SOLVEIG, PERHAPS FOOLISHLY, THOUGHT AMANPAL JUST DIDN'T KNOW WHERE SHE WAS. okay, that's a lie. that would be stupid to think, because she's not hiding. she's in the same city they grew up, she works in a place where everyone else in this fucked up quasi-family works. she knows amanpal lives in new orleans, too. perhaps she just thought he had gotten bored of her. or optimistically - stupidly - that he had turned over a new leaf, and just decided to leave her alone. it had been three years, after all.
solveig was doing so well. everyone kept telling her that. everyone was proud of her. she was doing so well.
she is doing so well right now, she thinks. even now, staring at amanpal from behind the counter at ghosts in the attic - she thinks she is doing well. even if her hands are trembling. she thinks she's already rung him up, because there's money on the counter. no, maybe this isn't happening. it's a joke. it's funny. solveig will laugh about it later. this isn't funny. no, this isn't funny. amanpal says thank you, tells her it's good to see her, touches her cheek, and leaves.
solveig catches her own reflection as the door closes, and all she can think about is him. she has always looked very much like amanpal, she thinks. which is strange to her, because he's only her half brother, and she has a twin brother she truly looks nothing alike - and it would make more sense to look like her twin, surely. the door shuts fully.
she fiddles with her necklace for a moment - a pretty gem that winnie said was for protection - but the pounding starts in her head and her heart, and solveig feels like you're breaking down the middle. she presses her knees on the hard ground, and gasps. she's not aware of her exhales, or that she's hyperventilating. she's just aware that she's lightheaded, and everything is hurting terribly, and that she can't move but needs to get out of here, and that her cheek is pressed to the floor.
the pounding is consuming her now, in the back of her head and her knees and her ribs, and she's not sure if her tears are a result of panic or pain, but it's probably both. she thinks that something that hurts this badly has to be killing her. good. she wants to die. she didn't want to come back in the first place, those years ago when amanpal killed her the first time. for months after, she didn't want to be alive anymore, but she smiled and pretended that drowning and being brutalized and remembering it all was worth it, since she's alive. but here solveig is, sure that she's dying and completely fine with it, as long as this pain stops. she begs for it, over and over again, quiet chant of: "kill me, please, please, kill me."
the pain increases, and stops. solveig opens her eyes and the world is sideways, legs and cowboy boots in her blurred line of vision, and she does not get up from the floor. she should recognize the voice, but she doesn't. she should recognize the blurred face and sunglasses, when she finally looks up, but she doesn't right now either. but she lets him lift her nonetheless (not that she could do anything else about it), lets this stranger carry her out of ghosts in the attic. maybe she should've yelled for someone, but her mouth tastes metallic, and her mind is too hazy.
orpheus sets solveig in the backseat of the car. he would call it his car, but it belongs to eden and his siblings just as much him. it's a short drive, realistically, but it feels much longer. orpheus's face is scrunched and twisted in frustration, as city roads become back roads - and he keeps checking on solveig in the rearview mirror. he's seen her like this before. back when he had her do a terrible thing, which was an act of love really - and he thinks sometimes, those are the same thing. this is not one of those times. he knows a terrible thing has just happened.
when they arrive home - his home - he opens the car door and offers to help solveig out, and she lets him, the majority of his weight resting in his arms. orpheus bears it well, only pausing to unlock the door. she's led straight to the couch, and resumes the sprawled out position she'd taken on the drive there. his head tilts down out at, and he sighs. but not annoyed - concerned, maybe. warm and full of love: absolutely. he tugs off her shoes. then he goes to the kitchen, and solveig is left alone.
solveig buries her face in the couch. it feels familiar, smells familiar. she thinks this place is familiar. a different person comes in - and she can tell it's someone else by the softer sound of their steps, like they're barefoot, or maybe wearing house slippers. a weight on her back, soft. a blanket.
"is this your phone, solveig?" the new stranger picks up the device from where orpheus had set it on the coffee table. her voice sounds familiar. solveig doesn't move out of the cushions to answer, just makes a noise in her throat that she hopes is affirmative.
solveig hears the sound of tapping, though tzipporah doesn't say anything else, just sends a text to mikey from solveig's phone. tzipporah isn't terribly fond of solveig, on account of The Eye Thing - though she knows orpheus wanted it, and it is objectively for the better. that it's safer for everyone. but still, logic doesn't sway emotions that well, especially when it comes to family. but orpheus loves solveig still, and tzipporah knows that solveig still deeply cares for orpheus. and she's not heartless. she knows solveig is relatively harmless, and probably doesn't deserve whatever has her in this state. she doesn't pry. she'll ask orpheus later. the lights are flickered off. "i'll take you home tonight, solveig. get some sleep."
