I&#39;m a Very Important Man!

Sokka knocked on his door carefully, carrying a decaf no-whip soy latte.

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There was a sound from inside, something that might have sounded distinctly like an incoherent mumble into a pile of dirty laundry, muffled further through the door.

If nothing else, it was an indication that the resident of room 206 was still inside of room 206.

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Sokka opened the door and peered in. "Hey. How are you holding up? I, uh. I'm going over to the library in just a bit. To, uh. Look. For help."

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Valentine hesitated for a moment before sitting up.

Right, then. He could hardly spend the rest of his life curled into her dresses, could he? Onwards and Upwards, and all of that. Or something. Perhaps.

"For help? In the library?"

Sokka would possibly be in need of a net, then. Or... No, no he wouldn't, the books were all dea- not alive here. Right.

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"There might be information there?" Sokka insisted, trying to sound hopeful when he really wasn't. He held out the latte to Valentine.

"Do you want to come?" he asked, hesitantly. If Valentine wanted to spend the whole day in the laundry pile, then... Well, Sokka wasn't about to tell him not to.

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It took a few moments of eying the latte for Valentine to even realize that it was there. And a few moments more before he realized that it was, in fact, for him. And then another moment for him to reach out to take it.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Perhaps. I ought to, right?"

Books with words and words from books and if any of them had more than 'Remember what your mother told you,' then maybe they'd be useful, somehow.

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"No," Sokka told him. "What you OUGHT to do is sit here until you think you're ready to face the world. Maybe get angry and break stuff; that always helps. And if you think you want to get up and come with me, do that. And if you don't, don't."

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Valentine looked down at the latte in his hands, nodding faintly.

He'd never had the option before, when someone went away like this, swallowed up by something else with no more than a few moments of warning.

This was the first time in his life that it didn't have to be 'Onwards and Upwards.'

"Perhaps I'll join you tomorrow, if you're still looking," he murmured.

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Sokka patted him on the shoulder. "Okay. Promise me you won't forget to eat?"

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"Have you ever known me to forget to eat before?"

This was entirely different. Valentine was aware of that. He'd already forgotten to eat, after all.

"I'll remember," he agreed with a bit of a nod.

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Sokka clapped him on the shoulder again, more firmly this time. "Good. If you need anything, come find me. I'll stop by later, too."

He was going to make sure he was out of Valentine's room before he broke down and sobbed. Had to be strong.

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"Thank you." Valentine's gaze fell back to the floor. Back to the laundry. Back to her clothing.

If he breathed it all in deeply enough, perhaps that could pass as eating, for a while.

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Cassandra knocked at the door, and then without waiting for an answer she pushed it open, "Namine?"

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Door. Opening. Cassandra. Right. Okay.

Valentine gathered up his wits- wits were very slippery things today- and shook his head a little as he looked at the person who had just walked in.

"She isn't here," he said, and it sounded much more flat and tired on his tongue than he had meant for it to be.

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Looking around the room for Namine meant Cassandra wasn't watching Valentine. She'd never been good with tones of voice, and without being able to see him she missed the nuance.

"When will she be back?"

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It took a bit more effort to find his voice at all before Valentine could answer that question.

A great deal more effort, really.

"I don't think that she will be," he replied, and then he held his breath. Holding his breath meant that maybe he wouldn't lose his mind right then.

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Cassandra's head snapped around violently to stare at Valentine, and that's when she realized that something was wrong. She swallowed once. Then twice.

They had just had tea the day before... "What... what happened?"

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"There was a letter," Valentine began, after a few moments. The letter was still sitting on the bed, with the cat and the book and the messed-up sheets. "Kairi was in trouble. We went to rescue her."

He was numbly reciting events, now. If any of it didn't make sense, it certainly hadn't occurred to Valentine to explain them in more depth.

"They touched hands. And she was gone."

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"Gone?" Cassandra repeated, her own voice numb.

She swallowed again. "Where?" She was having a hard time processing this.

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"Away." There were more words, there. There was a better explanation than that. Valentine owed Naminé that much. A decent explanation. "Back. Into Kairi, where she began."

Edited Date: 2008-04-23 05:48 pm (UTC)

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"Forever?"

Cassandra's voice didn't make that a question. It was more of a pained sort of statement than anything.

She blinked rapidly, her voice dropping to almost a whisper, "You..." She cut off. She could tell how Valentine was doing.

She tried again, "Can I...?"

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"I don't know."

He didn't. He had no idea. He couldn't very well live out his days in her laundry, but he couldn't think, either. He couldn't breathe. And there still weren't words.

"I'm sorry," he said, and for once he didn't trip on that word at all. "I don't know."

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With a slow nod Cassandra stepped into the room without invitation and sank down to sit cross-legged on the floor facing Valentine.

She knew what it felt like to lose someone. Images of Steph flashed through her head and her vision blurred.

She really wished she were better with words. That she could say something useful.

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Useful words were terribly overrated, really. What might be useful for one person could just as easily be total nonsense for another, like words about one's mother given to someone whose mother never really had anything worth saying. Useful words were seldom actually useful at all, and relying too much on them left incredible room for uselessness to settle in.

But the company, that wasn't useless at all. Not being alone, it was a huge help.

Valentine was thankful for that much. He didn't need words.

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