starchilde_lost | Entries tagged with aidan

Rachel had decided that she was just going to do it. She was going to officially ask Aidan to move in with her. After all, they'd been together for a long time, well, by her standards at least, Aidan might have had longer relationships but it wasn't fair as he was a couple of centuries old and the scales were different. And they practically lived together anyways, she couldn't really remember the last time she'd spent a night alone.

Well, except last night. But a stopover in the clinic didn't count.

Smoothing the skirt of her sundress down, she took a deep breath before entering the clinic with the bunch of flowers she'd picked up and a few books and magazines. You know, normal visiting the boyfriend in the hospital things. She tried to put everything else out of her head. She'd get to it, she knew, but she wanted to focus on her injured boyfriend for a little while before she emotionally went off the rails.

Did normal people have this much trouble trying to figure out their relationships? People who hadn't dated aliens, seen the loves of their lives killed by mutant-hunting robots. People who hadn't done and seen the things she'd done. Or was it just her particular quirk of inherited emotional issues and her own paranoia. Did she even have the right to ask him, because she knew she didn't want to get married and have kids, not here on the island, and was that even fair to him to go so far and just draw a line in the sand? Or was she just leaving herself and him an escape hatch if it gets to be too much?

Those were the thoughts she was trying not to dwell on as she walked over to the bed. "Hey, punching bag, how are you feeling today?"

Valentine's day had almost been a disaster. And since then, Rachel had been trying to come up with some plan to make things up to Aidan. He didn't expect it and she knew he wasn't harboring any deep-seated resentments about it, but she just wanted to do something nice for him. Because she was his girlfriend and could. So she figured a nice candle-lit dinner for just the two of them would be a nice way to start.

It was when she found the outfit backstage at the club that things started to get interesting.

With devious glee she put an invitation that would lead him on a scavenger hunt to a variety of locations. In the boutique, she left him a suit that he could wear, at the Hub was waiting a bottle of wine, at the waterfall was a basket of desserts (with all of his favorites) and as he made his way to her hut, she sprinkled the path with some flowers.

Inside the hut, Rachel waited patiently, her small home lit entirely by candlelight and some jazz playing on her iPod. Dinner was on the table and if she'd timed it perfectly, it wouldn't be cold in the least when he followed her last instruction. Come inside and claim your prize.

Rachel didn't think she'd ever been so happy to have the flu in her life. Because it was the flu, hitting her hard after a week - almost two - of teasing with exhaustion and intermittent nausea, worrying enough to have her heading out to a drugstore for a pregnancy test. A test that had failed spectacularly, according to the test she'd had done later at the clinic which told her, definitively, that she was not pregnant. Nope, not in the least, despite the evil colored stick she'd ended up with at home. If there were an actual manufacturer she could sue for emotional stress, she might have done it, even in this ghost version of New York. False positive her ass, more like false nightmare-inducing panic attack.

But here she was, a couple days later, curled up on her couch with a heating pad, a mug of chamomile-ginger-something tea, and a remote control, flipping across TV channels while working her way through a third box of Kleenex. The apartment was a mess, there were take-out boxes everywhere, her entire body felt like it was in revolt, but for the moment, she was glad for it.

Because there was no way in hell she was ready to have that conversation with her boyfriend. Not now, and not ever.

Rachel just didn't want to think about Halloween. Ever. Again. Just the image of all those bodies, all her friends, her family, in a pile in the jungle gave her chills. She'd seen massacres before and had never wanted to again and yet there she was, smelling the blood soaking into the ground, hearing the buzz of flies drawn by the blood. The rest of it, too, was something she never wanted to see, but the island had different ideas and now that was an image that was actually keeping her up at night.

She should be sleeping, but her body ached from the fight with Logan and she was still far too wired after having to babysit him and watch Charles get carted off to the clinic. She was actually a little surprised Logan hadn't broken free at some point and gutted her, he'd certainly tried, and while the adrenalin had long ago left her, she was stuck staring at the ceiling after she got home. For hours. Punctuated only by brief sleeping interludes that ended with her jerking awake, trying not to scream. Somewhere around dawn she managed to drift off for good, tossing and turning, but finally getting some shut-eye.

Which had been her mistake. She should have just stayed up.

They'd both been worried about Halloween, but Rachel and Aidan both knew they'd be more useful split up for the day. Rachel could check on her friends, fight if needed, Aidan could pitch in at the Clinic. They'd agreed on a place and a time to meet the next day so that they'd know the other was okay. At least that had been the plan. A plan that was completely screwed now that Rachel had pretty much slept through the meeting. Running out of her door, she knew that even if she ran the whole way flat-out, she was going to be hopelessly late.

She had to hope Aidan would stick around and not panic. Seriously, she was going to hunt Stark down and make him build a damn phone system for the island if it was the last thing she did.

Rachel was irritated. She knew it was for the most ridiculous reason, but knowing didn't change it as she left the Catscratch. It was late she guessed, but the club hadn't closed yet so she figured it wasn't too late to go see the guy she was irritated with. Not that she was irritated AT him, exactly, more irritated about him, but regardless, after a few drinks, this was the move that somehow made the most sense.

She thought she might regret it later. But what the hell.

After a little while she had to stop to slide the heels she'd been wearing off her feet. They looked great, but weren't made for walking distances and she was unsteady enough as it was. Still the walk was enough to sober her up (a little) and drive her irritation deeper.

How dare he complicate her life like this? Really.

Finding the window that was closest to his room (she was assuming he was in and in bed... she hoped) she reached up to knock on it with her show. And in sheer brilliance, she called out, probably not as softly as she should have been, "Aidan! See, I'm knocking! KNOCKING! Not breaking in, KNOCKING! Let me in!"

Rachel's school schedule was light enough this semester that she was able to spend a lot of downtime just... relaxing. She'd laid in a good supply of books that she actually read on occasion, she took relaxing walks - a neat contrast to the way she used to run herself to exhaustion just so she wouldn't dream. In fact, she's just gotten back from one such walk and was feeding her quetzals, humming a wordless tune as she went about the chore. All in all, she felt more at peace with herself than she had in a long time.

And she really wasn't in a hurry to examine why that was, either. She knew part of it was from that shared dream she'd had with Nathan and the others. That world that she'd actually hoped was a world in which she'd managed to rid herself, and it, of a demon worth killing. She was disappointed it hadn't been real, but in the end she hadn't been surprised. At least she'd gotten to meet her brother's wife and son, even if they were the ones in his memories, it was more than she could ever hope for back home.

And she knew the other part of it was the guy she'd woken up to. The one with the dark eyes and dark past who still managed to smile and make her smile, too. The one she was sharing her bed with, gladly, who might want to share more. That was what she really didn't want to look at. Not closely. It wasn't that she didn't want... well, she didn't know what she wanted. It was just, after everything, it was just good to be with someone. No expectations. No worries.

Her sleep was, unsurprisingly, filled with nightmares and anxiety. The kinds of dreams she hadn't had in months where family accused her of letting them die and scores of enemies waited in the shadows to tear what little happiness she had apart. She ran through cemeteries and camps and ruined school halls and all the while she knew there was no hope, there was nothing she could do. She would awake, disoriented, crying and afraid and the only thing that kept her grounded was the feel of warm arms around her.

Aidan didn't leave. Every time she woke up he was there, even if she was pretty sure he was asleep, he was still there. And not once did she wake up thinking he was anyone else. It surprised the hell out of her, she thought at least once she'd think she was back on the Jammer with Korvus, but nope, she always knew it was him. She was glad for it, too even if she didn't want to think about why that was too much.

Eventually, she gave up on sleep, lying awake and watching the sun spill through the windows. At some point she'd need to get up, take a shower, eat something, but right now she just snuggled back against the warm body in her bed, glad it was there. Glad he was there.

[August 30th, 2011]

She'd been spending a lot of time at the waterfall lately. The rave was over, but Rachel could still feel the tremble of the bass under her skin. The hangover was past, but she could still feel the pain of guilt and confusion. She had just wanted to have some fun, let loose for a night and now she was starting to think that she'd ruined one of her closest friendships here on the island.

Not to mention opened herself up to an entirely new avenue of sexuality she'd never considered before.

But at the heart, she thought the sexuality thing wasn't even the important part. Well it was important, but she knew eventually it would take care of itself. She'd just never thought of it before, was all and was trying not to think about it now. The really important part was that she was pretty sure her best friend would never speak to her again and that hurt Rachel more than she wanted to admit. So Gabrielle maybe had a little crush on her? So had Alistaire Stuart, and they'd managed to stay friends, but lately Gabby wasn't even talking to her and that made things worse. She couldn't repair, or work on, or even talk about their friendship if Gabby wouldn't even see her.

Standing on the edge of the cliff and looking down, Rachel wondered if things really had been simpler back home. Kill Gabriel. Kill the bastards that had killed her family. Sleep with Korvus, who loved her and she... she loved him. At least she was pretty sure she did. The longer she was here, the more she started to doubt that. And did that mean she'd taken advantage of him? Had she taken advantage of Gabby? She didn't want to think that she had. she didn't want to admit that her loneliness combined with the alcohol and drugs and... she'd just gone too far.

But if she couldn't talk to Gabby... she couldn't work it out. God, was there anything Rachel could do right? She looked down at the rolling water and debated with herself before deciding that ultimately, she couldn't make a decision today. If Gabby wouldn't talk to her, she couldn't make amends. And she wasn't home so she couldn't sort things out with Korvus. All she had was today and a deep pool of water just begging to be dove into. Which is what she did, diving with almost perfect accuracy to the center of the pool, trusting that it was deep enough for the dive.

It was, but as Rachel surfaced she realized that diving from such heights had it's disadvantages. Like stripping the tops of bikinis off one's body. Looking around, Rachel tried to see where her top had gone, or if she was going to end up rushing home with her hands as her only modesty.