(no subject)
It's an unfamiliar bed. Comfortable, oh yes; more comfortable than any hotel room she's been in, for all that the amenities are modest. The room is lovely, spare and well-appointed, and she doesn't want to ask how the dresser contained pyjamas exactly in their sizes. The bed is soft, thick-pillowed, covered in soft sheets and a thick down comforter. She's used to their own places -- middle age does that to you, and the beginnings of age in your bones -- but Regan has always prided herself on adaptability. And it's very comfortable.
It's long past midnight.
She can't sleep.
Gabriel's finally asleep, she thinks. She's not certain. For an indeterminately long time, she could feel him lying next to her, motionless and insomniac, just as she is. But his breathing has slowed, sometime in the past hour.
Her mind is a disorderly whirl. She can't put her thoughts in order.
That's all right. Every time she focuses too closely on half of it, she feels a tight knot of nausea tighten in her stomach.
It's not a water bed. Impossible to get motion-sick on a mattress. It just feels like it.
The room is dark. There's moonlight through the gauzy curtains; it silvers the glass on the impersonally soothing pictures, casts shadows deep as the black of space in the pooling folds of a wall hanging.
Gabriel explained things. Not everything -- there's far, far too much. Some of it he glossed over, or told her enough to keep her from making a fool of herself without explaining the underlying reasoning. That she shouldn't say certain things to Mr. Fell or anyone resembling Andronicus Crowley, the ways in which the bar worked -- no mention of magic, and she was grateful; no mention of any technology to explain it, either.
Explained about a ship, and she knows full well he avoided some details there and is ignorant himself about more. She doesn't have to know. She wants desperately to know every detail about her children's lives -- she doesn't have to know.
Has forfeited the right to know, whispers a tiny treacherous voice inside her. In the midnight silence, such thoughts are louder. She can't shove it away, and she can't quite deny it.
She's remembering Simon's face.
Almost challenging, almost compassionate, almost bitter -- now do you understand, Mom? Maybe there's no 'almost' to any of that.
Did you even read these?
She's not fine.
Something's wrong.
Everything's wrong.
Maybe it always has been. How much did she not notice? How much did she will herself not to see?
No, she thinks desperately. They were happy, once. For years. They were. She remembers -- Simon laughing, and River smug, and River dancing around the living room, and the two of them curled together on the couch, dark heads bent over their homework -- she remembers so much.
She remembers holding them for the first time. Each one. Simon first -- cradling his tiny form in her arms, still sore from the birth, marveling at his hands and feet, his toes, his eyes. River, five years later, no less miraculous. Remembers carrying each of them inside her, feeling the fluttering kicks inside her belly. Wondering who they'd become, what they'd be like. Waiting to meet them.
Love is an ache in her throat.
Where did it all go wrong? How much of it was her fault?
Too much to take in. Too much. Her head and her broken heart are too full.
She has to take it in. Tomorrow morning will come, and she'll have to rise, and smile, and function, and go down into the (mó shù) bar, and deal with whatever comes. Deal with it with grace and aplomb and no more second chances.
But that's tomorrow.
Not tonight.
It's long past midnight.
She can't sleep.
Gabriel's finally asleep, she thinks. She's not certain. For an indeterminately long time, she could feel him lying next to her, motionless and insomniac, just as she is. But his breathing has slowed, sometime in the past hour.
Her mind is a disorderly whirl. She can't put her thoughts in order.
That's all right. Every time she focuses too closely on half of it, she feels a tight knot of nausea tighten in her stomach.
It's not a water bed. Impossible to get motion-sick on a mattress. It just feels like it.
The room is dark. There's moonlight through the gauzy curtains; it silvers the glass on the impersonally soothing pictures, casts shadows deep as the black of space in the pooling folds of a wall hanging.
Gabriel explained things. Not everything -- there's far, far too much. Some of it he glossed over, or told her enough to keep her from making a fool of herself without explaining the underlying reasoning. That she shouldn't say certain things to Mr. Fell or anyone resembling Andronicus Crowley, the ways in which the bar worked -- no mention of magic, and she was grateful; no mention of any technology to explain it, either.
Explained about a ship, and she knows full well he avoided some details there and is ignorant himself about more. She doesn't have to know. She wants desperately to know every detail about her children's lives -- she doesn't have to know.
Has forfeited the right to know, whispers a tiny treacherous voice inside her. In the midnight silence, such thoughts are louder. She can't shove it away, and she can't quite deny it.
She's remembering Simon's face.
Almost challenging, almost compassionate, almost bitter -- now do you understand, Mom? Maybe there's no 'almost' to any of that.
Did you even read these?
She's not fine.
Something's wrong.
Everything's wrong.
Maybe it always has been. How much did she not notice? How much did she will herself not to see?
No, she thinks desperately. They were happy, once. For years. They were. She remembers -- Simon laughing, and River smug, and River dancing around the living room, and the two of them curled together on the couch, dark heads bent over their homework -- she remembers so much.
She remembers holding them for the first time. Each one. Simon first -- cradling his tiny form in her arms, still sore from the birth, marveling at his hands and feet, his toes, his eyes. River, five years later, no less miraculous. Remembers carrying each of them inside her, feeling the fluttering kicks inside her belly. Wondering who they'd become, what they'd be like. Waiting to meet them.
Love is an ache in her throat.
Where did it all go wrong? How much of it was her fault?
Too much to take in. Too much. Her head and her broken heart are too full.
She has to take it in. Tomorrow morning will come, and she'll have to rise, and smile, and function, and go down into the (mó shù) bar, and deal with whatever comes. Deal with it with grace and aplomb and no more second chances.
But that's tomorrow.
Not tonight.