riverviewlogs | [Closed] It's too late to say you're sorry, say you're sorry still...

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[Closed] It's too late to say you're sorry, say you're sorry still...

who: Letha Regis (

burntbridges ) and Ivar Ragnarsson (

ragnarsson )
what: Baby mama drama. Magic baby mama drama.
when: A few days before Christmas.
where: Letha's house
warnings: Possible homicide attempts, lots of cruel insults, possibly some crude talk about killing babies. It's Letha and Ivar, what can you do.

--

Yes, she knew he would find her eventually. Ivar was not stupid, and Letha was not a good liar. She had even been too sentimental not to return to their old house, which had barely changed since she left. She had spent a few hours after returning to Riverview, sitting on the fur rug by the empty fireplace and sobbing. She hadn't been able to stomach going near the bed until she was nearly dead on her feet. She'd nearly torn the place apart afterward in a frenzy, looking for her crow pin and failing to find it, and then gone into another frenzy cleaning the whole place until it looked exactly, pristinely like it had when she first arrived.

She hadn't even opened the door to Winter's room. She was too afraid to see it stripped barren and empty - just like her womb, just like her heart.

But Ivar would find her eventually, that much was inevitable. She was cleaning the floor when the knock finally came, and she had the distinct sense without even thinking about it that it couldn't be anyone else. She let him stay out there in the cold for a while, but she couldn't fight that part of her that fretted over him still, wanted to be sure he was warm and had a place to rest out of his chair and a mug of ale.

She takes a moment to grab her cloak and veil, and hastily hides her appearance before moving to unlock the door. She doesn't open it, though; she just returns to her cleaning, sure that he heard the noise and will enter on his own.

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Ivar knew she'd go back to her house. Somehow, he just knew, the way he could read people. It was the one, he thought with a distant pang, that had once been their house. He refused to let the pain fuel him. No, pain was cowards. Rage is all he wanted to feel right now. He let it build, remembering telling her 'I love you' in bliss during the night, only to wake up to an empty bed the next morning. The moment when he realized she'd left for good and would never come back.

Well, never say never. She was back now and Ivar's rage fills him from head to toe. He waits for her to open up the door, and when he hears the door unlock, he opens it, and goes in, slamming it behind him like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence.

He looks for her, seeing a body made shapeless by a cloak in the living room. He wheels in and sits in there, staring at her with his face an impassive mask. When he finally finds words to say, they're in a commanding tone, flat of emotion. "Take that veil off." He's not going to speak to her in all her lies and deceptions. They're going to be honest here, the way she wasn't when she left him and abandoned Winter.

For months, she's told herself that if she finally saw Ivar again, she would be brave. She would stand up to him, and tell him exactly what she had on her mind, and that would be it.

In practice she almost jumps out of her skin when he speaks, and she belatedly turns around with her knuckles white as she holds the broom in her hand. Without speaking she props it against the wall, and hesitates before taking a step back.

"I'd much rather keep it on, thank you."

At least she has the decency to not fake a voice; that's definitely Letha's voice coming muffled from under the thick veil. The only thing she fakes is the bravery, of which she feels none but tries very hard anyway to make her voice level.

Ivar's like a wolf. He can smell fear. It used to be that making Letha feel afraid of him would leave him feeling ashamed and awful afterwards. Now, he's glad that she's intimidated by him. He thinks about going right up to her, taking her by her long, pretty, dark hair, and slamming her head into the wall about a dozen times.

"No. I want you to look me in the eyes while you tell me why the fuck you left." His voice trembles with fury that he's barely containing. "And why you came back." He needs to know. No matter what he does next, he wants to hear what reasons she could have possibly had for leaving the man who loved her and her own daughter.

She wrings her hands for a moment, unsure of which course to take... but with Ivar, the safest route has always been honesty. With some hesitation, she pulls the veil from her face and lets the fur cloak drop to the floor around her feet.

Letha has aged much too much in the last three months; it looks more like she's been gone a year, at least. Her skin is cracked and scarred around her hands, her fingernails have no paint, and her lips are cracked and bare as well. She hasn't worn any proper makeup in a while, only the heavy soot-based sort around the eyes that Vikings are fond of. She's gained a scar on her right brow, and her hair is held up in a complex pattern of braids that pulls into a rose shape in the back, not that he'll see it now. And now that the cloak is off, he'll be able to see her outfit; a plain norse dress, with simple black boots and a belt decorated with small bones, feathers and sprigs of herbs. It makes her smell a bit like a seer's home.

And most importantly, without the shield of her veil he'll be able to clearly see her green eyes swimming with regret and guilt as she tries to think of the right words to speak.

"I had to leave. It doesn't matter why, I just had to. And I didn't mean to come back, I just..." She hesitates, no, none of that came out right. Her hands curl into fists and instinctively she tries to change the subject, "Where is my crow? You have him, don't you? You took him?"

"Oh, I see. You had to leave. Because you just couldn't be a mother anymore. As if it was just a job you could give up anytime you wanted to because it got hard. And you never even intended to come back. You would have hid out forever rather than deal with things." His voice dripped with sarcastic contempt. "Now you're back and the first thing you did wasn't to see your own daughter, it was to hide out like a coward!"

His voice is rising up in tone and fury. He's just barely getting started now. "You want to know about your crow pin? Before asking about Winter?!" Letha, you better get your priorities straight. "The crow pin is at home. I thought about destroying it, but I thought I should keep it so I could show Winter the only reminder of her mother when she got old enough to ask." That and a few pictures he'd taken of her was all he'd had.

"So, are you going to ask about her now, or are you just going to keep making pitiful excuses for running out on me after I told you that I loved you?" There was hurt now choking his voice as well as anger. She knew how rare it was Ivar loved anyone. He'd opened his heart to her and she'd broken it.

Oh, she'd really hoped he would just try to kill her by now. She had a plan in mind for that; she had no plan for how she'd handle him speaking to her, pointing out how stupid she'd been, how terrible a mother, how terrible a girlfriend. She really couldn't do anything right, could she? Before he's even done speaking she's shaking softly, and tears are welling up in her eyes.

"That crow is important." She insists meekly, still trying so hard to cling to a subject that doesn't make her entire body ache with grief. "My brother gave it to me, it's all I have of him, and I need it."

She hadn't expected Ivar to give up Winter, so why would she ask. But he's right, she hadn't even tried. Even now she feels hesitant to ask for her. Ivar hated her, he loved Winter, and she still hated Winter. If it wasn't for the ache in her heart that wanted both of them near her, she'd know it was so much better for her to stay away, but she'd never been strong like that.

"Ivar, I never-" She stops, and lets out a small huff as she pulls a dirty handkerchief from her pocket and dabs at her eyes, "No, you know what, I won't. I won't give you excuses, you can burn in hell first. You're not going to listen to them, are you? You're too busy imagining that I did all of this to hurt you, when you have no idea what I went through the night I left. I bet you've been dreaming up all sorts of ways to get your revenge, haven't you? It would be such a shame if you heard me out and realized I wasn't at fault, that would be so much time wasted for you."

Ivar can feel the anger grow inside him and it reaches a boiling point as she doesn't even try to justify herself, just trying to make herself out to be the victim, the martyr who had suffered so much. As if what she's gone through makes it all equal out in the end. Now there's murder in his eyes.

He goes up to her and reaches up, then backhands her across the face. Before he can let her recover, his hands, that had been so gentle with her on other occasions, are wrapped around her pale throat. "I should kill you for what you did! You abandoned me and you abandoned her! You didn't love either of us!" Strangling her is going to be a slow, painful death, and he thinks it's just what she deserves.

Ah yes, there it is. She knew it wouldn't be long before he lost his temper. Before she left, she might have gone feint, crying and whimpering for him to forgive her, but she isn't backing down this time. She's sick of the person she's been for him.

Her eyes sharpen as his hands grab her throat, and her own hand whips forward. It seems to bury itself in his chest without any resistance, and by the look of it she must be gripping his heart. Yes, his soul is in there somewhere.... there. She grips it and yanks it just a bit forward, enough to give Ivar the sense of his chest being ripped open.

The act of soul-ripping is strictly illegal in Thornwell, which means of course that she had never known it was possible until she had done it accidentally. But her brothers had done it when she was younger to tease her, and the concept was largely the same; souls liked to be in their bodies, and disturbing that placement made a lot of things go wrong. She just hoped this wouldn't kill him, as she'd killed quite a few men with it over the last few months.

Edited 2017-12-27 13:25 (UTC)

Ivar, for all his sharp mind, can forget things when he loses control. Right now, he's completely lost to the anger burning inside of him, not thinking that Letha will even retaliate. When she does, his hands drop, one going to clutch at his chest.

A voiceless gasp comes out of his throat as the pain rises inside him. For a moment, he thinks she's stabbed him, but this is worse than that, like he's being torn open. But there's no wound there. She just did something with her powers. He pants as he looks up at her, his eyes no less fierce and angry for what has just happened. "So the cat found her claws at last," he says in a mocking tone.

"Seems like I've felt that pain before. When I found out you'd gone through the portal, I felt it inside me then." She'd wounded him deeply when she left. One night of pure happiness followed by endless days of sadness.

"I've thought of so many ways to kill you if you ever came back." He pulls out one of his knives. "Beg for mercy and maybe I'll grant it to you. I'll give you that much." She'd given him Winter, so part of him would always be grateful for that. But whatever part of him had loved her had darkened the moment she left his life.

He just barely has enough time to speak that last word, before she whips out a knife of her own and presses it against his throat. Her eyes are pale green flames, hiding the absolute fear she feels knowing that she has only been training for a handful of months and he has trained with them his entire life. She's closer to matching his power, but still so very far.

"No, you listen to me." She barks, much more bravely than she feels. "I'm sure you have a lovely speech prepared, don't you? But I'm not interested in hearing it. Do you know how I spent my last month in Riverview? Cowering from you, hiding from you, making up excuses for why I wasn't spending time with you or with Winter. Stepping over eggshells so that we wouldn't have another damn fight about my daughter. Mine. Mine and my husband's. She's not even yours, and you have the gall to act as if you have more say in her life than me. If I'd had as much sense then as I have now, I would have poisoned you before I ever undressed for you."

It had taken so much courage to show her body, with its cannonball pattern of stretch marks all across her belly. She had trusted it with him, but why she did is something she can no longer recall.

"Now you apologize and sit down and act like a civilized adult, or I'll tear your soul from your body, and you might see what I went through that made me oh so horrible a parent for my daughter."

The knife at his throat is a bit of a shock. Looks like he was right about those cat claws. He thinks about yanking that knife right out of her grasp, but Ivar's always reluctant to do anything that might damage his hands. Slowly, he pulls his knife away. There will be time enough for that later if he still feels like killing her.

"You've turned into a real bitch." Just what had she been up to in the months she'd been away from Riverview? But then, Ivar already knew life in his world was no picnic. He could have told her that before she decided to make a life there. He snorts at the words about undressing for him. They'd both been nervous and fumbling, but he was sure she'd enjoyed it at the time.

His eyes have that ice cold look to them, voice still containing fury as he counters her points. "Let's make one thing perfectly clear. Winter is my daughter. You walked out and it's been me taking care of her for the past four months. I'm the one that feeds her, bathes her, and stays up when she's not sleeping at night. You want back into her life? You need to earn it."

"And you're just the same petty child I left." She snaps in response.

Funny; if Aristeo had been here, he would say she'd always been a bitch, since the day she was born. These days it might have been said with affection, unlike the insults he'd thrown at her when they met during their engagement. But things are very different when she has control over the situation, aren't they?

Her eyes narrow at his refusal. "That only makes you a wetnurse, not a father. She belongs to me, and I'm taking her whether you want to resolve our relationship or not. I've gone through hell and back just to have her in the first place, I'm not having her taken away by a childish, stupid man who can't even make children of his own."

And yet again, she realizes as the words leave her mouth that she has definitely gone too far. But they're out now, and she can't back down.

Ivar's eyes glitter as the insanity that always lurks below rises up to the surface. As always, Letha doesn't know when to stop pushing things. Quick as a flash, he reaches forward and grabs both her wrists, dragging her forward until she's forced to eye level with him, heedless of the knife she still has in her hand. It's clear he's only barely containing himself from doing something like snapping her neck.

"You'll take away my daughter over my dead body. If I have to kill you to do that, don't think that I'll hesitate, not even for a second. You keep saying you want her back, that she belongs to you. You know what I haven't heard you say? That you love her or even like her. Why would I give her back to the woman who called her flawed and vile, who said she was more broken then I was?"

Oh yes, he well remembered when she had said that while still recovering at the hospital. He also remembered how she had seriously considered abandoning Winter beyond the walls of the city. He had to be Winter's protector right now. If he gave her back now, he might never see her again if Letha one day decided to go through with the plan of leaving her to the monsters.

"At least if I kill you you'll make a half-decent servant, instead of a pathetic excuse for a boyfriend!"

She had really better learn to bite her tongue. Her wrists are likely going to bruise, and she struggles for a moment before propping her heel against the seat of his wheelchair and shoving it out from under him. He'll likely drag her down with him, but if she's quick she may be able to straddle him and rake her knife across his arm in the struggle.

"I loved you and you shoved me away the moment you had something better to focus on! Why bother with stupid, rude, bitchy Letha when her daughter is so cute and so misunderstood! Of course she's not a freak, she never hurt you, right? You can feed her and bathe her without nearly getting yourself killed in the process, I carried her for nine months while she was eating me from the inside out like a worm!"

The wheelchair gets kicked behind him, so Ivar holds onto Letha as they fall to a very clean floor. There's a struggle where Letha's knife cuts across the part of his arm not protected by the arm guards he wears. But Ivar is bigger and stronger then her. Eventually, he ends up pinning her to the floor.

Panting, he goes on. "I loved both of you and I never stopped loving you, not even when you were at your lowest. You just couldn't see past your own misery and martyrdom to know that. So your daughter didn't turn out perfect. Tough shit. I don't know why she doesn't drain life from me, but maybe if you had stayed, she might have learned control around you too."

He wipes away a line of blood from his arm. It doesn't hurt as bad as it should when he's this worked up. "And you still never told me if you love her or not."

"You don't understand anything, do you? It's not that simple!"

Her eyes are blurry with tears, which she had been trying so hard to hold back but his words brought them right to the surface. He doesn't understand, he doesn't understand a moment of what she went through.

"I tried to love her! I wanted to, and I tried for you and I couldn't! You just don't see how bad it is, it's just odd hair to you, but she's- she's broken! She shouldn't have been born, because I shouldn't have come back to life and it's all my fault because I couldn't do something as simple as dying! She's a monster because I was so cocky and got myself wrapped up in all of this!"

One of her hands is free as he wipes his blood off, and she uses it to rub at her eyes in a failing attempt to dry them.

"I don't know what I was thinking, I just needed to get away from everything, and it's been so long... It's been so long, I haven't seen you, I haven't seen her, I haven't seen my old clothing or my friends or anything that I loved in Riverview and I missed all of it, I just wanted to see you again..." Her voice becomes meek, as that strength she'd mustered up begins to crumble under the realization that she is still so much weaker in strength and will than him. "I just wanted you to see how much better I was than when I left..."

Seeing Letha break down doesn't bring any satisfaction to Ivar. The only thing he's glad is that he's finally getting some answers to the questions he'd been asking himself for months. Why had she left? Why hadn't she tried harder? Why had she even come back? Now he knew better than he did before.

Ivar doesn't say a word as he rolls off of her and sighs heavily. Sometimes, it really sucks being sixteen and dealing with issues some men twice his age never had to face. His voice is gruff but has lost much of the anger that had been burning through his soul up until now. "Well, whether she was meant to be born or not, Winter is here now. You came back and you need to at least try."

He glances over at Letha and he can hear distinctly in his mind all the advice he'd been given the times he mentioned wanting to murder her. "I came here to kill you. But if I did that, Winter would grow up hating me the way I hate the woman who killed my mother. I couldn't stand that." He pauses before going on. "She's still staying with me. But I'll allow you to see her." Letha had broken his trust badly and it was going to take a long time to repair.

Letha sits up while he's speaking, drawing her knees up to wrap her arms around them. She's openly crying now, streaking her makeup and barely worrying about it. She's sure it's a satisfying sight for him.

"You really hate me now, don't you?" She stares down at the streak of soot now wiped off on her hand. "I thought you might. I was hoping..."

....What was she hoping? That Ivar Ragnarsson, of all people, would forgive her and offer to rekindle their relationship. That their fight would end in him kissing her. That things could go back to the way they were before Winter was born. That things would be... simple, again.

"...I just want to see her again, that's the least you can do. I want to love her. I want to be a good mother. I'm just not sure I can be."

Ivar feels hollow, his insides scraped raw. He'd come over here with a clear idea in mind and now he has no idea what he wants to do. He turns to look at Letha, his eyes filled with anger, but also hurt. "I loved you once. I loved you the way I had never loved anyone before." He'd opened up his heart to her, having never been in a relationship with anyone. "But then you left. I won't be hurt like that again."

He'd loved Letha fervently. Ivar may have had a heart inside him, but once it had broken, it was impossible for him to put it back together again. Things could never go back to the way they were between them. He could repair and try to trust her again. But loving her? No, he would never allow himself to do that again.

He crawls over to his wheelchair, and hoists himself back into it, wheeling over to Letha. Her tears don't seem to move him much, but her words reach him on some level. "You can see her again. I'll allow you that much. But you've got to prove yourself. I won't let you hurt her."

"I miss you." She mutters meekly, staring up at him like a portrait of distress. With a tentative hand she reaches to touch the seat of his wheelchair, careful not to touch his legs, and tries to look as dainty and submissive as she can manage. "I shouldn't have left, I know I shouldn't, but I'm back and I- I just want a chance to fix things. With her, and- with you. Please."

She still loves him, the sort of burning ache that makes her almost choke up when he speaks of 'not getting hurt like that again'. She had never imagined it was possible to really hurt him, before she left. But of course she always finds new and exciting ways to ruin things that no one else knew could be ruined so completely.

"I love you, Ivar." She offers belatedly, almost like a plea. "I loved you when I left and I loved you while I was gone, and I love you now. And I'm sorry I never said it enough and I'm sorry telling me the same didn't make me stay. I'm so sorry..."

Ivar listens to her words and he's torn. Part of him wants to just sweep the past aside and begin anew with her. But he's been hurt and he never wants to go through that pain again. So his words are careful and measured.

"I loved you when you left and for a long time after you were gone. But I'm not sure I can allow myself to love you again." The whole time she'd been gone, he's been attempting to do his best to move on. Now he has feelings for others in Riverview and those won't just be shunted aside because she's back. At least he has enough tact not to twist the knife by mentioning that. "I told you need to prove yourself to be a mother to Winter. You need to do the same with me. Show me why you deserve my love." It's going to take a long time to repair the trust she broke.

He leans over and gives her a gentle kiss on the forehead, a gesture that surprises even himself. Mad as he was when he came in, she's humbled herself, so he'll offer some partial forgiveness. "Now dry your eyes and I'll take you to see your daughter."

The kiss surprises her as well, and for a moment her heart swells up against her ribs and makes her chest ache. She lets out a quiet little sob, like a single bubble rising to the surface, and with all her heart she wants to throw her arms around him and hold him, but she isn't sure he would let her and so she stays on the ground. A few more moments pass while she tries to slow her breathing and calm down, before she gets to her feet and nods hesitantly.

"Where have you been staying with her?"

Surely he wouldn't have kept her at the residential building, but she wasn't here either... had Ivar gotten a new house? Had he moved on so much from her, while she spent sleepless nights even now wishing his arms were wrapped around her...? She tries her best to shake the thought from her head, as it teeters dangerously on the thought of Ivar having a new woman.

He goes into the kitchen and grabs a dish towel, running it in the sink before bringing it back to Letha to wipe her face off with. She's got running makeup and tear streaks all over the place. No need for the entire city to know what's been going on with the two of them.

"In a mansion. I moved in there with Lola, Nico, and the man that owns it, Marco." There's a flicker of something on his face when he mentions Marco's name, there and then gone again just as quick. It's infatuation, the same look he used to get in the early days of their own relationship. He hopes Letha doesn't notice it. Explaining that the person he moved onto was a man is best saved for a time when they both are emotionally drained.

Lucky for both of them, she's busy scrubbing her face when she mentions him. She's not sure how she feels about him living with her two best friends, but maybe that will work well in her favor... who knows. She's gotten enough of her makeup off and gets to her feet, moving a bit numbly to the sink to try and clean the towel off.

"It's... good, that she gets to live in a big house." Her voice is reserved; she had chosen a humble house like this to try and escape what her family expected her, a small rebellion. It was odd to know that Winter was living a life more appropriate for a Regis child. "My brothers and I... our house was three times the size of this one, and it was still a bit crowded."

She almost asks if the mansion has an elevator (she'd missed them), but... thinks better of it after a while, and just walks back over to Ivar, wringing her hands nervously.

"Ivar, before we go to see her, I need to ask you. I need to know if... it would be alright to touch you. I don't expect much, just- a hug. I'm now sure it hasn't been so long for everyone else, but it's been ten months since I last saw you, and- it would just be very nice to make sure that you're real and I'm not dreaming all of this again."

Again. It's been a near-daily fear, to wake up and realize she was still in Varberg.

"I think you'll like the way I did the nursery up." It's definitely got the strange gothic sensibilities that both Ivar and Letha seem to like. "Her two favorite toys are the lamb and the two-headed teddy bear." Letha has missed out on so much with Winter and it makes Ivar actually feel sorry for her. Winter's never really had the chance to bond with Letha at all. The two of them will be starting over from scratch.

Ivar seems to close off for a long moment when Letha asks if she can touch him. It hurt when she left and it is still hurting after she has come back now. Ivar doesn't know how he's ever going to be able to get over her. He should refuse, make a sarcastic comment that they've already spend enough time with him pinning her to the ground.

But he doesn't.

Instead, he gives a stiff, short nod. "Come over here then." She still smells the same, even after all these months later.

If anything, it's proof that he doesn't completely hate her as much as she'd feared. She'd fully expected him to not even dignify her with a response, but she always pushes her luck just in case and has never managed to unlearn the habit. A shy smile spreads over her lips, and she moves forward to lean down and wrap her arms around his neck, hugging him as tightly as she can and taking a deep breath.

He still smells the same, and he's still just as rigid and uncomfortable. She had missed her family, she had missed her husband, she had missed the crowing of her pin, but she had missed this smell and this awkward hug more than anything in the world. More than anything she could fathom in any world. She could nearly cry again.

"I'm going to earn you back." She vows quietly, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek before leaning back with possibly the first truly grateful expression she's ever given him.

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[Closed] It's too late to say you're sorry, say you're sorry still...

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