I'm fine, but I'm not okay

[noteful]

Meg and Dean talk about music, for about five minutes.

Maybe seven.

No more than that.

And Meg does most of the talking, though Dean seems to ease up a little, and once or twice there was something that might have been a faint attempt at a smile, though mostly he just looks tired.

They stay on their respective sides of the doorway.

Still, it's a slightly easier conversation than they've managed yet.

All forward motion counts, right?

Meg goes back to trying to hang her curtains, standing on the desk chair and fighting with the rod. It's one of the many things that would be easier if she were even three centimetres taller.

And, sure, she could probably get them put up for her, somehow, but then she just has to fill the time with something else.

Besides, she thinks she can reach . . .

Comments

[noteful]

Meg doesn't bother to ask how she's supposed to know.

Something tells her that, too, will be left to her judgment.

"All right."

[thursdays_angel]

Castiel nods and stands up.

"I will leave you to your work."

Making progress means that, for now, he needs to be elsewhere.

[noteful]

"I'm sure I'll see you soon," Meg says.

"Just . . . really do knock next time, please.

"I'd life to avoid dropping anything else on you."

[thursdays_angel]

"I was not damaged."

"But I will knock next time."

"And yes. You will see me soon."

He can guarantee it.

[noteful]

When he's gone, Meg makes a third (and finally successful) attempt at hanging the curtains.

Which means that whatever's keeping her from napping now, it's not the light from the window.

She reads ten pages of Sense and Sensibility and eight of Jane of Lantern Hill. She listens two minutes of Swan Lake and one half of "Fortess Around Your Heart." She paces the length and width and diagonial of the room. She makes a cup of tea and then pours it down the drain in the bathroom sink.

She gives serious thought to screaming at the top of her lungs.

And then, before she can talk herself out of it, again, she writes Dean, I've stepped out but I'll be back soon. Meg on a piece of paper and slides it under the door between their rooms.

And then she grabs her knitting bag and heads downstairs.