(Untitled)

[playingtheenemy]

While there were many causes in the world to be patient for, Ainsley was long past her point of tolerance. She had been patient for a job clerking with Dreifort and she had been patient as she waited for opportunities on television to crop up. She had been patient while she had tolerate bills passing through the Senate and she had been patient in

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[moraldyslexic]

"Hey, what's up?" Lennox asked as he approached Ainsley, finding her staring down the clinic door like it was going to attack her if she moved too quickly. Glancing at it, he decided that it didn't look all that dangerous and so he looked back at Ainsley again, mouth turned down into a curious frown.

"So... what's going on? Everything cool?"

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley ducked her gaze away rapidly, not sure she wanted to be seen in this position and definitely not with the way her whole body seemed to be shaking out of fury at being told when to give up. She swallowed hard and managed a half-smile at Lennox, still avoiding looking him fully in the eye. "Remember what we talked about? And trying? I'm still...still trying and I'm starting to think it's not possible."

[moraldyslexic]

That wasn't the sort of thing Lennox liked hearing and his frown deepened, watching Ainsley curiously for a long moment. "I guess you probably don't wanna hear my usual optimism, do you?" he asked, although he was still more than happy to give it, if that was what she wanted to hear.

[playingtheenemy]

"I'm here because I'm starting to consider other options, James," Ainsley admitted, her voice breaking slightly on the 'consider'. All her life, she thought that she could put her career first and wait to have a family and live that life, but she had waited too long, it seemed. "Which would be fine, but I'm processing the acceptance that I can't do it myself. I don't like failing. I've never liked failing. I consider myself something like allergic to failure because it has just never happened on such a grossly high level before."

[goingtodorking]

Karen stands and watches Ainsley for a long time, chewing on her finger joint and not at all sure what to say. Grown-ups aren't supposed to cry and, when they do, children don't know what to say. So she just stands there, staring, with her finger in her mouth and ShorHor's head against the back of her thigh.

Poor Ainsley.

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley's breath shook sharply when she turned her head and saw Karen staring at her. Almost immediately she composed herself because Karen wasn't supposed to know about any of this for this reason exactly. She didn't need to inflict the turmoil of failure on a child. "How long have you been standing there?"

[goingtodorking]

"A little bit," admits Karen, still chewing on her finger joint. "Why are you upset? Did...um...Shadow shout at you or something? One time, my Mummy and Daddy had an...um...argument and then Mummy cried while she was....um...loading the dishwasher."

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley slowly crouched so that she was leaning against the wall, checking the ground beneath her before settling into a sit and coaxing Karen closer. "Oh, honey, no, Shadow didn't shout at me," she promised. "If Shadow shouted at me, I would have gone on a very long and emphatic rant back at him and then I would have felt much better," she admitted, prattling on with honesty being as she felt that Karen deserved it. "I just feel really bad today. You know those days?"

[abbysciuto]

Abby saw lots of people go into and out of the clinic. She didn't see a lot of people stand at the doorway and stare at the clinic doors like they were working on their bending spoons trick. She didn't want to intrude if Ainsley was needing some privacy, especially once she noticed that she seemed upset, but at the same time, she couldn't walk by either.

"Want some tea? I was gonna make some with the Bunsen burner," she offered casually, putting her mortar and pestle down and approaching Ainsley.

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley was startled out of her reverie, but managed to find a smile for Abby when she came back to her own mind, finding it a bit funny that she'd let herself get so far. "I'd ask if you had anything to make it stronger, but I really shouldn't be jinxing myself now, even if the universe is already doing it for me."

[abbysciuto]

"Well, I do, actually, but I only get it out on really bad days," she shrugged, putting the beaker on to boil and then leaning against the counter just inside the one open door. She had a drinking water beaker. It was labeled that way and everything so there were no H2O versus H2SO4 incidents.

"For you, I could make an exception, because you look like you're having one of those."

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley followed Abby slowly, her pace feeling as if she were drifting, feet taking her forward while her mind was occupied with deeper thoughts. "I really shouldn't," she reiterated quietly, more filled with self-blame than a moment before. "I've been...well, unsuccessfully attempting to render myself with child for something like the past six months and I'm afraid that while no success has befallen me, I'm sure one drink would somehow jinx my chances for the next year. So I shouldn't, but thank you for the offer."

[playingstupid]

He slowed down as he came down the hallway, eying the blonde figure standing in front of the clinic door. She didn't move as he approached, her frame tense and shaking. She was a few feet from the door itself, almost like she was staring it down.

He slowed to a stop by her side just as she scrubbed her face, almost as if gearing up for something. He glanced back at the door just to make sure (yep, normal Compound door), and looked back. "Ainsley?"

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley turned to see Josh, trying to compose herself. He had to see her when she was strongest, if only because he was one of the few that would know her back home if ever they somehow got there. "Josh," she greeted, but her voice was brittle, even against her will for it to be that way. "Hi! Where are you...where're you headed?"

[playingstupid]

"I was headed for the kitchen," He gestured vaguely, suddenly uninterested. "What about you? The clinic make fun of your mother or something?" His brow was furrowed; for all the humor in his question, he wanted to know what was going on. Ainsley definitely seemed upset.

[playingtheenemy]

"I think if the clinic insulted my mother, she would have made many disparaging marks about its weight and its genealogy, don't worry about that," she joked weakly, not really putting her whole heart into it. She swallowed hard, wishing that this wasn't so difficult to think about. "I'm thinking of going in and talking to a doctor." A not-Rollie doctor, she told herself, fingernails pressing against her palm.

[alittleofboth]

Anthony had been paying more attention to the book in his hand than the people in front of him as he walked down the Compound hallway, but something about Ainsley's stance gave him pause. They had known each other a long time now, and grown close in a strange sort of way, but still it was unusual for him to see her so entirely nervous and exposed. Slipping the book under his arm, he raised his brows slightly and frowned in genuine concern. "All right?"

[later than a very late thing, gah. If you're done taking new tags, that's okay, you can ignore. XD ]

[playingtheenemy]

"Not really," she said, her laugh bottoming out as she replied. She crossed her arms tightly around her chest to secure herself away from the world somehow. She didn't know exactly what she was supposed to be feeling in this situation, but none of it was good, not at all. "I don't like failing, Anthony, I really don't at all."

[alittleofboth]

"That's why you never fail," Anthony said simply. He knew she had been trying to have a child, but his mind did not immediately jump to that, despite the fact that they were outside the clinic. He leaned against the wall beside her. "What happened?"

[playingtheenemy]

"Six months, no result?" she offered as the prognosis for why she had come to be standing where she was, looking at a door like it was Death and it was waiting for her. "I am genuinely, deep down in my heart, starting to believe that it is never going to happen."