Lydia Martin (drawntodeath) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2019-08-15 20:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !log, [plot] pod people, ~2019 august, ~25 points, ~~leroy jethro gibbs (codetoliveby), ~~lydia martin (drawntodeath) |
Who: Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Lydia Martin
What: Pod Personing
When: Thursday afternoon
Where: Lydia's house
Warnings: TBD
Status: Closed/Incomplete gdoc TBC
Weird things were going on in Madison Valley. Gibbs couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it was enough to have him checking in on people. Em was alright, his coworkers seemed okay, and he'd checked in on Lissa more than once. The only person he hadn't reached out to yet was Lydia, which he had been debating on doing at all because it felt like something his Wild West self would do. He'd kept his distance, figured she'd call when she needed, but she hadn't. He knew women were sometimes complicated and oftentimes he just didn't understand how their minds worked, but he didn't think Lydia was doing anything like that. It left him going back and forth on it before an opportunity presented itself.
He tried to go for a run every day, usually in the mornings but sometimes the afternoon ended up being the best time for him to go. That was the case today and his running path took him throughout the town. Gibbs was never one to ignore his gut, he just couldn't put his finger on what the heck was going on. His path just so happened to take him past Lydia's house and she was just at her front door, either coming or going he couldn't tell. Either way, he slowed to a stop a few steps away from her.
"Afternoon," Gibbs greeted. "How's your Thursday going?"
***
The life of Lydia Martin was largely uncomplicated. She had a career that required a fair amount of creativity but equal parts simple organization. She attended classes at the local college, a variety of primarily math and science subjects and she excelled at them. She lived alone, spent hours of every morning getting ready to face the world and equally long most nights in a self-care routine. She kept a diary that should have provided valuable insights to her emotions.
She was going about the usual business, about to head for a coffee walk around town while the weather was still nice when he appeared. She’d seen his name written in that diary dozens of times but knew it was a relationship that was more distanced than that would indicate. She turned toward the voice pleasantly.
“Hey. It’s good. I haven’t seen you in a while.” A couple of weeks at least. Since her coworker’s wedding?
***
"Since the wedding, I think," he said in agreement. That wasn't really out of the ordinary these days, much as he might have wanted things to be different. There were more nights than he was comfortable with that he stayed up, working on his boat in the basement as his mind turned over the cruise, that other life, and what to do about the redhead currently causing him to lose sleep.
"Have things been good for you? No more trouble with the gutters with all the rain we've had?" Talking about the house seemed a safe enough bet. Gibbs looked at her with a careful eye, curious to know if whatever weird feelings he was having applied to her or not. He wasn't quite sure.
***
Turning slightly to glance toward the mentioned gutters, she shook her head. “No, everything’s been okay. Thanks again for fixing them up. I haven’t had to worry about them at all.”
She never had to worry about anything he fixed, but there were plenty of worries floating around her head that had to do with him. He was gentle with her, fond of her, might even love her but the memories of that weren’t as simple as others. There was a layer of confusion between one life and another, the mistake of letting the two overlap while sharing a room. There was wanting and not wanting at all and he was someone who Lydia should probably keep at arm’s length.
“But since I’ve got you here, do you want to come in for a minute?” It could very well be to take a look at something else that wasn’t quite working right. It could just as easily be for something else all together. Normally she’d have specified.
***
Something felt different with her, but he was second guessing himself because he wasn't sure if the difference was due to what he remembered of their Wild West time together or what he'd learned of her after spending two weeks together sharing a room. "I'm glad they're treating you right," he replied, a bit awkwardly but no more or less awkward than he usually was with her.
"Sure, I don't mind. Something else giving you trouble?" he asked, although he was already up the front steps and ready to follow her inside the house. If anything, Gibbs knew he'd possibly be able to figure out if something was wrong if they could go through something as routine - for them - as going through something in the house that needed fixing.
***
“Trouble,” she repeated. “Yeah. Something’s giving me a bit of trouble.” From Lydia there would normally have been a little more sass and a lot more rolling her eyes but not today. Today her expression just stayed blank as she opened the door again and gestured for him to follow her. “It’s always something around here, isn’t it?”
There were a lot of things to be fixed, and she’d had someone once who had been working on all of that while she worried about how things looked afterwards. She didn’t have that person anymore. She had Gibbs.
And Gibbs could not be that person to her, it seemed, though she might want him to be deeper down than she acknowledged.