milliways_bar | (no subject)

It's nice to see someone smiling after the few days she's had. Even if it is a complete stranger. Perhaps it's sheer relief that causes Rachel to drift over, wry smile upon her own lips and a question in her eyes. "You look like someone who'd had a good day" she noted quietly, her entire posture that of someone well past tired, but still doing what needs to be done.

"I am."

She looks at Rachel, and tilts her head in a wry gesture which implies that she has been there herself and knows the feeling,

"My name is Martha Adams. Would you like a cup of coffee? You look utterly exhausted."

She isn't a pretty woman, Mrs. Martha Adams. She's strong, and she's regal, and she's got a quality that is indefinable but combines strength and an understanding of her own limits.

"Nice to meet you" she offered "Rachel Grey" imagine that, she actually remembered to offer her name in turn.

"It's...been a rough few days" an admittance she's not really sad about. She's gotten some things done in those days at least. "But if you can talk the Bar into coffee you'd earn my undying devotion" she's probably teasing.

Her smile, when true and untouched by shadow, can be striking. She's smiling now...but in response to Martha's sheer presence.

And she does, indeed, have a hell of a presence. She has faced her worst fears, done things she never dreamed of doing, and came out of it knowing who she is and what she can do.

"Two, please."

She tells the bar, and smiles as a silver tray with a coffee pot, two cups, and a small plate of finger-foods each appears,

"Apparently I can. Do you want to talk about whatever is making you tired? I'm a fairly good listener."

And, oh, Daniel, she does seem exhausted. Do you remember feeling like that? I certainly do. Did we sleep well at all, as we moved toward Magnanimity?

Her idle thoughts to a man long dead are just that: idle. She doesn't think he's actually there, but it comforts her to talk to him as though he was.

For a moment, Rachel eyes the tray, then the woman. Heartbeats pass before she can even truly contemplate an answer.

Would she like to talk

She doesn't think this woman would run screaming.

"Too many broken minds, not enough time to fix them all" she sighed. "And preparing to leave, as well as thinking of putting up a notice for a surrogate parent"

She crossed her arms on Bar's surface, resting her chin on her arms "Just alot of little pieces"

Canon implies that Martha hasn't screamed since giving birth. This is not flat-out stated, but it is implied fairly heavily.

"I remember feeling like that before I left psychiatry."

She muses wryly, taking a sip of her coffee (black, one sugar) and settling on the stool comfortably.

"I always found that taking it one step at a time, one piece at a time, and not looking at how many pieces you have is a good way to keep moving. Eventually they tend to start sorting themselves into the cracks. Whom do you need a surrogate parent for?"

Her mindscape is ordered in the manner of a good library; everything has a place but it is warm and comforting rather than sterile and bland. Memories of a child, her son, flit here and there. Mrs. Martha Adams misses her child, or having a child around at all.

If Rachel had less morals, she'd riffle through Martha's mind in a heart beat and seize upon the psychiatric knowledge. It's a temptation she can deny, but it isn't easy in the least. Instead, she just takes a cup of coffe, black, and sips it, not minding the heat on her tongue.

"It's hard to see all the single steps though, when all the pieces spin about. And there's screaming" she sighed, cradling the warm mug.

The depths of the coffee don't hold any secrets though. "A girl. Her name is Tool, until someone manages better. She and I...were held by a sadist for a long time. She's soulless and broken..."

If she asked, Martha would offer. She has no secrets any more. Who needs them? Really?

"It can be, yes. So you work on what you can see until it spins away, then you work on the next thing. Healing minds is a process, not a medicine."

She takes a mini-sandwich and pulls it apart,

"Its layering one thing on top of another, and sometimes none of the things touch like they did before, but in the end it is much the same. A whole."

Then she's quiet again, and she would like to reach out and touch Rachel but she does not. Not after the girl said that she was tortured.

"I see. What kind of parent do you want?"

Martha is an adviser. She is not a politician. She has time. And a farm.

Rachel just may at some point.

"That's...very sound advice" she noted, tilting her head on her arms to eye the woman better. "I've just been watching the pieces spin for now, figuring out where they fit, what pictures they make" for the one she's helping besides herself anyway "Shielding him from the sharper edges for now"

She's a very...tactile person with those she trusts. But, when she offers. Martha's restraint is noted and appreciated.

"Someone...who doesn't sppok easily" is the first thing that comes to mind "There work being done to retrieve her soul, but being around her is uncanny. And she's a healer, and she's absolutely submissive. That...scares alot of people"

Really no soul. That is frightening, Daniel, but reassuring at the same time. If someone can lose a soul, it means that we have them. Am I crazy to take comfort in that?

She nods, a faint frown touching her lips,

"I would like to meet her. My son is grown and has moved away, and I miss having a child around."

And she is a psychiatrist. Or she was, at one point,

"If, that is, you don't find someone that you already know and trust."

And she won't mind if Rachel doesn't trust her, Rachel doesn't know her and Martha is too wise in the ways of the world to assume that she will be trusted off the bat.

"And watching the pieces can be good as well, but don't spend too much time just watching. Minds can move in an extraordinary amount of ways."

Oddly, Rachel is a decent judge of people. Alot about Martha can be taken at face value. It's refreshing.

"My brother is keeping her safe, but I'll talk to him, see if we can at least let you meet her" she offered. "If nothing else, you may be able to offer advice...and I'm willing to accept any form of help with her" the slight fear and revulsion in he tone is probably well hidden, but she can't help it.

"Yes, you have to start ewaving things together soon, before the splinter further through impact" she mused quietly, the hint of flame in her eyes.

Close to everything. As close as a human can get, really.

"I will do my best to at least offer advice."

She's quiet for several moments of coffee and small bites of food,

"Do you want to talk about it?"

About Tool. About what happened to Rachel. About whomever she is trying to help.

Martha is dressed in casual clothing, jeans and a working man's shirt that she never got around to getting rid of after Josh died. It is too big, and rolled up to the elbows. She has working boots on, not combat boots but something close kin.

That's a rare and valued trait in humans. Martha will probably never know how rare.

"That would be...greatly appreciated. I'm rathersue she's not human. I hope that doesn't bother you" she noted, well, if the soulless bit didn't get to her first it was best to warn people of these things.

Just talking. talking. Like a normal person. It's a strange idea, that.

"Tool had been with Gaunt far longer than I. She was there when I was captured, and I was there the longest of any of his toys. She's twelve. Has been for...a very long time." it bothers her, a great deal. "And honestly I wanted her dead."

"I talked to a pig here."

She says with a faint amusement. It was a good conversation, too,

"He bought me a beer. I think I can handle it."

She listens to what Rachel says, offers her a small sandwich (watercress and honey chicken), and nods,

"Did he make her hurt you?"

"That's good to know" she admitted. She's not one to question the stranger things anymore, nt after befriending Yrael, and talking to dogs and turtles-cum-human.

The sandwich has her complete attention, she never does eat enough, but that's because she forgets. At least this looks interesting though.

"No. He made her heal me"

And its made out of a half-piece of bread. There are a couple dozen different ones on the table, each with a new filling, each only a quarter sandwich.

"After he hurt you."

Her voice is calm, but not detached. She is listening, she is listening without judgment or condemnation,

"May I ask how long you were captive?"

It's curiousity that makes her take the sandwich apart and actually view the contents. She'll put it back together in a moment, but for now it's serenely floating in pieces as she samples bits of it.

"Only about fifty years this time" she noted. Voice empty. Emotionless. It's better than giving everyone the taste of blood and screaming.

"Fifty years."

It is hard for her to comprehend, because she is from a magicless universe.

Fifty years. That is slightly longer than I've been alive, Daniel. Far longer than you lived, young as you were. An old soul, but young on the outside. Fifty years. I don't even think I can imagine it.

So I won't.

"He had some way to keep you alive. Tool?"

This time.

"His manse...was just at the edges of time. Time flowed strangely, and sometimes not at all there. And I myself don't seem to be touched by time as often as I should be anyway." she noted softly.

"Yes"

"That is why you hate her, then."

It is a technique that some psychiatrists use, the over-stating of what they think is true so that the person that they are talking to has a chance to correct them and explain. To order their thoughts and, perhaps, come to some sort of understanding beyond simply feeling.

"Yes, I know" she agreed.

"But she's a child." she sipped her coffee. "Nightmarish as she is to me personally, she needs what ever help we can find for her"

Rachel...has very strong feelings about children.

"She's lost without Gaunt now."

"And she will get it. The fact that you are looking for someone to take care of her speaks volumes about you, you know."

Matter of fact, pouring more coffee into her own cup,

"What is lost can almost always be found."

She's a hero. Working through terror is natural. It doesn't say anything about her really.

That she'll admit.

Her coffee is cooler now, but she doesn't care, she's certainly done worse than cold coffee. "She doesn't remember anything" she offereed after a time.

"Her mind is dark, blank. Damaged. The actual tissues burned away and sealed. Her people, herfamily, there's nothing. A twelve years olds memories, all deleted like a machine. Overwritten by Gaunt. How do you make up for that?"

"By building something new that has nothing at all to do with the pain."

She says quietly,

"Don't get me wrong, it won't be easy for whoever agrees to take it on. She may never be normal, if we don't know what her species is there is no way to make her normal for her species. I believe, though, that anyone can fill a chance if given enough help."

Martha has a farm. It grows green, there, with wide open spaces and the occasional spoiled animal that is there as a pet rather than as a working sort of thing. It is a good place to raise a child, in her opinion.

"And overcoming centuries of obediance" she sighed, finally reassembling the sandwich and nibbling on it with no sign of actually tasting it.

It was a problem. And one that very few were cut out for.

She'd introduce Martha to Arithon.

"Your farm seems lovely" she offered.

"Pardon?"

She blinks at Rachel, mildly distracted from the roast-beef and onion sandwich that she was nibbling on.

"I'm sorry" she replied automatically. Sometimes she thought too hard, and she spoke before thinking...

"I'm...I'm a telepath. I read minds. you were thinking of your farm. And the pets that get spoiled. I didn't mean to pry..."

"Oh. That makes sense."

She smiles, and then holds up a hand to keep Rachel there,

"I don't mind. I like to think that I don't have anything to hide. I do spoil them, don't I? I think that the pigs are spoiled more than ever since I spoke with Chao."

"I'm usaully better mannered than that" she sighed. "But you have an open mind in so many ways. And well organized..." it doesn't excuse her, no, but in a way it's a compliment to Martha.

She'd never been on a farm, but it looks quiet. Peaceful. And the animals certainly seem spoiled...as in they're not dead and eaten.

"It seems lovely" she repeated.

"Thank you, I am glad to know that it isn't a mess."

"Would you like to visit it? To take notes for your brother?"

And the offer is honest. There are plenty of things to see, a small town not that far to walk, and a city less than a day's drive away.

"I'm not certain...how things would go here if I left right now." she's feeding alot of her strength into Lavan, just to hold his core self in some semblance of safety.

"Perhaps someday though" Until then, the memories ar wonderful to glance at.

"Let me know."

She says simply, and her mind insists on thinking of Rachel as a teenage girl because she looks like one.

Martha misses children.

She also understands not being able to leave. If she ever met Moiraine, she would agree with the Aes Sedai's axiom of death lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.

"I will" she promised. The only place she knows of that could perhaps rival the peace lace dthrough Martha's mind is upon the lake, or with her brothers.

And Rachel is many thing to many people, a teenager is not a far cry from other roles she plays. And truth told...sometimes evenshe needs motherly advice.

"Are you here often Martha?"

"Now and then."

She says calmly,

"The door is always there for me, so I can check in every day if you want to leave a message."

Even the bar is reliable for Martha Adams. She just lives that sort of life, invasion by Russia excluded.

"I think I may just" she admitted. It wasn't often she met such a grounded person.

After she talks to Arithon and shares everything she's picked up from this woman.

"Thanks"

For a great deal.

"You are quite welcome."

She offers another smile, and pushes the food toward Rachel again,

"Have another."