The slow simmering anger of a mother scorned

[oncekind]

Who: Jiaying and YOU
Where: Here and there: see prompts
When: March
What: A little counseling, a little teaching, a little slice of life. There's potential for characters to secretly 'talk' to each other about things related to their past if they wanna avoid cameras.
Warnings: None that I can think of.
[Open]

School
Jiaying has taken to teaching in the local school though the subject itself is curious for a town this size. Who would have use for Mandarin? But between all the prep work that goes into teaching and her other duty as school counselor, she's kept busy. Five days a week for about half a day, she can be found in the teacher's room or the small office she can call her counseling room, usually marking papers or coming up with teaching material. Being the only Mandarin speaker in town has its downsides.


Counseling + secret notes
After school hours, she takes on regular counseling sessions by appointment. She appears to be a holder of a psychology degree but she has no memory of taking any such courses. She tries to keep her sessions casual anyway, focusing on making her clients feel comfortable. While she has an office nestled in half of the second floor of a building in Main Street with a small plaque that barely qualifies as a sign, she also pays house visits and allows visitors in her shared home with Emily Grey.

She puts on a good act of playing along with the rest of the residents of the city. She doesn't talk about her past. She doesn't question things. Not openly. Some time near the end of February (after the intense snow), she begins to slip small written notes to clients she knows to have awoken in the hospital and are just as confused as she is. Short and succinct, they are handed out to the people she has gauged to be trustworthy, a moment passed off as a friendly grasp of the hand for the cameras.

The past isn't dead.
Burn this after reading.

Hospital and wild card
She still visits the hospital whenever she can. She doesn't bother the nurses anymore but she can't help but wander past the children's ward to check in on the babies, hoping against hope that she can catch a glimpse of her baby daughter. She usually leaves quickly before she overstays her welcome but the look of loss, sorrow, and angry determination is one that gets harder and harder to hide.

She can also be found shopping or dining around Main Street. She doesn't cook so eating out is common. The groceries she does buy are related to baked goods. She is especially fond of the book store.

Comments

school; first week of march

[paragon]

[ They're all somewhat unwitting specialists these days. Granted, Steve's job at the school is a little more broad, and he'd been able to find some reference materials at the bookstore and in his own classroom (he knows he's supposed to think he put them there himself; he also knows he did no such thing. He's not yet sure what to make of the past assignments he's also found stored away from students both past and present). Still, he makes his own lesson plans, the ones already in place largely done away with. He's not sure he can trust anything more than a month old, and so he'd started from scratch.

He has no degree, either; he'd never finished art school, and with the war he'd been looking down a much different path, even before Rebirth. He knows there's no wholesale knowledge in his head that wasn't already there, but he can't say the same about some of the specifics that come to mind. He tries to confirm them with real memory or books, but sometimes he simply teaches and the knowledge is there; he has to be able to trust himself enough to say them out loud sometimes, as with all things he knows to be true.

For the past couple weeks he's been staying late at the desk in his classroom to do his lesson planning; Bucky's usually still at work by the time school lets out, so with Natasha keeping her distance, he'd be going home to an empty house. He's getting little done today, though, mind wandering and feeling the emptiness of the classroom just as keenly, so he decides a change of venue is in order and heads to the teachers lounge. He spots Jiaying as soon as he opens the door; he's seen her around the school since they met at the hospital, and they'd both made some small talk, though it's always been in view of other teachers and students and therefore nothing more than surface level. ]

You, too, huh?

[ He puts his papers down on the table and nods toward the coffee maker even as he walks over to it to start a fresh pot, the whole contraption ancient and likely on its last legs even by this decade's standards. ]

Can I make you a cup?

counseling

[unforgivably]

[ Damon has had a week.

This is as true of his first week as it is of his fifth, but he has. With the arrival of the amnesiac Katherine Pierce, dynamics shifted.

Damon isn't always one to talk, not like that about his feelings. When prodded, he finally opens up in a burst of emotion admitting something both parties in the conversation know to be true.

Between the before, the past and the mess made by the Phoenix stone, the heretics and now Rayna, and whatever is going on in this town, the cameras, and Katherine's return, he has a lot on his mind. Caroline's appearance ruffles his feathers less because they're at least amicable at this point and she doesn't remember her killing them all when he made it out of the stone. But, Stefan and he are still not mended. Their fence remains shoddy and held together. Right now Katherine acts as glue of sorts. On some days he feels a kinship with his brother and on others, that guilt has only risen.

He remembers Jiaying from his first day, luckily those memories just slot right into place along with ones from Mystic Falls, but passing her practice one day after lunch triggers a series of separate memories outside of the hospital. Counseling. She was his therapist. Peering up at the building, an idea forms in his head, one his brother might not approve of, and definitely a page out of Damon's old playbook. But, this Damon won't be cruel about it and thanks to the signs, he won't torture either. He heads in, remembering protocol he's never abided by in his life. Usually one to barge, he knocks on her door, before taking a seat in one of the chairs, waiting patiently, like he used to.

Except, he never has. And he knows this.