SHE CAN'T REMEMBER the last time she could rest her head on Mom's shoulder.

In actuality it had to be a little over eight years ago, curled together in their family home just before everything changed.  Back then it was easier to reach for Gale in order to find comfort or merrily settle down for either an hour of rest or long enough to count as a full night's rest, doting despite how their closeness never thrived through touch.

In their worst times Ellie-Marie went two months without a hug from her mother, instead pressing her lips into a tight smile whenever she or Gale would leave the run-ins that weren't always the coincidence that the two of them would pretend they were.  She could feel the discomfort whenever she would try to begin stitching them back together,  spot the damning evidence of being over these attempts on Mom's face.  Not even their reconciliation brought forth an outpour of the best affection Ellie knew to give.  Not even her warmth could melt Gale Weathers’ ice away.  Not even if she begged to the silence of her room,  not even if she cried in the arms of her friends.

Then again,  what's family if not a unity under fear?

Their migration to the living room came after Ellie-Marie realized Lou had been left entirely alone.  She'd pushed ahead of Mom despite how it made her huff, fear enveloping her chest until she could spot her cousin sitting on the couch with a book lazily held in one hand.  The other,  of course,  rested right beside a gun.  It may as well be a family symbol with how reliant they've each become on a quick solution to a problem they shouldn't be so used to.

Mom found her spot feet away from Lou.  Ellie,  after moments of hesitation,  found herself being pulled between them both.  The comfort that being sandwiched between two of her favorite people provides is a comfort she's actually familiar with,  but tonight feels different.  Desperation feels like longing braided into locks of terror as she sinks her head to rest on Gale's shoulder,  settling her eyes on the computer screen.  It's strange,  how this should be one of the places she feels safest yet her neck still prickles with pure dread.

“I still can't believe she used ‘police business only’ on me,”  Mom huffs, that oddly comforting demeanor of annoyance back despite how softly she allows Ellie to rest beside her.   “Excuse me,  Agent,  last time we met you were still singing showtunes.  Sorry if I don't trust you with the lives of people who know their shit.”

“I thought you'd appreciate some old fashioned pettiness,”  Lou quips, turning another page in her book despite how obviously she isn't reading it.   “Didn't you curate it?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.  Hence why Kirby shouldn't poke her nose into my territory.”

“Hm. While I agree no one can match your penchant for nosiness,  perhaps it's for the best that you let her handle the obvious work.  No one enjoys secrets more than these fuckers.”

Before Mom's hackles can raise Ellie-Marie is humming in agreement, mind already spinning the words in a reach to rephrase what she knows was intended to be a compliment.  Lou isn't the best with words at times.  That's why she's here to soften the blow.   “She's right.  You said it earlier,  remember?  You're best at investigative journalism.  You're probably sixteen steps ahead of her by now.”

The twitch of Gale's lips isn't one Ellie misses.  Appealing to her ego is a trick learned long ago,  and while she would typically feel bad for saying such a critical thing, there's no denying it's the truth.  Mom's always been the best at whatever she sets her mind to.  She's Gale-Fucking-Weathers,  after all.  The only other person ambitious enough to even come close to this level is Rory.  And just like she will back up Rory’s superiority in her work,  she'll support Mom the very same.

(On a smaller, more selfish note, Ellie hopes that this smile means an easier route to reunion is being built.)

(No one has to know that,  though.)

“True, but still.  I’d appreciate being treated with a little more respect than a throwaway reporter.”  With a roll of her eyes Mom shuts the laptop and slides it from her legs, annoyance presenting itself through her narrowed eyes.   “Five fucking times.  Five times I've done this, made it to act three or whatever it's called, and stayed on track.  It's ridiculous to exclude me now,  when my entire family is involved,  when I know-”

The phone rings.

Her head pops from the chosen place sharp enough to send a pinch through her nerves, blood draining from her body in a downpour.  Mom's gone just as rigid at her side, Lou has promptly set her book aside.  There's a silence hanging over them while that same damning tune rings out.

The phone is ringing.

None of them want to answer.

Ellie can remember the horror that filled her body last year,  when Dad's phone started ringing at the end of the hall,  when she forgot what she was supposed to do because the mere sound of it made her freeze.  She remembers the guilt,  remembers waking up in the hospital room and begging for her father and aunt because if they died,  there were two people guiding that knife.

Because of one stupid little ringtone.  Because she hesitated,  because she was afraid.

She can't be afraid anymore.

She's reaching for Mom's phone before either woman can react.  Her heart pounds in her ears when she snatches it from the coffee table,  sliding up the little green icon before she can talk herself out of it.

“He-”

Ellie can't get the entire word out before Gale has snatched the phone from her hand.

She should have expected that,  honestly,  though her initial reaction is still to scramble to yank it from her mother's hands.  “Mom!”

“Hello?”  Gale answers, using one hand to press against Ellie's shoulder.  At her side Lou is already cocking her gun,  the contact screen pulled up as she dials 911.  It feels like a well-oiled machine built of fear and preparation. 

She's not comforted in the slightest.

To make matters worse,  her gun is still in her room.

The thought is all that's needed to bring Ellie-Marie to her feet.  She's not afraid,  not as Mom speaks on the phone behind her.  She's got at least forty seconds before the worst may begin, her past of sprinting around the yard under aunt Sidney's protective eye feeling like it'll finally be of use.

Then Lou grabs her wrist.

The shock alone is enough to make her whirl on her feet.  Despite how it twists her arm in a way that warns of discomfort Lou's grip doesn't loosen,  her face deadpan as she eyes the hallway.  She's watching her back,  Ellie realizes.

She's also holding her back.  No questions have to be asked for her to realize what's happening,  for her to see Mom's outline as she stands from the couch.  They're sandwiching her.

She doesn't get the choice to go back for her weapon,  to grab what she can to defend what she has.  She doesn't have an option but to remain where she's protected,  one of the two places she's always been safest,  and Ellie has only felt so afraid one other time in her life.

“What's he saying?”  Lou hisses over her shoulder,  hand still curled around Ellie's wrist.

Mom doesn't get to respond before a shot fires through the air.

IT WAS HER job to finish Amber off.

Dad and Abi were reluctant to let her turn back.  Up to that point the most violence she'd inflicted was a punch that Wes, may he rest in peace, absolutely earned through his own poor decision making.  Up to that point she'd been nothing short of a pacifist, a peaceful girl who didn't want to hurt anyone or anything.  Up to that point she had been afraid.

When her sisters were both threatened with one on the brink of death,  when Dad was knocked to the ground,  when Abi rushed Ghostface with her entire body to keep Dewey safe- when she'd nearly lost everything in the span of an hour,  Ellie didn't care too much about her fear anymore.  Her father and auntie were keeping Tara and Sam safe. That's what mattered.  Keeping her fear at bay was all she had to do until that shot was fired,  but the goddamn phone rang and she was afraid again.

All it takes is a flicker of hesitation to send everything spiraling.  That's what she learned then,  the knife piercing her stomach before Dad or Abi had a chance to scream for her.  One second runs the risk of taking away everything.

She won't hesitate now.

The moment the shot is fired Ellie-Marie drops like a weight,  gripping her cousin and scrambling for her mother.  This won't be like last year.  She can't let it be like last year.  She won't let it be like last year.

Another shot fires.  

Mom gets up.

She's practically throwing herself through the room.  Ellie doesn't realize that notorious hooded figure is on her tail before he's in the kitchen,  before Mom's swinging a frying pan at him and it feels the exact same as watching Dad swing last year in that same slow motion horror that she can't break through,  that drowns out all the noise because all she can do is scream because all she is,  all she will be,  is a terrified little girl.

“Momma!”  She shrieks,  breaking from Lou's grip in a desperation that still isn't quick enough to keep her cousin from locking her hands around Ellie's bicep.  It's a hold she pushes against despite how a small piece of her longs to crumble into it.

Because it isn't now.  It isn't then,  either.  It's a replay of her worst nightmares and every single time she ends up drenched in blood that was supposed to be hers.

Mom's eyes catch hers for the briefest moment before she breaks for the balcony at a speed that would be impressive under any other circumstance.  Ghostface goes to give chase.

She won't let this happen again.  She can't let this happen again.

The reflection in the knife catches the glint of city lights.  Ellie can see that much as she forces herself from Lou's grip,  jumping for this mascot of nightmares with all the force she can muster.  It isn't much but it'll buy Mom and Lou time.  That has to be enough.  She'll make it be enough.

She's half-expecting that sickeningly familiar feeling of a blade slicing through her skin once more.  A feeling she's known six times over now,  one she is reminded of when her body shifts a certain way and her stitches remind her of the times meant for her to die screaming.  She expects it now,  crashing into this body that feels solid despite the form it takes being the specter from her nightmares,  kicking and shoving it into the wall only to be pushed aside like she weighs nothing.

The fact that this isn't the first time she's been thrown in the last twenty-four hours would be hilarious under any other circumstance.  This one feels more like a spit in the face as she stumbles over her feet to keep from colliding with the floor,  catching herself on the back of the couch and propping against it.  She has to keep upright.  She has to protect her family.  She has to do it right this time,  and she can't let her own pain stop her.

Nor can she let Lou.

Mom's barely gotten through the door again before Lou is taking hold of Ellie,  pulling her along with a force that doesn't suggest a second of her fifty-four years.  Her ankle screams and she can feel her heart hammering in her chest,  can feel her mouth moving despite the words not clicking in her brain.  She has to keep her mother safe.  She has to keep Lou safe.  She has to she has to she has to-

“-and you have to stay alive!”

Her senses are only drawn back to Lou by the desperation her cousin's voice holds.  She's not a desperate woman.  She's not a woman who pleads or weeps or prays for forgiveness at the altar.  She's not a confessing sort of person,  but urgency has replaced her carefully crafted exterior and all Ellie can hear again is the sound of blood in her ears.

Her hands are being forced open.  A heavy sort of metal is placed in her palms,  the sound of a door opening followed by the slam Ellie wants to rage against.  She's not a freeze person.  She's not going to freeze now,  she's more capable than that.  She's gonna be fine if her people are fine,  doesn't everyone know that by now?

She can't do it again.

The sounds of Dad gurgling on his own blood wake her up in the mornings.  Abi's choked version of her name sings Ellie to sleep on the nights her tears wash over her cheeks.  She isn't freezing.  She has to fight.

She can't think about it.

She can't think about it.

She can't think about it.

But it's 2022,  not 2023,  and her mouth tastes like iron and the sounds of screams fill her ears and Daddy is holding her,  curled over her like a protective pincushion while Abi uses her body like a shield.  It's 2022 and the sky is painting itself black and she's sorry but the blood is so warm and her skin is so cold and she doesn't know who to curl against,  who needs more comfort,  so instead she reaches for both and she listens as they each approach their last breaths like one final family activity and she hears Mom scream Lou's name outside and she's got a gun in her hand but it's not the one on her bedside and-

And it's not her gun.

The realization smacks her back into reality.  This isn't her gun.  The gun that acted as more of a warning shot in the living room,  the shot that changed every plan, came from the empty space at her table.  It was tossed aside,  it had to be,  and it came from her room.  Ellie didn't have it.  She knows she didn't have it,  she knows,  which means Lou gave away her gun despite it all,  despite that her bedroom door divides her now from the hell outside.

Momma made herself bait.  Lou gave Ellie her gun.

They only have one gun.  They have Gale's gun.

Momma screamed Lou's name.

Momma screamed Lou's name.

“LOU!”  Ellie's scream rips through her throat as she throws herself against the door,  free hand fumbling with the doorknob.  She can't get it unlocked.  She can't get the stupid fucking lock to work with her shaking hands and she knows Lou did this,  knows her cousin clicked the door shut and activated that damn lock because it was so simply effective that it's enough to hold her up now.  She can't focus on anything besides sounds of crashing and her mother,  not Lou,  not sobs.  She can't think, can't move, can't do anything that isn't forcing her hands to work with her can't do anything that isn't lying in that pool of blood can't do anything that isn't here and there and every memory burning her throat like bile because she couldn't fix it then and she can't fight it now.

Daddy sobbed last year.  When he held her,  when her chest bled,  when the stars decorated her vision and she whispered her auntie’s name,  his tears hit her head despite his own numerous injuries.  She was going to be what forced him and Abi into death yet he still wept for her,  still kissed her head before sinking to his knees,  still choked out her name when she could no longer support herself.

Abi sheltered her.  She baited herself.   She acted as a barrier like her body hadn't suffered enough,  stayed standing as long as she could to protect Ellie and Dewey.  She sank to the ground yet reached for Amber's ankles.  She choked on blood but murmured a line from Little Dove.  She held Ellie's hand because she was scared and her touch felt like home even in the pool of their shared brokenness. 

They were going.  They would have gone together.

If Momma and Lulu die now,  who will hold their hands?  Who will weep for them?  Who will comfort and who will sing and who will-

Her shaking hand moves with urgency, shaking the doorknob as Ellie finally forces the middle button to the lock down,  slamming her body against the door while twisting the knob.  It'd been a simplistic lock that wasn't common enough to be easy.  It'd been protection once.

It's a hindrance now.

When it slams open and bashes into the wall outside Ellie-Marie feels like she could cry from relief,  cocking the gun before she's even rounded the corner.

Her relief drains in unison with the sight of that gleaming knife plunging into her mother.

SHE'D SCREAMED WHEN Dad was stabbed.

It hurt.  It burned her chest like it had been personally attacking the fresh wounds splitting parts of it open.  It made something in her break that hadn't even broken in her youth,  this childish belief that her Daddy,  the ex-sheriff,  the survivor,  the person who chased away her nightmares, was invincible.  He wouldn't leave her.  He wouldn't do that,  not again,  not ever.  He promised.  He never broke a promise.

She'd howled when Abi was stabbed.  She ached and pleaded and begged.  She doesn't remember all she offered in exchange for her auntie's life,  in exchange to keep the woman who makes lullabies out of the whispers of monsters,  in exchange for her first best friend to live on even if she didn't.  She knows she would have given anything if it meant Abi came out with her life.  It didn't matter the cost.

She sobbed when aunt Julie told her they were still in surgery.  She broke down in the arms of her second mother and she clutched her like a lifeline,  begged until her throat was raw and her chest ached like no other.  She broke and broke and broke until she decided that she would take those shards and paint them red with revenge.

She can't forget that night.  Not the fear,  not the failure,  not the blood.  She can't forget all she failed to do.  She can't forget.

And she won't forget this.

The gun fires the moment Ellie registers the scene.  She doesn't see if or where it happened to land before she's shooting once more,  striding forward in a ruthless approach that doesn't help anyone now.  Her finger still pulls the trigger,  the gun knocks back with every step.  She's not looking at Ghostface,  not even as he sprints for the balcony.  She couldn't care less about anything besides her mother,  her Momma,  her cousin,  her…

“Lulu.”

The nickname feels like it has been punched out of her.  It may as well have been.

Because laid out in front of her are the bodies of her mother and cousin.

Ellie can't let herself recover before she's on her knees.  It's a desperate crawl to sit between both of them,  their hands brushing in a way that nearly makes her sick.  The blood soaks through her leggings,  the warmth feels sickeningly like quicksand,  Lulu’s eyes are open but her chest isn't moving and there's so much blood and Ellie doesn't know what to do besides choke on her own sobs,  hands pulling her along despite how her body begs to give-

“Ellie,”

Mom.

Ellie's head snaps up in an instant,  settling on her elbows because her knees no longer feel like there's any way to support her.  Despite herself she leans against Lulu,  curls her body one way while focusing the other.  She's not suffering this time.  This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Four people.  The four people who taught her how to live in spite of everything.  What happened in between doesn't matter,  the rifts,  the breakdowns,  the ruins and the castles rebuilt from such.  That doesn't matter when she's watched this four times now,  when the screams of last year mix with Anika's,  mix with Momma's yell for Lulu,  mix with the fear in her big cousin's eyes.  Everything feels like a botched attempt to kill her and a near successful attempt to take everything.

Four people.  Her people.

Ellie shakes on her elbows and knees as she tries to push herself up,  surveying the scene like there's anything she can do.  “Momma,”  she begins,  voice cracking.   “Momma,  Lulu…”

“It's okay,”  Gale manages,  her voice weak.  “We're gonna be okay.  He didn't- he didn't get us,  baby.  He didn't get us.”

“I-”

She doesn't get to finish before the door blows open.

It's a relief to remember Lou called the police.  It's a relief when she sees a hopeful future in the doorway.  It's a relief up until Momma's hand goes limp and her fingertips stop moving against Lou's,  their hands still connected despite how neither of them seem to even be breathing.  It's a relief up until there are hands folding around her middle,  pulling her away from her mother and cousin like she can keep going without knowing if they have been given such a grace.  It's a relief up until it isn't,  until she's pulling against arms that typically feel so comforting,  until Tara is cupping her head and pulling her down like that'll fix it all.

“Sunshine,”  her girl says,  voice lowered into a quivering tone that Ellie thinks is meant to be soothing.  “They can't help.  They can't help if we're in the way,  okay?  They can't help.  We have to go.”

“When did you-”

“We have to go,”  Tara repeats, arm curling around Ellie's shoulders, slightly turning her away from the nightmare playing out a mere two feet away.  In the corner of her eye she can see Sam,  can see a familiar platinum blonde lingering outside the door,  can see the tears and the panic and the bodies of two of her first favorite people.  She can't breathe.  She can't breathe.  She can't think and she can't breathe.

All she can do is collapse against Tara.

All she can do is force her scream down her throat.

All she can do is get even.