Disclaimer: I don't own Hellcats, and the referenced song is 'Modern Leper', courtesy of Frightened Rabbit.

Set mid 1x09 - "Finish What We Started".

A cripple walks amongst you
All you tired human beings

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"You let your guard down and you got stupid," he tells her, his voice crackling with static over the phone. It rings in her ears from the answering machine, because she has all her things piled in the corner of her old room, at the foot of her old bed, and her mother's working tonight, so she can't pick up the phone call resulting from her own traitorous actions. "But there's time to go back."

She stares at an empty closet, sitting stiffly at the end of the bed as the machine clicks back into silence and the sound of Dan's voice stops echoing through the apartment. She's hardly even been there four hours when the call comes in to accompany the dozens of messages unanswered on her cell (she'd switched it off two days ago, but she'll throw it at the wall in two days because they all keep calling and she just wants it to stop) and the knocks on the front door. The bobbleheads probably figured, with her desk cleaned and the bed stripped and her drawers cleared out in the dresser that she'd packed up shop and gone home, so they were making the rounds to find her. Dan had probably gotten the tip off from Wanda after she left for work (Marti isn't surprised – it isn't the first time her mother's strung her out, and it won't be the last).

"And ain't that always the way," she mutters, pushing blonde hair out of her face and folding her arms across her stomach because she can't stand to be left open to the emptiness around her, and she feels sick, and alone, and hopeless, but she'll figure this out, because she's Marti Perkins, and she always has a plan.

But it still tugs at her gut, because she kind of just dropped out on her scholarship, and she only has a weekend to fix this, and she might be out of alternatives, and she's right back where she started.

/-/

Her mother does her a favour for once and throws a heads up her way (it's been two days, and she's only half unpacked, because putting all her clothes back where they used to be means something that she's not ready to face yet), and she rockets out of the apartment – Dan will probably miss her by minutes, but he'll miss her all the same and that's the whole point of this evasion – jumps in the Buick and practically speeds down to the music store. She's got an application in one hand and there's a 'help wanted' sign in the window, and the owner is a friend of a friend who she knows pretty well.

It all adds up in the end, and she goes back in to school the next day (she wakes up earlier than she needs to, feeling like she's supposed to be doing something, hopes they miss her at their practice, tells herself not to care) to give a little inquiry at administration. She can keep her courses – her mother's promised to pay off the debt, and she will this time, and Marti's got herself a job to get her through it as well. There's a sick relief twisting in her gut, down her spine, and it burns her to cross over to her morning lecture, passing the dredges of a practice she should have been attending and ignoring the few voices that call out to her. The sick relief just turns into sickness, and for a moment she has to hold back the bile, but then she disappears into the building and reminds herself it doesn't matter – she doesn't care, they don't care.

She doesn't need the scholarship, she doesn't need the Hellcats, she doesn't need anyone, and she can do this alone.

/-/

"Grudges haven't ever been your strong point, sweetie."

She purses her lips at the voice on the other side of the door. Her mother's been respecting her wishes – no one who isn't blood related has gotten past the front door (no one's blood-related, it's just Marti and Wanda and it always has been). But her do-good mother is about as good with words as everyone else would be in her place, and Marti still doesn't want to hear it (just like how she still doesn't want to unpack properly).

Wanda's been accepting of her move back in – hardly questioned it when her daughter turned up on her doorstep with a duffle bag over her shoulder, a few boxes piled in one arm, her guitar case in the other and the barely noticeable tracks of tears on her face. She just let the girl back into her old home, brewed up a hot chocolate and let her go with it. She never mentioned the absence of the uniform Marti had been getting comfortable in for the last few months, or the calls she kept getting from Dan, from Lewis, even from Alice at one point. She'd been worried about a missing face until Savannah Monroe had turned up on her doorstep six days after Marti moved back in, frightfully concerned and quite anxious - even if she was trying to hide it under a calm, somewhat icy exterior that she couldn't keep up and that didn't suit her.

Because apparently, it took six days to realise that Marti's disappearance from the squad wasn't an empty threat – the girl wasn't joking for a second – and maybe they'd screwed up something wonderful, but 'the squad needs her' (Wanda frowned, but in a moment of startling self-control refrained further comment). She'd passed on the message, but it hadn't changed anything. Marti remained withdrawn, and hardly left her room for anything other than work, school, and her strange jaunts off into the world with Morgan.

Her girl wasn't reaching out. It wasn't unusual – so very far from it – but Wanda was ever the concerned mother. Marti had to muse that she chose the most annoying times to display her better parenting skills.

It's a moment of weakness when she opens the door to her mother and lets her in. She hasn't done this in years, sometimes she forgets how. It feels natural and unnatural at the same time, and the sickness curls back in her gut when she opens her mouth to speak.

"It's not a grudge. I just couldn't handle it," she tells her mother, and then the whole story – her and Dan in the Buick half a decade ago, and Savannah's reaction, and Lewis's anger, and Dan's confrontation at the party, and the anger – oh the anger – from everyone, from her, about everything, and this is all Dan's fault and it's all hers, and gods she hates it – spills out from her lips, and she actually starts crying. But then her mother holds her close and tells her it'll all get better, and for the first time in a while she stops feeling that twisting sickness in her gut.

If anything, she feels relieved. She and her mother will never be perfect – things never are – but at least it's a start.

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In reality, getting a job in this town wasn't the best form of independent security. As it happens, if one person knows something, then everyone does, and when one of her (ex)teammates comes into the store to pick up some new drumsticks one weekend, it's pretty much inevitable that his bright smile will be taking the knowledge of Marti's public non-college location back to Cheer town and spreading it around. It's going to be a good piece for anyone that's looking for her, really, because work's not like school, and she can't just duck around a corner to avoid someone. She actually has to pay some good attention.

She's a little surprised (and at the same time she's not) when her first visitor isn't a Hellcat – it's Dan Patch with a strained smile that says he's asking for forgiveness where he knows he doesn't need it, and when she sighs out her shift times he knows he's got it. She's too tired to do this anymore – so is he. She wants her friend back – and screw it, because it can't hurt, and she's spent three weeks feeling like shit because of what other people think of her long-time friendship, which doesn't really make sense, because the problem was never her thing with Dan, it was the mistrust that everyone else had placed in it. In her. And him.

So when she leaves the store and he drives her out to their riverside spot in the afternoon sun, looking out over the bridge like old times, she starts the conversation she should have had weeks ago.

"It strains me, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you, and I'm sorry," she says simply, and Dan just gives her a small smile and a nod. Contentedness, for once, is a good feeling. "But everything kept blindsiding me. It was just a massive overreaction from all sides, really."

He snorts a little, pulls a couple of beers out of the small cooler he'd dragged out of the truck with their chairs, and pops the cap for her, swigging out of his own.

"So, what you said at the party...?" he probes lightly, and Marti frowns, sipping her beer with a twinge in her gut. It's not that bad anymore, but it's still there, and she knows that this whole thing isn't over – far from it.

"Still stands, Dan," she says. "It wasn't just about you being with Savannah. We're friends, and yeah, I do love you, but it's as my best friend, nothing else. You'll always be my first in many things, and the person I trust the most..."

"But that's it?" he finished for her with a small smile. It's not sad, and there's nothing in his eyes to say it hurts for him to hear, and Marti smiles too because she knows that this is their understanding – neither of them want more than they have, and nor have they in the last five years. It was just a little provocation of thought that went in the wrong way. This is all they'll ever be.

"That's it," she agrees, and he nods, his grin brighter now while they look out at the sunset behind the bridge. Dan's a simple soul (she's always known it, and it's always been the attraction), and they're together the way they're meant to be, and all is right in the world, just for a moment. And for that moment, it's enough. He raises his bottle to her.

"You and me against the world?" he asks, but it's not a question. The sentiment's an old one – something they'd shared every time his family had gotten too hard to be around, every time she'd had to clean up Wanda's mess, every time they'd only had each other to turn to. There would be other girls for Dan, other people for Marti, but at the end of the day they were still the best friends sitting out on the riverside sharing a beer.

"Always is," she replies with a smile, lifting her bottle to chink with his. That twinge might still be in the bottom of her gut, but she's not so alone with him beside her, and its progress.

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Lewis comes next (she pretends not to see Alice practically forcing him through the shop door). He looks cowed and guilty, but there's a reluctance in his gaze that makes that twang in her stomach start to rise up again. It's not as bad as before, and not as much to dwell on, but still so noticeable, and not for the first time Marti finds herself wishing for the times before the Hellcats, before her mother botched her scholarship, back when it really was just Dan and Marti against the world, rather than Dan and Marti against the world, but only on weekends or when they had free time.

"Marti, I'm sorry," he says, and she doesn't reply for a moment, just stares at him with a furrow to her brow and a slight lift of her lip that says she's confused, or troubled, or contemplating something.

Really, she's just trying to figure out if his reluctance is in being there or admitting he was wrong. Either way doesn't really bode well – he embarrassed her in front of the team, screwed her over, wasn't there when she needed him, and all because he didn't trust her. What kind of a partner was that? He was supposed to be her base, not just her boyfriend, but both positions required her to trust him, and he should have returned the favour.

Should have. Didn't. And that was all the problem.

"Look, could you just – just rethink it? The team could use you, and I..."

But Marti doesn't keep the contemplation on her face, because now she just looks unimpressed. This isn't about the team – it was never about the team in any sense other than that she seemed to be a cause for screwing it up, and they'd work better without her. Alice could take her spot back and Savannah could stop throwing shots at her as the Captain because of something five years dead, and she wouldn't have to put herself in the hands of a boy who didn't trust her (because that's what he was – a boy, who talked about morality and trust but didn't really comprehend it). She'd told Vanessa everything when she'd handed in her uniform, and the coach had let her go with a sad nod ('you're great at this, Marti, but if you really think it's for the best then it probably is. I won't pretend to know'). This was stupidity – wants veiled in poor excuses, the same things her mother had seen in Savannah's doorstep visit some weeks earlier. And Marti didn't want it.

"They're fine without me. You should go," she tells him, and it's hardly insistent, but he practically crumples before her and turns back towards the door, walking out without another try. There's no strength in him, no attempt to fight for her, and she shakes her head with a sigh, wondering why they'd ever started if he didn't possess the same passion she'd always professed to value. She goes back to filling up the guitar string stocks on the wall behind her until another presence comes up to the counter, and she turns to find herself facing none other than little miss head bitch in charge herself.

She stares for a moment (Alice stares back) but there's no stand-off, no rudeness, no rubbing it in. Not a mention of getting her position on the team back from Marti. Not a damned thing.

But then Alice pulls out a pen and a piece of paper, slaps them down on the counter and scribbles down a couple of numbers, quick and neat. When she looks up to catch the blonde's gaze again, there's still no hostility – just a friendliness that's a little unfamiliar, though not quite unexpected.

"I think you got the short end of the stick," the girl says. "But you're strong. Badass. I respect you." She slides the paper over to Marti's side of the counter and nods once. "Call me if you want to hang out some time."

She glides off out of the store in that commanding way of hers before Marti can even say her name, but the blonde's too busy blinking behind the counter anyway. Nonetheless, she picks the paper up off the tabletop and slides it into her pocket, because Alice might be a right vicious bitch, but she's also extremely funny and fiercely loyal, and Marti can't see why it would ever be a bad idea to befriend her.

Marti's been in low places before, and she's learnt to work with what she has. Why not work with Alice?

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She's standing on stage with some of her old band friends behind her, singing to a small crowd in a pub that her mother doesn't frequent in any shape or form, all the way over the other side of town. Dan's stuck over at the bar, bobbing his head a little when she starts strumming the guitar. Alice is in the seat beside him, chatting with a young guy Marti loosely knows from his frequent visits to her workplace (the guy runs through guitar strings like clothes) and she can't say she minds. Alice is nice once you get past the ego and self-interest, and she deserves better than that footballer jackass that keeps hitting her up after class (she's been saying no lately and hanging out with Marti instead). Morgan's on Dan's other side, looking a little uncomfortable while he nurses a beer and glances a little jumpily around the bar.

He's so very socially awkward, but he fits right in with the deranged and unlikely group of Alice, Dan and Marti, and the initial foreboding Alice had expressed when they'd started inviting him out had been quickly swept away to a snarky friendship when they'd found intelligent conversation and witty comebacks could prevail over some stupid ideal of social status. Altogether, they were a weird group, the four of them – terribly mismatched. But it worked out, in a way.

"...Oh, well, this is how we do things now -
This is how the modern stay scared.
So I cut out all the good stuff,
Yeah, I cut off my foot to spite my leg..."

They're ridiculous together, she realises – she's up here baring her heart with music and lyrics, and Dan's foregoing dating (big thing for an ex-bigamist) to treasure his friendship for a little while, and Alice is being a good friend and flirting with someone because she likes them rather than because they're convenient, and Morgan is growing into someone adequately sociable. But it's working so well, and just for a little while she has to smile while she sings into the microphone, because maybe for a little while it's not just Dan and Marti against the world, and maybe the sickness in her gut can subside a little more. She's not lonely in her unlikely friendships. For another moment, she's happy, peaceful, even.

But then she spots a figure in the doorway, dark locks catching the tiniest amount of light while she looks over to the three at the bar, glances for a fraction towards the stage, and there's no mistaking the girl. Marti doesn't stop singing, she doesn't pause, she doesn't even take a breath (it's so like her to plough ahead when she gets knocked back, though). She just keeps on singing, fingers keep strumming the rhythm, because she'll never lose her pace for anyone – not Dan, not Wanda, not even god himself, and certainly not for Savannah Monroe.

"Is that you in front of me
Coming back for even more of exactly the same?"

She doesn't know what Savannah Monroe is doing alone in a bar on the other side of town on a Friday night (though the natural assumption is that someone's been followed and maybe this is getting weird), but she doesn't really have much business there until she wants to throw an apology Dan's way or sit down and talk it out. Marti decides it doesn't matter, decides not to care – their business is their business, and it's got nothing to do with her (inside, she's still a little hurt at the lack of trust).

It's been six weeks since she's properly looked at the girl, and there's no point in starting now, really. She's mid-performance - Dan's still bobbing his head – and getting paid for this, and enjoying it, and she doesn't need the reminder of their crude disconnection a month and a half in the past. She doesn't need to know how stressed Savannah is, or how alone, or what she has going on at home. She refuses to want to. So she'll ignore the brunette just in the doorway and keep on singing, but she'll let her linger, because regardless of what she wants and what she needs, there are some things she can't control.

But then the brunette head turns, forwards out of the bar in a rush, and Marti finishes the song with a bare shrug to herself, smiling at Dan's charismatic applause as it fuels the rest of the crowd. Morgan sits up a little, gesturing slightly with his bottle and smiling brightly, and Alice halts mid-speech with her new beau to give her a loud wolf whistle. Marti just grins and rolls her eyes, launching into some Bon Jovi with the band, ploughing on with the night like she had with the song. Whatever Savannah wants, and whoever she wants it with, it isn't happening tonight.

But for a moment she feels that twinge again, and she can't help but think she's taken a step backwards.

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"So I'm assuming that this call is about the lack of alcohol and good company on my doorstep?" Marti asks, and she hears a low snort from the cheerleader on the other end of the line. There's the low hum of some odd electropop song in the background of the song, and it's pretty evident that Alice is still in her dorm, probably in her room with Lewis's playstation hooked up to the her television (he'd whined like a little girl when he 'lost' it, and Alice had never thought to return it to him).

"Yeah, little miss Captain's got me under house-arrest," the other girl pretty much scoffs, and Marti quirks an eyebrow. "Well, room arrest, really."

"Like that would stop you."

"Wouldn't normally, but she has the rest of the team doing periodic checkups that I'm still in here. Ready, wait for-" There's the loud sound of a door being knocked, and then Lewis can be heard shooting out a 'just checking if you need anything', but Alice just scoffs again. "See? It's like clockwork. Sickening, really. And all because Savannah's got an extra large stick up her ass this week."

"Huh. So what're you in for?"

"Missing practice," she replies with an exasperated sigh. Marti's going to ask when that had ever – ever – happened, but she's beaten to the punch. "And I know what you're thinking – 'sure, Alice is a bitch, but she's a dedicated bitch' – I appreciate that. But apparently there was a practice scheduled for late on Friday night and apparently I'd been told about it before I left to join my mighty legion of bros down at the pub for your gig."

"You never practice on Friday evenings. Let alone late on them. What are you telling me?"

"I'm telling you Savannah Monroe knew where I was, organised a late-minute practice, and did this as some ridiculous form of punishment," Alice tells her bluntly, and Marti has to sigh. This is just getting ridiculous.

There's the sound of another knock on the girl's door, and she hears another squad mate enter the room, ask the same thing, and leave.

"Save me?" Alice asks hopefully, and Marti just laughs to herself.

"No can do," she replied lightly. "But you know, you do belong to the 'mighty legion of bros', so I'll call in a favor and get Morgan to drop you a care-package."

"Does that 'care-package' happen to include a baseball bat or a cute musician from the bar the other night, or am I out of luck on that one?" Alice asks, but it's more joking than hopeful because she already knows the answer. Marti just laughs again, and they say their goodbyes to return to their respective evenings even though they were supposed to be sharing a bottle of vodka and watching stupid movies for the rest of the night. But it's okay, because it wasn't vital, and as she sends the promised message off to Morgan for that 'care package' Marti toys with the idea of inviting Dan over, just like old times.

Even if it's not like old times, because they're in the 'mighty legion of bros' as it's apparently been dubbed – even if the mightiness is only attributed to four people. And it's not just Dan and Marti against the world anymore.

She kicks her feet up on the coffee table after a fractional moment, crossing them at the ankles and grabbing the remote to channel surf for a while. Things are pretty boring for a Tuesday night, all things considered. But then there's a knock on the door, and she frowns to herself because Wanda's at work and she hasn't actually given in to the idea of calling Dan over, and it's eight o'clock already. When she opens the door to long brown hair and evident anxiety, she doesn't know whether or not she's surprised. That coil of sickness in her gut that's been subsiding rears up again, and she hates it already.

It's only her own politeness that lets her purse her lips and step aside to let the cheer captain through the doorway. They both make their way to the living room, and Marti switches off the television, but neither of them sit down. This is the first time they've talked since Marti moved out of Cheer town and quit the squad (and damn, that's more than six weeks past), and it's tense and awkward, and Marti's too stubborn to say anything – or maybe she doesn't know what she's supposed to say. But after a moment too long Marti's words cease to matter, because the cheerleader's practically exploding, and once she's starts talking it's almost like she can't stop herself.

"I'm so, so sorry, so sorry, I overreacted and I was childish and it wasn't really any of my business to begin with, because I should have trusted Dan, and then the way I acted afterwards was just-" she rattled off, and it was rushed and emotional, and there were already tears streaming down the girls face while she wraps her arms around herself and rubs her hands up her arms, folding in on herself. She's too vulnerable. It's too much. "-it was terrible, and I'm a terrible, spiteful person, and then I did it again to Alice because I saw her there with you and Dan and Morgan, and I just – I thought she was with another boy, but she wasn't, and I felt cheated because – because it should have – should have been me there, but I was stupid, and I put my guard up, and I never do that, and I want to take it all back. And it's so stressful, because the squad's on my back about the next round, and we have to rearrange the routine again, and Charlotte's pregnant-" she chokes on that for a fraction of a second, and Marti quirks a brow because it's pretty left field. "-and it feels like I can't breathe. I feel sick. And I have no one to talk to because the other half of the room's back to emptiness, and no one else puts up with my dumb quirks or my social awkwardness the same way and there's no one I can talk to, and I just need a friend-"

"Then why did you come here?" Marti interrupts suddenly, but firmly, and Savannah looks up to her with tears in her eyes, and the sudden realisation that she's intruding into someone's home, and she's probably not even welcome. Marti feels sick – disgusting – for saying it, feels terrible when the words come out of her mouth, but it needs to be said.

"I... I needed to talk to you... You're – you're my friend, right? You've been my friend since-"

"People trust their friends, Savannah," Marti interrupts with a frown. It stands out to her than in the jumbled apology she's received, there's mention of not trusting Dan, but nothing about the suspicion placed on her. And Savannah's rapid paling complexion only furthers the sick coil in her gut. "And you didn't trust me. For someone with so much faith, you didn't know where to put it."

"It – I – you lied to me."

Marti just shakes her head, because this is the real issue.

"No. I may not have told you everything, but I didn't lie," she said. "You just didn't listen to what I said. Me and Dan were half a decade ago, Savannah. It wasn't about what happened, and what we hadn't told you. It was about the fact that you didn't trust either of us."

If she thinks Savannah's broken down already, she's proven wrong the next moment, because when the words hit her, the brunette's face crumples with the realisation. Her knees practically give out, and then she's sobbing on the couch and the repeated "I know, I know, I'm so, so sorry" seems to be the only thing intelligible out of her mouth – but even that's pushing the boundaries of coherency. Marti swallows thickly while the girl breaks down on her couch, and the blonde realises that Captain of the Hellcats as she is, Savannah Monroe is far from perfect. She doesn't really have than many close friends, and even if she has bridged the gap with her family, it'll be a long time before she trusts them enough to talk about things. About everything. And her past riddles her ridiculously optimistic personality with a hundred different issues that Marti's already catalogued – trust is just one of them.

So Marti might be all she has. And maybe she can forgive this, just once.

She takes a seat next to the girl on the old couch and pulls her in to a tight hold, rocking the girl a little while she cries and pushing brunette locks away from a tear-streaked face. Maybe later they can talk this out properly, be mature like they're meant to (or just yell and scream like kids until one of them is cowed enough to admit defeat). But for this moment, she resigns herself to be the friend Savannah needs, and offers the comfort the girl wants, and for a little while she'll be happy as the shoulder to cry on because later, they'll figure it out. So Marti Perkins does what she does best – like she did when Dan was a little boy and not afraid to cry out his problems in front of a girl, back when it was just them against the world – she holds Savannah close and sings to the girl softly until the tears run out and the stress is gone.

"You should sit with me and we'll start again
And you can tell me all about what you did today
What you did today."

R&R