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xp_logsFollowing her moving out of the brownstone, Vanessa tracks down Amanda to try and make amends. It doesn't go well.
With everything out of the brownstone and into the penthouse, Vanessa had handed over her keys to the building she'd just moved out of. Maybe she shouldn't have handed them over quite so quickly, it would have made tracking down the blonde she wanted to speak to easier. On the other hand, Vanessa didn't want to make anyone feel like the brownstone wasn't secure so she didn't want keys floating out in space, even if she knew she wasn't exactly going to break in and try to take someone out. Vanessa chose the next best option for finding the British witch, Finnigan's.
It was like a sixth sense, really. Alright, so it was more like working with the chick for the past year and knowing she could find a Junior Trenchcoat in the bar if she was looking for one. Vanessa even managed to find the trenchcoat she wanted. She bought two beers at the bar and went over to set one down on the table in front of the younger woman. "LeBeau was right about me." It was better than asking if she could talk to Amanda. That would give the other woman a chance to say no.
Amanda looked up from the book she was reading. It was, as to be expected, on magic, part of the witch's own learning curve in her role as teacher to Nico. Given their magic styles were so different, she'd had to try and tailor the girl's training to what she was actually capable of on her own, without the Staff. Hopefully that would circumvent the natural evil of the device.
Seeing the blue woman, she raised her eyebrow. "What did I do this time?" she asked, more tiredly than anything. "I swear I didn't go tattling to Remy about anything."
"Since when does me trying to go, 'hey I was irrational' have anything to do with you doing something?" Vanessa raised an eyebrow at the witch. It was possible Amanda hadn't heard what Vanessa had said as she'd set the beer down. It was also possible that after their last conversation she was going to immediately translate everything into you smell, go away, which was understandable.
"I dunno, since that whole talk we had where you decided I was to blame for everything and anything?" Amanda replied, just a bit cattily. Vanessa's announcement on the Snow Valley comm hadn't improved her mood, only exacerbated the vague feeling of guilt that perhaps she was responsible for the departure. Oh, Pete would swat her across the head for thinking like that still. "Unless hell's actually frozen over, you can't be here to apologise. You made that pretty clear."
"I hear hell has a cold front coming through." Only a cold front, though, because it wasn't a blanket apology. She still wished Amanda had kept her nose the fuck out of Jean-Paul's business. She also understood why she hadn't. It was like sitting a quarter on its side and then trying to decide if it was on its head or its tail.
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Maybe you should sit down," she replied at last, giving Vanessa that small amount of grace.
Morgan's head dipped down to acknowledge a thanks before she slid onto the bench of the booth opposite the blonde. "LeBeau's right, I'm a mercenary. I'm not an operative. We're supposed to see everyone as a bad guy but I don't assume everyone's the enemy. I'll dispatch an enemy without a thought when I know they're an enemy, but I'm not preemptive. I don't spoil for a fight. I know that's not what you or he were doing, but you fucked with a friend of mine and I'm always going to react the same way to anyone fucking with any of my friends. Especially when I've seen nothing to warrant it." She stopped to take a pull from the as yet untouched pint in her own hand.
"I would've had the same reaction if it'd been you and I hadn't thought it was anything but a rough time. 'Cause when it's just a rough time it can be made a fuck lot worse by people poking their noses into your wounds. I shouldn't have flipped out on you. I get irrational when it's my people on the line."
"Well, at least you've worked it out before it got us into a mess in the field." Amanda's tone was rather flat - apparently she was still a Bad Person for being concerned about Jean-Paul's changes. "So, you're all moved out then?"
"That was kind of my thought." The metamorph had a sneaking suspicion that something she'd just said hadn't quite come off the way she'd intended for it to. "Aye, Lex and I moved everything out on Friday. The security guys think Aoife and I are lovers thanks to Adrienne. They'll be confused when they realize we're the same person."
"Adrienne has sex on the brain," Amanda snorted a little. "'S good you're settled. No point dragging it all out once you made your mind up to go."
"Adrienne always has sex on the brain." If it weren't for Vanessa's involvement with Lex her best friend would likely be renewing her campaign for Vanessa to get together with Amanda. After all, they no longer had the metamorph's no coworkers rule standing in their way. "I don't like dragging anything out if I can help it. Rip off the bandage and go. Probably does more harm than good sometimes." Like the last time she'd spoken to the witch.
"Yeah, well, sometimes things need the soft touch. Or so I've been told." Amanda grimaced a bit and paused to drink a couple of mouthfuls of her pint. "What're you going to do with yourself, now you've given the Trenchcoats the heave-ho? Back to mercenary work?"
Vanessa shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe. There's too many people here that matter too much for me to just up and go, though. I'm gonna be an on call substitute for Xavier's until I figure it out. But I like to think the Trenchcoats and I realized we weren't compatible more than I dumped them after having a bit of a shag."
That got a short snort of laughter from Amanda, despite herself. "It's not me, it's you?" she asked ironically. "I s'pose I've had worse breakups."
"I'm trying to reconcile? With you anyway." She didn't want to go back to the group as a whole because it didn't really work for her. Vanessa still was hesitant about how much digging Amanda might do in her own life if the witch thought it was for the metamorph's own good. But she didn't want to lose her either. "I'd offer you makeup sex, but I can't make good on that."
"I thought you said you couldn't trust me," came the reply - that had struck deep and Amanda wasn't going to let it go so easily.
"I'm not sure I can." Honesty, perhaps, came too easily for Vanessa. She wouldn't lie, though, not about that. "When it comes right down to it, I'm private about anything that matters to me. I get that if you went around digging in my life and my past that it'd be well-intentioned. That doesn't mean that I need to like that you'd do it. Especially if it turned out your well-intentioned digging was for naught and you could've just found it out by asking me and hanging around for a while." Really, were there people who liked having others dig through every last secret they'd ever had? People without shame, perhaps. "But I guess I've decided I'll risk it anyway."
"Wow, you'll risk it. Thanks so very much." Amanda's voice went flat again as she bit back her anger. "You really don't get it, do you? If there's ever a need to go digging through your personal life, it'll be because I can't talk to you or hang out with you. It'll be because if I don't, you or someone else is in danger. Not for shits and giggles. That's why it was part of the job, not on my own, because personal isn't the same as important." She forced herself to relax. "That's where we're different, I suppose. I trust the people I work with, not just to cover my back, but to do what's necessary if I go off the rails, whether that's digging into every secret I have, or taking me out."
"I trust my people to have my back. But I don't have a tendency to go evil. Neither do the people I work with normally. Maybe that's what you're forgetting. You deal in Weird Shite all the time. I don't. I kill people for money. I fight in wars for money. I impersonate people to get information for money. I don't save the world. No one's looking to infiltrate my organization. That shit doesn't happen in my world. Except with Snow Valley." There was that time her people had kidnapped Domino and she'd taken on the girl's mimic to infiltrate The Pack, but that was the exception and not the rule. Even then, it wasn't like they'd had any idea it was Vanessa instead of Domino.
"Unless you're willing to investigate everyone all the time even when they're acting normal you're susceptible. You're weak, you're vulnerable. So're you gonna look into tracking every move someone makes? Because a good enough shapeshifter who's smart enough?" The metamorph shrugged. "No one ever thought anything was up when I was impersonating people."
"I've been involved in Weird Shite since I was two years old. 'S not like I've ever had another perspective." Amanda looked back down at her beer. "I get that it's different for you. 'S just the way you put it, making it sound like I'm poking around in someone's life for kicks or 'cause I'm too lazy or something to actually talk to them. That's not it."
"I don't think you're too lazy. I think you've been in the Weird Shite so long you don't see other ways of doing it." Alright, maybe that sounded a little like lazy. And maybe it sounded a little like Amanda being dense, but Vanessa was hoping that her tone made it clear she didn't mean it that way. She was failing in big ways here though. "We are our experiences. We're our past, our knowledge. Yours and mine, they're different - hugely different. So we react differently by a large margin."
"I've been bitten on the arse too much to see it any other way." Amanda shrugged. "Sof says I have trust issues. I s'pose she's right." She picked up her drink again. "So, you have your way, I have mine. I get that your way doesn't work with the Trenchcoats but I'm not sure my way works with us as mates, either. Sounds like it doesn't."
Vanessa shrugged a little and took a deep pull from her pint. She'd come here in hopes of fixing the damage she'd done with their last conversation to some extent or another. Apparently she wasn't going to get much of it fixed. "You get what you give in life, Sparks. Trust's no different. Aye, you gotta give a little to get a little. So I guess the mate issue's up to you because I'm already here."
"Well, that's the thing, innt? I trusted you. I thought we were mates. And then..." She let it hang. "You trusted me enough to snog me, but not enough to tell me which name to use. I only know your real name 'cause of the work thing."
"Knowing the name on my birth certificate isn't a matter of just being mates. I can count the number of people I've told that to willingly on one hand." She even started to tick off fingers as she listed them, "My best friend, who I've got a world more intimate shit on than she's got on me because she just has more; my ex and current boyfriend because I'm not dishonest enough to date someone without them knowing it, and because I don't fancy being ditched once they start to figure out who I really am; Laurie, because she's practically my kid sister; and Catseye because she noticed the difference and swore to keep it a secret." She didn't mention that all of those people had probably spent more time with Vanessa than Amanda ever had nor did she point out they'd spent more social time with Morgan than the witch had.
"I trusted you enough to be mates. I used to be a whore, a snog doesn't need to have trust just necessity. Did I trust you with it too? Yeah, but don't make the mistake of thinking everyone who snogs you trusts you. Because most people don't even think about it before snogging someone."
"Yeah, well, looks like I let my guard down, didn't I?" Amanda looked away, her cheeks colouring - she felt like a stupid child being told the facts of schoolyard life. Sometimes it felt like every time she tried to let go of her issues, something would happen to remind her of why she had them. "Thanks for reminding me." She flipped her book closed and shoved it in her bookbag with perhaps more force than necessary. "I wanted... I thought we had something. Could have something, with a bit of time and hanging out more. At least now I know where I stand." A muscle jumped along her jaw as she clenched it, trying to keep calm. "Later, Mogan."
Had something? Like a something something? Had she missed part of this conversation? Was Amanda speaking in that girl code where half of what you're saying is telepathic and other women are supposed to be able to read your mind but men are always completely confused? Because Vanessa sucked at female to female telepathy. She rose and put herself in the way of Amanda's retreat. "Hang on, so're you pissed because I'm stupidly protective of my friends and was a bitch to you because of it even though I apologized - but I get why apologies don't make shit all better - or because I haven't put you against a wall and claimed you as mine? Is it a mate related trust issue or something else? Because the signals are starting to cross and I don't really speak Girl."
"I'm pissed off because those friends you're so stupidly protective of? Don't include me. And maybe I fucked up and misread something, but when every fucking job we went on ended up with you climbing all over me, excuse me for thinking that maybe I was included in that." Amanda's voice rose, drawing attention from the other pub goers, and she coloured further before lowering her tone. "I wanted to be friends, Morgan. That's all. But you made it pretty bloody clear that we're not when you decided Jean-Paul, who took off without saying anything and who hasn't been in touch for months, was so bloody close to you that you couldn't even stay living in the same building as the rest of us any more." She turned her face away from the other woman, hating the fact she was so upset about all this. Why couldn't she just let it go, like Pete or Remy would?
"You were the only friend I had there. And I told you I'd've reacted the same if it were you instead of Jean-Paul. The people I'm closest to in the world? The people I count as family? I don't get to hear from for months at a time. Fucking Laurie hears from Eamon more than I do! I'm used to it. Consistency of presence don't equate with importance to me. You can bugger off for years if you want and if you come back I still count you as my mate." This was getting into the realm of Chick Fight, which Vanessa really would have liked to have avoided. Some things were unavoidable, though, and it seemed like she either pulled the chick fight or just let Amanda go never to be seen again.
"I moved out of the brownstone because security is important there and I don't want to be the unsecure thing living there. That guy on the first floor pre-dates you all, I don't. And eventually you might have ended up with a new recruit who really wanted that place. So I found somewhere else to live. I'm still in the bloody city, it's not like I went that fucking far." Somehow her voice got quieter the longer she spoke rather than raising. Maybe she was trying to counteract the volume Amanda had just used.
"Bull-fucking-shit. You didn't even say anything about moving out, you just assumed we'd throw you out and went off in a huff. You did exactly the same bloody thing you accused me of, running off and doing something without talking to anyone effected by it. And now you want me to... what? Forgive you? For making me feel like none of the last year matters to you because someone you weren't even talking to when he left has come back? For tossing all that over the side because you got your nose out of joint?" Amanda's eyes blazed. "I might be emotionally fucked up, but I can still have my feelings hurt, and friends taking off without even the balls to tell me they're going to go? Fucking well hurts. At least Marie had the courtesy to email me before she left." Amanda shook her head. "I'm done with this. I'm going home."
"I quit the job, that's my decision for my reasons. I moved out of one building into another one in the city. I didn't fucking ditch you. If I was leaving the country or the state I'd've talked to you but why the fuck should it matter that I changed my bloody address?" Then Vanessa just stopped. She put her hands up in a gesture of surrender and then stepped out of the blonde's way. "If you're done then be done. Go ahead. But don't try to put the blame on me later on for why we're not mates. Don't try to tell yourself it was me walking out that did it."
"Considering it was my fault you quit in the first place, why would I do that?" was Amanda's response as she strode past the other woman, rubbing her sleeve roughly across her eyes as she did. Some spy she was.
"Actually," Vanessa muttered to herself in a whisper, "it was my fault I quit." Amanda was what made her realize she didn't fit with the rest of them, but it was Vanessa's choice. She didn't think the Brit was going to realize that, though, so she watched her go.
With everything out of the brownstone and into the penthouse, Vanessa had handed over her keys to the building she'd just moved out of. Maybe she shouldn't have handed them over quite so quickly, it would have made tracking down the blonde she wanted to speak to easier. On the other hand, Vanessa didn't want to make anyone feel like the brownstone wasn't secure so she didn't want keys floating out in space, even if she knew she wasn't exactly going to break in and try to take someone out. Vanessa chose the next best option for finding the British witch, Finnigan's.
It was like a sixth sense, really. Alright, so it was more like working with the chick for the past year and knowing she could find a Junior Trenchcoat in the bar if she was looking for one. Vanessa even managed to find the trenchcoat she wanted. She bought two beers at the bar and went over to set one down on the table in front of the younger woman. "LeBeau was right about me." It was better than asking if she could talk to Amanda. That would give the other woman a chance to say no.
Amanda looked up from the book she was reading. It was, as to be expected, on magic, part of the witch's own learning curve in her role as teacher to Nico. Given their magic styles were so different, she'd had to try and tailor the girl's training to what she was actually capable of on her own, without the Staff. Hopefully that would circumvent the natural evil of the device.
Seeing the blue woman, she raised her eyebrow. "What did I do this time?" she asked, more tiredly than anything. "I swear I didn't go tattling to Remy about anything."
"Since when does me trying to go, 'hey I was irrational' have anything to do with you doing something?" Vanessa raised an eyebrow at the witch. It was possible Amanda hadn't heard what Vanessa had said as she'd set the beer down. It was also possible that after their last conversation she was going to immediately translate everything into you smell, go away, which was understandable.
"I dunno, since that whole talk we had where you decided I was to blame for everything and anything?" Amanda replied, just a bit cattily. Vanessa's announcement on the Snow Valley comm hadn't improved her mood, only exacerbated the vague feeling of guilt that perhaps she was responsible for the departure. Oh, Pete would swat her across the head for thinking like that still. "Unless hell's actually frozen over, you can't be here to apologise. You made that pretty clear."
"I hear hell has a cold front coming through." Only a cold front, though, because it wasn't a blanket apology. She still wished Amanda had kept her nose the fuck out of Jean-Paul's business. She also understood why she hadn't. It was like sitting a quarter on its side and then trying to decide if it was on its head or its tail.
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Maybe you should sit down," she replied at last, giving Vanessa that small amount of grace.
Morgan's head dipped down to acknowledge a thanks before she slid onto the bench of the booth opposite the blonde. "LeBeau's right, I'm a mercenary. I'm not an operative. We're supposed to see everyone as a bad guy but I don't assume everyone's the enemy. I'll dispatch an enemy without a thought when I know they're an enemy, but I'm not preemptive. I don't spoil for a fight. I know that's not what you or he were doing, but you fucked with a friend of mine and I'm always going to react the same way to anyone fucking with any of my friends. Especially when I've seen nothing to warrant it." She stopped to take a pull from the as yet untouched pint in her own hand.
"I would've had the same reaction if it'd been you and I hadn't thought it was anything but a rough time. 'Cause when it's just a rough time it can be made a fuck lot worse by people poking their noses into your wounds. I shouldn't have flipped out on you. I get irrational when it's my people on the line."
"Well, at least you've worked it out before it got us into a mess in the field." Amanda's tone was rather flat - apparently she was still a Bad Person for being concerned about Jean-Paul's changes. "So, you're all moved out then?"
"That was kind of my thought." The metamorph had a sneaking suspicion that something she'd just said hadn't quite come off the way she'd intended for it to. "Aye, Lex and I moved everything out on Friday. The security guys think Aoife and I are lovers thanks to Adrienne. They'll be confused when they realize we're the same person."
"Adrienne has sex on the brain," Amanda snorted a little. "'S good you're settled. No point dragging it all out once you made your mind up to go."
"Adrienne always has sex on the brain." If it weren't for Vanessa's involvement with Lex her best friend would likely be renewing her campaign for Vanessa to get together with Amanda. After all, they no longer had the metamorph's no coworkers rule standing in their way. "I don't like dragging anything out if I can help it. Rip off the bandage and go. Probably does more harm than good sometimes." Like the last time she'd spoken to the witch.
"Yeah, well, sometimes things need the soft touch. Or so I've been told." Amanda grimaced a bit and paused to drink a couple of mouthfuls of her pint. "What're you going to do with yourself, now you've given the Trenchcoats the heave-ho? Back to mercenary work?"
Vanessa shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe. There's too many people here that matter too much for me to just up and go, though. I'm gonna be an on call substitute for Xavier's until I figure it out. But I like to think the Trenchcoats and I realized we weren't compatible more than I dumped them after having a bit of a shag."
That got a short snort of laughter from Amanda, despite herself. "It's not me, it's you?" she asked ironically. "I s'pose I've had worse breakups."
"I'm trying to reconcile? With you anyway." She didn't want to go back to the group as a whole because it didn't really work for her. Vanessa still was hesitant about how much digging Amanda might do in her own life if the witch thought it was for the metamorph's own good. But she didn't want to lose her either. "I'd offer you makeup sex, but I can't make good on that."
"I thought you said you couldn't trust me," came the reply - that had struck deep and Amanda wasn't going to let it go so easily.
"I'm not sure I can." Honesty, perhaps, came too easily for Vanessa. She wouldn't lie, though, not about that. "When it comes right down to it, I'm private about anything that matters to me. I get that if you went around digging in my life and my past that it'd be well-intentioned. That doesn't mean that I need to like that you'd do it. Especially if it turned out your well-intentioned digging was for naught and you could've just found it out by asking me and hanging around for a while." Really, were there people who liked having others dig through every last secret they'd ever had? People without shame, perhaps. "But I guess I've decided I'll risk it anyway."
"Wow, you'll risk it. Thanks so very much." Amanda's voice went flat again as she bit back her anger. "You really don't get it, do you? If there's ever a need to go digging through your personal life, it'll be because I can't talk to you or hang out with you. It'll be because if I don't, you or someone else is in danger. Not for shits and giggles. That's why it was part of the job, not on my own, because personal isn't the same as important." She forced herself to relax. "That's where we're different, I suppose. I trust the people I work with, not just to cover my back, but to do what's necessary if I go off the rails, whether that's digging into every secret I have, or taking me out."
"I trust my people to have my back. But I don't have a tendency to go evil. Neither do the people I work with normally. Maybe that's what you're forgetting. You deal in Weird Shite all the time. I don't. I kill people for money. I fight in wars for money. I impersonate people to get information for money. I don't save the world. No one's looking to infiltrate my organization. That shit doesn't happen in my world. Except with Snow Valley." There was that time her people had kidnapped Domino and she'd taken on the girl's mimic to infiltrate The Pack, but that was the exception and not the rule. Even then, it wasn't like they'd had any idea it was Vanessa instead of Domino.
"Unless you're willing to investigate everyone all the time even when they're acting normal you're susceptible. You're weak, you're vulnerable. So're you gonna look into tracking every move someone makes? Because a good enough shapeshifter who's smart enough?" The metamorph shrugged. "No one ever thought anything was up when I was impersonating people."
"I've been involved in Weird Shite since I was two years old. 'S not like I've ever had another perspective." Amanda looked back down at her beer. "I get that it's different for you. 'S just the way you put it, making it sound like I'm poking around in someone's life for kicks or 'cause I'm too lazy or something to actually talk to them. That's not it."
"I don't think you're too lazy. I think you've been in the Weird Shite so long you don't see other ways of doing it." Alright, maybe that sounded a little like lazy. And maybe it sounded a little like Amanda being dense, but Vanessa was hoping that her tone made it clear she didn't mean it that way. She was failing in big ways here though. "We are our experiences. We're our past, our knowledge. Yours and mine, they're different - hugely different. So we react differently by a large margin."
"I've been bitten on the arse too much to see it any other way." Amanda shrugged. "Sof says I have trust issues. I s'pose she's right." She picked up her drink again. "So, you have your way, I have mine. I get that your way doesn't work with the Trenchcoats but I'm not sure my way works with us as mates, either. Sounds like it doesn't."
Vanessa shrugged a little and took a deep pull from her pint. She'd come here in hopes of fixing the damage she'd done with their last conversation to some extent or another. Apparently she wasn't going to get much of it fixed. "You get what you give in life, Sparks. Trust's no different. Aye, you gotta give a little to get a little. So I guess the mate issue's up to you because I'm already here."
"Well, that's the thing, innt? I trusted you. I thought we were mates. And then..." She let it hang. "You trusted me enough to snog me, but not enough to tell me which name to use. I only know your real name 'cause of the work thing."
"Knowing the name on my birth certificate isn't a matter of just being mates. I can count the number of people I've told that to willingly on one hand." She even started to tick off fingers as she listed them, "My best friend, who I've got a world more intimate shit on than she's got on me because she just has more; my ex and current boyfriend because I'm not dishonest enough to date someone without them knowing it, and because I don't fancy being ditched once they start to figure out who I really am; Laurie, because she's practically my kid sister; and Catseye because she noticed the difference and swore to keep it a secret." She didn't mention that all of those people had probably spent more time with Vanessa than Amanda ever had nor did she point out they'd spent more social time with Morgan than the witch had.
"I trusted you enough to be mates. I used to be a whore, a snog doesn't need to have trust just necessity. Did I trust you with it too? Yeah, but don't make the mistake of thinking everyone who snogs you trusts you. Because most people don't even think about it before snogging someone."
"Yeah, well, looks like I let my guard down, didn't I?" Amanda looked away, her cheeks colouring - she felt like a stupid child being told the facts of schoolyard life. Sometimes it felt like every time she tried to let go of her issues, something would happen to remind her of why she had them. "Thanks for reminding me." She flipped her book closed and shoved it in her bookbag with perhaps more force than necessary. "I wanted... I thought we had something. Could have something, with a bit of time and hanging out more. At least now I know where I stand." A muscle jumped along her jaw as she clenched it, trying to keep calm. "Later, Mogan."
Had something? Like a something something? Had she missed part of this conversation? Was Amanda speaking in that girl code where half of what you're saying is telepathic and other women are supposed to be able to read your mind but men are always completely confused? Because Vanessa sucked at female to female telepathy. She rose and put herself in the way of Amanda's retreat. "Hang on, so're you pissed because I'm stupidly protective of my friends and was a bitch to you because of it even though I apologized - but I get why apologies don't make shit all better - or because I haven't put you against a wall and claimed you as mine? Is it a mate related trust issue or something else? Because the signals are starting to cross and I don't really speak Girl."
"I'm pissed off because those friends you're so stupidly protective of? Don't include me. And maybe I fucked up and misread something, but when every fucking job we went on ended up with you climbing all over me, excuse me for thinking that maybe I was included in that." Amanda's voice rose, drawing attention from the other pub goers, and she coloured further before lowering her tone. "I wanted to be friends, Morgan. That's all. But you made it pretty bloody clear that we're not when you decided Jean-Paul, who took off without saying anything and who hasn't been in touch for months, was so bloody close to you that you couldn't even stay living in the same building as the rest of us any more." She turned her face away from the other woman, hating the fact she was so upset about all this. Why couldn't she just let it go, like Pete or Remy would?
"You were the only friend I had there. And I told you I'd've reacted the same if it were you instead of Jean-Paul. The people I'm closest to in the world? The people I count as family? I don't get to hear from for months at a time. Fucking Laurie hears from Eamon more than I do! I'm used to it. Consistency of presence don't equate with importance to me. You can bugger off for years if you want and if you come back I still count you as my mate." This was getting into the realm of Chick Fight, which Vanessa really would have liked to have avoided. Some things were unavoidable, though, and it seemed like she either pulled the chick fight or just let Amanda go never to be seen again.
"I moved out of the brownstone because security is important there and I don't want to be the unsecure thing living there. That guy on the first floor pre-dates you all, I don't. And eventually you might have ended up with a new recruit who really wanted that place. So I found somewhere else to live. I'm still in the bloody city, it's not like I went that fucking far." Somehow her voice got quieter the longer she spoke rather than raising. Maybe she was trying to counteract the volume Amanda had just used.
"Bull-fucking-shit. You didn't even say anything about moving out, you just assumed we'd throw you out and went off in a huff. You did exactly the same bloody thing you accused me of, running off and doing something without talking to anyone effected by it. And now you want me to... what? Forgive you? For making me feel like none of the last year matters to you because someone you weren't even talking to when he left has come back? For tossing all that over the side because you got your nose out of joint?" Amanda's eyes blazed. "I might be emotionally fucked up, but I can still have my feelings hurt, and friends taking off without even the balls to tell me they're going to go? Fucking well hurts. At least Marie had the courtesy to email me before she left." Amanda shook her head. "I'm done with this. I'm going home."
"I quit the job, that's my decision for my reasons. I moved out of one building into another one in the city. I didn't fucking ditch you. If I was leaving the country or the state I'd've talked to you but why the fuck should it matter that I changed my bloody address?" Then Vanessa just stopped. She put her hands up in a gesture of surrender and then stepped out of the blonde's way. "If you're done then be done. Go ahead. But don't try to put the blame on me later on for why we're not mates. Don't try to tell yourself it was me walking out that did it."
"Considering it was my fault you quit in the first place, why would I do that?" was Amanda's response as she strode past the other woman, rubbing her sleeve roughly across her eyes as she did. Some spy she was.
"Actually," Vanessa muttered to herself in a whisper, "it was my fault I quit." Amanda was what made her realize she didn't fit with the rest of them, but it was Vanessa's choice. She didn't think the Brit was going to realize that, though, so she watched her go.
