Stella doesn't really know how to cope with it either. She's never let herself get used to it enough to know how to cope with it. The list of people she's close enough to at home that she would even allow to approach anything like this is small enough to count on one hand, and not on all five fingers of that hand. She's been mostly alone since before she was even eighteen, and mostly by choice.
But running away from it strikes her as silly, even cowardly, and possibly, given her injuries, unwise. Stella gives Peggy a dry look, but doesn't otherwise respond to that, focused on trying to get herself into a position that's something resembling comfortable. She's arranged things so she can lay on her right side or on her back, with a pillow propped under her shoulders to sit her up a little, which should in theory help with some of the swelling in her face.
The conversation takes more of a turn toward the personal, and — Stella's not really good at this, at sharing; even if the object of discussion isn't anything extraordinarily intimate, it feels awkward. But then she thinks back to that night at Belfast General, and Doctor O'Donnell keeping her awake by asking her questions, random superficial things like whether she could play an instrument or what her favorite season was. She'd allowed it because she'd been so tired and in pain and — as much as she would have never admitted it aloud — so in need of someone who would be kind to her without expecting anything in return, and she's still feeling some of that now. And she trusts Peggy, she does. There's no one else in the village she trusts more.
"Before this place," she says, "I hadn't had any sort of housemate in... Jesus, more than twenty years. Not since university." There's a slight twitch of her mouth as she clarifies, "Cambridge."
A thoughtful pause. "One of my flatmates was the reason I decided to go into policing." There's a story there, but it's sort of a sad one, and unless Peggy asks, she's not in any rush to elaborate.
no subject
But running away from it strikes her as silly, even cowardly, and possibly, given her injuries, unwise. Stella gives Peggy a dry look, but doesn't otherwise respond to that, focused on trying to get herself into a position that's something resembling comfortable. She's arranged things so she can lay on her right side or on her back, with a pillow propped under her shoulders to sit her up a little, which should in theory help with some of the swelling in her face.
The conversation takes more of a turn toward the personal, and — Stella's not really good at this, at sharing; even if the object of discussion isn't anything extraordinarily intimate, it feels awkward. But then she thinks back to that night at Belfast General, and Doctor O'Donnell keeping her awake by asking her questions, random superficial things like whether she could play an instrument or what her favorite season was. She'd allowed it because she'd been so tired and in pain and — as much as she would have never admitted it aloud — so in need of someone who would be kind to her without expecting anything in return, and she's still feeling some of that now. And she trusts Peggy, she does. There's no one else in the village she trusts more.
"Before this place," she says, "I hadn't had any sort of housemate in... Jesus, more than twenty years. Not since university." There's a slight twitch of her mouth as she clarifies, "Cambridge."
A thoughtful pause. "One of my flatmates was the reason I decided to go into policing." There's a story there, but it's sort of a sad one, and unless Peggy asks, she's not in any rush to elaborate.