Work Text:
Lydia begins making collages. She rips and tears at all the beauty magazines stashed under her bed. The sound is a release, it helps slow down her racing pulse when the panic starts to unsettle her again.
She takes Lizzie's abandoned box of watercolors in hall closet into her room and covers the words and patchwork pictures in the red watercolor.
It looks like a soft blush. She hates it.
She takes the brush and swirls each color together onto the lid. Now it's a putrid greenish brown baby food color and she slathers it on top of the red. As the color blends with the red and dries it reminds her of the time she sliced her finger open cutting lemons for Jane's special iced green tea. It reminds her of blood washed down the sink. It's perfect.
She wipes the lid of the watercolors dry, closes the case and crawls into bed falling asleep faster than she has in weeks.
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Mrs. Bennet insists on throwing Bing and Jane's engagement party at their modest house. No one refuses her, knowing they would never hear the end of it. After dinner is finished and toasts have been made they all mingle in the den. Mrs. Bennet takes the opportunity to indulge in sharing happy if not slightly embarrassing childhood stories of her daughters.
She's in the middle of an animated story about how Lizzie once played the role of a tree in elementary school, when she flails her arms out wide and knocks Gigi's wine glass out of her hand and onto her dress.
Lydia offers to get her something to change into.
When Gigi enters the room she's struck by the arrangement collages taped to the wall.
"Wow... these are beautiful."
Lydia shrugs and slides open her closet door. "They're nothing really."
"No," she insists, "they're not nothing. They're really good."
Lydia does't reply. She just stands silent for a moment facing the closet with her back to Gigi. She inhales deeply and the grabs an emerald green long sleeved shift dress from her closet. A gift from Jane. "This," she turns and grins at Gigi, "will look great on you!"
Gigi smiles in return and doesn't mention the art again.
She knows first hand the process of healing is a deeply personal thing, but she's delighted when Lydia asks her a week later if she really liked the collages or if she was just being nice.
