complexfemalecharacter | (no subject)

The really shitty thing about her best friend being her boyfriend is that when Maeve is hurt by something her boyfriend did, she doesn't know who the hell to talk to about it. Even going to Robin would be a little weird, if only because Steve is probably there right now, spilling the whole weird fight to her.

Was it even a fight? Maeve has no idea. It felt awful and adult and while not final, by any means, it's still left her with a sour taste in her mouth and a deep fear she's just fucked something up beyond all measure.

In the end, she texts Gideon.

I need to come over.

Before Harrow, she would have just gone, but she and Harrow have some sort of tentative truce going for them now and she doesn't want to risk it by just showing up unannounced. She needs to walk, though, so she leaves her flat as she waits for Gideon to get back to her, and by the time she's told she can come, she's already halfway there.

The rest of the walk doesn't take much time at all and Maeve rings the buzzer to be let in, chewing on her ragged thumbnail as she waits.

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That actually makes sense, which only annoys Maeve, though not with Gideon, with herself. She's quiet, finally twisting off the cap of her beer so she can take a slow sip, giving herself a bit of time.

"Maybe," she agrees finally, then exhales slowly. "It just felt like such an unfair question. He knows I've already had an abortion. He knows what my mum was like. He knows I called protection services for Elsie, it just... maybe I'm being unfair. I don't know."

It would be a surprise to a lot of people that know her, but Gideon isn't actually bad at silence. She spent most of her life in a penitent's cell and, while she might not have subscribed to everything the acolytes of the Tomb exepcted of her, she did get pretty used to not having anyone to talk to.

"I don't think you're being unfair," she says, finally. "I think you're hurting and that makes a person lash out. There's a difference."

Maeve isn't sure she lashed out, she thinks she and Steve actually handled it all rather well, considering her own tendency to push people away when she's hurting. They both just need time.

And she wishes she could properly communicate why that particular question felt so unfair.

"I feel like I maybe should have seen this coming," she admits. "He's so good with kids and he obviously likes it."

There's all kinds of things that Gideon never sees coming, but she is in love with a duplicitious, awful excuse for a person, so their experiences aren't the same. She loves Harrow more than anything in any world, but that doesn't mean that she's not also entirely wise to her shit.

"You didn't want to think about it," she says. "Maybe."

"Maybe," she agrees. The thought has occurred to her now and then, especially after seeing Steve around kids, it had just never come out so plainly until their fight.

"Obviously it's something we needed to talk about eventually," she says with a sigh. "I just didn't realize he assumed we would have a family someday. I mean, even if I did want kids, it seems unfair to have them in a place where one or both of their parents might disappear at any time."

"Where I come from, nobody has kids anymore," says Gideon, picking at the edge of her bottle's label with her thumb nail. "Harrow was the last baby born to the Ninth. The two of us, and Ortus, who's older -- we were the only kids. I guess other houses have children, but not us." She sort of shakes herself, pulls herself back to the conversation that they're having. "I come from an Empire at War, Maeve. If people didn't have kids because they thought they might leave them, nothing would ever get done."

"We're not at war here," she answers. "And that isn't the reason I don't want kids. I don't need a reason, I just don't, it just seems especially cruel to have them in a place where nothing is guaranteed, even moreso than the world I come from."

She knows other worlds are harder, more difficult than hers, more difficult than Darrow even. But for Maeve, Darrow is a fantastic place where she's seen things and met people she was never meant to. She loves Steve and she doesn't want to leave, but she can't help but feel that this place isn't permanent.

"Yeah, okay, that was a shitty example," says Gideon. "And of course you don't need a reason. If you don't want to have kids, you shouldn't have kids." She leans her chin into her hand, thinking, for a moment, about how maybe someone should have had that conversation with Wake.

"I don't know. I spent my whole life trying to live in my own future. Maybe I'm just...I can't do that anymore."

"Trying to live in your own future," Maeve echoes. "What does that mean to you?"

She's genuinely curious, both about what it might mean to Gideon and what she's been doing. She honestly doesn't know. Her past has informed her present so fully that she often can't even consider a future when she's so used to just surviving day to day.

"I was going to join the Cohort. Front line infantry," says Gideon. "I was going to pay off my debt to the Ninth and get rich and laid." She smiles, almost wistfully. Her life has turned out a lot different to what she'd wanted, what she'd expected. Would she change it? No. "What it meant was that I was going to survive the Ninth. One way or another."

Even with having Gideon explain a lot of her world, Maeve still doesn't really understand it. She loves Gideon, she's easily the person closest to her besides Steve, but Maeve just doesn't know how to relate to such a life.

In some ways, it makes her feel bad for being upset about this.

"I guess I just need some time to figure it out," she says with a shrug and a small smile.

"Sounds like it," says Gideon, still picking at her label with one thumb. After a moment, she holds out her other hand to Maeve, wiggling callused fingers. "You'll figure it out, Maeve. You're one of the smartest people I know. And I know actual fucking geniuses."