Although it wasn’t necessarily a warm approval of her presence or anything, it was what Vienna had expected. Her sister was tense, and on their best days they still walked a very thin line between getting along and bickering like children. If they were both better at talking about their feelings or what was bothering them maybe they could work through this, but that wasn’t how either one of them worked. She was just thankful that Bea wasn’t telling her to leave, because she wasn’t sure she could stand being alone right now.
“Okay,” she answered easily, stepping further into the guard tower and leaning the rifle she had with her against the wall near Bea’s. Vienna wasn’t here to guard anything, though, she just felt better having the rifle with her – a reminder of Noah, really. Part of her wanted to talk to Bea about what had happened between her and Noah, to express the uncertainty she felt over all if it. But she wasn’t sure if her sister would want to listen to any of that.
The one thing she wasn’t going to talk about was the fact that they had people out there they cared about, people who could easily die. Because neither one of them needed that reminder. Vienna quirked and eyebrow and gave her sister a look, wondering why of all the things she could have asked that was it. “Layla, the teenager that lives a couple doors down from us with her mom, she offered to watch him for awhile.” The girl was nice and it did Ledger some good to interact with other people, plus Vienna had needed the break and a chance to get fresh air – but she wasn’t going to bring her son out to the wall, not right now when they weren’t sure what was going on beyond them.
Leaning back against the wall, Vienna allowed herself to sink down it and rest her elbows on her knees. “I needed fresh air,” she began. “And a to clear my head.” And maybe Bea would ask her why, or maybe she wouldn’t, but at least she was being honest with her sister, kind of. She was trying to keep her mind off of what was going on out there, of who was out there right now and how things had been tense between them since their fight. Things and been said and admissions had been made, but in some ways Vienna still didn’t know what that made them, if it made them anything at all.
Running a hand through her hair, she fought down the urge to bring that up with Bea, afraid that it could lead to some kind of fight – her sister telling her that there were more serious things to worry about than the state of her love life, yeah, she didn’t need that. “I’m glad you didn’t go,” she blurted out instead, wanting her sister to know that it was comforting that she had stayed behind – stayed safe.