Chapter Text
During the five or so years since Lemony Snicket had been in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, my life hadn’t changed so much, despite the town slowly reviving itself. My mother still hadn’t sent for me, and my father pretty much never left his room anymore. I’d spent my time taking care of him, sitting on the cliffs just beyond the Lighthouse as I kept up my notes, and slowly attempting to organize the archives of the Stain’d Lighthouse. It may not have been a good life, but it was a peaceful one, and that was enough.
At least, it had been peaceful until last week, when my dad finally told me the truth – that my mother was gone for good. I’d always sort of known, despite the hope I’d clung to like an anchor to shore. The hope that one day she would send for us, and we’d move out of this dying town and be a again. I hadn’t even wanted to leave Stain’d-by-the-Sea. It was my home, despite everything. However, I knew that I would have left in a heartbeat if my mother had asked me to. The news, even if expected, left me feeling just as empty as the newsrooms in our once-bustling lighthouse. Somewhere once so full of joy, now stripped bare.
One of my only comforts was my continued correspondence with Lemony. He was still probably my best friend, and we wrote to each other constantly, exchanging notes whenever we could. I edited his writing, and kept him updated on Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s happenings, and he added to my notes whenever he could and sent me the reports he wrote during his various missions.
I had other friends, of course. I’d gotten closer than ever to Kellar over these past few years, and we often met at Hungry’s to write notes together, or sat in the lighthouse’s sitting room to read together. The Bellerophon brothers had taken over the library, and Cleo’s invisible ink formula was picking up steam, too, so besides the situations with my parents, I had to admit that things had improved greatly since that night on the train.
So, really, I shouldn't have been so shaken at the reminder of that time nearly five years ago when Lemony had been in town. But I supposed, if I'd expected myself to be completely unbothered by a reminder of that time, it would've been because I hadn't taken her into account. But there she was, right in front of me, walking down the hill in the opposite direction.
I had to admit that she looked somewhat beautiful. Her hair was still long, still black, and still as perfectly straight as all the lies she’d told. She'd even grown taller, from what I could tell, and her height was accentuated by her black combat boots. She was wearing a long, black skirt and a dark green sweater that I imagined would bring out her eyes if I had the courage to look up at her face.
I looked away, fixing my eyes straight ahead. I knew that if I looked at her, if I even risked a glance, I wouldn't be able to salvage my anger. If I ignored her, maybe she would disappear, just like she was just so good at doing, and I wouldn't have to deal with her or the myriad feelings I’d pushed down since she’d left this town the last time.
Myriad , I thought, trying to distract myself with Snicket’s strange habit of defining things that had become more and more prevalent in his recent letters. A word which here means a jumble of complicated feelings, great in number and variety, from fury to an inexplicable fascination, none of them making any sense . But any hopes I’d had of distracting myself from the present situation were dashed when I heard her soft voice as we walked nearer to each other.
"Hello, Ms. Mallahan."
At the sound of her voice, all those feelings rose up, threatening to spill out of me at a moment’s notice. The anger I felt at what she'd done, the fear and worry about Hangfire that had plagued me – us – for months, and the inexplicable interest in her that somehow hadn't gone away, even after all of these years. I looked up at her green eyes, which were staring expectantly back at me, waiting for a response.
I stopped walking, swallowed, attempting to push everything down, and put on my ‘polite’ voice. I told everyone that I'd developed it for the purposes of journalism, but I had to admit that it was incredibly useful in all aspects of life. Like speaking to someone who made me so mad I could spit, yet so intrigued I couldn’t walk away.
“Hello, Ellington. What are you doing back in town?” I could hear the falseness in my voice. Clearly, I needed to brush up on the polite part of my polite voice, but at that moment, I couldn’t find it in myself to care. I watched apprehensively as she stopped a few feet in front of me and stood there for a moment, looking almost catlike as she considered the situation.
“I just… wanted a fresh start,” she said carefully.
I snorted, despite myself. I couldn't quite explain why I felt so hurt at hearing her being just as false and carefully composed as ever, a stark contrast to my barely contained emotion.
“A fresh start? Here ? Did you forget everything you did here? All the people you hurt ?”
She looked away, muttering something to herself, so quietly I couldn’t quite hear it. I probably should’ve shut my mouth right about then, forced out some pleasantries, and gone about my day, but I couldn’t help myself. I was so angry , I couldn’t explain why I felt so much about her, but it all came spilling out at once. Like inkwells — like a draining ocean.
“You never seemed to care,” I continued. “You did so many treacherous things and hurt so many innocent people. You helped the Inhumane Society-the organization that drugged school kids, and did so many other deplorable things. You hurt Lemony. You hurt all of us.”
I felt my voice wobble, but I tried my best to remain firm. Ellington just stood there, looking infuriatingly emotionless as the words streamed out of me, almost of their own accord. “Did you expect everyone here to just forgive you? Did you expect me to forgive you? You betrayed my friend —my best friend!”
Finally, she spoke, her voice soft and pleading for forgiveness. “I wasn’t trying to betray him,” she said, her eyes desperately seeking comfort. “I was doing it for my father. Mr. Snicket knew that. I told him countless times that the only reason I did any of it was to save him.”
Hearing her sound so lost broke something in me. I’d spent so much time convincing myself I hated her, but I knew that that wasn’t quite true. I wanted to apologize to her, to reach out and take her hand, but I wanted to stand my ground. Needed to. I needed to be right, to defend my best friend. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t that simple. My hands shook as I stared at her, at those green eyes painted with anything and everything. After a few moments, I couldn’t stand it any longer and looked away.
“I didn’t know,” she continued, her voice lowering. Hearing her sound so broken, I couldn’t help but let go of some of my anger, even though I didn’t want to. “I didn't know that he was-that he was a villain. He was my father , and I wanted to help him. I would’ve done anything and everything to help him. I did do anything and everything to help him. He was all I had.”
I took a deep breath. “I know that,” I responded. My voice had gone quiet too, and I hesitated, torn between defending the beliefs I’d stood by all this time and reaching out, saying something, anything that would make it okay. That would make us okay—that would make everything that happened before even a little less devastating.
I swallowed again. Yes, I wanted to connect to her more than almost anything. But these words had been weighing on my heart for five long years , and I had a feeling that if I didn’t say them now, I never would.
“But that can’t excuse everything you did,” I continued. “Lemony was trying to defeat Hangfire, but he never knew if he could trust you. I never knew if I could trust you. And I hated you for that.”
She stepped back a little at that, her arms wrapping around her torso as she looked down, her dark hair falling over her face. I don’t know why it broke my heart that much, seeing her look so hurt. It was a look she seemed experienced with—the step, the way her arms wrapped around herself, the pain the world had inflicted on her, and her quiet attempts to shield herself from any more suffering—all of it was familiar to her.
“I don’t hate you anymore,” I added hurriedly, and she looked back up at me, visibly confused. “I-”
I hesitated then, unsure of so much . I didn’t know what to say, or how my anger and my desire for connection measured up against each other, or whether we’d ever be able to understand each other the way I wanted to.
“I think-I think I might understand,” I finally said, and she looked at me, her face full of uncertainty. “I mean, I can’t claim to have gone through as much as you have,” I added hurriedly, “but– I already do anything and everything for my dad, and I guess I can’t say that what you did would be too far.”
“It was too far,” she said dully, looking downwards. “I know I hurt people, but you don’t have to say that. You don’t have to pretend what I did was okay. It wasn’t. But I was doing it for my father. I was doing it because I didn’t know what else to do.”
I wanted so badly to forgive her. It hurt to see her look so broken. I stepped closer to her, desperately wanting to connect to her, to make her see that despite everything I wanted to be there for her. She was Ellington Feint, but she was still a person. A broken person on a broken sidewalk in a broken town.
“I’m– I’m so sorry,” I said, hearing the emotion in my voice and no longer caring enough to hide it. “For everything. You hurt people. You hurt me . But you didn’t deserve to go through all of that either. You did it for your father. You did it because you loved him enough to do anything and everything,” I sighed. “I guess I have to admire that.”
I watched as Ellington hesitated before stepping closer to me. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. It was barely audible, but I could hear her. I looked up and reached towards her, to squeeze her hands, smiling a sad sort of smile, silently telling both her and myself that it was alright to let go.
“It’s alright,” I responded. There was so much more to say, but I didn’t have the words. Not yet, at least. Maybe one day I would. But right then, I was tired of thinking so much. I’d spent so many years wondering about her, and spent this whole conversation desperately trying to figure out how to convey to her all my many thoughts. It should have been something I was good at. I could tell anyone else in this town what I felt—but not her.
For now, though, I didn’t need to. We stood there, looking at each other, and I felt uncertain about her for the first time. It wasn’t anger- I can’t really say what it was. It scared me a little, and I looked down slightly. Before this moment, I’d thought I was so sure of myself. I’d known that I was angry at the things Ellington had done. I’d known that I wanted to defend Lemony, because he was my friend. My best friend. I’d known that despite all of that, I cared about her and desperately wanted to forgive her somehow.
Yet this was something I felt less sure about. It felt a little silly, but Ellington was the first person I’d really felt this way about. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t normal that we’d just been shouting at each other. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen, I knew that much. But maybe that wouldn’t matter. Maybe we would be okay.
Ellington was still staring at me when I looked back up. I wondered if she was thinking the same things I was. I hoped so. I hoped I wasn’t the only one. It seemed so unlikely. She had always seemed so tall, so poised, and so sure of herself and her firm belief in anything and everything.
I felt like the complete opposite of her. I’d never known what to do, never had any sort of plan besides my fierce loyalty to what I thought was right. Loyalty. Ellington’s belief in her father and determination to do anything for him was something I’d always admired. Maybe we weren’t as different as I thought , I considered, and I smiled slightly.
Ellington’s eyes sparkled a little as she smiled back. She looked at me hesitantly, and I nodded slightly, before we leaned into each other.
It felt so different from every other interaction we’d had, conversations laced with anger and regret and so many unspoken words. I felt a different kind of unspokenness in that moment. It didn’t feel like we were hiding anything anymore. We weren’t talking, simply because it felt like we were understanding each other in a different way. It was strange, yes, but it was nice too.
We stood together, kissing each other under the deserted cliff on the shore of what used to be the sea. It felt a bit like the sort of scene that would happen in a book. Maybe something by Jane Austen, I thought. That had always been my mother’s favorite author. It hurt to think about her, to know that she wasn’t coming back, but Ellington somehow made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore.
There was still heaviness in my heart, and I wasn’t foolish enough to believe there wasn’t any in hers either. But somehow, I knew we would talk about all of that later. For now, it was enough for us to simply be.