DSU Stella Gibson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ex_assertiveness90) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-09-24 10:28 pm
ex_assertiveness90) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-09-24 10:28 pm
Entry tags:
they found me there in the sands, bones of ribbon in my hands.
WHO: Stella Gibson
WHERE: 6I - the inn
WHEN: September 24th
OPEN TO: Kate Kelly
WARNINGS: Discussion of sexual harassment
A couple of months or so after breaking her arm in the earthquake, Stella thinks it's high time she sat and talked to Kate Kelly.
She hasn't been avoiding the issue, honestly — in fact, she'd meant to thank her for helping her get to the hospital as soon as she could. But with the earthquake and its aftermath, and then the number of people that had fallen ill in the epidemic after that... well, suffice it to say she'd been distracted and occupied. Now, though, they've room to breathe, at least until the next crisis the observers see fit to throw at their little village.
Stella comes in after lunch, when most people have finished eating and gone their separate ways. The post-meal cleanup seems mostly done, but Kate is still there in the kitchen, dealing with the last of the dishes. This is probably as good a time as any other.
"Miss Kelly," she says, polite, and soft so as to try to avoid startling her. She doesn't exactly smile, but she's trying as best she can to appear nonthreatening. There is a particular skill Stella has developed, a talent for being intimidating despite her height — or rather, her lack thereof — but she's learnt the opposite, too, a quiet, unimposing, self-contained calm. If she makes a point of seeming at ease, perhaps Kate will follow suit.
"Do you need any help?" she asks, nodding to the pile of plates and pots and pans. She wasn't brought up so privileged as to balk at hand-washing a few dishes — and she does try to help people here when she's able, because not contributing would be counterproductive at best.
WHERE: 6I - the inn
WHEN: September 24th
OPEN TO: Kate Kelly
WARNINGS: Discussion of sexual harassment
A couple of months or so after breaking her arm in the earthquake, Stella thinks it's high time she sat and talked to Kate Kelly.
She hasn't been avoiding the issue, honestly — in fact, she'd meant to thank her for helping her get to the hospital as soon as she could. But with the earthquake and its aftermath, and then the number of people that had fallen ill in the epidemic after that... well, suffice it to say she'd been distracted and occupied. Now, though, they've room to breathe, at least until the next crisis the observers see fit to throw at their little village.
Stella comes in after lunch, when most people have finished eating and gone their separate ways. The post-meal cleanup seems mostly done, but Kate is still there in the kitchen, dealing with the last of the dishes. This is probably as good a time as any other.
"Miss Kelly," she says, polite, and soft so as to try to avoid startling her. She doesn't exactly smile, but she's trying as best she can to appear nonthreatening. There is a particular skill Stella has developed, a talent for being intimidating despite her height — or rather, her lack thereof — but she's learnt the opposite, too, a quiet, unimposing, self-contained calm. If she makes a point of seeming at ease, perhaps Kate will follow suit.
"Do you need any help?" she asks, nodding to the pile of plates and pots and pans. She wasn't brought up so privileged as to balk at hand-washing a few dishes — and she does try to help people here when she's able, because not contributing would be counterproductive at best.
no subject
She's quiet, listening without interrupting, and what she hears, with all other considerations pushed aside, is a story about a drunk man sexually harassing a woman and then getting angry when she rejected his advances more violently than he anticipated. It puts her in mind of Jim Burns, coming to her hotel room after her botched evening with Reed Smith, reeking of whisky and angry over... God, Stella can barely remember now, some shit about Aaron Monroe, it's been long enough and what had come after had eclipsed that particular conversation. He'd practically begged her to sleep with him so he didn't have to think about work, she'd said no — more than once, clearly — and when he'd actually physically grabbed her, she'd bloodied his nose.
Stella had been lucky enough to have it stop there, Jim's sorry attempts to apologize to her and somehow still make everything about him the next day notwithstanding. From what she's hearing, Kate wasn't so lucky — and that's enough to make Stella's jaw tighten, make her cross her arms as if to hold in a reaction.
"To me, it sounds as if you were defending yourself," she says. Would a court see it that way? Stella isn't totally sure, but... there's no court here, no jury, just Stella and her gut feelings. "What reason would he have had for wanting to arrest your brothers?"
She suspects there wouldn't be much reason needed for this sort of man, honestly. A man who tries to fabricate an attempted murder charge whole cloth, with every expectation he'll be believed, that no one will ask questions or bother with trivialities like evidence and correct procedures — a man like that wouldn't care.
no subject
She's firm on that, and it gives her back some sense of control. She swallows back a threatening sob, presses her mouth together. She's sure on that. She was protecting herself, her person and her honour. A kiss in exchange for no arrest warrant, but where would have it lead? Would he have asked her to fuck him next? Years of the looks he'd given her, and Kate knows. Without even thinking it, she'd know what the future would have held, and so her fist had swung.
Then Kate ducks her head a little, almost seeming amused for a moment. "I can't actually remember what it was all about. Somethin' 'bout cattle theft. Which Fitzpatrick was in up to his greedy little eyeballs. As were half the police in Victoria. The others were in the pocket of all the rich vultures posin' as gentlemen, so either way, let's take down the Kellys. But Fitzpatrick, he didn't show us a warrant. And he was by himself, no, he just made it up. We were tryin' to get him to calm and maybe sober up, we were givin' him dinner and that's how he repays us."
The slight amusement has long since vanished.
But they didn't arrest Dan or Ned. They ran, they had to. So the cops arrested me brother-in-law, a neighbour... me ma. Took her away along with baby Alice, 'cause she was only three days old. I defended myself, and they arrested Ma. So I was.
Alone. I had to, I had to look after everyone else. I wasn't even fifteen, Detective Gibson. Does it matter what my brothers might or might not have done?"
no subject
"No," she says, quiet but emphatic. The expression on her face doesn't change much, but the look in her eyes is striking, somewhere between compassion and anger. "No one deserves that sort of treatment, and anyone who thinks as much is an idiot."
It's still so easy, even in Stella's time, to blame the victim. To say, this was your fault, you deserved it, if you hadn't made him angry this wouldn't have happened. To assign responsibility anywhere but the person whose fault it really was in the first place.
no subject
All Kate can do is keep talking, try to keep talking, because it's all bubbled up and she feels like she's drowning.
"It. I. It got worse, later. I didn't dare fight back, didn't even tell anyone 'cept for Maggie. Me big sister. I knew she wouldn't do anythin' stupid. My brothers were on the run, with, with two mates of theirs. I had to keep us goin'. I was the oldest in the house, Maggie had her own babies and her own farm, with her fella in gaol along with our ma. And. I, I shouldn't."
There's nowhere to sit except for the steps to the kitchen, or the ground, and so Kate remains standing, her shoulders hunched slightly and her chin tilted down. If it wasn't for the boning in her corset, she might well have curled in on herself further.
"There was a shooting, out in the bush. Cause they were wanted for attempted-murder of a constable, right? And. Self-defence, but police died. And I didn't want anyone else gettin' hurt, so I never, I never said what happened when my ma's house was searched.
They'd come in, up turn everything upside down. Smash things. Lookin' for, I dunno. Maybe nothin'. They'd scare the babies, Ellen and Johnny. That was durin' the day. At night when, when they'd come, it was. Worse. They dragged me outta bed, and while I was standin' there in a shift they'd put a gun to me head, and. They wanted to see if the boys were hidin' there. As if they would, with us always been watched an' we only had two rooms. But I had to go to the back room and check. So if, if my brothers reacted badly, I'd be in the way.
The constables, they. Some of them, they'd put their hands on me. And, I. I couldn't do anythin'. Gracie's two years younger than me, I couldn't let them do anythin', to, um. And Fitzpatrick started everythin' 'cause I took a swing and defended meself, and I couldn't tell anyone because if Ned heard, he'd just. He'd kill them. So'd Dan, though we'd talk him into not tellin' Ned 'bout Fitzpatrick, and Joe woulda... So I just. I stood there and I. Waited for them to go away. It didn't. It didn't get worse than that, I guess they were still too scared of Ned to go much further. And I. They took ma, they took Maggie's husband. They kept arrestin' people in town. All I had to put up with was that, and. I.
I just. I didn't want anyone else gettin' hurt because of me."
Kate hadn't meant to cry. She'd meant to throw the words at the good Detective Superintendent, see if the woman flinched. She'd meant to gouge the words out of her soul to see if it'd ease the pain and humiliation. Instead, she's standing there, holding a bucket of plant scraps in one hand while she presses her other to her mouth. Her shoulders are shaking with the effort not to be loud, but there's no mistaking that Kate Kelly is standing there and crying.
no subject
And then Kate's crying, right out there in front of her, and that's a different pain altogether because if there is something Stella Gibson really hates, in her gut, it's watching a woman cry over something men did to her. If they were in a police interview room and Kate had burst into tears while giving a statement, the only thing Stella would have been allowed to do, within the bounds of professionalism, would have been to give her a tissue and a glass of water and the time to recompose herself. But this isn't that, and Stella can't stand here and watch her weep and not do something.
She reaches over and puts her hand on Kate's upper arm. Just for a few seconds, and it's important not to be any longer than that so she doesn't give the appearance of manipulation, of wanting a certain reaction out of her. It's brief and gentle, a touch that doesn't demand or ask for anything — she is just a woman, reassuring another woman that she isn't alone.
"Of course you didn't. And it isn't your fault." She wants to emphasize that, to make that as clear as she can. "Men like that, they'd have found some other excuse if they could. You did what you felt you had to to protect yourself and your family. What they chose to do in response is not in any way your responsibility."