This is a sad place, this little quiet hillside outside the city. There's five tombstones. This is private land. You need something all terrain to get out here. Viv wonders which one of Hugh's parents picked it to be their final resting place. Probably not Pierce. It doesn't seem at all in keeping with the sort of monster Viv knows he was to his kids and his employees. She probably doesn't even want to hear about how he treated the women in his life. Hugh fell very far from that tree thank god.

The landscaping out here has gone to hell. So Viv's got things out of her truck to remedy that.

The address, there is actually a street address and the dirtroad that leads you out here has a proper name, was in some papers Hugh left behind that she's since dropped at his office. She wanted to know what was out here, so secret. Now she knows, Hugh's mother. Her headstone is well kept up and there's evidence Hugh comes now and again to leave flowers. Of coarse this is something he wouldn't talk about. Viv knows what she does about Hugh's childhood from Rex. It's sort of sad really, she loves Hugh, her brother-lover-bestfriend-child man, he embodies different aspects of all those relationships Viv's done trying to sort it out or make it jive with the current social norms.

This is a sad place, but tranquil. Viv can't help but think about Hugh's parents and how different Hugh would be if not for his father castigating his interest in music and undermining his masculinity. Hugh isn't who he should be, and Viv isn't either. So many people lost on their way to themselves. She wants to hope she and Diane really are helping young Cobalt back on the path to who he is the best of his potentials and not the worst, she does love the kid. Her thoughts have her rather caught up until her phone rings. Her phone gets good signal here.

The ringing of Vivienne's phone doubtless shatters the tranquility of the setting. Phones ringing so often have that nasty quality, reminding you that life is uncertain and that really you don't know who's going to be on the other end, never mind what they might say. At least there's caller ID to take a little bit of the guess work out of it. Not all of it, of course, but it does give you some idea. Caller ID in this case says that it's Diane.

Caller ID is not lying, not is it mistaken. It's Diane. Vivienne's wayward fiancee, last seen earlier this morning when she was dropped off at school. Actually Di was driving, but then Vivienne took the car, so it was more or less like dropping her off.

It's been noted, correctly enough, that thinking is something Diane does too much of. She starts thinking about things and then she comes over all sad and worried and self torturing. It's not at all healthy. It's good for her, really, to go to school. They prescribe things for her to think about. Think about Jane Austen now Di, think about word processing. It helps her not think about her own twisted emotions and her own twisted life. Keeps her cheerful and all that.

So she has spent a lovely day not thinking about anything very interesting at all. The closet she had the time to get to angst was in Health and Services, where they got to talk about substance abuse, and where Diane has a misty eyed moment thinking about her ex. Then the professor asked her to list the different classes of drugs, and she moved right along.

Now it's late in the afternoon, school's long over, Vivienne's phone is ringing.

It says it's Diane, it probably is Diane, it's the cell not the landline, it probably is in fact Di. So Viv answers "Hey babe." Remain calm, sure it's Diane but it could be anything from what time will you be home petal to pixies ate our toaster and are threatening to mass suicide in the toilet now. There's just no way to know without answering.

No, that's Abigail you're thinking of. With Diane it's probably just her and Cobalt threatening a very small mass suicide.

"Hey petal," Diane sounds perfectly cheerful, she's in a crowded place by the sounds of it. There's noise behind her like maybe there are other people, and a weird echo. This sound is in fact create by the central food court in the mall, where there's a sort of fountain in a pool and then the room is open up to the ceiling, with the escalators going up and down.

"Where're you at?"

"The middle of nowhere. Every here of Harmony-Campion Road?" Viv says.

"Nope," Diane admits.

Her Bayfield geography is pretty much limited to place she goes on a regular basis. If she doesn't go there a lot she probably doesn't know the names of the streets. And she very rarely gets out of the city proper except when she's going home, their house in the 'burbs kind of. But mostly she's in the sketchy part of town where the centre and Alec's martial arts studio are, or down by Elm Street, because her tattoo shop and the supermarket are over there.

"So where is it then?"

"Bout fifteen minutes from the interstate out past some cow fields." Viv tells her.

"Okay, well, I'm at the mall."

Buying baby crap and currently sitting in the food court eating General Tso's chicken, both of which are signs of a fairly quiet and rational mind for Diane.

"But if you're not home then it's okay, I was just calling to make sure you weren't worried or anything." She ought to have been home from school by now.

"Di hon you're always on my mind. Thanks for calling me." Viv says. It's probably time to head back. She gets into the truck as she's talking. Di can probably hear her shut the door. She doesn't point out it's not Diane she's worried about lately, Diane doesn't need the reminder.

Diane indeed does not need the reminder. She's considered the issue, and decided that the damage has pretty much been done and the best thing to do is put it out of her mind. There's really no point in letting him make her any more miserable now he's gone, and she hopes he'll have the sense to do the same. She's been actively avoiding any form of communication with him. Thank goodness the divorce was entirely civilised. She can probably manage to avoid him until April.

"You want to come pick me up? I bussed here."

Which is sad, really, Viv's sad for them both. It's not like they don't love eachother. "I'll come. Be forty five minutes or so. Want a call when I'm close?" Hugh's staying away, not really out of courtesy so much as a sense of knowing when he isn't needed or wanted.

Diane is staying away because she figures he probably hates her, and because she knows if she actually sees him she'll end up crying and apologising uselessly and carrying on and making a fool of herself and since she's sure he hates her that will be even worse. So she's keeping away and hoping things heal up a bit before April comes around.

"Sure, that sounds good petal."

"Okay, I'll call in a bit. These roads are all dirt. I'm going to get off since I'll probably be in and out of phone reception anyway babe."

"'Kay, I'll see you."

Forty-seven minutes later, Diane's waiting for her outside the main entrance to the mall. She's got a couple of shopping bags, things for baby. Baby is going to be spoiled rotten. Probably more so now that his mother is feeling bad about driving his daddy out of the house.

Di's wearing a simple black dress, long and loose enough to accommodate her growing stomach. Her streaky hair is sticky upy, held out of her face by a wide headband, and she's wearing too much eyeliner. She seems to be slipsliding back into her goth phase in Hugh's absence. She's sitting on the stone wall enclosing a spare planet occupied by two dying shrubs and a small tree.

Viv's still not sure one hundred percent she did the right thing breaking them up. Hugh's drunk when she catches him to chat, or at work and allegedly busy, which she doesn't doubt as often as he's drunk and not there, and Di's gone back to black.

Her radio is uncharacteristically silent as she pulls up to get Diane.

Diane waves, cheerful despite her black outfit (complete with black sandals, even, and black nail polish, and a black choker and gosh isn't she quite the little angsty fifteen year old) and comes over to get into the truck. She leans across and gives Vivienne a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey beauty, how are you?"

"Fine hon. You?" Viv asks returning the kiss.

"I'm good," Diane assures her. Diane's reaction to the whole divorce thing seems to have been to become extremely cheerful. Either she secretly hated her husband or she's overcompensating. That or someone in Communications class told her that it was good to be happy. Who knows. "I got a cute little cardigan and some other stuff."

Viv's really wondering. She's starting to buy that perhaps Diane secretly did hate him. It's hard to know. It's even harder to be brave enough to really try to find out.

Secretly hated him buy lights him fifty odd candles every time she goes to church? Well, who knows, she's a queer bird.

Well she could feel bad for hating him. Viv knows Diane and yet does not know Diane. Hugh was even worse off he knew just as little, and understood even less. It was mutual saddly.

Diane shows Vivienne the little cardigan, which is grey and fuzzy, and a little tee-shirt with turtles on it, and all of the rest of the crap she bought for the baby.

Viv nods and smiles. God it's Hugh's baby and Viv always wanted Hugh's baby, and she loves Diane, but part of her is sad as hell about this. "We going home hon?" She asks Diane.

Vivienne at least is getting Hugh's baby. It's Hugh that's not. A point he conceded quietly, although Diane would have given ground perhaps if he'd fussed.

Diane considers.

"Well, I don't have anything else I need to do. And Coco says he's at home."

"Home it is then. I should help him with math." Viv says.

"He did mention that would be nice," Diane agrees. Her poor little Coco. She adores that kid, and like everyone he makes her kind of sad. She's happy he's relatively safe with her now though, the knowledge of that soothes her. "Did you know he's got a little sister?" Cobalt might have told Vivienne, he tells her all kinds of things.

"He mentioned it once. Where is she? And he hates the uniforms Diane, why are we doing this to him?" Viv asks.

"Still living with his mom and his stepdad, apparently," Diane explains, teeth catching on her bottom lip. Cobalt's stepdad is, well, yeah. Diane is still contemplating driving to Montreal and stabbing the fucker to death with a pen. "Because the school in our district is honestly not all that great by any accounts," Diane says. She actually researched this, look at her. "I mean it's fine I guess but St Mike's is better."

Cobalt probably gets into less fights when he's not dressed like rainbow puke anyway.

Viv sighs. "Is that all it's about? The schools suck?"

Diane nods. "Yeah, what else would it be about?"

"I seriously don't know which is why I asked." Viv's pulling into the driveway. "He doesn't have to go."

"Well I know he doesn't have to and I'm not really one to talk," Diane admits, taking her shopping and her backpack and getting out of the car, "but it's an advantage for him isn't it?" An education she means.

"Going to Catholic school with autocratic dictorial nuns who probably have less teaching credentials than I do? I dunno."

"It's a diploma," Diane totally just missed that remark, writing it off as a slur on the nuns and nothing more. Hugh was very big on people having diplomas, they had one of their more bitter fights about it and the point may have stuck.

"Okay. Fine, if that's how you want it." Viv turns the truck off.

"Petal," Diane sighs, she's not trying to argue. "I just want him to do okay, you know that."

"Then can we stop sending him to the evil hag nuns and let him stay home with me Diane?"

Vivienne really doesn't like St Mike's.

"Can we do that?" Diane wants to know. She hasn't walked over the house yet, it's no good coming home arguing or even talking about the kid, it'll just distress him.

"I don't see why the hell not I've got my accreditations in order. I just wasn't quite prepared for the scope of Gail's disabilities when I sent her to St. Constances."

"Oh." There's a slight pause, Diane is taken aback. "I'm sorry petal," she says. She is, she feels bad she didn't know Vivienne had qualifications. "I didn't know about that."