They had made their way to Steve well enough. Lizzy had tried to hide it but there was no mistaking the tremble of her fingers even as she had gripped Bucky's hand. The real difficulty arose after their rendezvous with Steve.
Becoming increasingly distressed, now barely able to string a coherent sentence together, Lizzy had struggled to find her footing. Despite this clumsiness, she had been determined not to let him help her. Continually he had tried, hands edging closer to her figure, but the moment she felt him against her she would shove him away. Her eyes held an apology each time; enough to reassure that it wasn't personal but the new exhaustion in her eyes would quickly overwhelm this sincerity.
Steve had been forced to run ahead for help when her feet had resolutely stopped pressing forwards. She had slumped against the maroon walls, knees pulled into her chest, as her breaths huffed out at an alarming pace. "Keep talking to me," she had struggled out. Obliging her anything, he had crouched before her and murmured memories even as she struggled to listen. A brief twitch of her lips the only indication she had registered his words as her trembling figure fell further into itself.
The sound of Steve's return, a slight figure trailing after him, seemed to startle Lizzy off of some precipice of fear. Crumbling entirely inwards, a flash of panic had swept the hallway as her dark power began swirling through shaking fingers.
A needle was quickly produced, the young girl who had arrived with Steve looking apprehensive as she gestured for Lizzy's arm. It took both of them, him and Steve, to hold her still well enough for the injection. Her voice tore from her as she screamed, legs kicking and thrashing as she begged them to let her go. The dark tendrils of her power remained in their orbit about her figure; stretching further over her skin but keeping at bay as they restrained her.
The fight had left her quickly after that. Voice dying into silence as her eyes slipped closed, power visually dissipating but still feeling almost tangible in the air. A deep concern had cut heavy lines into the girl's forehead as she had asked them to bring her the rest of the way. Chest feeling heavy, he had looked back to Lizzy.
Smoothing her hair from her features, tucking what he could behind her ears, he had felt a helplessness wash over him. Suffocating him.
Now, laid gently in the lab, she looked almost tranquil.
"What did you give her, a sedative?" at Steve's rushed words Bucky turned his head towards him. Eyes remaining glued to the woman laid before him, however.
The light tapping of the girl's, Shuri as he had since learned, typing stuttered to a halt momentarily before she answered. "Not exactly," she moved into his line of sight then, deft fingers fiddling with the needle taped into Lizzy's arm. "We want to see how this fear physically affects her; to find the cause."
Taking one of the several filled vials of Lizzy's blood over to a strange machine, Shuri disappeared as she ducked down. "So, what was it?" Bucky found himself asking, trying to learn as much as he could about this situation as though simply knowing more would make it all better.
"Hm?" She reappeared, fingers now flying over a thin glass screen.
"What did you give her?"
After a few chimes of the machine, and the sound of her furious scribbling, he got his answer. "It won't stop the 'fear'," she crooked her fingers with a strange intonation as she said the last word, "but it'll keep her asleep, she shouldn't experience it."
"Shouldn't?" Steve pressed before Bucky could.
Grimacing slightly, looking back down at the blinking screen before her, she nodded. "We're checking brain activity now."
Immediately further confused, he asked; "how does that help?"
His question was ignored. Shuri's attention now captured as a colleague, who looked almost twice her age, beckoned her over. Finally pulling his attention from Lizzy, he shared a heavy glance with Steve. Jaw jumping, Steve looked quickly from him to Shuri's now scrunched features. "What is it?"
"I-" she began, immediately cutting herself off to shake her head. After another moment's consideration, eyes flickering quickly over the image before her, she straightened and looked at Lizzy. "Her brain… it's like she's awake?"
Becoming impatient with these statements that he didn't understand the gravity of, he quickly responded. "What does that mean? Is she dreaming?"
Faltering in her gaze, she looked back down to the desk before muttering instructions to the man beside her.
The lab seemed to spontaneously burst into action around them; people appearing from seemingly nowhere to bustle around Lizzy, blocking her from his view. A blast of noise smothered the previous quiet. Shuffling of feet, pens clicking, machines whirring all around him built to an overwhelming crescendo of indistinguishable noise.
Steve's voice cut through the din, refocusing him. "What's going on?" his tone was quiet, brimming with concern as he caught Shuri as she passed. "Is she dreaming?"
"No," her eyes fixed to the papers in her hand, "she must be hallucinating, vividly." She stressed. Flipping through pages, uncertainty beginning to strain her voice, she explained further. "And… considering the levels of adrenaline and cortisol in her blood…" she trailed off, shaking her head as she seemed to struggle to make sense of it all, "whatever she's seeing isn't good."
"Can't you give her something?" Bucky asked quickly, fingertips flexing awkwardly as he became desperate for something to do.
Shaking her head she began pulling away from the pair of them, leaving them with a hurried explanation. "We need to work out what's causing this, to prevent it. We're going as fast as we can." With that, she hurried into the fray of frantic workers.
A hand clasped his shoulder and Bucky couldn't tell if it weighed him down further or kept him anchored away from full panic. "Let's get some air."
Looking to Steve, dismayed almost, he shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere." His tone was too sharp, too pointed, but his frustration was morphing into aggression. Steve simply squeezed his shoulder.
"We can't do anything here," helplessness tinged the edges of his voice but Steve's never-ending optimism lightened the words, "we'll be right here when they wake her up."
Winter stung her skin. The chill seeped through her bones leaving her feeling heavy and lethargic. Despite the cold, her body was not wracked with shivers. The landscape around her was blinding – the shock of white snow reflecting what little light peeked through the oppressive clouds. A silence surrounded her, pushing in on her as she looked over the empty landscape. Her legs moved of their own volition, sweeping her through the landscape as her mind struggled to perceive this strange reality.
The endless frozen tundra quickly shifted as she walked. The frigid open air was soon replaced by huge, tightly packed, pines. Their greenery had long since wilted; darkened leaves hanging limply from their branches, some almost touching her as she passed beneath them.
The thickness of this morbid forest increased with every step. Trees pressed in on all sides, blocking out what little sun bled through the clouds.
Soon enough, she was left in complete darkness.
Instinctively, she stopped in her steps. She took a sharp breath and felt unease settle upon her as this small noise echoed about her incessantly. The coldness of the air had lost its bite, but remained with a new still staleness.
Confused, she lifted a hand to feel for the forest she knew must still be surrounding her.
A new sharpness shot through her figure; startling her backwards with stumbled steps as she cradled her hand close to her chest. Recoiling from the pain before her sent her too far backwards, her back quickly hitting a wall behind her. The same sharpness penetrated her figure, the crackling of electricity greeting her ears as the arcs of hot light enveloped her.
Pushing forwards, careful not to press into the front wall once more, she found herself heaped on the floor. Fluorescent lights flickered above her suddenly. Their brightness stung Lizzy after the encompassing darkness of before. Looking around, Lizzy felt familiarity.
A metallic bed frame was squashed into the darkest corner. Its steel base was punctuated by heavy, iron bolts fixing it fast to the spot. Atop the frame laid a thin foam roll, with once white sheets that had greyed over time. A looming black door interrupted the featureless metal of the opposite wall and muffled, but somehow still deafening, approaching footsteps sounded beyond it.
The heavy plunk of the footsteps made it hard to think but Lizzy felt sure she needed to. This wasn't right. She had been somewhere else, she was sure, before this room, before the forest, before the empty tundra. Hadn't she?
The footsteps silenced suddenly, sending Lizzy's eyes to the doorway. The door was open, swung inwards and invading what little space she was allowed to occupy. A man stood over her. His stoic features were familiar but a name escaped her.
"Time to go." He told her, a language springing from him that she understood but did not recognise in that moment.
She blinked up at him dumbly, brain caught on what was wrong with this situation. "I want the food first," she countered, unsure why she had said that or if she had even chosen to.
A step forward sent her heart racing and fingers tingling as adrenaline pumped through her. "Food comes after," his emotionless features shifted dramatically into a sneer, "don't make me ask again."
Having some strange feeling that something awful would happen if she ignored this pseudo-request, but not knowing exactly what, she nodded in defeat. Head bowed in some type of submission that she did not fully understand, she held her hands out before her.
Scratching sparks scattered about her wrists, the surprise of them enough to send her eyes squeezing shut.
A muffled whimper sounded before her.
When her eyes reopened, she found she was looking down at a man; strapped down as they often were, wide brown eyes bulging at her with un-stemmed panic.
"You know what to do." She turned at the voice, seeing the man from before heaving the heavy door of this new room closed.
"Yes," she murmured back with a nod. Stepping forward, her hand pressed against the bound figure's face – shadowed power infected him before the door could click shut.
Not Enough. She felt the words ring through her but they were not her own.
The clank of the door sliding into place shook through this memory, this hallucination…whatever this was. The walls shifted around her, features melting away and morphing into something new. Her heart thundered in her chest – as though in anticipation, in some knowledge of where she was going. It became so violent and insistent that she almost entirely shook with each laboured beat.
Where was she going?
Images and sounds shifted around her, never quite settling on one thing.
Warm crimson dripped from her fingers, creeping up her arms and sending her breath scattering from her. The blood disappeared. Broken skin erupted from her knuckles, the green of bruising a more subtle reminder of her overt violence. An ache seared through these clenched fists; an indication of just how hard she could hit, how much she could break. The thunder of her heart suggested she had little need of this reminder.
Not Enough.
Her shaking hands dropped from her focus as she gasped for her suddenly stolen breath. A rasp rushed through her throat before it closed entirely. A hand choked her; the memory of this moment returning with it. Her fingers clawed against it, nails breaking harshly against the unforgiving metal. This strange hallucination tried to force the rest of this memory at her. Tried to make her feel it; the hopelessness, the pain, the fear.
But it wasn't enough; she wouldn't be swallowed by this again. The real darkness of this memory had since been replaced with lighter moments. Ones tinged with hope instead of hopelessness. These were the memories she held fast to. The memories she wielded as a weapon against falling into this particular abyss of fear.
Her pulse still thundered, hands still shook with exhaustion, but her breath returned to her. This isn't real.
What are you most afraid of?
Lizzy knew the answer and as soon as she knew, this hallucination knew.
She fell backwards, barely feeling the impact as she landed upon metal. The coldness seeped through her bones, chilling her and making it impossible to distinguish her shivers as induced by fear or the cold.
Unlike before, this felt real – and Lizzy believed.
The new heaviness in her limbs spread from her right arm and quickly weighed her entire body. The pressing sting at the crook of her right elbow was the only indication of the injection that must have been forced upon her.
Mind catching on this detail, she struggled to remember exactly when they had managed to pin her long enough for that. She usually fought so hard against them she was left with spreading bruises blotched against her limbs. It felt strange that she couldn't remember but it felt like some divine gift that there was a part of this repetitive experience that she was allowed to forget.
Clacking wheels sounded beneath her. The table jolted several times, wheels catching on gratings she had been pushed over on countless occasions, and her hand fell limply over the side. The lights blurred as they passed overhead. Lizzy counted them down in her mind, knowing how many she had left to pass before she got there, and with each count the tears swelled further. They tried to fall as she dipped into single figures but Lizzy could barely blink to dispel them. Her eyelids felt as heavy as her entire body.
As she reached the final light she tried to speak, as she always did, but the sound escaped as a formless whine. The rolling bed passed a darkened doorway and stopped underneath a last harsh white light. It felt blinding, as it always did. Unresponsive muscles always refused to turn her face away, move her gaze from the light, and allow her to squeeze her eyes shut entirely. It would be but a small relief – one that Lizzy had never been afforded.
"Here we are." Lizzy often wondered if that excitement would ever dampen in Killebrewe's tone; they had met in this sterile room so often it seemed remarkable his curiosity had not yet been sated.
The metallic clink of sharp tools that she could not see sent her thoughts spiralling off a cliff. Move! She begged her body, move! Another whine escaped her as she tried to scream, frustration and fear swelling as her body remained limp.
The first cut was always the worst; it held a dark promise of what was to come. He muttered to himself as he continued to cut into her, through all layers of flesh as he sought her insides, but the pain ricocheting through every inch of her made it impossible to focus on what he could say. Bloody gloved hands taunted her from her periphery and her internal pleading changed in its begging.
Just let me die, this thought filled her with more fear because she knew Killebrewe would never let her go. And yet, she still begged; please, god, just let me die.
The pain became too much. A wetness stained her as she felt something give way inside. This pain was blinding, overbearing, but she welcomed it. This was the pain that would force her to sleep.
"We're leaving in the morning, there's too many of us here now." It seemed impossible, but the sun was beginning to peek back over the horizon. Steve raised his hand against it. "We're bound to draw attention."
Nodding, Bucky squinted against the lightening horizon. "Where are you going?"
A chuckle met the question, a small lightness trying to quell the heaviness of their night. "I've still got some time to figure that one out."
"You think she'll be okay? With you leaving?" Bucky asked heavily, the question weighing more greatly with each moment. Grimacing, he added; "Us leaving?"
"I… She's tough." Steve didn't sound sure but Bucky knew her better.
"She acts tough. Even back in the day, she acted like nothing ever got to her." He sighs as he thinks about it, remembers how he was there for her – but he can't be this time. "But it did. It does."
"I would stay if I could; I'd bring her with me if I could." He stressed the words, reiterating them to himself in a tone that somehow didn't suit Steve. "Right now I don't have a choice."
Feeling agitated at the implication, he huffed and turned away from the sun. "But I do?"
"It's not an easy one, these things never are." Bucky was already shaking his head, denying what Steve was trying to tell him, "But, yeah, you do."
Surely he understood. "I can't hurt her again, she understands that." He told him flatly, tired.
Steve crossed his arms and levelled a gaze upon him. "I know." And as much as Bucky felt that Steve really did understand, he felt small beneath his gaze. "But, leaving is going to hurt her in ways she won't let even you see."
Steve knew him too well and as much as he had doubted it earlier, he clearly knew Lizzy too. But he couldn't stay, could he? "She- it wouldn't be for long." He tried to reason; with Steve or himself he wasn't sure.
"I'm not trying to change your mind, Buck." It felt like it. "But look at it from her perspective. You don't know that and… it's hard to even imagine but she was alone for decades." He had tried not to think about that, knew it could change his mind and unsure if he should let it. "I don't know exactly what happened, but I know Lizzy well enough to know we can't do that to her again."
Stubbornly, he argued. "She'll be safe here." Could he even let himself believe that?
"We thought that the first time." Solemnity overtook the tone. "Besides, you think she'll stay here, alone, once this is all dealt with?"
No, she wouldn't. He couldn't argue. If they both left, Lizzy would run away and he didn't want to think about where she might find herself.
But he shouldn't stay. Should he?
"What do you want me to do?!" He didn't mean to yell but frustration was picking at his patience. "Why don't you stay?"
"Because I have a responsibility to the people who risked everything to help us!" Steve seemed to regret his heightened tone immediately. Head falling he pinched the bridge of his nose. "But, honestly," he began, words a tired sigh. "I made up my mind the minute you told me."
"What?" Agitation kept his reply short.
"If you go, I won't leave her." Surprise silence Bucky, leaving him blinking dumbly at the man as he continued. "I can't."
He felt relief at this revelation; but the disquiet within him did not quite relent.
"I want to stay." He admitted, voice small.
"Then stay." Steve's tone was resigned.
"I can't trust myself with her."
Nodding, looking over the shimmering horizon, he relented entirely. "Then I'll stay."
"I –Thank you."
Feet leading him back into the building, Steve looked back as he answered. "I'm doing it for both of you."
As much as leaving Lizzy in her state of unconscious had left him with an awful antsy feeling, the fresh air had done him some good. "I know. Thank you."
The quiet calm of the golden sunrise outside seemed worlds away from the chaos they re-entered.
A stream of tired workers exiting the lab left them loitering in the hallway for much longer than either of them would have liked. By the time they got inside the lab was near empty but a racket of machinery remained. An angry repetitive buzzing strained his ears whilst a more constant high pitched whine droned endlessly in the background. Lizzy remained in the centre of it all.
Her skin held a new flushed pallor; a slow trickle of tears highlighted down her cheeks by the white lights of the lab and a strange sense of discomfort seemed to emanate from her. Moving to her swiftly, as though there were anything he could do, he placed a light hand on her forearm. The touch was enough to send a whimper through her, tears now cascading past closed eyes, and he immediately pulled back.
Helpless, he looked back to Steve.
"What's happening?" He asked Shuri.
"I-We have everything we need." A smaller needle was now clutched in her hand. "I didn't want to wake her up in a full lab."
"What are the alarms?"
Finally, she looked from Lizzy. Eyes turned, however briefly, to Steve; "She's… she's not doing well."
Entirely agitated that they were still wasting time talking, Bucky quickly interjected. "So, wake her up."
"I will, but slowly." Considering the tears still cascading from Lizzy, this conversation was already slow enough.
Trying to keep his tone from being overtly hostile, Bucky quickly commanded. "Okay, do it."
Sensing his urgency if nothing else, she finally stepped forwards. Steve moved forwards alongside her, hovering behind her as she stuck Lizzy's arm once more. The press of her thumb against the syringe was measured, careful.
Effects were slow to become apparent but once they appeared were impossible to ignore. Lizzy's cries became fully formed pleas; begging them to stop, to let her die. As though the words themselves did not sting enough to hear, her power became more violently protective of her.
Shuri had given up on her steadiness, emptying the entire vial and backing away before the shadows could force her away. Things started to break very quickly after that. Glass seemed to shatter all around them – sparks flying as overhead bulbs succumbed to Lizzy's power.
Eyes finally fluttering open, with a wildness that Bucky recognised as fear, Lizzy went to sit up. Doubting touching her would inspire anything other than increased fear, he tried to speak to her instead. "Lizzy," he called, trying to keep his own concern from his tone.
The destruction slowed around them, not yet halting entirely, as she turned to face him with a frown. "Bucky?" She asked, "you-you can't be here." A new fear seemed to overtake her – any concern she had housed for herself now appearing to shift entirely to him. The shadows ended their rampage about the lab; pulling back to hover frenetically in the air around the pair of them. "You can't be here!" She repeated, verging on hysteria. Despite her new focus on his presence, her eyes continued to jump from place to place; barely seeming to stop long enough to fully focus.
The sight of her intense panic somehow stemmed his own – he could still feel it brimming beneath the surface, about to boil over, but he could ignore it for her. "Listen to me – hey," catching her eye without touching her proved more than difficult, but he could sense that any hands on her would send her into a further flurry. When he finally locked her eyes, he let his hands hover over her shoulders. "Look at me; you're safe."
"No, no, no, you can't be here!" She pushed herself forwards, legs swinging from the bed, and grasped his arms. "You have to get outta here, before he finds you."
Letting his fingertips brush over her skin, subtly at first but firmer as she did not recoil, he rubbed his thumb over her shoulder. "Lizzy, we're safe, okay?" He kept his tone soft. The strange confusion in her eyes was one he could recognise. She wasn't sure where, or even when, she was; she wasn't sure what was real and what was a lie. "It's just us here – no one else."
Blinking rapidly, her head dropped as her grip loosened. "You? We… we're?" Looking back up with more clarity in her sharpening gaze, she breathed another question. "Where-where are we?"
"We're in Wakanda." He explained slowly. "We've been here for a few days," Her nose scrunched up as she leant further from him – eyes screwing shut as she shook her head. Glancing to Steve, finding his own concern reflected back at him, Bucky continued. "We-we came here because it's safe here."
It took a long, silent moment. Eventually, she nodded. "You're… that wasn't real?"
"No," he told her quickly, "whatever you saw – it wasn't real, Lizzy."
Some uncertainty remained, he could see it hiding in her eyes. She pulled back from him, glancing down at herself almost nervously before sending a hand searchingly over her stomach. Finding nothing, her shoulders sagged as her breath blew from her in what seemed a great relief. "I- what happened? We were… we were on a roof?"
Trying his best to ignore her searching motion over her stomach, doubting he would enjoy finding out what it had meant, he let himself bask in her relief a little longer. "Yeah, we were." He agreed. "We came down here so these people could help you."
Her eyes darted from him then. Quickly they landed on Steve, and widened with strange surprise. "Steve?"
"Hi, Lizzy." Steve gave her a small wave, filled with so much awkwardness Bucky would have laughed him under different circumstances.
A portion of her strength returned to her tone then. "I've been getting scared," she looked between them quickly, "did they figure out why?"
Having no answer to that, he turned to Shuri.
Seeming much more in her element now the lab were not being destroyed around her, Shuri nodded quickly. "Nearly – there's this in the meantime." She moved forwards and held out a small vial for Lizzy to take. When Lizzy ignored the offering, eyes drifting instead to the window opposite, Bucky took it instead. "Just two drops on the tongue should calm her." He nodded to her instructions, glad there was something he could do to help this situation.
Still eager to attempt some communication with Lizzy, Shuri tried again. "Lizzy," she turned to watch her as she spoke her name, a glassiness still betraying her difficulty concentrating, "you should get some rest." Strangely, Shuri looked to Steve as she spoke next. "Bring her back at 11? By then I should have an idea what we're dealing with," a last look over Lizzy's figure, "she should get a few hours sleep at least."
Steve quickly nodded, looking as though he were repeating the instructions to himself to ensure he wouldn't forget.
When she turned to address him directly once more, Bucky found himself taken aback but felt unsure as to why. "We can put you under before that?"
"After," he answered shortly, without thinking. He knew he shouldn't stay, but he couldn't leave yet. "Can we do after?" he amended.
Shuri nodded with a tight shrug, moving away quickly to look over her countless screens once more.
Steve moved cautiously towards Lizzy; uncertainty injecting him with his old awkwardness. "Let's go, Lizzy?" he seemed to ask.
She nodded, eyes drooping as she pushed herself onto unsteady feet. Stumbling forwards slightly, she allowed Bucky to steady her but insisted on walking from the lab without support.
Steve walked a small way with them, nervous eyes stuck on Lizzy but darting to him to share silent thoughts. After a particularly meaningful glance with Bucky, the meaning of which he couldn't quite discern, Steve stopped. "Lizzy, I've gotta go say goodbye to the others – they're leaving in a few hours and I gotta make sure they'll be okay without me." She finally looked up then, wide eyes watching Steve with more clarity than she had possessed since awakening. "You okay to go with Bucky?"
Ignoring this question entirely, she tried to hold back a gentle smile. Hopefulness tinged her voice as she spoke; the weakness of it almost heart-breaking. "You're not leaving?"
Warmed by her clear relief, Steve shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere."
A new glassiness overtook her eyes then, softened by the small upturn of her lips, but she quickly wiped it away. Springing forward, melting into a quick embrace, she murmured "thanks, Stevie." The words were short, quiet, but a depth of gratitude seemed to swell within them.
Stepping down the corridor, moving from them, he called. "I'll see you in a few hours, okay?" Lizzy nodded quickly; some small energy seeming to return after Steve's admission. "Get some sleep."
Lips twisting, she finally looked back to Bucky. "I'll try."
The pair of them watched Steve walk away, remaining in silence long after he had disappeared. Once the echoing sound of his footsteps relented, however, Bucky could no longer stand the silence. The concern he had managed to quash previously was now beginning to boil over – he needed reassurance that she really was okay and he knew he wouldn't gain her honesty until they retreated to privacy.
Hoping not to spook her, leaving his tone purposefully light, he asked with a smirk. "So, your place or mine?"
She saw through his attempted lightness. Before, she would have played along – silently appreciated that he knew her so very well. This time, however, she picked at her wrist as she quietly spoke. Her words struck him square in the chest. "I think you should go under now, like Shuri said."
"What? Why?" He tried not to let it hurt, but the sting was undeniable as it seemed to spread through his entire chest.
"I don't wanna lean on you when you're not even gonna be here tomorrow." Her tone was soft, tiredness dragging away any bite it could contain, but her words wounded him regardless. Sighing as she watched him flinch from those words, she shook her head and closed the gap between them. "That – that came out wrong." She admitted, still trembling fingers smoothing over his chest. "I just – I dealt with all this stuff alone before… I can do it again."
"You don't have to, though." He insisted, catching her fingers in his – holding them to his chest. "I don't want you to deal with this alone."
Those words seemed to pull a tired frustration from her as she pulled away. "I won't be alone though, will I? Steve will be here." That wasn't what he had meant, that wasn't what he wanted. He felt so grateful to Steve for staying with her, relieved to know she wouldn't be so alone, but it wasn't what he wanted. This unfair agitation clearly reflected on his features as she rubbed a hand over her eyes. "Bucky, what do you want me to say?" She asked shortly, dropping her hands entirely. "You tell me that you have to do this but you also clearly don't want to do it; you wanna stay."
How was that ever in question? "Of course I wanna stay, Lizzy!" He let out quickly, voice travelling much farther than he had intended. "Even without all of this shit going on, you really think I want to leave you again?"
"Then don't!" He couldn't stay. "Or do!" Or could he? "I just can't keep going round and round this shit! I can't keep waiting for you to disappear again!"
"Well, what do you want me to do?!" Tell me to stay, tell me what I've done doesn't matter.
Scoffing at this question, she threw her hands up in the air. "You already know what I want!" He did, he knew, but he needed her to say it. "I don't wanna deal with this without you, I don't wanna deal with anything without you! I want you to stay."
"I-fuck. Then I'll stay!" A weight lifted from his chest immediately. The breath he hadn't noticed he couldn't catch returned to him and he felt his shoulders relax instantly.
She stared him down for a long while; blue eyes intense upon him as she looked for any sign he may change his mind. Trying to convince her of this less-than-new conviction without words, he let her analyse him for however long she liked. Finding whatever she was looking for, she let her eyes drift shut.
Reopening them, rolling them at him dramatically, she let a smile sneak past her defences. Sheepishly he grinned back at her. It had taken him two entire days to admit it; he didn't want to leave at all. He had known this from the moment he had agreed to it, but it had seemed wrong to allow himself to stay – wrong to believe he could manage in this life without being fixed. It still felt a fine line to let himself walk, but doubt remained distant from his resolve.
Looking at her now, he could see it would have been a mistake. The guilt and fear he felt had not abated; he still struggled against images of what he had done to her, to all those people. Now, though, he could see Steve had been right. Leaving her now, or ever again, would not help either of them.
God, she made him into an idiot.
"Fuck-" she let out with her laugh, "let's go to bed."
Hey!
That felt like a full chapter aha!
Thanks to everyone who followed/favourited/reviewed last chapter! It means the world!
Please continue to let me know what you guys think, and have a great few weeks until I hopefully post another update.
LotsofLava