Truce?, [Flick]

[Hannah Archer]

She had outright refused to even consider the option at first, but after a lot of Ryan insisting that she was being stupid and childish, Hannah let the possibility exist, and eventually she talked herself into a corner. Eventually there was no avoiding it. She had to see Flick. She had to deliberately find and talk to her.

It was partially pride that made Hannah look like she was about to strangle a puppy while she made her way to the hospital. The fact that she had thought she was done with this issue once she sent Ryan off with that gift for the stupid girl didn't help matters. This book had been closed, but now it was being forced open again, and Hannah wanted nothing to do with it. She wanted to go to Clancy's. She wanted to force Freeze to give her half a dozen beers. . .

Instead she continued on to the hospital, asked a nurse to point her toward Flick's room, and half-stomped down the hallway until she found the room she was looking for. She didn't bother knocking, seeing that the room was unoccupied aside from the girl in the bed, before pushing the door open, letting herself right in. The door closed behind her as she crossed her arms, pulling at the sleeves of the form-fitting shirt she wore.

Only after she got to looking unintentionally but properly displeased did she say, "Hi." A quick movement brushed her loose hair away from her face. "I hear you're out of here soon . . . figured it'd only be right if I came by before then . . ."

Awkward. Hannah hated awkward.

[Ursula Hatter]

Ryan had left -- permanently, it seemed -- but Isaiah had filled the void nicely. Without Ryan to perch on her shoulder and whisper issues of morality and all that nonsense, fooling around with Isaiah had seemed only natural. Easy. After all, the only two people set against it were Ryan and her father, and Ryan was mad at her anyway. And her father -- hell, she kind of wanted to rebel against her father a little. He had little right to demand that he keep her all to himself when he'd been the one to push her away first.

Flick was thumbing through the textbook, pausing occasionally to underline words or write notes in the margins. She was quite content when Hannah walked in.

Then she was really discontent. Mostly because Hannah looked as though she were being forced to hold a dog shit-covered lemon in her mouth. Apparently Ryan wasn't so mad at her as to want her to play nice with his sister -- that was a good sign. She hoped.

Slowly, Flick closed the textbook, placing it gingerly on the side table and hoping Hannah didn't try and get a good look at it. Her dad and Isaiah were the only people who knew about her weird habit of studying when she wasn't even in school, and she wasn't dying for everyone else to find out. It was abnormal behavior, especially on the colony. Flick didn't like to stand out in negative ways.

"Hi," Flick said, slowly, recalling that one of the last things she said to this girl was you are a bitch. "So... Ryan sent you after all. I think he'd die of happiness if we became best friends out of this." Her tone was dry, but not mean or pointed.

[Hannah Archer]

Hannah's brain focused on the wrong point, of course. She almost completely missed the signs that suggested Flick wasn't set on being a bitch about the unexpected visit from her arch nemesis. Rather than putting forth some effort to seem properly apologetic for whatever it was that she had done wrong, she corrected Flick somewhat, responding, "He didn't really send me . . . exactly."

Obviously this was important.

"He suggested that I stop by. Eventually I agreed." She crossed her arms and took a few steps further into the room. "I hear you're getting out of here soon. That right?"

Small talk . . .

[Ursula Hatter]

Hannah said "Ryan suggested I stop by." What Flick heard was "Ryan wheedled and cajoled and guilted me into coming until finally I relented because it was the only way to get him to shut up." She was just assuming, of course, but given her own experiences with the boy, it was absolutely the most likely situation.

But she let the matter rest, knowing it would be fruitless to argue, since all Hannah had to do was bring up that Flick hadn't actually been there, and then Flick would lose.

She'd caught that "eventually" Hannah said, though.

"Yep. Two days from now." Hannah had been her only visitor that day. So far. But visiting hours were close to over, and Flick had no choice but to resign herself to the gut-wrenching realization that Isaiah was not going to come. Not to apologize, not to explain, not to anything. "It'll be a relief," she said, wanting desperately to keep the conversation going so that she wouldn't have to think about that asshole. "I'm tired of being made to sit quietly and heal. They never made Ryan do this."

[Hannah Archer]

Hannah raised a brow and smiled a bit. "Yeah, well Ryan never got himself shot in the gut. . . plus it's almost impossible to get him in a hospital to begin with. Maybe you should try being needlessly rough with anybody that tries to patch you up. That seems to work for Ryan."

Her brother was almost an enigma. Hannah was quite certain she had him figured out almost entirely, but he was still an odd one. There was no harm in pointing that out, she thought.

After a pause, she added, "Or . . . I guess you could just try not getting shot again. Most people would probably go that route. It might work."

[Ursula Hatter]

Flick snorted. Yeah, she could be a pain in the butt. That would probably expedite her stay here. But the nurses and the doctors were so nice, she didn't really want to make their day hard when they had all that stuff to do.

At Hannah's last suggestion, Flick shrugged helplessly. "I already have an appointment with a bunch of muggers on Friday and on Saturday, in case the Friday ones miss and just catch an arm or something." She was pretty sure Ryan wouldn't find that funny. Now she had to see if Hannah might.

[Hannah Archer]

"Huh. . . thinking ahead-- Not a bad plan," Hannah responded, obviously joking though she was quite good at refraining from laughing at her own 'jokes'. "You might just be a little smarter than you look. It's a wonder you can put up with Ryan. He's dumber than a rock sometimes."

He was about as heavy as a boulder, too. One time Hannah tried to help him get around when he was stumbling drunk, and that was just about impossible. She was strong for a girl her size, but she was also tiny, and he most certainly was not. He was dense and huge and dumb. . . and she loved him a lot.

". . . he said you guys are on goodish terms, though. Is that actually true?"

It was dangerous conversational territory, but Hannah felt like she had to know.

[Ursula Hatter]

Dumb as a rock. But strangely perceptive sometimes.

Although definitely a lummox. Certainly no blue-blooded educated type. But he wore the dumb-as-a-rock thing well, Flick thought. She could see him as an adult, not prone to blabbing for no reason, kind of quiet and stoic, and it fit.

"Ah, I think so?" she said, uncertainly. Wincing a little, she admitted, "We were, and then I think I said something stupid. I thought he might be mad, but you're here, which hopefully means he can't be all that mad, if he's still aiming to turn us into the Super Best Friends." Her voice had gone thoughtful towards the end, her gaze turning inwards a bit as she dissected -- for the millionth time -- his expression when he last left.

[Hannah Archer]

Hannah's expression turned thoughtful as she stepped a little closer, her gaze falling to the floor. She wasn't sure what to believe. Ryan might have been trying to make things seem perfect when they weren't, knowing that she wouldn't react well based on what happened last time. Still, she didn't want to rush into believing that Ryan had lied to her.

"What did you say to him?" she asked, lifting her gaze to Flick. It wasn't exactly her business, but she wanted to make it hers. Her sisterly instincts told her she had to.

[Ursula Hatter]

Ugh, she didn't want to tell Hannah. Given what happened last time, and the fact that Hannah's last name was Archer, which was apparently Ancient Greek for "Let's Overreact at a Whole Bunch of Nothing Just For Shits 'n' Giggles." However, Flick realized that it may be the key to Hannah letting her in on whether or not Ryan was truly upset.

"Well... I was trying to make a point of how loyal he was, and I may have..." She gestured vaguely, then wrinkled her nose and just spat it out. "I may have mentioned how he was still in love with Jen even though she dumped him without fanfare nearly a year ago."

It sounded worse in the re-telling.

Flick sighed. "I didn't mean for it to come out all harsh like that, really. He just sorta froze up and left, and said he'd tell you to come."

[Hannah Archer]

Hannah cringed as though the words actually hurt her when reality that wasn't the case at all. Few things actually hurt her at all, but she immediately knew why Ryan had reacted the way he did, what Flick had done wrong . . . it all made sense to her.

"Shouldn't've said that," she said, not sounding all that accusatory. "Being loyal is good. Still being in love with Jen is bad- really bad. There aren't many worse buttons you can push with Ryan."

Hannah was around Ryan enough to know which things got to him these days and which things didn't. She was around enough to witness plenty of conversations and such that ended well or horrifically. It hadn't taken her long to realize what he struggled with, and at this point, Jen was a very, very touchy subject.

"He's probably fine. He must know you weren't trying to attack him or anything," she added, moving to tuck her hair behind her ears. "I mean . . . he's just really embarrassed about it n' stuff. He doesn't like t' talk about it like that."

[Ursula Hatter]

Wow, she wasn't being bludgeoned in the face. Hannah was actually being kind of... helpful. Flick listened intently as she spoke, and made a bit of a face when she realized what she'd actually done wrong, which was bring Jen up at all. Of course Ryan was probably embarrassed about being hung up on her. He was a macho guy. But why?

"It's not a bad thing," Flick said, uncertainly. "I mean, I think it's kind of sweet. Kind of stupid, but sweet. You know?"

[Hannah Archer]

"Yeah," Hannah said slowly, her eyes narrowing as if she was wincing at some physical pain. " Ryan can talk about her sometimes, but he doesn't react so well when people suggest he's still hung up on her n' all that. It might be kinda sweet, but he doesn't think it is. It really bugs him when people point out they think he's not getting over it."

. . . because he wasn't getting over it. Hannah wasn't exactly an expert on relationships like the one Ryan had with Jen, but she could tell. He was still hung up on the girl, and he was doing a lot of stupid things because of that. Hannah didn't want to go bashing her brother and his decisions, but she knew he was doing a lot of things that she didn't approve of, and she knew why.

"You're kinda lucky he doesn't hit girls. If you were a guy, he prolly would've wanted to deck you."

[Ursula Hatter]

"Isn't the first step to fixing your problem admitting that you have one? If he's going to open up a full-time residence in Denial-Ville, he's going to have such a long road ahead of him," Flick muttered, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "I mean, it just sucks that he's still hurt by her. I don't want him to keep hurting over it. He's a good guy, he deserves...

"I don't know. Happiness. Et cetera."

A girl. A girl who loved Ryan for the things he was but was also able to keep him on a straight path, so that he didn't change and become someone who sucked. He was like a big puppy. It was a crime that there wasn't someone around to love him.

[Hannah Archer]

Hannah wondered if it was safe to feel a little empathy and goodness toward Flick for saying that Ryan deserved something other than a boot to the ass. Sure, she didn't think Flick understood what was going on, and she didn't want to give the girl's opinion too much value, but anyone that genuinely thought Ryan deserved happiness and all of that great stuff was pretty good in her book.

"He's always really hard on himself. . . sometimes not hard enough, I think, but- I dunno." Hannah looked around, not knowing how comfortable she was with talking about Ryan like this. "He does stupid shit, and sometimes he doesn't give himself enough credit for the good stuff. It's frustrating. . . really frustrating. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with him when he gets ridiculous about it."