SOUL - POOR.

( The memory foam beneath sinks and bounces again as Brighid sits up. She tucks one ankle under her knee. ) 

Well, it’s just— ( Instinctively she gnaws at her ring finger, watches the bedspread flicker in the low candlelight. ) You know I— went in t’see the doctor— the doctor, the other day. 

( She brings her hand back up and starts biting again. She regards Bertie for a moment out of the corner of her eye, sideways but not derisive. Why is telling people scary things so hard? Why is telling anyone anything, so hard? ) And. And after I was— looked at an’ such, it was explained, to me, that. ( The hardest part. ) I have—It’s a chronic condition, they think. It’s– why I’m so tired all the time an’ why I’m always– I always hurt so much. ( Who’s ‘they,’ Brighid? says her father from the back of her head somewhere. ) Doctors think it might be multiple— multiple sclerosis. ( Brighid says, finally.

 She didn’t even ask what it meant when the doctor told her. She didn’t ask anything at all, just let all that medical jargon stick to her, just said ‘oh’ when it was all done, got up and went straight home. ) She said— to help, in the short term, till we– know for sure what’s wrong wi’ me, I have—have to sleep a’ night with the lights completely– out. For my…. ci– circulation rhythm.

( That’s not right. ) Cicada….rhythm. ( She chuckles at herself. That’s not it either. She forgets looking for the actual term and flaps her hand dismissively. ) The way I sleep. To– to help the way I sleep. She said some….other stuff, but she told me quiet an’ dark. My room– my room has to be quiet an’ dark t’sleep at night. ( That part was easy to remember. Brighid lies back down, facing Bertie this time. ) That’s all. ( As though she’s just explained how she dropped all her groceries in the middle of the road on the way home, and not divulged the maybe-cause of her ailing body. 

She squeezes Bertie’s hand. ) I’m sorry I didn’t tell you straight away. It’s just– I’m –sick, and that’s….scary. 

something within roberta constricts when brighid opens the bag and remains just so, uncomfortably coiled, until well after the cat is out of it. she doesn’t panic or pity — doesn’t look at her partner any differently than she has before, even if the gears are grinding near hard enough to be heard.

the answers are just beyond reach as she processes. it’s that loving press of fingers around her own that succeeds, at last, in correcting gravity and clearing enough room in her head for rational, comforting thought.

         ‘ sure, ’ she says, warm and reassuring as her rough voice allows. ‘ ’course it’s scary, b, but it itn’t— we got this, don’t we. ’ not a question. a promise that needs hearing.

briefly, bertie gives brighid’s chin a gentle squeeze between her thumb and curled forefinger. though it’s dimly lit, she offers a smile, as sincere as it is soft.

Oh…. ( Her body moves ahead of her. 

The tears come first, almost instantaneously, reddening her eyes and dripping down those magnificent cheekbones. But then she’s smiling, overcome in surprise and adoration, and shortly after she nods, tries to speak. ) 

Y-yes. ( Her answer is tearful and clumsy. ) Yes!! ( She’s laughing as she repeats herself, breathy and shaky and warm. ) Yes– yes, so much– of–of course I’ll– I’ll marry you– ( Then, before she can stop herself, Brighid hugs Bertie, bringing one trembling hand up to stroke her hair. Its curls are soft and springy between her fingers. ) Of course I’ll marry you.–  It’s all–all I’ve wanted since we met. Of course.

         ‘ oh, baby, ’ she says, nearly chokes, with a raspy laugh threatening to defy her will against it. bertie feels a little embarrassed now — a dim pink even begins to rise to those ever-unaffected cheeks of hers — and she wishes (but doesn’t quite) that she could backpedal a rotation or two.

         ‘ i was preboarding the plane, ’ she continues. she proceeds with a careful smile, a cautious tone, reeled in somewhat by fear that she’ll be misinterpreted. ‘ i want it more’n anything, don’t you dare doubt that. but you gotta let me ask you right. ’

san junipero.

         ‘ maybe i should. ’ there doesn’t so much exist a balance in here as there does an acute awareness of the lack thereof (no real tradeoff, is there?). it bugs her sometimes, that she either feels too much or too little. with so much of her fight extinguished, too, it tilts more often in the latter’s direction these days.

she chews her thumbnail, only long enough to last a lazy blink, then drops the hand with easily readable frustration. not with the kid. with herself. her posture shifts inward to reflect it, as if she’s a dying star snapping fingers in the face of her fate and asking it to hurry the fuck up, already.

      he isn’t as pretty as a postcard, but her words just might lead him to believe otherwise. roberta can paint smiles on the faces with just as much ease as it takes for her to wipe them off. for once, giles feels a bit happy about his odds (those odds being about as good as a sailor caught in a thunderstorm at sea). “yes, i hope so.” he fidgets with his tie. “oh, could you fix that? i’m disastrous at anything when i’m nervous.”

( Brighid sniffles, rubs teary eyes with the back of her hand. It’s so late. Or is it early-morning-territory yet– it’s got to be. Well, who’s to say. It doesn’t matter, Brighid’s bedroom is a fathomless wash of grainy indigo-black. In her head, the cushy ottoman at the foot of the bed is a hulking, dormant beast. The pile of blankets heaped on top are no longer cheerful knitted chenille but monster arms, reaching over the footboard to seize her ankles.

Brighid hates the dark. How is she supposed to feel better like this? Her room is full of unseen terrors, she’s sure of it. ) Yes. ( The gruff rasp of Bertie’s voice beside her is a comfort so welcome Brighid hardly has any speech to answer it. Instead, she tremulously reaches for Bertie’s hand and finds its heel and her wrist instead. ) Always. ( She echoes, brushing her palm with her index finger. ) –I- I love you.

         ‘ i love you, too, ’ she answers, the words bookended by roberta working her jaw and staring pinch-browed at the ceiling. it isn’t until something flashes across it — maybe something brighid can’t see, maybe exclusive to her own fiddly realm-not-realm — that it occurs to her just what must be wrong.

with a jump to action, as if physically walloped with the realization, bertie twists in bed (without letting go, of course), strikes a match behind her teeth, and lights the two well-used candles on her bedside table.

          summer doesn’t even bother to count it. ‘ no more, no less. perfect. ’ she assures, flattening the wrinkles and tucking it all away in her cash drawer. then, even though she does have baskets and barrels aplenty to lend: ‘ d’you think you’ll need any help carrying it all? ’

         ‘ you think— ’ there’s a lump in bertie’s throat she wasn’t expecting. she’d barreled into this line of thought with her usual confidence, stayed along for the ride as long as it’d carry without seeing break the levee of anticipation, but finds upon arrival that there are more than a handful of unconsidered factors.

for one, they’re immortal. it’s a big ask.

         ‘ think you might wanna marry me one of these days, biddy? ’

      “so what? you’re gonna hold me here? i have places to be too.”

          have you ever seen a god bleed? most of them bleed just as red as mortals. maybe not as easy, no, but just as red. it takes an awful amount of strength to break their skin, to break their bones. loki can’t remember the last time his fingers were this filthy. they’re a horrible sight, blood and dirt caked underneath torn, ragged fingernails. he stares.

          it is the first thing he notices.

          the second is the silence. the third is the cheery red bottle of ketchup next to his right elbow. the fourth is the roiling, horrible wrongness in his stomach. he remembers fire. chaos. the blue glow of the tesseract spilling over his hands, the walls of the ruined ship, the golden gauntlet snug on the hand of a madman, the snap of two fingers — 

          the fifth is bertie, mouthing at him, voiceless, soundless, slow, sluggish.

          the sixth: ‘ – thor, ’ he croaks out. he curls his torn, filthy fingers into his palm, uncurls them. it’s nearly rhythmic. he curls them, he uncurls them. he curls them, uncurls them, and tries to figure out why the solid press of magic in his belly has disappeared. 

          his brow furrows. ‘ i need – to go back. ’

bertie doesn’t know whether thor is the reason he’s arrived or the reason he can’t stay: history sways her judgment both ways. ‘thor’ is an answer both simple and complicated, and she knows in an instant that she won’t be as much help as loki needs her to be. sibling rivalry, love and hate, a lifetime of distrust  ---  it’s all foreign and dangerous territory.

she takes the seat across from him. it’s too far. she wants to touch, she wants to comfort, she wants to heal.

then, in a scramble to open bertie’s eyes to the gravity of this situation, the tape skitters forward and brings her up to speed. the lights have been flickering since he phased in, she realizes. her old wound has begun to reopen.

loki  ---  the boy she’s helped raise, supported and nurtured over a span of decades  ---  is suddenly upsetting the void from which he’s ever been separate.

       the instinct to want to tuck that stray curl away itches, inopportune, unasked for, overbearing, in adrienne’s fingers. she busies the offending hand with brushing a lock of hair behind her own ear, instead, just to have something to do.

                     ‘ mm — right. ’ sheepish smile, warming. ‘ adrienne. hi. ’