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The descending staircase stretches down before her. She stands at its top, gasping heavily in her panic, the scent of salty sea air nearly choking her. Her shoes are cold and soaked as water cascades down the steep steps. She sprints down the stairs, nearly plummeting face first on the slick surface. As she descends, the grunts and screams of pain that she expects to greet her are absent, replaced by something somehow worse. A wet gurgling echos in her ears. She’s had this vivid nightmare enough times to know that this time is different, the twisting in her gut only offers further proof.
She throws her whole weight into the door, desperate to get it open, and it surprised it gives way. She crashes to the flooded basement floor, the water here is several inches deep. She’s momentarily blinded by the frosty white light coming in from the wall of windows. She blinks rapidly trying to adjust to the brightness, blindly trying to get to her feet, but quickly halts. Even backlit, the figure is undeniably recognizable. She lies stock still, aghast at the vision of herself before her. Face snarled, specked with blood and clutching a bloody knife, looming over a slumped over figure in the shallow water across the room from her. The wet gurgling is deafening now.
She stumbles hastily, trying to get up and over to the person sprawled out on the floor. She can’t get to them fast enough, the more she moves the more tar-like the water around her becomes. She can only manage to clumsily crawl over, dragging herself to them across the floor, fighting against the water the entire time.
When she finally reaches them, she holds onto them like a tether, gasping for air, trying to catch her breath, panic somehow rising even more in her chest. She sits in this moment of hesitation as she kneels next to them. Dread rolling over her as she rolls the person over to see familiar long dark curls, a horrified face with a bloody neck, and the unmistakable bump at their belly.
Ellie jolts awake, panting like she had just been running from a bloater. Her shirt clings to her uncomfortably, drenched in cold sweat. She turns and takes in the sight of Dina sleeping peacefully next to her. Her hair is in a messy bun, some of it falling into her face; she has one arm splayed out over her head and the other resting on her rounded belly peaking out from the bottom of her sleep shirt. Ellie places a hand on her chest, trying to calm the rapid beating and watches Dina’s chest slowly rise and fall, tries to match her own breathing to that of her girlfriend’s. After a few moments, Ellie reaches out to brush the hair from Dina’s face, but her hands shake too much. Her throat’s suddenly dry, guilt choking her, she climbs out of bed, quickly changes out of her damp shirt and descends the stairs.
After pouring herself a glass of water, she settles into the rocking chair on their front porch looking out onto their farm, eyes unseeing. The visions from her dream still flood her mind. She pinches her brow in frustration, trying to excise the images from her mind, with no success.
There’s a specific type of rage that comes with loss that Ellie knows all too well. And with nothing to point it at, it’s consuming her now. Or perhaps it was always consuming her, and she just hadn’t noticed. The calm farm providing such stark contrast to the frenziness of her mind. She hadn’t wanted to recognize her dream-self in her snarled rage and desperation, standing over her dead girlfriend, holding the knife.
It’s never easy, stomping out the fiery fury in her chest to focus on getting to another day. She knows that her future lies currently in their bed upstairs. But with a past like hers, does she really deserve it?
The wave of despair comes, expectedly, but no less suffocating. She couldn’t save Joel, couldn’t avenge him, she wasn’t the cure. Her list of failures were racking up these days. Was that all her life was meant to be? Was it all nothing? Even Ab— that bitch with the braid, did what she hadn't been able to and spared someone, even in the face of her own grief and rage.
The bile rises in her throat at the thought and burns its way out of her. She rushes to the porch railing and gags on her own bitterness, grief, and rage. Guts emptied, she leans against the railing, head resting against her crossed arms, fighting angry tears. She wants to throw everything in sight, break every window and potted plant in reach, and scream until her throat is raw.
Knowing the sound would wake Dina is the only thing that steadies her. She takes a swig of water and swishes it around in her mouth for a moment before spitting it out onto the grass below. Turning back towards the house, she gives a defeated sigh. She’s craving the reassuring presence of her girlfriend, being with her always manages to chase away the darkness. But Dina deserves better, deserves more than Ellie feels capable of giving her.
She drains her glass and stamps out her despair with renewed determination to be here, present for her family. To give Dina and their coming baby everything she has, even if the only thing she has to offer is her ability to keep trying.
Ellie takes a moment in the kitchen. Knowing that Dina will probably wake up in the middle of the night with another late night craving, she refills her water and prepares a small midnight snack for Dina, a slice of bread spread with peanut butter and drizzled with honey, before heading back upstairs.
She enters quietly, trying not to disturb Dina in case she’s asleep, but finds her awake sitting up in bed, with one hand groggily rubbing the sleep from her eyes and the other rubbing her back.
“There you are”, Dina’s low, coarse from sleep voice greets her as she makes her way to the bed, “come back to bed, it’s too cold without you”
“I hope I didn’t wake you. Went to grab some water, made you a snack while I was up”, Ellie places the glass on her bedside table and passing the plate to Dina as evidence. Climbing into bed, she slots herself behind Dina and takes over rubbing her back.
They sit in contented silence as Dina bites into her snack and Ellie works on her back, happy to be in each other’s presence.
“I was worried when I woke up without you here”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you”
“Worrying’s in my blood so..” Dina lets out a sigh and leans back against Ellie. She shifts slightly and brings up her half-eaten toast, “have a bite”.
Ellie takes the offered bite, Dina breaks out in giggles and wipes the swear of peanut butter from her top lip, “How did you manage to get more of it on your face than in your mouth just now?!”, Dina says, trying to talk through her laughter.
Ellie chuckles, smiling down at Dina, letting her girlfriend’s joy wash over her.
Soon their laughter dies down, and Dina, looking at Ellie knowingly, softly asks, “what woke you up?”
Ellie buries her face in Dina’s neck and wraps her arms around her, squeezing her eyes shut tight as the nightmarish images flash through her mind again. She feels Dina twists in her arms, and she loosens her hold to adjust to Dina’s new cradled position. Dina brings her hand up to wipe the tears from her face, she hadn’t realized she had been crying. She leans her head to the side to rest against Ellie’s shoulder, and a hand continues to caress her cheek.
“Talk to me babe”
Ellie takes a deep breath, trying to focus on her gentle touch as she struggles to find the right words, to distill the chaos of her racing thoughts into something coherent.
She settles on, “I’m scared of hurting you or the baby”
Dina takes her hand and places it over her belly. Ellie smiles at the feeling of a gentle kick against her hand, as if the baby is also trying to reach out and reassure her.
“Ellie, what can I do to reassure you?”
“Let me take care of you”, Ellie pleads.
“You do, so well, just hold me right now”
Ellie takes what remains of Dina’s toast and places the plate next to the glass of water on the bedside table. She gathers the pillows around the bed and arranged them around both of them, and helps Dina get into a comfortable position. While neither of them return to sleep, they rest easy in bed entwined together. Finding peace, even if only for the moment, in each other's embrace.