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Spoilers: There aren't really any, save for Ferguson's season four and five storyline.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Rights belong to Foxtel, I think.
Author's Note: Hoo BOY, hello Wentworth/FreakyTits fandom!!! This is my first fic in the fandom, and the first thing I have written since 2016. The longest break I've taken from fanfic since I started in 2007. So please bear with me, and be kind!!! :D
Timeline: I can't pinpoint an exact time, but I think it's before the end of season four? It came to me from S4E1 when Joan is in Protection and she and Vera snark at each other, and then later on when Vera rips up Joan's letter to Shane. But I also included things from throughout the season so maybe it's closer to the end? It really could be any and all of seasons four and five. Maybe it's just an entire commentary on their whole relationship over the two seasons! Either way, please read and enjoy!
This isn’t how either of them wanted things to go, to be, to end. Stick with me, and we’ll achieve great things together. That had been the promise. But promises can be broken. Synchronicity can be lost.
So they throw barbs at each other, like lovers falling apart. Trading jabs to rip each other to pieces, seeing who can hurt the other the most. Who will cause the most harm, who will come out on top? Victory is hollow for both of them, no one ever truly wins.
Underhanded and undermining, this isn’t vanilla at all. This is deeply wounded women, clawing at each other’s throats in attempts to see blood, see their mutual pain spilled between them. Whoever bleeds the most, hurts the most. Shared, but unacknowledged. What had once been an ongoing, mutually beneficial partnership, has crumbled. Withered away, lost in the wind, like flowers left scattered on an abandoned, ruined grave.
They circle each other, round and round and round; the hurt never seems to stop. Joan taunts the Governor, Vera taunts the prisoner. They have broken each other’s hearts, but it is so much more than that. To betray one another’s trust, is to eviscerate themselves. Vera is hurt, Joan is livid, but they are too proud to ever admit it, to themselves, and to each other. They cannot even fathom that the other is suffering, that they still are in sync.
Rejection and betrayal have led them to this. It stings like a slap to the face. The Governor rips apart her former mentor, the prisoner rips apart her former mentee. They had such fragile high hopes. They could have done great things. Letters and shiny gold crowns, memories of what once was, and glass panes stand between them now. A divide too wide, a chasm too large to ever be crossed again. Each has caused the other monumental pain, this tug of war they play is never ending. Between the two of them, neither is able or willing to let go. They pull and they pull, the bond between them too strong to ever fully break; they’re left with rope burn. Once the Deputy Governor vs. the Governor, it is now prisoner vs. the new Governor, and the game continues on, no matter their roles, no matter their titles.
Damaged and broken, they are both sides of the same old, dented coin. Unable to see things from the other’s point of view, they face each other, neither backing down. A tale as old as time; the hurt, hurt the hurt. The ability to know who is who, lost to the ashes of their relationship, burned in the fire. Lovers quarrelling, an ugly divorce of what could have been. Their combined potential, up in flames. A dance for the ages, two women hold each other up, full of contempt. Any bond that had existed, now lost to the deep wounds of betrayal and misunderstanding neither fully understand. One cannot live without the other; codependency thrives between the Governor and the prisoner. It always has. Who depends on who anymore, is impossible to know.
Teacher and pupil, roles not reversed, but decimated. One blames the other, both are wrong. No one to blame but themselves, but it’s easier for both of them, rather than the alternative. Responsibility for their own emotions, their own downfall is too much to bear. Because how can they live with themselves, knowing they are the only reason it has come to this? To break your own heart, hurts worse than to have it broken by another.
It is possible to love and to hate at the same time. Joan knows it well, Vera is learning. Admitting to the pain allows a weakness neither are wont to acknowledge, a weakness for each other, a weakness shared. Unique to them; their confusing, permanent, uncontestable, connection to one another, transcends their shared prison walls. Fleeting bouts of concern feel like acid, salt poured into their open wounds. One thinks of themselves an untouchable source for good. The other, darkness incarnate. Which is which? Their thoughts on each other muddle together.
Neither of them are willing, or able, to face the truth. Vulnerability has been pounded out of both of them. The cold former Governor, is surprised by the newly barbed wire heart of the warmer, current one. They strike each other down, words fly between them to destroy, to dismantle, to annihilate. The need to win, manipulate, and for petty victories rise up between them. Vera nurses a wounded heart, a bruised pride. Joan holds a grudge, emotions too far removed to consciously feel anything, she plans only for revenge. A caged heart becomes tired, the fight a weary one, while the barbed wire heart only grows stronger and sharper.
What was once small has grown bigger, all encompassing, and the two women collectively fall to pieces. They scramble to hold on to what binds them together: control, victory, begrudging respect. Together they have learned this dance, the music only they can hear never stops. Vera and Joan, one in the same, but forever torn apart. The betrayal runs deep, but their connection runs deeper. The combined mutual heartbreak is their own undoing. No one will come out on top, they both will eventually fall.
They continue on, and the never truly lovers, live to fight each other till the very end.
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