Gwen Blake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
packapunch) wrote2025-11-30 12:45 pm
packapunch) wrote2025-11-30 12:45 pm
honey I've changed so much since I last saw ya
It’s over.
It’s really, finally fucking over.
Gwen still has a little bit of a headache from crying, her last call with Mom ringing in her ears and her heart. It had felt so good to hear her voice one last time, but it’s left a fresh ache, too, like a sore muscle.
And, fuck, does she have plenty of those already. Now that the adrenaline is really wearing off, she can feel every bruise and gash that she’s gotten over the last umpteen hours. Her arms feel like lead where she lets them rest across her lap. If it weren’t for Dad and Finn in the truck behind them, she might slide across the bench seat and just lean her weight against Ernie’s side. He’d probably let her.
It’s fucking tempting.
Instead, she sits there, picking at her own nails, trying to work up the courage to tell him what Mom said about Robin. He’d like to hear it, she thinks. But he’s driving, and he’s an emotional guy — she’s always liked that about him, that he isn’t afraid to feel his feelings. The last thing they need is for him to get teary-eyed behind the wheel. The storm is over, but the snow is still thick as they leave Camp Alpine.
And after the last two nights, they’re all tired enough that the slightest distraction might send them kareening off the road.
When they reach the stop sign at the end of the lane, she’s finally worked up her nerve.
“Ernie, listen,” she says. “I need to tell you something. Right before we left, the phone rang.”
She looks over at him, taking a beat to gauge his reaction to that. Except he isn’t sitting beside her anymore. Gwen’s eyes widen, and she feels the car start to roll forward without his foot on the brake.
“Shit!”
She slides across the bench the way she’d only just been contemplating a second ago, but this time, it’s to jam her left foot down on the brake pedal. She grabs the steering wheel kind of instinctively. She doesn’t know shit about fuck when it comes to driving, but she doesn’t want the wheels to spontaneously fucking swerve, either. She looks for Ernie like he’s somehow going to be there, in her seat. But of course he isn’t. He’s gone.
No, it’s not that he’s gone. She’s gone. Gwen has this dizzying whirl in her head, like deja vu on fucking roids. This has happened before. She doesn’t know when, and she doesn’t know how, but this has happened to her before. She throws the car in park and climbs out, and before she’s shut the door she already knows she isn’t going to see Dad or Finn in the plant’s truck. Her breath is coming faster as she looks around for them anyway. She’s at the end of a road, the nose of the Impala facing a city she wants to say she’s never seen.
Except that feels like a lie.
Behind the Impala, the road stretches. A sign above the stop sign reads ‘Harbor BLVD,’ and she has another one of those dizzying swoops. She grabs onto the side of the car, trying to steady her breathing.
Maybe it’s blood loss, she thinks inanely. She needs stitches, after all. Maybe she’ll look down at her arm and see her coat sleeve drenched black with her own blood. Or maybe she’s so exhausted she’s dreaming while she’s awake. Maybe she’ll look in the passenger side of the car and see herself there, lolling glassy-eyed against the window. Except she looks, and she doesn’t see that at all. The car is empty: no Ernie, no her. Not even their bags and pillows.
“What the fuck is going on?” she asks, looking around like anyone will fucking answer her. But there isn’t even a car waiting impatiently behind her. The cross traffic is steady, and she’s not in their way, and nobody is stopping to see why a teenage girl is standing beside an empty fucking car.
What the fuck is going on?
It’s really, finally fucking over.
Gwen still has a little bit of a headache from crying, her last call with Mom ringing in her ears and her heart. It had felt so good to hear her voice one last time, but it’s left a fresh ache, too, like a sore muscle.
And, fuck, does she have plenty of those already. Now that the adrenaline is really wearing off, she can feel every bruise and gash that she’s gotten over the last umpteen hours. Her arms feel like lead where she lets them rest across her lap. If it weren’t for Dad and Finn in the truck behind them, she might slide across the bench seat and just lean her weight against Ernie’s side. He’d probably let her.
It’s fucking tempting.
Instead, she sits there, picking at her own nails, trying to work up the courage to tell him what Mom said about Robin. He’d like to hear it, she thinks. But he’s driving, and he’s an emotional guy — she’s always liked that about him, that he isn’t afraid to feel his feelings. The last thing they need is for him to get teary-eyed behind the wheel. The storm is over, but the snow is still thick as they leave Camp Alpine.
And after the last two nights, they’re all tired enough that the slightest distraction might send them kareening off the road.
When they reach the stop sign at the end of the lane, she’s finally worked up her nerve.
“Ernie, listen,” she says. “I need to tell you something. Right before we left, the phone rang.”
She looks over at him, taking a beat to gauge his reaction to that. Except he isn’t sitting beside her anymore. Gwen’s eyes widen, and she feels the car start to roll forward without his foot on the brake.
“Shit!”
She slides across the bench the way she’d only just been contemplating a second ago, but this time, it’s to jam her left foot down on the brake pedal. She grabs the steering wheel kind of instinctively. She doesn’t know shit about fuck when it comes to driving, but she doesn’t want the wheels to spontaneously fucking swerve, either. She looks for Ernie like he’s somehow going to be there, in her seat. But of course he isn’t. He’s gone.
No, it’s not that he’s gone. She’s gone. Gwen has this dizzying whirl in her head, like deja vu on fucking roids. This has happened before. She doesn’t know when, and she doesn’t know how, but this has happened to her before. She throws the car in park and climbs out, and before she’s shut the door she already knows she isn’t going to see Dad or Finn in the plant’s truck. Her breath is coming faster as she looks around for them anyway. She’s at the end of a road, the nose of the Impala facing a city she wants to say she’s never seen.
Except that feels like a lie.
Behind the Impala, the road stretches. A sign above the stop sign reads ‘Harbor BLVD,’ and she has another one of those dizzying swoops. She grabs onto the side of the car, trying to steady her breathing.
Maybe it’s blood loss, she thinks inanely. She needs stitches, after all. Maybe she’ll look down at her arm and see her coat sleeve drenched black with her own blood. Or maybe she’s so exhausted she’s dreaming while she’s awake. Maybe she’ll look in the passenger side of the car and see herself there, lolling glassy-eyed against the window. Except she looks, and she doesn’t see that at all. The car is empty: no Ernie, no her. Not even their bags and pillows.
“What the fuck is going on?” she asks, looking around like anyone will fucking answer her. But there isn’t even a car waiting impatiently behind her. The cross traffic is steady, and she’s not in their way, and nobody is stopping to see why a teenage girl is standing beside an empty fucking car.
What the fuck is going on?
no subject
I pulled out onto the road, heading in the direction that I'd left my SUV. I cut a look at her. She looked exhausted, pale and there was black blood staining her coat.
"Okay, what's goin' on with that?" I asked, indicating her arm.
no subject
"Rough couple of days," she says, glad her bangs and hat hide the bandaid barely keeping her forehead together. She watches him as he drives. "We've met before." It isn't a question, because she knows it's true. How the fuck does she know it's true?
no subject
Pulling into the space behind my SUV, I gave a nod towards it and said to her, "Wait here, okay. I gotta get my phone. And make sure I didn't drop a lit fuckin' cigarette on my seat."
no subject
The gauze is drenched nearly to its edges, and she sighs. It's not really a surprise. They didn't exactly have top tier medical equipment at the cabins. Mostly just basic first aid kits, and those can only do so much. She fumbles into the glove box, hoping Ernie had at some point stuffed some napkins inside. Surely he's been to a fucking Quiznos.
"Bingo," she murmurs when she finds some, and starts to layer them over the gauze. She's so focused she forgets to look out for the guy. It's not that she's afraid to show weakness around him. It's the opposite, actually. For some reason, she's afraid to worry him.
no subject
The number you have reached...
"Fuck," I muttered to myself, pocketing my phone and locking up the car. Making my way back to the Impala, years older than the one I'd driven as a teenager, I slid in behind the wheel.
"You need to get that looked at."
no subject
"Yeah, no shit," she says, but it lacks heat. She wants to say she'll be okay, but she'd promised Mando she'd get it checked out.
She might not be in Colorado anymore, but she can still keep her promise. A thousand words cross her mind, different things to say to this man she somehow knows, somehow feels so safe with. She can't even bring herself to warn him not to fuck with her. She knows he won't. She trusts him.
Why does she trust him?
"Is your car gonna be okay, just sitting there?" she asks, instead of asking or saying the million other things she wants to.
no subject
"It's fine. I'll come back for it later."
At the intersection, I got in the lane to turn towards the nearest urgent care. While we waited for the light to turn, I glanced at her sideways, doin' my damnedest not to stare. "This place, it's called Darrow. Wherever you were– Colorado, right? The people you were with... To them, it's like you're not gone. This is just... it's a detour. A layover, kind of." I said, one corner of my mouth hitching into a faint smile. Christ, this was hard. "Fuck, Gwen, do you... Do you remember any of it? You're not..."
She wasn't freaking out. Not like most people would be.
no subject
"I don't know, it's... I know I don't need to be afraid of you." She looks over at him. "And I keep getting the feeling that I've... done this before."
no subject
"You were thirteen, last I saw you," I admitted, offering her a crooked smile. "I like the hair. It's a good look."
I held off on the part where it had only been two days ago. I didn't want to dump it all on her at once.
no subject
She looks down at her hand, still covering the napkins. "Darrow," she says, testing the word in her mouth. "I can't leave, can I. And Finn and Ernie, they aren't here." It feels right as she says it, but she knows it's incomplete.