Fic -- Hero of This Story (Don't Need to Be Saved) [6/9]
Katelyn felt the world burn down around her. She always thought that when this world ended, she would be high above watching it explode like one beautiful, blue firework. Instead, the world felt the need to destruct with her feet still planted on it. Katelyn was also surprised that the world was going slowly, burning from the sky and making clouds rain down in ashes that melted the trees.
It was like the world was giving her time to leave it.
Instead of waiting for the broken world to swallow her whole while she stared up at the sky, Katelyn broke into a spring, searching for someone. She knew exactly who she was looking for, only she couldn’t remember the name. But it pulsed behind her eyelids, becoming something that was so much a part of her that it was a pulse, a simple rhythm, syllables no more.
The world starts to shake, and someone is screaming her name through the disaster.
Katelyn jolted up and shouted that wordless rhythm that haunted her in her sleep. As she separated herself from the dreaming world, she looked around herself, counting the familiar objects in her new bedroom, from the ancient, third-hand four-poster to the solitary photograph of her family that she had been able to smuggle from home, to the new paint on the walls and the California sunshine that she hadn’t quite gotten used to that was streaming through the windows.
In all the small comforts, she found Erin’s pale arms wrapped around her, pulling her into the warmth and softness of her body. Erin raised a hand to stroke Katelyn’s hair and ease her head down to her chest.
Katelyn worked at trying to slow her breathing as she listened to the sound of Erin’s heartbeat. It was new, having Erin here like this, but Katelyn was in no mental state to question the wisdom of their sleeping arrangements at that particular moment.
“Hey,” Erin said, rocking and stroking her back, “what’s the matter?”
“Nightmare,” she sighed. “Just a stupid, bad dream.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No.” Katelyn almost added a hateful remark about not wanting Erin to look in her mind to see what she wouldn’t say. She caught herself before the old habit slipped out since it always offended Erin. She was sure that some stupid joke wouldn’t be worth alienating the only thing in the world that she had. Katelyn wasn’t even sure she would have minded had Erin read her thoughts, the more she reflected on it.
“Were they about… Lucy?” Erin said, her voice sounding like sadness mixed with something else that felt like testing the waters or leaning too far in for a kiss.
“I-” she paused, drawing a blank on something she was so used to being sure about; Katelyn just didn’t know. She remembered searching for someone and that pulse behind her eyes that was calling for someone, but for the first time, she couldn’t say that it was about Lucy. It may have been, but some days Katelyn felt like her grief-the total certainty of her sadness-was slipping away. “It was about the end of the world,” she said solidly.
Something changed in the back of Erin’s eyes, like the change that the clock striking midnight changed for Cinderella’s hope in her fate turns, as it turned from apprehension to terror.
“Kate, you don’t think that… this isn’t like the dream you had about her before she died, is it? I mean, you don’t think that it means anything, do you?”
Katelyn pasted on her best reassuring smile, because she didn’t want to think about what the dream could mean, combined with the fact that their mission went from aimless to treacherous in a matter of hours. Katelyn wanted to wipe that look off of Erin’s face, to wrap her in her arms and assure her that it would all be okay, the way Erin did for her, but she just didn’t know.
“No, Erin, it was just a dumb dream,” she said, raising a hand to wrap around Erin’s jaw and pull her face to hers. She looked her in the eye and said, as confidently as she could, “Now, you, stop worrying.”
Katelyn kissed her softly on the lips, pulling back to stare at the anxiety in Erin’s eyes that she knew mirrored her own.
Before Katelyn could contemplate the suffocating and exhilarating feeling in her chest that had nothing to do with Armageddon, the doorbell rang sharply, dissipating the feeling of dreamy haven in their double bed.
Katelyn scrambled out from under the covers and pulled on a pair of jogging shorts over her bare legs. She moved to leave and answer the door with a disappointed huff.
“Hey, Kate?” Erin called as soon as Katelyn had disappeared from the doorjamb.
“Yeah?” Katelyn asked with a smile that she couldn’t keep off of her face as she walked back. Something in her stomach coiled when she saw Erin’s face, concentrating on some dilemma that Katelyn couldn’t quite figure out.
The door rang again, and Erin’s brow knitted together at the sound. “Never mind,” she smiled, “I’ll tell you later. It’s not that important.”
“You sure?” Katelyn said, searching for any reason that would make it okay to crawl back into bed; whoever felt the need to bother them be damned.
“Yeah,” Erin said, still smiling. Katelyn loved how much she had smiled since they moved. It was like the California sunshine had seeped into her and radiated out in increments. “It can wait, whoever is at the door probably can’t.”
Katelyn ran to the door, telling herself that she wanted to relieve whoever it was from their waiting quickly. In all reality, she knew that she was just trying to rush back into Erin’s arms to have her nightmares soothed away with lavender scented kisses. When she was with Sanders, Katelyn felt like the world maybe the world wouldn’t come crashing down around her.
No, she thought as the sun filtered through the windows, there were no apocalypses to be had in their tiny apartment.
Katelyn checked to make she that her tank top was covering her stomach and opened the door.
Before she could even properly identify who it was, some physical instinct in her made her breath hitch. She looked down into big, brown eyes that always looked soft and full and vulnerable, and she concentrated on regulating the movement of her lungs.
Expand and contract. Expand and contract. Expand and contract, and the world wouldn’t fall to pieces.
“Hey, Katie,” Lucy said softly.
Katelyn thought it was almost hysterical that the end of the world didn’t come with explosions and meteors. As hard as it was for Katelyn to believe, her world was taken away from her by a beautiful girl that she had spent so many moments waiting to see again. The world was clouding over. Before it could be destroyed, however, and Katelyn could only agree to be taken away from it peacefully and without questioning.
--
The fog was lifting off of Katelyn as Erin walked through the hallway with a confused expression on her face. Katelyn barely registered that there were hands on her head-stroking her hair and feeling at her forehead-because she was too concerned with the drip of dread pooling in her stomach and the pounding in her veins.
“Kate,” Erin said, worry saturating her voice even though it was clear that she was trying to stay strong and keep from panicking. Katelyn knew that she would be concerned that she hadn’t rushed back to bed and now she was flat on her back and some stranger was putting her hands all over her. Erin was handling this much better than she would have. Katelyn would have throttled someone by this point.
Katelyn wanted to explain the situation or calm Erin, but she knew there was nothing she could do. She was trapped in her head. Even if she had been able to pop off of the floor, she wouldn’t have had the slightest idea of what to say.
Lucy looked up at Erin from under a screen of hair that fell in her face. “Don’t worry,” she said with winning smile. “I can handle this.”
“Get your hands off of her!” Erin shouted, the tips of her hair flashing red like had done every time she had lost her temper.
“It’s okay, Erin. Just let her,” Katelyn mumbled from the floor. She wished she could have said more, but it took all of her energy just to get those words out. She closed her eyes and let Lucy place her hands on different parts of her body, waiting for that old, warming sensation of healing to surge through her body.
Lucy pushed herself from her knees to her feet and smiled easily down at Katelyn, like she found her old teddy bear when she was moving houses or something. She offered a hand, “Up you go, KatieKat.” She pulled Katelyn up onto her feet and stepped close to wrap her arms around her.
Katelyn couldn’t and categorically would not believe the things that were happening-- the things that her senses told her must be true. She couldn’t bring herself to hold Lucy; she couldn’t get over the anger that she felt at herself for hallucinating this. She couldn’t bring herself to hold a corpse or a delusion in her arms, even though it had been the only thing she had wanted to do for so many horrible moments.
Lucy grabbed Katelyn’s hanging arms and gently pushed her out to arm’s length to study the lines of her face. She pushed a few locks of Katelyn’s hair out of her face and behind her ear. “You don’t look happy to see me, Katie. What’s wrong?”
Tears welled up in Katelyn's eyes and her voice broke when she spoke. “Erin?” she begged. She reached out her hand groping for the only anchor she had to the world.
Erin grabbed her fingers without hesitation and squeezed softly.
“Is this real?” she turned her face to Erin and asked, her voice shaking like the last leaf hanging on to the branch.
It was impossible to ignore how sad and serious Erin looked, even though Katelyn was trying as hard as she could to do just that. Erin’s feelings had become something inescapable for her.
Erin managed to keep her voice steady. “Yes, Katelyn. This is very real.”
“How?”
Katelyn waited for an explanation, because Erin always had an explanation for everything. She understood the games that the world and The Council played. She understood the politics of life. She explained them slowly and carefully, in ways that Katelyn understood. It made the world safer, because Erin always pointed out where the proverbial landmines would be stored.
It was like a bomb went off when Erin shook her head.
“I have no idea.”
Katelyn tried to keep herself steady and stop a sob from escaping from her mouth. She wouldn’t be hit by one of the arrows that The Council seemed to be hell bent on shooting at her. This would be one avalanche that she would stay far away from.
“Aren’t you glad that I’m back?” Lucy asked, cutting through the conversation that was going on without her and cutting through the very last thread that was holding Katelyn together.
“No,” she whispered, while one tear fell onto her skin. “No. You… You ruined everything.”
Her body slammed into the pillows on her bed behind the bolted, oak door before anyone could stop her.
--
Katelyn had run out of things to scream into her pillow when she turned onto her back to watch the sun dapple itself through her curtains and throw monochromatic paintings onto the ceiling. She remembered her first mission to Earth, before she loved Lucy, when they were nothing but professionally friendly partners living in their tiny beach house not far from the very bungalow she was living in now. One morning, deep in summer, Katelyn had jumped into the Atlantic, and had spent the morning bobbing on the salty waves. One had been stronger than her, towards the end of the day, pulling her down with the undertow. After she had lost her will to fight with the water, when she was too exhausted to keep struggling, she merely hoped the ocean would find her unworthy and vomit her back out. As she floated to the top, carried by the salt and the water and the density of her skin, she watched the setting sun play on the movement of the surface.
The ceiling looked just like that, but instead of floating up, she was sinking this time, in the undertow that followed the wave of Lucy.
Then Erin’s voice came through the door, breaking off her thoughts, calling her name so softly that it sounded like a nun speaking her most vulnerable prayer.
Katelyn almost laughed at the idea of Erin as a nun; Katelyn was acutely aware that Erin had done many things that nuns weren’t allowed to do, in the very bed where she laid.
Lucy’s voice followed through the door, snapping Katelyn back into reality, pulling her back towards the ocean floor.
“Katelyn,” Erin repeated, almost begging this time, “you have to open this door. Come on. Just come out here and we’ll talk about this. I made you tea,” she said sweetly.
Katelyn shoved herself off of the bed. There was such a sense of the inevitable about Erin that Katelyn thought she might as well get it over, or Erin would probably take the hinges off of the door. She opened the door slowly and glared at Erin while she stepped out of her room.
“I hate tea,” she said with narrowed eyes.
Erin smiled wickedly. “I know. I thought annoying you might be the only thing that would make you come out of there.” Erin’s voice sort of broke Katelyn’s heart in a way that she wasn’t expecting; there was so much forced strength and normalcy in it. Katelyn couldn’t stand the idea of Erin trying to be strong for her.
Lucy leaned on the wall behind her, looking misplaced and lonely, and that broke Katelyn’s heart some more. Katelyn couldn’t shake the idea of this all being her fault. If she hadn’t wished for this, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. If she hadn’t… Katelyn’s head could barely hold all of her regrets, and it seemed like all of them had lead up to this exact moment. Katelyn couldn’t handle being outside of her bed; She didn’t want to fight against the ocean.
Before she could step back into the room, Erin caught her wrist and put her body in front of the door.
“Oh no, you aren’t going back in there. There are things you have to hear, and I think you need to hear them now.”
Katelyn’s eyes welled up, and she couldn’t even find it in herself to feel stupid and self-conscious about tears that she couldn’t control. “Erin,” she said with a horrible crack running up and down her voice, “please don’t make me. Just…. Please.”
Erin sighed just a little before she left the doorway and lead Lucy to the living room. Katelyn shut the door and pressed here ear to the cold wood. No matter how much she wanted to ignore her life, or to turn away from Lucy and never have to see her again, she couldn’t help wanting to listen to her as Erin asked her to leave. She wanted to know that Lucy wanted to stay. She wanted to know that Lucy had missed her enough that she wouldn’t happily agree to go away without her. Just the slightest sigh would have been enough. She didn’t need much, because they had ruined everything that they had, even before Lucy had disappeared, but Katelyn just wanted to know that all of her love hadn’t been wasted. She pressed her ear harder against the door, desperate for any sign of what was going on outside, but not brave enough to go see. She couldn’t hear anything until their front door shut.
Katelyn stepped back slowly in horror, like her doorframe had been holding a giant spider web instead of a piece of a long deceased tree. She sank down onto the bed, pressing her fingers against her mouth, trying to hold in the sobs that where threatening to come out. Her shoulders were shaking with such ferocity that the entire bed jiggled underneath her, like her own personal earthquake.
She heard fingernails gently rapping on the door outside.
“Can I come in?” Erin said from the other side of the door.
“Yeah,” Katelyn said through a gasp.
“Hey,” Erin said with a sad smile, leaning back against the door after she shut it. “How are you holding up?”
Katelyn almost laughed through her tears. It was almost funny, the idea of her holding up around this. It would be like the last two people alive after the nuclear holocaust asking each other if they wanted to go see a movie. It was so absurd that it couldn’t not be funny. She didn’t laugh at Erin, because she had the right intentions. Besides, if she started laughing, it would break her heart, and she would never stop. She would be the warrior girl killed by laughter.
Erin knitted her brow at Katelyn’s silence. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. Katelyn felt like it was the only thing that she had asked her the entire day. She wasn’t sure if she loved that or hated that about Erin; the sky would be burning down around them and all she would want to know is if Katelyn was sad or angry or worried about the situation.
“No. Not really. Not right now,” Katelyn said. She noticed causally that she was still sobbing, that she could barely even breathe.
“Well,” Erin said a little awkwardly, like she was being careful not to trip over the words. “I-uh, I have to say some things. I mean,” she rushed, “Lucy asked me to… inform you of a certain situation.”
“You mean she wants you to tell me why she didn’t stay dead.”
“Yeah. Something like that. So…” she paused, waiting for Katelyn to respond.
“Could we not right now? Could you just…” she broke off, looking up at the ceiling in a desperate attempt to slow her tears and catch her breath.
Erin didn’t say a word. She climbed into bed and wrapped her arms around Katelyn, pressing her lips to her forehead and stroking her fingers on the back of her neck. She kissed off a few tears and wiped away a smudge of old mascara from under her eyes.
She made hushing sounds and found a gentle rhythm to hum while they rocked. “It will be okay,” she whispered, pulling Katelyn down with her to lie back on the pillows. She pulled her closer and held her as tight as she could. “I promise, somehow this will be okay.”
Katelyn knew that Erin was saying that she would find a way to make this okay. She would do whatever she could. She would make this better. Erin made Katelyn a thousand promises that all meant the same thing while Katelyn’s eyes fell shut with exhaustion and flicked open with anxiety. She fell into a light sleep while Erin sang some ancient song from their home and tried to hold the world together in her thin arms.