Chapter Text
And stars, which gave us the word distance,
So we could name our deepest sadness.
Necessities, Lisel Mueller
Vanessa stops sleeping two days after they get engaged. She begins to see why Rhona's addiction to painkillers started.
It's good timing on her part, because Charity stops hovering after she gets that ring on her finger, as if that's the happy ending to it all. There, she's cured now. Power of love and all that.
She isn't. She has to go to hospital weekly to have her dressings changed and it still hurts to move unless she has painkillers in her system and she hasn't let Johnny out of her sight since it happened.
It builds and builds inside of her, a frustration, an anger she hasn't a name for. She wants to cave Cain Dingle's head in after he kisses Charity, especially when Charity leads her away with a sigh like she's a toddler, but she's still too weak to really do anything but throw threats at him in the street.
It's not like she's unproductive, though. She doesn't lay all night wallowing. After a week of surviving on cat naps she's made Johnny a new jumper, full of lumps and dropped stitches. She promptly drops it in the bin and starts again.
Noah finds her at two in the morning, knitting feverishly in the kitchen. He pours himself a glass of water and she says, "you should be sleeping, you have school tomorrow."
"Teacher training day," he replies, probably a lie, "you should be sleeping. You're s'posed to rest."
"The doctors said the pills might keep me awake," she tells him. A lie.
Noah pours another glass of water and places it in front of her. He goes retreats back to his room and she makes sure to go back to hers before Charity wakes up. The glass is still sitting there when they go downstairs for breakfast, and Charity dumps it out and shoves it in the dishwasher.
"Babe?"
Vanessa blinks awake to find Charity crouched beside her. Her fiancée is dressed for the day, frowning, and Vanessa groans. Everything hurts.
"What're you doing on the floor?" Charity whispers.
"Pills first," she replies.
Charity retreats. On his bed, Johnny snuffles in his sleep. Vanessa tries to push herself up to sit but it hurts too much, so she continues laying on the floor, sweating from the exertion. Charity returns and supports her to sit, guiding water and pills into her hands.
"You know, you should think about letting him go back to nursery," Charity says quietly, watching Johnny sleep, "Moses misses him."
"Not yet."
Charity takes the glass from her, brows pinching into a frown. "Babe, you know I'm really sorry about what happened, yeah?"
The words it wasn't your fault rise automatically, but she stops herself, because it kind of was, actually, no matter whether it's fair that she thinks as much or not. She's pretty fucking sick and tired of being nice.
So she doesn't say anything, and Charity helps her stand, and goes back to doing whatever it is she does when she's supposed to be working but doesn't want to. Vanessa sits in Johnny's room and continues working on a jumper.
The nurse examines her wound, giving her a bright smile, assuring her that it's healing beautifully. She's in the hospital for another fifteen minutes for the redressing before she's discharged, another prescription for her painkillers in hand. Charity hums along to the song on the radio as they drive to the pharmacy.
Vanessa stays in the car, too exhausted to go in and wait with her, scoffing over that stupid word. Beautifully.
None of this is beautiful. Nothing about the wound and the pain and the nightmares is beautiful. That skin's never going to look the same, actually, no matter how well it heals. Either she's left with a three-inch scar or a one-inch scar. Either way, there's still a scar, and at the moment it's bright red and as angry as she is. Bye bye, bikinis.
It's a stupid to thing to be upset about. Yet she is.
Charity climbs back into the car with a cheery, "Chas said she'll cover the rest of the day. You want to get some lunch? Been a while since we had a second without the kids."
Vanessa bristles. "I like spending time with my son."
"Ness, I didn't mean - "
"Just drive, Charity."
For once, Charity does as she's told, and Vanessa's overcome with anger for the fact that she's grateful for it. She shouldn't be grateful that her fiancée listens to her. That should be a given.
But it isn't with Charity, and she used to endure it and roll her eyes and smile good-naturedly. Now though, Charity's selfish and pig-headed ways have almost cost her and Johnny their lives.
This was because of you, she thinks, watching Charity drive, this is all because you wouldn't compromise.
Vanessa has always thought she had a backbone. She wonders when she'd let herself become Charity's doormat.
She doesn't sleep, but when she does, she wakes from nightmares feeling like she hasn't rested for a second.
Charity continues sleeping blissfully beside her. Vanessa licks her dry lips and presses her heels into her eyes, letting her vision pop. She briefly considers grabbing her pillow and screaming into it, but then she'd wake Charity.
Vanessa grits her teeth. During the Bails trial, Charity had been loud and open with her trauma. She'd drank and yelled and woke Vanessa up at whatever ungodly hour she'd finally collapse into bed, uncaring that she'd woken her, or grateful for it, because it meant she had a chance to angle for sex.
But Vanessa can't do that, because she's the one that picks up the pieces, the one that puts them back together. She's rational and responsible and makes sure Noah has lunch to take to school because Charity always forgets and tiptoes around the Dingles as they have their screaming matches. She's not allowed to fall apart, so instead she counts back from ten, and when that doesn't work, she does it again, and again, until she's sick of numbers and gets up to sit in the kitchen, knitting Johnny his jumper.
Debbie is out of the back door into a flash, eyes wide when she bumps straight into her.
"Vanessa," she says tightly, "sorry."
Vanessa just shrugs, dropping her cigarette to the floor and crushing it beneath her boots. Though Charity's daughter may be a lot of things, she isn't a snitch, so she knows this will stay between them.
Vanessa pops a mint into her mouth and sprays herself with perfume for good measure.
"Everything okay?" She asks, though she knows it isn't, and she knows it has something to do with Cain, because it's always got to do with Cain.
"About as okay as you are. Mum's worried about you."
"Brilliant," Vanessa says flatly, and pushes back into the pub, closing the door behind her.
At some point, she wakes from a nightmare sure that someone's attacking her.
Her hand curls into a fist, swinging out wildly, adrenaline pumping through her veins.
Charity narrowly ducks out of the way. Vanessa barely registers the familiar head of hair and twists, her wound screaming in agony, jaw clenched as she hits out again. This time, she connects with Charity's shoulder.
Charity grabs her wrists, holding so tightly she's sure it'll leave bruises.
"Babe, it's me," she pants, clutching even harder when Vanessa tries to shake her off. "Look at me. It's me."
She relaxes her grip as Vanessa's senses begin to come back to her. Her eyes drop to Charity's shoulder, and for a moment she's disappointed to find that she hasn't bruised yet, and then her stomach turns at the thought. She pushes Charity away and stumbles into the bathroom to throw up. Charity doesn't follow after her.
Once the redressings stop and the doctors no longer prescribe her the good stuff, she finds herself going for long walks. First it's just around the village and then she's up at Home Farm, then Butler's, and then wherever she wanders after that. She gets home with feet blistered and raw, allowing herself to bath for the first time now that she's allowed to get the wound wet. Charity muscles her way into the bathroom and Vanessa sinks her body under the bubbles.
"Where've you been?" Charity demands.
"Out."
"Yeah, and you've been out every day for a week now with no text to even say where you were," Charity strops, waving her arms. "Babe, you can't do that."
"I'm not a child, Charity."
"Then maybe stop acting like one, yeah?"
"What, getting sick of me?"
Charity glares. "I don't know what's going on with you, but it stops. Now."
Vanessa flicks some water out of the tub disdainfully. She's sure Charity's never met a problem she couldn't shout away, but she refuses to wither under her words. Charity glowers and she simply tips her head back against the ceramic, eyes on the ceiling.
"Whatever you say goes," she spits, and hears Charity slam the door on her way out.
Noah finds her again, in the kitchen, knitting. It's four in the morning on a Saturday and his eyes are slightly red. She knows he's been up all night playing video games, but she doesn't comment, and he rifles through the cupboards for a bag of crisps and a coke. He glances at her, like she's going to say something, but she just shrugs.
He sets the bag of crisps in front of her and heads upstairs with the coke. Her stomach grumbles and she glances at the flavour. Ready salted. She wonders if it was a purposeful choice on his part of if he'd just picked a packet at random. The former thought makes her grip her knitting needles so hard they leave lines in her palms. She drops three stitches and then launches the jumper across the room. The ball of wool it's still attached to rolls off the table and follows it.
Because she can, she tries the Charity Method Of Dealing With Issues. Which means, she tries to solve things with sex.
Charity is more than eager to please, especially since there's been such a chasm in intimacy since the stabbing. Charity's so wound up Vanessa's barely touched her before she's found her release, fingers tight in Vanessa's hair, her breath hot against Vanessa's cheek. It's the sort of thing that used to make Vanessa press their skin together, but now she pulls away, her skin itching at every point they're connected.
Charity tries to coerce her onto her back, but then a door slams downstairs. Every muscle in her body locks. Charity's palms rest against her back as she gazes up at her.
"Chas," Charity explains softly. "Probably locking up."
Vanessa's body won't accept the words, though. She stays rigid, on edge, even as Charity's hands sweep in an attempt to be comforting. Eventually she feels Charity's lips on her neck and then her fingers between her legs, but after fifteen minutes of getting absolutely nowhere near the edge, she pushes off of Charity and gives up on the whole affair.
Charity conks out in a matter of minutes. Vanessa pulls her legs in towards her chest. Every part of her screams run.
She doesn't even know where she'd go.
Vanessa nods and hums in the right places as Rhona goes on a tangent about Pete. She stares into the space above her friend's head, wondering if she'd always been this boring, if everyone around her outside of the Dingles has always been this boring, this safe.
She'd been stabbed in the stomach and hadn't been able to move to save her son. Charity had done that, and knocked the bloke out for good measure, and the whole village is still in a state of surprise by her loyalty. Still, it's the story she's heard in passing gossip from other's most. They gloss over her like she's just a footnote. Charity doing a Fast and Furious is the real story they want to tell.
"...Vanessa?"
She blinks to find Rhona's staring at her expectantly, giving her a smile.
"What?"
Rhona's smile wavers. "I asked if you knew when you'd be coming back to work."
Vanessa stands suddenly. The table jars with her movement and coffee spills over the edges of the mug. Bob glances over at her as he serves at the counter.
She's suddenly very aware of eyes on her, even Chas, who wanders in from the back. Instead of offering Rhona an explanation, she simply walks out, walking and walking and walking, even as her scar tugs with each step.
Of all the people to seek her out, she hadn't expected it to be Cain bloody Dingle, and yet it is. She's shivering in the cold night air, watching over the rolling fields, and he leans against the fence beside her without offering her his coat.
"Whole bloody family's out looking for you, you know," he says. "Guess they like ya."
Vanessa crosses her arms over her chest and doesn't say a word.
Cain heaves a sigh. "Look, my car's warm. I can make it a five minute drive or a twenty minute one. Your call."
"Thirty," she says, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth for a second.
"Alright. Thirty, then."
They trudge through the mud and the grass back to Cain's beat-up car. He's right, it is warm, like he's kept the engine running even though he'd been walking through the fields to find her. Vanessa holds her hands in front of the heaters, knees knocking together.
"How'd you know where to find me?" She asks after ten minutes of silence.
"Seen you knocking about up here. Figured you'd be here somewhere."
Vanessa nods. She reaches into her jean pocket for the first time since she'd stalked out of the pub without a word. There's half a dozen missed calls from Rhona, a few from Chas, and thirteen from Charity. She has just as many texts - ranging from worried to furious - from her fiancée. She has no doubt that the four voicemails she's left her are all yelling. She throws the phone onto the dashboard without listening to or replying to a single one.
Cain drives her through the long, unnecessary side roads, the ones she'd first used to drive to the village. Had she known back then what she'd be in for, she thinks she might've turned around. She loves Charity, but she's not sure if she loves her enough anymore. She doesn't recognise the woman she sees in the mirror and she doesn't recognise the woman she sees when she looks at Charity, either.
Vanessa sighs, slipping her ring off and rolling it around in her palm.
"When you tried to kiss Charity," she begins, "didn't you think about Moira?"
Cain rubs at his stubble. "Not really, no."
"Don't you think you should? Because you love her?"
Cain glances at her, eyes narrowing.
"Are you still riled up about it?"
"No," she says, then, "yes. I don't know."
"Because... well, I was in a state," he tells her, and clears his throat. He's just as good at talking as Charity is. "She could've been anyone. It wasn't because it was her."
"Yes, it was."
Cain sighs and nods. "Yeah. It was."
They pull up at The Woolpack fifteen minutes later. All the lights are still on even though it's well past closing time. She stares at the windows, at the silhouettes of her new family, and can't find any reason to go inside other than to check on Johnny. Beside her, Cain switches the engine off.
"Not that you care what I think, but I reckon Charity's mad about you. You know me and her have a lot of history. Doesn't normally take much convincing to bring her back to me. With you, well... I dunno. Guess I didn't think she'd ever find anyone as nice as you and be interested in 'em. Think I might be wrong, though."
She wonders if that's supposed to be encouraging, and if that's all she'll ever be: nice. And if so, what's so wrong about that - why does that mean she isn't enough for Charity?
She doesn't say anything, just climbs out of the car, and slips into the pub through the backdoor. She can hear the sounds of Charity and Chas yelling at each other in the pub. Most of it's Charity, because she always has to be the loudest in the room, while Chas is trying to calm her down, insisting that she's alright, she's probably just letting off some steam.
Vanessa listens with mild interest. Charity hasn't shown any indication of being worried about her to her face; she's heard about it from other people. Some part of her wonders how much it's all for show. How much of her relationship with Charity is her fiancée showing off that she's keeping something pinned down for once.
She loses interest quickly and begins tiptoeing her way up the stairs. Noah's sat at the top of them, watching her. She wonders if he's going to say he was worried about her, too.
Instead, he says, "I put your knitting in Johnny's room."
She thinks it means the same thing.
Charity finds her at three in the morning, knitting in Johnny's room. She's so furious a vein appears in her forehead, ready to pop, and Vanessa watches it with amusement, which only makes Charity seethe even more.
They leave Johnny's room to have a shouting match downstairs. Or, well, Charity does. She lectures about worrying her, about not keeping in contact, about never talking, always snapping at her without a reason for it.
Vanessa laughs in her face. "All of those things, Charity? They're exactly what you do to me. Every day."
"Yeah, but I'm me, babe," Charity replies, like that explains things, and maybe it did once, but not anymore, because this woman is supposed to love her yet she hasn't noticed that she hasn't slept through the night in two months now.
So Vanessa takes off the ring and presses it into Charity's hand.
"I don't want this anymore," she says, watching Charity reel back like she's just been slapped in the face. "You can give it back to me if you ever decide you want me when I'm me."
"I love you," Charity replies, and sometimes Vanessa catches her looking surprised at the words, like she can't believe it. She has that same expression now. "Of course I want you."
"No, you don't. And I don't want you."
Charity's eyes harden. Her fingers close around the ring.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm done, Charity," she says. "I'm done with you walking over me all the time. I nearly lost my job because of you and then I almost lost my son. I'm allowed to be angry about that."
"Johnny's fine - "
"Well I'm not!" She protests. "If you paid the slightest bit of attention, you might've actually noticed that."
Her chest heaves. She waits for Charity to say something rational. Like: maybe you should go to therapy, because it's clear you really fucking need it. Or: I'm sorry, I'll try to be better. Maybe even okay, whatever you need, I'll give you.
Instead what she gets is: "I do pay attention, but you're acting like a bloody teenager all the time and it's getting pretty boring, babe."
"Well that's sorted, then. We're over."
Charity crosses her arms over her chest. "Fine. We're over. You happy now?"
"Over the moon," she spits, and the worst part is that most of her means it.