Back to the Estate

[hattie_notqueen]

The ride from Maine via Kobie and portkeys wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but she DID let the Three Thousand drive since she was more worried about Kitt than what was going on on the roads.

As he pulled through the gates onto the large property, Hattie looked up and out the windshield briefly, then leaned over to run her fingers through Kitt's hair. "We're home, Kitt. We'll figure something out here."

She jumped out at the front door and let Kobie take him to the garage, going inside and asking for the butler and the gardener. If she could, she was going to avoid lifting Kitt into the house by herself. Not because she couldn't, but because she was fairly certain that she'd draw more talk NOT asking help than if she did.

Once he was settled on the bed, she thanked the staff and shut the bedroom doors. Then, she stood there and stared at the prone body of her husband.

Comments

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

"Oh, I remember. I just don't think it's a good idea for me to train with you." So much for his righteousness making him forget.

"No, I don't. But if I don't, you don't want me there. Either way, I lose."

He shook his head, the look on his face saying much more than any words he could form.

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

Hattie lay there with her eyes on him for over a minute. She wasn't entirely sure what to say or where things should go from here. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, then opened the before rolling off the bed and standing again, fixing her clothes.

"Kitt, you're right. I don't want you there. I don't want to be there. I just wanted to know if it existed. That was all." The smile she gave him was sad. "You don't want to train with me, then don't. You want to mess with your programming?" She gave a shrug. "Who am I to tell you no?" She spread her hands wide. "I can't change your mind, I can't say I'm sorry, I can't-" She shook her head, giving a laugh that was absolutely humorless. "I can't DO anything."

Reaching into her ear, she pulled out the earwig that kept her tied to Kobie and placed it on the nightstand. "There. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to hear from you." On her way to the door, she said, "I'm... "

What? What could she do? Go for a drive? Nope, she didn't have a car. Turning back to Kitt, she held up her hands. "I guess I'm going to go for a walk."

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

"I thought we were going to find out together." What, she couldn't have waited a few more days? It wasn't like it was going anywhere! He shrugged and turned away, realizing the futility of arguing over it. It was done. He gritted his teeth. "You're my" - don't drop the F bomb, don't drop the F bomb - "driver, that's who." Because like it or not, right at the moment, she WAS still his driver. For now. Until he remedied that little difficulty because she'd made it clear it was no longer something she wished to do.

He had no certain idea of what the earwig was, having never seen it before, but he could make a very good educated guess, and fervently hoped that Kobie hadn't been listening in. It would be awkward to explain what had happened, at the very least, and impossible at best.

He nodded, not trying to stop her. He was still undecided as to his own course of action.

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

"You. Left." She made sure that she enunciated the words with perfect clarity. "You LEFT, Kitt. You didn't call. I didn't know where you were. And by the time I found you? You were a MESS. I didn't know if you were coming back!"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "You're right. I'm your driver because no one else is. Because you're stuck with me. I'm sorry about that, too, okay? I'll help you find someone better or whatever. Someone you can go be all heroic and save-the-world with. Deal? Then you don't have to worry about me anymore."

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

"And so naturally the thing to do is go look for the Stargate. Because it wouldn't have waited for a while longer." He waved a hand dismissively. Whatever, he didn't feel like bothering. He WAS beginning to wish he hadn't been found, though.

"Oh, that's right, I forgot. You know what's best for me. You know exactly what I want. Perhaps you're right this time. It's ironic - you're so concerned about me not changing my programming for your sake, and then you go and make fun of it. Well, Hattie, fine. It's a deal."

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

"I needed to distract myself from worrying about YOU." She let out a frustrated groan. "I give up. I can't do this. You think I'm making fun of you, I think I'm giving you exactly what you want. How did we not have this problem before now?"

Shaking her head, "I don't get it. I don't get YOU, all of a sudden. I quit." So saying, she turned and walked out the bedroom door. Muttering to herself, "Make fun of what?!"

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

"You weren't worried. You practically pushed me out the door!" He could answer that last part fairly well, he thought, but he wasn't going to, not even to himself.

She didn't get him. That was a laugh. He was trying to mold himself into what he thought she wanted him to be and SHE didn't get HIM?

He heard that. Tried to bite back the words, but couldn't. "'Someone I can go be all heroic and save the world with'. Because we all know I was programmed for life behind a desk, don't we?" He couldn't say it, but he could think it. Fuck this. "Don't bother leaving. I'm going." He'd had enough.

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

Poking her head back in, she pointed at him, "I didn't think you were going to stay gone. People don't fight like that. Who fights like that? No one I know fights like that, Kitt. You just LEFT. And that's not making fun of you, that's stating the truth. You want to go be what you were meant to be. You're not meant to be behind a desk, Kitt. I know that. YOU know that. And maybe I'm not the right driver for you. I don't WANT to go out and explore the galaxy. I THOUGHT I had everything I wanted right here."

She gave him a look up and down. "I had no idea it was going to turn on me like this. I was HAPPY, Kitt. I just- I just wanted to KNOW. I would have been happy training with you. Working with you HERE. But it's not enough for you. You NEED someone who can do for you and be heroic. It wasn't a dig, it was meant to be truth."

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

He stared at her evenly. "I'm not a person." Perhaps he'd stayed human for too long. He was forgetting who - and WHAT - he really was, and so was Hattie. He'd left because... because he'd never argued like that before with someone he loved. It scared him, being able to get so angry at someone, that the feelings of passion could be just as intense when the coin was flipped. When he spoke again, his voice was flat. "I suppose the sarcasm was just for effect."

He found his eyes wandering to the ceiling again, then closing. "I thought that you weren't happy on Earth. YOU are not meant to be just a housewife. Earth is too limited." He crossed over to sit on the bed, folding his hands in his lap.

"Fine. All right? Fine. You're right, I'm wrong, I'm sorry." He rolled over so he was no longer sitting, but lying on his side with his back to her. Because he wasn't sure that anything was really resolved, but he was tired of going around and around with her.

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

He was doing it again, just shutting down. She had no reaction to that. She couldn't respond, she had no way to-

"Kitt. Just like you said I can't make those decisions for you? You can't make them for me." She sighed. "I am meant to be here with you. If I wasn't, I would have left a long time ago."

She watched him for a moment and then said, "I don't know what you want from me now. RIGHT now. At this moment. I can't read your mind. Maybe..." Her throat caught. "Maybe you're not meant to be a person."

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

Shutting down was better than flying off the handle, right?

He heard the words, but already had counter-arguments. She said that now, but what about when she was older, and realized she'd wasted the best years of her life puttering around a too-large house? Where was the intellectual stimulation? She'd resent him, resent the fact that he'd held her back. Maybe not today, but he was sure it was coming at some point down the road. He wasn't Cam, or Teal'c, and he couldn't be the person that she needed to be able to rely on. So instead he'd wallow in self-pity and convince himself that she could do better. That she SHOULD have done better.

His laugh was bitter, muffled against the pillows. "Maybe I'm not." What did he want from her? He wished he could read his own mind to tell her that, too, because he had no idea. "But it's a little too late for that now, isn't it?" He had responsibilities. More than that, he had emotions that were far more intense than anything he'd experienced as an AI. He couldn't go back to that, not permanently.

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

She watched and listened and finally realized what it was he wasn't saying: he was done.

"I guess it is." She couldn't stop the words from coming. "I'm sorry, Kitt. I am. I'm sorry you were ever put in that position." She paused, and then clarified. "With me."

Rather than go for a walk, she took the bag that had Gideon's things in it from their bed and walked across the hall to his room. She stood in the center of it and tried very, very hard not to break down.

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

"You are the best thing that's ever happened to me." He was sorry that he'd put HER in an impossible position. Who did he think he was kidding, anyway? None of this was fair to her. If he'd been upfront with her from the beginning, she wouldn't be here now, stuck like this. She could have made the decision to walk away, and then she would still be in her world, with her friends and family, instead of here with only him and Gideon and Kobie. He'd deceived her into loving him, and now they were both paying the price.

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

She heard him from the other room and it made her angry. "You don't get to say that," she called back. "Just stop. Not after everything else, no way."

Hattie stomped back across the hall. "You came into my life and you were PERFECT. I had dreamed about you forever, and I didn't even know it! And then what? You're a car? How unfair was THAT? But so what? I would have stayed with you forever, even if you'd never been human, Kitt. You KNOW this. You can't use that against me. Don't you DARE!" Okay, yeah. Now she was crying. "I loved you before I ever laid EYES on you and now you want to do THIS? I walked away from all that BEFORE the Stargate ceased to exist. How DARE you hold that against me? I wanted to be with you because I LOVED you. Nothing else. No ulterior motive. Because of YOU."

Shaking her head, she couldn't see, no matter how much she wiped her eyes. "You just don't GET it, do you? You never will, no matter how many times I go and beat my head against a wall. You want to be a car, go ahead. Want to be a man? Go ahead! Want to go kill people? I don't CARE. Do what you want. Just... don't you DARE say that I'm the best thing that ever happened to you. Not after all THIS."

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

Apparently, she'd heard him. And whether or not he believed his own words, she didn't. And now he had no idea what to say, and perhaps for the moment he really WAS finished.

"Okay. I'm sorry." He didn't move, didn't look at her, just spoke into the pillows and wondered if the day was over yet.

[hattie_notqueen.insanejournal.com]

It wasn't that she didn't believe him. It was that she didn't want to hear it. And his utter apathy finally pushed her over the edge.

She shoved the shirts that were on the bed into the bag there, opened the dresser for a pair of jeans and added that to the bag, too, which she slung over her shoulder. She didn't say a word as she walked out of the room.

It was entirely possible that she was finished, too.

[ki2k.insanejournal.com]

He waited until she was out of the room before pulling himself up into a fetal position and sobbing.