Things Keep Falling
Characters: Adam, Becka, and Wren Setting: Adam's room, dawn
The trip up the stairs took far longer than it had taken to get down them when she’d been in such a hurry to get to Caroline, but at least Becka hadn’t stopped moving. She was counting that as a win of sorts, although she wasn’t really giving it much thought in that moment. She opened the door at the top of the stairs and turned down the hall toward Adam’s room. She’d only been there once, but she didn’t have to think about where she was going. Once there, she lifted her hand and knocked, a rather light, feeble sound. Sighing, she leaned against the frame and knocked again, marginally firmer this time.
He’d stayed up with Wren for as long as she needed him to, and for once, finally, Adam fell asleep. He hadn’t been asleep long though when someone knocked on the door, which meant that even the soft knock woke him up, rubbing his face as he stared at it before getting up to answer it. He wasn’t really dressed, in just a pair of pajama pants, wearing something more than usual since Wren was there. He fumbled with the door lock twice before he managed to get it open, staring at Becka. “What time is it?”
Wren stirred at the second knock, and sat up slowly, looking around the room from where she'd slept on the couch. Rubbing at her eyes, she stared at the door, waiting to hear who was there. She felt a little heavy, like she wasn't fully awake yet, and she attempted to gauge what time it was by the light from the door, but it looked very dim to her.
Becka stared blankly at Adam, not processing the question right away. For some reason it wasn’t the question she thought he should ask, but that was probably because she knew. She’d seen it with her own eyes. “Caroline’s dead,” she said rather than answering the question. “I don’t know what time it is. It’s really early, though. I woke you up? You were sleeping?” she realized belatedly, sounding mildly guilty. Why had she come here? It hadn’t even occurred to her that he would be sleeping even though she knew that he needed to sleep if and when he could.
“It’s fine,” Adam said, rubbing at his face again, trying to wipe the sleep away. He heard Wren move behind him, which had him glancing over his shoulder, surprised at even in his half-waking state seeing her moving sent relief through him. They’d made it through most of the night at least. “Who’s? What?” he asked, looking back at Becka again and blinking more.
"What?" Wren asked, voice very small. She stood up, walking to the door, shock bright in her system. It washed the sleep away, left her feeling cold. "Caroline is dead?" she asked Becka, that shock plain on her features.
Becka was surprised to see Wren coming over to the door, definitely not having expected anyone else to be in the room with Adam, but she was in no state to even try to figure out why she was there, and she just nodded at the question, eyes shining as they filled with moisture. “Yeah, she.... I saw her. She fell - I think she fell, from the roof. I saw her falling, and I ran down the stairs, but she was already dead when I got there,” she tried to explain.
It might not have been the right reaction, but Adam’s first concern was Wren, that shock on her face sinking into his core as what she’d left him so worried about drifted into his thoughts. He reached out a hand for her bare shoulder, trying to be reassuring, not thinking for an instant what it might look like beyond being her friend. After a moment he looked at Becka again, squinting a little. “She fell? Damn. Do you...you need help?”
"Fell?" Wren repeated as well. "I...she didn't...how? Where?" she asked, thinking about all of the things the woman had shouted at her through the doors. Had the stocks done her in? Was this Wren's fault? Was this the ugly result of her being so terribly, terribly wrong about everything?
The way Adam reached out a comforting hand to Wren did push through the other thoughts crowding Becka's mind, and she felt her heart drop a bit. Oh. "I..." She faltered, trying to sort out answers she didn't have to the questions they were asking. "Cal said to get you or Brady or Reece. I don't know Reece," she told Adam. And Brady had already got there, but she'd needed to do something, to get away from the courtyard for a minute. "I think she was trying to escape. There was a helicopter, the sound woke me up, and when I went outside to see what was going on, she was falling, right in front of our rooms. She was falling, and there was nothing I could." Her voice was creeping toward hysterical, though she still had a ways to go before she was fully there, but she was clearly trying very hard to keep it all together.
“Me? What...” Adam had no idea what good he would be, but maybe he should go down there. He was about to get his shirt when Becka started explaining things again and he slowed down. “I think you should sit,” he said, pulling the door open more and moving out of her way. She was starting to lose it which would definitely not be good.
Listening, Wren felt sick. "...yesterday, she was yelling. Trying to get them to come get her. She said she wanted to go back, that she wanted to be taken out of here." she said, voice quiet. When Adam said Becka should sit, she moved out of her way as well, trying to clear her head. "I should go." she said. "I'm...I should go." she repeated helplessly.
Becka wasn't sure she could move, wasn't sure she wanted to go into his room when she was so confused about everything again, but she was starting to feel a little dizzy and very overwhelmed, and Adam was right. She needed to sit, so once Wren moved out of the way, she stepped into the room, flinching minutely at the sight of the couch, remembering sleeping there a few nights ago. But still, she sat, resting her elbows on her knees, the dressing gown Antoine had lent her falling off her shoulders to pool around her on the couch. She didn't know what to say to what Wren told them, about Caroline yelling for them to take her back, or that she should go. "I wish I knew more," she finally said in a pained whisper.
Adam was definitely not awake enough for this yet. He was watching Wren, hating the way her voice got quiet like that. That wasn’t a good sign. When she said she should go though he jumped, reaching for her. “No. No you stay. You’re fine.” His hands were on her shoulders, not letting her leave. He had no idea what she’d do on her own and he’d rather she just stay. Looking back at Becka he shook his head. “You don’t have to. Just breathe Becks.”
Wren looked at Adam, at a loss. She felt like that summed up her entire life at the moment. She was at a loss. She looked back to Becka as well, remembering how distraught she'd been. She'd tried to help her as well, though she had no idea if she'd managed or not. It certainly looked like she needed help right then. But not her kind of help. Adam's kind of help. "I believe she needs you right now." she said to Adam, voice still light. Quiet.
Now was hardly the time to try working out what Adam's actions and words toward Wren meant, but it seemed like the easier thing to focus on in that moment. Becka knew it was stupid, though, that she shouldn't jump to conclusions. She looked up at Adam with wide eyes when he told her to breathe. "I am," she said softly, though with the way her head felt light, she probably hadn't been. She stayed silent at Wren's words, torn between wanting her to stay and wanting her to go. Wren had helped her gain a little clarity when she'd felt lost and confused before, and she liked her for that alone, but she just didn't know what was going on here, and that made her feel uneasy.
Adam wasn’t doing much better than either of them, but he was stuck between knowing Wren was right, that Becka needed him and knowing full well that he wouldn’t feel right letting Wren out of his sight. “And I’m worried about you,” he told Wren, eyes on hers, hands still on her shoulders.
Wren did her best to look reassuring at him, though she wasn't sure how well she pulled that off. "I will be okay." she told him, knowing he probably needed to hear that, in order to move ahead. "I can't go far." she added. The farthest away she could go was block B, which she didn't even know yet if she was going to be able to move there. Her instinct was to go see if there was anything she could do to help with the Caroline situation, but that was old Wren. Wren who still trusted herself and her own judgment, which wasn't who she was now. This was Wren who didn't know what she was doing, and who potentially made things much worse. Like she was wondering if she had with Caroline. "We'll speak later." she assured him, turning towards the door. She did reach up and gave his hand a little squeeze, to help sell the reassurances even if she was still feeling shellshocked.
She didn’t quite get there, not when she wanted to but Adam didn’t quite fight her. “I’ll be here. Don’t...Don’t go down there Wren. Just...” He had no idea what to say, but the hand squeeze helped, even if he still wanted to reach forward and grab her to keep her from leaving. “Later,” he promised, squeezing her hand back and finally letting her go.
Wren looked back at the both of them, and nodded. "I hope for the best." she told them, even if she felt it was a weak statement. With that, she departed, shutting the door behind herself.
Adam ran his hands over his head for a moment, wishing he could go after her, to keep an eye on her. This wasn’t going to make things any better. He couldn’t do anything at the moment with Becka sitting on his couch and in dire need of someone. Letting out a sigh he moved back towards Becka, sitting next to her. “You okay?”
Becka watched Adam and Wren, feeling more and more like she was missing something. Shifting, she pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. She felt something cold and wet against her left arm and pulled it back in an automatic way to look. There was a streak of blood there now, and she wrinkled her nose at it. Oh well, nothing to do for it - it wasn't the first time she'd dealt with blood. Not feeling like she should really move, she just put her arm back and rested her cheek on her knee.
When she heard the door close, though, she looked back up at Adam. "I'm... I'm fine. I shouldn't have woke you up, I'm sorry," she said softly. "Is Wren okay?" she asked rather than asking what she actually wanted to know, which was why Wren had clearly stayed the night. She didn't want to be that crazy, jealous girl, that just wasn't her, but she couldn't say that seeing the easy way he'd reached out to Wren hadn't hurt her a little because he didn't seem to have that ease with her.
Half of Adam’s mind was still on Wren, eyes watching the door. He was awake now though, and fully aware of the girl sitting next to him, curled up in a ball. “You don’t look fine,” he said then shook his head. “It’s fine that you woke me up.” He looked back towards the door when she asked about Wren and frowned. “I’m not sure. We were up late.”
Shrugging when he disagreed with her assessment of herself, Becka didn't see the point in emphasizing that she was fine just then. She was shook up, she knew that, but she was slowly getting back to herself. "No it's not," she disagreed. "You need sleep when you can get it. How much have you slept in the past few days?" she asked, finding it easier to focus on that rather than the body outside or the blood on her leg or Wren having been here. "Oh?" she prompted, hoping he might elaborate on why they were up late or why he wasn't sure Wren was okay.
It was still too dim in the room for Adam to really pick up on the blood and he wasn’t quite close enough to Becka to smell it either. “You needed something,” he countered, not really wanting to answer the question of how long he’d slept. Glancing at the clock he internally winced at how little sleep he had actually gotten. It was a few hours though, which was a start considering he hadn’t had more than a short nap for three days. “I’m fine. I can manage.” It was pretty close to his normal schedule anyway. “Uh, yeah...she needed someone.” He wasn’t sure what else of what they’d said he should share, not without permission. He wouldn’t want Wren blathering about what he’d said on the floor of his bathroom, so he could return the favor.
Maybe she had needed something, but what she wasn't sure. Cal had just said to get him, and so she'd gone, and now she didn't know what she was doing. She wanted to shift, to be closer to him, and a part of her hated that, hated that she wanted something from him that he just didn't seem willing or maybe it was able to give her. "For how long? You're gonna stretch yourself too far, and then what?" she pressed, though her voice was gentle. "Oh," she said simply, figuring that he wasn't going to tell her anything more about Wren. "I like her. She did a reading for me a few days ago, helped me step back from things a bit," she offered partly to shake the lingering feelings of unease about Wren having slept here.
Adam shrugged one shoulder and rubbed the last of the sleep from his face. The dark circles were still under his eyes, but he knew he at least felt less like he was going to fall over. “I pass out in my dinner plate,” he offered with a weak smile, not feeling like the joke was going to hit home even if he knew it was a funny image. “That sounds like her. You should tell her it helped sometime.” Since that was something he thought she needed to hear right now.
Becka didn’t laugh at the weak joke, she didn’t even smile. She just sighed softly and shook her head. “You should talk to Cal again, see what ideas he has that might help with that,” she suggested, though she planned to just leave it at that. She couldn’t force him to try to take better care of himself, but she could give him a little encouragement to do so now and then. “I will. I’ve meant to, but I just haven’t really crossed paths with her again, you know?” But she would maybe make it a point to seek her out now, if Adam was telling her that she should tell Wren that.
He was pretty sure what suggestions Cal would have and there were no promises that it would make sleep any easier. There might be an option for something that would make him sleep, but Adam wasn’t sure he wanted that, or if he’d get stuck in nightmares he couldn’t wake up from. “Yeah I will,” he told her nonetheless, feeling like she might need to hear it, if only to stop worrying about him. “It’s okay. Sometimes she’s hard to catch. I hadn’t talked to her in a couple days before last night.”
Although she wasn’t really sure she believed that he would talk to Cal, Becka nodded when he said he would. “Okay,” she said simply, letting it go. When he said he hadn’t talked to Wren in a couple days, she made a little ‘ahhing’ sound. She was quiet for a minute then, not really sure what to say or do now and trying to ignore that nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she should just go somewhere else. “I... don’t really know what to do right now,” she admitted. “I... You’re probably not gonna be able to sleep again now, huh? But... I can go, if you want to try,” she offered, giving him an out if he didn’t really want her around right now.
Adam caught that, the way she just let it go, which wasn’t her usual reaction to things. Usually she tried to push until he told her to stop. It wasn’t a bad thing, she was just determined to get him to listen. “No probably not, but you can sit here as long as you want. If you want to go though I can walk you back to your room.” He wasn’t quite sure she’d make it on her own, not given how she looked now.
Becka closed her eyes, slowly lowering her head to rest her cheek on the top of her knee again. “I don’t want to go,” she admitted, voice barely above a whisper. She felt just a little foolish and weak in that moment, wanting what she did and not able to admit what exactly it was.
He barely heard her, but got the gist of what she was saying. Nodding he touched her shoulder lightly for a moment. “Okay. As long as you want. I’m not going anywhere.” Not with the sun just starting to rise.
“Whatever I want, right?” she joked weakly, her tone falling short of it. She leaned into the touch, not opening her eyes yet. “I don’t know why this shook me up like this. I’ve seen dead bodies before, I’ve dealt with them before.” Granted, only a small handful in her two years as a nurse, but still, this wasn’t her first. “But this, I don’t know why this was just... different,” she admitted, feeling a little helpless and her tone showing that.
“Definitely,” Adam agreed with a nod. When she leaned into his touch he didn’t pull back, just staying there for her, trying to be supportive. “Probably because you’re not in a hospital. It’s messier in the real world.” And the dying wasn’t being done at her own hand. Adam was a little surprised that the thought had come to him, but he bit it back to keep from saying it. She hadn’t suffered through crime scene photos, set in front of her to make her sick, to convince her to admit to what she’d done.
He kept assuring her that it was whatever she wanted, but Becka wasn’t sure he really meant that, or maybe it was that he didn’t really understand what she wanted, and she just didn’t have the energy to deal with that right now. “Maybe,” she agreed with a small shrug. She finally did shift then, moving a little bit to lean toward him. She knew what she really wanted, knew that the easy affection she’d had with Leandro the night before had made it even more difficult for her to pretend that she was okay without it.
Adam didn’t fight her when she moved closer, not seeing a point in fighting it. He let his arm drift across her shoulders, nodding. “More than likely. No one expects you to be able to handle everything.” He knew he sure as hell couldn’t handle everything.
Becka sighed softly, almost contentedly when he put his arm across her shoulders, moving her head to rest it lightly against his shoulder. “I handled it just fine,” she said softly. She hadn’t fallen apart or freaked out, she’d just... been a bit in shock, that’s all. “I checked for a pulse even though I could see she was dead, and then I got Cal.” So, in her mind, she had handled it just fine even if it had shook her up some.
He was pretty sure she wasn’t handling it fine right now, but maybe that was just the nurse in her. Was it like this for her when she was working? Maybe she hadn’t worked in an emergency room. “There you go then. You did a good job. You can just breathe now.”
Becka jerked back a bit at that, looking at him with furrowed brows. “I am breathing, Adam. I’m okay, really,” she insisted. The shock was wearing off, and something else was quickly taking its place, though she couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was just yet. “I should go,” she said, looking away from him, unfolding her legs though not getting up just yet.
Adam’s face changed when she pulled back, not sure what had just happened. “You don’t seem okay, that’s all,” he told her, but he pulled away since she didn’t quite seem to want him there anymore. “You don’t have to.”
Becka shrugged when he said she didn’t seem fine. Maybe she wasn’t fine, but if so, she didn’t think it was because of Caroline’s death. Even though he said she didn’t have to, she stood up. She didn’t leave, though, just took a few steps away from the couch, arms crossing in front of her, wrapping around her middle. “What do you want, Adam?” she asked, turning to look at him after. It was dark in his room, but there was enough dim light peeking through the edges of the curtains to be able to make out enough of him. “From me, I mean.”
How the hell had the conversation gotten there? Adam wasn’t sure at all, but he just stared at her for a moment, mouth slightly open. “I’m...I’m not sure I understand the question.” It was then that he spotted the blood on her, on her arm and leg, and while his first thought jumped to her being hurt, the second was the more accurate one. It wasn’t her blood. He wanted to ask her if she wanted to clean herself up, but she seemed too distracted by the question she was asking him to care about her current state.
There was no logical jump for this from what they’d been talking about, she knew, but after everything she and Leandro had talked about, she just hadn’t been able to stop from questioning things. Caroline’s death had just completely pushed those thoughts out of her mind until now - until she’d seen Adam with Wren. “I...” she began, trailing off immediately and shaking her head. “I don’t know what we’re doing, and I don’t like feeling like you’re just humoring me or going along with things when we’re alone, but shutting me out when we’re not.” She wasn’t sure how much sense she was making or how much of her thoughts she was actually getting out, but she was trying.
Adam stared at her for a long moment, still not sure how they got there, but apparently they were there. “I don’t really have an answer for you Becks. I didn’t think I was shutting you out,” he tried, frowning more. “I didn’t realize we had to figure it out right now.”
Becka’s arms went a little tighter around her middle, closing her eyes briefly against the frustration that he didn’t even see how he was shutting her out. She didn’t miss that he didn’t say he wasn’t just humoring her, either, which just made her believe it all the more. “We don’t... We don’t have to figure it out right now,” she said, ignoring that hollow ache in her chest at the thought of just letting it go. “But I’m not a casual kind of person. I wish... I wish I didn’t like you so much. It would be easier to just want to be your friend,” she finally said, arms uncrossing to bring her hands up to cover her face.
He was starting to feel like he’d missed something major along the lines, but wasn’t sure that asking that was going to help matters. “Becka...it’s barely been a week. There’s no need to figure everything out from the jump,” he said slowly, trying not to say the wrong thing, but feeling like he needed to give her an answer to something he hadn’t quite thought all the way through on his own. He hadn’t had time to. “Is that what you want? To just be friends?”
Barely a week, right. God, why did it feel like it had been so much longer than that already? But even though Becka knew that it had only been a week, it didn’t change the way she felt. She just couldn’t help but think of the way Leandro had talked about Kyle, the excitement and anticipation at seeing what would come of it, and that was what she wanted. She shook her head at his questions. “No, it’s not what I want. But it’s what makes sense to me - I know how to be a friend. I don’t know how to do whatever we’re doing. I don’t know how to not think and just do,” she answered, lowering her hands to look at him again.
Adam was quiet, trying to make sense of things even if it was tumbling around in his mind and not quite lining up. “Becks, it sounds like you want something from me, not the other way around. Like I’ve missed something that was important. You’re allowed to think about it, I’m just saying you don’t have to have an answer.” And he thought he was the one who liked things neatly defined.
Becka nodded slowly at his words. She wanted something from him, not the other way around. That’s what it was, that was exactly what it was. “I know what I want,” she finally said, having stayed quiet for a minute after he spoke. “I don’t have to think about it because I already know, but I don’t think you want the same thing, that’s why I asked.” She was getting that itch to leave, to bolt before she kept putting all her stupid thoughts and feelings out there.
Well at least she realized that much, that she knew what she wanted. “Why don’t you just tell me,” he offered. “I’m not good at guessing.” And he was pretty sure that was the last thing he wanted to do right now, not without having thought it through and on the bare minimum of sleep needed to function.
Just telling him didn’t seem like a great idea. If she told him, and he did the things she wanted just because of that, then it wouldn’t be real. That was why she hadn’t told him the truth of what she wanted for her first time. She wanted whatever might come between them to be real. “I don’t want you to guess, and I don’t want you to just do whatever I want because it’s what I want. I want you to figure out what you want,” she finally said, one hand coming up to tug her fingers through her hair. The motion brought her forearm close to her nose, and she caught the faint whiff of blood, flinching a little at it before dropping her arm again.
He was sure she’d just painted him into a corner he couldn’t get out of and Adam was left frowning. “Becks...that’s not really fair. I don’t have an answer. I don’t know. But I want to know what you want. I’m not going to do something just because you want to if I don’t want to. Nothing you’ve wanted so far has been something I didn’t want to do. Expecting me to come up with an answer I don’t have is hard, and kind of harsh.” He watched her for a moment then got up, nodding towards the bathroom. “You’ve got blood all over you. You should probably wash it off.”
There was no way to stop her reactions from playing out on her face; confusion, a hint of hurt, and then relief that was short-lived when he said she was being kind of harsh. “I didn’t... I don’t expect you to come up with an answer right now,” she told him softly. She was distracted from responding to the rest when he told her she should wash the blood off, and she nodded slowly. “Okay, yeah,” she said, turning to head to the bathroom. She turned the light on and left the door open, going straight to the tub as she pushed the sleeves of her sweater up further. She sat on the edge of the tub, feet in it, and she reached over to turn the tap on.
It took a few breaths before he followed her, needing to keep from rolling his eyes at her in frustration. She had gone way past making sense though that might have been the hour or the situation, or maybe he was just too damn tired to deal with this. He didn’t go all the way into the bathroom, just leaning against the doorway watching her. “It sounded like you wanted an answer right now. And I don’t think you’re all that happy with me that I don’t have one.”
Becka glanced over her shoulder at him as she stuck her leg under the water to rinse the blood off. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking back at the water then. “It’s not that I’m unhappy that you don’t have an answer, and I know that this - why I’m even asking doesn’t make a lot of sense because I didn’t tell you why I was asking.” She rinsed her arm off next before reaching for the soap. “It’s just that I’m getting little tastes of things, and I can’t help but want more.” And she realized after she said it that it could be taken completely wrong. She flushed, shaking her head at herself as she rinsed soap from her skin.
“Are you sure you’re not unhappy?” Adam asked because he was thinking she was lying her way through that one. “You could tell me why. That might help things too.” Instead of just blindsiding him. And here he was supposed to be the summer storm. “Wanting more isn’t a bad thing. You’ve just got to tell me that. You were pretty hesitant to begin with and I’m not really the type to push that sort of thing.”
Why couldn’t he just let her have that one? Becka thought with a sigh. “Maybe a little, but it’s not fair of me to be, so I’m trying not to be,” she answered honestly. Like he’d said, it had barely been a week, and it wasn’t his fault that she couldn’t seem to just go with the flow and not overthink things. “You won’t like hearing why,” she told him, but if he pushed, she wouldn’t be able to keep from telling him, she knew. She just remembered the way he’d so firmly shut down any talk of Kyle and Leandro, so she didn’t want to tell him. At his response to her wanting more, Becka flushed deeper, closing her eyes to try to fend off the embarrassment that he’d taken it that way even though she wasn’t surprised by it. “That’s not what I meant.” Though, that too. It really hadn’t been what she’d been referring to, though. “Could you hand me a towel?” she asked, turning a little on the edge of the tub.
He didn’t want to argue on it not being fair with her being mad at him, even if he was sure he should just tell her no, she was allowed to be unhappy, but he wasn’t really happy with the question either. Instead he just let it drop for now. “Try me,” he said wanting to know why, even more so if she didn’t think he’d want to hear it. Getting her a towel he handed it over, thinking about just how much blood this bathroom had seen in a week. More than most of the bathrooms in the facility he guessed. “What did you mean then?”
Becka stayed quiet until he’d got her the towel, figuring that both his questions tied into one another, and she could just give him one answer, one explanation for it. “After talking to Kyle and Leandro yesterday,” she began, looking down as she dried her legs and feet off, “Seeing the way they talked about each other, how excited they are to be together and learn more about each other and see where things go. It’s more than just something physical for them, and that’s what got me thinking and wanting to know. I want something more than just physical, and I want to know if you do too, or if....” She trailed off and stood up, holding the damp towel out to him, not sure what he’d want to do with it.
Of course it was them. Adam had to physically fight against the groan in his throat, which he did manage to suppress, but he failed at not balling his hurt fist until it tugged at the healing skin. “In case you missed it I’m not either one of them. And I’m pretty sure Leandro just likes bragging that he has something. Which isn’t me either.” Even when he’d had the chance, the option to just shove that he was with Becka in his face, but Adam hadn’t said anything. He took the towel, tossing it on a rack haphazardly because honestly he didn’t care. Not as thoughts of his conversation with Kyle flashing into his mind. “And I hadn’t really thought about it one way or another. It happened once. Pretty sure there’s still an assload of ground to cover before there.”
She’d told him he wouldn’t like it, and Becka’s eyes flashed with annoyance at his response. “I know you’re not either of them. I didn’t say I wanted you to be like either of them. I just said that the way they were talking is what made me want to ask, that’s it,” she said in a tight voice. She wasn’t even going to touch on the Leandro part of it, because even though she disagreed with that assessment completely, she didn’t think Adam would even hear her if she did voice her thoughts on Leandro. “Ground to cover before where? Before things can be anything more than physical?” She wasn’t sure what he was saying, and she just wished that he wasn’t blocking her way out because the bathroom was too small, and she was just getting so frustrated with him.
He was almost certain that was what she was saying she wanted, him to be all gushing or bragging or whatever. “Becka, I haven’t even seen you since it happened besides yesterday morning in the middle of the stocks stuff.” Which was still sitting wrong with him, that she hadn’t been as upset as he’d been, that she hadn’t been scared like Wren had. “We could try talking about it, or seeing if you were still interested. Instead you hung out with Leandro and Kyle. Which is fine, but we haven’t even had a chance to process it. For all I know? You didn’t want to do it again.” He took a step back going back into his room and looking for a shirt. He was feeling too damn exposed for this conversation.
Anything Becka might have said to try to explain herself better flew from her mind as he kept talking, and she deflated, her irritation fleeing from her, her shoulders falling as she processed it. As he went back into his room, she hesitated only a moment before following, sitting on the end of his bed with her back against the wall. “You’re right,” she conceded in a soft voice, tugging down the sleeves of her sweater. She was starting to feel cold now, with her bare legs and feet. “You’re right, we haven’t had a chance to process it or talk about it or anything. I’m sorry - I told you I think too much, though. And yesterday morning you... I held your hand, and you pulled away, and then we just didn’t get a chance to talk, and...” She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face. “I’m not any good at this.”
Adam pulled on his shirt, but didn’t look back at her until she started speaking again. Part of him wondered why she was still here, but he didn’t ask. That was likely not the right thing to ask. “Because maybe I’m not quite ready to do the hand holding thing. And yesterday was fucked up on a lot of levels.” He rubbed his face then dropped into his chair, keeping his distance, if only for clarity. “It’s not something you’re supposed to be good at. You just do it. Even Kyle and Leandro are just going with things. Kyle doesn’t know what they are, and Leandro’s still hitting on everything that walks.” He sighed and looked at her. “Stop using everyone else as a reference for you. You don’t have to be the same. We don’t have to be the same.”
Becka didn’t look at him as he spoke, just looking down at her lap, her fingers playing absently with the blanket on his bed. “Yeah, it was,” she agreed about yesterday. She didn’t know what to say about the hand holding thing, and so she just let it go for the moment. Maybe they’d get back to that. The more he spoke the more she was wondering if she’d messed things up thoroughly by bringing any of this up to begin with. “I don’t want to be the same as everyone else.” She looked up at him, then, wanting to get them away from talking about Kyle and Leandro if only to keep from asking him why it made him so mad. They were likely never going to see eye-to-eye on that.
Adam wasn’t sure he was going to be able to fix this. Slumping his chair more, he let out a sigh as he watched her. “That’s good then. Just go about things the way we were?” Which might be totally wrong, but he really hadn’t thought that before this morning.
“I guess so,” Becka said, not sounding sure at all. At least he’d told her he wouldn’t do anything she wanted to do if he didn’t want to do it too; that did help a little bit. “And... Just so you don’t have to wonder? Yeah, I did - do want to do it again. It was fun,” she told him, the hint of a smile playing on her lips as she peeked over at him.
He wasn’t really wondering, assuming that might be the case, but Adam nodded anyway. “Fun’s always good. Kind of a good place to be in for the first week.”
It might have just been her reading too much into things, but Becka felt like things were just a little awkward now, and she wasn’t sure how to fix it. “Yeah, it is. There’s enough that’s decidedly not fun around here, so it’s good to have that.” She was starting to wish she’d just gone to her room instead of coming here and waking him up. Maybe, if she’d done that, she’d have been in a better frame of mind to talk to him about things and this wouldn’t have gone so poorly.
Adam didn’t feel like she was taking any of it the way he meant it. He rubbed his hand over his head, letting out a sigh. “Just...it’s been a week. Where would you be in a week outside of here?”
“Oh,” Becka said at the question, realizing that she’d misunderstood him. She didn’t say anything else for a long moment, just thinking about it and trying to figure out how to answer him. “Seeing as how this is the first time I’ve given something like this a real chance, I really don’t know,” she finally said honestly, knowing that she just didn’t have any clearer an answer than that.
He rolled his chair a little closer, but still out of reach. “Alright. Well. Then with the ones you weren’t giving a chance,” he said hating that. Why did she even agree to going out with those guys? What if he’d met her and asked her out like a normal person? “First date? Still in the fun stage.”
Becka wasn’t really sure she knew what he was asking. “I... don’t know. Never really got to the fun stage before. What are you getting at?” she asked with a little sigh.
And Adam hadn’t ever gotten past the ‘one night’ thing. “Just that you don’t have to rush things. That we don’t have to be there yet. That it’s okay.”
She nodded slowly at that. That made sense, more than anything else they’d gone around and around about. “Okay, so no rushing things. I think I can deal with that,” she said with a little smile. Although what they weren’t rushing, she wasn’t really sure on. The physical, or the rest, or maybe both? She didn’t know, and she decided that she didn’t need to know right then. She’d been happiest with him so far when she’d stopped stressing about everything and just let things happen as they would, and so she’d try to go back to that.
“Deal then?” he asked, letting himself slump into the chair more. He really hoped they had reached some sort of agreement because this was starting to wear him out.
“Deal,” she replied. His body language was making her feel like she’d far overstayed her welcome, though, and she glanced down for a moment. “I’ll go, give you some space now, if you want, but... If we’re... going to be together in any way, I guess... I feel like I should tell you - I can respect it if you’re not really ready for hand holding in public or anything like that, but... I’m a really affectionate person, and I don’t want to second guess that when it’s just us. So... Is that okay? I mean...” She trailed off, floundering a bit as she felt more than a little ridiculous just putting it out there like that when she wasn’t even really sure he wanted her around much anymore.
“If you don’t want to go you don’t have to. You can hide out here as long as you want,” he said. “That’s fine Becks. I don’t want you to keep your distance when we’re alone. I’m just not...I might get there.” Or he might stay a private person.
It wasn’t the first time he’d told her she could stay, and so Becka smiled just a little bit, though it was still a ways from her normal one. “And, that’s okay. I just... I didn’t know, and I let my thoughts get a little out of control.” It didn’t feel right to just sit there, if they’d worked anything out at all, and so she shifted to the other end of the bed and reached out a hand to him.
He was slow to take her hand, slower than he should have been because things were still bothering him, not obviously, but they were there, lurking in the back of his mind. “It’s fine. Just...talk to me or something. This whole...guessing thing isn’t really gonna help either one of us.”
She felt only marginally better when he took her hand, unable to shake the feeling that things were still far from right or fixed. It was a start, though, right? “Talking - I can do talking. So... Do you want to talk, or...?” She left it open for him to suggest something else if he just didn’t feel like talking anymore, though there was no indication that there was anything else she would want to do. She truly was leaving it open for whatever he wanted to do.
Adam wanted to go back to bed, even if he wasn’t sure he was going to sleep. Or if he wanted to sleep. It was more an idea to just lay down and not do this for any longer. “Not unless you have something else you want to talk about.”
Becka shook her head. “No, I don’t.” She gave his hand a light squeeze before dropping it and standing up. “I think I’m going to go back to my room, change and stuff. I guess... If you want to hang out later or anything, you know where to find me?” she told him, only a hint of question to it, not sure if he would want to after the way this conversation had gone.
He didn’t fight her as she got up, running his now free hand over his head as he nodded. “Yeah no, I know.” He’d see how the day went. He wanted to go back to bed but odds were he was going to get dressed and try and find Wren, just to make sure.
“Okay,” Becka said with a small nod, leaving it at that. She turned, moving around him to leave then, but she noticed the dressing gown and paused to pick it back up off the couch. She’d get it back to Antoine later. “Bye, then,” she said softly as she reached the door, hesitating only briefly before opening it and leaving.