girlsolo | [For Phoebe] I've got all the symptoms

[For Phoebe] I've got all the symptoms

There's no tape to wind around her fists on the island. There never has been, but this morning after her run while the sun's still coming up and the world is gray, it really fucking bugs Kate. Her skin feels stiff and cold, even though it's already shaping up to be a sticky day. Stiff, cold, and overfull. Like a hit to the wrong place will split her open and she doesn't even fucking know what would come out.

She wraps her hands in muslin from a dress she tore apart to make something decent for Lilo and it feels like a damned tragedy. Whatever. This island can suck her. She's done.

When Phoebe finds her, she's already slick with sweat from her run and from the aggression she's channeling into the bag. Her knuckles haven't split but she's muttering curses between combinations and screaming so loud that no one can hear.

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"I'm not seeing a blue moon," she growls, and normally that'd be playful, but it's not today. Today pure raw rage spills out through her lips and the attack when it comes is nothing short of vicious.

Phoebe's good enough to counter the punches she doesn't pull but not the sweep kick, Steve taught her Phoebe'll never see coming.

Oh Phoebe knew the sweep kick was coming. When you spar with the Source of all Evil, not that she'd known Cole was that at the time, you have a wide repertoire of knowledge with both attack and defend moves. What Phoebe also knew was that Kate needed to beat the shit out of something, so she didn't counter like she normally would have with Cole. Instead, she let the sweep take her down but rolled quickly toward her feet once more.

They've been sparring long enough for Kate to know when Phoebe's holding back and that just pisses her off more. "Quit it. I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back. Fight," she snarls, and while it's not as true as it was when Phoebe got to the island, Kate's still been training with an ex-SEAL and blind special forces operative. "If you're going to knock me on my ass, then do it."

She dropped back and set again, then beckoned Phoebe forward, pulse pounding in her ears.

Phoebe had never shown Kate everything she had. When she'd arrived, it had been confusion mixed in to everything else emotional she had been going through and then later with their occasional sparring, she had always been conscious of her strength. They were probably evenly matched with Kate going up against Abnormals and Phoebe always facing demons, both enemies were stronger than humans but Phoebe had never used her full strength and skills with Kate, not wanting to hurt. Like a strong man never using their full potential, always conscious of the ability to hurt.

But with Kate's snarl, Phoebe took the gloves off, figuratively. "You want a fight, you got it." She would still probably get her ass kicked but they'd both have a good fight and Kate would get her aggressions/frustrations out. Phoebe attacked with a kick toward the ribs.

"More like it," Kate manages with a grunt as she catches the foot, jabs upward with her fist for Phoebe's jaw, and brings her elbow down in the nerve bundle in her thigh that ought to cramp her up pretty good, then spins away.

Phoebe's head moved just in time to only catch a glancing blow from Kate's fist but she wasn't fast enough to avoid the elbow to the thigh as well. She went down with a hiss of pain, and in hindsight, Phoebe would have rather have the fist to the jaw. Fire slid along her nerve endings, but like with demon fights, you ignored the pain until later, and fought through it.

"Glad you like it." She got up, albeit a little slower than she would have though very happy to see that her legs supported her. Phoebe didn't bother kicking, she had to rest the leg until she felt more comfortable on it. Instead she threw a punch toward Kate's jaw.

"Like Black Belt Barbie better than the Princess version," Kate manages just before the punch glances off the shoulder she turned into it. It hurts like a mother but she ignores it as easily. "Don't feel so bad for leaving bruises." There's a hint of a smirk there, because there's leaving bruises and leaving bruises. They're not usually aggressive with each other in bed, but sometimes...

Kate shakes her head to clear the thought, to clear the memories of Phoebe's skin soft under her hands and nights curled up with her and Lilo. It's too close to the core of what's got her riled, though, and it won't fucking stay where she puts it.

Phoebe might not have her empathic powers to feel what others feel, but she is a keen observer with people she cares about and she cares about Kate. Anyone else, might not have seen a flash in the eyes during her smirk but Phoebe did and wondered about it.

"Promise to massage away the pain afterward." She smirked and gave a kick with her leg that was steadier by the minute, thank God.

The kick lands, but not hard enough to do anything but make Kate hop back hissing. It's probably more the promise than the kick that's the problem. She's got the thing with Neal and the thing with Phoebe, there's Trip sometimes too, but she's still...

Sawyer hurts. More than Imri, who left her his horse and a sister-figure she's not sure what to do with. More than Liv who was the sister figure she did know what to do with. More than Finnick and more even than Declan.

Kate's not even sure why but when she spins away from the kick, it's super hard to breathe and all she wants is to hear him coming around the bend, mockingly calling her Selina. It's not a never-ending love that ended. She just...misses him.

Phoebe reads the body language when Kate spins away. Anyone else probably wouldn't know what that meant. It's not that Phoebe is all knowing, not even close to that. Or even that she knows Kate so well that she knows what it means. No, Phoebe recognizes it because she went through it with Cole. It's a sharp pain that even now sometimes catches her unaware. She will always love Cole, that's just something that she lives with, but she knows they aren't good for each other. It doesn't mean that it won't sometimes feel like a phantom appendage that was cut away. It does.

Phoebe might have no idea as to the who, beyond it isn't Declan because Kate already dealt with that, but someone was causing Kate emotional pain. Someone that she couldn't reconnect with for whatever reason. If Phoebe had to guess the reason, she'd say someone departed the island.

"Hey. Talk to me."

Talk to me. Kate snarls and her body goes tense. She spins back to the fight with her chin up, determined. "If I wanted to talk, I'd make an appointment with a shrink." Her fingers curl, beckoning Phoebe forward again.

It's all bullshit. They both know where this ends but Kate's not ready for it yet. "Wouldn't change anything anyway. Never does."

"Really? See I'd rather talk to a friend than an anonymous shrink." Though Phoebe couldn't quite go to a shrink in San Francisco with her problems but that was beside the point. She jabs a punch toward Kate's jaw. "You can't change the past, it is what it is." She agreed, "but sometimes it feels better getting it out."

Which she knew it was getting out through physical violence and Phoebe was okay with that, too.

"My best friend is a shrink," Kate bites out. Yeah, she's pissed off about that, too. That her best friend's here. That he's going to be a father. That he can be taken away from her. That he can be taken away from Magnus. That Magnus and the baby can be taken away from him.

She's so distracted by her thoughts that the punch lands and spins her around. "Damn." Blood pours from her bitten lip and something finally feels right.

Phoebe instantly wanted to ask if she was okay, but kept that impulse in check. She knew what the answer would be and the step forward might become a leap back so she bit down on it. It obviously wasn't okay because if her mind had been focused, Kate wouldn't have got hit. Her hands went up waiting for a retaliatory attack just in case, "maybe but sometimes it's easier talking to someone not invested than someone that is."

"First you say talk to a friend, now you say talk to someone who isn't invested," Kate spits out along with the blood. Phoebe's just making noise, trying to get her to talk. Kate knows that, but it's easier than answering. "Which is it?"

"Hey you're the one that won't even talk to your best friend that is a shrink, two for one. So I figured it was something that needed an objective, uninvolved ear." Especially since Kate was using violence to deal with it, which Phoebe totally understood. Violence, alcohol and sex were all valid coping mechanisms.

"It," Kate snarls as she finally puts up her hands and goes to get some water. It stings like a mother on her split lip, but she doesn't care. That's better. Outward pain. Easier to heal than the emotional shit. Faster, too. "Isn't anything talking can help. Or anything can help. It is the island. Not enough talk in the universe to fix that."

"No it can't." Phoebe agreed and assumed that someone else close to Kate had been pulled away from the island. She was going to say something that would likely piss her off but ---

"You know the island's not a lot different than our lives back home. Our chains get yanked there all the time, too and people come and go whether you want them to or not." Her eyes met Kate's. "After Cole and before our divorce, I wanted to curl up and say screw it. Forget connections, they hurt, but I can't live like that. Not saying I'm open for love, God, not even close to that yet, but I am saying, I couldn't have survived this as well as I have without you, Trip, Lilo and the others. Connections are what get you through the day."

A small curve of her lips, "and alcohol numbs you through the pain."

The sound that starts off a snarl ends in a rough laugh. She shakes her head and drops down to a crouch, and from there to her ass. She pulls her knees up to her chest and sighs.

"Can't even do the alcohol part anymore. Hangovers and six year-olds are a bad combination." Her hand runs back through her hair, tugs free her ponytail holder, and then she fingercombs it through and pulls it back again. Something to do with her hands that isn't dig her fingernails into her shins.

"Besides," she says, voice kind of weirdly soft around the edges. "Getting drunk's only gonna to make me think about him more." He'd been hammered the night they both let themselves get caught.

And God if Phoebe didn't get that, too. So many things made her think of Cole, even now almost a year later, and on a weird island. She dropped down next to Kate, glad that she hadn't hauled off and really hit her for that comment and point of view.

"I'm sorry." And Phoebe meant that sincerely, not a platitude one says. "I know it really hurts to lose someone and in a way you have no control over, not to mention that you can't fight back against it." Her lips curved a little, "though you can find a good substitute for that."

Kate nods an acknowledgment of the sparring that's almost dutiful. At least Phoebe's not lecturing her on displaced aggression and bad coping strategies. Sometimes she wants to punch Will in the face just because she thinks he's going to tell her to find a better way. It's not fair to him really because she doubts he'd ever say that. But...she shrugs. Displaced aggression.

Maybe she'll try talking to Steve. He's usually good at that calming, Zen, Mentor-y crap. Or get into some trouble with Jim or Trip. They're good distractions. So's fucking Phoebe and Neal. It's just...

"It'd be easier. If we were fighting, you know? If it was dangerous. You get used to losing people like that."

"Not always fighting." Phoebe said quietly, pulling her knees up to her chest. "But yeah, I know what you mean. It's easier, though God that's never easy, losing someone when you're in danger because it's expected." Though Phoebe was used to people leaving with jobs or other reasons. Her relationship before Cole had been like that. He'd left to work and live in Hong Kong.

"It's not easy but at least it makes sense." That's the part that bugs her the most. It doesn't make sense. Why Sawyer? He'd been here forever. She shrugs, presses her cut lip to the knee of her sweats, shrugs again and then lifts her head just enough to say, "It kinda feels personal, I guess. So many people, so fast. Liv and Imri haven't even been gone that long yet."

"God, yeah I can see how you'd think Fate, Powers, whatever had it in for you." Phoebe rested her head on the tops of her knees looking at Kate. To be honest, it would be enough to break a lot of people and send them all saying screw it.

"I know this sounds cheesy and believe me I can't believe I'm saying this, but another way to look at it, is that you were lucky to have the time you did with them. Timing sucked that you didn't get enough time, but it also was good timing that it brought them in your life, if only a little bit."

She turned her head so that her eyes met Kate's, "you or I could leave tomorrow and as much as that would hurt like a son of a bitch, I'd always have this time I had with you and I won't ever regret that." Phoebe didn't have many female friends outside of her sisters. Women usually thought she was after their boyfriends, even though she'd never cross that line. Which made this with Kate really special.

Edited 2012-09-30 12:45 (UTC)

"You're right. It sounds cheesy," Kate mutters but there's a tiny hint of a smile lurking in her eyes. "You know you can be glad you got a chance to fuck a guy and still be pissed off he's gone at the same time." As raw as her voice sounds, it's still more like her than anything that's gone before it.

She nudges her shoulder against Phoebe's. "Don't get sappy on me, Barbie." Old nickname now. Kate almost never calls her that anymore. "Save deciding whether you'll miss me til you're actually gone." Since she's got a feeling she's like Sawyer. Not one of the leavers but one of the one who stays, year after year, while everyone around them goes.

Phoebe nudges Kate's shoulder back, "Sappy? Me? Never." Though she was usually the poster girl for sappy when it came to love and family. "And you've got a deal." Phoebe wasn't planning on going anywhere, even the desire to be there for when Piper gave birth was a constant gnaw every day, it wasn't as strong as when she first arrived.

Brow lifting, Kate shakes her head slightly but leans over and steals a quick, sweaty, bloodied kiss. After, the only explanation she gives is, "Sealing the deal."

Somehow, this thing with Phoebe doesn't have the weird pressures of being with Declan, or Imri, Sawyer, or even Neal. It's always been more like Trip and Jim. No need to ask where they're going. Wherever it is, they're pretty much there.

They don't do much gossiping about who else they're banging but Sawyer'd come up a time or two after she slept with him before he left. She'd had to tell someone she'd broken his fast. Plus, you just didn't tap an ass that fine without sharing it with your best girlfriend. So, eventually, she owns up, "It's Sawyer. In case you were wondering."

Phoebe had only heard about Sawyer, she'd never met him but he obviously had meant a lot to Kate, more than just an ass to tap. "Oh man, that really bites." Saying she's sorry wouldn't really help so she didn't bother to offer it.

"Black widow," Kate says, shrugging like it's nothing, but it's not nothing. "He was like the first person I met on the island. We've been chasing..." She squeezes her eyes shut. "We had been chasing each other for like a year. Finally go and fuck and then he's gone. He'd been here forever. Kinda feels like it's because of me. Imri and I were just getting there and he's gone, too."

Phoebe didn't think that Kate wanted to hear how logically others have probably gone through the same thing. When you lose a lot of people close to you, you don't really care that you're not the only one. Misery doesn't always love company.

"I can see how it would feel that way." She said quietly, turning her head to look at Kate. "I'd say it goes in threes but on the island it doesn't really follow that."

Phoebe had met some people that had left the island, or she's assuming they did as she hadn't seen them in a while, but she hadn't really made any connections. At least nothing that would hurt if they left beyond Kate and Phoebe wasn't sure what that said about her. It was like back in New York. A lot of superficial friends but almost like she was in a holding pattern until her 'life' started again.

"It's not like I want a white picket fence anyway," Kate says, shrugging off the way she knows it sounds. The damned bracelet makes it seem that way too but it's not. It's just proof that she can get it right, maybe, somewhere. "It'd just..."

She glances at Phoebe and sighs finally. "I guess I'm really worried about, you know, Lilo. Going back to Nani and her ohana would be good for her, but..." Call a spade a spade, Freelander... "It'd suck for me. She's...the best thing I've done. If that makes any sense."

"Yeah it makes a lot of sense." Phoebe assures her friend. "It's hard, really hard, to give up something that makes a difference in your life. That makes you believe you're a better person because of it." She got that, even if for her it was magic and helping people instead of a person. Phoebe didn't feel like she was a screw up when she got letters thanking her for her advice or she saw the look of gratitude on an innocent's face when she and her sisters helped.

"And to give up a person you care about on top of that, even if you know it would be good for them, is just as hard."

That's not exactly it, not really, and it makes her miss Sawyer even more. Phoebe's not enough of a fuck up to really get how important that one good thing is, but she is a good friend.

"Less hard, more getting the rug pulled out from under me, but yeah. Close enough." She pushes up to her feet again, ready to spar, and holds a hand down to Phoebe. "Sick of acting like the next candidate for emo indie pop star of the year. Let's do this thing."

In its way, it's a thank you. As close as they're gonna get. Today anyway.

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[For Phoebe] I've got all the symptoms

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