WHO: Melpomene and Antigone WHEN: The morning after this WHERE: Melpomene's place WHAT: The start of something WARNINGS: Inappropriate fangirling
Melpomene wasn’t a big nocturnal sleeper; she preferred summer nights on her corner balcony with a glass of red wine (agiorgitiko if she was feeling nostalgic, malbec if she wasn’t) and a project, even if that project was watching the city and thinking.
Antigone was asleep in her spare room and Melpomene was thinking very hard. Antigone. She loved Antigone. She had always loved Antigone. In all their time walking this country, she had never been so lucky as to meet her, to follow her life in person, and now Antigone was asleep in her spare room.
She owed the Fates something big, for letting Antigone's name slip from their lips. They hadn’t told her anything specific, the last time she met up with the three for a stitch and bitch (or weave and grieve) but they said enough. And now Antigone was asleep in her spare room and Melpomene had no idea what to do next.
All she knew was that if Antigone was back in the city, Melpomene wanted to be there to see what happened. And – she reassured herself – she didn’t need a grand plan; often, the simplest storylines were the most powerful, weren’t they?
She’d offer Antigone her room and let the world play out as it would. But Melpomene couldn’t suppress a thrill of excitement, one of her great heroines was asleep, in her spare room!
She tried to stop thinking about it. Really. Instead she finished her wine and read over the latest script one of her writing team had sent her and soon she was absorbed; smiling at any particularly cutting line, adding in notes about where to drop in a little foreshadowing, or changing a line of dialogue so it would divide the internet in discussions about its meaning. She worked until the sun started to rise, only a few hours – they’d been out late.
The time for wine was over, and the time for coffee had begun. Melpomene made a pot and took it back out to the balcony to watch the rest of the morning; this really was one of her favourite spots in the world. She hoped Antigone would love it too, while she was here.
Calm down she told herself, but that rarely worked. Although her demeanor often came across as measured and deliberate, there was a storm in her stomach that never really settled down. Rip tides looked calm, too.
The coffee pot was almost empty when she caught a glimpse of movement through the glass doors behind her; Antigone, moving through the apartment. Melpomene raised her hand to catch her eye, and beckoned her out in the morning. “Hello,” she said. “How do you feel?”
Antigone winced a little as she stepped out into the morning sun. “Hungover,” she stated bluntly. Melpomene waved her toward one of the other chairs, and Antigone gingerly sat, watching as Melpomene poured her a cup of coffee.
“I have sugar and milk inside.”
“Black is good,” Antigone shook her head, blowing on the coffee before taking a sip. She let a long breath out through her nose. She felt so insubstantial that the act shook her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Melpomene let her drink her coffee in silence for a while, till she was nearly done. “I might make another pot.”
“One cup is fine,” said Antigone, whose head needed a good deal more than one cup of coffee. “I have a lot to do today. I shouldn’t have slept so long.”
“You should have slept longer,” Melpomene countered. “That was a heavy thing, last night.”
Antigone cocked an eyebrow at her. “Did you sleep?” she asked, deflecting. She didn’t want to talk about how heavy it might or might not have been. Her heart had barely scabbed over. Any thought too introspective might open it up again.
“Yesterday, I woke up at 6pm,” Melpomene explained. The night before she had been on set, making sure the night shoot was going as well as she imagined. “What do you need to do today? I will help.”
“I need to find which morgue they took Maxwell to," Antigone’s voice trembled with conviction and headache. "I need to make sure he isn't alone." It took her a long moment to realise this was going to be a lot harder with a dead phone, and that this woman’s offer of help might be very much appreciated.
“We can call around the hospitals,” Melpomene said. “And later, if you like, I can take you back to your car. You said that you were sleeping in it?”
Ugh, thought Antigone, trying to imagine how much worse she’d feel this morning if she had woken up in her car. “Mm. Yes. I only drove up, yesterday.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
Antigone hesitated. She probably had a place at her father’s, but she didn’t know what his life was doing to him at the moment, if he was even still here. Besides, she felt like a bomb. It wasn’t nice to hand your father a bomb, not after most of the rest of his family had exploded on him, one stage or another. “I don’t even know if I want to stay in this city,” she said. Maybe (she thought, bitter as cyanide) it was a little too close to Ismene, and her happy new family.
“That room is available,” Melpomene said. “Why don’t you stay with me?”
Antigone looked up at her, sharply. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know you have a good heart,” Melpomene said. “Isn’t that enough?”
It should be, but in Antigone’s experience, rarely was. “This place looks expensive.”
“I imagine it was, once. It was paid for outright some time ago.” Thank you, Zeus, Melpomene added silently. It was good to be a favored daughter, at times.
“You should still know who I am, before you offer this. I am Antigone.” She watched the other woman’s face, to see where that name hit. There were some who didn’t know her, did not know what Antigone meant, but the woman smiled, slow, a smile of recognition.
“Yes, I heard you say your name, last night. I know who you are. I’m Greek, too. I’m one of the muses.”
Antigone let out a little ‘huh’. As things went, a muse did not seem like the worst goddess to live with. Her hungover brain jammed two puzzle pieces together. “I heard you call yourself Romeo. Are you Erato, then?”
“It’s a pen name,” Melpomene said, caught off guard by her question. Melpomene was so rarely caught off guard, she answered before she could think.
Later, she would find reasons for the answer she chose. These all seemed like perfectly rational and human reasons for doing what she did: perhaps she didn’t want Antigone to balk, to look at her as if she were cruel, perhaps she wanted the other woman to get to know her before casting judgement. Perhaps she was annoyed or disappointed that Antigone, even hungover and worn out as she was, made the all-too-common assumption that Romeo was a romantic name, and not a tragic one, so maybe it was Antigone’s own fault, for putting the idea into her head.
It might have been nice (Melpomene thought later) to really believe that she made this decision with the best of intentions.
But she was what she was, and maybe she loved all the brighter, knowing how the end must come.
“Yes,” she heard herself say, having thought none of this, yet. “I am Erato.”