InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "i was there for you..."

I've known better days... (better_days) wrote in haunted_roads,
@ 2008-03-23 21:06:00

Entry tags:

bastian, maggie, sophie

Week Four: Monday
When: Early Night
Where: Old Town Towers
Who: Bastian, Maggie, Sophie

Somehow he had convinced Sophie that they should wait a night in going to the Towers. It hadn't been easy, no words really were explanation enough, but he had to make it work. It was better that then face them with such a cruel truth so shortly after he arrived in their home. Theirs....not his...such thoughts made him so heavy hearted. Everything had changed....he came back hoping it would be the same but he should have known. The world kept turning, everyone had to keep living....he had just never thought that things would go this way for all of them. He had wanted to give them all so much better...

Before daylight came Bastian was up, shutting every blind, making sure that not an inch of light could get in...he could have gone back to sleep then but instead he stayed awake. He sat there...watching his little girl sleep from the couch that he'd taken up as his bed for the night. He was afraid if he closed his eyes for too long she'd be gone. It was a foolish thought but there it remained all the same.

She was so much different now. He could so plainly see how the passing years had affected her. A tough women who no longer was a little girl at all. he wondered all through the night if Maggie had so much of the life he'd missed captured somehow. Of course Maggie would...but would he be able to look at it? To face completely just how much he had missed? Nothing could make up for those lost years...and nothing would make up for it if he was gone for so much more.

He told Sophie he had no want to leave again...but that tug at the back of his mind reminded him every second that she was out there and less then happy with him. His sire. The bitch.

Bastian pretended to be asleep when Sophie woke for school. It was difficult to let her leave at all but he had...and while she was gone he took that time to rest. Unfortunately for him she was back before night fell, leaving no chance for him to go out and try to feed. He was paler today then yesterday but Bastian dismissed the comment of it away, saying only that it was caused by a bad nights rest. That was all.

But again he had to stall; he hated the lies…the pathetic attempts of explanation that likely made no sense. He could only come up with so many reasons…but through them all he knew that she knew something was up. She was smart, too smart for all his attempts.

Still she let him wait till nightfall. Content it seemed, to simply be around him.

Finally the time came and Bastian got to his feet. He was nervous there was no denying that. Nervous…fearful….and half tempted to try to convince Sophie that they should meet somewhere else. But he knew that any that were after him would know long ago where both all his family lived. His showing there or not, wouldn’t change that.
So he took them outside, he turned in his key to the hotel as he could never stay at any for long…and used that stolen car to drive them to the towers. There he parked in the back; the car wouldn’t be used again. He couldn’t push his luck for too long.

Once parked it was up to Sophie to lead the way, pulling him along through the unfamiliar halls.

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mother_maggie
2008-03-24 08:03 am UTC (link)

It had been a long sleepless night, capped off by a long shift at the hospital. Maggie hated it, hated it when Sophie did things like this. Gone all night without so much as a phone call. The rational part of her mind said that Sophie was a smart girl, an adult for all intents and purposes and didn't put herself in situations that would get her in trouble. But... the rational part of her mind all too often lost out to the mother in her. The mother that could conjure up any number of horrible fates that could have happened over the course of the night.

It had been the phone call to Sophie's school during a few moments break that had kept her sanity. Sophie had at least had the intelligence to show at school. She was alive and for that she could make it through the rest of the day without that sick pit of worry gnawing at her stomach. There had to be another gray hair sprouting somewhere on her head.

She'd returned from work and before even changing out of the colorful scrubs that she owned far too many of, she had a tuna noodle casserole in the oven heating up. Even if Sophie still wasn't home some of them had to eat.. John. Maggie knew that she wouldn't have a bite until she saw her daughter walk through those doors. It all felt off, it wasn't quite like Sophie to be gone this long. And Maggie didn't like it.

While the food cooked she had indulged in a shower and managed to find her way into a pair of jeans and a well worn and familiar t-shirt. It had clearly seen better days and it wasn't exactly her size but little facts like that didn't detract from it's sentimental value. Her hair was still damp when she took the plate over to John, she talked with him for a while and even had a good natured argument over the evening game of Jeopardy before she excused herself to head next door.

Where was Sophie. She'd better answer her phone this time.

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felonious_punk
2008-03-27 05:19 am UTC (link)

Sophie actually felt bad putting Maggie through this. She always did, but this time especially. Hopefully what she brought through the front door with her would make all the difference.

She moved stealthily, or what she imagined to be her best stealthy movements. After all, Sophie was now acting under the assumption that her father had been stolen away by some crazed cult and was now avoiding detection by their gun-toting zealots looking to bring him “home” or just kill him for trying to leave.

She didn’t share this theory with him and new it sould be wrong. But it made sense, wacked out as it was, and would explain A: his being gone half her life, and B: his weird behavior since coming back. Made sense that the blinds were always pulled tight and he avoided moving about in the day light. Harder to spot someone in the night time. Yeah, made perfect sense.

But that wasn’t why Sophie hadn’t called her mom. Even if she told herself that was why. Maybe it was a part of it. Really though, she just had no idea what to tell her. Yeah, she was a good liar. She could tell her any number of things and not let out the big secret. But… well this was a really really really BIG secret. The biggest. Sophie was bursting wanting to tell her. And John.

She moved now into the back entrance of the towers, ignoring a few stray cats gathered around some something they’d found to eat on. She glanced about, to see if she could see anyone following, imagined she felt eyes on them but knew it could well just be paranoia, even if she hadn’t gotten high tonight. Her imagination alone was enough to feed that. “We should take the stairs.” She said quietly in a near whisper and realized she was waking just the same, almost on her toes. In the stairwell she relaxed a little, even smiled at her old man and squeezed his cold hand, but then in the corridor of their floor, she felt vulnerable again, like they could be seen by the baddies he was hiding from.

She had her key in her hand before they even got to the door and in a swift movement she’d inserted it, turned it, and the knob, and let them both in. “Mom, I’m home.” She called. Then with a wink to Bastian she squeezed his hand again, kissed his cheek, and disappeared down the hall to her room, leaving him standing where Maggie would see when she came out of wherever it was she was hidden.