notbreakable | (no subject)

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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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…"

"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?"

"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."

"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."

It takes everything Michelle has in her not to laugh at that, the description about as far from how she sees herself as it's possible to get. What she went through, what she did to get out, it was only because she had to, decisions she made because there was no other choice. She fought out of necessity, not out of any sense of courage. In the end, before she wound up here, she'd turned toward Houston, and maybe that ought to count for something, but she's never been brave.

In light of what it says on Kimmy's back, though, she's not sure she should even just come right out and say that, though Michelle certainly can't fault her for the meaning behind those words. Really, she could have escaped long before she did, stood at the door of the bunker, just one turned key away from freedom, and after seeing that woman, went back inside. She's in no position to judge, and anyway, it's not some kind of abduction competition, who had it worse and who dealt with it the best. That they survived at all is the important thing. That's what says the most.

"I only did what I had to," she says with a slight shake of her head, glancing towards the floor. "It kind of came down to life or death, by the end."

"Oh," Kimmy says, then hesitates, not sure what to say to that. Really, she doesn't know what to say to any of this. She's spent all of her energy trying to not have this conversation, and yet here she is.

Not with Titus or a psychiatrist or a journalist. With another woman who went through something horrible, too. "I... don't think we ever thought we were going to die," she continues. The reverend hadn't been a particularly violent man. "But we didn't think there was anything else. He told us there wasn't anything else."

For a long time, they'd believed him. "I found a rat one day. An alive one. He... the reverend said it was sent by the devil to test us, but I could go out into the world if I wanted to. But he said... I had to send one of the others, first. I couldn't do that."

"Of course not," Michelle says softly, almost as if to herself, shaking her head. Maybe their situations weren't exactly the same, but they're close enough that it's easy to put herself in the same position, to imagine Howard telling her that she could leave, but only if she sent Emmett out first, and she never would have done it. The risk would have been too much. Hell, she'd still believed Howard up until she climbed out of that bunker and realized there were birds chirping, a surefire sign that her life might not have been in immediate danger after all. It's easy to question, to doubt, but less so to take a game, especially when it's someone else's life on the line.

What Emmett did for her, she'll never be able to repay him for.

"I... If it helps, I would have done the same thing," she offers, the circumstances of the conversation itself, the words written on Kimmy's back, making it seem like a good idea. "I mean, Howard, he never even would have let me try, but if I'd been you, I wouldn't have done it, either. You can't take that kind of chance, right?"

"Not with other people," Kimmy agrees. She would have taken that risk herself, absolutely, figured the end of the world was better than being stuck with the reverend for even longer than she had been, but she never would have forgiven herself if Cyndee had been hurt. Or Gretchen, or Donna Maria. "When she found out, she blamed me. Seven more years we spent stuck down there."

"Jesus," Michelle says softly, the amount of time alone difficult to fathom. Howard had told her one year, maybe two, and though she knows now that he never intended to let her go, that he would always have deemed it unsafe in order to keep her there with him, there's a difference between that awareness and actually living it. All things considered, she didn't lose too much of her life. With everything that happened, it's hard to consider herself lucky, but in some ways, she knows she was. "She shouldn't have blamed you for not wanting to risk her life. It's a lot, but... What else could you do?"