as the mist dissipates and her mind clears, dendrites and synapses disentangling from the brown boy's ghosts, she wavers slightly, rocking on bare heels in the clerical silence of her kitchen. whatever came over her -- some manner of disjointed telepathy -- was certainly more than a fever dream. even now she can feel it wafting against the burgeoning contours of her mind, hazy and gray and sodden with loneliness. a stray tear slides unbidden down alabaster cheek; it is wiped away with surprise, and she stares at it, dainty features contorted into -- shock.
empathy. she is feeling empathy.
empathy for the loneliness harley must have suffered -- empathy for the death of innocence, even if he did not see it as much. no normal child should have to take death unto their own hands.
( normally she would not care -- but this is john, her john, and as the anger boils up hot and fresh to rest in her bosom, she finds that she does care. that she is angry that he has had to do such a thing. )
but at the same time there is something else, something far less cataclysmic that surfaces, slow and sleepy and so unused that it takes her a moment to recognize it.
p r i d e.
john harley, a boy who could eviscerate his own grandmother and stuff her at the age of six --- and who's to tell what he could do now?
( she is. and she is oh so eager to see what other secrets her darling dog has in store for her. )