Katherine Howard, Queen of England (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} without_a_thorn) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} nevermore_logs,@ 2012-02-14 17:42:00 |
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What: Wanting to go home
Where: Avonlea Retreat
When: Morning, 14th Feb
Note: Reposted as a favour, originally posted by Eleanor and John
"Mother! Are you coming?" John whined into the answering machine of Eleanor's cellphone, then hung up and threw his phone on the bed in a huff. He was itching to get out of this place. The people here were depressing, the orderlies were overly happy, the security polite but firm when they returned him to his rooms. He hated that it was on his mother's word that he could get out of here, but running away would only show up how immature he could be, so he sat resolutely, facing his open bedroom door and watching every person who went by.
It wasn't that his issues were resolved now. It was that he was bored out of his mind. Magazines were only good for so long, and the people he'd left in charge of his law firm wouldn't talk to him because Eleanor had threatened them that John needed to forget about work for a while, and so help them if they broke that edict. And Isabelle had been stuck with a family engagement and he hadn't seen her in simply days. John clasped his hands together and leaned his elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the door.
Eleanor simply rolled her eyes as she played John's message in the lobby, muttering choice things under her breath in French about impatient sons. She had finally agreed that John could come home, and that he was not to see or talk to his brother, or Robin. It was best for everyone, really. It would only set John off again.
She met with the head of the retreat and John's therapist, took notes of their advice, and signed the necessary paperwork. She made her way down the hall to John's room, her heels making a sharp clack, clack, clack in the silent space.
She knocked and poked her head in, smiling at John. "I take it you're ready to leave?"
"More than," John said, sitting up sharply. His bags were already packed and waiting at the foot of his bed. "So what is going to happen now? Will you insist I have a live-in nurse or just tap my phone?" So he was a little sarcastic, how unusual was that?
Eleanor simply raised an eyebrow. "Or you could keep that tone up, and I can turn around and walk out with you." She said it very matter-of-factly, but it was hard to miss the steel in her tone.
"I will insist you keep seeing Caroline, she seems to have done you some good," she went on. "And that you take your medication. And you say 'phone tap' like you think I can't obtain information any other way." She smiled at him, perhaps a touch shark-like.
John clenched his jaw, but managed not to speak back. He was just so anxious to get out of here. "Yes I am going to do that anyway," he said, considering firing Hess as soon as he got back to work. The kid was obviously an informant. But, perhaps, it would be better to treat him well and let his mother assume the best.
"Perhaps, Mother," he managed to say calmly, "it would be nice it you would trust me."
Eleanor smiled again, a real one this time. "I'm glad," she said, holding the door open so they could leave. "I honestly think it will help you, John."
She sighed quietly. "I'm trying, John. I'm trying to do right by everyone, and not start any more drama and fights. I want us to co-exist. I don't want to have to ship people off to retreats, or hear about people going to jail. But apparently I must." She straightened her spine, setting off down the corridor.
John glared at her back and snapped the rubber band on his wrist, then picked up his bags and followed her out. As soon as they reached the lobby, he snapped his fingers at an orderly to take his bags and carry them out. All his retorts about it being all Richard's fault he bit back, as well as anything derogatory he might call his mother, at least until she was out of earshot.
"I just want to go home and be left alone," he said, waiting for the driver to open the car door for him.