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

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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."

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

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

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."

"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.

"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."

Well.

She certainly knows how that feels.

"Which part?" she asks, anyway.

"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."

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?"

"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."

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.

Edited Date: 2024-09-02 03:57 pm (UTC)

"We are."

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

She shakes her head,

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

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

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

She shrugs.

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

He nods.

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

"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."

"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.

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

Thirteen years? She looks away.

"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.

"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."

Edited Date: 2024-09-03 01:46 pm (UTC)

"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."

She's silent and still for a few long moments, trying to decide how to respond, if she should; she wants to stay. She wants to go. She wants -

She doesn't know.

"I can see why he loves you," she finally says, quietly.

That hits him hard in the chest, and he looks up to her at the immensely personal and telling compliment.

"That means a lot to me," he finally says.

"And I'm glad you came here, Rosita. Even if it was hard "

It's so foreign to her, this concept that people can actually love each other enough to compensate when one isn't perfect; that caring about them holds even when it becomes hard, even problematic.

Well, she knows she did. Glenn and Maggie did. She never found anyone else, though, but maybe she just wasn't good enough. That's the thought she keeps coming back to: if she'd been good enough to love the way Glenn loved Maggie, the way Godric loves Jesus, then it would have happened. Instead -

Godric says her name and she shakes her head to clear it, but barely hears what else he said. "Did he really agree to go back with you?"

He nods.

"He did. He was worried about intruding and let me know that he would want to wander, but I like that. I prefer that. I want him to see the world."

He sits forward again.

"I can keep him safe."