Chapter Text
Carrie stood awkwardly in the corner of the bar, shifting from foot to foot, letting the noise of the crowd wash over her. The smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol was so thick in the air she could almost swallow it.
“You sure I can’t get you a drink?” a bearded man shouted at her, his words slurring, the scent of hops getting even stronger.
She averted her eyes and shook her head. “No thanks,” she murmured, but she doubted he could hear her over the background babble.
She jumped a little as he reached forwards and hugged her tightly. “Thank you for finding Ben,” he said into her ear. “If there’s anything — anything — I can ever do for you, you just let me know.”
It was… She hugged him back stiffly, grateful despite herself when he stepped away.
This was what she’d wanted, way back when, wasn’t it? Wanting to be known, to be appreciated. It was just that it could all get a bit overwhelming after a while, especially with so many people focussing on her, coming up and talking to her, wanting something from her that she couldn’t help feeling that she might not be up to.
It was easier when Chris was at her side, but Carrie was hardly going to tie Chris to her apron strings when there was a party to be enjoyed, free alcohol to be had…
Men to be flirted with, she couldn’t help noting sourly, seeing Chris seemingly being courted by not just one but two guys. She certainly seemed to be enjoying herself.
Not that it was any of Carrie’s business, of course.
She’d had enough for the night, she abruptly decided. This might have been a really nice day, a day when they’d managed to do some unalloyed good, but...
It could be over now, at least for her.
She made a little wave in Chris’ direction, for politeness’ sake, no matter that she probably didn’t see, probably wouldn’t have cared about the gesture one way or another even if she had, and slid out of the bar. A blast of fresh, clean air greeted her and she stood there for a moment, looking at the lights of the town, at the darkness of the night sky dotted with stars above it, the noise of the celebration muted behind her. She waited for a few minutes longer, but nothing happened, no one followed her, so she made her way back to the motel they were staying at.
Though it didn’t seem unlikely she’d be spending the night there alone. Not that it mattered.
It wasn’t as if she wanted Chris all to herself. But a little part of her, maybe. At least she’d be the one Chris would leave with in the morning.
She couldn’t help wondering what Momma would think of her now. Whether what good she’d managed to do would go some way to counteract all the sins she’d perpetrated. All the sins that she’d committed in her heart, which Momma would have said were just as grave as the ones she’d actually birthed into the world.
She… more and more, she just didn’t know what to believe, just hoped whatever was looking down on her could find some measure of grace in its heart for her.
She crouched beside the bed, laid her crosses carefully on the sheets and prayed. Prayed for herself, prayed for Chris who she was sure didn’t think she needed it, prayed for Sue who Carrie couldn’t help worrying thought that she didn’t deserve it.
Prayed for Momma, all those long miles back in Chamberlain, a wish that she was doing well and maybe, maybe had found some measure of joy in her life that had always seemed to be absent for as long as she’d had Carrie hanging around her neck.
She jumped as the motel room door clicked shut behind her. She’d been so lost in prayer that she hadn’t even noticed it open.
“I can leave again if you’d prefer. If you want some more time to… do all that in peace,” Chris said from behind her.
“No, it’s alright,” she said, quickly gathering them up, wrapping them in the towel in which she kept them and laying it carefully back in her bag. She turned around to see Chris propped up against the wall, a smirk on her face that was slightly soft around the edges. Or maybe she was just more drunk than Carrie had thought. “I’m surprised to see you back so early.” Or at all, she couldn’t help thinking.
If any of that made it into her voice, Chris didn’t seem to notice as she shrugged and said, “Just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Or if Chris had, she ignored it. Which was, if still not completely typical for them, not something that had come to be unusual in their post-Sue truce. Covering over the little things that might cause tension between them; not reacting to every little thing as if it might be a mortal insult.
And it really wasn’t Chris’ fault that Carrie was feeling… prickly tonight. Not that she was really even feeling that anymore, a warm feeling flooding her chest at the surprisingly unguarded look of care on Chris’ face. “I’m fine,” Carrie said, smiling up at her, then got to her feet. “Just got a little much for me. All the crowd and attention, you know?”
Chris pushed off the wall and sauntered closer, before hesitating and coming to a halt a few feet away. “Does it help? The praying? Do you think that your…” she waved in the air before pointing upwards. “Comes from up there?”
Carrie pressed her lips together and searched Chris’ face for any hint of mockery. The situation between them had been a lot better since the knife murders, but she couldn’t help the instinctive worry. But there seemed to be nothing there but honest curiosity. Carrie couldn’t help letting her eyes drift down a degree to focus on Chris’ lips. Her lipstick was barely smudged. Not that it meant anything, of course, but Carrie couldn’t help feeling a bit better anyway.
Not that there was a reason for her to feel that way either, and even acknowledging that much made guilt twist in her stomach. Chris was Sue’s and whoever else she chose, but not Carrie’s, not in any way. And Carrie was Sue’s in any case.
She had no right to feel anything about what Chris did, and she couldn’t let herself think otherwise.
Realising that she’d just sat there staring for far too long, she flushed, doubtless ugly and blotchy, and did her best to remember what Chris had asked her. “Talking to Him, confessing my sins, does make me feel better. And if He did create everything, then he also must have created me, and there has to be a reason for my powers. It… it helps me carry on, despite, y’know, things.” Things like how they had to continually keep on the move, keeping one eye over their shoulder just in case the government caught up with them again.
Chris scuffed the floor with one foot, looking down. “Would you mind if I joined you just this once? Just to try things out?”
Carrie stared at her, but Chris didn’t seem to be mocking her. “Sure,” she said, taking her things out again and scuttling over to make room. As Chris knelt down next to her, she couldn’t help being acutely aware that this was what Sue had used to do with her, back before she left. Back in the days when it sometimes felt like stifled anger and jealousy might rise up and crush her sometimes. Back when Chris’ presence on their eternal road trip seemed like the bane of her life.
It didn’t feel like that any more.
She knelt in front of her bed and laced her fingers together, lowering her head. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Chris follow suit. Silently, she prayed that Chris find whatever peace she sought, asking the Lord to reach out to her and, well. She was sure that the Bible — or at least her mother — would have had things to say about the way that Chris lived her life, but she wasn’t hurting anyone these days and honestly tried her best to help people, and wasn’t that more important anyway?
It seemed like it should be.
She opened her eyes a few minutes later and looked at Chris, which seemed the signal Chris had been looking for to do the same. “Did it help?” Carrie asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe?” She hesitated for a moment. “Not sure it’s my kind of thing in general, but I don’t think it hurt. This time at least.” She rolled easily to her feet and offered Carrie a hand. “Thanks, I guess.”
Carrie took her hand and pulled herself up, a strange humming energy under her skin as she did so. This had been something she’d only shared with Sue before, and she’d never been quite certain how much Sue was humouring her the times when she’d joined her. Not that she thought Sue would lie to her, but… she’d been afraid to ask, to prod further, in case she got an answer she didn’t like.
This, with Chris… well, she couldn’t pretend that it was anything other than what it was, Chris trying on faith to see if it fit, but she also couldn’t say it was anything other than completely honest.
“Thanks,” she said, a warm sticky gratitude welling up inside her. It really shouldn’t affect her as much as it did, but…
“No problem,” Chris drawled, a half smile on her lips that seemed too real for Chris’ usual studied cynicism, her eyes dark and knowing this close. Near enough that Carrie could feel the breath wash against her face, could smell the beer on it, something that shouldn’t be enticing, but…
She had the sudden impulse to tilt forwards and kiss Chris, to muss that lipstick, smear it over her face. To do the things that she’d been worried Chris would do at the bar.
She couldn’t be there any longer, she shouldn’t. Jesus would be so disappointed in her. She ducked down again, away from Chris, gathering up her crosses and holy objects and starting to stow them away. She dawdled while packing them away until she heard Chris move away, and she wasn’t sure whether or not she was disappointed by that.
She wasn’t, she told herself fiercely. She wasn’t disappointed at all.
Still, sleep took a long time to arrive that night and Sue seemed further away than ever.
“It still seems a little unreal having each day be so much like the last. Well, apart from my days off and I always seem to have more than enough to do then as well.” Sue’s voice crackles electronically, the hum of countless miles making it hard to pretend that she’s there with Carrie, even with eyes screwed shut and Carrie doing her best to send her imagination into overdrive.
These weekly calls always made her feel a little melancholy, though she’d never mention that. Certainly not to Sue.
“But you’re doing better now? Sleeping the night through?”
Sue sighed, though it sounded fond. Carrie hoped. “You don’t need to worry about me so much.”
I really do, was Carrie’s first thought. You’re half my world. But that was a bad thought, part of why Sue had left them behind. Carrie had put so much on her that she’d needed to get away. It made Carrie worry if she had learned too well from Momma that way, making someone so much the centre of her world that they could suffocate from the weight of it, the way she’d sometimes felt about Momma.
“I’ll try not to,” she replied lamely, worrying that she was doing something bad again. It was such a balancing act, trying to avoid the pitfalls that everyone else seemed to navigate so easily. She tried to ignore the part of her that wanted to blame Chris and Sue both for the fact that she hadn’t had the chance to learn growing up.
That was all in the past, and there was no point hanging onto it, however hard it seemed to be to let go at times; however often it seemed to sneak right back into her pockets when she wasn’t looking.
“I don’t mind, really,” Sue was saying. “I might have made some friends here, but none like you or Chris.”
Friends. A new life, one separate from Carrie, one that seemed more and more permanent with every passing week. Of course it’d be so easy for Sue, who’d never had to struggle to be accepted.
But no, it wasn’t fair to think like that. Sue deserved the best, even — especially — if that was apart from Carrie.
“Do you think you’re any closer to figuring things out?” she asked anyway, because she couldn’t not.
Sue sighed, a harsh crackle over the phone, then was silent for what felt like forever. “I don’t know, Carrie, I really don’t know. I… when I was with the two of you, there just wasn’t any space to think about what I needed. I’m not saying it was either of your faults, but if it wasn’t Chris sulking or snapping at you, then it was you being too quiet or yelling at her.”
A sharp pang went through her at the thought of causing Sue pain, and she covered the bottom of the phone just in case any stray snuffles made their way out. It wasn’t as though she could deny what they’d put Sue through, and she hardly needed to lay any more on Sue’s shoulders. “We’re better now,” she said quietly when she had control of her voice again.
“And I’m glad to hear that, truly I am, but…” She trailed off again. “So, how is Chris, anyway?”
Chris. That was another weighty thought that Carrie was trying to avoid. Ever since that night when Chris had joined her for prayer, it seemed even odds as to whether Carrie would flush when looking at her, or stumble over her words for no good reason. It wasn’t like there hadn’t been… moments before, but nothing like this.
Nothing that she couldn’t ignore.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, she hadn’t, but she knew, even if no one else did, that the sin of envy, of lust, had taken root in her soul, no matter how much she prayed for it to be lifted from her.
Luckily, Chris hadn’t so much as commented on her new skittishness, for which Carrie was profoundly grateful, though she didn’t know how much longer it could last. And the guilt lay heavily upon her, her constant bed companion at night.
Sue deserved to know, she decided wretchedly, despite having promised herself at least a dozen times beforehand that she would keep as far away from the topic as possible, that she didn’t need to burden Sue with this… nonsense running through her head. But she did. She really, really did.
“I almost kissed Chris a few days ago,” she admitted miserably.
“Oh,” Sue said. Carrie couldn’t see her, couldn’t feel her to see how she was reacting, but her stomach lurched in the following pause, fearing the worst. “That’s…” Sue finally said. “I thought something might be wrong, but I didn’t think… You and Chris are free to do what you want, of course.” She didn’t really sound like she meant it though.
“I didn’t actually do anything. And Chris… I don’t think she’s interested in me like that. It’s just… I’d have felt bad if I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry if I hurt you, or I did something wrong. I didn’t mean to!” Carrie heard the pitch of her voice rise almost like it was happening to someone else as the gnawing inside her stomach spread to her chest; a fluttering panicking thing.
Sue’s tone switched immediately to something rhythmic and calming. “Of course you didn’t do anything wrong, Carrie. Listen to me, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Gulping a bit, Carrie let Sue’s voice soothe her. “Thank you, Sue. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put that on you,” she tried, even as she wasn’t sure how convincing she was. As convincing as she felt she should be. After all, wasn’t having this kind of load put on her why she had left in the first place?
“It’s… I know this is difficult for you, Carrie. And I’m glad you told me. Even if nothing happened, not yet at least. It’s… I’m glad you’re getting on with her.”
But despite Sue’s words, she rang off quickly after that, letting the quarters Carrie had fed into the payphone clatter into the receptacle, leaving Carrie to wonder if she’d pick up next week at all.