Chapter Text
Marielle comes back to herself in pieces. That’s how she would later try to describe it – one moment everything is still blurry, in the next she feels Kristi around her, saying her name, holding her like she’d been afraid she would never get to do it again.
It takes her a moment to understand where she is. The room is unfamiliar at first, and the memory comes back with the realization that she is still strapped down to the bed of the first nighters’ room in Colony House, her hands and legs restricted in their movement.
The next thing she notices is the pounding in her head. It feels heavy, way too heavy to be in anything but a horizontal position.
Dehydrated, most probably, the thinks. She tries to make the calculation – she is a nurse, after all – and fails as she realizes she has no idea where exactly she is on her withdrawal timeline, because – this comes next, she has no idea how long she was out. She files it as something to ask Kristi. Later, maybe. Because right now, Kristi is holding her and is crying and that feels like a lot to process for both of them. But Kristi is here, they’re both here and for now, that feels like the most important fact.
“Ah, she’s awake.”
Marielle identifies the voice of the interrupter as Donna’s, a statement said matter-of-factly, without any edge or particular emotion to it, but enough for Kristi to let go and guide her back onto the pillow.
Marielle doesn’t resist and doesn’t really listen to what Donna says next either, as she finds that being back in her own body requires far more concentration than she’d like to admit. One thing at a time it is, apparently.
Donna retreats shortly after coming in, and Marielle feels Kristi’s attention shifting back to her. She looks tired. Beyond tired, if Marielle is honest. Her eyes are moving over Marielle in the very careful manner of someone taking inventory and being afraid to miss something important that might have changed or wasn’t there before.
“Hey,” Marielle finally says. Her voice comes out rough, underused.
“Hi,” Kristi’s eyes refocus on her face and she softens. “How are you?”
Marielle briefly considers the question.
“Head hurts." She pauses. "Water?"
Kristi reaches for the glass that has apparently been waiting next to the bed, places it in her hands and keeps her own hands loosely around Marielle's while she takes a sip. Her hands are not entirely reliable yet and it seems that they both know so, and Marielle is thankful that Kristi doesn’t comment on it.
She briefly closes her eyes, tries to recall the last thing she is certain of. Kristi leaving to get her juice and then cicadas. A lot of cicadas, all over her – and then? Agony, or at least the feeling of it. She remembers being in a sort of chamber, maybe?
She isn’t sure and she decides her brain doesn’t currently have the capacity to do the work.
"Can you tell me what happened?" She asks instead.
So Kristi tells her. Not everything, as she doesn’t seem to know what exactly happened or why it happened herself, but the bigger picture. She tells her about the part she remembers herself – leaving to get her a glass of juice and coming back too late to help or do much of anything at all. About the uncertainty that followed, about the hours of sitting beside her and only leaving when absolutely necessary. She tells her about Julie and Randall, the same thing happening to them, the same symptoms, the same screaming episodes. Julie and Randall, who – Kristi realizes as she is talking – she should probably check on at some point.
“Do you remember anything?” Kristi finally asks.
Marielle sighs.
“I’m not sure,” she admits. “I remember you leaving. And then-” She stops. “Cicadas. Everywhere. And then nothing. Just- pain? But not-” She stops, again.
Truth be told, she has no idea about how to explain the things she felt or where she went. Nothing makes sense and she feels the throbbing in her head get angrier as she tries to recall any more detail of what happened to her in the past twenty-four hours.
Kristi sees her struggling. Of course she does.
“It’s okay,” she says.
"Is it?"
Kristi considers it honestly.
"I don't know what okay means here," she says. "But you're back. You’re here. That's what matters."
Marielle nods and leans back again. An honest answer to an existential question they’re both too tired for today. Way too tired.
Marielle doesn’t remember drifting off. When she resurfaces, the sun is – as far as the blocked windows allow to see – already rising outside. What she does remember from the previous night is Kristi removing the straps from her hands and legs, before climbing onto the small bed too and adjusting herself in the space around Marielle, her left arm securely wrapped around her.
The exhaustion and the warmth of Kristi’s arms must have done their work pretty quickly and Marielle suspects she would still be asleep if it wasn’t for the voices downstairs, someone clearly having an argument with another resident about whatever people here presumably argued about. She vaguely remembers Kristi mentioning a problem about the house being out of canned peaches – perhaps this.
The next thing Marielle gradually becomes aware of is her clothes. The clothes she has been wearing for several days now, that have seen sweat dry and come back so many times that the fabric has given up on trying to get its original colour back. Her top feels like a second skin and her pants feel stiff, wrong and clammy against her legs. Her hair – she tries not to think about her hair.
Okay, she thinks. Okay.
She’s been through worse in the past forty-eight hours. She’s been through considerably worse in the past six months. This is just the start of another day.
She feels Kristi stir behind her.
“Morning,” Kristi mumbles against her neck. A pause. “How are you feeling?”
Marielle takes a moment to consider the question again. She is still unsure about what exactly happened, Kristi’s version of the events not fully aligning with what her body feels it went through.
On a better note, the symptoms of her withdrawal aren’t as present anymore, the rest of the acute phase apparently burning through her while she was… wherever she was. Her nausea is manageable now, the muscle aches have dulled to something she could probably ignore if she tried hard enough. Her head feels a little clearer.
“Better,” she finally settles on. “But I need-” She stops and briefly closes her eyes. “I can’t stay in these clothes.”
She swallows. Kristi has seen her at various stages of undress over the years – most of them have been more than welcome. This is not one of those times.
Kristi has also seen her in various states of sickness. Marielle still remembers the specific sense of hurt pride involved when Kristi, four months into dating, had told her she didn’t care about the cancelled plans, but she’d still come over despite Marielle having the flu. She remembers trying to argue her way out of a situation in which Kristi would see her way less functional than she usually would be, only to find that in the end, Kristi still coming to stay over, make her tea and soup and cuddling with her while watching horrible reality TV had been rather comforting.
Hell, Kristi had just witnessed her going through the worst version of herself, staying by her side and holding her through it – helping her get cleaned up and into fresh clothes now shouldn’t be that big of a deal. And yet…
“I need-” She starts again. Considers how reliable her body currently feels. “I might need help.”
“I know,” Kristi replies. “We’ll figure it out.”
Marielle feels Kristi shuffle behind her and finally sit up, before she turns to look at her. Kristi is looking around the room with the practical efficiency she’s been using since getting both of them to Colony house. In a quick motion, she picks up their bag and comes back to stand next to the bed.
“Colony House has a bathroom on this floor. It’s not ideal but… it’s something.” She holds out her hand. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s get you up slowly.”
Marielle takes her hand and stands up, immediately noticing – and hating – how unsteady she feels. Kristi doesn’t comment on it, just gets her hand at her elbow and waits for her to find her balance.
Marielle looks down at herself. At the clothes and the way her legs are working way harder than necessary to cooperate. She exhales as resignation settles in and looks up.
“Let’s get it over with.”
Kristi gently nudges her.
“Hey,” she says and places a soft kiss to her cheek. “You’re still you.” Simple as that. “Let’s go.”
The bathroom is at the end of the hallway and it’s unoccupied when they get there. Kristi closes the door behind them, sets their bag down and gets the water running.
Marielle watches her while trying to figure out the logistics of getting out of her clothes and into the shower when the knock comes. Sharp and impatient. She closes her eyes and exhales.
“Just what we needed.”
Kristi doesn’t reply immediately but Marielle can see her briefly recalibrating, before she turns the water off again.
“Just a minute,” she calls to the door, grabs the bag and turns back to Marielle. For a moment she looks like she’s about to say something else but decides otherwise.
“Come on,” she says to Marielle instead and gently pushes her back into the other direction.
“We’re going back to the clinic,” she says once back in the hallway.
Marielle looks at her. “Kristi-”
“I’ll ask someone to drive us.” She looks determined and Marielle, who would rather not move any more than absolutely necessary, can see that there is no point in arguing with her girlfriend right now.
Kristi’s expression softens again.
“I want to do this properly. Our bed is there, our clothes,... And I want-” she stops, before adding more quietly. “I need it to just be you and me for a bit. Okay?”
Marielle nods. That feeling she can understand.
“Yeah,” she says. “That does sound good.”
Ellis drives them without asking too many questions, which Marielle appreciates more than she would admit. She briefly remembers how he looked at her when he guided them to the first nighters’ room. A mix of skepticism, apparent pity and – she knows she might be interpreting way more into it than there was – the lack of understanding how she, this, was Kristi’s person.
Kristi, whose hands are over hers for the entire drive. Kristi, who is still here. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Another thought for later. Way later.
The clinic is quiet when they get there. Ellis takes their bag and hands it over to Kristi at the front door. He says something to her that Marielle doesn’t quite fully listen to. A question about whether they would be okay and an invitation to come back to Colony House whenever they need. She’s sure he means it, but she’s also sure that for now, she has seen and heard enough of that place for the next several days at least.
Inside, their room is unchanged. Kristi’s EMT shirt on the hook, the plants on the dresser, the lamp on Kristi’s bedside table and her painted rock right there, steadily waiting for them.
Marielle stands in the middle of the room and takes inventory of it. Of the evidence of both of them having spent some time together here already. Of her hairbrush laying on top of a book pile on the desk.
“Home sweet home,” she says dryly and hears Kristi chuckle behind her. A sound she’d missed so much, the feeling of being the one bringing it out almost too overwhelming for her current state.
She feels Kristi gently wrapping her hands around her from behind.
“Let’s get you out of these clothes?”
Marielle sighs.
It’s not like Kristi hasn’t taken care of her before. In fact, she has been taking care of her since the withdrawal hit the point where she couldn’t hide it anymore. And even before that, back at home. She’s been sick before, the flu and other viruses she brought home from the ward, things that had made her feverish and miserable, and in the past years, Kristi had been there for all of them.
This isn’t that though. It’s different and they both know it. This is Kristi having seen her at the absolute limit of what her body can do, having held her through the worst of it and now being there for the aftermath. There is no version of this that isn’t humbling.
“Let’s get it over with,” she says again, in the same resigned tone she already did earlier at Colony House.
They leave the hoodie in the room and Kristi puts her arm around her again, slowly guiding her down the small and narrow hallway, right up to the last room that someone over the years had turned into an improvised bathroom.
One of what seemed to originally have been two toilet stalls had been torn down and turned into a shower with the help of an old garden hose connected to the sink. And while Marielle had questioned the engineering behind the whole installation on her first evening at the clinic, she has to admit that she is now very thankful to whomever lived here before Kristi and decided that this building needed a possibility to get clean to permanently live here.
Kristi helps her without commentary. The green tank top goes. The black jeans follow. All of it, until Marielle stands in the middle of the small space, feeling exposed and thankful at the same time.
In one swift motion, Kristi discards her own clothes as well, grabs Marielle’s hand and pulls her two steps further, under the running water.
“Hold on to me if you need to,” she says and puts her left arm around her, apparently not fully trusting the reliability and steadiness of Marielle’s legs at the moment. Which, Marielle thinks, is fair.
Kristi starts working carefully and methodically, like someone who has touched Marielle a thousand times in different configurations and is not going to start being weird about it now.
Marielle feels herself slowly relaxing and when Kristi’s hands reach into her hair and when her nails gently scrape over her scalp, she closes her eyes, exhales and finds herself leaning a bit closer to her girlfriend.
“I’ve got you,” she hears Kristi say.
Kristi, who continues massaging her head, before apparently reaching for the cloth she had brought from their room and gently continuing, slowly and without rushing, over her shoulders, her arms, her back.
And Marielle lets her. Feels her adjusting their position when needed without letting go, until she turns the water off with her free hand.
“All done,” she says, and when Marielle opens her eyes, she finds Kristi looking at her with an expression so gentle that something inside of her almost breaks.
She doesn’t say anything right away. She lets Kristi reach for their towels that have been hanging there, waiting for them since they last used the shower and they finally make it back to their room, where Marielle goes to sit on the bed while Kristi gets them fresh clothes.
“Thank you,” Marielle finally says, quietly, and finds that it’s easier when Kristi isn’t directly looking at her.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Kristi replies without turning around, still gathering what she thinks is needed.
“It’s not just-” She briefly closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Not just for this. I know I said things. During-” She briefly recalls the timeline. “The second night.”
Kristi finally turns and hands her a clean T-shirt.
“I know.”
“And I think- I meant some of them.”
There it is. The ugly truth of what’s been sitting between them. Or rather between Marielle and the reality of this place and the fact that Kristi is right here, alive. The fact that none of this aligns with any of her theories she had when she was alone in their apartment, when all of their friends slowly started to look at her with the sort of pity in their eyes that suggested she would never see Kristi again.
“I know that too,” Kristi simply replies and sits down next to her. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”
Marielle looks at her. She understands that Kristi is giving her a way out and feels herself being so tired of everything that happened that she decides to take it, for now. She nods.
“How are you feeling?” Kristi asks again.
Marielle considers it. The soft fabric of the fresh T-Shirt, her wet but finally clear hair,...
“More human again.”
Kristi reaches over and takes her hand, turns it over and enwinds their fingers.
"Good," she says. "That's good."
Marielle leans her head on Kristi’s shoulder.
“The connection point between the hose and the sink for the shower,” Marielle starts. “It’s going to leak eventually.”
Kristi chuckles, again, clearly understanding that Marielle tried to find something to say instead of another Thank you, and appreciates the effort.
“Yeah, probably.”
“I’ll take a look at it once I’m-“
“More functional again?” Kristi offers.
“Yeah. That.”
She feels herself yawning before she can stop it.
“We should probably-“
“Yeah,” Kristi immediately agrees. “A nap sounds good.”
They lie down on the bed in the same way they’ve done since Marielle arrived and she feels Kristi’s arm come around her and her lips placing a gentle kiss to her neck.
Marielle takes her hand again.
“I love you,” she says into the quiet of the room.
She feels Kristi tightening her hold.
“I love you, too.”
Marielle takes a deep breath before closing her eyes. And for the first time since she got here, sleep comes gently and easy.