AN: Wrote this a while ago and forgot to post here. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Carmilla.
"I'm glad you're not here."
It's the first meaningful thing Danny says over the phone to her, once they finally get cell signal set back up on campus. For the past week it had been nothing personal, neither wanting to get started on a conversation they couldn't finish, not with the call being dropped every five minutes or so with two hours between the reception going down and coming back again. So they had stuck to simple things- Danny asking about her new classes at Princeton, she requesting information about what was going on at Silas, conversations they could pick back up three days later if they stopped halfway through.
But the conversation had been holding steady for the last half hour, so why not?
Betty understood- Silas wasn't safe anymore. Not for humans, certainly not for vampires, not for any living creature at all. But only a hundred or so students had escaped, those like her who were transferring or who left campus early, leaving thousands of people still stuck there. Stuck without food or clean water or any kind of safety. Stuck in the middle of a clan war while a giant anglerfish god tried to escape and devour their souls.
It was better that she wasn't there, that she was at Princeton (how human resources had managed to convince them to take her, she'd never be able to figure out, but she was grateful they had worked their literal magic) with her twenty-one credit hours and clubs that left her beyond exhausted every single night, too tired for the nightmares that still crept in. It really was better.
But she still couldn't help the spark of irrational hurt that popped up at Danny's words. She was glad she wasn't there, and while she knew for a fact Danny didn't mean it like that, she couldn't help it.
Because she wanted to be with her, holding a spear and investigating the weird that was their school. She wanted to be besides Danny, and she couldn't be.
"I met someone today."
They had talked for hours, their longest conversation since Silas had gotten electricity and phones back, but those had been the only words that had stuck in Danny's head, everything else fading into an unimportant blur of sound. Sounds she had enjoyed hearing, of course, because they had been spoken by Betty, but still sounds nonetheless in light of this new information.
Betty had met someone.
Danny had known it would turn out like this- despite the tension that had quickly built between the two of them alongside their friendship, the simple suggestions and steady gazes that could have easily turned into something more, nothing had happened. They were just friends, just very, very close friends, and with the distance between them and the fact that Danny was almost sure she wasn't going to survive this newest uprising, she had always known. Known that Betty would find some gal or guy who caught her eye, would move on an eventually forget completely about Silas.
She just hadn't thought it would happen this soon, and even though they meant nothing to each other outside of their pre-established friendship, it still hurt.
But after pushing aside the pain, she was glad. Betty had been through so much, she deserved the normalcy she would get once she completely forsook Silas.
Even if it did leave her feeling hollow, so much worse than when Laura had rejected her, at the thought that forgetting Silas almost meant forgetting her.
"Betty, shit's getting real, I have to go, I-"
Those had been the last words Danny had spoken to her almost a week ago, the sound of screaming and explosions going off in the background almost making them impossible to hear. But hear them she had, and for the last week she hadn't been able to think.
She hadn't gone to classes, hadn't been able to sleep, hadn't been able to do anything, because what if she missed that call? That call that was sure to come, Danny sounding tired but amused that she had called almost forty times, leaving a voice message every single time, asking that Danny call her back when she could. The call that was going to explain what had gone on (something simple, of course, just the Alchemy Club playing around with fireworks or the Zeta's brewery finally going up in flames), that would reassure her that everything was as okay as they could be at Silas.
Her professors had e-mailed her a dozen times by now, some threatening lowered grades on missing assignments while the others asked if she was okay, the cute boy she had been half-heartedly flirting with as she tried to move on from Silas had finally stopped texting, and her friends knew better than to try and get her to leave.
Because the call she had been waiting for for the last week still hadn't come.
"We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again."
It had been a month since that message had started to play when she called Danny's phone, but still she called. Every silent moment between classes, when she needed a break from the school work she was still playing catch up on, when she needed to step away from her friends so she didn't blow up at them, she called. It was a tired gesture now, almost automatic as she scrolled through her contacts to find the right one. She could do it without looking, could do it without the painful hope that had plagued her those first few days, but even knowing the futility of it all, she still called.
Because part of her was hoping that message would change, that it would be Danny on the other end of the line, and she would finally be able to say everything she had thought to herself that she should have said before she left. Feelings she should have made clear, ideas she should have explained better, just all the words she should have spat out before the distance had made them impossible.
But she hadn't, which was why she was pushing that dial button again at three in the morning, half-drunk from the post-finals party she had left early. There was nothing left to hope for, but still she did.
And when that same message played again, she just let it run through instead of hanging up like she normally did, the screen blurred and unreadable as she just watched it go black when the message ended and the phone hung up.
The next morning, she would call one last time, listen to the message, and finally say the three little words she should have said so long ago before deleting Danny's contact from her phone.
A contact she would re-add two weeks later when, battered, bruised, and still carrying her utterly destroyed cell phone, Danny showed up right outside her dorm with the story of how Silas was finally safe, an apology for not keeping in contact, and her own little confession that she was hoping Betty would accept and return.
Because with distance no longer forcing them apart, they could finally say "I love you."