Finally, I am alone with my crimes, unrepentant.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

((Crystal Henderson continued from It's Kind of A Lot))

So that's how this was going to be, was it?

Crystal sat on the pew. Alone. Her eyes were trained on the door the others had passed through, still quivering gently from the force of its closing and the breeze. Her lips were drawn up into a grim smile, but only once she was sure nobody was left to watch.

She'd done what she could. She'd tried to ignore how ill-fitting she was, how she'd slipped into this group almost as an afterthought. She'd tried to convince herself she could be more than a superfluous wheel, but all the time she'd more or less known. And now it was all on the table. Now they weren't pretending anymore.

Very well, then. Better like that, really. Crystal was someone who had always done better with clearly delineated goals and expectations. A nebulous state of affairs made her nervous. Indecision was always stalking her. So, better for someone else to make the decisions. Somehow, they always did.

These three had decided that this was strictly a business arrangement. They had decided that there would be no love lost between them. They provided numbers, and the safety that brought. Crystal provided a gun, and the options that offered. Both parties were responsible for their own emotional needs. So be it. Better like that. Really.

So maybe Crystal could've been a bit more conciliatory, or a bit more welcoming, or have tried a little harder, or have not insinuated that Dani was a skank. But maybe they could've not been so involved with themselves as to make Crystal an afterthought. Maybe it should've been a little more mutual. In some other world, where the balance of power was more even, maybe there would've been a lot to unpack here, but in this world Crystal had the gun and nobody else had squat, so it didn't matter if they didn't like her. It really didn't. Crystal didn't like them either.

She felt left out of their friendship. Dani and Kaede knew each other, and had done their little dress-up games together. They trusted each other. Nobody Crystal trusted was here. Jack was, well, Crystal had thought alright of him. Tried to warn him, sort of, she told herself now. She'd seen Dani doing her thing, and she was pretty sure Dani wouldn't have had the smallest sliver of interest in Jack if they were actually on the ski trip, but now he was a resource so she would use her other resources to secure that. But whatever. He'd chosen his side. Whatever. Nobody ever flirted with Crystal. Whatever. Let them do whatever they wanted. He was on that side, now, and that was his decision, and his consequences.

Crystal had the gun. It was right there in her hands. She expected her momentary relaxation when she'd ran her fingers over Jack's palm to be the least on her guard she was for the next few days. She'd been foolish to think things could be different.

They were all weapons, and only she could see that. They were pointed at each other, primed, fingers on triggers. One wrong twitch, and they'd be set off, and it was inevitable that that happened. And now, there might be more of those weapons aimed at Crystal, sure, but maybe not right away. Maybe still only she was expecting the inevitable implosion. Certainly she had the firepower to point back and make anyone think twice. She was just a few pages ahead of the script.

All the same, she thought that on her next shift, she'd try spending time with one of the ones out hunting instead. Maybe things could feel a little nicer there.

That she accepted—liked?—the current state of affairs with these people didn't mean she had to stew in it.

((Crystal Henderson continued in Fall Out Through the Fallout))