Chapter Text
“Are you gonna explain those to me?” As Amélie closed the door to their apartment she rolled her eyes at the irrepressible energy that seemed to constantly flow from her girlfriend.
“Now!?” She asked, a little irritated. “It is nearly two in the morning, you just had me sit in a chair to be poked with a needle for several hours, I am tired and annoyed and you want to talk about why I chose these tattoos NOW !”
“Yup.”
She couldn’t help the smile that formed on her lips, though she tried very hard to hide it from the other girl. She pressed a hand to her forehead, still trying to beat back a grin that had no intention of going away.
“Why am I not surprised.”
“Because you know me.”
“True,” she thought begrudgingly.
So, we gonna talk or what?” Lena wasn’t about to be dragged off topic.
“I will tell you what,” said Amélie. “Grab a blanket, a pillow and a case of beer and bring them out onto the balcony and we’ll talk.”
“Yes!” Pumping her fist in the air at her success, Lena ran off to get the requested items, glad to finally here a story she had been curious about for days.
The small balcony attached to Amélie’s apartment wasn’t exactly wide open. It was only big enough for two chairs and a small table, but it was quiet and secluded, plus it offered an excellent view.
Lena dashed into the small enclosed space, arms piled high with a thick comforter, several soft pillows and a case of their favorite beer. She dumped it all unceremoniously onto the floor, before she began to sort through the mass, looking for the alcohol. Triumphant, she placed the case onto the table, and grabbed the comforter in preparation for sitting down.
Turning to look at Amélie, who was already seated, she grinned evilly. Without giving her girlfriend so much as a chance to protest she had jumped onto her lap and was busy getting comfortable. Amélie sighed, knowing it was essentially useless to try and get her off.
“Besides,” she thought to herself. “It could be worse.” She helped the other girl adjust before pulling the comforter up over the two of them, as they watched London spin on in the wee hours of the morning.
“Soooooooooooooo. What’s the story?”
Amélie sighed. For a moment there she had thought Lena had forgotten.
“You’re not going to drop this are you.”
“Nope.”
“It was a rhetorical question.” she said dryly.
A pair of brown eyes stared up at her expectantly.
“Alright, alright. I will tell you the story.”
A wide smile spread across Lena’s face, a sign of the triumph she felt building inside of her.
Amélie paused for a moment, staring out into the London night. Lena prodded her with an elbow.
“Well?” she said expectantly.
“Hand me a drink first.”
She accepted the bottle and quickly drained most of its contents, hoping that it would make telling this story easier.
Lena looked at her in confusion as she removed the now half empty bottle from her lips.
“Pardon. It’s just that.” She stopped for a moment, trying to get a grip on emotions that very much wanted to break free.
“It involves Gérard.”
Silence greeted her words.
“I was just joking you know. If you need more time we can talk later.”
Amélie finished off the bottle and reached for another.
“Non. We got these,” she gestured to their new tattoos. “To help us move past this. It’s about time I finally put my demons to rest.
She took another long draught of beer, before moving on to the story.
“This one,” She gestured to the inside of her right arm. “Says araignée du soir. In English it means Evening Spider. In France we have a proverb, which says araignée du matin, chagrin, araignée du soir, espoir . Roughly translated it means Morning Spider, Grief, Evening Spider, Hope.”
“Oh! What does that mean actually mean?”
“We believe that if you see a spider in the morning it means that your day will be filled with misfortune and if you see a spider in the evening it means that good things will happen to you the next day.”
Lena stared at the words, still rather confused.
“So why did you get a tat of it?”
Amélie stared down at the on her arm, watching as Lena traced the shapes with her fingers.
“On the morning my parents introduced me to Gérard I saw a spider.”
Lena’s hand stopped, still resting on her arm. The normally hyperactive girl became shockingly still, as the information registered.
“Oh my god.”
“Oui.”
“You mean to tell me…”
“Yes I do. It has stuck with me all this time.” She laughed, but it was hollow and fake.
“You know, I never believed in that silly superstition. Not until that day. It was very clear that my parents wanted us to eventually get married. When I met him I was, not happy per say, but I wasn’t against the idea. He didn’t seem like a bad man.”
Lena continued to stare at the words on her girlfriends arm. “Bit of a shit first impression then huh.”
“You could say that.”
Amélie continued on briskly. Now that this story was coming out she wanted it to end, before it broke her.
“I was with him for years. I still can’t believe that I didn’t realize what kind of a man he truly was when we first met. I should have turned and ran. Instead, we moved in together. Things got worse and worse as time went on. I blamed myself, thought that I was a disappointment to my parents for failing them like this. I believed Gérard’s slander, that I would never be wanted by another man.”
She shuddered, trapped in memories of a dark and lonely time, spent away from all company but his, making her question herself and hate herself and blame herself and cut herself.
A warm hand slipped into hers.
“You can stop now, if you need to.”
Amélie shook her head, pushing back tears that were already forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Non. I can continue. There is only a little more. Ironically, this story is rather like that saying I told you. It comes in two parts.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember how I said that an evening spider meant hope?”
“Yeah…”
“I didn’t see one for three years. Then, as I was tossing and turning and trying to find sleep with a monster beside me, I saw one. A small creature hanging onto my wall, barely bigger than a speck. I am fairly certain I thought I was hallucinating at first. When I was sure I wasn’t I took it as a sign that my torment could finally end.”
She stroked a deep incision on her wrist, now covered up by black ink.
“The next day I slit my wrists and waited for the end.”
“NO!” Lena’s face was filled with fear, as though she thought that the woman next to her would dissapear, and she would lose the one thing that kept her sane.
Amélie pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her.
“It’s okay chérie, it all worked out in the end. Gérard came home early and found me. He had me brought to the hospital and they saved my life. When I awoke and realized I was still alive I felt like going insane. I cried well into the night. Eventually I was too exhausted to keep going and as I fell asleep I glimpsed another spider on the ceiling of my room, and I prayed that it might be right where the other had been wrong.”
Amélie smiled.
“The very next day they brought a second person into my room. I heard them talking about multiple deep incisions on her chest and a history of repeated cutting. When I looked over I saw a small girl with brown hair asleep in another hospital bed.”
Lena looked up at her in shock. “ME?!”
Amélie kissed her forehead. “Yes mon amour. You. As it turns out, the spiders did not lie. They led me to you.
They watched the city spin on for a while after that, Lena still processing the meaning behind the seemingly innocuous words, Amélie simply enjoying the here and now.
They stayed like that, in comfortable silence, until Lena realized that Amélie hadn’t finished explaining herself.
“What about this one?” She pointed to the other woman’s left arm, were a single word stood out boldly on her pale skin.
“What was it again? Cowshmar?”
“Cauchemar. It means nightmare.”
Lena stared at the word in confusion.
“Why in the world would you want to get nightmare inked into your skin?”
“Because,” replied Amélie, stroking a finger down the barely visible scars on her newly tattooed arm. “My nightmare is over. I do not want to forget about these,” she gestured to her scars.
“But I do not want them to rule my life. They are just a bad dream, a nightmare, and now I have finally woken up.”
She pulled Lena close.
“ You woke me up.”
Lena couldn’t help herself anymore. She turned around and threw her arms around Amélie’s neck, hugging her with all her might.
“What did I ever do to deserve someone like you?” she asked.
“I am the one who should be asking that.” replied Amélie.
The world turned on, and they held each other close.
“Thank you.” said Lena in a quiet voice.
“For what chérie?”
She relinquished her hold on Amélie, twisting in her lap so they were sitting face to face.
“For telling me. I know it wasn’t easy.”
Amélie was surprised to find that now that her story was out in the open she felt… better. Like the events of the past really had just been a bad dream.
“The whole experience was very cathartic. I feel… more complete now. More here.”
Amélie gently reached over and pulled Lena’s shirt away from her chest, revealing the new addition to her skin.
“If I remember correctly,” said Amélie, running a hand around the outline of Lena’s tattoo. “You agreed to explain this when I explained mine. You have yet to do so.”
Lena grinned widely.
“It’s been driving you mad hasn’t it.”
Amélie chuckled.
“I will admit to being curious about it these last couple of days.”
“Alright, I’ll spill, but it’s not as deep as your reasons for gettin’ those words.”
Lena took a deep, preparatory breath, and launched into her story.
“Do you remember when we watched the Avengers?”
Amélie blinked. This wasn’t where she had expected this story to go.
“Yes…”
“Well you said it yourself when you first sketched it out. It looks like Iron Man’s arc reactor for a reason. When we watched that movie together, one line struck me when it never had before.”
“Which line.”
“It’s in that scene where Tony is talking to Banner. He says “This little circle of light. It’s part of me now, not just armor. It’s a… terrible privilege.” For some reason that just stuck with me, I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about it for days after. I didn’t even know why. Then it hit me.”
She looked down at her chest, and the barely visible design illuminated only by the soft glow of the moon.
“I’m like Iron Man, and this is my little circle of light. My scars, there a part of me, always will be, and I don’t want to forget that. But this tat, it’s my arc reactor, my armor. It keeps me in the here and now, keeps me anchored.”
Lena reached down and touched the center of the pattern that had been ingrained into her flesh.
“I’m not trying to erase the past, but instead of hiding it and hating it I’m gonna make it my own and move past it.”
Lena kept her eyes fixed on her tattoo, irrationally afraid that Amélie would think her a foolish child for her reasons.
“You lied,” said Amélie quietly.
Lena seemed to shrink as the words exited the other womans mouth.
“Your story was just as beautiful as mine.”
Lena finally looked up, and her eyes met a pair of amber orbs that were glistening with a thin film of tears. At the same instant they leaned over and kissed each other, too overcome with love for the other to stop themselves.
When they pulled away, Lena was smiling.
“Why are you smiling?” asked Amélie quietly.
“Look at us,” she said. “We found each other when the world was filled with nothin’ but darkness and helped bring each other into the light. We just put the last reminder of that time behind us. It feels like there’s finally hope for a brighter future.”
Amélie stared at her in mild shock. “That is one of the most touching things I have ever heard. Where did that come from?”
Lena ducked her head, but she was still very clearly grinning.
“I dunno, guess I’ve got hidden talents.”
“You are right though,” said Amélie, taking her hand. “We can finally move on, into a brighter future. And if there is anyone I want to share it with, it is you.”
She bent down and gently kissed the woman she loved again, and the two held each other close until a new day dawned.
On a brighter world.