Nina Clarke: ᴍᴀʏᴏʀ, ᴀᴜsᴛɪɴ ᴛx & sʜʏ ʙʟᴏʙ (commonlaw) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-11-29 10:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [11] november, gemma wagner, nina clarke |
Who: Nina Clarke & Gemma Wagner
Where: Capitol's Rotunda
When: Backdated to the early evening of Friday, November 7 -- approximately 5:30PM
What: A blast from the past and a re-meeting.
Silence was worse than noise. It was a fact Nina had come to believe with all of her heart as the days ticked on past the Fifth, the day James and the others had been thrown into La Quinta and a freeze had fallen over the Capitol. That was how it felt to her, anyway -- everyone else seemed to be rather jovial about the turn of events, even those in the Department of Justice who didn't manage to hide their annoyance at being kept out of the loop. It was clear, too, that they were all meant to carry on with business as usual, she supposed, maintain the façade that Olinger sought to keep up. The only trouble was Nina had never been very good at charades. Nina was trying to understand how she even felt about the conflicting feelings in her head, while Isaac and Demi were on the outs again. Trouble was, though, this time around Nina actually found herself rooting for the two to make it work even though she knew how doomed their relationship was. Demi had been happy with him and he'd seemed brighter, better for it, too. She shook her head to herself as she left her apartment and made her way to the rotunda for two cups of coffee, thinking she'd drop one off at Demi's before going home. What she hadn't bargained for that morning, though, was a sighting from her past. A woman with dark wavy hair and lips she'd last seen years ago, before her life -- and the world -- had changed for the worse. Nina stopped right in her tracks, blinking as she sought to test her eyesight, but it was no use. Gemma Wagner was in the Capitol, in her shelter, and all Nina could think of suddenly was whether she'd remembered her lipstick that morning. She stepped closer, opened her mouth and cleared her throat to make sure her voice still worked. Then a few more steps. "Gemma? Is that you?" The trip from Philly had been long and painful. Without Izzy, Gemma was pretty sure she would have tapped out and ended up going nuts or just giving up and dying halfway through. Sure, she had the survivor skills, but the ability to do it alone? Not so much. She had gone to the Capitol in the hopes of finding a way to her brother, and ended up detained while she was checked up and made sure that she wasn’t about to walk in with zombie bites or a deathwish. Now she was clean, and free to move around… or at least free enough to think she could move around. It was odd, being somewhere that she could get coffee and talk to people as if she was back at the Starbucks by the school. But even that alien feeling of ordering food, of wearing clean clothes (blue jeans, a white blouse, a black sweater over that, an actually clean bra) felt like nothing compared to hearing a voice that had once made her heart rip in twine. Her first instinct was to hide. And Gemma usually followed her first instinct, even when it meant she was crouching behind a dead potted plant and the person she was hiding from had totally seen her do it and was now walking towards Gemma and the plant, one hand on her hip and an eyebrow raised. And also now she had spilled coffee on her jeans. Damn. "Gemma Wagner. I know it's you," Nina said, her tone just a tad impatient. And the terrible attempt at hiding had only convinced her that yes, this was the woman she'd once daydreamed about -- then, secretly, actively planned for -- marrying. Gemma felt her stomach plummet. Nina wanted to drag her out from behind that stupid potted plant and look at her, inspect her for a healed-over bite that would confirm immunity, hold on to the woman just to make sure she wasn't some kind of mirage. But she didn't do any of that. She stood there waiting for verbal confirmation, projecting an outwards calm even while her stomach was doing flip flops inside her stomach. How many times had she wondered if Gemma had made it through the zombie uprising? How was it possible that she felt simultaneously so gratified and irritated for it? “In my defense, this plant was a lot bigger and better at hiding me in my mind,” Gemma said, still half crouched behind it before finally standing up and walking out from behind the foliage; Nina took an instinctive step towards her, then another. Gemma didn’t have on makeup, she didn’t have her cute, preppy hair cut anymore. Instead her brown locks were dragged back into a bun, and she looked sunburned and too pale all at the same time. She needed a good meal, a comfortable bed, and someone to tell her it was okay to sleep for hours and hours without panic. But she had none of that right then, just the image of the woman she’d cared about so much that losing her in the break up had hurt a hundred times over every time she’d looked at the phone to text Nina something, and then realized she shouldn’t. And couldn’t. “Hullo,” she finally said, not sure if she should hug the woman or not. “I- I’m sorry I’m here. I’m looking for Chaz.” "Don't," Nina said, the word shorter and sharper than she'd originally intended. She bit her lip as she heard the way it sounded, then took another step forward. Her eyes ranged up and down Gemma's familiar face, one she'd never thought she'd been able to forget even though each time she found herself conjuring it in her mind's eye, she'd always ended up chastising herself for wanting what she couldn't have. "I thought you were dead. So please don't apologize for being here." Gemma closed her eyes for a moment, she fidgeted. Nina brought one hand up as though to rest it on Gemma's elbow and reassure her that the woman was real and alive, but instead of it finding purchase it hovered in midair instead as Nina debated what was right and what was too far. Six -- seven? -- years was a long time, after all. "I don't know if I've seen Chaz. I think I would have known if he were here, right?" Had she unwillingly committed such an enormous oversight? She liked to think that if Chaz were in Austin, they would have found each other by now. “He’s a beanpole with a big mouth,” Gemma said, a weak laugh leaving her as she looked down at the ground and then back up to Nina. She wanted to word vomit all over this woman, to tell her everything and nothing all at the same time. “I- I gotta go. My friend is here, I’m meeting him to make sure he’s alive and well,” Gemma said, her stomach in a knot of knots created by tangled emotions she’d never dealt with after Nina left. If this had been an intentional meeting between them, rather than something that came on suddenly like a punch to the stomach, Nina didn't think she'd feel as off-kilter as she did. She wanted to ask Gemma to give her at least a couple more minutes, or even just a few more seconds, but words were failing her. So she nodded silently, her face falling as she watched Gemma's clear discomfort at her presence, and stepped back to allow Gemma room to maneuver around her. "Okay. Well -- It was good to see you again." Not a lie, but it rang false to her ears all the same. 'Good' seemed like such a pathetic word to describe the way she felt just then. And Gemma didn’t know how to describe her own feelings- how to tell her how alone she’d been since Nina left how she’d only formed platonic relationships with people because love hurt too much. How she’d learned to focus more, because if she could focus… maybe someone like Nina would want her again. Gemma struggled with the idea of describing what she felt was her most pathetic qualities. “Same.” She walked by, and checked her phone for Isaac’s messages. |