Runaway Train

Because I just finished the first season, and I couldn't sleep.
Tina/Bette-centric
Angst/Romance

Call you up in the middle of the night
like a firefly without a light

Bette rolled onto her side, reaching out in the darkness for Tina's warm body. Her hand brushed only the sheet despite the fact that she could smell her partner on the damp fabric, and she exhaled quietly, forcing her eyes open so that she could see for herself what she already subconsciously knew: for the first time in almost seven years, she was sleeping entirely alone.

For the first time since moving into the house, she could hear every creak and sigh of the mattress, the soft running of the refrigerator in an empty kitchen. She reached for the nightstand, flicking the light on and fumbling for her phone. She knew that sleep was beyond her, and she was done with the charade. Wiping her curls from her forehead, she stood and stretched her legs and arms.

In truth, she was determined to do something, anything , to quell the pain she felt. Tina's face, Tina's screams, filled her head, and she realized she was utterly unsettled most by the idea that she had caused the pain and hatred that had crossed her lover's face. She set her phone aside, realizing she could not call Tina no matter how much she wanted to.

She thought of her taking the spare key to Alice's that they had been given months ago by their trusting friend, grabbing a bag of clothing in haste, throwing her torn dress to the ground and reaching for whatever clothing were at the front of the closet, tears pouring down her face the entire time. Bette now stared into that closet, squinting, seeing not only clothing but memories there. She wondered if Tina would come back for them, but clenched the thought down by biting her tongue.

She'll come back for me, she thought to herself, but she did not seem as certain as she felt. She thought of Tina, wondering if she had gotten inside safely, where Alice was, if the words had been said.

But more importantly, she wondered if she had ever stopped crying. Even as she walked to the kitchen, intent on finding something to drink and some paperwork to do, something to focus her attention on, she saw Tina's eyes in her head, full of something between love and hatred, and bit her lip.

You were there like a blow torch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning

No Alice. No bed. No Bette. Tina was beside herself, breath coming in sharp, ragged passes as she dragged her sweatshirt over her head, ashamed to make too much noise, ashamed to even be sitting on someone else's couch. She knew soon she would have to explain, but she knew the words weren't there. In reality, she could not understand Bette. For once in seven years, something was not clicking between them, and Tina found that the most heart-wrenching part was that she could not get inside Bette. Something, somewhere, had broken between them, and she ran over her litany in her head.

Was it my work? The baby? Oh god was it the baby? Was it me? What on earth could I have done?

The tears came and came, and she held her phone in the darkness, unable to fathom why everything had happened, blaming herself with everything she could muster.

It never occurred to her that Bette herself might be the problem, that something in Bette had broken. She only considered herself, as she always had, in terms of her relationship with Bette, and blamed herself for the broken piece, for being the one to fail.

She was still crying, hours later, when she scribbled, in frail hand, her answer to Alice's frantic questions and collapsed on the couch, sobbing into Alice's shirt. Afterwards, she would feel guilty about using one of Alice's favorite shirts as a handkerchief, but Alice never minded.

So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep

Bette stood at the door the next day staring out over the street. She would have held coffee, had she not been so shocked by the fact that the coffee pot had never been set the night before: Tina had not been there, smiling and holding a mug and reminding Bette to drink it slowly for her day off. Instead she was greeted by the sound of emptiness, the same sound that had practically broken her heart the night before. So she sat, eyes forward, trying not to fall asleep on top of her spreadsheets. Not that it would have been any worse if she had, she thought as she looked down at the dirty smudges her tears had left.

Knocking, faint yet distinct, at the front door. The sound shocked her into standing and walking to the door, peering out just in case one of the radicals had decided to show her face at the door. She personally promised, as someone who had already lost everything, she would punch Fay Buckley or any other protester who had the courage to show their faces at her door. They can't take from me what I took from myself, she thought, a statement that she wondered at for only a second before opening the door.

Shane stood on the steps, hair ruffled and eyes slightly puffy. It was a bit like looking at her own reflection, in a way. She recognized the signs of sleeplessness and something rather like a hollow emptiness, although she could not understand why.

"Shane?" She heard her own voice ask, a kind of croak.

Shane smiled, the kind of smile she tended to give when she was on an uncomfortable errand, and pushed both hands into the pockets on her jeans. Bette could see the lump her cigarette packet created under one of her hands and did her best to smile. "Hey, Bette, how are you?" Shane's voice held the edge of concern that implied only one thing: She was uncomfortable because she was here for Tina, and had been caught in the middle.

"Fine." The word fell out of her mouth in a curt, cold way, and she saw Shane recoil slightly, visibly. "I'm fine, Shane. It's not like you to be here so early in the morning… Do you need something?" She tried for a kinder tone and found that her voice cracked over itself again.

"I…" Shane looked torn. "I thought I would check up on you, and…" She stopped again, obviously uncomfortable. Bette wondered why Alice hadn't come instead, why Shane was here alone and fumbling through her role as go-between.

"And?"

"Bette… Tina needs a few things from the house, and… And she asked me to come get them. I'm sorry, I just…" Her thin fingers flicked the lighter through her pocket, flicked at the edges of her faded jeans. "I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I know how you must be feeling right now…" Her eyes seemed to cloud over slightly, to shake with something that she could not even begin to express.

Although Bette was sure that Shane could not even begin to understand what she was going through, she sat down on the porch and patted the hard steps, still in a daze. She was trying to hold it together in front of her friend, and found herself failing miserably, starting to fall apart despite her best intentions. Shane seemed to take the invitation, perching herself against the porch rail and staring up into space, raising a cigarette to her mouth. Bette chose not to say a word, preferring to share in their miserable, silent solidarity, even though she did not know what Shane was up against. The smoke filled the air, solitary, and suddenly the silence, above all else, was what broke Bette Porter. More than the miscarriage of her lover, more than the pain of Tina's cries, the silence and the pain of the last few hours washed over her.

She leaned into Shane's arms, letting Shane hold her quietly, as the tears poured down her face. The smoke, and the same kind of silence, enveloped them both.

It seems no one can help me now
I'm in too deep, there's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray.