Darcy Miles

Darcy’s trying to help, that’s clear. But as she says that you usually end up with a mess, Klara feels a sob escape her. She can’t help it, can’t hold it in. A mess, that was what she had. Pietro, shredded to the point that he looked like he was dying. Charlotte, not talking to her. Alisa, dead and leaving Klara with a grief she’d not expected after the betrayal she’d hardly processed. It was too much to hold, especially for a girl so unused to dealing with any emotions.

Darcy isn’t sure what she said wrong and nearly panics when the girl bursts into tears. It feels like, maybe, it’s more than this fight with her friend bothering her. She holds both the girl’s shoulders then, trying to steady her as she cries. “Oh honey,” she shushes her, one hand moving to rub her back. “It’s okay to cry, let it out. No one here but you and me.” Whenever she calmed down, if she wanted to then she could tell her what else was wrong.

Klara appreciates Darcy’s attempts to comfort her, the way she slowly puts her hand on her shoulder. It lets Klara relax into the touch somewhat, tension releasing from her shoulders as her posture slumps a little. “What if… What if I just hurt her more? I thought I was doing the right thing, but all it did was hurt people.” Maybe she was like Alisa.

Darcy sighs, rubbing Klara’s shoulder with her thumb in soothing circles. “You won’t know unless you try,” she says encouragingly. She wished she knew more about the situation, so she didn’t have to give such general advice, but she wasn’t exactly friends with Klara. It felt rude to pry and Darcy didn’t like prying anyway. Unless it was Reyna, because again, siblings. “I feel like, sometimes, you might have good intentions but if you think you know what’s best for people without asking... Well... You usually end up with a mess.”

Klara nods, giving a sad smile and a shrug. “She said… That will not fix it,” she says. “That she needs time. Space.” Maybe it was selfish to think it, but Klara needed support too. She’d not yet really spoken to anyone about her disappearance. Still, she couldn’t force that on Charlotte. Especially not after hurting her already. Leaving. She sniffs, trying to keep the tears at bay.

Darcy feels herself deflate like it’s her own problem. She always felt too much, took other’s problems personally. Slowly as not to scare her, she puts her hand on Klara’s shoulder. “It’s like that sometimes. Sometimes... things are a bit more complex than a little argument that you can laugh off or forget about the next day.” Sometimes sorry doesn’t even begin to cut it, like why Reyna won’t even talk to their mother despite her apologies. “Just show her, you know? Show her rather than tell her.”

Klara was quiet for a moment, considering Darcy’s offer. For a second it seems almost like the teenager is going to ignore the offer entirely. Then, quietly, she says, “I hurt my friend. I didn’t mean to but…” She still did. Charlotte was hurt, and angry, and Klara couldn’t blame her.

That could mean a lot of things in a place like this. And Darcy knew Klara had a bad history in the Danger Room. But it didn’t seem like she was talking about a physical type of hurt. Darcy licks her lips, thinking about how to respond. She was never good with conflict, in fact she avoided it and in turn never really had the chance to hurt anyone’s feelings. Well, other than her sister but that’s just what siblings did. “Did you apologize?”

Klara shakes her head quickly as Darcy says she should go, but ends up finding herself shaking her head at Darcy’s question. She freezes and looks at Darcy, considering lying for a moment. “No,” she admits, quiet and unsure. “Not really.”

Klara wipes the tears from her face quickly when she hears footsteps entering the lounge room she sat in. Without a bedroom currently, she hadn’t known where to go and so ended up here, empty at the time. The conversation with Charlotte only cemented everything she’d felt in regretting leaving, cutting deeper with rejection. What irony, that her leaving out of fear of rejection from one she loved would lead to that exact thing from another.

“Um, hi. I can.. I can leave if you need this.. this room,” she says quickly, standing up from the couch. 

Darcy wasn’t able to find Reyna, which usually meant she was spending some time with Ophelia and she didn’t wanna interrupt that. So instead she goes wandering. From room to room, there were so many rooms in this freaking place, just talking to anyone she came across. When she comes into the lounge, she isn’t expecting to find a crying girl. Klara, she knew this girl. She was close to the guy Reyna swore she never dated.

YOUR MUSE CELEBRATING MINE’S BIRTHDAY WITH MINE

“Tighter, Reyna,” her voice is desperate, hands shaking as she presses over her sister’s. “Tighter, okay?”

Their home sits on the busiest street of town, their front yard more like a patch of a grass. Darcy insists on kicking a ball around it anyway, and their parents aren’t home to forbid it. She tries out the tricks she watched the older girls do on the field during recess, but she keeps tripping. Her big sister’s eyes are on her, she can feel them and she wants to make her proud. 

Her breath feels short but it’s nothing compared to the gasps escaping Reyna’s mouth. “It’s okay, just put pressure… Just please, God…” Blood soaks between her fingers, making her gag at not just the sight but the warmth of it. The smell. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Reyna, come on you need to-”

His tires screech as he pulls into the driveway, Reyna’s glass knocking onto the patio and lemonade spilling off into the flowerbed. She’s stood up so fast you’d think someone had yanked her out of her seat. Darcy grabs her ball, unsure of what to do with it. It was too late to hide it, too late to pretend she’d only been fetching the mail or anything else that wasn’t playing where she wasn’t allowed to. 

“This is my fault,” she cries, leaning forward so their foreheads touch. The scent of copper is overwhelming but it wouldn’t stop her from pressing as close to Reyna as she could without hurting her. “This is all my fault, oh God…” Had she refused to hide in the shadow of the trees Reyna had pushed her into when her father’s car came to a screeching halt behind them, maybe she could have protected her. Or at the very least agreed to leave with him, keep him from getting angry enough to… Her fingers graze the hole in Reyna’s abdomen, press impossibly tighter. 

The yelling makes her nearly wet her pants. Darcy quivers by the front door as her father drags Reyna across the living room by her hair. He’s thrown her on the couch, towering over her. “Are you a fucking idiot!” he shouts down at her, fists balled and ready to rain down on her if she dared answer. “You could have gotten her hit! Should have known better than to leave her alone with you, stupid fucking-” Darcy imagines she throws the ball square at his head, hard enough to break it. Hard enough to erase him from existence. But instead she stays silent. 

She watches.