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The day that Tommy visits is a bad day.
Ellie’s week had been okay so far but that day was the worst one she’d had for a while.
Dina chews her lip as she watches her, she knows she’s hovering but she can’t help it. Dina wasn’t sure how much that set them back.
Ellie retreats, present but not there. Quiet and almost nonresponsive.
Dina tries to busy herself, asking Ellie to feed and bathe JJ that night. To read JJ his story and tuck him in. She hovers in the background, fully capable of taking the lead but wanting Ellie to be grounded here. Here and now.
In their family.
And not in Seattle.
She shivers when she thinks of it, dutifully repeating affirmations to herself from her therapist. We’re here. We’re safe. We’re healing. Are we healing? We’re healing.
Dina shakes it off, forcing herself to be present. She approaches Ellie at the crib, placing her hands lightly on Ellie’s hips as she stands behind her.
“He’s so big,” Ellie says quietly.
“He’s gonna keep getting bigger,” Dina smiles. Stay. Watch him grow.
Dina had told Tommy that the conversation was over, that they were done with Seattle and with Abby but she knows the pain is still there. She knows that self-hatred and grief still claw at Ellie’s insides, living on in her dreams and in sharp noises, behind doors with broken hinges that she thinks she’s locked. She can’t pretend to be okay forever.
Dina stays up late that night, blinking herself awake on the cusp of sleep to fight it off for a moment longer. She watches Ellie, fitfully sleeping with a furrowed brow, her jaw clenching every now and then.
Dina knows she’s scared and she knows she has a reason to be.
Sleep creeps up on her and before Dina realises, she’s lost to it.
She wakes to a sense of emptiness.
She reaches beyond JJ and finds the other side empty and cold.
How long ago did Ellie get up?
Dina’s chest feels tight, her heart in her throat. She scoops JJ up carefully, moving him back to his crib before going down the stairs. Her brain is urging her to move quickly, to run, to rush, to stumble, but she feels like she’s moving through water. She’s slow because she’s afraid of what she’s going to find. What she won’t find.
The living room is empty.
The kitchen is empty.
The house is empty.
Dina feels unsteady and the world seems to tilt in the moment that she registers Ellie’s boots missing from the front door. She hears a broken gasp that she knows distantly is her own as she stumbles toward the door.
Ellie is there.
Still there.
She’s sitting on the porch steps, head on her knees and perfectly still.
Dina’s eyes trace the lines of Ellie’s back through her thin sleep shirt. It’s cold, she must be cold.
Dina shrugs on a jacket quickly and grabs another. If Ellie hears the squeak of the door she doesn’t acknowledge it, but she flinches slightly as Dina drapes Joel’s old jacket over her shoulders.
Dina sits beside her, close enough that their sides touch.
“G’morning,” Ellie slurs tiredly, turning her head to face Dina, there’s a mark on her cheek from where it had been pressed to her knees.
Dina reaches out slowly, rubbing the red mark on Ellie’s cheek and trying to ignore the cold of the morning on her bare legs. She stays silent.
“Y’okay?” Ellie asks, blinking slowly.
“Am I okay?” Dina asks, really? “I- Ellie, why are you out here? How long have you been out here?”
“Didn’t want to scare you, ‘m sorry,” Ellie mumbles.
Dina purses her lips and waits. If she pushes, she gains little and she knows it.
“I wanted to go for a ride, take Japan out for a bit. Get some fresh air,” Ellie says slowly. “I knew that I shouldn’t.”
“I don’t want to wake up alone,” Dina says, repeating words she’s told Ellie before. Words she’s told her therapist before. She clenches her teeth, looking out toward the lightening sky on the horizon. “You know that.”
“I know and I didn’t go out,” Ellie says, leaning into Dina’s side like she’s apologising.
“I still woke up alone, Ellie,” Dina says softly, stubbornly keeping her eyes in the distance.
“I- I’m sorry,” Ellie whispers, the shame clear in her voice. “I laid in bed for a long time, I- I couldn’t get back to sleep and I needed to get some air.”
Dina sniffs, licking her lips and ignoring the tears welling in her eyes. She didn’t leave, I’m being stupid. We’re here, we’re safe, we’re healing.
She feels unsteady, keeping her eyes high as she glares at the night sky. It’s close to dawn, the moon still visible faintly. She sleeps better than she used to, the nightmares more occasional than frequent but the anxiety lingers. She doesn’t fear nightmares when she’s falling asleep, she fears falling asleep and waking into a nightmare.
Dina remembers the first time they’d found this house. Ellie would say it was two months post-Seattle, but Dina knew the truth. They’d passed this way on a patrol long ago, after they had been side tracked by heavy rain and missed a marker. They ended up too far south to return to Jackson in the light. The house was not as heavily fortified as it was now, the fencing had patches and was broken in sections, but the area was deserted and they took watches, barricaded in the room that would become Ellie’s study.
They roasted some game that Ellie had caught for dinner, eating some of the extra rations they had packed while sitting on the porch. The conversation was both stilted and easy, sitting across from each other with hopeful half-grins, their eyes too big to be anything but nervous.
Ellie’s face was now creased with tiredness, dark bags under her eyes, Dina’s hips ached, both bodies littered with new scars and raw nerves.
Dina sighs. “I’m really tired, Ellie,” she says softly, closing her eyes but keeping her chin up.
“You should go back to bed, it’s still early,” Ellie says, Dina hears her shift, wrapping an arm almost uncertainly around Dina’s side. It’s there but not fully resting on her, like Ellie isn’t sure it’s welcome.
Dina leans against Ellie, resting her head on Ellie’s shoulder and waits until Ellie’s touch feels more solid before she speaks. “I don’t like waking up alone,” Dina repeats, feeling almost childish. She handles it better than before, never fully in a panic attack but always in a state of panic. Waking up alone sends her back, needing to find Ellie but anticipating Seattle behind every corner. Thinking of the theatre makes her shoulder ache.
“You’re tired, I don’t want to wake you,” Ellie says, breaking Dina from her contemplation.
“I want you to wake me, I want to come down here with you and stare at the sky until you feel calmer, and I want us to go back to bed together,” Dina says tiredly.
“I’ve been out here for a while, it’s- you don’t need to be out here,” Ellie says, her hand rubbing the sore point in Dina’s back slowly how she likes. “It’s cold.”
“I want to be where you are,” Dina says, slipping her arms under Ellie’s jacket to wrap around her waist. Her eyes feel hot, some tears managing to escape and slide down her cheeks. Dina sniffs. “No matter how tired I am, I’ll come be tired with you.”
She feels Ellie nod her head, watches her throat move as she swallows. “I- Today was a bad day.”
Dina’s eyes trace the sky, the lighter blue on the horizon, the slight hint of orange peering through. “Yesterday was a bad day,” Dina corrects her. “We’ll see what today brings.”
A sliver of orange appears on the horizon, the sky tinting hues of pink and peach. Dina feels too cold to appreciate it.
“Later though,” Dina adds. “After we get some more sleep.” There’s a please there, somewhere in her tone and she knows that Ellie hears it.
“Yeah, some more sleep,” Ellie agrees, squeezing Dina against her in a half hug. She stands awkwardly, her legs stiff from the cold, as pasty as Dina’s ever seen them.
Dina grins tiredly, taking the hand offered to her as Ellie helps her to her feet. Ellie kicks her shoes off at the bottom of the stairs, hopping around on one foot as she struggles to do so.
She feels like ice against Dina under the bed, and Dina is thankful she took the time to grab an extra blanket before getting in. They’re lying on their sides, legs intertwined with their arms looped around one another. It’s close and it’s intimate, the sun slowly peaks through the blinds, the sunrise ignored.
With the light she can see Ellie’s eyes, more black than green but somehow warm and a little nervous. “I’d- I-” Ellie huffs, struggling to find her words.
Dina waits until she finds them, stroking the soft skin of Ellie’s lower back.
“I’d like to go to Jackson this week,” Ellie manages after several moments of quiet. “Would that- would that be okay with you?”
“Yeah,” Dina nods. “I don’t think we should see Tommy though,” she adds quickly.
“I don’t want to see Tommy, I-” Ellie bites her lip. “I think I need to speak to someone.”
“To wh- oh,” Dina says. “Like- like therapy?”
Ellie nods, exhaustion evident on her face. “Today- Yesterday was a bad day,” Ellie repeats. “I want tomorrow to be better.”
“It will be,” Dina affirms, kissing Ellie softly. Lovingly.
And it is better.