Things haven't exactly been winding down, but they're more manageable. This is strange to Bruce, because finals are almost over, but there's still graduation to deal with, job searching, packing, and apartment hunting to do, and Ellie (she hasn't cried any more, but her stress-baking has reached an all-time high).
Tonight she switches from stress-baking to anxious-cooking, and he is sitting cross-legged on the nearly empty floor of her tiny apartment, folding and packing a massive pile of her winter clothes. He likes packing – it's simple and logical, and Ellie doesn't have the patience for it (it's too menial for her tastes).
She's making spaghetti and cleaning up from her baking in between; he looks up to the piles of Ellie's belongings around him, still not packed, and notices something he's never seen before. She's too busy cooking slash cleaning to notice him reaching into the jumbled box of personal items and pulling out an old photo album.
It's full to the brim – pictures of a dark haired little girl with her parents. Little Ellie. He's seen a few pictures like this before, but she doesn't like pictures or the hanging of them. He flips through, watching Ellie grow up. As Ellie becomes a teenager, her father, a stern military man, fades from the pictures. Her mother is a prominent figure. He begins to wonder why Ellie's never asked him to meet her parents – especially since she has implied she has an excellent relationship with her mother – but then he realizes that he hasn't asked her, either. He has his reasons, so she must have hers…but her family looks so happy and normal and he doesn't know why she hasn't told him more than she has.
Ellie is in her mid-teens when the pictures cease abruptly. Blank pages fall through his fingers.
He puts the photo album back and looks up at her, stirring her spaghetti. "Why haven't I met your parents?"
"Why haven't I met yours?" She doesn't seem bothered (any more than she already is).
He finds himself flushing, but not from embarrassment. He consciously tries not to sound angry with her (it isn't her fault). "You can't." (He fails).
She stops stirring and stares at him, eyebrows drawn. "Bruce," She says softly, watching as he starts angrily folding her sweaters. "Bruce."
The next thing he knows she's bending down in front of him, holding his hands. He hangs his head and puts his forehead on her hands. She leans down and kisses the top of his head, and they stay that way for a moment. "I'm sorry,"
"He killed her." Ellie holds him tighter. "He just kept hitting her."
Ellie lets out a low growl and her fingernails dig into his back. "I'm sorry that bastard ever touched you. He's not in your life anymore. It's over. I'm the only person allowed to touch you, now."
He sits up but he doesn't let go of her. She puts her hand on his shoulder and squeezes. She looks so beautiful, and he is hers.
"Ellie," He begins, one hand grabbing the wrist that is perched on his shoulder. "Your dad never….hurt you, did he?"
"No," She answers immediately, but the mention of her father stirs up old wounds: fury, sorrow, loss, bitterness, and, still, love.
He watches her struggle with them, and puts his other hand on her knee. "Why haven't you introduced me to your parents?"
Her hand falls from his shoulder and slides down to rest on his chest, and he holds her hand there. She can't look at him, which is very non-Ellie-like. She is always direct and honest, unflinching.
"I'm still ashamed of how I acted, but…I still remember why I did. I'm not ready to forgive him yet."
"He's still your dad."
"He won't like you."
Bruce shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me."
"He'll hate you."
"He's going to be at graduation, right? It's going to happen anyway."
"No!" She turns the tables, and she's the one gripping his hand – the hand on his chest is tangled in his shirt. "You are mine. He cannot have you."
Bruce can't help it. He's smiling.
Ellie growls again and uses her hand on his shirt to pull him toward her, practically assaulting him with her lips. "He ruins everything." She mutters between kisses. "He's callous." She bites his lip. "Bitter." He's sighing. "Cold." Her lips work their way up his jaw. "And he," She kisses the corner of his lips. "Has no empathy left in his heart." She returns to his lips, her hands running down his shirt front, and he is incapable of doing anything more than frantically attempt to keep up with her.
"My mother took it all with her when she died." She slows down, and it is agony compared to her previous pace. "What she didn't take, he buried." She moves to his ear. "He did not bury me."
He has been fighting off the memory of his father for years, and blocking angry hands in his nightmares: Brian Banner has replaced the little voice in the back of his head,
"You are worthless,"
"You should have drowned him, Rebecca."
With five words and a searing kiss, Ellie puts his father's ghost to rest for good.
