New York City, Early July 2001 (May 20 Fandom Time)

[brat_inslayage]

So nobody had told Kennedy that according to some sources the world was scheduled to end on May 21, 2011; if they had, she'd have pointed out that it seemed to be right about the right time of year for that sort of thing, but hey, it was cool that they'd held out until the day after her birthday. Which was slightly irrelevant anyway, since for her 2011 was a long way off.

She had slightly more pressing concerns at the moment anyway. Her trip to Portugal had ended up stretching out to five weeks, and she'd come home with about three times the amount of luggage than she'd had when she left. Most of that was souvenirs for friends and family, but enough that the driver who'd picked her up from the airport, despite having worked for her family for years and being used to her enthusiastic packing tendencies by now, had looked mildly horrified upon finding her surrounded by suitcases at baggage claim. Getting all of this loot up to her apartment meant some seriously generous tipping, but that part had been easy. Getting it all unpacked, sorted out, and ready to send out to people, on the other hand? She was all on her own for that.

Kennedy stared at the piles of stuff strewn out around her living room, dug a hand into her hair, and whistled softly. "Oh, man. Where am I even gonna start with this?"

Bailey, who'd been dropped off this morning and had evidently done just fine in Jañe's care for the past few weeks, looked at her from the arm of the couch and just twitched his nose.

She snorted and reached out to pat the rabbit's head. "You're no help."

[[it's past in her timeline already, but since today is her birthday in game-time, well. post is oooopen for calls and emails and whatnot; sp entirely possible until evening, as usual.]]

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[life_inshadow]

So Tara knew it wasn't, strictly speaking, Kennedy's birthday anymore (and if there was space in her head for it to hurt about things like random time jumps, it would). She was getting a birthday phone call anyhow.

She waited until her mother was asleep and everyone else was out of the house before sneaking off to dial.

[brat_inslayage]

Kennedy had left her phone on the kitchen table, so when she heard it go off it took a couple of rings before she extracted herself from the middle of the pile of souvenirs, swerved around Bailey, and snagged it, grinning when she saw the caller ID screen.

"Hey, you," she said-- quietly, just in case-- as she straddled the chair backwards with her elbows on the backrest.

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"Hey," Tara returned, equally softly. A smile crept across her face at the familiar voice, and she closed her eyes to enjoy the moment. "I know it's not really your birthday, but it is for me here, so -- happy happy."

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"Thanks, babe." Tara might not be able to see it, but Kennedy's smile just possibly matched hers. "Upside to the unexpected time wacky: I get bonus birthday time." That was as exhaustive a calculation as she cared to do, thanks.

She leaned forward, resting her chin against the back of the chair, and looked out the window; the view of the city from this floor was fantastic. "There was a whole big fancy party and everything, but that was what I was missing. Well, mostly you."

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"Yeah?" Tara leaned against the wall, shutting out everything else. "Where? There, or in Portugal? Tell me about it and we can kind of pretend I was there."

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"Here. Well, at the house," Kennedy clarified. "It was-- god, tents on the lawn and a band, the whole deal, short of winged unicorns. Total huge deal, and Mom threw me a little thing when I got to her place too, but I... kinda liked my party last year better. Not that I said so. Jañe tried to save a seat for you, even. She said to say hi, by the way."

She tracked the lights of a passing westbound plane for a moment. "You doing okay?"

Despite having no shortage of things to keep herself occupied, she worried. A lot.

[life_inshadow]

Tara imagined it -- the band, the tents, the probably ridiculous presents Kennedy had gotten.

She wished she had been there. "Well," she said evenly, "it's hard to top Fast Eddie's. You would have needed those unicorns. And ... tell Jañe I said hi back."

The question took some time to answer. "I'm fine," she said. "Mom's basically sleeping a lot, and as long as I'm with her the rest of my family doesn't do anything too, y'know ... it's not bad. Just a little lonely."

[brat_inslayage]

"Tell your mom hi for me and we can call it fair, but will do. I'm taking the kid out to the zoo tomorrow, anyway," Kennedy promised, a slight frown crossing her face-- not because of anything Tara had said, but what she hadn't. The long silence had been rather eloquent. Well, and the loneliness part. That was frown-inducing. "Hey. You've got me, sort of, for a while, and I got a bunch of pictures from some of the museums in Lisbon for you, and-- god, Bailey, don't chew on that!"

The end of that exclamation might have been drowned out by the scrape of chair legs against the floor and Kennedy laughing a little as she hurried across the apartment to rescue one of Constance's books from a curious bunny.

[life_inshadow]

"Was it something really expensive?" Tara asked, a tiny bit anxious. "You should give him one of those chewy snack things. They keep him all bunny-busy."

She didn't want to talk about home much, no.

[brat_inslayage]

"It's fine," Kennedy said quickly; she wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear as she scooped Bailey up in one hand and brushed at the corner of the book with the other. "Yay for fancy books with metal thingies on the corners, or Constance was gonna kill me. He didn't get the paper yet."

Actually, there were some teeth marks on the leather of the book's cover, but the paper was--

"Okay, much." Kennedy's wince was practically audible over the phone. "No words, at least?"

Maybe it wasn't her finest moment, but at least it might be a bit of a distraction.

[life_inshadow]

Tara sucked in her breath through her teeth. "Well, I mean, it's kind of her fault, right?" she reasoned. "She shouldn't leave the really really fancy books with you and the bunny. So ... maybe don't worry? Or maybe she just won't notice."

Distraction was awesome.

[brat_inslayage]

"Well, I wasn't leaving Bailey in his cage the whole time," Kennedy said firmly, letting him perch on her shoulder while she dug around in the bag Jañe had left for the treats. "I mean, seriously. He needs room to run around. Do you think I could take him to the park? I--"

She paused, and burst out laughing. "Oh, god. Tara. I actually sound like a pet owner now."

[life_inshadow]

"Um, duh," Tara said, laughing a little. "You should, honey. Bailey is awesome."

"Do you want to hear about how Mr. Moxy keeps trying to eat the flowers people bring for my mom? We have to put them way high up so he can't."

[brat_inslayage]

"Aw, Mox," Kennedy replied as she flopped onto the couch and let Bailey get comfortable on her stomach. (And couldn't help wishing she was having this conversation with Tara in person, not just over the phone.) "They haven't made him get sick, have they? I mean, he hasn't eaten enough of them to-- y'know, I miss him glaring at me."

A beat, then, as she stroked Bailey's ears: "I miss you."

[life_inshadow]

"No, no, we caught him before anything bad happened, promise," Tara said. "He's napping right now. Same as always."

A beat, then: "I miss you too. Always."

[brat_inslayage]

This whole thing about not being able to hug her from over the phone made Kennedy a little crazy; Bailey had to deal with some extra vigorous petting instead.

"Me too, babe." So her voice was a little husky there. Sue her. "Sleeping gets kinda lonely, you know?"

[life_inshadow]

"I know," Tara said, and she hugged herself with her free arm and wished she was hugging Kennedy. "My bed feels all huge. It's ... even when things were crazy in Fandom, I had you, y'know? I really miss that a lot."

[brat_inslayage]

"Yeah." Kennedy suddenly found herself with a bunny hopping up and settling down beside her head and grinned crookedly.

"I have to make my own breakfast now," she went on with a tiny hint of whine that was about halfway playful. "Do you have any idea how much of an ongoing disaster this is?"

[life_inshadow]

"They have special packages of cereal with little cartons of milk attached," Tara teased. "You could probably manage that."

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"I make a mess of the milk cartons, trying to open them," Kennedy tried to insist, even though she was pretty sure Tara wasn't going to buy that. "It's totally hopeless."

[life_inshadow]

"Maybe when my mom gets better I'll come to New York and make breakfast for you," Tara said, not really believing it would happen. "I mean ... it would be nice. Is all."

[brat_inslayage]

Kennedy didn't really expect that to happen either, which was why she was glad Tara couldn't see the wistful expression on her face. "That'd be awesome," she tried; brash reassurance that everything would be fine just seemed like an incredibly cruel thing to do. "I mean, someone has to appreciate this kitchen. And rescue me from living on takeout."

She was trying really, really hard for the tone of their old playful banter; she was sort of succeeding, but it was hard to do that when the things left unsaid kept... hovering just in the background.

[life_inshadow]

"I'd take the takeout," Tara said, a bit too eagerly, then caught herself. "Sorry. I've been, um, cooking. Kind of a lot. It's sort of wearing me out."

Cooking and cleaning and housework, and this was as close to whining as she'd let herself come. And she felt guilty about even that.

"It's -- not that bad."

[brat_inslayage]

"Wish I could help," Kennedy said a little miserably. She knew perfectly well there was no way Tara would ever let her offer to hire someone to help, even if it was her own default solution, and what little she did in the way of fending for herself was enough of the suck that she really hated the idea of Tara taking care of the whole family herself.

...also now she felt kind of bad for insinuating Tara should come cook for her.

"Sorry, baby, I didn't mean to--" She sighed. "Okay. If you come visit, I promise, I'll spoil the hell out of you. No cooking."

[life_inshadow]

"But it'd be different to do it for you," Tara insisted. Stop trying to make it better, she wanted to say, but didn't.

She was just tired. Soon she'd see Kennedy and things would be -- maybe not fine. But better. It was just the phone making things seem so distant.

She drew a breath and ran a hand over Moxy's back. "I should ... maybe I should go," she said. "I'll call again as soon as I can, okay? Even if you're 40 or something by then."

[brat_inslayage]

Trying to make things better was... an instinct she couldn't really shake. More or less ever.

"Already?" Maybe it was selfish of her, but Kennedy couldn't help sounding disappointed; going from seeing each other just about every day to a few short phone calls every so often was a huge adjustment, and if she was honest she wasn't handling it really well. It was stupid to get pouty over going almost two months on her end without girlfriend-snuggles, when she could tell things weren't great for Tara, but...

Well, she managed to keep from playing the but it's my (sort of) birthday card, at least.

"Okay," she relented, albeit reluctantly. "Talk to you hopefully before I hit my mid-life crisis, right?"

Kennedy paused, curled her fingers up in Bailey's fur as if she were squeezing Tara's hand-- almost, but nowhere near close enough to pretend. "Love you."

[life_inshadow]

"People will be home soon." It was all the explanation Tara could offer; the truth was that missing someone this hard ground at her. It was almost easier when they didn't talk, when she could go back to being the lonely girl she'd been before Fandom.

"And ... okay. I love you too."

Don't get old without me, she thought.

[brat_inslayage]

If Kennedy stopped to think about it, it was making her a little more crazy than she could handle with any grace to sit on her hands and not barge in to the rescue. The brain-hurty came from realizing that the fact that she cared so much was holding her back from... doing what she wished she could because she cared so much.

"I'm sorta there with you in spirit and stuff," she said finally, only meaning to help. "Take care of yourself, babe."

Damn. She eyed the heavy bag set up in the corner of her living room; hitting things sounded like a really good idea right now.

[life_inshadow]

"I'm ... really trying." And that didn't sound quite as hopeful as Tara wanted it to, but she was trying. "Bye, honey."

She was going to make some tea and find something to do that didn't make her feel useless and trapped.

[brat_inslayage]

"You always do, right?" Despite her attempts at being upbeat, that note in Tara's voice made Kennedy's heart break a little bit. "Bye, baby."

She lay on the couch for a few more minutes with her eyes closed after she'd thumbed the End Call button, then stood and went to go beat the hell out of the punching bag for a while. It probably wouldn't make her feel that much better, but something tangible to focus her attention on was better than nothing.