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Entry tags:

danger days killjoys: the girl

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Who: Girl and Leia
When: 13th
Where: Hallways
What: The Girl found out Leia is no longer her roommate and is not very happy about it.
Warnings: None

It's not that the Girl has been avoiding anyone, she's just been very focused on sticking to Kobra after her time in the tubes. She's secure enough to admit the experience has scared her; time was such a fleeting commodity in the Zones that the feeling of loosing weeks due to a frozen coma had left her shaken. It was just her shot nerves that had keep the Girl from roaming the ship the last week, not some desire to keep away from anyone.

She still comes close to ducking into a supply closet when she sees Leia turn the corner a few feet ahead.

The Girl can handle change, a routine is a dangerous thing where she's from, but truthfully she's used to living with constants. Back home it was having the same four faces at every place they stopped long enough to call their own, the crackle of the radio at dawn and dusk, the tinny taste of stale food every other day when the rations were good enough. Here, her constants had switched to seeing Kobra every morning, bribing sweets from the cafe, and the way the kittens would pounce on her if she laid very still in the garden. And her roommates.

She's not avoiding anyone, but if the Girl was, Leia would be the one to avoid. But she's not, so she stays out in the hall and walks up to the woman with a defiant tilt to her chin. Her arms are crossed over her chest and if she'd been raised with better manners maybe she'd know not to do this in public. But if she's not going to avoid Leia, than life with four rowdy teenagers had taught her that confrontation was the next best thing. She makes her voice as icy as she can manage. "You left."

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Moving to a private room has been a pleasant thing for Leia. Since they left the Collective, she's spent a lot of time sleeping in the Falcon, thanks to a room (well, a "room") Han put together in the forward hold, but that's not the same thing as a real private bunk. The one she has now is, and it's near to her brother. Aside from Han's socks, which are starting to multiply on her floor, it's pretty much perfect.

Of course, it's easy to move bunks as an adult. It's more difficult to see a friend leave when you're ten, even if she's not going too far away.

Leia's not sure what has the girl upset until she speaks, and then she's sorry she can't answer easily in turn. The glass that replaced her cheeks down through her shoulders keeps her a silent, straight-backed doll of a person--it's frustrating for her, but she can't do anything about it. The best she has is a a response tapped out on her MID. I did.

Her gaze stays a moment on the glass, but she's seen similar injuries in the past few days and isn't about to let it deter her. Leia's obviously well enough to be moving around, so the Girl refusing to cut any slack. If she feels bad about it later, that's something to be left to her and whatever lines she feeds Kobra.

She takes a moment to read the MID, frown deepening. The Girl shakes her head quickly, nose wrinkling. "That's it? That's all ya got to say? Ya didn't bother to leave a note or nothin'. Coulda just said ya didn't like livin' there, with us." With me, she doesn't say but her eyes are doing her talking for her. "Lot better than sneakin' away when I was froze over."

Leia would like to think that she'll be a decent mother whenever that happens--but she isn't one yet, and she feels it now. It hadn't occurred to her that moving rooms would look like anything but a desire to have her own space. But the girl is a child, and moreover, she's a child who values kinship over nearly anything else. Leaving without an explanation might have been devastating for her.

So she begins typing again, her eyes softening where nothing else can. Let's sit down and talk. Do you have some time?

She glances at the words. Of course she has time. It's not like she's paid much attention to her job since coming back. But she waits a few moments before answering, pursing her lips and scuffing her boots on the floor.

"Yeah," she says, sighing after a shorter time than she'd meant to leave Leia sweating. She'd never been good at playing the cold shoulder for long. The Girl shifts, looking around the hallway and the people passing by. "But not out here. Okay?"

"If you really wanna talk to me," she adds. She means to be sassy, to take the pot shots while she can, but the words come out more insecure than annoyed.

Leia doesn't have speech at her disposal, and she can't nod or smile, but she offers her hand to the girl. It's quicker, she thinks, and more genuine, than typing out a reply.

Whether the girl takes it or not, Leia leads them down to her new bunk, a tidy white-and-grey room where the bed is made but a pair of men's socks lie on the floor near the door. (She's tolerating it.) A miniscule table and two chairs are crammed into the rest of the space, and it's there Leia gestures for the girl to sit.

I liked living with you, she types, once she's seated, and I still want to spend time with you. But I missed my crew. Something she thinks the girl will understand.

She thinks about taking her hand, probably would if she wasn't being so bitter. She makes a face instead, follows at few steps behind Leia down to the new room.

She crosses her arms as she sits, perching at the edge of the chair. The Girl nearly comments on the state of the room; all the white that she's itching to cover up but could almost make her smile in how it reminds her of Leia.

"I miss KK but I stayed in our room," she says after a moment. Her tone's petulant and it's clear she doesn't quite believe Leia. "Even if I went to stay with him, I woulda told ya first."

She can understand wanting to be with crew. If any of the other boys came, she'd be kicking up a fuss until they were all in the same place. But Leia and Fiora had been nice to her when her family hadn't been around. As long as Kobra didn't mind her staying with them, the Girl wanted to show some loyalty for that kindness.

"You left when I was gone."

It's certainly a room that wouldn't meet with the girl's standards, but Leia's been thinking about that. A few bright colours might not go amiss, and if anyone could advise her on those, it's the girl sitting next to her.

You're right, Leia agrees, in lieu of nodding. The girl's hurt is easy to understand, especially as she speaks more of it. To wake up from cryo might have been frightening already; to find the ship changed around her wouldn't have helped. I would have talked to you if you'd been awake. When you did wake up, I was distracted.

She hopes she would have known to talk to her, anyway. The girl needs people to look out for her, even with her Kobra Kid around; she's a bright, sweet girl, but she needs honesty and affection to encourage her. Which means doing something Leia's never been the greatest fan of: apologizing. I'm sorry, Bee.

This is a part she's used to, at least. Being the baby of her family, apologies tended to come for her swiftly if not more often than she deserved. Leia gets a stiff nod, and the Girl relaxes by fractions back into the chair until she's sprawled in manner only a cat would find comfortable.

"If you move again," she says in her best adult voice, attempting to put a threatening edge on it. She sounds like a child trying to recite lines from a book, play acting. "You gotta tell me. I don't care if I'm blacked out or they got me on ice again. You gotta promise you'll tell me. And I'll be really, really pissed if you break a promise. I won't even talk to you again."

There's still hurt in her tone and her face, a clear sign she's planning to pout over this a few days more. She means it when she says she'll be upset if it happens again. The Girl holds promises in high esteem, but more so does she take the idea of loyalty seriously. She wants deeply to believe Leia would be loyal to her, even over something small.

"Why were you so distracted?" She frowns, kicking her legs out mulishly. She points to her own neck in question.

I will. It's such a small thing to ask that it seems like the least she can do for the girl. The girl, who doesn't sound quite as threatening as she'd probably like, but whose insistence suggests a need beyond mere stubbornness. This isn't an adult throwing her weight around; the girl is a child who deserves stability and communication.

I remember being that age. And more importantly, she remembers the way her parents treated her ideas and insistences with respect and genuine consideration.

The question the girl asks is a more difficult one, but if she owes her honesty... Leia breathes out in a pitchless sigh. There are several explanations, but the most honest, least painful (relatively, anyway) one is Ben.

I have a son here. He's and there's a pause before she erases the letters. I don't know how he grew into the man he is.

She nods, taking the agreement to heart. She'll trust Leia's word; Leia may have unintentionally hurt her, but the woman hadn't lied. The trust, however much the Girl was able to give, was still there.

"Son?" She says it like the word is foreign. It is, to her. Her own mother is the only runner she'd ever heard of having a child and even still the concept of a blood family had never applied. "You have a son."

"What do yo mean you don't know? Did ya have to let someone else bring him up?" Her face falls, she gasps. "You didn't- I know this place gets all dotty with time but you didn't get dusted back home, did ya? Leia."

It's a terrible way to ask a sensitive question, but she can't think beyond the idea that Leia must be dead out there in some timeline. It's a wild leap of logic, but she can only imagine that not knowing someone must mean separation. And The Girl thinks her own mother would have never left her without the call of the Witch standing in the way.

She'd nod if she could, or let the explanations spill out--but the former is impossible and the latter is inappropriate. However curious the girl is, she's still a child, not a confidante. The truth is something she deserves, but it needs to be meted out with the realization of that fact.

I don't think so. Han's death, she leaves out. That's painful enough for them to contemplate, let alone a little girl who's worried enough at the potential of death taking Leia. I mean that he isn't born yet when I'm from, but he's older than me here.

Which will, she hopes, speak for itself. Tempted though she is to warn the girl away from Ben, telling her flat-out that he's a danger is unlikely to do much besides prompt questions she can't answer. Whose fault is that, huh? she can nearly hear the girl saying.

She settles back in her chair, letting out a noticeable sigh of relief. It's not like she could do anything, if Leia was to tell her that she'd die. Nothing more than she does for Kobra; just hope that someday someone on board figures out how to fix it or sends them off someplace where it's not a worry anymore. But it would sting to think Leia wouldn't last forever. There's something very childish in her that wants to believe someone out there gets a happy ending.

"You're worried cause you don't know him yet." She says, eyebrows knitted as she thinks. "It must be weird, cause he knows you but you don't got any of those memories to fall back on."

She cocks her head to the side. Personal crisis averted, she's back to being too curious for her own good. "Who is he? I haven't seen anybody who looks much like you around." She gives a little smile. "I wanna meet your kid."

If the girl is reassured, that's all Leia can ask. As brave as she is, she's still young enough that hearing that someone's death is waiting before them is something that might haunt her dreams.

Hell, it still haunts mine, she has to admit, if only to herself. The thought of Ben killing his own father...she's imagined it a thousand different ways now. But that's something she can't share with the girl--and when she's asked about who Ben is, she has to divert her thoughts anyway. Can she tell the girl? What if Bee goes in search of him? Leia will never forgive herself if the girl ends up party to one of Ben's rages.

There's a silence, one in which Leia's glad only her brows can furrow; the glass is one more safeguard against her face falling into something sorrowful. He's a dangerous man, she types, then realizes forbidding her from meeting him might only encourage the girl. There's no winning here, is there? With a little sigh, she goes on, He calls himself Kylo Ren.

Death already haunts her dreams, it’s something she’s seen too much of, too quickly in her short life. And it’s hard for her to see how anymore could be any worse than knowing the one person she loves the most on the ship is laying in a body bag back home. But even if she can’t understand it, she’s still relieved to hear Leia is fine, will be fine.

She waits out Leia’s silence, comfortable for the moment. She treats it like waiting for Cherri’s broadcast at night, knowing that some people need time to find the right phrase to make the words sing. Leia says she’ll be fine, it’s not the same situation as the Girl and her mother. So she can afford to be calm.

“What do ya mean by dangerous?” The name is noted, but she hardly finds it strange. If anything, there’s only some part of her that’s impressed Leia told what he called himself instead of introducing whatever name she had for him. It was something to tuck in the back of her mind and bring up later when she understands why Leia looks so worried. “Isn’t that a good thing ‘round here?”

Leia would purse her lips if she could. How can she explain Ben to the girl? He murdered his father, hates his mother, and venerates a grandfather who tortured me. She's already shared some of the sorrow of her life, the destruction of her planet, with the girl; she can't share more.

Which means she needs to answer with her focus on the here and now. Ben's danger isn't a theoretical thing, or a matter of events outside the Moira. He's proven himself untrustworthy in the months since his arrival.

He's violent. It's difficult to admit to someone outside what constitutes her family; Han understands, Obi-Wan understood, but will the girl?

And he doesn't She pauses, her fingers poised over the MID, before reaching out and squeezing the girl's shoulder gently. All of this is difficult, but if the girl is going to speak of meeting Ben, she should know what she's getting into. care for his parents.

She frowns. Violent could mean any number of things. But she guesses Leia wouldn't discuss the subject as a point of pride, not like they would back home about the nastier crews. If Leia was telling her this it must mean something bad. The kind of violent they assigned to the Scarecrow units, the Exterminators.

She parts her lips to speak, to ask about the violence, but stops when Leia continues.

"He doesn't love you?" And that's so much more baffling than anything else she's heard. She'd never known what it meant to love a parent, couldn't even say she really loved her own mother when she'd never met her. But she'd loved the people who'd raised her and she'd like to think that if Leia had been part of that crew, she would have loved her just the same. It felt wrong that someone, this Ben, had her and didn't realize what they had. "How can't he?"

Leia's quiet for a moment, weighing the options. She's got to tell the girl something, but the idea of admitting the level of anger Ben seems to direct toward his parents is a step too far. It's too close to admitting just what he's done. It's a fine line between truthfulness and information no child should be expected to carry. She wonders now that her own parents had managed it so deftly with her.

I couldn't tell you if he loves Han and me. If there's one thing she's learned over the last few months, it's that Ben Solo is a complicated man: strong in some ways, as delicate as a cracked eggshell in others. I can tell you that he did once. Whatever he feels now, he feels it strongly.

Ultimately, it's beside the point. What matters in this conversation is that the girl needs to protect herself if she can. Leia would like to tell her to stay away from the man called Kylo Ren, but she knows perfectly well that Bee won't listen. Be careful if you talk to him.

"How can you love someone if you don't care for them?" It's not something she can easily wrap her head around. "What happened to make him mad at ya? I don't understand."

She thinks of the Killjoys, the only people she'd ever had to love and she can't fathom ever being upset with them. But then she thinks of Cherri, how angry she'd felt in face of his betrayal, and still she couldn't believe it. She can't imagine Leia ever abandoning her family like the Girl believed Cherri had abandoned her.

"You think he'd try somethin'?" Someone being dangerous and someone who would protest being talked to are different beasts. But the Girl doesn't realize just how grating she can be on a sensitive temper. "Cause I'm friends with ya or ya just think he'd get that bad at someone he doesn't even know?"

I don't understand, either. At least she can be entirely honest about that much with the girl. Leia's not entirely convinced living it would help her understand, either. All she knows is that Ben has turned every conversation into something contentious.

Every one. It's hard to know just what she could have done, when she's sure she would have loved her son without reservation.

I think, and Leia has to pause again, because there's no need to worry the girl unduly...but the seriousness of the matter must be clear. he has a short temper. The fact that we're friends wouldn't help.

It's not exactly comforting to hear that Leia is just as in the dark; she's so used to the adults around her having the answers. But it puts them on an equal ground and she can respect that. The world was tricky, and people the trickiest.

She thinks she should say something about Cherri, to explain that she does sort of understand what it's like to not understand. That she knows that people who are supposed to be family can be sometimes be the most heart breaking and strange. But it's still to hard to talk about. She resolves to do so later. It's not the same as being betrayed by a child, but maybe it might be a comfort to know others go through something similar.

"I'd rather be your friend then go yell at him," she finally responds, shrugging a shoulder. I won't do anything stupid, is what she means. I like you better than I'm itching for a fight.

Edited 2016-08-19 04:30 (UTC)

Leia wants to smile at the girl--showing any kind of emotion would be better than staring, doll-like, at her. She sets a hand on the girl's shoulder, briefly, and bends forward a fraction. An awkward little bow is the closest she can get to a nod at this point.

If things improve, I'll introduce you. If things improve, she'll be happy to introduce them. Better that she supervises that particular meeting, rather than letting the girl experience Ben on her own.

She hesitates but reaches up and puts her hand on Leia's wrist. A little squeeze and a tiny smile; she gets it. She hopes the issues with the glass don't stay for long. It's was bad enough to be worrying about the shining gouges in Kobra's arms, let alone to watch Leia's blank expressions.

"I'll hold ya to it." Because surely someone couldn't just keep hating Leia. Her son had to come around sometime. "I don't got no kids, but I'll show ya anyone else of mine that comes along. Make it fair and all."

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lmao sorry i have no idea how that happened

no apologizes it was kinda great

someday, old leia and girl

it will be a glorious day

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