Work Text:
“You’re doing that wrong,” Jenny says matter of factly.
Abbie rolls her eyes at her sister. Who, she notes, is lounging back on the brand new couch, lifting absolutely no fingers. “You could help. I don’t know why you even agreed to be here if you weren’t going to.”
“I just didn’t want to miss the show,” Jenny shrugged. “Shouldn’t a big, bad cop like yourself be able to read a simple sheet of instructions?”
“That’s just it. There are no instructions on this thing. It’s just pictures!” Abbie shouts, frustrated, tossing her screwdriver onto the floor. “I thought this was supposed to be easier to understand, but it’s harder. Words, I can understand. ‘Do this first. Then do that.’ Nice, orderly steps. But pictures? It’s just so - abstract.”
Jenny laughs at Abbie’s diatribe. It annoys her at first, but Jenny’s laughter doesn’t have the usual mocking edge to it that has accompanied most of their interactions so far. The sound of it is comforting in a way, and reminds Abbie of better times. Like back when they were girls, before the whole business in the woods happened. Before Abbie lost her sister.
“If you think it’s so funny, let’s see you try,” Abbie huffs and holds out the instruction sheet.
Jenny pulls herself off the couch and plucks the sheet from Abbie’s hand. She looks it over for a moment, and compares it to the haphazard piles of wood pieces and screws littered on the floor around Abbie, and the wobbly, partly-finished bookshelf in the middle of it all. Her eyes are calculating and quick, assessing the state of Abbie’s poorly half-assembled furniture with more intensity than it should seemingly warrant. Abbie can see that those are the eyes of someone who is used to having to be on their toes at all times.
“I bet things were hard out there,” Abbie says softly, cutting into Jenny’s examination of the furniture victim. “Running all over the world by yourself, finding things for Corbin. I can’t imagine how it must have been for you.”
Jenny smirks. “It’s easier than you think to deal with your life being in danger. Easier than navigating through the mental health system anyway. Now that’s crazy.”
Abbie just nods. She doesn’t want to push, because pushing Jenny always seems to end up in an argument. And Abbie is tired of arguing.
“Look, see?” Jenny says, pointing to a line drawing of a board of wood on the instruction sheet - which to Abbie looks exactly like every other drawing on the sheet. And all of the drawings look like every piece of wood that came in the box. “You used a top piece instead of a shelf piece.”
Abbie looks between the pieces of wood, and the instructions, and just shrugs. “If you say so.”
Jenny grins. “Haven’t you ever put together furniture before?”
“Uh, no,” Abbie says as she picks her screwdriver back up to undo her work. “My ex put together most of the furniture in my current place. Or I paid guys to deliver it and put it together. I don’t usually have the patience for this type of stuff.”
“That much is obvious.”
Abbie rolls her eyes again. It’s becoming something of a habit in these conversations with her sister.
“Why are you doing this, anyway?” Jenny says and flops back down on the couch to watch her sister work.
“Crane needs a place to live. The department won’t pay for that motel room forever.”
“And he needs a bookshelf? Does he even have books?”
“He might one day.” Abbie stops talking while she struggles to unscrew a particularly over-tightened screw, cursing her own strength. Finally, the wood releases its hold on the screw and Abbie emits an ah-ha! in victory. Eventually she gets the rest of the bookshelf apart and sighs at the sight. Boards. A pile of screws.
Back where she started.
“Where is Crane, anyway? He’s got two working hands. He should help make his own crap,” Jenny says.
“I wanted it to be a surprise.” A break seems like a good idea, before she gets so frustrated she stabs a board with her screwdriver, so Abbie stands up from her spot on the floor. She stretches, hearing - and feeling - just about every bone in her back pop. “Besides, Irving insisted on Crane going to a couple gun safety and handling courses at the police station. Once he heard that Crane used my gun the captain was downright adamant about it.”
Jenny purses her lips in amusement. “I can imagine.”
“So,” Abbie continues, lowering herself onto the couch next to her sister, “I thought, might as well use my spare time wisely. He needs a place to live, and I figured I’d spare the poor furniture store employees from having to deal with Crane, and just get him the basics myself.”
“But it would be so funny!” Jenny protests.
Abbie grins. “Funny. But also painful. The employees of Ikea deserve better than a rant about the decline of American-made goods, or something.”
The two women lapse into silence, staring at the bookshelf parts in the center of the living room. The apartment is quiet, with only the sound of a few birds chirping in a tree outside drifting in. It’s nice; peaceful. Abbie tries to think of the last time she sat in companionable silence with her sister, and finds she can’t really think of a time that ever happened.
“Thanks,” Abbie finally says.
“For what? I haven’t even done anything but watch you swear at inanimate objects all afternoon.”
“For being here,” Abbie replies. Jenny looks as if she’s about to say something snarky in response, so Abbie holds up her hand to forestall it. “Look, I know we’re - we’re gonna have to take some time, you and me. But I just wanted to say that I’m glad this gulf between us is slightly like gulf-like.”
“Yeah, it’s really just more of a chasm now.”
Abbie laughs at that, and Jenny joins in. Both of the sisters know it will take time for them to regain something approaching the type of relationship they had before. And Abbie, practical as ever, knows they will never have the same relationship they had when they were kids. Too much has happened. But even a new and different relationship is better than no relationship at all. She’s just glad to be sitting on a couch and laughing with her sister.
After their laughter dies down, Abbie lets out a breath. “Okay. Enough lollygagging. Better get back to work. Where’d I put those instructions?”
“Why don’t you let me have a crack at it?” Jenny offers.
“Yeah?” Abbie asks, a little surprised.
“I mean, I’m sure it’d be faster for me to do it than watch you put it together inside-out and have to take it apart again.” Jenny’s smirking, but Abbie can see a warmth in her eyes. “I’ve got stuff to do today, you know?”
“Sure,” Abbie accedes, smiling.
Abbie may have lost Jenny when they were kids, but it seems like she’d found her again. Maybe they aren’t quite at the heart-to-heart level of conversations yet, but Abbie would take declarations of appreciation in the form of furniture assembly in the meantime.