notbreakable | (no subject)

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truth on your back

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It's not like Kimmy isn't used to being stared at.

Back in Durnsville, the first few days after her rescue had been awful. Of course, she was thrilled to be free and to find that the whole world hadn't disappeared, but the photographers and journalists that wanted to know every single detail about her life underground had been less... thrilling.

In New York, she'd mostly blended in after her first day or two having been side-eyed. She was eccentric but for the most part anonymous. And she'd loved every bit of it. No one knew she was a "Mole Woman," that she'd spent the better part of her life in a bunker.

In Darrow, sometimes she gets second glances because her attire kind of resembles that of a third grader, at least in color, or because she's holding the city's cutest baby, but that's it. And that's why it's so surprising that during what should be a pretty normal commute to work, people won't stop looking at her. Some point, even. She checks her teeth, her hair. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

She's confused but relieved by the time she reaches Brian's place, letting herself in with a big exhale as she moves to lean against the closed door.

[For Truth on Your Back plot, Kimmy has the message that she COULD HAVE ESCAPED on her back. Find her anywhere around Darrow the morning of the 21st or at Brian's if you, you know, live there.]

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Kimmy wants to say neither but she also doesn't want to make this more complicated than it needs to be. "Uh, coffee," she says. "With lots of sugar. If possible."

"I wanted to," she adds, suddenly, almost defensively. "Escape. The bunker."

For a moment, Kimmy goes so still that she thinks she might not be able to move again. She's not so naive to think that Darrow is above being so awful, but this is on a whole new level.

Shaking out of her stillness, she tries to cover her back with her arms but it feels and looks unnatural, and so she stops. Gives up. Without context, at least, nobody should know what it means. "Oh."

Knowing Rapunzel had been kept captive so long, too, though, makes Kimmy feels like she has to let her know. "I wanted to," she says, almost out of nowhere. "Escape. More than anything."

"Come on, let's — let's move over here," Michelle says, ushering Kimmy over towards the nearest wall, trying to ignore the way her stomach is turning. It doesn't mean anything, or, at least, she shouldn't assume that it does. It's just her own shit that she has to deal with, that, despite weeks here, she's barely talked about. Projecting, or something like that. She's never bought into most stuff like that, largely because it's been easier not to, but in this case, she kind of has to believe that's what's going on.

Regardless of what it means, Kimmy seems rattled, the way she tries to cover her back with her arms speaking volumes to that effect. She should focus on that, she thinks, and not what's in her own head. "Be easier to keep other people from seeing it."

Kimmy just nods, following Michelle's lead. She's normally not so easily stunned into silence. In fact, it's normally hard to get her to shut up.

But the message on her back says more than enough. And even if she doesn't know the story, even if no one here knows the story, she still feels the shame of it. The heat of it. Seven years she added to their sentence. "Thank you," she tells Michelle.

"Of course you did," Rapunzel says gently, reaching out to rest her hand on her friend's arm. They're kind of out in the open and Rapunzel moves in closer, looking concerned. "Do you want to go somewhere more private and talk?"

When she asked for extra sugar, he snorted out a laugh. He reached into the fridge, pulling out one of Gus's juice boxes instead. Holding it up so she could see it, he arched a questioning brow.

"Sure you did," he said, dismissively placating. "Or maybe you didn't. It's none of my fucking business. If you want to pour over the whole story, I'll listen-- Well, I'll pretend to listen to some of it." He shrugged. "But I don't really care."

"Of course," Michelle says with a slight shake of her head. Even if it doesn't mean what she instinctively has to wonder if it means, no one's secrets should be left out in the open for someone else to gawk at, and Kimmy, while maybe not someone she's known long enough to call a friend, has been nothing but kind to her, so helpful the day she got here. The least she can do is try to return the favor now, in some small way, however possible.

She waits a moment, then frowning slightly, glances over at Kimmy. "If you want to talk about it, you can," she offers. "If not, we can just... pretend this didn't happen."

Running away from uncomfortable truths is something she's always been good at.

"I do that a lot," Kimmy confesses aloud, and it feels funny to admit that to herself let alone anyone else. Titus had been pressing her about opening up and getting help for a long while before she disappeared and wound up here. "Pretend it didn't happen, I mean... I..."

She inhales sharply, glances around to make sure no one is eavesdropping. "Have you heard of the Indiana Mole Women?"

"The—" Michelle starts, then shakes her head. She doesn't need to repeat the words to know that whatever Kimmy is talking about isn't something she's heard of before, and she thinks she probably shouldn't try to guess at what it means. Better to let Kimmy explain whatever connection it has with the words on her back than to start theorizing about things she's unfamiliar with. "No, no, I haven't. Should I have?"

Kimmy's nodding before she's saying "yeah, please," as she tries to figure out how to put into words what had happened that day with the rat and the reverend and why Cyndee had been so mad at her. "I don't want to be outside right now."

Something she never imagined herself saying.

"Sure, of course," Rapunzel tells her, keeping close as she leads her down the street. "Where do you want to go? My place is close. I could make us some tea and we could talk?"

She really wouldn't mind going someplace private, especially with these words on her back. "How's that sound?"

"Juice is good," Kimmy says, wondering for a moment whether to take Brian up on his offer to kind of listen. She knows she's needed to confide in someone for a long while, she's just not sure that her boss should be that person.

What if he judges her? More than he does, even. Though he did say he doesn't care... and that's the opposite of judging, right? "I just... had a chance, about... seven years in, and I didn't take it."

"No," Kimmy says, shaking her head. Then: "Well, I don't know. Maybe. We were on The Today Show?"

A lot of people here haven't seen The Today Show, though, thankfully. If she hadn't received that newspaper that one time, nobody might know what she'd been through. "We were... kidnapped, about fifteen years ago. There was this reverend, he told us the world was ending... or had ended, and it was our fault..."

Saying it aloud is a million different kinds of surreal, and Kimmy makes herself look away as she does.

For a moment, it feels like she can't breathe.

Just a minute ago, she'd been trying to convince herself that the word escape didn't have to mean anything, that it was just the shit she went through that she couldn't get out of her head. With that being the case, Michelle almost can't determine if Kimmy's answer is surprising or if it's anything but. What she does know is that she doesn't need to have any of the blanks filled in. Knowing that much, it's clear what she could have escaped from. It's just chilling, too, the story so similar to what happened to her, though the difference in time sends a shiver running through her.

"It's okay," she says quietly, though it's really anything but, at least as far as what happened to them is concerned. "I get it. I..." She take a deep breath, trying not to let her composure slip. "Something pretty similar happened to me, actually."

Kimmy barely knows Michelle so it’s hard to not immediately wonder whether she’s lying, but then Kimmy’s always been trusting and this is not the kind of thing that anyone would joke about.

Unless they were really, really awful.

And while Kimmy doesn’t know Michelle that well, she at least knows that she’s kind. Nice. Right now, though, she looks genuinely shocked. “Really?” she asks. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it, I know what it’s like to not want to talk about it…"

"That sounds good," Kimmy says, in spite of the way that her stomach keeps turning uncomfortably. She trusts Rapunzel. She's one of the few people in the whole world who know what she's been through. At least a little. "I'm sorry," she adds. "For... your message, too.”

"He ran me off the road," Michelle says abruptly, as if the words have been there for a long time, just under the surface, waiting to come out. She told one person the day she got here, but apart from that, she hasn't talked about it at all, just carried it around with her like she has so many other things. For all the running she's done, there's no getting away from what's left in her own head, and sometimes that's what she wishes she could outrun the most. "This guy, Howard, and he... I woke up in his bunker and he told me that there'd been some kind of attack. That the world had ended, essentially."

As it turned out, he hadn't even been entirely wrong about that. Still, she would rather have faced the monsters outside than the one she was trapped underground with, no question about it. "So, yeah."

Kimmy, now, is the one who is genuinely shocked, hands clasping over her mouth.

She wouldn't wish what she went through on anyone, and it isn't like Michelle was the one that got into a stupid van by choice (a fact Kimmy constantly has to remind herself wasn't her fault, even if a part of her will always believe it was.)

"I'm so sorry," she says, through her hands. "That's awful. Did you... you said you were driving when you got here, does that mean you escaped?"

"Oh, thank you," Rapunzel says quietly, giving her a small smile. She doesn't say much as she leads Kimmy to Ocean View and up to her apartment, unlocking the door and letting her in. "Okay, tea. And cookies. I have some cookies."

She pats Kimmy's arm before gathering her hair up and pointing towards the living room. "Sit down. I'll be right there."

Kimmy's spent a good part of her life waiting, a few extra seconds while Rapunzel gets tea and snacks certainly won't kill her.

Though the brief absence while she's in the kitchen makes Kimmy panic more than it might usually, the mood of the day working against her. "What kind of cookies?" she calls out, to break the silence.

Rapunzel fills her kettle with hands that are trembling slightly, and then sets it on the stove to boil while she reaches into the cupboard to grab the tea. Kimmy's voice nearly makes her jump, and a packet of peppermint tea falls to the floor.

"Oh, um--" She pauses to grab the tea, and then pulls a plastic bin of homemade cookies into her hands before carrying them into the living room. "I made a few different kinds. I really like to bake. Anyway, um-- there's chocolate chip. And chocolate chocolate chip. Also peanut butter chocolate--" She laughs softly and pulls off the lid, offering the tub to Kimmy. "I guess I really like chocolate."

"Yeah," Michelle says, nodding, her voice a little fainter, almost like she doesn't believe what she's saying. She knows it happened, but it feels surreal now, and less noteworthy than when it happened. She got out; she did what she had to, a matter of survival. Sometimes she isn't sure if Howard actually would have killed her or if he just would have kept her there, but either way, it wouldn't have been worth finding out. She didn't want to meet the same fate as the girl — or girls, for all she knows — that came before her. "Barely, but... yeah."

"Who doesn't love chocolate?" Kimmy says, grabbing for whichever. They all sound amazing. "I mean, I guess there are probably people who don't," she muses, relieved to not be talking about kidnapping or bunkers or captivity in general, for a moment. "But I don't think I've met any."

"That's amazing," Kimmy says, the message she can't see on her back feeling even more cruel, now.

But the terms of her escape meant sending Cyndee out first, and Kimmy could never live with herself she'd gotten hurt. Or worse.

If only she'd trusted her gut instead of a man. "You must be really brave."

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