[centre][h2][color=7ea7d8]Lauren Jones[/color][/h2]
[@HecateProxy][@Wolverbells][@LordVoldemort][/centre]

[color=gray]Distracted by her own thoughts and too tired from their frozen hike to be alert for mischief, Lauren did not notice the snowball hurtling her way until it hit her square in the face.  She dimly recalled Gabriel calling out to them, which was fair warning, but she had been zoned out enough that she hadn't quite picked up on the tone in his voice; it was happiness, which was something Gabriel rarely showed genuinely.

Reeling backwards in surprise, and shock at the sudden coldness on her face, she spluttered and wiped the already melting snow from her face.  Her tea, still unidentified as to what it was made of or from, spilt a little on the ground, instantly melting snow before refreezing rapidly afterwards.  Glaring up she honed in on Gabriel, a grin spreading across her face as she Grant sneak up behind him and pound him with a large snowball.  As the big man responded to the surprise attack, Lauren crouched down and quickly balled up some snow and hurled it at the now exposed back of the taller man.

[color=7ea7d8]"Big man means a big target!"[/color] She crowed, picking up the tea she had placed on the ground and ducking out of the way of any incoming snowballs.  [color=7ea7d8]"Anyway, now that I'm even, I'll leave you all to it.  Make you sure get him a few times for me."[/color] The last she directed at Olivia who had also been an unsuspecting victim of the tall boy, winking and grinning before slipping into the cabin marked as belonging to the girls.

At first she thought she was alone and set about taking her thick coat off and hanging it on one of the provided hooks.  It was only when she sat down on one of the beds to take off her soaking wet boots that she noticed movement in a huddle on the one opposite her.  She paused for a moment although she had seen Jade and Olivia outside so she knew who it was before she saw the other girl's face.

[color=7ea7d8]"You're missing a hell of a snowball fight outside, Ra."[/color] Her boots were tight and it was hard to loosen them, ice still making them stiff even as it melted and left pools of water on the wooden floorboards.  Finally she got them off and shoved them underneath her bed, lest she climb out in the morning and slip on a puddle first thing.  The thought of rising in the morning inevitably had her looking towards her bag she had previously dropped off before going to the main cabin, her medical supplies inside along with an empty reminder.

She sat with her legs tucked underneath her, hands in her lap and fiddling with her fingers as she worked out what to do.  Before, she had resolved herself to the conversation she needed to have but now that an opportunity, the best and only real opportunity, was in front of her she was reluctant, scared even, to open that can of worms. To unlock that chest in the back of her mind containing all the things she never wanted to think about.  Now she had lost the lock though, her alcohol supplies run dry, and the chest would open by itself sooner or later.  At least she could [i]choose[/i] how that happened and with whom nearby.

[color=7ea7d8]"Ra, you awake still? I need to talk to you about something."[/color] Her voice sounded small, distant to her own ears, and she felt as if she were watching her own body from afar as she stood up and walked over to her pack in a daze.  After rooting around in it she brought out her medical supplies and laid the sack on the bed, retrieving one of the deliberately unlabelled bottles and handing it to Mora.  She sat down on her own bed, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them, bracing her body for the onslaught her psyche was about to endure.

She didn't say anything, just watching her friend take the bottle and open it to see that it was empty.  There was the lingering smell of spirits though, unmistakable and pungent and there was no way Mora wouldn't recognise it. [color=7ea7d8]"I needed it to sleep.  I have done ever since... that day.  That was my last bottle."[/color]  She was standing up now, pacing but close to being hunched over, arms across her chest and hugging herself as the seals began to break, her anxiety ramping up but she felt a desperate need to get the words out, the truth out, before she could say no more.

[color=7ea7d8]"I meant to tell you... been trying to tell you ever since - no, that's not right. What I wanted - um - no that's not - erm, just let me start again."[/color] She sighed in exasperation, hands pressed against the sides of her head as she continued to pace, muttering to herself, disagreeing, backtracking, trying to form what she wanted to say into something coherent.  It all needed to come out, she wanted to just lay it all out at once but she couldn't and trying to work out what would come first was eating away at her slight calm.

She paused, sucking in a deep breath.  Then another, hands now on her chest as if to make sure she was actually taking air into her lungs, her racing heart pounding up through her chest so that she could feel the vibrations clearly in her hands.  She turned back to Mora resolutely, concentrating hard on what she wanted to say.  She began with a single word.

[color=7ea7d8]"Cain."[/color] Regretting it immediately, but always having known she would regret bringing up the topic of her best friend's dead brother, she forged on now that she had broached the hardest topic.  Her words came tumbling out, this time in a vaguely coherent stream.  [color=7ea7d8]"I see him.  Every night.  I saw... then. Sometimes it was what happened, sometimes he... he wasn't Cain.  He'd curse us, threaten us.  Then..."[/color] Unbidden, tears streamed down her face but she took no notice, she was already so numb from her long-hidden trauma coming to the surface that she felt nothing.

[color=7ea7d8]"It was you.  I couldn't cope with - that was it for me.  I couldn't sleep anymore.  If I could dream then I would see it and... I couldn't. I needed a way out and that,"[/color] she pointed at the bottle in Mora's hand, [color=7ea7d8]"that was the only thing that worked.  But I ran out. I don't want to carry on like this, Ra!"[/color]  She was pacing again, her arms active as she gestured or pressed against her head or crossed against her chest.

[color=7ea7d8]"It's more though.  I couldn't come to you or Jade, you were both suffering so much! Cain was your brother, how could I ask for help when it must have been worse for you than it ever was for me?"[/color] She was coming towards the end, the crux of the matter, what really was the centre of her trauma and why she had never been able to shake it or discuss it with anyone before, especially the one and only person she [i]should[/i] have.

[color=7ea7d8]"But... it was my fault! If I hadn't been there - if you hadn't been with me - you'd have both made it!"[/color] Her hands were balled into fists now, pressing against the sides of her skill painfully, her knuckles white but it gave her clarity and she wanted it, deserved it, to have become so weak to now need to hurt the one closest to her just to carry on.  [color=7ea7d8]"Because Pa - because you had to help me, Cain ran off.  We would have been faster without Pa, made it to the boats before the Titans got there, Cain would've made it.  I should've told you both to go but I didn't. So it's my fault."[/color]

Her energy was falling away now, her body shaking involuntarily as she sank slowly to her knees, now looking up at her friend through a blur, feeling a growing emptiness within her as she poured out everything.

[color=7ea7d8]"But the worst bit... I wasn't fair to him. He died not knowing anything and maybe he did it... for me.  You know? I sometimes think he did it to impress me.  I know that's not true but I can't help it. And that... that's my fault too. I know he liked me and I never told him.  I ran away and never said anything.  So he died being lied to, because Pa was hurt, because you were both with me. Because of me."[/color]  She felt exhausted but she was so nearly done.  So close to the finish line.  Whatever happened now, she'd said it. It wouldn't fix things, it wouldn't bring Cain back to his sister, but it would uncover the truth she'd been hiding.

[color=7ea7d8]"I couldn't tell him because... because it was you, Ra. How could I? What would it do to you both, I couldn't do that. So I said nothing, I let him indulge and then he died because of it. Because I was a coward, because I ran away and didn't want to say the truth. Ever since... I just wanted to care for you. Look after you. Make it up to you both, make up for not saying anything. But... it hurts."[/color] She curled up on herself, kneeling in the floor and bent double as if savaged by stomach cramps, hugging herself tightly and sobbing.

[color=7ea7d8]"I'm sorry, Ra! I love you and it killed Cain! I killed your brother and I can't bring him back.  I can't do this anymore, I can't cope. I don't have any right to ask you now, you couldn't ever love me, you'll probably always hate me, but,"[/color] she looked up from her position on the floor, feeling as faint as if her life itself was hanging on a single thread, [color=7ea7d8]"help me?"[/color][/color]