The kitchen smelled sweet like hers, felt over all warm like hers - but the little things made the middle of her cold, like all the yellows and rusty colored reds. Too many small forks. Not too many people, though. She and Sarah made up four. They the both of them hid away in a nook meant for board games and something, skimming through old movies and programs, opting at the end for an old Michael Powell film with little whispers between the quiet parts, so many quiet parts where the trumpets weren't calling up nerves or the dead. She said things about how scary the fairy tale was, how her mother had watched this with her when she was little and oh the end was so -- didn't she know about the end? She did, wasn't it terrible - and it was. It was always terrible. They'd sent out that evening after everything was settled, the owner's husband was going out anyway - roasted chicken with stuffing, greek potatoes and turnip greens (Since there's just the four of us anyway, we're so glad you decided to come! And you look like you might be able to use the rest, when are you due, anyway sweetheart?). Everything fine, everything quiet like they were waiting for the world to make the loud shrieking cry when it finally broke. Even though, even though they'd said - and they'd told her a few times over the world wasn't going to end, the world wasn't going to end and they could handle these things.

Handling these things seemed to be a loose wording for flying without anything but hope - but that's how these situations worked, right? The rest of the world apparently more or less blind to the weird little section of biblical style oddments and horror going on at home, if you could call it home. She wasn't always sure she did, honestly. Home was, at least as a working theory, somewhere you felt safe and wanted and loved - and who could say they felt any of those things right now. Who could say that for sure. There was an over all feeling of acceptance, of course. And she had a pretty good handle on the fact that they were safe there. The people she loved weren't safe, if she even loved them anymore - because god, how did that work - and how could a person honestly feel that small and give in to anything that easily. Of course, the argument being that this was a thing that was bigger than time or live or the idea of right and wrong and it was an old, old old dark thing. But if that thing was at the root of all things and some people could, why couldn't most. Why didn't it sound like they tried harder.

How sad was that.

That night, she wanted to toss and turn, she wanted her old self back - whatever that meant. To herself, that meant her awful little apartment with the exposed brick wall, her torn stupid posters, her forever mismatched life and sheets. A bed to hide in, a phone that never seemed to get picked up. Her old self wouldn't know what to do right now, but she'd have a better handle on what was best for the situation, and she missed that. Somewhere along the line she'd started leaving bits of herself on the side of the road for whoever needed or wanted it, and god there were parts she missed. She wanted to turn over to see the window on the side it was supposed to be on in her new house with her new pillows and the faint sound of dog paws trying to figure out which way to lay on the other side of the bed on the floor. She wanted to be home, but home was difficult when it was a person that didn't know in the first or second place. Or maybe he did, maybe it was just - maybe there was no maybe, maybe.

And how sad was that

Laying there with her back toward the door, able to see Sarah laying there and asleep -- though she wasn't really sure how she was managing it, it was something. The cool light from the early night settling and the stars starting to peek through the curtains that she'd forgotten to draw -- she noticed a little shiver over her not-quite-mother-in-law's shoulder and opted to draw herself up, taking one of the throws from a chair to slide over the already kind of piled blankets. She walked back over, leaning her arm against the arm chair she'd stolen the blanket from and Roman looked out of the window, over the tree top that was starting to brown and brittle from the cold and the stars. The stars peeking out against the deep, dark blue that was threatening to turn black and she forgot about how sad it was, how awful the whole world was for the moment and remembered his eyes. Granted, she didn't know who's name she ought to have been using in the middle of this thought, and it did cross her mind. The over all straightness of his shoulders and the slope of his nose, she loved his nose so much - noses were very important. And how the corners of his mouth could turn down and the world would shake and try to change direction, or maybe it was just her. But his eyes, they held wishes and planets and all of the good things trapped around the speckled colors he kept there and god, it was sad but she wouldn't want to be anywhere else.