After the Gathering

[hazlogs]

Date: 11/5/2002. After the Gathering.

Rina is quiet as they drive back--staring out the window of the Yugo with
the same empty eyes as before, though her face now bears the traces of
tears.

Salem has been silent as well, apart from the occasional muttered curse in
English or Serbian. Even on the new moon, the former Ahroun is a tense
driver. In fact, it's only as he pulls up to her building that he says
anything actually _to_ her, though even then his eyes -- shadowed, sunken
-- remain focussed forward. "Are you, mm, going to be all right tonight?"

Rina looks over to him, vaguely, and then looks down at her aimless hands.
"No." After a moment she finds something to do. Unfastening the seatbelt,
she lets it fall back into place by the door. Her eyes are distant, her
face unreadable and hollow. "Not really." She opens the door and gets out
with a faint jingle of metal.

"Mm." Salem purses his lips, then turns off the engine and unbuckles his
own seatbelt. He unfolds himself out of the too-small vehicle and closes
the driver's side door with a slam. The car almost rocks with the force of
it. "Mind if I come up?" He asks this, though, while already following her
to the door.

She is already getting the key, standing by the door with her head bowed.
Her shoulders answer, a listless shrug. "Whatev." She doesn't look at him,
as she pulls the door open and steps in out of the cold.

Salem makes that 'mm' noise again and goes in after her, hands shoved into
his coat pockets as deeply as they will go. His boots are heavy on the
floor and the stairs up, his steps dragging.

Oddly, she is a little out of breath when they reach the third floor.
Leaning her forehead against the apartment door, she gets out the second
key. "Wha'd'y' want?" she mumbles.

Salem takes his hands from his pockets and folds his arms across his
chest, his shoulders hunching slightly. He doesn't answer right away; he
actually seems to be fishing for the best reply. Finally, after a few
seconds, he makes a disgruntled noise, self-directed, and says, "The same
thing you do."

By then she has opened the door and stepped through, into the dark
apartment. She stands still for a moment, taking a breath, her back to
him. "I don't want anything," she says hoarsely.

Salem enters and closes the door behind him, and then he's behind her,
close. Less than a foot between them, his arms unfolded and his hands back
in his pockets. "Yes, you do," he says, flatly. "You want him back."

It goes straight to the gut like a rabbit-punch, and for a moment she
doesn't breathe--fighting back horror and grief all over again. When she
manages to speak, there is strain in her voice, the words forced. "We all
want things we can't have--"

Salem's face twists into a pained grimace at that. A vicious
counter-strike, whether she meant it or no. "Dammit." The word sounds
vaguely choked, ugly. He lays a hand on her shoulder to turn her around --
not violently, though, whatever the sound of his voice may imply.

A strangled noise comes from her throat; where he touches her shoulder it
is stiff, trembling, even beneath the leather armor. She sobs, a sudden
jerk under his hand, her head ducking hard.

The hand on her shoulder tightens at the sob, a spasm that's hard enough
to be painful. Behind her, Salem mutters another curse, more wounded than
angry, and pulls her around to face him.

She catches in another choked sob; when he turns her around, her eyes are
closed, her shoulders hunched. An inarticulate sound comes from her,
almost a frightened whimper.

Salem takes a deep breath, steadying himself. "I can't bring him back," he
says hoarsely, looking down at her with tired, tired eyes. "I wish I
could. To Gaia I wish I _could_. Even if--" He cuts himself off, jaw
muscles tightening.

Both hands come up to her face, to cover it. Her shoulders convulse
silently, sharp hard movements.

Salem hesitates -- and there's no one to see that subtle hint of fear in
his eyes, buried underneath the weariness and sleep-deprivation and anger
and pain, no one to see but her, and she's not looking -- and then pulls
her close and puts his arms around her.

Terrible, wracking sobs come from her, half-choked sounds of grief. At
first she stands stiff and unresponsive--but the grief gets worse and
worse. Within minutes she collapses against him, unable to stand without
his support.

Salem's embrace is stiff as well at first. Awkward. But by the time she's
collapsed against him, he's holding on to her tightly, like he doesn't
want to let her go. Ever. The smell of woodsmoke still clings to him. He
doesn't say anything.

It is a long time, and in the end she is limp against his support, a
slumped rag doll that would fall without his presence. The front of his
shirt is damp, where her cheek rests, wet through to the skin. The hoarse,
awful sounds finally subside, and she breathes in uneven, hissuping gasps.

He murmurs something quiet in Serbian into her hair, then takes a deep
breath -- it catches, slightly, at the end -- then carefully pulls back,
just enough to walk her over toward the couch. Or carry her, if it's
necessary.

She recovers enough to walk, just barely. Stumbling at his side, she finds
her way to the couch and collapses into it weakly, curling up almost
immediately over her knees.

Salem sinks down next to her, albeit more sprawlingly, the combination of
physical and emotional and mental exhaustion starting to catch up, with a
vengeance. He passes a hand over his eyes, rubbing at them, then lowers it
to look at her. "I couldn't think of anything to say," he tells her. "I
thought about it for days. Ever since..." He grimaces, looking away. "But,
nothing."

Rina's shoulders shake once, violently. 'I couldn't-- couldn't-- talk or
breathe or--' She spurs into sudden motion, launching herself in a
room-wide stalk, stripping off her jacket with violent gestures. She ends
up at the stereo, where she leans against the shelves and puts in a CD.

Salem blinks, startled by the abruptness of it, and sits up, turning his
head to watch her cross the room. As the first notes rise from the stereo,
he pushes slowly to his feet, shrugging out of the big black coat as he
does so and leaving it, like a discarded skin, on the couch behind him.

"What was even if?" she says hoarsely. She doesn't look at him; her head
is bowed, her eyes closed. "I-- I know y'din't get along all the time--"

Her shoulders jerk again. "I know he wasn't always-- good to you--" Her
face is not turned away; the shine of tears written down her cheeks is
clear even in the dark, catching the ambient light that filters in from
the street.

Salem, still over near the couch, rubs at the side of his neck. "Family
doesn't, always," he says. "That doesn't mean that I wouldn't do... a
great deal, if it meant... you know. I never wanted him dead. And not...
like that." The hand drops back, wiping absently at the wet patch on the
front of his shirt.

Rina swallows. "If I could-- if I coulda been the one--" She turns to look
at him with that tear-streaked face, her eyes wild, her voice only half
steady. "He was better than me. Not a lot better but-- but at least--"

He stares back at her, his eyes dry but made raw with insomnia and grief.
His shoulders sag as he sits down on one arm of the couch, hand coming up
again to his face, this time to rub at his left temple. "He would have
died without you," says the halfmoon wearily.

Rina shakes her head. "No, see, we-- we had a deal," she says tearfully.
"'S'why I hafta live. I told him I would. And he said he would if-- if
somethin' happened to me." She looks across to him, with dark eyes that
catch the light strangely. A tiny shake of her head, and she says,
hoarsely, "I don't want to."

Salem slips back down onto the couch, heavily. "No," he says dully. "I
imagine not." He regards her for a moment. "I can't bring him back," he
says, repeating his earlier statement. "I can't... fix it."

"I know," she says hoarsely. "I know..." Listless, she makes her way back
to him, to the couch. By then her eyes are lowered, the tears still
sliding down her cheeks. She drops to sit beside him, curling up against
his chest, a small broken animal. "I don't know what to do," she whispers.

His arm goes around her, and he strokes her hair. And again he repeats
himself, this time from the previous day. "You get up. You take care of
business. And you try not to think about it." His words lack conviction,
though, or strength. His head rolls back against the couch, though his
eyes show no sign of closing.

She is much softer, without the jacket--velvet laid over lean, hard
muscle. Less tension, now that her strength is wearing down... it comes in
small bursts, the occasional sob still tightening her shoulders.

Salem doesn't say anything more, for now. He simply holds her like that,
fingers running slowly through her dark hair, his eyes on the ceiling,
awake and empty. Curled against him as she is, she can hear his heart
beating a steady rhythm within his chest.

One hand rests there, close to the dampness left by her tears. Eventually
she is quiet, her eyes closed, her head heavy and motionless.

Salem, after a while, stirs -- carefully, gingerly -- and peers down at
her, checking to see if she's fallen asleep.

She is not asleep; when he looks, her eyes are open and staring, still
gleaming with tears. A quiet sniffle, and she stirs a little.

Salem looks at her solemnly, his head slightly cocked, favoring the good
eye.

She doesn't lift her head to meet his gaze. Very carefully, as if he is
made of thin fragile glass, she draws back the slightest bit from the
embrace.

Salem goes very still, suddenly, though not quite rigid. His fingers,
still touching her hair, are motionless. She could pull away from him
easily enough, if she chose, but he's not drawing away himself. His throat
works slightly, and he makes some minor noise, like something about to be
said and then aborted.

Rina lifts her head to look at him, her eyes still bright with tears.
"What?" she whispers, swallowing a moment later.

Salem looks back at her, then shifts his weight, sitting up more and
letting his hand slip away from her. He passes it over his own head,
reaching finally at the elastic that keeps his hair tied back, and then
pulls it out with a grimace. "Nothing," he says, not quite looking at her
now, though not precisely looking away, either. "Just... I'm not going to
_break_, you know."

Rina swallows, and despite the words she is very cautious about
disengaging from him. Averting her eyes, she gives a tiny shake of her
head. "Course not." Her voice is quiet, unsteady, touched with nerves.
"Y'want coffee, or or tea or somethin'?"

"Ah, 'something' preferably," he says, folding his arms across his chest.
His eyes never leave her, though there's something in them now that's
similar to the look he gets sometimes when dealing with Cat. Wistful but
despairing. And old, far too old. "No caffeine."

"I'm sorry," she says, the strain telling in her voice. She stands quickly
hitching a shoulder and rubbing both hands on her thighs, as if the velvet
can help somehow. "I didn't-- whatever I did I'm sorry, I din't-- mean
to--" The dark eyes lift, meet his with the pain still raw in them. "I'd
never take advantage of you."

Salem stares at her for a second or two and then blinks and looks away,
studying the little loop of hair-elastic before stuffing it into his jeans
pocket. "You didn't." Whatever had passed a moment ago seems to have gone;
he sounds more stilted now, though far too ragged to achieve the stunning
coldness that he displayed during the Gathering.

Rina nods jerkily. "Okay," she whispers. She turns to the kitchen with
that peculiar dancing of her hands that speaks of a need to do something.
"Whatever I did, then." Restless, she puts on the water to boil.

"You're very quick to blame yourself for things," the Philodox notes. The
comment's dry and without humor.

"If I knew it'd bug you--" She is getting down cups and a canister of
dried leaves. "I wouldn't have. I'm sorry." There's a firmness in her
voice now, something that speaks with the voice of a rigid inner
disciplinarian.

Salem grimaces faintly. Dragging fingers back through his now-loose hair,
digging at the day's accumulated tangles, he says, "It didn't. You needed
it. I--." He pauses, looking over pensively. "Did it help?"

Rina ducks her head, standing still for a moment, her neck a tense,
graceful curve. "I-- Friends-- aren't something I have a lot of." She
doesn't look at him; there is something intense behind the words,
something that keeps her voice tight, her face turned away.

Salem grunts and continues combing through his hair with his fingers. With
an air of reluctant confession, he admits, "I know the feeling."

Rina swallows. "I should go see my daughter, sometime," she says softly.
"She-- helps, with stuff."

Salem pauses, at that. "You have a daughter?"

Rina hitches a shoulder. "Sort of," she says quietly. "Jenny's baby. We--
were a family, when we were together." She is quiet for a moment, lifting
her head and blinking back tears.

"Ah," Salem says. "Right. I think you mentioned that, once." He pulls his
fingers back through the thick black mass once more, then gets to his feet
and moves to join her in the kitchen. "Rather like..." He hesitates a
moment before saying it. "Drew and Chaser."

She is crying again, her mouth drawn into a tight bitter line. "It's the
second fucking time, you know? The second fucking time." Blinking fast,
she does not look toward him. "Not that I should fucking talk, because I
was the one who put 'em together." She is trying not to crumble, but the
tears roll down her cheeks despite the effort. "I can't, can't have kids,
y'know? So they both went to someone else for it--"

Salem leans heavily against the counter, not far from her. Within arm's
reach. "You... ah." He regards her unhappily, lips compressed. Very
quietly, he adds, "I didn't know." He pauses a beat. "Did he?"

Rina swallows, ducking her head. "Gianni?" She nods, taut and fast. "Yeah,
she said she told him before-- before that." The back of a hand swipes
across her eyes. "I'm glad he knew," she whispers. "I think-- I hope it
made him-- happy, that he was gonna--" A choked sound comes from her
throat. "He wanted to, to have kids."

Salem lowers his head, his eyes closing. After a moment, he speaks with
the voice of a man who has put two and two together and discovered that
four is another word for the abyss. "'When I leave this world, I'll leave
behind a wife and a child.'" He opens his eyes again; they're hollow. "I
assumed that he meant you. In regards to the child."

Rina shakes her head minutely. Tears splash to the counter's edge. A
small, abortive sound comes from her throat, but she is unable to speak
for a moment.

"That was... middle to late September." He sounds... numb. Almost dazed.
He squeezes his eyes closed like a man with a sudden attack of pounding
headache and pinches at the bridge of his nose. There's a mutter in
Serbian, the syllables thick with dulled, blunted anger.

Rina shudders, and a choked sound comes from her again. She can't speak,
but she closes her eyes, shakes her head mutely. One hand clutches at her
stomach, and she folds into herself the slightest bit.

Salem stirs himself in response to the little nosie she makes, and --
without a word --closes the short distance between them in order to put
his arm around her shoulders.

She doesn't break the awful silence, her throat closed to words. There is
too much hurt. It clearly roils within her, and just as clearly she fights
to keep it there, locked in the pit of her stomach, at that place where
her hand has knotted into the black velvet. Her eyes, glimmering in the
dimness, remain fixed on something distant.

Salem leans close, with his arm around her. He's _there_, at least; this,
despite the brittle don't-touch-me demeanor that's apt to keep everyone,
_everyone_, at arm's length. Everyone but her, it seems.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. As though it were his fault, somehow. "I didn't
know." As if he should have known. As if he could have known.

Rina swallows thickly. "I d--" Her voice fails her, and it takes effort to
try again through the resistance of tears. "I d-don't know why he--
didn't, why he wouldn't tell me--"

Salem just shakes his head in answer, the line of his jaw tight and his
expression dismal; the rage is awake, but sluggish, and its focus is...
well out of reach.

Rina remains silent, though she at least turns toward him a little,
leaning her head on his shoulder. The kettle whistles eventually, the
sound making her tense and move. She pours leaves and water into the
teapot, her hands moving by rote, without the aid of those unseeing eyes.

Salem lets her go to take care of the tea and leans back against the
counter to watch her with fatigued concern, his arms folded across his
chest.

"It's chamomile," she says when it's brewing. "You don't hate chamomile do
you?" There is a look of privation about her--the gaunt cheeks and hollow
eyes of someone who neither eats nor sleeps enough to maintain good
health. She doesn't look at him, but occupies herself with the slow, small
task of finding sugar and dumping some in each cup.

"Chamomile's fine," he says, and indeed he's never complained about it
before. It's likely that he's noticed the air of insomnia and famine about
her -- the former, in particular, is one he knows well from the image he
sees in every mirror, these days -- but for the moment, he doesn't comment
on it.

She pauses a moment, to wipe the back of a hand across her cheeks. There
is something shaky in the gesture, and in her voice. Trying to put things
together again, to regain some semblance of normality. "I don't like it,
if it gets too strong, y'know, it gets that bitter taste..." She pours,
carefully enough to keep the flowers from spilling into the cups; a quick
stir to each with a spoon, and then she picks one up to offer it to him.
The dark, tear-ravaged eyes look up to his scarred face; there is
something tentative in the way she holds out the steaming drink, as if it
is a peace offering of sorts.

Salem manages something that, wan and fleeting as it is, vaguely resembles
a smile as he takes the tea from her. "I'm... sure it will be fine." He
lifts the cup to her slightly, as if in toast, and takes a sip.

Rina turns to get her own, framing both hands around it and drinking
quietly. After the first sip she paces back out to the couch, and
ensconces herself at one end.

Salem follows her, taking the other end and stretching his legs out with a
faint sigh. He's silent as he drinks the tea, focussing on it and,
occasionally, tilting a look her way. It's not until he's nearly down to
the dregs that he speaks again, quietly. "How well have you been
sleeping?"

Rina hitches a shoulder, hiding in her cup. "I never sleep all that
great," she answers, with a dismissive shake of her head. As if to say
it's not important, it's nothing unusual.

Salem grunts. "I know the feeling. Push yourself to exhaustion to avoid
the dreams, and even then it's not certain." He shakes his head and drains
the last from his cup. "Especially lately."

Swallowing, she drinks down a bit more of the herbal tea--closing her
eyes, letting it take effect. "Yeah." She takes a careful breath. "How's
the kid?"

Salem grimaces tiredly. "Not... good. He won't leave the apartment of his
own will at all. If I left him alone, he'd hide there forever. I found out
that he's been slipping off into the Umbra without escort, against orders,
and during the day no less. I... lost my temper, a bit." He shakes his
head, staring down into the empty cup. "He's not learning anything, and I
don't have the time to teach him, or to babysit him. I'm thinking of
putting him up at the farmhouse, with Quentin."

Rina looks over to him sharply. "Why don't you have the time to teach
him?"

Salem lifts his head and stares back at her, his eyes raw in their
sockets. "Because I don't. Not the way he needs to be taught. Not the kind
of _attention_ he needs." He looks away again, studying the bottom of his
cup moodily. "He also needs to learn his auspice. He has a talent. But I
can't teach him that. I hardly know shit about spirits." He rubs at his
eyes. "Not the way he'll need to know them, at any rate."

Rina nods, her eyes gauging, measuring. "And as far as spirits, we got
jack and shit right now. No crescents. How d'you wanna play that? I can
ask someone outta tribe to teach him..."

"It'll have to be," Salem says, still brooding at the bottom of his cup.
"I asked Sepdet, once, but she's since confined herself to the bawn."

Rina winces, and ducks her head into the support of one hand; her eyes
close, and after a moment or two of rubbing at her skull she downs some
more tea. When she speaks, her voice is quiet. "Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Not
now."

"Mm. Right." Salem's more than willing to let the subject drop for
tonight, talk of Cat bringing on its own special set of worry and grief.
"Tomorrow."

Rina leans her head into her hand again, bridging her eyes. "I'm sorry,"
she says, her voice touched with hoarseness. With that edge that betrays
her tenuous hold on sanity. "I just... I can't."

Salem closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them and looks at her.
"Sleep on it. You're tired. Fuck. _I'm_ tired. This isn't a night for
business anyway."

Rina nods, taking several deep breaths. When she finally straightens, she
downs the last of her tea and leaves the cup on the coffee table. Kicking
off the engineer boots, she curls up at the end of the couch, head resting
on its heavilt-cushioned, sculpted arm.

Silence reigns for a bit, as Salem turns the cup slowly around in his
hands. Finally, after a few minutes, he gets up with his cup and takes it,
along with hers, off into the kitchen. The sound of running water follows
as he washes up with methodical care.

By the time he stands up, her eyes have closed. If she were actually
aware, she might raise some objection to his washing the dishes--but she
is drifting, barely hearing the sounds. She drifts off with a shoulder
wedged into the corner of the couch, her head tipped at an odd angle to
rest on the arm of it, legs folded up under the long velvet dress.

Salem returns to this and regards the sleeping kinswoman for a moment or
three, unsmiling, brain-weary and dull. Then he scrubs a hand across his
face and scoops her up from the couch and over to the bed, to tuck her in
for the night. He even manages a certain detachment about getting her out
of the dress; the bone-deep weariness helps.

She mumbles something indistinct, half of it apparently in Italian and
most of it thankfully unintelligible. A faint line of pain still furrows
her brow, as she lapses into sleep and the inevitable nightmares. There
are the inevitable stirrings, in the night, but no screaming; if she wakes
at all, she does so quietly enough not to disturb his rest out on the
couch.