OKAY i'm home and settled its nica time

so the thing abt chelmsworth is that he's not a finisher. he's at the altar and he runs away to boston, he makes tenure and suddenly teaching at the college is terrifying and impossible, the referendum passes and he flees; he Cannot see things through to the end

bc hes afraid of failure! better to not try than to fail, right? and nica is The Same Way. she is stuck with indecision several times that she so greatly regrets, even Before she has her sidekick realization she can't make herself go w dimitri no matter how much she wants to

and they both end up on the red line but to SUCH different effects!!! chelmsworth talks on the train and starts a Movement, and yes i think it only ends up passing bc of charlotte's interference and badassery but like, he gets it on the ballot! thats work!

and then NICA on the train, she does her monologue and people boo her and tell her to leave and ignore her. she literally says "if i collapses right now, what would you do? would you help me?" and the background noise is people grumbling and telling her to shut up

she is reaching out into the universe, talking about her brothers and her life and she ASKS FOR HELP, LITERALLY ASKS FOR HELP AND SOMEONE JUST IS UPSET BC THEY COULDN'T GET PAST HER AND TO THE DOOR AND I'M

anyway. not the point of this thread. the POINT IS that i don't have Coherent Thoughts abt this but chelmsworth gave college lectures on trains and they tried to make him mayor and nica said "we are a city, we are supposed to help each other, would you help me?" and they said no

also, only vaguely related, but thinking deeply abt leon scheduling in chelmsworth's lectures and planning questions to ask him and leon going to every single one of nica's open mics no matter how silly he might think they are and i just-
leon cared so goddamn much