When I'm With You, I'm At Home (p)

It had been a couple days since Skye had awoken a mile out from camp with no memories of the last year. To say that she was still adjusting would be an understatement. She had only gotten discharged from the hospital a day ago, and was attending daily therapy and doctors appointments. Her life was still chaotic, still messy and strange. Her grandparents still looked at her like she was a ghost, no matter how much they tried to hide it. Still, she was determined to feel normal. Which is why, when her grandmother mentioned she was thinking about redoing all the flowers in the front yard, Skye jumped at the chance to help.

She stood in the street, a good distance away from the front of the house, taking the whole image in. Her grandmother stood at the flower beds, holding pictures of the flowers she was thinking about putting in. It was kind of ridiculous, them doing this, but it was a good way to keep her mind active and thinking about things that didn't bother her. Life had been an experiment lately, to see what set her off and what didn't. She had a pretty good list going of both sides so far.

She hears the running footsteps but before she can even turn to look, arms are wrapping around her, and there's a split moment in Skye's head where she's thinking oh no. Then like every time before, the logical side of her brain shuts off, and its fight or flight. Though, in this moment she chooses both. She pushes the arms down and away from her, taking big steps back. Her breathing has already gone on overdrive, her heart has already pumped a few hundred times. She can hear her grandmother say something, but the world is spinning. There's a couple seconds of her just trying to regain control, before she can hear her grandmother saying, "it's alright, you're safe."

"I'm sorry," She says, before all else. Its almost a reflex at this point. When she's grounded again, and her rational thought is back, she realizes whos standing before her. Delilah Lockwood. She's crying and Skye isn't sure if its what she did that caused it. So again, she says, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't take it personally, Delilah," Skye's grandmother is already stepping forward, "We tried to contact you, but your father had said you were off on a mission. But we're glad to tell you the whole story over a cup of lemonade or tea maybe?" Skye can never be more grateful towards her grandmother. She always seemed to know what to do, to smooth the wrinkles or calm the situation.

The guilt is already starting to sink in. Delilah never deserved any of this, she was probably the nicest person Skye knew. She wants to reach out and squeeze her hand, but Skye isn't even sure if Delilah wants to be anywhere near her. Once again this served as a reminder. She was different. She hated every second of it. She wants to be twelve again, back when they were best friends. She wants to have sleepovers and play in the backyard and just not have to worry if she's going to lash out again. She wants to be old Skye. Except she knows there's no going back. Only forward.

"Thank you," Her words are barely loud enough to be heard, but her mind wants to keep going. She wants to apologize again, not just for this moment, but for all the moments that came before it. She wants to apologize for being a shit friend, when Delilah didn't deserve it. She wanted to apologize for all those times she thought she was too good for her. In reality, Delilah was probably too good for her.

"I wouldn't mind," Skye says, which is to say that she really wanted Delilah to come over. She wanted to talk to someone her own age, to just catch up. Her grandparents always tried really hard to make her feel included, but they were adults, and she was a teenager. She needed to talk to someone her own age.

"Then its settled," Her Gran smiles like its the easiest decision in the world.

Skye finds herself sitting at the counter in the kitchen. She's trying not to stare at the coffee pot, even though her grandmother has put a glass of lemonade in front of her. It was ridiculous, really, how much she wanted to have coffee. Maybe there was a part of her that realized drinking coffee would make her feel normal. At the same time, she was worried that when she had it, she'd feel just as she did moments before, confused and disoriented.

"So, how did your mission go Delilah?" Her grandmother starts off the conversation, and Skye has to wonder if the two of them spent much time together while she was gone. She realizes that so much of her time has been spent towards worrying about herself, when she was living with two people who had lost their granddaughter and then got her back within one turbulent year.

After they all agreed that they would sit down to have a conversation about everything, Delilah had gone back to get her bag she had left a little farther down the Cul de sac, slinging it over her shoulders she carried it to her gate and threw it over the fence, she'd have to get it later. From that point on she walked back over to the Maddox house, it was a familiar walk, especially given all the time she had been spending with Nancy and Charles lately. In truth not only did she think it helped them, it helped her from having to feel so lonely in such a big home.

No one was allowed over at the Lockwood home. Only exception seemed to be the Reid's for the most part, but even then it was mostly just Sam Reid in the foyer or the study or Augustine in the foyer waiting for Juliana. The rest of the Lockwood house would remain a mystery for most people. The Maddox house wasn't like that at all, it was so much more open and it felt like you could breathe in the home. There was just life to it, something that her home was lacking, so this house from her childhood was an escape sometimes.

Delilah had helped herself to getting some tea and doctoring it up with the tiniest bit of honey before she joined the other two at the table. When she finally sat down she noticed the brief silence until Nancy asked her about the mission she had been on. In truth Delilah was glad her father didn't express the fact that Delilah went without even really telling him, it just made it easier to talk about with other grown ups.

"It was interesting." The brunette said with a bit of a laugh as she remembered the events that went down. It wasn't so much a bad interest. Well that could be debated for sure. "We had to retrieve a necklace for the senate, but they didn't really leave details on the fact that it switches your personality with someone else in the group. My guess is they just wanted to get it back into safety and out of hands that might do harm with it." Delilah had continued adding onto more of her mission. She figured for now she'd leave the part out about their accommodations.

"I see you guys have started to redo the garden, do you have anything in mind for it yet?" She asked as her eyes shifted over to Skye to at least make her aware the question was for both of them and Lilah did want to talk to Skye, just sometimes there were formalities before you just dove into heavier topics, if that's what you wanted to call them.

Skye stares at her lemonade as she listens, watching the pulp and ice swirl around as she stirred with the straw. She doesn't drink though, Gran always made lemonade with too much sugar. The sweetness would make her teeth hurt. So, she just stirs and stirs as a way to keep busy. She thinks back to the last time she really saw Delilah, after a night of partying. It was much simpler back then. Though everything seems simpler when you're drunk and talking about spice girls while the two of you walk home. She also remembers what else happened that night, except she kept that moment locked far away below the surface, so as not to complicate things. Things are always easier when they're simple.

"We're changing up the color scheme," Skye tells her. She remembers coming home from the hospital, and her grandmother standing on the sidewalk looking at the flowers and talking about how the colors were all wrong. She knew how her grandmother operated though. When things were bad, she liked to stay busy. This became even more apparent when she walked into the house for the first time and found the entire dining room redecorated and the whole back garden redone. She had even put in a koi pond.

"I just think the blue and yellow is overdone," Her Gran says, pouring a glass of lemonade for herself, "I was thinking some pink peonies, maybe some white as an accent."

Skye turns her attention to the quest that Delilah was talking about, "So if the necklace switches personalities, does that mean there was a time where you weren't sweet and innocent Delilah Lockwood?"

When they started to talk about the colour scheme of the garden it only made the daughter of Epione smile. She enjoyed the blue and yellow colour scheme that used to be just outside in the front, but change was never a real bad thing, was it? Especially where there was a talk about pinks and whites, it was a good idea, it just reminded her of the garden in the back of her house, the one she spent time in talking to the various plants and flowers, she was told that it helped them grow.

Looking around the house it wasn't much different from the last time she had been here, she had even helped Nancy get some of the things to redecorate and helped out with doing the koi pond in the back. Delilah knew some people just needed a distraction and that's what she helped them with, it just meant there had been a lot of hard labour going through it all, but in Delilah's mind it was incredibly worth it.

Lilah still remembered the first time she had walked passed Skye's bedroom after she was declared dead. All she could remember was some bits of that sleepover, but most of it just talking about how pervy Tieghlur was, her memory had been very foggy for that night, but Skye had filled her in on the singing spice girls part and talking about who was which spice. It had hurt and made the dark brunette's heart swell seeing the door of Skye's bedroom. For the most part Delilah avoided ever going upstairs whenever she came over, gods even looking at photos of Skye got difficult, because all she wanted to do was spend more time with her.

The girl blinked for a moment and was brought back to the table and laughed at Skye's comment, "Yeah, there was a time that happened, more than once." She said feeling a warmth in her chest sitting across from Skye and talking about her quest. "I ended up being a pervy teenage boy almost just as bad as Tieghlur."

Skye cringed at the thought of Delilah being a pervy teenage boy, "I can't even picture that," She said. To her Delilah and pervy did not go into a sentence. Well, unless that sentence was Theighlur was being pervy to Delilah in which case was a common occurrence.

"Oh speak of the devil," Gran said. Skye turned her head around towards the sun porch, where sure enough, Tieler was standing. Out of everyone, Tylar had changed the least. He still dressed in old sweatshirts with faded logos and slogans on them. This one seemed to say "Save the boobies" in pink letters with the breast cancer awareness ribbon. Of course, Most of the letters had rubbed away, leaving just Boobies, which Thileure seemed to be okay with. He didn't open the back door, it seemed that Gran still had her rule of "No thiylurs in the house unless its a special occasion"

"Is it too late to pretend we're not here?" Skye asked. She had already seen Thuyleur once since she returned from the hospital, when he tried to sell her some 'medicinal marijuana'. She declined.