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[handleyourshit]

  

This is Rosita.  I'll hit you back when I can.

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[loveisall]

"My other progeny. She joined Eric and me centuries later, but - she stayed with us for a while. We loved her, but - in Eric's time, she died."

He clears his throat.

[handleyourshit]

As a rule, Rosita has learned not to ask people about their loved ones that died. It's cruel to them, since most of them weren't raised as she was. Since the loss is generally so fucking big, too big to know what to do with and keep moving forward.

But that's not how she was raised, and he already knows so much about her.

"What's a while?"

[loveisall]

"Few hundred years," he answers, letting out a sigh. "She went to work for the Authority, and got roped into their propaganda. As I did, for a while. But she and Eric fell out."

[handleyourshit]

She has a choice here, she realizes; continue pursuing the dead, ask about the living.

"And then she died. The Authority have something to do with it?"

[loveisall]

He shakes his head. It doesn't bother him to talk about her now, because she's still alive to him. He never felt her death. He knows that it happens, but - sometimes he can pretend.

"No. Not really. It was humans. They engineered a virus that - only vampires could get. It killed us, slowly. She was killed by that."

[handleyourshit]

Something in her face falls a little. Viruses. Fucking viruses.

"I'm sorry. It's... hard. To lose people that way."

[loveisall]

There was a reason he hadn't mentioned it to her. He nods solemnly, looking at the table.

"It hasn't happened to me yet. I didn't have to feel her death, but Eric was there."

[handleyourshit]

"How do you feel like he's taking this?"

She has a guess or two of her own, but she hardly knows him like Godric does.

[loveisall]

"Not well. He's been abandoned by everyone he thought he could trust. Everyone who is - his. He wanted to die with me, but I wouldn't let him."

He runs a hand down his face.

"It was a terrible mistake."

[handleyourshit]

Well.

She certainly knows how that feels.

"Which part?" she asks, anyway.

[loveisall]

"Thinking it was better for him to live without me. Thinking that it was the only way out."

He finally looks up to her.

"He deserves to have me, and he will."

[handleyourshit]

The corner of her mouth quirks, but there's something aching and small there, something cautious and sad.

"You've just got a list of people to take home, huh?"

[loveisall]

"Why not?" he smiles. "The world is cruel in so many ways. In many different universes. We are afforded an opportunity to create our own sort of space."

[handleyourshit]

The moment fades instead of being bolstered in turn by his smile, by his words. She drains the cooled coffee and sets the mug down on the table, shaking her too long sleeves over her hands when she wraps her arms around herself and leans back in the chair.

(It's Jesus's shirt.)

"Are we," she echoes wryly, not quite a question, not quite not.

[loveisall]

"We are."

He shrugs. "But it isn't obvious at first. Why?"

[handleyourshit]

She shakes her head,

"I just don't think it's obvious at all."

[loveisall]

"What do you see this place as?" he wonders instead of asking, instead of guessing.

[handleyourshit]

"It's... the space after. The space between."

She shrugs.

"It's not dying. It's not living. It's a crossroads."

[loveisall]

He nods.

"Alright, then what is the crossroads? Where do the other paths lead?"

[handleyourshit]

"I'm not so dense I've missed that the answer is basically anywhere a person could want," she answers. Sighs.

"I just also know nothing is guaranteed."

[loveisall]

"No, of course not. And trusting that it isn't going to be taken away at a moment's notice is hard. So - maybe that's what we can work on together?" he suggests gently.

[handleyourshit]

"How long am I supposed to wait to believe I can? A year? Two? Half a country?"

Thirteen years? She looks away.

[loveisall]

"It takes as long as it will take. You've had years to learn to believe one way. Why do you think relearning the opposite will be so simple?" he wonders.

[handleyourshit]

"I don't."

She presses her lips together, feels the way her skin is crawling again, the way she wants to go. Wants to move.

She digs her nails into her elbows.

"I spent nearly two years building up trust with Abraham, and he - that still wasn't enough. I don't know what can be."

[loveisall]

"I don't, either," he tells her honestly. "But I have hope enough for both of us. I have faith enough for both of us. And when you falter, I will be here to remind you of it. Right now, you are low. And that's alright."