takecourage | She swung from her left...

When she falls asleep, she dreams of Hellie.

Hellie with her beautiful blonde hair and her strong athlete's stance and her big, ugly feet. Sweet, clever, dead Hellie. In the dream, Hellie is alive, and she's swinging a bat, the bat, still splattered with blood and brain-matter, in wide, careless arcs. In real life, that bat had been broken into splinters, and Hellie had opened her hands, opened Alex's hands, and given it to the river but here, in the dream, it's still whole and terrible as it ever was.

"Hey, Alex," says Hellie, swinging the bat again. "How's life?"

Between one blink and another, everything changes - Hellie teeming wiht life becomes Hellie already going blue around the edges, vomit in her hair. Dead in the night. Alex feels tears rolling hot down her cheeks.

"Jesus, Hellie," she mumbles. "Jesus."
She doesn't know how to tell Hellie how much she loved her. In the dream, she hopes she knows.

"Here," says Hellie, holding out the bat. Cold terror spikes through her and she shakes her head.
"I don't want that," she says. "Don't...Hellie, please..."

"You don't have a choice, Galaxy," says Hellie, her blue eyes soft and sad and forever away. "You never did. Just take the fucking bat."

So, in the way of dreams, Alex reaches out and takes the bat and she wakes up, with Hellie's name on her lips and the bloodied bat stil in her hands.

"Oh, fuck," she says, her panicked brain rabbiting, bouncing off the insides of her skull, panic begging for release.

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"That must have been really hard with a fucking ballroom," spits Alex, and regrets it the moment she says it, but it's already out in the air by then, drawing breath. She half turns away from him, pulling her jeans on, buttoning them and shoving her hair out of her face. "It sounds like you want me to apologise for this, Darlington. Like you want me to apologise for helping my friend - my friend who was drugged and fucked and died. My friend who I..." Her jaw tightens. "I'm not going to apologise, Daniel. And you should understand because you fucking love me."

Loved me. Whatever.

She grabs a sweater off a chair and drags it on over her head.

He could tell her that hard had been having the electricity cut off in the dead of winter, bundling himself in clothes he found in the attic and doing his homework by candlelight. Keeping track of how much money was left secreted away among the pages of 1776. Balancing whether paying for some repair on the house was more vital than feeding himself that week. Knowing, like a constant, droning hum at the back of his mind, that if anything happened to him no one would find out until it was far too late.

But Alex doesn't care about that, because none of it is enough fuel for another of her acid barbs, the venom that he always should have realized she possessed. The warning had been inked four times on her skin, after all.

"If I really loved you, I'd just accept this?" he says instead, hearing the bitter tang to the words. "Sure, Alex, it's fine with me you let in a Grey, one of the most dangerous, reckless things you could do, something I wouldn't have been able to keep from Sandow if we were back home, because you felt bad that your friend died. I have no problem with the fact you slaughtered five men with a baseball bat and you have absolutely no remorse about it because hell, it got you to Yale, didn't it? Those are the things you want me to say, that's the argument you're trying to make here."

The sweater she grabs is one of his, because it's always one of his. Not long ago, it would've been a source of fond annoyance; now, it feels like another kind of knife in his heart.

"If you don't know that it's because I love you that I'm trying to understand, not just accept, but understand, how you did this..." He exhales sharply, letting go of the garbage bag at last, letting it crumple to the ground beside him. "Then, Alex, I'm not sure how to explain it to you."

"Fuck you," she says, spitting the words at him. "You're not trying to understand anything, Daniel. You're just judging me because that's the fucking easiest thing for you to do." She grabs her boots, sitting down on the edge of the bed to yank them on, leaving the laces to trail. "Go find a girl who'll live up to your expectations, Daniel. I'm sure there's a fucking Ashley around here somewhere."

"You think anything about this is easy?" He only just keeps from shouting. "Knowing there's a chance you'd do this again? Hurt someone? Maybe not even someone you think deserves it, next time. How much control do you have over this, really? Because from what I saw it didn't look like a whole hell of a lot."

Alex keeps getting dressed, pulling on one boot and then the other. He could stop her, ask her to stay, work this out somehow. Only a few minutes ago, he might have, but the moment's gone now--and the twist in his gut makes him wonder, a flickering thought he doesn't want to acknowledge, if it's a chance he'll ever have again.

"It's not easy knowing you kept this from me. It's not easy knowing you still would be, if it wasn't for whatever the fuck brought that goddamn bat here tonight. You and I are supposed to trust each other, and you shattered that, just like--" Darlington stops himself, makes himself stop, before he says something he knows even in his anger is a step too far. "Despite your constant insecurities on that front, Alex, I'm not looking for an Ashley," he says, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, his jaw set and rigid. "But maybe that's better than what I got."

That, he regrets as soon as it's out. But it's out, and he doesn't move to take it back.

"I'm not explaining myself to you, Danny, because you don't give a shit about what I think or why I did it," she says. "You don't give a fuck abotu me, as long as you're right. So whatever. You're right. Fuck it." She stands, grabbing her satchel and slinging it across her chest. "Enjoy looking for her, Daniel. I'm sure you won't have any problem getting your dick wet."

She stalks out of the bedroom, leaving the bat on the floor.

"Where the fuck are my keys..."

Knowing that it's meant to sting--and that it stings because deep down, it's true--doesn't make the hurt of it any easier to take. Once again, they're left tearing strips off one another with an almost surprising suddenness and ferocity, and just like in January things have spiraled into something neither of them have complete control over.

Alex stomps out of the bedroom, the bat still lying where she'd dropped it. To follow her, he'll need to step over it, around it. It takes him a minute to do so, and even when he does he only makes it to the front of the hallway before he stops again, looking at her as she stalks furiously around the living room.

"Coffee table," he says, with the barest bob of his chin towards where her keys are resting on the wood surface.

Alex snatches her keys up off the table and turns. In his crate, Kirby whines and, absurdly, that's the thing that almost makes her burst into tears. "I'm sorry, baby," she says, turning towards the door. "He'll take good care of you, okay?"

"Alex..."

Kirby whines and Alex's eyes fill, and just for a moment there's a crack in the cold armor she'd wrapped around herself. Maybe this is the chance, maybe there's an opportunity he can take here, maybe nothing's happened that can't be repaired. He takes a step into the room, but she's already turning towards the door.

"Of course I will," he says. "I promise. For what it's worth. That's...that's all."

Alex doesn't have anything else to say right then. She turns and walks out of the apartment and, because of Kirby, she doesn't slam the door. She makes it all of the way to the street before she has to wipe away a tear.

She swung from her left...

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