Gabi couldn't believe the amount of work that was involved in just making an apartment liveable. She'd bought a bed and bedding - the bare essentials of living in that little studio - and now had turned her attention to stocking her bare cupboards. With a handful of bags digging into one palm, she made her way slowly around the marketplace, lost in thought as she scanned fresh fruit and vegetables with absent-minded attention.

Leaving Cian was not the most easiest thing in the world to do but after his constantly telling her to go home ....get some rest ....she decided to do that. Sort of. Being told of Gabi's absence, which was noticed way before mind you, sent Tera into a fit of worry. Where had the girl gone" First the hair ....then the bike ....then ....this" What was going through her head" So instead of going home she did what she did best ....nagged the crap out of people. Working her way through hotspots of the city she asked around for Gabi. Nobody was safe from the blonde! Not even the merchants of the marketplace. Okay, well, that was more because Tera was hungry.

Keeping busy was key, Gabi had discovered. So long as she gave herself plenty to do, she didn't linger on the guilt that was plaguing her for up and leaving, for not going to see Cian as soon as he had woken up. She was beginning to feel ashamed of her slightly childish insistence on not being available to anyone, but that shame just pricked her pride into putting up higher barriers. She'd lost Frank, and now she was giving up Cian, just so that he would be well again. That wasn't a bad thing to do, was it' She caught the sound of a familiar voice in the milling crowd, glancing over her shoulder automatically to locate the owner. The sight of Tera haranguing a vendor close by, however, made her stiffen, her stomach flip uncomfortably with sudden nervous tension. She didn't want to be seen; she didn't want to have the argument that was no doubt coming. In an attempt to get away without being seen, Gabi ducked around behind the stall she was standing at, ignoring the need for actual food in favor of escape.

Poor Gabi couldn't sneak away from wandering blues. Instead of stalking right after the woman, Tera went up to the stall and cleared her throat. "'Scuse me. Anyone workin' this stall" Got a few questions about a dove that has gone missin'. Plus I'm starved." Never mind the fact that she had been, seconds ago, chewing on a peach. The question in her mind was why Gabi was running or if the woman had seen her at all. Nah ....Must have seen her. That was why she was hiding" Tera wasn't that scary ....Okay, don't ask Vicki that.

The vendor looked at Tera blankly, not at all aware that the woman Tera was after had slipped out of sight behind his stall and was hopping from foot to foot uncertainly in the shadow of the canopy. "If you're lookin' for a dove, missus, I ain't the person to ask," he informed Tera politely. "I just sells fruit."

She smirked at the man and continued on. "The dove ....she stands about this high ..." Holding her hand up to measure a height. "Pretty thing, really. Short dirty blonde hair. Granger lass." And when her eyes turned to the fruit she browsed but kept an eye out for a zipping girl.

"Oh, her." The vendor nodded, relieved to be of help. "Aye, she was just here. Left pretty sharpish, though ....didn't see where she went."

One of his customers, an elderly woman who seemed to be the type who enjoyed gossip far too much, nudged Tera with a gap-toothed grin. "I saw her," she said gleefully. "Hidin' behind there, she is." One gnarled hand rose to point at the back of the stall. And a very audible groan went up from the shadow that lingered behind it.

Tera had to swallow down a laugh when the old biddy assisted. A dash of a wink was sent to the vender and elderly woman. "M'thanks, ya two." Attention turned and she called out. "Might as well come out of hiding dove. Ya've been found!"

As the old woman cackled happily, Gabi sighed, rolling her eyes, and stepped out into view. She levelled her dulled brown eyes onto Tera with guilt radiating from every nuance of her expression and posture. "Hello, Tera."

Tera smiled warmly and moved over to the girl, locking an arm with her so she couldn't flee. "Gracious, darling, where have ya been hiding" Ya making everyone worried sick. Cian is awake and wanting to see ya." The arm that wasn't locked in reached to hug the other woman. "Ya know if ya need someone to talk to, ya can talk to me. I don't bite." Hard.

Caught, Gabi's sense of independence fled. The tension in her body didn't relent, but she seemed to sag, her eyes lowering to the ground as Tera hugged her. "I ....it was time for a change," she said very softly. "I got an apartment."

"Change is all fine and dandy, dove, but ya scaring and hurting the people who care bout ya." Her eyes turned on Gabi then. "Or do they not matter anymore to ya?" Yes, she was challenging Gabi or trying to get the girl to see that her radical changes had been scaring those that care about her. "Ya family is worried boutcha. Disappearing off the face of the earth isn't change ..."

"I didn't disappear off the face of the earth, I left a note," Gabi protested, her voice tight as Tera's words cut deeply into her. "Everyone knows where they can find me, if they want to. And I don't see why I have to do everything that everyone expects or wants - I've been doing that for years and do you see a happy person here?" Her voice gulped suddenly - she'd said far more than she had expected to, as evidenced by the way her hand clamped over her mouth tightly.

"Ya shitting me right' 'Course I don't. Look what ya recently went through. A brother hospitalized, another ....gone. This ..." She gestured at Gabi, "Isn't about independance. Don't even try that, sugar." The gesture swirved in an outward gesture. "Don't clam up, dove. Talk! Otherwise ya gunna hear m'end."

That hand slowly lowered, Gabi's eyes flickering to and fro, never settling anywhere for long. "I don't want to talk about it," she said, surprisingly firm for the ordinarily shy woman. "Alright' Cian's got you, Dad's got Miranda, no one needs me, Tera. So I'm getting out of the way."

She was rocked to the core by the sudden dismissal. All Tera had managed to do was confirm how little Gabi was needed or wanted with her response. "I didn't ....Fine." The anger in her voice had dissolved again into upset. "Fine. Thank you for making it so clear. I won't bother you anymore." Then it was her turn to spin away, pressing her fingers to her eyes as she opened her stride, trying to force the tears to go away again.

Tera glanced over her shoulder to watch Gabi. "So clear" So clear"! Ha! Ya already got ya mind set, sweets. And the only thing that will show ya is by finding things out yaself." She turned on her heels to face the stalking away woman. "I told ya everything ya needed to hear and yet ya still fail to understand that ya family needs ya. That ya need them. Instead ya want to storm away and turn out to be what? Like me" Tell ya one thing, dove. It is a damn lonely path ya setting yaself for. People want ya ....people need ya. Stop shutting yaself away from them and go to them, damn it!"

The groceries went tumbling to the floor as Gabi rounded on Tera, suddenly uncaring whether she lost control of herself or not. her hands clenched by her sides, her voice abruptly harsh and loud, and aching with pain.

"You don't know anything about my family," she snapped back at Tera. "You've been going out with Cian for what, three months" And suddenly you're an expert on all things Granger, is that it' Tell me this, Tera, did you know I was adopted" My own mother didn't want me, she sold me to Felicity and Gordon for more money than she'd ever seen in her life before. They didn't want me, they wanted a girl to match their boys! My dad, that father you're so concerned about' He's spent most of the last twelve years looking through the bottom of a bottle, and I was the one who looked after him. Me! Frank went to hell, Cian ran away, and I picked up the pieces! Do you have any idea how unwanted I feel right now" When my brother is dead, suddenly my aunt makes an appearance and pushes me out of looking after my father. My other brother, the one person I trust above everyone else, he didn't wake up for me ..."

The anger dissolved into tears as she shook her head, salt water dripping from her chin as she railed at Tera. "No, he woke up for you, someone I barely know, someone he only met a few months ago. And no one noticed when I went off the deep end. So damn yourself, Tera. You have no idea what you're talking about." Her anger spent, Gabi's hands thumped to her sides, and just stood, still and sobbing, in the middle of the busy marketplace.

There was a flare of anger that sent the air around Tera into disarray. So much that it disturbed the dirt at her feet in rapid, whistling sessions. It died quickly as she watched the woman break into tears. So she was the problem. That could be ....fixed. She was silent but briefly so. "No. I don't know your family. I don't know family, period, actually. I never had family. I was always alone. It was always just me. I had nobody to fall back on. Ya, however, have that. Ya have ya pa and Cian who love and adore ya. He may o' ran but he always thought of ya. He talked about ya to me oft enough that I wanted to meet ya. So yeah ....I know." Her head turned and she glanced down the street. "Go to Cian, Gabi. Ya will see what I mean. He will need ya ....more than ever." Because now? Now she had no intentions on returning. Not that she planned on letting Gabi or anyone know this.

If Gabi had known that her outburst, unfair and relatively unprovoked as it had been, would be the deciding factor in Tera's own decision to leave, it would have broken her heart right then and there. The last thing she wanted in the world was to cause more pain. She scrubbed at her face unhappily, wiping the fresh tears away even as they were replaced with more. "I'm sorry." It was a whimper, a soft heartfelt apology for off-loading on the other woman, for blaming her so unfairly for everything that was going on in Gabi's head. She bent to grab up her things, shaking her head. "I ....I'm so sorry."

But there really was nothing more that needed to be said. Tera had wielded a dirty weapon in this battle, and Gabi had gone down under the weight of the guilt, unaware that her snapping, desperate attempt to fight back had done more damage than she could ever have imagined. It was time to go, to get away, to make sure that Cian's girl, the woman he loved more than anyone in the world, didn't get another chance to reopen the wounds in Gabi's heart with more pointed words. Not today, anyway.