A Corner of the Park, Sunday Late Afternoon

[thismaskiwear]

After Emma's funeral arrangements had been taken care of, Katchoo had headed straight back to Fandom, too preoccupied with moping feeling sorry for herself formulating a way to explain this to Francine to be aware that she'd been spottedShe felt like her suitcase looked, and from the looks of it the trip through baggage handling had been rough (and

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[bigdamndestiny]

Taking Brynn on her usual walk--okay, she was mostly dragging him, but it was still exercise for the dog!--Merlin paused at seeing Katchoo, looking around to see if anyone else was about before approaching.

"Katchoo?"

[thismaskiwear]

Don't --" she began reflexively, then looked up. "Merlin? Figures," she said, no energy left for any crankiness even if she was. Which she wasn't, actually.

[bigdamndestiny]

And now he was thinking back to what Francine had said about their last fight. "Are you alright?"

[thismaskiwear]

Yeah, she was wondering what Francine had told him about that, actually.

"I'm alive. Could be worse."

Dear god, did she just almost sniffle?

[bigdamndestiny]

She might have.

Which made Merlin look around again before tugging on Brynn's collar to sit next to her and offer---yup, his neckerchief.

[thismaskiwear]

When Katchoo realized what he was doing it got a tiny, awkward laugh out of her. "Thanks, but . . ." She shook her head. "Is she really pissed at me?"

[bigdamndestiny]

"I think more worried than anything," Merlin replied. "But... angry, yes."

[thismaskiwear]

"Don't blame her." Katchoo rubbed a hand over her face and . . . yeah, okay, that was a sniffle. "And there's no way to explain this to her without explaining everything else. I said I would, yeah, but . . . god. It's a mess right now."

[bigdamndestiny]

"Why can't you explain it to her?" Merlin asked, trying to tie Brynn's leash to the bench.

[thismaskiwear]

Maybe it was easier to say things like this with a puppy around. Yeah, that was her story and she was sticking to it.

"Because I'm scared to. I'm tryin' to work out a way to say 'Hi, Francie, I can explain where I've been, but to do that I gotta tell you all about how I lied to you about huge chunks of my life, so I hope you're sitting down.' Y'know, without making her more pissed off at me than she already is."

That . . . might kind of be impossible at this point, Katchoo.

[bigdamndestiny]

Merlin looked down, sighing once at that. "It may not be easy, but it will help."

[thismaskiwear]

"God, don't let her hate me," Katchoo muttered, only half to Merlin. Unless he was God and she just hadn't gotten the memo? She took a deep breath, looked away, and ventured, "I . . . just got back from a funeral."

[bigdamndestiny]

"I'm sorry, Katchoo," Merlin said with a wince. "Are you alright?"

[thismaskiwear]

"I'm not the one who got put in the ground." Cheerful, Chewie. So cheerful. "So, relatively, guess you could say I am. Kinda screws with my headspace for heavy conversations though."

[bigdamndestiny]

"Were you close?"

[thismaskiwear]

"She saved my life, so . . ." Katchoo shrugged one shoulder, gave him a crooked smile. "Yeah. We were."