Chapter Text
As a rule, Greta Gill doesn’t beg.
It’s not a ‘pride’ thing as much as it is that, historically, she’s found the whole ordeal to be sort of pointless. If it gets to a point where her future lies at someone else’s mercy, there’s no amount of getting on her knees – tears in her eyes and heart in her hand; self-dignity nowhere to be found – that will convince her soul’s reaper to give up the scythe. If anything, admitting to that sort of vulnerability has only ever resulted in a cut that much deeper.
So, Greta Gill doesn’t ask for help. And she certainly doesn’t beg.
And then Vi’s doors are burst open, the bar swarmed by policemen in search of human punching bags, and, suddenly, all Greta can do is beg.
Shut off to the world and pray to a God she doesn’t believe in that the two women she’s foolishly allowed herself to need will make it back home in one piece.
Follow a limping Jo around the house, face red and raw from crying, and plead to not be left behind, not by her.
Map every inch of Carson’s face, beseeching eyes desperate to find an unexpected answer to the question she thought she knew better by now than to ask.
“Are you telling me that you’re gonna leave your husband and your comfortable life for this? For me ?”
Say yes , she wants to scream. It makes no sense. Greta’s not worthy. She’s well aware of that. Quite honestly, she’s terrified of what would happen if Carson were to say ‘yes’. If she were the reason why this wonderful woman stayed unsafe for the rest of their lives.
And yet.
Prove me wrong; make me feel safe again; make me believe.
Carson’s always been good at believing. But all Greta can find, looking at her now, is the all-too-familiar regretfulness of a housewife who was never going to choose her. Time stretches out, seconds into minutes, into something painfully, excruciatingly more.
Pressure builds up in her chest: molecules upon molecules of carbon dioxide stored inside lungs that refuse to let go.
Waiting.
There are tears in Carson’s eyes.
Hoping.
The woman who can never seem to shut up apparently has nothing to say.
She needs to breathe.
It’s time to let go.
And maybe she whimpers pathetically as she does it (just once; too much), but Greta does it. She follows the drill.
“God, this was a mistake.”
She pushes Carson away.
“You’re risking everything for something that wasn’t even real.”
And it wasn’t, was it? It was a fantasy. A small taste of a life that has never been meant for Greta. A free sample of the thrill of passion to make things interesting for Carson before she returns to the mundaneness of her day-to-day.
She knows that.
Should have known that.
Used to know that.
Greta is confused as to when her heart started warping her sense of reality, but she can see clearly now.
“It was always just gonna be a fling, Carson.”
She lets go.