Britannia, NY

Karen is in an exceptionally crabby mood. Nonetheless, she's at Habitat, where she's working a Sunday double shift, because obviously the solution to all of life's problems is to work as much as possible before you collapse into insanity brought on by sleep-deprivation.

The truth is, she'd rather work herself stupid than have two minutes to herself. If she has time to herself, she'll end up thinking about the life that isn't hers any more. So after staying up pretty much all night, she came in at 5:30 this morning to open the shop. It's been busy, what with tourists coming in for coffee and cider on their way to go see foliage, and she's given her best faux-cheerful curmudgeon routine, which is always good for tips.

Things are slowing down a bit, and so Karen's out from behind the counter, sweeping up around one of the corner tables.

Gary is wearing what almost maybe passes for a suit--at least, he's wearing a clean button-down for once, and a threadbare suitjacket over it, although he's still in jeans. He didn't invite Mike along for this (not being, frankly, totally insane, we mean, really).

He's a little afraid to meet his mother, although he's not quite sure why. She wasn't threatening last time. There's nothing inherently wrong with this invitation.

Still, he can't quite shake the feeling of foreboding that's settling over him now.

Between her bad dreams, her father's smothering, and the car accident, Molly's life over the past year has qualified (for her) as a disaster. And as a result of that disaster, she is trying to get control back, however crazily--she just has to be in control of something, she has to make choices, and she's still trying to figure everything out.

She doesn't work at the library any more; as far as her dad knows, she still does, but she usually just goes down to the corner drug store and hangs out with the boys there, most of whom have bicycles, but one has a car. They're the type who wear sunglasses and muscle shirts and give off (not incorrectly) the air of being jerkasses, but they buy her things and the fact that she's a year or two older than most of them make her feel more like an adult, more like she's the one who knows things.

It doesn't really help, admittedly. Nothing really helps. And she doesn't feel like herself, and she doesn't feel like the person in her dreams, and she doesn't see James any more, but she feels less like she's going crazy when they're going thirty over the speed limit on some back country road.

Afterwards they end up back on the corner, where they stand around looking vaguely thuggish and trying to impress her by saying stupid things.

Ivy is just finishing up her real work for the day and getting ready for Karen; she has some forms that will need signing, particularly privacy forms. She also hasn't been sleeping too great lately, which she can't really explain, but it annoys her.

On the other hand, someone in the office will be nice, as will having papers that actually are in the files they're supposed to be.

It is time yet again for Gary to venture out of the house for art supplies and groceries and a pretense at normality, which isn't easy right now. His nightmares are getting bad again, a kind of searing white-hot slicing that rips him out of sleep and leaves him lying awake sure that he's covered in blood--he has to lie in bed breathing slow, in out in out, until he can convince himself that he's fine, it's fine, and her blood washed off a long time ago.

He looks exhausted. The nightmares have come with their usual side effect, and he wakes up in the night trying to shove his fist in his mouth to muffle the screams, whimpering into the pillow at the memory of her empty eyes staring at him from the floor. It's making him lose weight again, and his clothes are too loose for his body, his eyes red-rimmed and sleepless.

On his errand run, he stops at the coffee shop, the grocery, the art store, and Laurel's shop to buy flowers for Mike; it's their fifth-year anniversary, and he's not feeling so bad that he doesn't remember that and set a lot of store by it. Gary still isn't sure some days why Mike's let him stay so long, or how it's continued to work out, when he's so crazy (and he knows Mike is up at night sometimes watching him, he knows that). But he can be bothered at any of those locations, before he finally returns home.

Karen is having one of those mornings where it seems that nothing will ever go right. She was late getting in to work (her sleep is so mucked up at this point, she may as well not even try anymore), she broke two mugs, and she scalded her hand making tea for someone who just didn't seem to have the common decency to order coffee.

She's just finished her shift, and can't think of any reason she ought to go home. So she's staked out at Habitat, with a red eye close at hand, pretending to do the New York Times crossword. Even a Monday puzzle is too much, but it really doesn't matter, either way.

The latter part of Karen's shift was quiet -- which was both good and bad. Good because it meant she got out in time to make herself look slightly more presentable before Daniel came back to meet her for drinks; bad because it gave her way too much headspace to over-think things.

Ultimately, she's decided to just run with the fact that it's only a drink or two, and essentially meaningless, and anyway -- she needs to know more than three people in town. And so, at 4:30 she's sitting on the bench outside waiting for Daniel to show up.

For the past two days, the music students at Britannia High School have been left in the hands of a substitute-- much to their delight, Daniel is sure. He's not just playing truant, which he has admittedly been known to do. But in this case, avoiding sleep as much as possible for God knows how long does have a tendency to catch up with a person.

It's the dreams, of course. Since they've stopped being fun and a bit exciting, he's stopped mentioning them to anyone. He's reconsidering this strategy, now. Now, that is, that the first thing he does once he feels alive enough to venture outside is to immediately head to Habitat to begin caffeinating himself in preparation for mission: avoid sleep. Which is probably less than healthy, but there he is that afternoon, drinking one of those improbably large cups of coffee, a little paler than usual, the childhood Scots accent coming out stronger when he speaks because he's too tired to hide it.

Who does one go to, he wonders, if one wishes to complain about crazy dreams? He'd hardly know how to begin such a conversation, anyway; a lifetime's practice has made him perhaps too good at talking a great deal without saying anything at all.

It's her lunch break, and Elaine is writing. Or attempting to do so, at least; her focus just isn't happening today.

That happens, when you're scared of sleeping.

She almost feels like it's a Jekyll and Hyde sort of deal, these days. For all Cecilia says she shouldn't fight it, she hates not knowing what she's done, or what she's capable of doing. At least Lexi's gone away; a small part of her is hurt, but most of her is relieved, because Lexi made it worse. (And, of course, Lexi had hurt her, here-and-now her, but that wasn't really something she wanted to be thinking about either.)

She'd thought by now she'd be long gone. But she can't quite seem to go. Instead, she's sitting on a bench about a half block away from the store, with a notebook open in her lap, blank.

Karen's dreams have always come in strange waves, and this has intensified somewhat since she moved to Britannia. She'll have a few nights that are tolerable, or even free of the dreams altogether; then a rash of the bad ones, the really awful ones, full of fear, of grief and desolation and a kind of angry loneliness that she never wants to admit to feeling when she's awake in her own life.

The worst of these is always the one where they come to fetch her out of her rooms, and she's heard all the commotion so she already knows where they're taking her, and they take her to that strange, cold little room and show her his corpse. And the only part of any of it that makes her feel strong is that she is so angry, so brokenly angry, that she feels if she were a man she'd take their blades from them and drop them all where they stand. But all she can do is be the harridan they all know her for, and flash and rage at them, and drive them out of the room so they'll leave her alone with him. Leave her alone with him and he isn't even there anymore.

It's this one she wakes from, and Karen feels it can't have been more than twenty minutes since she lay down, exhausted, to go to sleep, even though the clock tells her otherwise. She's doing that weird crying thing she hates where she can't get her breath and she feels like someone's taken everything out of her chest. It's an emptiness that's vicious, and she is alone in this house that's too big for one person, and for just a minute, she fucking hates it here.

But then she thinks, no, he's here and I can go and see him.

After a little while, it's almost morning, and so she puts on her coat and goes into town. She gets some coffee (she's off today) and goes to the park and lies down on a cold bench wishing that she had a stupid, self-destructive hobby to shorten her life with. Smoking, maybe, or base jumping. After she's finished her coffee, she gets up and walks to Gary's apartment building.

She would really much rather see him alive.

Ivy is tired, but on the plus side it's also getting nice, the weather turning warm and windy, and the trees putting out green shoots. That's enough to be getting her blood warm and swift-flowing, turning over in her body, and it makes her feel energetic and cheerful and ardent.

The latter of which Ken's been feeling the results of, but the rest of it is more than shared with the rest of the community; her clients are seeing even better results than usual, and she has a lot more patience with people being stupid.

She's on her way home from work. The fact that the sun is still out at five-thirty is thrilling, and she's swinging her tote bag of files cheerfully, her long hair blown out of her professional ponytail, and she looks beautiful in the yelloworange sundress under her working blazer.

Karen's managed to secure a job at Habitat, and it feels good to be back in the saddle, so to speak. She's more than happy to take all the opening shifts they'll give her -- getting to work at five in the morning isn't really so bad if you don't sleep at night anyhow.

She's behind the counter, now, having just finished dealing with what passes for a morning rush in Britannia. Now she's putting on fresh drip coffee, wiping counters, and restocking cups. She feels at home. Settled, almost.

It would be easier if business was bustling all day long -- no time to think when she gets into the zone, where everything is muscle memory and organization. But you can't have everything, and at least she's got a job.

He's conscious of how it affects Mike when he has a bad day, so he's avoiding the apartment, he can't help it. The most obvious solution seems to be the one that always worked back in New York, to find someplace selling beer cheap and see how quick he can get drunk. He's aware, however, that that's not a terribly good idea, so he's trying to stave it off by taking a walk.

It's warmer than usual to-day, the snow, which is dirty by now, is starting to melt. Gaheris is a worn and tired-looking man with his jacket wrapped close around his body, walking against the light.

Now that the holidays are over, Laurel doesn't have much of an excuse to be working constantly anymore - at least not as constantly as she has been. And she's started to feel a little bit guilty about shutting everyone out so thoroughly, though "everyone" is not an extensive list.

So she's off today, the shop closed. She plans to spend the morning around town, getting some errands done, and perhaps in the afternoon she'll figure out how to say what's been on her mind to those who need to hear it.

Well. Part of what's been on her mind at least.

It's cold, and for whatever reason that pisses her off. As if job hunting weren't hideous enough to start with. After standing at the kitchen sink while finishing up her coffee, Karen heads out, gets into what used to be her Gran's car, and heads into town.

She knows there are at least a couple places that might serve espresso, even though she's been in town only a couple of times. This isn't really then best day for job hunting, but she'll feel better if she at least fills out a couple of applications. She's got a little money cushion, but not much. She's been sleeping so badly this past week, and she's just going to keep telling herself it's the money situation and the soul-killing boredom.

Karen parks the car, and decides exploring on foot won't kill her. Her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her coat, she starts to make her way up the main drag.