moving in with charlie was probably the best decision she could have made, but no city ever felt quite like home. she felt the itch in her bones back in providence, the redwoods calling her back home. she felt it in dc when she felt like she couldn’t breathe with all of the people crowded around her on the subway. in atlas city – it just feels different. cautious, maybe. charlie is here, so that is at least familiar, but the apartment was empty and sterile. it was enough to make her chest lock up.
so with all of their boxes stacked in the hallway, juliet ran through the apartment with her pencils, sketching out the way the setting sun cast light throughout the apartment, just trying to capture the last glimpses of sunset for eternity. it worked though. she painted in these careful shapes in each room in different shades of warm yellow, blushing pink, bright orange until it felt like home. she was consumed with it, chasing the light over the course of a few days just to try to stake it down for it to feel like home. when she felt settled with a room, she let charlie move the boxes in and they would unpack. but there was one room left, the kitchen.
her feet were bare, tiptoeing across the wooden floors that didn’t creak under her weight like they did in providence. slowly, she let herself trace the light on the walls and cabinets before she lowered herself to the floor. she could feel herself trembling, could see it in the lines she drew across the wood. when the tears fell onto the wood, she wiped them away to keep her lines from smudging. she hates it – hates the way alex haunts her and this fucking floor. she hates it enough that she throws the pencils and brushes across the kitchen, crowding herself against the cabinets, knees to her chest until it felt like she couldn’t breathe. she squeezed her eyes shut, barely registering the sound of the apartment door clicking shut. if anything, it made her cry harder. “charlie –” she whimpered, pleading from the floor. “charlie, i… i-i can’t do it.”
charlie hates moving - he’s not sure it’s a past time genuienly enjoyed by many people, considering the work involved and the inability to avoid leaving anyone behind. nadine still had a month left at her job back in new york before she was joining him and jules in atlas city, and he was already feeling the ache of missing his twin.
and that wasn’t even taking into consideration how juliet was feeling. he was so, so glad he had been able to convince her to make this move with him. he certainly wouldn’t have been able to handle it alone, not when his sister tended to dominate use of the one brain cell they shared, and he knew that jules really need a change of pace - and scenery - from the city. atlas city wasn’t the redwoods, but it wasn’t that other place either.
he’d run out to grab them some take out and a few staples for their fridge, and while he knew jules wasn’t feeling her best, the sight of her on the kitchen floor was not what he had expected to see when he let himself in. he moved quickly though, getting on her level and pulling her in for a hug. “ course you can, babe ” he said firmly. “ its gonna be fucking hard, but theres no rush, no timeline. you’ll get there. and i’m here until you do. ”