Encore

"How are you today Ellie?" Dr. Mohavi asked. Ellie shifted in the large oversized chair uncomfortably. She'd barely been comfortable talking to Ms. Sauve and now she was sitting in the unusually cluttered office of a new psychologist that Ellie wasn't sure if she could trust. Ellie pressed her lips together tightly and her eyes floated around the room nervously. "Ellie, do you trust me?" Ellie's eyes darted towards the sound of Dr. Mohavi's voice.

"Not really" Ellie answered pulling her legs up onto the chair and began to pick at the fraying denim at the bottom of her black worn jeans.

"who do you trust?"

"Sean…Ashley, Marco, Verity?"

"you seem unsure about the last few, who's Sean?"

Ellie rested her arms across her knees and placed her chin upon her stacked arms, her gazed directly focused on Dr. Mohavi. Her long hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and she was dressed very casually, her doctor's coat hanging loosely on the back of her chair. 'Can I trust her?' Ellie wondered to herself, "Sean's my boy…ex boyfriend."

"Yet you still trust him?"

"Of course" Ellie answered as if the response were obvious, "why wouldn't I?"

" I'm not sure, but it's good to have someone you can trust." Dr. Mohavi watched as Ellie drew her attention back to her frayed pant legs, "do you think you can trust me?"

Ellie shrugged.

"Ellie, Ms. Sauve, your school counselor, what would you talk to her about?"

"Stuff…we didn't really talk much." Ellie answered, " she said I was doing better, I was doing better." Dr. Mohavi watched as Ellie seemed to become bitter at the thought of why she was here, and slowly jotted down a few notes on a blank notepad as Ellie began to ramble angrily. " I wasn't even going to cut that night…everyone thinks it was because Sean and I broke up, even my mother. She's wrong, she's wrong about almost everything, she can't even stay sober," Ellie looked up, "do you know she was drunk that night?"

Dr. Mohavi shook her head, " I had no idea Ellie."

"No one does, I was just…holding it, ya know? For comfort, just letting it touch my forearm was enough comfort for me and then she burst in and scared me…and I… I didn't mean to, it was an accident, and she looked at me like it was all my fault." Ellie sat up straight, lowering her legs to the floor and throwing her arms around violently for a moment, "she didn't even help me, I got up to help myself and she yelled at me for getting blood on the floor and then we got into a fight and I lost my balance and fell down the stairs." Tears were starting to leak from Ellie's eyes.

"Everyone slips up Ellie, it's okay."

"It's not okay,…" Ellie sniffled and wiped her eyes, "everything's just messed up again, it always gets messed up every time he leaves."

"every time who leaves?"

"Daddy…Mom will be okay for the first few days and then she goes on a drinking binge, until about a week before my father is scheduled to come home, then she sobers up, it's disgusting."

"She's an adult Ellie, she's entitled to drink…"

"Is she entitled to drink until she passes out in the living room, or until she fills her stomach with nothing but hard liquor forcing her to spend the night on the bathroom floor?"

"everyone makes their own choices Ellie."

"I know, just like I made the choice to pick up after my mother, or make sure she doesn't die from alcohol poisoning every night, I'm the one that made the choice to make sure the bills got paid…and I'm the one who couldn't handle it so I decided to cut myself."

"Ellie, look at me," Ellie raised her gaze, " you're right, you shouldn't have had to be the adult in your family, you're still a child, and you had every right to find a way to cope with everything that was going on, I'm here to help you find another way to do so, without hurting yourself Ellie, but you have to talk, you have to trust me."

Ellie wiped her eyes, " I don't know who to trust anymore…I'm supposed to trust my family, but my father isn't around, and my mother is to drunk to pay attention. Sean was the only one who I could trust, he's the only one who saw beyond the scars and the cutting, he saw me and he trust me."

" Let's change the subject, why don't you tell me how you and Sean got together," Dr. Mohavi asked.

Ellie's lips curved into a slight smile as she remembered the day Sean and her met, and began to describe the day her and Sean had officially met in the hall, and what happened later that night...

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 real dinnertime conversation. She felt so relaxed it surprised Sean when she, unbeknown to herself, subconsciously rolled up her sleeves as the temperate climate in the room got to her fatigued body. Sean's eyes widened as he followed Tracker's gaze to her arm, and suddenly Ellie was the only one lost in the moment.

" El..." Sean muttered and motioned for her to roll down her sleeve. Ellie furrowed her eyebrows and looked down at her arm and panicked, she quickly tried to tug her sleeves down but Tracker had already noticed, and gently stopped her hand.

" not trying to escape?" Tracker asked. Ellie dropped her head onto the table and pushed back tears. " Stay tight..." he muttered and walked over to a cabinet and came back with a bottle of peroxide and some cotton balls. " You shouldn't let the cuts go uncleaned..." he said as she dabbed peroxide on the cotton balls and ran them over her arm gently. Ellie jumped a little as the peroxide stung her skin. Sean watched as her eyes brimmed with tears she held back from the twangs of pain. " They could get infected." Ellie opened her mouth to speak. " When was the last time you cut?" Tracker asked.

" ...last Friday..." Ellie whimpered as he got up to grab something else.

" and you didn't clean these up?" Tracker asked angrily, " They are still open..."

" That's partially my fault" Sean muttered. Tracker spun his head to glare at Sean.

" what do you mean it's partially your fault"

" ...I fell..." Ellie muttered, " and Sean helped me up and grabbed my arm a bit too tight..."

" and they opened up?" Tracker asked as he sat back down with some vitamin E and began to rub it gently over her cuts. Ellie nodded. " Well no duh...look Ellie, I know all too well how addicting this is, but it's dangerous, especially when you don't take care of the cuts."

" I'm trying to stop"

" I'm sure you are..." Tracker muttered.

" She is Track...she was just coming from seeing the counselor when I bumped into her."

Tracker turned and looked at Ellie. He smiled slightly. " you'll pull through."

Ellie nodded and pulled her arm slowly away from Tracker and tugged her sleeves down, and pulled on her jacket. " I-I-I better be going...it's getting late."

Tracker nodded.

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

Ellie nodded and Sean led her out of the kitchen and out the door. As they rounded the end of Sean's block Ellie turned to him and looked furious, "that was why you brought me there?" she asked angrily.

Sean looked at her, " I brought you over because you didn't seem like you wanted to be at home."

Ellie breathed a sigh angrily, she was fuming. " I can't believe...he..." she groaned in frustration as she walked towards her house.

" all I have to say is ... he's better than Ms. Sauve" he muttered, smirking in the darkness of the streets.

Ellie turned around and laughed, " he definitely understands better."

"Him and his brother sound like a lovely pair, you should be glad to have friends like that," Dr. Mohavi mentioned and quickly glanced at the clock, "Ellie, I'm sorry to cut your first session at a progressive moment, but I have another appointment coming in, so I'll see you…" Dr. Mohavi, flipped through the date book on her desk top, " next Tuesday right before dinner." Ellie nodded in agreement, "and don't forget you have group tomorrow."

Ellie stood up and nodded goodbye before heading back to the commons room and falling on the couch between Orion and Jerzy. She gently rubbed Jerzy's buzzed cut fuzz and got him to smirk in amusement.

" I gotta stop cutting my hair like that," Jerzy said shaking his head, "you girls just love doing that." Ellie laughed as she watching him run his hands over his own fuzzy hair self consciously. Jerzy turned to Ellie who pouted her lips.

"you know you love it," she said wiggling her nose.

"you're too sweet to be in here with all us," Jerzy said standing up and heading off to grab a computer pass from the reception desk, messing up her hair in the process. Ellie grinned and turned to Orion as he sat writing in a notebook.

"What are you writing?" she asked, trying to get a peek at the notebook. Orion looked over at Ellie, slowly closing the notebook with one finger still holding the page he'd been writing. He sideswiped his dirty blonde hair and thinks for a moment before reopening the notebook and passing it to Ellie. He watched with nervous eyes as Ellie's slowly read over his sloppy hand writing.

I hate the spring. The teasing moment right before summer as winter slowly thaws out. She left us in May. It was only so fitting that we buried her in the month that shared her name. We buried her in her favorite green dress, and a silk green scarf wrapped around her head. Her lips were so red it was like the most perfect shade of crimson was painted across her plump lips. And from those plump lips she would breathe no more, and those lips would never find themselves pressed against my forehead. No one wore black that day. She forbade it. As she lay on her deathbed, she whispered that request, "there will be no black cloud surrounding my grave." She wanted a rainbow; she wanted to travel to heaven on a rainbow. " And I want dandelions…I love dandelions."

I hate the spring. It brings dandelions to the unkempt lawn. I hate the spring.

I hate the spring. But for the sake of fourteen years of memories I pick a bouquet of dandelions and place them next to her name. I shed no tears, for she forbade it, instead I laugh for her. It was what she wanted, she used to sing me to sleep and whisper fairy tales in my years and tickle me, telling me that my laughter signified the birth of a pixie. But after that spring, I could barely bring myself to laugh for even one pixie. But I can cry enough to drown a dozen. I hate the spring, but it brings the rain that hides my tears.

I hate the spring. I hate the spring because it took her away. I hate that spring.

Ellie passed the notebook back. "You're mom?" she asked. Orion shook his head. Ellie stared confused.

"My grandmother, she raised me." Orion explained, "my mother was never around, my grandmother always said my mother was a spirit who couldn't be tamed, not even by motherhood." Orion smiled. Ellie smiled back but remained silent, she didn't know what to say, "she had breast cancer." Orion said, breaking the silence.

"Oh" was Ellie could manage, " my mother's parents died before I was born, and my Nanner and Pappy live in Nova Scotia, we moved around a lot, I still don't know them very well."

"That's a shame." Orion said changing his position on the couch, resting his back up against the arm rest, drawing his knees up to add as an easel for his notebook as he began to ink a sketch of Ellie's face.

"Are you drawing me again?" she asked trying to tuck her head into her shirt.

"O' course milady," he said looking up and then back down at the notebook.

"Why?" Ellie asked, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Because you're a masterpiece."

Ellie blushed furiously, and then smiled as Orion looked up and smirked as he noticed her grinning like an idiot, her heart beating again, in a fashion that scared her, and made her forget who Sean was for a moment in time.

A/N: Eck, I'm sorry guys, it's been a very long time. You'll have to forgive me. I'm trying really hard to write as often as I can but if only you could see my schedule. It's extremely hectic and I was lucky to get a few moments to write something up for you guys. I know it's short, even with the flashback to Numb it's not as long as I hoped i could write, atleast on Ellie's part. As soon as I post this, I plan on getting to work on a Sean chapter, and maybe an other parties chapter.

Please forgive me for the lack up updates I promise I'll make it up somehow. Also, I'd regret to inform you that I can no longer post the lyrics in the chapters because of the fact that I don't have the right to do so, considering the lyrics aren't mine and all, I emailed the site and asked about citing the lyrics, and I can't even do that. So I guess if I use music in future chapters I can mention the name and artist and you can look up the lyrics on your own if you wish. I can't really do much else.

Keep an eye out for the next chapter, it might be up tonight as well or possibly tomorrow, depending on how my schedule works out.