Title: Run
Rating: T-ish to be safe
Summary: "He smiles over at the redhead who half smiles back at him, unable to help but feel an instant pang of guilt for having him be so trusting and her keeping such a huge secret in return." Ellie. Craig. Ashley. Sean. Sometimes lies tend to get in the way of our own happiness.
A/N: This first chapter is intended to set most things up for the rest of the story. It might seem like other people being spoken about here are the main focus, but they aren't, trust me! Ellie is, and will always be at the center of this story. Also, this chapter is dedicated to Nikki aka Mayberry because I'm too cheap for a gift so I promised I would have this out by her birthday instead! Hopefully everyone loves it, or hates, whatever, as long as you review and actually let me know what you think, I cannot be mad!
Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi. Trust me, if I did... Sean would still be all sorts of cool and he and Ellie would still be together, d'uh! So point being, no, not mine.
Shameless plug: Behind the Static by Claddagh Ring, just because it's coming back! If you want some Sellie angst with a major twist... check that out.
Chapter One
.one.
"So El, how's your mom doing?" Ashley asks as she takes a bite of her peanut butter and celery. She sits across from Ellie on her bed, the two friends spending Friday night catching up with one another. It had been weeks since they had gotten together like they use to earlier in their friendship that began a couple of years ago. Both quite missed it and decided that tonight was the perfect opportunity.
The question from the brunette strikes Ellie with a bit of uncertainty, knowing that just a couple of months ago words like, "drunk" or "pretty bad" would be part of whatever response she were to give. But, now, being back home with her, things have actually improved. Ellie does not completely trust the woman who had once passed out and set their kitchen on fire, which is understandable, but their relationship is now at a much better place than it had been back then.
"She's doing better. Going to her meetings…she's even got a sponsor now." The redhead says that last bit with somewhat of a smile. Knowing that somebody was finally there to help her with her mother's addiction—something that was too much for her to handle herself at sixteen—was a relief in a way. Though she still worries, she knows that somebody is there for her now.
"It must be weird being back here though, after the fire..."
Ellie nods her head. "It is, and part of me will always be scared that she'll fall off the wagon and go back to her old ways. But, I'm learning to trust her again."
"Well, she's trying, right? I'm sure she feels bad about everything that happened just as much as you do. I mean, if it wasn't for Sean—" Noticing her best friend's facial expression changing, Ashley quickly stops herself right there. Ellie is not one to be able to hide her emotions very well. She knows that bringing him up is a bit of a sore subject lately, but the fact of the matter is that Sean did play a huge role in Ellie's life during that time and was a part of Mrs. Nash's recovery process. "I'm sorry El, I didn't mean to bring him up."
"No, Ash, you're right. Sean was there to take care of me when my mom couldn't. He was there when I needed him…" Ellie sighs and looks down at her hands; she has been unnoticeably fiddling with them since the mention of her ex-boyfriend. Usually, she won't admit that the mere mention of him is something that still gets to her and brings back old memories of a time passed, but it was obvious. Ashley knows that her best friend still isn't completely over the boy who left her behind and broke her heart, but it is hard to talk about the last year without bringing him up. "Unfortunately, I just couldn't do the same."
"Have you heard from him. at all?"
Ellie shakes her head. "Other than the obligatory, 'send my stuff to Lot 20, Wasaga Park'… no." The words come out somewhat more bitter than she had intended them to. But it was no secret that the part of her hat was still very much in love with Sean, was also very angry with him for leaving her behind to fend for herself.
"You both just need time. I know it," Ashley assures her.
Ellie shakes her head and responds, "it doesn't matter now. He's not coming back. And it's just mom and me…again."
"There'll be other Seans, or at least other guys out there. And you said it yourself; your mom's doing better with AA. Plus, you have group, and that helps, right? Craig says that's been doing him a lot of good."
"It helps…it just isn't the same."
"Change isn't always a bad thing El, you know that."
Ellie nods at this, knowing that her friend is right. She's been told that before, when she was scared about how her life was changing during the early stages of her relationship with Sean. Now, she's being told the same thing post-relationship.
Both girls spend the next few moments sitting with each other, enjoying the company—Ellie munching on crackers and Ashley with her celery and peanut butter. It has been so long since either one has spent good quality time together, that they vowed to have this night as a time to catch up and just hang out as best friends, like they use to.
Ellie's eyebrows furrow at Ashley when she finally realizes what her friend's been eating for the past few minutes. "Hey, what's with the peanut butter anyway? I thought you hated that stuff."
Ashley shrugs. "Just in a mood I guess." Her expression suddenly changes from one moment to the other as she drops the vegetable and spits it out into her napkin. "On second thought… maybe I shouldn't always listen cravings. This stuff's suddenly got me nauseous."
"Are you going to throw up?"
"No El, it's not that serious. Mild nausea," Ashley explains. "It happens."
Ellie gets up and sets her snack on the bed. "Hold on…I'm sure we've got some Pepto Bismol somewhere here. Mom use to think it helped with hangovers, turns out it just makes your puke all pink." She then notices the expression on her friend's face after that comment. "Right…too much information. Sorry…I'll be right back." The redhead promptly exits the room, leaving the other girl sitting on her bed, alone.
Growing impatient with the wait, Ashley gets up and heads to Ellie's laptop, which had been on hibernate, housing several Word documents; most of them articles for the Grapevine, with the exception of a paper for Ms. Kwan. She quickly minimizes each one of them and opens an internet browser which immediately brings her to a search engine. Typing in a few key words and hitting the return key several websites come up, but she clicks on the second one in particular, knowing it well after having been there several times already on her own computer. She continues to read the page several times over, studying it almost, making sure she takes in the words.
"Sorry I took so long, apparently my mom had quite a few meds for hangovers…shocker!" Ellie remarks as she reenters the room and walks toward Ashley with pink medicine in hand.
Startled, the brunette quickly tries to exit the website she was viewing, but only ends up making the window smaller. When she tries again, she makes it bigger, while looking over at her friend, "Ellie…I…I didn't…" Once she sees her friend's face, she knows she's caught on to what she is trying to hide.
"Ashley?" Ellie questions as she stands behind the other girl, reading her computer screen. "'Preparation for your procedure'…yo-you're pregnant, aren't you?"
In an instant Ashley's face falls. She closes the laptop and turns toward Ellie. Nodding her head she responds, "I found out last week."
A sudden sense of concern fills Ellie as she drops to her knees, puts the medication to the side, and grabs Ashley's hands, keeping eye contact with her. "Are you sure? Have you told anyone? Craig?"
The girl in the chair shakes her head. "No…I mean, yeah, I'm sure. I took two tests. And no, Craig, I haven't—"
"You need to tell him," Ellie interrupts, "you guys need to—"
"No! Ellie, I can't tell him. I don't want him to know… this will mess up everything he worked so hard for. I already decided, I'm getting the abortion."
"Look, I'm all for choice and all that, but, are you sure this is what you want to do?" Ellie asks, not quite sure if her friend has thought everything through. She hasn't had enough time to get use to the idea of Ashley being pregnant, and equally as less time to get use to her wanting to get unpregnant.
"I've thought about it a lot, and I can't do this," Ashley responds, shaking her head. "I…Craig and I, we can't have a baby right now. My dad just called me the other day about a summer job in London with BBC 6. Craig's just getting a handle of things again, and he's got this whole amazing music career ahead of him…it's what's right, for the both of us, I know it."
Some sort of twisted irony has Ellie suddenly feeling like Emma Nelson consoling her pregnant best friend last year, and she's not sure quite how she feels about God playing with her like this.
She sighs and asks, "does your mom know at least?"
Ashley lets out a sarcastic laugh, "let Kate Kerwin know that Craig knocked up her daughter and she had a right to worry? No way!" She shakes her head before continuing, "you know, last year I was so angry at Manny for getting pregnant, lecturing her and Craig on safety in front of the whole cafeteria…and here I am in the same situation."
"You were angry, you were hurt—"
"And now I'm a hypocrite!"
"Ash, these things just happen," Ellie says to her friend as she strokes her hand. "And I really think you should tell Craig."
"No, I can't. Nobody knows, nobody but you. And you can't tell him either, okay? I have my appointment for Tuesday after school."
"Then I'm going with you."
"El…" Ashley was never planning on informing her of the whole situation, so she isn't quite sure how to respond to the redhead's offer to accompany her.
"Look, you're going to need someone to be there for you, so I'm going with you. I'm not having you go through this alone."
For the first time in the last couple of days a genuine smile begins to grace Ashley's face as she reaches over to hug Ellie, with actual hope that things might turn out okay. "Thank you."
.two.
Thursday afternoon, a couple of hours before group therapy at the rec center, Ashley says her goodbyes to Craig and Ellie. By the time her boyfriend and her best friend would be discussing ways to cope with their problems, Ashley would be on a plane headed toward London, to spend a summer with her father for the first time in years.
"Ash, how long you plan on staying there, huh?" Craig jokes and he drags her suite case over to the parked taxi-cab in front of her house. He lifts it with both hands and places it in the trunk.
"Not too long, eh, I've got to return to you sometime," she says with a smile as she wraps her arms around neck and plants a kiss on his lips. "I appreciate you being okay with all this Craig…I mean it."
"Hey, that's what good boyfriends do, no?" he laughs at his own joke not breaking stare with his girlfriend. "Plus, like you said, you've been wanting to go to England ever since, what? You saw Mary Poppins?" She to chuckles herself a bit as she realizes that he's trying to make things easier. "And it's your dad Ash, I wouldn't keep you away from him."
"I know, thank you," Ashley says before kissing him again. She then quickly removes her duffle bag which was weighing on her shoulder and places that too in the back compartment, which was already hosting quite a few pieces of luggage.
"PDA, definitely not going to miss that," snarks Ellie as she closes the car's trunk and smiles at her friend. "Not that you two ever display it or anything."
"Didn't you and Sean use to make out in the halls of Degrassi?" asks Craig, knowing the redhead wasn't so innocent herself.
Ashley's gaze automatically goes to her best friend upon hearing the mention of the boy who left months ago, but Ellie does not let whether she was affected by the memory or not show, simply rolling her eyes instead. A smile creeps on Ashley's face as she sees that her friend isn't letting the past get to her.
"So…he's taking all this pretty well, huh?" asks Ellie as she looks over to her friend's boyfriend, who has wandered off several feet away on his cell phone in the last few seconds..
"Yeah, he is. He's happy," explains Ashley, "and I'm glad I didn't ruin any of that."
"So you didn't…" Barely finishing her question, Ellie sees her friend shaking her head, informing her that she did not let her boyfriend in on their secret, as both of them have what took place a couple of weeks ago still very fresh on their minds.
Both girls sat there in the waiting room of the Shire Woman's Clinic among the other patients waiting to be attended to, about eight in total, Ashley and Ellie being one of their most recent arrivals. They'd headed straight to the clinic after a full day of classes at Degrassi Community School, and after filling out several pages of paper work, from medical history to insurance information, they had been told to wait until being called, which would be anywhere between ten minutes to half an hour. Since that time, the two sat there in silence, waiting hand in hand.
Ellie finally spoke up, "so, how'd Craig take the news? Of London calling, I mean."
"He's disappointed, and I guess I get that," Ashley explained. "He wants me to stay here and do music for Kevin Smith's movie. But he doesn't need me, I know he'll be great on his own."
"Great, then he can provide a soundtrack to my five lines," the redhead joked.
"What do you they want you to play again?"
Ellie stared back at her friend sternly, who she knew was well aware of the answer. "A quote-unquote 'goth girl'."
"Ellie Nash, I never would have pegged you as a goth," Ashley remarked sarcastically. The other girl quickly shot her back a face that read perfectly to her personality—a stare accompanying a roll of the eyes. It helped let out a bit of a chuckle from Ashley. "So…no summer plans of furthering expanding your acting career?"
"No. My summer includes group, university scouting, and possibly the opportunity to shadow one of the editors at Toronto Now. I have an interview coming up."
"That's great El, really."
"Yeah…Caitlin, she talked to some people she knew there and told them how I did a co-op with her last year, and convinced them to see me."
"Sounds like you have a big summer coming up for you," the brunette commented
"So do you," Ellie explained, "BBC. London. Your dad."
"Pretty exciting stuff…"
Soon the conversation waned down between the girls and they went back to just sitting in the room, which had gotten smaller in population, still hand in hand. By then twenty minutes had passed and both knew that the time was coming soon. In matter of minutes it would all be over with and each girl would be able to move forward, both having feelings on the afterschool events taking place despite them being in opposite positions.
"Ashley…Kerwin."
The sudden mention of her name caught Ashley off guard as she looked up and saw a medical assistant standing several feet away from her, searching the room for a response, with a large clipboard in hand. They finally make eye contact and the older woman told her, "we're ready for you sweetie."
Ellie stared at her friend, and knew that that was itShe had reached the point where she could no longer hold her hand—she needed to let go and let Ashley do the rest on her own.
"Are you going to be okay?"
Ashley nodded her head silently, but obviously appreciative of the support given to her by the other girl, and told her, "yeah, I am," before heading off.
"I still think about it too," Ellie informs her friend who she notices was likely to have been thinking about the same thing as her. "Ash, it's okay."
The other girl nods. "Thank you, again, for being there. And, not saying anything."
"Of course, that's what best friends are for."
"And I have one more favor to ask," Ashley hesitantly mentions. "Take care of Craig for me while I'm gone, please? Just, look out for him, make sure he goes to his meetings, does okay…"
Ellie looks a bit uncertain, and not quite sure to what to, but regardless of the feeling she nods her head, agreeing.
"He needs someone here for him El, while I can't be." Without realizing it, Ashley finds herself tearing up a bit, due to experiencing one too many emotions at one.
"Ash…"
Craig reappears almost as soon as he'd left, slipping his arms around his girlfriend's waist from behind, and kissing her cheek. He notices the tears that seem to be welling up in my eyes and asks, "what's wrong?"
She wipes her eyes and smiles, telling him, "nothing. Just sad about leaving, glad about going."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure," she assures him."And…I've got to get going, before I really start crying over here." Craig lets go of upon hearing this before she goes on, "my plane leaves in a little more than an hour."
"All I have to say is don't come back all English on me Kerwin," Ellie jokes. She walks over to her friend, stretching her arms open, ready for an embrace. Once connected she whispers, "I'm going to miss you."
"Thank you, for everything," Ashley says back to her as they let go of each other. She turns back to her boyfriend and half smiles at him, not very sure how to say this last goodbye. "Craig..."
"We'll see each other again, you know, in September."
"I'll write to you every day, promise, until you get sick of me," Ashley jokes, starring back into his eyes that were concentrated on her.
He comes closer to her and once again wraps his arms around her waist, and she does the same with hers around his neck. "Just… don't go find a way cooler guy with an accent, fall madly in love and never, ever come back, okay?"
She laughs, kissing him, telling him, "you're it, no substitutions."
"I love you Ash, and that's not going to change."
"I love you too…" Ashley lightly brushes her lips with his and then pulls away, explaining, "I better go now before I change my mind." She glances over at Ellie, who had been watching the two share their intimate goodbyes, just before she reaches for the cab's door. This time, she sees how her friend is unable to hide her feelings concerning the past. Unfortunately, there was nothing that she can do about it.
Just before she gets in the car, Ashley tells the two, "I love you! And El, don't forget what we talked about, okay?" She then closes the car door and continues to stare at those she leaves behind. They stare back until the car is no more, and are left with promises waiting to be fulfilled over the next couple of months.
Neither of them moves immediately, but soon realize that their group therapy at the center was to begin pretty soon, so they should get a move on, which they did, arriving just in time for the weekly check in point of the session.
"…they didn't have an effect on me. But then, just as soon as I thought I had gained self control, I hit the buffet at my sister's wedding and purged it all," explains Nancy, as both Ellie and Craig arrive. "So I've had an okay week. The wedding was fun. The food was good. The feeling afterward was horrible though."
Max, the group leader, comments, "indulgence is never a bad thing, but we have to learn to do it in moderation. I'm glad you're able to recognize where you went wrong." He looks over at Craig and then Ellie, asking, "either of you want to check in?"
Craig nods his head and begins, "well, my girlfriend left me today, and you would think that I would be really sad, you know? But, I'm not! I'm like, I'm actually happy for her. She's doing this BBC 6 thing in England and gets to be with her dad. Like, she gets to have it good this summer, and after all I've put her through last year, she deserves it. It just sucks that she won't be back 'til September." Several reactionary noises are made around the circle, stating that they feel where he's coming from. "But hey, I get phone calls, and letters, and emails…everyday! And—a summer with Ellie…yeah, a summer with Ellie! And I'm happy for her. I want her to be happy. 'Cause I love her. But for now, it's just me and Ellie, I guess." He smiles over at the redhead who half smiles back at him, unable to help but feel an instant pang of guilt for having him be so trusting and her keeping such a huge secret in return.
A/N: Thanks for making it this far. Please leave a review in order to give me something to work off of, I would honestly appreciate it if you did! Unfortunately, if you enjoyed this, I am not too sure how often I can bring you the next chapter, I will be trying to get it out soon. I have about a billion things going on from Sean & Ellie Online, to work, to an online course, to life in general. But, hopefully things will be quick!