Heads-Up
Bobby was off to Gainesville to finish his business trip, his court date for drug possession scheduled for sometime next year and Izzy had put the incident out of her mind for now. Stewing on it wouldn't do anyone any good, and the blond had her own life to live after all. She would deal with it later, there was time.
Now though, the witch was standing in front of the house Rhiannon shared with Connor. She wasn't sure if either of them were home, but it had been a few weeks now since she'd seen the Slayer and they'd promised to stay in touch. There was the matter of Joseph to be brought up. Izzy could imagine what it would be like if Rhiannon were to encounter her former fiancee in this reality unprepared for the fact that he wouldn't remember who she was. It wasn't something she would want for herself, and she wasn't going to let it happen to Rhiannon if she could help it.
When the knock came, Rhiannon looked up from her computer, a fine-tipped marker clenched in her teeth. She was seated at a small desk with a flexible light. Art supplies and a laptop crowded the surface. She flexed her shoulders and pressed save, though she wasn't sure it was necessary. The graphic she'd scanned into the machine wasn't getting any better with digital enhancements. She had half a mind to draw two stick figures lounging in a hammock and email it to her boss, along with a message. 'It's Key West. C'mon. What do we really have to advertise?' But that logic put her out of work.
She finished her glass of water and got up.
After looking through the peephole, Rhiannon unchained the door for Izzy. "Hey," she said. The brunette leaned on it. A few strands of hair hung loose from her ponytail. According to the ragged jeans, t-shirt with a band logo, and socks, she wasn't leaving the house anytime soon.
"Hey," Izzy smiled at the other woman. "I thought I'd swing by and drop off an early Christmas gift since I hadn't heard from you lately." She held up a small pair of binoculars, modified through techno magic to observe different spectra of energy including the supernatural. "My housemates are surprisingly unconcerned with me spending a day cooped up in the garage. I'm not quite sure what that says about them or who I was before, but I didn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Have time to talk for a bit?"
Rhiannon's mouth dropped. "Oh, sweet. I loved those things." She took the binoculars and stepped back so Izzy could come into the living room. They were slightly different than the ones she'd had in Chicago, reflecting a difference in available materials. "I'm surprised you got them done so fast." The slayer turned them over in her hands and walked to the armchair, where she sat down, leaving the sofa open for Izzy. The day before, they'd cleaned the house, so the scent of lemon hung in the air. Going a bit easy on it, Rhiannon folded her legs onto the cushion, tucking them underneath her. After a bit, she set the gadget aside.
"Actually, I'm glad you stopped by. You saved me from a project that's been eating my brain. Plus, I know I spaced on that text you sent. Things have been kinda..." She scrunched up her nose. "Y'know. Less than ideal?" Her fingers tightened the brown ponytail.
"Tell me about it, I've had issues lately myself." Izzy sighed as she collapsed onto the sofa. Between her revelation about her engagement and her brother's arrest it had been an eventful few weeks for the witch. She pondered for a moment whether to tell Rhiannon straight away and then decided to relax for a bit and let them both get settled before coming out with it. If the Slayer wanted to know right away she'd ask. "The binoculars weren't that hard to make really, especially when a person's looking to distract themselves in work for a day or so." She shrugged, but was glad Rhiannon liked them just the same. It was always good when someone appreciated your talents.
Rhiannon said, "Just let me know how much."
She looked at Izzy. The urge for a cigarette was sudden and surprising. Only once had she slipped in Key West, but being around a person from Chicago sparked it in her, like muscle memory. To distract herself, since the emergency pack was all too accessible above the refrigerator, Rhiannon fiddled with few beads of amber that hung on a cord around her neck. Brownish-gold like her eyes, Connor had said. "What happened?" she asked. "Something with the family you happened into?"
Izzy nodded, glad to talk about it to someone who knew her, even passingly, from before. "First off, I had one more whammy waiting for me at the jeweler's getting fixed," she held up her left hand to display the engagement ring. "He works with my stepfather, a lot of international business type work."
The witch fidgeted with the ring for a moment before going on. "If that wasn't enough, my brother stopped by to visit the other day and promptly got himself busted trying to buy some cocaine. I bailed him out and we argued." It was a cliff notes version but enough to give the Slayer the idea. "I guess no family is perfect, right? So what about you? Issues with Connor or something else?"
Rhiannon put up a hand. "Wait, slow down. You're engaged? Shit." She had leaned forward on the chair. The diamond on Izzy's finger was enormous, like something out of a gumball machine, only the genuine article. As startling as it was to wake up in Key West with a relationship in progress, at least she knew Connor. Loved Connor. The memories that overlapped fit well, like puzzle pieces of an identical picture, which happened to arrive in a different box. "And you're still with the guy?" The brother part sucked, but it didn't involve having sex with a partial stranger. Rhiannon wondered if Izzy was afraid of breaking it off because of how things would appear.
"I'm not just going to immediately dump him, Rhiannon," Izzy responded, a little defensively. Part of her reasoning was that it would be too big a change too quickly for her to just dump Mark without a good reason. "I've got memories of the relationship Isabelle had with him, not all of them I don't think, but enough. She loved him, and I'm willing to give it a chance and see if we're still simpatico." That wasn't to say that she wasn't nervous about the whole thing. Bobby's comment that 'maybe Mark will let you work, maybe he won't' had set off a few alarm bells in the back of her head. "We aren't living together thankfully, that would have been too much."
"Sorry," Rhiannon said. "I'm just... You know, I didn't have to deal with that. Not really. So it's hard to imagine." She figured it was something like how amnesiacs felt when they woke up and had a spouse waiting by the bedside, wearing a hopeful look. What were you supposed to do, just run off? She unfolded one leg and let it dangle above the carpet. "You're probably being smart about it. I'm not sure I could be that patient."
Definitely not, she corrected. In fact, Rhiannon had put up an arm between Connor and herself, at least temporarily, and she knew him like the back of her hand. lt took time to square things away in her head. "It's funny," Rhiannon said. "You woke up to a ring on. I woke up to a ring off." Not funny ha-ha, but interesting, all the same. She swept a piece of hair off her forehead. "Rough gig with your brother, too. My family's still deceased, which I guess is easier. I don't have to juggle two ideas of who they're supposed to be."
"Yeah," Izzy drawled the word out, a bit uncomfortable. "Funny you should mention that. The doppelganger I texted you about? The one who's staying at the hotel? It's Joseph." She didn't have to say that the man wasn't the one they knew from Chicago. "I'm not sure what it is he's doing down here, but his room is booked for a long term stay."
The name hit Rhiannon's stomach like a sack full of sand. Quickly, she looked at her lap, wishing it was dark in the house so Izzy couldn't see her. "Joseph." She wet her lips. "But not Joseph." Breathe... To avoid having to own up to the catastrophe that was her facial expression, she got up and walked to a bookshelf on the other side of the living room, where her eyes stared at the titles, but didn't read anything. She wanted to ask Izzy if she was sure... Sure it was really him, sure he didn't remember anything. What was he like? Was he okay?
"God," she said instead and laughed. Rhiannon's hands went to her hips and squeezed the bones. "What the fuck is he doing down here?" What the fuck were any of them doing in Key West? It was Nevada without the cacti. Now, more than ever, she knew there was cosmic purpose to it. All the same faces, a nearly identical timeline, just another latitude and longitude.
Izzy glanced away herself, feeling as if she'd just told Rhiannon that her fiancee was dead. Either way she didn't want to look as if she were taking any sort of pleasure in telling the other woman this, not that she thought Rhiannon would even consider that. "I don't really know, some kind of business dealings, but I'm not sure what." It wasn't really the answer the other woman sought, she knew, but it was the only one she had to offer.
A rough sound left Rhiannon's throat, a laugh without humor. She looked at the ceiling. "Yeah, I can probably put it together." Joseph in 2009? Was most likely still elbow-deep in dirty dealings, like he'd been in Las Vegas, though Rhiannon didn't know the half of it. Either way, it wasn't a matter of judgment; it was a knot of worry in her gut, worry this man hadn't earned but had anyway. Just because. She took a deep breath and blew it out of the corner of her mouth.
In Chicago, Joseph once told Rhiannon that he ran into a doppelganger of herself. It was weird for him, to stare into a face that he loved and not recognize the person behind the eyes. Would that be how she felt?
"Thanks for the heads-up." After gnawing her lipstick into oblivion, she turned around and faced her friend. "It would've really sucked to run into him without any warning." Of course, now she'd be afraid of turning every street corner, because there he might be. "I want to be clear about something," Rhiannon said. "He--" She broke off and tried again. "I feel strange. I know he's not mine, not the same, so I'm not... It doesn't change anything for me. It just... It makes me miss Chicago a little bit." Her voice tightened.
Izzy nodded in sympathy, and would have hugged the other woman if she'd been close enough. "It makes sense, Rhiannon. I'd be worried about you if you didn't have any reaction all, it wouldn't be natural." She couldn't really imagine what it would be like for her. Instead she had the opposite problem, with people recognizing her, not for who she was now, but who Isabelle had been before. What would Mark think of her? Would he even notice the difference?
"I miss the people," she said after a moment. Chicago itself was a place she had been able to live with, but Key West suited her better. "I miss Hayden, Juliet, Michaela, Logan, even Sonya. There was a mage I knew called Oliver who was interesting to talk shop with, too. It was good to have someone to debate theory with."
With arms crossed, Rhiannon stood in the center of the living room, looking drawn into herself. Her face was under control now, not blank exactly, but shuttered. "A couple weeks ago, I made myself a promise to let it go. I've got some practice letting things go. Things I did that held me back. Now it's people and places." She rubbed her lips together and studied the carpet. She saw a potato chip they missed when cleaning and thought of her housemate. "It's not all bad, y'know? I saw Whistler, whom I've known since I was sixteen." She smiled. "I even saw two old enemies. At least, I think I saw two of them. I was kinda out of it for one, but my point is, it felt like a relief, even though it was a bad sign. Like... okay, I know this one, and it's gonna be alright."
Rhiannon made herself relax. "Oh yeah, hey. Be on the look-out for Elfleda, version 2.0."
Whistler's appearance was good news, but Izzy shivered despite herself at mention of the second name. "Elfleda? That's a name I'd hoped I'd never hear again. She scared the hell out me, the one time we actually met, not so much out of what she did but knowing what she was capable of."
What was that one doing here? "She didn't remember you?"
Rhiannon smiled and shook her head. "Nnnnnnope. Unfortunately, I think my recognition of her caused some fascination. I wish I were a better poker player." She bit her tongue with her back teeth. "I've got an idea, though... A way I'm thinking of fending her off. I'll let you know how it turns out. I wouldn't want anybody else to try it, if it turns out to be a big fat failure." For the plan, Rhiannon needed to cast a line out to Purity and see if the witch bit. She leaned on the armrest of her overstuffed chair. "Rest assured, if she's here, she's up to no good. Which is sort-of disappointing, since the last time I saw Elfleda, she held my hand. You know, when we all thought the universe was about to blow up? We had a moment. It was beautiful." There was a touch of dry wit on the comment.
"Trust me, I'm not going looking for that one anytime soon," Izzy said fervently, and made a mental note to see about strengthening the wards and protection spells she'd cast about her property already. They'd keep out the average minor demon that might come knocking, but a entity like Elfleda would walk right through without so much as an odd tingle.
"A moment? Sounds fascinating." The blonde was dubious but willing to take Rhiannon's word for it. "So how's Connor? The two of you settling in to the new situation ok?" Sure, it was changing the subject, but Izzy really had no desire, whatsoever, to keep talking about Elfleda.
Rhiannon nodded. "Yeah, actually, we are. Although he's quiet. I think he's getting his footing." The slayer linked her fingers loosely between her knees. A silver ring shined under the ceiling light, its cross imprint breaking up the reflection. "I gave him a scare last week. I got into a fight with a demon and it sort-of impaled me twice." She raised an eyebrow. "Once he knew I wasn't going to croak, I think he was pissed at me, which he knows is illogical, but I understand. It's just how we are."
"Back up a second," Izzy requested, her eyes wide. "You were impaled? Twice!? Holy hell!" She looked the Slayer over a bit more carefully, but couldn't see any obvious signs of damage. "I'm glad to see you're still alive, but how'd you get into that situation anyway? Don't you normally work in pairs or something?" Maybe there hadn't been anyone for her to patrol with, that could be the thing right there. Connor could have gone with her, Izzy supposed, but that might have been too much.
"Uhh, no," Rhiannon said, smiling. "I mean, sometimes," she corrected herself with a furrowed brow. "But only if I'm going after a Big Bad and I know it. This was just an ordinary night." She scratched her thigh through the threadbare denim of her jeans. "I was doing a spot-check of Duval Street after closing time and I ran into a demon eating a homeless guy. The thing is, I'm fairly certain I was kicking its ass. I just got stupid when I went in for the kill. It had these... sharp bone-things it could shoot out of his arms. It got me twice before I broke its neck. Sloppy, you know?"
She shrugged, downplaying the severity of the incident, if not her own fuck-up. "Luckily someone happened by.'
Izzy nodded despite herself. "I guess I'm not one to throw stones. If I hadn't messed up somewhere along the line back when I was working on that portal a few years ago. I never would have ended up in your dimension to begin with." Still, she hated the idea of her friend going out there without backup. Maybe she could work on some kind of charm that would teleport Rhiannon to the entrance of the nearest hospital if she were ever seriously injured like that again, but it would require a great deal of research before she could even attempt to create such a thing.
"A very good thing someone happened by," she said fervently. It would probably be a long time before the Slayer underestimated an opponent again, the witch imagined.
"Uh huh," Rhiannon said. She plucked at a thread on her jeans. The hospital was a stop she'd make soon, just to check in with the staff about how she arrived there. Rhiannon didn't trust her memories of the night and wanted confirmation. "On a positive note, I have health insurance now." She gave Izzy a wry smile. "If I want to keep it, I need to figure out how the fuck I was making some of those graphics. A lot of the," she made a stirring motion above her brain, "Stuff up here's not quite at the surface."
Rhiannon looked towards the kitchen. "Do you want a drink or something?"
"If you have sweet tea that would be nice. Water would be fine if not, thanks," Izzy told her hostess, pondering what if anything she could do to help Rhiannon out with her situation.
"We could try a spell to recall some of your skills if you're desperate, but we'd want to try and research before trying anything," she offered, not entirely sure if it were a good idea or not. "I guess I was lucky. Concierge work isn't that different from other customer service jobs I had back in college and when I was trying to build up some cash reserves in Chicago. There's just a few more balls to juggle at a higher level, but otherwise the principles are the same." And she was a fast learner when it came to processes and procedures at the hotel as well.
Unsure if they had sweet tea or not, Rhiannon went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She shuffled a tub of butter and a jar of mayonnaise aside. Uncomfortable with the idea of more mystical things happening in her brain, the slayer cringed. "Maybe. I'm gonna try to figure it out on my own first." A yellow pitcher near the back had a brownish stain on the rim, as if it had poured lots of tea in the past. She opened it and wondered if Connor brewed it. After testing it, she poured some in a cup with ice, then came back to the sofa and handed it off. "I've got some notes from art school. I dunno how outdated they are, but they might spark something."
Rhiannon stuffed her hands in her pockets. "You know, it's almost Christmas? And then New Year's. That's the one I usually celebrate, if there's not an apocalypse."
"Christmas, yeah.." Izzy took a sip of her tea and nodded in approval at the taste. Christmas had already been a holiday she was nervous about before Bobby went and got himself arrested. Now? "I almost would rather hide out down here for Christmas. Turns out my stepfather and brother do not get along, at all. That and I'll be seeing Mark for the first time as myself rather than Isabelle."
She took another deep sip of her drink then smiled wryly at her friend. "Be careful what you wish for Rhiannon, you might get it."
"Shit, who's wishing?" Rhiannon reached up and straightened a framed sketch. "I wanna do something nice for Connor, but I'm the worst at coming up with ideas. I'm betting it's harder when you only half remember your boyfriend." She cut her eyes at the blonde, hoping the remark was taken lightly, as it was intended. "Oh! I'm sorry, fiance. Important distinction." Rhiannon let go of the wooden frame and leaned her shoulderblades on the wall. "Okay, level with me. Is he hot or what?"
She gestured at Izzy. "I know you used to do the girl thing with Juliet. I can attempt to fill in. Just don't expect me to squeal."
"I'm not sure I'd go that far, with Juliet that is," Izzy responded. She'd sort of seen herself as a big sister to the teenager, and they'd talked about men somewhat.
The boyfriend/fiance comment was taken in the spirit it was made and an eyebrow raised skeptically at the idea of Rhiannon squealing about anything. Somehow Izzy doubted that was even written into the brunette's DNA.
"He's..." The image of her fiance took shape in her mind's eye and a small grin appeared on her lips. "Well built. He played baseball in college and definitely kept himself in shape afterward. The kind of guy who can pull off a small swimsuit."
Rhiannon made a face. She couldn't help it. "What the hell is your fiance doing in a Speedo?" God, she hoped that assumption was wrong. Without knowing it was coming in time to stop herself, she burst out laughing and tried to smother it behind her hand. "Sorry. I'm sorry... Is it one of those banana hammocks?" Only in Key West a few weeks, she'd already seen men on the beach in shamefully small amounts of bathing suit, to say nothing of the women. After packing up her art supplies and going home, Rhiannon had immediately checked her dressers to make sure she didn't own anything that fluorescent and horrific. There had been a bikini, but it was red and nothing accidentally slipped out of it.
A blush was Izzy's first response. "You should have seen the bikini I was in when I woke up in the water." Tiny was an understatement, in her opinion. It had been replaced by something a little more functional and modest, even if she had rocked it in her opinion. "But yes, I have a memory of him wearing something like that." And a few with him wearing nothing at all.
"I think we were in Europe at the time. That's more common there, even if they can't really pull them off sometimes."
It was Rhiannon's none-too-humble opinion that there was never an appropriate place for a Speedo. Even Olympic swimmers wore bodysuits. She kept her mouth shut. "I see." A nod of her head while she tried to recover her serious face. "Well, good to know he's confident." She tried to picture Connor in a swimsuit. He'd wear trunks, definitely, if he swam at all. Well, wait... every once in a while, he surprised her with a naturalist attitude. Maybe he's strip down to nothing. She realized she didn't know if Connor knew how to swim. It was doubtful that huge bodies of clean water existed on Quartoth. Had he learned in the years since?
"Are you gonna be out of town for both holidays or just Christmas?" Rhiannon asked. "I've been thinking about holding that get-together we talked about, except maybe we'd just invite anybody we knew. Now or then. Over the holidays might be a good time."
"Just Christmas," Izzy confirmed with a nod. "I'd be all for that get together over New Year's. I might want a small party where I can let my hair down depending on how Christmas with the family goes. It'd be good to see the others, too."
She finished her tea and set the glass down on the coffee table in front of the couch. "Don't worry about the binoculars, consider them my Christmas present to you. That, and let anyone else who wants one know where you got it. They'll have to pay." She winked at the other woman and stood up, preparing to leave. "I'll let you get back to trying to figure out computer graphics software."
"I'll try to keep my joy to a minimum." Rhiannon straightened away from the wall and walked Izzy to the door. "Thanks," she said as she opened it. "For the binoculars and the information." She pressed her lips together tightly, dimpling her cheeks. Her hip leaned against the door. The afternoon light from outside hurt her eyes and she looked away. "I know I'm not... Overly affectionate, but I appreciate it. You've always been really decent to me."
"We are who we are, Rhiannon," Izzy responded seriously, wanting to give the other woman the respect that admission deserved. "I know you aren't as touchy-feely as I am, but you're a good person. You've always been straight with me and you took Juliet under your wing when you didn't have to. We may not know each other extremely well, but I consider you a friend and the rest will take care of itself over time."
She reached over and squeezed the Slayer's arm gently. "Merry Christmas if I don't see you between now and New Year's. Watch out for sneaky demons, ok? I'd just as soon keep you around. Not too many people realize I'm not an airheaded ditz around these parts yet." It was a weak joke, but she was glad to have the other woman around.
Rhiannon nodded, drawing her shoulders up. "No plans to bite it." She smiled at Izzy and didn't shrink away from the touch. Her usual way of showing affection, which involved jabbing and poking, seemed horribly out of place with the blonde witch. "Good luck with the family holiday. Sometimes I think they've got a worse bite than vampires." She saw Izzy off, waving as the woman reached the end of the sidewalk, and then closed the door.
Alone with her thoughts of what she'd learned, Rhiannon found she had the energy to get back into computer work, after all.