Chapter 6

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Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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"You're gonna come home soon, right?"

"Depends on whether or not they think I'm ready, Abby."

"That seems stupid."

"They just want to make sure I don't do it again, sis."

Abby said nothing as Cree gently brushed her hair. She had let Cree undo her braid, and her hair fell gently along her shoulders as her older sister gently brushed it back. She could almost believe that Cree had never attempted suicide, and they were home in her room, not in the hospital, and it was just a normal day, one where they got along. And yet she could not be fooled; once again, at the insistence of a nurse, Cree was wearing shorts, giving Abby her first real look at her sister's scars. And, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the newly formed scars on Cree's wrists. She shivered.

"You okay?" Cree asked.

"Yeah."

Abby leaned back against Cree, comforted by the firm feeling of her sister's gentle strokes. "Y'know, I always thought you were invincible," she murmured after a moment.

Cree faltered, her brush strokes slowing, but she kept it up. "Oh?" she asked.

"Yeah. I just… you always seemed untouchable, invincible." Abby glanced up at her sister. "You were faking, weren't you? That was your way of dealing with your depression, before you started cuttin' yourself."

"Yeah." Cree sighed.

"Why? Why didn't you just talk about it?"

Cree bit her lip, thinking. After a moment, softly, she said, "Because if I did, then I was letting up the act. If I went to someone, I was admitting that I had a problem. Oh, I knew I had a problem… I wasn't dumb. But everyone knew me as the calm, cool one, "oh look, she always knows what she's doing". And you looked up to me for it." She laughed. "I was so scared I'd let you down."

"So… you kept quiet for me?"

"Yes. But Abby, don't think for a minute that what happened is your fault, because if you do, truthfully, I'll beat the crud outta ya."

Abby looked at her hands as Cree's strokes once again regained their quick rhythm, gently brushing the dark locks of hair out of her eyes. After a moment, she said, "Cree, ya know what scared me the most that night? When I came in, and saw ya just lyin' there?"

"Do I want to know?"

"I'm still gonna tell ya, either way."

Cree sighed, and on a gust of air, said, "Shoot."

"I'm not tryin' to put ya on the spot."

"I know you aren't, sis."

Abby hesitated, twirling a loose strand of dark hair around her finger. She didn't know exactly how to word what she wanted to say.

Here goes nothing.

"I know… I know that I'm not big on the whole… family love thing. And I know I don't say nearly enough of the things I should to you. You're my sister, and you've always been there for me no matter what." Abby felt tears threatening to fall but she fought them back. "And when I saw you there, just… bleeding and not moving, it made me realize that." She swallowed. "And I was so scared. Because if you died, I wouldn't be able to tell you…"

"Tell me what?"

Abby bit her lip. "That I love you."

A stunned moment of silence as Cree processed these words, words she hadn't heard from her sister's mouth in well over three years, words she had secretly yearned for but never asked for…

"I love you to, Abby."

Abby turned, hugging her sister tightly, and she felt Cree hug her back. And even if it had taken something as drastic as attempted suicide for her to realize what she should have said before, it didn't matter.

Abby didn't fight the tears anymore.

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(Melts)

God, I love this chapter so much... maybe because I wish something like this would happen on the show...