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Upon meeting Katie under such terrible circumstances, Demelza had meant every last word of support she'd offered, knowing it was the least she can do. Tintern Abbey won't let her return to work until mid-January at the very earliest, a request to which she had very reluctantly agreed, and so now she has nearly two months to fill with nothing but her children.

She loves them terribly, she absolutely does, but Demelza is a woman used to working. She had perhaps gone from being a miner's daughter to a gentleman's wife, but she'd married a wonderful and peculiar gentleman in that he had engaged in just as much work -- and often, considering Jud and Prudie, a good deal more -- as did his servants. Demelza had fallen into that life easily, first as his hardworking scullery maid and than as his equally hardworking wife.

Life in Darrow is easy by comparison. She certainly doesn't dislike it, she finds this place to be quite lovely in every aspect, but she does miss the work of the homestead.

And so she must fill her times in other ways. For this afternoon, that is meeting Katie and her young son at the park with Julia and Jeremy in tow. Jeremy is far too young to play, just barely over two months old himself now, but Demelza hopes Julia is enough to help entertain Katie's son. She speaks a fair bit, though some of it is still nonsense, and she's quite active, running and jumping, but Demelza knows there are many abilities she's not yet mastered that Katie's son will have long since learned.

But if he's as kind as his mother, Demelza is certain all shall get along well.

She's pushing her stroller along carefully, both her children dressed warm against the chill, the stockings under her own long dress now ones made of warm wool, and she smiles when she enters the park and catches sight of Katie.

"Hello," she calls, pushing the children in her direction.

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"Hi," Katie calls back, waving, her smile warm at the sight of Demelza approaching. The circumstances under which they met may have been awful, but it's nice to have a potential friend and to get out and do something. It's too easy to spend her spare time moping, and if she gives in to that, she's not sure she'll ever quite pull herself out. She wouldn't know how to start.

With Jamie, probably, she thinks. He's always been her anchor, but now she needs that more than ever.

Still, the possibility of having a new friend comes as a relief, as does an afternoon spent pleasantly while the children play. "Jamie, this is Demelza. Do you wanna say hi?"

"Hi," he says, and looks at the children with her. "Who's that?"

"Hello, Jamie, it's very nice to meet you," Demelza says, reaching down to lift Julia from the stroller where she's already straining to get free.

"This is my daughter Julia and my little son Jeremy," she says, settling Julia on the ground where she immediately walks forward, still a little unsteady, and then stops at Katie's feet and looks up at her.

"Hi," she chirps, then looks at Jamie. "Hi."

"Jeremy is far too little play with you yet, but I thought perhaps you and Julia might like to meet," she tells Jamie, then smiles at Katie.

"Hi, Julia," Katie says warmly. "It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," Jamie echoes dutifully, if less articulately. He's clearly curious about the other children, still feeling out the situation. Even though he's been doing well enough with other kids, she's found the last several weeks have him back to feeling somewhat shy around others, sticking close to his mother's skirt. If meeting up with Demelza's little girl helps to pull him out of his shell, even for a bit, it'll be a blessing.

"They're adorable. How old are they?"

Julia is rather clumsily walking around Katie and Jamie in a wide circle, looking at them happily, waiting for them to play with her, but she'll wait. She's an adventurous and active child, but she displays a sort of patience Demelza herself has never possessed. Certainly she hasn't gotten it from Ross either.

"Julia is just over a year and a half now," Demelza says. "And Jeremy is only two months old."

She smiles kindly at Jamie, sensing that he is perhaps a bit shy or nervous. "How old are you, Jamie?"

"Three and three quarters," Jamie informs her, the fraction clearly of utmost importance. He looks at Julia as she walks past, twisting to watch her. She's a baby even to him, proud of his big boy status, but that doesn't mean she can't play. "I'll be four soon."

"In February," agrees Katie, ruffling his hair. How the time has gone so quickly, she doesn't know. He was as small as Jeremy just yesterday, as far as she can recall.

"What are you doing?" Jamie asks Julia, ignoring his mother's addition.

Julia looks at Demelza swiftly, then shrugs, her hands thrown up in the air like she’s seen other children doing in the park. It’s not a gesture Demelza or Ross make often and it makes Demelza laugh every time, like right now, though she stifles it as best she can and looks back at Julia, allowing her to come to her answer in her own time. She’s read that children will not learn how to speak in proper time if their parents are always speaking for them.

“These,” she says finally, pointing down at her footprints in the soft, damp ground around them. “Play?”

She’s not looking at Demelza, though, she’s looking at Jamie, which Demelza takes as a very good sign.

“Katie, Jeremy and I shall stay right here,” she offers. “If you and Jamie would like to play.”

"Okay," says Jamie, considering Julia's footprints carefully before he begins to make big, heavy steps of his own, admiring the prints he leaves behind. He holds a hand out for her the way his mother has taught him to do when he has somewhere to go, staying close and safe and connected. "You wanna slide?"

It's enough to make Katie's heart fill with warm relief. She's worried so much about him this past while, but if he can make a new friend, he can be okay.

"There's a bench right over here," she says to Demelza. "Why don't we sit?"

Julia has never gone on the slide before and Demelza watches her carefully, but Jamie is helpful, guiding her up the small flight of stairs and helping her slide down the small slope. The first time she had seen any playground equipment -- she'd read about it and now knows as much as anyone else might -- Demelza had wondered what had happened in this world to create such things.

"Do 'ee suppose it ever gets less troubling?" she asks as they sit on the bench. "Watching them go about things on their own? Julia's that independent already and I suppose she do come by it naturally, but it makes my heart feel tight every single time she wants to do something on her own."

"I hope it does," Katie says, laughing a little at herself. She's had, as Jamie points out, three and three-quarter years to get used to this, but she still feels that pull in her chest if he wanders too far on his own or tries something that could prove dangerous or if he starts to cry. She's tried not to hover too much, but she can't help worrying. "It's easier with Jamie than it used to be, but he's still... he's my baby. He always will be. I can't help worrying."

The world is a big and terrifying place, even in Darrow.

Demelza is quiet for a moment, watching their children play, and then she says, "Julia and I were that ill when we arrived. Twas... dip... diphtheria, I believe it were called here. Our surgeons called it the putrid throat and there was so little to be done and when we got here I was so worried she might not make it, but the doctors here are wonderful. They saved us both."

She draws in a deep breath, then lets it out, not wanting to admit Julia's illness that been her fault.

"Ever since then, I find I worry about her all the time," she says. "I came so close to losing her."

Katie nods. She's seen that a lot in the hospital, how much harder every subsequent illness can be on a parent. Even the ones who are chronically ill, their parents never get used to it. They learn how to handle it, but the worrying never eases. "I'm a pediatrician," she says. "I work with kids who are seriously ill all the time. And still every time Jamie has so much as a cold, I'm terrified. I don't know what I'd do if he'd ever had something like diphtheria."

She smiles, watching the pair of them at play. "She seems healthy now. Strong."

"I think perhaps it were harder for the fact that I was so ill as well," Demelza says. "I could help so little. But the doctors are truly wonderful and it's so heartening to hear it's what you do as well. I expect you're wonderful with the children and parents both." Katie has been so warm and so kind, Demelza can't imagine she's anything but a very good doctor. Demelza's standards are high, believing Dwight Enys to be the most talented surgeon in all of Cornwall.

He would love Darrow, she believes. He would have so much to learn.

"She's yet to be truly ill since," she says with a smile. "For which I'm that grateful. I know it's yet to come, all children fall ill, but I think we would all be happy enough to wait some time before it comes again. Is it difficult? Seeing all those sick children?"

"Very," Katie admits. She worked hard to get where she is and she wouldn't trade her job for any other, but it's a difficult one. The actual medicine is only part of that. There are some days she comes home heartsick, wanting nothing more than to hold her son. "It's... it's very rewarding, too. There are so many kids I'm able to help and that makes it worth it." Their parents are always so grateful and so is she, knowing how afraid they must have been, amazed still that she's able to help.

"But sometimes there's nothing we can do. I can never get used to that."

"Yes," Demelza says thoughtfully. "It must be so good when you can help and so terrible when you cannot. My dear friend Dwight, he's a wonderful surgeon, he did so much for so many people and his patients were often too poor to be able to pay him much, but he was a true believer that not only the rich deserved proper care."

She pauses and smiles, "I think he'd quite like it here. I think he'd quite like you. Dwight loved to learn and was always interested in speaking with other surgeons who did know more than he."

"He sounds lovely," Katie says warmly, resting her hand briefly on Demelza's. "It's incredible how much there is to learn. I bet he'd love it. It was 1982 where I'm from, and just thirty years made such a difference in what there was to learn." She doesn't know the exact year, but she gets the impression Demelza is from a somewhat earlier time even than herself, so this Dwight would be faced with a wealth of new information to absorb. It wasn't easy, but she loved it, and she's sure he'd feel the same.

Demelza laughs, feeling so strangely delighted, as she always is when she realizes just how much older she truly is than everyone she meets. It's a strange thing to experience, but it doesn't bother her any longer. Darrow is a queer enough place and she's come to accept it for what it is.

"Twas 1789 when I left home," she says, then grins. "Nearly two hundred years before you. Am I still quite fresh for my age?"

In truth, though she is young and the time difference does not make her any older, she knows she feels older than many people her age. She's lived so much more than some others have.

Katie laughs. She never can gauge how much further back in time people are than here, though it's often easy to tell who's from after her. Sometimes she feels like she's still catching up, though some of the technology has become second nature. Even after all these years, it's still a work in progress. She imagines that must be all the more so for Demelza, with so much more to adjust to.

"Well, you've aged beautifully," she teases. "You hardly look a day over 180. Are you figuring everything out alright?"

"Well, there are things that are yet still strange," Demelza admits with a shy smile. "I dislike the television and so we rarely have it turned on, but I do like my portable telephone, mostly because it plays music."

Abby had demonstrated how she might hook it up to a speaker in their home and so Demelza can play music when she's cooking, which she loves so very much. Such things hadn't been possible at home.

"And it's been quite useful in emergencies," she adds. "I was putting flowers on the bare graves in the cemetery when Jeremy decided he was coming and I was so far from the city, but I was able to call Ross."

"Oh, thank god for that," Katie says. "We didn't have them even in my day, but they're lifesavers. Sometimes literally." They've had plenty of calls that would have been difficult to make without someone having a cell phone that ended in patients making it to the hospital in time. It's a fantastic invention. She smiles to think of Demelza doing something so sweet on her own. It's nice to know someone like her is out there caring for those who have passed.

"I'm still partial to a record player for music," she admits. "Which I guess is new to you, too, but it's considered pretty old-fashioned around here. But it's what I grew up with."

"Oh, yes, they're lovely," Demelza agrees. "Abby, she's the woman we've hired to come in some days and help me with the children, she's shown me how to play music on my telephone, but she also showed me other methods and I quite like the record player."

She understands her telephone and CDs are supposed to be easier and more convenient, but she likes the sound the record player produces.

"I miss playing music," she admits. "Ross had a spinet at home and tis similar to a piano, but whatever may be similar to it, we can't afford anything like that here. I play sometimes at work if we're not terribly busy."

"Oh, where do you work?" Katie asks. "I never learned how to play anything."

She can't regret that now. Between Jamie and life in general, there's no way she could afford an instrument these days, and she can't be sorry about that when she doesn't know how to play anything. But Jamie might still learn something when he's older. If he wants to then, she'll figure it out somehow. For now, he's young enough that his instrument of choice is still banging his toys around.

"Tintern Abbey," Demelza answers. At one point she'd thought to be embarrassed of her work, knowing it's not becoming of a lady, but she more time she spends in Darrow, the more she comes to understand that the definition of a lady is not the one set forth by men like George Warleggan. They may think themselves high above others, fingering their coins all day long, but Demelza has long since learned better.

Besides, Ross isn't embarrassed of her, so she sees little reason to care.

"Mostly as a server, though I do also tend bar when it's busy," she says. "It's not often I'll get to play while I'm working, though now and then they'll ask me to and it's quite nice."

"It sounds like you like it there," Katie says, smiling. It's good to hear. One way or another, most people have to work, and a lot of them don't have the luxury of enjoying their work. Serving at a restaurant means long hours on her feet, but Demelza seems not to mind too much, which is nice. Katie hates to think of her hating her job, even if that's the reality for so many people. It shouldn't have to be.

"Oh, I do," Demelza says sincerely. "I know tis not important work necessarily, but they're terribly kind and the patrons do like me and they tip very well."

She pauses, having told very few people of her plan, but she likes Katie and as the woman has been through so much and has still become a doctor, Demelza thinks she will encourage any further education.

"I think I'd like to study for my GED," she admits. "I know very little of it, but I d'understand tis required for more meaningful work."

Edited 2017-01-12 17:32 (UTC)

"Oh, that's so exciting," Katie says, smile bright at the idea. There's nothing wrong with the work Demelza does now, but if she wants to do something more, getting her GED is a great step towards that. "I think you'll be surprised how much you do know, and I'd be happy to help you study. Sometimes it's easier with a partner." She always used to study in groups back home when she first started med school. It had led to some wonderful friendships. Besides, when it's material Demelza isn't familiar with, she could probably use a helping hand.

"Really?" Demelza asks and she knows she shouldn't truly be surprised, not when Katie has been nothing but kind, but she has so much on her plate, so many things she must do between being a mother on her own and a doctor. It's just so kind of her to even offer, so selfless, and Demelza smiles.

"Perhaps," she says. "I feel as though... well, there are some things you must do on your own, are there not? I feel this way about learning more."

"Of course," Katie says, nodding. It's probably for the best anyway, her offer impulsively made. Still, it stands. If Demelza changes her mind, she'll be there. "I totally understand. It's really... empowering, pursuing your education like that. It made a world of difference for me when I started going for my medical degree." She'd been so much under David's thumb before she went back to school. Taking classes was the first thing in a long time that made her feel like her own person.

Demelza nods and is quiet again for a moment, watching their children play. Julia is smaller than Jamie, but she's fast and filled with energy, keeping up with him well.

"Ross do say I sometimes insist on doin' things all on my own without help even when I don't need to," she admits. "But I think it's only that... well, once my mother died, there weren't no one else to help me. I have six younger brothers and it were just me and them and our father and Lord knows he was more often in his cups than not."

Tom Carne was a useless man. She doesn't miss him at all.

Katie nods, looking from their children to Demelza with a smile. She's stubborn herself, God knows, intent on making her own way in the world. There were times that was to her detriment, she'll admit. Her insistence on being able to do things herself may have killed her in the end, for all she knows. But most of the time, it comes out in the wash and the satisfaction is worth the struggle.

"My father died when I was a teenager," she says, "so it was just my mom and the four of us. I wanted to strike out on my own as soon as I could so she wouldn't have to take care of me." She lets out a small laugh. "And because I wanted to be independent and I thought I was old enough." She doesn't think it was leaving home that was the mistake in the end. It was David. "I get wanting to do things for yourself. I think it's the best way to learn. And not just in school."

"When did 'ee leave home?" she asks curiously.

"I ran off when I was sixteen because my father... well, he saw my mother in me. Blamed me for her being dead and he weren't a nice man when he'd get in his cups. He was angry with my mother for leaving, for dying. Angry with me for daring to look so much like her. I had to leave my brothers behind, but by then the oldest boys were getting bigger and stronger, Luke was fourteen and already taller than our father, so I knew he'd not hit 'em the way he did me."

She shrugs and smiles a little. "So I left. Just me and Garrick, my dog." And how much her life has changed since then.

At sixteen, Katie still felt so much like a child. Losing her father didn't make her feel as though she'd grown up faster; it just made her feel small and alone. She can't imagine having set out on her own that young. But she can understand why Demelza did, her stomach tightening in empathy.

"You did what you had to," she says, nodding. "That was brave." It must have taken such strength, she thinks, to walk away and fend for herself. Sometimes that doesn't even seem like an option. "There's never any excuse for it, not really. My first husband was like that. Not just when he drank. He got into these awful moods, like he was someone else. But it was him."

She supposes she shouldn't, that perhaps it's an awful thing to feel a connection based on, but when Katie admits her first husband was the same, Demelza feels a surge of companionship, of comfort. It's awful that anyone has suffered at the hands of someone who claims to love them, but there's comfort in knowing they're not alone.

Others have suffered, too. Others have lost bits of themselves as well.

"I'm that sorry," she says and she means it in the way only someone else who's seen the same sort of anger possibly can. "My father tried to come and take me home. He brought men from our village and they attacked Ross. Said all sorts of awful things about him havin' taken in a child, that they knew what he really wanted me for, but he never once did nothin' untoward. He never touched me, not until I was older and I... I went to him first. I loved him so much. But that day when my father and the miners came, he fought to keep me at his home where I'd be safe and not because of anything I was givin' him, just because it was right. People like him make all the difference when sometimes you might think... maybe you did somethin' to make 'em that way."

"You never did," Katie says, reaching over to touch Demelza's hand. "It's just how they are." It's easier to believe now than it was when she was still married to David. Even knowing she didn't deserve it, she couldn't help sometimes wondering if maybe she did, if there was something wrong with her instead. He tried to make her believe it, told her it was only because of things she did or because he loved her so much and she was hurting him. He'd get so upset sometimes after the fact that sometimes she thought it must be true.

Sometimes that's the worst part of it. Not that he hurt her, but that he undid her own sense, turned her against herself like that. Not that she couldn't trust him, but that she couldn't trust herself.

"But there are still good men in the world. Your Ross. My Russell. Ross sounds like a wonderful person. It's no wonder you love him so much."

But her Russell is gone and that's so unfair Demelza can hardly stand it. She can't begin to imagine how Katie faces it every day when she has never even known the man and she finds her chest aching and her throat tight when she thinks of that loss.

Should it happen to her, she'll go on out of necessity. She'll push on for her children and she realizes in an instant that is what keeps Katie moving forward as well. Her Jamie.

"I think 'ee'd quite like Ross," she says. "He can be terribly rude to some, but tis only that he's not the sort of suffer fools. Surgeons, though... I mean doctors, especially doctors who are smart and who are always open to more learning, he quite likes them. Finds them very respectable. He'd not be rude to you."

And now that she's promised it, she must make sure it's true.

Katie laughs, nodding at that. She'd rather that kind of rudeness than the sort she knew from David, where he simply didn't care about other people and didn't know how to pretend to be like them or to give a damn. "I can handle it," she promises. "I like people who are blunt."

She wants to believe the best of people, and she still, in many ways, does. But she's lived too long not to have woken up to a few things in the end, and that includes the fact that not everyone is what they seem to be. She'd rather someone be who they are, even at the cost of propriety and politeness.

"And besides, he must be pretty great to have won your heart."

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