A/N: Does anyone else ship this? I'm obsessed. The soundtrack for this fic is Hiding by Florence + the Machine. Please let me know if you like it... and if you ship it!
When they return from the cabin, Carter asks—demands—that Madison move back into their house. She shrugs, gives Bird a look, and grabs her backpack—the one she's been living out of for months now. They tromp upstairs and when they're alone in Carter's room she gets this look on her face, the look that says she's trying so hard to be strong but she's not sure she can, but she'll die before she lets you see that.
Madison is better at reading all of Carter's faces than anyone except Lori. Right now, all she wants to do is hug Carter and tell her it's going to be okay, that no matter what else happens Madison will always be there, but that's about the last thing Carter wants to hear right now so she doesn't say anything at all.
"I want to keep an eye on you," Carter says, her voice just barely steady. "You can sleep in here with me." Or else, says the unspoken challenge in her voice.
Madison nods, walking over to the bed and dropping her bag beside it before sitting down on the edge, her back to Carter. When she looks up again, Carter is gone.
She fucked up, she knows that. It would be easy, so much easier, to go over to Bird's and pretend like everything is okay, but if she does that she'll lose Carter for good. Carter—and Lori too, she might lie to Carter but she won't to herself—are too pivotal in her life for her to just drop it, let it go. She needs them, and she hopes Carter needs her too. If she can stop fucking up, she hopes Carter will be able to forgive her.
She doesn't have anything else left.
Just as the first tear falls down her cheek, Madison feels the bed dip behind her and glances back to see that Carter has returned, dressed for bed. Turning back, Madison wipes at her face and sniffs hard, then picks up her bag and goes into the bathroom.
When she comes out, Carter is lying on her side, facing the door with her eyes closed as if she can pretend to be asleep, as if Madison wouldn't instantly know. After shutting off the light, Madison rounds the bed and climbs gingerly under the covers, leaning up on her elbow to see the side of Carter's face, her skin just barely luminous in the dark room. Reaching up with her other hand, she strokes the hair away from Carter's neck, her touch featherlight as she bares the skin and then rests her fingertips there, feeling the soft beat of Carter's pulse.
"Please," she says. "Tell me it's going to be okay."
Carter's eyes open in the dark and there's a long, long silence. While she waits, Madison threads her fingers into Carter's hair, the backs of her fingers against the back of Carter's neck, her thumb smoothing over the caught strands.
"Yeah," Carter says finally, her voice rough as she turns her face into the pillow. "It's going to be fine."
xxx
"I really like you, Carter."
"I like you too, Madison!"
That wasn't what she wanted her to say, and Madison has no idea why her eyes fill with tears as she bows her head back over her coloring. It seems like it should be the right answer, but there's a gaping emptiness where satisfaction should be and she has to start singing "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" under her breath because it's the only song that takes up her whole brain and keeps her from crying.
She's just an oversensitive crybaby and she should grow up, like her daddy says. Anyway, Carter's mommy will be bringing in their snack soon and Madison doesn't want her to know what a crybaby she is, so she bears down on the red crayon, scribbling over the outline of the tomato until the crayon breaks in half.
"Maddie!" Carter says, putting her hand over Madison's and squeezing, then taking the broken crayon away and replacing it with a new one. "That's okay, Maddie, here." Carter always has extra crayons.
xxx
In her dream they're swimming again, but this time it's only her and Carter. They fool around for a while, turning somersaults and splashing each other, until Madison turns onto her back to float a while and it gets really, really quiet. When she feels the water move around her, she sits up, treading water, and Carter is swimming toward her, all levity gone. Her heart rises to her throat as Carter gets closer and then treads water in front of her, face deadly serious and a question in her eyes.
Madison is just about to move forward when something from underneath pulls Carter down in a swift motion and she disappears from sight. Gasping, Madison pushes herself up against the water, peering down, then dives with her eyes wide open, searching for Carter anywhere. She breaks the surface gasping, then dives again, over and over, until she breaks the surface gasping and the air is dry against her skin, her arms are flailing against bedsheets, and Carter's arms are around her, Carter's voice saying, "Mad, you're okay Mad, you're okay."
She can still her body and she can regulate her breathing but she can't keep from clinging to Carter, saying, "I thought I lost you, I thought I lost you."
After rubbing her back in silence, Carter says, "I'm right here, Mad," so quiet it almost gets lost in the thump of Carter's heart against Madison's ear, and Madison wakes the rest of the way up real fast.
"Fuck!" She scrambles back across the bed, one hand flying to cover her mouth and the other scrabbling at the sheets. "I mean, damn it. Sorry." When she's as far as she can get without falling off the bed—and she comes close, feels her balance shift, but catches herself—she looks up at Carter again. "Sorry. I didn't mean to—god, I'm a mess."
Carter isn't even looking at her, sitting on the other side of the bed and staring at her hands in her lap as they squeeze together, knuckles white. Madison tries to read her expression, but she's caught off-guard when Carter says, "You—thought you lost me?"
"Um." Madison looks around the room, her hands going up to her hair to check how much of a rat's nest it's turned into. "You know. It was a nightmare."
"Yeah." Still not looking up, Carter moves to sit on the edge of the bed. "Okay, Mad." She walks off into the bathroom and Madison is left thinking she'll have to amend her earlier idea—she can usually read Carter better than almost anyone. Usually.
xxx
The teacher lines them up for recess based on who was most quiet during her lesson. Ever since the teacher separated Carter and Madison for being "too disruptive," Carter is almost always at the very front of the line and Madison usually ends up close to the back. Secretly, Madison thinks Carter has an unfair advantage, because her mom always made her play "the quiet game" and now Carter's better at being quiet than anyone in their class or probably even the whole school.
That's okay, though, because Carter runs as fast as she can when the door opens to grab both swings. Kids try to say it's unfair, that she's not allowed to save, but by that point Madison has caught up and started swinging and the other kids have to walk away. It doesn't make them the most popular kids in class but they only need each other, anyway.
On this particular day, Madison has been working up the nerve to ask a certain question, and she thinks that if she can pump her legs hard enough and get the swing as high as it will go, then she'll have the courage to ask it.
Carter gets on the other swing and they both push off the ground, swinging gently at first and then starting to pump their legs, swinging higher and higher until it's a competition of who's getting higher, who's going faster, and when Madison thinks she's as high as she'll ever get, she says it: "Do you think you can like boys and girls at the same time?"
She turns to see Carter's reaction and breaks her focus and her foot kicks out at the wrong time, striking the ground, and then suddenly she's sprawled on the dirt in the most pain she's ever felt in her life. She's bawling hysterically, not aware of anything outside her pain and the fact that Carter is there, Carter is screaming "Help, help!," Carter is stubbornly refusing to leave her side even when they have to get in the ambulance and go to the hospital and Madison's parents couldn't leave work so Carter's mom has to be the adult and fill out all the forms and Carter never stops holding her hand.
When she wakes up after they put the cast on, dopey from pain meds, Madison looks over at Carter (tiny in the chair just like Madison is tiny in the hospital bed) and says, "Didja hear what I said?"
Carter looks confused, sliding forward in the chair to slip her hand into Madison's again. "What do you mean, Maddie? When?"
"Ne'er mind," she slurs, smiling slightly as the drugs pull her back under. If she feels this relieved, maybe it's better that Carter didn't hear.
xxx
Getting ready for bed that night, the hostility in the room has dropped like the level of humidity in the air after a storm. The cagy wariness in Carter's eyes has been replaced by some kind of sadness that Madison can't bear to look at too long.
They sit on the bed after changing into their PJs and Carter lets Madison brush her hair, before curling up on her side with her head in Madison's lap. Madison knows that Taylor hasn't spoken to Carter all day, so she doesn't ask any questions, just slumps her shoulders and strokes Carter's hair.
The tension eases out of Carter's body slowly, and after a while she starts tracing designs on Madison's knee, before letting out a slow sigh and then saying, "So, you and Bird, right?"
Why does her heart stop, like she's been caught at something? "Yeah. Not, like, a serious thing."
"Just a thing," Carter says.
"I guess."
Carter spreads out her hand, wrapping it around Madison's knee and closing her eyes. "You didn't have anyone back... there?"
"Uhh." Madison untangles her fingers from Carter's hair and leans back on her hands, trying not to dislodge Carter as she does so. She tries to think of something flippant to say—I was a little busy, or You must have taken all the cute girls with you when you left—but it's all too raw and too true and she ends up just staying silent.
Whether Carter feels the way she's holding her breath or gets tired of waiting for an answer, she pulls away and sits up, fidgeting with something on the bedspread instead. "It wasn't easy for you," she says, "when I left."
It's almost a question, but stated flat, and Madison struggles to even get out a, "No." She slumps forward again, hunching her shoulders over her crossed legs and pressing her elbows into her thighs, like she can form a cage for her most sensitive parts. Finally, she adds, "That's not your fault, though."
"Yeah," Carter says, curling her fingers into a fist. "I know."
They go to bed.
xxx
It's almost midnight, which is the absolute earliest Carter and Madison decided they would go to sleep. They're lying on their sleeping bags in the tent set up in the middle of the living room, and they're playing MASH with every possible boy they can think of, including movie stars.
When they absolutely completely run out of names, they turn on their backs and stare at the roof of the tent, the camping lantern casting strange shadows.
"I just wanna know what kissing is like," Carter sighs, and Madison rolls over onto her other side, covering her mouth with one hand. "Mad?"
"Um," she says, muffled by her hand. "I may have... kissed someone."
"What?!" Carter gets up and crawls across the space between the sleeping bags, dangling her head to get a look at Madison's face. "When?! Who?!"
"Um, Max," she says, moving her hand to shield her eyes instead. "A few times. After school."
Carter sits back on her heels and doesn't say a single thing, so Madison sits up, looking at her and trying to read her expression. She looks shocked, definitely. Also... kind of not-happy. Her mouth is turning down and she's staring at the wall of the tent, her eyes starting to narrow.
"It wasn't great or anything," Madison says nervously. "We were just fooling around."
"Did you get that..." Carter doesn't look at her, but waves her hand vaguely in the area of her stomach. "That fluttery feeling? You know what I mean?"
Madison almost laughs at that, almost chokes and coughs and dies at that. Yeah, she knows that feeling, like when they have to run for gym and she shares her water bottle with Carter and Carter smiles that one particular smile at her and says, "You saved my life." Like when Madison does the most perfect cartwheel she's ever done and Carter runs up and throws her arms around her, laughing giddily and saying, "You did it, you did it!"
Madison is very familiar with that feeling, and right now it's almost too absurd to contemplate. "From Max? No. That's not a thing."
Carter sighs, obviously relieved, and slants a smile at Madison. "You wouldn't care if I maybe kind of liked him then, right?"
Madison is going to be sick.
"No. Of course not."
xxx
Madison wakes slowly this time. The nightmares were there—they're always there—but she didn't have to fight her way out of them. Still, it's a relief, to wake to a room bathed in sunlight and full of things she can touch and hold. She's further from the edge of the bed than usual, and then she realizes there's a body pressed against her back, Carter's back up against hers as they curl away from one another, connected.
She tries not to stiffen even as she freezes, imagining waking up like this, imagining rolling over and wrapping herself around Carter, kissing the line of her jaw to wake her up, and—she reaches out to the edge of the bed, pulling herself away as quickly as she can.
Carter wakes drowsily behind her, rolling onto her back and reaching out one hand to touch Madison's spine, saying, "Mm, you okay?"
"Yeah," Madison says, rolling over finally and glancing across. "Are you?"
Shifting back slightly, Carter puts her head on the pillow, facing Madison with a slightly dreamy look still in her eyes. She doesn't answer, but Madison moves to mirror her, closing her eyes so she doesn't have to think about what she's seeing. Carter reaches across, glides her fingertips across the side of Madison's face to brush a curl back out of the way, and Madison stops breathing until she takes her hand back. When Madison peeks open her eyes, Carter is holding her hand near her mouth like she's just burned it, and Madison has to close her eyes again to breathe, take slow breaths in and out, settle the nausea in her stomach.
"Me and Max," Carter says finally, her voice gravelly from sleep. "We hadn't been together since... you know."
She has to open her eyes to show she's listening, keeping them trained on Carter's chin, and she nods.
"It was... familiar, but not the same. Weird. I don't know how to feel about it."
"But it's over," Madison says.
"Yeah. But the feeling is still there, I guess. When you came—" Madison winces, just slightly, and Carter reaches down for one of her hands, picking it up and holding it in her own, staring at it when she says faintly, "I got confused."
Holy shit. Madison's heartbeat triples, her breath going out of her once again, and she has to tell herself That's not what she meant, that isn't what she meant, she meant something else, she meant—Lori. Anything else. "I'm sorry."
Letting go of her, Carter raises her hand to cover her eyes. "No, that's not—I don't want another apology."
With a gulp, Madison reaches up and takes Carter's hand back, rubbing her thumb over the knuckles and actually trying to make eye contact for the first time. Carter avoids her eyes at first, but when Madison ducks her head, she finally looks back. "What do you want, Carter?" Madison says softly.
"I don't know." Her eyes drop and Madison could swear she looks at her lips before her eyes dart away again. "I don't know, never mind." She rolls away, sits on the edge of the bed, and says, "Just forget about it, okay?" Then she walks away.
xxx
"Carter, I'm gay."
They're on Carter's bed doing homework, and this announcement admittedly comes out of nowhere, but Madison has been trying to work up to it for weeks. She holds her breath, her hand clenching tight around the pen in her hand, as Carter looks up and blinks at her.
"Oh," Carter says eventually. Her eyes dart around the room, then she looks back at Madison. "Okay."
When her chest loosens, she starts taking small, rapid breaths, the pen falling out of her hand onto the bed, and Carter looks alarmed. She reaches out, almost touching Madison's hand, but draws it back before she does.
"Are you okay? Mad, calm down."
"I don't—" she says between breaths, "—want anything—to change—I'm—scared—"
Looking around a bit frantically, Carter finds a large sheet of paper and crumples it into a makeshift paper bag, holding it up to Madison's face and saying, "Breathe slow. Deep breaths."
Madison breathes into it, her eyes desperately seeking Carter's, and she can't help but notice that Carter won't touch her. Her hands flutter, coming close and then flying away, and she won't touch her.
"It's going to be fine," Carter says when her breathing slows down and she can take the paper away. "Nothing's going to change."
She starts crying at that, and Carter's face is like, That wasn't what I wanted to happen at all. "Please don't lie to me."
"Okay, okay," Carter says quickly, sitting beside her on the bed with her hands in her lap. "But nothing's going to change with me. You've got me, okay? No matter what." She bumps her shoulder into Madison's and Madison can't help but think that everything has already changed.
What has she done.
After she settles down to just a few sniffles, Carter says, "So... do you have a crush on anyone?"
She can't stop a helpless laugh. What is she supposed to say to that? If she says no, Carter will probably try to find someone for her to crush on. If she says yes, Carter won't drop it until she tells her who, to which she would say, what? Claim a crush on someone at school?
Part of her thinks, sure, let Carter set her up with someone. Maybe she could finally put out this tiny (miniscule really) torch she's been carrying. But it also sounds like a really terrible, shitty idea. There has got to be another option.
"Not really," she says, staring at her hands. "Our school sucks. Plus, my parents are going to kill me whenever they find out, and I'm not quite ready to die."
Finally, Carter wraps her arms around Madison's shoulders, pulling her into her side and squeezing. "They can't kill you if you're under my roof, okay? My mom will help us flee the country."
She can't quite laugh at that, but she does smile, closing her eyes and leaning against Carter for as long as she can. "Okay. I believe you."
xxx
The atmosphere is weird that night, almost as weird as the first night except that no one is angry anymore. Madison feels like she's moving in slow motion when she comes out of the bathroom in her PJs—Carter is sitting cross-legged on her side of the bed, tracing her finger on the bedspread, and Madison walks over to sit on the edge of her side, uncertain.
After a moment, she feels Carter's fingers running along the back neckline of her shirt, slipping under the bulk of her hair before she wraps her arms around Madison's neck, their cheeks pressed together, and Madison has honestly forgotten how to breathe.
"What are you doing," she asks faintly, her eyes tightly shut as she tries to breathe, tries to absorb every inch of contact between them.
Carter has her eyes shut too—Madison can feel her lashes brush against her cheek—and she says, "It all used to be so easy. Me and you."
"Things change."
"I know," Carter says, and she sits back on her heels, so Madison turns around to see her face. "I watched them. I watched everything change, and I couldn't stop any of it." She's getting a bit teary, and Madison doesn't really know what to do with that.
"You're worried," she guesses. "You don't want—"
Carter shakes her head, laughing even as she brushes tears from her cheeks. "I just want to kiss you," she says, holding up her free hand in a helpless gesture. "I just want for it to be easy, and I want to kiss you."
Madison stares back at her, mind blank, face blank, and her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest. That doesn't make sense. She must have misheard. She misunderstood. Or this isn't even real, she isn't even awake. "You," she says. "Max."
"Max was a mistake," Carter says, pulling herself together and wiping her tears away. She leans forward to unfold her legs and cross them beneath her, and then she just looks at Madison, looks at her with her eyes so soft and some kind of hope in the lift of her shoulders.
"I'm trying to understand," Madison says, pulling herself the rest of the way onto the bed and crossing her legs so that they mirror each other once again. "This is... sudden? I mean!" She emphasizes her words with palms turned up, fingers spread. "You know?"
Carter smiles, and Madison has no doubt at all that she's enjoying getting under Madison's skin, shaking her up a little—which is fine, pretty much, as long as that's not the end goal. Then she gets serious, and says, "When you came back..." She props her head on her hand, still looking in Madison's direction but more vaguely as she speaks. "God, I'd missed you so much. And I'd forgotten—or maybe ignored—that effect you have on me. When you look at me, sometimes..." She closes her eyes, shakes her head a little. "I swear there's something in your eyes, and yeah, I guess I tried to ignore it. Is that horrible?"
Was that a rhetorical question? Either way, Madison is definitely not going to answer it, listening with bated breath as she sits as still as a statue.
"It..." Carter takes a deep breath, and meets her eyes tentatively. "The truth is, it was never one-sided. But I... I guess I made boys my priority, because I knew you'd be there, you'd be my best friend, and now that I say that it is terrible. But then you were gone, and... I met Taylor, and Bird, and... I had a sister, and a friend, and... I wanted you. When you came back, I was so happy, and so confused, and Max... happened. Everything exploded. Sometimes I don`t think I can forgive myself for all the people I've hurt.
"But," she says, reaching out for Madison's hand and cradling it in both of hers, staring at it for a moment before looking up to face her head-on. "Madison. The last few days. If you still— If you still—" She chokes, and looks down, unable to go on.
"Carter," Madison returns, and with it she pushes up on her knees, placing her hands on Carter's shoulders and guiding her down until her back is flat on the bed. Madison hovers over her as Carter straightens out her legs, and then eases herself down, their bodies pressed together, her hands braced on the bed so she can look in Carter's eyes.
Carter's hands are at her waist, her brow slightly furrowed as Madison searches her eyes, looking for confirmation, looking for certainty. She's patient, though, letting Madison find what she needs to, and when Madison finally dips her head, pressing their lips together, Carter surges up, her hands tightening on Madison's waist, so there's no doubt she wants it too.
The kiss is a mix of gentle meetings and intense, searching clashes, and it's soon too much for Madison to bear. She rolls off of Carter onto the bed and presses her forehead to the cover, struggling to draw a full breath into her lungs as she tries to recover from something she's wanted for so long. Carter turns onto her side, reaching one hand out to rub Madison's back while still leaving space between them, and Madison is soon able to calm herself.
She has to ask, though: "Are you sure about this?"
"I'm sure I want it," Carter says without hesitation. "I'm sure I want to try." Then, quieter, "I'm sure I love you."
Madison smiles into the blanket, raising one hand blindly until Carter takes it in her own. "I love you too." She pulls Carter's hand closer, holding it tightly, and makes a wish.
Please, let this be.