Amanda, Angelo - Thursday night

[xp_daytripper]

Ah, the joys of time zones... Set after this scene but before this post by Jennie, Amanda gets back from hospital visits and has a quiet sort of breakdown.



Such a fucking crime.

It had been easy, over the past week, to push away her own reactions to the bombing. She'd been so focussed on Angelo and Pete, and Elpis and the Pack hadn't needed anything from her, that it had almost become an abstract. Something that had happened to the people she loved, certainly, but not to her.

But then she'd dropped in on Vasily earlier, and abstract suddenly went out the window. It was easy enough to compartmentalise when the dead were just ID photos attached to files, names mentioned in passing, when the injured were people who seemed to spend half their lives carrying some sort of wound. Not when you looked at the blanket-covered frame keeping the blankets off a bandaged stump, when you realised that there was only one small hill at the end of the bed instead of two. When you looked into the white, set face of a man you'd laughed and flirted and danced with and realised that he'd been changed forever.

Amanda's hands shook as she took another drag on the cigarette and lit a fresh one from the butt. She hadn't chain smoked for a good long while, and her throat burned. But it was a good way to ensure she stayed alone, sitting on the back step. A good excuse to try and give herself enough time to pull herself together, to be strong. Angelo, Pete... they needed strong right now.

Almost alone. But there was one other person in the villa who'd been lapsing back into old habits now, needing the familiar more than ever, and Angelo was already digging in his pockets for his lighter and cigarettes when he spoke, leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey."

She jumped guiltily and swiped her sleeve quickly across her eyes. "Hey," she replied, trying to sound normal, but the word coming out a little flat. Then she glanced at him, took in the bruising, and her own reactions were shunted aside in favour of the sudden rush of worry. "What the hell happened? Are you all right?" she asked, beginning to get up and go to him.

"'m fine", he said with a gesture that would have been dismissive if he'd thought she'd actually believe it. "With the bruises, anyway. Just had a little... disagreement... with Vasily's brother."

"Alexey?" She reached up to gently touch his cheek, careful not to prod the bruise there, hoping that up close he wouldn't notice the slight puffiness of her eyes and nose, the redness of them. Or the tremble of her lips at the mention of Vasily's name. "I'd say something, only I'm guessing your mum already has if she's seen the state of you."

"At length", he agreed wryly. His perceptiveness hadn't been as sharp as usual, lately, and he missed her expression, brief as it was. He hadn't noticed the signs of crying, either. Yet. "But it's not so bad. Be fine in a few days."

She'd never thought she'd be grateful for the self-absorption caused by trauma, but he seemed to have missed that she was't exactly up to par today. "I hope you iced it, at least," she said, letting her hand drop and moving back to her step and her smoking. "When did this happen? While I was at the hospital?"

"Yeah", he said with a quick nod, moving forward to join her and seeming unaware of having just given away that he knew at least whether she was at the villa or not at all times. "An' yes, I iced it. Nathan wouldn't've let me get away with not."

"Too bloody right he wouldn't have." She hadn't told him she was going to the hospital, but he still knew; it touched something in her that he did. Shuffling her boot over the small pile of butts as he sat beside her, she took another drag of the one she held, exhaling with a slight cough. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. It sounds like you had a rough afternoon of it."

"You needed to go", he said quietly. "'s good you did. An'... it could've been worse." This was true - there were many ways it could have been worse, he just didn't want to think about any of them, and he moved away from that topic. "Alexey's got bruises too."

Worse? Fuck, no. "I think I'm getting the picture, tho' I didn't think you knew Alexey well enough for him to let you beat the shite out of him for theraputic reasons."

"I don't, an' he didn't." His voice was flat again, and he stared out over the beach. "He hit Nathan."

"He... oh." Suddenly Amanda felt very, very tired. Too much, there was too much going on and she couldn't be everywhere at once to help. If she was even helping at all. "I'm sorry," she said again, miserably. Despite herself, the tears were welling up again and she was too heartsick and exhausted to hold them back, even if Angelo needed her to. "I should have been here. Then I would've known, wouldn't be m-making s-stupid j-jokes." Oh, bollocks. She couldn't even talk now.

It was impossible to miss, now, even as sunk into himself as he had been, and he wrapped an arm around her without thinking. "You wanted to be there", he pointed out again. "Can't be here every minute of every day in case somethin' happens when nobody could've known it would."

She leaned against him, turning her face into his neck. "I'm sorry," she repeated in a strangled whisper. "You don't need this, you need me, only I saw Vas today and he..." She choked back a sob, the hand without the cigarette groping for and finding a deathgrip on his jacket.

"Sssh, sssh", he soothed, hand lifting to her hair. "You need what you need as well. Been a long week for more than just me, hasn't it?"

That got a choked laugh from her. "Something like that," she managed. "I've been trying to be strong, I really have..."

"Can't be strong forever", Angelo pointed out, eyes distant though his tone wasn't. "Aren't you the one that told me that?" More than once, in fact.

"Never said I wasn't a hypocrite," Amanda said, letting go of his jacket to wipe at her eyes. "We went clubbing in Amsterdam once. Me and Manuel, and the Pack. The boys - Vasily and Gar - they kept asking me to dance with them." Her smile was sad and hurt, but it was a smile nonetheless. "Vasily could really tear up the floor."

"An' he'll dance again", came the still-quiet answer. "He's gonna get better, Amanda - I mean, as far as he can. An' you know the kind of thing they can do now. You know the kind of thing Forge can do, all on his own."

"I know. It's just... seeing him there. I hadn't realised... The Pack and me, we haven't been close since... Selene, but they've always been there, even when they were getting shot and all the rest of it. But this time... it's more real. Well, now it is. Before, I could... keep it arm's length. But yesterday... it just hit me." She probably wasn't making a lot of sense, she knew. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out the ever-faithful PDA. "Vas and Gar gave me this, did you know? Christmas '04. Before everything... changed."

"It does that", Angelo agreed. "But you know, the thing about stuff changin'... sometimes with a bit of work, it changes back. Whatever caused it."

"Or you make something new." They'd all moved on, Amanda knew that. Things wouldn't go back to the way they were because she wasn't the same person now, none of them were. But it didn't mean there couldn't still be something. Wiping her sleeve across her eyes again, she gave Angelo another smile, this one stronger. "'Kay, think I'm done for now. I'm sorry to dump my shite on you, 'specially when you've got your own."

"'s okay", he said, and he meant it, giving her a quick hug. "Gives me somethin' else to think about but my own, if nothin' else. An' you needed to talk too."

And he'd needed to listen - she knew how frustrated he'd been, how helpless he'd felt. Unable to help his friends the way he normally would. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes for a minute, just focussing on the moment, the feel of his arm around her, the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach. "I'll always be here," she said after a moment, opening her eyes but not looking at him, gaze fixed on the shore. "No matter what happens, you know that, right?"

There was a short silence before he answered, but it wasn't out of doubt. Far from it. "I know", he said eventually. "Me too. No matter what."