Chapter Text
It's been a little over a month since Mia last took a shower. It's been a little over six months since they were rushed to Romania. It’s been a little over three and a half years since she last felt clean, truly clean. The last time she showered, she panicked. The water, slick on her skin, felt like drowning. Felt like a storm, a hurricane.
A month ago, Ethan had been shaving in the bathroom mirror while she tried to be a normal person. His jaw had grown a little too stubbly for his own liking. She used to love his stubble, thought it made him look like a hero in an action movie. But now it just reminded her of sitting in that helicopter with him, both of them staring at each other with wide, haunted eyes, covered in grime and completely shell-shocked.
He had no right to look so afraid. He had only been through one night, and she had survived three fucking years with those monsters.
Had she really survived though? She was so sure she had drowned in that bayou. She remembered coughing up moss and water in that trailer in the yard. She had refused to stay in the house. She remembered frantically scrawling notes before collapsing.
Sure, both of them had left broken parts behind in that house. Both of them had felt something die in that house. But Mia had been dead for longer. She had played her role, but where were her fucking flowers? Where was her applause? Where were the people to coo at her, to tell her she had been so brave, so inspiring, so heroic?
Her thoughts had grown a little too poisonous for her own liking. How long had she just been standing in the shower, watching Ethan through the glass? The hot water ran out, and suddenly she was standing on the deck of the tanker Annabelle in the pouring rain, staring down a little girl before the world blew apart.
Mia closed her eyes and pressed her head to the cold tile. Then she did it again, repeating the motion harder and harder until her forehead ached.
(“I can feel her clawing her way back inside of me! Get OUT! LEAVE ME ALONE!”)
Ethan, bless his heart, was by her side in an instant. He opened the shower door, stepping in even though he was dressed for work. He could survive the unbearable pain of wet socks if it was for her.
And then she clocked him, punched him in the nose. She stumbled back, like she was surprised, scared that she had done that. He had startled her badly. She couldn't bear the sudden presence of men behind her, even if it was a man she had vowed to love until death did them part.
Ethan blinked in surprise. Blood gushed from his nose. Still, he wouldn't leave her in this state. A few years later, this would prove to be a point of contention between the two, his ruthless devotion and endless self-sacrificing, but for now, it was what Mia needed.
He reached around her, turning off the water with a twist of his wrist. More like his elbow. His wrist was still stiff, the joint hadn't healed quite right. He still had the little puckered scars from the staples that had held him together.
“Ethan, oh my god! Fuck, I'm sorry, I.. I didn't mean to,” she spoke apologetically, reaching up to caress his face and wipe the blood dripping from his nostrils.
“It’s okay, Mia,” he responded, voice gentle like he was talking to a scared horse and trying not to get stomped to death. He held her hand to his smooth-shaven face.
There was a hint of question in his voice, like he wasn't sure what to call her as he held her to his chest. When had they stopped using petnames? It felt like so long since she had last called him baby, honey, sweetheart. Now it felt like they barely knew each other.
She looked up at him. Or was she looking down? Was she hanging over Jack Baker’s shoulder, barely fluttering in and out of consciousness, staring at her husband's caved in skull being dragged through the mud? The rain had been warm that evening.
She buried her face in the sopping wet fabric of his shirt. She couldn't avoid the tears that had hit her like a freight train, like a shovel over the head. She sobbed so hard that she shook. She didn't want to keep being a damsel in distress, but what choice did she have?
She couldn't control the hurt.
She twisted the ring around her finger. She couldn't control much of anything. She was a wretched little thing that couldn't even wash the dishes like a good housewife. She insisted on taking on that burden, playing that role. It gave her something to try at, something to achieve. But even with rubber gloves on, sticking her hands in a sink full of murky water reminded her too much of Mom– of Marguerite.
(“NO NO NO! MY RING WENT DOWN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL, YOU STUPID SKANK! GO ON, GET IT ‘FORE JACK SEES IT'S MISSING,” all while Marguerite’s fingers had hovered over the switch of the disposal, a sick gleam in her eyes and a twitch in her hand like she was about to pull a trigger. It had taken two days for her fingers to heal, mauled as they were by the blades in the sink. Her ring finger still had a slight crook to it, when the mold got confused while weaving her back together. She hadn't been able to find Marguerite's ring. Sometimes she suspected that there had never been a lost ring.)
Ethan carefully shook her. Her eyes had gone blank, catatonic. She stared up at him like a doll. She glanced at the tile wall once more. God, she just wanted to smash her head in one more time. One more time, at just the right angle. But she couldn't do it in front of Ethan.
No, it would hurt him too much, and he had already been hurt enough for several lifetimes. She would not add more fuel to that funeral pyre. She would not keep burning that effigy.
The grout had specks of black. Fuck. Before her eyes, it seemed to turn into a web, creeping out, reaching for her and Ethan.
“Ethan. There's.. there's…” She couldn't speak the words into reality.
He saw it too. She could tell by the way his gaze shifted imperceptibly, jaw clenched so hard the muscle starting ticking like a clock. So it wasn't just a hallucination, wasn't just spots dancing across her vision.
Slowly, careful not to touch anything, they had both stepped out of the glass prison of the shower. He retrieved cleaning supplies from the cabinet under the sink. She clipped her long hair back.
He called in sick to work. They easily spent three or more hours scrubbing, scouring every single goddamn inch of that bathroom. They didn't even talk to each other, too focused on exorcising old ghosts from their bathroom. What a way to bond as a couple, what a sick joke.
At least they didn't have a bathtub. The fancy hotel before this house in Romania had had one. BSAA had shelled out big time for a nice hotel while they found a secure location, as if to make up for something.
Waiting to hear back from Chris about Ethan's test results, she had thought a bubble bath would be relaxing. She was wrong. She felt like a sitting duck in that cold tub, waiting for it to fill up around her. There hadn't even been an inch of water in the tub before it had hit her. The sound of running water, the foam of bubble bath, it was too much.
(Forced to watch Jack force Marguerite’s head under the moldy, frothy water again and again, knowing she was next. Trembling in line, like a lamb to the slaughter. Forced to sob through the water in her sinuses, “I've been bad, I deserve this!”)
Exhausted after cleaning that godforsaken bathroom within an inch of its life, the Winters had collapsed into bed next to each other, inches apart. They were both stripped bare, they had thrown their clothes away. They couldn't take any chances with that fucking mold.
Mia felt a whirlwind of emotions. The way Ethan had looked, that manic, obsessive gleam in his eye as he got on his knees and scrubbed that tile, had let Mia inspect his handiwork, had lied to his new boss just so he could stay and make sure Mia felt safe in this house…
What more could she say? Sheer and utter devotion is hot. Years later, she would find this less endearing, find it overbearing and paranoid. But for now, things felt calm for once.
Or maybe this was just the eye of the storm.