InsaneJournal

Who: Henn & Sable
Where: Sign of the Weasel
When: Monday night
Why: To clear up some things
Warnings: ZOMG TEH AAAANGST

Having gotten Judah on the phone, Henn arrived at the shop not long after, bypassing the door as she so often did, just stepping lightly out of the Backstage and into the room. She was quiet and calm, and not the sort of 'have to be calm so nothing explodes' calm, but a quiet, contained, and almost contagious calm. The kind of calm that seeped into dark corners and stayed there.


Sable is in the main room just now. It's late. All but one or two of her patrons are sleeping in the balcony nests, and those who remain downstairs in the shelves are holed up in windowsills or beanbag chairs reading silently to themselves. Sable is busying herself in her dizzying, frantic, juggling-w0-things-at-once way that is just that little bit more frazzled than her usual obsessive business, enough to make it clear something is wrong. When Henn enters, she's keeping herself busy at the register desk scribbling prices lightly in pencil in the front covers of some new books.


Henn padded over quietly, barefoot, she'd left her shoes at the Guildhall and likely hadn't even noticed until just then, "Sable?" She doesn't look as harried or as harrowed as any of the rest of them, and she knows it, she did, of course, the night before, but she'd settled things her own way since then.


Sable actually jumps at her voice. She looks up and although she is keeping control of herself and filtering her tensions into productive activities, the strain is easily visible on her face -- an expression of loss, not angry but resigned, even guilty, and shadows around her eyes from both sleeplessness and crying.

She sets her pencil down, slowly and calmly closes the last book she was working on, and speaks quietly to Henn, sounding almost afraid -- a bizarre and uncharacteristic sound for her. "Hello."


"I didn't mean to startle you." Really she hadn't, she stood at arm's reach, hands folded in front of her, fingers laced in what should have been a nervous tangle, but wasn't, really, "Cass asked me some things, which I think he may have taken out of context, as he's prone to doing, on occasion."


Sable doesn't lean on anything, but her posture is slouched, tired, heavy. She does not look at Henn's eyes. "Oh?" She isn't being mean or bitchy or antagonistic -- everything about her says she figured this was coming and just wants to get it over with so she can keep trying to figure out how to deal with losing her family.


Henn just nodded, "I had to think about it myself, afterwards, to realize what was going on." Her brow creased slightly, settling her thoughts into order, "A while ago I asked you why you proposed to me, and you answered differently than I'd been expecting, better than I'd been expecting, and yesterday Cass' view made me doubt what I'd seen." Another head shake, "You can't lie with emotions, well, some people can, but I don't think you've got it in you to even try."


Sable looks up at Henn, fixes her eyes on the other woman's, and holds them there.

"What do you remember me saying? Believing? Feeling? Tell me."


Henn shrugged, "You proposed for the same reasons that I accepted, because we're friends, because it would be fun, mostly because why not?" She shook her head, "Clair screwed with my radar, but not that badly. She toyed with me, and she used me, and I didn't know it until it was too late. And because of Cass' ... somewhat skewed viewpoint, he thought you were doing the same thing, which meant that I thought so, until I remembered that. That I'd already asked, you didn't come to me unless the boys were busy because you didn't have to. You knew I was there if you needed me."


Sable looks down at her hands. "Yes. That was it. Cass made it very clear to me that it was horribly selfish and cruel of me to do that to you. Henn... you were my friend. You were like my sister. Of course I've always enjoyed everything we've done together... games... exploring... sex... anything. If it was wrong of me to want to marry you to make us all a full circle, I'm sorry. I've never gotten to know you as well as I'd have liked. Cass explained to me how I was horrible to you. I... would very much like for you to at least accept my apology before leaving."

Her words are sincere -- she isn't trying to play anything for sympathy. She does genuinely believe everything Cass said, and believes that she did hurt Henn unknowingly and very badly.


Henn's brow furrowed at that, finally shaking her head again, just once, "No. Because you don't have anything to apologize for. You aren't Clair, Cass isn't Clair, Clair's Clair and she's long gone, although sadly she's the only gauge I have of what relationships are like."

A slight shrug, "You didn't do anything to knowingly hurt me, you didn't even do anything accidentally to hurt me, if anyone should be apologizing it's me for letting Cass assume things were true that were only true from a certain viewpoint, and I should apologize for letting myself get swept up in his emotion, which will likely happen again, since I'm his Shadow."


Sable looks tired. Very, very tired.

"I don't know any Clair. My own gauge is so foreign to all three of you, you've never really been able to even meet me half way on it. I don't understand half of what Cass said to me, but I can't but agree with the other half. I do appreciate you not being quite as mean as he was about it, though." She blinks quickly, trying to hide that she's again close to tears, and not for the first time in the past couple of hours, much less today. "I'm sorry... I'm not sure what you're looking for from me. I know you want to tell me you're leaving me, too. Can we just skip to the part where I tell you I know and I understand and I really di wish you all the best and I'm sorry I ever encroached on your childhood trio?"


Henn's brow furrowed, shaking her head once more, "Clair's the one who made singing an anethema to me. And ... I'd like it if we could still be friends. You and I, not she and I." There wasn't hope in her tone, still just as calm and just as level as when she started, "But I'll understand if you want to make it a clean break and have nothing more to do with us."


Sable is finding it harder and harder not to cry. "I never wanted to leave any of you. Cass told me to get out. He told me I wasn't worthy of your home. He told me I'd hurt you and I had no choice but to believe him. I know you can't and won't ever leave him because you're his Shadow, though I don't entirely understand what that is. What could I think but that none of you three wanted to ever see me again? Jesus, it's all I can do to keep from shaking just seeing you here. Henn, I don't understand any of this, all right? Don't ask me what I want. I'm not prepared to give you an answer because right now I feel like I'm walking around in a dream-fog and can't quite believe all this is happening and can't quite figure out how much of it is real at all. Tell me what you want from me. I'll give it to you."


"I want to still be friends, you didn't hurt me, and I still want to see you, to do things with you, go exploring. But only if it's what you want. I'm not going to impose myself if you don't want to see me again." She still hadn't moved, more calm and collected than she'd likely ever been.


Sable turns half away from her, only to wipe away the tears that slip out with the heels of her hands. "Of course I still want to see you, Henn. I thought you were my sister. I've never had a girl-friend I could really be close to before the way I am with you."


She nodded then, "Okay. I think we should start over, not completely, but a little way, at least." She was still keeping her distance, not sure what the reception of anything further would be like.


Sable sniffs a little and doesn't look all the way back at Henn, only glances at her a little. "Okay. I... if that's what you want... I'd like that, too. I do... I do love you, Henn. As my sister if not as my lover. I just really thought... I'd have to lose all of you forever..."

It's an almost insurmountable strain, now, for her to hold the tears back. Soon, it won't even be worth trying, but for now, she tries to get around it with another tactic. "Do you want some tea?" she asks hoarsely.


"Of course you aren't losing us forever. Cass overreacts to things sometimes, and even if neither of them want you around, I'll come here, or we can go to the guildhall or just go elsewhere." She shook her head, "We're still friends." There was more conviction in the tone that time, statement of fact, "I'll take a rain check on the tea, I should make sure that Cass and Soren haven't done anything exceptionally stupid while I've been gone." A pause, apparently having to think over her next request, "Could I hug you?"


Sable turns to Henn finally and stops trying to hide the tears on her face. "Do you want to?" she asks, choking a little. "Then yes. I'd like that. Can I hug you back?


"Of course you can." She said, nodding once more as she padded over, deciding against going all the way behind the counter, leaning across it to give Sable a hug. There was none of her usual Shadow emote behind it, it was just a hug, but it was a start at least.


Sable pulls her over into a tight embrace. There is nothing but love behind the gesture for her -- except perhaps a little fear. It's all she can do not to break down again as she hugs Henn. She lets go before her emotions get the better of her.


Henn stepped back, hands folding once more, "I'll give you a call, tomorrow or the next day, just to check in." A pause, brow creasing slightly, "You should get some sleep. We probably all should."


Sable nods, almost seeming to curl up on herself a little, rubbing one arm with her opposite hand as she steps back. "Henn... if you see... well... could you... just make sure my hu--Soren is all right?"


She nodded, "I will. I'll let you know." Because really, even if Cass and Soren weren't going to tell her, she deserved to know anyway as far as Henn was concerned.


Sable, still believing the picture Cass had painted for her, has gone beyond believing she deserves anything or ever did... but she still loves the man who was her husband, and still does not understand all that has happened to them. Every time the phone rings in the shop, a part of her jumps and thinks maybe it'll be him calling to tell her it was all just a misunderstanding after all and she can come home and they can be a family again and someday have children...


Henn gave her another quick hug, because she knew the other woman could use the comfort, as little as it was at the moment, "Rest, Sable. You have other people to keep an eye on things for now." Both at the shop and elsewhere, really. A nod then, stepping back, "I'll call you." And with that, she was gone, slipping into the Backstage as easily as she'd slipped out of it.


"Thank you, Henn," she says to the empty space, barely a whisper before she turns to disappear up the stairs and back into the one place in the shop that belongs entirely to her. She only barely manages to keep from sobbing until the door slams shut behind her.