Room 508, Sunday afternoon
Ringo had started the day by grabbing a box of donuts right as JGOB opened and taking them out to the causeway. She'd sat there for hours, slowly eating her way through the box, some tiny part of her hoping that two particular people would come walking up and share the pastries with her. No one had, though. Besides, even if one or both of them
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Seeing Ringo there snapped him out of that particular reverie.
"You're already clearing it out," he observed, sounding dismayed. He understood someone would have to sometime, but it had barely been a week since the last message. "What's your hurry?"
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"I just," she paused, looking around awkwardly. "I just didn't want the school to do it, with the new term coming up. I, um, I didn't know what they'd do with it all." And she didn't want anything getting thrown away.
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He circled closer to the pile of boxes, brushing one with his fingertips. "Where will you put it all?"
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So they'd be there. Ready and waiting. If anyone ever came looking for them.
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Not that he was expecting that in the slightest, but he still felt better knowing Kathy's things weren't going straight into the trash.
He wasn't going to ask whether Kathy had left anything for him. It would hurt too much of the answer was no.
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She took another breath and blew it out. "There're, um, some things addressed to you. If you want them." If not, well, she could pack those away, too.
She didn't quite look at Anders as she told him that, though. Not sure she wanted to intrude on whatever expression he might make. She knew that if someone had told her that there was something left behind for her, she would have needed a moment or two to process that.
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He couldn't imagine what it was or why, but he wasn't about to turn down a last connection.
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She offered Anders an expression that might charitably have been called a smile and picked the wrapped box to hand over first.
Given the matching paper, he could probably figure out the other gift was his, too, even without reading the tag.
"There's a card, too," Ringo added softly.
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She shrugged. "Maybe there's an obscure American one? Or a Korean one?"
Except Ringo hadn't gotten anything, so she hoped not.
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He eyed the large box and the envelope. "I think I'll read the card next. Just so I know what I have to thank for this besides Kathy being ridiculously generous."
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He sat down on the edge of the bed he still thought of as Kathy's as soon as he read Happy birthday, Anders!. His brow furrowed and he glanced at the taller box when he got to the mention of a staff, but by ovaried up and told you already the tears were in his eyes. He blinked hard, sniffled and wiped his eyes before turning to Ringo.
"It's for my birthday," he said, sounding strangled. "She bought presents two months early, and wrote a love note to go with them, and did everything I would have wanted except come home when she should have."
He was both incredibly touched and unbelievably angry. (Why couldn't Kathy be brave about love, and a coward about things that could actually get her killed? That way around was a lot more use.)
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"That's a very Kathy thing to have done," she said softly. She hesitated for a moment, then reached out, seeking to gently brush her fingers across his shoulder. Just a reminder that even if they didn't know each other all that well, they shared this, at least.
She wanted to offer something else, but wasn't sure what to say. If she knew how to comfort someone feeling that sort of pain, she would have used it on herself.
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He wiped his eyes again, steadying himself, and looked back at the staff box.
"I think I'll save that," he said. "Open it closer to my real birthday, so I have a little bit of her waiting."
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"I know it doesn't, doesn't really make anything better." Not even close. "But I'm glad you got something."
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