Mill "into the wild" Bagnold (faircop) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2008-12-10 16:17:00 |
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True to his word, Pepper had been nowhere in sight when Mill went storming out of her office about five seconds after arranging to meet her daughter, and at least an hour before she'd usually be leaving the office. Some things were more important than piles of essential paperwork. More important than the war. Tabitha was one of them.
Mill's flat was just as spare as ever, and twice as unlived-in as this time last year. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen it in daylight; if she wasn't in the office, these days, she was spending time with her family.
Speaking of whom... Mill flung her handbag and coat down on her bed, and stalked back out into the flat's main room. Movement was vital, right now, her arms crossed and fingers drumming against her upper arms. It felt like she'd been angry forever, but this was different from her weekend fury. It was fear beneath this, clawing at her throat, tearing the rug out from under her as she paced and waited for her little girl.
Heart pounding, Tabitha had raced out of the theatre where she'd been studying her lines (after all, what good was having a minister for a mum if one couldn't use the 'national emergency' excuse once in a while?) and tore down the street of Diagon Alley. Her heart was pounding, and she held tight to her thick script as if it might still the fear that ripped through her chest. Tabs had always been a bit excitable, but today was terrifying, today her mother had middle-named AND all-capsed her, and she could only think the worse despite Millicent's insistence that no one was hurt. Maybe Guppy -- no, she couldn't keep running and hyperventilate at the same time, it'd have to wait till she was there.
Not bothering to wait for the lift, Tabitha bounded up the stairs, two - three - at a time, as fast as her narrow limbs would take her. Somewhere in the middle, the script fell to the ground and she ignored it, tearing up the last few flights and into the hallway, where she counted the numbers impatiently until she reached her mother's door.
Without even bothering to knock, Tabitha jerked at the handle, "MUM!" already on her lips.
The private residence of the Minister of Magic was, of course, warded within an inch of its life, but Tabitha was included in those wards. Her Tabbit was always the first inclusion in any ward Mill erected.
She spun around as Tabitha burst into the apartment, and bit back the sudden flash of relief. Of course, it was completely ridiculous that in the slim space of time between Pepper telling her and this moment the Order could have somehow got her killed or injured or kidnapped or... It was completely ridiculous, but this was her daughter, and Mill wasn't disposed to fight for rationality right now.
It was just a flash, however, and then the anger was back, less diluted by fear now that Tabitha was here and sound. Mill's quick approach bypassed her daughter in favour of closing the door behind her, just short of a slam, letting the wards (including the one against eavesdropping) snap back to full strength.
"I thought you told me you had nothing to do with the Order," Mill said without preamble, turning back to face Tabitha.
Oh shit. Tabitha had very little filter between her brain and her reactions and so the look of complete astonishment that spilled across her features was both natural and profound and it took her a moment to process the slam of the door and her mother's accusation before being able to respond. Did she lie? Tell the truth? Some mixture of both? Cry? Shit shit shit! In a minute anger would crash into her when she realised that someone had to have told Millicent about her involvement, but for now Tabitha could feel nothing but cold panic.
"I was telling the truth!" She replied, voice going a gaspily high pitch as her cheeks stained red. She couldn't lie to her mother. It was sort of -- just the way things were. She was mum. Tabitha was Tabitha. They just didn't really do that sort of thing unless it involved how much messing around she'd really done with Ioan.
"Things..." Her heart was pounding, and the words tumbled out without care, "things got complicated and things changed and I changed and I'm sorry I didn't tell you but how the hell could I?"
Well, that was something, at least. The thought that Tabitha might have lied to her - might have been capable of misleading her to that extent - was one that Millicent hadn't even let herself consider, it was so horrible. It was a weight off her mind but, right now, incidental.
"And the fact that you couldn't say to me, 'Mum, I'm getting involved with a dangerous group of vigilantes,' didn't suggest to you how good an idea it was?" she demanded, more than a little heated. Mill may have been trying for cold and clinical anger here, but she wasn't any good at it, where Tabitha was concerned.
"I'M NINETEEN MUM."
If Millicent couldn't do cold and clinical, her daughter was ten times worse, and her little fists balled up at her sides - an almost amusing picture if she hadn't been so frustrated and the conversation topic so serious. "Sometimes I do things you disapprove of. Not a lot. But sometimes. You raised me to follow my heart and to do what I believe in and to stay true to myself and I AM. That is EXACTLY what I'm doing. Maybe I'm awful at holding down a job and maybe I forget to pay the rent sometimes, but I DO know right from wrong, just like you do."
A breath, and she calmed (or at least quieted) slightly. "You used to be a hitwizard, mum. How could I tell you I was breaking the law without hurting you?"
Maybe one of them was calming or quieting. It wasn't Mill. "And when the mauled body we find dumped somewhere is yours? How much do you think that will hurt me?" She was close to shouting now, waving a hand in frantic illustration of the sheer scope of somewhere. "Tabitha, this isn't shoplifting or skipping class or getting engaged barely out of school, this is life and death."
Anger and embarrassment flushed down Tabitha's ears, neck, back. She was furious and upset and wishing the problem would go away, but most of all she wanted her mother to UNDERSTAND why she was doing what she was doing. "I'm not doing ANYTHING that has gotten me hurt. You don't even ASK what I'm doing and you're YELLING at me." Tears glistened in her eyes, but she wasn't abusing them to get something she wanted this time, and so paid them no mind.
"The world is going to shit and I am trying to do SOMETHING besides just keeping my head down and my face in a script. The ministry is losing, mum. People are dying constantly. I could get killed walking down the street. SOMETHING has to change. SOMEBODY has to stand up for what is right. I am TRYING to do the right thing, even if it isn't the SAFE thing."
"How the HELL did you find out?" She had her suspicions but goddamnit if she wasn't going to have them confirmed.
"Not from you!" Mill shot back. "Which was how I should have." She's still full of angry energy, leftover panic; she paced from the door to the end of the kitchen counter. "Do you think You-Know-Who's supporters will ask what you're doing?" Her grip on the edge of the counter was whitening her knuckles. "Tabbit, how can I keep you safe if I don't even know what you're getting messed up in?" There was rather more pleading in her tone than she'd have liked. But all her usual issues with the vigilantes, the problems they've caused her and the headaches they've given her, were completely irrelevant beside the imperative fact of keeping Tabitha safe.
"So that you could overreact just like you are right now?!" Whatever calm Tabitha had managed a few moments ago drained all but instantly, and her voice seemed to be reaching for increasingly higher pitches. The neighbours would wonder what the hell was going on, but nobody bothered the Bagnolds, particularly when one of the two yelling voices included the Minister for Magic. "I love you. I love you a lot!" She said this angrily, honestly, loudly - "But I have to make some decisions for myself! You have a whole country to keep safe, I can take care of myself!" She, unfortunately, had nothing to cling too angrily, and so just stood with balled up fists, trying very hard to remember how to not scream in frustration.
"Who. Was. It." Tabitha could always have been called the demanding child, but she rarely spoke with anger toward her mother, and she rarely made those demands with anything but a whine and a smile. Today she was not smiling. Today she was not whining. And today she was very angry.
Mill's mouth was open to ask how she could be expected to keep a country safe when she couldn't even do so for her daughter, but thankfully her brain caught up before she actually sounded like a Witch Weekly article out loud. "I am not overreacting!" she said instead. (Nor, actually, was she ignoring her daughter's last question, but twenty years of hitwizardry left one with certain ingrained habits, and one of those was, 'don't answer any question the mark wants answered'. If she'd been conscious of this, she'd be appalled for even thinking of her daughter as 'the mark'.) "I think I'm being remarkably rational for a woman who's just found out her daughter's been courting death."
She was, too. She hadn't ordered her to give it up or even tied Tabitha to anything solid. Though that wasn't such a bad idea. If only she hadn't left her wand on the side table. It was a good six metres from where she now stood, which was too far for first reactions. (More hitwizard mindsets.)
"YES YOU ARE." Well. Now Tabitha was overreacting, and her voice keened to an all new high. "Stop acting like I can't take care of myself! Stop acting like I'm too stupid to know when to be quiet or when to keep my head low! YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW I WAS A MEMBER UNTIL SOMEONE TOLD YOU. IT WAS PEPPER WASN'T IT? I HATE HIM. I HATE YOU!"
"AT LEAST HE KEEPS ME INFORMED!" Oh yes, Tabitha got her temper (and her lungs) from somewhere, and it most certainly wasn't bookish Gulliver Bagnold. "You--" Mill waved a hand in her daughter's direction. "You have trouble maintaining a job, but I'm expected to be fucking happy that you're opposing people who'd shown no qualms about killing anyone in their way? With a bunch of untrained, bickering HOOLIGANS. I thought I raised you to have more SENSE THAN THIS!"
So there it was. Tabitha's rage at her suspicions being confirmed blew over any common sense that might have agreed with what her mother had said. Pepper, that lying scum! That complete bastard! She was going to make sure he hung by his earlobes for this injustice. She hadn't had a blow up with her mother this big since - well. Since ever. What the flying loon was she supposed to do. Clearly, the idea of quitting the order didn't even consider the possibility of crossing her mind.
She wanted to say a million more intelligent sounding things that expounded upon her independence and her character strengths... but instead Tabitha screamed out a "WELL I HOPE YOU TWO ARE VERY HAPPY TOGETHER!!!" -- and stormed out, leaving the door shaking on its hinges in her wake.
Mill might have jumped forward from the counter, might have caught the door in one hand as she swung out into the corridor after her daughter, might have shouted as she did so, "YOU GET BACK HERE, YOUNG LADY!" but on some level that wasn't currently short-circuited on anger, she wasn't particularly surprised that Tabitha didn't, and the only glimpse she got was her daughter turning onto the stairs.
Chasing her would be inelegant and possibly dangerous and definitely unhelpful. Smacking the side of her fist hard against her door was, obviously, none of those things. Stepping back into her apartment and slamming said door hard enough to echo was also fine.
And if she was going to start wondering where she'd gone wrong, what was wrong with her that she'd raised these children - which apparently she was - she was damn well going to have a firewhiskey.