Work Text:
She still doesn’t like parties.
That’s why she is sitting alone in the table near the bar drinking a shot of scotch during a wedding while everyone else is on the dance floor or picking up food in the buffet. But it’s not like she didn’t have a little bit of fun and was miserable during the whole thing.
First of all, it is the wedding of one of her patrol buddies Tyler, the young man became her partner after she decided everything was fine enough for her to go back in supply hunt and patrolling. He is a nice guy, quite funny, and madly in love with his girlfriend Betty, Ellie knew her because she is a young nurse in the city and she took care of Ellie’s injuries more than once.
The other factor that was the main reason she came was that JJ asked her to. He came to her house all excited to show her the wedding attire he got for the wedding, so when he asked what clothing she would wear she just didn’t have the heart to tell him that she didn’t feel like going.
So here she is. But now JJ is passed out cold in his grandmother’s lap a few tables in front of her. He had fun, she knew, he posed for pictures with Jesse’s parents, one picture with Ellie and Dina, he danced with Ellie even if he was stepping in her toes every five seconds, he kept running with the other kids for hours, so no wonder he is sleeping even if the salon is playing ‘Sweet Caroline’ for the third time in the room and with every white person in the room singing.
“Here you are.” Dina says like she didn’t know that Ellie was sitting there for the last forty minutes, she sits in the chair next to her and holds her hair up so she can fan her neck with her other hand. She has been dancing for the last hour nonstop, no shit she is sweating. “Not going to dance around the whitest song in the world?”
“C’mon, I’m not that white. Never understood what is all the fuss about this goddamn song.” Ellie replies with a small smile on her lips still looking at the crowd dancing and singing, drinking the rest of her beverage she turns to Dina and actually looks at her for the first time in a while.
Dina really outdid herself in her look for this wedding, she is wearing a long white dress with a few flower designs going from the top of the right side and down to the bottom of the left side, it has a side slit on the left side that went until right over the knee, and the thin straps leave the clavicle on display. Dina also has her hair down, parted on the side and falling on her right shoulder. In other words: she was breathtaking, the most beautiful Ellie ever saw.
“So you just being grumpy on the corner while everyone else is having fun?”
“I’m not grumpy, I just don’t like those things.” Ellie says pointing her fingers around the salon towards the people there. “Gets quite boring after a while.”
“I remember you enjoying a few parties when we were young.” She picks up a glass of champagne that is full and untouched in the table, drinking a bit to refresh herself.
“Yeah, that’s because I had a crush on you and you always danced with me on those things.” Maybe is the drinking taking over, she will blame the seven shots of scotch and the tree glasses of champagne she drank in the last couple hours, but she admits it before her brain the filter her words.
“Is that so?” Dina ends up chocking a bit on her champagne because she was mid drinking when Ellie spoke, now she is smirking to the older woman, moving her body so she is sitting on the side of the chair her body now facing Ellie, her left leg crossed on top of the right one and letting the slit show a lot of skin.
“You know it is, and I always got quiet before and after you danced with me. So…”
“Is this your way of saying you want to dance with me?” Dina asks in her low voice and the flirtatious way she usually does just to mess with Ellie.
Ellie lets out a laugh with that question, turning her body slightly towards the other woman, elbow resting on the back of the chair and hands supporting her head while she stared at Dina with a bright smile on her lips. “What about me sitting in the corner drinking gives you the impression that I’m crazy for a dance in front of half the town?”
“Thought you could use a little fun in your night.” She shrugged, her eyes never leaving Ellie.
“I had my fun, I danced with JJ, didn’t you see?”
“I did, it was adorable.” Dina’s smile was big now, she always gets soft when is about Ellie with JJ. Watching the boy dancing with her was the peak of the night so far. “You are always so good with him.”
It’s not like Dina doesn’t compliment her or her parent skills, she does, quite a lot. But every time makes Ellie blush hard, so she tries to change the subject going back to the dance talk “And I drank too much to dance something so excited like this.”
As she says this the song that was playing during their whole conversation ends and to their surprise they don’t play ‘Sweet Caroline’ for the fourth time in a row, instead the sound of John Mayer’s incomparable guitar takes over the place. Ellie knew this one, Joel used to like it a lot, it’s called ‘Slow dancing in a burning room’, fitting isn’t it?
“See, a slow song, this is the university telling you to come dancing with me.” With that Dina stands up and extends her hand to Ellie, waiting for the other woman to take it.
“James won’t be mad at you for dancing with me?” Again the drinking fucking with her brain-mouth filter.
“Why would he be mad?” She laughs at that, one eyebrow raised. “Are you planning on making a move on me right in the middle of the dance floor?”
“Fuck off.” She curses but takes Dina’s hand and get up, letting herself be taken to the dance floor, she also thanks all the gods when Dina doesn’t lead her to the middle of the dance floor, instead they end up in the more quiet and empty part of it. Like they never spend one day without, their bodies just fit together like a piece of a puzzle, Ellie’s arms circle Dina’s waist and the other woman’s arms rests on her shoulders as they move slowly to the rhythm of the song.
“And I told you before that he and I are done.” She speaks once they are in a steady movement.
“We never know” Now is Ellie’s time to shrugged “Maybe you guys plan on getting back together.”
“We have broken up for almost a year, Ellie. I think that ship has sailed long ago.”
“Forgive me for still thinking he wants you back by the way he always gives me that crazy look every time I go pick up weapons in the arsenal before patrol.”
“What look?” Dina asks curiously now, finding Ellie’s pout adorable. She knew James never really liked Ellie, he made sure to vocalize that in every opportunity he found.
“You know, that look he always gave when he was at your place and I showed up to pick up JJ. Like I did something to offend him, and I’m sure I didn’t.”
“Maybe you did.” Dina provokes
“I did not.” Ellie defends herself of such offense as she ever would mess with Dina’s boyfriend on purpose.
“I know you didn’t, I’m just messing with you, he just didn’t take the break up easily. He was just too clingy for a two-month boyfriend, nothing to do with you, don’t worry about.”
In reality, had everything to do with Ellie. James worked at the dinner, that’s where he and Dina became friendly with each other, but since she accepted going out with him the man always talked about the importance of family and how he wanted to be with her for the long run. Then he got moody every time Dina, even so, mentioned Ellie’s name about something related to their kid. He always was too forward with JJ, since the beginning Dina talked that he would be introduced as a friend to the boy but he always talked about wanting to have father and son activities with the kid.
The last string was when he went to her house and found Ellie there babysitting JJ while Dina went fix some super important radio for the next shit of patrolling. He got really upset when she got home about why she didn’t ask him to take care of JJ when she went to work, when Dina did as much as statted the obvious that Ellie is JJ’s mother as well and she is the first choice when comes to the boy James went mad. He started yelling about her not being his real mother and how she hasn’t related to the boy at all, the next thing Dina was kicking him out of the house and stating that they were over.
Before Ellie could extent the conversation about James a loud scream makes both of them look at their side, turn out the bride and groom are quite drunk and almost fell in the middle of the dance floor, bursting into laughs once they stand up again.
Seeing the couple so happy triggers something inside of Dina and before she realizes she is resting her head in Ellie’s shoulder and whispering in the woman’s ear. “You think we would be fine if you didn’t go to Santa Barbara?”
“No.” Ellie answers after a while, resting the side of her head on Dina’s, not wanting to look at the woman’s eyes for that. “ was too much in a bad place to be the good woman you deserve on your side.”
“You are good, Ellie.” Saying this Dina breaks apart a few inches, they are still close enough and continues the slow rhythm of the song that is no at its end, but she puts her hands on both sides of Ellie’s cheeks making the taller woman look at her to understand she is telling the truth.
“I know, but, you know the whole ‘you have to love yourself before loving somebody else’? kind of shit? I wasn’t.”
“But you came back.” Dina didn’t like the sadness in Ellie’s eyes, so she made sure to reassure the woman.
“I did, but I still had so much to work on for myself. I became better with time, working helped, talking with the doctors helped, spending time with JJ helped… you helped.” Ellie says with truth in her eyes, holding the younger woman closer to her, her way of making sure Dina knew she was telling the truth.
They got quiet for a while after this, a new song playing while they dance. “You think we would have something like this?”
“What?” Ellie asks visible confuse for the out of nowhere question.
“A wedding in the big salon wth all town?” She responds like is obvious, gesturing her head towards the tables full of people now tired of dancing.
“Fuck no.”
“Excuse me?” She didn’t know why she was offended by the answer, but her tone sure gave that impression.
“I hate crowds, Dina, I have intimacy with maybe 10 people in this whole town.”
“Yeah but I talk with everyone.”
“Of course you do miss popularity.” Ellie is clearly mocking her now, but she’s still curious about what Ellie imagined for them.
“So what? We would get married in the middle of woods just the two of us?”
“Course not, JJ would be there too.”
“Fuck you.” She gives Ellie’s arms a punch that is supposed to be a warning but only makes the taller woman laughs, after they dance in silence for a few seconds before Ellie breaks the quietness.
“If you wanted, yes, we would.”
“Pardon?”
“A wedding, this big, even bigger, all town invited, old ass songs playing all night so old the old folks would dance. We would have everything you wanted.” She says and Dina can hear the shyness on her voice, the vulnerability, the sincerity.
“It’s all about me? What about you, Ellie, what you would have wanted?” This time when she takes some spaces between their bodies to look directly at Ellie’s eyes, one of her hands remain in her neck like been all the time they been dancing, but the other one goes back to Ellie’s cheeks, her thumb passing softly in a display of affection.
“You.” Ellie answer in the most sincere way she can.
“God, we were really something else, weren’t we?”
“Yeah, we were.”
“I think we still are.” Dina whisper, her fingers playing with thebaby hair of Ellie’s neck.
“Dina…"
“Aren’t you tired, Ellie?”
“Of what?”
“Of thinking even after you outdid everyone you know you still think so low of yourself that you convinced that you don’t deserve happiness.”
“I am happy.”
“Truly happy?”
“Happy enough for not waiting to fuck things up again.”
“So we’re just to keep going like this forever? Having this bond between us and doing nothing about it? Knowing that we are each other’s right person and just leaving on the side? Seen many James and Cats entering and leaving our lives?”
“I think we are in a good place now, Dina.”
“Then you need to stop saying shit like what you just did about just wanting me. You have to stop looking at me the way you used to do when we were together. You have to stop holding me for far too long. “ Even with all this, all this heated conversation and disagreement and pain, they are still close from each other, no longer dancing but definitely in each other’s personal space. “If you really don’t want it I need you to stop acting like you do because it’s fucking confusing and we are old enough for this.”
She stays staring at Ellie for what feels like forever, so when the woman doesn’t respond to all that Dina just shakes her head and takes a long breath and puts one hand on Ellie’s bicep and squeezes lightly then she turns to leave, that’s when she feels a grip on her hand.
The grip in her hand brings her back a step and her back ends up colliding with Ellies’s front. This moment she thanks her past self for deciding to go to the side of the salon that is almost empty besides them, and nobody else seems to be paying attention. Ellie’s free arm is around her clavicle in seconds, holding her close and resting her head on her shoulders. It’s a mirror image of what she did too Ellie years ago in Seattle after the older woman came back to the theater soaked in blood.
She can feel Ellie’s hands shaking, her breathing in her neck, she can feel her heart beating fast on her back, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she finds the strength to vocalize her thoughts. “I almost did something, a few years back, I was getting better and we were good and I wanted to do something so much.”
Dina didn’t say anything, she just stood there, quiet, listening to everything.
“I when to your house, you know, decided to do something about it. I don’t know if you remember, but you were making dinner and JJ was playing in the living room, so you opened the door for me and went back to the kitchen, I stayed there with him and he started talking about his day. I was so sure I was going to say something and we would try again, but then he…”
“He what?” Now Dina’s heart was beating fast too, she vaguely remembers that day, but from her memory, nothing unusual had happened.
“He showed me the draw he made of his family, it was you, him and me. And he told me that he explained to everyone how his moms weren’t married but they still were the best family ever, and how happy he was.” She pressed DIna closer to her as she continues talking “And he was so happy, so proud of himself, of his family. We were making it work, Dina. How could I mess with his happy family? How selfish would that be? Messing around with something that was soo good for him, that we worked so hard to make so special for him, so we could try something that could destroy all this.”
“Ellie.”
“So I suck up my feelings and decided I wouldn’t say anything about it, not until he was I don’t know old enough to this not affect him anymore. Maybe then if you were still single we could try something. But then James happened so I just suck it up even more. I decided that the happiness I had like this was good enough.”
After that, Dina holds Ellie’s arm that is around her and giver her enough space for her to turn. Now they are face to face after all that been shared.
“But believe me, if my wishes came true I would be with you all this time.” Ellie whispers with her eyes closed as she lets her forehead rests in Dina’s, as she prepares to continues talking she feels a par of lips touching her own, and her heart misses a beating
For a moment she stays still, her brain still processing what is happening, it’s like she is back in time ten years in that stupidy dance. But this time means so much more, ten years ago was the start of something she didn’t know were would lead this kiss right now she knows where is taking her, so she allows herself to feel completely happy for the first time. She wraps her arms around Dina and pulls her closer, breaking the kiss and letting a dumb smile take over her mouth before leaning for another kiss, this time initiate by her.
And during some else’s wedding, in the quiet corner of the salon, they kiss for god knows how long because they can, because they spend too much time being careful too much time putting on hold something so intense that it was killing them.
In the corner of the salon, they added a new chapter for their story, this time not holding back.