[She's been left by a lot of people. It's one of the costs of living here, one she is learning gradually to pay with more grace. She knew he'd go, when it happened, and she knew she'd miss him. But it strikes her all of a sudden how much, sitting in the living room where another him raised another her, and it feels like someone cored a hole right into her chest.
She meant it, with the stupid christmas mug, is the thing. She collects father figures like some people collect butterflies, but he's her favorite. He's her dad. She shoves her communicator under the couch cushions and cries for a few minutes, shoulders shaking, and she feels light, too, almost as much as she did after her own graduation. She feels so unbearably proud, she feels a little backwardly as though she is his parent for the moment, losing him to all the great things he's grown enough to go fight for in the wider world.
She wipes her tears away as she rises, dismissive and perfunctory; when she turns her attention to moving forward, they stop as quickly as they began. She climbs to her room, undoes the fiberglass security locks and shifts the plain cinderblock weights to get into the toolbox where she keeps the few metal items she can't do without when she isn't using them. One of those things - one of very few with no utilitarian purpose - is a vintage brass wings pin, one more bit of Bargewell ephemera that appeared along with the rest of her warden's cabin. She tucks it in the breast pocket of her jacket, over her heart, and then goes next door to knock.]
spam I say
She meant it, with the stupid christmas mug, is the thing. She collects father figures like some people collect butterflies, but he's her favorite. He's her dad. She shoves her communicator under the couch cushions and cries for a few minutes, shoulders shaking, and she feels light, too, almost as much as she did after her own graduation. She feels so unbearably proud, she feels a little backwardly as though she is his parent for the moment, losing him to all the great things he's grown enough to go fight for in the wider world.
She wipes her tears away as she rises, dismissive and perfunctory; when she turns her attention to moving forward, they stop as quickly as they began. She climbs to her room, undoes the fiberglass security locks and shifts the plain cinderblock weights to get into the toolbox where she keeps the few metal items she can't do without when she isn't using them. One of those things - one of very few with no utilitarian purpose - is a vintage brass wings pin, one more bit of Bargewell ephemera that appeared along with the rest of her warden's cabin. She tucks it in the breast pocket of her jacket, over her heart, and then goes next door to knock.]