Being There
Mar. 6th, 2013 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intheheartTitle: Being There
Rating: PG.
Summary: Olivia is there.
Warnings: grief.
Notes: Meme fill for Isana.
Olivia took it hard when her father died, but Joanna took it even harder.
Olivia couldn't blame her. As painful as it was, as much as it hurt to know that her father was gone, she had a family. She had Jake, and their daughters. She had Gina, and Lars, and the rest of her friends. She had people.
Joanna had no one.
She had siblings, of course, but Joanna's family was scattered and divided, and none of them had the time or energy to support a newly widowed sister. Olivia wasn't honestly sure that she did either, but Joanna had saved her once. How could she not do the same?
So she sent Jake home with the girls and stayed with Joanna.
At first, Joanna spent most of the days asleep, in bed. She didn't cry. Olivia brought her food and spent her nights crying in the guest bedroom for her father, for the lost years and the time she would never get back, for the years she'd had him, and the memories they'd never make. She missed him so much it burned like a hole in her chest—and yet, how must Joanna feel? She'd had even less time with Hugh Marhenke than Olivia had, and he had been her whole life.
Olivia didn't want to push, but she knew how it felt to be so sunk in depression that you could hardly breathe, let alone get out of bed, and she knew when that happened you needed someone to talk to. She'd been there, and as much as it hurt she was lucky that she wasn't there now. But at the same time—pushing didn't help, it only made her feel worse, like she should get better when she couldn't. So in the end all she did was feed Joanna and brush her hair, sit with her in the silences and tell her, softly, "I'm here when you need me."
She was there. It felt like worse than nothing, but at least she was there.
Rating: PG.
Summary: Olivia is there.
Warnings: grief.
Notes: Meme fill for Isana.
Olivia took it hard when her father died, but Joanna took it even harder.
Olivia couldn't blame her. As painful as it was, as much as it hurt to know that her father was gone, she had a family. She had Jake, and their daughters. She had Gina, and Lars, and the rest of her friends. She had people.
Joanna had no one.
She had siblings, of course, but Joanna's family was scattered and divided, and none of them had the time or energy to support a newly widowed sister. Olivia wasn't honestly sure that she did either, but Joanna had saved her once. How could she not do the same?
So she sent Jake home with the girls and stayed with Joanna.
At first, Joanna spent most of the days asleep, in bed. She didn't cry. Olivia brought her food and spent her nights crying in the guest bedroom for her father, for the lost years and the time she would never get back, for the years she'd had him, and the memories they'd never make. She missed him so much it burned like a hole in her chest—and yet, how must Joanna feel? She'd had even less time with Hugh Marhenke than Olivia had, and he had been her whole life.
Olivia didn't want to push, but she knew how it felt to be so sunk in depression that you could hardly breathe, let alone get out of bed, and she knew when that happened you needed someone to talk to. She'd been there, and as much as it hurt she was lucky that she wasn't there now. But at the same time—pushing didn't help, it only made her feel worse, like she should get better when she couldn't. So in the end all she did was feed Joanna and brush her hair, sit with her in the silences and tell her, softly, "I'm here when you need me."
She was there. It felt like worse than nothing, but at least she was there.
