Work Text:
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
150407.16.24.58
Hey, Ronan. I just thought I should check in and see how you were doing, after, well, everything. I haven't heard from you lately. So. How're you doing?
--Nita
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
150407.18.15.32
How should I be doing?
RN
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
150407.18.45.03
Should I not have asked? I can leave you alone if you want. Just say so.
--Nita
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
150407.19.23.15
And if that isn't just like you to leap to conclusions, Miss Nita Yankee Callahan.
I mean it: How should I be doing? I don't have any idea how I should be feeling. I've never done this before.
RN
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
150407.19.40.20
And if that isn't just like you to turn it around on me, Mr. Ronan Nolan Jr. I was trying to be polite and give you space if you wanted.
Grateful? Not being smart-assed, here. I mean, you're not dead. Aren't you glad about that?
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.01.07.23
No, I'm not. Thanks to you and that Australian -- Matt, right?
And all right. I'm grateful to you. And I know Mum and Da are grateful to have their boyo home.
But I was all set to die, and you being so bloody stubborn wouldn't let me. So now all that build-up's gone poof. And nobody knows how that feels. Usually if you're all set to die, you just die, and then you're in Timeheart and you don't have to worry about how you should be feeling.
So.
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.01.14.52
Some of us might have some idea, though, you know.
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.01.16.02
You're as cryptic as the bloody Champion was sometimes, you know that?
And don't you have anything better to be doing than messaging some Irish punk at one in the morning?
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.01.49.33
1. No, I don't.
1a. Time change, remember?
2. Sorry. I blame the precog. Have a couple indecipherable dreams and you start talking like them.
My point is: when I sang the Silent Lord in the Song of the Twelve, I was all set to die. And I had, like, three days to freak out and talk myself out of it and talk myself back into it and "all that build-up." I went in and I figured I wasn't coming out again.
But Ed was too stubborn to let me go through with it. After he died, and Kit and I got back up to the surface, I went through, I don't know, a week where I was just kind of numb. It was like I'd said goodbye to everything, and then I was still there with everything. Like those really awkward moments where you say bye to someone and then you both end up walking the same direction when you leave.
Okay, that's a terrible simile.
Anyway. I went through this week where I didn't know how I was supposed to feel, or fit into the world. But it got better, because it started to look like a second chance, and then everything seemed really incredible -- like, here's everything for the first time again. Then Dairine went and got herself into trouble on her Ordeal, so I could focus on that, and it was business as usual. As usual as it gets. Which means even more death-defying stunts, but mostly they didn't have that build-up of psyching yourself up to die.
This got a lot longer than I meant it to.
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.16.05.20
I'd forgotten you sang the Silent Lord's part.
That is what it's like. I don't know how to fit into the world anymore.
So I guess you get it a little. But you didn't die, did you? Honest question.
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.19.00.27
No, I didn't. That makesa lot of difference, huh.
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.19.05.17
Bet your sweet ass it does.
I don't know if I'm supposed to be here now. It's liek, I have to force the world to make a me-shaped hole for me, now.
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.19.16.39
Should I be offended? Do I need to tell you to refrain from commenting on my anatomy?
It seems to me you always did that.
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.19.20.22
What, refrained from commenting on your anatomy?
Do you really want me to not?
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.19.26.45
What? No, I meant making a you-shaped hole. I mean, I think you refrained from commenting on my anatomy. At least in my earshot.
I was joking.
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.19.32.14
So commenting on your anatomy is a go then?
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.19.34.49
You are a brat.
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.19.37.25
Please, we prefer punk over here. Or gobdaw. That's a good Irish insult, there.
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.19.41.01
Fine, you're a gobdaw. Better?
I'm thinking about popping into Ireland in a couple of days. Will you teach me some more insults when I get there? Carmela will be jealous if I can throw something back at her when she's calling everything in sight a bakka na ushi.
To: Juanita L. Callahan
From: Ronan Nolan Jr.
160407.20.02.50
Much.
Checking up on me? Sure, we'll get pizza and I'll turn you into a foul-mouthed Irish lass. There's a bit of wizardry.
Thanks for talking.
To: Ronan Nolan Jr.
From: Juanita L. Callahan
160407.20.10.27
Anytime. Seriously.
Dai, Ronan. I'll see you later.