her brow is still all furrowed up. Like yours gets . . .
She'd reached back to pinch him, but he'd stolen her hands. Held them up to sketch the shape of thunderheads in the distance, and she'd given in. She'd leaned into him. Turned her face to breathe him in.
Why is the storm always a woman?
She just is. One of the great mysteries of the universe. The storm is always a woman.
It's not that his presence is stronger here. He's everywhere, now she's learned to recognize him. The loft. Her apartment. The precinct. She's learned to hear him. To let her mind go where his would and to feel him propping her up when she can't go through the motions of this. Of everyday life. He's everywhere if she'll let him be. But here it's easier to rely on the strength that comes with knowing he's somewhere in the world.
He is. Whatever she's said to Martha-whatever they all say out loud to keep hope in check-the conviction that he's not gone carries her from moment to moment and day to day. She's past caring whether it's logic or fate. Whether it's her mind or her soul that knows.
She knows. And she is stronger here. Surer of her place and the job she has to do. Because this isn't the place filled with the last things he did. It's filled with the things he left unfinished.
A/N: Thank you for reading and for the support on Ch. 1