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[lifetothefullest]

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[notathreat]

[Lance's callback earns a snort of something that edges on laughter, a little bit of a light in her eyes. Talking it out with him is- different. Somehow. It's the most comfortable she's been during a conversation like this. She doesn't feel like she's going to crack down the middle.

It feels more like a Lance thing than a therapist thing, but what does she know?]

Only if you know what to look for.

[That much is devastatingly true.]

... you really think that? That there's a way forward for everybody?

[lifetothefullest]

[At her response he gives a faint hint of a laugh himself, more just a breath, but there's a small smile to go with it. At her questions he nods, gaze going distant for a moment before he turns his attention toward her again.]

If they want to take to take it, yes. It can be really difficult, and they might not be able to find it alone, but it's there.

[notathreat]

[Ellie sobers as she looks at him, at that distance in his eyes. She doesn't know him, really know him, to be able to put a pin in it. To fully understand what put it there. But like she said to Lance earlier, there's some things you just get, because you've been there.

She gets it.

Ellie watches him, letting herself ache. She wants to say no, there's things that are unforgiveable. There's things that are too awful to ever come back from. That she knows just how terrible a human being can be. It's something she wants to believe, but it comes with terrifying implications.]

I don't know what's more fucked up.

[Her voice is soft, almost young. A little lost.]

Believing in that, or not believing in it.

[lifetothefullest]

[He's quiet at that response for a few moments, allowing it to hang between them as he decides how he wants to reply. He isn't, of course, sure of the reason--or reasons--for her hesitation, but that there's something keeping her from believing in the possibility is incredibly clear.

And so, after the short silence, he beings quietly--]

There was a case we had, a few years ago. A girl--I think she was sixteen or so--was the only witness to a murder, and was suspected of being the killer. She was Deaf, and so until a child advocate who knew sign language was found, it was difficult to communicate with her; all we knew was that she was traumatized and afraid of everyone, and because of that she wouldn't cooperate in the investigation.

[And that had been completely understandable. Lance remembers how angry he and Brennan had gotten with each other over this case and how Brennan was approaching it, both of them relating too personally to different aspects of it to be able to stay objective.]

We eventually found out that her name was Amy, and she had been running away from an abusive home. The murder had actually been self defense; Amy's parents had sent the man after her, and she'd stabbed him to protect herself. To make things worse, Amy's 'parents' had actually kidnapped her when she was little; her real name was Samantha.

[He sighs quietly; this story is a mess, and so many parts of it are difficult to think about both due to empathy for Samantha and because of experiences of his own. But there's a point here, and he's getting to it.]

We were able to reunite Samantha with her parents, who had never given up looking for her, and in only a few days a situation she never thought she'd escape turned into a new life. Although she had killed someone, and she carried that guilt with her, she'd just been doing what she had to do.

[And although he doesn't know Ellie's story, he has a feeling there may be some similarities in what she might've experienced.]

[notathreat]

[Ellie is silent as she listens, and a little while after, looking out at the water trickling by into white noise. It feels strange, alien, to listen to that story, and it takes her a bit of thinking on it to figure out why it makes her so uncomfortable.

She picks at her fingers, stops again when she realizes that she wants to pry off the prosthetics. That's not helping.]

Back in my world, the only people I knew who hadn't killed somebody were kids. And even some of them had to, when there was nobody else to pick up the gun.

[It's a fact of life, for her. She doesn't say it with a cast of horror, but she also doesn't look at Lance's face.]

Everyone understands self defense, because everyone's been there. Probably a lot of times.

Me, I haven't kept count.

[Ellie shrugs, just a small movement of her shoulders.]

That's... not the stuff that bothers me, though. Or maybe it bothers me because it doesn't bother me anymore.

[lifetothefullest]

[Her response gives him more insight into her situation, the scale of it, how it affects not just her but the society she's a part of. So with that information filed away, he quietly thinks over her words, deciding which part to address first.]

People are very adaptable.

[He says it quietly, and it's something she surely already knows, but--]

It's natural to become desensitized, even when you feel like you shouldn't be, and that isn't a moral failing.

[He decides not to add just yet that it's also common not to actually be desensitized, but to have compartmentalized so strongly that the end result is similar, but due to repressing the response rather than no longer feeling it.]

But aside from that, what does bother you?

[Because even with the allowance that she might be bothered by the lack of feeling about it, it seems like there was another issue on her mind entirely.]

[notathreat]

[Ellie just keeps dancing around it, wanting to tell him, but dreading it too. Lance has done everything to make her comfortable, to assure her that he will understand whatever it is. But there's a difference between telling him, and telling Nathan.

She's... appreciated being close to him. She doesn't want that to change. But either he finds out from her, or at some point, he's going to end up in his head, or get a flash of something she'll have to explain. At some point, he'll probably watch her fight, or kill. And he'll see how easily she does it. It feels inevitable.

It helps, that he calls her out on it. Pinning her down so gently that it doesn't feel like she's trapped.

Lance makes it her choice, gives her the power here, and it sucks. She works her jaw, looks out at the river.]

Because it wasn't all self defense.

Because I'm the kind of person that you'd be hunting down, back home.

[lifetothefullest]

[The admission isn't entirely surprising; if he'd had to guess about what was bothering her instead of being able to just ask her, that would've been one of his top choices. So he doesn't visibly react much, just nodding once, before asking one of the obvious follow-up questions.]

What was the reason?

[Because he may be law enforcement, and he may have an incredibly strong personal moral system, but he's also not someone who thinks in black and white. Especially not when it comes to another world, a different society, and a completely different set of rules and understandings and choices that have to be made. ]

[notathreat]

[Ellie runs her tongue along her lower lip, bites down on it, releases it. This part always makes her stomach turn over. Where to begin? What's important? How to explain? It seems completely impossible. Insurmountable.

What was it, really? The core of it? She tries to ignore the itching in her skin, but the details spin out endlessly, overwhelming.]

You remember, in the Aerie, back when I had my turn in the Quarry? There was a man in there with me, named Joel?

[lifetothefullest]

[He's in no rush, and will wait as long as she needs to decide how to start. That she's willing to explain at all is a major thing in itself.]

Sort of, yeah. I remember what you told me here, too.

[About Joel's arrival, and that he was dead. That she was there when it happened.]

[notathreat]

[So much, packed into so little.]

Yeah. The Aerie thing was close to what actually happened. But it was from when I was fourteen, to when I was nineteen. And he was all I had, for a long time.

[Ellie glances down at her nails, at the scars on her hands. When she says the words, it's like she's forcing them out. Detaching herself from them, even if that's impossible.]

A group hunted him down, and tortured him to death.

[I was there, she'd told Lance. When it happened. She doesn't bother pointing that out a second time, and doesn't bother saying what they did to her.]

[lifetothefullest]

[What she says it horrifying, but unfortunately not too surprising either. From what she'd described of her world, and from what he knows of her, this makes a very sad sort of sense.]

I'm sorry you had to go through that.

[Seeing what happened to Joel, and then whatever occurred beyond that. He won't mention the latter unless she wants to explain, and instead asks generally--]

What happened then?

[The question is more 'what did you do?' than anything else, but he doesn't want to put it that way; it's too accusatory, and he doesn't mean it like that. This just must tie in with what she said earlier, about it not being self-defense, and he'd rather let her explain than make guesses.]

[notathreat]

[Ellie shrugs, not to shrug off Lance's sympathy so much as... well, she doesn't know. She doesn't know how to accept it. It happened. It's not something that she can forget.

She's alluded to what happened after, and Lance can probably put it together, but it's more than that. She has to walk through it in her head, pull at the tangled threads of it. Not to pick at a wound, but to make sense of it.]

... Joel's brother Tommy was there too. He... tried. To talk me out of it. Kept watching me while we healed up, and after the funeral.

[Guilt aches across her chest, catches in her throat.]

I told him that if it had been us, Joel would have been halfway to Seattle by then. Chasing after them. That I was going whether he helped me or not. He begged me for just one more day, and he took off that night.

[Ellie grimaces. She's never told this part of the story- not to anyone. That Tommy wouldn't have left, if she hadn't thrown it in his face. If she hadn't turned her rage and grief on him. She may not have blamed him for it outright, but Tommy had been there, and he blamed himself.]

I don't know if he thought I wouldn't find a way to fucking go after him, or what.

[lifetothefullest]

[This is coming together more and more, though he's trying not to make any judgements either way until he has the whole story. So he just nods, listening, and he has a lot of questions but this isn't the time to ask them. Instead, he just offers--]

Those are understandable feelings to have. As for Tommy, he probably knew what you'd do, but hoped he'd have enough of a head start to be done with everything by the time you caught up to him.

[He's guessing, with very little information about Tommy, but the way she's talking about him this seems like the likely explanation.]

[notathreat]

Maybe. Maybe he thought we'd be slowed down because we'd have to steal guns and a horse, or go on foot. Maybe he thought Maria actually would chain me up, like he asked.

[It's a grim sort of humor, but Ellie doesn't bother trying to smile. She's being completely serious about that part.]

We were only a day or two behind him, and they had a good start on all of us. We kept finding the places he'd camped... and there were eight of the fuckers to deal with.

[lifetothefullest]

You said 'we'; how many people were with you?

[He's just asking for context, and to give her breaks in telling the story if she needs them; she seems to have decided to talk about what happened, so he'll let her just do that at her own pace without prompting.]

[notathreat]

[Pain crosses Ellie's eyes, then, and she hesitates in answering, mostly not knowing how to put it.]

Me and Dina. She's-

We'd been friends for years, but we'd just started something. When she said she was coming with me, I didn't try very hard to make her stay behind.

[There's a lump in her throat that she swallows around.]

... and Jesse- Dina's ex. My best friend. But we didn't know that, then. That he'd followed us, too. I'd figured he wouldn't want-

[Ellie pauses, blinking fast. She should've expected how hard it would be to talk about him, but it's harder than she thought.]

He was -- good, y'know? Cared a lot about people.

Reminds me a lot of you, that way.

[lifetothefullest]

[Two important people, one of which she's distinctively using past tense for. He offers a faint smile both in reassurance and at the compliment when she compares him to Jesse, and pretends not to notice how emotional she seems to be getting while explaining. It isn't too difficult to guess where part of this might be going, and he asks a question to hopefully give Ellie something to focus on.]

So you and Dina, and in secret Jesse, followed after Tommy; did you catch up to him?

cw: violence

[notathreat]

[It's a good question, would be something good to focus on, if it doesn't slide Ellie's mind sideways into how they reunited. She tastes the bile in the back of her throat, and it comes fast, though she manages to swallow it back.

The sensory memory of the scent of seawater, of rot, of blood and waste and algae. Of blood slowly running in rivulets across the floor and a numb screaming in her ears.

Ellie stops, pale as a ghost, and takes a deep breath. She's not going to freak out in front of Lance. She's not. Another deep breath. It hurts, and makes her remember Owen's death rattle as she pressed her gun to his throat, without an ounce of hesitation or remorse. How wild she'd felt, how angry, before she made out what he was trying to say.]

... yeah.

[Focus.]

Yeah. Yeah, he made it, we brought him home.

[Her words feel detached, and Ellie makes herself stop, closes her eyes to breathe. Not here, not now. She closes her trembling hands into fists and walks herself back from the mental edge, but she can feel how unsteady she is.]

We gotta stop. Sorry.

[lifetothefullest]

[He can tell by the look on her face, before she says anything, that this is rapidly becoming too difficult; he's a little surprised that she says anything more at all, and even more so that she then admits she needs to stop, but the latter is a good surprise. Recognizing and being willing to articulate it are both pretty big things.]

Sure, of course.

[He says it softly, but without pity; it's just an agreement, and he understands. Lance is quiet a moment longer, but he neither wants to let the silence hang and make her feel self-conscious or allow her to spiral too much into whatever she's dealing with, and so after a brief glance to make sure they're mostly alone a soft blue glow lights up in his chest as he activates his power.

It's just the melody of a song, the notes pleasant but just tones, with no real instrumental sound to them. But the purpose is simply a distraction, something to listen to--and hopefully help--as she calms down; while he would typically take a more active part in trying to help, he thinks in this case it might be better to give her a chance to handle things on her own unless she seems to get any worse.]

[notathreat]

[It helps.

Dina laid the groundwork, back at the farm. Breathing awareness, sensory input. Repetitive motion. Sometimes it's enough to curb a fullblown attack, or bring her down if she's managed to get there. This -- she can feel herself losing ground, but she takes full, deep breaths, holds them, lets them slowly go. Presses her palm to her chest.

She can do it, probably. But then Lance does what is possibly the best possible thing he can. Soft melody with a background metronome of tones, easy to sync to, to time her breathing to.

It takes her just a few minutes to calm down, fighting back the intense embarrassment the whole time. It's irrational, she knows, but she still hates it, still hates people seeing it. Hates being seen. She rubs her eyes, breathes out again.]

That song mean something to you?

[lifetothefullest]

[He doesn't look at her as she works through it, listening to her breathing enough to keep tabs on how she's doing but letting his gaze stay out on the water, watching what looks like a fish that keeps just skimming the surface. He knows feeling studied absolutely doesn't help, and so does his best to avoid that.

It's a relief that she does seem to be calming on her own though; that's something so much easier to achieve in thought than in practice. But he expects her to kind of gloss over the moment, rather than ask a question, and so it catches him briefly off guard and he has to decide how truthful to be.

But they're sharing right now, and she surely feels embarrassed at the moment, which would not be helped by being brushed off. So, after a moment, he sighs quietly and gives a small shrug.]

Not in itself, really. It's just an easy song to play.

[But although that's true, it's not really the story, and so he continues.]

I used to be pretty good at singing, at home, but um... At the same time I broke my leg I had some other injuries too, and I was kind of afraid my voice would be messed up.

[He's glossing over so much, because he doesn't want to talk about details, but he's aware it's probably very easy to put together. That's okay, as long as he doesn't have to get more into it.]

My friend finally convinced me to give singing a try again, and that's the song we were practicing with, since it didn't take too much concentration to play at the same time.

[And, because it's the obvious question--]

I was not exactly as good as I used to be, but not horrible either, and I got to spend some time with my friend so... Overall a positive memory.

[And so a positive association with the song.]

[notathreat]

[It's the trust they're building, small tentative steps. Never requiring anything from each other, but just- reciprocal. You showed me, so I'll show you. Ellie's expression smooths out as she focuses on the music, on the steadiness of Lance's voice. She turns to him, working herself back to full focus, watching his profile in the semi-darkness, lit by the soft blue glow.

Acknowledge. Keep moving. Yes, the ghosts are there, but they can't stop them. It's something she had to learn, even if sometimes it's felt like she's kept herself moving out of pure spite.

She puts it together. Broken leg, throat trauma. Other injuries. A hesitation to put weight on something that still hurt. She lets her gaze drop to the curve of his hands, and nods.]

... it fucking sucks. Being hurt in a way that-

[Ellie gestures, with her hand with the prosthetic fingers, holding it out. He remembers, she knows he does. He also knows that she plays the guitar.]

Music's like, a part of you. Obviously.

[As if his powers didn't spell that out.]

[lifetothefullest]

[He looks over at her again when she full turns her attention back to him, offering a small smile that's half knowing and half sad as she speaks.]

Yeah, it does. But I got some magical healing, and you have cool robo-fingers now, so look at us.

[Maybe a little patchwork, but both still going. There's something to be said for that, right?]

[notathreat]

[Ellie echoes that smile, feeling old, and tired, and hollowed out, but better. A lot better than when she started.]

Look at us.

[Ellie lets out her breath, glances back out onto the water, weighing things in her head. It's not a total revelation, but she gets what he's trying to say.]

... guess it's about finding a way to make it work, even if it's not pretty.