Vera sat perched on the edge of her sofa, hands clenched into the fabric of her jeans. She flickered another glance at the clock on the opposite wall and sighed. Janice wasn't late; she wasn't early, either, since Vera had simply called and asked her to come over when the other girl had a moment. She'd explained that it wasn't an emergency, that Janice didn't have to rush over. Which meant that she'd been sitting here, waiting for an indeterminate amount of time. Waiting, except for all the times she got up to check on Grendel.

She'd folded her arms across her stomach at one point, though that had been stopped as soon as Vera found herself running a thumb along her left arm, where it had been scraped bloody and raw. The living room looked normal, had looked normal once all the sand had been cleaned up. It had taken a while (Vera was fairly certain she'd be cleaning sand up for months yet), but eventually, everything went back to normal. She took a deep breath.

That entirely wasn't true. Not everything went back to normal. But Vera was leaving, for almost a week, and wanted to try and set things right before then. So there was a canister of tea in the kitchenette for Janice, by way of apology. Vera wasn't good at verbal apologies. Vera wasn't particularly good at interacting with people, something that had been underscored in the days following the encounter with Sailor Taranis. There was an undertone in their relationship and that had shifted after that dreadful night.

She wasn't sure what had been said - or what hadn't been said - as Vera had been suffering from a mild concussion at the time. Janice didn't want to talk about it, which was hardly unexpected. Janice never wanted to talk about anything that even touched on emotions or how she was feeling.

The phone rang, jerking Vera out of her thoughts. It was Janice, explaining that something had come up and that she wouldn't be able to come over. There was a smile on her face while Vera reassured the other girl that it was fine, it really hadn't been anything important, Janice could just stop by some other time. After the phone conversation had ended ('Are you sure?' 'Yes, yes, it's fine.'), she sighed and looked at the tea still sitting on her counter.

Next time. With another sigh, she went to go ask her neighbor if they could please look after her cat while she was on vacation, at least until Janice got her note. Which she wrote as soon as she'd gotten back, elegant script flowing over paper to explain what needed to be done, as well as why she'd left and how to get a hold of her.

Vera was gone the next morning.