(Untitled)

[i_spoiled_it]

In Kenya, it is not quite sunrise and Steph has just had a troubling conversation with Babs.

She looks at the phone in her hand, and sighs, stuffing it into her pocket and getting to her feet.  Today's going to be busy, and she doesn't really feel up to it.  Which means she probably needs to go and try to get a little more sleep.

But the door of the

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[amazonofthe21st]

Happy hours aren't always Rachel's thing. She doesn't drink alcohol, for one. Two, it draws a crowd.

But today was long and filled with activity - the good sort - and she just happens to come in not long after another blonde has settled behind the bar. And The Bar has gone to sleep.

So.

"Coke?" she asks, sliding onto a stool and lifting eyebrows expectantly at Steph.

[i_spoiled_it]

"Sure. That's an easy one." Steph's grin is friendly, even if it's still overlaid with a little confusion.

... she has no trouble finding anything behind the bar, though. Which only confuses her more.

[amazonofthe21st]

That much friendliness is infectious, and even Rachel smiles back a little. "Are you new? I haven't seen you before."

[i_spoiled_it]

"I -- don't know," Steph admits, glancing up at her. "I know for a fact I've never been here in my life. But ... I have family here. Friends. I've been on adventures with people here. I crashed someone's spaceship. Mel just cried all over my shoulder. I'm -- confused."

[amazonofthe21st]

Well, then.

Someone likes to share.

Since this isn't entirely new for Milliways, it only takes Rachel a moment to shift gears. From just wanting a drink to attempting to be friendly. "Well... crashing a spaceship is always fun."

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph grins, slightly apologetic, setting Rachel's Coke in front of her with a flourish. "I wish I could remember it properly," she admits. "It sounds like it would have been great."

[amazonofthe21st]

Eyebrow lift.

"Maybe it'll come back to you. You just forgot ever coming here before?"

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph runs a hand along one of the pink, healing puckers that spiderweb her skin, thoughtfully. "I was dead," she says slowly, "and now I'm - well, not. I think that's why it's hard to remember."

[amazonofthe21st]

"What?

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph looks up at her sharply, when she hears that tone of voice.

"... Oh. You?"

[amazonofthe21st]

"What do you mean, now you're not?"

Priorities.

[i_spoiled_it]

"I'm not sure."

Steph is earnest, serious. This is important.

(She remembers a boy, a little - Gavroche, his name was, telling her cheerfully that he was dead and now alive, and she remembers freaking out, and how can she remember all this anyway?)

"I think my friends changed my timeline - my time. I mean, Babs was from before I was, so ... I think that must be what they've done."

[amazonofthe21st]

"Changed your...?"

She's so focused on Steph, on this, Rachel hasn't touched her drink. Her hands are gripping the edge of the part tight, tight, but her glass of Coke sits inches away, sweating a water ring into the wood of Bar.

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph nods, serious and intent on Rachel, eyes anxious. "It wasn't - they didn't bring me back to life. They made it so I never died.

"Which is messing with my head something fierce, I gotta tell you."

[amazonofthe21st]

"...oh."

They went back. Found the timeline. Made it so she never died. Interfered, saved her life.

But Rachel... she had to. Had to. It was the whole point, they needed her to kill Tom and there was no way to get out of that alive, there just wasn't. It's why she had to die and if someone tried to save her, they'd probably be letting Tom live or messing something else up because Rachel had to die, it was the only way.

She had to.

Had to.

No other way.

And nothing to do about it.

"...oh."

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph hesitates, but slowly she puts a (warm, alive, scarred) hand over the other girl's tense ones.

"I'm sorry. It's not - it's - They used to talk to me about bringing me back to life, but it's not ..."

It wasn't meant to happen. She was dead, that was the end of the story.

"Are you okay?"