Camellias for Carmella

by lucindarobinsonvevo

A timeline of events starting in 2005, when Elle Robinson first contracted Hanahaki Disease until 2008 when she was cured of it.

/Fic from oct. for body horror/hanahaki. Going to put some of my fics up onto here as well for completeness sake. This fic took me a little over a month to write, and has a lot of dialogue ripped directly from episodes. I need to write more carmelle so bad like they are literally petty, bitchy soulmates.

It started in 2005.

She first met Serena Bishop the night she blew into town. She was pretty, she had short curly hair and the first thing she ever said to her was to call Dad the devil. Which was pretty funny, in Elle's humble opinion.

She's locked in a fight with Carmella Camenetti. Who is also beautiful, a beautiful liar and when she fights with Lil in Bounce she really doesn't know what to think. She wants to ruin her, because it's the only thing she's ever known.

X

When Dad told stories about Hanahaki, he always told them like they were romantic.

"So I chased your mother onto the bridge, hacking up a lung. She was about to leave for New York and I'd never see her again, I had to tell her."

"And you did?" Asks Izzy, taking another bite of her spiked food.

"I did, and she told me that she was leaving for New York to get experimental treatment for her own lovesickness, for me!" Elle can't imagine her mother being love sick over anyone. Can barely imagine her mother loving anyone. But it's a nice story all the same.

"So you can survive?" She asked, "Love sickness?"

"Of course you can, if they love you back. Of course, there's always the nuclear option.."

"I heard that they have to split your ribcage open." Says Izzy, making Elle think of the time she and Robert watched a movie called Faces of Death together when they were fifteen. They walked to the local video store, her hand in Cameron's, and Robert on his own. Mum had left them money to get a pizza. The movie starts with open heart surgery, and she thought of the bare, naked heart on display. The cause of so much trouble. "And they stop you for ever feeling anything for anyone, ever again."

"Izzy…" Dad warned.

"Do you ever wish you had got it? Wouldn't that be more convenient for business?" Elle wondered and Dad shook his head no.

"Of course not. Love is what gave me my three beautiful triplets."

X

One of those three beautiful triplets wanted him dead.

X

They never do find Serena's body. Sometimes Elle likes to imagine she got away and started a new, better life somewhere else. No matter how unrealistic that might seem.

X

It's 2006 and Carmella Cameneti is a nun. A very, very beautiful nun. And Cam was in love with her. Dad wanted to sleep with her. Cam spends a lot of time with her. She isn't jealous. She isn't.

X

Cam dies. Max Hoyland runs him down. Elle wants to ruin his life.

X

Mary Cathrine sits by her side a the funeral in Tassie. Holds Elle's hand in her own. Mum seems confused that Cam was friends with a nun. She doesn't let Dad into the house so the three of them end up staying at Lassiters in one room for the night. She watches her sleep and thinks about crawling up next to her.

X

She asks Sister Mary Cathrine -

"Isn't that in the bible? Eye for an eye?" Mary Cathrine looks at her appraisingly before removing her habit. Her hair is beautiful but Elle is uncomfortable.

"We should remember Cameron, the way he would want to be remembered." A total party animal.

The following morning they walk down Ramsay street arm in arm. She remembers Serena Bishop calling her father satan. That makes her spawn of satan, leading a nun into temptation. Her throat is scratchy. She steals lozenges from Dad's medicine cabinet.

X

Carmella has a scar on her face. A very very beautiful scar. Elle wants to touch it, wants to know the topography of scar tissue, experience the new feeling. The only scar she's ever seen is the one on the bottom of Dad's amputated leg and it's not like he's going to let her touch that.

She's seeing Sebastian and he tries to tell her she's still so beautiful but she won't listen. Feels like everyone pities her. He's not doing a good enough job of it. Elle doesn't know how she would do it differently but she just knows that she would. She would make Carmella understand just how beautiful she is. Somehow.

When they convince her to remove the scar it makes her a little sad. Not because Carmella has stopped being beautiful, but because it hadn't been her choice. She leaves her flowers at the hospital, sucking on another lozenge.

X

It's 2007, and Elle wants Carmella to be happy. If it's Sebastian Barnes that makes her happy, then she'll do what she can to get them back together. Isn't that love? It's the least she can do seeing she got her kicked out of the convent.

Carmella has too much moral fiber to take him back, though. Which is kind of funny, because Elle knows she has none at all. When she sees her with Oliver Barnes looking at him with those beautiful brown eyes full of love, she has a strange stab of pain somewhere inside her. Her tickling throat becomes worse she choughs twice more onto her palm and then spits out a flower petal. It's round, pink and roughly the shape of a guitar pick, and two drops of sticky, saliva diluted blood sit next to it on her palm.

It ran in her family. She understood what was happening right away. She was in love with Oliver.

She hated Carmella Camenetti.

X

Both of Elle's parents had it. Mum had it for Dad, Dad had it for Mum. They're too stubborn to just talk about it so Dad poisons himself half to death with rocipricaid and she decides to never feel anything again ever.

She knew her Uncle Scott had it too for Aunty Charlene, and when they found Aunty Julie's still body on the wet early morning grass she was still spitting up pinkie finger length lily petals, curled at the tip like a crooked finger. Her grandfather had it for her grandmother, and her great grandmother had it too. Only Aunty Lucy had escaped the family curse.

If it was acute, she could cure it without anyone having to know. They all think she's an ice princess anyway so who would even notice? Maybe Dad, a year ago but these day's he's so caught up in his grand plans of world domination to even notice her. Or, domination of Rosie Camenetti at least. She can't talk to him about it, because he'd probably try to get her to use it to win Oliver but she doesn't want to do that. It's too personal.

So, she went to see Karl instead.

"I can't diagnose you with anything." He told her, "I'm not a doctor anymore."

"I'm not looking to be diagnosed." She said, "I want to know what to do next."

"It is hereditary?"

"Yes."

"Well, you can either get yourself some rocipricade, or you can tell them."

"I can't tell him."

"Well then it looks like rocipricaid."

"Not only am I going to die, but I'm going to go crazy first?"

"Or you can tell him." She can't tell him. What part of 'cant tell him' is unclear? Karl can't prescribe her anything but says she should speak with a doctor.

"A real one." He clarifies, "Not Doctor Stone."

Late that evening, Elle goes into the city and wanders for a while. It's a nice night for it. She still knows from her mispent youth how to get your hands on the goods and she manages to find herself a plastic baggie of rocipricade pills, guaranteed to slow the spread of Hanahaki Disease. Or so the guy who sold them to her said. When she takes one, it makes her feel unwell - but she doesn't cough up any more petals that evening.

She doesn't bother buying more.

X

Carmella has an addiction to pills. It hadn't been Elle's goal to set it off, she'd learned her lesson with Izzy about poisoning people. But the option was right there, and so was Carmella and she's so angry at her for being in love with Oliver, for being the one that Oliver wants, that she does it anyway.

She does it anyway.

Could be the story of her life.

X

Max Hoyland's trial takes place later that year. Elle is trying to redeem herself as best as she can but she's only doing an okay job of it. Knocking Dad off his podium was one thing, but this is a whole other one. Speaking for the defense, that was hard. Maybe the hardest thing she's ever done because she does want Max to be punished. She wants his life to be ruined. She wants him to hurt the way that she hurts but it wasn't right for her to ruin his life like he'd ruined hers.

She hadn't known Toadie was going to call in Robert.

"So you say you're a changed man." Toadie says.

"Yes, I am." Rob replies. Elle doesn't believe him. "I've been seeing a psychiatrist every day. I've been making progress."

He doesn't look at her, but she looks at him. He looks different, with the short haircut but he still looks like Rob. She wishes so very badly that he could love her the way she loved him but knows it's a lost cause. Men like Robert don't love in a way anyone would want to be loved. She's the same, or so it seems.

Dad storms in, pointing, yelling. She grabs his arm, pulls him down next to her.

"Settle down!" She scolds, like he's a child, "For Max's sake."

When they lead him away, screaming and yelling and causing a problem she can only stare, and wonder how it is he can hate her so much as to not even meet her eye. Maybe he knows, that she is a traitor. Or he doesn't. It doesn't matter. It hurts too much. It's not lost on her that he exited the way Dad came in.

Thinking the world revolved around him.

X

When they tell her Dad is in surgery for his brain tumor all she can do is sit in a chair in the waiting bay and cry. Cry, and cough up pink guitar pick flower petals. They feel like guitar picks coming up. She's angry at the world, she's angry at Dad but mostly she's just angry at herself. Carmella comes to see her, kneels down at stares up at her with her brown eyes. She is so beautiful it makes Elle hate herself more.

"Elle?" She asks, and then picks up one of the petals seemingly not caring how gross the situation is.

"What?" she demands.

"Who?" She asked, "This is serious, you need to tell them."

"You know who." She whispers and Carmella is shocked.

"Oliver?"

"Them's the breaks." She says, coughing more petals onto her lap. Carmella looks at her for a long time, before saying -

"This will all blow over eventually."

"Yeah."

"Until then…Maybe you should call me. Instead of Oliver." Elle hates her more than anything in the world, but she nevers wants her to take her hands off her knees. Dad's going to die, she thinks, over and over again, Dad's going to die, and I'm going to die and we're going to be with Cameron. We're going to be a family.

X

So Dad didn't die. In fact, Dad's better than ever before if you can look past the gruesome frankenstein esque scar on the side of his head. He looked at her from the other side of the couch. Ned's gross shoes are sitting on the table between them. Ned has always been between them, something she couldn't ditch. It's weird and gross to her now that he keeps dating barely legal girls. He looks so young, and sad. Like a father she imagines she might have grown up with. Flower petals prick the back of her throat but she's able to keep them under control as long as she's away from Oliver and Carmella.

"Are you in love with Oliver?" He asks. She feels paranoid that he can tell.

"Yes." She says, believing it to be true.

"Does he love you?"

"No."

"Then Darling, why are you wasting your time on someone who doesn't love you? You need to figure out what it is you love about Oliver, and go looking for it somewhere else." If only it was that easy, she thought, if only it was that easy.

X

Mum comes back to Erinsborough. Elle thinks how strange it is that Mum couldn't make it after the plane crash, or when Dad was almost murdered in their home, or when he was poisoned and she nearly was but when she has a bone to pick with Dad she hustles on down. When it was Rob who was in trouble, she ran. Or maybe she flew. How are you supposed to act when you're your mothers least favourite child? When her favourite child wants you dead and she still loves him more than you?

She misses Robert. She misses him a lot. Cam was someone she went to for comfort because he was good at comforting her. He was soft around the edges, and warm. When she wanted something done she would find Robert to do help her because he was good at that. She needs helping getting it done with Oliver. But even if she hated Carmella enough to sic Rob on her, that would require calling him. Or going to see him. Which she won't do.

"Are you in love with him?" She asks, when Oliver leaves. She can't lie to her mother so she says -

"Them's the breaks." And Mum tries to comfort her but she pushes her away furiously.

"Stop it. Stop trying to be all Mumsy on me now, not when you're about to ruin my father." Mum doesn't try and be mumsy again. She guesses that's how.

X

She really believed getting together with Oliver would fix her unpleasant flower issue. The first time they sleep together, she keeps waiting on the pressure in her chest to subside. She keeps waiting for it to go away and for her to be happy and in love but it's not. She excuses herself from his arms under the guise of cleaning up. In the bathroom she chokes out ten flower petals as quietly as she can and flushes them away hoping he won't notice.

She's furious. She has the guy, he loves her back, why won't the flowers stop? Well, then she'll just have to get him to love her more. Eventually, she thinks, my heart will catch up and things will be fine. She's sure things will be fine. They have to be, right?

She's got the perfect Dad she always wanted, the man of her dreams, a successful business. So things are going to be fine.

X

It goes without saying that things did not get fine. In fact, they actually got less fine when it turns out Oliver might be her brother.

She hates Rebecca Napier. For getting in the way of her perfectly fine life with her perfectly not fine garbage. What's worse is that it's her own stupid fault for running the test on Oliver behind his back and making him want a relationship with her. If she could have just stopped her meddling she might have gotten out of this scott free.

But she did meddle, and now she might be Ollie's sister and she's sitting in the hospital waiting bay spitting up light pink flower petals miserably into her hand. Fifteen this time. Rebecca spots this and sits next to her.

"Are those for Oliver?" She asks, with her stupid store brought motherly compassion. Compassion Elle can't recall ever getting from her own mother. Maybe the reason that her flowers hadn't gone away was because it wasn't the romantic love she wanted, it was love between siblings. Like what she had with Cameron.

The thought disgusts her so much that she almost throws up something more than petals, disgusts her that she would ever think that about her dead brother, disgusts her than she's even in this stupid situation to begin with, disgusts her that Dad seems to be falling in love with Rebecca…Her life is falling apart in front of her. Like a sandcastle on a troubled shoreline.

"Well I'm not in love with anyone else." She says.

"Oh Honey." Rebecca says, and puts a hand on Elle's back. She wants to push her away but can't because she's too busy choking out another twelve petals. "He loves you."

"I know."

"Oh, Honey." She repeats. Elle doesn't know what to do but say -

"Don't tell anyone, please. Please. You can't."

"I won't." She says, the 'even though you don't deserve it' stays unsaid.

X

At least she's not Oliver's sister.

There's nothing she can do about Dad falling in love with Rebecca, though.

Or maybe there is.

X

There wasn't. Her increased meddling actually increased how bad things were getting with Rebecca and Oliver by introducing Aaronow into the mix.

Great job, Elle. She congratulates herself, you've led a rapist back to his victim. I'm sure Cameron is soooo proud of you.

X

Carmella is pregnant. Carmella is pregnant and it makes her glow in a way that is so beautiful. Elle stands in her doorway looking at her and she wants to hate her desperately but can't muster up the strength.

"Is it really his?"

"Absolutely." She says, nodding, smiling. When she smiles it distorts the mole on her upper lip and Elle wants to reach out and touch her. To hit or to hug, she isn't really sure.

"Do you want him back?" She sounds like a child. Like Oliver is a toy and this is a playground. Like he's just a thing. A thing she wanted, so she took it and now the teacher is making her hand it over.

"Oh, Elle." Her oh is a sigh, as if she's surprised and maybe even feels sorry for her to have to ask. She hates it, hates the generic kindness people show her, wishes they would just treat her how she deserves. "Believe it or not, I never set out to ruin things for you." As if Elle hadn't ruined things for her. How can someone be so kind? How can someone be so hopelessly blind?

"So you don't want a relationship with him?" She ponders, not sure now exactly what she's asking. Why she's asking it. Self harm perhaps? She can't make eye contact, can't see it in her beautiful brown eyes.

"Well, as a father, absolutely. But nothing more." The crickets are chirping like birdsong. How can she keep giving so many correct answers in this messy, awful situation? How can she be so good at relationships where Elle keeps tripping and falling on her face. She chokes, splutters and cough, doubling half over, trying to gasp for air while the world closes in in her. "Elle!" Carmella panics, "Elle, Oh, Elle!" Reaching out, she thumps on her back twice and it helps. Elle catches the fully formed flower she coughed up in her mouth. Unbends.

Instead of spitting the flower onto her hand, she bites down on it furiously. Chews it up. It tastes like blood and the way summer smells. Swallows it. Doesn't even look to see what kind of flower it was. Rosie and Carmella both stare at her, Rosie holding the phone in one hand like she's about to call for help. Rather than stick around, all she can awkwardly say is -

"Congratulations."

X

Less than a day later she meets Oliver at Scarlet bar. He's hold a pink bag, with a little onesie inside. It looks so tiny. She wonders if Dad had ever held a onesie of hers, looked at it, wished he was holding his baby daughter instead. Guesses she will never know.

"Thanks for meeting me." She says, as she sat.

"Do you want to order?" He asks, oblivious.

"I think we should talk."

"I know -" He begins, looking very serious, "That this situation is full on for both of us. But I don't want it to get in the way of what we have. I'm gonna be there for the baby, I have to." He says, as if Elle would ever ask him not to be. It offends her, he knows her, he knows her Dad, how hard she fought for him and he thinks for a second she'd ask him to pick her?

"I know." Is all she can verbalize.

"And I want to be there for Carmella as well." He says, like she'd ask him to cut out the mother of his child. "As a friend." She envisions Dylan, his smile, and Sky. She wishes they were still friends. Sky had always been good to her. She misses Serena, wishes that the three of them could be friends again, that she could go back in time and never even meet Carmella. Wishes she would have died in that plane crash rather than an innocent school girl. "I love you, Elle. And that's not gonna change."

"You're having a baby with another woman." And apparently, if the flowers I've been coughing up lately are anything to go by, I don't love you.

"Yeah. I know."

"I know how this ends." She wishes that her life was a movie, and she could have paused it right when Dad first woke up. So that it could be just the two of them, and the mess and the noise of the outside world wouldn't affect them. Wishes she could pause it so much that the magnetic tape on the VHS would degrade, and stop and hitch when it hit that part, wishes the VCR would eat the tape so it could never be played past that moment. She let out a watery sigh. "It's over. I'm sorry." She apologizes, mostly for not loving him to start with.

X

Enter Riley Parker.

Elle knows she's not in love with him, doesn't actually know who it is she's supposedly in love with, but thinks she could. They drink together at Charlie's, ruminate on their lives, on his crap car and her father's new love for Rebecca. Gets so drunk that she laughs for the first time in a long time and when he delivers her home she almost trips over in her highheel shoes. Tucks herself into bed, lies on her side, and doesn't cough up a single flower. Thank god.

Maybe she's cured.

X

Maybe she's cured. Dad isn't. It starts talking about fires, about setting them, about being caught in them. She tries taking them to a therapist, who tells him it's a repressed memory, sets the photo album he left open on the table and stares at the picture of Cameron that looks at him.

I love you. She thinks, then closes the book and puts it away. Misses Cameron more than anything, he would know what to do. How can she save Dad from himself when he doesn't want to be saved?

As if she didn't have enough problems, Oliver has decided to give a kidney to his rapist father so his mother can take him to civil court. She's come around on Rebecca that's true, but wishes valiantly that this situation would be over soon.

X

Dad decides to confess to Gus Cleary's murder.

The paper reports on it.

She deals with it. She feels that spark with Riley and wishes badly she was in love with him. When they go to dinner, she wishes Carmella was there to break the tension that is rising like the oceans. Oliver is being an asshole to Riley like they're dating or something. Elle wishes he wouldn't. Wishes she hadn't broken his heart. Can't do anything about it now.

Goes home that night, lies in her bed, looking at a flower she coughed up earlier in the day. It's warped little thing, hardly as long as her pinkie finger, mostly unbloomed. Pink. Wishes she knew who it was for.

X

She went to the library and looked up Hanahaki using the Dewy Decimal System. 570. Life sciences. She finds one called 'So: You're Lovesick.' and flips through it at a table with a bank of four boxy computers in the middle of it.

The second stage of Hanahaki Disease is characterized by the coughing up of unbloomed flowers.

Oh, great. So she's moving through stages of a disease now. Wonderful. She thought about sitting with Dad, scanning books looking for a disease she could pretend to have so Dylan wouldn't leave her. And hadn't that turned out so well for her? Cam was dead. She wishes he was here, because he'd know what to do about it. He'd probably even know who she was in love with, too because he noticed that kind of thing.

It is around this stage that suffers often begin to accept their situation and tell their friends and fam -

She slammed the book closed with enough force to rattle the bay of computers and make a librarian give her a startled look. Embarrassed, she skipped a few pages to another one.

To tell the difference between Complex (formerly known as Hereditary) Hanahaki and Acute Hanahaki, the flowers created in the lungs and heart of the sufferer are the best and most accurate tool to diagnose. Complex Hanahaki presents itself as a single type of flower, suspected to have been germinating since birth. Acute Hanahaki presents as flowers native to the environment the disease was collected in, and may also present as multiple different types of flowers being coughed up by the afflicted person. It is, as is much of the information surrounding Hanahaki, unknown what leads to a patient coughing up a certain type of flora.

It can be speculated -

Elle doesn't care for speculation, so she closes the book.

X

When Susan hits Bridget Parker with her car, Elle can't help but feel like she's reliving an old nightmare. How can you feel anything but? She loved Cameron, she still loves Cameron. But now she can see Riley falling down the same path that she did. She has to stop him, because there is no alternative.

"Riley, did you not listen to anything I had to say yesterday?" She asked, solemnly.

"Yes. I did. But you have no idea how this feels."

And wasn't that a kick in the head?

"My brother was run down by a driver and killed." She tells him, on no uncertain terms. She doesn't want to use Cam for point scoring but this matters, this is important, this is the kind of thing he was always telling her to care about. To do the right thing about. So this time, there was no choice. She was going to talk to Riley, she was going to save him. There was no other choice.

"Oh, my God." He says, stunned out of even feeling emotions, "I'm so sorry." Because what else do you even say at that point? What can you ever say about someone who has lost their soulmate? Their best friend? Their…Brother. She's heard them all, in the weeks after Cam died, on her Christmas trip to Tassie that seems like another universe now, Cam was just this thing people were sorry about. But she wasn't sorry. She was sad, that he died, but she wasn't sorry. Because he'd lived at all, because he'd made the world a better place, because she loved him. No, she wasn't sorry about Cameron. "I had no idea."

"I was exactly where you are now. He killed my brother, so I wanted to destroy his life."

"So what did you do?"

"I did it." Simple, calm. It was the truth. She did it. She ruined Max Hoyland and she felt awful about it but she did it. All on her own, while Dad was going to therapy and improving himself she was down in the mud with the pigs ruining the mans life and for a while it had felt good. But now? Now it feels really, really bad. "And afterwards, I hated myself. He was a good man. All he did was make one tragic mistake." Paused, took in his blank, slightly stunned expression. "But hey. You know what? Wage your little war if you want. But I guarantee that it will not bring you peace. And if definitely won't bring your sister back."

X

Declan was kidnaped, by the way. Around the same time this was going down. Oliver paid a ransom for him, lost it all. She was right about those bozos related to Gus Cleary. Has the decency not to rub everyone's nose in it, especially not Dad's but really wants to.

X

Didge does wake up. Riley seems lighter, like he's walking on clouds. She's happy for him, that his sibling should get to live even if hers doesn't. She's so happy that when she chokes up her nightly tightly closed, misshapen flower buds she's barely bothered, just washes them away and continues to think cheerfully on her future with her new friend, and her new family she's suddenly decided are everything to her.

X

She sees Carmella, pregnant and glowing and is filled with a deep unrelenting something she can't explain.

X

She and Riley lie together in a blanket, waiting for the RSPCA. The sky is so black and the stars are so white and bright, like teeth and God is wearing whitening strips. They stay wrapped in his sleeping bag, the hay is caught in her ponytail and they're sharing a bag of Dove brand chocolates.

She makes a blunder with his parentage, because the older she gets, the less social graces she seems to have.

He laughs and tells her not to worry. And it's nice. To be with someone without years of baggage hanging over you. It's nice, to lie side by side with someone you care about and not be concerned with him going back to the girl you took him from.

Riley is handsome, and he smells like soap. When he smiles, it's beaming, and he lives by his strict morals. She could fall in love with him.

"Look at all these stars." She says, mostly to have something to say.

"It's actually the sun." He says, "Shining through thousands of tiny holes."

When she kisses him, she feels a glorious homecoming. Which is rudely interrupted by the farmer with the gun. Such is life.

X

She's been on kind of a high lately, with Riley. The flowers have slowed down to every couple of days, and she's so excited to be learning journalism with him. The love isn't there, but it could be, she thinks. It could be. They're knocking out story after story. They're the dynamic duo.

"He reminds me of your mother." Dad says, as she stirs his cup of tea with a spoon.

"Yeah?" She asks.

"Hm. Bright, funny, very handsome…"

"Don't go there." She sighs,

"Alright, I won't."

"I'm taking a break from dating. Focusing on myself."

"Mmmmmhm."

"Drink your tea." She says, rolling her eyes.

X

Oliver and Riley get into a fist fight over her during the fun run. Which might have made her smile when she was nineteen but now it just makes her exhausted. She knows she's not in love with either of them and it's giving her great pain to not know exactly who it is she's in love with. She wishes she had someone she could talk to about it.

X

Elle believes in herself. That's what she does best. She believes that she's good at what she does - or else Brad would never have hired her. So when she and Riley start coming up with a plan to get the inside scoop on these parties, she's pretty sure she's about to hit the big time. She can see it now, her name on the front page, no more model boat shows and baby fairs - Crime reporting, real journalism, helping people, breaking stories! A byline that reads 'Reported by Elle Robinson'

Brad didn't see the vision, but he will. Or so she thought, rolling up to the warehouse with Riley in her little skirt and flirty sleeveless singlet. He wears a button down in purple, has a new shorter haircut. He's handsome, she's beautiful, their kids would be models.

No one could have predicted what happened next.

The shaking, the strobing lights bouncing, the thumping base ending suddenly. A sharp, stabbing pain right over her heart.

Riley, holding her, refusing to let her go.

Riley.

Riley, who she could have loved, who she could have been with and been happy. Before they're rescued, though, the illness takes hold and she coughs up a series of petals, more and more as the pressure in her chest continues to build. She's dying, she's dying, she's -

X

Well shocker - she didn't die. Riley sat by her side in the hospital room, holding her hand and starring at her with concerned eyes. One of Elle's childhood cats went blind when it got old, and it looked at her the same way. Seeing, but not really. Riley watches as she hides a handful of flower petals and half ruined buds under her pillow when Dad comes and goes.

"You could have told me you were in love with someone else." He says, non-accusatory. "I still would have liked you."

"If only it was that easy." She said, trying to find a comfortable way to lie that doesn't hurt her healing ribs. When she came out of the warehouse, she had broken two ribs and one had punctured her lung. The hospital blankets are scratchy and it's cold from the air conditioning. It smells like it's cold. She has never been fond of hospitals.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know who I'm in love with." She admitted, since there was no point in lying and Riley has always has a strange way of pulling the truth from her like broken teeth.

"What do you mean you don't know? How can you not know?"

"What do you think I mean?" She asked, annoyed now. "I mean I don't know."

"Oh. I never heard of that."

"Well me neither until it happened."

"Who do you think it could be?" He asked, "When did it start?"

"Two thousand and Five."

"Well, since you've still got it then you must still be in range of them." Said Riley, "There's studies that show the closer proximity you have to your beloved, the faster the disease progresses and if they die it stops completely."

"Huh." Is all she can muster.

"So who have you been around a lot since two thousand and five?"

"I guess we can rule Dad out." Is all she can think to say. "Toadie, but it's not him, or Steph, or the Kennedys, or Ned, or Janae Timmins."

"You're sure."

"Yes I'm sure." She scowled this time, about to tell him to get lost so she can rest for a while.

"What about Carmella?" He asked, studying her face with a sideways glance.

"What about her?"

"Well, she's been around for ages, right? And you guys used to be friends. From what I understand." Elle looked at her hands and felt a wave of something wash over her she thinks might be guilt, or hatred. Carmella will be giving birth soon. She has a new boyfriend named Marco and Oliver hates him. Their lives don't intersect much since she moved away. But they did use to be friends. Good friends. For a while, Carmella may well have been the best friend she'd ever had and she threw it away for some guy who can't even use a condom right. And then she misses her like a freight train. She thought back to the first time she met her, and when she and Serena schemed to bring her down so Serena could keep Connor, and the cotton feel of her habit while they sat by Cameron's bedside.

"I'm not gay." Mostly, she said that out of instinct.

"You don't have to be gay." He tells her.

"I'd like if we didn't talk about this anymore. I want to rest." So he left, and Elle sat alone in the hospital room starring at the flowers that had been sent to her. When she asks, the nurse singles out a bunch of cheerful daisies and informs her that the card claims them to be from Carmella.

X

Following the confrontation with Riley she busies herself with work and resolving to not waste any more time on her flower affliction. Which is easier said than done with Rebecca and Dad watching over her like a pair of hawks. But the flowers have steadied into predictable routines that occur mostly at night. She hides the unbloomed flowers in her bottom drawer and empties the drawer when she can get away with it. When Carmella moved in across the street, she watches from Dad's balcony. She seems blissfully happy.

X

Baby Chloe Cametti is born in critical condition and placed in the intensive care unit for babies at the hospital. Elle doesn't know if it will be welcome but she sends flowers anyway. A bouquet of native fauna and in return, when baby Chloe leaves the hospital, she gets a thank you note. It reads -

'Thank you for the flowers. We appreciated your support. Chloe, Carmella and Oliver.' and it was topped with a smiling heart. For some reason it makes her smile to see the handrawn heart and wonders if one day she and Carmella can be friends again. She watches from Dad's balcony with a cup of tea as Marco returns from Western Australia to resume his life with his new girlfriend and future step daughter.

When Chloe's godparents are announced, she isn't invited and she pretends as best as she can that it doesn't sting. She wishes she saw the fist fight between Marco and Oliver. She wonders if she dodged a bullet.

X

Elle might be dying, but she's not an idiot. She saw the affair with Kirsten coming from miles away. She tried to stop him, tried to make him see how special what he had with Rebecca was but Dad never listened. She found herself standing by her computer, watching the same few seconds of the video of him kissing her over and over. She can deal with this. She won't lose her family, not again.

X

Sometimes, it's hard to tell what she even saw in her father to begin with.

X

Sitting alone in her room, she tries to draft a letter to Rob. But can't even decide how to address him. Robert is too formal, and can you really call the man who tried to kill you by his childhood nickname?

Dear RobRob is too mixed up between formal and information.

Hey Rob! Sounds like a sitcom.

Hello Robert makes her sound like a psychopath.

She just wants to tell him that she gets it now, wanting Dad dead because she feels like she's on the verge of that right now. How could he? It looked like they were finally about to be happy with the family they always wanted right with two ready made sons, one of them still young enough to need a father and he'd almost squandered it by cheating on her.

She settles on a simple -

Rob.

Now she just needed to compose the rest of the letter. Which was much harder because she's kind of a terrible letter-writer, despite her chosen profession.

'I guess I'll just start with why I'm writing. I know you don't like to beat around the bush. I miss you. I miss the sound of your grating voice, I miss the smell of your weird soap, I miss how you used to call me Cindy and I miss driving around with your in your piece of crap car singing along to Cold Chisel.

I'm glad that they moved you back into the mental health facility. I hope you're getting better, whatever that looks like. I'm sure you don't care but if you're wondering things are not so good here. You were right about Dad, the whole time. I hate you for that, and I hate him for making me think that he was anything other than what he is. It makes me miss you more. I have some news that I should probably share with you in person.

I'm still really angry about what you did. I'm trying not to be because Karl says it's bad for me to hold onto so much anger. I don't know what exactly I'm looking to find, but I hope we can find some sort of reconciliation. I don't want to be estranged from you anymore. I hope you feel the same. If you don't, then maybe we can find some sort of closure and let things lie. I just don't want to leave things how they are. I don't want the last time I saw you to be the state you were in, and I don't want the last time you saw me was the day where I helped get the man who killed our brother out of a murder charge.

I'll include my phone number with this letter so you can call me, if you want.

I (still, and against my better judgment) love you,

Elle.

P.s - Do you think I'm gay?

Then she sends it.

X

Marco buys the General Store with Fraser. She does like Marco if she's being honest. He's nicer to her than most people are around here and the lattes he makes a nice even if he ribs her about wanting soy milk. It's kind of nice to be ribbed by someone who is just making a joke.

X

Do you believe lighting can strike the same place twice? Elle didn't before but now she did. She can't believe they're being extorted again about Dad's affair when they just paid off the last person. This might be her last straw, especially when she finds out that he didn't stop seeing her. Kirsten. The other woman.

She's so angry she bundles all Dad's clothes, mismatched socks and spare leg parts into black plastic bags and kicks them down the stairs Rebecca evidently thinks she's cracked it like Robert but she is beyond caring. Can't Dad see? Doesn't he know? Elle is dying for love, love that is clearly not being returned and he has someone who loves him, someone who adores him, someone who would do anything for him and he's just going to throw it away?

So they're being extorted. Again. Over the same affair. Great, amazing, fantastic. Elle would eat him whole if she could.

X

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"Hm?" She asked, looking at Riley who looked back at her. It's been a while since they hung out, she's been busy with Dad's affair but she has seen him at work. His stories are good, they always are.

"To pay you back, you brought me a drink at this very bar the night that we met."

"Took you a long time to return the favor." She quipped, "But unfortunately, I have to get home."

"Oh well." He said, and then leaned in and kissed the side of her face. His deodorant smells chemically of musk. "I hope you figure out who you're in love with." He tells her, with a small smile, "I'm sorry it couldn't be me."

"Yeah." She says, "Me too. Listen, we can get drinks tomorrow?"

"I'm busy tomorrow." He says, something she doesn't know in his voice. Her stomach drops,

"I care about you, Riley." She says, "and so does Didge, and your parents."

"I know. I love you, Elle Robinson and someday, I hope we can work together again." And then he left. Both the bar, and her life.

X

She brought into The General Store. Fraser is leaving town, Marco needs a partner to support Carmella and the baby so she took the opportunity. Since Lucinda's closed, she wants to try her hand at business again to see what she can do. And it's all going well.

Until it isn't.

And she loans Marco money. And then it is again, until it isn't and Marco decides he wants to sell his share to work full time in the family business with his father and hope someday they accept Carmella and Chloe as their own. That stirs something weird in her heart she can't possibly explain.

X

In spite of her best efforts, and they were her best efforts, the affair gets out. Their lives blow up like a plane sailing over the Bass Strait.

Situation normal here.

X

The affair getting out is followed promptly by a bush fire that tears through a picnic half the 'burb is out on. The situation can only go from bad to worse when it turns out Dad might be involved, Marco is dying and he left Kirsten for dead.

The bright spark (so to speak, she's a bit over sparks) is a letter in the mail addressed to her from a mental health facility in Albany. Since she kicked Dad out, she doesn't even have to worry about him finding it. Opening it with a letter opener with a handle shaped like a snake inside is what she'd been waiting for.

Elle -

I was starting to wonder if I'd ever hear from you again. I would understand if you wanted nothing to do with me, and I was happy to get your letter. There are a lot of long, grey days here and I'm only allowed to watch two channels on the television. I think I must have read it so many times that it's falling apart. My roommate thinks I'm crazy. My therapist thinks it's good for my mental health that I heard from you. I hope you and I can continue to exchange letters. I'd like to reconcile (?) with you as well, or at least try and manage some kind of cordial relationship.

For whatever it's worth to you now, I am sorry about what happened. It never should have gone that far. I've been at a loss for what to write to you about because nothing happens to me but I heard you got a new job outside of the hotel business. I'm happy to hear that. What newspaper do you write for? I'd like to subscribe.

I'm sorry to hear about Dad. I won't rub it in by telling you I told you so to your face. Regarding your news, you aren't pregnant, are you? I'm not ready to be an uncle.

If you want me to call you then I have to request your number be put on my call list, which I have, and you'll have to sign off on it. We don't get to make many phone calls, and there aren't many phones so I don't know how often I could. But if you want to visit, you just have to request it and send in a form. I'd be pleased to see you because I miss you as well. It's weird to have been away from you for so long when the three of us used to be together almost all the time.

Your (even though I haven't always shown it) loving brother

Rob,

P.s I don't know if I'm the person to answer that.

And she can't wait to write him back. For the first time in a long time, it's like she has something to look forward to so she puts in a request to visit right away thinking that she'll have a visit lined up within the week. They say processing her application could take months and there's no reason to believe Rob will still be there in a month but she does it anyway. It makes her feel like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill only to have it pushed back down again. But she does it anyway.

X

Marco dies.

X

"You know we'll be working closely together, don't you?" She asks Carmella, who flitters around the store like a bird with cut wings.

"We're big girls, Elle. I'm sure we can handle it."

X

After Sienna breaks Marco's phone, the person whose arms Carmella falls into tearfully is Elle. She's not good at comforting, all she can do is hold her awkwardly and refrain from the usual and particularly unhelpful 'it'll be okays' and 'you'll be alrights' she knew from experience that those never helped.

After finishing the lunch rush, she found Carmella sitting on a bench, dusting her face with a black compact.

"Can I have a go with that after you?" She asks, trying to seem normal. Silently, she passes it over. Elle flipped it and then peered inside at her own dark circled eyes. For whatever reason, the flowers are significantly worse at night. It's been hard to sleep what with her impending death and all. "How about after this, I give you a ride home?"

"No, it's okay." Carmella replies, "I'll probably crack up again later, but I'm okay." She closes the compact and looks up. Carmella is very not okay, but who would be after losing their husband?

"Yeah. That will keep happening to you." She said, from experience. "You'll see a sad song, or read something, or see something on the telly…Then you'll be crying all over again." Carmella kept looking at her, face serious.

"How do you carry it?" Voice quiet in the back room of the General Store, "It's so heavy." Truth was, Elle often wondered the same thing. How does one carry death in themselves and not be consumed by it? She had been, Dad had been, how can she spare Carmella that same fate? No one had ever been able to give her a good answer to the questions you ask after someone dies. How long does it hurt? Does it ever get better? Will I ever feel okay again? When does the missing them stop? They usually just said 'with time' and well so far? That's not working out so hot.

"By accepting that it's heavy, and deciding to carry it anyway."

"It's that simple?"

"It's not simple at all. It's the hardest thing you'll probably ever have to do. But you do it anyway." Quiet, except for the people muffled outside the storage room. Elle picked up the board Sienna had wiped and picked up a blue chalk marker. With careful movements, she rewrote the message.

'Good food is love shared'

She thought it was funny that the only word she didn't need to fix was love.

"There." She announced, standing back. Carmella slid off the table and walked next to her. "Maybe we should get that laminated or something."

"Thank you." She says, "For staying with me."

"You know, we used to be friends once."

"Yeah."

"Maybe…We could be again?"

"Maybe."

X

Rob -

Thanks for writing me back. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but things have been kind of hard at the moment. Did you hear about that big bushfire? One of my friends was killed in it. His name was Marco, and he was my business partner as well. So I've been very busy.

Dad had another affair, and it got out. I did something really stupid and I tried to help him cover it up because I was scared of losing his girlfriend out of my life. She's amazing, way better than Izzy. I think she still cares about me but it's hard. Everything is hard. I really miss Marco. I didn't know him that long but he was still good to me.

I write for The Erinsborough News. I can set you up with a subscription, I would like to hear your thoughts on my work. You were always my best critic because you were never scared to hurt my feelings. I think my next piece to come out will be about the bush fire and a memorial to Marco. I've also been writing the horoscopes, which are boring. I hope we get a new hire soon so I can fob that off onto them.

I'm not pregnant. But I still think I should tell you in person. No one else knows yet except for Carmella. She's Marco's widow and my new business partner. We have a lot of history between us, but I think that we will be friends again one day. That's something to look forward to, I guess.

I've been thinking about looking for Andrew and Amy. Losing Marco has made me feel the exact opposite way to how I felt when Cam died. When Cam died, I just wanted to be alone with Dad forever and never speak to anyone again. I was scared, of ever having to share him, and of opening myself up to the same kind of hurt that I felt when you did what you did. But I think it's been good for me, to get that letter from you. It makes me feel a bit less alone. I'm not scared now, I think I want more siblings. Let me know your thoughts on this.

Your loving but troubled sister,

Elle

P.s Well did I ever exhibit signs of being gay? Did I ever catch me, I don't know, looking up skirts at cheer practice or something?

X

Carmella decides that she isn't going to let the sale of the General Store go through. Even though she fights it, she can't deny that she wants to see Carmella every day. Late that night as she lay in bed mulling it all over she pondered what it would feel like to go to work with her each day. To share aprons and to eat from the same spoon. She doesn't have to hide her flowers anymore, as they come up, just discards them into a dustbin. Who cares, who cares, who cares. God is playing a mean joke on her.

But the thought of Carmella laughing again soothes her sore throat.

X

Elle realizes she is going to have to establish a will while looking at Chloe kick her chunky little baby feet. Carmella has gone into the back room for a minute, leaving Elle and Lou with the baby.

"Have you ever thought about having one of your own?" He asks, smiling and looking like a fun version of her grandfather.

"I won't have time." She answers, honestly.

X

As she gathers the required documents to establish a will (not that she has much to leave behind, all her stocks and bonds will go to dad to sell and then the money will be split between her parents, with the house going back to Dad to do as he will with it. She already shares the car with Dad, and most of her personal affects are not sentimental.) she found herself in the coffee shop, staring at her birth certificate, registration and passport.

"Just checking to make sure you're really Paul's daughter?" Carmella asks, looking like she just stopped crying.

"I guess." Elle responds and draws her finger across the name of her older sister, listed in 'Previous children of Parents' on her birth registration card. "I have a sister, you know."

"Oh?"

"Amy Robinson. I never met her." Carmella's face turns thoughtful.

"I used to think Rosie and I would hate each other forever." She sighed, "But you know? Having her in my life has made it a million times more bearable."

"You think I should find her?"

"I think you'll regret it if you don't."

Maybe that's true. Not that Elle would even know where to start.

X

Here's something funny. Whenever Elle complains about Dad meddling in her life, he usually responds by saying he will not meddle and then meddle more. Such was the case when he brought the Newspaper off Brad with his newly restored assets. I love you, Darling, he says, I want to be in your life Darling, he says, I want to be your life. He doesn't say.

X

Well, the benefit of Dad owning the paper is now that Elle has free reign to do what she wants despite being a junior journalist, which is cool. She uses their records to look up Amy Robinson only to find...Nothing.

Her application to visit Rob is denied because she's a journalist. Which is not the thing Elle would have picked to discriminate against her.

Steph has a new boyfriend named Jay who is a firefighter. He gives Elle weird vibes. She misses Riley and Marco.

She misses Cameron.

X

They think Dad did it. For once, Elle can't find it in herself to defend him.

X

This stage of her illness can last for years, the unbloomed flowers growing and breaking off. She doesn't know when they will open. But she does know she's coughing up quite a lot of them. Chokes them up, spits them into a bucket in her bedroom and disposes of them in the morning before anyone can see. She's just…Ashamed. How can she be in love and not know who with? Who does that? She tries to imagine Mum and Dad not knowing who it was and can't. Dad had been prepared to die for love, if Mum hadn't said it back he wouldn't have done anything further. He'd have laid down and died. Mum was the opposite, her plan in New York had been to go in and have them removed. Which one is she?

Elle thinks she knows but wishes that she didn't.

X

Elle,

I was starting to think you'd never write me back, so I was relieved to hear from you. Sorry that they turned down your application to come to visit, but maybe keep trying. I'd like to see you. I appreciate the photos you included in your letter. It's nice to have something to look at other than these four walls. I have been classed as anti-social, but you'd be anti-social as well if you were trapped here. I almost want to go back to prison. Almost. At least the food here is edible. You look good, by the way. I've hidden it, lest someone from around here take it and uses it to do unmentionable things. I hope your news isn't outdated before we have the chance to meet. You're not dying, are you?

We did hear about the bushfire, but I didn't know you knew the guy who died. I'm sorry for your loss. It seems like you really cared for him. Hopefully, he is at peace now. How do you find the time to run a business and also be a journalist? Sounds like you're busy. I should be grateful that you find time for me at all.

I'm sorry to hear about Dad. If his girlfriend has any brains she'll be able to tell that what you did was out of love. I don't want to say I told you so, but I am thinking it. Don't class me as 'right' about Dad, though. I wasn't. My therapist says I need to not feed my delusions; whatever that means.

I enjoyed your writing, I thought it was a good story if a little emotional. Which should be expected, when you're dealing with someone you care about. Maybe use less commas and more full stops next time. And you should write under your full name. Lucinda is much more professional sounding than Elle. I liked the horoscopes as well. My roommate was pleased, he's a Leo and this week apparently Leo's are going to have romantic luck. I was a little surprised to see that Gemmis are apparently going to reconcile with old friends. A hint, maybe?

I think you should find Amy and Andrew if that's what you want. I can't help with that, but let me know if you have any luck, won't you? I don't think they'll want anything to do with me (you wouldn't either if you had any brains left in your pretty little head) But I'd like to know what they're like. Put in a good word for me with Andrew. I'd kind of like to be a big brother again. It's weird because I didn't think I would miss Cam after he died. Why would I? For a long time, I didn't, but now I've been corresponding with you…I find that I miss him much more often. Usually when I come up with a particularly good insult. I miss driving around too, remember when we used to drive up that big hill to watch the fireworks from the show? That was fun.

I'll call you when I can.

Your (troubled and dangerous) brother, Robert.

P.S I guess? I kind of thought that there was something with you and Glen Forrest but I don't remember if there was or not. She was into you though, I heard her talking about it with Cam behind the bike sheds where he used to go to smoke. I think I told on him. Sorry.

X

"You and Oliver should get back together." Says Carmella, while they stand around the store watching people drink coffee.

"Why?" She asks

"Because he's so clearly in love with you."

"Well, I'm not in love with him," Elle says back.

"Are you in love with someone else?"

"Yes." She answers but doesn't elaborate.

"Did you get your…You know…Fixed up?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Don't 'oh' me like you care. It wasn't Oliver. I don't know who it is. It could be anyone."

"Whatever." She says, in return to Elle's brusque response and stomps back to the kitchen. It makes her feel bad to upset her.

X

She continues her plan to find Amy by swapping what she searches. According to Dad's records, her mother's maiden name is Williams. Bingo. A birth announcement in the paper for a Jimmy Williams born to an Amy Williams. Given that their grandfather is named Jim this is probably a good place to start. Now to find an address. Turns out the announcement was made by email. She was also selling custom coffee tables through ads in the paper.

amywilliams .au

Is it weird to do this? Is she breaking some kind of confidentially clause? Yeah probably but so what if she gets fired she's dying anyway. So she drafts an email on her computer at the back of the General Store where no one can see her.

Amy -

Hi. I know this is a weird email to get. I work at the Erinsbough News where you posted your services regarding custom coffee tables. My name is Lucinda Robinson, but I go by Elle now.

I won't beat around the bush, I'm reaching out to ask if you're the daughter of Paul Robinson and Nina Willians, because I'm the daughter of Paul Robinson and Gail Lewis. If you aren't, then feel free to disregard this email, but please write back and let me know so I can keep searching. If yes, then would you be interested in a relationship with me, my father, or both of us?

I'm in a situation where my time on this earth is probably going to be limited, so a swift reply is appreciated.

Your (possible) sister,

Elle

Then hits send before she can think too much about it.

X

Her second application to visit Rob is denied.

X

You'll never guess who was setting fires. It wasn't Callum, Dad or even Donna. It was Steph's greasy boyfriend. Carmella seems lighter now he's being charged. Which makes Elle feel lighter too because she deserves to be happy.

"You're in a good mood." Carmella comments, as Elle brews coffee for a distracted-looking Libby.

"I'm happy that they got the guy who did it." She says, "And I'm happy that you seem lighter."

"Oh." She replies, pauses, and then says, "Well, I'm glad it's rubbing off on you. I wish it would rub off on Chloe, she kept me up all night."

"When I cried mum says she used to put me in Cam's crib and I'd calm right down."

"Sorry to say, Chloe doesn't have a twin."

"She should try it sometime." She jokes which makes Carm crack a smile that shows her white, square teeth. She looks stunning, like a model, like a movie star. Like one of those museum statues missing their arms and legs with beautiful faces made out of marble.

"Can you stop making goo-goo eyes at Carmella and finish my drink?" Libby asks, annoyed at Elle's pause, just as hot milk scalds her hands. Well, that'll serve her right, won't it? She's not even mad that Carmella is laughing at her, so long as she's laughing.

X

RobRob

It's me again. To answer your question, I have excellent time management skills. I like to be busy, and I like to make money both of which having part ownership of a business afford me. To be honest, I brought into it with Marco because he needed money. Carmella had racked up some debt and he wanted to pay it off. So I offered to go in. It was a good choice, I think. I like to be around her. She's great. Really nice, and funny. She also has a cute baby.

You won't believe what Dad did now. He brought the freaking paper I work at! I couldn't believe it! I was really upset at first, but we're getting used to it. I know it doesn't matter to you but it's fun to work with him. He sees the world in a way that's weird to me. He's kind of a crap editor though. I mean - He sells papers and everything but at the cost of our journalistic reputation. (if this was an email I would include a frowny face emoji here) I will take your advice into consideration, and for my most recent story, I have included more full stops. It's lame that I have to write about a dog show when there is so much going on in the world. Would you believe that they caught the guy who did the bushfires?

So you know Max Hoyland, well it was his ex-wife, Steph's boyfriend Jay who did it. I'm sure you read it in the paper. He was a greasy-looking guy, with very bad vibes. If Dad and Lyn were still married, he could have been our step brother in law so maybe we dodged a bullet there? Carmella went in to talk to him, and she said that he cried and said that he never meant to hurt anyone. If he never meant to hurt anyone, then why set fires? Freak. If you ever see him in prison will you get him beat up for me? Please?

Speaking of prison - I've been looking into sending you a care package since you don't have a commissary where you are now. You can only send them through a third party (which seems kind of scammy) but I figure I owe you some birthday gifts anyway. So enjoy the stuff. Assuming you get it and I haven't been scammed out of a hundred bucks.

I wrote an e-mail to Amy. She has a son, so technically, you're already an uncle. Uncle Rob? Uncle Robbie? Uncle RobRob? Laugh-out-loud. Anyway, I emailed her. I hope she emails me back. I'll keep trying to come in and see you.

Love, your favourite sister,

Elle

P.S - Yeah I remember that. Cam was pissed but I don't think he knew it was you. Forrest and I don't talk anymore. I wish we did so I could ask her about this. If I am gay, will you still like me?

X

"Hey, Daddy?" She asks as they finish up their coffee and pastries for breakfast at the General store.

"You only call me Daddy when you want something." He says, suspiciously, "What do you want?"

"It's nothing bad!" She says, "I just…I love you. I know I probably don't say it enough. I love you."

"I love you too, Darling." He says, and he takes her hand over the table. The ring on his pinkie finger is warm like a brand on her bare skin. "What's going on?"

"I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but, would you like to move back in?" His eyes widen to the size of saucers and he says -

"You mean that?" She nods and then he smiles.

"I'd love to."

X

"Oh my God!"

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain." Carmella scolds, looking up over the edge of a bunch of receipts for their weekly expense budget. "I don't want Chloe exposed to that kind of thing."

"Whatever, look!"

"It's an email alert."

"It's from Amy."

"Open it!" Carmella says, sliding onto the floor by the table next to her as Elle double-clicks the email titled Re: Erinsbourgh News Advertising

Hi Elle,

I was pretty shocked to get your email, I guess I forgot I had a sister as I grew up because I never met you. But It is tacky to end an email by telling someone you're dying. I hope that's not the only reason you emailed.

I don't know how I feel about Dad. But if you'd still like, I think I would like to at least meet with you. I've included the location of my local library, if you're serious, then meet me there on Tuesday at two pm.

Yours,

Amy.

"Oh my God." says Carmella, "You have a sister!" She shakes a stunned Elle by the arm. She nods, almost scared, "Oh, let me come with you, please? I'll be your emotional support!"

"Oh-Okay. Okay yeah. Yeah, we're doing this."

"Oh my God!" Carmella chirps again and then hugs Elle from the side that makes weird sparks leap around in her chest.

X

Her request to visit Rob is accepted, finally. But not for another month. But at least it's accepted.

X

"Hi, Amy?" She asks, sliding across from her at the booth - the chairs are lined in cheerful red vinyl that peels up at the edge. Carmella slides in next to her, smiling.

"You're Elle?"

"Yeah, this is Carmella." She almost accidentally calls her 'my Carmella', which is not true.

"Right."

"Hi, nice to meet you." Carmella says, like Sister Mary Cathrine. It's awkward. Elle rubs at the back of her wrist and smiles at Amy who doesn't give much away. She looks like Dad, with a square jaw and dark brown hair. It's cut into a blunt fringe across her forehead, and her eyes are shiny circles of amber in her face.

"Nice to meet you as well, Carmella."

"So, um, how are you?"

"Been better." Amy says, "Does Dad know about this?"

"No, no he doesn't." At her slight frown, she presses on with "It's a long story. He's been pretty unwell, see he had a brain tumour -" Which makes her gasp loudly, "But he's okay now!" She assures Amy quickly, "He's okay now he just has some memory issues, and I think he's scared of you not wanting to know him. Or maybe having a crack for being a bad father."

"Ah." She says, she looks worried about something. Elle thinks of something to say. Carmella says -

"So, what do you do with yourself? I heard you're a carpenter?"

"Yeah, a tradie, I always liked to work with my hands," Amy says, glancing between them awkwardly. She's younger than Elle envisioned her to be. Twenty-eight, or so she guesses, but doesn't look it. Her eyes are brown, like Cam's. If she was smiling, Elle wondered if they would have the same freshly minted coin shine.

"Oh, so the opposite of Elle?" She jokes, "Princess here can't handle a mop let alone a hammer."

"Don't listen to her. I grew up on a farm you know."

"A hobby farm!"

"There were chickens!" Carmella laughed at her; smile perpetually crooked on the left side. Her laugh is contagious and it wipes away any of the annoyance that might have been bubbling about being introduced to her only sister as incompetent. Carmella let her head roll onto Elle's shoulder while she laughed and Elle can only laugh too. The flowers blooming inside Elle's lungs feel like they're growing bigger but it doesn't hurt, how can it hurt? Carmella is a warm, soothing balm on her inadvertently agitated ego.

Amy doesn't say anything but frowns. She's wearing a wedding band but keeps fiddling with it.

"Why did you say you might not be here long?" She asks.

"Elle's lovesick." Carmella replies before she can, to save her the humiliation she supposes, "But no chance of a return."

"Oh." Amy mumbles, she still looks unsure.

"Are you married?" She asks, to divert the questions.

"Umm yeah, his name's Liam. He's not around right now, or I would have brought him."

"It would have been nice to meet him." She says, lying through her teeth.

"Look. Elle. I'm just going, to be honest. I looked you up." Her stomach dropped, hit the floor, and fell through it to the centre of the Earth. "I…Is it true? All that stuff, with your brother Robert?"

"It's all true."

"I…I have a son. I don't know if I can have you around him. Not...Not knowing what I know about him. I mean, he killed three people. You were accused of treating him so badly he had a total mental break. I just can't trust you around him, I don't know how much like him you are."

Rob's trial. The worst four weeks of her life, the worst questioning, the worst cross-examination. Dad's grip on her wrist, pulling her behind him so he could shield her from the press as best he could with his body. Rob, staring into the distance unable to answer even basic questions like his age, and where he was from.

She'd never seen Dad cry so much while trying so hard to be quiet.

"How dare you!" Carmella exploded, standing halfway up out of her seat, "How dare you accuse Elle of being like Robert? You weren't there, you don't know her, and you don't know him. I was there, and I can promise you from the bottom of my heart that there is not a single trace of him in her. I have never met someone who tried so hard to be a better person than Elle and even if, even if I didn't know her. Even if she was like Robert, and she's not, but if she was, where the Hell do you get off accusing a victim of being like her victimiser?"

Amy was taken aback by Carmella's sudden change. Elle isn't, Carm's moods change as easily as her own.

"I -"

"Forget it! Elle, we're leaving. You don't have to sit here and take this." She grabbed Elle's palm in her own. It was warm and soft.

X

She didn't hesitate to follow Carmella back to the car, where they sat in the parking lot of the library for a long time.

"Hey, are you - "

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Possibly ruining your chance to have your sister in our life."

"I don't I would have been strong enough, to say something about that. She was right, I am like Robert. I don't want to be, but I can't help it." Carm turned to face her and took both her hands inside her own, staring at her with an intensity in her eyes Elle hasn't ever seen before. Her brown eyes and hair are set alight by the afternoon sun.

"You are nothing like him. If you never believe me again for the rest of our lives, please believe that. You are nothing like him."

"Do you think I'm a better person now?"

"I can see it." Carm tells her, "I used to think…I guess I thought you were going to be like your Dad for the rest of your life but you changed. You did the work. You help people now, at the paper. You helped me."

"You're my best friend," Elle confesses. She didn't have a lot of friends. She sort of only had Carmella. "Maybe the best I've ever had. No one else would have ever stuck by me like you did, after how I treated you."

"I don't want you to die." Carm says, on the very of tears now, "You can't die, Elle! We're just getting this right, you have to find out who, you have to." She pulled Elle over the centre console to hug her, and Elle started coughing and choking and spluttering. She pulled away to try and breathe around the pain and coughed spots of blood onto her bare palm.

Choking, can't breathe, choking, choking choking -

It dislodged. Spitting furiously, she caught her first fully bloomed flower in her hand. A misshapen, awkward-looking camellia. Carm is crying when she looks back.

"Hey, it'll be okay." She said, scratchy and awkward. Carm doesn't look convinced.

"You have to figure it out." She repeats. Elle already has. Camellias. Camellias for Carmella.

X

Was she gay?

Elle had never thought about it before now, lying in her bed, watching the lights of the street dance on the ceiling. Cat purred happily next to her, where she was gently stroking her side.

She had never thought she was gay, but then again, she'd also never thought about what if she was, either.

How long had she been in love with Carmella? The whole time? Shouldn't she have noticed? But, she didn't know what she was meant to be noticing. She ran back over every time she'd ever seen Carmella she could remember. She'd always thought she was beautiful, always wanted to touch her face but doesn't everyone feel like that about Carmella? Dad and Cam had felt that way about her, so it was normal that she wanted to right?

Right?

Rolling onto her side, she spat another camellia onto the floor by her bed. They've been getting more perfectly formed into round little flowers with circles of pink, guitar-shaped petals. So far she'd coughed up five, all beautiful and blood-stained. Her throat is killing her. Flopping back over, she went back to petting the curious Cat.

But what if it wasn't? What if it isn't normal? Can you like both men and women? Didn't she like Oliver? Hadn't she wanted to have sex with him? She thought back, and wondered…Did it even matter? She'd enjoyed having sex with Oliver but it was never really about Oliver. What about Ned? Had she cared about him or had she been like Dad and only cared about chasing down the only boy in Erinsborough too dense to know she was trying to sleep with him? Because in her whole life, men had never turned Elle down.

When had she fallen in love with Carmella? Was it the moment she lay eyes on the red-suited woman fighting with Lil in the middle of Toadie's Bikini store? When she was a nun? Had she been in love with her when she tried to ruin her life? Yes, she had been. And who the hell does that? Aside from Dad, who would do that?

Robert.

Amy was right, she thought, flopping onto her side and curling up around Cat protectively. She pressed her face into the soft fur and thought about her first time with an older guy in a grim bathroom in Tassie, in exchange for beer. Thought about the way she had never loved a man who could just love her back. Riley had just loved her back and she couldn't be with him. But Ned and Oliver had been challenges. Dylan had been a challenge, Dylan had been a way to get closer to her father. Dylan was a safety net in the worst year of her life.

"Am I gay, Cat?" She asked her downy soft fur. Cat just continues to purr. "Maybe I am gay. So okay, I'm gay. What does that mean? Does it change my life? I probably can't married. Dad might hate me. But I'm still Elle, right? Still just Elle, but now I'm gay." She rolled away again, "It would make sense. Daughter of Paul Robinson, infamous womanizer, is also gay. So…Maybe I'm a lesbian. A lesbian in love with Carmella."

A lesbian, she realizes, who had begun to have a crush on Serena Bishop when she died. Now she has a framework for her feelings, she can begin to put the pieces together. Glen Forrest, from her childhood, Sky Mangle, Izzy Hoyland, the women that she hurt, did she do all that because she didn't know how to be in love with them?

Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't.

But she did love Carmella. She wanted to be with her, and she was a woman. So…Gay. Lesbian. Didn't matter. She was a woman who was in love with a deeply Catholic other woman whose life she ruined.

Awesome.

X

The following morning, while Dad uses the french press to make coffee she feels weirdly relieved to realize that she never has to have sex with another man. Suddenly getting married and having kids don't seem so scary…So long as she's doing it with Carm. The toast is still toasting, the birds are still singing, and the world is completely oblivious to her newfound identity.

"Daddy?" She asks, again. She's pretty sure that Dad won't care if she's gay. She'd never known him to have any opinion at all on those who batted for the same team (so to speak). And even if he does mind, she's sure he loves her enough to overlook it. That's what she's hoping, anyway. She loves him so much she doesn't know what she'd do without him. She loves him more than Mum. Who she has exactly zero plans to clue in on any aspect of her life right now. It's not that she thinks Mum will care either, it's just…She doesn't care. Mum didn't even call after the roof collapsed. Dad was tending to her every need and Mum didn't even call. Some space will probably do them well.

"Hm?"

"I have something to tell you, which might change your opinion of me."

"I doubt it, my Darling."

"I've been doing some thinking, you know, about love. And…I've figured something out. I'm a lesbian." He pauses and gives her a slightly shocked look, put the kettle down and went over to the other side of the counter and pulled her tight into his arms. He smells like cinnamon aftershave.

"That won't change my opinion of you." He promised, "You are my baby, no matter what, no matter what you do, and who you love. I will always love you." He said and kissed the top of her head. She shut her eyes, and let her face fall into the crook of his neck. She feels like she's stopped dragging around a dead horse she hadn't even realized was tied around her neck.

"I love you, Dad."

"I love you too."

"The toast is burning."

"I'm not done hugging you yet." Which is good, because Elle isn't done being hugged until the toast genuinely starts smoking.

X

While the first two stages of the disease can be slow-moving, the third stage of Hanahaki, where the victim begins to cough up entire flowers, is comparatively fast. It can take as little as a few months to move from nearly healthy to completely bedridden. This stage is also sometimes referred to as 'full bloom'.

Elle stared at the pages of the book, all the letters blurring together like ambiguous clay lumps. Full bloom. She flipped through the book open next to her, about flower arranging to the letter C.

Traditionally in China, the camellia was perceived as a union between two people. To explain further, the calyx part of the flower represents a man, while the petals symbolize a woman. Normally, the petals and the calyx separate when a flower dies. In the case of the camellia, the calyx and petals fall away together. For this reason, this beautiful blossom is believed to signify undying love.

What a horrible, romantic flower. She kept reading.

Pink – During the Victorian era, pink camellias were used as a symbol of heartfelt longing. As such, it is the perfect flower for long-distance lovers. They are also sometimes known as 'winter roses.

Which they were, she supposed. Except instead of land, the distance between them was pretty much everything else. Carmella would never want to be with her, there was hardly even any point in telling her. Not only had Elle tried to ruin her life, but she was a woman and while Elle might have realized her latent homosexuality - Carm was an ex-nun. She believed in Catholicism enough to still wear her cross. So not only was she not gay, but historically, the Catholic church hasn't had anything nice to say about homosexuality…Full stop.

And man, hadn't Elle just finished reaming Oliver out for making a move on her when Marco's body has barely cooled? Sure, Carm has seemed happier since they charged Steph's weird, greasy boyfriend with the fire but she can't forget the woman just lost her husband. Even if Carm was gay, even if she wasn't Catholic, it's not appropriate for her to tell her the truth about how she feels now. If she'd realized sooner, maybe things could be different but she didn't, and they aren't.

Next step? Convincing her heart otherwise, in any other situation. In this one? Well, she'll let you know when she figures that out.

X

Turns out the reason Elle's applications for visitation with Robert were all denied at first was because of her job. Elle is a good journalist, she would never violate ethical standards by performing an interview on a mentally ill man without the consent of his doctors but it seemed that was what they were scared of. They needn't have been.

The room she was in was for visitors, with lots of round tables for sitting at with D-rings in the middle to chain your family members' hands to the same way one chains a dog to a tree. They'd had dogs on the farm growing up, but they were working dogs, not playing with dogs. They had cropped tails and stern dispositions. When Rob was a kid, she remembers him getting too close and being knocked down. Cam had to run back to the house to get Mum while she, at the brave age of five, tried to fight the huge dog. Suffice to say she lost. The atmosphere makes her uneasy, and she coughed up a flower, which landed on the table in front of her perfectly formed. She left it there, staring at it until she heard clinking and looked up to see them leading in her brother.

Rob was wearing a red jumper, and matching sweatpants. Around his waist, hanging low off his hipbones was a black elastic belt. In the centre is another D-ring, to which his hands have been chained, along with his ankles. They're joined together, and then that chain is linked to the belt, forcing his usually long-legged stride into little more than an awkward, crab-like shuffle.

Hobbled, her mind supplies. They have hobbled her once proud, stubborn brother.

He sat across from her, blinking slowly and owlishly. He looked much as he had a year prior. Youthful. Sharply featured with sharper eyes, like a knife edge made from amber. He styles his hair into a quiff, like Tintin. Rob's looks had never been the issue, he'd always been good-looking. The problem was his wretched personality. Neither of them knows how to broach the chasm between them.

It's tepid in here, but Elle feels cold. Probably because so much of the real estate of her lungs is taken up with flowers so her blood can't be oxygenated enough. They'd taken her jacket from her when she arrived, along with her drop pearl earrings, and her silver and black watch. One of the guards chains Rob's hands to the centre of the table, even if he stretched out as far as he could, he wouldn't have been able to reach her. She doesn't know if she's relieved, or sad about it.

"Hi." She says, to have something to say.

"Hey." He says back, corpse still. He sat with his knees spread, leaning back, a Cassanova of his own lonely kingdom. They chained his hands, so he must still be dangerous. But he doesn't look dangerous. He just….looks like Rob. "You look awful."

"It's a new look, it's called I can't help it I'm dying."

"Is that the news you wanted to tell me in person?"

"Yeah."

"What of?" Opening up a hand, Elle showed him crushed, bloody camellia. He looked a little pale at the sight of it. "Oh. Do you know who for?"

"You know Carmella, that I've been telling you about? "

"Mmm."

"Her."

"So you're gay?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Huh. And so why can't you tell Carmella how you feel?" Rob queried in a tone that implied he thought this could have been a letter.

"You've met her. You know why."

"Have I?"

"Sister Mary Cathrine?" And he starts to laugh, and it might as well be the second most beautiful thing she's ever heard. He might be laughing at her, but she doesn't care so long as he's laughing.

"The nun? So not only are you gay, but you're gay for a nun? Sorry, I shouldn't laugh that's not very empathetic of me." Rob remarked, clearing his throat and then trying to settle down. "My therapist says I need to work on having empathy for people."

"It's okay." She said, "You can laugh at me. It's funny."

"I'm trying to be better." He said, "I've been talking to my psychiatrist since we started writing." If he's being earnest she doesn't know, but she does know that he seems a lot calmer than the last time they spoke. He's getting the help he needs, here in this place. Even if Elle feels uneasy, he doesn't. Perhaps with multiple visits, she will get used to it.

"You don't have to be someone else." Says Elle, if she learned anything at all from Dad's brain tumour it was that she didn't want him to be someone else because she might not love them. "You just have to be you, RobRob. I already love you."

"You shouldn't."

"I know. Did you ev-"

"Love you? I wouldn't have done any of that crap to you if I didn't love you. I used to think you were a traitor, for leaving to be with Dad. I didn't get what he could offer you that we couldn't but I think I do now."

"And what is it that he's offering?"

"Freedom. You were never meant for small-town life. I think you wished to leave Tasmania for every birthday wish."

"They never came true. Probably because I always told you what I wished for."

"I used to wish for a car." He said, "And for the video store to get more Faces of Death movies."

"They actually just released that on DVD last year." She said, "I tried to show Dad but he said it was gross."

"It is gross."

"That's the point." They said in tandem. Pause. Elle wonders if what she's feeling is happiness for the first time since Cam died.

X

When Elle got home, there was an email in her inbox from Amy.

Hi Elle.

I'm sorry for how things went down the other day. I did some thinking and I realized your girlfriend was right, I was taking out a situation that frightened me on the victim and…I shouldn't have done that. I've also been thinking about what it might be like to have a sister and I think it would be good. I'd at the very least like to get to know you since we didn't get the chance when we were kids.

What do you say? Peace?

Amy.

P.S Carmella called me and begged me to forgive her and give you a second chance. She didn't have to, but she seems like one of the good ones

It was a short, no-nonsense email. Which was also the impression she got from Amy. Not only does Amy want to have a continuing relationship, she has mistaken Carmella for Elle's girlfriend and that made all kinds of butterflies dance around inside the lining of her stomach. And the beginnings of understanding, too. Amy wants an ongoing relationship. Which means Elle has to be there to have it with. In her glee, she'd forgotten the real reason she'd even reached out to her. She wanted her to take care of Dad when she couldn't anymore. Amy didn't say a damn thing about Dad, or meeting Dad or wanting anything to do with him.

She closed her computer without replying.

…

The following day at work, she was roped into babysitting Chloe. Carm had never let her babysit before, justifiably, she was a protective mother. Elle wouldn't know what that was like. Holding the baby in her arms she tried to imagine a future where she is this baby's stepmother.

She imagines standing by Carmella's side for her first day at school. She imagines her as a beautiful girl with blonde hair, Carm's deep olive complexion, and those huge blue eyes. Playing a netball game, patching up a scraped knee, reading a bedtime story. Things that had previously all been unattractive to her if she was doing them with a man. She had images of her mother, struggling to run a business and a house and their good-for-nothing stepfather and deadbeat real father. Visions of a woman so stressed and upset all the time, and children who ran wild and drank and partied through their teens, sleeping with whoever would provide the next beer and laughing drunkenly on the walk home. She doesn't want that for her. She's grateful that Carm has such a big circle of people around her.

The baby squirms occasionally, and she smells like soap. She gets one hand into the necklace Elle is wearing, which is silver with a heart pendant in the middle. She waves it around while making cooing noises. She wonders what kind of grandparent Dad would be, fun probably. Like to spoil the kid, take them fun places and let them make pillow forts.

"She likes you," Rebecca says, from where she is drinking her coffee.

"She's a baby, she just likes whoever has the shiniest keys." She scoffed, lifting Chloe back into her pram.

"No, she likes you. I'm her grandmother, I'd know." Elle isn't sure what to say, so she twiddled her fingers together for a moment then looked into the pram.

"She's alright herself." She said, finally. She can't possibly get involved with Carmella if she has Chloe, she can't get involved with someone else's family especially not while Oliver is still on the periphery. So, she'd just have to settle for friends.

X

It occurs to Elle, as she watched Carmella sleep that all this time, she'd just expected that she was going to die from this. She would just lie down one day and let the flowers choke her. It seemed reasonable, she's pretty sure latent suicidality runs in her family. Certainly, Dad and Robert both had it, and Cam wasn't particularly cheerful about the future either when push came to shove. It had previously seemed like the natural endpoint to her was to die.

She'd always sort of felt like she wasn't meant to be here this long. Like, she was going to peace out before she got old and grey. Had no intentions of marrying, starting a family or settling down for domestic life with anyone. Especially not after Cameron died. When that happened, she realized she was looking down the barrel of eighty years without him and it just seemed so unfathomably long, how could she be expected to be without him for that long? So, she'd kind of stopped living with an expectation of a future.

She'd been a passenger, this whole time, this entire ordeal.

But she can't die, not now, not when there is so much going for her! Her relationship with Dad is better than ever, despite what he's done, she does genuinely enjoy working with him at the paper, and she likes coming home in the evening to find him on the couch with the paper, complaining about how incompetent the West Waratah Star is. She's building a tentative relationship with her sister, they'd exchanged text messages which is way more than she ever could have expected even a week ago. Things with Robert are looking up, she has another visit with him before they send him back to prison and she wants to hug him this time if they'll let her. And…Carmella.

Carmella seems to be having a, for want of a better term, wet dream. Seriously. She's really partying with whomever she's dreaming of.

No one ever accused Elle of being polite.

"You've been a naughty girl, Carmella."

"Huh?" She asked weakly, opening one eye to peer at her.

"A naughty, naughty girl. Does the term 'tax fraud' mean anything to you?"

"What?"

"CDs? Magazines?"

"I checked with the accountant. Those are claimable." Elle smiles at her and suppresses an urge to kill the person that has captured Carmella in a way she will never be able to.

"Well, you've got an honest face." She looked away from her and then tried to ask in the most nonchalant way she can - "So. What was the hot dream about?"

"I wasn't having a hot dream." She lies. Elle scoffed -

"Please! You know that scene from When Harry Met Sally? That's the face you were doing!" Carm's mouth drops open.

"Oh!" She exclaimed and buried her face in her hands. It makes Elle laugh because she's blushing and it's cute.

"So! Come on!" She needles, "Who was it about?" And she has to know because she has to know the competition she has to - She has to know because it matters to Carmella. There will be no competition here, Carm will choose who she chooses. Elle will respect that. She has to, she has to change, she can't be who she was anymore. She has to grow, if for her own sake.

"I can't remember." Carm spits a little too quickly, looking embarrassed and annoyed. "Coffee?"

"Yeah, I'll have what you're having!" She said, as Carm left, wrapped in her ugly green throw blanket. And it feels good. It feels normal. It feels like they're friends. Elle doesn't remember the last time she felt so normal.

X

The next day, after a long night of spitting flowers into her wastepaper basket, she decided to go needle Carmella more at the cafe. No one ever said Elle Robinson was a quitter, after all.

"What are you doing here?" Carm wondered as Elle entered, and dressed herself in an apron.

"Thought I'd come to give you a hand for a couple of hours." She smiled as if this isn't just an excuse to spend more time with the woman she can now admit she's in love with.

"But don't you have stories to write?"

"Ugh. I'm so over journalism!" She said, which is true because the stories she has right now are…Well. If they were in the hospital, the doctors would be saying 'this is cruel. Pull the plug.' Dad's on a kick of stories about sport. Which is boring. The only sport Elle ever liked was cheer. "I need a mental health day." She adds as Carm laughs. Because her mental health can only be improved by spending time with her best friend.

"Well, thank you." Carm said, writing in her notepad, "I can always do with a helping hand."

"SO! How about that dream?" She asked, bumping an exasperated-looking Carm with her shoulder, she glares and Elle pretends the part where they touched isn't burning up like a mix of fever and sunburn.

"That's why you offered to help. To pry!" Pretending to be shocked, Elle leaned in -

"I am not prying! I'm…Caring."

"You?" Carm wondered, "The suburban ice queen?"

"Okay, so I'm prying but in a caring way!"

"Well, I'm not talking," Carm smirked and entered the back room. Kelly entered, saving her from disaster and delivered the paper to the front bench.

"Robinson." She greeted, customarily cheerful. "This is great!" Her story. Elle beams. She likes to be complimented on her actual work. "Wish I'd handcuffed myself to Andrew when we were in college together."

"Yeah, well I don't know if Rebecca enjoyed it that much…" She trailed. "But hey! Maybe you could handcuff yourself to Toadie!" She teased. She likes to tease. She likes to have friends. She likes Kelly. It's different to how she feels about Carmella, but it's still good. She wants her to stay around, she hopes she and Toadie will marry so that they can stay friends. She hopes Kelly will move to the street, and the three of them can do brunch meetings and such.

"Mmm no. We're just friends." Kelly lies, but Elle knows it's more than that. "Strictly no handcuffs…" She trails off when the delivery guy arrives. "Wow."

"Sign for this?"

"Yeah." Elle agrees, wondering how she ever felt like she was attracted to men. It's not this guy particularly, Carm and Kelly are quite taken with him…But he's just a guy. A normal guy, who looks like a guy she might know. To break the tension she says - "Oh, hey. This is from Oliver."

"Who's that?" Kelly wondered.

"Chloe's dad." She answers.

"Ah. Well, go on, open it!" She encouraged.

"Do you think there are female deliver drivers?" She wondered, "Because maybe we need to get more deliveries." Kelly nods her head in agreement at the last part.

"Totally. I don't even work here." Which makes her laugh again. She feels happy these days. Carm breaks the mood however when she rattles off the inscription from the inside of the card and walks quickly into the backroom, saying something about checking the stove. Elle blinks, and pieces begin to slot together into a puzzle she doesn't like. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

"And the penny drops." She tells a confused Kelly, trying to act like the world isn't ending.

X

Following Carm into the back room a while later, she announced -

"I worked it out."

"What?"

"The hot dream. You miss him."

"Do you?"

"Yeah. Sometimes, when I wish I could go back to a simpler time. But I don't have hot dreams about him!" She says, reusing her shoulder bump from earlier. Less intimate than a hand, more fun than a hip. Carm tipped her head back, then looked at her.

"I shouldn't!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's over!"

"He's off, travelling, and I'm running this place. Nope. We had our chance."

"Carm -" She says, fighting hard to be the bigger person because she could just agree with her, say Oliver is useless and gone and have her stay. With Elle, which is all she wants she wants it so much it's killing her. But it's not about her. It's about who it's always been about. Carmella.

"Pass me the broccoli?" So she does.

X

Have you ever made a choice knowing it would ruin your life? Elle has. It's the choice she makes sitting in Charmella's living room when she goes to put Chloe to bed, picking up the phone and dialling Oliver's new number.

This is what love is, she thinks. Has visions of her mother on the boat to Tasmania, her pregnant stomach stretched out for miles in front of her while she watches the waves and thinks of the man she loves but can't have a family with. Love is making choices that hurt you because they will make someone else happy. And this is what she wants. She wants Carmella to be happy. And she isn't here, or maybe she is, but she'd be happier with him.

Love sucks.

"Hey, Ollie." She smiles saccharine sweet down the line. Ignores the bloody puddle of flowers on her lap.

X

Rob.

Thanks for calling me yesterday. It was good to hear your voice again.

I'm trying to get another visit with you, maybe this time they'll let us in the family room? I'd like to hug you. I'm sorry it's been so long since I last wrote. I haven't been doing much writing lately, even for my job. Dad can tell something is wrong but he knows I won't tell him so he won't ask.

I love you. Please remember that, if we never see each other again. If you forget everything else about me, then please remember at least on this day, while I was writing this letter, I loved you. I think I've done something awful that will make Carmella happy. But I have to make myself unhappy.

I feel sick.

Elle.

X

Treatments for Hanahaki Diseases have come a long way since the 1980s. While there are horror stories of surgeries where the entire ribcage is opened up, today, most Hanahaki Disease patients have their choice of a variety of different treatments.

Elle was back in the library with her good friend 'Hanahaki for Dummies'. This time though, she wanted to know potential treatments. For the first time.

The most common treatment for Hanahaki is a local herbicide inhaled with a spacer. It kills the plant and keeps the body intact. But, it can also be taken as a pill - This form has its advantages such as being very convenient however it has been known to cause cramping and discomfort.

You can still have the traditional surgery if you want. Some people want to know for sure that the plant is entirely removed not just dead. The recovery period for surgery is usually between eight to twelve weeks.

Treating Hanahaki necessarily will kill the love that you have for your chosen person specifically. It can be disorienting to go to sleep in love and wake up without it. Some have described it as like waking up with a hole in their chest however that is probably the lightness from having the weight of the plant removed. It's normal to feel embarrassed about how much you previously loved that person, or that you wasted your time on someone who didn't, or couldn't love you back. You may be concerned about grieving for lost love, but most report that they feel nothing at all for that person. In rare cases, a regular friendship can be pursued.

It is an old wives tale that treating your Hanahaki externally will make sure that you never love again. Your love for everyone is not tethered to the plant, only your love for a specific person. You will be able to maintain normal, healthy relationships following your treatment.

Closing the book, she replaced it on the shelf. At least she could still love Dad and Rob, she tried to comfort herself.

X

"You called Oliver!" Carmella demanded, pushing into the back room of The General Store. Elle quickly hid the letter she'd just opened from Rob under a page of invoices and gave her a slightly shocked, wide-eyed look.

"Yeah." Is all she can think to say.

"How dare you!" She exclaimed, and Elle nudged a bowl of coleslaw out of the way with one hand. She seems annoyed, but not angry which is better than her being furious. "Oh, I am way too angry for food fights! What are you playing at?!"

"Look. I was just trying to help." She confessed, proud of herself for keeping her cool. She knows Carm's anger isn't directed at her, though at who it is directed, she isn't sure.

"Sticking your nose isn't my business? That isn't helping! Oh, Elle!" She exclaimed, "Me and Oliver…It's complicated." She ignores the warm feeling she has inside from Carm saying her name.

"It's not complicated." She said, softly. "It's quite simple." Carm gave her a defeated look.

"Oh, I am not listening to you anymore!" She said, pointing at her, then stomping away to the stove.

"You think about him all the time!" She interjected, "You miss him. Why can't you just admit that you still love him?" For the same reasons you can't admit that you're in love with her, she supplies but doesn't say allowed. Carm says nothing but does turn back around for a second Elle thinks maybe she sees fondness in her eyes. She gave Elle a sad little look. "Hey, if you want to be lonely for the rest of your life, that's up to you."

And then hurried off, before she got caught with a letter from Robert.

X

Elle.

You know I loathe to say something positive about Dad but to reiterate what I said on the phone

You need to speak to him. I am withholding letters until you do.

Rob.

X

"Are you still in love, Elle?" Carm asked, over the party. It's Libby's hens night, and the stripper and a balloon artist have been mixed up, so there are no hot-naked men thank God but there are plenty of balloons to go around.

"I'm dealing with it." She replied, "Thinking about treatments. Why?"

"You should tell them."

"Yeah. Right."

"Oh, don't give me that!" She picked up a balloon crown and placed it on top of Elle's head. "Weren't you the one just telling me to take a chance on love?"

"I was talking about you and Oliver."

"And I'm talking about you and the mystery man." She picked up a balloon flower and thought about popping the petals.

"It's actually not a man."

"A wom- Elle, are you gay?"

"Yeah." She said, "I am."

"Why didn't you tell me!?" Carm asked, and then pulled her into a hug. Up close, Elle can feel the heat from her skin and smell her deodorant. Her body is warm, and she closed her eyes just for a second and imagined this was her life. Then, Carm let go.

"Well, you were a nun. When we first met."

"So?"

"The Catholic church hasn't historically been very welcoming of uh, the gay population." Carm looked at her sideways and then said -

"You thought I wouldn't support you?"

"I didn't want to lose your friendship, not after I just got it back. You mean the world to me, Carmella." She said, honestly.

"Oh, Elle!" She said, "I know that the Church hasn't always been open to gay people, but I promise, God loves all of his creations. No matter what. That's what I've always believed."

"Even a Robinson?"

"Especially a Robinson." Elle doesn't believe that to be true but accepts another hug. "So that's why you've been trying to avoid Lucas."

"Ugh! Lucas! Yes, that's why. He's buzzing around me like a fly since he and Libby broke up." Carm laughs,

"Well tell him!"

"I can't tell him, are you crazy?"

"Maybe he'll leave you alone."

"Maybe he'll spray paint dyke on the side of my car!"

"And if he does, then I'll release a can of kick-ass on him." She promised, and you know? Elle believes her.

"A can of kick-ass, huh?"

"Just because I was a nun doesn't mean I can't know Karate," Carm says, and then mimes a couple of very bad karate moves, just to make Elle smile. She loves to be in love with her, more than anything else.

"Well, my knight in shining habit, if I'm ever a damsel in distress…" She passed her the balloon flower, "You'll have my favour."

"You've already got the crown." She said, and they're standing so close, and the party is so loud and Elle could have kissed her, right then. But then Sam walks in, and the party dies.

X

"I just, sometimes wonder what might have been." Says Sam, "Don't you know what that's like?"

"I think that every day." Elle admitted, "What if I'd noticed something was wrong with my brother sooner, what if I hadn't lied about having cancer, what if I hadn't found Dad when I did and he died, life is just full of what ifs."

"What if Carmella was gay?" Sam guesses. Elle looks at the camellia floating in her cup of tea and gives a shuddering sigh.

"What if I hadn't lied about Oliver? What if I hadn't tried to take advantage of her addiction? What if I hadn't slapped her in the hospital? What if I was a better person."

"I don't think the kind of person you are matters as much as you think it does."

"It's too late."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"There's always a choice."

"I could have been right for her." Elle sighs, "I could have been the best girlfriend, perfect for her."

"Maybe you still can be?" Settling back, Elle coughed another flower onto her palm and looked at the bloody sticky thing. Breathing is hard lately. Even Dad is noticing she can't get up the stairs without getting puffed. Then crushed it.

"No. No, she's going to go be with Oliver. I won't get in the way this time. It's only right."

"So I guess we're both stuck."

"I guess we are."

X

The flowers are getting unbearable. Elle looked down into her lap at them, at the stains, she'll never get out of the top sheet and wiped her hand on the back of her face.

She needed help.

She needed her Dad.

X

"Dad?" He was sitting in the living room alone, reading the paper. Scoping the competition, she supposed.

"Hmm?" She said nothing until he looked up to see her. Looking bedraggled and bloody with flower petals clinging to her lips and chin. In an instant, he was on his feet, hands hovering just above her.

"Elle!" He exclaimed, "What -"

"I have it."

X

Robsquared -

I told him, like you said. I think he took it okay. I didn't tell him who, I don't want him to chase her. Anyway, it doesn't matter she's leaving at the end of the week to go be with her baby's father in Portugal of all places. I called him and asked him to ask her, it's the least I can do.

Anyway. Now I've told Dad we can get back to writing, can't we? I've decided I'm going to take a cure of localized herbicide, it's painless, quick and will preserve my other feelings. I'm looking forward to being able to breathe again. I heard they were planning on moving you back to prison, will I be able to visit you still?

They're playing Lost in Translation on Channel Eight next week. I thought I could watch it first and then send you my thoughts as a play-by-play and it would almost be like we were watching it together if you send me yours back.

I miss you. I think I've forgiven you and I'm not angry anymore. Maybe I just don't have the energy.

I loved you then and I love you now -

Elle

X

"Amy!" Carmella exclaimed, as they entered her going away party, "What are you doing here?"

"Well, Elle told me what happened so I thought I'd come to see you off." She smiled, "It's good you're giving family another shot."

"Yeah, it is good for Chloe." She said, "How are things with you two, then?"

"Good!" Amy says, smiling. Elle thinks that they look alike. "Thanks to you. If you hadn't come and found me I never would have given Elle a chance, and we never would have been friends."

"Sorry, who are you?" Rebecca asked, emerging from where Chloe is sleeping.

"This is Amy, she's - "

"I'm Paul's eldest." Amy announced, "Is he here?"

"No, he's working." Elle sighed, "So you're going to see him, then?"

"You've convinced me." Amy said, and wrapped an arm around Elle's shoulders, "It'll be good for Jimmy."

"Ahhh." Rebecca said, "He mentioned you to me a couple of times. He'll be overjoyed."

"And you are?"

"Oh, I'm Paul's….I'm his ex-girlfriend."

"Ahhh." Amy nodded, "And you're still friends?"

"I wouldn't go that far, but now isn't the time. Why don't you have some pavlova? Or lemon delight - Carmella made it."

"Cooking for her own going away party?" Amy asked as she wandered off with Rebecca.

"Should you be managing that?" Carm asked.

"Maybe," Elle replied but didn't move.

"Oh, don't get sappy on me!"

"I can't help it. Even a suburban ice queen has her moments." Carm sighed and wrapped an arm around Elle's shoulders. That didn't help, just set off hot, burning sensations in her exposed shoulder. It's summer - Warm out. It was Summer the first time they met, too. "So. Have you given any thought to this place?"

"Yeah, I have." She said, "I'll sign it over to you on one condition."

"Name it. "

X

"And I just want to say one, last, special thank you." Carm continued, "To Elle. I just want to embarrass her in public by saying…You're my best friend. I'm going to miss you more than you'll ever know. I'm so glad we got the chance to be friends again."

And then she was crying so hard she had to excuse herself outside. Because she was going. She was really going. No one followed her. She walked all the way home, crying the entire way. She could see Dad and Amy fighting through the front window so she instead sat on the curb and cried some more until Kelly sat next to her, and wrapped an arm around her.

"When did you get here?"

"I was across the street at Toadies, helping with the lights."

"My eyesight is pretty blurry but they look good."

"Carmella's going to be okay."

"I know she -" Elle started to choke coughing until she spat up a flower that landed on her knees. She brushed it onto the road and coughed up some more. Kelly pulled her close and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Oh, Elle." She sighed, "You need to tell her."

"I can't, no one gets it, I can't." Amy storms out of the house and slams the door behind her. Climbing into her truck, she says nothing and drives away into the night. Dad stood in the doorway, fuming just as much. He looked at Elle, and then went inside silently. Kelly said nothing further, but eventually, the party must have ended because people began to return to the street. Someone suggests surprising Carmella when she gets her suitcase and Kelly agrees. There are glowsticks. No Amy. No Dad. Sam comes out eventually and joins Elle on the curb with her legs spread to make room for the generous rounded shape of her pregnant stomach. Offers her a glowstick.

When the taxi pulls up, they all jump out and yell surprise, like in the movies. She feels disconnected from her body as Carm hugs people one by one, giving them her parting words. Then gets to her. Elle opened her arms for a hug.

"Come here," Carm said, and when they embrace Elle placed her head in the crook between Carm's shoulder and neck.

"The street won't be the same without you." She whispers.

"You tell her how you feel." Carm says, "Promise me you will."

"I will."

"You deserve to be happy, Robinson."

"So do you, Caminetti." Carm pulled back and placed her hands on Elle's shoulders. Looked at her in her face, and Elle thought about kissing her to make a point.

"Well, I should go if I'm going to catch my flight."

"Yeah, you should." She doesn't move. Neither does Elle.

"Carmella!" Rebecca calls, and she finally steps back. Watching her leave, she dabbed at her wet face with one hand. Her eyes were scratchy and this was happening. The taxi drove down the street and she finally went into the house, Sam a step behind.

X

"Are you angry with me?" She asked, like a child. Dad was staring blankly at the coffee table. He looked up at her, and in the light, his eyes are very green.

"Furious." He confirms.

"Am I disowned?"

"Not yet."

"Then can I ask for a hug?" He thought about it, then stood and embraced her tightly.

"What were you thinking, Elle?" He asked, "Doing all this?"

"I was thinking I wanted my sister around." She replied, "That she deserved to know her father."

"What are you talking about?"

"Amy?" She asked, "I saw her storm off."

"Oh. Yes." He said like he'd forgotten, "I don't think she's going to be moving in soon. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't think she'd want to see you, and I was right."

"That doesn't explain why you've been writing to Robert." She sighed and pushed her face deeper into his shoulder, wishing he could just open up and hold her inside himself, like he was pregnant as Sam.

"But I was so careful -"

"You were. He wrote to me. I almost didn't read it, but he told me everything."

"Freaking narc." She grumbled, "He used to tell Mum about me all the time too."

"Elle, I know who it is."

"Then you know it's too late." Dad finally released her from his arms so he can look at her.

"Let's go out!" Kelly announced, "All four…Five of us. We can go to that vegan ice cream shop and you can eat your feelings." Elle looked at her and then gave a watery laugh.

"That might be a good idea."

X

This was not the way to the ice cream place. She vocalized that, and Kelly put a hand on her knee.

"No." She confirmed, "It isn't."

"Where are we going?"

"The airport." Dad said, "Where else?"

"Why are we going there?" She asked, not putting the pieces together, "You're not kicking me out are you?"

"So you can tell Carmella how you feel." Sam assured her, "You're not being kicked out."

"I already told you, I can't tell her. It wouldn't be right." As they pulled up to a red light, Dad looked at her in the rearview mirror.

"Darling, twenty-one years ago I let your mother get on a plane and leave. It was the worst thing I ever did, and I will not let you make that same mistake."

"I gave up on Dan, and now he's marrying someone else." Sam said, simply, "And you don't deserve to watch that happen to Carmella."

"I think you deserve to be happy." Kelly said, linking their fingers, "And I think Carmella would do that for you."

"But -"

"No buts. The worst that will happen is that she tells you she doesn't feel the same." Kelly continued,

"And if that happens, then I'll still take you to your appointment on Monday."

"Carmella -"

"Carmella would be lucky to have you." Sam insisted, "And doesn't she deserve to know? If on Monday you take that pill and feel nothing for her, wouldn't that upset her? Don't you owe her an explanation at least?"

"She's probably already in the departure lounge."

"But what if she isn't?" Dad asks.

"What if she hates me?"

"What if she doesn't? Sam questions

"What if Oliver decides to sue for custody or something?"

"Now you're looking for excuses." Kelly says, "Do you love her?"

"You know I do."

"Then you need to tell her," Dad repeats. "Think about your future. Think about sharing it with Carmella, if there's a chance you can have that, then shouldn't you take it?" And she thought about it. She really did. She thought about waking up next to Carmella, she thought about kissing her, and the texture of her hair. She thought about standing by her side while Chloe went in for her first day of school, and about watching movies and playing games. She thought, mostly, about being understood.

Then she thought about love. Love matters. Even if Carm didn't want her like that, and she probably didn't, she should know because it's important. She should know because Elle wants her to know, wants to share this with her, and wants to tell her how loveable she is.

"You promised her that you'd tell her," Sam said, softly.

"Oh my God." She said, "I need to tell her."

X

When Dad pulled up to the international terminal, Elle barely waited for him to pull to before jumping from the car. She ran through the sliding doors into the terminal, startling a security guard. Looking at the board, she tried to remember what flight Carmella was on. Can't remember, but there's only one flight departing to Portugal, on the other side of the terminal. Damn it! She was running out of time if she wanted to catch her before she got to the departure lounge.

So she started running. Running for her life in a very real sense, for the life she might have had with Carmella, Dad and Chloe. For the life that she wanted, for the life, she was losing, for the life that was being sapped from her for a plant in her lungs she never asked for. She couldn't breathe, but kept running, feeling like she was breaking apart.

"Elle?"

She stopped dead. Carm and Chloe, standing in the middle of the terminal.

"You should be in the departure lounge." Is all she can think to say between gasps.

"Yeah, and you should be at home." She graciously waited for Elle to catch her breath - "What are you doing here?"

"I came to - To find you. Because, I told you that I would tell her that I was in love with her, and Carm…"

"Oh my God."

"That person is you. God, it's been you since we first met, and I saw you in Bounce and I thought you were a disaster, but that we were the same. When I don't love you anymore, I just want you to know that I did love you. That you changed me, for the better! Before you, I thought that love was trying to force people to feel about me how I felt about them, I thought I had to be on my knees and beg for whatever scraps of love they could spare for me. But I get it now, I understand that's not love."

"Elle -"

"Love is when the good parts of someone else rub off on you like you did for me. Love is when you want someone else to be happy, even if that means you aren't. I'm not trying to stop you from going to be with Oliver, because I want you to be with him. I want you to be happy."

Carmella came closer, and then stopped, and then placed her hands on Elle's shoulders.

"Elle. I was waiting here because I was still holding on to hope that…That you might run through an airport, and tell me I'm not crazy."

"You're not crazy."

"I love you, Ms Robinson, I love the effort you've put into being better, I love the way you supported me and I love your lack of social graces. I love that you're so good with Chloe and that…I love that you ran through an airport terminal to find me."

"Am I going to wake up from this?"

"No, this is real."

"You're meant to be getting on a plane to Portugal."

"Yeah."

"Don't. Come back with me to Erinsbough. Please."

"Oh, don't worry. You're never getting rid of me now." Carm said, and then placed her hand on the side of Elle's face, and brought her in close, and the second their lips brushed up against each other and she took her first deep breath since 2005.