Work Text:
It’s years before Fatin finally sees her again. Over half a decade since they all got off of that godforsaken island and the first thought that floats into her brain is, past the hazy smoke of the club and the alcohol running through her veins, Leah Rilke still dances the same.
That ridiculous white-girl-wasted pattern of tossing her head back and forth while her arms follow an unknown pattern to everyone except for Leah herself. The familiarity of it stops Fatin in her tracks, rooted to the spot observing, watching her, and the irony of it all is not lost on her.
Even under the pulsing and color-changing lights, Fatin can tell Leah looks different. Of course she does, the last time they saw each other was as 18 year olds at Gretchen Klein’s trial, with their still slightly emaciated bodies, but Fatin supposes, what surprises her is how different Leah looks, how healthy she is, but how exactly the same she looks, so much so that Fatin can recognize her from across the room after not seeing her for nearly eight years.
Maybe that says more about herself rather than Leah.
Whether it's recovery or age that’s filled out and softened the edges of her body, time has favored Leah well. The cutting line of her jaw is still the same as is the curve of her cheek, but the rest of her body looks strong instead of just lean. Fatin lingers on the line of her muscle that appears when Leah lifts her arms over her head. Her hair is longer and lighter than Fatin’s ever seen it as a teenager and Leah keeps musing it up with one of her hands as she’s dancing. Under the lights, her hair looks much more golden, only near the roots is the natural dark brown Fatin is familiar with. Sun-kissed, maybe she would say.
Fatin can’t help noticing how good she looks, wearing a signature thin-strapped top that doesn’t really leave anything to the imagination. Some things don’t seem to change, then. If she had more shame, Fatin would feel guilty how her eyes linger on the swell of Leah’s breasts, how they move with her body under the lights, but time has softened her too, and her wants aren’t as destructive as they once were.
She remembers all of it: the island, the bunker, the island again, escaping for real, their tentative, fraught relationship and the fallout after, the trial, and then nothing…
Would Leah even want to see her, so many years later and after everything they’d been through?
The memories rush back to her, thousands upon thousands little moments, the traumas they went through together, the moments on the island and after that she knew she’d think about for the rest of her life as they were happening to her in real-time, to them, burned into her brain.
She steps forward, towards Leah. On the island, Fatin never could stay away for long, and now, so many years later, she owes it to both of them, to try.