Galactica Point, Friday evening

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia sat back by the rocks, well away from the water, her elbows on her knees as she watched the waves.

She was trying to wrap her brain around what she'd done with Chad.

She'd really screwed it up, this time. She'd gone in there with every intention of cheating on Walter and, well, probably screwing up Chad's relationship with Teddy, too. She'd probably completely ruined her friendship with Chad, but that wasn't the worst part.

She picked up a stick and started poking morosely at the sand with it. She pictued that other time she'd come out here, so long ago, determined to go out into the water and never come back. How she'd tried to warn Walter that she'd only end up hurting him and that he should stay away from him. How he didn't listen and dragged her back to the school, anyway and made sure she never did something that monumentally stupid again.

She'd thought she was going to hurt him by something that was done to her, something that she would turn into. She hadn't guessed at the time that it would just be her, being an idiot, that would do it. But this . . . this was going to hurt him a lot. This was probably going to break them, and she had no right to try to fix it.

Something new to add to the list of things that sucked: Robots, snow monsters, fish monsters, possessing vampires and fairies, drug cartels, and Nadia Santos.

She dropped the stick and pulled her knees up to her chest.

She totally sucked.

[ooc: open should anyone want to come poke the Queen of Emo. Thread with Walter is locked to them, please.]

Comments

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter had been doing more and more running lately. Just getting away from the dorms and the school and getting his blood moving.

The last person he expected to see at Galactica Point was Nadia, which caught his attention to veer off the path he was on and slow down to pick his way over the rocks to her.

"Hey." Her posture didn't say things were good. "You okay?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia swallowed hard. She'd just been thinking she should call Walter and tell him she needed to talk to him, but now that he was here . . . .

"No. I--there's something I need to tell you."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

That didn't sound good. His mind ran thorugh a variety of options for why she'd look like that.

... Not Argentina again.

He sat down next to her and folded his legs. "Alright. I'm listening."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia hedged. A lot. "You're not going to like it. You're probably going to hate me. And I can't explain it, I've been trying to since it happened but I just don't know what got into me. . . ."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter frowned and shook his head. How could she think that he'd hate her? "I won't hate you."

[nadiathesaint]

Part of Nadia wanted to laugh at that. Most of her wanted to cry. "This afternoon. I went to Chad's room. Nothing happened, but . . . for awhile I really wanted it to. I went there so it could."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter, who had been leaning toward Nadia to hear what she thought was so terrible, straightened up. He felt... cold.

Face closed, he spoke just loudly enough to be heard over the waves. "What stopped you?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia's voice was soft. It was all she could do to get enough breath to talk as loud as she was. She felt like there was something closing in on her chest, trying to squeeze her to death. "Chad asked if I was sure. And I realized what I was doing. To us. To you."

She was trying very hard to hold it together, but saying the words outloud, seeing his face close up like that, was making it very difficult. "I'm so sorry. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. But--if you don't want to . . . see me again, I understand."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter didn't answer her at first. Couldn't answer her at first. He couldn't even sort through what he was feeling, there was just too much.

Finally he turned away from her to face the water and pulled out his cigarette case.

Trying to get his cigarette lit in the inevitable beach breeze bought him a little more time to think before he spoke.

"I'm angry." And hurt, but that wasn't something he'd say aloud.

[nadiathesaint]

The silence from him had been so bad that his actual words were almost a relief.

But not quite.

She nodded, dropping her head to stare at her raised knees. "Yeah. You should be. I'm an idiot. I really don't know how--" Excuses were no good, so she cut herself off. "I'm so, so sorry," she said again.

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she was sorry, he was sorry, they were both sorry.

"So, you and Chad." He couldn't even really think of what to say about that.

Destroying something would be good. For the briefest of moments the something he wanted to destroy was one extremely tall Mexican.

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia shook her head vehemently. "No. This isn't Chad's fault. And nothing--this isn't going to happen again." She was pretty good at not making the same mistakes twice, at least. Mostly. Well. Sometimes.

Goddamn, she sucked.

"I'm not sure how it happened in the first place. Walter, I swear, you're all that I want. Chad's just. . . . He's just Chad."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

... you're all that I want. Didn't that put her ahead of him?

He didn't want to be reasonable.

He took a drag off his cigarette and let the wind tear the smoke away.

"You know, if this is because of what I said...." He couldn't help wondering if this was her way of hurting him before he hurt her, since he'd crossed that line in kind of sort of not quite using the L-word.

[notthehulk.livejournal.com]

Teddy needed time away from everyone to think. Flying always used to help clear his head but tonight...

Tonight a clear head just let images of Chad and Nadia take free reign.

Maybe he should have paid closer attention to where he was landing in case other people were nearby.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" He hissed, running his hands trough his hair.

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia was not too distracted to notice Teddy. She should probably apologize to him, too.

Maybe not until he put the wings away and stopped making angry noises. . . .

[notthehulk.livejournal.com]

The wings slowly receded into his back once more and he returned to his normal skin color. He fell back into a sitting position, pulling his knees up to his chest.

"So stupid," He muttered to himself.

[nadiathesaint]

Right. She could sit here and stare at Teddy and wish that the entire day could just start over, or she could go face the music.

Any minute now, she'd be facing that music. . . . aaaaaaaaany minute now.

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter looked up at Teddy's arrival and shot Nadia a look. Wordlessly, he pulled out his cigarette case to see where things went from there.

[nadiathesaint]

Right. She could do this. She would do this. She slowly pushed herself to her feet and shuffled over, stopping several feet away.

"Teddy?"

[notthehulk.livejournal.com]

Teddy jumped slightly when he heard his name. Wide eyed, he turned to look at where it was coming from. When he saw Nadia he narrowed his eyes and stood up, turning away to leave.

[nadiathesaint]

Right. Chad definitely told him, then. "I'm sorry." She wrapped her arms around her chest, stepping closer again. "There's no excuses, but I am so, so sorry."

[notthehulk.livejournal.com]

As Nadia stepped closer, Teddy took a step back, keeping the same distance between them.

"Why? Why did you do it?"

[nadiathesaint]

And therein was the root of Nadia's whole problem. She stayed where she was when she saw Teddy back up, looking down at her boots.

"I don't know."

[notthehulk.livejournal.com]

Well that just made Teddy feel so much better.

"You don't know," He said, mimicking her tone. He ran his hands through his hair again, turning away again. "So you randomly just proposition other people's boyfriends for no reason."

[nadiathesaint]

"No, Dios, it's not like that!" She shook her head. This was a bad idea. "I'm happy with Walter. More than happy. But . . . I was talking to Bridge and suddenly I just . . . ."