Flight, a degrassi fanfic

Summary: "She thinks he almost understands. But not quite."
Girl loves boy. Boy loves girl. Girl visits boy in rehab to cure her own dysfunction. Angsty Crellie oneshot. (Potentially overrated, but rather safe than sorry.)

Because Ellie isn't a damsel.

Concrit is welcomed with open arms, like warm chocolate chip cookies.

"Flight"

It is a novel concept, the way her hair falls like blood across his pale, pale chest as they lay in red and gold and orange leaves. They have fallen.

His eyes whisper, Why? and she wants to scream, Because I can't find this in the real world, but he never really asks. So she never really tells.

She published poetry and got a D in her journalism class but tells him she's just written an article about some protest and oh god why can't she tell the truth?

He looks so proud just to have her on his chest.

He didn't expect any visitors. His kind of contagion spread swiftly and killed roots and leaves and anything in his way. He knew this, and he accepted it, and that was why he didn't expect her. He did, but he didn't, and he slept at night by telling himself that the 'didn't' outweighed the 'did.'

But there she was anyway, walking through the door and to the receptionist with some kind of purpose, some kind of hidden agenda. He watched from the shadows as her legs moved and her skirt swayed without making a sound; he watched silently but somehow she knew he was there and she turned and said, "Hey, you," like she wasn't tearing him apart.

He stood in front of her, afraid to infect.

She thinks he must have been born with the gift to hurt people just enough that recovery is possible. She knows there is blood somewhere on their stolen sheet and she knows it was painful, what they went through, but now she can heal.

He did touch her. It was reluctant, and that scared him, because he was never reluctant. He was rash, and he did stupid things, things he knew he shouldn't but did anyway.

And she smirked; "I didn't come here so you could pretend you don't know me."

Now he could sigh and wrap his arms around her. He thought maybe she stiffened, but he was too in love to care and reminded himself of her smirk and her smiling eyes.

It is a little chilly; she wraps his coat around her body and he fingers the goosebumps on her thighs and her collarbone. Her hair is a living thing, a contortionist perhaps that tiptoes across his eyes and his mouth, but he hasn't complained. It would be so much easier if he complained.

She leans over him, a hand on his chest and a hand in his hair. He is smiling in that way she loves best, like they're sharing a sarcastic secret and he's going to call her Nash any moment and tickle her and give her drum lessons. She knows that's impossible, but that's how she interprets the smile anyway. She never lived in the world of possibility, and she won't start now.

Very soon. But not now.

They decided to go for a walk. The visiting room was stuffed with schizophrenics and heroine addicts and too many lonely people for him to count, and he didn't want any of that to rub off on her.

She said, "I brought something." He assumed he knew what a picnic basket was for and when she asked him to steal a sheet from the storeroom he did.

It wasn't until they were under the trees in the chilly autumn air that she turned to him and deliberately put her fingers in his hair and kissed him with an unanticipated sadness.

"I'm just glad we're finally alone," she murmured against his lips, and that was when he thought he started to understand.

She is kneeling, and she hands him a packet of papers. He asks that question again, the one with his eyes, and it's a good thing it's beyond explanation because this isn't going to be coherent.

"I never read them."

He opens an envelope, unfolds the paper, traces his own letters. "You came anyway."

"Yes." Closing her eyes and rubbing her temples, she tiredly repeats, "Yes, I came anyway."

And it went by too quickly, like carelessly crushed leaves falling from the sky. One moment he was kissing her like the world was ending, and perhaps it was but he couldn't register that. He could only understand her skin under his fingertips and the way she cried out but told him not to stop, this was what she really wanted.

What she really wanted.

Maybe he doubted that. Maybe, but he didn't care, and he felt her red hair all around him and after it was over he traced the goosebumps on her body and pictured a million moments from now when he would repeat the gesture again and again.

He thought he spelled that out carefully in his letters and he thought now she could have him in all the ways she didn't before.

A leaf falls from overhead and it spirals into his hair where it remains perched like a confused little bird almost (but not quite) ready to take flight. She thinks he almost understands. But not quite.

"Why did you bother to come?"

She knows why. She came because she hates him and she wants to take something from him, she wants to leave first and let him know what it feels like to not have another chance, to be left wondering what if and how come and why. She came because she loves him and needed to hold him close and tell him without words how they would always remain entwined.

She came because she owed him, and there was still a piece of her that didn't bleed. She came because he owed her, and it was time for him to cauterize her wounds.

She came because she wanted to take that confused little bird and hold it close to her chest and make it something real.

But she chokes and says, "I don't know," and turns away.

Maybe it was for the best, he thought as he watched her walk through the door, her hair wild and red as a robin. Maybe he needed this, but it hurt that she took his happiness and didn't even look back.

Maybe it is for the best, she thinks, as she walks into the painful sunshine, a golden leaf in her hair.