doc_smith (ex_doc_smith506) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-12-13 15:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 23, alice munroe, louisa may smith, | alice and louisa may |
WEEK 23: Friday
Characters: Alice Munroe and Louisa May Smith
Location: Medford, Oregon, then Louisa May’s trailer.
Summary: Alice and Louisa May make a small medicine run. After the use of a very specific item, the two women have a very long talk about what exactly is the incentive behind the decision.
Rating: PG-13
Louisa May hadn’t left the farm at Grant’s Pass for almost two weeks, so when Alice asked if she wanted to tag along on a raiding trip, she jumped at the chance to get out and stretch her legs a bit. Even though she was living separately from everyone else, she still felt a little... hemmed in after so many weeks on her own.
It was hard for her to get a read on the other woman, and she didn’t know her very well, but after Alice’s comments to her during their last meeting about her emotional issues, she was keeping a bit of a closer eye on the other woman to see if there were any changes -- for better or for worse -- after her trip with Jed. So far, they hadn’t talked much.
It certainly wasn’t the kind of raid that either had been expecting, and there was no sign of others joining them, meeting up, or following behind them. Alice drove as carefully as she could through the streets, still a little unsteady on the slushy roads, but having something to concentrate on rather than the thoughts buzzing through her head was a good thing in her opinion.
Once they saw the signs for Medford, Alice slowed down considerably, waiting on instruction on where to go.
“Just take a right up here -- the Family Practice Group is on Stewart Ave. That’s been my one-stop shop so far.” Louisa May hoped no-one else had looted the offices since the last time she’d been there -- it’d be a sign that there were others in the area. Thankfully, when they pulled into the driveway, it appeared to look much the same as it had -- the front door was still locked, the glass intact.
Dreading leaving the warm cab of the truck, Louisa May sighed. “Let’s head around back.”
Alice checked her side arm for what could have been the hundredth time since they left, zipped up the coat she’d had open while they were driving, and stepped out. She was immediately in raid mode, her gaze fierce as she looked around them, taking the initiative to move in first. The building seemed mostly untouched - windows and doors unbroken - but that never meant anything. She’d raiding occupied buildings before.
Louisa May followed behind, likewise alert, hugging the wall. There were no tire treads or footprints in the snow -- another good sign -- and as they turned the corner to the rear of the building, she could see that the back door was also unmolested.
“Just give the handle a jiggle, it should open,” Louisa May said. Even though she spoke quietly, the noise carried in the stillness, and she winced a little. Alice nodded wordlessly, doing as she was told and slipping inside. She returned a few moments later, holding the door open to Louisa May and closing it behind the other woman once she was safely inside. Leaving the truck in the open made her nervous, but they wouldn’t be staying long.
“Any idea where it’d be stored?” Alice asked, already grabbing a nearby plastic bin and shoving in anything that looked useful. They couldn’t just make a trip for birth control; it seemed a horrible waste to come just for the one thing. People would know.
“Okay. I think they keep it in the storage room over here -- it wouldn’t be in the offices. Hey, if you see any syringes we left behind, grab that shit. That, and bandages.” Louisa May made her way over to the storage room -- they’d already forced the door open last time around, so she was able to just walk straight in. The room was windowless, so she turned on her flashlight and let the narrow beam play across the already picked-through shelves.
“C’mon, c’mon, if I were a birth control device, where would I be?” Louisa May muttered to herself. “Alice, I could use some more light in here if you can spare it.”
“On it,” came the younger woman’s reply. She grabbed the compact flashlight out of her shoulderbag, holding the bin against her hip as she shined the light into Louisa May’s line of vision.
“Now that locked cabinet over there was where they kept the painkillers, and over there is the refrigerated stuff -- worth jack shit right now, of course -- but where oh where are you hidin’ from me?” She was still muttering this mostly to herself -- Louisa May had been inside her fair share of supply rooms, and knew that things tended to be clustered by use. “You see any condoms, we’re getting warm,” she said for Alice’s sake.
Alice gave a short snort of a laugh that was completely humorless, her own eyes scanning the shelves and squinting in the poor light. It wasn’t long until she finally found it, a single row of pharmaceuticals geared towards pregnancy prevention.
“Found something.”
Louisa May trained her flashlight beam on the indicated shelf. “Good, good.” She rustled around on the shelf, tossing some packets of male condoms -- and after a minute, some dental dams and female condoms too -- into the bin. It wasn’t on that shelf, but it was on the shelf below -- all the way in the corner. “Hallelujah, here it is,” she said, as she reached for it triumphantly.
Alice immediately felt a wave of relief. At least that was one less thing to concern herself about. Though once the thought entered her head, she felt a horrible clench in her chest that she had to hide by turning away. “Anything else we should grab while we’re here?” she asked, directing the question toward the door they’d passed through.
“Let me do a final sweep of this room,” Louisa May replied. She’d been in a hurry last time around, and wanted a second pass through. She methodically started sweeping her flashlight over the shelves, paying special attention to the corners and the boxes towards the back of the shelves. Every now and then, she tossed a box into the bin.
“We should stop by a dentist’s on our way out of town, grab some flouride, maybe some of those metal tooth things,” she said as an aside to Alice. “Not a dentist, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t try and keep our teeth from falling out of our heads. And that well-water isn’t flouridated.”
“Sure enough,” Alice agreed, nodding. She’d have to do some research later with that thought in mind. There had to be something they could do to handle the lack of manufactured flouride. “We’ll hit that next. Let’s go.”
****
It hadn’t taken very long to unpack the haul. All the medical supplies had since been moved to Louisa May’s trailer for safekeeping and storage upon her full integration to their group. It didn’t bother Alice much, seeing as the other women was by far more skilled and knew what everything was meant to do without having to refer nearly as much to a pill dictionary, but the hoarding instinct Alice had so carefully developed always made her a little nervous.
Once everything was put away, it was time for the insertion ‘surgery.’ Even knowing it was going to happen didn’t make Alice any less anxious, which was made worse by the fact that her period had started that morning. Fortunately, that fact was not a hindrance according to the information booklet that came along with the IUD. The information booklet also went on to explain that the IUD would remain unnoticeable during intercourse, something that she’d been worried about from the get-go. Everything seemed to have fell into place perfectly.
Getting over the awkwardness and shame that came with exposing herself had taken a few minutes, and afterward Alice couldn’t quite meet the other woman’s eyes. Her hand settled on her abdomen as she stared off through one of the Airstream’s windows, her eyes slowly but surely misting up with tears. The sudden sound of her name made her bring her eyes back to Louisa May.
“Huh?”
“Just making sure you were okay, is all,” Louisa May replied. The other woman had been quiet during the procedure even though it was painful, and she couldn’t help but think that whatever Alice was bottling up inside of her couldn’t be good. “I mean, it’ll be sore for the next two or three days, and you can expect there to be some cramping, so of course you’re not perfect, but you doin okay?”
“Y-...yeah,” Alice said after a moment, rolling her lips together and then forcing a thin-lipped smile she didn’t feel. “I’m fine. As good as I can be, considering.” It was a bold-faced lie, and even as she said it Louisa May’s earlier words about talking her feelings out seemed to echo up from the recesses of her thoughts. Alice hated ‘talking it out.’ She hated having to acknowledge that they even existed. Everything was so much more easier when I didn’t have all this shit around me, she ranted on inside her head. All this drama and bullshit and I just can’t deal with it. I can’t.
“I’m just hopin’ this fixes everything, y’know?” she said despite her thoughts and feelings about sharing, the words stilted as though she had difficulty saying them. “With... me. And my risky behavior.”
Louisa May didn’t like the throwaway comment about ‘risky behavior’ -- was this referring to sex, or something far more serious? First things first, though. “Okay, so just to give me a little... context, you’re feeling as good as you can be considering what? Can you tell me what’s been happening lately that’s been stressful? Even if it’s something small.”
Alice made a noise that wanted to be a laugh but couldn’t quite make it, then ran a hand through her hair and turned her eyes down to her knees. Her arms circled loosely around her abdomen again. Looks like I’ve gotta do this, she thought, trying to steady herself. Just breathe. Try not to cry.
“I know this isn’t your field,” she said slowly. “So I’m sorry... for making it become part of it. I don’t normally share. I know I can be difficult, but it’s just easier to keep things professional, y’know?” Louisa May nodded at that. It was almost better that they weren’t friendly -- it kept things straightforward and uncomplicated, because her own feelings weren’t a factor. She waited for the other woman to continue.
“I’ve... had to deal with attachment issues a lot, this past year.” Alice sighed, a hand going through her hair again. “Back in Vegas, I had a kid living with me. He was sorta jaded, y’know? Bad past. But I gave him another chance. I figure... we were all given a chance, bein’ allowed to live, y’know? He deserved that. Havin’ someone care enough about him to want him to be more’n just another kid caught up with the wrong crowd.
“But then he betrayed all of us. And right before that happened, my boyfriend--” she left Leo’s name out, not wanting to skew things any more than they were. No doubt Louisa May already knew, anyway. “--left. Just skipped out, with barely a note. So two people I cared about just, y’know. Up’n broke me apart, to the point where I asked myself why I was still walkin’ around, breathin’ and usin’ up what we had left. And before even all that, I...” She couldn’t help it, the tears came regardless. “I lost my daughter to the first strain. She was six. My husband killed himself a li’l bit after that. So it took... a lot, to even get myself to trust anybody again, after all that, and then my boyfriend ‘n my ‘charge’--” she did finger quotes with one hand, the other still resting against her torso. “--still had it in ‘em to give me every reason to regret it.
“So there’s the backstory. An’ all through this, Jed’s been there. He was the first person to find me. And things’ve...” she gave a weak smile. “They’ve always been chaotic between us. I made the mistake of jumpin’ in too quick with boy one. With Jed I wanted to slow down ‘n wait for the right moment, and then when it came, when I finally told him I trusted him enough to take the bad with the good, and the risks that came with... everything just sorta collapsed. It’s been on a knife’s edge ever since.”
Louisa May took that opportunity to add some insight -- all the while, trying to remember her training from her Psychiatry rounds. Acknowledge. Reflect. Focus. No judgment. “So, I’m hearing that you’ve been let down and left behind by a lot of folks this past year. And that’s lead you to have trouble trusting other people. I think it’s good you’re giving all of this a name. Sometimes, when people get real down and out, they have a hard time pinning down why, coming up with patterns, but you’re doing that part already.” She paused for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, working through Alice’s words in her head.
“Now, along those lines, looking for patterns, trying to put a label on things so you can understand ‘em better... why do you think that once you started trusting Jed, things started to go badly?”
“We don’t want the same things from this,” Alice said without even a moment’s pause. She’d came to that conclusion pretty quickly; it was hard not to, with the way Jed kept repeating the words over and over until they were burned into her brain. “He immediately put a wall up. I want to have a family with him.” Her face heated up at the confession, Jed’s words about her being ‘baby crazy’ echoing in her head, along with the overheard conversation between him and Ana. “Maybe not this instant, obviously, I’m not-- I wasn’t trying for it, but I wasn’t against it happening if it happened. And it’s like...” she brought her hand up to rub under each of her eyes. “He goes on about how we do have a family, right here, all of us together, but I-- it’s not the same thing to me. And I know there’s more to it, and I got him to finally tell me: he thinks I’ll end up dying and leaving him alone with our kid.” She shook her head a little and laughed humorlessly again, feeling sick.
Louisa May had a thought-wrinkle between her eyes as she leaned back on her stool. “So, from what I understand, it seems like you decided to trust Jed after feeling abandoned by other people, which took quite a lot... and right now you feel like he doesn’t trust you enough to have a family with you.”
The way she worded it was a completely different angle than Alice had been working from, but the understanding was clear on her face and she nodded, pulling her lip between her teeth and chewing it for a moment. It’s not like I’d go around like I am now, if we did, she thought, feeling frustration and agitation that she even needed to think it. She knew that, but it was clear Jed didn’t, and there would be no convincing him otherwise.
“Or at least to allow whatever happens to happen. We’re still new to the whole ‘us’ thing. He kinda...” Alice closed her eyes, trying to find the right words. “He hit the ground running with this. Wanted us to get intimate right away, once I asked him if he wanted to be with me. And the moment I say ‘y’know, I could get pregnant,’ suddenly it’s this huge thing. It wasn’t so huge until I pointed that out.”
She took a slow breath and let it out, then opened her eyes again. “Up until you showed up, I’d’ve never thought about this Mirena thing. I wouldn’t even know what to do. Yeah, condoms are around right now, but they weren’t easy to find in Vegas, and I kinda just came to terms with the fact that it wasn’t gonna be one of those things that lasted forever. Better learn to accept things as they come now. But that’s not the point, y’know?”
Louisa May nodded. “Well, we got two things goin’ on here, at least from what I can see. You want to be close, and you’re feeling that he doesn’t, and then we have his hesitancy about the pregnancy thing, which is a sign to you that he doesn’t want to be close.” She paused. “And the two are definitely wrapped up in one another, but let’s see if we can’t separate out gettin’ pregnant for now and focus on the root of it -- your feelings of security in the relationship.”
Alice raked her hands through her hair. She felt like she was shaking. “Well, pregnancy is off the table now, indefinitely,” she said, feeling her heart ache but trying to ignore it. “And I know he’s not... he’s not going anywhere. But that’s not even completely because of me.” Her expression grew bitter. “It’s partly for me, but if I had to be honest on how I felt, it’s because of Jack. Us not going any further than what we are now is all tied up with Jack. He treats her like she’s his daughter, and the girl has pretty much decided that I am an evil bitch.”
Alice brought her hands up over her eyes, pressing the heels in until her vision went white behind her eyelids. “I don’t even want to deal with it. I’m not gonna play the win-the-kid-over game, because she’s not even his, and it’s all a crock of shit. And you should see how he handles it all. Like we’re two angry cats that need to be separated with doors and walls. He has to control everything, and I f--” she bit her lips closed, pulling her hands away from her eyes and shaking her head sharply.
“I hate it. We can’t have a family, because he doesn’t want one. We can’t live separate from the house, alone, and I know it’s not just because it’s winter. That would be my excuse, but I know he’s hiding behind the cold. I know it. And all of this is just... it’s gonna fall apart, and I’d be willing to give him everything, I’ve already lost everything else so what’s it matter, but I just... it’ll never be more than this, and if we broke up, we couldn’t be friends, I know it, and I-- I--”
The sadness and anger was coming off of Alice in waves, and Louisa May knew that they weren’t going to do much more talking of substance that afternoon. Still, she filed away Alice’s comments about Jack for another day -- her animosity towards the girl was clearly fueling a lot of her current tension.
She got up from the stool and reached for a roll of toilet paper, handing it to the woman on the couch, who was by now shaking with suppressed sobs. “Nobody’s gonna hear you but me,” she said quietly. “Just let it out. I don’t mind.”
Alice gripped the toilet paper in both hands, her whole body bowing forward as she gave in and cried. After a moment she gave up on holding the toilet paper altogether, banging her clenched fists on her knees with dull thuds before grabbing the sides of her head and fisting the hair. She hated this feeling, that she was giving him everything and getting none of the same devotion back. He’d been there for her as a friend, there was no denying that, but in succumbing to her baser needs she’d essentially ruined them; they would have never become anything other than friends if she hadn’t been the one to cross the line. It was her fault, and the suffering that resulted from the choices was hers to live with, and she hated all of it. There was no way to win anymore.
Louisa May honestly wasn’t sure what would be best to do -- but she went with her instincts. After Alice stopped shifting around, she sat next to her on the couch, picked up the toilet paper from where it had fallen on the ground, and, after a moment of hesitation, put her free hand on Alice’s back. The touch was enough to pull the younger woman back from the self-depreciation and abuse, but the sobs continued on.
“I’d die,” she finally wailed out. “If he-- if he-- if we stopped-- if he stopped talkin’ t’me, or--” she gulped a breath down, then broke into a small coughing fit and pulled one hand loose from her hair to pound a fist on her knee again, “--or left, I’d die. I can’t-- I can’t--”
“Mmm-hmmm,” Louisa May hummed, her voice low -- trying to walk that fine line where she was listening without agreeing. It was hard, so instead of answering Alice, she began to rub the other woman’s back, moving her warm hand up and down in what she hoped was something Alice would find comforting -- the sort of thing her mama used to do whenever Louisa May felt heartsick. Once the words were out Alice continued to cry, albeit a lot less bodily.
The two women sat on the couch together in relative silence. It took Alice several minutes to calm down enough to breathe normally, and even then her body quaked with bouts of shallow, sharp inhales. Now that she was winding down, Louisa May passed her the toilet paper again and moved to the stool to give her some space.
“Okay,” Louisa May said to break the silence. “Well, I think we covered a lot of ground today. And I’d imagine you’re all sorts of hurt right now with the Mirena, and that certainly can’t help how you’re feelin’ right about now. I’m gonna give you some Tylenol to help with the cramping, but you need to rest up and take it easy the next few days. Can you do that for me? Doctor’s orders.”
Alice immediately cringed. “I was gone for two days,” she tried to argue, “and everyone picked up my slack while I was gone trying to make this useless mess work. I’m still catching up. I can’t just camp out more--”
“No. It’s not called camping out, Alice. It’s called letting your body recover from a medical procedure,” Louisa May replied firmly. “You need to let this happen. You need to give yourself a chance to get back up on your feet again, and the only way you’ll do that is if you rest up a bit first. I’m not saying go to bed and stay there, I’m just saying you need to slow down for the next day or two.”
The younger woman unraveled a bit of toilet paper from the roll, thoroughly wiping her eyes and then blowing her nose into it before shoving it into her pocket. She didn’t like the idea of having to slow down, not at all, but she didn’t want to make a scene any worse than the one she’d just finished. Giving a reluctant nod, Alice put her hands on her knees and pushed herself up to standing.
“And once you’ve had a few days, you can come on back, we can check and make sure everything’s lookin’ like it should, and we can talk more if you want.” Louisa May paused. “You don’t have to wait a few days to talk, though -- you know that, right?”
“Knew you wouldn’t let me off that easy,” Alice joked lamely, giving her a wary half smile. She didn’t need reaffirmation; they were definitely going to spend a few nights talking, whether she was up to it or not. It made her uneasy, especially given the fact that there would probably be more break-downs. How can I get up if I keep falling down again? she thought miserably.
“Course not. It’s my job to be a pain in the ass,” Louisa May replied, grinning. She reached out a hand to shake, which Alice firmly grasped with another watery smile.
Jed would ask her why she was laying low, she already knew it. And she certainly wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain it to him.