Room 210; Late Friday Afternoon [03/26].

[white_oleander]

Obviously, Astrid was skipping her shift at T&C today, considering she'd just gotten back from California. She wanted to stay a little bit longer, let some of the things she'd discussed with Susan really sink in and settle, so she convinced the lawyer to include a nice room for the night, and then she spent her morning in the Hollywood hills, looking over the city in the distance, trying to ignore how she never really realized that the nice bungalow she had lived and Claire had died really wasn't all that far away from the apartment where it all happened, where it all started, and if she'd eventually be dragged back here for one reason or another, and what the city might feel like if Susan managed to work her magic and have Ingrid walk free again.

And those thoughts were still clinging to her when she got back, so there was only really one thing she could do, and it definitely wasn't sitting behind a counter at a grocery store.

She went back to her room, set down her backpack, fished the crumpled hundreds from her pocket to put into the shoebox with what was left of the money Ron had given her, and then started to pull her bed away from the wall. She pulled out the tarps and methodically spread it over the furniture nearby, dug out one of the cans of whitewash, and got to work in spreading it all over the sparkles of night that had made the last mural, so she could get started on the next: the sprawling view of the city of Los Angeles. A Los Angeles that still existed without Ingrid Magnussen in it, so she might enjoy it while she still could.

There was no telling when Susan might actually get back to her. It might be a week. It might be a month. But at least this was something that might help her keep her mind off of it in the meantime, especially since she hadn't yet decided if she would cooperate or not.

[[ door and post are open! ]]

Comments

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"There a reason you're asking?" Which, of course there was. But if Astrid asked the question...

[white_oleander]

"...my mother," Astrid said, after a moment, focusing more now on doing arches of paint rather than neat, steady bars.

And she figured she should probably add a little more than that, too, at this point. She stepped back, to dip the brush into some more paint.

"This lawyer," brush and paint hit the wall again with a splat, "thinks she has a case to get her out of prison." Had she told Sabine anything about that? She was pretty sure she hadn't. Well, now she knew. "She wants me to testify in her favor.c

To lie, basically.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

There had maybe been a vague hint once? Sabine at least knew that she wasn't around, but was somewhere.

"Oh," she said, digesting that. "Are you going to do it?"

[white_oleander]

Astrid lifted a shoulder.

"Got a couple hundred out of the deal for just considering it," she said. "Could probably get a lot more if I follow through."

But was that who she was? Could she really just sell herself out like that?

"I want to talk to her first, though. The lawyer's going to set it up."

It felt like she was pretty much preparing to go into battle.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine couldn't judge the mercenary part of that, but she got complicated maternal relationships.

"I want to ask if you need any help with it," she said, though she had no idea what she would do.

[white_oleander]

But there really wasn't a whole lot that could be done to help at this point. Except maybe talking about it, but that....this was already Talking About it A lot, for Astrid.

"If I think of anything," she assured Sabine, "I'll let you know. Right now it's just kind of...waiting, I guess."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine was pretty proud of her! And yet was a hypocrite.

"Do you know about when this might happen?"