Chapter Text
It’s evening when Owen wakes. The light in the room, along with Jackson and Mags’s chatter threatens to overwhelm his senses, as it all comes flooding to his eyes and ears instantly.
“Hey, he’s awake!” Oliver practically shouts from where he’s sat on the kitchen counter next to Mark. “It’s about time, sleeping beauty!” He really does shout this time.
“Hey, cut the guy some slack,” Jackson smiles a little.
“How’re you feeling?” Mags chimes in.
“Oh um, fine,” he responds, rubbing his eyes. “Where’s-“
“She and Sam went to pick up Chinese food. Hungry?”
“Very,” he answers. He sits up and stretches his arms out, interrupted by a sound from the kitchen as Mark hops down from the counter.
“Hey, um,” Mark begins as he enters the room. “Green and I are going for a walk.”
“We… we are?”
“Yeah,” he responds absentmindedly, reaching for his jacket from the coat rack then hurling Owen’s towards him.
Owen turns to Mags, who offers him a shrug in response. He stands, moving towards the door where Mark appears to be waiting for him.
*
“Hey, so…” Sam clears her throat, causing Joan to adjust her focus to the other woman in the car. “What… What happened?”
Joan pauses, letting the question sink in. “What do you mean? When?”
“I mean… back at the AM… when you went to find Helen, you- you never really told me what happened.”
She goes quiet for a minute, the recent images she had attempted to shove into her subconscious threatening to push their way back into the forefront of her mind.
“I- I mean,” Sam’s voice quickly fills the silence as she begins to ramble. “If you don’t want to, like if you’re not ready to share, or- or even if you just don’t want to tell me for other reasons, I get it, I was just really curious because-”
“Sam,” Joan interrupts, trying to quiet the quickly-spiralling Sam.
“-because I was worried and- I was so worried about both of you- and I just- if she hurt one of you-”
“Sam.”
“Right, I- I’m sorry,” she responds, sounding nearly out of breath as the familiar worried expression becomes more and more visible in her features.
“It’s fine, don’t apologize. Just… take a deep breath.”
Sam does so, growing noticeably calmer as Joan pulls into the driveway. The two sit in the car, silence settling over them for a good few minutes before Sam speaks again. “So… What happened?”
Joan slumps back in the driver’s seat. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes as she exhales. “She… She had a scalpel on me. It- It nicked me a little, that’s why I was bleeding. Then you showed up and after you left… She knew Owen was there. She made me be quiet, she
used my voice
. She made it sound like I was screaming, like I was calling for help. And I couldn’t-” She takes another deep breath, trying to steady herself before continuing. She doesn’t look at Sam’s face, she doesn’t want to see the pity and concern that she knows is written all over her face. But she still opens her eyes, only because she can hardly even stand the dark that closing them brings.
“I couldn’t do anything. He came running and she… He fell . He just dropped to the ground and started writhing . I remember, she said she could permanently destroy people’s minds… she could kill people. If Ellie hadn’t showed up, I… I know she would have…” She trails off, barely noticing the tears beginning to form.
She can feel Sam’s hand reaching out to clasp hers gently. It doesn’t do much, but it allows Joan to relax her now-heavy breathing.
“That’s… Joan, that’s… I’m sorry.”
She blinks and the built up tears start to fall. “I’m… I’m so tired, Sam.”
Sam leans over, crossing the border between the two seats with her arms outstretched and Joan meets her halfway. Joan lets her head fall to her friend’s shoulder as Sam’s arms wrap around her tightly. She lets her own arms wrap around Sam’s waist.
And now they’re sitting in the car, leaning forward uncomfortably, and clinging to each other as Joan cries. Neither of them speaks, and so the only sound throughout the parked car is that of the heavy sobs now ripping from her throat.
She feels Sam’s hand moving up and down, rubbing her back gently. And when the cries die down, she wants to pull away, but she can’t bring herself to let go of the other woman. She needs to feel anchored to something, someone .
When she finally allows herself to back away, she holds on still, her hands gripping Sam’s forearms. “Sam…” she begins hesitantly, suddenly aware of the tears streaming down Sam’s face as well.
“Huh?” She responds, forcing a slight smile and staring back at her.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
“I- I love you too, Joan.”
“I mean it, Sam… You walked into my office and you changed my life. You helped me bring Mark back. You helped us both recover. You let me into your life and…” she chuckled a little, “God, you helped me live my life again. You’re my best friend, Sam. I love you. I don’t say that enough.”
“I love you too, Joan. I don’t say it enough either. I told you a while ago, but I owe you so much. You, and Chloe, and Mark, and Rose, and the boys. All of you have… well, like you said, helped me live my life. But you introduced me to all of them. You helped me control my ability, you trusted me, and now… Now we’re reforming the AM together.”
“Well, not all too successfully judging by the way yesterday went.”
“Yesterday was one incident, Joan. I mean look, we’re already clearing out Tier 5. We’ve got new clients who are making real improvements. We’ve got new employees who actually give a shit about atypicals. We are making things better.”
Joan sighs, relaxing her grip on Sam’s arms and leaning back into her seat. “We still have to make arrangements for Andrea. Contact her family.”
When she looks over, she really doesn’t recognize the look that Sam is giving her. It sends a weird spike of anxiety through her body. “What?”
“Joan. I need you to listen to me,” her voice is taking a more serious time. Serious, but still soft. “You can’t let your brain keep jumping from one problem to the next. I get it, this is important and we really do need to do that at some point. But you need to take a minute to focus on recollecting yourself.”
There’s quiet for a minute as Joan absorbs her words, and then a slight smile finds its way across her face. She stifles the urge to giggle as she steals a phrase from Helen. “Sam. Are you trying to therapize me?”
*
The air isn’t as cold as Owen would’ve thought, but it’s still chilly. It’s nice, though. The breeze is calming. Then again, everything about the outside world feels more calming after yesterday. However, it’s a little bit more difficult to enjoy with the looming question of why exactly the two of them are out for a walk.
They’ve made it a good distance in silence, Owen not daring to speak first, when Mark begins. “I don’t like you.”
“I know,” the anxious feeling is settling into his gut as he tries to work out the course this conversation is going to take.
“...and I’m justified in that.”
“I know.”
“And you can change all you want, and… I really hope you do, but I’m never going to stop not liking you.”
“I know, Mark, but I want to just-”
“Nothing you say can change that.”
“I’m not going to try to. I just… I want to apologize. I know I’ve tried before but I want to actually apologize .”
The look of mild surprise on Mark’s face when he replies stings a little. “Okay.”
“I’m… I’m so sorry. I know that the things I played a part in… the things I did - were awful. I know that they had a terrible effect on so many people, you included, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I tried to justify it, too.”
Mark seems to take a moment to let the words sink in, then another to find a response. “Okay, uh… thanks, I guess. I acknowledge your apology.”
“And I am grateful for your acknowledgement.”
“Well, that’s that…”
“That’s that,” Owen agrees. “Was there um, anything else you wanted to talk about? Or just… your completely justified dislike of me.”
“Are you in love with Joan?”
The question catches him off guard, maybe even a bit more than it should.
“I mean, I know you used to date, and I know you’ve still got… at least some feelings for her, but are you in love with her?”
He takes a moment to find his words again after having having mentally frozen for a moment. He clears his throat and opens his mouth, not expecting the truth to come out as easily as it does. “I… Yes. I’m in love with her.”
“And… when you went to find her and Helen… What happened?”
“What do you mean?” He asks, struggling to find words yet again.
“I mean, I know that you were hiding and then you weren’t and then Helen hurt you, or whatever. What… happened?”
“Well, she… She used Joan’s voice. She was screaming, yelling my name, calling for help. So, I… I ran. I had to. And… I’m fairly certain that if Ellie hadn’t shown up when she did…”
“She would have killed you.”
“Yes.”
“If she had… would you have regretted it?”
That causes his train of thought to freeze a little. He really should stop lowering his guard during this conversation.
“It’s not a trick question or anything, I just wanna know.”
“I’m… not sure. Not in that particular circumstance, but… If what you’re trying to ask is whether or not I’d die for Joan… Yes. If she were in danger again… Yes.”
“Oh. Alright, then… I was just…”
When Owen looks around, he recognizes some of the scenery. He’d been letting Mark lead the way, and it’s now apparent the other man has been leading them in a circle.
“...Curious,” Mark mumbles before launching into yet another question. “So are you trying to get back together with her?”
“That one’s… complicated.”
“How so?”
“Well… Technically, I’m always trying. Because I’m always trying to be… better. The best version of myself. And the best version of myself will always be the one that can make her happy.”
“And that’s what you want, right? For her to be happy?”
“More than anything.”
Mark nods a little, casting his eyes downward towards the sidewalk. “So... that doesn’t really answer the question though. Are you… you know, trying to win her back or whatever? Like…do you plan on asking her out or anything?”
“I… I don’t know. Maybe, one day if… Well, maybe one day. Maybe if time heals the wounds, then I will. Why do you ask?”
“I… I don’t like you,” he says, returning to the earlier point with a mild look of defeat in his eyes. “And I don’t want you to get back together with her. I really, really don’t. But… Joan deserves to be with someone who, you know, cares… about making her happy. And I really don’t want that person to be you, but… If she never falls for anyone else, and you… get better. I won’t try to stop you from…” He takes a breath. “I just want her to be happy. And if you want that too, then I guess that’s our common ground. Like I said, I’m not going to start liking you, and I don’t plan on pretending to like you either, but if she decides at any point that you’re what makes her happy, then I might learn to tolerate you.”
“Understood,” he answers, taking a minute to let Mark’s words settle in before responding. He tries to think of more to say, but they’re nearly in front of Sam’s house and Joan’s car is back in the driveway. They make their way back up to the house in silence.
*
“Hello again, everyone,” Owen smiles as he steps through the door, letting his eyes fall on his friends, sat in the living room with plates of food.
“Where were you two?” Joan asks through a mouthful of takeout. God, she’s adorable.
“On a walk,” Mark answers calmly, turning around to put his jacket in the closet. Owen does the same before heading into the kitchen for food. He makes a plate and searches for the silverware before returning to the living room and taking a seat on the floor next to Joan.
She offers him a slight smile and he returns it, attempting to ignore the sudden surge of butterflies in his stomach. Because now, part of him isn’t sure of how to interact with her.
Before it was just a fantasy, a hope, a small shred of belief that maybe, maybe, they would work through things one day. But now… After the night they’d had, the morning they’d had, and the conversation he’s just had, he’s hyper-aware of every interaction he has with her. He can almost feel in his bones that they’re on the cusp of something, and it terrifies him.
It was the dawn of a new day after way too long in the dark. In more ways than one.
Her hair is down and messy and though she’s hiding it, worry is painted all over her face. She still hasn’t entirely recovered from the day’s events. She’s changed into a pair of sweatpants and a sweater he recognizes from Sam. There’s a glimmer of hope in her eyes and bags beneath them, and if he’s being entirely honest, he’s never wanted to kiss her more.
*
Joan has had the worst day of her life so far. She’s exhausted, she’s got a million things on her mind, she’s still recovering from the events of the day. But perhaps most upsetting and emotionally confusing is how frequently she finds herself accidentally looking at Owen. She’s not staring or anything, it’s just little glances. Glances at the freckles scattering his face, at the way he’s fidgeting with his hands, at the genuine smile seemingly permanently etched on his face. She’s looking all too intently at the little perfections, the irresistible things about him.
And now she has decided, for what is probably the twelth time today, that she really shouldn’t be allowed near him when she’s this exhausted, or this unstable, or this… anything really.
She might make that an official rule at work. Dr. Bright is under no circumstances allowed to be near Director Green when experiencing any form of strong emotion.
Joan expected herself never to go back to Owen. She really did. Because the second she found Mark in that basement, she let herself stop mattering. He was right when he told her she put her life on pause. She let herself shut down, had to keep reminding herself that her happiness didn’t matter, Mark mattered. Besides, she’d already gone looking for happiness and look where that got her.
She was expecting never to have time or importance to assign to her own feelings.
But now that she’s allotted time and importance for her feelings, she finds herself being weighed down, no, smothered by them. She tried to like Jackson that way. She really did. He was attractive, smart, kind, funny. He checked all the boxes, and he came close, but he wasn’t… He wasn’t Owen.
No one was. Not Jackson, not the guys who’d hit on her at bars, or the friends of Vanessa’s whose numbers would get sent to her every time Vanessa thought she seemed lonely. She tried with all of them, but she couldn’t replicate that feeling. That very specific feeling that she used to feel every time Owen smiled at her. Every time he’d open up and start ranting about something that was upsetting him the way she’d never see him do when other people were around. Every time he’d reach for her hand or tuck a stray piece of her behind her ear.
She tried so hard to feel that way again, and now she just wants that feeling to go away. She wants it to stop overwhelming her everytime she looks up and sees him sitting there across from her, looking so… so fucking perfect.
She knows he’s not perfect. But she knows she isn’t either. She sees both of them for what they are. They’re ghosts. They lived a life once, better than anything they could have imagined. Then it all came crashing down, leaving them with unfinished business. Things they have to fix before they can ever move on.
*
It gets late. Mags stays. Her burns are fairly limiting in terms of things she can do on her own. Jackson leaves eventually. Oliver stays. He almost sounds sheepish when he asks Sam if he can stay another night. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go as of now. Owen leaves.
Mark tells her he’s staying. He wants to be around other people for a little while more.
Joan leaves. She can practically feel the stress and pain the others are carrying around with them, and while they might be in the mood to feel broken together, she’s so sick of feeling broken .
She thinks she understands Mark a little better now.
She’s on her way out the door when Owen asks her for a ride. She wants to say no. She wants to stop having to look at his stupid smile. To stop being reminded of every moment they’d ever spent together. Laughing, smiling, cuddling, crying, yelling, waking up, falling asleep.
“Sure.”
*
The car is silent for the most part. He wants to talk to her. To indulge in whatever addiction he has to her voice and her words and everything about her. He wants to let himself be swept away by her for just a few minutes before they have to return to reality.
It still feels like they’re living in an altered state. Like they’re in some parallel world where nothing else exists, not really. It’s just the seven of them, Sam’s house, Joan’s car, and the path to Owen’s apartment. It’s as if the rest of the world around them is asleep. Even as Joan’s car winds up mixed with a crowd of others on the road, there’s something so isolated about what he’s feeling.
Then again, he’s used to feeling isolated.
And now that the silence is beginning to grow awkward, he has an excuse to indulge. “Do you remember that one time I had an allergic reaction?”
“Owen, you’re allergic to shellfish and living in Boston. You’ve had a lot of allergic reactions in the time I’ve known you.”
“No, I mean the one that happened on this street. Though, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t remember…”
“Oh my gosh, that night,” Joan exclaims, appearing to suddenly recall the story. “That was…”
“You were incredibly drunk.”
“I was… tipsy ,” she responds defensively.
“So tipsy you threw up out the window of a moving car?”
“Okay. I was wasted. But Ellie was too!”
He leans back into the headrest of the car, a smile washing over his face. That was perhaps one of the most stressful nights of his life, but at least it’s now his funniest story. “Wasted enough to think that that water bottle was fu-”
“Okay, Owen Repellent was hilarious! Although, in hindsight, we definitely shouldn’t have brought it into the car. I will admit that.”
“You could have at least warned me!”
“We did! I remember, we did!”
He wants to sound defensive, but he’s laughing too hard at this point. Yes, there was vomit all across the outside of his car. Yes, Joan and Ellie did accidentally poison him. Yes, he did have to call an ambulance from a McDonald’s parking lot on the side of the road. And yes, he did have to go to the hospital with two very drunk friends. But looking back, he honestly can’t feel upset. Those were the days. Before he and Ellie had to go and ruin everything completely.
“And all three of us fell asleep in my hospital bed.”
Besides, it wasn’t as though that were the only time their antics had gotten... a little out of hand. Though it was definitely the most deadly.
“Yes,” she giggles a little, “we did.”
“God, how did we manage that? Those beds are so small.”
“Well… the power of drunken shenanigans acts as a strong glue.”
“Didn’t you wake up before us and call a nurse into the room to take a picture?”
“Okay, it was a very cute moment. I needed photographic-“ she begins defensively.
“Well hey, I don’t blame you,” he cuts her off calmly. “Actually, do you um- do you still have that picture.”
“I… yeah, I think I have it somewhere. Why?”
“Well if it’s not- if it’s not an inconvenience or anything, do you think you could send it to me?”
“I could do that. I think it’s backed up to my computer.”
“Thanks,” he smiles. “That’d be great.”
*
They’re almost at his place now. She knows he’s going to ask.
“Just so you know,” he clears his throat, “if you’d like to come over, you’re obviously welcome.”
Huh. He didn’t ask. Not technically. Something about that hits her a certain way. He always manages to hit just to the right of her expectations these days.
The way he acts, speaks, and holds himself recently is almost a reminder that something has shifted. He’s different. He’s more careful, more restrained but at the same time, more… purposeful. He seems more sure of himself without actually being sure of himself.
He’s not sure of himself, she decides. He’s sure of his purpose. His goal. He knows what he needs to make right and he knows he’s going to devote himself to that path, even if he stumbles.
She can’t decide if she likes the change or not. If the shift has brought them to a place she feels more comfortable with, or if it’s just moved them to someplace even more unfamiliar and even more terrifying.
She wants to let him down with a simple ’no.’ But instead there’s something pushing the truth out of her. “I don’t know if I should.”
‘I don’t know if I should’ and ‘no’ have, arguably, monumentally different meanings.
And she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, because even though she’ll never admit it, that lonely, defeated, broken feeling is eased just a little bit by Owen’s presence. And that terrifies her more than anything.
He nods understandingly, but she can see that his face lingers in a slight smile. “Well, if you change your mind,” he replies as they pull up to the building.
He smiles wider when she parks.
She fights the urge to smile back when she opens the driver’s side door.
*
He’s not surprised that she did change her mind. More than anything, he’s surprised at his complete lack of surprise. He certainly wasn’t expecting her to.
Maybe it’s just the feeling. Because the sun is going down and even though it’s been years, it still feels so right for them to be at each other’s side at the day’s end.
Or maybe he’s just completely delusional.
*
Joan’s honestly missed his apartment. It still looks mostly the same and it’s surprisingly just as comforting an atmosphere as it used to be. But of course, the world has still shifted. The place seems just a little off in a way that almost bothers her. She keeps wanting to describe it as feeling haunted, haunted by the memories of the two of them. But she can’t. She can’t go crying ghosts when she’s one of the ones haunting this place. A part of her soul is here, and it’s what’s keeping those memories so vivid.
They really are just ghosts, the two of them.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” he responds automatically as he holds out his arm, offering to take her freshly discarded jacket.
She hands it over and turns to face him as he hangs both of their jackets up on the coat hooks by the door. “Why were you and Mark going for a walk earlier?”
He shrugs a little. “Just… to talk.”
She raises an eyebrow. “About?”
“Well… We obviously don’t have the best relationship, for very understandable reasons. I think we just needed to clear the air. He expressed that his disdain for me was likely never going to go away. I told him I understood, and I took the opportunity to… well, to properly apologize. For everything.”
“That’s- that’s good.” She waits a second before continuing to ask questions, but she does continue. “Did you talk about anything else?”
“We talked about you.”
That’s the answer she was digging for.
“Am I allowed to know the specifics?”
“If you really want to, but… it was a lot.”
She does want to know. But for now, she doesn’t want any more things to make her life complicated. She doesn’t need anything else to think about, there are already too many things running in circles around her mind that she can barely keep up with, and enough of them involve Owen.
He gives her time to respond before changing the subject, but once he realizes she isn’t going to say anything, he smiles and asks “Can I get you anything to eat? Or to drink? Water, tea, coffee, or… maybe something stronger?”
“Honestly? I would love something stronger.”
*
He’s sitting next to her on the couch, a glass of scotch in hand that he sips slowly because it’s been a while. She, however, doesn’t seem to have the same restraints.
“Are you okay?”
“What?” The question catches him off guard, the biggest reason for that being that they’d been sitting in silence for a good while now.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. I’m perfectly fine.” He elects not to tell her that his head still hurts. That he still feels sharp pains shooting through his body every few minutes like aftershocks of what Helen did. That when he closes his eyes for too long, he gets scared of that dark.
“She
tortured
you.”
“I’m okay. It only hurts a little.”
“It still hurts?”
Drat. He didn’t mean to let that slip.
“Yeah,” he exhales, “it still hurts.”
“You should have said something, Owen.”
“I didn’t want to worry you. It’s fine.” He glances over at her and realizes that he might as well abandon the effort. She’s already worried. And just like before, back in the medbay, when she was worried about his concussion, he’s struck with a wave of guilt. Because as much as he hates seeing her worry, it’s nice to know she cares.
Hell, it’s nice to know that anyone cares.
But the way she’s looking at him so intently, so sympathetically… it makes the dam break. His voice trembles as he begins to speak. “I… I watched Helen kill her.”
Joan doesn’t say anything, but the sympathy and concern start to blend into what he recognizes as her therapist face. Just the right mix of emotion and emotionlessness. Comfort and distance. She moves in closer to him on the couch and he has to resist the urge to reach out to her.
“And every time I close my eyes, or I let my brain be unoccupied…” he can feel the tears start to fall from his eyes. He didn’t even know he was holding them back. “It’s like I see her dying all over again. Or, somehow worse, I just see.... Her body. Just lying there, lifeless, bloody. I-I keep seeing her face.”
He feels her place a hand on his shoulder, and then he feels himself start to sob. The tears start to flow as he lets a small cry escape from his throat. “And I still… I can still feel… what she did.” He closes his eyes, overwhelmed by the emotions he’s suddenly let come to the surface.
He doesn’t open them seconds later, despite how surprised he is, when he feels the weight on the couch shift, followed by a pair of arms wrapping swiftly around him. The hug is gentle at first, but as he continues to sob she tightens her grip, as though she’s holding onto him for fear that he’ll drift away. And it’s probably a good idea, because he feels like he might.
Owen lets himself sink his head into her shoulder, feeling a bit bad that he’s probably going to get her shirt wet with his tears. But he doesn’t pull away because in response, she moves one of her hands upwards to the back of his head, carding her fingers through his hair and holding his head comfortably in place.
He’s so tired. He wants the image of his friend dying out of his head, and he wants the feeling of having this nerves and muscles working against him and erupting in pain out of his body. But there’s a part of him that feels almost like this is his cross to bear.
“I’m sorry, Owen.” He can hear her voice shaking. He can hear her holding back tears.
No. She shouldn’t be crying. Not over his problems.
No, no, no. He can’t make her cry, he’s made her cry enough.
“No, no, stop,” his voice wavers as he manages to pull away from her shoulder. “Don’t cry. Please. I don’t want to make you cry, I-”
“Owen, I’m… I’m going to cry. You’re my friend and you’re going through something. I’m being empathetic. And that’s heightened considering that we just underwent a- a shared trauma that’s serving as… as the stem of your current breakdown.” Her words are so confident but her voice is so, so weak.
He looks her in the eyes for a minute, trying to find the words to articulate what he needs to. Why she shouldn’t be allowing herself to empathise with him, why she shouldn’t even be trying to help him. Why she shouldn’t be friends with him, or talk to him, or let him in her life, or-
This was a mistake. He shouldn’t have invited her inside. He shouldn’t have even gotten in the car with her, he should have gotten an Uber and just left her the hell alone like she told him to five years ago.
“Owen, hey, I can see you spiralling. Please just- deep breaths, please-”
“I am so afraid of hurting you,” he sniffles. “I’ve put you through enough already.”
She looks at him for a moment, silently, like she doesn’t know what to respond with. At least the tears are gone for the most part. They’ve been replaced with a half-serious, half-soft look that he doesn’t quite know how to read.
“Owen,” she clears her throat, “the past aside, I do still care about you. And right now, I want to make something clear, you are not putting me through anything. You are allowing yourself to break down and to be comforted and I am comforting you. I’m helping you, and in the process I’m empathising with you. But in the end we’re both going to be alright.”
He takes a deep breath as he lets her words register. The confidence is returning to her voice and she’s looking at him so intensely he’s almost worried she’s just going to shoot lasers right through his head.
“We always land on our feet,” she cracks half a smile, “I don’t don’t think either of us is that bad at this whole ‘recovery’ thing.”
“Well, I’d certainly hope you aren’t.” He feels his lips twitch as he tries, having clearly undergone a serious mood change, to stop himself from grinning a little. “It
is
literally your job.”
*
Joan leans back into the couch just as Owen emerges from the bedroom. He’s changed into a pair of sweatpants and an old sweater.
“Are you tired?” he asks as he settles into the couch next to her.
“A little,” she responds. “Are you?”
“I’m not sure,” he sighs.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure if I’m tired or if I’m just… exhausted.”
She’s reminded of what Caleb said once over a year ago in her office. About how she may always be telling him that tired isn’t a feeling, but that ‘a deep exhaustion’ is. Though, now she thinks she understands that feeling more than ever.
“Can you tell me now?” She asks quietly.
“Tell you what?”
“What you and Mark talked about.”
“I told you,” he turns towards her, adjusting his posture so he’s sitting up straight. “We talked about you.”
She doesn’t respond, because from the look on his face, he’s not finished talking.
*
He tells her everything, for the most part.
It’s easier than he would have guessed. Telling her that he loves her, that he’s in love with her. Then again, that’s probably because she knows. She’s heard it all before. Though the last time he said it, it was obviously different. They had been in this same apartment, she had been wearing one of his sweaters. It had been a Tuesday morning, and they had been on his balcony.
Back then she had smiled and moved in closer to him. She had kissed him and returned his words. She had loved him.
Now she sits opposite from him, she’s meeting his eyes and there’s a curiosity written across her face. She’s an outsider now, observing his feelings from a new perspective. She’s still the object of them, but now she’s removed herself from the equation. It’s like she’s watching from the other side of a glass, looking in from a window and observing, analyzing, picking apart the same declarations she was once too busy returning to think critically about.
“...Because I know that I… I fucked up. And I know that things between us aren’t going to change, but I’m going to keep changing. Because, as I said, the ideal version of me is the one that… that wouldn’t have made the mistakes I’ve made, and that you would never have stopped loving.”
He states his intentions to her as clearly as he stated them to Mark. He’s surprised when his voice doesn’t waver. He thinks he’s finally growing into himself. Learning to be confident. To not just know what he stands for, but to really stand for it.
Then again, he’s almost thirty-nine. It’s about time.
*
Joan doesn’t know how to react when Owen tells her. Deep down, all of these are things she knows , but hearing him admit to them… it makes her feel something she didn’t expect.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he adds, most likely able to tell how conflicted she is. “But that’s… that.”
“That is that.” She fidgets with her long-empty glass as he reaches for his and drinks the remaining scotch in one swig. “It’s… late,” she exhales.
“Do you…” he clears his throat awkwardly. “I’m assuming you plan on staying here?”
“Yes.”
“Well then,” he stands, “I’ll go make sure the guest bedroom is in order and-“
“Er, no-“ she rises after him, interrupting him quickly, “if it’s- if it’s not an inconvenience to you then I…”
She can’t be alone. Hell, he shouldn’t be either. Part of her knows she shouldn’t, but for God’s sake, she came here because she was giving in to whatever hold he had on her emotions.
All or nothing, she supposes. Go big or go home.
“Ah.” He meets her eye for half a second before he looks away. “Well, in that case… Shall we?” He’s almost blushing as he gestures towards the bedroom and she resists the urge to giggle.
He really is adorable.
*
There is no logical reason for his heart to be beating this fast. Joan was in his arms on Sam’s couch as they slept only hours ago. But this feels different. This feels very different.
The trauma isn’t as fresh as it was then, and they’re not as existentially exhausted. There’s space in his head now to actually think about the implications. Not to mention the fact that they’re not on Sam’s couch with all of their friends asleep around them, they’re in his bed and they’re alone. She moves under the covers on the left side of the bed. She always slept on the left side of the bed.
And after all these years he’s continued sleeping on the right.
*
Joan hates how much the familiarity of the bed comforts her. But it reminds her of better times. Of early mornings and late nights and soft smiles and hushed laughter and goodnight and good morning kisses. And it smells so overwhelmingly like him in a way that’s effortlessly comforting. and knowing that there’s another warm body next to her, willing to comfort her and be there for her doesn’t hurt either.
She settles in quickly the same way she has so many nights before. But the second she does, she finds herself completely abandoning her attempts at maintaining distance. She moves in closer to him and tucks herself cozily into his side.
*
Owen genuinely believes he might be having a heart attack. Her body is pressed close to his and her head is on his chest and she looks so happy and content, and his heart definitely should not be beating this fast.
Joan is in his bed. Joan is next to him. Joan is curling up against him and starting to doze off. He is way too in love with her for this.
He tries to steady his breathing in an attempt to steady his heart, and that proves mildly effectivel. But he’s still being driven crazy by that feeling. That feeling that they’re on the cusp of something. That everything might be changing and that the one thing he wants more than anything in life may not be so far out of reach.
And so, he makes a vow to himself. Then and there. If Joan ever gives him another chance, he won’t mess it up. He’ll grow and change every day in order to be someone who she can be proud of. He’ll never take that miracle for granted. And he’ll never hurt her again. He’ll never put her through the pain he once did.
His heartbeat slows a little with every vow he makes silently to himself until he can feel the world spin softly back into focus. And as it spins, he feels his eyelids grow heavier.
He wraps his arm around Joan, securing her place next to him comfortingly. And as he holds tight to both her, and his vow, he feels himself slipping away.
*
When Joan wakes up, Owen is just starting to stir. He’s always looked so beautiful in the sunlight, and that light is just beginning to stream through his bedroom window. There’s something about the way he looks when the sun is rising, it’s not anything physical, not really, but it tugs at her heartstrings. It’s the version of him she’s always happiest to see. The version that’s smiling and making coffee, kissing her softly and getting ready to start the day. Getting ready to change, to grow, and to try his damned hardest to help people.
He sits up slowly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and pulling her closer to him. She’s not sure he even realizes he’s doing it, but she lets herself be dragged closer into his side, her head resting on his shoulder as she yawns, “good morning.”
“Oh,” he replies, clearly taken off guard by the fact that she was not only acknowledging him but reciprocating his affection. “Good morning.”
And truth be told, she’s still not sure why she’s not putting a stop to this. It just feels too right. Like now that she’s waking up next to him again, it’s the only way she remembers waking up.
And truthfully, she doesn’t know what this means for them. She just knows that this almost magnetic attraction to him doesn’t mean nothing. Maybe after this, she’ll leave and they’ll try their very best to return to their lives. Maybe she’ll leave and they’ll both fall apart. Maybe she’ll leave and she’ll call him. Maybe they’ll get dinner. Maybe they won’t. Maybe she’ll keep staying the night. Maybe she won’t.
Maybe they’ll build something. Maybe they’ll get something right. Maybe she’ll open up to him, and maybe he’ll grow into the person they both wanted him to be all those years ago. Hell, after the past few days, it’s clear they’re both on their way. So maybe they will build something. Something that will last this time around.
After all, the sun is just beginning to peak above the horizon and she can hear the birds starting to chirp. Owen is yawning and stretching next to her, and from here, the world seems somehow at peace. Today is a new day.
Today is a new day.