Let Go of the Past

[jasonpschuyler]

Who: Elizabeth
When: *handwavey* After Jason and Nat's kids are born?
What: Elizabeth finds remnants of their past

She'd been in the storage unit for a couple hours and the tequila was already gone. She really wished she'd had the foresight to bring a couple of bottles, as she had foolishly started in on it when the tears started. But as she shifted through the things she'd salvaged from her and Gabriel's apartment, the grief-stricken tears shifted to tears of bitter rage. Most everything had already been divided into piles of things to keep and piles of things to pitch, and the trash pile was growing with her fury as she tried to untangle more and more evidence of Raina from her life with Gabriel.

That fucking cunt.

No one would ever change her mind that it had been Raina that ruined their lives. If she hadn't excited and seduced Gabriel, wouldn't he still be alive? Wouldn't he still be with her? Anita's ruthless taunts echoed in her mind: that Gabriel had become bored with her and that he despised her for being weak. She grabbed the empty bottle of tequila and hurled it to the ground, watching it nearly pulverize to dust with the force of her throw. If there was one person she hated more than Raina -and it was hard to conceive that was even possibile- it was Anita. Anita, the man-eating, black hole of a cunt who could never allow anyone else to be 'right' because no one could be more pure and insightful than she was. She didn't know Gabriel, not like Elizabeth did.

She wiped at her tear-streaked face in annoyance and started hauling bags to the dumpster. She could get another couple of bottles of tequila on the way home for when she unpacked what she was keeping. The small pile that remained was mostly her own things and several mementos of better days when she was with Gabriel. She'd even kept some of his clothes, the few things that still carried his scent but wasn't tainted with Raina's, which was exactly what made her throw out most of their gear. She only kept a few silver pieces they'd ordered special: they were well made and a comfortable percentage of silver, and damn it, whether Raina had touched them or not she wanted them back.

She carried the last bag out and swung it carelessly towards the dumpster; it caught on a piece of metal and tore open, spilling half of the contents onto the pavement. She growled a series of curses under her breath and leaned down to start gathering up what had fallen. Of course it would be a bunch of papers, unopened mail, and random clutter she'd shoved into a box to go through later; things saved in the moment but were always destined to be thrown out. She paused, though, when she came upon a large manila envelope bulging open with a broken clasp: several burned discs in their cases had been crammed inside, all labeled only with a number and nothing else. She pulled them out with a frown and extracted a small piece of paper that had been hastily folded.

Here are your discs. I hope you'll change your mind because I guarantee you'll have better reach with me. You produce great content. The door isn't closed on my end so don't feel you have to stick it out on your own if it's not working.

She felt a pit drop into her stomach. She had no doubt as to what content they were talking about, regardless of whether the package was intended for Gabriel or Raina. The Rats had destroyed any physical copies they came across 'in the wild', and they were still scouring online and hacking away at any videos that resurfaced. She shoved the remaining trash in the dumpster and grabbed the envelope. She would check to see which videos these were before calling the Rats' attention to them, but first she was stopping for that tequila. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

Comments

[jasonpschuyler]

There weren't many people she had to find, but she'd been putting this off. It had been hard enough regaining people's trust since she'd been back. Ok, maybe not regain, since not many people trusted her to begin with. Not that she cared: all that she wanted was for her Pard to accept her again. And while she hadn't known about this either, she knew some of the responsibility would be pushed onto her.

She took a deep breath and walked into the shop.

[roughcutgem]

Beryl looked up and arched an eyebrow as she packed the last order on the counter into a bag, "welcome back," she noted easily. That was Beryl, easy and relaxed until she had to be otherwise!

Girl looked...tense. With that shimmering air she was learning to associate with stressed shifter honestly. "Have a seat, new blend for you to try girl."

[jasonpschuyler]

Well, at least she didn't have to awkwardly ask Nathaniel to find Beryl...

She nodded subtly to Beryl in a respectful greeting and dropped into a chair. Might as well cut to the chase. "Thanks. Is Nathaniel around?"

[roughcutgem]

"He's got Nikazi, dropping her off before he's due at the club," she noted easily, glancing at the clock and the window for good measure. "Give him twenty." She was moving through a routine that was becoming rote, Khem had made a calming tisane for the leopards, a catnip and a few other bits based herbal that she was scooping into a cup and filling with hot water to set before the woman.

"What's got you wound up?" may as well since Liz had been direct!

[jasonpschuyler]

Elizabeth took the tea silently, breathing in the precious calming scent for a few moments before setting it down. "I went to clean out my storage unit this week," she said plainly. "When I left I hadn't really...gone through Gabriel's things, but I was leaving right away so I threw everything into storage." Leaving right away was actually more Caleb peeling her off the street and taking her to Lillian to help heal the gunshot wounds, then spending her first day out of bed calling every contact she knew for travel contracts.

She met Beryl's eyes firmly, but the exhaustion and concern were still there. "I found another of Nathaniel's videos in there."

Nathaniel had...told her about the videos, right?

[roughcutgem]

"You went through that alone?" she asked evenly. What? That was....hard. Harder than hell in extreme cases. Someone should have been with her, even if just to help be the one pitching stuff when her hands shook. "You have more to go through or did you finish it out?" VALID QUESTION.

She leaned on the counter, watching her, letting the underlying concerns come through as she observed, "Videos." It was a cold, flat, dangerous statement yes.

What videos?

[jasonpschuyler]

Elizabeth made a face, shrugging it off dismissively as she picked up the tea and sipped at it. "Look, I know everyone else is glad he's dead, the last thing I needed was for someone to sit there and pretend to care about his shit." She set the tea down again. "Anyway, it's all done."

And then she saw Beryl's reaction to what she'd found. "Fuck," she muttered. "I assumed he'd shown them to you, he'd been really proud of them before." She sighed. "Gabriel had Nathaniel be in a lot of Raina's pornos. He's one of the few who asked to keep the ones he was in."

[roughcutgem]

"Future ref you know two people with zero history there who can help, it matters, trust me. Anything like it comes up again you call me or Khem." Simple as that. She had her share of bad, very bad, but good memories attached to okay?

Ah.

Ahhhh.

"Have you seen it?"

[jasonpschuyler]

Elizabeth looked suspicious. "No offense, but you're not exactly zero history: you're Nathaniel's person. Whether I like it or not, it's going to color how you see things."

She gave a simple nod. "I wasn't sure what I'd found, so yeah. Nothing was labeled and it wasn't anything I'd ever seen before."

[roughcutgem]

"Funny enough he doesn't talk about it much, and frankly I've my own comparable skeletons. Still better to have someone there when you're mourning." Because Liz still was, simple as that.

Ah. "How bad?"

[jasonpschuyler]

Elizabeth shook her head and blew out a slow breath. "Bad. It's...very clear that it's a recording he didn't know about. When he was still..." She paused, but she'd already let slip about the porn, so if Beryl didn't know about his drug addiction yet she might as well learn that too. "When he was still new to the Pard and not completely clean yet."

[roughcutgem]

She considered for a long moment, fingers tapping on the counter, then blew out a breath, "thank you. You have anything planned for tonight or can I steal an hour or so of your time?"

[jasonpschuyler]

She bit her lip, thinking. If she said she needed to go talk to Jason, it wouldn't be hard to guess why. And he was already going to be pissed. "I can stick around if you want me to."

[roughcutgem]

"Thanks. I'll take that disc, you finish your tea, we wait on Nat hmm?" she was texting Asher that Nat was going to be a bit late this evening.

[jasonpschuyler]

Elizabeth reached into the bag and handed over the disc without hesitation. This was, after all, Nathaniel's person, and she didn't feel it was any sort of betrayal. Not knowing Nathaniel like she did.

"Sure."

She was finishing her second cup of tea when Nathaniel walked into the shop carrying Nikazi in her carrier. "Hi babe," he said with a grin. "We're all ready to see Mommy for a bit, huh Nikki?"

He paused, seeing Elizabeth with her tea. "Hi Elizabeth. Are you here for the clinic's stuff? It's a little early for the order, I'm not sure if we have it ready yet?" He had been excited for Khem to let him help a bit when he wanted to spend time in the shop.

[roughcutgem]

Beryl beamed for her child, coming over to pick her up and cheerfully kiss her cheeks and nom her pointed little ear. IT WAS A THING OKAY?! "Liz? This is Nikazi, Nikki, Nik, or hey baby baby," she chuckled. "Liz is off tonight babe, been a rough day for her. That said..." she turned, holding the bright eyed child out to the woman. "Watch her a bit? I want to chat with Nat in the greenhouse a bit hmmm?"

Shouldn't be too long. This wasn't some brewing knock out, drag out fight or anything, this was...worry.

[nathanielgrayson]

Elizabeth blinked in surprise but cautiously reached out to the baby. She'd held babies before, but being offered one from someone who knew what she was...well that was new. "Hey baby baby," she cooed softly, marveling at Nikazi's unique features.

Nathaniel, however, had picked up on Beryl's energy and his worried energy quickly mirrored it. But she wanted to chat and so he would go with her and chat.
"Everything ok, babe?" he asked nervously once they were in the quiet of the greenhouse.

[roughcutgem]

Nikazi grinned in the way of babies and flailed hands to catch hair and shirt edges! FEAR HER LIZ! "GAH!" she offered. Beryl snickered, "she likes being danced, scream if you need us!" She wasn't worried about a leopard with her kid at all. Imagine.

Once in the greenhouse though, well, she tugged Nat against her and leaned against the potting station, "babe? Some serous questions time I'm afraid."

[nathanielgrayson]

There was no resistance from him as she pulled him close. He trusted her completely, but his eyes were very large as he looked at her. "...what happened?" he asked softly after a long silence.

[roughcutgem]

She traced hands over his hips and kissed him gently, "Liz cleaned out her storage today, lots of stuff in there she didn't look at close before hand. There's a vid disc."

[nathanielgrayson]

There was a brief flash of panic in his eyes before a guilty acceptance settled in. "Beryl, I'm sorry, I know I should have told you, I just...I thought you'd be mad."

[roughcutgem]

"...babe? Look at me, do I look mad?" she looked worried point in fact. "This is early, apparently. When you weren't clean and shit wasn't consenting to filming."

[nathanielgrayson]

His eyes dropped submissively. "But you'd be mad if you watched them."

And then he frowned, his eyes rising to meet hers in confusion. "We weren't doing shoots then."

[roughcutgem]

"Babe? I worked out a lot of the mad when I was learning at NiC. They talked me through what you used to think was okay." And it had not been a good time.

For anyone.

"They were filming babe."

[nathanielgrayson]

Nathaniel just shook his head. "No, Gabriel wasn't even involved with Raina then. They didn't start the videos until way after."

Why would Gabriel have filmed him? He couldn't think of a single time there would have been anything worth filming, really. At least what he remembered through the haze of that time in his life.