Around Stephen's hands, Derrica's own fingers go briefly still. Tighten and loosen, almost in time with the breath she draws in and releases in the wake of the question.
It is comfortable to hold her own grief at arm's length. There is so much to do. People are in such pain. She can let it sit at her elbow, grow accustomed to how it makes space there.
It is hard when Stephen's question invites it suddenly, overwhelmingly, close.
"I knew most all of them," cannot be a surprise to him. She has spent years in this tower. Of course she has grown familiar with the people here. "Some of them I counted as friends."
But close is a little different, as much as she had enjoyed Abby's company, admired Jude, appreciated Clarisse, Gwenaëlle and Cosima. If they are to account who was close, they might think on who she had sat beside in the dirt on that scorched field for long moments before seeing him lifted into the wagon.
"Enchanter Rowntree was always especially kind to me," she says, softer, steady even as she feels grief twist in her chest. "We were—good friends."
Had she ever spoken that word aloud to Marcus? She can't recall.
"I'll miss him," is an understatement, woefully inadequate.
The safer, more impersonal thing would have been to not ask at all. Don’t disrupt this fragile equilibrium, don’t kick up the soil, and then you’ll never have to pretend that your colleague was personally affected by this loss. You can just try to do your job. Continue to keep it aloof, distant.
But it turns out that Stephen wants to know — because it feels a disservice, suddenly, to have gone through hell with Derrica and to know he could trust her with his life and that she is kind and patient, and yet know so little of her actual existence and the shape of it.
So. Enchanter Rowntree.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For your loss. For everyone’s. I know one of his partners a bit— Julius.”
Ah fuck, is Julius okay? Probably not. Even if he has Petrana with him, presumably that doesn’t soothe the loss much: that’s just two people grieving.
Morale is going to be such a problem: how do they even limp on from this, with a third of their number cleaved away? He can’t wrap his head around it, and so he’s not trying. That’s a problem for tomorrow and later. Today: there is just the work, and knuckling his way through the work with Derrica by his side.
It is a loss. That is such a foregone conclusion, an easy thing to say aloud. But it is so much more difficult to think of their absences in particulars, consider what specifically has been wrenched away from them.
Derrica chokes on it, silent for a long moment as her grip tightens around his hand. Breathes in unsteadily, swallows hard.
"Julius and Madame de Cedoux," she murmurs. "They had a scare last year, where Julius was injured and Marcus was taken from them. I think...I think it must be terrible for them to try to survive having lost him now."
It is a quiet sort of deflection, thinking of what this grief will be to everyone else. Holding it in check, to keep the full weight of it from overwhelming her while she focuses outward.
“It’s going to be terrible anytime,” he says. “There’s really no good way. Besides old age and in your bed, probably.”
It’s not a consolation to say or even think something like at least they died as heroes. People would presumably want them cowardly and alive rather than brave and dead. Nothing is a consolation besides the fact that they were here, they were known, they were loved, and they are still loved.
Stephen sighs, a tense exhale. Just as quick as he’d cracked open the seal on this conversation, there’s the immediate regret: what does he say now. What do they do with all of this. Despite broaching it, he knows he is so terrible at this part; his bedside manner hadn’t been his strong suit, this man of the stellar case history, a near-perfect record, no accidents. Death crawls along his spine, hammers on his nerves. His whole professional life has been spent trying to keep it at bay. He’s not good at looking at it head-on.
What he settles on, in the end:
“I’m glad you’re here with me. For this part. And in general.”
Having cradled his hand in both of hers, Derrica has to lift one of her own away to dash quickly at the tears gathering in her eyes.
There will be some point, when they have finished their work and life has settled back into something near to routine, when she will break apart. She isn't certain of what that kind of fracture will look like, only that it will come to her and she will have to survive it.
She's done it once before, and she will do it again. If she must.
But here and now, she takes up his hand in both of hers. Holds fast.
"I'm grateful," she murmurs. "I know you had doubts about whether this was the place for you. If you had decided otherwise..."
It would have been Derrica here, alone. Not just in this moment, but all other moments going forward. One healer for the whole of Riftwatch, and what would have happened if she'd fallen short?
“Even if I’d decided otherwise,” Stephen says without missing a beat, picking up her trailing sentence, “I’d have done a 180 and joined you here regardless. The work is the work.”
Recruitment and rebuilding feels like a bitter topic when they’re still sitting here in the ashes, but he finds his thoughts still ping-ponging in that direction, adding: “Nina. The new rifter. She says she’s good at healing. I’ll be seeing how much she might want to pitch in. Not— not this right now, I mean, but regular healer work.”
They won’t be alone forever, is the point.
But when he tries to imagine what the future of this little corner of Riftwatch looks like, he finds his thoughts whiting out into static. He had had so many plans: tidy, orderly, putting it all into a to-do list, and yet it seems so insufferably difficult to envision now. Not because his own personal world has shattered, but because everyone else’s has: the others reeling, shambling, and he can’t see how they’ll recover from this. It feels like something irreparable has broken, some fracture which might not grow back. Or if it does, perhaps it’ll be in the wrong shape: twisted and gnarled and never able to carry the same weight it once did.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It is comfortable to hold her own grief at arm's length. There is so much to do. People are in such pain. She can let it sit at her elbow, grow accustomed to how it makes space there.
It is hard when Stephen's question invites it suddenly, overwhelmingly, close.
"I knew most all of them," cannot be a surprise to him. She has spent years in this tower. Of course she has grown familiar with the people here. "Some of them I counted as friends."
But close is a little different, as much as she had enjoyed Abby's company, admired Jude, appreciated Clarisse, Gwenaëlle and Cosima. If they are to account who was close, they might think on who she had sat beside in the dirt on that scorched field for long moments before seeing him lifted into the wagon.
"Enchanter Rowntree was always especially kind to me," she says, softer, steady even as she feels grief twist in her chest. "We were—good friends."
Had she ever spoken that word aloud to Marcus? She can't recall.
"I'll miss him," is an understatement, woefully inadequate.
no subject
But it turns out that Stephen wants to know — because it feels a disservice, suddenly, to have gone through hell with Derrica and to know he could trust her with his life and that she is kind and patient, and yet know so little of her actual existence and the shape of it.
So. Enchanter Rowntree.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For your loss. For everyone’s. I know one of his partners a bit— Julius.”
Ah fuck, is Julius okay? Probably not. Even if he has Petrana with him, presumably that doesn’t soothe the loss much: that’s just two people grieving.
Morale is going to be such a problem: how do they even limp on from this, with a third of their number cleaved away? He can’t wrap his head around it, and so he’s not trying. That’s a problem for tomorrow and later. Today: there is just the work, and knuckling his way through the work with Derrica by his side.
no subject
Derrica chokes on it, silent for a long moment as her grip tightens around his hand. Breathes in unsteadily, swallows hard.
"Julius and Madame de Cedoux," she murmurs. "They had a scare last year, where Julius was injured and Marcus was taken from them. I think...I think it must be terrible for them to try to survive having lost him now."
It is a quiet sort of deflection, thinking of what this grief will be to everyone else. Holding it in check, to keep the full weight of it from overwhelming her while she focuses outward.
no subject
It’s not a consolation to say or even think something like at least they died as heroes. People would presumably want them cowardly and alive rather than brave and dead. Nothing is a consolation besides the fact that they were here, they were known, they were loved, and they are still loved.
Stephen sighs, a tense exhale. Just as quick as he’d cracked open the seal on this conversation, there’s the immediate regret: what does he say now. What do they do with all of this. Despite broaching it, he knows he is so terrible at this part; his bedside manner hadn’t been his strong suit, this man of the stellar case history, a near-perfect record, no accidents. Death crawls along his spine, hammers on his nerves. His whole professional life has been spent trying to keep it at bay. He’s not good at looking at it head-on.
What he settles on, in the end:
“I’m glad you’re here with me. For this part. And in general.”
no subject
There will be some point, when they have finished their work and life has settled back into something near to routine, when she will break apart. She isn't certain of what that kind of fracture will look like, only that it will come to her and she will have to survive it.
She's done it once before, and she will do it again. If she must.
But here and now, she takes up his hand in both of hers. Holds fast.
"I'm grateful," she murmurs. "I know you had doubts about whether this was the place for you. If you had decided otherwise..."
It would have been Derrica here, alone. Not just in this moment, but all other moments going forward. One healer for the whole of Riftwatch, and what would have happened if she'd fallen short?
no subject
Recruitment and rebuilding feels like a bitter topic when they’re still sitting here in the ashes, but he finds his thoughts still ping-ponging in that direction, adding: “Nina. The new rifter. She says she’s good at healing. I’ll be seeing how much she might want to pitch in. Not— not this right now, I mean, but regular healer work.”
They won’t be alone forever, is the point.
But when he tries to imagine what the future of this little corner of Riftwatch looks like, he finds his thoughts whiting out into static. He had had so many plans: tidy, orderly, putting it all into a to-do list, and yet it seems so insufferably difficult to envision now. Not because his own personal world has shattered, but because everyone else’s has: the others reeling, shambling, and he can’t see how they’ll recover from this. It feels like something irreparable has broken, some fracture which might not grow back. Or if it does, perhaps it’ll be in the wrong shape: twisted and gnarled and never able to carry the same weight it once did.