Breaking Point
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the 2013 film Carrie and I'm not making any money from this fic
Summary: Sue succeeds in persuading Carrie to leave with her, setting herself up as more than she realises
Warning(s): Spanking; spoilers for the film Carrie - mostly the 2013 one, but better assume the book and other film as well
Author's Note: This isn't a pairing I visit very often, but when I watched the film, I couldn't get this idea out of my head. So I hope readers enjoy
Since the text that had come to her phone from Chris, Sue didn't think she'd felt anything but fear. That emotion spiked heavily, though, as the distraught Carrie used her powers to lift her into the air.
But it wasn't herself Sue was scared for - or even for the baby she was carrying. She could see how vulnerable Carrie was. She didn't see a monster or freak when she looked at the other girl. All she saw was a scared teenager who'd been pushed to breaking point by people who'd made no attempt to understand her.
A strange look came over Carrie's face and Sue had the feeling that whatever she said next would decide what the other girl was going to do. She reached a hand out to Carrie, holding eye contact with her, trying to ignore the shaking building and the plaster falling from the walls. "Carrie... you don't have to do this."
Carrie didn't speak, but Sue felt herself gently carried backwards out of the house, where she was deposited gently on the ground.
Sue only took a moment to decide what to do. She stood up and quickly dashed into the house once more, dodging the falling plaster to reach Carrie's side. This time, there was no hesitation as she dropped to her knees beside the other girl, wrapping her arms around Carrie without any thought.
Carrie stiffened before trying to pull away. "No! You have to leave."
"Not without you."
"I can force you out..."
"And then I'll just keep coming back in." Sue tightened her embrace, determined that it wasn't going to be easy for Carrie to force her away again. She felt something damp trickle down her neck and realised that Carrie had started to cry. "Come with me. I'll look after you." Something about Carrie had awakened an almost maternal instinct inside of Sue. She felt terrible about the fact that she'd been responsible for part of Carrie being so much of an outcast.
"But Momma..."
"She wouldn't want you to die here with her."
"She tried to kill me," Carrie whispered against Sue's neck. "She called me the child of Satan."
"You have powers. That doesn't make you evil." Sue heard the sound of sirens in the distance and knew they'd reach the house soon. "Let me take you away. We can leave here and start a life somewhere new - somewhere no one will ever hurt you again." She flinched as a particularly large piece of plaster landed on the body of Carrie's mother. "Please, Carrie."
Carrie didn't say anything for several long moments. Then, just as Sue was beginning to wonder if she could carry her from the house, she felt the other girl sag against her. "You promise?" she whispered.
"I promise." Sue stood, carefully, and helped Carrie up, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Whether by accident or design, there was a temporary lull in the plaster falling and Sue was able to guide Carrie out of the house without either of them being injured.
The sirens were coming closer, but Sue could see a car pulling up outside the house. She edged protectively in front of Carrie as the car stopped and Ms. Desjardin got out, hurrying over to them. "They're not arresting her. We're leaving."
"They're implementing a roadblock. Get in." Ms. Desjardin gestured towards the car.
Sue hesitated, eyeing her warily.
Ms. Desjardin held eye contact with Sue. "You can't get her away from here on your own. You need help. I'm sure you know what they'll do to her if they catch her. What happened to her this evening would seem tame in comparison."
"How do we know we can trust you?" Sue flinched as the sirens grew even louder.
"Carrie could have killed me at the prom, but she saved me from being electrocuted," Ms. Desjardin said. "I'm a teacher. I'm not going to let Carrie get hurt anymore."
Sue still wasn't sure she really trusted the teacher, but she had to admit that Ms. Desjardin had a point. She looked down at Carrie. "What do you think?" she asked softly. "If you'd rather we left alone, we can try."
Carrie just stared at the ground, looking like she was much younger than she really was.
Sue made a snap decision that she hoped she wouldn't regret later. Nodding to Ms. Desjardin, she quickly guided Carrie over to the car, getting into the backseat with the other girl and, almost immediately, finding Carrie pressed in close next to her, trembling slightly. Sue wrapped an arm around Carrie's shoulders and then made eye contact with Ms. Desjardin, who glanced towards the ruined house and then back at Sue.
Sue shook her head, knowing what their teacher was asking.
"Sue, put your seatbelt on," Ms. Desjardin directed, turning back to face the road and putting her seatbelt on. "Carrie, sweetheart, it would be better if you moved onto the floor - just until we're safely out of the town."
"Go ahead," Sue said when Carrie looked uncertainly at her. "Nothing's going to happen to you. I promise." She couldn't bring herself to smile, but she hoped her voice sounded reassuring enough.
Carrie hesitantly lowered herself to the floor, but still stayed close to Sue, leaning lightly against her leg.
The trust Carrie was showing her put a lump in Sue's throat. She just hoped that she wasn't going to let Carrie down again.
Getting past the roadblock had been surprisingly easy. Or maybe it wasn't that surprising. Ms. Desjardin had turned on her charms and flirted with the policeman guarding the roadblock, who'd waved her through without bothering to check the car. Sue couldn't force herself to relax, but she responded when Carrie crept up from the floor and curled against her once more, wrapping her arm around the girl.
"Is she asleep?" Ms. Desjardin asked softly.
Sue looked down at Carrie, noticing that her eyes were closed and that she seemed to be breathing deeply and evenly. "I think so." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Good." Ms. Desjardin's eyes met Sue's in the mirror. "Do you know what you're doing here? You're not going to be able to go home. You've made her your responsibility. I'll stay with you, but Carrie needs someone her own age as well."
"Then you'll be in the same situation as me."
"I don't have family who'll miss me."
Sue pulled her eyes away from Ms. Desjardin's and glanced out of the window. "They don't need me." She expected Ms. Desjardin to ask what she meant, but the other woman merely fell silent as she continued to drive.
Sue sat on the edge of the bed in the room she was now sharing with Carrie and looked around. She was a bit surprised at how quickly they'd found a house, but at least it meant they hadn't needed to spend more than a night in a hotel.
"I'm sure we could have got a house with three bedrooms," Carrie said softly from where she was lying on her bed.
Sue shook her head. "I want to share a room with you, Carrie. And there is a room we can convert to a nursery for when the baby comes." She placed a hand on her stomach, hardly able to believe she was pregnant. She just hoped she would be a good mother... not like Carrie's mother.
But maybe it would be possible for Carrie to eventually heal from what she'd gone through.
Carrie didn't say anything and just rolled onto her stomach, leaning her head against her arms.
Sue stood up and moved over to take a seat on the edge of Carrie's bed. "Tomorrow, we can go and buy some clothes for all of us. Or perhaps some material, if you'd prefer to make your own clothes. The dress you made for prom was beautiful."
Carrie turned her head to look at Sue. "You saw it?"
Sue nodded. "It was lovely. I'm sorry it got ruined."
"I can make another one." Carrie turned her head away again.
Sue wanted to say something reassuring, but there was a soft knock on the door and she glanced up as Ms. Desjardin opened the door and stepped into the room. "Sue? Can I talk to you a sec?"
Sue nodded and carefully moved off the bed. "Come and find me if you need anything," she said to Carrie, before following Ms. Desjardin out of the bedroom and downstairs to the living room. "What did you want to talk about?"
Ms. Desjardin sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her. When Sue took a seat next to her, the other woman began speaking. "We both know that Carrie is a very special young girl. She has particular powers that seemed to start up when she began her periods. But she's going to need to control them and she's going to need help to control them."
"I think she already has them under control."
"We can't have a repeat of what happened on prom night. Carrie is going to need help. We're going to need to read up on telekinesis and anything else she can do. And if she loses control again, one of us is going to have to step in."
"Step in?" Sue repeated.
"Any misuse of her power will have to result in some kind of punishment."
Sue drew back sharply. "We can't do that." She thought back to when she'd gone inside Carrie's house. She hadn't taken much time to look around, but she had seen a closet with a large crack in the door. She didn't know exactly what had happened, but she could imagine. Besides, although the wounds Carrie had received had stopped bleeding, Sue had still seen them - and she was pretty sure Carrie hadn't stabbed herself.
"She's going to need structures and boundaries," Ms. Desjardin said. "Not whatever her mother did to her - but people willing to step in and pull her back if she needs it." She paused and then asked, "Have you ever been punished for anything? Apart from the self-inflicted grounding."
"Not really," Sue admitted. "My parents were never very strict with me."
"So they didn't say anything about what you did to Carrie?"
Sue shook her head. "I think you were the only one who punished any of us."
"Then I'm going to assume it wasn't enough."
Sue shrugged, watching the far wall. She wasn't looking at Ms. Desjardin, so didn't realise what the woman was doing until she felt a hand grasp her wrist. She glanced down, a bit surprised to see that Ms. Desjardin was holding her wrist. "What are you doing?" She tugged experimentally at her wrist.
"This wasn't your fault."
"I..." Sue's voice stopped on the protest that was about to escape her lips. She couldn't say that Ms. Desjardin was wrong - and that was perhaps the worst part. Her shoulders slumped and she didn't fight as she was gently pulled across the woman's lap, settled with an arm around her waist.
Sue shifted a bit uncomfortably, hoping that this wouldn't harm the baby growing inside her. Then again, she'd heard somewhere that sex was possible until quite far along into a pregnancy - and surely that would mean more moving around than what Ms. Desjardin planned.
A sharp swat landed at the crest of Sue's bottom and she jumped, surprised by how much that hurt on its own. She wasn't given a chance to absorb that pain, though, as another swat was delivered at exactly the same force on the other side.
Sue clenched her jaw as the hard smacks landed without pause. They seemed awfully loud in the room and she briefly wondered if Carrie could hear the sound, before her thoughts fell apart when her sit spots and thighs were swatted.
Although she half-thought that the spanking was over after just that first circuit, that notion was quickly dissuaded when the swats started over from the top. By the time the more sensitive places were swatted a second time, there were tears in her eyes and it only took a few more well-placed swats for them to spill over. She pressed her head into her arms, surprised at how light... almost freer... she felt as the tears left her.
It took Sue several moments to realise that the spanking had stopped and Ms. Desjardin was gently rubbing her back. She shuddered a bit and tried to control her breathing, wiping at her eyes and trying to stop her crying. Even so, it took several moments for her tears to finally stop. When they did, she pushed herself up off Ms. Desjardin's lap, sitting on the couch next to the woman with a slight wince. "Ow. I'm pretty sure teachers aren't supposed to do that."
"I'm not your teacher anymore."
"That's true, I guess." Sue thought about that. "What do I call you? Ms. Desjardin doesn't feel right." And even if she didn't intend to go home again - at least not for a while - she wasn't prepared to call the woman 'Mom'.
"Why don't you call me by my name - Emily?"
"Emily." Sue thought about that for a moment before nodding, feeling a brief smile touch at her lips. "That works."
Emily nodded. "Why don't you go upstairs and talk to Carrie?" she suggested. "She probably heard that."
Sue winced slightly at the thought of Carrie breaking again, but was it possible for someone to break more than once? She tried not to think about that as she pushed herself up off the couch and headed out of the living room.
Outside their room, Sue knocked lightly on the door. "Carrie? Can I come in?" She waited, but when there was no answer, she pushed open the door and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.
Carrie was still lying in the bed and Sue stepped over, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and reaching out to rub her shoulder gently. "Hey."
"Why did Ms. Desjardin hit you?" Carrie asked quietly.
"She didn't hit me - she punished me. Because what I did to you - what all of us did to you - was wrong, Carrie," Sue said honestly. "It shouldn't have happened. I tried to make it right by letting you go to the prom in my place, but all it did was make things worse."
"I killed so many people..." Carrie sounded broken.
"You were pushed to breaking point." Sue kept rubbing her shoulder gently. "But it's never going to happen again. You're safe here and no one's ever going to hurt you again."
Carrie said nothing, but she slowly turned over and wrapped her arms around Sue's waist, burying her face in the other girl's stomach as she began to cry.
The End