Abigail Hobbs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
versusnurture) wrote2013-10-11 04:26 pm
versusnurture) wrote2013-10-11 04:26 pm
Entry tags:
- & i want & i want & i want,
- ] ( i was the lure ),
- ] did you fish,
- ] or did you hunt,
- a hundred motherfuckers,
- abibabble stabigail,
- always the possibility of murder later,
- bait even now,
- ben is broken,
- better not to be famous,
- can't tell me nothing,
- couldn't protect me in this life,
- dissociation for unfun & notprofit,
- hannibal bannanibal is watching,
- it's people,
- my father is a cannibal,
- my fathers are cannibals,
- she loses time sometimes,
- shoot him every minute of his life,
- the broken face,
- the liar's face,
- this is not my beautiful house,
- tweet tweet motherfuckers
fifth ♢ private + voice + spam
private/voice } ben
[She contacts her warden as soon as Hannibal makes his announcement. Last night, when she checked in, she was distant; this morning she seemed more confident. This afternoon, she's shaky, uncertain, every bone in her body trembling, it feels like.]
Ben. I lost time. [This is an excuse, she knows.]
He made me dinner, Ben.
public } voice
[She cuts the feed on, then off. On/off, on/off, in strange but rhythmic patterns like Morse code.]
[She's fishing. Questions, accusations will come - she remembers that much from last time, with her real father, with Garret Hobbs, the Shrike. She wants them now. She doesn't want to wait.]
public } spam
[She doesn't change her routine, not even slightly. Which is not to say she's not afraid: she's terrified. There's no Freddie Lounds here to publicly doctor this story, to minimize her shame. Even if there was, she honestly isn't sure she'd want that anymore.]
[So she walks the halls and accepts what comes, goes to the art room, goes to lunch, visits Ben on his shift. Sometimes she goes to the CES and forgets where she is and how time passes. Hours and hours go by as she sits under a tree with her knees pulled up to her chest.]
[This is the only vulnerability she shows, and it is accidental.]
private } zane
I know what he wants from me so I can ask him for information if that's what you want.
[It's about the Emperor, of course; she no longer has the privilege, in her own mind, of contacting Zane for any reason other than business.]
[She contacts her warden as soon as Hannibal makes his announcement. Last night, when she checked in, she was distant; this morning she seemed more confident. This afternoon, she's shaky, uncertain, every bone in her body trembling, it feels like.]
Ben. I lost time. [This is an excuse, she knows.]
He made me dinner, Ben.
public } voice
[She cuts the feed on, then off. On/off, on/off, in strange but rhythmic patterns like Morse code.]
[She's fishing. Questions, accusations will come - she remembers that much from last time, with her real father, with Garret Hobbs, the Shrike. She wants them now. She doesn't want to wait.]
public } spam
[She doesn't change her routine, not even slightly. Which is not to say she's not afraid: she's terrified. There's no Freddie Lounds here to publicly doctor this story, to minimize her shame. Even if there was, she honestly isn't sure she'd want that anymore.]
[So she walks the halls and accepts what comes, goes to the art room, goes to lunch, visits Ben on his shift. Sometimes she goes to the CES and forgets where she is and how time passes. Hours and hours go by as she sits under a tree with her knees pulled up to her chest.]
[This is the only vulnerability she shows, and it is accidental.]
private } zane
I know what he wants from me so I can ask him for information if that's what you want.
[It's about the Emperor, of course; she no longer has the privilege, in her own mind, of contacting Zane for any reason other than business.]
[spam]
[If she hadn't been treated like fine china, a serpent, or an unsprung trap the entire time - if she'd just been asked, like this - things might have gone differently. But the past is the past. She can't make herself feel too regretful.]
I'll tell you whatever you want.
[She looks at Harvey with clear eyes. Her hand doesn't go to her scar, because here, now, she has nothing to cover up. She's honest - a reporter of facts, currently with none of the guile Freddie Lounds wielded so effortlessly.]
My father, Garret Hobbs, killed eight girls who looked just like me. [She half-smiles - saying it just like that feels funny, like she's tickling herself.] There was one other girl, but she wasn't his. She was Hannibal's.
He - my father, the Minnesota Shrike - killed eight girls who looked just like me, and he ate them and fed them to us. My mother and I. [Her voice goes hazy and briefly disassociated now, mostly because she's remembering. Gutting them. The judder of the knife.] If you don't use every part of the body, it's just murder. You have to honor every part of them. That's what he said.
I was the bait.
They caught up to him in the end. The FBI, I mean - Will and Hannibal. We were eating breakfast, and - I was worried because I hadn't heard back from Ann Arbor yet, that's what I was thinking about. I remember. [Because even then she was at least two people at all times.] My dad got a phone call. I didn't recognize the voice. After he hung up, my dad got . . . crazy. I'd never seen him look crazy before. He cut my mom's throat, she bled out on the front step, and he held me in the kitchen with a knife to my throat, he said -
"I'm going to make it all go away."
When they came in, with their guns, they were yelling at him - Will was yelling put the knife down, and he cut my throat, and Will shot him just - just a bunch of times. Over and over. And then he stood over me and pressed his hands to my throat and I could see in his eyes that I was dying.
[She's gone distant, but now she snaps back. The mention or thought of Hannibal is doing something new to her: making her focus. Making her intent.]
Then Hannibal took over and applied pressure. I didn't die. I went into a coma. And when I woke up, they took me to the hospital. The psychiatric hospital, I mean.
They were all trying to figure out if I'd done it, you know? If I'd helped. I said I hadn't. I only remembered some things. It wasn't quite amnesia, I was just pushing it away. But they took me to my home to see if I could remember anything that might be able to help them.
They asked me did you recognize the man on the phone. [She laughs quietly and pulls her knees up to her chest.] I said I didn't, but I did. And he saw that I did. Hannibal always sees weak points.
[You be my dad, she'd said to Will, to Alana: you be my mom, and you - be the man on the phone! A shared moment of understanding. She'd felt breathless, comprehensible at last, no longer insane.]
[She should have clung to insanity even then.]
Everything happened really fast then. I lost some time, but - my friend, Marissa, Hannibal killed her. Or I guess I did, because he was trying to push me. To see what would happen. He mounted her on antlers, like my father used to. I saw, and I got confused and scared, and the brother of the other girl Hannibal killed - the one he mounted on a stag's head [the one he shamed] - he came into my house. He said he wanted to talk. I tried to run, he cornered me, and I stabbed him.
Then I gutted him.
Then Hannibal helped me hide the body. It was our secret.
[She hopes that Harvey understands all this. Thinks he will. He's more than what he looks like, cleverer and more compassionate in his very particular way than she might have expected if she weren't the type to pay sharp attention to everything, for her own safety. It doesn't change the fact that she's a killer, but everyone she's killed has been on someone else's terms.]
[She wonders if he'll see that, too.]
[spam]
The only people who take on animal names in my world -- in my city, at least [ And Gotham is his city as much as it it Batman's or anyone else's ] -- fight people like us. Batman, Robin. Catwoman likes to think plays all the sides but in the end she knows where the thickest cream is. She blew Black Mask's face clean off, didn't play by the Bat's no-murder rule, but she still runs with him despite the blood under her claws.
We wear our names to state what we are and what we stand for. Joker, Riddler, Two-Face. What we've got etched in our skin. But we're still men, not guardian beasts set against the dark.
[ She's not an animal. That's important for her to understand. She has revenge, statement. That's even more important, for Harvey. It's not just base urges they can't control. Even he has rules. ]
[ It allows him to be a man, as well as a monster. Walk the line between his two halves. It's why he can hold her here without thinking of feeding his own urges, and think about someone else's. It's the difference, he think, between men like him and men like Hannibal. ]
[ It allows him to remember what being compassionate was like, what showing kindness could be. It's why he can sit here and comfort. Because he has rules, and men make the rules. Animals just obey their urges unless they're leashed. ]
[ He forgets, sometimes, that the coin is a leash too. ]
You wouldn't have been culpable. Not for the girls, anyway. [ It's a distant thing, as he thinks about the law with her tucked against his side. ] You were under age, with a dangerous father figure, and threat of intimidation. Good defense would have gotten you off.
With a bad prosecutor, your case would have been a smear job, at best. Ugly, but with no real way to prove motive or intent on you. Would have have suggested plea bargain psychiatric care, and been done with it, myself. Taken your father and roasted him, if he'd survived. Found a way to make him dance, but-- you? Political suicide. Voters would have been disgusted, putting a little girl down for Big Bad Daddy's due. Would have gotten grotesque. Sex, blood, queries about potential incest-- the press would be asking a lot of ugly question. [ His lip, the good side, curls, baring the white teeth of his good side. God, the very idea makes him boil. ] Betting you know that much already, though, don't you?
[ He shakes his head, quiet. ]
I put a lot of men into Arkham, before I joined them. I don't doubt what I did was right, then. They were mad. They were threats. Now I'm just-- one of them. And I see things differently. The way things are. Or the way they should be. Fair, uncorrupted, unbiased, and sure.
[ Madness can give you a certain sort of... clarity. Harvey embraces his now, thinking: how does a monster make another monster in his image? ]
Did Hannibal make sure the boy-- the gutted-- knew where to find you? Do you know? [ It stinks of a set up -- the illusion of choice. Back her into a corner, push and push and push until the breaks show more clearly, find a place to wedge them open. ]
[ More than ever, he resolves not to. Already, Harvey has doubts; she wasn't sick to begin with -- someone molded her, made her. Should we help her onward into something she never truly chose? ]
[ Two-Face is quick to remind him She's choosing now. You can't unmake the breaks now. Don't even try, Harvey. You can't stuff a chick back in it's shell, or the egg up a hen. She's coming and nothing in the world will stop her, let alone us. And when she figures out what she is, resolves herself into woman or monster, you can say you were there -- and that you let her choose. ]
[ Choice. Real choice. ]
[ He's not ever sure she's ever had it, by the time the two are finished in their silent bickering. ]
[ Finally he says: ]
Hannibal strikes me as the type who-- knows how to bait a lure, too. Hell, I've done it. I know how to pull my prey out of hiding. I just-- prefer to hunt other criminals, given the choice of prey.
[ The problem is Harvey's idea of criminal is very, very broad. He makes it sound almost mild. Like the racketeering and protection scams, like his own personal gangs aren't the real thing, aren't part of his need to stop being powerless before an uncaring world. But Harvey's more than a little bit insane. If he could see the truth of himself, he wouldn't still be here. But there are cracks starting there, too. Light gets in, illuminates. ]
[ Some of it is Abigail's. ]
[spam]
[As to the press - well.]
There was a journalist. Will said she wasn't a real journalist, tabloids, but - what does it matter, public opinion's public opinion. She said my image was everything. Will tried to protect me from her, from the things she said about me, from the truth she wanted to tell.
[The truth, which was a lie. Freddie Lounds saw right through her. It was shocking every time, not the comforting connection, the understanding that Abigail had with Hannibal (or thought she did) but the sense that her skin was completely transparent. That she was a clumsy animal.]
[But no. She's not an animal. Animals don't get to choose.]
[It's at this moment that the image of Freddie and of Hannibal merge in her mind, and she knows there was something more. Freddie was alive and breathing and skipping through crime scenes because Hannibal had some use for her, she's sure, some purpose. Freddie Lounds, journalist, bait. Possibly. Maybe Abigail won't ever know the whole of it. But she knows with sudden inexplicable certainty that there was something more.]
Nick Boyle knew where our house was. [Freddie could have - or Hannibal - but Nick showed no evidence of recognizing Hannibal, so probably not. Freddie, then?] He knew where our house was and that we'd be there. Hannibal killed Marissa, who'd attacked him earlier, Hannibal framed him, he knew -
[Her breathing is shallow, her pupils blown. He knew what would happen - or some approximation of it, the general direction it would go, and he knew just how to push her once it did.]
[It wasn't choice at all.]
[She pulls out a sleeve of saltines and eats them one by one, ritualistically, snapping them in half and eating the left side and the right side. She doesn't realize she's doing this; it's instinctive.]
In the end. What I was. Was bait for Will. If I could have become what he wanted - but I was the wedge, to make him hurt, to crack him open and let his insides see the sun.
It's not Will's fault. [But it's clear from the look in her eyes that in this moment she hates him for it. In this moment, she blames him.]
[spam]
[ He doubts it. ]
Then, from this moment on: don't be bait for anyone... and don't make anyone else your lure, if you can. He knows that game too well, now, and you know how it feels when the pike's got it's jaws on the lure.
[ A move for a strange dose of compassion -- for his brand of justice. Hurt who needs hurting. Leave the rest out of it if you can. ]
I would have liked to meet this Will Graham.
[ The more he hears, the more he reminds Harvey of himself; less fire and retribution, but with a clarity that was clouded by... what? A refusal to see? An inability to see? ]
[ He's not sure which it was, anymore. ]
[spam]
[It would be a lie to say that she hadn't considered it. She considers it every minute. It's what has been effective, before - how men like her father and Hannibal have evaded capture. But Abigail isn't an artist. She's a liar and a brute, in her own way, capable of an elegant but perfectly straight line, weapon to target, the right word in the right place, the right look in the right direction.]
[Her weapon of choice would be something sharp-edged, not poison. Direct and quick. Almost (but not quite) merciful. She toys with these ideas and feels secure in the understanding that they're her own.]
You would have liked him, I think.
[The hatred dulls quickly, although it doesn't die away. She knows what Will is better than Hannibal does, in her opinion. Damaged but innocent, broken down by his own capacity to do what needed to be done, even when it was ugly.]
He tried so hard to do the right thing and hated himself so much when the right thing was - the kind of thing that the people he studied would do. Like shooting my dad.
[spam]
[ Didn't you? hisses Two-Face, smug in knowing his existence means that this is not, in fact, true. Harvey's brows dip quietly, and he ignores his other half. ]
But I understand how that could happen to him.
[ Two-Face just laughs and laughs, and Harvey looks at some point in the middle distance, trying to push the other self down, down into some place dark where he can't hear. ]
When we talked about-- you learning to defend yourself. I want to make sure we do that. Now you have leverage on Beatrix; a wounded young woman will be the honey to her Queen Bee. If you handle her right she'll feed you royal nectar, make you a queen on your own right.
But her Mama Bear stature on the barge is well known. If you use it, be careful with it if you can.
[ He pauses, remembering the bitemarks. ]
Can I ask about Elena?
[spam]
[Harvey isn't trying to make her anything she doesn't want to be either, so she doesn't question him. Just watches, then gets up and grabs the box of graham crackers, brings it over to the bed to sit down next to him again.]
I want to do that, and I want to respect her. [And, of course, she wants to be queen. She likes the metaphor. Who wouldn't?] I can be careful. I can balance everything. I know I can.
[The question draws her up short. It shouldn't. She showed him the marks, she knew this would come. But she's not sure how to explain.]
[She offers Harvey both boxes of crackers, having eaten enough to keep her stomach from churning.]
We made a deal. That she could feed if she kept me protected. But she wants me to have a choice, too.
[spam]
Good. I know you can.
[ He stops when she offers him the crackers. He takes the boxes, but doesn't partake of them himself; he doesn't care much for eating or drinking in public. It's awkward and grotesque, and while he knows she would watch without flinching, Harvey does not wish to indulge. Two-Face sneers at his vanity. ]
Does she. Interesting. [ Closer to feeling then she realizes, perhaps. ] Whose idea was the deal?
[ He doesn't want this to be another Hannibal not-choice, disguised to make Abigail think she's able to to choose something that is not a choice at all. ]
[spam]
It was mine. Well - she floated the idea of a trade at first, and I said protection, and that if I needed someone who was a threat preemptively taken care of, that I could count on her to do it.
I was comfortable not acting weak with her. It was a helpful step. But if she'd taken advantage of my willingness, I knew from the start that I could get her back. Arkin likes me, and - you know that I can make people sympathetic.
It's never been necessary.
[spam]
Don't know Arkin well. [ This puts him on Harvey's radar, though. ] Met Elena though. He likes her. I'm-- well, jury's out. She hasn't offended me so far.
[ That's a start, right? ]
[spam]
I hope she doesn't. I like her a lot. She's more than she seems like, I just don't understand all of it.
Why does he like her? If that's not a weird question.
[spam]
[ Eating with your mouth perpetually open? You get used to it, the oral gymnastics that must be done to not spit more food out than you get in is a bother, but it's his reality now. The work of muscles, the flash of tongue, of acid-stained teeth working, what it takes to keep food to one side of the mouth; it's also enough to put most people off their lunch. ]
[ Abigail is not most people. He's not afraid of what she thinks of him. She's here because he's here with Harvey; it takes both of them to have all of her, all the masks and faces, all the Abigails, each facsimile until you reach the growing thing at the core of her. ]
[ Two-Face loves it. ]
I like her because she's free. Because there's no deadlock for her. Because if she wants it, she goes after it. If she wants to fuck, she fucks. If she wants to bite, she bites. If she wants to make Cassel cry? She makes Cassel cry, and she is incapable of wallowing in regret.
She's a beautiful predator.
[ He pauses, and then adds: ]
That she reminds me of Gilda doesn't hurt, either. We have-- a predisposition to brunettes, I guess.
[ He smirks, though it's strained. Two-Face loves Gilda, loved Renee. Dark eyed, dark haired women just seem to be their undoing. ]
[spam]
[The look she gives is perhaps disconcertingly sharp, hyperfocused; she stares at Two-Face, but not because she's disgusted or even because she thinks it's unusual. This is just how he is.]
[Her smile is small, but serene and true. She's seen them both today, and she feels honored.]
Hi.
[Her expression softens. For once, she isn't aware of it. But this is a far better explanation than she could have come up with to describe Elena's appeal. She's had all her choices taken away and then wrenched them back for herself by force.]
I like her because I know there's a lot to her that she doesn't show. But I like her because she takes what she wants, too.
[I want to take what I want, she doesn't say - doesn't have to.]
[spam]
[ Unlike Harvey, Two-Face is a creature of unrestained passion and emotion. He feels everything in great measure, doesn't try and bottle. When his compassion and mercy is engaged -- and he does have it -- he's a man capable of boundless love and affection. Just... no real good way of expressing it. ]
[ He smiles for her again, and reaches out to brush her hair back a little, for the soft sweet look she gives him. ]
We love in others what we can't do for ourselves. Hate in others what we hate in ourselves. Funny, isn't it?
I can see why you'd like that in her. We were twenty years younger, I'd probably like her more, too. He wouldn't, but he's a stick in the mud that way.
Arkin's her warden, isn't he? And you're tight with him?
[spam]
[Every contradiction in her is bared for both of them to see in this one specific moment in time. She leans into Two-Face's touch and grins - not a coy smile, a grin.]
It's pretty funny. But it's human nature. And some of it's - if she can do it, I can. We're not so different in some ways.
[They have the same kind of beauty in them. Accepting that, the beautiful predator in herself reflected in Elena, has done a lot for her, in a convoluted, twisting way. Not that she ever does anything simply. It's made her like herself a little bit, for one thing. See herself as more than just a victim or just bait.]
[A step.]
[She flushes lightly at like her more and she doesn't completely understand why - mostly because she and Elena like each other because they are so similar, and when they like each other most is when they're erecting shields of bravado and violence and taking safety for themselves because they deserve it. The blood of others under your nails. Taking the chance - not hesitating. Abigail's not stupid, but neither of them are straightforward, and she doesn't have a name for their symbiosis. Not yet.]
He is. He's - [She's about to say a good person but she knows what Arkin thinks about that kind of statement, so she tries something else.] A lot like me. I can tell him things, the way I tell you things, and he doesn't say I'm sorry that happened, is there anything I can do, because he knows there isn't. Not the way most people mean.
[There's no quick fix. You can't erase the bad things that people do - the people who just want to see what will happen. You can't make them not be. You can only put them down so they don't hurt anyone else. And on the Barge - not even that.]
[She has a long list of things she'd do to the Collector if he showed up here. It grows every day.]
[spam]
[ Not a mindless machine of hate and destruction -- though certainly the capacity is there -- Two-Face just nods, undertanding. Yes, it is funny. And yes, that sounds good. ]
Like calls to like. I'm sure you'll handle her. And if you don't-- we're always here for kneecapping if you need us to.
[ The fatherly shotgun talk, in it's way -- only he really would kneecap Elena if she hurt Abigail without a second thought. It'd be easy. Simple. ]
[ Well, in his mind, anyway. Just got to figure out the vampire weaknesses. But if he can kill a werewolf with a silver dollar, he can handle a vampire, right? ]
[ Arkin, though, is another matter. He grows more serious, listens more closely. Arkin's a citizen, a warden-- not an ally, not really. ]
And you think he'll have your back? Through everything?
[ He worries that she may trust the wrong type of people. Arkin's on the wrong side of the divide for Two-Face to trust so easily. ]
[spam]
Thank you. [Her smile's impish, playful.] You're first on the list for kneecapping. You get dibs. [As if it's the most obvious, normal thing in the world - which right now it seems like it is.]
[She takes a moment to consider things realistically. She's a hundred times calmer now than she was; she feels like she's seeing clearly for the first time in weeks, months. She can see Arkin, too, and she knows she's judged him right.]
I think he'd rather I didn't have to make the choices he's having to make. That I could be spared. But he won't stop me or judge me. He knows what it is to be helpless.
I started talking to him because he has a daughter. I thought I could use that vulnerability to make him love me, protect me. But it ended up being easier than than. So yes. I think he'll have my back, even if he doesn't approve of my choices.
[Arkin understands bait. Arkin understands guilt. Arkin understands revenge.]
[spam]
[ With rare exceptions, like the Boy. Two-Face doesn't like him like Harvey does (nobody's surprised there; fucking model inmate when he's allowed to be, always has been) but he tolerates him because he's useful. He's not trying to drive them, herd them toward an impossible goal. ]
[ But neither of them can believe that most of these wardens are here for anything but their own goals. ]
Got a gaggle of father-figures to choose from, do you?
[ Two-Face is possessive, and it-- bothers him, but Harvey idly reminds him that this is her way, her path. She chooses men, uses them, works them, as surely as they use the law. Two-Face reluctantly agrees, but he says: ]
Be careful with them. Sometimes fatherhood is just a fancy word for ownership. Some of them will bare their teeth and bite when they realize they don't have all of you.
[ But we won't. Harvey won't let them. But now his better half's taking his turn to snap at him, to be the one who wields the stick instead of the carrot. Make sure she knows that you know. ]
Guess you're aware of that by now, though.
[spam]
[Fight or die.]
[Arkin chooses fight.]
[She glances away for a moment. The truth is, she regrets her initial targets now. She had shown a vulnerable face to start and gathered fathers close. But it had been a survival strategy - she hadn't expected to care. She tells herself now that this is a happy accident. She's discovered her own path, through the fires of empathy into intelligent vengeance. She is allowed to feel; it's necessary to feel, to break away from Hannibal's wishes.]
[She is not a psychopath. She can love, confidently and with her own type of effusiveness.]
[When she looks back at Two-Face, she nods, solemn.]
I'm aware. Very much so. The reminder doesn't hurt, but - I remember now. [A half-smile.] Cut my throat once, shame on you. Cut it twice and I'm just stupid.
Which I'm not.
[She loves them all, not just for what they symbolize but for what they are. The men who care about her, but will let her go her own way.]
Re: [spam]
[ He will, however, snarl at himself. Harvey needles and now it's Two-Face's turn to feel uncomfortable. Shut up, I'm trying Two-Face answers Harvey. He's not made to be comforting. He's made to hurt. To be strong where Harvey was not. But he's not offering the body back, not when he's got a cracker to eat and thoughts to give on his own. ]
I know you're not. That's-- not what I meant. I just-- we won't have to flip on anyone who hurts you, we'll say. There'll be no deadlock there.
[ No reason to question, just reason to hurt. Abigail is special. Abigail sees. Abigail sees and does not flinch. That is so precious, he cannot overstate it's value. ]
[ He looks at her, now, aware of it. ]
You're-- calmer now. More color to you. Better, a bit?
[ Two-Face, concerned. No one has seen this man -- this half of this man -- ever do such a thing. And maybe never will again. ]
[spam]
I know what you meant.
[Then she hesitates, wondering if she should say the next part - wondering for his sake, for Harvey's vanity and Two-Face's violence, if it would be better to keep it to herself and let them continue on with it known but unsaid. In the end, she goes for it.]
I care about you, too.
[As, of course, a second person plural pronoun; the both of them.]
[She smiles brilliantly - yes, she is feeling better. Alive. Awake. Uncontrollable.]
Yes. A bit. I feel centered. Thank you. Both of you.
[spam]
Good. We're glad.
You'll let us know if you need anything else?
[ He pauses, and says ]
We'll get you keys. To our room. We want you to have a space you can go to. That's safe. Well. Safer. Door's easy to bar, hard to get through.
We want-- you to have a haven. While you're here.
[spam]
[She wants to hug him again, but she knows, too, that there's a limit of caring that someone like Harvey can handle in one day. So she holds back and adjusts to sit with her feet tucked under her, shooting him a bright smile.]
And that would be - amazing. If you're sure you don't mind.
[spam]
[ They had their enemies, after all. But she had hers, and he would give her shelter, even if it was in a battered, aging asylum cell rent down the middle as surely as they were. ]
You'll be alright. You're already bouncing back.
[spam]
[She closes her eyes and remembers what Elena said.]
I won't miss my opportunity either, when it comes. [And she doesn't think he'd want her to. Not really.]
I'm stronger than I thought I was. I have people I can trust, it - helps, it's surprising. You helped.
[spam]