If You Try To Go Alone, Don't Think I'll Understand [video]

[wormintheglass]

[Bianca, instead of the bar or her own quarters, is broadcasting from a Spire apartment that's unfamiliar to anyone who didn't happen to visit Johanna Mason's quarters.

There's no music, no theatrics. She sits on a single bed, a throwing axe lying across her lap, and looks into the camera with sombre, dark eyes.]

Johanna Mason's gone. She got away. She's free.

[And Hadriel just became smaller, darker and lonelier than Bianca feels she can bear.]

(soundtrack)

Comments

[wormintheglass]

[Bianca tends to move as though she were onstage at all times; even alone, her every gesture comes loaded with a studied, theatrical grace.

She sits up enough to suck down the whiskey gratefully, and without her cloak of pretense she is suddenly, strikingly small, hunched miserably at Kate's side like a child. Her face is slack, and she doesn't trouble to wipe away the tears.]

I can't. I - I give up.

Do you think they took her away to punish me?

[dedikated]

[ Kate isn't exactly the person to go to for kind reassurances on anything, unless those reassurances also happen to be the truest thing in her eyes. but in this case, it shouldn't be surprising that her immediate response is; ] Maybe. [ she knocks back a large gulp from the newly opened bottle of vodka with a grimace. ] Maybe she wasn't giving them what they wanted any more. [ maybe she wasn't feeling the way they thought she should, dismissed her as a useless food source. ]

[wormintheglass]

[Something like laughter, harsh and jagged-edged, tears its way up and out of Bianca's throat, causing her to almost choke on her whiskey. She's reminded irresistibly of Jack and his habit of brittle laughter under stress; by the time she's managed to divert the whiskey away from her lungs, the tears are starting again and she has to snort inelegantly so as not to drip snot on Kate.]

She loved not giving people what they wanted. Loved it. Oh, Kate. She'd have never spoken to me again if I used words like love. So I never did.

But I did. Do.

[dedikated]

Had it that bad, huh? [ although, really - if Kate looks back over all the discussions that Bianca managed to shoehorn Johanna into - it was obvious. Her eyes lit up the same way Diana's did when she was watching Alicia control their opponents, her voice took on the same joyful glint that came out of Alicia whenever Diana offered her a coat because Alicia decided that nothing she owned went with her outfit.

as often as Kate seemed disinterested, only following along out of a sense that Bianca is the unstoppable force, the sight of her excitement was pleasant to watch. it was, at least, nice to know that people found something worth enjoying down here.

other than all the booze. ]

[wormintheglass]

I really did.

[Even now, talking about Johanna brings warmth and life into Bianca's voice.]

I met her the day those stupid mirrors arrived. She was in one of the shops. She made me laugh. I just wanted to swallow her whole like a salty tequila shot.

And when we all got raged. I had this idiotic conspiracy theory I'd pulled together out of thin air - that poor boy Clear, who wouldn't have hurt a fly.

But I didn't even need to tell her. I just - I wanted to kill someone, she was there to help. She didn't even ask why.

[dedikated]

[ on occasions, rare though they are, where someone speaks like this - so warm and affectionate about another person - Kate can't help but feel slightly alien, a little like she's missing something that allows her to get it. Something that doesn't quite work right because she hasn't gushed so openly about another person since before her parents were murdered. She's not even sure she remembers what it's like to feel that intensely about someone, where the little things they do elicit the kind of warmth and comparisons that Bianca carves with her words.

Kate takes another swig of the vodka and pushes that doubt away. It's never been a problem before. She has enough friends, enough family of choice that it shouldn't matter that she doesn't show the same kind of affection she sees in people like Bianca. It's never been a problem before - why would it be now? ] You were right, though. She's free. [ it should be a happy thing, because she sounds as much a force of nature as Bianca is - someone not meant to be caged. But it can never be that simple. ] Should drink to that. To her freedom.

[wormintheglass]

[Bianca sniffs soggily and raises her whiskey bottle.]

Yes. I am glad for her. Somewhere in here under everything else. To Johanna. To her freedom. To her not getting bloody well killed before I can break out of here and find her.

[She drinks, deep and ceremonious, and then sags back onto Kate's shoulder.

She is not reading Kate's mind - she is very deliberately not trying to - but she can't help noticing something. Perhaps it was body language, perhaps some unspoken breath of thought, perhaps it's just Bianca's imagination.]

You're thinking something, my Kate. What is it?

[dedikated]

[ Indeed. To Johanna, for doing what most of them want to do. Kate drinks for a long moment to the idea and clears her throat of the burn after it sinks down her throat.

There's one thing to be said for spending time with Bianca - Kate is growing very accustomed to the fact that stopping her from initiating physical contact is useless, so the shrug of her shoulder isn't meant to push her off. It's becoming something that is about as ceremonial as her attempts at punching or wriggling out of Carl's hugs are.

She tilts her head at the question. ] Just thinking what it must be like to feel like that about someone. [ Or at least to be able to express it. It's nothing that bothers her, not really, but-

Well, sometimes the fact that you're not - that you're not like them, that there are things you don't understand and cannot begin to - stands out. ]