Room 504, Sunday Night

[intraspective]

She'd been alright getting back to the island. Holding it together and keeping a bounce in her step. She'd managed, even, to get through a shower--and was she ever glad to have a real shower again--but it was looking around her room, her things just as she'd left them--

Less than a week ago. More than seven months ago.

--that was making it hard for her to keep her composure. Ino settled herself--thinner than before but still herself--gingerly on her bed, her unfamiliar and yet almost too familiar bed, in a plain white shirt and grey leggings. Ino shrugged a bit, picking at the shirt.

She wasn't ready to sleep yet. Not now.

Not when things kept swirling around in her head. The quick patter of thoughts, persistent and aching, not letting her close her eyes and relax. Ino hadn't relaxed in months, not really, not daring to.

She was glad to be back. Seriously.

But it'd take time for her to be comfortable again.

[Door closed, post is oh so totally open!]

Comments

[intraspective]

"I'm fine now," Ino said, nettled, "why wouldn't I be?"

Besides the fact that she obviously wasn't exactly fine. Shush.

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"...'cause you just got back from seven months in the past, you're way too thin and you can't sleep?" he pointed out practically.

[intraspective]

"I did my best," she said, pulling away from him to go and sit on her bed, staring at the ground, "I did my best."

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"I know", he assured her, following her. Sitting next to her, his arm went round her shoulders and he leaned down to kiss her forehead.

[intraspective]

She let him, relaxing slightly against him. "It wasn't, you know, all bad. Just..." the world's longest survival exercise.

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"Just stuck out on your own with no money and not speaking the language", he finished. "At least you were in a city."

[intraspective]

Her lips twitched, almost a smile. "The money issues were solved by the first day," with light-fingers and no compunctions against stealing, "but yeah, at least at first I didn't know the language." Ino glanced at him. "Know it now though, and another. Wasn't always in a city."

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

He wasn't going to argue with her stealing to survive. Not for a second.

"Yeah? Where'd you go after Paris, then?"

[intraspective]

She rolled her eyes, not at him but at the memory. "We got a message to 'Go to London', you know, right? Well, uh, London's a lot harder to find than you'd think when you've got no concept of the geography around you. I wound up in Italy for a few months, looking for London."

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

Michael blinked.

"How come you got split up from Deadpool?"

[intraspective]

That got a half-shrug. "We all went our separate ways after a while. It was easier, I guess, than seeing people that reminded us of home."

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"I guess it would be, if you didn't think you were getting home", he said quietly. "And that was before the message to go to London?"

[intraspective]

"Yeah," she said with a carefully nonchalant shrug, "Jeff pretty much gave up in the first week, and Romeo took off to Italy to see if he could track down his ancestors and stop them from doing something stupid or whatever, I just sort... wandered."

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"Jeff left you?" he demands incredulously. "Your brother?"

[intraspective]

Another careful shrug. "It was... rather a mutual parting? I... I wasn't going to stick around when he was just giving up like that, and me refusing to give up only distressed him."

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"Still", Michael said, clearly unhappy with the thought. "Your brother. You never heard from him again after that?"

[intraspective]

"No," Ino said, "but it wasn't like I was in much communication with anyone either. And we're not, you know, sibling by blood or anything."

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"Shouldn't matter. Max and Isabel and me, we only think we're blood-related. We don't know."

[intraspective]

She glanced down. "That's just the way in happened, okay?"

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"Okay", he relented. He'd been more annoyed at Jeff than her, anyway.

[intraspective]

Ino leaned a bit more against him. "Thank you," she said, smiling slightly.

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

His arm went more tightly around her. "Anytime."

[intraspective]

"Yeah...." Ino looked sideways at him. "What did you do with your week?"

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"Not a whole lot", he said with a half-shrug. "Went to classes when they were on, didn't go to work."

He so was not volunteering the fact that he'd tried to blow up the angels.

[intraspective]

She laughed a little, softly, almost under her breath. "Must've been boring, I guess."