HER ROOM HASN'T changed.

Ellie-Marie never expects it to.  She did when she first moved out,  when she grabbed whatever she could fit in one sole luggage and stormed out the same abrupt way her mother was notorious for around several stations across the country.  She expected it to be converted the next time she came over, at least readjusted to where nothing would be a reminder of what once was.  It isn't that Mom doesn't love her enough to keep her things around,  it's that Mom loves her too much to keep reminders of what her ambition cost.

At least,  that's what she gathered from the divorce.

Mom isn't the cold-hearted bitch everyone presumes her to be.  Ellie knows this better than most,  only beat out by her father at that, yet she still couldn't believe the first time she came over after leaving in the midst of their worst fight to date.  Her room was the same.  The stuffed animals in their assigned places, the half-messy sheets,  the family photos that still draw tears to Ellie's eyes when she thinks too long about the time before everything went through a nightmare spiral.  The pastel pink walls,  the section of her closet dedicated specifically to handmade clothes,  the cat headphones she forgot to grab still lying on the bedside table.  Nothing changed.  Mom preserved her existence like it was something she wanted to keep around,  like it was worth just as much as Dad's chair or her original typewriter.  It became an unspoken thing between them, this understanding that Ellie could come and go as she pleased,  take along anything she wanted and bring whatever she desired right back.  It would always be waiting for her.

So why does it hurt to be surrounded by what she loves?

The door clicking shut behind her allows everything to hit.  The smell of her favored perfume still lingers in the air,  transported back and forth a ridiculous amount of times before Ellie decided to have one at both homes.  In several ways she won't vocalize it's like Dad's trailer,  the air sweet in a way she knows comes mostly from her despite how she doesn't spend more than four months there every year,  the pillows she designated the most comfortable placed in his closet to await her return.  Her parents are more alike than either of them acknowledge.

Perhaps that's why Ellie holds onto what her friends leave behind in her apartment,  why she keeps the blanket Tara loves most folded at the end of the bed,  why Rory has her own fluffy pink robe in Ellie's bathroom cabinet,  why Buffy has a stack of movies sitting on Ellie's mantle because you don't get the deleted scenes if you stream!

She knows her love is obvious.  She knows it's true.  She knows her parents love her just as proudly.  With Dad, it's blatant -  deputy junior didn't come from nowhere,  after all,  and Ellie will be the first to claim her title of ‘America's Biggest Daddy's Girl’ with pride.  It's not rare for her to hear that she's him made over yet it remains a compliment meaningful enough to make her glow with pride each time.

Mom is less direct.

The bed creaks beneath her as Ellie takes a seat on the edge,  barely resisting the urge to collapse here and now.  Mom and Lou are in the living room, ready to pounce if need be, and her gun sits on the bedside table in the mentally designated place,  but that doesn't mean that she's in the clear yet.

Trusting Mom to protect her is a strange thing.  She undoubtedly will do as she has before and fight for Ellie the same way she'd fight for her mother, but that's not the problem of it all.  The problem is the chance of her falling asleep,  getting her throat slashed while dreaming of cats and a girl who has become Ellie's moon,  and being utterly useless if her family needs her.

The thing is, there's only been one time that Mom came seriously close to dying.  Her life's been on the line every time pardoning 2011,  where it was nearly cut short.

Ellie-Marie didn't know it until she was fourteen,  never realized she almost lost her mom.  She couldn't fathom such a fate back then.

Now that she's faced down the threat of losing her father,  she knows how lucky she actually was.  Luck, like lightning, may strike twice in the same place.  Three times?  Unlikely.

As though possessing the ability to read her mind the bedroom door opens.  Ellie can feel her eyes wanting to drag as she focuses on where Lou stands in the doorway,  exhaustion falling over the back of her mind like a heavy blanket.  Her entire body feels like it's threatening to give out if she doesn't take this opportunity now,  if she fights it in the way she's desperately struggling to do.

“You should go to sleep,”  Lou advises,  arms folded while she leans against the doorway.  The look on her face is knowing,  like it always is,  yet Ellie can't bring herself to commit to attempting a lie.

“I can't.”

“You could.  It's been,  what,  a day and a half since you got the chance?  From the way you devoured your food at lunch,  I know you haven't paid much mind to anything beyond staying alive.”

“I haven't had a chance to.  I don't think Ghostface cares about my self care,”  the reminder is meant to be lighthearted as Ellie shifts on the mattress,  sitting still currently feeling more like a trap meant to lure her into a slumber that will hardly bring peace.  “How about you,  Lulu?  Have you slept?”

“Hardly.  I, however, am more than used to it.  You're not even twenty.  You can save ruining your sleep schedule for a later date.”

This is Lou's way of caring about her.  Abi explained it when she was still too small to understand on her own  (although she isn't sure she'd understand it now,  different as it is from Ellie's language of love),  reminding her that she cares through the stonier ways.  The knowledge is what helps her find a smile now.  “I dunno,  I think I’m ahead of my age group for this one.”

“It’s time to fall back,”  it's not hard to tell her cousin isn't amused by the attempt at lightheartedness,  eyes flicking in a quick onceover of Ellie's fidgeting form.  “I know you think you're going to be putting us at risk if you aren't vigilant.  Nothing I say will convince you otherwise, so allow me to ask this instead: if you are too exhausted to stand on your own two feet,  what's the likelihood you could fight off a serial killer with a knife and desire to slaughter whoever gets in their way?”

That's an upsettingly good point.  Her tense posture slackens slightly at the question,  body making the decision far before her mind does.  She's a better fighter if or when she's actually rested.  Lou seems to notice the win for what it is,  stepping back from the doorway with a gloved hand on the doorknob.   “We'll wake you up if there's any trouble, little light.  Get some rest.”

With a miniscule nod Ellie settles down against her pillows,  eyes shut before the door has entirely closed.

Her body kept the score after all.

“WHY DIDN'T YOU make me go first?”

Her head against rough fabric is the first sign of waking up.  Ellie can't process much besides the too-bright lights and the way this fabric feels damp beneath her, one hand reaching to place itself between her and the cushion.  Her eyes are bleary,  her mind still dazed by sleep.  For a moment she thinks the question was only part of her dream.

There's only two problems with that.

One, she didn't fall asleep on the couch.

Two, she definitely didn't fall asleep in her childhood home.

Her legs swing down the moment Ellie realizes where she is, sitting bolt upright to survey her surroundings.  She barely registers how her socks immediately feel damp as she frantically forces herself to focus,  words catching in her throat once she realizes who sits across from her.

“Nini,”  she breathes,  heart picking up in her chest.  This can't be real.  She watched her best friend die,  she watched Anika slip off that ladder,  saw her final expression of fear,  heard the thud of her body against the pavement.  This can't be real.

But she looks so alive.

“Nini,”  she repeats.  “Nini, oh my God.  Are you-”

“Okay?  Be for real, Ellsie.  I’m fucking dead.”

That's fair.  Regardless of just how fair it is Ellie can still feel her heart drop,  expression crumpling into that of a remorse that is ultimately worth nothing.  “I’m sorry,”  she says anyway, needing to apologize like a fish needs water.   “I'm sorry.  I’m sorry,  I swear I tried to pull you in.  I swear I did.  It wasn't on purpose.”

“Of course it wasn't.  You're not an intentional killer.  Excluding Amber,  obviously,  but didn't that bitch deserve it?”

This isn't real.  She has to be dreaming.  Ellie can feel her chest tightening with each passing second,  feeling more and more like the quivering little girl who was so goddamn afraid that she couldn't fight the monsters away herself.   “Amber-”

“You always hated her guts,”  Anika muses, checking blood red nails.  They weren't painted that color last night.  Ellie knows.  She's the one who painted them.  “That makes it a free pass.  You used to cry every year after you'd get back from Woodsboro.  I hated her just for that.  But it doesn't excuse everything else,  and while I love that you're trying to convince yourself that you're a good person, we've gotta talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“Kiddo, you can't be serious.”

The sudden voice at her side makes Ellie squeak, head whipping from where she'd been facing Anika.  The movement makes her feet slip beneath her,  a dampness finally soaking enough into her socks to make getting up entirely impossible.  She wishes it wasn't.

“Maddie.”

“Queen Swiftie,”  Maddie acknowledges,  her voice still relaxed in that tense way that Lou could probably spend hours analyzing.  It makes her heart ache in a way Ellie is all too familiar with,  fingers curling in a desperation to reach for the girl who has haunted her for over a decade.  “Come on.  I know Kirb talked to you, but you gotta know she was kid-gloving you.  You know that,  right?”

“I-I don't-”

“Because like,  you gotta be honest with yourself eventually.  Killing someone at seven is pretty fuckin’ impressive,  especially if you didn't actually do anything.  I mean,  damn,  I kinda get what my mom was always saying.  Complacency is a killer,”  Maddie pauses, lips quirking to the side in the same way Ellie always tried to copy as a child before she gestures towards herself.

Towards her stomach.

Ellie can't dare to let her eyes trail down.  She can't do it.  She can't see it again,  can't relive it up close and personal when she's already haunted enough by the distance in that half second.  Her nails dig into the couch as she pulls away,  a whimper passing her lips.   “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry to both of you,  I am,  I didn't mean-”

“Ellsie,”  Anika interrupts,  her tone bored.   “Look,  I appreciate the sentiment and all,  but we're still dead.  Can you just answer my question?”

“What question?”

Her friend sighs, rolls her eyes in that dramatic way Ellie used to laugh at.  She can't laugh now.  “Why didn't you make me go first?  On the ladder.  You should have made me go before you,  but you chose to go after Sam.  Not me,  not Buffy,  not Mindy.  You chose yourself.”

“And when Charlie broke in,”  Maddie continues,  keeping her tone light.  “You didn't look for me.  You didn't care.  You came downstairs,  saw blood everywhere and chose to answer the phone.  Were you just that ignorant or did you not care if something was wrong?”

“That's not-”  Ellie begins,  cutting herself off with a choked up sound.   “I never would have chosen myself over you guys,  I swear.  I swear.  If I could do it all again,  I'd put myself in your places.  I'd fix it.  I swear I'd fix it,  I wouldn't let any of this happen again.”

“Ah-ah.  There's two of us, remember?  You'd have to let one of us die,”  Maddie reminds her casually, her bloody grin crooked as she kicks one leg up over the other.  Ellie chooses to ignore whatever slips from Maddie's lap and squishes into her thigh.   “Come on.  Which one is Little Miss Guiding Light gonna choose?”

“Charlie said you came back for me.”

“Oh, so you're victim blaming now?  I thought better of you,”  Maddie tsks,  shaking her head in disapproval.   “Yes,  Ellie,  I did come back for you.  Of course I did.  I think- sorry,  thought-  about other people,  not about saving my own ass.  Does that mean you're choosing me?”

“What?”  No.  No,  God,  she can't say that.  She can't fathom wanting any of this to happen again.  She can't begin to understand any of what's going on and the dampness around her socks seems to be building and the world still seems so bright,  too bright,  that she can't begin to fight it.  “No.  No,  I wouldn't-”

“So me?”  Anika questions,  the innocent amusement in her voice somehow making this much worse than it already is.  “Wouldn't be a shocker,  honestly.  You've let me die before,  at least with Maddie you would have an excuse.”

“Stop.”

“Anika's right.  No matter who you choose,  it'll turn out the same for the sacrifice.  You don't really give enough of a shit to dig deeper than that,  do you?”

“Stop.”

“When you told me how Maddie died,  I was horrified.  I understood,  though.  You were seven.  You didn't wanna die yet,  but shouldn't you have considered that Maddie didn't,  either?”

“Stop.”

The doorknob is starting to jiggle.  There's a sea of red up to her knees now.  There's a haze around them and it's windows and couches and guts and empty thuds against the ground and-

“You’re a murderer.  Just like they are.”

“STOP!”

The door bursts open.

THE DOOR BURSTS open.

Ellie can't decipher her screams from the sound of the door slamming into the wall.  Everything is a rush of noise and blood and I don't wanna die mixed with the eerie silence of going downstairs to nothingness.  Her instinct screams at her to fight against the arms that wrap around her now,  mind still half fogged by corpses on corpses.  The feeling surrounding her body freezes her while she burns alive,  ice dissolving as she frosts over.  It's her fault.  This entire thing ties her down like a cinder block pulling her under until everything is black and her lungs are filled with salt.  There's no swimming out.  There's no resurfacing. It's just dark, cold and crushing.

Then there are hands.

“Ellie.”

She has to stop pleading at the tops of her lungs when thumbs smooth themselves over her cheekbones, shifting into a series of whimpers.  “No!  No no no no no I’m sorry I'm so sorry I swear,  I swear I wouldn't let this happen again I swear-”

“Ellie!”

Mom.

It's like a puppet master cutting the strings loose.  Ellie cannot help how she collapses into her mother's arms,  every offense forgiven in favor of the warmth Gale provides now.

“Momma,”  she chokes out in a warble,  her voice barely rising to a proper plea.  “Momma,  Anika…”

“I know,”  her mother responds,  the vibrations rattling through her chest where Ellie's head rests.  It's a comfort she's not gotten to indulge in since she was a little girl, crying to her mother after a nightmare rather than waking up trying to hold in the scream her past feels like one long stretch of.  One hand rubs up and down her back,  knuckles massaging along the rivets of her spine like she knows the comfort needed without a word having to be spoken.   “I know, alright?  Take a deep breath for me.”

“Can't.”

“Yes you can.  You can, baby, I know you can.”

Baby.  Ellie hasn't been that since their fight.  Mom doesn't like giving pet names, never has, and that's how she knows it's serious now.  Her inhale is shaky and shallow as she draws it in,  the following exhale not much better,  but at least she gets it through.

This is why she doesn't enjoy cat naps.

Sleeping is always its own struggle.  Nightmares are commonplace enough to now be expected when she closes her eyes,  tossing and turning through the night until the demons settle back into shadows that blanket her mind.  Forcing herself to get one, two, maybe three or four hours of sleep is an arduous task that she's reluctantly embraced as part of her routine.

Some attempts go worse than others.  After last year she was awake for three days straight, too caught in her own labyrinth to think of sleeping.  She remembers flexing her hands in the days following Amber's death,  frowning at her few broken fingers,  ignoring how everyone's eyes would trail down to the black and blue bruising that colored her knuckles. She remembers feeling the scratches on her arms fading into scars,  the blood that still pricked along the surface when her shirts would pull at scabs.  She remembers her first dream after sleep was forced upon her,  beating Tara to the same bloodied pulp Amber had become.  Memory is a curse betraying what had to be done.

But did it really?

All those times she was saving herself,  all those times she believed to be doing good,  all the hours spent reassuring herself.  She feels like patchwork at best and a killer at worst.

Her own subconscious proves how true that is.

“Momma,”  she whimpers again,  meak in her desperation.  “Momma, it was Anika.  I saw her.  I tried to save her.  I tried,  I tried,  I swear I tried.”

Her mother stays quiet while Ellie curls further against her,  shifting one hand to cradle the back of her head.  Not for the first time today she feels pathetic.  She's nearly twenty years old and she's relying on her mother to soothe the nightmares away,  to make things better with a singular touch like she did when Ellie was still small enough to believe in the magic of a kiss to make it better.  

On the other hand,  she watched one of her best friends die.  Surely no one would be doing just fine after that.

This kind of comfort is a rarity from Mom.  Under any other circumstance it would be a moment to treasure,  a relief of having the person she's always wanted to reconnect with so close.  Now all she can think about is if her mother will be the next person she lets down.

“You completely misunderstood what I was saying earlier.”

Mom's voice cuts through her thoughts with the same sharp precision she does everything with,  a talent so desired that Ellie finds herself wishing she'd inherited it.  She sniffles once, twice more before she's pulling back as much as she's comfortable with.  

“What?”

“At the restaurant.  I swear,  sometimes you and your father have the same brain,”  Gale pauses,  expression faded into one that's nearly contemplative.  What would be a compliment in a different situation now makes Ellie feel strangely conflicted,  head tilting to the side in silent question.

Mom notices.  That flicker of a smile briefly appears before she's back to being unreadable,  reaching now to tuck a piece of hair behind Ellie's ear.  It's a softness that feels more or less like the rarest treat in the world, the dull ache of knowing the why of it all lingering in the back of Ellie's mind.  She wouldn't be doing this if a breakdown hadn't prompted a need for comfort.

Even so, it helps more than it hurts.

“He accused me of caring more about writing than I cared about him.  More than once,  which…admittedly,  yeah,  I earned that,”  another twirl of bottle blonde hair around Gale's finger,  her hold not even close to too tight.  She always handles hair with care.  “I earned it from you,  too.  I'm aware of that,  and I am sorry.  I've never wanted to hurt you.”

The confession feels too good to be true.  Ellie wants to pinch herself,  wants to make sure her nightmare didn't drastically shift due to her subconscious taking pity on her.  It's always a possibility.

Even if it is a dream,  she still wants one more answer.

“What did you mean, then?  When you said you had one problem,  what was that?”

The scoff she gets in response makes her want to shrink away again.  It's so easy to feel like this around her mother,  like this sad little echo of something great.  It cuts despite how unintentional she knows it to be.

“Dewey- your dad, he told me you were there.  He told me that you saw Anika die,  and that's not…I never wanted this for you,”  the sentiment forces itself out despite how clearly Mom tries disguising it under her typical reporter tone, her capability to display her truest self flailing.  “That was the problem.  I don't want you involved.  This wasn't supposed to be what your life was.”

There it is.  The underbelly of Mom's snappiness,  her obsession with investigation and her desire to get the answers as soon as humanly possible.  Ellie-Marie has never doubted her mother's humanity,  never doubted how she had a softness in her.  Perhaps it was never meant for Ellie herself,  but it always existed.

And now she sees it.

Ellie forces a watery smile when she spots the exhaustion reflected in eyes identical to her own,  reaching forward to pull her mother into a hug.  Her face presses against Gale's shoulder and her words are muffled when she speaks,  but Mom will clam up otherwise.

She's had enough experience with emotionally closed off people to know that,  after all.

“I'm not in this because of you,”  she assures, ignoring how her throat threatens to close around her attempts at comfort.   “I'm not.  I'm in this because I was raised by really,  really good people who taught me to care about my friends.  I'm in this because I chose to be,  Mom.  It isn't you.  It isn't your fault.”

Because she refuses to let it be anyone's fault.

This isn't Mom's fault.  It's not Dad's fault,  not Abi or Lou or any of her friends.  It's not anyone's fault,  even if they try to take the blame for it,  and Ellie needs them to know that.  She would have chosen this with or without the legacy.  She would protect them with or without their past.

She just wishes she could do it better.

“I'm sorry,”  Mom starts,  her voice soft with a pain Ellie wishes she could take away.   “I am.  I'm sorry for everything,  Ellie.  I don't say that often because- well, because I don't feel that often.  But I'm sorry.”

It's all she's needed to hear.  She's not too sure she's capable of hatred with Amber gone,  not too sure she's able to hold grudges the way those around her seem to come by easier.  It'd be better if she did; she'd end up less hurt that way and knows it.  It's a fatal flaw on the most generous day.

But as she finally finds comfort in her mother's arms for the first time in years,  Ellie can't bring herself to try and deny it now.