Peggy's bluntness startles her into silence, or else she'd probably be putting up a fight here. The truth is that she would do the same if their circumstances were reversed, but if Peggy was the one understandably upset and exhausted after a series of traumatic events, Stella wouldn't think of that as a weakness. She doesn't apply the same standards to herself. Right now she feels vulnerable, and she doesn't want to look weak, or like she needs someone else's support just to get by—
But she's tired. She's so fucking tired, and not just physically. There are excuses she could make, especially since she has nightmares when she's under a lot of stress and she expects sleep isn't going to be kind to her no matter how much she needs to rest, but when she tries to articulate them she realizes they sound exactly like what they are — excuses. She looks for a moment like she's going to say something, but then the words just seem to drain out of her and she ends up mutely leading Peggy in the direction of her bedroom.
Everything is just where it was when she left, all her clothes neatly folded in the dresser, her bed with the sunflower quilt she got for Christmas just after she first arrived because it's cheerful enough to keep her from feeling utterly despondent on the worst days here. Suddenly she realizes how much she didn't want to come back here, the bars closing on the cage again. Stella swallows hard, takes the rising swell of despair and shoves it into a box in the back of her mind where it can't get to her right now, compartmentalizing it in a way she can't yet do with her feelings about the collapse of her investigation.
"I ought to change into something else," she says, and goes to her dresser to fetch the white sleeveless top and blue scrub trousers that are what she wears for pajamas here; she decided a while ago that she probably can't get away with sleeping in just her knickers, with someone else in the house, and until the observers decide to gift her something proper to sleep in she's making do with this. She is not precisely concerned about Peggy seeing her undress, as such; she barely has any body shyness and there's nothing here the other woman won't have seen on herself. But at the same time — she's bruised all down her left side, uglier than the ones on her face, and Peggy doesn't need to see that.
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But she's tired. She's so fucking tired, and not just physically. There are excuses she could make, especially since she has nightmares when she's under a lot of stress and she expects sleep isn't going to be kind to her no matter how much she needs to rest, but when she tries to articulate them she realizes they sound exactly like what they are — excuses. She looks for a moment like she's going to say something, but then the words just seem to drain out of her and she ends up mutely leading Peggy in the direction of her bedroom.
Everything is just where it was when she left, all her clothes neatly folded in the dresser, her bed with the sunflower quilt she got for Christmas just after she first arrived because it's cheerful enough to keep her from feeling utterly despondent on the worst days here. Suddenly she realizes how much she didn't want to come back here, the bars closing on the cage again. Stella swallows hard, takes the rising swell of despair and shoves it into a box in the back of her mind where it can't get to her right now, compartmentalizing it in a way she can't yet do with her feelings about the collapse of her investigation.
"I ought to change into something else," she says, and goes to her dresser to fetch the white sleeveless top and blue scrub trousers that are what she wears for pajamas here; she decided a while ago that she probably can't get away with sleeping in just her knickers, with someone else in the house, and until the observers decide to gift her something proper to sleep in she's making do with this. She is not precisely concerned about Peggy seeing her undress, as such; she barely has any body shyness and there's nothing here the other woman won't have seen on herself. But at the same time — she's bruised all down her left side, uglier than the ones on her face, and Peggy doesn't need to see that.