Chapter Text
EVEN AFTER ARRIVING AT HOME IN DENALI, Tanya struggled with the pain of separation from her mate, Dawson. She felt heartbroken and unsure how to proceed, experiencing physical symptoms like nausea—something she hadn’t known possible for a vampire. It was a strange feeling; she’d been human so long ago, that she’d forgotten how truly horrendous being nauseated was. She wanted to be with Dawson and though it was getting harder to avoid caving into her desires, she held herself back, knowing the only person she would be hurting was Dawson herself if she did choose to seek her out.
The only thing Tanya could do was seek support from her family. She had already confided in her sister Kate, but, still, neither of them was sure what to do about anything in the situation; it was just too complicated. She also reached out to Irina, Carmen, and Eleazar for advice on how to deal with the intensity of a mate bond. Irina’s wound of losing Laurent was still fresh, so she was very much going through the motions of pain at the same time as her older sister. Carmen was a great comfort, doing whatever she could to possibly ease Tanya’s pain if only a little bit. Carmen delved into the emotions of when Eleazar was in the Volturi, his life split between love and duty, and how it hurt her deeply, even though she was actively living with Eleazar at the time. Eleazar chimed in, too, expressing how it was uncomfortable for him at the time, and letting Tanya know she wasn’t alone in her experience, that her family members had felt similar ways at some point.
Alice Cullen continued to play a role, using her visions to provide insights into Dawson’s life and feelings. She reached out to Tanya any time she got any updates on Dawson, offering Tanya some comfort and a way to feel connected to Dawson despite the distance between them, both literally and figuratively.
Dawson, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about Tanya—not on the entirety of her long journey home, not when she stepped into her apartment for the first time in a week, and not when she got back to her regular life. It was like the curly-haired blonde had taken up permanent residence in her brain; everything Dawson did reminded her of Tanya, even something as mundane as doing dishes . Like a delusional teenage girl, her brain managed to find connections to Tanya in every possible situation. It soon became overwhelming, every part of her body painfully tingling for Tanya. A way that Dawson just didn’t understand, considering she’d only met the woman briefly. Dawson’s unease for her relationship with Farren was growing with each passing day.
After experiencing such a strong connection with Tanya, even despite their brief encounters, guilt absolutely cannibalized her for not thinking of Farren. Thinking back to when she’d been eighteen, moving to Australia—her nerves so intense and her shyness practically palpable—and met Farren in her first class on her first day of school. Nothing she’d felt for him even compared to when she landed eyes on Tanya. It paled. Her only thoughts about Farren after first seeing him were that he was a nice boy. He didn’t stick out to her whatsoever, didn’t get her heart feeling like a foreign object in her own chest, didn’t make her stomach flip and twist and clench. He still didn’t, and she’d been with him for two years.
No matter how hard Dawson tried to focus on rationalizing her feelings—and the whole situation—it just wouldn’t work. The part of her brain, the part that yearned and screamed for Tanya, was so much louder than the logical part of her brain, telling her she couldn’t throw her whole life away with Farren in Australia for a woman she’d known for two seconds.
Landing in Australia after a whole two days’ worth of traveling and seeing Farren waiting for her when she walked out of the airport doors only made her want to vomit, guilt churning in her stomach like a fierce, living beast inside of her. She hadn’t even done anything with Tanya, so why did she feel guilty as sin? Why did she feel dirty ?
Farren was as he always was: A smile on his pink lips, his blue eyes sparkling as they landed on Dawson, his pale blond hair windblown and messy, usually smelling faintly of saltwater from fishing out on his boat. He was always happy, always so positive—a stark contrast to Dawson. In the past, that was why she’d been so comforted by his presence; whenever she was freaking out, there he was, calm and logical, guiding her through her state of panic. Farren wasn’t a bad guy, not in the slightest, and that only made Dawson’s guilt triple. He loved her so much , it was clear in everything he did, and right now, she didn’t— couldn’t —feel the same way. Not when her heart was left in Tanya’s hands back in Forks. Now that she was thinking of it, she wasn’t sure she’d ever loved Farren as intensely as he loved her, even before Tanya. She was a terrible person .
The smile on her face was forced and painfully tight on her lips, feeling an awful lot like it just didn’t belong there. It didn’t . She prayed that Farren didn’t read too much into her distressed mood—he didn’t, just assuming his beloved girlfriend was drained from such a long time traveling.
Farren pulled Dawson into his arms the moment she was within arms reach, pressing a quick kiss to her perfect lips. She tried to force herself to reciprocate his affection, but her body wouldn’t respond to him at all. She was relieved the kiss was quick, relieved when it ended. As Farren took her bag from her to put into the trunk of his car, Dawson let out a jagged, shaky breath. She felt physically sick—it was all so dramatic for a situation that, on paper, really wasn’t that bad. What the hell was wrong with her?
Maybe she was just out of sorts from so much traveling in such a short span of time—at least, that was what she told herself. A sneaky voice whispered in her ear, No, you’re not. You know that’s not the reason. She jumped as she heard the voice; it had sounded so real, like someone had truly crept up behind her and said those words to her.
Farren, having heard her sharp gasp, was walking back over to her, the trunk now closed. He reached out, placing a cool hand on her warm arm. “Are you all right, darling?”
Blinking a few times to snap herself out of her paranoid daze, she nodded weakly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s just get home. I’m really tired.”
“No problem.” Farren flashed her an easy, boyish grin, fishing his keys from his pocket and unlocked the car. He opened the passenger side door for her. “Karin and Vivien can’t wait to see you. It’s only been a week, but they’ve been dreadfully annoying, waiting for your return.”
Dawson smiled, her first real smile since leaving Forks. She’d been missing them more than she’d realized, and she couldn’t wait to wrap her arms around her best friends. Maybe she’d ask them to sleep over the apartment for the night; they would know how to make her feel better, as always.
“Do you mind sleeping on the sofa for tonight?” Dawson asked once they were in the car, glancing over at Farren with an eyebrow raised. “I want to have a sleepover with the girls.”
Farren chuckled, shaking his head, as if knowing she was going to ask that. “Sure. I was gonna sleep at Poe’s anyway.”
“Oh,” Dawson nodded, relieved more than she should be that her boyfriend wouldn’t be in the house for the night. “Alright.” Poe was Farren’s best friend, they were very close.
The decently long drive from the airport to their shared apartment was filled with awkward silence, neither of them really knowing what to say to the other. Farren tried to talk to Dawson for the first few minutes, asking her about her trip and what she’d done, but Dawson’s answers were short and dry, so he eventually gave up on trying. They were only about a foot away from each other, but Dawson felt as if it was ten-thousand miles. She’d never felt more distant from Farren. Her whole future felt so unstable now, so far away, even though, just two weeks ago, her future was a surety, a planned, steady fact of her life. She’d always known what to expect for her coming days, but now it felt all up in the air, lost somewhere in the ocean between Washington and Australia.