milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Miss Katherine is outside the bar today, collecting leaves. She has never seen color like this before, and she imagines her children would get a thrill out of the fall foliage if she brings a few leaves back with her to her schoolhouse.

Whenever she's able to get back to her schoolhouse, that is.

She's strolling leisurely, a light wool shawl around her shoulders. There is a cool breeze, but the sun is warm, and every now and again you can see her tip her chin into the warm light, drawing in a deep breath, and letting the faintest of smiles grace her sad face.

Distractions are welcome.

[tiny!tag: Miss Katherine Barlow, The Russian Astronaut (Esfir), Arnold, Dan Evans]

ooc: If you can read this... this is still open for new tags. XD

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Esfir looks up.

"Why?" She asks, simply.

She runs a finger along the handle of her mug as she thinks.

At length, she shakes her head.

"I... I don't know. I just... he loves them. His family. He still loves them, and I..."

She struggles to find her words.

"I'm the other woman."

"...If he's dead, and he can't go back, then you aren't. It'd be the same if he were divorced."

Divorce is an uncommon, and very messy thing in her time. Folk tend to look down on the parties involved, despite whether or not they had good reason to separate.

Not to say that's Katherine's view, but she's fairly certain it was her father's.

She drops her head lower.

"...That's not... all," she murmurs.

"I didn't think so," she says, finally. Divorce is rather more common in the Soviet Union than one might suppose.

"But, yes?"

She's been thinking a lot about the last conversation she'd had with Ben.

...And the last one she'd had with Doc.

'There's more than one kinda love. Maybe for you two, it ain't necessarily meant to be the romantic kind.'

'Kate I want you to be happy and I can't fault you for whatever that means. I won't. And if...there's someone else you'd rather be with...I just want you to be happy.'

She swallows conspicuously.

"While I was away from the bar...

"There's a fellow, back in Green Lake. We're--We're only friends. But I care about him."

It took a lot for her to admit that.

"Care as in, it could be more than friends?"

A few days ago, she wouldn't have known how to answer that. Even now, she's tempted to say 'I'm not sure.'

Instead, she shakes her head, but with her voice she says: "Care, as in, I haven't been able to get him off my mind since I've been here. I just keep thinking about when I'll get to see him again."

Her hands tighten around her mug, eyes still stubbornly avoiding her friend's.

"Ah." Which may or may not be particularly helpful.

Perhaps not 'helpful' so much as 'doubt affirming.'

She shakes her head.

"I'm a terrible person, aren't I."

It's not really a question.

Esfir answers anyway.

"No."

Katherine's looking out into the bar proper again, watching patrons talk and laugh and argue and only a hundred other things you would only ever see in Milliways.

She's quiet.

Her heart is in her throat, and her stomach is tied in knots, and she just doesn't know what to say.

"You...care for two men. One who didn't tell you that he was married, and whom you feel like you're...walking on eggshells when you're around him. Another who you just want to get back to. From what you say, I am guessing that with the other, you don't have the uncertainty.

How does that make you terrible? Because you care about them? Because you don't know what to do?

Terrible would be flirting with them, both, leading them on. Terrible would be enjoying their uncertainity, their unhappiness. And, Katya, if you were a young girl, that wouldn't even be terrible. Just a pretty little kitten being cruel without thinking.

Besides," she adds with a sudden flicker of a smile, "hasn't this situation been used again and again in plays and poetry and books? It's not terrible. Just human."

She puts her coffee down, and reaches out with her small hand to touch Katherine's.

"You're a good person. You're kind. You couldn't be terrible if you tried. And you couldn't try without feeling guilty, so, I think you're safe."

There's really nothing you can say in reply to something like that. It's not the sort of thing you can argue with, despite the heat crawling up your cheeks. It's not the sort of thing you can accept, without feeling smug or haughty.

You simply stand in awe of the words you needed to hear, spoken just how they needed to be spoken, by a woman you know you can never repay for all of her many kindnesses.

Katherine lets out a breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding.

"I... Thank you."

She can't quite get her voice to work. She has to swallow down her racing heart, willing the strength back into her quivering muscles.

"You would think, for all the literature and poetry I read, I'd know better," she murmurs, trying on a small smile, though her eyes are stinging with unshed tears.

"I guess you never think it could happen to you."

Her palm closes over Esfir's, which is resting over her other hand.

"I just wish I knew what to do. I... I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to think. How to act. How to speak...

"It feels like my heart is crawling out of my chest in the most agonizing way possible."

Her voice is quiet.

Her voice is broken.

Softly,

"If not for the last, I would say, maybe do nothing. But we can't have you feeling like that."

She chuckles wryly.

"It's a fine mess, then, isn't it? And I can't leave--the Bar has me Bound," she sighs, helplessly.

Bright blue eyes search out Esfir's.

"Do you think that's supposed to mean something?"

"If it's not, you could use it as if it is. Sort things out."

"With Doc?"

Yes, she knows it's a dumb question.

"And by that, your man back home," and she's very good, and that's all she says.

A soft blush creeps back to her face.

'your man back home.'

"I-I don't even know if he wants to speak with me right now. When last we parted, it was with a good deal of disappointment," she murmurs, recalling the last time she and Doc spoke.

"So, don't," she says, simply. "You can't work out what to do if he is constantly there and everything is difficult."

She bows her head.

"You're right."

She feels like she's going in circles. This is, unfortunately, not an uncommon feeling for her as of late.

A wry smile.

"I'm also notoriously impatient with relationships."

She chuckles.

"You at least have more experience with them than I do."

"Bad experience."