Blackwood Grove, Fandom, Wednesday Afternoon

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian really appreciated winter. It wrapped the grove up in silence and stillness, a hush blanketing over the woods. Winter was a time of rest and restoration; a hard season yes, especially for animals, but the world slumbered and the rhythm of the cycles slowed and the season itself brought beauty, especially if you knew where to look.

Today, he was taking some time to just enjoy the season, become as one with it as possible. He sat out on his porch, a cup of coffee in hand, wrapped in a thickly-knit blanket, and just enjoyed the serenity.

Surely it would last.

[For one, please!]

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[witchoftheflesh]

"Is this how you want to be?" Adrian asked quietly. "You here, and only calling her to hang up?"

That didn't sound like a good place to be at all, Pam.

[joan_of_bark]

Pam's fingers slid up to rub at her forehead. She stretched her legs out, and leaned back. "It's complicated," she said. "The things I did before I came here-- well, they'd definitely make you think less of me."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Okay," Adrian said, nodding. "Stay here, let me get us that tea."

He picked up the tea tray from the ground and headed into the kitchen, radiating a thoughtful air. And, several minutes later, he was back, the tray now laden with a teapot, two mugs, and a plate of cookies. "Sorry they're not fresh-baked," he said, settling down next to her again. "But they're still good."

He busied himself making tea for himself, glancing up at her to see if she'd like him to make her cup, too, and then leaned back, long limbs splayed out, watching her as he took his first few sips. "You don't have to tell me anything," he said. "But you're not happy, Pam. And just stewing over past mistakes isn't going to make you any happier."

[joan_of_bark]

"I don't know if 'happy' is what I'm looking for."

She took a cookie. She reached to pour her own tea. Of course she did; Pam didn't like being waited on, least of all him.

"What does your connection to the Green feel like?" she asked, lifting her teacup. "Does it speak to you? Can you sense it?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"It speaks to me of cycles, of life," Adrian said slowly. "Not just plants, but animals, too. All of the living things that my Grove cradles. It tells me places where things are off-balance, where my attention is needed...but it also hums with contentment, too. The deeper I fall into it, the more I can sense, but it's always a soft voice in the back of my head."

[joan_of_bark]

"Someone brought me back from the dead once," Pam said absently. She cradled her cup between her hands, thoughtful. "But someone else siphoned off a little part of my humanity. When I woke, the Green was everywhere. It reached down into the very heart of me, and I reached back. We were almost the same."

She sipped her tea.

"I rooted myself under Gotham. I could make the city shake by the roots in its foundations."

She set her cup down.

"It was killing me all over again," she said. "'Eventually, there would be nothing left of you but some trace DNA in a really big houseplant', that's what Bella - the woman who took that little bit out of me - told me."

[witchoftheflesh]

"The one who worked with you in the lab," Adrian said, making sure he remembered properly. "Your rival? Why did she do that? Not bring you back to life - though that's pretty huge, I'm not trying to overlook that - but remove that bit of humanity? Was it because that was the only way she could save you? Or...?"

[joan_of_bark]

"She thought it was the only way to save me, yes," Pam said quietly. "From what I'd become when I came back."

She looked at her tea. "She and Harley didn't care all that much about what I wanted."

To be with the Green.

[witchoftheflesh]

"You didn't want to be brought back to life?"

Sorry, Pam, that just wasn't computing.

[joan_of_bark]

"Do you know what it feels like to be so part of the Green that it's everything you are?" Pam asked. Her tone-- she sounded more plaintative than she'd like. "When they shoved my soul back together, they ripped me out of the Green. They snipped my wings."

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian shook his head. "We're trained not to go down that far," he said. "For exactly that reason - we can lose ourselves to it. Become one with the growth and the vastness and either forget our way back or choose not to."

Another contemplative sip. "Is that what you were angry about? When you left? That she had brought you back?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Yes."

Pam sipped her tea. Thought about Bella, yelling at her to go back to Harley, to heal, to be happy.

Thought about thinking no and you don't get to decide anything for me, ever again.

She took another sip.

[witchoftheflesh]

Had she refused because it wasn't what she wanted? Or because she just didn't want to be told what to do, especially by either of them.

"Have you forgiven her?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Yes."

That one was quieter.

(Had she forgiven herself? She'd rather not think about that.)

[witchoftheflesh]

"Sounds like it's been a long road to get here," he said softly. "It may have taken you some dark places, but it brought you back into the light, too."

[joan_of_bark]

"Some light," Pam muttered. (Chickening out of telling him? Or sparing them both? She wasn't sure about that one, either.) "I kissed this Harley last week."

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian just looked at her. "If you think that's going to make me think less of you, I'm worried about how little you think of me."

[joan_of_bark]

"That's not it," Pam said. She reached for her cookie. "That's just the fuckup of the month."

[witchoftheflesh]

"So, under the influence of a mind-altering chemical, you kissed a version of the woman that you love and miss deeply," Adrian said. "Which has added a new layer of complicating guilt."

[joan_of_bark]

"She took it very poorly," Pam said. "Which... I could've known she would."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Because she didn't want to just be a stand-in for the person you really wanted?"

Because that seemed legit.

[joan_of_bark]

Pam shot him a wry look.

Harley didn't exactly function the way most people expected, did she?

"Because she feels I rejected her by stopping her before we had sex against the side of the building."

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian had barely met Harley and she'd been digging through the trash outside of PYP when he had. He had the barest impression of bright colors and high energy.

"...Because of the pollen?" he asked, thus proving her unsaid point. "I can imagine that being very frustrating..."

[joan_of_bark]

"No," Pam said. She reached for her tea. "Because now she feels like I don't care enough to have sex with her."

[witchoftheflesh]

"...Okay, damn," Adrian said, sipping his tea. "She thinks you don't care because you didn't want to use her as a stand-in for somebody completely different."

Please help him square this circle, Pam.