Chapter Text
She’d been jumpy for months afterwards.
Some of the rest of it, the unstoppable shaking and sobbing? That came and went fairly fast.
Beth’d been through some shit in her life, okay, she could bite down on the obvious signs of grief and trauma if she needed to. Forcing herself to grin and bear life was pretty much old hat at this point.
The instant terror that any noise, any movement could apparently set off though… that stuff had all been devastatingly new. She really did stop sleeping entirely for a couple of weeks back there. Snatching unsatisfying “naps” only when her exhausted body forced her to do so by essentially collapsing, like some kind of crazed insomniac. Whenever she woke from one of those short sessions it was like she was rising from the dead, like a robot switched back on, a drowned woman struggling back to the surface. There were no dreams to rouse from, just a sudden gasping emergence from a blank black nothingness.
Annie’d joked that at least with her looking as awful as she did – and she really did, eyes hollow, a sickly pallor on her skin – at least Dean wasn’t going to try to worm his way back in to her life or her bed. Beth’d missed the look that Ruby must’ve shot her sister then but she saw the chagrin taking over Annie’s features. Beth wanted to tell her it didn’t matter, she wasn’t upset by her saying that. Hadn’t bothered though.
But it had been almost a full year now and she was slowly starting to accept and adapt to her new life. Every creak of a floorboard, every backfiring car, every sudden movement she only caught in her peripheral… well, if sometimes those still caused her to let out a yelp or tense her shoulders at least her mouth wasn’t always full of bile, her fists weren’t always raised, her eyes weren’t always screwed shut in terror along with it.
She’d been attending self-defence classes. She’d started swimming again. Been baking fake money of her own – and it was good stuff. Maybe she didn’t quite feel in control of her life, but she didn’t feel like fate’s bitch being buffeted mindlessly by the universe any more either.
Still though, her breath would catch whenever she saw a lean build with cropped dark hair from the back in a crowd, butterflies filled her stomach at the glimpse of a certain type of dark beanie from a distance, anguish grasped her if she heard a bass pitch of rumbling speech shivering past her.
*
And, yeah, okay. So she’d thought about the possibility of him somehow being alive in the aftermath, of course she had. Hope and trepidation had filled her mind at the notion. Hot on the tails of Boomer’s reappearance and with Turner cleaning up her mess… a small part of her brain had wondered.
But Beth had dealt with plenty of grief and loss. Fantasising about someone somehow making it through death was just that, a fantasy. Part of the process. She’d put three bullets in his chest and that wasn’t exactly something that someone could just get up and walk away from.
There’d been a week or so after it’d first happened where she’d just driven around their old haunts in a daze, the loft understandably struck from that list. She’d had no clear idea what, if anything, she was searching for, but a fierce need to remain in motion, to enact these pilgrimages had possessed her.
Some desperate part of her had led her near the house she’d seen him collect his son from once, that fateful day she’d spent following him around. She’d almost had the guts to get out and go knock on the door. To… what? Offer to help the kid grieve? Ask about funeral arrangements so she could send flowers? Hand over the key to the storage without a word? Bare her soul and beg for forgiveness? Some rare force of sanity, not something she had in abundance in those days, had thankfully made her drive away from there and never return.
Still there’d been days of her shuffling between cafes, parks, the storage units, even the warehouses as if she were a bus driver with a set route. Remembered dialling his number again and again, leaving voicemail after voicemail with the same obsessive clarity. Those people at the addiction meetings she’d briefly frequented would probably have something to say about behaviour like that, she’d thought wryly. She considered going back to those meetings. Did no such thing.
Annie and Ruby had wanted to be with her as much as possible during that time, had wanted to comfort her, to help her. The more she promised them that she was fine, the less they believed her. So she learnt to stop saying it. Plastered on a certain appropriately beleaguered face and tone of voice and said that she just wanted to be alone. If they didn’t understand that they at least could try to respect it and let her duck them, mostly. Always before she’d wanted them lying with her – in beds, on sofas, collapsed upon the floor – for comfort in her darkest times.
It’s not that she didn’t crave their company, the solace they longed to give her. But she couldn’t stand the idea of discussing what had happened with them. It wasn’t simply that she’d killed someone – and she had killed someone, it still didn’t quite compute. She’d killed her – well, even if she couldn’t quite name what he’d been to her, they’d seen it for god’s sake. Seen her quietly giddy over sleeping with him, jealous when they’d spied him hugging another woman, desperately calling him those millions of times when he wouldn’t reply. What would they think of her if they truly understood what had happened? She already had to feel it about herself, seeing that reflected in their eyes too would’ve ended her, she was certain of that.
She’d pushed through that now, more or less. They’d stopped watching her with those twin guarded, concerned expressions. They were watchful yet though. Even without her being forthcoming they’d probably gathered enough.
*
Dean had taken the kids to his mother’s that first week. Beth’d assured him that she’d be fine alone, surprised but endlessly thankful that he’d given in. She’d needed silence more than anything. She still wasn’t sure if he understood what had happened, his observation skills never exactly sharp.
In that empty house she’d spent one glorious 24 hour period frenetically masturbating, determinedly picturing nothing and no one. But after the blissful oblivion of shock, guilt had settled in to her bones.
After her obsessive whirlwind of visits to old haunts she hadn’t been able to bring herself to return to most of them since. She’d stuffed the key to the storage locker into a shoe box and hidden that in the garage.
Even a year on she’d wanted to baulk at having to head to an upscale patisserie just because it was near one of their cafes. But Annie couldn’t pick up the cake for Sadie’s birthday party and Beth was trying so hard to convince her sister, to convince everyone, that she really was fine now. So she’d forced herself to boss up and head on over. She was proud at her mastery of her emotions.
There was a small counter right at the back that dealt with orders for parties, away from the bustle, where she was happily chatting about icing with the young guy serving her who didn’t look that much older than Kenny.
So when she heard a whisper of a rumble saying something she couldn’t quite catch, she turned around on instinct. It was a habit now, she’d see or hear something small that took her back to him, assure her lizard brain that couldn’t quite seem to understand that it couldn’t be him because she’d killed him and go on with her day.
She was ready, intellectually, to turn back to the boy but her body was refusing to accommodate that because her eyes were drinking him in. Her heart somersaulted and dove somewhere into the middle of her intestines. Dimly she noticed that a waitress, blushing, seemed to be in the middle of showing him to a table and he’d been thanking her or something and. He was here. Standing. Alive.
Beth’s body was apparently a tricksy disobedient thing this morning because without her command or permission it had walked her over to him and apparently her eyes were leaking tears unbidden because she seemed to be soaking his shirt with them, her face on his chest, her arms creeping around his waist.
She distantly heard the waitress, disconcerted, say, “Ummm, should I get another chair for your friend?”.
Rio didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move to peel her off of him either but she thought she felt his body slightly relax. He must’ve nodded or something because the next thing she properly understood was that he was firmly pushing her into a seat.
He dropped into the other chair, maintaining his distance. Beth glanced vaguely at the waitress who she could see fiddling out of the corner of her eye, and tried to offer her a small smile. The waitress – her name tag said Jocelyn, Beth somehow managed to take in – looked extremely uncomfortable and fled, muttering about being back to take their order shortly.
Beth’s brain started to catch up with her. The standard refrain of he’s dead, you killed him was still playing on a loop except she was really having to acknowledge that she might not have been as right about that as she’d thought. Not unless her grip on reality had finally cracked wide open. She was still pretty sure she’d shot him and left him for dead though, that wasn’t something she was likely to forget. Which meant that… which meant that he must be pissed.
Beth sniffled and rubbed at her eyes a little. She tried to look at him properly, to assess him. But her mind was racing and she kept finding herself glancing away. His face didn’t seem hard and angry, more politely blank and maybe a touch bemused. Looking at him hurt, she could see lights dancing behind her eyes like that time one of Ruby’s brothers had dared her to stare into a flashlight for minutes on end.
Well, she thought, he probably wasn’t going to kill her or ream her out here, in public. Probably. She cast around wildly for something to say, drawing a blank. Embarrassment, guilt and panic were clawing their way through her, holding her hostage.
“Are we?” she blurted out desperately, voice woefully small.
He didn’t respond verbally but raised one perfect eyebrow a teeny distance and gestured vaguely with one hand in a way that she considered could possibly be encouraging.
“Are we friends?” she asked, inwardly cursing herself for how much more childish it sounded aloud.
A calculating grin, almost but not quite familiar, widened his mouth. She noted absently that it didn’t move anywhere up near his eyes.
“I dunno sweetheart-”, and it was like an echo of how he used to talk to her, too saccharine, too light, “all your friends see you naked?”
“Yeah.” she answered carelessly, quickly. It was true, they had. His grin hadn’t moved but his eyes narrowed slightly. She thought about how few people she’d really class as her friends. Wondered if that was the same for him too.
His voice dipped even lower as he pushed closer to her, “they all been inside you?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, exceptionally carefully, one hand playing with the spine of a menu as she wondered if the waitress was ever actually coming back or if she’d been scared off for good, “there’s four little people I spend a lot of time with that started out that way.”
She managed to raise her eyes to meet his again for a couple of moments, and then she was back to staring at her hand on the menu. She didn’t know why she was playing this game with him except… except that she’d thought for so long that she’d never be playing any kind of game with him again.
She caught the tiny flicker of an eyeroll, and some part of her thrilled because that at least was familiar, that kindled a tiny sliver of hope. Maybe she could somehow annoy him out of hating her?
“Fine,” he sighed, and pushed even further into her space, “they all let you fuck their face?”.
She flushed, and angered at her body for betraying her harder than she had since she’d been a teenager, and let out a flat: “no”.
“S’pose that’d be a fairly short list.” He said, satisfied, amused.
“I’m divorced now.” she said, proudly. Because it was true, because maybe it was an answer.
He offered her a polite, disinterested smile, pulling back a little. And then, “You shoot all your friends in the chest?”
A small sound escaped her throat and abruptly the walls were closing in and she wasn’t sure if she was breathing wrong or if she was sobbing again but in some mostly far off way she realised that he was standing again and leaving and she didn’t exactly know what she wanted the outcome of this encounter to be but she knew that she didn’t want him to come back from the dead just to slip through her fingers.
So all of a sudden she was digging out her wallet to dump some bills, some of her recent work, on the table (the poor waitress definitely deserved something for dealing with a weepy Beth who then chased off a paying customer). She made what she hoped was an apologetic gesture and face to the cake guy behind the counter, and then she was taking off after Rio.
His stride was still longer than hers of course but was she imagining that his pace was slower? Not slow enough anyway, he was almost at his car. “R- Christopher? Wait! Just hold on a sec!” she called out to him.
Even from behind she could clock him sighing his annoyance. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t turn to face her, but he’d stopped and she was grateful.
She gulped a large breath. “Look I’m not going to keep bothering you. I’m not going to try to insert myself in your life or your business again. I’m not going to break into your house or follow you-”
He snorted derisively at that, breaking her train of thought and she, well, she could see the irony of her promising not to follow him around as she rushed after him but.
“I’m just sorry, ok?” she added, miserably. “I’m sorry about what happened. I fucked up. I didn’t mean for-” she broke off, looking around. “I didn’t mean for that. And I’m glad that, uh, that didn’t happen?” She was smiling now, a little, didn’t mean to be but the knowledge that he was alive was slowly unfurling, filling her entirely as she struggled to give voice to it.
“And if there’s anything I can ever do to, you know, to make it up to you, you just let me know?” And just as she was congratulating herself for formulating a peaceful overture without thrusting herself into any of his business a shiver of fear worked its way down her spine as she considered what she could be laying herself open to – drug muling? Murder? Working off an impossible debt in his monopoly money again…?
He turned to look at her again with that unreadable expression on his face, eyes scrutinising. His body language seemed a little impatient, but that wasn’t unusual for him. All coiled kinetic energy.
“Honestly? I don’t give a fuck what you do. Just stay the hell away from me.”
Before Beth had a chance to process that he was in his car and peeling away, her view of that somewhat obscured by the tears that were aggressively forcing themselves from her eyes yet again.