Shattered Glass

[sandandwater]

Pushing herself, testing boundaries and the limits of what she could do, Pippa had been trying to find out she felt capable of these days. Besides trying to calm and stifle her anxiety she’d been going to lunch with friends, shopping with Cait, taking Mr. Beaker to the park on her own and now she was attempting something else altogether. She was back in her glass studio.

Pippa fired up the furnace and while waiting for the heat in the glory hole to reach the correct temperature, she prepared the rest of her work area. She wiped down the marver and then covered the surface in the coloring agents she had wanted to work with today. Pippa filled her water bucket, lined up her jacks and files along the workbench, selected her pontils then began to wander the rest of her shop.

She moved between the shelves lined with various pieces, occasionally touching her fingers to a vase, a set of glass pens she’d fashioned in a burst of whimsy, a lampshade. There were bowls and platters, beads and jewelry. The more interesting pieces were the small sculptures, things that were more abstract and fluid, seemingly living little works of art. Resting on a table was a solid piece of flame-red glass, about two feet tall at its highest point, a base for a work in progress. It was something for Ro, a present.

Pippa eventually went back to the lit furnace, opened the door and pulled on her tinted, mirrored sunglasses. She checked the temperature of the melt by visual inspection and the feel of the blast on her skin. The liquid glass was a searing yellow-white sea inside the furnace and just about ready for a first gather. She stood back and reached for a pontil, fingers closing around the cool steel rod with practiced ease. The familiar weight felt good as she lifted it. Welcome and natural as she brought her left hand up to close around the rod about a foot behind her right hand. She smiled. She could still do this.

Pippa continued to smile as she stepped a bit closer, angled the pontil and lowered it to the melt. Then her face faltered. Instead of merely skimming the surface of the molten glass while rotating the rod, she felt the tip grow heavy and unbalanced as it sank, dipping below the surface to submerge itself in the liquid glass. She swore. It was something a novice would do, not the mistake of a skilled master. Not her.

Angry, she withdrew the rod and threw it aside. Dangerous, yes, but she was alone in the studio and not worried about the risks of injury to anyone else. She took a steadying breath and grabbed a second pontil, repeated her grip and moved a bit more slowly. Control. She just had to exercise control. It happened again. The rod, while in motion, became unbalanced in her faulty grip. She couldn’t do this. She. Could. Not. Do. This.

It was one more thing Larch had destroyed, ruined, stolen from her. Pippa felt ill, nauseous, as she pulled the pontil from the melt, shaky as she set it down atop the steel marver. Furious as she flung her glasses from her face, she swore again, then screamed. You can’t do this. You can’t do this…The mantra beat through her head; pounded at her temples and blinded her to what she was doing as she moved across the studio. She threw the first object her hands closed around, a vase. Shattered, she reached for the next and the next, dropping some, throwing others, letting them all break against the floor.

As she continued between the shelves, glass crunching and being ground beneath her heels, Pippa systematically emptied one after the other. If she couldn’t make glass, she didn’t want the reminders of what she had been capable of here to mock her. She was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t hear the studio’s heavy fire door open. The sounds of shattering glass masked his footfalls on the concrete floor. The blood pounding in her ears kept her from hearing his somewhat aghast, “What are you doing, sweet?” And her rage caused her to forget that she had asked him to meet her here, to keep her company and to serve as a second pair of hands if need be.

It wasn’t until he raised his voice and called “Pippa!” sharply that she realized she wasn’t alone. Realized that someone had witnessed her tantrum, her unseemly fit. How much had he seen? She stood stock-still for a very long moment and then the anger was back, as heated and dangerous as the molten glass in the furnace. How dare he? Pippa whirled to face him, grabbed the piece of red glass off the table and flung it with as much anger and hatred as she could muster.

Rory caught it. He caught it. The scream that had been building in her chest died and she simply stared at him, her chest rising and falling with the pounding of her heart.

Comments

[fey-fire.livejournal.com]

Rory caught the heavy missile on reflex, then stood there with it in both hands, staring back at his love. The glittering shards of glass that surrounded her, the littered ruin of so much of her work, barely made an impact on him. All his attention was on Pippa.

So much pain and anger wrapped up in her, flaring out from her blue eyes. Rory tried to imagine a rage so great that it would push him to destroy all his songs and arrangements. She's in agony. What could he do, what could he say?

Setting the crimson piece of glass to one side, he took a few steps closer to her. "Pippa, love, what is it? Talk to me, please."

[sand-andwater.livejournal.com]

As he moved closer, she backed up. It was instinctive and fear-driven, this need to keep that space between them. He'd caught more than the sculpture she'd hurled at him, he'd caught her behaving badly and without any semblance of control. She'd always been careful to keep this from him, from everyone, afraid of what they would say if they knew Pippa Kerr could rage and fume and act a fury like something wild and untamed.

"Nothing. I'm fine now, I didn't hear you come in. You sartled me, that's all." Her voice oddly calm and pleasantly soft, completely in opposition with her actions of only moments ago. Pippa wouldn't meet Rory's eyes as she avoided his question, his plea, as she lied to him. Instead, she took a deep breath and stepped to the side meaning to edge around him. "Excuse me, I have to clean this up."

[fey-fire.livejournal.com]

As she moved, his hands came up to cup her shoulders, but lightly. "Pippa, please ..." Please what? Open up and show your wounds? God help them, if she can't trust him enough to confide in, how will she ever be able to speak to anyone else?

"You're not fine, sweet." He'd meant to ease gradually into the topic of Pippa getting professional help, but having seen the storm fury behind that careful facade, he knows there will be no easing here. "You're hurting and angry, and you can't keep that bottled up forever."

[sand-andwater.livejournal.com]

She froze again as he touched her, held her in place, and she flinched at his next words. Then she bristled. He wanted her to be angry and not hold back? "Watch me."

Pippa pushed past Rory, giving him a warning glare before she reached for the push broom that was leaning against a wall.

[fey-fire.livejournal.com]

Rory heard her warning, saw it glinting in her eyes. With a sinking heart he realized that tenderness and cosseting wouldn't help the woman he loved, not now. As much as he wanted to be kind, he couldn't just let this go. For her sake, he had to step over the line she'd drawn.

"Watch you? Watch you tear yourself up inside? Watch you try to pretend that nothing's happened and push aside the people who care about you in the process?" He shook his head, watching her fingers tighten around the broom handle. "I can't. I love you. Whether you want my help or not, I have to try."

If setting himself up as a target was the only way to get through to her, he would do just that. Let her throw whatever she liked at him, be it missiles or words.

[sand-andwater.livejournal.com]

There was a brief moment where Pippa actually considered swinging the broom at him, letting the stiff-bristled end act as a club and pummel what she considered his condescending attitude right out of him. Oh, she was angry still and it was getting more and more difficult to stifle it in front of him.

She didn't hit Rory with the broom, she calmly released it and let the handle rest against the wall once more. Then the calm ended. Abruptly. "Do I LOOK like nothing happened? Do I? Do I?!"

Pippa raised her voice and her hands at the same time, her fingers sifting through her short, shaggy hair and then she waved her left hand in his face. "This is pretty damned hard to ignore, Rory!"

[fey-fire.livejournal.com]

His stomach muscles tightened at Pippa's furious gesture, but Rory refused to flinch away from her damaged hand. Tadhg had refused to let him look in that last box, refused to let him see the severed finger inside, but he remembered her screams, the crack--

Stop it. This isn't about you. Swallowing hard, he tried to regroup. "Love, that's the point. You need to talk this through with someone. And for whatever reason, you don't seem to want that someone to be me."

Rory took deep breaths, fighting the increasing tightness in his chest. "But you can't heal keeping all this to yourself. Abby and I -- she recommended someone else for you to see." No turning back now; the bomb was well and truly dropped. "A professional."

[sand-andwater.livejournal.com]

Abby and I...Abby and I...they'd been talking about her behind her back. He'd been discussing all of this with someone else. Without her. Pippa didn't know if she should be angry or heartbroken at what she saw as betrayal. Either way, her eyes were welling up with tears as she stood there looking up at him.

Eventually, her hand dropped back down to her side and then Pippa tucked it behind her back, away from his sight. Away from her own. "A professional..." She swallowed. "You think I'm crazy?"

Tears or not, Pippa laughed. "Great. Some psycho beats me, cuts me up, tortures me and I'm I'm the crazy one. I knew this was going to happen. I knew it. I knew..."

She couldn't look at him. It hurt too much. "You'd get tired of me, of dealing with me and want to let it be someone else's problem. I'm not good enough for you anymore."

The tears just kept coming.

[fey-fire.livejournal.com]

"No!" The word tore from him, pulled by the pain in Pippa's eyes and voice. "That's not true, I--" Rory couldn't not touch her, couldn't keep his hands at this sides. They rose to gently cup her face.

"Pippa, I love you. Nothing has changed that; nothing will change that." His thumbs brushed at the tears tracking down her cheeks. "I want to be with you no matter what, do you hear me? No. Matter. What."

His hands were shaking. When had that started? "You're not crazy. You're hurting. If I could heal your heart's wounds like the wounds of your body, I would. But I can't." His eyes stung. His chest ached. "I can't."

[sand-andwater.livejournal.com]

No, he couldn't. He couldn't fix her where he felt she was broken. Pippa knew that. She also knew that if it weren't for him, she'd not be standing there at that moment. Hurting, as he put it. "Why didn't you just leave me there?" Her voice was no more than a whisper, her throat too tight to manage more. "You should have let me die. Why didn't you let me die?"

This was something she'd wanted to know ever since she first woke up enough from their healing trances and Abby's pain medications to realize it had all been real and the damage would not be undone. She wanted to know why he had forced this on her instead of letting her suffering end. Larch had at least promised her that much, that it would all be over.

Pippa stepped back, away from his trembling hands and wiped at her own face. "You don't know anything about the way I hurt."

[fey-fire.livejournal.com]

Rory almost said it again, that's not true. He did know something, could feel the pain and uncertainty wracking her every time he came home from a gig, his senses blasted wide open by the audience. He bit back the words, though. Knowing that he was so sensitive to her agony could only make Pippa withdraw further, whether out of anger at the further invasion or a desire to protect him. Or both.

And now this. You should have let me die. His gut clenched at the thought that Pippa could want her life to end, at the image of her dying in the cold and wet and stench, alone. Or worse, after some further cruelty inflicted by the monster who'd taken her.

"I couldn't." Rory too spoke in a whisper, barely audible over the furnace. He slowly shook his head, rejecting the thought of losing her. As slowly he sank to his knees before her, in penitence or supplication, he didn't know. Unaware of the tears filming his own eyes, he looked up into her beautiful, beloved face. "I couldn't leave you ..."

[sand-andwater.livejournal.com]

What was he doing? Pippa watched him, confusion and anger mounting again as he knelt down in the broken remains of her artwork, of her glass. "You should have."

She turned away from him, unable to look down at his misery-filled expression. Pippa didn't want to think about anyone's suffering but her own. Didn't want to consider that she might be hurting him with her actions and her words. She certainly didn't want to acknowledge that he might be right.

That piece of red glass he'd caught and saved mocked her from its resting place and as she listened to the sounds of Rory breathing, her own stifled sobs and the steady roar of fire, Pippa let out another anguished cry. Her arm swung out and she swiped the object from the table, sending it to the floor along with everything else broken and discarded. "Rory...please just go away. There isn't anything for you here. There isn't anything for me here anymore. Don't you understand that?"

Couldn't he see that she was just as much of a mess as all the glass at her feet? That Larch took it all from her, everything she'd created here, not just her studio but her life on Staten Island. Her cocoon of safety. The person she had wanted so desperately to be...and now it was gone.

She gripped the edge if the table, leaned on it for support. Of course he saw it. He had told her she needed professional help, hadn't he? "I can't do this anymore...I can't be this anymore. I can't be here any more."

The words bubbled up between choked sobs and on a shaky voice. The thoughts that have chased themselves around inside her head for days and weeks, everything he'd taken away, all the things she'd lost, none of the things she felt capable of changing or taking back.

[fey-fire.livejournal.com]

Slowly he rose, feeling his own body as a weight pulling him down. Almost unconsciously Rory reached down to brush fragments of glass from the knees of his jeans, wincing slightly when one needle-sharp shard slid into the heel of his hand. Plucking it out, he healed the tiny wound in seconds.

If only it could be that easy.

Both his hands clenched as he turned back to Pippa. Somehow, somehow, he had to reach her. Knowing she might well push him away, he stepped behind her and reached around to cover her hands with his.

"I couldn't leave you then. I won't leave you now," he whispered, bending his neck to rest his cheek on her hair. "You gave me the support I needed to reach for what I want. How can I not do the same for you?"

He tilted his head, trying to meet her eyes. "And you are strong enough to reclaim what you want, a muirnin. Maybe you can't believe me right now, but it's true."

[sand-andwater.livejournal.com]

She tensed again as his arms slid around her, wanted to pull her marred and damaged hand away from his--nearly did--but once she felt the warmth of his body against her back, his breath against her ear, something else broke in Pippa and she sank back into him, heavy with exhaustion. "It's not the same..."

Pippa started another round of meek protest at his words, keeping after him and reassuring him that he and the band are talented enough to land a recording contract, keep one and make a go of their collective dream seemed like such an easy task in comparison to what he wanted to undertake here. "How, Ro? How? I don't even want to be here. I try and I can't." She did slip her hand out from under his then, held it in front of them as if it weren't part of her any longer. "I thought it wouldn't matter, wouldn't make a difference if I could just come back here and make my glass, but it does. It does."

She could look at her hand, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. "It changes everything."