Numb

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
I've become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Sean opened the door and let Ellie in as he closed the door behind him. Tracker appeared from the kitchen, "You cool down?" he started before he saw Ellie. Sean half expected him to be fuming with anger but instead noticed his brother looked cool as a cucumber; his face bearing a look of interest as he carefully made notice of Ellie. She stood half behind Sean, almost using him as a shield as she hugged her jacket against herself.

"Didn't know we were inviting guests to dinner," Tracker said, "Who's your friend?"

"Ellie Nash, sir."

Tracker laughed, "Sir, that's a good one," he looked at Sean, "she's funny."

"Sorry it's a habit," she explained, "I bounced around a lot on military bases growing up."

Tracker nodded, "you're welcome to stay as long as you've brought your appetite." They headed to the dinner table where there were two boxes of pizza piled up with paper plates and napkins tossed half-hazard next to them. Ellie silently slipped into an empty chair next to Sean and grabbed herself a plate. "Sorry I'm not much of a chef," he said, "didn't have time -"

"Pizza is great," Ellie said, reaching to open one of the boxes and grabbing herself a slice.

"So how do you know Sean, Ellie?"

"School -" she answered between swallows, "I don't hang out with Jay and those lame-asses if that's what you're thinking."

Tracker laughed, "Not exactly was I was thinking ..."

"But hoping," Sean interrupted as he rolled his eyes.

"Actually I was going to say it's nice to know you're meeting new people," Tracker said as he handed Sean a plate with a slice on it.

"You know," Sean said as he stuffed the slice into his mouth, "You mah brother, not ma dwad." He swallowed, "can you please act like?"

"English please?" Ellie asked.

"You know," he began again, addressing Tracker, "you're my brother, not my dad... can you please act like it?"

Tracker made an attempt to look offended but grabbed Sean's head into a headlock, "if that's what you want," and began to rub his knuckles into his hat covered head. Ellie tried her hardest to stifle her laugher and nearly choked on her piece of pizza. "So..." Tracker muttered as he released Sean and pulled open the refrigerators nd pulled out three cans of coke and set them on the table, "does anyone know you're here Ellie?"

Ellie looked to Sean, almost as if to ask if Tracker was cool. Sean shrugged a response, "I don't think anyone will even notice I'm gone."

"Why do you say that?"

"My mom wasn't exactly sober when I left," Ellie answered.

Tracker didn't respond verbally, he just nodded his head understandingly. He used to do the same thing when he and Sean were younger. Leave the house to escape all the turmoil, to escape everything to avoid taking it out on his arm. He noticed she was still wearing her jacket and seemed to be uncomfortable, "why don't you take your jacket off," he suggested, "you must be hot as hell in here."

Ellie looked over at Sean again. If she took off her jacket she'd have one less thing between her scars and the world. All she'd have then is a sleeve. Sean gave her a reassuring look that seemed to say it's okay with his eyes. Ellie shrugged off her jacket and tugged her sleeves down and gently hung her coat on the back of the chair before taking another bite of her pizza.

"Um, Tracker I'm not going to be home tomorrow night," Sean muttered, trying to take his brother's attention away from Ellie to give her a few seconds to feel comfortable. He knew Ellie could trust Tracker - but he didn't want her to feel like the center ring of the circus.

"Tomorrow's Wednesday, it's a school night," Tracker said, "Where else would you be?" he asked; his voice didn't hide his annoyance.

"Out."

"Out?" Tracker attempted to get him to clarify.

"Out with Jay."

"Yea?" Tracker asked, "it's gonna be a hard no." Sean looked at him wondering how he would have reacted if Ellie hadn't been there. Would he have still been so relaxed or would there have been a lecture? "It's a school night Sean, it's not because I don't like them," he said, "it's because after another call from Mr. Raditch this month means I want you home and doing homework - at home."

"But..." Sean tried to rebuttal.

"It can wait until Friday."

"Kinda hard to hang out with Jay after you said you'd help me with geometry," Ellie said, "You took it with Armstrong last year didn't you?"

Tracker looked at Ellie wondering what the hell she was smoking, Sean wasn't exactly the study buddy kind of kid. He watched the look Ellie was giving Sean and waiting for him to catch it. Tracker noticed- he wasn't stupid.

"Oh...yea," Sean said when he realized Ellie was trying to give him an alibi to hang out with Jay.

Tracker smiled to himself, Ellie was a new breed of trouble.

Dinner at the Cameron home seemed to be more like dinner than anything Ellie experienced at home while her father was away. She laughed and had a real dinner time conversation. She felt so relaxed she began to talk more elaborately, using her arms and accidentally knocked over a can of coke and jumped up out of her seat before she rushed to clean it up. That was when Tracker noticed the brush burn on her knees, "what happened?" he asked.

"Oh," Ellie said quickly trying to cover up knees, "nothing, just jumped off the swings earlier."

"Yea you flew -" Sean mentioned and handed her paper towels.

In a moment of feeling completely comfortable in her surroundings, she rolled up her sleeves to start cleaning up the mess she made while Tracker disappeared to get something to clean up her brush burn. "El..." Sean muttered and motioned to roll down her sleeve. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked down at her arm and quickly tried to tug her sleeves down. But Tracker had already noticed as he returned into the room and gently stopped her hand.

"Wanna explain that too?" he asked and gently turned her wrist over.

Ellie tugged her wrist back from his gently grasp and tugged her sleeves down, "not really."

Tracker nodded, "well, I got these for your knees -" he explained as he set the peroxide and cotton balls on the table. "But those cuts are looking a little raw." It was almost frightening how calm he was; he wasn't angry; there were no threats to call her mother, just this strange comforting look.

"Oh ..." Ellie wasn't sure how to answer.

"That's my fault -" Sean spoke up quickly.

Tracker spun around so quickly Sean thought he might lose his head, "how exactly is this your fault?"

"It was an accident," Ellie began to ramble, "they were from Friday, Sean just kind of bumped into me and his grip was a little tight as he helped me up, it really wasn't his fault."

"And they just opened up?" he asked.

Ellie nodded, "It's really not Sean's fault." Tracker nodded and motioned for her to show him her knees and gently dabbed them with the peroxide soaked cotton balls. Sean watched as she squirmed a little in the seat. Wondering if it hurt. "Sorry - it's cold," she said quietly. Then Tracker motioned for her arms next and she turned them over and for the first time, even Sean got a good look at all the scars that littered her arms. "I washed up when I got home," she said.

Tracker nodded, "did a good job," he said as he gently ran his fingers over them, "they look alright- just hold tight." Tracker got up and disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a small bottle of vitamin E oil and began to gently rub it over her cuts. "The cutting part is easy - it's the actual healing process that is hard to figure out."

Ellie nodded, "working on that," she confessed, "just not getting as much support as I was hoping for."

"You'll only get out the work you put into something," Tracker said. Ellie figured for a moment he was saying she wasn't trying as hard but slowly began to realize it spoke to her relationships with her friends as well. They can't really support what they aren't privileged to. Paige had found out by accident and for all anyone knew it was a jealous rumor - Ashley and Marco hadn't really approached her about it and never really asked questions.

"She is trying tho," Sean piped up, "that's where she was coming from, Sauve's office."

Tracker looked back at Ellie and smiled, "it's a lot more progress than I ever made," and Tracker rolled up his sleeves. His scars were much more defined than Ellie's as if he had cut deeper than she had. They were faded enough that Ellie knew they were older scars. "I didn't have a lot of friends growing up and I knew if I didn't get out of that home I wasn't going to make it."

This had been the first time Sean had heard Tracker admit that things could have taken a more permanent turn. Ellie glanced over Tracker's shoulder at Sean who stood there an emotionless stare through her and Tracker for a second; almost stoic before she caught a sob getting stuck in his throat before he clenched his jaw and swallowed it, thinking no one could see.

Ellie slowly pulled her arm away from Tracker and tugged her sleeves down and grabbed her jacket, "thank you for dinner Tracker - but I better be going."

Tracker nodded and stood up.

"I'll walk you home," Sean volunteered, "you shouldn't be walking home alone after dark."

Ellie nodded and turned to Tracker, "thank you," one more time.

Sean led her out of the kitchen and out the door. As the rounded the end of Sean's block, she spun on her heels to face him. Sean noticed she was furious, "that was why you brought me here?" she asked angrily.

Sean looked at her, "I brought you over because you didn't seem like you wanted to be at home." Ellie watched him carefully and saw him to be telling the truth, "and I thought you'd feel safe around someone who-"

"Understands?" Ellie asked.

Sean nodded, he noticed she was still angry. He assumed it must have felt like he had spilled her secret. But all he noticed that while she was there she seemed comfortable and relaxed - and it was different than the kind of comfortable she looked when he saw her with her friends.

"You made him out to be very judgmental," Ellie said, " and hard on you."

"He is," Sean laughed, "doesn't mean he can't be understanding sometimes." Yes, Tracker was hard on him. Because Tracker wanted him to be something more than the expectations that were laid out for him by their parents. Tracker wanted Sean to graduate high school. He wanted him to do great things. He wanted him to have things he never had - and that included a parent figure that cared enough to pay attention and tell him no; tell him when he was making stupid decisions.

"I think you're lucky to have him."

"It's hard to feel that way with the pressure it feels like he's putting on me."

"Did you know sometimes pressure can turn coal into diamonds?"

Sean looked at her and laughed, "so what you think I'm a diamond in the rough?"

Ellie shrugged.

"Look about that whole -"

"Let's study thing?" she asked overly perky, in a nauseating way.

"Yea," Sean said with a chuckle, "you didn't have to..."

"You didn't seem like you wanted to be home," she responded mocking his words from moments earlier.

Sean rolled his eyes.

"This is my stop," Ellie said stopping in front of her house.

"It was nice talking to you, Ellie Nash."

"See you in school Sean Cameron."

Ellie walked up the stairs of her house and walked into her home, shutting the door gently behind her; careful not to wake her still-sleeping mother. She crept up the stairs and back up to her room and sat down on the floor and managed to finish those two problems that had been plaguing her earlier in the evening. She packed up her homework and crawled to her computer and sat down. She signed onto the DCS site and accessed her inbox to see a dmail from Ashely.

Hey Els-

I tried to call you but no answer...if I'm still on msg me

*Ash*

Ellie smirked to herself and clicked on Ashley's name and sure enough, she was still on.

NOLabels: u rang?

pictureperfect: where have u been all day?

NOLabels: meeting w/ Sauve...

pictureperfect: how did it go?

NOLabels: not bad, I'm feeling better

pictureperfect: good, where have u been since then?

NOLabels: co-op...came home...did hw

pictureperfect: u've been doin' hw 4 3hours?!

NOLabels: went 4 a walk

pictureperfect: where?

NOLabels: nowhere...

NOLabels: sorry Ash...I gtg

NOLabels has signed off

Ellie sighed. She wished she could talk to Ashley about everything. And she meant everything - why she was having meetings with Ms. Sauve, her dad, her mom, even her weird kinship with Sean. She knew Ashley had a little moment with Sean at a party before she came to DSC and while frankly, the two haven't really talked much since then she wasn't what Ashley would think. And as much as she wanted to pretend that she didn't care what people thought - she did. She cared. Ellie knew tomorrow Ashley was going to corner her with an interrogation in the hallway about her vagueness and the quick sign off; she didn't care about that - because she felt like she was floating on cloud 6, not quite cloud 9 but close enough for her liking.

Ellie changed out of her school clothes and stood in her underwear in front of her mirror for a moment and took in her body. She saw the scars and healing wounds on her arms and she looked down and saw the ones on her thighs that were also still healing. Most people believed it was only on her arms, but when she realized people could notice - she began to cut the tops of her thighs. She tilted her head and realized that her wounds were healing - she was healing. She glanced down at her cuts that Tracker had applied the vitamin E oil to and noticed they looked less inflamed already. She made a mental note to get some from the pharmacy. And she looked at her skinned knees and smiled to herself; it was worth the jump. To feel that moment of weightlessness in the air before she crashed down.

Ellie changed into a pair of sweatpants and a tank top and crawled into bed, she glanced at her arm one more time and for the first time she didn't feel ashamed, she finally felt like things were slowly getting better.