Sending a Message [Elise/Kathryn]

She sighed, letting her head drop again until his words made her look up again. "What? Of course I'm not embarrassed of you!" She sounded hurt all over again at the suggestion. "And you *are* someone. You're Tom, you're my brother...I..."

She barely knew what to say. "I just...I...I wish I could help...but...I think that's part of the problem." She wiped a hand across her face. "I just...I dunno! Maybe after this...we both just need some time to figure out who we are or what we want..."

She looked up at him. "I'm just sorry. You're my brother, I love you. I don't think you're embarrassing or sad or anything like that. I really, really don't, I'm not just saying that."

Tom took her hand and frowned, "And you're Kathryn. You're my sister." He looked down and chewed at his lip, "if it wasn't for you...I would have never met Dad..." He swallowed and looked up at her, "and sure it got us into some trouble...But I don't regret it." He gave a soft, nervous laugh and looked down, "I just...Don't really know who Tom is...Who does he WANT to be? I don't know."

He laughed and reached a hand to push a strand of hair behind her ear, giving her a sad smile, "you're not anything like mom." He brought her hand to his cheek and sighed, closing his eyes, "nothing om ever did to me was out of love...She just wanted to control me..." He glanced up at her, "all you ever wanted was what you thought was best...There's nothing wrong with that." He squeezed her hands, "I just should have told you both to let me be me...I'm...Okay with just being okay."

He looked down, "I'm...I just wish I was ore brave...I'm not thought...I'm a coward. I've always been a coward." He shrunk a little and sighed, "I've always been too afraid to try...But that's why I'm glad I've had you." He tried to smile, "because even if sometimes I've been dragged into things I didn't want...You always pushed me to try...I appreciated that."

She let out a little bit of a sigh. "Thank you for saying that. That I'm not like mom..." She couldn't stand the thought of being like that woman, even a little bit. "I did just want to help. But...I want you to know what you want too...that's only fair, right?" She managed a little smile.

She looked down at the floor again. "I'm...I'm not mad about what happened in the parking lot. You were afraid, but I was too. It's...you know...fight or flight...you just wanna get away from things. I was just as scared...but all my scared comes out in just...blustering. Pretending I got it together, even when I don't, you know?"

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Tom had never been foisted into a situation where he had to be the one making decisions, or the one in charge, growing up it had always been easier to let Kathryn and their mother make them for him, pulling him this way or that way and he was content to just let it be because the alternative was confrontation, which he didn't want any part of.

But now...Tom sighed as he looked over the trail map they'd found for the third time, glancing around the small clearing for something, anything, that might tell him where they were. Kathryn had been quiet, he knew she was still shaken hard by what had happened, and he was too, but she needed him right now, so he was doing his best to power through as he tried to find their way out of here.

After about another half hour of walking, Tom leaned back against a tree, sliding down to the ground and running his hands through his hair, "this is bad..." He finally said, the first thing he'd said in a while, "I can't make heads or tails of these trails..." He didn't even know if he was leading them in or out of the forest. He rubbed at the side of his head and sighed, "Mmmm..." He looked over at her and got to his feet, looking up at the sky, he'd taken an intro course on Astrology, "there's Polaris...The North Star...If we follow that we'll come out of the forest...Eventually..." He waved for her to follow him, trying to focus on keeping that in his sights through the trees rather than the tired, sick, unless feeling he was starting to feel.

Kathryn had tried to pull herself back together, but the broken pieces weren't sticking back together like she felt they should. She normally so easily could brush things off, water off her back, keep on going. But this...this had shattered and shaken her to her core, and she didn't know how well she'd be able to brush it off and keep going. She was trying to, for Tom...but he must be able to see it wasn't working. She was wrapped in an oversized flannel shirt they'd found in the cabin, it wrapped around her thin, cold frame as they walked. She'd abandoned her heels back at the cabin in favor of slightly too big boots as well, because there was no way she could have walked out of that place in 5 inch stilettos, cute for a night out but nothing else, really.

She watched Tom, letting out a bit of a sigh, any light or interest in her eyes seemed to have gone out as she just sort of stared ahead at her brother. When he sat she moved to sit next to him, looking at the map, willing it to make some sense in her head.

"I dunno." She said quietly. "I never studied any of this...I...I dunno." It was just one of many things she knew nothing about, she was coming to realize. How could she have been so foolish, thinking she had everything together as well as she did?

When he gestured for her to follow him she reluctantly got back to her feet. "I guess if we just keep walking in one direction, we have to eventually find something." She added. "We know these woods have to eventually end somewhere." Were they even still in Illinois? She wasn't sure, but she was pretty sure they hadn't gone far enough to be in another country or anything. There had to be people eventually...right?

He'd been getting increasingly worried about Kathryn, who seemed to be taking this entire ordeal in a very bad way, after years of seeing her the way he had, seeing her now as broken as she was, it was a disturbing and frightening sight. Tom had made sure she was wrapped up and warm before they'd set out, and they'd packed a backpack with as much useful shit as they could stuff inside, Tom puffed as he shifted that more comfortably on his shoulders.

He'd stuffed the map into his back pocket when he decided to just follow the sky, it was easier than trying to make sense of a map of a place they'd probably never been. "well I'm no cartographer either..." He chuckled softly, "it's useless trying to make sense of a map anyway when we have no idea where we started..." He wished he'd taken more notes in that class, reading the stars would be useful.

He looked back and slowed his pace to match her's as she spoke, "exactly...But hmm..." He glanced around them, pointing, "if we can get up there on that outcropping...We might be able to spot some lights?" He tugged her hand gently to urge her to follow him, "It'll be easier with another set of eyes!" He tried to smile, but he couldn't hide his urgency, there was a distinct danger for them both being stranded alone in the woods, but he was also acutely aware that it would be worse if he collapsed in the middle of the woods, with Kathryn in no state to be able to deal with that and no means to anyway, "it doesn't look terribly steep..." He offered as he started trying to climb.

Her eyes followed where he was pointing out. It didn't look that steep or impossible, and he was probably onto something with getting up higher, out of the bunch of nothing but trees.

She gave his hand a little bit of a squeeze, reassured a little bit that he didn't entirely hate her...even though he entirely sure hate her for everything, everything she'd done and put him through.

"I think you're right." She agreed quietly. "You're right, maybe we can see something from up there." She started to pick her way carefully up. "This way...it seems a little less...shambly and broken." She offered, the first real bit of a suggestion she'd offered yet since all of this had happened.

Tom squeezed her hand back and smiled at her, nodding as he followed her lead up the path of least resistance, thankful for the easier time as he'd never been an athletic boy, "nice eye." He commented through his soft puffing pants, glad to see her contributing at least a small opinion, she'd always been such a take charge person, it was weird being the one doing the charging right now, but there was a part of him that felt a bit good, despite hating seeing his sister in such a state.

When they made it to the top of the ridge, he bent over a moment to catch his breath, "jesus I'm no good at this..." He laughed, "wheezing like a 80 year old..." When he caught his breath, he came to stand at the edge, squinting in the dark to look around, "Mmm...Oh!" He nudged her and pointed, "that looks like the skyline of the city...Fuck it looks far..." There was an anxious tone in his voice as he plopped down to the ground, "I need a moment to rest...How about you?" He gave her a tired smile, "suppose it woulda' been too much to ask for the fuckin' psychos to drop us off a little closer to town..." He snorted and laid back against the ground, "I'm starving man..." A bowl of cereal on the couch in his pajamas sounded like heaven right now.

Kathryn didn't answer at first either, also feeling a little winded from the climb up the outcropping. "I haven't been to the gym in a while..." She admitted.

She came over to stand near him, looking at the line of lights off in the distance. "Well...at least we know we gotta just keep going that way. Maybe there's a road or something between here and there...if we find a road we can just follow it, cause roads gotta go somewhere..." She trailed off a little.

She flopped on the ground next to him, stretching out on the rock and looking up into the sky. "I'm okay with resting for a little bit." She looked up a little as he said he was hungry. "Didn't we find some granola bars or something back there?" She asked. "In all the stuff we stuffed in that bag?" She didn't get up to look, but offered the suggestion at least.

Tom looked over at her and laughed, "hmm maybe we oughta start when we get home, eh?" He was trying his best to lift her spirits, humor was the only thing he could do to help at the moment, it was all he had.

He looked over at her, then down, then back at her again, feeling frustration bubbling up slowly. He felt bad for her hurting, but now wasn't the time for this, "Kathryn..." He sighed and got to his feet, shouldering the backpack, "this is fucking me up too...But I can't do this alone..." He glanced over at her with a determined expression, "I'm going to get us out of here...But..." He ran a hand through his hair before climbing back down the rock, "it's easier to do this with two heads..." Tom was trying to be understanding, and sympathetic, but he also knew this situation was dire, and no time for shutting down.

He glanced up at her, "I'm doing my best Kathryn...But...I can't do shit if I collapse out here and you're left to deal with that." He voice was soft and he looked down, "we can be broken when we're safe Kat...Right now I just want to get you to safety." If he dropped dead doing it it would be worth it, it wasn't like the world would be any worse off without him.

She sat up, for just a flicker of a moment there was a bit of her usual spark. "I just...I'm trying...I...I *am* helping...I said how to climb...I said where we might have food..." Her voice wavered, but the break only seemed to make her angry for that moment.

"I wanna get outta here too, Tom. And I'm trying...as best I know how...I dunno what else you want me to do!" she spread her hands in frustration, before wiping at her eyes again. "I just...I wanna sit. Just for a few. We've been walking for hours...and everything hurts...but that doesn't mean I don't wanna get out of this place too!"

No one probably even knew where they were, or that they were missing. The only one who might care was Dad...and he wasn't aware of a whole lot right now. No one would be looking for them, they had to figure this out themselves.

Tom sighed softly and leaned against a tree, sinking down to the ground. He felt bad for snapping, but he also felt justified in it, up until now it had seemed like she felt afraid of giving her opinion, and right now he needed it as much as he could get it, still, he'd spoken harshly and that wasn't fair of him.

His voice was soft in his reply, only loud enough for her to hear, "I know...I'm sorry..." He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin against them, looking down, "I'm just scared..." He ran his hands through his hair and looked up at the sky, smiling for a moment before climbing back up to lay beside her, "hey..." He nudged her and smiled before pointing at the sky, "that's Canis Major, you can tell because Sirius is the nose, it's the brightest object in the sky." He looked to the side, "Canis Major and Minor are Orion's hunting dogs." He hooked his arm around her's, "if you can find Orion's belt...The Great Dogs are close by."

He gave her a cheesy grin, "That's us, Canis Major and Canis Minor, okay? We'll figure this out together." He reached over to push some hair from her face, "it'll be okay...It's always been okay."

"It's just...everything is just...it's all falling apart so fast, Tom." She admitted quietly. "I thought our life was shitty before...we...we kinda had it good...didn't we? I mean, not all the time but...compared to this..." She trailed off.

Tears welled again as he continued to just...be nice to her. She didn't get why he was still so nice to her, he had no reason to be. He was in this mess completely and totally because of her. But right now, she needed that kindness, she didn't know if she'd gt out of here without it. She tilted her head back, looking up at the stars as he pointed them out.

She leaned over against him. "It's always just been you and me, huh? Against the rest of the world..." She still stared upwards, not looking back at him. "I'm sorry I got you into all of this. I really am. I never meant it..."