ikissdhimbck | OOM: Milliways Library, for Dixie

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OOM: Milliways Library, for Dixie

It's not just any library. Sure, as you step in it looks fairly ordinary — books, chairs, tables, so forth — but as you browse the aisles they seem to go on without end. Volume after volume, any book you could imagine and more. A universe of information crammed within these walls.

Kate hasn't ventured here much since things came apart in Green Lake. Poe makes her sad; Byron reminds her of all the things she's lost. She'll come for a book from someone else's world, and then retire to her room to study it. But not today. Her room is stuffy of late; a hutch filled with empty bottles, the smell of sweat and liquor, and the trammels of bad dreams. She's sobered up enough since her Milliversary to regret the headaches and hangovers, but not enough yet to feel quite herself.

So she hides. Today, in an aisle marked 'R' filled with dusty old books from a bygone century Kate hasn't identified. She's not really looking for anything. She doesn't even seem interested in the two volumes she has stacked by her side. She's just sitting, back to the opposing shelf of books, staring at the weathered old spines.

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She winces.

Very quietly, very carefully, Dixie wraps an arm around Kate's waist.

"Shhh," she murmurs. "Shhh...whatever it is...it can't be that bad."

If it is, she doesn't know.

"I'm sorry," she quavers, not coming up from her makeshift hiding place. "I'm so embarrassed."

She hates showing weakness in front of other people. It doesn't matter who. She's spent so much of her young adult life in tears she'd think she was all dried out by now.

"The way y'talk, s'like y'know. Every word y'say strikes deep."

It hits on memory as solid as bones, sending an aching paralysis straight through her.

"Shhh," she murmurs, and tries to pull her close gently. "I think I've been around. And there's no one in the world that's lived a life like ours and seen no pain."

"Seen it an' caused it," she chokes, not coming easily to Dixie's embrace. "Caused more of it than I can ever reconcile with God."

There's a lot she can't — she won't — reconcile with God.

"Am I paid back in full for all the awful things I've done? That I ruin everythin' I touch?"

She's not rejecting it, and that's enough for Dixie. "We all cause pain," she sighs. "All of us. But the key is to make up for it." She makes a dry sound of wry pain. "I'll be doing plenty of that, now."

"That's not the kind of God I believe in," she sighs. "The kind of God that punishes you so harsh. It's not God at all. Just the way things lay."

She lets loose a sarcastic laugh.

"He certainly isn't steppin' in."

God will punish you!

God will punish you!

"M'sorry. I dunno why I'm tellin' you this. I — I dunno..."

"I think that's where free will gets in. That's because you trust me." It's really that easy to Dixie. "And you can trust me, Kate." And she'll just keep holding on to you, because crying women get to her about as much as they get to Brisco.

It's hard to say, really, which are sobs and which are chuckles. They're all watery, gasping sounds set to a small and shaking body.

"Maybe so."

It's a moment before she speaks again. She forces her tears at bay, swallowing back saltwater and self-pity.

"I hate July," she sniffles, her accent coming out thick. Joo-lye. "God, I really am makin' a mess of things. He wasn't kiddin'."

Dixie's rubbing her back, very gently. She used to comfort the other girls at the mission this way. "There's no way I would betray you." She's the loyal type.

"What happened in July?" She needs to know, even if Kate won't volunteer it. "And which he? The one who's making you cry?"

She cuts her gaze to Dixie at last, soaking in that claim. She really doesn't know whether or not she can believe it; but, fact is, there's nobody out there she'd trust more.

"No," she quavers, drying her eyes.

(It's just a little too soon. Fresh tears well up in place of the old.)

"Nobody but me has me cryin'. 'He' is just a fella here, a no-good stupid rotten man, but he's right. I'm holdin' out for somethin' better, an' that ship has already sailed."

She sniffles, and shakes her head.

"It's the memories that make me cry."

They're building quite a sense of camaraderie and loyalty, in any event. "Well, when has having high standards ever been a crime?" she wonders. "You happen to deserve the best." She strokes Kate's cheek. "If it helps, you can tell me about them."

She laughs dryly.

"'The best' — no, not me."

She shakes her head, eyelashes collecting tears the way a spiderweb collects dew. She blinks, and they separate and spread.

"I've killed men. Y'know?"

She looks up at Dixie.

"I'm like poison."

Edited 2011-08-20 03:25 (UTC)

"Well, so've I," she responds. "We've all got our sins, Kate." She shakes her head. "I'm not dying, am I? And I'm touching you. And I see how others see you. Why, some of the children in this bar..." she shakes her head. "They adore you. You don't harm them. You make them whole."

The revelation that a woman like Dixie has blood on her hands pulls Kate up short. She blinks at her, quivering ever so slightly.

"Whole?"

She smiles tightly, shaking her head.

"T'tell the truth, sometimes I'm downright terrified of 'em. Worried that I'll rub off somehow. That the next time my sins come 'round t'haunt me, it'll be one'a them that suffers."

Kate wouldn't weather that. No way in hell.

"It's all the men I've loved, Dixie. Every last one of them saw the end of a gun."

Dixie's a revelation, sometimes. Brisco himself has told her as much.

"We've all got sin, honey," she declares, and gives her a lace handkerchief to wipe her eyes on. "And my men...seen 'em blown down like a house of cards in a windstorm before. Brisco's got three bullets in his shoulder. But you gotta hold on."

They have the comfort of each other's company for the day, even if it's all they can hold on to.

"But Brisco didn't leave you over it."

She smiles wryly, twisting the lace between her fingers.

You're such a disappointment.

She rubs at her brow.

"I ain't got nothin' t'hold on to. An' it was fine. It was fine. Bein' alone; s'not what I wanted, but I knew my place. Oh, I shouldn't have ever let 'im talk me out of it."

She covers her face.

"M'sorry."

"He came close," she replied. "We didn't see each other for a mighty long time after that day.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she adds. "If you need something to hold on to, well - just hold onto Miss Dixie."

Kate doesn't hold onto much these days. She doesn't let herself. She's never certain when something once solid and sure will slip away from her — she's only certain that it will. Eventually, everything always does.

So, she remains. Huddled in on herself.

What's worse, she knows she isn't making a lick of sense, mumbling dribs and drabs between bursts of tears. She'd be more frustrated with herself if she wasn't so preoccupied being devastated. For the moment, it's just easier listening than it is speaking.

"What changed 'is mind?"

Dixie's just holding on, rocking her gently. "He saw me dancing around in a little green stage costume." She replies. "But...then we got to talking about the revolution. He didn't know about the part of me that believed in people, in causes."

Her answer makes Kate laugh. Just one sharp, dry bark.

"Men."

She finally starts to dab at her face with the kerchief. She imagines Dixie and Brisco bonding over shared beliefs. She thinks about her father and mother, both caught in the war, finding each other in that field hospital and doing the same.

(She thinks about Sam, and the first time he finished reciting a poem she started; the way she felt when she realized they both shared something.)

"The other night you an' I was talkin' — my Milliversary? 'Member how I was sayin' I — I also had an ex named Doc?" Her voice is subdued. "He left me. One year ago, that day. An' he — it happened t'be our anniversary. So, I got drunk an' I took this fella — this friend — t'my room. I jus' ... wanted t'be with someone."

She presses the little lace handkerchief to her eyes as though she's dabbing at tears, but secretly she's trying to hide her face. Admitting it makes her ashamed, and the next words out of her mouth only make it all the more awful.

"But he left. An' I dunno if he's ever comin' back."

"Mm hmm. Men. Can't live with 'em, 'can't pack him away in the closet and take 'em out when you wanna have a ride."

She nods when Kate mentions her Milliversary. "No one wants to be alone when they're aching, Kate. It's just natural, looking for comfort like that." She shakes her head. "Doesn't mean you're a bad woman."

She makes a sharp noise. Dixie's words shock her, and she isn't sure if she's trying to gasp, or laugh, or scold her; so it comes out as none of these things, and all of these things, turning her eyes wide.

She blushes.

"I — I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with him. He's the only thing in this world that I want, an' I can't have him. Nothin' else seems t'matter. Reputation, honor, virtue, a future... I jus' wanted t'feel — like there was someone out there who gave a shit 'bout me."

Someone who wanted her. Someone who didn't look at her with cold, dead eyes.

"An' I knew he wanted me, so I — I took advantage. But he left, callin' me names. It only made everythin' so much worse."

She's a convent girl and a moll,all at once; shocking is Dixie's secret skill. She lets out a sigh. "When I was married to my Doc, I thought the same thing." There's a resigned tone to her voice now. "Time does march on. Sometimes you've gotta choose between being in the parade and letting it run you over." She rolls her eyes. "The second one sounds like a fine gentleman. And it sounds like it's all on his head."

She sniffles quietly.

"So, now I'm a cow in a parade?"

She offers a watery smile. It's the best she can do.

Dixie gives her arm a gentle squeeze. "The lady riding the horse at the head of the pack," she says.

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