[for Jeff]

[everyone_takes]

Just because she hadn't really talked to Jeff since the whole going to Greendale thing didn't mean that Kate was pissed off. The way she figured it, she didn't exactly have a right to be pissed off. They weren't like, best friends or anything. She was pretty sure, as far as Jeff was concerned, she was just some kid who was friends with Britta and although Kate had thought maybe they were also getting to be friends, too, she realized she could be wrong.

After all, she'd sort of been wrong about Lynda.

Making friends her own age had never worked, but making friends with people who were already doing the whole adult thing hadn't really worked out for her either and it didn't surprise her that it wasn't working out here. That was just how stuff went. That was life. People had totally different ideas about each other and that was fine.

So he'd lied to her and that was fine, too. If it meant she hadn't been important enough to tell the truth to, then that was completely and totally fine. She didn't need to be important to everyone. She wasn't dwelling on it.

Humming under her breath and badly playing a Black Sabbath song on air guitar, Kate wandered through the Compound, mostly looking for something to do. There were days when everyone else had some kind of class or task that she found herself kind of bored. She was an adult, she could entertain herself, but at the moment, the only thing even remotely entertaining was her poor air guitar skills.

Turning a corner, singing snatches of lyrics under her breath, Kate found herself air guitaring right into someone's torso and she glanced up, the song dying off.

"Sorry," she said, finding Jeff there. She wasn't dwelling. Not at all.

Comments

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

Jeff usually handled any kind of awkward situation the same way: avoid it until it either goes away or, well, that was about it. And that option had been working great - fantastic, really - on a certain thing that cropped up during that time they'd all been passed out and sent back to Greendale. The island was only so big, though, and he probably should have called bumping into her (figuratively and literally in this case) eventually. But he also could adapt, and there was only a split second of feeling awkward.

"I didn't realize people still air guitared," he said, a slight teasing tone to his voice. Pretending it never happened was always a decent back-up idea.

[everyone_takes]

"Well, I didn't realize people lied to their friends about totally stupid shit that I wouldn't have even cared about, so I guess that makes us just about square, doesn't it?" Kate replied, realizing as soon as it was coming out that she was about to have a serious case of word vomit. So much for pretending that she totally didn't care at all. "Actually, as far as totally offensive and super lame things go, air guitar is only about a six, so actually, I think we're way less than square."

She was comparing air guitar to lying and she knew it didn't make sense. If she kept going, she was just going to trip over her words and find herself looking like a complete idiot.

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"I didn't -" he immediately began to protest, but thought better of it. Of course she'd start this conversation in a place like this. It was things like this that made him see why Britta and she apparently got along. Lowering his voice, he said instead, "Look, can we find someplace that isn't a hallway to talk about this?"

[everyone_takes]

Considering that, Kate put a hand on her hip, trying to decide whether or not she wanted to make this as hard on Jeff as possible. Realizing that it probably wouldn't go anywhere good if she did that, she relented and nodded.

"Yeah, fine," she agreed, turning toward the front door of the Compound. She didn't know where they were going or where he wanted to go, but he was probably right about not having the conversation in the middle of the hall.

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

He, of course, hadn't exactly planned beyond getting them outside. She apparently didn't need prompting to head in that direction, and he followed her out, glad at least to get that far. Not that he wanted to discuss this in the front of the Compound, either. Or the Hub. Actually, he thought of someplace no one was probably around at the moment.

"Come on," he said, leading her toward the place he'd seen that trampoline.

[everyone_takes]

"You better not be taking me somewhere to kill and dismember me," Kate muttered, although she was pretty sure Jeff wasn't a serial killer and so she followed him along. She felt sort of stupid for having brought it up now, realizing just how much younger she was than Jeff. He probably didn't even think of her as anything more than a kid who was friends with Britta.

"Are we going to jump it out?" she asked when she saw the trampoline, turning to Jeff to look at him, her eyebrows lifted.

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"What? No," he said, rolling his eyes. He did sit on the edge of it, though, satisfied that this was a lot more private than where they had been before. He crossed his arms against his chest, not really comfortable with doing this anyway. What was with people dwelling on things?

"I wasn't lying about not being disbarred," he said, wanting that to at least remain clear. With that being said, he also didn't lie to her, not exactly. Had she ever mentioned knowing Britta? No. He wouldn't have denied knowing her if she had. "Greendale just...never came up. It probably would have, eventually."

[everyone_takes]

"Lying by omission is still lying," Kate answered, pulling herself up onto the edge of the trampoline as well and she stared down at her dangling feet, wishing she didn't feel so stupid about caring. "I mean, I asked you what you did back home. You didn't say you were going to college, you said you were one of the best lawyers in the world."

Huffing out a breath, she shrugged. "Whatever, I know it's stupid to even care. Everyone lies all the time." That was what people did. They lied and they used each other to get what they wanted. She'd said it to Marshall before and she still believed it; everyone just wanted to take from each other.

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"Well yeah, everyone lies," he conceded, having seen too much in his life to say otherwise. He'd done too much of it to say otherwise, not that he was ashamed of it for a second. What he maybe felt a little bad about was that she was clearly not happy with him.

Apparently months away from Greendale hadn't shaken that strange conscience he'd somehow found himself having. It'd never used to be this hard not to care.

He let out a slow exhale. "Look, I get it, I should have told you. I guess I just wanted to be who I used to be and going around mentioning I was going to a community college wasn't going to make me sound like a great lawyer. Which I was, that wasn't a lie. You don't convince a State Bar and one of the biggest firms in Colorado for years without a lot of skill."

[everyone_takes]

Looking over at him, her eyebrows lifted again, Kate smiled very faintly. It was still stupid and lame, but she could understand the need to want to be something you weren't anymore. Or maybe something you never were. Not that she doubted that Jeff had been a lawyer once, but she'd pretended to be something she wasn't more than a few times.

"I get that," she admitted, swinging her legs back and forth slowly. "I just..." She didn't know how to explain her problem with lying -- especially given how often she lied -- without sounding like a complete freakshow. "My mom is a bunch of other people, okay? So I never knew who'd be there when I got home, so I just... I like people to be who they are. It's stupid."

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"She was - what?" he asked, looking in her direction immediately. He'd half-expected he heard her wrong, since what he thought he heard didn't make sense. "What do you mean?"

[everyone_takes]

"She has DID," she answered, suddenly unable to look back at Jeff. She looked down at her feet, then up toward the trees, then at the edge of the trampoline before finally meeting his gaze again. It was stupid, no one else had judged her for it. "Dissociative Identity Disorder. It's like when something traumatic happens to someone and they just break into a bunch of different people. So... sometimes she's my mom and sometimes she's Buck, the Vietnam Vet who drinks, smokes, watches a lot of porn and kicks the shit out of people who are mean to me."

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"That's..." he trailed off when no words came, eyebrows furrowing. Well, there had been some words, but nothing that would've been appropriate ('fucked up' and 'weird' had both been options). There was a reason why he never delved too deep with people: there were some things he couldn't just shrug off with a witty joke and a grin. He ended up just clearing his throat and saying, "Sorry. I didn't know."

It was a genuine apology, for what little that was worth.

[everyone_takes]

"It's fine," she insisted, trying to wave it off. "It's... whatever, you couldn't have known, right? So, apology accepted and now I know you were going to community college and that's fine." Because she was seventeen and, as far as Kate was concerned, community college seemed a little bit better than going somewhere else, where all you were able to do was study and sleep or else you'd totally flunk out. "I mean, that sounded sort of mean, I don't mean it's fine. I just mean... whatever you did back home, it's cool with me."

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"I get it," he said, cutting off any other need to explain. It wasn't exactly a secret that ever weighed heavily on him, but it was good to clear the air all the same. He still doubted he'd ever actually go around telling people what had happened, because seriously, he could only imagine what most people would say, but this time it didn't end badly. "And, for the record? I'd never deny knowing Britta if someone asked me. I'm sure she's still saying that."

[everyone_takes]

"Well, for what it's worth, I never thought that's why you lied," Kate said, avoiding telling him that, yeah, it seemed like Britta was pretty hurt. She felt bad, but that was between the two of them and she couldn't understand why anyone would deny knowing Britta, because as far as Kate was concerned, she was pretty much the coolest person on the island.

"I mean, you didn't even know I knew Britta, right?" she asked. "So I figured it was just community college embarrassment, not Britta."

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"I don't really know anyone she hangs out with," he said. Except the stray cats, probably, though he'd yet to see any of them with any sort of knitted things the few times he spotted them around the Compound. "Except Annie, now, since I think they're still living together. Have you met her? See, I will admit this right now, I knew her before here."

[everyone_takes]

"Yeah, I met Annie. On the beach," Kate said, smiling a little again. "She was nice." Maybe she seemed a little high strung, but Kate had met people with way bigger issues than being a bit high strung, so that wasn't even a big deal.

"So... we're cool, right?" she asked after a moment, looking up at Jeff. "No more lying and no more air guitaring?"

[wingerguarantee.livejournal.com]

"I think you're the one to decide that," he pointed out, eyebrow lifting. He hadn't been the one about to chew someone out in the middle of a public place. "But yeah, no more lies. I'm practically an open book now."

[everyone_takes]

Kate rolled her eyes, but it was good natured and she was still smiling. "Yeah, okay, then I guess we're cool. But the fact that you just told me you're practically an open book now means I get to ask you anything I want and you have to answer it. I mean, not like, right now, but one day I might have some burning question that desperately needs to be answered."