Room 508, Sunday afternoon

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo had started the day by grabbing a box of donuts right as JGOB opened and taking them out to the causeway. She'd sat there for hours, slowly eating her way through the box, some tiny part of her hoping that two particular people would come walking up and share the pastries with her. No one had, though. Besides, even if one or both of them did eventually make it back, the chances that it would happen to be today as opposed to any other day were pretty slim. An hour after she finished the last donut, Ringo admitted to herself that she was just putting off the task she'd assigned herself, so she headed back to the dorm.

After stopping by her room for a stack of unassembled boxes, a couple of rolls of packing tape, and some markers, she finally opened the door to room 508. An few hours later, Ringo was pretty sure that the two boxes on Raven's bed represented everything the girl had had in the room. Only a few clothes, and what seemed like some antique knickknacks. It wasn't much to leave behind, and somehow that seemed sad. Ringo snorted at that thought. As if Raven's lack of stuff was somehow sadder than Raven never coming back.

There were quite a few more boxes on Kathy's bed, and it had taken here even longer to pack those than it probably would have if so many of those things hadn't sucked Ringo into memories of their owner. A couple of dresses that Letty had insisted Kathy buy in Baltimore. A set of lockpicks. A well-read, but cared-for acceptance letter to Stanford. A sticker-covered iPod (which was such a Kathy thing to own because who even had iPods anymore?).

A pair of well-worn ATs, which she spent a couple of minutes examining, running her fingers lightly along the worn down spots. You could tell a lot about someone from their ATs. What their stance looked like, what kind of tricks they enjoyed the most, the kind of terrain they rode on. To Ringo's practiced eye it was like a montage of every ride Kathy had ever done. She had to swallow around a lump in her throat before she could return to her task.

Most of those things, those memories, went into boxes. After some maudlin staring at a few of them, perhaps, but into boxes. But not everything. Ringo had found a heavy envelope with "Dante" written on it in Kathy's hand, and a couple of paper-wrapped packages addressed to Anders. Once she'd found those, Ringo had looked more carefully, half-hoping that there would be something with her own name on it, but there hadn't been anything. She knew that that didn't mean anything, but somehow it still hurt. She'd taken a couple of minutes to think about that, then Ringo had set the iPod aside next to the other things that needed to be delivered. Kathy probably would have preferred to know that someone would get something out of her music collection, right?

Now Ringo was doing one last pass through the room, looking in corners of closets and under beds to make sure she hadn't missed anything important. If this was the last thing she was going to get to do for her friends, she wanted to do it right.

[ooc: Room and belongings modded with permission. Door and post open.]

Comments

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka recoiled, like Ringo had slapped her.

That's silly.

Except that it wasn't silly at all to Alluka. All she'd ever had was a room. She loved her family, but they were never there. Her room always was. It was always hers. It was still going to be hers even though she wasn't there for years, since her daddy had given her permission to not be in it. But it was still hers. It was her home. And she was so lucky to have gotten another home, too, another room, that she also got to keep.

Except that apparently she didn't get to keep it? And Kathy was already losing hers? Losing her home?

How was that silly, Ringo? Alluka didn't understand. There was nothing silly about having a home and a room had always been Alluka's home. It was just a thing, but it was the most important thing.

There was nothing silly about it.

"You're so stupid, Ringo," Alluka said, still crying. "You're the stupidest. You really don't know anything at all."

[soniaroadsqueen]

Those tears kept sliding down Ringo's cheeks, and she nodded slightly and sank down to sit on the bed.

"That's true. I don't really know anything."

"Well, actually, I know one thing." She touched her chest again. "That Kathy will always have a place here. If she ever comes back, it'll be waiting, no matter how long it might take."

[that_oldsaying]

"And that's why you're so stupid," Alluka said, though it was muffled, partly, because she was burying her face against Mr. Bubbles now, just for a few moments, to try and wipe some of those tears away.

She took a deep, but shaky breath and looked up from Mr. Bubbles to say, "Kathy's home is a room. All of our homes are rooms. It's not silly at all. You're stupid and stealing Kathy's from her because you don't believe in her. You think being sick would, would make it so she wouldn't come back." Her lips trembled again. "And, and you're making it so if she does come back, she has no home. You're the worst, Ringo. You're so mean. Kathy needs this room. It's hers."

There was so much that Alluka didn't understand, but she understood more about homes and rooms and how important they were than Ringo. They weren't silly. How dare Ringo say that Kathy's home was silly?

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo turned her head to look over at Alluka, wiping at her own face with the back of her hand in a futile effort to clean up her tears.

Something about Alluka's words and tone, the things that kept getting repeated, were beginning to give shape to a realization. One that she'd never really paid enough attention to have picked up on before. It was just the seed of an idea, but now that she had it, she was frowning slightly.

"Do you really think that Kathy would care more about her stuff being here, where she left it, than about whether we were okay and remembered her and were glad to have her back?"

[that_oldsaying]

That question confused Alluka. It was probably Ringo being stupid again because those two things were completely different. They weren't even a little bit the same.

"She needs to have a home," Alluka said stubbornly, because it was true. "And you're stealing hers. You're being bad, Ringo. When she gets back, she'll be happy to see us. But she still needs a home."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"If she needs somewhere to stay, we can make sure she has one. We can get all the boxes back out and help her unpack."

But something else was bothering Ringo, now. "But she was graduating this year. She would have been leaving sometime this summer." Alluka had understood that, right?

[that_oldsaying]

No one had ever mentioned anything about graduation to Alluka, no. Or plans about leaving.

Or anything like that.

She shook her head furiously. "No, she wasn't going to leave!" Alluka protested. "Even, even if she... graduated? This is her home! She'd stay here!"

Obviously.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo shook her head. "She got accepted to Stanford." Her smile turned nostalgic for a moment. "She was so excited. So proud. It's very hard to get in."

She focused her gaze back on Alluka. "It's in California, Alluka. On the other side of the country. She would have started in the Fall."

[that_oldsaying]

That... that was...

That was a lie, right?

That Kathy would've left anyway? Was she not going to tell Alluka? Was her being sick just a story so that Alluka would be okay? Was, was Alluka the stupid one instead of Ringo?

Did, did that mean Kathy had lied to her?

"You're lying!" Alluka was back to shouting. "You're lying! You're wrong! You're bad! You're making things up! You're stealing Kathy's room and now you're lying! Kathy said she's coming back! She's coming back and she's not leaving! I'm going to believe what Kathy told me! Not you!"

[soniaroadsqueen]

That ball of pain in Ringo's gut seemed to twist sharply. Even though she was pretty sure that Alluka was lashing out without trying to be hurtful, it still did hurt.

"I can show you the letter, if you like. The one from Stanford."

It wasn't that Ringo cared (much) about the accusation, and it wasn't that she wanted to hurt Alluka, but she couldn't stand the thought of the other girl waiting forever, insisting that nothing would ever change and that everything was fine.

Because it wasn't fine. And when you lost someone, you needed to mourn them properly. Hear that, Dante? You couldn't do that by sticking your fingers in your ears and refusing to face reality.

[that_oldsaying]

Except that was it really, could it really, be called sticking your fingers in your ears and refusing to face reality when you didn't even understand what reality was when it came to things like this?

Alluka wasn't stupid, but she had none of the frame of reference any other person her physical age would have. Graduation didn't make sense to her. Not getting to keep her room didn't make sense to her.

None of this made sense to her and she didn't want it to either, since it meant that Ringo was right and Kathy wasn't coming back.

She hadn't lost anyone. Kathy was coming back.

"I don't care about a stupid letter!" Alluka snapped. "I don't care about it! You probably just made all of it up too! Just like you're so eager to get rid of Kathy! You never were her friend! You don't care about her at all! You just want her gone! That's why you're doing this! I never knew you were so mean, Ringo! Why are you being so mean?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

It turned out that Ringo couldn't answer that question.

You were never her friend!

She had been trying to keep it together. To be mature and adult and responsible. Like Kathy would have been if their situations were reversed.

You don't care about her at all!

She wanted to be there for all the people that Kathy's loss was hurting. All the people who, in other circumstances, Kathy would have been there to comfort.

You just want her gone!

But for the moment, Ringo couldn't be there for anyone. She was too busy curling her knees up to her chest on Kathy's bed and sobbing.

[that_oldsaying]

And... and Alluka didn't even know enough to know what she'd said was mean. That she'd been mean to Ringo. All she'd said was the truth as she'd seen it.

Alluka looked at Ringo, sobbing on the bed, and her own eyes filled with tears again.

"You're the worst, Ringo!"

Then she ran, away from Ringo, and away from the mess she was making of Kathy's room.

Ringo was such a liar! She was so mean! She was completely wrong.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo sat there on the bed, rocking back and forth softly as she cried. She barely even noticed Alluka running away down the hall.

Eventually she cried herself out and grabbed the hem of her tshirt, lifting it up to scrub at her face before taking a deep breath and making herself stand up.

She had a job to finish.

She'd think about Alluka, and about what she should do with her friend (still her friend, she hoped), later.

Later.