none of us are promised to see tomorrow

[betterthansubpoenas]

Who: Kalinda Sharma and others.
What: The (horribly belated) aftermath of the siege on the city.
Where: Various locales.
When: Various.
Notes: I'm kind of using this as my catch-all post for Kalinda. The timing encompasses the immediate aftermath of MONSTER RAIN up to times more recent. There will be individual threads for each character! Want to do something here? You need only ask.
Warnings: Standard warnings for the presence of Don Draper and Alan Shore.

It wasn't any easy half-month for anyone in the city. Kalinda isn't selfish enough to believe she was the only one effected (and affected) by the sky tearing open and horrors pouring out. That doesn't stop her from feeling alone in the aftermath, however, no matter how unjustified she knows that is. That she feels a little numb as well has nothing to do with the mild painkillers she's taking for the healing wound on her left arm.

If she were back home - never mind that there are no monsters on the Earth she comes from, so the whole scenario is completely null and void - she wouldn't have anyone to turn to, either. In that much, at least, her situation is consistent. Once, she might have been able to admit to Alicia that she actually thought she was going to die. That time had long past even before she was snatched up to join the population of the city, however. She wouldn't have been able to confide in Cary, either. He might have thought that was his opportunity, or even his cue, to take her into his arms and murmur something reassuring in her ear as if he could retroactively protect her from what had happened.

Heaven forbid.

Maybe things aren't so different here than they were there. The only thing to do is put on an impassive face, and move on with life. So far that's served her well. Pretend it didn't happen. It's amazing how often things never happened.

Comments

[alan_shore]

“Somewhat timely,” he corrects—humor in the remark, but it's like an ache, a warning of something that shouldn't be probed too deeply or often. Alan snags a ragged piece of meat and chews diligently. He wants—it's nowhere near heartbreaking, a desire that snaps in him like a cheap toy—to steady her voice, to reach for her.

Or he'd like to be the sort of person who would.

“Kalinda.” For a moment he holds her gaze. Tossing down his chopsticks, he retrieves from a cabinet two glasses and a bottle of scotch two-thirds full. “Do you know,” he asks, unscrewing the cap with a meticulous twitch of his fingers and pouring them each a drink worthy of the aversion of certain doom, “what's scared me most about this? The discovery that I can live with it. A sickening number of dead—corpses still festering in piles out there–and...while 'intolerable' is one of the first words I'd reach for, here I am tolerating it.” He sets a glass in front of her, sinks back into his seat. “I could have done without learning that about myself.”

[betterthansubpoenas]

"Somewhat," Kalinda agrees with a hint of amusement. Falling similarly quiet to also pick at, and actually eat her food, there's something about a near death experience that just makes it taste better. But for all she's appreciative of the moment, she finds herself pointedly not looking in Alan's direction.

Lest he decide to be the sort of person who would.

She does look back at him when he says her name, however. Call it professional courtesy if you want to. She releases a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding when he procures glasses and liquor, unsure of just what she'd been on edge for. (And certainly too afraid to actually ask herself why she'd be on edge at all.)

Appropriately -- Reverently silent once more while, Kalinda abandons her fork in favour for lifting her drink instead, listening to Alan's admission with a slight nod of her head. She doesn't realise she's given it until after it's happened, an affirmation that she's in the same boat, in some way.

Drawing in a deep breath, she meets his eyes again and attempts to articulate her own thoughts. "All it means... is that you've confirmed what you already know about yourself. You aren't just going to lay down and give up without a fight. You've only discovered that you can apply that to a broader range of experiences than you thought."

[alan_shore]

Alan's laugh's had the wind knocked out of it—an altogether pitiful tremor of sound. His smile's a form of retreat, a queasy halfhearted dodge maintained long enough to excuse himself from eye contact. He cradles his scotch—suddenly as appealing as a glass of bile–in his hand and, closing his eyes, swallows down a rising hopelessness.

“I don't believe a word of that,” he says simply. He sips his liquor, regarding her—his friend, the woman trying to salvage something like normalcy here with him in a room at the end of the world–with weariness he's past the point of disguising. “I can't bring myself to do it. It's locker room philosophy—suitable for a winless high school football team and nothing more. The notion of...putting up a good fight”—he remains relaxed, comfortably ensconced in his cushioned chair, even as his voice chips into the word like a pick into rock—“as though there's some pride to be taken in meeting force with force is repulsive. If you lay down on your terms, that's not giving up. It isn't a posture of defeat.”