MCA0: Late Monday Night

[needsaparrot]

They didn't come straight back to the apartment after sending Bronwyn and Payback home. It just seemed like it'd be way too empty.

But there's only so much grocery shopping and other off-putting you can do before you have to go back to the place where you usually do stuff like, oh, sleep.

Xander hangs his jacket up and turns the light on as they come in.

He was right. It is way too empty.

[For just one of the B-word-people, woe. SP for great justice.]

Comments

[needsaparrot]

Well, the grocery bags got as far as the counter. Whether they'll actually make it into the fridge is anybody's guess, considering Xander dumps them and turns around, all his attention on Bridge.

"What?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Nothing bad!" Bridge hastens to add. "I promise."

[needsaparrot]

"Uh-huh." Forgive him his suspicion; it's really not his favorite conversation-starter ever.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"It's just- okay, remember how she came back right after she left, and how she had Notzilla and Tedgiraffe?" Bridge says, making his way in to the kitchen.

[needsaparrot]

"Yeah." There's ice cream of the store-bought variety; Xander supposes he should put that away. "We never got the chance to figure out what was going on with that 'cause oh hi, cat."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Well, we were visiting Z this afternoon, and Bronwyn was telling her the story about how she was um, you know. Made?" Bridge frowns, not entirely sure that's the right word to use there. "Only she told it a little different than she did the first time we heard it. This time, Z was the one who did the... hard part."

[needsaparrot]

Xander turns around, carton of ice cream in hand. "Z what now?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Does the actual giving-birth thing. For us."

[needsaparrot]

"That's not what she said before!"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I told you she told it different!"

[needsaparrot]

Xander gestures with the ice cream. "What the hell's that mean? We did something to change the future?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I think we must've," Bridge says. "Because, I mean. It makes a certain amount of sense. It was Cal before, right, only Cal is... I don't think she's in a place right now where it'd be a good idea to ask her to do something that huge for us. And maybe she still isn't- won't be- a few years down the road."

[needsaparrot]

Xander takes a deep breath, trying to sort through things in his head. "I was sort of hoping Bronwyn being here meant Cal would be okay."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Me too," Bridge admits glumly, absently pulling things at random out of the grocery bags.

[needsaparrot]

"Doesn't mean she won't." Xander wishes he felt more sure of that, though. Wishes he felt more sure about a lot of things.

"But...yeah. If we asked her to do something like that now -- well not now now but when she's still like..." A couple of helpless hand movements not remotely made more communicative by the presence of a Rice Krispies box in one of them. "We'd be kind of... let's just say it rhymes with tooth-rags. Sort of."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Pretty much the kind of person I want to avoid being, strangely enough."

[needsaparrot]

Xander flips open a cupboard door and slides the cereal box away, then leans on the counter, staring down at formica-colored nothing. "Did that change who she is, though? Or... who she's gonna be, whatever, Christ, time is weird."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"She *seemed* the same, didn't she? I mean, with the bouncing, and the non-stop talking, and..." Bridge trails off, frowning slightly.

[needsaparrot]

"I still miss her just as much," Xander adds quietly. "Does that count?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Bridge says, moving over to where Xander's standing, needing to be *closer*. "I wonder if that other me- if things had changed for him too. Or if his Bronwyn was still- I don't even know. This *is* confusing."

[needsaparrot]

"What if we do something that--" Xander shuts himself off and shakes his head, slamming a palm down against the counter, not wanting to finish the question.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"We won't," Bridge tries to sound confident, one hand tentatively reaching out to cover Xander's. "I mean, things changed already, right? And she still happened. That's got to be a good sign."

[needsaparrot]

"I guess," Xander answers, still uncertainly. He threads his fingers through Bridge's gloved ones, not moving from the counter.