Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in low_tide, @ 2009-11-14 20:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | connor reilly, rhiannon lee |
Safe Here
Sunset. Out on the screen porch, Rhiannon sat on a swing, holding a cell phone and a beer she found in the fridge. Third beer. Two dead soldiers occupied the seat next to her. At least the house was still empty. A weird desire to respect privacy kept Rhiannon from digging through her roommate's things. She wanted to know who slept beyond the blue-painted wall of her bedroom, but also didn't. If he was a stranger, how bad would it be, pretending all was the same? Did she have enough of this Rhiannon's memories to pull it off? So far, the most pressing memory was the nagging certainty that a work-related deadline approached and she hadn't started yet.
Worse than a stranger, she thought, was the second option. A roommate bearing a familiar face and none of the memories from her old life. Chicago. Las Vegas. Detroit. Even though a sense of finality already rested in her heart -- she'd been told in that voiceless dream that she belonged here and the truth of it resonated on an atomic level -- she couldn't let go yet. Denial was a bitch of an emotion, even when Powers stuck their fingers in her head and rewired her. Maybe that's why it was tough. She didn't want to be manipulated and just... accept it.
She put the beer bottle against her forehead, rolled it back and forth. "No, that's not worse." Worse was never seeing anyone she loved again. Fake them or not.
Who is Connor now?
Bolstered by the beer, she made herself dial because she wanted to hear his voice. If it hurt too much, she could bail. Just hang up and refuse to pick up if he called back. As it dialed, she closed her eyes and thought about Chicago, the last time she saw her best friend. They took a walk in Lincoln Park, wrestling and baiting each other, making plans to straighten up the neighborhood when the squatters made things dangerous. He said he kinda loved her. She said she kinda loved him, too.
Connor had found a bench and sat down on it, then took out his wallet and emptied the contents onto the painted wood to examine them. Sixteen dollars in cash, rumpled bills held in place by the billfold when he set them aside. A library card from California. A driver's license with his picture on it. His picture, but a different address, one in Key West. No pictures. He put everything back where he'd found it, tucked the wallet back into his pocket.
Rhiannon. He'd recalled that on his way back from Hannah's trinket kiosk. It was part of the tickle in the back of his mind. He knew the name and couldn't precisely remember why. Fingers that poked, elbows that jabbed, a mouth that wise-cracked and snarked. It twisted his heart and he didn't know why. Who was she? Where was she?
His phone went off, the ringtone sounding, and he fumbled it out of his shirt pocket without really thinking about it. That was what you did when your phone rang, after all, you answered it. "Yeah?"
He sounded the same. It felt as if a vacuum opened and sucked the air out of her chest. Rhiannon clutched the chain of the swing. Pieces of rust flaked off and stained her fingers. "Connor." She shut her eyes and thought, If I have his number, he knows me, too, right? But she wasn't sure what to say or ask next. With a no-name roommate, maybe she'd play coy and act like she was comfortable in this other girl's identical skin, learn as much as she could without showing her cards. But she couldn't pretend with him. Fuck. If he didn't know what she was talking about, oh well. She was okay with being presumed insane, or high as a kite, whatever.
"It's Rhiannon... From Chicago. Are you here, too?"
It was like having cold water poured down the back of his shirt, and Connor cursed under his breath as he dropped the phone into his lap before scooping it up again. "Rhiannon." It was almost a cough, his throat suddenly dry, and he held the phone closer to his ear as if that would make her materialize out of thin air. One finger tapped a quiet rhythm on the table in front of him.
"I don't remember what happened. I don't remember much of anything, really." Except your name and mine. "Is 'here' Key West, Florida?"
She laughed, but stifled it with a quick hand. Her eyes burned and the relief of the moment washed through her. Her bare feet pressed against the floor and kept the swing from moving. It figured she could land in the wrong body, the wrong year, the wrong world and never cry until she heard a familiar voice. "Oh my god. Yes. I'm in Key West." Rhiannon looked around. "I'm at some... house where I supposedly live and I-- Wait, you said... you said you don't remember much of anything. Do you really know who I am? Tell me something you remember. Not from Key West, from before." The words rushed out, an anxious avalanche.
"I remember..." He cast his mind back through the fuzz of his recollections, digging for something that would matter. It was a good thing she'd asked for something outside of Key West, because that was lost to him right now. He swiped hair out of his face impatiently.
"The car you had," he finally said. "Before you finally junked it, we used to go get take-out in it. That's why it always smelled like Chinese food." He could hear her breathing. His throat kept threatening to tighten up. He felt the urge to get up and move, but his legs might not agree to hold him up. His hand snaked around to his pocket again, and he tugged out the wallet for the second time.
"Rhiannon?" Because saying her name would keep him steady. "Where's the house? The address?"
Rhiannon laughed again. "It smelled like Chinese food because you dumped General Tso's chicken between the seats!" The memory of the two of them pulling the car over, tugging the seat back, and picking food out of the upholstery kept a smile on her face. 'You have to eat it now, you know that, right?' The loss of him would've been catastrophic to her.
"I don't know why they sent us here, but I'm glad you're with me. Sort of. I'm on Amelia Street. Where are you?" She stood up and walked to the screen door, as if he might be out there on the road, maybe living in one of the colorful houses. The swing rocked wildly in her wake, its beer bottles tumbling around.
And he knew, he knew before he looked, but he checked again anyway because he wanted to be sure. The driver's license picture was typically awful, too much glare from the lights. "I'm near Mallory Square," he replied. "I walked to the water and then came back. I forgot it gets dark so early now."
Connor tucked the little rectangle of laminated identification out of sight, put the brown wallet down on the table. "Six nineteen," he said, watching the sun dip lower towards the horizon. "Six nineteen Amelia Street. Right?"
Rhiannon took the steps onto the little sidewalk, limping when a pebble poked the arch of her foot. "Ow." She turned and searched the front of the house for a street number. Six-one-nine had been painted down the side of a porch post. "Yeah." She hadn't noticed before. On her return trip from the beach, she simply looked for the arched roof, the porch, the color of the siding. Rhiannon's brows went up. "Shit, do you live here, too? I saw a guy's stuff. I didn't dig, I just assumed it was a stranger." Now, of course, she did want to dig. Hopefully he didn't hear the snap of the door as she jogged back inside, a bottle of beer dangling between loose fingers. At the back of the house, she took a left instead of a right.
"That's what my driver's license tells me," Connor said, and something inside him unknotted, because to lose Rhiannon on top of everything else would have been too much to bear. "We must have just missed each other, this place isn't that big from what I can tell."
Now was not the time to tell her about Hannah. Maybe later. "I should come back. We should talk this out, see what's going on. Shouldn't take me more than ten minutes to get there, okay?"
She pushed open the door of his room. At the threshold, she saw sheets in a knot, jeans inside-out on the carpet, a stake on a dresser, sitting amongst loose change and toiletries like an ordinary item. The familiarity of the scents in the room washed over her. He was the same. "Okay, ten minutes," she said. Rhiannon stuck her finger in the door jamb, toying with the metal. It sparked a memory of standing there another time, looking at him. Connor was sitting on the bed. But that was it.
"I won't go anywhere." Rhiannon rubbed her lips together. And I won't dig through your stuff, either. She backed away and made her way to her room. Butterflies beat their wings inside her ribcage. Did she look different? Five years younger, only twenty-two. Freckles from sun exposure. God, what if she fought differently? No, that didn't make sense. Same Watcher. "Bye."
He ran the whole way, having mapped it out in his head, the distance from the house to the beach and then back. The only sound was that of his tennis shoes slapping against the sidewalk and his even, steady breathing. At the seven minute mark, he reached the bottom of the short staircase and slowed to a walk. Four stairs to the porch, concrete chipped and worn away in places from years of use. The porch was painted white and could use a fresh coat. Connor hovered in the doorway.
"Rhiannon?"
The living room was clean but cluttered, a second-hand couch near the window, a papa-san chair close to the wall. Clothes on the sofa, clean but unfolded. He could smell traces of detergent as he got closer. Books and newspapers on the coffee table, an old backpack half-open on the floor. Memories of breakfasts eaten in the kitchen flickered through his brain. Not much else, though. "Rhiannon, I'm back."
On the edge of her mattress, she looked down the hallway. Connor wasn't visible, but she saw his shadow on a wall. In the few minutes that passed, she had put on her socks and shoes. Not the boots, they were wet and sandy. She looked in a mirror again. A slightly rounder face, maybe not even noticeable. Longer hair. Missing scars on her stomach and neck. She got up and went to the living room.
Rhiannon held up her cell phone. "You're early."
It was hard not to tackle him in a hug. "Probably a red-letter moment for you."
"I ran," he said inanely, looking at the laundry where it had been piled on the couch. His and her clothes, mingled together as if they'd lived as roommates for a while. He picked up a black sock, then dropped it again. "It isn't like the other time," he added, looking over at her. "When it happened before, it was seamless, like....invisible stitching. This is messier. The pieces hold together, but I can see some places where they could just as easily fall apart."
He took in the Slayer's expression, moved a step closer. One hand reached out towards her, beckoning. "How not okay are you?"
Rhiannon frowned. She hadn't processed that yet; Not only had Connor switched dimensions before, his memories had been mystically overwritten, too. Now he had a new set crowding in. As much as it hurt her brain to accomodate two records of her life, it had to be worse for him. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think." She saw his open palm and reached out, gave it a squeeze. How strange that it fit the same. She stepped closer and held their joined hands up to her collarbone.
"I'm confused. There's this inner thing telling me I'm supposed to be here, to take over her life, while mine keeps tripping along without me someplace else. It's hard. I don't know who'll be here. And there were things," she shook her head, "That I didn't want to leave."
A flash of pain crossed Connor's face, and he wondered about his other self, if there was now a separate Connor wandering around Chicago wondering how the hell he'd gotten there. "Yeah," he said quietly, closing his fingers around Rhiannon's. "Yeah, I know that feeling."
He leaned his forehead against hers for a moment, and there was another flash of memory. Music. Music and dancing. A crowd around them, swirling lights, the leftover taste of some otherworldly citrus in the back of his throat. Dancing with Rhiannon. The Destroyer's mobile features shifted, and his blue eyes narrowed with concentration. Real? Something that had happened here? He looked at her, withdrew a few notches.
"We went dancing," he said, hoping it would jog something for the both of them. "I think that's what happened. I remember...I remember...holding you."
"What, here?" She searched his face. But that was a dumb question. She would've remembered Connor dancing in Chicago, and the idea of it was funny. Her mouth twitched up at the corners. "No... that would knock the world off its axis." It felt good to joke around with him, no matter how bizarre their circumstances. It injected a much-needed dose of normalcy, kept her feet on the ground, kept her from spiralling off into thoughts of everyone else. She was grateful for him.
The Destroyer was better at accessing memories from this world, the Slayer better at understanding why they were in it. She tried to picture it. "You danced with me?" If she concentrated, she could pull up an image of his face under blue lights and fog. In the here and now, Rhiannon shifted her weight. She wanted to be careful, to truly remember it and not just have her imagination supply a false memory based on details he gave her. "You wore a button-down shirt. It was blue. Our noses bumped, so I turned and pulled your arms around me. Is that right?"
The line of her spine against his torso, the straightness of it. Hands in places they had never been before, not like that. Connor's cheeks pinkened in a way that had nothing to do with the slight sunburn on his nose. "The shirt was just out of the package, I think," he said, looking down at his feet. Maybe it was just because he'd been down this road before, but he was better at finding the seams between what was real and was was otherwise.
"I think...yeah, I think that's right." The thing that had unknotted earlier had re-tied itself into a neat sailor's knot and he didn't know why. 'You always find me. Maybe I don't mind so much.'
"You said--" He stopped, his face going from pink to red. "You said I was giving you goosebumps."
"I--" Rhiannon laughed nervously. She shook her head. Not that it was impossible, but she wouldn't have admitted to it. Connor was her best friend and patrol partner. They sparred, made fun of each other, got into scraps and punched them out. He was a compass to keep her going in the right direction. If it wasn't good enough for Connor, she wouldn't do it either.
Even so, a bell went off in her head. Rhiannon stared at his face and remembered her nose on his cheek, her face tilted, her mouth centimeters away from his, until they shared the same breath. She remembered pulling his hair. Not a training montage, then. 'Say love and mean it the way I want.' 'Love. For as long as you'll have me.'
Thunderstruck, she let go of Connor's hand and took a giant step back. "Okay, whoa." Other pieces fell into place. The bedroom on the left, the sheets in a mess, those drawings of a man and a woman tangled up. Rhiannon's cheeks and neck were fire. "Jesus, Connor... We slept together." She looked at the floor and the legs of their furniture, anything that wasn't his face. "Here. Obviously."
He just looked at her, or rather the top of her head, for a minute, and the blush was hot, warming his neck all the way to the collar of his shirt. He folded his arms, tucked his hands into his armpits as if he wouldn't know what to do with them otherwise. Wanted to deny it even as he felt the urge to apologize.
Skin under his hands, her bare stomach pressed hard against his belly. His teeth making marks in her shoulder. Fingernails raking down his back. He had a brief memory of himself looking at his back in the mirror, examining the scratches before tugging a shirt on over them. Smirking at what they meant, what they represented. Proud.
"Um..." Whatever aplomb he had possessed when he'd entered the house was abandoning him fast. "Well, then."
Rhiannon gaped. "Um, well then?"
Repeating whatever Connor said was easier than thinking of something else. What kind of response was she supposed to have? Embarrassment? Check. Her cheeks hadn't burned that hot in years. Shock? Check. All she managed to do was stand there, mouth open. The creeps because she'd screwed her best friend and remembered all the sordid details? ...Un-check.
Rhiannon looked at his jeans. Without investigating, she knew exactly which underwear he had on, because she'd watched him put them on that morning. She couldn't even feel guilt, since this life was apparently absent a fiance. Rather than talk, she left the living room and went to her bedroom. The sketchpad was on a computer desk. She flipped the pages and found the abstract drawing, done in pencil. Two naked bodies interlocked. Earlier, she hadn't known if they were fighting or making love; the mood was too aggressive. But with a little perspective, the answer was obvious, even if the faces weren't.
After tearing out the page, she walked back to Connor and plastered it against his chest. "I think this is for you." Needing to breathe, she let herself out onto the screen porch. In Chicago, the gulp of air would've been cold and fresh. It would've slapped sense into her. Here, the humidity and heat did nothing to take the stain out of her cheeks.
He used both hands to grab the picture, because otherwise he might have reached out for her instead and he wasn't sure she'd let him do that.
He heard the screen door bang shut, drew his shoulders taut against a multitude of emotions, both his and hers. His fingers had crumpled the paper a little, and he smoothed it out before really looking at it. Taut, lean bodies entwined, the muscles in both pairs of arms defined by the strain. Connor looked over his shoulder at the door, at where the sun had disappeared and left the sky dark. The streetlights had already come on.
The door's hinge creaked, and he stepped out onto the porch. He stood behind her, his narrow shoulders finding a place to rest against the exterior of the house. The silence felt loaded.
"I didn't...I don't want to fuck up your life," he said, and he was speaking for both the self that knew her in Chicago and for this self here and now, provided they were different at all. Which they might not be. "There are a million things that sometimes you never say because you're afraid of what you'll ruin if you do. Even with perfectly good intentions, it's possible to really trash things. I should know."
He waited, and then because it was too late for anything else, he added, "Whatever I said, I meant it. Every word. What happens now...well, you can decide that. I know better than to try and make you do anything."
She folded her arms and closed her eyes. A breeze billowed the loose screen that surrounded the porch. She heard it sifting through the palms, too. The ocean air carried a scent of salt and fish. Never had she lived in a place like this, or spent more than a day or two by the sea, but the familiarity of it was undeniable, just like his voice. Rhiannon wanted to ask if he had feelings for her in Chicago or just here, and now he was mucked up by them. But she didn't. It opened the door for Connor to ask her the same question.
"You've never fucked up my life." Taking a few tiny steps backward, she bumped into his chest. Rhiannon pulled his arms around her and squeezed his forearms. He was dear to her, irreplaceable, part of herself.
"Every reasonable person in the world -- even if they're crazy in love -- they realize there are other people they could be with, even be happy with, in another life. With Joseph, I wasn't blind. I saw other men and I found them attractive, but that's all I did, because I would never cheat on him or hurt him. I loved him. And now--" She tipped her head back until her temple rested at his cheek. "Now I'm here. In another universe, another life... and I'm with you. I don't know how to process that yet. Not because... not because I find it fucked up, but because I don't."
It was convoluted. It hurt her head. Who was 'I' anyway? Rhiannon from home, Rhiannon from here, some mash-up of the two?
"I always saw you, Connor."
He linked his fingers together, holding her against his chest and listening to the sounds of the night. Happy. He could be happy with her. Even when she was at her worst with poking and prodding at him, he could feel the love behind it, even if both of them had either denied it or ignored it. "You fill up the room," he said, letting his shaggy hair tickle her cheek. "Sometimes I'd think about it, like 'what if I said something?', and then I'd get scared and put it away again because I knew you'd never leave Joseph. I didn't want to complicate things for you or ask for the impossible."
Connor tightened his hold a little. "We could try." He spoke very softly, knowing she could hear him. "If you wanted to. I think...no, I know I'd like to."
"You're right. I wouldn't have left." Rhiannon heard a wind chime and looked for it. It swung from a branch of a tree, silver cylinders swaying and tinkling. "When I'm with someone, they have all of me. Trust is more important to me than anything." That was how she approached all aspects of her life, with narrow focus, honing in until she got exactly where she wanted to be.
Which made her situation so foreign. Parts of herself tugged. Half of Rhiannon hung onto Chicago, despite powerful forces telling her to let go, prying her fingers away from a treasured possession because holding on stunted her progress. Half of Rhiannon was dizzied by real, credible memories of being with Connor here in an intimate way, and how it worked. How the first time they kissed felt like sticking her finger in a light socket. Maybe taking their places in this world meant letting go of the other.
Rhiannon turned her face into his cheek. "So you want to try. Poke it with a stick and see if it moves." She smiled. "Can you let me get my feet underneath me?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I guess somebody decided I didn't need to be anyplace else." He was thinking about his father, wondering where Angel might be in this world. He could feel the upturned corner of Rhiannon's mouth near his nose. The way she fit against him was like she'd been made to be right where she was.
"Take the time you need." He made his fingers loosen their grip. "I'll be right here."
"Me, too, Connor." On an impulse, she pressed her mouth to the underside of his jaw. It was strange, because it was something she'd done in Key West, but never at home, so it caused a little kick in her ribcage. She ran her hands over his arms, comfort for both of them. "Wanna go inside and dig through the house? See what else we can turn up?" And who. She wanted to know if other friends were here. Enemies, too. The last thing they needed was to get blindsided while they were figuring things out. Tomorrow, she wanted to take the unfamiliar body for a spin. Run, maybe ask him to spar.
"That reminds me."
Connor took a step away from the Slayer, took the plain little box out of his pocket. "This is just a little thing that I found, but its for you." Maybe it was too soon for presents, but it could be a symbol of their new start, in more ways than one. "I got it from an old friend, sort of. You're gonna...you're gonna be really surprised when you meet her."
He tugged the lid off, let the streetlight beyond fall on the plastic beads. "It matches your eyes, kind of."
Rhiannon's face registered surprise. "You got this for me?" When had he done it? She reached for the necklace in the gift box and let it dangle from her fingers. The amber beads shined a warm brown in the glow of the streetlamp. It was simple and pretty, just the kind of thing she liked. Placing them in her palm, she inspected each of the beads in turn. She wanted to wear it immediately, so she fastened it around her neck. "Thank you." She stopped playing with the necklace and looked up.
Yeah, she was going to break her rule, just a little. She pinched his shirttail and dared herself to go in for a kiss, fast, before she could talk herself out of it.
The pressure was there and gone in a hurry, and he kept his hands at his sides with an effort even as his mouth responded. "You're welcome."
The stars had started to come out, and he added, "We can check through the house now, maybe fix something to eat. If I can remember where everything is in there." He touched Rhiannon's shoulder lightly, reached for the screen door with his other hand. "You hungry?"
She chewed her lip. Refrained from touching it.
"Um. Starving, actually." Rhiannon collected the empty bottles from the porch swing and ducked into the house. "Here's hoping we liked grocery shopping better here than in Chicago. I don't think I can eat another mayonnaise, relish, and peanut butter sandwich." Smiling over her shoulder, she headed towards the kitchen. Getting into research mode would be good for them, she thought. Neither one of them liked being in the dark.
Connor rummaged around in the kitchen until he found some plates, then opened the fridge. Leftovers awaited, including part of a storebought meatloaf still in the package. He picked the plastic off, sniffed at it, pronounced it edible. It went into the microwave, and he poked at buttons that beeped in response. There were sodas and more beer as well, and he took a Coke while offering Rhiannon the beer. "We'll eat and then see what we can find out," he said. "It'll be okay, you'll see."
Rhiannon's brow furrowed. Ignoring the beer, she stared at the polka-dotted door of the microwave. Inside, the meatloaf spun in a slow circle while the timer ticked. The smell of it wafted out and made her stomach do a simultaneous growl-twist thing of hunger and distaste. A genuine question popped up. "Do I eat meat here?" Going to the fridge, she perused the contents, too, and found a decided lack of vegetables and fruits. "Well fuck. How did that happen?" Her back straightened. She tried to place where this girl's father worked while he was alive. If it wasn't a meat-packing plant, that could explain the lack of a gross-out factor. She pulled out a loaf of bread and cheese slice, intent on making toast instead.
"Thanks anyway. Very... tasty looking." She gestured at the warming food and took the beer, attempting to subdue a smirk.
"Hey, I just got here," Connor deadpanned, gesturing at the small appliance. "I'm just picking from what's available." Domestic he was not, and he peered through the microwave's door at the slowly rotating meatloaf. He wondered how many meals had been cooked in this kitchen before, if the 'other' occupants of the house had different habits other than the ingesting of meat. When the timer dinged, he pulled the plate out, set it on the round kitchen table.
"What will you want to check out first?" he asked once he'd found some silverware. "I'm guessing both our names are on the lease for this place, but that might not tell us much except for how long we've been here. What's first on the list?"
She closed the door to the toast oven and hefted herself onto the counter. Her heels tapped the cabinet doors. "Well... we can look through our online accounts for messages and contact lists. There are a few notebooks in my bedroom, too. They might spark something, if I drew or journaled anything. There's a file cabinet and a weapons trunk in the living room." She scratched her elbow. "And I think we should look at the news. It makes sense to turn the house upside-down first, then kind of work our way outwards."
The lever popped on the oven. She laid her slices of cheese toast on a napkin. Then she hopped down and joined him at the table. "I don't want to patrol until I've sparred at least once, if you're up for it. I mean... I feel pretty normal, but I don't want to be wrong. Like, surprise, this leg's been broken in five places." She assumed Slayers were the same here, but until she tested her body, she wouldn't know what it could do.
"All right. I saw a paper out in the yard still in the plastic bag. I guess we're subscribers, I'll bring it in after we eat. And there are probably a couple of places down by the beach where we can go and no one will see us. Or call the cops, thinking we're beating the shit out of each other for no reason."
Before he tucked into his meatloaf, Connor reached out and brushed Rhiannon's shoulder with his knuckles. "I know how it feels," he said with reserved sympathy. "If you want to talk about it later, we can do that too. When things get re-aligned without you knowing about it, it can really spin your head around. If you need anything, let me know."
"Alright." Rhiannon caught his fingers and tucked a kiss into the palm of Connor's hand. She closed his fingers over the spot. Later would be better for talking. Right now, examining things felt overwhelming, like she might drown in the magnitude of it. Besides, it could be premature. The only way to know how much had changed was to dig around first. She picked up her toast and watched him over the orange square. "You and me, kicking each others' asses on the beach. Seems somehow... familiar." She smiled, knowing they'd done that before in both places. "What do you want to bet you lose like crazy?"
The Destroyer raised an eyebrow, put a forkful of meatloaf into his mouth. "We'll see," he said once he'd washed the bite down with some soda. "I'm sure I can still remember how to kick your ass. Some things just come naturally."
He wasn't going to worry overly much right now. They'd go through the house and see what was familiar, figure out how to fit into the lives they'd been handed. At least he hadn't been separated from Rhiannon. They'd help each other through it. Somehow.
***
Flashbacks to romantic developments are taken from The Blinders Off (Part 1) and Familiar Surroundings (Part 2). The full scene contains adult content.