Who: Maggie & Rhona (NPC) MacDougal. What: Maggie gets a taste of her own medicine. When: March 31, 2000. During the Neep match. Where: Portree Medic's Tent. Warnings: Language. Embarrassed Maggie. Nosy mums. This was supposed to be just a comment on the IC/OOC but then it kept getting longer and IT'S BAD AND SELF-INDULGENT AND DON'T READ IT. Also someone please take NPCs away from me Maggie has TOO MANY.
"How's the love o' yer life?"
"I told ye, I'm no' a fuckin' cat person now. It moved in."
"An' how's the lad in yer life?"
Maggie's poker face was admirable but she froze too much and her ears were tingeing the slightest bit too pink. She should have fucking known. "What, Circe got another issue already?"
Rhona shot her daughter an amused, yet somehow still level, look. "Maeve and I had a few bevvies."
Maggie just covered her face with her hand. A silence passed between them, expectant on the mother's side and dreading on the daughter's. Maggie knew her mother better than to expect that she could get out of the conversation, especially while cornered in her own med tent.
"A 'polite lad,' she said. 'Talented on the piano.'" Rhona tapped her finger to her chin. Maggie thought she was enjoying it all far too much. "'The Graphorns are growing fond of him' — that wis a braw review. But our Powys wilnae make a peep; claims ye learned too much from me."
Maggie smirked; at least she had the upper hand somewhere. "That part, aye. Tha's true." Another awkward-for-Maggie-yet-delightful-for-her-mother silence rolled through before her eyes flickered to her mother then back to the pitch. "If Maeve's told ye the lot, why ask me?"
"Oh, love. I dinna ask fur specifics. Ye ken 'tis na fun if I cannae play the guessing game!"
This was... almost... worse than Maeve telling her everything. Then something dawned on Maggie and, face full of dread, she turned back to her mother. "Ye–ye didna..." She couldn't even finish the sentence. It was unthinkable. It would spell her downfall. A betrayal from which she might never recover.
Rhona responded after a laugh (still delighted! Why was she always delighted!) "Tell yer da? No, no, I love ye, I wouldn't dae that."
Maggie leaned against the tent pole with a sigh of relief.
"So, do I ken him?"
She gave her mother a sidelong glance, which her mother returned in kind. Neither blinked nor flinched for a solid half-minute, and she knew her mother could go even longer. They lasted fifteen more seconds before, when Maggie's eyes were watering from the strain of staring her down, she did the unthinkable: she caved. "Naw." She muttered, petulant, blinking rapidly to get some wetness back on her contact lenses before she looked back up at the players.
Rhona nodded. Maggie couldn't see her but she knew she looked smug. She repeated "'Naw'..." then considered that for a moment. "How d'ye ken him, then? Work?"
Maggie, who refused to budge on account of having already conceded with one answer, gave a noncommittal shrug.
"And yet ye've seen him a handful of times of late."
Now it wasn't only the mediwitch's ears that were red; her cheeks were beginning to show signs of Pantone 14-1420: Apricot Blush.
"At the pub... about town..."
Pantone 032: Red. "Havin' a braw time right now, eh?" She knew the answer, of course, because she'd learned everything she knew about so-called 'casual interrogation' from the woman beside her. She'd engaged in it on the regular when conversing with Pye, or Hamish, or Peggy, or... well, or Alec, whom she'd been subjecting to it... um, fairly regularly.
Perhaps this was some sort of divine retribution.
Rhona grinned and bumped shoulders with her daughter. "I havenae been able to do this tae ye in years."
Maggie's stubborn outer layer was dissolving bit by bit because this was her ma, but she was going to stick it out as long as she could. Despite this, she still replied, with the tiniest hint of a smile, "I ken," and bumped back.
Her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave a kiss to the top of her hair. "Gonnae tell me anything?"
"Naw." Maggie leaned in but still shook her head — even affection wasn't about to win her over. "It's fuckin' new as shite yet we've got the Graphorn lads bettin' on us and the Bells watchin' us like fuckin' hawks. Ye said it–" she waved a hand in the air to belay the intense awkwardness she felt from actually admitting it "–s'been... a while, aye?" It was her chance to turn an expectant look to her mother, and she did. "A while, an' I'm tryin' not ta fuck everythin' up so soon."
Suddenly she was wracked with the same insecurities that had kept her from pursuing anything since she'd come back to Scotland — the guilt over ending things with Alice so abruptly, with handling the entire situation in the worst possible way; the worries that she'd flee again if things got as serious again as they had between the two women then; the apprehension that she simply wasn't cut out for this, or that she went about it entirely wrong.
But she pulled in a breath and repeated to herself what she'd just told her mother: that it had only been a couple of weeks and it was simply too early to say anything. Which was exactly why she wasn't saying anything. (A great success that had been, given her current situation.) "Even my Hogwarts mates dinny ken yet, an' I'm tryin' ta keep it that way fur long as I can." The best approach? No. The one that guaranteed less meddling until things were certain (or over)? Yes. "Let me have that at least. Ye've asked plenty."
With a nod, Rhona pulled her daughter closer in. "For now." Maggie could hear the smirk.
"Can't believe you an' Maeve goss about me."
"Is he fit?"
Maggie heaved a dramatic sigh. "I've got too many maws. I'll have ta fire some of ye 'fore the next quarterly budget goes in."