Amanda, Angelo - Monday evening
Jan. 21st, 2008 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAs promised, Amanda turns up at the boathouse to talk. It's touch and go as to the result.
It was perhaps a bit silly, waiting outside of the boathouse for Angelo to come out, but Amanda hadn't felt up for dealing with his co-workers, who seemed to be multiplying by the week. It would have been too awkward, with John's predictable remarks about her taking Angelo in hand or something, or Jane looking worried at her. Better to wait in the bitter cold for him to finish up. Pulling her scarf up higher around her face, she was just considering sending him a text message to let him know she was here when the door opened.
He hadn't quite managed to recover from his relapse into smoking - and John wasn't helping - but he'd at least managed to get it down to one a day, which was what he'd come out for. He blinked at her for a second before speaking. "Uh... hi!"
"Hey," she said, coming forward with a glance at the door. "You said come by after work, so..." She shrugged a little awkwardly. "If you're not done, I can go bother Kurt or Marie or something?"
"No, I - Nate just told me not to come back in today, so I guess I'm done. I just didn't think you meant this early, with dinner an' all." It was possible he had a skewed idea of reasonable times to eat.
She chuckled a little at that, and glanced at her watch. "Love, it's past eight. Please tell me you haven't been forgetting to eat again." Pot, meet kettle - she'd had half a sandwich and an apple all day, being engrossed in research. She took a breath, and held out her hand. "I parked out the front - food's in ithe car, if you wanted to collect it and go somewhere we can talk for a bit?"
"I didn't forget", he protested, taking her hand unthinkingly. "I was gonna eat later. Sure, let's go find somewhere quiet."
"Later than late?" she teased, tightening her hold on his hand a little. His was warm, even through the knitted gloves she was wearing. "Tho' somewhere quiet around this place might be easier said than done. I remember..." A possibility struck her then, and she grinned. Fitting. "I know the perfect place."
"It's only the middle of the evening", he retorted, sticking his tongue out at her. "Lead on, then."
***
The parlour was dark, silent, the only sign of life the mouse tracks in the dust covering the floor and a long-abandoned empty cigarette packet under the window seat. Then there was a sudden jarring noise, as a stuck door was forced open, and a small globe of light entered, casting wavering shadows in the corners. "Huh," Amanda said, pausing in the doorway. "Looks like no-one's been here since me."
Angelo peered over her shoulder, a stack of takeout cartons in his arms. "Yeah, I don't think these rooms get used much. You sure you want to stay here?"
"Nothing wrong with a bit of dust." She walked forward, George bouncing back to her and hovering around her head. "Talk about memories. Holing up here after the love potion business... fuck, talk about emo." She looked back and gave him a wry grin. "At least we know we won't have anyone walking in on us. Shinobi, Jake and Manuel were the only ones who knew about this particular bolt hole of mine."
"Yeah, even I never knew about this one", he noted, impressed. "Mind you, back then we weren't even all that good friends, were we?"
"Yes and no. You kept quiet about my habit back then, stood up for me about the potion business, but I held a lot back, even so. Guess I wasn't sure of things, back then. Of course, it wasn't that much later that you stopped me walking off the roof." Slipping off her long winter coat, Amanda spread it over the window seat, lining side up, before coming to help relieve him of some of his burden. "Food should still be sort of warm - I got it from that place in Salem Center, and it hasn't been sitting that long."
"We can always go find a microwave an' come back, if it's too cold", he said with a shrug. "God, it's a long time since I thought about all that."
"Same here." Taking a seat on the coat, Amanda set the containers of Chinese down, picking through them to find the one she'd gotten for herself. "I did a lot of thinking in here, trying to fix the stupid things I'd done. Seemed appropriate to come back." She gave him a wry smile. "I was dumb over the weekend. Got stuck into a bottle of vodka, on me own." He'd know what that meant.
"'manda..." he said, worried. "All of it on your own?"
She shook her head. "Maybe got through a third of it before I drunk-dialled Kurt. When he had Wanda over there." She face-palmed. "Poor Blue. He does put up with a lot with me. Any way, I called my drug counsellor the next day, went and saw him on Sunday. Cleaned out my place of booze again, at least the hard stuff. And the thing is, I don't even know why I did it. I s'pose I got tired of being sensible."
"There's other things to do when you're tired of that", Angelo pointed out gently. "We've done a good few of 'em."
"After what happened at Trask's, I wasn't sure you'd want to," she replied, looking down at her hands, fiddling with the top of the take out container. The she sighed, and looked up again. "I'm sorry for how I said things, love. But I'm not sorry for being angry. You scared the shite out of me, taking off like that without saying a word."
"Yeah, thing is", he said slowly, "I'll apologise for scarin' you. An' yeah, it was kind of dumb... but I'm not gonna apologise for reactin' when my triggers get hit. You know?"
She nodded. "I'd be a giant hypocrite to insist on you apologising for that, since I don't exactly have the best track record meself. Something the Trenchcoats are trying to train me out of. 'S not the best habit in the work we do, flying off the handle." Still looking down at her hands, she asked, hesitantly: "Why didn't you tell me what you were up to?"
"It wasn't... I didn't think of it like leavin' you out", he told her. "I just... didn't want anybody to stop me while they still could. I thought you'd do... what you did, in the end."
"Well, if you'd said earlier, I wouldn't've been so livid at you. Something about having to dob you in to the Captain didn't really sit well." Amanda set aside the carton, aware she was about to start shredding the cardboard if she didn't. "The thing is... we promised each other. No secrets, no holding things back. And then you take off like that, without even stopping to think... I might have been able to help, but you didn't even think of that." She dug her nails into her palms. "It made me feel like I didn't even register."
"It happened too quick for it to be really holdin' anythin' back", was Angelo's take on it. "Not like I saw you an' didn't tell you. An' then... even with that, some things've still got to be mine, right?"
"And if those things get you killed?" she asked softly, finally looking up. "You said I would've done the same thing for Remy, but the thing is, Ange, I wouldn't have. When Marie-Ange got shot, we worked on it as a team, took care of it. You don't think I wanted to hunt down Belladonna and get her for what she did? But I knew I couldn't do it by myself. None of us could. Even Remy held back, and he blamed himself for what happened. 'S part of being on a team, trusting the others to think when you only want to react. It should be part of being with someone, too. Trusting them."
"I do trust you. An' I know you trust me, but there's parts of your life I won't ever get to touch an' you know it. Angie's my friend too, but you'd never have even thought of lettin' me be part of that team, would you?" There was no bitterness there, just a simple statement of fact. "What happened to her was yours to deal with. What Trask's doin' is mine."
"After this, I don't know if I can trust you," she said miserably. "Fuck, Ange, with what we do, we both know we could die any time we're out. And you decide to add to that with taking off on your own with no recon or anything?" Her voice rose a little, and she made a visible effort to calm herself again. "I understand there's parts of you that I can't be there for. I don't want to be. All I'm asking is... think next time? Take half a minute to think what might happen. Use that brain of yours, instead of your heart."
His face shut down after her first sentence - it was debatable if she could have struck at him more effectively by telling him she didn't know if she could love him anymore. "So you're tellin' me to be someone different. Take things different than I do."
"Maybe." At his tone, his face closing off, her heart sank. "If taking half a minute to think about things before you do them is being someone different, then maybe, yeah." She had a sudden urge to pull her knees up, fold into the old defensive position. "There's things I've had to change, Ange, if I wanted to stay with the people I care about. You think it's easy, being an addict, having to watch out for myself all the time? But I do, because I don't want to die. I don't want the people who love me to get hurt." She looked away. "I'm sorry. I don't think I can sit around and watch you get yourself killed because you couldn't stop and think for a minute about what you were doing. I'm not Moira."
"An' after all this time, one thing - one thing an' you know about everythin' that got in my head an' set me off, Nate an' my dad an' Askani an' T'Challa an' Barath an' the Preservers - after everythin' we've been through, I do one dumb thing an' suddenly you decide you can't trust me anymore?" He looked at her like a stranger, putting down his box of food. "Maybe this isn't what I thought it was."
"If I knew it was just one time, then I wouldn't have a problem!" she retorted, hating herself for having to say it. "But I just asked for you to just think next time, and suddenly I'm trying to change you, make you into someone you aren't! Fot fuck's sake, Ange, I love you, but I won't wait for someone to come tell me you got yourself killed because you did something stupid. You can't even give me a 'I'll try not to be dumb again' - that's all I fucking want. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and you say the same, but how the hell do I know you won't go chasing after Trask again and get yourself killed, if you can't even tell me you'll try to think next time?"
"You said you couldn't trust me anymore before I ever said a word about changin' for you", he retorted, voice flat. "An' then you told me to stop thinkin' with my heart. Sounds like a change to me. Can't have love without trust, chica, that's not how it works. I could tell you right now - in fact, yeah, I will. I'll try not to be dumb anymore, an' I promise you I won't go near Trask again alone or without good prep. But it means nothin' if you meant what you said."
There was a long pause, Angelo's words hanging in the dusty air. For a moment, Amanda wanted to keep arguing, tell him she hadn't meant for him to stop feeling altogether, just to inject some thought into the process, that he'd taken it too much to heart. But to what end? Looking at him, she realised just how deep she'd cut, and found herself wishing for some kind of empathic link, like with Manuel. At least then she'd have been able to let him know how frustrated and frightened and abandoned she'd felt without shredding him with stupid words.
"Words lie," she murmured, biting her lip. "I'm sorry, Ange, I didn't mean it." She took a shuddering breath. "I don't want to lose you, and it felt like I was."
"You weren't", he said quietly. "I'd've come back to you. I always will. But now I don't know if you know that the way I thought you did."
How would you have come back, if she'd been there and killed you? She didn't speak the thought. "You can't make that kind of promise, Ange," she said softly. "Not when not coming back's an option whenever you put on the leathers. Same as I can't promise you that whenever we go out. But you've told me you'll try to think, and that's all you can do. That's all I needed you to say." She bowed her head, waiting unhappily for his reaction, wondering if this was the night she wound up losing him after all.
He didn't move. "It's not good enough, is it?" he said eventually. "Tryin' to think, whatever might happen... you say it's what you wanted to hear, but it doesn't make you trust me again."
"I'm trying, Ange." It was said softly, with real anguish, and behind the curtain of hair covering her face, Amanda was clenching her eyes tight, trying to stop the burning of tears. "You've never lied to me, and I know you'll do your best." There was a brief hiccuping noise as she struggled to get control of her voice back. "I didn't want this. I just wanted you to see..."
"No, I didn't mean... I'm not good enough." That came out tight with frustration. "You've been tellin' me all night what you need, an' I'm not it. Someone you can know's always gonna be there when you come back off your missions, that's what you really need, someone who won't ever run off an' do dumb things when he gets upset an' maybe not come back at all, an' I can't be that."
A shudder went through her then. "I never said I needed you to always be here," she said tightly, head still down. A couple of wet spots appeared on the floor between her feet. "Or that you weren't good enough. Fuck, Ange, I'm the one who's not good enough. I don't deserve you, and most of the time I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and something to happen that makes it all go to shite." She let out a pained laugh. "Didn't think it'd be me to do it, but Sof would probably say she saw it coming. Holding on too tight, having too may unreasonable expectations." Her arms were wrapped around herself and her grip on her upper arms tightened as if holding herself together.
He couldn't reach out to her. Not now, not with things as precarious as they were. "You never said it in so many words", he agreed softly, "but I heard it the second you said you weren't Moira. You deserve me as much as anyone ever did, 'Manda, but you deserve things more... stable... than I'll be able to give you for a long time, maybe ever. An' I think that's what you want, too."
"I meant I couldn't sit at home and wait for someone to bring you back to get patched up after you'd run off and done things on your own, like Nate used to," she replied, but with a growing sense of defeat. It didn't matter. "I'd rather be out there, with you, than either of us sitting around." Her throat tightened then. "I love you. I want you. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"But that's what you're gonna have to do sometimes", he reminded her gently, and finally he knelt on the dusty floor in front of her. "Whether I run off on my own or not. Just like I'm gonna have to do it for you. I love you too, an' it counts for a lot... but are you sure it's enough you can deal with that? Whatever happens?"
She nodded, jerkily. "It is," she managed to choke out. It had to be. The alternative was too painful, like having a piece of her cut out. "But I won't... won't be a doormat either, Ange. That's not w-who I am." It was hard to talk from holding it all in.
"I won't ask you to be. I know it wouldn't be you, an' the yellin' wasn't really the problem anyway."
"Maybe we both could do with thinking more when we're upset." Amanda finally looked up at him then, eyes red-rimmed and wet. "Since that's my excuse too right now," she said, giving him a slightly-twisted smile before glancing away again to grope for a tissue in her front pocket. "Ugh, 'm such a fucking mess..." She didn't mean just how she looked right then.
"You an' me both", he said very quietly while she was turned away. "Come on. Let's get this stuff upstairs for leftovers."
It was perhaps a bit silly, waiting outside of the boathouse for Angelo to come out, but Amanda hadn't felt up for dealing with his co-workers, who seemed to be multiplying by the week. It would have been too awkward, with John's predictable remarks about her taking Angelo in hand or something, or Jane looking worried at her. Better to wait in the bitter cold for him to finish up. Pulling her scarf up higher around her face, she was just considering sending him a text message to let him know she was here when the door opened.
He hadn't quite managed to recover from his relapse into smoking - and John wasn't helping - but he'd at least managed to get it down to one a day, which was what he'd come out for. He blinked at her for a second before speaking. "Uh... hi!"
"Hey," she said, coming forward with a glance at the door. "You said come by after work, so..." She shrugged a little awkwardly. "If you're not done, I can go bother Kurt or Marie or something?"
"No, I - Nate just told me not to come back in today, so I guess I'm done. I just didn't think you meant this early, with dinner an' all." It was possible he had a skewed idea of reasonable times to eat.
She chuckled a little at that, and glanced at her watch. "Love, it's past eight. Please tell me you haven't been forgetting to eat again." Pot, meet kettle - she'd had half a sandwich and an apple all day, being engrossed in research. She took a breath, and held out her hand. "I parked out the front - food's in ithe car, if you wanted to collect it and go somewhere we can talk for a bit?"
"I didn't forget", he protested, taking her hand unthinkingly. "I was gonna eat later. Sure, let's go find somewhere quiet."
"Later than late?" she teased, tightening her hold on his hand a little. His was warm, even through the knitted gloves she was wearing. "Tho' somewhere quiet around this place might be easier said than done. I remember..." A possibility struck her then, and she grinned. Fitting. "I know the perfect place."
"It's only the middle of the evening", he retorted, sticking his tongue out at her. "Lead on, then."
***
The parlour was dark, silent, the only sign of life the mouse tracks in the dust covering the floor and a long-abandoned empty cigarette packet under the window seat. Then there was a sudden jarring noise, as a stuck door was forced open, and a small globe of light entered, casting wavering shadows in the corners. "Huh," Amanda said, pausing in the doorway. "Looks like no-one's been here since me."
Angelo peered over her shoulder, a stack of takeout cartons in his arms. "Yeah, I don't think these rooms get used much. You sure you want to stay here?"
"Nothing wrong with a bit of dust." She walked forward, George bouncing back to her and hovering around her head. "Talk about memories. Holing up here after the love potion business... fuck, talk about emo." She looked back and gave him a wry grin. "At least we know we won't have anyone walking in on us. Shinobi, Jake and Manuel were the only ones who knew about this particular bolt hole of mine."
"Yeah, even I never knew about this one", he noted, impressed. "Mind you, back then we weren't even all that good friends, were we?"
"Yes and no. You kept quiet about my habit back then, stood up for me about the potion business, but I held a lot back, even so. Guess I wasn't sure of things, back then. Of course, it wasn't that much later that you stopped me walking off the roof." Slipping off her long winter coat, Amanda spread it over the window seat, lining side up, before coming to help relieve him of some of his burden. "Food should still be sort of warm - I got it from that place in Salem Center, and it hasn't been sitting that long."
"We can always go find a microwave an' come back, if it's too cold", he said with a shrug. "God, it's a long time since I thought about all that."
"Same here." Taking a seat on the coat, Amanda set the containers of Chinese down, picking through them to find the one she'd gotten for herself. "I did a lot of thinking in here, trying to fix the stupid things I'd done. Seemed appropriate to come back." She gave him a wry smile. "I was dumb over the weekend. Got stuck into a bottle of vodka, on me own." He'd know what that meant.
"'manda..." he said, worried. "All of it on your own?"
She shook her head. "Maybe got through a third of it before I drunk-dialled Kurt. When he had Wanda over there." She face-palmed. "Poor Blue. He does put up with a lot with me. Any way, I called my drug counsellor the next day, went and saw him on Sunday. Cleaned out my place of booze again, at least the hard stuff. And the thing is, I don't even know why I did it. I s'pose I got tired of being sensible."
"There's other things to do when you're tired of that", Angelo pointed out gently. "We've done a good few of 'em."
"After what happened at Trask's, I wasn't sure you'd want to," she replied, looking down at her hands, fiddling with the top of the take out container. The she sighed, and looked up again. "I'm sorry for how I said things, love. But I'm not sorry for being angry. You scared the shite out of me, taking off like that without saying a word."
"Yeah, thing is", he said slowly, "I'll apologise for scarin' you. An' yeah, it was kind of dumb... but I'm not gonna apologise for reactin' when my triggers get hit. You know?"
She nodded. "I'd be a giant hypocrite to insist on you apologising for that, since I don't exactly have the best track record meself. Something the Trenchcoats are trying to train me out of. 'S not the best habit in the work we do, flying off the handle." Still looking down at her hands, she asked, hesitantly: "Why didn't you tell me what you were up to?"
"It wasn't... I didn't think of it like leavin' you out", he told her. "I just... didn't want anybody to stop me while they still could. I thought you'd do... what you did, in the end."
"Well, if you'd said earlier, I wouldn't've been so livid at you. Something about having to dob you in to the Captain didn't really sit well." Amanda set aside the carton, aware she was about to start shredding the cardboard if she didn't. "The thing is... we promised each other. No secrets, no holding things back. And then you take off like that, without even stopping to think... I might have been able to help, but you didn't even think of that." She dug her nails into her palms. "It made me feel like I didn't even register."
"It happened too quick for it to be really holdin' anythin' back", was Angelo's take on it. "Not like I saw you an' didn't tell you. An' then... even with that, some things've still got to be mine, right?"
"And if those things get you killed?" she asked softly, finally looking up. "You said I would've done the same thing for Remy, but the thing is, Ange, I wouldn't have. When Marie-Ange got shot, we worked on it as a team, took care of it. You don't think I wanted to hunt down Belladonna and get her for what she did? But I knew I couldn't do it by myself. None of us could. Even Remy held back, and he blamed himself for what happened. 'S part of being on a team, trusting the others to think when you only want to react. It should be part of being with someone, too. Trusting them."
"I do trust you. An' I know you trust me, but there's parts of your life I won't ever get to touch an' you know it. Angie's my friend too, but you'd never have even thought of lettin' me be part of that team, would you?" There was no bitterness there, just a simple statement of fact. "What happened to her was yours to deal with. What Trask's doin' is mine."
"After this, I don't know if I can trust you," she said miserably. "Fuck, Ange, with what we do, we both know we could die any time we're out. And you decide to add to that with taking off on your own with no recon or anything?" Her voice rose a little, and she made a visible effort to calm herself again. "I understand there's parts of you that I can't be there for. I don't want to be. All I'm asking is... think next time? Take half a minute to think what might happen. Use that brain of yours, instead of your heart."
His face shut down after her first sentence - it was debatable if she could have struck at him more effectively by telling him she didn't know if she could love him anymore. "So you're tellin' me to be someone different. Take things different than I do."
"Maybe." At his tone, his face closing off, her heart sank. "If taking half a minute to think about things before you do them is being someone different, then maybe, yeah." She had a sudden urge to pull her knees up, fold into the old defensive position. "There's things I've had to change, Ange, if I wanted to stay with the people I care about. You think it's easy, being an addict, having to watch out for myself all the time? But I do, because I don't want to die. I don't want the people who love me to get hurt." She looked away. "I'm sorry. I don't think I can sit around and watch you get yourself killed because you couldn't stop and think for a minute about what you were doing. I'm not Moira."
"An' after all this time, one thing - one thing an' you know about everythin' that got in my head an' set me off, Nate an' my dad an' Askani an' T'Challa an' Barath an' the Preservers - after everythin' we've been through, I do one dumb thing an' suddenly you decide you can't trust me anymore?" He looked at her like a stranger, putting down his box of food. "Maybe this isn't what I thought it was."
"If I knew it was just one time, then I wouldn't have a problem!" she retorted, hating herself for having to say it. "But I just asked for you to just think next time, and suddenly I'm trying to change you, make you into someone you aren't! Fot fuck's sake, Ange, I love you, but I won't wait for someone to come tell me you got yourself killed because you did something stupid. You can't even give me a 'I'll try not to be dumb again' - that's all I fucking want. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and you say the same, but how the hell do I know you won't go chasing after Trask again and get yourself killed, if you can't even tell me you'll try to think next time?"
"You said you couldn't trust me anymore before I ever said a word about changin' for you", he retorted, voice flat. "An' then you told me to stop thinkin' with my heart. Sounds like a change to me. Can't have love without trust, chica, that's not how it works. I could tell you right now - in fact, yeah, I will. I'll try not to be dumb anymore, an' I promise you I won't go near Trask again alone or without good prep. But it means nothin' if you meant what you said."
There was a long pause, Angelo's words hanging in the dusty air. For a moment, Amanda wanted to keep arguing, tell him she hadn't meant for him to stop feeling altogether, just to inject some thought into the process, that he'd taken it too much to heart. But to what end? Looking at him, she realised just how deep she'd cut, and found herself wishing for some kind of empathic link, like with Manuel. At least then she'd have been able to let him know how frustrated and frightened and abandoned she'd felt without shredding him with stupid words.
"Words lie," she murmured, biting her lip. "I'm sorry, Ange, I didn't mean it." She took a shuddering breath. "I don't want to lose you, and it felt like I was."
"You weren't", he said quietly. "I'd've come back to you. I always will. But now I don't know if you know that the way I thought you did."
How would you have come back, if she'd been there and killed you? She didn't speak the thought. "You can't make that kind of promise, Ange," she said softly. "Not when not coming back's an option whenever you put on the leathers. Same as I can't promise you that whenever we go out. But you've told me you'll try to think, and that's all you can do. That's all I needed you to say." She bowed her head, waiting unhappily for his reaction, wondering if this was the night she wound up losing him after all.
He didn't move. "It's not good enough, is it?" he said eventually. "Tryin' to think, whatever might happen... you say it's what you wanted to hear, but it doesn't make you trust me again."
"I'm trying, Ange." It was said softly, with real anguish, and behind the curtain of hair covering her face, Amanda was clenching her eyes tight, trying to stop the burning of tears. "You've never lied to me, and I know you'll do your best." There was a brief hiccuping noise as she struggled to get control of her voice back. "I didn't want this. I just wanted you to see..."
"No, I didn't mean... I'm not good enough." That came out tight with frustration. "You've been tellin' me all night what you need, an' I'm not it. Someone you can know's always gonna be there when you come back off your missions, that's what you really need, someone who won't ever run off an' do dumb things when he gets upset an' maybe not come back at all, an' I can't be that."
A shudder went through her then. "I never said I needed you to always be here," she said tightly, head still down. A couple of wet spots appeared on the floor between her feet. "Or that you weren't good enough. Fuck, Ange, I'm the one who's not good enough. I don't deserve you, and most of the time I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and something to happen that makes it all go to shite." She let out a pained laugh. "Didn't think it'd be me to do it, but Sof would probably say she saw it coming. Holding on too tight, having too may unreasonable expectations." Her arms were wrapped around herself and her grip on her upper arms tightened as if holding herself together.
He couldn't reach out to her. Not now, not with things as precarious as they were. "You never said it in so many words", he agreed softly, "but I heard it the second you said you weren't Moira. You deserve me as much as anyone ever did, 'Manda, but you deserve things more... stable... than I'll be able to give you for a long time, maybe ever. An' I think that's what you want, too."
"I meant I couldn't sit at home and wait for someone to bring you back to get patched up after you'd run off and done things on your own, like Nate used to," she replied, but with a growing sense of defeat. It didn't matter. "I'd rather be out there, with you, than either of us sitting around." Her throat tightened then. "I love you. I want you. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"But that's what you're gonna have to do sometimes", he reminded her gently, and finally he knelt on the dusty floor in front of her. "Whether I run off on my own or not. Just like I'm gonna have to do it for you. I love you too, an' it counts for a lot... but are you sure it's enough you can deal with that? Whatever happens?"
She nodded, jerkily. "It is," she managed to choke out. It had to be. The alternative was too painful, like having a piece of her cut out. "But I won't... won't be a doormat either, Ange. That's not w-who I am." It was hard to talk from holding it all in.
"I won't ask you to be. I know it wouldn't be you, an' the yellin' wasn't really the problem anyway."
"Maybe we both could do with thinking more when we're upset." Amanda finally looked up at him then, eyes red-rimmed and wet. "Since that's my excuse too right now," she said, giving him a slightly-twisted smile before glancing away again to grope for a tissue in her front pocket. "Ugh, 'm such a fucking mess..." She didn't mean just how she looked right then.
"You an' me both", he said very quietly while she was turned away. "Come on. Let's get this stuff upstairs for leftovers."
