fandomhigh | Study Hall, Wednesday [01/27]

"True, but I don't say it right after they've had their skulls bashed in, do I?" Karla retorted. "And then Healed by people who are not me?"

No offense meant to Ino or her skills, of course, but Karla didn't understand how she healed people and wasn't sure how good the other girl was at it.

"And, of course I was running around playing hero. Though it was far too goopy to be entertaining. Those things smelled. And were impossible to kill without making a horrid mess."

See Karla not let it go without a fight. *Ems, whether he loves you or not, can you really see Jack doing anything about it beyond simple confessing? I thought he had his life all mapped out and it involved returning home to his ridiculous time.* Seriously. Women as chattel. What the Hell.

"I don't know, do you? I'm rather sure you've conked that cousin of yours over the head plenty of times," she replied. "And Morton probably didn't let you heal him afterward."

It was totally true, and Karla knew it.

<<It's Jack. He likes getting his own way.>> Which meant he was going to keep pushing until he got whatever reaction he wanted out of Emma... and she had no clue what that was. <<I have no idea what's going on in that tricky little brain of his.>>

"Morton's skull is far too thick to even notice when I'm hitting it with things," Karla snorted. "And like anyone would be able to tell even if he got brain-damaged."

*You could always look,* Karla suggested. She didn't mean it, not at all, but Emma's reaction could be verrrrrrry interesting.

"I could make the same arguement about most of the boys here," Emma answered sweetly, "including Mr. Priest."

<<I'm not going inside the head of someone who's had a recent concussion, I could sprain my brain!>> she continued silently. <<andJackdoesn'tlikeitwhenIpeekpastthesurfacewithoutaskingsoIdon't.>>

"Maybe I should check you for brain damage, if you were willingly out getting gremlin-guts on your shoes."

"I was shielded!" Karla protested. "At the end of the day, my shoes were perfectly fine."

Behind her own inner barriers, Karla was privately "A-ha!"-ing over Emma's confession. Because Emma was going to let something as paltry as 'they'd prefer I didn't' get in the way of something she really wanted to do.

*Well, we couldn't have that, now could we?* she asked, keeping all hints of amusement (or squeeing) out of her thread. *Emma with a sprained brain is not a happy Emma, I'm sure. I guess that leaves talking to him, then.*

Emma groaned, and her head thunked down against the desk and the textbooks she'd been working with. <<I don't want to talk about it. Why should I talk about it? Everything has been just fine up until now without talking about it!>>

*Because regardless of whether he's being an idiot or not, you care for him and this is important to him,* Karla soothed. *He likely knows as well as you do that this whatever-it-is has nowhere to go. If you ask me, Jack is just trying to be honest with you. He'd rather you hear it from him--deliberately--and both talk it out and agree that it will come to nothing, than have you pick up on it accidentally, frea--err, react poorly, and feel like he was hiding it from you.*

Okay, Karla was mostly making this up as she went along, but she figured this was probably the only explanation that wouldn't send Em fleeing in terror.

*You are both mature and you're rational and so talking about it and making it Not An Issue is so much better than hiding from it and letting it be an Issue.*

<<Don't take that tone with me. I didn't ask you, and it's not an issue. It won't be an issue,>> she replied crankily. <<I was perfectly willing to forget the whole thing, chalk it up to his injury, since he never would have said some of those things to me otherwise.>>

Jack had more tact than that, and Emma hadn't really needed (or wanted) a verbal reminder that Don de Ulloa always came first. That was the real salt in the wound.

<<I'm fine, really, he just needs to stop...saying those things.>>

Karla charitably did not point out that Emma had, in fact, asked her--even if it had only been rhetorically.

So, she settled for bluntness instead. *Why?* she asked. *Really-why, not convenient-excuse why. And if you don't want to tell me, I won't push it,* she held up her hands to show all the not-pushing it she was doing *but Jack is stubborn like a terrier and he's going to keep pushing it. He's going to want to know really-why, too, and just keep bothering you till he gets it.*

<<Because contrary to Mr. Priest's assertions, I am not an angel, nor am I particularly loveable,>> Emma snapped. <<My own family couldn't manage it, so you'll forgive me if I harbor doubts about the existence of the of the emotion in the first place.>>

At this point, Karla knew to tread lightly. Very lightly. Emma rarely brought up her family and certainly hadn't in this kind of...raw and emotional context before. *I can't speak for your family,* she sent slowly, measuring each word before thinking it. *And I admit that my own experience doesn't exactly correlate. But I don't blame my uncle's attempts to have me broken on any innate unloveableness on my part. Do you really believ that no one has ever loved you, Emma? No one?*

<<Yes.>> It was simple, clear, and to the point. Hank was fond of her, in that Emma was a means to an end. Christian had tried, as much as his addictions had let him, but in the end he had loved rebellion against their family more than Emma.

She could even admit that Jack cared, in the same way he cared about all of them that were involved in their... thing.

Emma met Karla's eyes squarely. <<Crazy little Emma with voices in her head was an embarrassment. So rather than seek medical assistance, they disinherited me and tried to toss me to the wolves. You don't throw away people you love like that. You just don't.>>

She wasn't going to mention that they'd also tried to lock her away in a place similar to Karla's Briarwood, just like they'd done to Christian. That was too personal, and it was her special secret that only Jack knew.

...she did not love him, shut up.

*No, you don't,* Karla agreed firmly. *But just because those people were incapable of true parental love doesn't mean you're unloveable. Or that love doesn't exist.*

The more she thought about it, the more parallels she saw between Emma's childhood and Jaenelle's, right down to being embarrassments for speaking inconvenient truths. The difference was, Jaenelle could escape to people who loved her. Emma never had that chance.

Not that she was going to bring Jaenelle up. Not when Jaenelle could summon Karla back to Kaeleer with a snap of her fingers.

*You aren't shackled to their mistakes, Emma. You are worth far more than they'll ever understand.*

<<Worth more? Of course I am,>> she replied, waving a hand to dismiss the concept entirely. <<But I spend twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year dipping in-and-out of other people's minds, Karla. If love is out there, I still haven't seen it.>>

Ignore the fact that Emma didn't exactly spend quality time with people who were well-adjusted or anything like that. Or that the vast majority of students at the school were emotionally damaged in one way or another.

Karla gave Emma a Look. *Right. Because the people here aren't all cracked, damaged, shattered, or some other flavor of broken.*

"I wouldn't have seen it out there, somewhere, in the year I lived in the city? Or on all my trips back?" she asked, switching to verbal communication since she didn't particularly trust her own mind right now.

"I don't mind being the class skeptic in Drake's class. I don't. And while I don't doubt Jack might be fond of me, you'll forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical of him as well, in light of his injury."

"I'm not arguing your right to be skeptical of Jack," Karla said, knowing how quickly that would lead to Emma getting her back up. "But there's a huge difference between not believing he's in love with you and believing you're not loveable."

She paused, debating whether it was worth it to point out that just because Emma hadn't ever seen love didn't mean it didn't exist. And then decided that the path of least resistance might be the best idea, at least for this discussion.

"Talking to Jack about it doesn't mean you're agreeing with him on the topic," she said quietly. "Simply that you respect him enough to give him a say about something that's this important to him, even if you think it's foolishness."

Dammit, Karla, stop using logic. Emma likes logic, and this is making it hard to just dismiss your arguments.

"I don't know if you've noticed, darling, but I'm not exactly a nice person," she bit out. "Trying to love me would be rather like trying to cuddle a porcupine."

Not commenting on the 'talk to Jack' bit, because she knew Karla was right, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"Prickly females are the best sorts," Karla said with a toss of her hair. "We keep everyone else on their toes."

She knew well-enough to keep quiet about that Jack thing. Emma hadn't said anything, which meant she didn't have an argument against it. And Karla had no intentions of jeopardizing all her work by continuing to harp on the subject.

Karla wasn't entirely sure, but she was starting to suspect that an important part of being a Black Widow wasn't knowing what to say, but when to shut the hell up.

Study Hall, Wednesday [01/27]

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