InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It's honest, it's efficient."

It had taken Joy two days just to figure out how to make the international Floo work so she could owl Meaghan the details of when she'd try. She'd even gone to the Floo Authority to get a verified token for connection, so she didn't accidentally mess up the full details on the spot. And every time she talked with someone else about the time difference, she got a different calculation until eventually she just gave up, succumbed to the inevitable, and asked her father. She'd have ended up there anyway; the parental Willisons' house actually had a fireplace, and Stefan's work often required international discussion.

Now, look, Joy loved her parents, but there was loving them from eight hundred ks (or eight thousand…) and there was having to show up at seven in the morning and having to fight past her mother and all her questions about Roshan and family to get to her father's study to use the Floo.

At least she had a coffee and a pile of cauliflower daal on toast as she tossed her token into the fireplace and tried to get her brain back to Scotland.

"I think it's workin', izzit workin'?" Meaghan said, crouching in front of the front room fireplace and peering into the flames. She was weirdly nervous about this. It hadn't been that long since they saw Joy last, only a month and a halfish, but so much had happened since she left that it felt like years. And she'd left so suddenly, and left such a hole that they were still recovering from it.

Getting better though, in some ways anyways. Getting Scrimmy in or planning to, that was helping.

The flames whooshed, and Meaghan perked up. "Joy? That you?"

"Yes!" Joy exclaimed, lurching forward on the little fireside stool, her eagerness sending coffee sloshing over the rim of her mug onto her fingers. "Shit, ow, wait." Put down the mug, wipe her hand off on the hem of her shirt, laughing at how ridiculous it was.

Laughing for the relief of hearing Meaghan again. Turned out it didn't take much to get her brain back to Scotland; just took that strange-but-familiar accent. "Fuck me, babe, but it's good to see you again." Joy could hear the Aussie twang back in full force on her own accent, the faint Scottish edge she'd acquired filed back in the last month and a bit. It made her sad all over again.

"S'good to see you too," Meaghan said, blinking hard as she laughed. She wondered for the umpteenth time how the hell Joy had become so important so fast. Sure, she'd known her through Blue before she got traded up to them, but it felt like once Joy got up to Scotland they'd just burst up overnight. And then living together… Meaghan hadn't lived with anyone in a real long time, not since Donnie with school and home before that, but it'd always been more of a mess before, both literally and for emotions and shit.

"You look browner. Or's that just the fire?" It was summer there after all, wasn't it still? Or wait, was it?

Joy huffed another little laugh. "I probably am. The only silver lining in all this is getting to hit the beach every day again." At least on a surfboard she could get her mind off the quiet bulk of her brother in a hospital bed, or the occasional blank glaze in his wife's eyes, or her own worry about how she'd left things in Scotland.

Speaking of which... she tried really hard to sound both concerned and casual as she said, "How're you going, anyway?"

She should probably say it was fine and she was grand, the team was doing okay and whatever. They were still winning after all and you were s'posed to make people feel better, right? That's what Florrie would probably do anyways, and she was good at… basically everything. Having friends and shit. Not pissing folks off.

Meaghan wasn't doing too well at any of that these days. Why even try? "It's shit," Meaghan said frankly. "Wish you were here. 'Cause it'd be less shit," she added. And because it was shit enough where Joy was, so she deserved a break from that shit, right?

"Prob'ly still a little shit though," she sighed.

"Wish I was there too." Joy's fingers twitched, wanted to reach for the flames; she picked up her coffee instead, wrapping both hands firmly around it. Fuck but she missed it all, right now. Missed flying, missed the team, missed Florrie and Scrimmy and Alasdair and even Ellie and Meaghan, really and a lot Meaghan. She'd been catching up again with her Aussie friends since she got back, and that was fantastic, but all of their sass and moods and bitchiness rude jokes... it still wasn't Meaghan, prickly and genuine and... and something. Something that wasn't easy but was still somehow comfortable. Like the sister Joy had never had (because her own sister was a prissy twit; Joy loved Tara, but she really, really was).

"Wanna tell me about it?" Joy asked. She felt so damn helpless, all the way over here. She couldn't pull out the vodka, or brace the punching bag, or drag Meaghan out dancing, or all the other things she needed when words wouldn't do. Couldn't even hug her. All she could do was make that pissant offer.

Meaghan was quiet, and it didn't look natural on her. "Tellin's what got me into it in the first," she said. How much could she even say? Sure, she'd told the team Galbraith's bullshit, and Joy was part of the team: she would've seen it if she'd still been in Scotland. But she wasn't in Scotland.

And Meaghan was tired of people looking at her like she'd done something awful and wrong. Tired of it changing how they cared about and talked to her. She couldn't take that from Joy on top of the rest of the team. And she didn't want another lecture neither.

But she had to do or say something.

"Feels like it's all fallen apart," she said finally. "An' like it's my fault." And it shouldn't be, 'cause she'd never asked for any of this to be put on her and she would've told them not to if they'd even asked first.

Joy shrugged, her smile sympathetic and fond. "Fault ain't that useful, babe. Shit got the way it is. Question is, where to from here?" She half-winced, and added, "Which probably isn't any easier right now. But hang in there, and you'll figure it out. I know you will." The line was delivered with all of that Joy confidence, the same way she said, We're going to win this or Nobody is talking until Neighbours is finished.

Meaghan wished she had Joy's confidence. She wished she had her own confidence, how she normally would, that it was no big deal and she was totally in the right and it'd blow over 'cause everyone making a fuss was overreacting.

Not that she thought she was wrong, at least not about the pink shit. There was no way it was a coincidence. And it was bullshit they'd take Galbraith in her condition over Meaghan in top condition. (And Meaghan was always in top condition.)

But as bullshit as it all was, she couldn't tell herself that she'd been right to shoot her mouth off about Galbraith. Even if she didn't like her. Even if it was all wrong and she'd been pissed and fucked it all up from there.

Where to wasn't a question she knew how to answer unless it meant literally physically, like Which pub's closest or My place or yours?

Meaghan gave Joy a half-smile, because it was hard not to smile at Joy even if was only half. "Gotta say I'm pretty shit at that shit," she said. Even when she and Joy'd been fighting, or not getting on more like, she hadn't done much about it. Joy was the one who'd come to her and fixed it. She wished she could get her to fix this too, but… probably wouldn't work that way.

Joy's smile matched Meaghan's. And maybe her thoughts did too, because the next thing she said was, "Y'know, I didn't apologise and make up with you because I regretted what I did. Because I didn't. Your brother is damn fine kisser." She lifted her eyebrows and her non-coffee-holding hand. "Just the truth, babe. But it hurt you, and it messed things up between us, and that I really did regret. I couldn't live with that. For the team, sure, but mostly just for me. And maybe we could've lived with it and carried on and we're both professionals and..." She waved a hand. "Whatever. But it would've sucked, and I would've hated it. So I did something."

After a moment's pause, Joy shrugged. "Which doesn't mean you have to. Or should. Only you can decide what you can and can't live with. And I know it's hard, believe me, I know." Her smile broadened, fond even through the fire. "But it's worth it."

Meaghan's face went from reluctant smile to nose-wrinkly-ugh (because who wanted to hear about their brother snogging?) to just sort of tired, like the journey'd wore it out.

She wasn't supposed to be tired. Tired was Ellie now, Wrong Ellie. That's what they were trying to make Meaghan be with the being responsible for everybloodyone sticking together and holding Ellie and Scrimmy up, with the boxing instead of real live fighting. All the shit they'd been pushing on her that she lashed out against because she shouldn't have to and they should know better, they should let her be her.

But the being her was what had got her to here, with the whole team hating her just about, and even if it wasn't her team anymore 'cause her team'd been scattered to the four winds, it was still her team 'cause it was Pride.

She ducked her head and wiped her nose. "Don't think I can live with it," she said, forcing a kinda-smile at Joy through the flames.

Joy smiled back, a smile fond but knowing. "Then you gotta do something, babe. Gotta hold out a hand. Gotta take a step closer. Gotta... whatever." Her smile wobbled, pressed flat between her lips. "I wish I was there to help." It was so unfair, that half her heart was in Scotland, and half of it was here. Like it was permanently broken, wherever she was. Or just maybe, sometimes, like she had twice the love. But right now, it sucked.

Would it have even been like this still if Joy was here? Meaghan wasn't sure. That was half the falling-apart, the bit that mattered most.

Not that Joy'd made it happen by leaving or nowt. She knew whose fault it was really, it was too obvious to blame that on another. But it would've been different then.

"Yeah, me too," she said.