[Emily Littleton]
Yule, 1994 -- Manchester HouseGod rest ye merry gentlemen...The carolers, bundled up in their cream and crimson and ever-green, crowded the front stoop of the Manchester house, filling its foyer with songs of good will and harmonies of peace on Earth. Tidings of comfort and joy. Their voices carried up the heavy wood staircase, down the plaster-walled hall, and through the double doors of the room where the dark haired child slept. Her small body was overrun with fever. Stray strands of her hair clung to her sweat-beaded brow.
Outside, the night was peaceful. The moon had lost only a sliver of its fullness and the moonlight cast long shadows across the roads.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy-----------
Yule, 2009 -- Chicago, IllinoisThe night is cold, and the crescent moon is swaddled in blankets of thick clouds. Now and again she breaks free of the grey long enough to cast weak shadows across the frozen ground. It is too cold, too dry to snow, and what precipitation does come falls as hard ice pellets. Denser than hail, far crueller than snow.
Emily has found her way to Jarod's building, mostly from memory. Things are subtly different about her. She wears slacks instead of jeans, for one. For another, her footfalls sound more cripsly (
proper shoes [not trainers or stompy boots]) against the sidewalk. Her hair is swept up and wrapped back into a tidy knot at the back of her head, secured by a couple jewel-toned clips. Her sweater is touchably soft, and not obscured beneath countless layers. The silver chain around her neck is visible, but the star it holds fast (
close to her heart) is tucked under her shirt. It beats out a melody of its own, of comfort and joy, calling
Home, Home, Home.The Orphan waves to the doorman, grinning brightly. She offers him one of the two boxes she carries -- inside are home-baked cookies, from Old World recipes, and a pair of clementines. She wishes him a Happy Christmas, in her muddled accent. She asks after his family. And after she is done being delightfully pleasant, she asks if he might take the other box up to Jarod... or, if it wasn't trouble, let her up to drop it off herself.
[Jarod Nightingale] Charlie, one of the building's newer doormen, was more than well aware of the rules. And Mr. Nightingale in penthouse A on the 10th floor had never once given any indication that certain individuals be allowed in without his notification. But the girl standing in front of him now had been to the apartment on multiple occasions, and furthermore... she was offering cookies. And it
was nearly Christmas. Giving Emily a warm smile, he graciously accepted the gift (bribe) and walked through the lobby to the elevator, using his key to open the doors, and then again to access the top floor before nodding a good evening and stepping back out. The elevator doors closed, and up Emily went.
Once she'd arrived at her destination, there was only a few paces of marble entrance-way between herself and Jarod's apartment. If she listened carefully, Emily might hear the muffled sounds of two voices barely permeating the thick wooden panel of the door. One of them was Jarod's familiar timbre. The second was distinctly female.
[Emily Littleton]
Yule, 1994 -- Manchester HouseO, come, all ye faithful...He pressed the cold stone beads into her palm, and helped her to close tiny, nimble fingers around them. The child barely opened her eyes to watch him as he knelt beside her bed. She was so tired, she could barely move her head. His fingers were impossibly cold against her skin; hers hand burned like fire, threatening to wipe away his very fingerprints.
"Pray with me, Emily," he said, in a voice that was still and expansive. Like a quiet lake. Still water, running deep. She willed her mind to focus on the peacefulness of his voice, the drone of his syllables, and soon the sounds were lost in an overwhelming sense of rest. Emily let go, and fell further into sleeping.
-----------
Yule, 2009 -- Chicago, IllinoisShe would not consider it bribery, offering cookies to the doorman. No! It was simply what people did during the holidays. They offered comfort, traded good cheer, breathed in the cold and out an immoveable faith in humanity. (
Hope.) Emily had the unusual fortune of spending many Christmasses here in a row. They totaled three now, and she felt oddly at home in the city. Stranger yet, she had people ... to bake with, to share with, to miss when the nights grew short again.
It is not until she exits the elevator that Emily considers Jarod's social calendar. That he might have company. That he might not want her to visit. She is so accustomed to running into him without planning, that the finer details planning a meeting eluded her.
Her footfalls stop, just outside his door. Just within earshot of the twinned (
twined?) mumurs that slip out beneath the heavy (
heart [heartwood] wooden) partition.
Catching her lower lip in her teeth for a moment, Emily considered the wisdom of not knocking. Charlie downstairs would see her come back with the box, and he knew that Mr. Nightingale was in -- No! That wouldn't work. She could leave the box and -- No! Emily had never stayed only a few minutes at Jarod's flat. She could knock, and brave interrupting whatever tete-a-tete Jarod was hosting -- Woe! There were consequences there that Emily did not yet want to incurr. Or she could stand in the hallway, waiting for Fate to make her choice for her. Which was dangerous. At best. And...
She knocked twice, cleanly and clearly, then stepped a little away from the door. Emily did not ring the bell, if there was one. She found that crass. She simply knocked, and waited, and hoped that delicious cookies and a warm smile would be enough for him as well.
It had worked with the doorman.
Jarod was definitely smarter than the doorman.
If (
when) the door opened, she'd be smiling brightly. Because it was Christmastide, and she came bearing cookies.
[Jarod Nightingale] There were countless other nights when this situation could have gone very badly for Emily. Despite their... relationship? It was completely unknown how Jarod chose to spend the nights when they were not together. Perhaps he had an entire harem of lovers that visited him on various different nights of the week. Or, then again... maybe he was a little more normal than his persona built him up to be. (Most people were.)
In any case, Emily found herself outside of his door, and there was clearly another woman inside, but having already come this far, she braved the potentially uncomfortable situation and knocked. Twice. The voices inside stilled, and a few moments later, the door swung open to reveal... not Jarod, but someone unfamiliar. A girl close to Emily's age (perhaps a year younger), with pretty mixed-ethnic features bearing a primarily Asian cast. Her long brown hair was layered with streaks of bright pink and blue, and a small ring adorned a pierced nose. Like Jarod, her eyes were blue, though of a much lighter, crystalline shade (almost colorless). She was wearing a pair of tight jeans that ended mid-calf, and a pink satin camisole, and stood a few inches shorter than Emily herself did.
The unknown girl smiled brightly when she caught sight of Emily (and her box of cookies), and she stepped back to beckon this new guest inside, turning around to meet Jarod's gaze as he came around the bend in the hallway. "I believe you have a visitor." Her eyebrows went up meaningfully, as if she'd just found something precious and secret of his and was dying to open it up and see what was inside.
For his part, Jarod looked a bit... surprised. Here was a face he hadn't been expecting to see tonight. Certainly not... in this particular fashion. But he strode forward quickly and moved to shut the door that the younger girl was still holding open. "So I see," he commented with a small smile in Emily's direction before shooting the other girl a piercing stare. (Classic sibling code for:
behave yourself.) "I'm surprised the doorman let you up here." (There was a slight note of disapproval in his tone, as if this spoke ill of said doorman's trustworthiness.)
The girl coughed rather loudly and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Maia, this is Emily. Emily, my sister Maia."
Sister. The important word of the evening. Not lover or friend with benefits or one-night-stand or random pretty flirtation number 2,463.
[Emily Littleton]
Yule, 1994 -- Manchester HouseAn elder woman, with wide argent swaths to her salt-and-pepper hair, stood at the end of the bed, long delicate fingers wrapped around a small, silver ovoid that called out
Home, Home, Home in the same voice as the very floorboards of the old house. She watched the sleeping child with worried eyes, grey like overhead clouds, troubled.
"Let her rest, Eleanor," he said, with the same quiet-calm voice. The rosary was tucked into one pocket, now, but the restful calm had not abated. The room thrummed with a protective warmth. "This is not Emily's time."
He led her from the room, pulling the doubled doors shut behind them. Outside the snow had just begun to fall.
-----------
Yule, 2009 -- Chicago, IllinoisAs Emily looked between Maia and Jarod, her bright, well-meaning smile shifted to something more devious (
playful [wicked]). The mischeviousness spread to her eyes, making the twinkle brightly despite their dark fields. Light blue eyes met deeper blue eyes and the sudden, near telepathic clarity of purpose that was the privilege of teenage girls came quickly into play. Maia was, after all, closer to Emily's age than Jarod. And Jarod had been, for some long, so stoically calm.
She quirked an eyebrow, let one corner of her mouth raise a little higher than the other, shifted the box in her hands so she could offer one to Maia. "A pleasure," she said, not needing to offer her name. "Happy Christmas."
Behave yourself, he'd glared to Maia. Jarod had eyed no such thing to Emily. Some part of her was all but gleefully dancing in place she kept far, far hidden from prying eyes, far far tamped down and inscrutable. And...
AND she had surprised him, which was a present in and of itself. Oh, later she would surely pay for being so (
smug) pleased with herself. But for now, it was absolutely delicious.
"How long are you in town for?" she asked Maia. Con-ver-sa-tion-a-lly. Because she was just curious, that's all. Emily toed her shoes off her feet, and lost about an inch and a half of height when she stood barefoot on the floor again.
And for Jarod? She offered over the box, and an explanation. "Oh... I just wanted to drop off some cookies for you." She looked between them, still grinning warmly. "There's enough for you both,
if he feels like sharing." Let the good-natured, all-in-good-fun ribbing begin.
Jarod had been on his best behavior with her roommates. Sort of. (
Not. At. All.) Emily's flavor of best behavior was a little different, it seemed.
[Jarod Nightingale] Oh, the girls were enjoying this. And Emily did not even know yet how absolutely delightfully devious Maia Nightingale could really be. When Emily offered her the cookie, she accepted it with a warm smile and took a bite. "Oh, thank you!" A couple of tiny crumbs fell to the hardwood floor, and Jarod's eyes followed them instinctively, but he was too polite to say anything while company was around.
Maia's own eyes glittered as they shifted between the box of cookies and Jarod's face. "Isn't that sweet? She brought you cookies. I wish someone would make
me cookies." She was teasing, clearly, and from the absolutely puppy-dog expression she tossed her brother (
awwww, she mouthed silently), she was thoroughly enjoying the opportunity. "I'm just stopping by for a quick visit. Drove in from Madison on my way home. I was sent on a mission to try and cajole my dear, catty, absolutely no-fun brother here into actually coming to see his family for Christmas. Heaven forbid. Now you
must tell me how y'all know each other."
Y'all, she'd said. And there was that slow Texan drawl that rolled along with her words. Not the obvious, cowboy cliche. No, she was a big city girl. Her accent was light. But it was there.
Jarod managed to take the teasing in stride, though he did glower slightly when Maia made that
isn't-she-adorable face at him. He looked down at the tin of cookies that Emily was holding out for him, as if the idea of baking cookies and wishing people Happy Christmas was completely alien to him. Still, he reached out and took it from her, noting with reluctance that the baked treats inside emanated an absolutely heavenly scent. He reached over and set it down on top of the granite counter in the kitchen, and his eyes flickered back to Emily's own. Wary. Contemplative.
"She was just about to leave, actually." Hinted in Maia's general direction. Then the faintest glimpse of a smile touched his lips. "Thank you."
"And here I thought that models couldn't eat carbs," Maia interjected as she reached over to steal a second cookie without asking permission.
"We make exceptions on special occasions," Jarod commented with a slight hint of irritation, watching more crumbs fall onto the floor.
[Emily Littleton] "Oh," Emily said lightly, with a little wave of her hand now that it was free of gifts and other encumbrances. "I didn't make them
for Jarod." Because that would be silly, because models don't eat carbs. "I was baking with Enid--she's taking the holidays hard this year, her boyfriend passed not long ago--but I can't exactly bring these with me on the airplane... and I don't want to surrender them at security..."
Which led her to the logical conclusion of offering them around. To people she knew, like Jarod. Playing with Maia was decidedly less fun than Emily had thought it might be, and Jarod's sister was getting CRUMBS on the FLOOR!
It was hard to believe these two were cut from the same cloth.
(
I. Am. Not. Adorable!)
She watched another crumb fall, with slightly less palpable annoyance than Jarod's own.
"... And very few people I know are well traveled enough to appreciate traditional cookies." The way she said
tradition was very different from how the Awakened community tossed it out, but no less resonant. Tradition meant something, offered structure, bound disparate wheres and whos into a sense of Holiday, of Community. It was all Emily had to give her a sense of grounding.
"I could go if you two want some more sibling time," she said, keeping that warm smile (
cheer and good will) on her features, holding onto it like a life raft in the trouble glare-ridden waters of Nightingale-sibling-interactions. "I have to pack anyway."
[Jarod Nightingale] "No," Jarod replied quickly, which said more about his present feelings than perhaps his initial hesitation may have. (Men were supposed to greet home-baked cookies with expressions of great enthusiasm, after all. And they were supposed to notice when a girl they'd been sleeping with had dressed up.) "Wait a moment, will you?"
Like he'd said. Maia was just leaving. Or so the look he shot his baby-sister implied. Neither he or Emily had actually answered her question, which may have spoke of a similar desire on their part not to acknowledge relationship details (which, after all, meant acknowledging a relationship of some form or another.) Or perhaps a simple desire for privacy. Either way, Maia was to be left unsatisfied. She pouted dramatically, looking for all the world like the youngest child of a wealthy family who was far too used to getting her way.
"Oh, alright. Fine. I get the hint. Jarod, I'll be at Mike's place tonight. I'll call you before I leave in the morning. Not too early, of course. We're going to make margaritas and sing karaoke with his roommates." She grinned with impish delight at the prospect of anything resembling a party.
Jarod smirked. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Maia uttered a shrill, boisterous laugh as she slipped on a pair of knee-high black boots and grabbed her coat and hand-bag out of the closet. "I wouldn't worry about that, brother dear. You're pretty much impossible to top. Goodniiiiight." Her bird-like voice trilled knowingly behind her as she closed the door, leaving Jarod and Emily in relative silence.
Jarod looked at the ceiling and let out a long-suffering, deep sigh that seemed to release tension from nearly every muscle in his upper body. Then he swung his eyes back down and rested them on Emily for a long moment. "Sorry about all that. She's a bit... much."
Indeed it
was hard to imagine they were even related, were it not for the fact that they looked alike. Perhaps their lives had consisted of different experiences. Younger children were sometimes more sheltered than the rest of their family, and Maia was quite a bit younger than Jarod was.
His eyes traveled from Emily's face to the silver chain at her neck, then worked their way down her figure and back up again. She looked... nice. It was probably the first time that she'd been better put-together than he had, since they'd met. Jarod himself was dressed in the kind of outfit one might lounge around the apartment in: jeans and a t-shirt. He was barefoot, and the shirt was solid black and clung to his torso stylishly.
"So, where are you off to?"
[Emily Littleton] Emily managed to stay out of the way as the tempest-waiting-to-happen that was Maia swept past her, gathered her belongings, and knowingly slipped out the door. Emily managed to get a
have fun! in there, along with a little wave, but she was secretly hoping Maia hadn't ground any of those wayward crumbs into the floorboards. Jarod's head might explode if she had.
Given the sigh he let out, his head was probably very close to exploding already. (
She's a bit...much.) "Little sisters are supposed to be," Emily said, with an amused quirk to her features that left him wondering how personally Emily knew about little sisters, and their relationships to older brothers. She didn't have one of her own... (
younger sister [older brother]) did she?
It was easier to breath after Maia left. There was less Nightingale-Nightingale tension. Jarod, on his own, was intense enough to make Emily uncomfortable a times. Imagining a family full of Nightingale siblings was ... terrifying.
She had not come near enough, yet, to give Jarod's little sister any hint of their relationship (
what relationship?). Which means she had not come near enough, yet, to succumb to the subtle gravity that often ended up pulling them together. It left her to watch him, with appreciation, as the tension dropped out of his body. And to watch him, with curiosity, as he found his center again in Maia's absence.
"I'm leaving to visit my parents," she said, still lightly, still touched by the unexpected surprise of finding his ineffable sister in Jarod's foyer. "They asked
nicely and I haven't seen them in awhile. I should be back after New Year."
Should. Not will. I'm leaving. Not I'm going. Some patterns were too clearly written in Emily's past, in her habits, for her to change them now, for him. She was
leaving and she
should, but might not, be back in a few weeks.
"I take it you're not going home?" she asked, turning the question back around to him, and Maia, neatly. While she waited for him to answer, Emily crouched down and starting picking up Maia's crumbs by pressing one finger to the floor and then knocking off the ones that stuck into her upturned palm. It was possible they bothered her almost as much as they bothered Jarod, or that by being helpful she was avoiding his train of questioning almost as completely as they'd both ducked Maia's.
[Jarod Nightingale] "Ah, well... I hope you have a good time, in that case." If he noticed anything odd about the way she phrased her response, he didn't acknowledge it. (
After all, people did leave. And sometimes they didn't come back.) "I'm... not really sure if I'm going home, to be honest. I wasn't planning on it, but it's been a few years and apparently my step-mom is pitching a fit about how we're never all in the same place for the holidays like a
normal family."
The way he said this, it seemed that the prospect was more of a chore to him than a welcome homecoming. Perhaps his family was a bit... fractured. It might explain the reason why he and his sister were so different... right down to their opposing accents. (Hers from Dallas, his from.... nowhere in particular.) But Jarod didn't really want to talk about his family. That much was obvious by the way he seemed to tense up again upon mentioning them.
And Emily was picking up Maia's crumbs, which... surprisingly, proved almost heart-melting. Jarod's eyes softened as he watched her do this, and if she happened to glance up, she'd see something like gratitude there. Maybe even a little more than that. There was a stainless steel trash can residing under the sink, and Jarod obligingly walked over and opened the cabinet door so that Emily could get to it.
"Where are your parents at?" Since she hadn't yet offered up the particular detail of
where. And although sometimes he might seem as if he wasn't paying attention to these little details, there was actually very little that he didn't notice.
[Emily Littleton] There were no normal families. Emily might have told him this, if something about his tone implied that the topic was unpleasant, uncomfortable. She let it be, and focused on cleaning up the small mess his younger sister had left behind. She did look up, but just for a moment, and seeing the softer expression (
which she took for relaxation, nothing more) made her smile.
Emily stood up from her crouch and padded her way over to the trash can. She brushed the crumbs carefully from her fingers, and then washed her hands at the sink. While she was drying her hands, she turned to lean face him and leaned her side against the counter.
"They're in Taiwan right now," she said, as if this was an entirely normal occurence. Emily folded whatever towel she'd used to dry her hands with, and placed it beside the sink. If Jarod noticed, and he often noticed, its fold was perfectly parallel to the sink. She was particular, too, in her own way.
"I... honestly didn't think about the carbs thing," she confessed, looking up at him apologetically. "If you don't want the cookies, I'll take them to the flatmates." Emily was still perturbed with them, so they didn't get proper names of their own.
[Jarod Nightingale] "No, I want them." The cookies, that was. "But I warn you, if I get dropped by my agency for weight-gain and have to take up prostitution to pay the rent, it'll be all your fault."
He grinned, then leaned forward and kissed the top of Emily's forehead affectionately. His lips lingered there, warm and soft, and his breath brushed against her hair. "Honestly. Thank you."
When he pulled away, he turned and started walking into the living room. "I take it they move around a lot. Judging by how many cities you've lived in." He could recall quite clearly Emily's reaction that first night when he'd tried to ask her about this particular subject. "Where in Taiwan?"
He sat down on the couch and pulled his feet up, back pressed into the joint where the arm rest met the back cushion and arms draped loosely across his knees. It was a casual pose, but somehow still managed to look graceful and perfectly posed. He had an odd knack for that. Infuriating, some might say.
[Emily Littleton] Her eyes closed when he kissed her, and Emily stilled for a moment. Came to rest. If he hadn't known her better, Jarod might think that her breath had caught in her chest. Emily was just very good at being still. Quiet. (
But not stealthy [an entirely different game]). She pulled that moment in, tucked it away in a deep, visceral part of her mind. It would be a long time, possibly (
probably) never, before she stood in his kitchen, barefoot, like that again. Before he kissed her, like that, again.
Emily padded along behind him on the balls of her feet. When he dropped down into the sofa and assumed his somehow regal slouch, Emily scanned the living room and decided the better of sitting next to him on the couch. Jarod liked his legspace, she remembered. Instead, she sat on the floor beside the couch. Near enough to touch (
tease [torment]) but not in his way. She was comfortable like that, too. Perhaps Emily was descendant from a long line of people who secretly wished they could sit on the floor, but were forced into stiff British furniture anyway.
"Taipei City," she replied, once she'd gotten settled in a way that left her casually within his arm's reach. "I'm not sure beyond that, though. Thankfully someone's coming to pick me up at the airport." The way she said it made it sound like Emily had no idea who that might be, and wasn't particularly interested in figuring it out before she arrived.
[Jarod Nightingale] Jarod watched Emily sit on the floor and tilted his head slightly to one side. A curious expression. It was... duly noted, how and where she chose to sit. For a moment he let it be. Instead, he mused on things like Taipei and family and awkward social gatherings. And the complete absence of warmth and comfort that Christmas usually left him with, contrary to its public persona. Not that it mattered, really. It was just a day, like any other.
"When are you leaving, exactly?"
Because he wouldn't want to keep her if she needed to pack. (Or perhaps, conversely, because he didn't want her to leave just yet.)
[Emily Littleton] "I have a red eye out, Christmas Eve."
Emily shrugged a little bit. Travel was travel. She'd spent several birthdays in airports. Christmasses wasted watching the snow pile up outside of the terminals. It didn't bother her any more. She actually prefered to travel on Christmas, because so few people would. There was a special sort of solace to be found at 30,000 feet. Isolated. Broken off from everything for a period of hours. Emily would use this trip to think a few things through. Like Jarod.
But that was not now. Now was sitting near him, but not tangled up in him. Talking to him like she imagined normal people talked to one another. Not about magic or innuendo but about the quiet, tiny details that made up the rest of one's life, Awakened or otherwise.
"I may be the only one wishing against a White Christmas," she jested lightly. But she was hoping against snow. Starting the adventure off with runway delays was... brutal.
She looked up at him quizzically for a moment. Fondly. "So if you're not going to see your family," she didn't make the mistake of saying
home this time, "What are your plans for the holidays?" It was a light, take it or leave it kind of question. He could answer flippantly, like she most likely would have on another night or at another time, if he wanted.
[Jarod Nightingale] [Man+Subterfuge - *innocent whistle*]
[Emily Littleton] (Perception + Subterfuge --
Oh this game again?)
[Jarod Nightingale] He had, in fact, said that he wasn't sure if he was seeing his family. It was interesting that Emily had took that to mean a more-than-probable negative. Perhaps she'd already gotten used to the idea that he was the kind of person who never did things unless he wanted to do them. Doing things for selfless reasons seemed entirely an alien concept in conjunction with the persona he tried to put out.
She wasn't leaving until Christmas Eve. Well then, he didn't need to be so terribly concerned about letting her go just yet.
"There was never snow on Christmas, when I was a kid. I have to admit, though... I much prefer having it. Don't think I could move back to a warm climate." Between the various cities he'd lived in since graduating high school, he'd long-since adapted to Northern temperatures. Almost as if he were a native. It was in his blood, after all. On one side of the family, anyway.
But she'd asked him a question, hadn't she?
"I'll probably just stick around here. Christmas isn't really... something that I do."
[Emily Littleton] "I can appreciate that," she said, nodding a little. Emily shifted, leaning back against the couch and tipping her head back so it rested against his leg. Her eyes were closed and she looked thoughtful... no, restful. It was different, somehow, than content. And Jarod, for all his aloofness, could read the subtle difference though he might not know what to make of it.
She could appreciate it, but Emily didn't say whether she could understand, adopt, or approve of his isolationist plans. Her eyes flickered open again, leaving her looking up at his ceiling. Musing something quietly in her mind, something that slowly wound its way into words. (
Since we're sharing...)
"We used to spend Yule and Christmas," so they were two different things to her, "At my grandmother's in Manchester." The city she'd left off of the list she'd given him, way back on that first night. "For several years straight, almost like a tradition when I was young. I don't remember why we stopped," she said, though Emily
could have remembered if she tried.
She closed her eyes again, and breathed out the memories like nothing more than spent air. "Anyway... I wanted to apologize for the other night, with my roommates." The abrupt shift of topic left no wake in her expression. "It is strange, having someone over to
my place. I haven't really had a
my place I would want to share with anyone, save the Manchester House, but it's not exactly somewhere I can bring you... now."
The little word at the end curled oddly. It drew her eyebrows together for a moment, then released them. Now. Because the house had changed? Now. Because now was a bad time? Now. Because Emily did not go back? She left it, unexplained and mildly unhinged from the rest of the sentence, but it was not a syllable she wished (
needed) to elaborate upon.
[Jarod Nightingale] Jarod shook his head gently when Emily offered her apology. No apologies necessary. "Really, it was fine. You were fine. Don't worry about it. Besides, we had fun, right?" The incident had ended rather well, from his perspective. As evidenced by the faint twitch of a smile.
She told him about her childhood. About home. In an odd way, it felt more intimate than kissing. This slow reveal of the pieces of history that made Emily who she was. And for all that it seemed such a casual, easy subject... he knew that it wasn't. Because this topic was nothing close to casual or easy for him either. (And yet, here they were. Talking about it.)
"My old neighborhood... it's one of those places where everyone is sort of required to spend thousands of dollars every year getting a professional light display put up on their property. Dad always got one of those manger scenes, and my mom... she hated it. She hated anything religious, really. One year she went out with a baseball bat and just completely destroyed everything. That was... a memorable holiday." And despite the bittersweet nature of the memory, he laughed gently, pulling his knees in closer to his chest.
"Anyway, I guess she rubbed off on me a little. And then, after she died... things were just... weird."
He looked away. At the large glass doors that led out to the balcony. At the lights from the city outside.
[Emily Littleton] When he spoke of his mother, Emily did not offer her condolences verbally. She did not lift her head, look at him with eyes brimming with sympathy. Instead, she remained quite still. The only part of her that moved was her hand, which reached up, up past the opposite shoulder, up far enough that she had to turn slightly. She reached back to lay her hand against whatever part of him was there. A knee, most likely, or some other part of his pant leg.
(
I'm here.)
Emily sat with him for a moment, with her hand resting on him meaningfully. Not with sympathy or sadness, but simple human compassion. Affection.
(
I'm here.)
He looked away, out the glass doors of the balcony. She counted the time that passed in the space of heartbeats, exhalations, not sweeping movements of a clock's hands. If he could feel her heartbeat from across the room, Jarod could certainly feel the steady thump of it in her chest here. Near enough to touch. Near enough to reassure.
[Jarod Nightingale] As strange as it felt to talk about it, it was similarly disquieting to have Emily there, with her reassuring presence and her hand resting on his leg. Jarod had to fight the urge to pull away and break the contact. It felt almost
too intimate, in a way that made his stomach knot. But despite that... she could not have given him anything more. Anything better. How many people had offered saccharine sympathies that made him want to snarl and rip the world apart?
I'm sorry for your loss. She's in a better place, now. It'll be okay. Everything will be okay.Lies.This was better. This was honest. After a long stretch of silence, Jarod moved one of his own hands and let it settle on hers. Gentle contact shared.
"Anyway, I just... if I acted strange at all, last week, that's why. December 14th was the day it happened. I mean, it was a long time ago so... it's really not a big deal. But I know I get a little weird around then, typically." It was roughly the equivalent of Emily's own apology earlier. Though his was a little more awkward. He wasn't used to such open honesty, or apologizing in general. He certainly wasn't used to having to try and explain away an inexplicable desire to simply hold another person for a prolonged length of time.
[Emily Littleton] She let the the quiet hang there, suspended, for a little while longer. Then Emily tangled her fingers with his, squeezed briefly. She slid her hand out from under his and pushed herself to her feet in one fluid movement. Emily, now standing beside the couch, leaned down and kissed his forehead. It was an exceedingly gentle gesture. The some of affectionate display reserved for very small children, or sleeping loved ones.
"Of course it's a big deal," she said softly, but firmly. "She was your
mother." Emily's eyes met his, but only for a moment. They were dark blue, slightly stormy, and immanently calm. He did not find reflected sadness there, only open acceptance.
She straightened up, pulling away from the intimate moment as gently as she could. "I'm going to put the kettle on," she said, assuming he had a kettle. He made tea, so clearly he had a kettle. Emily said this unequivocally, and clearly. Not so soft. Not so gently.
And then it was her turn to walk out of the shared space, leaving him to follow if he wanted. Or to stay.
[Jarod Nightingale]
She was your mother.
But he didn't continue this line of conversation, because... really, he couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. And inevitably it led to questions like
how? and
why? and then to memories of terrible therapists who sat and stared at him like they expected him to fall to pieces at any moment. Or his grandmother loudly insisting to his father that he was simply... broken. (Not this son. He won't be normal, now. May as well focus on the others. The ones that can still be salvaged.)
Anyway, like he'd said. It was a very, very long time ago. Another life. Another reality. It all felt distant. Like a dream.
And now Emily was kissing his forehead and offering to put the kettle on, and it all felt just a little too...
maternal. He held still for a long moment and watched her walk away towards the kitchen, and there was a very flat expression on his face. Like he wasn't entirely present. Finally his eyes seemed to refocus (and yes, Emily would find the steel kettle sitting on the back burner of his stove), and he cleared his throat gently.
"Tell me about your Grandmother's house."
[Emily Littleton] This was the first time Jarod had seen Emily in a kitchen space, truly. Seen how naturally she moved into it, how precisely and yet fludily she lifted the kettle by its handle, filled it, and returned it to the range top. Each subset of movement was almost an after-thought. Those same movements, in nearly the same spatial relationships, had been practiced time, and time, and time again. Emily barely had to think in the kitchen, and what thoughts did come flowed over (
through) her like water.
"Hmmmm," she replied, thoughtfully, over the sound of running water. "It's quite old," she said, and Jarod knew that
old in Britain meant something entirely different than
old in Chicago. "And as far as I know, she lived there her entire life."
She looked down to flick on the burner, and then faced him. Leaning against the counter with her arms folded over her middle.
"There's this truly impressive staircase," she said with a fond smile. Emily looked down, and to the right as she reached back into her mind's eye for descriptors. "At least it seemed impressive when I was seven. I'm sure it would be rather plain to me now." A pause. A breath. "The third stair from the top squeaks, and I never could remember."
Home. Emily's fingers strayed upward, up to toying with that thin silver chain. To tease the locket out from under her sweater.
Home. Home. Home. It's heart beat in time with her words, kept to the same cadence. And the more she spoke, the clearer its resonance became.
Home. As if the locket, or whatever it housed, was as intrinsically linked to the Manchester House as Emily was.
"I spent a lot of time there in the winters. When I was young." She didn't say I lived there. "But I kept mostly to two or three rooms," Emily paused, and realied this might sound odd. So she added, in the spirit of sharing. "I was ill often in the winter." An explanation.
Home said her voice, and not in the things-wished-for or things-imagined sense.
Home said the heart that she wore around her neck. Emily tucked it back under her sweater. Shrugged lightly.
"Mostly it was a big, old house full of doors I wasn't supposed to open -- but did anyway -- and secrets I never quite learned." There were still mysteries to solve there. Things that called her back, though Emily rarely answered.
Time had passed. Tiny beads of perspiration had gathered along the edges of the steel kettle. Soon it would shriek, and they would both twitch in that way that particular people did when something shrill and slightly unwelcome entered their aural space.
[Jarod Nightingale] She spoke, and he listened. It was a more comfortable position, listening. Absorbing. Learning.
For a long time he remained where he was, but towards the end he unfurled his limbs and stood up, pacing near-silently towards the kitchen to join her. He arrived right when the kettle started to hiss and steam. Before it whistled. But his taste in tea usually tended towards the varieties that needed slightly less scalding water anyway. He reached over and took the kettle off the heat before she could do so herself.
And all the while the locket hummed.
Home. Practically alive with memories. Jarod reached out and ran his finger along the silver chain (playing with fire), but he stopped short of pulling the locket out from under Emily's sweater. "Sounds like it meant a lot to you." More than sounded. Felt.
His eyes raised up. Latched onto her own. "Hang on a second..."
And then he was away again, leaving her to fend for herself in his kitchen, should she desire to search out his tea cabinet. He walked down the hallway and disappeared into the bedroom, eventually reappearing with what looked like an envelope in one hand. When he returned, he paused on the other side of the granite island, then set the envelope down on it and slid it across to her. It was card-sized, and had Emily's name written gracefully across the front.
"Since you're leaving, I'd better give this to you now. Don't open it until Christmas."
[Emily Littleton] Jarod didn't do Christmas... and yet. Emily picked the envelope, inspected it curiously. She tipped her head just slightly and fixed him with a quizzical expression. But she would not open it, or even consider opening it, until Christmas. This likely meant she'd be seeing whatever was inside that envelope at a cruising altitude of thirty-plus-thousand feet.
"Thank you?" she said, a bit bemused. Not knowing the contents of the envelope, and this
was Jarod giving her a sealed envelope, she couldn't quite be sure what response to offer up.
Emily set the envelope back down, gently. She toyed with saying the
other thing she had meant to tell him tonight, meant to slip in before their conversation got derailed by memories and disclosures.
Since you're leaving...The kettle was hot, and they could make tea and continue having a quiet, intimate evening with each other. It's possible that Emily had planned that, before she'd made her way to the kitchen, before ...
I want you to know,
That it doesn't matter
Where we take this road
Someone's gotta to"I'll open it on the flight," she said, and Emily was pulling back artfully. She had practice in disentangling herself, and moving toward the (
ready) exit without appearing to flee. "It's getting late," she said, casting a glance at clock in the microwave, on the stove -- whever his kitchen clock was. "I should head out."
Since you're leaving... (
I'm already gone.)
[Jarod Nightingale] He didn't do Christmas. Or self-disclosure. Or relationships. Or... any of this, really. Things had been slightly off-kilter in his life for a few weeks now, and there was no particularly logical explanation for it. He could do things like ask Emily where she lived or give her a card because... ultimately it didn't mean anything deeper than the obvious sentiment behind it. He felt like seeing where she lived. He felt like talking to her. He felt like giving her something. Sometimes even he could get tired of the assumption that enjoying a person's company must mean something vastly more important to a person like himself than it did to anyone else, simply because of the nature of its rarity.
It simply was what it was. Giving someone a card wasn't supposed to be this huge
gesture. He made the rules, and he could break them if he wanted to.
(So why, then, did it indeed feel as if somehow he'd lost his footing for a moment? Those steps, always so perfect and so certain - they slid now. Balance faltered.)
But only for a moment. After all, none of this really meant anything.
Jarod turned his head and watched Emily walk (flee) towards the door. His eyebrows went up slightly, and he uttered a far-too-pleasant little laugh. As if the whole thing was rather amusing to him. "Tease. Offering to make me tea and then taking off. Whatever am I going to do?"
But she wanted to go, so he wasn't going to stop her. Even if he did see faint etchings of fear at the edges of her well-crafted mask. (Perhaps even because of it.) Instead he simply remained where he was. No movement made to hug her goodbye. No expressions of regret at her sudden departure (other than the aforementioned jab about the tea.)
Instead he smiled, and said, "Have a nice trip."
[Emily Littleton] There's a moment, when she's slipping on her shoes, when that too-pleasant laugh hits home and it
aches. It catches her breath in her chest, recalls the feeling of newly bruised (
broken) ribs. And she imagines that she's hidden it carefully away, that there's no way this beautiful stranger could know the cold, metallic tasting panic that pinged at the back of her throat. The near keening feeling (
sound) of her heart hitting the pit of her stomach. (
Too late, too late).
No, Emily doesn't imagine it. She
knows it. They are not the same, not on this point. So the too bright smile she tosses back is just cheeky enough, just playful enough, to cover the gap that sprang up so quickly between them. "Oh... I'm sure you'll think of
something."
The lilt in her voice emulates, but doesn't truly echo, that of his younger sister's. It's coy, without being cloying. Emily is a little older than Maia, substantially less brazen, but she is practiced in this Art. This oh, so bittersweet science.
"I'll see you when I get back," she said, but there is no certainty to it. No promise. Emily isn't sure she's coming back. (
She's never certain she's coming back.) If it had been anyone but Jarod, she wouldn't have said it at all.
There is a fissure in this mask, a tiny window to let him see in. It comes just before she closes the door behind her. In the softness of her eyes, and the (
longing) sadness that has suddenly claimed them. In the too long pause that could not be accidental, before the door clicks quietly shut. And she's gone. (
I'm already gone.)
She would see him when she got home. She wouldn't see him when she got home. She wouldn't come home. This isn't home. This
is home.
Emily had only left his apartment, not even yet left the building, not quite yet left the City, but they were returned to an uneasy state of quantum relationships. Until someone picked up the phone, showed up on a doorstep, reached out on a snowy night, until one of them bridged that strange, sudden space, they either would or would not see each other again. Uncertain. Unstable.
Emily watched the illuminated numbers count down to the ground floor, waited for the doors to part and let her go free. She wished Charlie a good night. It wasn't until she got back to her car that her hands began to shake.
[Emily Littleton] It was late into the afternoon on Thursday when Emily found a quiet place and pulled out her mobile. She dialed the number from the man in park, feeling it was somehow important to reach out and touch him. Especially as she couldn't remember his name. Curious. Curiouser. Her own number showed on his caller ID -- Chicago prefix. If he'd programmed in her number, it might say Emily. Or Emily Littleton. She couldn't remember if she'd given him her full name or not.