Chapter 2
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"This tea...it's very good," the doctor said dramatically about fifteen minutes later. "Almost good enough to ease the pain of what you did."
"What did I do?!" Elli demanded in something just a breath away from a sob, flopping face down on the table in despair.
Dr. Trent took her hand and squeezed it.
"The world is not ready."
The little brunette peeled herself from the tabletop and frowned.
"But I thought I already did it."
"But to relive it...unthinkable."
"Of course," she sighed. "Is there a newspaper from that day, or something?"
He stared at her, aghast.
"No, Elli. What you did...it was so unspeakable that even the journalists would not touch it."
"What can I get from some kids on the internet?" she grumbled.
He laughed a bitter laugh.
"Elli, try finding internet service in this town. I know," he added, "for I have tried. In the internet lay my last hope of retrieving you from the madness that led you to do--"
"I'm going to see Manna," Elli announced flatly, rising abruptly from her chair and storming from the Clinic's little kitchenette, although not before rinsing their cups and saucers at the sink. "If she won't tell me, no one will."
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"I have nothing to say to you," Manna spat loathingly approximately fifteen minutes later amid dramatic gestures, "after what you did."
"Darnit! Darnit, darnit, darnit!" Elli wailed, tantrumming happily about Duke and Manna's tiny kitchen located just off the Winery's main room.
"What's all the noise about in here?" a deep, booming voice demanded dramatically from the doorway.
"Duke!" Manna cried, running dramatically to her husband.
"Manna!" he responded in like, catching her easily in his arms and kissing her tenderly.
"Oh, Duke…"
"Oh, Manna…"
"Oh, brother," Elli huffed.
Duke looked up abruptly at this interruption, and gasped sharply as his eyes lit on the girl trying desperately to tunnel through the wall, lest a bit of harmlessly saccharine romance turn into something spicier.
"Elli! Beautiful, cold-blooded little Elli Greene!"
"Can you believe the nerve of the creature, coming here after what she did?" Manna demanded, hand clasped tightly at her husband's shoulder, completely oblivious that the aforementioned creature had wearily quoted the latter part of her question along with her.
"I want to go back home, where people are smart," Elli whimpered sadly. Then, as the couple caught her eye and morphed within her mind's eye to the versions of Duke and Manna that she was more familiar with, incessantly bickering, and either heavily drinking or gossiping, respectively. "Okay, maybe not these two specifically…"
"Let's keep an open mind, Manna," Duke entreated. "Even a wretch such as this deserves a voice. For without a chance for every inexplicable villain to explain and defend her actions and motives, I fear that we will quickly go the way of bad fanfiction, and turn into cardboard cutouts."
For a moment, Manna's expression registered horror. Then, with a broken sob, she buried her face in her hands.
"You only say that because the stars in your eyes at her youth and vigor clouds your vision! Don't deny it, Dukalous!"
"Dukalous?" Elli repeated, snickering. "I think his mother was hitting the bottle the night he was born…"
"I know," Manna was meanwhile continuing in a fierce whisper, gripping Duke firmly by the lapels and dragging him closer. "I know how you yearn for her: her sweet, girlish voice, her flawless curves as yet oblivious to the notion of gravity, and her soft touch unmarred by years of hard work."
"Because naturally, working at the Clinic, raising Stu, and acting as Grandma's personal physical therapist have all been a cake-walk," Elli noted aside pleasantly.
"If you want her, Duke, if you want such a creature, someone who could do what she has done and pretend innocence, then go. And may God have mercy on you, for she will not. Once you cease to be useful—"
"I'm seeing a problem with this logic," Elli broke in, only to be completely ignored yet again.
"—you will be her next victim, and God knows, I will not be the one to mourn you."
Elli raised one hand in objection.
"Um, you do remember that I'm five years younger than your daughter, right?"
A deathly silence fell over the kitchen. Manna and Duke swooped around simultaneously to stare dramatically at the girl.
"Never speak her name in our presence again," Duke spat.
"I didn't!" Elli protested. "I said your daughter, not Aja."
"Get out!" Manna thundered, springing forward and grabbing a lock of silky brown hair.
"Ow! Owowowowow! Okay, I'm going!" Elli yelped as she was thus dragged from the kitchen, across the main room, and flung out the door.
"I'm…sorry you had to go through that, Manna," she faintly heard Duke murmuring to his wife as she gathered herself up off the doorstep.
"Oh, Duke," Manna whispered brokenly into his shirtfront.
"Oh, Manna…"
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Elli whimpered sadly.
She flopped, cross-legged, to the sun-baked stone of the street in front of the Winery, and pondered her situation.
"Okay, let's see. Who do I know who has a rational mind, and knows how to keep a cool head at all times? Who loves gossip? Who lives for scandal? Or, barring that, who got me into this mess in the first place?"
She took a moment to mull this over. Then she leapt up with a joyous yelp.
"Karen! She's my best friend, and nothing shocks her. Not to mention, the soap opera thing was her idea in the first place."
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Ten minutes later saw a young lady staring in utter shock at the befrilled little nurse in the doorway.
"Elli!" Karen finally gasped dramatically. "You're back!"
"Oh! So, I've been gone?" Elli asked hopefully. "That's a good start, actually."
Karen sighed.
"I don't know how you can be so chipper about everything, after what you've done."
"Gragh! What?! What did I do?!"
Karen grasped her shoulders tightly and gazed intensely into her eyes.
"Elli! You know that I love you like a sister. You're the one who nursed and guided me through the harrowing discovery that my boyfriend and his sister are madly in love with the same man. I would happily accept the love of either Rick or Popuri - or both at once, because whoo-ha - but that selfish bastard insists upon hording the whole family's love for himself, pitting siblings against each other for his own sick amusement. I would treat them like a king and a queen, where Kai seeks only to spread misery and discontent. It rips at my very soul, just thinking about it." She pressed her hand dramatically over her heart, and heaved a long sigh. Then she looked up, expression softening. "But you were there throughout the whole thing, providing comfort and ice cream and liquor and consolation sex, and nothing you could do will ever take away the love between sisters. But you cannot ask me to speak of what you did."
"But, um, I have amnesia," Elli, who had just recalled this fact herself, said importantly. "By the way, it's Bertha, not Elli."
"My God," Karen groaned despairingly. "It's definitely amnesia. The last time I had amnesia, I went around telling people my name was Steve."
"Now, that sounds more like gender confusion to me," Elli said thoughtfully.
"Mother!" Karen was meanwhile shouting through the doorway leading from the main room of the Supermarket to the family's living quarters. "Mother, we have a crisis!"
The sound of thundering footsteps filled the air, growing rapidly nearer.
"Your father is having an affair with Carter again, isn't he?" Sasha roared as she burst into the store. "Or is it Lillia this time? That manipulative, conniving monster! Pretending to be frail and helpless, while secretly plotting to ruin the marriages of others! First Manna and Duke, then Basil and Anna, and now Jeff and me!"
Karen gave a huff of annoyance.
"No, Mom, it's Elli."
Sasha froze, then turned slowly toward her daughter's pal, her expression growing even more livid.
"You little hussy! You're learning young, aren't you?" she hissed, swooping down on the terrified little brunette. "I was so happy for you, that yours was the one union that Lillia had not managed to destroy, for no matter how cleverly she tried to charm him, the doctor remained ever faithful to you. When the whole time, you were unfaithful to him! With MY husband!" She gave Elli a fierce shake. "GIVE ME BACK THE LOVE OF MY HUSBAND!!!!!"
"Mom!" Karen barked. "Elli's not sleeping with Dad! Seriously, ew. She's got amnesia!"
All at once, Sasha's expression softened exponentially, and her hold on Elli went from a death grip to a soothing hug.
"You poor thing," she crooned. "Probably all the guilt and torment heaped on you by an oppressive society over that little thing you did."
Elli perked up in Sasha's arms.
"You know what it was?"
"I don't recall the details," Sasha shrugged indifferently. "Only that everyone in town was getting awfully bent out of shape about it." She made a noise of disdain. "The shouting, the angry mobs, the pitchforks, the flaming arrows…Honestly, when will people understand that we women, we goddesses, work by our own moral code, and it is not their place as lowly males to judge?"
Elli, who had been rapidly inflating with hope that perhaps this was all just a misunderstanding, deflated at twice the rate.
"R-right." She forced a smile. "Look, if it's okay with you, this goddess is going to go look for someone who knows what she did, and might be willing to talk about it."
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"Yes, Elli, search," the dark figure lurking in the vegetable seeds cackled evilly as the dejected little brunette slunk sadly away. "Search for the truth. Search, and grow mad as you come to realize just the enormity of what you have done."
With that, unable to suppress its glee any longer, the figure threw back its cloaked head and let loose a dramatically evil laugh.
"Hey, didn't you see the sign?" demanded Karen, arms crossed in a pose of annoyance identical to that of Sasha. "We're closed today. Take off."
"Alright, alright," the cloaked figure grumbled, stomping towards the door. "Way to kill a shadowy enigma's sense of drama, ladies."
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End Notes: Ummm, yeah. I'm nowhere as embarrassed for this one as I should be. XD