Log [Alison, Anika] - An exchange of gifts...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Wednesday afternoon. In which Anika has something to give to Alison and ends up receiving something in return as well.



Anika moved around the room in a sort-of-circular pacing. She ought to sit down and relax, she knew, but Alison would be here in a little while and she was nervous. Casting a look at the covered canvas, she fretted. This sort of thing was not her specialty, and she'd wanted to do a good job at it, the best possible job at it.

It struck her that the curtains were drawn, and Alison would say something about her sitting here in the dimness again. Striding over to the window, Anika yanked the curtains back, blinking at the brightness of the sunlight.

The knock on the door came only a few seconds after that gesture, and once Anika called her in, Alison entered the room. And smiled just a bit at seeing Anika next to the window (again) and blinking owlishly at her. "Hey there. You wanted to talk to me?"

"Sort of," Anika said nervously, bouncing over, her eyes flickering to the canvas. "More like I wanted to show you something... give you something, really." She chuckled a bit uneasily. "I made something for you and something for Nate, but Nate's isn't quite done yet. Yours was clearest in my head so I wanted to do it first." She went over to the canvas, her hands shaking as she reached for the cloth covering it. "If you don't like it, you don't have to pretend you do. Really."

"Well, you could tell if I didn't anyway," was the slightly bemused remark, Alison staring at the very clearly nervous woman. She took a few steps forward, intending on reaching out to reassure Anika, then stopped dead in her tracks as the cloth that had been covering the canvas slowly slid off.

"...oh."

It had been a major switch in styles for her, Anika thought, her nose twitching nervously as she looked from Alison to the painting. She preferred abstracts, vivid colors. Landscapes, people, softer, more natural colors... not really her.

But she'd wanted to portray this as clearly as she could. It had been what she'd seen that night here at the mansion, two days before Youra. She'd stepped out onto the back porch and spotted Mick sitting on a rock by the lake, staring out at the water.

So that was what she'd painted. Mick was there only in profile, of course. All of his attention was on the water, just like it had been that night. At least she'd managed to capture the way he'd sat there, Anika thought. Straight-backed, yet relaxed. Not peaceful as much as... focused, and calm within that focus.

"Oh." She should say something, Alison knew, but instead she stared at the painting, the sunlight streaming through the window only adding to the intensity. The soft colors heralding the approaching sunset, the water unmarred by the wind, and Mick on the stone, where she'd spoken to him the day they'd tested their powers, to see how his sonics might affect her.

"How did you..." Know, she wanted to ask. That it was the last time I had the chance to talk to him before Youra, right there a few hours later during the sunset.

"I watched for a little while." Well, she seemed at a loss for words, more or less - that was good, wasn't it? Anika told herself to stop chewing her lip. "Saw you going down to talk to him. I'd been planning to head down there, but..." She colored a little. "You deserved the time to talk to him alone, I thought. And I had him the whole next day." Her voice broke a little. "Got to sleep on his shoulder on the plane ride back to Galicia, too."

Her eyes filled with tears suddenly and she only stopped looking at the painting at the last moment, she was looking out the window and into the sun as she hugged Anika and didn't let go. "It's beautiful. Thank you. So much." She smiled a bit, drawing in a short breath, throat tight over the following words. "And thank you for letting me talk to him, back then."

Anika put her arms around the other woman and hugged back unreservedly, her own eyes stinging. "It was right," she said, very vehemently. "He needed to talk to you and you needed to talk to him. And I knew that." She laughed a little, pain in the sound but also a sad sort of amusement. "You're supposed to know things like that when you're all pack."

"I guess you do, at that," Alison murmured in return, still not letting go just yet. Finally she took a small step back, giving Anika a serious look once her gaze drifted back to her from staring at the painting. "I'm just a call away if you ever need anything. Or just want to babble, even."

"I won't be here for too much longer," Anika said quietly. "Once Dom and GW... uh, you know the Pack's leaving Berlin, right?" She gave Alison an uncertain look. "Once they get settled, someone will come back for me. And Piers." She brightened noticeably. "Ian is coming too."

"I knew," she confirmed, nodding just a bit, adding a touch of a smile to it when she saw Anika's expression. She would be all right, Alison realized, looking at her intently for a moment, and the knowledge showed in small ways as she let out her breath slowly, relaxing a bit. "I'll be expecting visits, and not just news from abroad. And... I got you something. I wasn't sure when you'd want to go, though, so I got open dates..."

"You..." Anika blinked at her, then smiled a bit, crookedly. "I like getting surprises, not just giving them. And of course I'll come back. I have to be able to see Nate and Moira and the baby and you and Kyle..."

"I thought you would. There would have been finding you and knowing why if not, at that." Smiling a bit, Alison pulled out a folded envelope, smoothing it out a bit. "They're a bit crumpled, but I didn't want you to see them first thing when I got here." She stared down at the card, clearly containing a fair sheaf of papers in it from the thickness before handing it to Anika. "Here."

Anika took the envelope, flipping through it with a curious expression that lasted only a moment before softening into understanding. "Tim's trip," she said, her voice a bit hoarse. Paris, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Westchester. The trip he'd told her about on the helicopter to Youra, saying with that wry smile that Alison had inspired him. "I..." She stopped, swallowing, and then abruptly hugged Alison again. "See?" she said. "We know. We just know."

Any spoken answer would have been superfluous at that moment, so Alison simply nodded in return, hugging Anika back without a word. There would be postcards coming in, she knew, pointing out locations Tim had perhaps mentioned wanting to visit, or that Anika thought he might have liked.

And perhaps, one day, she would make the trip too.