adifferentlife | the world comes crashing down [[Kaine]]

Arriving back in Darrow had been a relief but jarring as well. Sybil had cuts on her arms, bruises around them, all hidden by the sleeves that she's pulled down to her wrists. She can't help but look over her shoulder, peer around every corner in suspicion.

She's promised Elizabeth she'll go to the hospital to have her injuries looked at, but the hospital is the last place she wants to go. They'll know her there and if they see her wounds they'll want to know how she came by them. That isn't something she's willing to share with the people she works with.

Sybil is at the only place she can imagine going. Standing outside Kaine's door, she knocks quickly, the taps urgent. "Kaine are you there?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

badtotheclone

"Mostly like the ocean?" I say. I hadn't really thought about the smell there, mostly just trying to fit in so that the locals didn't think we were witches or spies or whatever. I did not want to have to fight all of Atlantis.

From:

adifferentlife

"No, silly. Like waste," she says with her first smile of the night, giving him what she thinks is a significant look. "No sewers, of course."

From:

badtotheclone

"Ummm, no more than most farms," I say, although I haven't exactly been on a lot of farms, personally. "Either that or I just got used to it pretty quick. I noticed the quiet more than anything."

From:

adifferentlife

"I think you have a very strange idea of farms," she adds, thinking of the ones that surrounded Downton. "Unless it was spring, in which case you are likely correct."

"Quiet? Was it abandoned?"

From:

badtotheclone

"No. But there were no cars or trains or anything like that," I say. It's the sort of quiet you don't get normally, not in the city. Maybe she gets that kind of quiet where she's from but I'm not used to it. It was both nice and unnerving at the same time.

From:

adifferentlife

Sybil does laugh then, a sound that surprises her. She'd forgotten this over the past five days. Forgotten what it was to be happy and easy. "You'd hate my home. We had a car, but it was a rare enough thing still."

From:

badtotheclone

"I didn't hate the quiet, just took some getting used to. I think I'd like your home," I say, although I know I'd only like it because she's there. From what she's described and what I've learned about her time I'd probably chafe under how proper everything was supposed to be.

From:

adifferentlife

"Maybe someday you'll get to see something like it," she says softly. It's a thing that she's thought a few times now, wondering if they will ever have a chance to go back, or even see their homes. "Is it strange... How much home this place has become?"

From:

badtotheclone

"I think I'd like that," I say with a nod, although I know I mean that only if it meant seeing it with her. I know it would mean the world to Sybil if she got to go back home again.

"No, not strange. Doesn't replace your original home. Just a different home."

From:

adifferentlife

"I didn't think that would happen. Not until I married, at least." Then it would be expected. Sybil would make her home in some house in London or somewhere in the country. She'd have her own staff and house to oversee, and eventually children. "But that wasn't to happen at least until after the war."

From:

badtotheclone

"You were engaged?" I ask, somewhat surprised. It shouldn't surprise me because clearly she's a desirable person to be married to but I don't think I've heard her mention that she was engaged.

From:

adifferentlife

"Oh. No, I wasn't. But I would be, eventually." If any of the boys she once danced with eventually came back from the war, that was. She worried and fretted about it sometimes, not because of the lack of prospects, but because she lost so many that she had known her entire life it seemed. "It was what was done."

From:

badtotheclone

"Oh," I say, although I don't entirely understand. Not having a choice in that seems pretty messed up but she doesn't sound too upset about it. Maybe she's just resigned to it, which is messed up.

"Here it's completely your choice, isn't it?"

From:

adifferentlife

"I have as much a choice here as I would have had at home." She frowns, not understanding why he would think otherwise. "I'm the youngest. Should I have wished to not marry money would have been put aside for my care. But I wanted to marry. I still do."

From:

badtotheclone

"Oh, I just figure in your station you'd be forced to pick from a certain class," I admit. I don't know why I thought that other than I apparently have some horrible misconceptions of what life is like for someone of her stature.

"I'm glad that's not the case though."

From:

adifferentlife

His words sting more than she lets on, simply shaking her head. It's hard to not think of Branson and his admission to her of his affection and how if she'd said anything he would have been turned out from his job. "How would I have even met anyone not from that class?"

From:

badtotheclone

"You mean you only meet other Lords and Ladies?" I say. I don't even know what makes someone a Lord or a Lady, even, but I know Sybil is one. I don't think she really means that though, she doesn't seem the type to just stay with one social class. From what she's said before I know she's passionate about helping others of all classes.

From:

adifferentlife

"No. It's just different, Kaine." It's hard to explain and honestly it frustrates her a great deal. She doesn't know why their society should be so stratified, other than it's how it always has been. "It's the way things are."

From:

badtotheclone

"Okay," I say, not sure what else to say to that. I don't think I'll ever understand the world that she comes from. Hell, I don't even understand the world that I come from so that probably shouldn't be that big of a surprise.

From:

adifferentlife

It's enough tonight that he leaves it be. Sybil can't explain more and she's too tired to try. "Thank you for walking me home."

From:

badtotheclone

"You're welcome," I say with a nod. "And I'll be around in this neighborhood all night, okay?"

I'm trying to be more honest about stuff so I figure tell her that I'm going to watch over her, whether she wants me to her not, falls under that. Not that I'm phrasing it quite like that.

From:

adifferentlife

Tonight it is appreciated, very much so. Sybil squeezes his hand gently, the movement still making her arm sore when it tenses. “Thank you, again. You are very good to me.”