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"Already dead," Kathy said dully. Talking about Sarah was almost easier. At least if she didn't think so hard about all the times she'd been her dad to someone else's Sarah. Like that teen she'd chased down. "When Raven came in, Dad was crouched--she'd run and tripped and cracked her skull on the edge of our old table. She probably didn't feel anything after she fell."

Edited 2017-02-23 01:08 (UTC)

"At least that was fast," Anders said. "I'm so sorry, Kathy."

He wished, more than ever, that he hadn't thrown Kathy's family in her face when she was back from the dead for a weekend. But that was just another thing to add to a growing stack of regrets,

"Yeah," Kathy said and was quiet for another few seconds. "So, umm, that was my Valentine's Day. Which was why I left before I got your lollipops. Raven told me and I, umm, didn't handle it well. So I just left. I couldn't stay on the island anymore."

"I don't blame you," Anders said. "And I just didn't check on you because I didn't want to be some weird ex-boyfriend who wouldn't leave you alone."

Poor word choice, Anders.

"Did you work it out with Raven?"

Kathy winced. Yeah, poor wording. But she didn't make an issue of it. It just seemed petty right now. "You may not be my boyfriend anymore," Kathy said, and she was proud of how her voice didn't waver. "But you're still my friend. And you're always welcome. Wherever I am. Whatever stupid day it is."

Despite everything she'd told him about the horrors of the time in LA, the warmth she was expressing made Anders smile.

"Not to change the subject, but technically I don't think we broke up," he mused. "Did we? Or does it happen automatically if one person dies?"

"Aren't we?" That lick of hope flared up so high in her heart that it almost hurt. She tamped it down, trying not to let it show. It would only hurt more if--"I think that's up to you more than anyone else. When I died, it was April of 2016. I might have come back in January of 2017, but it still feels like April to me."

She went silent. She'd probably said too much, too seriously. But that's what happened when she started getting things off her chest. She forgot where the off switch for her honesty was.

Funny though. The last time she'd said anything like this, she remembered feeling a lot happier and more hopeful about it.

"It still feels like April to you," Anders repeated dully, a flush of surprise and hope spreading through him. "And here I've been trying to be careful and give you space. Let you come to me if you were ready. All of that."

Of course things had changed for him since the April before; he wasn't made of wood. But he'd loved Kathy for a lot longer than ten months, and it hadn't been a switch he had turned off when she didn't come back.

"Come to you?" Kathy was flabbergasted. God, she would have wanted nothing more, but-- "Anders, I don't have the right to come to you. I mean, I left and you were so angry and you didn't want me to come back and then you and Dante..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "I was counting myself lucky that you still wanted to be my friend. Anything more than that was too much to hope for. You'd moved on. Found peace. it wasn't my place to come in and demand anything from you at all."

Anders took a second, putting himself in Kathy's place. Trying to decide if he was ready to rock this fragile little boat of her being back.

He'd never been one for caution.

"I was angry," he agreed, finally. "Maybe I needed some time to get my head in order. I don't know if it is in order, really. But if you're willing to give us a try -- Kathy, if that's demanding, I like you demanding."

"Mine's not," Kathy said bluntly. "I'm...I'm pretty fucked up, Anders. You have to know that. Going in. I'm not okay. There's still so much I haven't even had time to process yet. It's not going to be easy."

But god, being with Anders had always been the easiest thing in the world. She craved that again. Just something she didn't have to work at, to struggle to fit.

"And...there's Dante. I think...I think maybe you should talk to him. Before we agree to anything. Because as much as I want to be with you more than anything...I don't want my yes to come at the expense of whatever you have with Dante. I left. He didn't."

"Right. Dante." And with that, Anders was back in the real world, pulled out of the fantasy he'd been building in his head. "I should tell you, things aren't the same with him as they were when you left."

Which anyone with eyes could probably tell, but Anders was starting small, here.

"I'd noticed," Kathy agreed, curling around herself a little. She'd seen them together and the part of her that wasn't selfish was glad for them.

The parts that weren't were jealous (of both of them really), hurt, sad, and even a little angry. But she was trying really, really hard to focus on the parts of her that weren't selfish.

"He's happy around you in a way I don't think I've ever seen him be before," she added. "You're good together."

"I didn't plan on it," Anders said quickly, feeling guilty. "I wasn't looking for anything emotional from him. But now -- I think I'm in love with him, Kathy."

That was scary to say aloud, but he figured Kathy deserved to know what she was coming into. He chewed on his thumbnail. "Do you think it's possible to love more than one person at a time?"

Kathy needed a moment. Hearing Anders say it aloud tore at her heart as the sharp intake of breath over the line probably hinted at. But when she did speak, her voice was steady. Not strong, but steady. "Parker, Eliot, and Hardison manage it," she reminded. "Lots of societies believe in plural relationships. And no one expects you to love only one of your children, or siblings, or the like."

Her nails were pressing into her palms hard enough to leave half-moon indents in her skin. "I don't blame you for falling for him. I probably would have if that hadn't been something he emphatically didn't want. Grief has a way of bringing people together and it was me who put you guys through that, so..." She took another deep, shuddering breath. It was funny. Loving Anders made her want to not be fair or rational about this--and impossible to be anything but at the same time. "Just...Before you say anything to me for real, take some time to make sure it is real? Not just nostalgia for what we had or our friendship being as close as it is, but..."

Talking was getting harder now, but she had to push on, get it all out. "It's not that I think you don't know how you feel, I just won't be able to...handle it well...if you're mistaken."

"I know how I feel, but it wouldn't be fair at all to put you through that, especially not now," Anders agreed, once he'd exhaled the breath he'd been unconsciously holding through most of the time Kathy was talking. "So -- I won't say anything unless I'm ready to be with you all the way."

That was such an adult thing to say, and he knew it was the right thing to say, but it tore at his heart anyhow. Some part of him just loved her and wanted things to be easy for once; a larger part, if he was honest, couldn't swear that he was in love with Kathy the way he should be if they were going to pick up where they left off.

They needed time, then. Time and an awkward conversation with Dante.

"Funny," he added, after a moment. "We always did have the worst timing, didn't we?"

"We had two good months," Kathy said and then stopped.

Two months. They'd only had two months together and barely that. A little bit of Kathy wondered if it wouldn't just be better to let it go. She was just so tired of fighting and hoping and it still not being enough. Two months of a high school romance--most people would say it wouldn't have lasted anyway. Maybe she should leave that behind in LA, along with Banzai and her family.

"I hate to admit how much of that is my own idiocy."

But the way this conversation was lacerating her heart was nothing compared to how she felt when she thought of saying anything like that out loud.

She'd fight. For Anders.

"Some of it was me, too," Anders said, since it seemed like a better idea than telling Kathy she'd been an idiot again. "I knew how much I liked you, but I was so worried about hurting anyone I didn't admit things weren't right with Nathan until he was ready to go. And then ... then we had two months."

And to be fair, they really had been incredible months. There just weren't enough of them.

By god, they had been. And Kathy had been so busy looking forward to what was next, she didn't think she'd properly appreciated what she'd had. Because those had been the two best months of her life, hands down.

"You made me so happy," she said softly. "No matter what happens next, I just want you to know that I had never been happier than during those two months."

Anders smiled slightly into the phone, a melancholy twist in his stomach. He thought Kathy was being a little dramatic, but it wasn't as if she didn't have a good reason.

"Me either," he said. "Only time in my life I felt completely safe. We should've known it wouldn't last."

"Maybe," Kathy said. "I don't know. I mean, it couldn't last the way it was. Even if there weren't exes in Los Angeles, our situation would have at least changed. But I don't think it necessarily had to end the way it did."

"I think I can safely say it's not why people normally stop seeing each other," Anders said, voice laced with dark humor. "Oh, but I don't know what would have happened either. I just tend to be a pessimist about things like that. Always seems to me like everybody leaves eventually."

"But hey," Kathy said with deliberate lightness. "At least one of us came back."

So maybe things were changing for him?

"Maybe my luck's changing," Anders suggested, matching the deliberate lightness. "That'd be nice, at least."

"I hope so," Kathy said, realizing anew what Dante being a Nephilim could mean, what Vergil could mean. He had people who understood Limbo and demons with him. He had someone with a plan to stop the demons.

He no longer had an expiration date, not quite the same way.

"I really hope so."

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