Chapter Text
‘Disconcerting’ would be the word that she would use to describe her if she let the writer in her have her way. But she barely feels like she knows that part of herself at the moment. Everything that was everything was even more farfetched than even she could cook up in an alcohol induced haze.
And she wrote about ships that sailed on fucking sand.
“Fucking weird,” is what she settles on, mumbling the words into the cold air of the kitchen sink. She’s always found she was more comfortable at night. Less disturbance. Easier to focus and get things done without interruption.
Now she finds that she enjoys the night more because it makes it easier to forget. That everyone was gone. That she… that Helen was gone. That the house was only silent because she was sleeping. Because she was away on business. Anything but the reality.
She takes a deep shuddering breath, leaning heavily on the sink as she feels another wave of nausea pass through her, watching the steady, glittering flow of water as it skimmed the smooth surface of pale ceramic before slipping away into the circular darkness. She splashes more cool water on her face willing the uneasiness in her stomach to settle.
The water stills with a flick of her wrist, the gurgle of the drain loud in the silence of the night. She keeps her eyes averted as she dries her hands, unable to bear the sight of what greets her outside the windows. Her fingers still tender from her labour that day. The hole in her chest still ragged and oozing, raw around the edges in a way she doesn’t know will ever heal.
“You know you should eat more if you’re going to drink,” Helen’s voice is a whispered memory that itches between her shoulder blades. It’s an argument they’ve had countless times before but her brains choice to throw that at her in the darkness when the only thing she’s consumed all day is single malt feels cruel. Even by her standards.
Carol drifts like a ghost to the upper floor, avoiding their bedroom as she settles on the balcony. She feels untouchable here. Safe and secure from the emptiness of everything around her. And if she tries hard enough Carol finds she almost believes that the twinkling of the city lights aren’t pointless. That each bright spec is a place someone calls home. That the people are still there going about their days and lives like nothing had changed.
That one of those lights was Helen coming home to her. She reaches for the glass that had become her permanent companion, remembering too late that she had left it downstairs in a bought of uncharacteristic optimism. Instead, she sighs, fingers picking at the sun scorched render that still radiates the warmth of the Albuquerque sun. She wishes for something to take the edge off the loneliness despite the buzz that numbs her cheeks. Worries that such a thing might not exist.
She finds instead that her thoughts drift unwillingly to… her. Irritatingly perfect Zosia. She couldn’t deny that she made her feel things. That she didn’t appreciate that she looked like the way she has always imagined Raban in the privacy of her own thoughts.
That she wasn’t the most beautiful woman that she’d seen in her entire life. And that a part of her didn’t find her smile utterly disarming in a way that made her feel just a little bit giddy. In a way that made her want to make her smile just to bear witness to its beauty. Even her stupid fun facts about everything – because the woman knew literally everything there was to ever know - were endearing, her unbridled enthusiasm palpable in the air each time she zoomed off on a tangent.
Each time she stopped and gave her a sheepish smile and an apology when Carol would just watch, appreciating the way that the woman’s eyes would light up the longer she spoke. She didn’t have the heart to tell her she enjoyed it. Was almost sad when she watched her face fall, the smile that almost made Carol believe she was real retreat behind tight lips and a neutral expression.
There was something in the depth of her eyes that made Carol think there was a darkness lingering deeply in Zosia that even 8 billion other minds couldn’t hide.
“You like her,” the ghost of Helen speaks again and Carol closes her eyes, sighing with a heavy resignation that comes from somewhere deep in her chest. Wasn’t it enough that she was still here? Alone in all this? Did she really have to find new ways to punish herself?
Theres a heaviness that sits in her, that’s lingered since she watched back the footage of her experiment on herself. Part of her dismisses the feeling as the lingering side effect of the drug in her system. But she knows her tolerance is way too high. But it’s easier than acknowledging that it took drugging herself for her to finally admit the thing she refused to think about. Because she knows it would break her if she did. And without Helen there to help her pick up the shattered pieces of herself. To be the reason she even wanted to try in the first place she doesn’t quite know if she would.
The render beneath her short nails cracks, splintering as it impales itself in tender fresh. The pain brings her thoughts back into sharper focus, and she sucks her tongue as she picks the flaked stone from out of her nailbed as gentle as clumsy fingers allow.
“Goddamn it,” Carol hisses into the still night air, her heart swelling as she lets some of the feelings that she had been holding at bay with golden girls and golden liquid seep through the cracks like blood through gauze. “I fucking miss you,” Carol whispers, the words burning as they get stuck around the lump in her throat. “I don’t know if anything of this is worth saving if you’re not here with me,” She speaks to fill the silence. It’s the only thing that makes the world feel less empty and she finds herself doing it more often the longer she’s alone.
Finds that she does it less when she’s around. Zosia, somewhere tucked safe in a hospital bed recovering from Carol’s latest bought of drunken stupidity. Zosia, whose blood still sits black under her nails refusing to budge no matter how much she scrubbed or washed her hands. Hands still seared by the memory of the blood that she tried her best to stop not even a day earlier. Blood that felt like it stained more than her clothes and the concrete beneath her.
“Why does she have to be so goddamn fuckable?” Carol’s own words echo in her mind, and she feels her cheeks flush at drugged Her’s admission. Because she can’t deny it. She does want her in that way. And that fills her with a guilt that eats at her every time she lets herself think it.
It feels like a betrayal to Helen, that’s she’s even remotely interested in someone else so quickly after how long they’d been together. After how much she’d put Helen through with her shame and refusal to honestly be her full self outside of the safety of the four walls she provided for them both. She always told Helen she deserved better. And Helen always told her she was enough.
But after her conversation with Larry earlier that day she wonders how much of that was true. Knows she doesn’t really think she could stomach the answer. Not with her now knowing that most of Helen’s appreciation for her life’s passion was in the payday it provided and not the work itself.
She curses the fact she left her drink downstairs, her right hand reaching for the familiar glass that numbs her feelings and racing thoughts. But the uneasy feeling in her belly reminds her why as she tastes the acid at the back of her throat and she instinctually rolls forward to ease the burn. Fitting it takes the world fucking ending for her to entertain the thought of sobriety.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Helen’s voice tickles the edge of her consciousness again, her mind teasing her at its lowest.
“That’s because you’re not fucking real,” Carol sighs, knows she talking to herself. Feeling foolish for feeding into her own delusions.
“What am I then?” there’s no mistaking the amusement in not Helen’s voice. Even her own fucking hallucinations were mocking her now.
“I dunno? Jiminy fucking cricket?” Carol snaps, wrapping Helen’s stolen cardigan around herself tighter with folded arms. The defensive motion was a familiar habit, a way to make herself feel smaller. More contained and controlled. Safer. But now the motion was as much to ward off the chill of loneliness that had been lingering for the past 168 hours as it was to hide from the discomfort of the feelings she tried her best to keep buried.
“All those words that live in your head and the best you can come up with for me is a Disney moral conscious?”
Carol pauses, the words and the protest were too real, even for her imagination. Maybe it was the drugs still in her system. Maybe all those years behind the bottle were finally catching up with her. She pinches the tip of her index finger, reigniting the sting of the torn skin underneath. This was real. Right? She turns slowly, the grit of the outdoor tile sticking to her feet in a way that reminds her its been too many days since her last shower.
Finds the empty space she expected and is almost disappointed in a way she doesn’t quite know how to put into words. She strips quietly as she walks through her office, gathering her things into a neat pile that she leaves unceremoniously in a hamper by their bedroom door. This was the hard part. The heart of the house where Helen lingered the most. Her smell permeated the atmosphere of everything here. The memory of her woven into every atom that made up this sacred space. It was all she had left.
The hot water is scalding as it runs down her body, soothing and stinging in equal measure. Everything feels duller, her short hair plastered to her skull as she leans against the cool blue tile, her pale fingers a stark contrast to the brightness of the primary colour. She’s read about people who preferred hot showers in passing. Dismissed it as pop psychology when researchers described the desire for external warmth as a substitute for human connection.
But she understands it now. If she’d known that the last conversation she’d ever have with her wife was another rehashing of an old argument about Raban she would have given it more thought. Might have given in to Helen’s silent plea to let herself be seen as she wholly was. Not who she pretended to be. Might have for once given it more thought than the palatable heterosexually appropriate appeal of someone perfunctory handsome like George Clooney. Might have instead replied with something closer to the truth. Gillian Anderson. Carrie Fisher. Sigourney Weaver. Take your pick really.
If she’d known the last time she would have felt the touch of Helen. Of anyone. Was when she was in her favourite place – on tip toes, chin resting on her shoulder as she inhales the warm familiarity of the woman she’s loved all these years she would have stayed longer. She would have wrapped her arms around her tighter. She would have kissed her in that sensitive space right beneath her ear where the baby hairs are the softest.
She would have held her tighter in those final moments and never let her go. The thought that maybe if she’d just stayed where she was, holding her Helen so she didn’t fall. That she didn’t break her fall with the harsh cold of concrete meeting skull but with the warmth of her loving embrace that Helen would still be here. That she wouldn’t be alone in all of this. But a Helen that wasn’t herself is a Helen Carol doesn’t know if she would want. The night that she brought Helen’s body home she drank enough not to feel anything – a feat for a seasoned alcoholic like herself. In a peaty amber haze she dreamed Helen was immune instead of her. That she had been changed instead and Helen remained whole. That Helen finally had a version of her that was open and whole and happy in a way that Carol always felt guilty of never being able to be.
But Helen had loved her anyway. Loved her enough for the both of them. But Carol still wished that she could have given her more.
The thought of wishing she could have been made one of the others, even only in dreams feels like a betrayal. Especially after everything to do with conversion therapy. She wonders if her mother survived the joining. Assumes the spiteful woman would have because that’s just who she was as a person. The constant smiling put her on edge in a familiar way. The fearful need to perform for safety digging under her shoulder blades even now.
She dries herself in silence, sparing only a passing glance at her naked form in the mirror. Purses her lips when she see’s the narrowness of her waist reflected back at her, Helen’s voice rattling between her ears with a reminder to eat something.
She sighs as she pulls on familiar clothes, her feet slipping easily into comfortable sneakers as she gathers her keys and a shopping bag. There was no food in the house, because of course there wasn’t. She pauses as she spies the stash of syringes and thiopental sodium sitting on the bench.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Helen’s voice again, and a subtle movement in the shadows gives her pause. Maybe she hadn’t been imagining things quite the way she thought she had been after all.
“No,” Carol whispers, the hard ridges of her keys digging into the softness of her palm as she tightens her fist around the unyielding material. “But I need to know.”