Elektra's Treasure (2/?)
Dinner had passed quickly. Even though Abby hadn’t been outright friendly she hadn’t been outright hostile either, which had made a nice change. Few words had been spoken between them but they had at least been polite. It was progress, Elektra figured, in comparison to before. Abby had excused herself just as soon as she had finished eating. Since it was she who had cooked the meal, Elektra had offered to be the one to clean up. After a moment of contemplation Abby had agreed and, bidding her good night, quickly retreated to her room.
It was ten o’clock now. Elektra was sitting on her bed, wearing a pair of burgundy shorts and a black tank top; trying to read the same page in her book for the fifth time. Focusing enough to move onto the next page was proving to be difficult.
She closed her book and sat up when she saw Abby appear in her doorway, looking small and somber.
“I tried, you know?” Abby whispered.
“Hmm?”
“I tried to bring him back. Like you brought me back, remember?”
She remembered it as though it had happened the day before. She remembered laying Abby’s lifeless body down on her mother’s bed. Remembered the shock, the sense of loss she had felt, her mind and soul finding it impossible to exist in a world without Abby in it. She remembered putting her hands on her and wishing, with whatever pureness there was in her heart, wishing like she hadn’t wished for anything in her life. Remembered, choking on her tears, energy pouring out of her body as she had literally called Abby back to life; “Come here little girl, come here, come here Abby. I just found you.” And then, most of all, she remembered, having Abby back in her arms in a single, magical, sharp breath; alive.
“Yes,” She said softy, nodding once. "I remember."
“For hours, actually. As his body lost its warmth and its color. As he started to rot right in front of me.”
“Oh Abby.”
“I can walk on water. Did you know that?”
Elektra looked up, startled at the sudden change of direction. She slowly shook her head. Abby nodded, “Fire too. But what good is all that, if I can’t bring back the one person who loved me more than life itself.”
“Come here,” Elektra beckoned her to sit next to her.
“What did I do wrong?” Abby asked, walking over, sounding haunted. “I keep going over and over it in my head." She sat down, having somehow dropped her front even more in the time between dinner and now. Maybe it was the three glasses of wine she had drunk. Who knew?
"You must tell me, what I did wrong.”
“Abby, it doesn’t work that way. There are rules to this magic. Kimaguri, depends on so many things.”
“Like what?”
“Like, like whether the soul wants to come back into its body. How it passed on, what caused it to pass on in the first place. How long it took. Some say, the quicker the better. And even then, there is no guarantee. There are just too many things that would have been out of your control… ”
“It took dad two years.”
She knew the answer before she asked the question, “What?”
“To die.” She said, her voice finally breaking, and tears rolling down her eyes.
“Oh Abby,” she pulled her into her arms and kissed the top of her head, “Sweetheart, Kimaguri doesn’t work in sickness. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.” She held her tighter to her chest. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Do you hear me? It wasn’t your fault.”
She started crying earnestly then. Clinging to Elektra, weeping as she poured out her grief, “I want him back. Elektra, I want him back!”
“Sshh, I know, I know.”
She rocked her back and forth long into the night. Until Abby’s weeping had quieted and the gush of tears had dissipated into one lonely tear that silently traveled down her cheek. She held her, whispering sweet nothings into her ear, trying to soothe and calm, until Abby had sunk low enough on the bed that her head was nestled in Elektra’s lap. With Elektra’s comforting touch in her hair, Abby finally fell asleep.
At some point during the night Elektra disentangled herself from Abby to let her sleep more comfortably, but Abby’s protesting whimper had her climbing back into the bed to lie next to her, had her throwing an arm protectively around Abby’s waist and whispering softly into her ear, “I’m here.”
When Elektra woke hours later, she found that in their sleep they had gravitated towards each other. Elektra had fallen onto her back and Abby was almost fully sprawled on top of her. Abby’s head was tucked under her chin, her cheek resting more on Elektra’s breast than her chest. Her hand had found its way under Elektra’s tank top and was warming up the skin just above her navel. Elektra’s own arms were wrapped possessively around the body on top of hers and a hand was resting a little too low on Abby’s back. She pulled it higher just as soon as she noticed it. There wasn’t a part of them that wasn’t touching really, and touching very intimately at that Elektra realized, taking in the thigh that was resting between her legs and where her thigh was resting in return.
She shifted, her body painfully aware of their proximity, trying to remember how exactly they had ended up in this position. And all too quickly it all came rushing back; tears and pain, Abby, breaking apart in her arms. In reflex, she tightened her hold on the girl. She had never seen Abby cry like that. Hell, the only other time she had seen Abby cry at all, had been right after Stick had saved them from certain doom, back when the Hand was after her.
She remembered the woods, the first time she had seen Abby in action; warrior beads coming alive in her hands, glowing in their golden shimmer before striking at her enemy. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she had asked in awe, but before anything else could be spoken, before she had the time to register what was happening, let alone react, Typhoid had claimed her lips in a kiss of death. And as she had fallen onto the ground as the black leaves had fallen all around her, her soul, her life being sucked out of her, she had heard Abby’s strangled cry. “Elektra!” And then she hadn’t heard anything at all, as the cold, all encompassing emptiness filled her limbs, slowly freezing her into darkness.
In the barracks of Stick’s camp, after she had come to, after she had learned the truth about Abby and about Stick’s live - and learn kind of lesson that had almost cost Elektra her sanity, she remembered seeing Abby cry. In a fit of adolescence Abby had tried to prove to Elektra that, at just thirteen, she was already better than her. She wasn’t. Elektra had easily blocked her attacks, and directed her as a master would his student. In the heat of the physical exertion, Abby’s false bravado had given way to tears.
“You’ll be better than I am very soon,” Elektra had promised, misunderstanding.
Abby had shaken her head, her voice breaking, “I’m just a kid. I don’t wanna stay here.”
All of that was a long time ago. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a fully grown woman. A fully grown woman, lying in her arms, by all standards, in a compromising state. Who at one point in her life had had a crush on Elektra.
She had been surprised when she had seen the truth of that in Abby's face, but she had seen it. Not when they had first met of course. No - she was just a kid then, barely a teenager. Elektra wouldn’t have seen it then, even if she had looked for it. And she hadn’t looked for it. All she had seen had been a sweet little girl she was trying to keep alive, a little girl who reminded Elektra an awful lot of herself when she had been young and innocent, before her life had gone to hell and she had lost all that she held dear. But later, when Abby was sixteen, when Elektra had unexpectedly shown up for her graduation, that’s when she had seen it...
Abby had lit up when she had noticed her, and rushed into her arms in her cap and gown. “You came! I can’t believe you came!”
“Of course I came.”
Abby who had grown up so much in the three years she had seen her since, Abby whom Elektra had barely recognized. Towering over Elektra by a few inches, long blond hair flowing down her back, waving the diploma in her hand; the enthusiasm of youth shining through the body of a young woman.
“I’m so proud of you,” Elektra had said, running her hand through Abby’s hair.
“Are you?”
“Very.”
“I’m glad.”
In their home afterwards Mark had kissed her on the cheek and introduced her to his new wife. The quiet sting she had thought she’d feel at that had been oddly absent. All she had felt was happiness for him and happiness for Abby.
“How has she been?” she had asked him, watching Abby play with her dog in the garden.
“Safe.” he had said, and they had shared a knowing smile.
“She misses you.”
The sadness in that sentence had her looking up.
“I think it’s difficult for her, not having any one she can share her true self with. Her talents… I think they are both a blessing and a curse.”
“Hmm.” She had agreed; that they were. “She looks happy enough.”
“That’s because you’re here.”
Later as she had lied awake, trying to sleep in the bed next to Abby’s, because they hadn’t let her stay in a hotel, she had felt Abby’s eyes on her.
“What?” She had asked.
And Abby had gasped and turned away, as though she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. “Nothing,” she had stammered.
Elektra would have bet then, that had the lights been on in the room, she would have seen a blush blossom across Abby’s cheeks.
“Might as well talk to me, if you aren’t sleeping…I can’t sleep either.” Elektra had mumbled.
“How long are you going to stay?”
“Till Monday.”
“Two days,” she had cried, “That’s it?”
“I wish I could stay more, but I’m needed in India.”
“India?”
“Hmm, Stick wants me to check something out.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. How about you, what’s next, now that you are a high school graduate?”
She had chuckled, “I don’t know, I think I’m going to take a year off. Travel maybe.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Do you know where you wanna go?”
“Anywhere…Europe probably, or South America.”
“Are you going with friends?”
“I don’t ha-” she had started saying and stopped herself. “No. I’m just gonna go alone, you know, I don’t want to be tied down to anyone.”
“Right.”
They had lied there in silence for a long moment after that, though even at the time Elektra had suspected that that wasn’t going to be the end of their conversation. After a while Elektra had heard Abby take a deep breath and watched her as she had lifted herself up onto her elbow and reached over to gently take Elektra’s hand in hers.
“Elektra?”
“Hmm?”
“You know, I’ve always wanted to see India.”
“Oh?” she had asked, feeling a sense of dread fill her.
“Yeah. Maybe…maybe I could tag along?”
Elektra had squeezed the fingers in her hand and pulled away. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea Abby.”
“Why not?” she had asked, sounding hurt.
“Where I’m going, it’s no place for a child.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t dangerous.”
“It isn’t. It’s…I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Abby had looked into her eyes then, long and hard. Longing, hurt, confusion written all over her face and Elektra had seen it. Openly and clearly; Abby wanted more of their friendship than Elektra could give her.
Perhaps Abby saw it too, because in the next second she was lying back down and turning away from Elektra to face the wall.
“Abby?” Elektra had asked softly, wanting to make it better, just not knowing how.
“Whatever.”
Then, Elektra hadn’t known what to say. She had lied there, praying for sleep to claim her. And just before it finally had, Elektra had heard Abby’s broken words.
“And I’m not a child.”
Yes, Abby had had a crush on her when she was sixteen but that was probably over now. Hell, if the way she had received her that day was any indication, Abby was long over her crush and on the verge of debating whether she even liked Elektra or not. Abby who was in pain, hurting. Who was in her arms. The proximity of whom was doing funny things to Elektra.
When had that happened? Was she so hungry for another human’s touch that anyone would do? Elektra narrowed her eyes in distaste and rolled Abby onto her side, removing herself from under her in the process and replacing her spot in the bed with a pillow.
The last thing she wanted to do was share her embarrassment with Abby, who would in all likelihood wake up at any moment.
“Elektra?” An all too sleepy voice called from the bed.
Elektra grinned in amusement.
“I’m here.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m just gonna go to the bathroom. You okay?”
“Hmm.” Abby nodded, sitting up. “What time is it?”
“8:30.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” Abby sighed disbelievingly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, it’s just…I haven’t … I haven’t slept through the whole night, in a really long time.”
“How long?”
Abby shrugged, “Years.”
Elektra sighed heavily, shaking her head. “I wish we didn’t have so many things in common Abby.”
“What, you can’t sleep either?”
“Not usually.” But she had last night.
She thought she saw Abby smile at that, but it was gone too quickly to be sure.
“What do you do? Do you take pills for it?” she asked, watching Abby stand up.
“Sometimes, if it gets too bad. You?”
“Sometimes, if it gets too bad.”
Abby did smile at that, be it sadly.
Elektra walked towards the door, troubled by this new revelation. “You should see someone, get help for it?”
“I have, it doesn’t work.” Abby said quickly, “Let’s just forget it.”
She must have seen the doubtful expression Elektra was wearing because she put on too big a smile and tried to reassure her, “Obviously it can’t be such a big problem if I slept like a baby last night, can it?”
Elektra opened her mouth to say something but before she could Abby interrupted her.
“And anyway, two quick sessions of Kimaguri a day, and I’m good to go. Good as new, energized, rested. Ready to face all that life throws at ya.”
There was sarcasm on every part of that sentence, Elektra was sure of it. “But-”
“Elektra.” Abby interjected, sounding more serious now, “I’m gonna make a wild guess and say that, that’s probably how you get by as well. Am I wrong?”
She had a point there. Though just because Elektra got by like that didn’t mean that she was going to like someone else doing it. Especially someone she cared about as much as she cared about Abby. She didn’t want Abby to just get by, she wanted her to excel, to be happy.
“Am I?” Abby repeated.
Elektra reluctantly shook her head.
“Right,” Abby said, “So can we just drop it?”
She sounded tired. Her tone made Elektra think about Mark. Fine, she would drop it, for now. “Sure.”
“Thanks, and thanks for last night. I didn’t mean to spend the night in your bed but hey,” she smiled and winked, “I guess there are worse things.”
Elektra chuckled at that, surprised by her playfulness, after the distance of the day before. “Thaanks,” she said, rolling her eyes.
"I’d say, I hope I didn’t hog the covers too much, but I must have cause I was toasty warm all night."
Elektra smiled shyly, feeling her cheeks burn. If she only knew…
“If it wasn’t for your snoring, it would have been perfect.”
“Hey,” Elektra smacked her in the arm, “I don’t snore.”
“Ouch,” Abby chuckled, rubbing her arm. "How would you know?"
"I’ve never had any complaints." she shot back in reflex, smiling widely.
She guessed that spending a night crying in someone’s arms, made it easier to forgive them for whatever discrepancy in the morning. And if that was the case, despite having felt helpless all through the night, Elektra was thankful. Because so far, Abby was acting like nothing was wrong between them. Like talking was easy again and Elektra had missed that so very much.
"Ooh, and have you slept with a lot of people recently?"
She hadn’t. In fact she hadn’t slept - as in sleep in a bed - with anyone at all, not since her resurrection. That couldn’t be healthy; a part of her knew that. But she wasn’t a good person to get involved with either. A bigger part knew that.
“Hey, I’m kidding." Abby said softly, concern coloring her words, "You don't actually snore."
"Hah, I knew it." Elektra smiled reassuringly, walked over to the couch and picked up her towel, "I’m gonna shower."
"Okay,” Abby nodded, moving towards the door. “I’ll get started on breakfast. You eat eggs, right?"
"Sure."
Before she walked out, Abby paused by the door.
“Elektra?”
“Yes?”
In a small and soft voice she said, “Thank you for last night.”
With all the sincerity in the world Elektra replied, “Any time.”
* * * * * * * *
It was ten o’clock now. Elektra was sitting on her bed, wearing a pair of burgundy shorts and a black tank top; trying to read the same page in her book for the fifth time. Focusing enough to move onto the next page was proving to be difficult.
She closed her book and sat up when she saw Abby appear in her doorway, looking small and somber.
“I tried, you know?” Abby whispered.
“Hmm?”
“I tried to bring him back. Like you brought me back, remember?”
She remembered it as though it had happened the day before. She remembered laying Abby’s lifeless body down on her mother’s bed. Remembered the shock, the sense of loss she had felt, her mind and soul finding it impossible to exist in a world without Abby in it. She remembered putting her hands on her and wishing, with whatever pureness there was in her heart, wishing like she hadn’t wished for anything in her life. Remembered, choking on her tears, energy pouring out of her body as she had literally called Abby back to life; “Come here little girl, come here, come here Abby. I just found you.” And then, most of all, she remembered, having Abby back in her arms in a single, magical, sharp breath; alive.
“Yes,” She said softy, nodding once. "I remember."
“For hours, actually. As his body lost its warmth and its color. As he started to rot right in front of me.”
“Oh Abby.”
“I can walk on water. Did you know that?”
Elektra looked up, startled at the sudden change of direction. She slowly shook her head. Abby nodded, “Fire too. But what good is all that, if I can’t bring back the one person who loved me more than life itself.”
“Come here,” Elektra beckoned her to sit next to her.
“What did I do wrong?” Abby asked, walking over, sounding haunted. “I keep going over and over it in my head." She sat down, having somehow dropped her front even more in the time between dinner and now. Maybe it was the three glasses of wine she had drunk. Who knew?
"You must tell me, what I did wrong.”
“Abby, it doesn’t work that way. There are rules to this magic. Kimaguri, depends on so many things.”
“Like what?”
“Like, like whether the soul wants to come back into its body. How it passed on, what caused it to pass on in the first place. How long it took. Some say, the quicker the better. And even then, there is no guarantee. There are just too many things that would have been out of your control… ”
“It took dad two years.”
She knew the answer before she asked the question, “What?”
“To die.” She said, her voice finally breaking, and tears rolling down her eyes.
“Oh Abby,” she pulled her into her arms and kissed the top of her head, “Sweetheart, Kimaguri doesn’t work in sickness. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.” She held her tighter to her chest. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Do you hear me? It wasn’t your fault.”
She started crying earnestly then. Clinging to Elektra, weeping as she poured out her grief, “I want him back. Elektra, I want him back!”
“Sshh, I know, I know.”
She rocked her back and forth long into the night. Until Abby’s weeping had quieted and the gush of tears had dissipated into one lonely tear that silently traveled down her cheek. She held her, whispering sweet nothings into her ear, trying to soothe and calm, until Abby had sunk low enough on the bed that her head was nestled in Elektra’s lap. With Elektra’s comforting touch in her hair, Abby finally fell asleep.
At some point during the night Elektra disentangled herself from Abby to let her sleep more comfortably, but Abby’s protesting whimper had her climbing back into the bed to lie next to her, had her throwing an arm protectively around Abby’s waist and whispering softly into her ear, “I’m here.”
When Elektra woke hours later, she found that in their sleep they had gravitated towards each other. Elektra had fallen onto her back and Abby was almost fully sprawled on top of her. Abby’s head was tucked under her chin, her cheek resting more on Elektra’s breast than her chest. Her hand had found its way under Elektra’s tank top and was warming up the skin just above her navel. Elektra’s own arms were wrapped possessively around the body on top of hers and a hand was resting a little too low on Abby’s back. She pulled it higher just as soon as she noticed it. There wasn’t a part of them that wasn’t touching really, and touching very intimately at that Elektra realized, taking in the thigh that was resting between her legs and where her thigh was resting in return.
She shifted, her body painfully aware of their proximity, trying to remember how exactly they had ended up in this position. And all too quickly it all came rushing back; tears and pain, Abby, breaking apart in her arms. In reflex, she tightened her hold on the girl. She had never seen Abby cry like that. Hell, the only other time she had seen Abby cry at all, had been right after Stick had saved them from certain doom, back when the Hand was after her.
She remembered the woods, the first time she had seen Abby in action; warrior beads coming alive in her hands, glowing in their golden shimmer before striking at her enemy. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she had asked in awe, but before anything else could be spoken, before she had the time to register what was happening, let alone react, Typhoid had claimed her lips in a kiss of death. And as she had fallen onto the ground as the black leaves had fallen all around her, her soul, her life being sucked out of her, she had heard Abby’s strangled cry. “Elektra!” And then she hadn’t heard anything at all, as the cold, all encompassing emptiness filled her limbs, slowly freezing her into darkness.
In the barracks of Stick’s camp, after she had come to, after she had learned the truth about Abby and about Stick’s live - and learn kind of lesson that had almost cost Elektra her sanity, she remembered seeing Abby cry. In a fit of adolescence Abby had tried to prove to Elektra that, at just thirteen, she was already better than her. She wasn’t. Elektra had easily blocked her attacks, and directed her as a master would his student. In the heat of the physical exertion, Abby’s false bravado had given way to tears.
“You’ll be better than I am very soon,” Elektra had promised, misunderstanding.
Abby had shaken her head, her voice breaking, “I’m just a kid. I don’t wanna stay here.”
All of that was a long time ago. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a fully grown woman. A fully grown woman, lying in her arms, by all standards, in a compromising state. Who at one point in her life had had a crush on Elektra.
She had been surprised when she had seen the truth of that in Abby's face, but she had seen it. Not when they had first met of course. No - she was just a kid then, barely a teenager. Elektra wouldn’t have seen it then, even if she had looked for it. And she hadn’t looked for it. All she had seen had been a sweet little girl she was trying to keep alive, a little girl who reminded Elektra an awful lot of herself when she had been young and innocent, before her life had gone to hell and she had lost all that she held dear. But later, when Abby was sixteen, when Elektra had unexpectedly shown up for her graduation, that’s when she had seen it...
Abby had lit up when she had noticed her, and rushed into her arms in her cap and gown. “You came! I can’t believe you came!”
“Of course I came.”
Abby who had grown up so much in the three years she had seen her since, Abby whom Elektra had barely recognized. Towering over Elektra by a few inches, long blond hair flowing down her back, waving the diploma in her hand; the enthusiasm of youth shining through the body of a young woman.
“I’m so proud of you,” Elektra had said, running her hand through Abby’s hair.
“Are you?”
“Very.”
“I’m glad.”
In their home afterwards Mark had kissed her on the cheek and introduced her to his new wife. The quiet sting she had thought she’d feel at that had been oddly absent. All she had felt was happiness for him and happiness for Abby.
“How has she been?” she had asked him, watching Abby play with her dog in the garden.
“Safe.” he had said, and they had shared a knowing smile.
“She misses you.”
The sadness in that sentence had her looking up.
“I think it’s difficult for her, not having any one she can share her true self with. Her talents… I think they are both a blessing and a curse.”
“Hmm.” She had agreed; that they were. “She looks happy enough.”
“That’s because you’re here.”
Later as she had lied awake, trying to sleep in the bed next to Abby’s, because they hadn’t let her stay in a hotel, she had felt Abby’s eyes on her.
“What?” She had asked.
And Abby had gasped and turned away, as though she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. “Nothing,” she had stammered.
Elektra would have bet then, that had the lights been on in the room, she would have seen a blush blossom across Abby’s cheeks.
“Might as well talk to me, if you aren’t sleeping…I can’t sleep either.” Elektra had mumbled.
“How long are you going to stay?”
“Till Monday.”
“Two days,” she had cried, “That’s it?”
“I wish I could stay more, but I’m needed in India.”
“India?”
“Hmm, Stick wants me to check something out.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. How about you, what’s next, now that you are a high school graduate?”
She had chuckled, “I don’t know, I think I’m going to take a year off. Travel maybe.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Do you know where you wanna go?”
“Anywhere…Europe probably, or South America.”
“Are you going with friends?”
“I don’t ha-” she had started saying and stopped herself. “No. I’m just gonna go alone, you know, I don’t want to be tied down to anyone.”
“Right.”
They had lied there in silence for a long moment after that, though even at the time Elektra had suspected that that wasn’t going to be the end of their conversation. After a while Elektra had heard Abby take a deep breath and watched her as she had lifted herself up onto her elbow and reached over to gently take Elektra’s hand in hers.
“Elektra?”
“Hmm?”
“You know, I’ve always wanted to see India.”
“Oh?” she had asked, feeling a sense of dread fill her.
“Yeah. Maybe…maybe I could tag along?”
Elektra had squeezed the fingers in her hand and pulled away. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea Abby.”
“Why not?” she had asked, sounding hurt.
“Where I’m going, it’s no place for a child.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t dangerous.”
“It isn’t. It’s…I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Abby had looked into her eyes then, long and hard. Longing, hurt, confusion written all over her face and Elektra had seen it. Openly and clearly; Abby wanted more of their friendship than Elektra could give her.
Perhaps Abby saw it too, because in the next second she was lying back down and turning away from Elektra to face the wall.
“Abby?” Elektra had asked softly, wanting to make it better, just not knowing how.
“Whatever.”
Then, Elektra hadn’t known what to say. She had lied there, praying for sleep to claim her. And just before it finally had, Elektra had heard Abby’s broken words.
“And I’m not a child.”
Yes, Abby had had a crush on her when she was sixteen but that was probably over now. Hell, if the way she had received her that day was any indication, Abby was long over her crush and on the verge of debating whether she even liked Elektra or not. Abby who was in pain, hurting. Who was in her arms. The proximity of whom was doing funny things to Elektra.
When had that happened? Was she so hungry for another human’s touch that anyone would do? Elektra narrowed her eyes in distaste and rolled Abby onto her side, removing herself from under her in the process and replacing her spot in the bed with a pillow.
The last thing she wanted to do was share her embarrassment with Abby, who would in all likelihood wake up at any moment.
“Elektra?” An all too sleepy voice called from the bed.
Elektra grinned in amusement.
“I’m here.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m just gonna go to the bathroom. You okay?”
“Hmm.” Abby nodded, sitting up. “What time is it?”
“8:30.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” Abby sighed disbelievingly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, it’s just…I haven’t … I haven’t slept through the whole night, in a really long time.”
“How long?”
Abby shrugged, “Years.”
Elektra sighed heavily, shaking her head. “I wish we didn’t have so many things in common Abby.”
“What, you can’t sleep either?”
“Not usually.” But she had last night.
She thought she saw Abby smile at that, but it was gone too quickly to be sure.
“What do you do? Do you take pills for it?” she asked, watching Abby stand up.
“Sometimes, if it gets too bad. You?”
“Sometimes, if it gets too bad.”
Abby did smile at that, be it sadly.
Elektra walked towards the door, troubled by this new revelation. “You should see someone, get help for it?”
“I have, it doesn’t work.” Abby said quickly, “Let’s just forget it.”
She must have seen the doubtful expression Elektra was wearing because she put on too big a smile and tried to reassure her, “Obviously it can’t be such a big problem if I slept like a baby last night, can it?”
Elektra opened her mouth to say something but before she could Abby interrupted her.
“And anyway, two quick sessions of Kimaguri a day, and I’m good to go. Good as new, energized, rested. Ready to face all that life throws at ya.”
There was sarcasm on every part of that sentence, Elektra was sure of it. “But-”
“Elektra.” Abby interjected, sounding more serious now, “I’m gonna make a wild guess and say that, that’s probably how you get by as well. Am I wrong?”
She had a point there. Though just because Elektra got by like that didn’t mean that she was going to like someone else doing it. Especially someone she cared about as much as she cared about Abby. She didn’t want Abby to just get by, she wanted her to excel, to be happy.
“Am I?” Abby repeated.
Elektra reluctantly shook her head.
“Right,” Abby said, “So can we just drop it?”
She sounded tired. Her tone made Elektra think about Mark. Fine, she would drop it, for now. “Sure.”
“Thanks, and thanks for last night. I didn’t mean to spend the night in your bed but hey,” she smiled and winked, “I guess there are worse things.”
Elektra chuckled at that, surprised by her playfulness, after the distance of the day before. “Thaanks,” she said, rolling her eyes.
"I’d say, I hope I didn’t hog the covers too much, but I must have cause I was toasty warm all night."
Elektra smiled shyly, feeling her cheeks burn. If she only knew…
“If it wasn’t for your snoring, it would have been perfect.”
“Hey,” Elektra smacked her in the arm, “I don’t snore.”
“Ouch,” Abby chuckled, rubbing her arm. "How would you know?"
"I’ve never had any complaints." she shot back in reflex, smiling widely.
She guessed that spending a night crying in someone’s arms, made it easier to forgive them for whatever discrepancy in the morning. And if that was the case, despite having felt helpless all through the night, Elektra was thankful. Because so far, Abby was acting like nothing was wrong between them. Like talking was easy again and Elektra had missed that so very much.
"Ooh, and have you slept with a lot of people recently?"
She hadn’t. In fact she hadn’t slept - as in sleep in a bed - with anyone at all, not since her resurrection. That couldn’t be healthy; a part of her knew that. But she wasn’t a good person to get involved with either. A bigger part knew that.
“Hey, I’m kidding." Abby said softly, concern coloring her words, "You don't actually snore."
"Hah, I knew it." Elektra smiled reassuringly, walked over to the couch and picked up her towel, "I’m gonna shower."
"Okay,” Abby nodded, moving towards the door. “I’ll get started on breakfast. You eat eggs, right?"
"Sure."
Before she walked out, Abby paused by the door.
“Elektra?”
“Yes?”
In a small and soft voice she said, “Thank you for last night.”
With all the sincerity in the world Elektra replied, “Any time.”
* * * * * * * *