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Taylor grits her teeth and pulls, willing the rubber grip bicep to not slip again. While the modified shoulder rehab pulley that she’d jury-rigged together is a lot more convenient and less expensive than going to the gym (being stared at or worse, having people come up and ask if she needed help with that fucking look on their face), it’s hardly a perfect solution. Despite her best efforts, it had a nasty habit of coming off once she got sweaty, and having to get up, make sure it’s still secure, fumble with her good arm to get it back on, reposition herself behind the door and start her reps all over again is…
Demoralizing.
Just fifteen more, Taylor thinks, pushing herself to the point where her stump arm began to shake violently, slowly letting the tension pull her back. She doesn’t want to quit early today, no matter how annoying it is to start over. If she does these more regularly, keeps to the schedule, then it’ll be easier to wear her prosthetic in public, and then she can go out in public more, and then she can start working again, and then she can start contributing to the house, and then—
The rubber snaps over her snarled knot of scarred flesh, and Taylor belatedly realizes how much she’d been leaning forward. She stumbles, manages to mostly catch herself, but not before she smacks her stump against the floor in an instinctive move to save her knees. She bites her lip hard to keep the instinctive yelp from slipping out as liquid fire rushes up her side and spreads like an oil spill to the rest of her body, muscles seizing and spasming violently as her nerves begin to misfire and misplace themselves in time; the body viciously recalling what the mind would rather forget.
Taylor lies there on the cold faux-wood for a few moments, trying to find where her breath went. After a few moments of searching, she finds it, and gingerly curls inward, trying to use her good arm to rub out some of the worst of the pain in her calves. After a minute or two, it’s faded enough for her to slowly gather herself back up, every part of her still aching with a vengeance. There’s a few unsteady moments where her limbs lock up with pain and threaten to send her tumbling back down again, but Taylor manages to stay on her feet. She leaves the damn rehab pulley on the closet door, making her way to grab her change of clothes and hop in the bath. She’s tired.
God help her, she’s not even twenty and she’s already so fucking tired.
Taylor sullenly gets into the shower before it properly warms up, using the cold shock to wipe away the lingering, sticky heat of her failed workout and then doing her best to enjoy the slow turn to warm water, the heat soothing some of the pains. A quick and dirty scrub with shampoo and conditioner is more than enough to take care of her current cut. While she still misses her old hair and wishes it would grow back faster, Taylor’s begun to dread how tedious maintaining it will be with only one hand. It had been an involved process even before, and now…
Taylor gets out of the shower, dries herself off as best she can, and wanders into the living room. Her prosthetic arm is right where she’d left it on the counter, thankfully. She’d had a miserable time trying to track it down during one very bad night, and had always been slightly nervous about repeating the experience again. Her shoulder twinges and complains as she pulls sensor bracelet onto her bicep and then snaps the arm into place, but ignoring pain is such old hat it barely requires effort.
It’s quiet to the point of being somewhat unbearable, and Taylor wrestles with the urge to go over and grab her tablet. Lying down on the couch and just listening to an audiobook sounds so nice. But having already failed three times at one exercise, she should at least try to do another before throwing in the towel for the entire day. So with a heavy sigh, she walks over to the bookshelf.
Taylor knows the book she’s supposed to read is the bright blue one, even if she’s started to hate the color. She picks it up and goes over to the couch, tossing it on the coffee table and pulling out her phone. Just some light music would make this feel a little less…
Like she’s back in her cell in isolation. Nothing but the quiet. No bugs, no people. Just empty walls and all the ghosts she’d brought with her (how many are there with her now, silently watching as she tries to live a life she doesn't deserve? She doesn’t know anymore.)
Taylor reaches out with her prosthetic hand. It takes a few moments to get a good grip on the cover and once she pulls it into her lap, she uses her good hand to open it— while this model is fairly precise, Taylor’s not going to risk accidentally ripping any pages again until she’s gotten more practice with the thing. Once it’s open and looks like it's in a good position, she lets her good arm rest on the cushions, ready to start the other part of her therapy.
It’s hard to not feel immediately discouraged when she looks at the first page and sees nothing but the scramble of complete gibberish that letters had become since she properly woke up in the hospital. Part of her couldn’t help but hope that one day, she’d open a book and recognize the clumping of symbols for what they really were, even if she knows alexia doesn’t work that way.
That is…a T. She’s pretty sure, at least, when she recreates the symbol by tracing it on the cushion with her good hand. The shape of it feels right. Long line bisected by short line near the top. T…usually followed by either a vowel, and the vowels are like little circles, and that’s not a circle. Long line, hump…remember the mnemonics you went over in the hospital, Taylor. Hump is for…for H? Yeah, yeah. That’s a lowercase H. Which means the next letter is almost definitely a vowel, and then there’s enough space after that word for the vowel to end, so that’s an E.
The.
Taylor knows that she really shouldn’t complain. Knows that with all things considered, she should be counting her lucky stars to even be alive, to say nothing of being sane. That Riley and the rest of the doctors had done an incredible job, patching her brain back together. That she should be glad that she’d just lost reading instead of losing her language processing altogether, that it was something she might be able to get back with enough time and effort (might, the doctors kept stressing, might come back if she kept practicing, but she’d probably never get back to how she was before, there was just too much damage). But she sure doesn’t feel very fucking lucky, right now.
It’s more spite and a desperation to not waste the entire afternoon feeling sorry for herself that drives Taylor to keep trying with the book.
The…s-u-u…
Wait, wait, that’s not right. But the first one is, isn’t it? Is she getting confused again? The halfpipe with the curl is a lowercase u, but isn’t…no, no, that’s an n. Flip the Upside dowN. That’s it. That sounds correct.
The sun…did…not…
Taylor glares at the last word in the sentence. Those first two letters are ones she’s already done which makes it easier to decipher, but the middle is stubbornly refusing to make sense, no matter how many times she tries to trace it. It’s just a straight line down, but that would mean it’s an l, and that can’t be right, so she has to be wrong… maybe she should start over. That’s s-h…no, still not working. Maybe if she tries the next two after? Following that line, it’s another pair of letters she’s done in the sentence before, n and e, so…S-h-blank-n-e… Oh, maybe if…if…that’s possibly just a dot up there, then it’s actually an i…
The sun did not shine.
Taylor glances at her phone, and the digital display impassively informs her that it had taken her about two minutes to decipher the first sentence.
The sun did not shine.
She tries to make herself at least finish the page, but starts taking longer and longer for her to get through, blanking when she goes back and tries to remember the ones she’s already puzzled out.
S-so we…we…
She remembers staying up late and reading the Hobbit with her mother.
So ma sat in the h— h… h…
She remembers loving the feeling of paper in her hands.
So we oil spt in the hanse all…
But now she can’t even feel it at all.
Sa me sol lu lde bansa a…
Taylor throws the book back on the coffee table. She doesn’t have the energy to fucking do this anymore. She just doesn’t have it. She’s tired and she just wants to stop and rest. Just stop and rest, whispers the part of Taylor that’s awake in the middle of the night, hissing ideas she tries not to listen to. Just stop. Why didn’t you stop? It was over. It was done. You could have been at peace. You could have ended it properly. You still could. You still—
Taylor jams in her earbuds and thumbs the button for her audio drama on her phone,ignoring the warning beeps about reaching the maximum setting. She lies down on the couch, sore and aching, and tries to drown her own thoughts out in someone else’s story.
It works like the rest of her does: just barely.
A little while later, there’s a knock at the door. Taylor gets up, wondering if Lisa had ordered something to the house again (Lisa loved both receiving and delivering packages, she declared that the greatest loss on bet was the postal service and wouldn’t stop interfering in the burgeoning government until a similar system would be replaced.) Instead, she’s surprised to see Rachel at the door, three leashes in one hand, one in the other. Taylor’s met them before— two majestic-looking huskies named Chomper and Crusher respectively, who were still being socialized after Rachel had found them in the wilds. The other two are a black labrador named Bruno and a setter named Alexander, two rescues that were more recent acquisitions. Taylor had never really understood why some dogs got…well, normal names and others received more Rachel-ish ones, but it’s not as if they were hers.
“Hey.” Rachel grunts, default scowl in place. “Come on.”
“Right,” Taylor says, blinking. “Sorry, just let me get my shoes on.” Taylor does so, and steps out, making certain she’s punched in the code and locked the door to her and Lisa’s small place before accepting the offered leash from Rachel, holding it firmly in her good hand. She’s being given Bruno again, and the lab gives an excited bark and licks at her face when she double-checks the collar’s secure. Not that Rachel ever would have it be otherwise, but it’s part of the routine.
It’s a pleasant autumn evening in the quiet little cul-de-sac that Lisa had bought a house in all those months ago, when Taylor had…well, finally recovered enough to leave the last hospital she’d been transferred to, so there’s no one around even in the mid-afternoon to bother them. Taylor knows she prefers it that way, and assumes Rachel does as well. People offering compliments to her dogs would always agitate her.
Rachel’s been…surprisingly solid presence for Taylor, now that she’s just Taylor. She hadn’t even asked for this. Hadn’t felt she had the right to ask Rachel for anything, after all that happened. One day, Rachel had simply showed up at her door, told her to take a leash and come with her. They don’t really talk much on these walks, if they talk at all. Taylor doesn’t mind. It’s nice to not feel the need to make meaningless conversation about anything other than the central aspect of their lives— the part she can’t really touch anymore.
Bruno’s in a good mood today, Taylor only has to keep him from getting distracted by the odd squirrel and away from the occasional mushroom. It never fails to raise her spirits a little, seeing the dogs. At the very least, here’s proof of something worthwhile she’s done. These dogs were all hurt, lonely creatures before Rachel. Now, they have food, a safe place to sleep, friends to play with, and even if they do know violence and pain, it’s not the only thing they know. And they’re fought for. Cared for.
“Is Bastard healing alright?” Taylor asks about midway into their miles-long route. Last time, Rachel had mentioned he’d gotten more then a little banged up during an encounter with some monster capes.
“Mh. He’s tough. Stubborn, too. Keeps the newer pups from getting into fights even though he’s still fucked up. Few more days and he’ll be fine.”
“Good.”
They lapse back into peaceful silence. Taylor glances out into the fields that stretch beyond the neighborhood— it’s a strange thing, having civilization and nature borders so close together. In the year it had taken her to leave the hospital, a truly astonishing amount of construction had happened on Gimel, but the rest of the planet is still untouched for the most part. Flowers and bushes bloom unchecked by human hands.
Taylor watches a butterfly descend onto a verdant cluster of lilies, delicate white wings like angel’s feathers against the sunset orange petals, and longs. Longs to be that butterfly, to have those small wisps of limbs reach out, to taste the fresh nectar of spring flowers. It had been an irritant before, to go through those motions for her swarm when they had other things they could be doing, tasks they could be performing if not for those annoying little facts of hunger and fatigue.
What she would give just to share senses with that tiny speck of life now, as it drank.
There are days where Taylor will wake, and in that split-second before memory returns and reasserts itself, she’s confused and scared, because her world is not how it should be. She feels as if she’s a painter gone blind or composer gone deaf, a fundamental part of herself had packed up and left during the night, and what little she can see and hear and taste and touch feel like shadows of the senses she once knew, shallow and fleeting.
Even after memory asserts itself and she does her best to numb the phantom pains of senses gone, it haunts her. It haunts her in the way she will find herself missing doorknobs when she reaches for them, knocking toes against bed frames and table legs as she walks, being unsure of where exactly the others are in the house and feeling panic at that very thought. How do people live like this, barely able to perceive the world around them, fumbling about like children in the dark?
Her legs have long since been aching and just started to tremble a bit by the time they get back home, which is a good sign, Taylor supposes. She misses being able to run properly, and she might as well get back to it while both of her legs are still attached. She carefully hands Bruno’s leash back to Rachel, and leans in for a brief hug. Rachel returns it with one hand, and it’s only a little embarrassing now, how much more solid the world feels with Rachel’s arm pressed gently against her back.
“Thank you.” Taylor murmurs. “Goodbye, Rachel.”
Taylor always says goodbye, now. Just in case.
Rachel nods, and walks off without another word, Bruno gives Taylor one last playful bark and then joins his mom as she takes them back to her car, loading them into their seats. Taylor lingers at the door until the truck vanishes from sight. The door is locked, double-checked that it’s locked, and then Taylor breathes in deeply.
She tries not to think about how the sound of her own breathing has become so awful to hear.
Taylor finds herself drifting back to the couch in the living room, picking up her earbuds again. Part of her thinks about maybe doing some dishes or another attempt at sweeping the floor with her prosthetic, but the rest of her lays back down and hits play before she can really start to marinate that idea.
It’s not as if she won’t have time to do them later.
She has nothing but time, now.
Taylor’s about two-thirds through the audiobook when the locks on the door undo themselves, the chunk-chink jolting her to painful awareness. Old habits die hard but her joints refuse to cooperate, aching fiercely. She bites her lip hard to keep it from escaping. Christ, she hadn’t meant to be here that long, if Lisa’s already back it’s been hours— has she moved? She doesn’t think so, judging by the sudden realization of how parched she is, how lethargic her muscles feel.
“Hey, hon. I’m back.” Lisa calls, striding through the kitchen as she peels off her domino mask. “Lemme get out of my suit real quick, I’ll be right there.”
“No rush.” Taylor croaks, lumbering over to get a glass of water, glancing at the clock. Five-forty in the evening. Jesus, nearly six hours. She really needs to stop letting herself do that. There’s so much else she could have done with that time, like…
Like…
Taylor sits down at the counter and tries to think of something. What does she do, besides what she’s already done today? Settle arguments between Aisha’s gaggle of strays when they’re not listening to her? Talk to Lily whenever she has another fight with Lisa? Anything that’s actually useful or not extended out of pity by her friends?
She’s still trying to find an answer when Lisa comes back, dressed in casual attire.
“Sorry I’m late! Had some last-minute plans swing into place, wanted to make sure they were settled. Anyway, what were you thinking for dinner?” Taylor just shrugs. “Hm. Well, what you’d have for lunch, I’d hate to make you eat the same thing twice.”
“I skipped it.” Taylor mumbles, going to refill her water and avoid looking at the frown she knows Lisa’s shooting at her.
“Taylor, you know that you need to—”
“Eat a good amount of carbs, I know, I know. I didn’t mean to. Was tired after exercising, zoned out on the couch. I’m sorry.”
“Not mad.” Lisa says. “Just reminding you it’s important.”
“I know it’s important.” Taylor mutters. “I’m just tired, Lise.”
“...I know.” Lisa opens the fridge. “How does pasta sound?”
“Sure.” Taylor scrolls through her phone without really processing what she’s reading. Social media on this earth is just as nonsensical and puzzling as the stuff back on Bet, except now she feels even more out of the loop. Lisa and the others would take her out to see movies sometimes, now that they had gotten movie theaters again, and she…thinks that she likes them? They’re entertaining enough, she supposes. If anything, she’s almost more interested in the people that show up. For all that she supposedly lives in this brave new world, she’s barely seen any of it.
Lingering fears of being recognized by someone who’d been close enough to see her face during those last few days…
Burning gold. Unimaginable heat and then gentle, almost relaxing cold. Assemble, evade, protect, sacrifice. Assimilate, integrate. Fight.
“Taylor?” Taylor blinks, realizes that Lisa’s holding her face, glass-green eyes wide with clear concern. “Where are you, hon?”
“I’m…” Taylor says, trying to shake the ashes out of her hair. “I’m here with you, on Gimel. We’re in… we’re in our house. It’s um, it’s…six-fifty in the evening. I’m okay.”
“Okay, that’s good, that’s good.” Lisa’s touch lingers for a moment, pleasantly cool hands fighting off some of the worse memories. “Why don’t you stir the pasta while I fry the onions and meat?”
“Sure.” Taylor mumbles, moving to her assigned task. It’s good practice for using her prosthetic arm as well, which is no doubt why Lisa picked it. It’s mostly nice, having a housemate who can think of everything. Mostly. Stir, stir, a touch of salt to soften the noodles, reverse rotation. Lisa’s knife rhythmically cuts up the little cubes of stake and slides them into the pan, the onions hiss and hiss as the heat scares away their moisture, and butter rushes in to coat them both. It’s disgustingly domestic, but that term would describe her life in general, now.
You’d think Taylor would be happier with that.
Taylor wishes she could be.
But she’s not.
Dinner’s served up shortly. Meat pasta with a side of caesar salad. They eat at the counter— the table is really only used when guests come over, and this lets the two sit close together.
“So what you’d do today, hon?”
Taylor routinely puts some pasta in her mouth and tries to formulate an answer that isn’t sad. The best she lands on is:
“Did my exercises this morning. Got a bit further with the pulley then normal. Reading was a bust.”
“I’m sorry, hon. I know that’s frustrating for you.” Goddamn it, sometimes that fucking tone— no, no. That’s a Bad Thought. Taylor’s supposed to stop herself from thinking Bad Thoughts.
“Mh.” Taylor says instead, trying to shovel more pasta in her mouth to make sure the ugly words inside her don’t escape. Chew, chew, swallow. She tries not to feel nauseous as the food slides down her throat. “How’s work?”
“Oh, same old, really. Honestly, I think I spend more time making under the table deals and acting as a consultant alongside Kurt and Jeanne than I do actually being a problem. The slapdash government that got put together after it all settled is rife with problems and bad actors taking advantage of those problems and we’re really just trying to put out half a dozen fires all the time. Them from the inside, me from the outside. Crime’s a very good way of putting pressure on certain folks.” Lisa winks as she takes a sip of tea. “But enough about me. What’d you do after that?”
“Just listened to my audiobooks, mostly. Rachel came by. We walked for a bit.” Drink water. That’ll help it go down. And stay down.
“Really? Good.” Lisa smiles at that, a rare genuine one. “She never mentions it to me, you know. It’s like she’s keeping it secret.”
“Mh. I think she just doesn’t see a need. It’s our thing. Who else needs to know?”
“Fair enough.”
Dinner continues onward as it does, and Taylor makes it almost all the way through without having to excuse herself to the bathroom and fight the urge to throw up for a few minutes before coming back to the table. She’s not sure why her appetite has just…vanished the last few days, but it has. She makes up another lie about just not being that hungry today thanks to a big breakfast, and packs up what’s left of her food into yet another little container in their fridge.
The movie Lisa’s elected to watch tonight is The Princess Bride, one of the few films that a couple of truly heroic individuals had risked life and limb to obtain surviving copies of. As Taylor once again watches the swashbuckling adventures of Princess Buttercup and Westley, she almost manages to feel alright. It’s moments like these, where she can just get lost in some other life, where the prospect of everything else does not quite feel so crushing.
But then the movie ends.
And it’s time to go to sleep.
Taylor has begun to dread this time of day. Not just because it’s a pain, to remove her prosthetic and try to get into her sleeping clothes when she’s tired (and embarrassing that Lisa asks if she wants help with her shirt.) Not because she’s still unsure about what exactly it means, that she and Lisa have two separate bedrooms but Lisa keeps choosing to sleep in hers (Taylor had never asked her for this, just like she’d never asked her for anything the girl had done for her since she woke up in that hospital. Lisa had simply walked in one night when Taylor had been screaming and climbed into her bed without a word, and since that night had yet to choose to sleep in her own. It had helped, somewhat. To have something there to remind her that she is, in fact, safe in her house on Gimel, and not in any number of nightmares that haunt her. But in other ways, it makes it worse.)
No.
It’s because now, she can’t sleep at all. Lisa chases away the nightmares, but Taylor has begun to wonder if she would prefer them. When Lisa falls asleep herself, Taylor is forced to wait out the entire night, now alone once again with her worst enemy.
Herself.
“Goodnight, honey.” Lisa mumbles, curling into her covers. “Gotta…get up early tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Taylor mumbles, already accepting the long evening ahead of her. “Sleep well.”
“You…too…”
Lisa falls asleep quickly nowadays. It’s a subtle yet powerful transformation that dreams bring, as Taylor watches the hard lines of stress melt away and leave only a constellation of freckles behind on Lisa’s face. It’s cute, Taylor thinks, even if she’s not sure she’s allowed to have that thought. She and Lisa have never put a label on what this…is. Lisa’s never tried anything. Never pushed any boundary (even when Taylor has sometimes wanted her too, on the nights where they maybe drink a little too much.) Taylor hasn’t either. Most of the time she doesn’t feel a need to. Why bother? She and Lisa work. It’s about the only thing in her life that does work.
But does it? Hisses the voice that Taylor (almost) knows only exists inside of her own head. Does it work? When she has to take so much time and energy and money to take care of you? Someone who can’t give back, can’t provide?
Shut up, Taylor thinks back, staring at Lisa as she rolls in her sleep slightly. Just shut up for once.
She should hate you. The Voice snarls. It would be fair. How much have you hurt her even before you became a parasite on her life? Half of her scars are there because of what she did for you. How much longer are you going to take advantage of her?
Shut UP, Taylor thinks, turning over herself and gently pressing her hands into her closed eyes, trying to will herself to sleep. She’s tired. She’s so goddamn tired. She just wants to rest, please. Can’t she rest?
You could. You could just go. Do everyone a fucking favor and walk out of their lives. You’ve done it once.
Taylor did. She regrets that the most, out of everything. Leaving the Undersiders— her family— like that. It hadn’t made a lick of difference in the end, it felt like. The world still ended. Countless people still died. She’d hurt all of them for a few numbers and a chance. How much tangible effect did that choice have? Dinah wouldn’t answer her. Wouldn’t even speak to her anymore.
Taylor can’t blame her. She wouldn’t talk to herself either.
Everyone must be so tired of keeping you around. Like a hospice care patient who just won’t accept that it’s time. The Voice continues, echoing louder and louder in Taylor’s head, keeping blessed rest away. Sick of lugging you around. Having to pretend to care when they’ve already accepted that it’s your time and just want you done.
Taylor had accepted that as well, in the end. She’d tried so hard to live, but when she’d felt that woman— bang, bang —approach, she’d known. She’d accepted it. She’d tried her best, and done the impossible. It was about to be over, and that…she still had so many regrets. But at least she could rest. At least it could be over.
It could be over.
It would be so nice, Taylor thinks. To sleep. For it to be done. To stop fighting and just…give up. Finally let herself give up, after a life spent doing nothing but carrying on.
It can be over.
Only a mile or so out from their house, there’s a small river. The moths go there, at night. She thinks that would be a good place. Calm. Peaceful. Easy to lie down and rest. Taylor gently extricates herself from the bed. Slips back into her clothes, cursing softly to herself as it takes a minute or two to get a decent shirt back on, fumble with her sweatpants.
It can be over.
She grabs a backpack from the closet, stuffs a spare set of clothes and her phone into it. Grabs her wallet after a moment of hesitation, and her barely-used journal. She should have something to write a note with. They deserved that much, at least.
It can be over…
Taylor steps out into the hall, a strange sense of vertigo overtaking her. She knows that she’s not supposed to listen to The Voice, but it’s her voice, isn’t it? And…she’s just going for a walk, after all. And if that walk takes her somewhere out into the night, then that’s fine. Walks her to that quiet, still place on the river. Where she can lie down. Look up at the stars.
The stars… She’d like that. To look at that brilliant night sky once more.
It can be over.
“Taylor?” Lisa’s voice rings out, and Taylor flinches so hard she nearly drops her backpack, whirling to see Lisa hugging herself, looking at Taylor with such heartbreak that Taylor feels her own cracking right down the middle in her chest. “What…what are you doing, honey?”
“Why are you asking me?” Taylor responds bitterly, knowing she’s been caught. “You already know.”
“Cause I’m hoping I’m wrong.” Lisa says, walking forwards. “Please tell me I’m wrong and that you’re not—”
“Lisa, I don’t fucking sleep.” Taylor bites out, turning, eyes burning. “I barely eat. I’m not getting better. And I’m sure you and everyone else are just sick of having to keep broken old Taylor around, coddle her, make her believe she’s still important when the only thing she’s good for is housework and babysitting.”
“If you think that,” Lisa breathes out, getting closer and closer, “then you don’t know me at all.” She gently reaches out, and there’s a sudden urge to push her away, hike the backpack and just leave, leave and rest, finally rest, just fucking end it— but the moment passes as Lisa gingerly slides it off of her shoulder, and all of her rageful sorrow leaves, and Taylor’s left hollow again. “Taylor, if I had to give up Tattletale forever if it meant keeping you in my life, I would. I will.”
“...You shouldn’t.” Taylor eventually finds the wherewithal to say. “You’re amazing at being Tattletale.”
“I am. I like being Tattletale. But you matter to me more than that mask, Taylor. More than anything else in the world.” One of her hands slips into Taylor’s own, fingers fitting perfectly. Like puzzle pieces gliding into place. “In any of them.”
“It’s so hard, Lisa.” Taylor says, leaning into her shoulder. “It’s so hard. It takes so much out of me just to exist, and then I hear about the rest of the world, and I just want to give up. What’s the point of working to be a part of it if it’s going to be like this? If my life is going to be defined by constant struggle? Why am I still here, if…”
“I know.” Lisa sighs. “I get it. I really do. I think about it too sometimes. Even the parts you’re not saying.”
Taylor pulls back to look Lisa in the eyes and sees them sparking with tears. Lisa smiles one of those private smiles, something soft and wry. “Did you really think you’re the only one who feels like this, Tay? Of course I do. I keep myself together for you. I’m still struggling to deal with my own shit. God, there's times when I—" Lisa cuts herself off as her voice begins to shake and looks away for a moment. "You’re not the first person to struggle with living. You won’t be the last. As for the rest of it…” Lisa sighs, eyes roaming to a sky they can’t see. “Could you imagine being here? That you and I would be living together like this a year ago? That you would save the world— all the worlds— three years ago? That you would be a hero, a villain, a cape?” Taylor shakes her head quietly, and Lisa continues. “You see? We can’t see what’s coming. And I won’t pretend that all of that time was filled with good things. Hell, a lot of it fucking sucked. But you survived. You made it through all of that, and look. We’re here. We have people we love in our lives. We’re still alive. I know that you’re tired and you want to stop. I get it. But with all you’ve done, all you’ve gotten through…do you really want to stop now, when there’s still so much time for good things to come? For it to get even a little better?” She takes her other hand, and gently rubs her thumb against Taylor’s cheek. “Do you really want to leave me?”
Taylor breaks. She closes that last scant few inches and hurls herself into Lisa’s arms like she had that very first night she could walk again, and cries.
“No.” She manages to whisper. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m not going to leave. I’m not going to give up yet. I promise.”
“It’s okay, honey.” Lisa whispers back, gently pulling her back to bed. “I won’t give up on you either, okay? Just so long as you don’t give up on yourself.” Taylor lets herself be pulled down to the soft sheets, and wraps herself in gentle night.
“I’ll try to learn how to be okay.” She murmurs. “For you, I’ll try.”
Taylor at last falls asleep, and this time, she does not dream.