[CLOSED] and despite everything I'm still human

[nascensibility]

Who: Evelyn O'Connell (nascensibility) & Rick O'Connell (rickochet)
Where: 2nd Floor, Room 10
When: January 22
Rating: PG/PG-13
Summary: Four and a half years of separation is a long time. Things happen.
The Story:

[Things are different for them.

Not arduous, not strange, simply different. It was stupid of her - too stupid, an impractical rationalisation and a vain hope - to think that she might be capable of eking by without speaking on the subject. She wouldn't want to under normal circumstances, and their relationship was firmly founded on a mutual sense of trust, on the assurance of communication and so any reticence would be taken with tremendous unease.

Rick is not the same man she left behind at Ahm Shere and she is not the same woman he saw off to the British Museum on a morning several months after their recent adventure.

It isn't for lack of wanting to tell him. Not all things that occurred in her captivity but some, the most important ones, the recent ones. The ones that cut into her like a razor of sentiment. Better to spill honesty than have him find photographic evidence on his own, better to loosen her tongue before a friendly neighbor makes an inappropriate observation and she is questioned for being too quiet.

Preoccupied with ambivalence is the state in which she can be found at present, curled up in the reading room of their apartments with a cup of tea she hasn't yet touched and a book whose pages have not been turned in the last half-hour.

Things are different for them, and because of that she fears a response she cannot predict.]

Comments

[rickochet]

[During the 9-year course of their marriage, Rick has developed this playfully annoying habit of lurking around the corner of doorways to rooms in which Evelyn things herself alone. He doesn't do this always, but when he does, he's caught her singing to herself, practicing a self defense moves he's shown her in the mirror, or reading aloud from one of the many books she's attempting to translate (a habit he wish she would break, honestly). He doesn't linker long enough to cause undo embarrassment, and he often reveals himself just enough to be caught, but it is a game that they played. Rick would get chided for skulking around, and then they would enjoy each other's company.

Such was his intention when he first leaned against the door frame leading into their reading room, arms crossed and posture completely relaxed. Evelyn looked engrossed in whatever text she had in her hand, and Rick didn't want to disturb her. So he waits to be noticed.

It doesn't take long for Rick to observe that something isn't quite right today. Even on the most difficult texts, Evelyn doesn't take so long to turn a page. The tea beside her has grown cold, and he knows how much she hates when that happens.

He feigns a step backwards then takes an audible step forward into the room so as not to completely startle her out of her all-consuming thoughts when he speaks.]

Something on your mind, Evelyn? Don't tell me that the [he peeks to see the title of the book in her hand] Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections has you stumped.