and then, it rolls on. (Dated Father's Day)

[drownedindreams]

It didn't matter that the kitchen was still covered in blood. It was streaked with her blood, and Jax was waiting for Scott - he'd made the phone call because he hadn't known who else to try, but it didn't matter - the dog still needed walked, and the fact that Macha's paws and tail were spotted a dark, rusty red and Tara's boots had left footprints on the stairs, the hem of her jeans was darkened. There was the smallest streak on her cheek that she didn't know about, and another one the back of one of her hands.

It was hers.

It was hers, in her kitchen; the fork, too - $4.99 at Macy's, two years ago, on clearance was her only thought - that was hers, hers from home.

Home. That was an odd concept now, because she knew. It wasn't just blood and the fork and thicker things that had come from 'Home', to her home, here. It was the file. It was the file with photographs and a coroner's report and police reports, it was the thing that said she died the day after she'd come here. Home - here - wasn't home -- and the home she remembered in California... that wasn't either. Home was where she was buried, where she was nothing but a memory and a crushing regret for some and her absence a triumph for others.

Her eyes were dead, red-rimmed and swollen from the tears she'd shed when she'd thrown up in the bathroom, when she'd stared at Jax and threw the tumbler against the wall where it'd shattered. Still, Macha needed to walk, and Tara wasn't thinking about where she was or where she'd been, or that they both had blood on them - she just let the dog lead the way.

Comments

[theresalwayshope]

Allison's time as a werewolf had changed her. The late walks she took every few nights, dressed in black and carrying her bow, the more affectionate way she treated members of her pack...even her response to a threat was different.

Before the change, she was sharper, she was ready. Now, she was more than ready when she spotted Tara outside their building. On her way home from picking up milk and butter so she could bake (she had a really dangerous craving for her mother's chocolate blueberry muffins), when she saw her friend and the blood that stained her, and poor little Macha's paws, she didn't hesitate to let every black impulse in her nature rise to greet them...to shield them, to protect them.

"Tara?" she called out, jogging up to her and the dog. One of her folding knives was already tucked into her palm, body placed and angled to keep Tara and Macha against the building, with Allison's on the outside, safeguarding them.

Her free hand reached for Tara's, catching the one that held Macha's lead, ready to try and take it from her.

"Tara, there's blood. I need to know if you or Macha are hurt." she pressed, urgent but calm. Already, that dark stillness was filling her like a cup, the cold and vicious stillness that had been her anchor as a werewolf. It filled her, second by second, each one a drop of blood she would spill if Tara was hurt.

Each one a blow she would strike if even the dog had a scratch on her.

[drownedindreams]

"Allison?" Confusion appears, overriding that odd emptiness that had been on her face when Tara hears her voice. She'd talked to her before, they'd been talking on the phone outside and she wonders absurdly if she hadn't gone out, if it would have still happened - if she'd be dead now, if the apartment would have gotten like that one way or another.

She makes that noise without meaning to, the noise that only Jax has heard; it's a noise like a wounded animal, and her face just falls when Allison asks if she'd hurt, and it's so ridiculous, it's ridiculous because she's not hurt, she's not hurt, she's dead. She's dead, and her sons and Jax are alone, and she's a dead woman walking and the sound - the sound turns into an odd mix of a laugh and a sob because what she said was just the wrong question or the right one.

"I'm dead," she says with no preamble, because that's the answer. She's dead, and there's no changing it.