Random Forsaken tat

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

"You're a prick, and we're through."

As exit lines go, Rio thought with a kind of grim amusement, it wasn't exactly the best. Not really snappy, or witty. She had come up with better lines in the past, but she hadn't been in that kind of emotional state before, a state she couldn't name, but just left her with a sick feeling in her stomach.

She couldn't even remember what the argument had been over originally. Something stupid. It was always something stupid, and somewhere along the line it had turned into a screaming row as to whether Lennie had ever wanted to marry her in the first place. One cheap plywood table now had a hole in it about the size and shape of Lennie's fist, which was an improvement on the last fight they had had in which Rio had thrown a chair through a window.

Holly was curled up, half asleep in the passenger seat. She was alarmingly calm about being woken up at 2 am and told that she was 'going for a drive'. She had pretty much instantly slipped back asleep when Rio had pulled the blanket up around her. Jesus, why was she doing this to Holly? Why was she dragged her across the country in the middle of the night?

Rio put her foot down on the accelerator. Best not to think about that. Not now. She'd think about it when they got to the Serene. When Holly was tucked up and asleep there, and she'd been able to talk to Kay, to try and clear her head. Although what was there to say?

Kay was awake and waiting when Rio's car pulled up. She smiled when Holly hugged her and said 'hello Auntie Kay. Did you put the red sheets on my bed?" and hugged Rio very tightly.

Rio clung to her briefly. The Serene loomed up behind her, solid and reassuring. This was somewhere they could stay for a while. Maybe this was somewhere they could start again.

In the morning, Holly ran around the ship, growling at the Captain when he tried to ruffle her hair. The Captain, in turn, glowered slightly at Rio when she appeared, and gave Karei a warning look which seemed to speak of later arguments. Later, without Kay about, he did manage a short nod to Rio when she smiled at him angelically. There was, Rio thought, a kindness in him somewhere.

"So...?" Kay asked at lunchtime, as she carefully poured out a cup of tea for Rio. Rio pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them.

"It's not a big deal," she said, and blinked rapidly. "It isn't. Look. It was never going to last anyway. Look at us! We got married when I was 17 because I'd been a moron and got knocked up. In what normal world was that ever going to last?"

She rested her forehead on her knees, and tried not to cry.

"And god knows..." she said, forcing herself to keep on talking "we never did work. You know he threated to put me through a wall the first time he met me..."

Outside, Holly raced down the deck, aiming to get as far down the ship as possible before the first howls of exasperation came echoing out from the bridge.

Rio liked the Serene. She kinda knew she shouldn't visit there for long - it wasn't a holiday camp, after all - but there was something comfortable about it. She understood this lifestyle; the mobility of it all; the impermanence outwith and the stability within. It was calmer as well - even Mal and Kay's arguments had a grace and restraint to them, especially when compared to her brawling, scrapping mob of a family.

Her family...

Rio blinked.

She missed her family. She missed them horribly. Her brothers. Her husband.

Shit.

She hated this. She hated the stupid hole in her heart that she felt whenever Lennie wasn't around. She hated the way she couldn't sleep properly at nights without him, and the horrible emptiness first thing in the mornings.

"I should call Lennie," she told Kay, when she came back inside. Kay looked confused.

"I'm not going back," Rio said, sharply. "I'm not. Christ, I don't think he wants me back this time, anyway."

Kay looked unconvinced. "If you think so?" she managed, tentatively.

Rio nodded firmly. "He doesn't. You know, he never wanted to marry me. He just is an honourable idiot, who didn't want to walk out on the girl he'd got knocked up."

She rehearsed the conversation she would have with Lennie with Kay, her friend looking perplexed as she paced up and down, occasionally taking a mouthful of whiskey to calm herself.

"You know," she said, apropos of nothing, "I always had this feeling that Holly was conceived after I walked out on him the first time."

"Really?" Kay said.

Rio nodded.

"Yeah. Well, I broke up with him. Not that we were going out. We'd been..."

She stopped and pushed her hands through her hair. "Anyway. We always fought. From the first day we met. Then we sort of stopped fighting for a bit when we started..."

She glanced over at Karei and then decided to skip ahead "So. Yeah. We hadn't had a fight in a while. Then one day we just had this fight. I can't even remember what started it. It was horrible.

"At the time, I figured that was it. No more. God knows, most blokes never stuck around once I'd torn into them. I know I can be a bitch when I'm in a bad mood. And I went home, and I snapped at Raph, and I sat in my bedroom and hugged a pillow, and then I climbed out of my bedroom window at 1 am and went hunting round town for Lennie. I had no clue where he was. He was kinda drifting in those days. And of course it started raining, so by the time I found the place he was staying I looked less 'cute' and more 'drowned rat'."

Rio shrugged slightly and half smiled.

"Anyway, he opened the door, I burst into tears, he picked me up and carried me inside and..."

She stared down at her phone in her hand for a moment.

"I need to call Lennie."

When Holly came padding silently and cautiously towards the cabin, listening out with sharp ears for the howl of an outraged Uratha, she saw her mother was perched on the ship's railings, with her mobile pressed to her ear.

Rio came back into the small cabin half an hour later to find that Holly was perched on the bed, with her small bag at her feet, looking expectant. Rio blinked.

"What's that for?" she asked.

"You called Dad," Holly said, as if it was obvious. "So I thought I'd pack now. To save time when you got off the phone. Is Dad coming to meet us or are we just going home?"

Rio narrowed her eyes slightly and considered asking Holly if she was that predictable. Then she decided against it. She wasn't sure if she'd like the answer.

"We're going home," she said, and then added "we can stop off somewhere to get some rock if you'd like."

Might as well stick to tradition Rio thought, and realized she couldn't even be annoyed at herself for being predictable, because damnit, she was going home, and she felt as light headed as a teenager.

She hugged Kay before she left.

"Thank you for having us," she said, and even smiled at the Captain as she left.

The sun was bright in the sky as they drove home, and they did stop to get Lennie a stick of rock en route.

Holly went to bed early, with a kind of resigned acceptance that this was her lot in life whenever her parents had one of their rows and needed 'make up time'.

"So?" said Lennie, with mild amusement. "I'm a prick and we're through."

Rio rolled her eyes. "Yes, and...?" she said, with a kind of imperiousness which they both knew she didn't mean in the slightest. "So, are you going to kiss me at any point? Because I'm getting kinda bored of waiting..."