Even after the decade she had spent around them, other humans remained... confusing. And she, she had gathered, was often confusing to them; from what she had gather, she was grumpy at best and off-putting at worst. There was no insult taken from it, not when it just seemed to be the objective truth, but it simply provided further proof that she did not understand what made sense to them just as they did not understand what made sense to her. She was her father's daughter, she had had absolutely no other choice, and that was it -- that was all that made sense. You don't talk about your life. You don't share minuscule facts or stories. You say as little as you can. You feel as little as you can. You think about the cruelest way to be kind. So you expose the people you claim to love to the literal horrors, and if you ever begin to feel, you feel only rage.
And that was the deep problem of it all. Jonah had accepted that about her, Jonah understood that that was what made sense, Jonah had seen her and had said 'yes, this will do.' If it were not for Jonah, the likelihood that Erin would have stayed out among the townspeople for longer than a couple weeks (at most!) was slim to none. But he was comfortable, he didn't ask questions that she couldn't find an answer for, he was the closest thing she had had to love -- in its purest form -- since Red (sorry for comparing you to a dog, Jonah...). And she wondered, and she worried, about that; she wondered, and she worried, about that purity she had felt with him; she wondered, and she worried, that it had been some semblance of love -- horrifying; she wondered, and she worried, that that was the real reason they had had Ivy. Not to prove some point about cycles, not because the alternative was just as dangerous in their circumstances before the clinic had been properly set up, but because... love existed, in its purest form, and they wanted to extend that -- to pass it on, to immortalize it.
The hideous mistake. Yes, this will do.
And was it for that reason, too, that some part of her, some secret part, felt the briefest wave of relief when she saw him out there? When she saw that he, who she could not bring herself to check in on, not after what she would swear was what she did, was okay? And, selfishly, when she realized that he, who had made her happy, did not revile her?
And was it for that reason... "Can take you to 'em." Was it for that reason that she would walk with him, not just give him further directions? Was it for that reason that she told him at all? Was it for that reason that she spoke more than a few words at a time? So she turned, she embarked, and she did not acknowledge all of the questions. She was only allowed to feel rage, recall? "Only one of 'em ain't poisonous."
