Author's note: shiezen, that was a while between updates. Sorry. Crack-monkeys.
And when I'm not dealing with crack-monkey fallout, I spend about 3 hours a day trying to come up with a way to get the guys to stop using 'gay' as a derogatory term without outing myself. It shouldn't affect me so much; it's just one word.
The room is warm when you wake up for the second time that day. You roll over to pull Betty into you only to find yourself alone in the large bed. You have to sit up and stare around the room before you realise she's gone. You have to fight down panic; you left her twice already, you guess you deserved for her to skulk out without a goodbye, or some sort of arrangement or discussion of an arrangement, some sort of organising of your schedule so you can get back to Toronto at the soonest availability.
But it didn't feel like this was the end, like this could be the end. Last night you finally felt like you were ready to build a future, and now it's been pulled out from under you.
You realise, now, what you put Betty through, and your heart aches for her, and also for you. You'd just found her, and she's gone again.
She's gone back to Gladys, the way she always does. Back to her family, the little family she built herself in the little house she also built herself. Had people to build for her. Whatever; you can see her slipping in, wiping the last of your lipstick from her face and neck in the hall mirror and strutting into the kitchen like she's not afraid to answer any questions because she answers to no one. Or slinking in like an alley-cat, tossing an embarrassed kiss at Gladys' cheek on her way past.
You don't feel like you can be bothered to throw on anything more than your dressing gown, but you can't find it and end up shrugging a nightie over your head. It's not like you've got anything to do today, other than pack the empty remnants of your life into a suitcase that gets smaller by the tour. You'll have to make room for the tea.
The sound of a kettle in the kitchenette draws you out, rubbing at your eyes, not questioning why the kettle is on because you have people to do this sort of thing for you now. Usually they announce themselves, but you were sleeping pretty heavily. Maybe that's what spooked Betty off, a stranger coming into your rooms while she was undressed and vulnerable. It's not until you round the corner and see Betty sitting on the kitchen counter that you realise you didn't give her enough credit. She's not a spiteful woman (neither are you, but you still left. That she hasn't left in retaliation stuns you momentarily.). She was smiling and swinging her feet when you walked in, but once she sees your face she jumps down, reaches for your upper arms, guides you to the table. She sits you down, then sits in front of you, knees on either side of yours, not saying a word.
"I thought you'd gone," you say finally, after what feels like an eternity just staring at her, trying to take advantage of the time you have now to make up for the time you thought you'd lost. Memorising every new line on her face; her crooked, uncertain grin; the way her hands feel where they've slipped into yours. The way she's swallowed up in your overly-large dressing gown, how nice it looks, that green against her skin. "And I'm so sorry." You don't have to explain. She understands. She understands you better than you understand yourself, and time hasn't changed that.
"I'm here," she says reassuringly, "and I always..." she trails off; her face tightens. "I understand why you had to leave. You could have left a note though, huh?" You nod, and the tears that have been welling up since you saw the empty bed come spilling out.
"I never meant to make you feel... I never wanted to hurt you, and I thought if I left I could finally stop hurting you."
"It never stopped hurting, I just learnt to live with it," Betty says with a shrug. "And Gladys. She can cook, now," she says in a light, conversational tone and she's so composed and you can feel the barrage of tears assaulting your cheeks along with a decent amount of runny mucous. She wipes your face with the sleeve of your dressing gown. Despite the solemnity of the moment, you make a mental note to get that washed before your next town.
"If it helps," you choke out, "I've never regretted anything the way I regret leaving you. Not even..." you trail off, and of course she understands, she always understands. "I'm just... I'm trouble Betty, and I didn't want to get you into any more."
Betty wipes your face again, considers you closely.
"You little fool," she says quietly, holding your face now instead of your hands. You want to look away but you can't waste this time with her like that. "Every ounce of trouble you made for me was worth every moment I spent with you." She looks away now, biting her lip, afraid she might have overstepped, afraid she might have said too much too soon. And it's that tiny insecurity of hers that finally prompts you to kiss her again.
"If I could've made less trouble, I would've," you tell her when you feel like you can spend a moment away from her mouth. And this moment is the closest to perfect as you've ever known, despite your still-snotty face, despite the high-pitched squealing from a kettle on the stove (where did Betty get a kettle, you wonder eventually, two days and several hundred kilometers away), despite the past that still weighs heavy between you both.
She pulls away with a little laugh and turns the stove off. She pours the tea and you impulsively pull her into your lap once she's put the teapot down. "I'm sorry I have to leave," you manage to mumble into the shoulder of your dressing gown.
"As long as it's not forever," she says mildly, presses her lips to your temple.
You've spent most of your life running; from your father, then from Betty, then from your father, then from Betty again. Now you finally feel like you can stop running but you're on a train bound for South America.
Months pass; they always do but these seem longer than most, now you have something to look forward to.
Now you have someone to look forward to.
The priaries drag longer and longer, and its only the thought that Betty used to live out here, on one of the farms the train wallows past, that keeps you sane. You look for her in the fields of dusky wheat, of long heads of grass bobbing against an almost-too-perfectly blue sky.
It's the memories of your last show, of shaking the Prime Minister's hand. You're doing something worthwhile, something quite thrilling and rare and anybody would envy you, anybody would want to take your place and you'd swap in a trice just to be somewhere, anywhere closer to Betty.