(no subject)

Entry tags:

people: greta baker

(no subject)

late March/early April

Regan doesn't really like admitting when she's wrong about something. That's mostly because she tries not to say or do anything without being sure it's the right thing; she likes to make sure she does her research and knows what she's talking about. So when everything with Richie goes down, she's sure she's right... at first.

But then a few days go by, and he doesn't say anything, which seems... weird. And then a few more days go by, and she hasn't said anything either, and there's this gnawing sense of guilt in her gut.

Regan leans against the counter, frowning at the kettle as she waits for it to boil water. She's been pretty quiet the last few days, she knows, hiding in her room as she considers her options — and her decisions. Now, she's come down to the kitchen to make herself some tea and... well... consider her options and her decisions.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A week, Greta thinks, is probably a normal amount of time to spend wallowing after your first break-up, especially one that happened on purpose, as opposed to something forced by the city's metaphorical hand. Normal enough that she does her best to leave Regan to it. She reassures Saoirse that Regan just needs some time to herself, and heroically resists the urge to press for details about what exactly happened (beyond the broadest reassurance that Richie hasn't done anything bad enough to warrant a visit from Anne).

But there's really only so much time you can spend chewing over your own problems in isolation and still expect to get somewhere with it all. So when she finds Regan cutting a pensive figure in the kitchen, staring at the kettle as if she intends to boil the water with the sheer force of her own brain, she elects not to just leave her to it.

Greta stands beside the counter for a moment, glancing between Regan and the kettle, and starts small. "What kind of tea were you thinking?" she asks, before moving toward the cupboard where the looseleaf is kept. "I could do with a cup, myself."

Regan glances up from her staring when Greta moves into her view and asks her question. She smiles, almost sheepishly, and shrugs.

"I was thinking just one of the herbal blends," she admits. She doesn't want black tea at this time of day, but she hadn't narrowed down a flavor other than that.

Greta nods in agreement, then rummages in the cupboard for a rooibos chai that she knows they both enjoy. It's a quick task, leaving them both with a few minutes to kill before the kettle boils. The temptation to start asking questions sits firmly at the forefront of her mind, but she knows better than to indulge herself. At the very least, she doesn't want to put Regan off before she's managed to get a cup of tea put together. So she just settles herself beside the girl, close enough to lean over and give her a light, fond bump with her shoulder.

Regan had returned to staring at the kettle as Greta had rummaged, but when she nudges her shoulder, Regan smiles and nudges back, just as lightly.

"How're you doing?" she asks, so they're not both standing in silence. Does the saying about watched pots apply to kettles?

Greta's signing has come a long way over the past few years, but it's probably for the best that her vocabulary isn't vast enough to make outright sarcasm an effortless task. She does give Regan a wry look to communicate something along the lines of, 'you're asking me?' — as if she's had any notable upheavals over the past few days — and then signs, "The usual."

She follows that up with a slightly more pointed, but no less fond, "And how are you?"

Regan realizes that Greta is going to be able to turn the question back on her right about the same moment she realizes she desperately wants to talk about this, so it's kind of a relief that it happens. She puffs out a sigh and makes a face.

"It's weird," she admits. "It's weird not talking to him every day." She doesn't think she needs to specify who she means.

Greta nods, privately wondering if she ought to lean into being merely sympathetic, as she has been, or if now might be a good time to angle for more information. She expects Regan would clam up if pressed too hard — but she's answered readily enough so far, and Greta rather suspects that she wants to get some things off her chest.

She starts out with sympathy, regardless, curling her arm around Regan's shoulders and giving her a brief squeeze. "Change is weird," she agrees. Then, a little more cautiously, she asks, "Do you want to talk about it?"

She absolutely doesn't. Except she really, really does. She wants to complain and vent and, maybe, get a different perspective on things. Greta isn't Mom, but she's practically been her mother for the last four years; she has perspectives and insights that Regan might never consider, and more than once, she's helped Regan see things she might have overlooked otherwise. It's been helpful, so Regan knows she can trust anything she might have to say.

Which is also why she absolutely doesn't want to talk about it. If Greta has a differing opinion, if Regan is somehow proved wrong, that will be a new, fresh bruise she isn't currently equipped to handle. She's self-aware enough to recognize that in herself.

She gives Greta an uncertain look, the expression half-exaggerated as if for levity.

"I don't know, I don't want to bug you," she says, also fully aware that Greta wouldn't offer if she'd thought it would bother her at all. "I just... I just don't get it. Why would he drop out of college? He graduated early!" she reminds her, like it's proof that college was the right move to begin with.

"You're not bugging me," Greta is quick to insist, her expression suggesting that it ought to go without saying. But the reassurance proves to be unnecessary; Regan blazes onward quickly enough that it's clear she would've continued on, anyway. She must really need to get this out, whatever it is, and Greta listens attentively.

It takes her a moment to respond, her head canted a little to one side as she thinks. There are aspects to life in Darrow that aren't so different from the way things were back in the Village, but the way formal education works isn't one of them. She's grown used to it, mostly — how long it typically lasts, and how expensive it can be, and how broad it is — but there is a part of her that will probably always find it a bit silly that apprenticeships and sensible trades are so vanishingly rare. Granted, she has a hard time imagining Richie leaving college for the purpose of pursuing her idea of a sensible trade, but she also can't condemn someone for deciding not to pay princely sums for something they don't actually want.

"College is... a lot," she allows. "We didn't have anything like it back in the Village. Maybe royalty did, but regular people would apprentice young and learn a trade. I'm not saying that was always better," she hastens to clarify. "I think it's good that education is more widely available here. But it also isn't cheap, and if you're not sure of what you want..." she hitches her shoulders in a shrug.

Regan wants to argue: Darrow has pretty good scholarship and financial aid programs, after all, and college was all about figuring yourself out, right? Never mind that Regan, herself, had gone through her own personal 'what's the point of anything in Darrow?' crisis in the past. That obviously isn't what Richie's issue is, or he would've said as much by now. She lifts her hands, then hesitates and drops them again before shaking her head.

"But he didn't have to drop out. He could've gone to part time. He's never going to get a career if he has 'college dropout' on his applications."

It doesn't occur to her that he might not want a career as she thinks of it. It doesn't occur to her that 'standup comedy' can be its own solid career — where she's from, it wasn't anymore, and it's not like she's exactly in the scene in Darrow. After receiving her memories from home, she's all the more determined to see through her own education: her schooling would be useful no matter which world she's in. Engineers are useful all the time, in countless ways.

Comedians can't boast the same, can they?

The kettle starts to shrill, saving Greta from the need to make an immediate response. She sets the tea to steeping, privately thinking that it's probably for the best that they went with a blend that won't be ruined by over-brewing, and sets the kettle carefully back onto the stove before turning to answer Regan.

"Does he want a career?" she asks, endeavoring to make it an honest question and not an inherently judgmental one. The answer might very well be 'no,' or it might be 'he doesn't know,' either of which would excuse, to her way of thinking, the decision to not throw himself into college. It might not be the traditional choice, or a respectable one — Regan's arguments remind her of things she's overheard other parents saying before, so it's not as if the girl is coming from a particularly outlandish place — but it's one he can quite literally afford to make. Darrow's stipend isn't so generous that it can be frittered away, but it's enough to live on without needing a well-paying job to get by.

Regan watches Greta busy herself with the kettle, wishing a little that she'd noticed it first so she could do something with her hands besides talk. She fidgets with her cuticles while she waits, and when Greta turns back to her, the question she asks makes Regan's stomach tip.

Does he want a career?

It's the simplest question, and it catches her so off guard that she doesn't even blink, at first. She just stills, staring at Greta with her thumbnail still pressed into the cuticle of another finger, like Greta's just pressed 'pause.'

Does he want a career? Regan realizes, abruptly and a little sickly, that she doesn't know. She'd just assumed that everyone wanted one. That's what being an adult in this kind of world meant, isn't it? You go to school, you grow up, you graduate, you enter a career in the field you studied in, and you work at a job you love, and build a life around it. Regan doesn't have anything like a five year plan, like some of her classmates already do, but she knows she wants to go into engineering, she wants to innovate technology for people in the Deaf community, and she can't do that without college, or a career.

Slowly, she lifts her hands.

"I... I mean." She frowns, then grimaces guiltily. "I guess I don't know."

It's clear from Regan's expression that the question has thrown her, either because it never occurred to her to ask it herself, or perhaps because she just hadn't expected to hear it from Greta. Her eventual, sheepish admission has Greta leaning towards the former option as the most likely. A private part of her could almost find that funny — it's not as if she or Anne have anything resembling careers here in Darrow. But she supposes one could argue that they both had careers of a sort back home (whether they're viable here or not), and that being flung so far into the future excuses a failure to meet contemporary norms. Neither Regan nor Richie have that excuse.

"He might not know, either," Greta gently points out. "Maybe he wants to hold off on college until he's certain."

Like Greta's question, the answer is a simple one, and it once again makes Regan stop in her mental tracks. Regan's been thinking about this for years. College wasn't a possibility for her after the creatures came. And now, here in Darrow, it is again. She'd lost her way for a little bit, sure, but she's back on track. This whole time, she'd thought that was all it was for Richie, too: that he'd lost his way, and he just needed to get back on track, and when he did, well.

But Greta's got a point. He might not know what he wants, or if college is even going to give it to him. And she didn't even really give him a chance to tell her that.

There's a slow, dawning horror on her face, and Regan lifts her hands to hide from it for a moment.

"I think I was an asshole," she admits.

"... That's a strong word," Greta says with a sympathetic wince, once Regan has lowered her hands enough to see it.

She knows that Regan has a solid idea of what she wants to do going forward. She also knows not to take that certainty for granted. Having more time to figure out what, exactly, you want to do with yourself could easily translate to taking more time. It's a luxury she sometimes finds hard to get her head round, but she's not sure it's a luxury she could really begrudge anyone.

"It can't have been that bad," she adds. At any rate, she can easily imagine that whatever arguments Regan put forth were ones he'd already heard from other sources, or would hear soon enough. Delaying college might be a fair decision, or even a reasonable one under certain circumstances, but Greta doesn't think it's especially common.

Maybe it wasn't that bad, but it feels like it. Regan had been firm in her stance, unwavering in the conviction that Richie is going to ruin his life by quitting college and losing out on a degree to chase a dream of dive bars and open mic nights. She hadn't let him really say his piece. She'd just decided he was wrong for him.

Oh, God. She'd been her father.

In the same way that Dad had decided Regan couldn't take care of herself after the creatures came, Regan had decided that Richie couldn't know his own mind enough to decide his future.

And, okay, maybe it isn't like that at all — college is a hugely far cry from surviving in silence during an apocalypse — but in this moment, it feels like it. No wonder he'd been upset. No wonder he hasn't texted her. She looks at Greta, mouth hanging slack in dismay.

"I just... I just assumed I knew better," she explains. "That I knew better than he could, what was... good for him, what was right for him."

Greta's first thought is that this sounds like a revelation that any parent could sympathize with easily; her second thought is that it probably wouldn't be helpful to describe Regan's behavior towards her then-boyfriend as parental. She's clever enough to draw that line on her own, if she can bear to. Instead, she makes a 'wait a moment' gesture before going to pour out the tea, preparing their cups the way she knows they each prefer, and then motions Regan towards the couch so they can sit a little more comfortably while they talk.

Once she's settled on the cushions, tea cooling on the coffee table, she ventures a diplomatic, "It's an easy mistake to make. We all make assumptions sometimes. Especially when we care about people, and want to make sure they're okay."

She pauses for a considering beat, then adds, "When Saoirse got her coat back, I assumed she was going to leave — disappear into the ocean. That's how it always goes in stories about selkies. I wasn't about to stop her, but it never even occurred to me to ask her what she would've wanted to do, if she got her coat back. Felt a bit ridiculous afterwards."

Edited 2023-05-18 17:17 (UTC)

Regan's never really heard the story of Saoirse getting her coat back, before. She's never even seen Saoirse's coat, not really. She wasn't here when Saoirse's friend Magnus magicked it to be a pendant instead of a coat, so it's only just ever been a necklace, to her. She curls up on the couch as she pays attention to Greta, trying to accept the anecdote for what it's meant to be: reassurance that sometimes, when someone is too close to a thing, it's hard to remember to ask the right questions.

It's hard advice to listen to through the misery she's indulging in.

"That's not really the same, though," she points out. "Saoirse never actually wanted to leave. Even though the stories are all like that, it's not like you had to argue with her about staying because you thought it'd be better for her. You're a great mom. I'm..." A terrible girlfriend. She doesn't want to say it. If she says it, it'll feel both too true and too much like fishing for reassurance.

"My point is that we all make assumptions that leave us feeling foolish later on," Greta says, not wanting that to get lost in the shuffle. For good measure, she adds, "I wouldn't have felt like a good mother if I'd abandoned Saoirse on the beach mid-swim because I was so certain she wasn't coming back. As I could've done, easily, if things had been just a little different."

Granted, with the way things had timed out, there hadn't really been any danger of that happening. But she can easily imagine a different version of events, one in which she'd dragged herself home with the dogs and left the poor girl to come back to an empty beach. That she didn't make a complete fool of herself and give Saoirse the fright of her young life is more down to luck than anything else that Greta might take credit for.

She can't imagine Greta ever looking foolish; she's so measured, in so many ways — baking puns aside — and she seems so sure of herself, even when Regan knows there's no way she can be. She sighs softly.

"I guess," she says. The sort of assumptions she'd made were exactly the kind she'd hated her father for making, one way or another. She rubs her face and grabs her tea to take a tentative sip of it. Once she's set it back down, she says, "I'll... I'll apologize. I'll go over to see him, if he won't answer, but... I don't want that sitting between us like it is." Even if they can't get back together as a result, Regan wants Richie to know, she knows she fucked up.

She hesitates, then picks up her tea again. "After tea," she adds, feeling cowardly, but also a little on the raw side. She needs to steady herself before she can do anything else.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only