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She hears her whimpers before her cries.
Ava whips around to face the Detective’s door. Her heartbeat is faster than normal, her breathing erratic, but there’s no scent of any kind of intruder, nor has she noticed anyone walking around the apartment building from her post by the window. There is no sound beyond the Detective’s muffled cries and Farah’s snoring—Farah!
Ava growls. She will have to reprimand Farah later, but for now, she leaves her on the couch.
She widens he senses as she makes her way toward the door, but there truly doesn’t seem to be anything amiss. For a moment, Ava stands by the door, considering whether or not to enter the Detective’s bedroom.
Last time she was in there…
She’s never stopped thinking about last time.
Ava hears the Detective hiccup and whimper, can suddenly smell the salt of her tears, and feels a tug that she can’t describe propel her forward through the door, and into the warm darkness of the bedroom.
The Detective wrenches her face from her hands and stares at Ava, her eyes shining in the moonlight.
Ava freezes, sputters, wracks her brain for any kind of response.
“I’m sorry,” the Detective says softly, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I…I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Ava nearly scoffs. All she’s done since she’s arrived in Wayhaven is worry about the Detective, but she drowns the thought before it can touch her tongue, though she doesn’t let the softness of the feeling go.
“You were crying,” Ava says instead. It’s safer.
The Detective pulls her legs up to her chin, stifles a sniffle. “I was,” she replies quietly and turns away from Ava, staring out her bedroom window.
Raindrops patter upon the windowpane, spatter and cling onto the glass. They are shapeless and aimless until they come together, but the momentum of joining drags them down, until they fall into the water pooling at the base. All that’s left of them is a momentary ripple of water, a mere echo of their existence.
Ava’s jaw clenches and rips her gaze away from the window, settling instead on the Detective, who has composed herself alarmingly quickly. She sits in silence, still staring at the window.
Unsure of herself, Ava very nearly leaves, until she sees the Detective trace her wounds, where Mur—that monster had pierced her skin.
Ava can’t stop the shaky breath that escapes her lips.
The sound jerks the Detective’s attention away from the window. She’s noticed Ava’s staring, and she wraps her arms around her legs, rests her head on her knees, and refuses to look up.
Another silence washes over them, and Ava finds it difficult to breathe.
The Detective laughs suddenly. It is brittle and bitter, and it makes Ava’s lungs burn.
“You must think me so weak,” the Detective says, wiping at the tears that spring at her eyes. “One little attack and—”
“Don’t.”
The Detective pauses, looks up at Ava with wet eyes, red even in the blue of midnight. She waits, expectant.
It’s a long time until Ava finally breaches her flood of thoughts, the thud of her heart. When she finally speaks again, her words are measured, calmly spoken despite the clench of her jaw.
“I have met…countless people in my life.,” Ava begins, “Every one of them had scars of their own. This is simply a fact of living. But the fact that you’re here, that you have them at all…”
Images of blood appear in Ava’s eyes but she blinks them away until all she sees is the Detective, here, now. Alive.
Ava breathes in, and the words tumble out, “You are not weak, not in the slightest. Those scars? They mean that you were strong enough to survive. They mean you could do it again, if you have to.” Ava frowns. “You’re stronger than you know, Alex.”
And all too soon things are quiet, and Ava almost wants to rip her words back from the air, but then she sees the smile that settles on Alex’s face and she can’t seem to regret anything.
“Thank you,” she breathes, and Ava breathes with her.
It takes Ava longer than she cares to admit to pull away—she turns her gaze to the floor, bids the Detective a good night, and turns away before she can hear a reply. Ava closes the door behind her with a soft click.
When she finally pulls her eyes up from the floor she sees Farah sitting up, her arms prop up her head as she leans again the back of the couch. She grins like the cat that ate the cream.
“What? No goodnight kiss?” Farah snickers.
Ava growls and rolls her eyes, she crosses her arms and marches back to her spot at the window. The rain seems to have stopped, and all that’s left of it are the raindrops that still cling to the windowpane.
She watches two come together, waits for them to fall, but they don’t.
The Detective sleeps peacefully for the rest of the night.