— meredith kingston.

Wes watched as she slid down to the floor, noting the way her shoulders tensed, the way her fingers pressed a little too tight around that crumpled receipt. She looked uneasy, and while he wasn’t exactly the comforting type, he knew what it was like to sit with nerves coiled so tight they threatened to snap. With a quiet sigh, he leaned against the wall beside her, then gave in and slid down too, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Lucky us, then," he mused, tilting his head up to the ceiling with a dry chuckle. "Didn't have much of a schedule to keep, anyway." On his freakin' day off, of all days.

Against her will, Meredith chuffed a quiet laugh. "Am I really that obvious?" Probably—but something told her it wasn't the northern accent that gave her away, or attire that screamed 'city slicker' far more than it did 'southern belle'. From what little she'd seen of Briar Ridge so far, it struck her as the type of town where everyone not only knew everyone, but also knew what each other had for breakfast before each plate hit the sink.

"But, uh, yeah. I just got here this week." It'd been a impulsive decision, and one she still wasn't confident of, but it was a little too late to second guess herself now. "I'm from Manhattan," and had, for a time, called California home, "but I have family here here. Woke up one day and decided to follow but..." That's when she laughed again, though this time the sound was once more devoid of much humor. "I'd be lying if I said the reality of living here is what I imagined when I pictured so-called southern charm."

Esra didn’t hesitate to try again, desperately clinging to a fragile thread of hope that this predicament wouldn’t unfold into something as dire as both of them feared. It felt like a mere hiccup, just a bump in the road, or perhaps a simple case of bad communication. After yet another unsuccessful attempt, she cast a glance back at her companion, who stood nearby, providing silent support as Esra reluctantly abandoned the emergency call button. The blonde’s reassuring words offered a sense of comfort: the property manager would be expecting them. This hinted that a malfunctioning elevator might be, regrettably, a common issue in this building, but it also meant that rescue would soon be on the way. At least, that was the flicker of hope that Esra held onto tightly.

She let out a weary sigh, carefully concealing her distress following the failed call as she leaned back against the cool, sturdy railing behind her. When she posed her question, Esra turned, a light chuckle escaping her lips as she pondered her response. Although she felt a twinge of hesitation about sharing her thoughts on finding a place of her own, separate from her husband, the presence of a stranger made her burdens feel significantly lighter. “After everything that’s happened,” she began, pausing to stifle another laugh, “I don’t think I’ll be.” A moment filled with unspoken words lingered in the air. “I was supposed to meet someone about a vacant room—just sort of window shopping,” she added with a casual wave of her hand, her tone light despite the weight of her situation.

"Yeah," she mused in agreement, her voice little more than a breath. "After this I don't think I'll be signing my name on any paperwork here any time soon, either." Which was pretty unfortunate considering she needed to find a place that wasn't a hotel sooner versus later.

Technically, she could afford it, but every penny put toward another night's stay was a penny taken from Gabby. That is, from her ongoing efforts to find Gabby, even if six years, no leads, and an entire police department loved to remind her how unlikely that was to ever happen.

She'd need a miracle, they said, and, clearly, when it came to those she was in short supply.

When her second attempt at a call ended in the property manager's voicemail as well she sighed, fingers tight around the device in an effort not to pitch it at the already dinged up wall. "I'm sure she's just... busy working with whoever to fix this." Her nostrils flared with a deep breath. "I'll give her a minute to call back before we call in the fire department."

Wes shifted the toothpick in his mouth as the elevator jolted to a stop, brows drawing together as the numbers on the panel froze between two and three. Well, shit. At the woman's question, he looked over, noting the way she clutched a crumpled paper like it might anchor her. She looked tense — at least, from what he could tell. Still, being stuck in a place like this wasn't exactly fun. He hesitated, then just shook his head. "I'm not sure," he admitted, voice quiet but even. "Sorry. I'm, uh, just visiting." Rolling the toothpick between his teeth, he tried to press a button. Nothing. He tried another, glancing at the panel like maybe it’d take the hint and start working again. No luck. Defeated, his gaze flicked back to her, lingering a little longer this time. "You.. don't live here, right? Anyone in the building we can call?"

So far since moving to town she'd toured several rentals and had found faults with every single one. Deep down she knew it wasn't so much the properties as it was the idea of starting over without the key people her life now lacked, but this time—This time, in this case, she was pretty sure any hesitance on her end was justified.

"I was supposed to be seeing one of the available units, so I can try giving the property manager a call." Mere smoothed out the lifeline that'd gotten crumpled within her fist, bypassing the gas receipt on the front to scan the information she'd written on its back. The call she placed next only lasted a few moments before Mere hung up with a heavy sigh.

"Maintenance is working on it, and they've already called the fire department, but she didn't have an ETA for either." Which was fine. Totally fine. Her base level anxiety hadn't just ramped up from its daily 3 to a solid 9 or anything.

Back pressed to the far wall, she slumped all the way to the elevator's floor. "I hope whoever you're visiting is a patient person." Her eyes flicked up to him and she attempted what ultimately fell short of a convincing smile. "Sounds like we may be here for a while."

Plus, she knew this land. Frankly, she knew most of the people in this town except... the driver of this car.

Her brow furrowed when she noted the way the door was locked and the windows were rolled just halfway down. A clear hesitation from the driver and not the warm welcoming of a hot and comfortable car she'd anticipated.

It dawned her then.

"Wait, do you think I'm going to rob you or something? I would have shed a few layers to get people's attention if I wanted to lure someone, don't you think?"

"I've got a phone." Her own was pulled from her pocket and wiggled it. "You're going to be quicker than any cab that I want to call and I'm hoping you can drop me off at any bar. There's one on either side of here so you really choose where we're going."

She'd call to get her car towed tomorrow because she just didn't want to deal with it tonight.

After all, nothing stood out to Kol as suspicious, or sounded alarms in the back of his head, when he was stopped for directions. Not once did he realize the danger until Gabby was already gone. Even though she wasn't there that day it was a lesson she'd take with her to her grave.

You couldn't trust anybody these days.

And yet, as she eyed the other woman with a healthy dose of wary hesitance, Mere found herself caving. Chances were she really did just need a ride. And if there were ulterior motives lurking beneath her request... would it really make a difference?

She was a wife without a husband. A mother without a child. For fuck's sake, she didn't even have a cat at home to miss her if she didn't return. Self preservation instincts told her to be cautious, but... deep down she realized she didn't really care. About anything, let alone the outcome of her next choice.

Worrisome, to be sure, but a problem to worry about some other day. Or never.

Until Kol, and Gabby, and all of it fell apart. The ice between them had begun to thaw then, now 5 years ago, but even then Alex hadn't been making any overt overtures to reconnect. He was too selfish, still, too lost for words. And then when he had a daughter of his own, more of it started to make sense. He couldn't imagine the anguish of...

But then all of the other stuff, their childhood, their father, their mother, all felt too big to talk about. It just left them in an awkward place.

The sound of his sister's voice pulled Alex from his reverie, and that trancelike motion of washing sippy cups over the sink. What?

"What?" he blinked then, brain catching up. "Oh, um. Yeah. Sure. She, uh... really likes carrots, of all things, right now. I think it's because we were watching classic Looney Tunes. I give it a week before she's moved on from it." A laugh bubbled out of him, and then he continued. "In the fridge, produce drawer, on the right side. She also likes ranch with them, which is in the door, third shelf from the top. And it can all go on here," he finished, handing over Emmy's favorite pink daisy plate from the pile of now clean dishes on the drying rack.

A beat passed, and then: "Uh, thanks. By the way."

The past six years stood as testament to that fact.

She needed to move. Needed to do something. Anything. And fixing Emmy's snack was about the simplest, easiest way to start. "Gabs was like that. She, uh, she once went three weeks where she only wanted to eat pickles and peanut butter." Not together, at the same time, but side by side. A corner of Mere's mouth twitched ever so fleetingly while she pictured her daughter sitting at their table, a spear of kosher dill in one hand and a spoonful of creamy Jif in the other.

One second—She only gave herself one second to sit with that memory before she tucked it safely back into its box and buried the entire thing down, down, down into the depths of her head. "Anyway," carrots and ranch in hand, she moved back to the counter and reached for a knife. "At least right now, as far as hyperfixations go, it could be worse."

Carefully, she started to cut each carrot into smaller fourths, meticulous in her quest to keep the new pieces small enough to be appropriate for a toddler, yet large enough she couldn't accidentally choke. The fact that she could still so easily slip into mom mode, despite having no reason to for the last several years—Well, that was something else she ignored.

All sense of patience, understanding, or even the ability to take the curveballs on the chin were gone. Tragedy, grief, and guilt had burnt it out of him. In one moment he'd gone from being a man who had everything, to being someone who had nothing.

Without a doubt, in his heart and mind, the second he'd lost Gabby, he'd also lost Meredith. What had happened to them had been too much to keep their marriage from folding and falling apart. It didn't go gently either. So many fights, disagreements, blaming, and taking the absolute hell they felt out on each other.

After a year of remaining in the house that had the echos of his daughter's voice and laughter, he left California for South Carolina. The old Kingston family vacation home had sat vacant for a long time and his parents urged him to put a little space between himself and all the pain. They were afraid they were going to lose him. Kol would say they already had. After Gabby's kidnapping his soul was gone. He'd also been getting in trouble with the local police and the FBI with his constant pressure and what they called harassment.

What did they or anyone expect from a father that had just had his baby taken from him?

So, here he was, five years later, hanging by the thinnest thread yet somehow doing better than he had in years, shopping around the grocery store. The pantry had been empty for too long. Along with the fridge and cabinets. Kol had become accustomed to surviving on fumes. Alcohol fumes. And he couldn't successfully sustain a diet of takeout and delivery.

Especially when he hit the deepest of lows in missing his daughter. Often times he still made her favorites. A bowl of Lucky Charms, the mini waffles with fresh strawberry bits and cream, dino nuggets, peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into a heart shape, and the homemade mac and cheese with pieces of crispy cheese. All of it. Kol would cycle through and trick himself just for a moment that he was prepping and cooking for her, that he was eating with her.

With a basket in hand he'd reached the cereal aisle and stood frozen upon rounding the massive display of tortillas at the end cap when he was sure his eyes were playing tricks on him. Surely this was just another drunken hallucination. Well, it actually couldn't be, Kol hadn't had a drop today. Cautiously, tentatively, he stepped closer to the blonde clutching the Lucky Charms. There were times when Kol would see a blonde woman close in height to his ex-wife and it would take him a few glances to convince himself that it wasn't her.

Only a few feet away though he was beginning to think he'd maybe finally fully fucked up his mind. The woman he saw standing there wasn't a stranger that he could blink away and move on from. Especially not in seeing her have such a moment with the cereal he'd come for. Gabby's favorite — she loved those marshmallows and the leprechaun.

Then she said his name when he was still trying to convince himself he was just going crazy. Maybe that was better than the actual reality. To be completely fucking nuts. If he lost his damn mind then the pain would have to go away, right? "MJ — is that, that you? For real?" Kol's voice was deep and rough, as though he hadn't been talking much in quite a while. Which was true.

It had taken him a second to register her basket trying to flee from her arm and Kol reacted too late but he stepped closer, reached out and grabbed it, then placed it on the floor. Better to save from any future mishaps. His blue eyes wandered all over her. Mainly her face. The stress and grief had shone on her and he was sure he looked twenty years older than his mid-thirties. As she tried to push a question out he began nodding his head and reached for a box of the same off the shelf. At this point he'd been certain that Chapman's was keeping a stock of Lucky Charms solely for him.

"What're you doing here?" Clearly this wasn't a passing through, nor a visit for him. His ex-wife was out grocery shopping and that told Kol more than one would think. Not only that but she was in her pajamas and had her hair tied up. "Most people wouldn't figure that," he quipped in his deep rasp. Well, unless she was headed to a bar. "I'm not exactly a social butterfly or the life of any party."

The way his voice stroked the curves of her former nickname, one almost exclusively used by Kol and Kol alone, threatened to buckle her at the knees, but it was those two questions— the ones that scraped free of an untested throat—that nearly did. Another soft, unsteady breath slipped through the seam of her lips.

He was shocked, that much was clear and she couldn't blame him for it, but it almost sounded as if... as if, maybe, he'd pictured her face in every crowd over the last five years like she did his. As if he couldn't believe she was truly there, in front of him now, when every other instance had been proven nothing more than a figment of imagination.

Then again, assuming he thought of her at all these days, let alone with any ounce of fondness within those nostalgic reveries, was probably just projecting. Or crazy. She definitely couldn't rule out that it was a bit of both.

"Yeah, it's—it's me." Another uncertain pause kicked in while Meredith stood there, unsure of what to do with her now empty hands. She tried reading his face, tried plucking out any one underlying emotion beyond that shock, but couldn't.

Gone were the days she could read him like a cherished book. That shouldn't have hurt the way it did.

After the silence dragged on a little too long for comfort, she released the soft flesh of her inner cheek from the tight clamp of her teeth. "I, uh, I live here now. Or at least I have for a few days. I just got in last weekend." Again, she waited, attempting to gauge how he handled the news she wasn't just passing through, but there to stay. "Alex—He lives here with Emmy. I—I wanted to be close."

Her sudden move was an effort to bridge the gap between her and her older brother after far too long, and get to know the niece she'd otherwise avoided for the simple heartache of it all.

"I guess you have a point, though. I'm more of a 'home by six, in bed by eight' girl, myself. Nights out on the town aren't really my thing anymore." In other words: if they hadn't crossed paths now, and she hadn't gotten up the nerve to go find him on purpose, they might not have ever reunited face to face.

In hindsight, that might not have been the worst thing.

Seeing Kol again threatened to open a pandora's box of old wounds and all the aches that came with longing for a future ripped from her hands, but those she was at least familiar with. She knew how to deal with them, even if only enough to get through another day. She didn't know how to answer his question. Not in a way that wasn't lying but still conveniently skirted the truth.

"Come to think of it, he's probably the one who told me he saw you." No he hadn't. Mere and Alex barely talked about the weather, let alone her ex-husband. "Or, uhm, maybe it was Jiya? Or... your parents?" No and no, but it none of the above were impossible. And that thin thread of possibility was enough to assuage her guilt over keeping the reality to herself. It's not like she could tell him that once—just once—she'd asked her private investigator to check in on his whereabouts. To confirm he was okay. If nothing else, to confirm he was still alive.

Unfortunately, she was all too aware that 'alive' and 'living' were two entirely different things.

Unable to resist the urge any long, Meredith finally let her eyes roam and wander the entire, towering length of her ex-husband. They took their time, clocking all the ways he'd aged and changed since they last spoke, and all the ways he still reminded her of pancake Sundays and late night slow dances by the kitchen sink.

That, she thought, was perhaps the cruelest of all. The reminders, and the remembering. It hadn't hit her before that exact moment that moving to town, seeing Kol again—him, but different— would, in its own ways, feel like losing everything twice.

Esra had been riding an exhilarating wave of adrenaline for the past few weeks. In secret, she had been attending a weekly support group at the library, and the thrill of their meeting yesterday prompted her to embark on an apartment search today, if only for the thrill of it. Although she didn't genuinely believe she was ready to find a new home, the allure of the idea captivated her. Rahmi was rarely home, and their growing emotional distance transformed her beautifully decorated house into a cold, echoing museum rather than a warm sanctuary. Still, something deep inside her resisted letting go of that familiar space. As she stood here today, she told herself it meant little—Esra hoped it wouldn’t matter at all.

Esra had an appointment and, somewhat to her surprise, managed to set it up by calling the number prominently displayed on the side of the building. Standing in the elevator, a wave of nerves washed over her. Her palms began to sweat, and she took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the fluttering in her stomach. The elevator felt ancient; its paint chipped and faded, and the floor was marred with unsightly stains that told tales of years of use.

Suddenly, the elevator lurched to a jarring stop, and Esra gasped, her heart racing as she instinctively gripped the cool metal railing. She turned to glance at the only other occupant, her eyes darting around the enclosed space as she tried to assess the situation. "I don't—" she began, her brows furrowing together in concern as she leaned down to study the emergency call button, which seemed almost taunting in its stillness. "Hold on."

You've got to be kidding me. 

“Try it again.” No sooner did the quiet, tense demand pass her lips did she gently move in herself, one finger jamming against the useless red circle. Nothing. That time there wasn’t even so much as a hint of a ring. Labored breaths sawed through the little box they were trapped in. It took a few too many seconds for Mere to realize the shallow pants were coming from her. 

She didn’t do complications. Or surprises. Certainly not both at the same time. 

“It’s— It’s fine. I was supposed to be meeting the property manager. She’s expecting me. I’ll just give her a call.” Although, when she began fishing for her phone, Mere couldn't help but take note of all the little red flags she'd previously tried to dismiss as 'historic quirks'. Chipped and flaking paint. Stained, faded carpet on the elevator floor. A few hairline cracks through the mirror behind them, foggy with age and missing a bolt or two—It wasn't so easy to romanticize the many, many warning signs now.

How much maintenance and management did the place even get?

Her fingers flew across the screen of her phone, only pausing to confirm her saved contact against that old receipt in her hand, before she pressed send. The connection was weak and spotty, but thankfully didn't drop.

This was where his γιαγια decided to live out her days. In this retirement community for seniors. Niko couldn't blame her, the scenery was beautiful, and he knew γιαγια enjoyed being so close to the beach. He felt like he still had so much to learn from her in regards to his heritage and the weight on his shoulders, and she was now the only one that could share any of that knowledge and history with him.

With Niko's attention in his phone reading through some emails while in the lift up to the top floor, he was a bit oblivious to anyone in the car with him. That was until the damn thing came to a screeching, grinding halt. The metal scraping made him wince as his ears wanted to bleed and the suddenness of the strong stop jostled him out of the corner he'd been leaning into.

❝ ⸻ Never happened before, ❞ he answered, then shuffled forward to examine the buttons with a scrutinizing gaze to see if there was any warning or alert. ❝ But I've only been visiting about a month. ❞ He and γιαγια had lunch or dinner a couple of times a week. On a whim after a glance at the blonde Niko pressed the emergency call button and nothing happened. So, he pressed it again. Then groaned in frustration and lightly kicked at the elevator wall.

That was... fine. This was fine. Really. It didn't somewhat, at least a little bit, feel as if her heart was going to gallop straight through her chest It definitely didn't feel like her chest was growing so tight she couldn't breathe.

Focusing on what she could control, versus what was entirely out of her hands, Mere rooted through her purse in an effort to find her own cell phone. Alexa—She'd call Alexa. Surely as the manager of this building she'd be able to do something.

But that hope, too, was short lived when she finally grasped the device and held it aloft. One bar. One bar that, very inconveniently, kept vanishing on her as she shifted and turned within the tiny metal box they were suspended in between floors. Panic sank a few more of its claws in, blurring her vision around the edges.

"I— I don't really have much service." The urge to scream or growl or unleash some other primal response to that sentence was strong, but she resisted. Barely. "I was supposed to be meeting the manager, though, to look at one of the available apartments, so if I can get it to stick long enough that's what I'll do."

It was more reassurance for herself than it was him, particularly because he didn't seem to share in her one-second-away-from-hyperventilating-to-death problem. "And we can try the emergency call button." Creating a plan helped, at least in the sense that she didn't actually pass out on the spot.

where: anywhere on a farm/ranch/open field

Selin waved her hands in the air, hoping the car that slowed beside hers would see her. Getting her car stuck on muddy farm land was becoming enough of an habit that she was putting serious thought behind getting herself an SUV or a Jeep that would be able to get on and off private property with ease. Not that the private property mattered much when people owned a hundred upon hundreds of acres. They'd never know she was on there, inspecting some of their land to see the potential of it, which she would then pitch to some clients who had interest in investing in acres and turning it into commercial property.

"I need a ride!" She called out to them as she jogged towards their car. "Don't worry about that, I'll get someone to tow it in the morning."

It wasn't just that she'd come out of nowhere. It was that, for a split second, Mere thought the woman needed help. Serious help. Not the kind of help that came from flat tires or smoke fanning out from underneath the hood, but the kind of help that needed law enforcement. Crime scene tape. Medics.

Then again, given the thoughts she'd been torturing herself with just before the dark head of hair and waving hands crested a small, obscured lip of land, that was probably to be expected. Her mind had already been halfway to 'tragic-town' long before her foot slammed against the brake.

Still, she couldn't resist scanning their surroundings for... something, and that's when she saw it. Another vehicle, a little off balance with two tires dug deep into the mud.

Visually confirming her story helped, yet didn't entirely erase Meredith's unease. The woman was unharmed, and wasn't fleeing anything, but that didn't mean she could be trusted, right? Look what happened to Gabby when a seemingly innocent stranger stopped her ex-husband under the guise of needing 'help'.