(no subject)

[1000_cranes]

She kind of expects tears, but none come. It might just be that it's finally happened - she's finally lost too much. She lasts at home for as long as she can, on her own in the dim light. She puts clothes away, reads a book, tries to work on a painting. She's got all of this nervous energy and nothing to do with it. She hasn't even got Cadi to fuss over - she's spending the night with her grandfathers. And there's just her.

In the end, she can't stand it anymore.

It's really too late to be doing it, but she hopes that he won't mind. She doesn't change, just pulls on a sweatshirt with her pajamas and heads for his front door.
She'll figure out what she's going to say when he opens the door.

Comments

[merlotte]

"Maybe you've got them for a while. They've been here as long as you, right? Longer?"

Sam doesn't know how the island picks who stays and who goes. He has a feeling it's pretty damn arbitrary, which doesn't help him comfort Charlie any, but the one thing he does know is that it doesn't usually hit the kids. If anything, the kids seem to stay.

[1000_cranes]

"Way longer. Duck was one of the first guys I met," she says, with a flicker of a smile. She scrapes her nail against the fabric of his jeans. "I just feel like...I feel like clinging to everything I have until my hadns bleed. I've never felt like this before."

[merlotte]

"Well, you did just lose your husband," Sam points out.

"That's bound to scrape someone a little more raw than usual. Besides, it adds up after this many years, doesn't it? It adds up when you lose people over and over and over again. At least it did for me. You get to a point where you just can't take it anymore."

[1000_cranes]

"It's just so many people, Sam," she says, covering her face with her free hand, the other still against his knee, scraping her nails lightly. "I just...I can't think about it anymore. None of it. What's the point?"

[merlotte]

"Then don't think anymore tonight. Just be."

Maybe it's bad advice but Sam doesn't know what else to say or do when everything circles back around to the fact that he can't give her any promises because he doesn't know that he'll be able to keep them.

[1000_cranes]

"I don't know if I even know how to do that anymore," she says, half turning towards him, her eyes flickering over his face. "I think I've forgotten how."