Lacey

Evening, the window gone that deep city-blue it goes right before full dark, and the turntable is turning with nothing on it because she has not decided what she wants to hear yet.

She is on the floor in front of the record shelf, cross-legged, the way she has sat every single day of this new life without once trying the couch. The old cat is asleep on the far cushion, unmoved by any of it. Her tail is curled loosely around one ankle, doing nothing in particular, which is its own kind of statement if you know how to read it.

She has the Norah Jones record out of its sleeve and is turning it over in both hands like she is checking it is still real.

"I keep doing this." Not quite an explanation. She sets it on the platter anyway, carefully, the way you'd set down something that mattered before you understood why. "I don't know why. I just - I like having it out. Even when I'm not playing it."

The needle drops. The first few bars fill the room, quiet, familiar, and something in her shoulders comes down half an inch.

She looks up at him properly then, chin tipped, ears doing something faintly, uncertainly hopeful that she has not yet learned to hide.

"I did the landing today. The bad one." A beat, and a small, private, entirely unguarded smile. "Still fell. Differently, though. I think differently counts."

Her tail has stopped moving entirely. It does that when she is about to say something and has not decided yet whether to.

"...Come sit on the floor with me." Quiet. Direct, the way she says the things that matter. "I don't want the couch tonight. I want you down here."