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 Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:41 pm
Contact was all she wanted. She could work her way back to a hug again for both Evan and Tuck, she was happy for the challenge and the effort it would take to make progress. Anything was better than having idle hands, even against the high probability of failure. "People have been telling me that for a while," she said, back to watching the pod, "and I still don't know what that means. I've changed, yeah: I get angry now. I shaved my head. I lost someone but I still hear and feel her like she never left. I have this pit of bad things in my chest I can't ignore sometimes, that's always been there. But none've that's made me strong at all." Her voice grew tighter. "I'm still a coward. I still cry too much. I still think everything will turn out better when ever piece've evidence says it won't. I'm still that little girl who told you she doesn't deal with her demons at all, she just runs away from them."
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 7:24 pm
He knew exactly what she was talking about--more than he would ever, ever let her know, he could empathize. "You made it to full Hunter," Evan pointed out. "You keep smiling for other people even if you don't mean it. You put Tuck down when I..." Choked. Froze. Failed. "Couldn't. You're getting there, getting stronger, even if you don't see it."
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 7:39 pm
Striking down a friend wasn't even something to be proud of, but she hummed because she couldn't argue against the example, not right now. The bugs would have to wait until everything was alright again.
"You've looked out for me a long time. Least I could do was return the favor a little," Stormy said. She dared to nuzzle his arm a little and lapsed into silence for a while.
Then, later:
"If I'm as strong as you say, then...you know you can count on me, right?" She turned her head and rested her chin on his arm, looking up at Evan with searching green eyes. "When we get to moments like that. You n' Tuck. It doesn't have to be you pulling all your weight anymore to keep us safe, 'cause we all can."
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:02 pm
The silence was more comfortable than Evan had expected. Stormy could stay, he decided, until she looked tired, and then maybe he would tell her to go on up to bed, and then when--not if--that didn't work, he would probably carry her up there. Her intent was good and right where it should be, but there was no reason for both of them to suffer. Evan had slept on harder things than the floor of the labs. "Sure," he replied when she broke the silence later on. "Yeah. I know. If I needed your help, I'd ask for it." He deliberately didn't meet her gaze because he couldn't look her in the face while he was lying to her. She would always be the last person he would ask to shoulder his weight, because if he couldn't do it himself then it was probably because something horrible had happened and he would never knowingly put Stormy in harm's way. "How was did your mission go? You never said." And while he had been a little perturbed that it had taken her two days to let him know she was back, the way she had done it was even worse. There hadn't been time during the mission to ask her about it, but they had plenty of time now.
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 11:07 pm
She knew Evan was lying the same way she knew Gale had been lying when he agreed not to ever trade his life for hers, but it didn't bother her: it was just one of many ways they showed how they cared. Besides, she'd find a way to help if he really needed it; not much could stop someone majoring in Stealth and minoring in Every Other Skill if they really put the effort.
Pecking his arm, Stormy returned to her original leaning position and pressed her cheek to the same area, back to gazing at the pod. "Not so well," she summarized quietly. "Only three've us got out alive. I wanna talk to you about things, but...I also wanna wait so Tuck can hear too. He needs a lot of catch up on things anyway."
Gale already knew. It wouldn't be right until her brothers heard the story and chastised her.
"Jack's dead, though," she reported, sounding neither pleased nor sad about it. "So you don't have to worry about him."
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Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:13 pm
That got Evan's attention, and he turned to look down at her with a mixture of fear, worry, and incredulity. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask all of the relevant, important questions of finding out that the person leaning against you was, somehow, still alive when so many of the people they had been with hadn't made it. He bit them back as she expressed her desire to wait. He wanted to argue that they had the better part of a week, that eventually they would run out of things to say so she might as well get it over with, but...talking would probably help mend cracked bridges, and Tuck and Stormy did need to catch up. "Okay," he said instead, slowly and unsure. "I'm...sorry to hear that." He remembered that Jack was not only Stormy's ex, he was the person that Chel had asked to come save her when--"I'm glad you're okay though. Are you? Okay?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:33 pm
"Right now? Yeah." She had a sliver of hope still that when Tuck woke up they could make things right again, Evan didn't hate her, and Gale didn't want to leave her after she told her story. Not to mention she was alive after she had come a little too close to dying. All in all, not too bad. "Back there? I missed you a lot and wished you were there." It went without saying of course, but Stormy felt especially guilty for ignoring the warnings their imagined voices in her head had given: about going off alone, about not getting out of there immediately, about talking to something when she should have been going exterminator on its sorry behind. She nuzzled his arm again. "Better now that I'm back here with the people I love. But what about you, Evan?" she asked. "Anything been going on while I was out?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 6:16 pm
"I would have come, you know," Evan told her. "I missed you, too. I should have come, orders or no orders." Stormy could have so easily been one of those who hadn't gotten out alive. Only three, and they had already lost one before the op even started. It struck him, then, just how fortunate he was to have her down there with him instead of rotting in the desert. He finally relented, lifting his arm to drape it over her shoulders. "Not much new here," he admitted. "Tuck coming back has been about the biggest news on my end. Did a three-day in the desert just before you got back. There might have been some kind of clone activity, but it could just as easily have been one of the boots seeing things, I guess. Thought of your mission when that came up." He wanted to ask so badly if her mission had been a success, if the risk and deaths had at least been for something. He could be patient, though. For now. Having her back was enough.
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