refusedtocall | sooner or later, God'll cut you down

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sooner or later, God'll cut you down

She knows he's there when he sets foot through the doorway. He isn't in her line of sight yet, he doesn't make a sound, but she can feel it anyway, the air thick with tension and something more than that, a sense of foreboding stronger than any of the fear she's felt over the past few months. It's been hell, Carla Jean will readily admit to that, never knowing when she'll spot a familiar figure in her peripheral vision or hear the click of a gun's safety in the dark, an echo of that goddamn sinister voice in her head. Up until now, it's all been taunts. She's learned how to deal with it, to balance potential danger with the visions that she knows people have been having. She's learned properly how to shoot a gun, keeps it on her at all times, while having the sense not to draw it just because she's spooked (which is good, because she's that more often than not). All her life, she's been a sensible girl, pragmatic. Just having that turned on its head, no longer knowing if or when she can trust her own senses, would be enough to drive her crazy, but these circumstances make it that much worse. This son of a bitch took everything from her once before, including her own life. Even if he's just been biding his time, she's had no intention of letting him do the same again.

If only she had a head for these things like Llewelyn did, she thinks now, standing just inside the door frame, taking a moment to try to catch her breath. Her husband, God rest his soul, might have been dumb enough to get himself into all that trouble in the first place, but he would have had more of a sense for what to expect from this, how best to handle herself. She could go in shooting, but she's not sure that would do any good. If he is here, if her gut is right about this, then waiting to kill her on sight wouldn't be his style. The sick bastard would never leave it that simple.

Besides, though she has no way of knowing what he might have seen here, the last time they encountered each other, she was a mess, newly widowed, having just buried her grandmother, still wearing the dress from the funeral, shaken and emotional and barely able to make sense of what had happened at all. She knows more now. Though she's had just as much to worry about, this time, it's hardened her, left her sure of what she has to do and how. It means she'll have the element of surprise on her side. The girl he saw in her childhood bedroom that day wouldn't have been carrying a loaded pistol, and wouldn't have used it, either. Now, she won't have to hesitate.

When she pushes open the bedroom door and walks inside, he's sitting there, just like she predicted, just like before. The sight of him, half-hidden in shadow, still makes her breath catch in her chest, but she keeps her expression even, not reaching for the gun that's obscured by her sweater, though she's distinctly aware of its presence now, mentally going over everything Sean taught her about it. He's armed, too, a shotgun pointed at her just like before, but she keeps her gaze on his face rather than the barrel. If he hasn't pulled the trigger yet, he won't without warning, and she'll have him gone before then.

"Hello, Mrs. Moss," he says, voice quiet.

"Hello, Mr. Chigurh," she returns. There's little inflection in her voice, but he smiles, the look of it chilling. In spite of that, she finds it almost satisfying. Terrified or not, she has the upper hand here, and even the simplest way she can surprise him goes a long damn way.

"You've learned a few things since I saw you last."

She shrugs. "Dyin'll do that to a girl."

"Yes," he agrees, though it's not something he's had any experience with. All this time, he's seemed immortal, left a trail of bodies in his wake that she's sure is even longer than she knows about. All of that, and now he's about to die at the hands of a nineteen year old girl. "You know why I'm here, don't you?"

"To finish what you started, I reckon," she replies. Sure of herself as she might be, there's a flicker of fear in her wide eyes at that. Standing in a room with someone who wishes her dead isn't exactly comforting.

"Yes," he says again. If she didn't know better, she'd think he sounded almost sorry. "You understand."

"I do," she confirms. Now, she thinks. She doesn't want to put it off any longer. She doesn't want to take any chances, either. "I understand that you're the reason my husband died, and a whole lot of others besides. I understand that it's not about the money anymore, since I never had that in the first place. I understand that, somehow, you think you're right in doin' all this."

Chigurh blinks once, twice, clearly confused, but with a trace of amusement alongside it. He's humoring her, she thinks, letting her say her piece, because he thinks he knows how this is going to end: like it did before, with her dead on her bedroom floor. He doesn't have a clue what's coming for him.

"You know, I thought about havin' a coin on hand when you finally found me," she continues, exhaling what might be a laugh under any other circumstances. "Tryin' to get you to call it, see how you like it. But then I realized that, no matter how it went, I was gonna do the same thing."

Quickly, she pulls the gun out of the waist of her jeans, leveling it at him, then adds without a pause, not giving him time to react, "This is for Llewelyn."

The first shot hits him square in the chest. He groans with it, letting go of his shotgun to press his palm over the wound, and stares up at her in clear confusion. She doesn't smile. She just fires again — the next shot goes through the hand in question — and then again and again, with increasingly less precision, until the trigger clicks, the gun's chamber empty, and Chigurh's body slumps to the floor.

Or, at least, to what should be the floor. It isn't wood under her feet when she looks down, though, but sand, a cool breeze off the ocean blowing through her hair, and she doesn't know what in God's name happened to the hut, but she feels crazier now than she ever did catching glimpses of Chigurh in the shadows. He was clearly real after all. This seems far more improbable, only the hot metal of the gun she's still holding coming as any kind of a relief. The stretch of beach doesn't even look familiar, she thinks, though at least it's quiet, no one reacting to the body in front of her. Hands dropping to her sides, she draws in a deep breath. Where she is and whatever's happened, they can wait. She needs a minute to take in what's happened, to deal with the sight in front of her. It's not until she blinks that she realizes there are tears in her eyes, and she's still not sure what they're from — the belated panic that her chest is tight with, the grief she's never shaken, or just pure relief.

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It's been a rough week.

Kate's been spending a lot of time at the beach with Jeff, letting the dog run free when there aren't very many people wandering around. She lost her job, which isn't a surprise, there were the two days she spent unable to move, unable to speak, and although she's okay now, it's still not a memory she loves having. There's been a lot of really bad shit that's gone on, but she can't deny there have been bright spots throughout. Newt, for one. Chris and Jesse, the things they've done for her, the way they both tried so hard to help. And now, standing just behind Carla Jean, she's found another.

She doesn't even register the body at first, but when she does, it's doesn't completely surprise her. She remembers when it was happening, when people were seeing things, when Carla Jean seemed on edge more often than not. She remembers the day in the cemetery, Carla Jean with her gun, pointing it at no one, and Kate realizes it's not no one, not anymore. And with everything else that's happened, she doesn't feel like the body is that shocking. Just another part of a very rough week.

And the thing is, if she's killed him, Kate believes she has a damn good reason to have done it.

"Carla Jean?" she asks as Jeff trots forward, sniffing the sand. She needs to be sure. Harley remembers her, but Reggie doesn't, and even though there's this horrible scene right here on the beach, even though she knows Carla Jean probably needs help, she just needs to be sure.

The voice comes as a surprise, prompting Carla Jean to suck in a sharp breath, as if the sound has somehow brought her back to reality. All of this, of course, is far too real as it is, but she's been half-dazed, still trying to process what's happened. No matter how long she's been half-expecting this, preparing for the possibility of the worst, it's a task a hell of a lot easier in theory than in actual practice. Theory didn't involve the act of killing someone, of staring down at a body with bullet holes in it and knowing she put them there. Theory didn't involve the sick satisfaction of what she supposes might be revenge, though it's self-preservation in equal parts. She can content herself with that. He killed her once before, and he would have done so again if she hadn't beaten him to it.

Tense as it's left her, all of this having barely begun to sink in yet, she relaxes some when she realizes that the person calling her name is one she knows, a friend. "Kate," she says, exhaling the breath she'd drawn in heavily. The dog with her is one Carla Jean doesn't recognize, but that doesn't matter much. It's that she knows the girl that counts, especially when she can't be entirely sure of where she is. She swallows hard, brushing her free hand under her eyes, though it's a precautionary measure more than anything else. "Jesus."

"Holy shit," Kate says and yeah, there's a body, and she knows what whatever's just happened to Carla Jean, it's pretty fucking serious, but she can't stop her feet from carrying her across the sand. For a second, she stands there, then she throws her arms around Carla Jean and it's probably the worst time in the world to be giving someone a hug, but she can't not. Because she's missed her so much, more than she's ever let herself dwell on for very long, but it's impossible to deny when she's here and she remembers.

"Hi," she says, pulling back a little. Her gaze drifts to the body briefly and she realizes they're probably going to have to do something about it. Maybe they can just leave him on the beach as long as there's nothing to tie him to Carla Jean or maybe the police here will believe it's self-defense. Her mind is already racing, trying to decide who to call and she thinks Forrest might be able to help them better than anyone else she knows and she's pretty sure he won't ask too many questions. "Sorry."

It's really not the kind of greeting that Carla Jean is expecting at a time like this, but she isn't bothered by that, just confused. Hell, if anything, it means a lot that Kate could see her standing over a body, a gun in her hand, and decide to give her a hug, even if she's never been all that prone to such open affection herself. Too stunned to do much else, she rests her free hand against Kate's arm, dropping it again when Kate draws back. Underneath everything else, she's just relieved, plain and simple, despite the hummingbird-quick beat of her heart. With Kate, she can really let herself feel that.

"Hey," she says, breath still not quite steady. At least this means she might have some answers, too, as to how she wound up on this beach. She won't have to deal with explaining this to a stranger, either, though she has nothing to hide. This is just easier. "Turns out I wasn't crazy after all."

"No way," Kate says, glancing to the body briefly. She remembers that Halloween well. It had turned out no one was crazy, really, that the things they'd been seeing had all manifested and she'd done her best to keep out of the way and lay low that day. In the same instant, she realizes how much time has passed between them. A full year, really, time in which Kate had disappeared from the island and come to Darrow instead, time in which a lot of things had changed.

And yet she's so happy to see Carla Jean that she doesn't think a single one of those changes will matter.

"Should we do something about him?" she asks, her hand still on Carla Jean's arm. It's like she thinks letting go of her means she'll disappear again and that's not something Kate's about to let happen.

"I don't know," Carla Jean says after a long moment, exhaling heavily. That seems to be universal right about now, though in this case, it takes up nearly all of her focus. The rest can wait. With Kate here, however unusual the way she'd approached might have been, she's sure that wherever they are has to be alright, that there's some explanation for it. The body, however, is a different story. Granted, if anyone found them now, she could easily call it self-defense — because it was, really, even if she shot first and had the upper hand the whole time, the element of surprise working in her favor — but it's still a little strange, Chigurh's corpse just lying on the beach. "Not sure there's much else to do. Or that it makes a difference."

"Well, this place... it's a little different from the island," Kate says and she slips her hand into Carla Jean's under the guise of giving comfort, when the reality is that she's taking it. "There's a real police force and most of them aren't from other places like we are. Some of them are, some of them get it, but a lot of them think they're from here and they don't really love the idea of outsiders."

"Should we just leave him here?" she asks. Whoever he is, she doesn't give a shit about him. She knows at least some of what he's done to Carla Jean and her husband and she knows he wanted to kill Carla Jean. That's all she needs to know. As far as she's concerned, the crabs can pick his eyes out and she won't give a damn.

Carla Jean does her best to follow along with what Kate tells her, though it's a lot to try to take in at once, at least at a time like this. Much as she hates to admit it, she's too used to the island for that, and used to what came before. Either place, she's sure, this would have been understandable, pure logic. It might be here, too, but she's had trouble enough for months now, never knowing what was in her head and what was real. She doesn't exactly want to stand around waiting for any more, even if it's difficult to take her eyes off the body, as if half-expecting it to come back to life. Oh, she knows full well that he's as dead as it's possible to be, but she's so used to being afraid of him now that it's a difficult thing to fully accept, the fact that it's finally over, that she survived.

"Might be easier to," she says slowly, keeping Kate's hand in her own as she shrugs, a slow breath leaving her. "We try to move him, it's just gonna draw more attention."

Kate nods, because she doesn't think the two of them would have much luck moving him anyway. He looks pretty big and now he's dead and the two of them are on the small side. The last thing she wants is to get caught trying to move a body and end up in jail. The past few days have been shitty enough without adding that to the list and she's not about to let Carla Jean end up in jail either. Not over this.

"We should walk away," she suggests, taking a step away, tugging gently at Carla Jean's hand. There's no one really around to see them and this way, she'll be able to explain a little better, wrap her head around what's happened. "We can go to my place, I can try to make sense of all this for you. I mean, as much as it'll ever make sense. It's kind of like the island in that way, a lot of stuff just doesn't, you know, and you have to let it slide or you'll go nuts trying to figure it all out."

"And even then, it might just drive you nuts anyway?" Carla Jean asks, as close to a joke as she can manage at a time like this, letting Kate start to lead her away from the body. If anything, despite how confused she is, she feels saner than she has in a long time, stunned and lost but clear-headed. After months of doubting her own senses, the importance of that isn't something she can diminish. It makes the rest of this seem all the more bearable, too, especially with a friend's hand in her own.

Actually looking away from Chigurh is surprisingly difficult, but she makes herself do it anyway. It might help her peace of mind, but just hanging around the body is only going to be an invitation for trouble, and she's had more than enough of that to last her a goddamn lifetime. "Alright, that sounds good."

"There'll be a package waiting for you, too," she says, glancing over her shoulder at the body one more time before she forces herself to turn away entirely. "It's sort of like the island in that we can't leave, but a lot of stuff is different. There's a package for you when you get here with money and an I.D. card and a key to an apartment." She finds herself wondering where Carla Jean will be, if maybe they can just ignore whatever apartment this place tries to put her in and move her into Kate's instead.

She's lived on her own for almost a year now, but with Carla Jean here in front of her, she suddenly can't imagine going back to being alone.

"I've been here for ten months," she says, looking over at her as they walk. "I guess that's not what you remember though, huh?" Because she remembers that Halloween, she remembers what had happened, and that's already a long time in the past for her.

"Not in the slightest," she replies with a shake of her head, though she knows Kate would have no reason to lie about it. If she says she's been here, then she's been here, and Carla Jean supposes a person being in two places at once isn't any stranger than her showing up somewhere after she died, or on the same nonsensical island twice, with no memories of the first time. Trying to figure out how it could be possible isn't so important right now. Taking all of this in is, and getting her heart to beat normally again, adrenaline keeping its pace too quick for comfort. "I just saw you, before all this. So there's money and an apartment key? That's definitely new."

"Yeah, there's a lot of stuff here that's different," she says with a nod. She wants to look over her shoulder again, make sure no one's discovered the body yet, but she thinks that might look suspicious and so she keeps her gaze forward and steady, watching the train station slowly come into view. It's not far, but it feels like it's going to take ages to get away from that man back on the beach.

"Different in a good way," she says, looking over at Carla Jean. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I have missed you so much, but this place... it's easier than the island. For me, anyway. Some stuff sucks, like Reggie is here, but he's different and older and he doesn't remember the island and it doesn't suck that he's here, of course, he's still pretty much one of my favourite people ever, but it sucked at first. Wanting him to remember, knowing he didn't. Harley's here, too, he remembers everything at least, which is good and wow, sorry, this is a lot of information all at once."

"It's alright," Carla Jean says. In a way, she's grateful for it, though she wouldn't know how to explain that. It just keeps her focused, keeps her thoughts from drifting too fully back to the body left behind them. Later, she thinks, she'll come see if anyone's found it or not, the beach at least being a pretty innocent location. For now, though, she has to keep going, the only way she's ever been able to deal with much of anything. Besides, it seems better to take it all in sooner rather than get it in bits and pieces, or to be surprised later on. "So Harley remembers everything but Reggie doesn't. I guess that makes sense. I was apparently on the island before and I don't remember that, either."

"Yeah, I know it's happened before," she says, nodding. "It was so weird at first, though, having Reggie here, but not really having Reggie..." She trails off and shrugs, because it's better now. He might not have memories of the island, but he's become her friend again, even if things aren't quite the same. It's probably better this way, she thinks, with the feelings she had for him mellowing out into something easier, something that doesn't put any kind of pressure or expectation on him.

"I didn't tell him," she admits. "About the island. He had so much other shit going on when he got here, it seemed kind of selfish to want to tell him about it. I'm wondering if maybe I should have by now, but it seems like it's way too late for that." She's left it for too long, if she tells him now, he's just going to want to know why she didn't bring it up earlier.

"Well, it would be a weird thing to try to tell anyone," Carla Jean says, mouth twisting to the side. She doesn't know Reggie well enough herself to have any idea how something like that would go over, especially since he's apparently so much older here, but she can understand Kate's logic regardless. Some things are just better kept to oneself. It's not like telling him would change anything, might somehow make him remember. "You want me not to mention it either?"

"Unless you think we should?" she asks as they get close to the train station. It's something she still wonders about almost every time she sees Reggie. Half the time she thinks it's probably just better that he doesn't know, that she doesn't complicate his life -- or her own -- any further, but the other half the time, she feels like she's lying to him and she doesn't love that. She's good at it, lying isn't a thing she has any real problem with, but she still doesn't like lying to Reggie.

"Anyway, it's not super important right now," she says, climbing the stairs and pulling open the door of the station. "There's the information booth. It'll have a package for you and I'm sorry in advance for how fucking creepy it is, but I also hope you're in my building."

"I don't think it'll make that much difference," Carla Jean says frankly. "So we might as well just keep it to ourselves." Of course, there's every chance that it could backfire, if there are enough other people here who also remember the island and might mention it, but there are ways around that, too. She barely knew Reggie on the island, for example. If she really needed to, Kate could probably claim the same, blame it on differences in time. It's dishonest, but it's a small dishonesty.

Eyeing the train station almost suspiciously as they walk up to it, she nevertheless doesn't hesitate to step inside when Kate opens the door. When this seems to be a commonplace sort of occurrence, there's no reason not to. "Fuckin' creepy sounds about right, anyway," she says. "So they'll just know it's mine?"

"It'll have your name on it," Kate tells her, crossing toward the information booth and nodding at the guy who's currently behind the desk. They've never talked much, but it's the same guy who always took over for her whenever she worked and he nods back, giving her a bit of a smile before he slides the envelope over to them.

"Here," Kate says, turning back to Carla Jean with the envelope. "I worked here for a little while, I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out where the envelopes were. I even broke into the security office with a guy I know to see if we could find some security tapes with something on it, but we didn't come up with anything."

Carla Jean raises a brow, but she doesn't comment on what Kate's just told her about breaking into the office. Somehow, it doesn't really surprise her, and anyway, right now, any information Kate has to give her is useful. It's a hell of a lot better than being thrown into this on her own. Besides, Lord knows she wouldn't have wanted anyone else to find her standing over that body, even if she thinks she might have been able to make a good case for herself. (He was, after all, armed as well.)

"This is even weirder than showin' up on that island was," she says, taking the envelope from Kate and opening it, beginning to look at its contents. "So what am I doin' with all this?"

"I know," she agrees, looking down, watching Carla Jean sift through the contents. Darrow, for all that she's happier here, is a hell of a lot weirder than the island in a lot of ways, the envelopes being only the beginning and there's no way to even explain all of that, no matter how hard she tries, so she shrugs a little and tries for a smile.

"It's to make the transition easier, I guess," she says. "There's a bank card and some money and there's a phone. And that card will tell you which apartment you're in." She can see Dimera written on the card and when she looks closer, she has to laugh, because this place has already figured out what Kate is sure would have taken her at least a little while longer to suggest. "That's the apartment I'm in already."

It's more than a little surprising — and creepy, honestly, like someone knew they'd been living together already — but Carla Jean can't help laughing, too. Something about the idea of it just puts her at ease. She's never so much as visited a city like this, let alone lived in one, and though she stayed in a hut by herself on the island for a while, she still isn't really used to living alone. Having Kate around would have helped anyway, but this will do so more, is bound to get her settled here more quickly than she would have otherwise.

"And it didn't even ask you first," she says, shaking her head. "Hope that means you're up for havin' a roommate again."

"What else is the second bedroom for?" Kate asks with a smile, because it's just been empty all this time and she's never been quite sure why this place gave her an apartment with two bedrooms, but now she gets it. Maybe it's been waiting for this all along and she can't say she's sad about it. Having Carla Jean around again will be amazing. It's never going to be like it was on the island and she's cool with that, she's completely into moving forward, but it's still familiar and, if she's honest. she's never had a friend like Carla Jean before. She's missed her.

"I'd be sad if you decided to live somewhere else. Oh, but there's a guy," she adds suddenly, realizing she'd told Newt only the day before that it's okay for him to come into her place without knocking. "I mean, not a guy who lives there, but a guy I'm dating, he might show up unannounced and just walk in, because I told him it was okay to do that. Just so, y'know, he doesn't scare the shit out of you."

"I'll try not to pull my gun on him," Carla Jean says wryly, just barely managing to bite back a laugh. It has to be a good sign, she thinks, that she can joke about what just happened, however obliquely, and how insane it made her feel for months on end. Back on the island, before actually facing Chigurh, she's not sure any warning would actually have kept her from being startled. Now, she'll just have to keep that in mind. That, or make a point of scaring the shit out of him in turn. Having a weapon could be helpful. "So who's this guy? I need to hear more about him than that."

Kate tries to imagine Newt's reaction to having a gun pulled on him and she laughs, muffling the sound against her palm. Maybe they shouldn't be joking about something like that, not when she's still well aware of the body they've left behind on the beach, but she knows what that guy did. She knows what he deserved.

"His name is Newt. He's, uh... we just started dating. We've been on like, four dates now," she says, which doesn't seem like it's enough for him to just be walking into her apartment, but it is. It's enough. "He's a goddamn genius, he's so smart and he's so much fun and he's..." She really doesn't want to bring up the casket now, but he was so good during that. "He's a really, really good guy."

"Well, that's what counts," Carla Jean says, shrugging easily, though she looks pleased to hear it. Strange as it is to think about Kate having just started to date someone when, the last she checked, she was already dating someone, she's already picked up on the fact that there's a lot she's going to have to catch up on. This, she supposes, is one of those things she's been missing out on. "There isn't anyone else who's just gonna come walkin' in, is there?"

"No, everyone else I know knocks first," she says with a smile, though it fades a little. She knows how weird this all has to be, because the last thing Carla Jean would have known is last Halloween and she's aware of how much things have changed for her in that time. It's been a full year.

"I guess you've figured out the whole time thing is, uh... a little different," she says as they head toward the apartment building. "I mean, it's been ten months since I got here, like I said. A whole year since everyone was seeing stuff on the island." She knows it's probably easier for Carla Jean to accept than it might be for someone who'd never been on the island, but it still can't be the sort of thing that a person just adjusts to without a little time.

"You know, it really is probably a good thing you found me," Carla Jean says. "Anyone else, and I think I'd have a lot more trouble believing this." She would believe it, if only because she's seen and been through too much now not to, but her skepticism with a stranger would be a hell of a lot higher than it is now with Kate. She has more patience now, too, than she otherwise might have. With so much to try to make sense of, she thinks she'll need it. "So a whole year, huh? I expect to hear all about it."

Kate gives a little laugh at that and shrugs, because sometimes she feels like not much has happened in that time, but she knows it can't be true. She feels different in a lot of ways, even if most of that is just the product of being a year older.

"How about the short version now? I have another dog, her name is Jeff. And um... well, Harley stopped talking to me for awhile," she admits. "But that was sort of my fault, since I might have maybe kissed him." She deserves to catch hell for that from someone other than Harley, but no one else even knows.

"You did what now?" Carla Jean asks, brow raising sharply. That's more than enough to get and hold her attention, making the rest not quite so consequential for the moment. Granted, it's not really her business if they do or don't want to kiss or whatever, but if it's enough for them to stop speaking, then it must be a pretty big deal. For that matter, there's probably something more to it than what she's been told, because just a kiss doesn't seem like something to make that much of. "Why'd he stop talkin' to you for it?"

"Yeah," Kate says, dragging the word out as she winces a little, looking over at Carla Jean. "It was awhile ago, back in the summer, and we were hanging out and... I don't know, it was stupid. We made out a little and then he freaked out and took off and it took me like, a month and a half to get him to even look at me again."

She's still not entirely sure why he freaked out since she's been too afraid to ask. "I guess he freaked out because we're friends? Like, it was too weird for him, which is fine, I get it. It was super dumb and I shouldn't have done it."

"Still sounds pretty weird, a whole month and a half of that," Carla Jean says, frowning slightly. She's hardly an expert when it comes to such matters, if only because it was always so simple for her, so easy, but to go that long without speaking over just making out doesn't seem quite right to her. What she doesn't know is if asking Harley about it will make matters better or worse. "But you two are alright now and all?"

"Yeah, mostly," she says. "I mean, I had to show up at his house and corner him just to get him to talk to me, but we've been pretty okay since then. It's not like... a thing. I don't want to be with Harley or anything, so there's no drama or broken hearts. It was just..." She shrugs a little. "I was lonely. I wanted someone to kiss me."

And she hadn't wanted it to be just anyone or she would've gone and picked up some dude at a bar. She'd wanted someone important and even if she doesn't want to be with Harley, he's important to her.

It sounds fair enough to Carla Jean, who understands that feeling a little better than she would care to admit to. For her, it's rarely been anything other than just missing her husband, but just plain loneliness overrides even that sometimes. She's just never been able to do a thing about it, in part because of circumstances, in part because she still considers herself to be married. Kissing Harley might not have been Kate's best idea, she'll admit that, but she thinks she can get why she'd have done it even so.

"It happens," she says, thoughtful, shoulders lifting in a shrug. "Well, I'm glad there's no drama, anyway."

"No, don't worry, no screaming matches at our place," she promises with a small smile. "Our place. That's totally not even weird to say, even after living alone the whole time I've been here."

She liked living with Carla Jean and Reggie. There are more than a few things she misses about the island, but that's definitely near the top of the list. "I'm glad it put you in with me. There's no Chang and no Reggie, but it'll still be pretty cool. I mean, and there's Newt, so some stuff is different. He's, uh... a little older than me? Apparently that's a thing people expect me to warn them about, so that's my warning."

Carla Jean can't help the way her expression twists with skepticism at that — not because of what Kate's told her in itself, but because it's something that people apparently need a warning for. In her opinion, that's utter bullshit. She's got half a mind to ask who and find out why, but that's not half as important right now as where she stands on the matter. There'll be time to roll her eyes at others later.

"My husband was more'n twice my age when we met and got married," she says, absently twisting the ring on her finger, though there's nothing soft or too sentimental in her tone. It's just a fact, stated plain and simple, not worth getting hung up on. "Unless by older you mean he's on his deathbed, I don't see what difference it makes. Least of all to anyone else."

"No," Kate says with a laugh. "I'm definitely not doing the whole gold digger find a rich old dude and marry him for his money because I'll only have to wait like, six months until he dies thing. He's thirty-five, which is fine, it's not even a thing except to the people who think it is, but whatever." She's not about to let it change her mind and she's pretty sure Newt isn't either.

"This is us," she says as they reach the building. "We're up on the tenth floor. Jeff'll be up there, she's super sweet, you'll like her. She'll like you." She smiles a little, turning to look at Carla Jean. "Are you ready?"

This is all normal to Kate, this has been home for ten months, but she can understand why it might not be the easiest thing in the world. The first few weeks she'd spent here had been so weird, confused and difficult in a lot of ways.

"Well, they'll have me to answer to, now, too," Carla Jean says, still clearly less than pleased with the idea of anyone giving Kate a hard time over it. There are times, she's sure, where it hasn't worked, the age-old cliché of the young girl getting taken advantage of by the older guy, but Kate's perfectly capable of making her own damn decisions, and Carla Jean finds it hard to believe she'd fall into that trap, anyway. God knows she'd met her fair share of disapproval when, at sixteen, she'd married a man nearly twenty years her senior, but she had loved Llewelyn — always would, come to that — and he'd been good to her, far more so than she suspects would have been the case if she'd wound up with one of the young, stupid boys she had gone to school with.

Of course, she probably wouldn't have been widowed then murdered at nineteen if she had, but even so, she wouldn't change a thing now.

Tipping her head up to look at the building, she draws in a deep breath, then nods as she looks over at Kate. Quickly as all of this has happened, she can barely wrap her head around any of it, but there's no sense in standing around here waiting for nothing. "Ready as I'll ever be," she says, then cracks a smile. "You know, I've never lived off the ground floor before."

It's not the only reason she's glad to have Carla Jean around, but Kate feels a little bit better about everything with her standing there, telling Kate people will have to answer to her. Even though they're from completely different lives, she's always kind of felt that Carla Jean understood her shit better than a lot of people and she smiles a little, nodding.

"I hadn't either until this place," she admits, pulling out her keys to open the front door and she leads Carla Jean into the lobby. "So the mailboxes are right over there. The laundry room is in the basement, there are the stairs and the elevator. There's not really a building superintendent as far as I know, but I've never had a lot of problems..." Now that she's said it, though, she's wondering what happens if some asshole moves in next door and ruins all that.

With an internal shrug, Kate pushes the button for the elevator, then steps inside when it slides open. "We can go out, too, and find you some clothes and stuff. It'll get cold here soon."

"You mean it's not just tropical weather until it turns into Victorian London?" Carla Jean asks with a crooked smile, the question clearly one she already knows the answer to. It's a little strange to think about, actually, after her Texan upbringing and the island, but something like that is the least of her concerns. She'll get used to it. She thinks she might be lucky to have a chance to at all. Killing Chigurh is what's left her shaken, if that's even the word for it, but it hits her distantly that, not all that long ago, she'd had the barrel of a gun trained on her for the second time. She could have been the corpse left behind instead. Some cold weather isn't going to do much. "Alright, that sounds good. I clearly wasn't plannin' on changin' universes."

"Nope, we have actual seasons now," Kate says with a bit of a laugh, pressing the button for the tenth floor. The doors slide shut and take them up, and when they open again, Kate's aware that what looks totally familiar to her now is foreign to Carla Jean.

"I don't really know anyone who lives up here," she admits, leading the way to her door -- their door -- with her keys in hand. "But if you need anything and I'm not around, Reggie is in number fourteen on the third floor and I know you don't know Newt, but he'd help you out with anything. He's in number seventeen on the fourth floor."

Then she's opening the door, Jeff bouncing around on the other side until she spots a new face, then freezes, her tail wagging furiously. "And this is Jeff."

"Well, hey there, Jeff," Carla Jean says with a grin, crouching to carefully reach over to pet the dog's head once she's stepped inside, letting Jeff sniff her hand. She's never really had a pet of her own, but she knows enough about what they're like that it's not too strange, at least, and she can't see a single reason why she would have objected to having one around, especially when Jeff is so damn cute. She can see why Kate would have liked her. "Alright, fourteen on three, seventeen on four. I think I can remember that."

Jeff's not a cautious dog and she trots forward, more than happy to let Carla Jean pet her and Kate's sure she'll adjust easily to having another person in the apartment. Even though they've been talking about it for ages now, it suddenly hits her that Carla Jean is going to be living here, that they'll be living together again and she smiles.

"So... welcome to your new place?" she asks, then laughs. "It's really good to see you."

She knows Carla Jean's arrival is kind of a shitty situation, she knows they haven't really made any mention of the body they left down on the beach, but she's glad to see her all the same.

"It's good to see you, too," Carla Jean says as she straightens again. Strange as it is to be saying so when she's really only just seen Kate, and when all of this isn't exactly easy to wrap her head around, she means it all the same. The alternative would have been a stranger finding her, and especially given the circumstances of her arrival, that's the last thing she would have wanted to deal with. Besides, while she's done it once — showing up in a strange new place, not knowing a soul there — this is infinitely preferable. She's not sure she's ever really had a friend like Kate before. "Makes bein' here a whole lot easier, let me tell you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

sooner or later, God'll cut you down

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