inthewildwood | fanfiction: you can't see the ropes [part 2] (Reply)

[part 1]

“Are you okay?”

It’s day three, and Karen is at her door. She and Foggy have been trading shifts- not that they put it in those exact terms, but Maddie knows very well why Karen’s always here in the morning (because Foggy can’t be roused from bed before nine, no matter what the stakes are) and Foggy in the evening. Karen’s also come every day this week bringing muffins and coffee with her. Maddie usually drinks the coffee on the spot, while the muffins are surreptitiously added to a growing pile in her freezer.

“I’m fine,” Maddie says. She’s slept maybe ten hours out of the past fourty-eight. She can’t seem to turn off the endless noise that streams in from outside, even though closed windows. She clings to the hollow feeling in her stomach: it’s something to train her attention on.

It’s still better than the alternative.

“It’s just,” Karen says, “you’ve got these huge bags under your eyes, and you look paler than usual, and-”

“Karen,” Maddie says, a little more forcefully. She doesn’t quite snap, but it’s close. “I am fine.”

If it were Foggy, she might argue. If it were Claire, she might insist on sitting and watching while Maddie finishes her breakfast. But it’s Karen, and she does neither of these things. Instead, she just says uncertainly “well if you’re sure . . .”

“I’m sure,” Maddie says, taking the coffee and draining it. And she is.

Whenever she manages to shoo her visitors away, she tries to keep herself occupied. Mostly, she exercises; she doesn’t have much in the way of equipment, and she knows better than trying to make her way down to the gym. But that doesn’t stop her from doing push-ups and sit-ups, going through boxing stances, cocking her fists against imaginary opponents and daring them to take a shot. She imagines a whole series of them, ranging from people she’s fought before to faces she conjures out of a catalogue of mental images. She’s long since gotten used to putting faces to voices, if only so that she has something to picture when talking to people. She puts together sharp noses, small mouths, jaundiced eyes, anything that bears some past association with cruelty in her mind. She’s done battle with the Fixer and his enforcers too many times to count.

Her stomach creaks in protest, and she pauses, leaning against the wall as she lets sweat drip down her forehead and into her eyes. She knows enough to admit to herself that her self-induced starvation diet is probably making her headache worse, not better. Still, that doesn’t mean the concussion isn’t healing. In a few more days, she’ll be back out on the street again, restored to her old habits. She just has to get through the waiting period.

There’s some kind of cruel, cosmic irony, she thinks, in the fact that in order to deny herself food, she has to battle through more exhaustion than she would if she were eating properly. Then again, maybe that’s part of the punishment: if she really wants to hurt herself, she has to work harder than just passing up the chance to fill her stomach. Every step up the ladder grows more treacherous, every push-up is harder than the last. Pushing forward through the roadblocks nature throws in her way are how she eschews softness. Stick taught her that. If she can find a way to overcome a lack of sight, to hone her small, brittle body into a weapon, she can work through this too. She hasn’t yet hit a limit she can’t climb over.

She starts to exercise again, this time jogging on the spot, chanting an old schoolyard rhyme under her breath to keep the rhythm of her legs steady: Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack, all dressed in black, black, black. There’s more noise overlaying her voice; she’s turned the radio up as high as she thinks she can get away with without incurring the landlord’s wrath. It’s turned to a station she doesn’t normally listen to, playing something that she thinks might be punk or heavy metal. Either way, it involves the singers screaming as loudly as possible at every opportunity, which helps drown out the noise from outside. Only a bit, but it’s something. For the first time since that first sleepless night, she can finally hear herself think, and rewards herself by thinking nothing at all. Pure bliss.

Maybe she loses the rhyme in her head, or maybe it’s because the station falls momentarily silent between songs. Or maybe her body is finally rebelling, refusing to accept the demands she’s making of her muscles any longer. Whatever the reason, one of her legs suddenly slides out from under her mid-stride, and her sleep-fogged brain isn’t quick enough to catch the sudden loss of equilibrium, and just like that she’s falling. Her stomach drops out from under her, and as her forehead strikes the floor, her vision bursts into circles of lilac and red and orange and she’s lost, she’s not in the apartment anymore, she’s outside, she’s on the ground and boots are driving between her ribs and she can’t breathe-

-because someone’s holding her hand even though she’s too old for it and their palms are sweaty and they’re saying “say goodbye, Maddie” next to her ear in a tone reserved for kindergarteners and she wants with her whole being to wrench her hand out of their grip and run but she can’t because that creaking noise is her father’s coffin being lowered and she can’t turn the crank back, her arms aren’t strong enough and that singsong baby-sweet voice is next to her asking her if she wants to throw the dirt in and she’s paralyzed she can’t move-

-but she can move, she can’t stop moving because she’s five years old and a gang of neighbourhood boys have trapped her in a circle, tossing her from person to person, their laughter ugly and abrasive in her ears as she pounds her fists against whichever boy is holding her at the moment, furious tears streaming down her face because no matter how hard she hits they don’t seem to register, it’s not enough, it’s never enough-

-no matter how hard she hits it’s not enough because she’s fourteen and sitting on the edge of a hard plastic chair in the principal’s office because someone leaned down next to her ear and whispered “dyke” and she whirled around and drove her fist into his face and the principal is asking her why she did it and she can hear the leer in the boy’s voice, spoken through a still-bleeding nose as he says “yeah, tell her Maddie,” and she’s so angry she thinks she might vibrate right out of her skin and leave it in a heap on the office floor as she runs far, far away-

-and she’s standing now and she doesn’t want to run except maybe to excise the tension from her limbs because she’s standing in front of a judge’s bench while the judge says “guilty” and her client is collapsing on the floor beside her while on the other side of the courtroom the prosecutor’s star witness whoops and claps and hugs his lawyers and there are other muffled sobs coming from the gallery and she can smell the witness’s expensive cologne from here and it makes her stomach roil and she wants to grab him by his tie and slam him against the courtroom wall, call him a liar, make him call himself a liar, make this whole room hear what he’s done-

“Maddie!”

She blinks. The explosions of colour are receding, the memories unspooling behind her eyes turning to sepia and crumbling away. Her cheek is pressed against the floorboards, head aching more fiercely than ever before, and her stomach feels like it’s in imminent danger of emptying itself.

“Maddie!”

She tries to sit up, but there are hands on her shoulder- not pushing her down or shaking her, just resting there. She blinks twice, trying to make the world restore itself to order. “Wh-”

“Oh my god, Maddie.” Now she knows that voice- it’s Foggy’s voice, Foggy’s hands helping her up into a sitting position. “What happened? Did you pass out?”

“I-” She feels clumsy and stupid, her thoughts still scattered. “No, I- I tripped.” The sun has positions since she last checked; the light is hitting her face from a different angle. “What time is it?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Foggy says. “It’s nearly seven-thirty. How long have you been out?”

“I, um.” She scrabbles for something to say. “I don’t remember. I didn’t check the clock.”

“You don’t use clocks!”

“I mean, I didn’t check the- the timer, or-” There’s a word she’s missing, hovering just outside her peripheral vision. “I forget.”

Foggy’s hands leave her shoulders, and footsteps slam against the floorboards, towards the phone. “I’m calling Claire.”

“Don’t!” Maddie scrambles to her feet, ignoring the way her head spins, and grabs for Foggy’s sleeve. She misses the first time; the second, she manages it. “It’s nothing. I don’t- you don’t need to bother her.” If Foggy calls Claire and tells her that she passed out, Claire will come over and probably put Maddie on another week of bed rest, to say nothing of figuring out that she hasn’t been eating, and then she’ll tell Foggy and Karen and then- she’s not sure what then, but she knows it won’t be good.

Foggy pauses mid-dial, her breath coming heavy and angry. “When was the last time you slept? Because Karen’s right, you’re pale as shit.”

“I got plenty of sleep last night,” Maddie says, saved again by a half-truth. It’s her truth, anyway. “Honest, I just tripped and fell. Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m fine.” She thinks her voice might be belying her; it cracks on the final syllable, unable to sustain the façade. She puts a hand out to rest on the back of the couch, steadying herself.

Foggy’s gaze is boring into her, and her breath is still coming in quick, furious huffs. Maddie tries to look as healthy as possible, though she’s not really sure what that might entail, other than not weaving back and forth on her feet. She manages that, at least, though only by digging her fingers into the couch.

“I’m getting you something to eat,” Foggy announces, marching off towards the kitchen. Maddie nods, letting herself lean against the couch. The danger of the situation doesn’t occur to her until a fraction of a second too late, when the refrigerator door opens and she hears Foggy shout “What the fuck?”

She comes stomping back into the living room, while Maddie just clings weakly to the couch. She thinks she might be beyond making up excuses at this point. “When,” Foggy says, “was the last time you ate?”

Maddie thinks back. “This morning?”

“Right,” Foggy says, breathing heavily. “Right. And what, exactly did you eat? Because I know it wasn’t any of the ten pounds of food I just found in your fridge.”

“I had a banana,” she says. Technically speaking, it was more like half a banana. “Foggy-“

She feels Foggy reaching for her and dodges, but not fast enough to keep Foggy’s fingertips from brushing her arm. “You know you’re getting thinner?”

She’s not, but she pokes herself in the arm just to be sure. “All I feel is muscle.”

“Yeah, muscle that’s going to start cannibalizing itself if you don’t start eating properly. Which you would know, if you listened to anything Claire has to say.”

Maddie snorts. “So you’re best friends with Claire now?”

“She’s worried about you!” Foggy snaps. “We both are!”

“Well you don’t need to be,” Maddie says. She’s trying for calm, but it comes out cold.

“Yeah?” Foggy’s breathing like she’s just run a marathon, angry huffs coming every other second. “Well maybe I’d believe that if I hadn’t found you passed out on the floor of your apartment, because apparently your response to bed rest is refusing to eat or sleep out of spite.”

“It’s not-” Maddie rubs a hand over her face. “It’s not about spite, Foggy. It’s not about you.”

“Then what is it about?” Foggy’s voice, already ragged with worry and frustration, is growing hoarse. “Tell me, because I can’t think of a single good reason for you to run yourself into the ground like this.”

“It’s too loud!” Maddie explodes finally, with such vehemence that she hears Foggy take a step backwards. “I can hear every single thing going on out there, and the longer I’m stuck here, the louder it gets. You don’t know what goes on out there, but I do. There’s people being beaten and robbed and stabbed and shot and they never stop screaming, and I can hear all of it and it never stops!”

Her throat feels raw by the time she finishes, scraped rough with unspoken sobs. She is not going to cry, dammit, she’s stronger than that. She’s not going to start whimpering like some kind of helpless baby just because her head hurts and her stomach is growling and everything is falling to pieces around her and nobody will let her fix it. She can fix things, if they’d just let her. It’s her job. It’s what she does.

“Right,” Foggy says finally, breaking the silence. “Okay. I’m making you dinner. You-” Maddie can tell that a finger is being jabbed in her direction, “-sit down and wait.”

Maddie hears Foggy turn on her heel, back towards the kitchen, and uses the opportunity to surreptitiously wipe at her eyes. She does what Foggy tells her to, sinking down onto the couch. It’s preferable to letting her legs give out on her again, this time with a witness around. She can hear Foggy bustling around the kitchen, jamming buttons on the microwave with unnecessary amounts of force, and gradually the apartment fills up with the smell of reheated chicken. It’s not the worst thing in the world, though Maddie feels a deep stab of guilt at the fact that she’s not only failed to conquer her body, she’s scared Foggy (and probably Karen as well) into the bargain. She didn’t want this.

The microwave beeps, and Foggy comes stomping back across the floor, shoving a bowl into one of Maddie’s hands and a fork into the other. “Eat.”

“Foggy-”

“Do it or I’ll call Claire.”

Maddie sighs. “You know you’re basically threatening to tattle,” she points out, but she takes a bite out of the chicken anyway. Her stomach rumbles in approval. The food feels strange between her teeth- good, but the greasy juices that run out when she takes a bite make her want to spit. She’s retained at least some of her table manners, though, so she obediently swallows her food instead. No need to complete the picture she makes of a recalcitrant toddler by spitting her dinner out in protest.

Foggy mutters while Maddie eats, mostly variations on “stubborn asshole” and “should be in a hospital.” Maddie lets this pass without comment, too busy shoving the food into her mouth quickly enough that she doesn’t have to consider the implications of it. When she’s done, she sets the bowl and utensils down on the coffee table, then- unable to completely resist the urge to poke the bear- pushes it to the other side with her toe. “There. Done.” She pauses. “Happy?”

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” is all Foggy says in response. The couch springs groan as she gets up, extending a hand towards Maddie. “Come on. Bedtime.”

Maddie considers responding to this with “but I’m not tired,” but decides against it. The brief satisfaction of riling Foggy up is not going to solve any of the long-term problems she’s managed to create for herself, nor is it going to make Foggy any more likely to forgive her for keeling over and freaking everyone out. She’s not entirely sure what will solve the problem, but . . . she’ll think about it. Maybe after she gets some sleep.

She shucks off her sweatpants and crawls between the covers, leaving her t-shirt on. Foggy pulls the quilt back up, and Maddie tries to ignore the feeling that she’s being tucked in. Lethargy is catching up with her, probably helped along by the food she just ate, and her eyelids feel suddenly heavy and gritty. She turns her face towards the pillow, breathing in the smell of silk and fabric soap. It’s a scent she associated with sleep, and it’s making the urge to close her eyes even stronger.

“I’ll be in the living room,” Foggy announces, accompanied by the clicking sound of the lamp being turned off. Maddie twists her head around. “Wait.”

Foggy pauses. “What is it?”

Feeling foolish, Maddie holds a hand out. “Can you stay for a bit?” She pauses, chewing on her bottom lip. “I sleep better when y- when there’s someone else here.”

There’s only the slightest pause before Maddie hears the sound of Foggy’s zipper being pulled down, followed by the mattress groaning as Foggy climbs onto the bed. She slides an arm across Maddie’s back. “You know, if you’d just said so back when this started, we could have avoided all the drama.”

“Couldn’t’ve,” Maddie mutters. Foggy’s hand is resting on the mattress next to her, and she takes it in her own, pulling it in close to her chest. Pressed back-to-front the way they are now, she can hear air whistling next to her ear every time Foggy takes a breath. Did she really used to find Foggy’s snoring annoying? It’s a comfort now, like the familiar lullaby of traffic passing underneath her window. Foggy’s nose presses against her hairline, gently kissing the back of her neck. “Go to sleep, okay?”

Her voice is uncharacteristically- surprisingly, given the circumstances- soft. Maddie wants to argue, half because she doesn’t need sleep, not really, and half because Foggy should be shouting at her, not coddling her and encouraging her to get some rest- but the sheets are growing warm with shared body heat, and Foggy is comfortable and soft beside her, and she needs to close her eyes, just for a few seconds.

She dreams again, but not the nightmares she’s become accustomed to- at least, not as violent. This time, she’s training, like she was before she passed out, but for some reason she can’t aim her punches properly. Everything goes sideways, or under her target, or over it. She trips and falls into the punching bag, has to grab the walls for support to keep from toppling over, but her movements are all stiff and awkward, and her body won’t work the way she wants it to. Her head is the only thing that she can keep clear, but that’s no use when her senses are dulled to the point of uselessness, because she’s not any use if she can’t force herself to get up again. She wants to slam herself against the floor, scratch at her arms until they bleed, do something that will provoke a reaction to prove that she’s still functional, she’s still alive. She’s not just a limp puppet dangling on cut strings; she can be useful, if they’d let her, if she could convince them that she should be allowed to get up again. But she can’t, and she’s numb all over, and she can’t force her body to obey her brain’s commands. She’s completely helpless.

When she opens her eyes again, she thinks at first that it’s only been a few minutes, then realizes that can’t be the case- even though the blinds are drawn, she can still feel faint rays of light shining through the cracks, and the building noises are those of early morning, not nighttime. High-heeled shoes are tapping against the floor in the next apartment over as her neighbour gets ready to leave for work. The fighting couple downstairs is quiet for once, only the faint hum of a radio indicating that someone’s home. Out in the street, there’s traffic noises, but nothing unduly loud or sharp. Nothing to panic about, for once. She almost misses the sensation, like she misses the hollowness in her stomach- something heavy and hard to carry, to hold her down. She’s afraid she might come untethered entirely if she doesn’t have a scab to pick at- that she’ll just float away, lose her sense of self, her sense of purpose. She needs something to focus on.

She lifts her head from the pillow and inhales. The air is damp and warm, and she can taste mint and apple shampoo on her tongue. Someone- probably Foggy- just got out of the shower. She can’t hear any footsteps, though, so she either got dressed and left while Maddie was still sleeping, or she’s sitting down somewhere. Probably the living room. Or maybe she’s making breakfast- but no, that’s not it, there’s no cooking smells. So she’s almost certainly in the living room, then. Maddie can find her there, if she pulls herself out of bed.

She sits up and swings her legs over the side of the mattress, only wincing slightly at the stiffness in her muscles. It hurts, but not enough. Not enough to distract her. For that, she needs Foggy.

One distraction’s as good as another.

She pads out into the living room, not bothering to change out of her clothes. Her current state of undress works better for her, anyway. Sure enough, the shampoo smell gets stronger, and she hears the couch springs creaking as Foggy shifts in her seat. When she reaches the back of the couch, she reaches out and winds one of her fingers around a wet lock of Foggy’s hair. “Hey. Sleep well?”

Foggy, to her credit, only jumps slightly. “Don’t do that,” she says, faintly exasperated. “We really need to get you one of those collars, with a bell on it. You know, like what they do with cats?”

“You want to put a collar on me?” Maddie asks, running her fingers through Foggy’s hair and across the nape of her neck. Foggy shivers under her touch- she tries to repress the reaction, but Maddie can feel the twitch in her muscles, the tremor in her skin. “Kinky. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it,” Foggy says, though her breathing is unsteadier than it was before. “Also, why are you petting me? That’s weird. You’re weird.”

“You’re the one who brought up the collar and the cat,” Maddie points out, but she lets her fingers drop from Foggy’s hair and walks around to the front of the couch instead. “Don’t blame me for running with it.”

“I blame you for so many things,” Foggy retorts, and that sounds like it might skirt dangerously close to talking about what happened last night, and Maddie doesn’t want that. So she lowers herself until she’s sitting on Foggy’s lap, a knee on either side. She noses at Foggy’s ear, pressing her thumb against a spot that she knows will chase away all coherent thought. “Is that so?”

“Ye-yes.” Foggy’s breathing is getting more erratic by the second. “Maddie, I d-don’t think this is a good idea. You’re still-”

“All I’ve got is a head injury,” Maddie says, still rubbing that spot with her thumb. “Claire didn’t say anything about sex being bad for injuries. Actually,” she adds, “I read once that orgasms can cure headaches, so technically this is more of a cure than anything else.”

“You did not read that.”

“Are you insulting my reading skills? That’s discrimination.”

“Stop changing the subject.” Foggy half-heartedly tries to wiggle out from under Maddie, but only succeeds in pushing one of knees up against the crease of Maddie’s leg. It’s pretty hot. “Sex absolutely does not cure concussions.”

“Says you.”

“Says science.”

“You don’t know anything about science.” As amusing at this conversation is- and it is a relief to see that she’s successfully distracted Foggy from trying to argue about her health- it’s keeping her from achieving her main goal. To that end, she finally pulls her thumb away- Foggy makes a small disappointed noise- and starts to kiss her way up Foggy’s neck and jawline instead. When she reaches her mouth, she kisses her deeply, taking the opportunity to breathe in her scent. This, this grounds her: it’s almost as good at the sting of antiseptic or the burn of muscles stretched beyond endurance. If it weren't for the fact that this requires her to rely on someone else, she'd- well she wouldn't ditch the pain entirely, but she'd at least cut back on it a bit. Let herself relax, maybe. Breathe in instead of out.

Of course, she's not going to do that, because she has no intention of burdening Foggy (or anyone else) with her problems; this is good, they both enjoy it, but she won't let herself become dependent. Like all pleasures, it's best not to make it her only source of motivation. Still, the thoughts in conjunction- sex and pain- gives her an idea. She pulls back from the kiss, licking her lips. "Bed?"

"Yeah," Foggy says, sounding slightly dazed, "bed." Maddie wiggles backwards off the couch and heads for the bedroom, not waiting for Foggy to catch up. She doesn't need to; as she reaches the bedroom door, Foggy comes up behind her and snakes an arm around her waist, nearly yanking off her feet. Maddie yelps, and digs an elbow into Foggy's ribs to free herself before letting herself bounce down onto the bed. Foggy crawls after her, their earlier positions reversed, one hand braced against the mattress as she leans down to kiss Maddie. It reminds Maddie of their first time- same place, same positions- and she mentally tucks away "why don't we ever have sex at your place," as a potential conversational topic for the next time Foggy starts asking uncomfortably pointed questions about her mental health. She reaches up with one leg, hooking it around Foggy’s hip and bringing her crashing down on top of Maddie. The sudden weight drives all the air out of her lungs, but it’s so good to feel Foggy on top of her, pushing her down against the mattress, she doesn’t care.

She pulls back a little bit, and Foggy makes a small disappointed noise in the back of her throat. It takes Maddie a second to catch her breath enough to speak properly. When she does, she says “look in the top drawer.”

She knows Foggy’s smiling, a bright grin spread across her face, and she leans down to kiss Maddie quickly before scrambling for the chest of drawers. Maddie stays where she is, trying to take deep breaths while she listens to Foggy root through the clothes, reach the bottom of the drawer, and find what she’s looking for with a wordless exclamation of triumph. The harness jangles a bit as she pulls it free, and then she huffs a breath. “Do you want to wear it, or-“

“No, you,” Maddie says, lifting her head from the mattress. There’s a thumping noise that she suspects is Foggy trying to hop on one foot while pulling the harness on. She thinks it probably looks pretty cute, lip bitten in concentration, a warm flush spreading across her face and shoulders. She reaches out and catches at hot skin, earning a high-pitched whine from Foggy. “Maddie, I’m trying to focus here.”

“You’ve done it before,” Maddie points out, raising herself up on her elbows. “It can’t be that hard.” Mostly she just wants to rush through this part- the anticipation mingled with worry- because she’s afraid one of them will hit the brakes if they get too much time to realize that this really isn’t a good moment for sex, much less that she’s trying (again) to distract from the multiple issues at hand and (mostly) succeeding. But the thumping noise has stopped, both of Foggy’s feet now planted firmly on the ground, and she’s rooting through the drawer again; it takes Maddie a moment to realize what she’s after.

“I don’t need any,” she says, and hears Foggy pause. “Honest, it’s fine.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Foggy says dubiously.

“You won’t.” She will, but that’s kind of the point. Maddie reaches for her. “C’mere. Get on top.”

Foggy hesitates, but not for too long. The fact that Maddie has a hand wrapped around her wrist, thumb digging into her pulse point, probably helps; she can be very insistent when she wants to be, and she knows Foggy’s weak spots. Foggy does what she’s told, dropping the bottle of lube back in the drawer and swinging one leg over Maddie’s hips, straddling her. The strap-on digs into Maddie’s hip, pushed at an odd angle. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Maddie reaches up and winds her hands through Foggy’s still-wet hair, pulling her down into another kiss. She tries to wriggle herself into a position where the dildo’s inside her, but it’s hard to do when she’s already occupied. She pulls back for a second to say “Foggy-”

“Right, right.” Foggy moves a bit, pulling her hips in closer, and finally she pushes inside. Maddie digs her teeth into her lower lip, so hard she can taste blood. It’s not painful, exactly- she’s already too turned on for that- but it’s blunt and rough and oh that’s what she needed. She slams her hips up again and again, driving Foggy in deeper, and it’s hovering on the edge of pain now, and her mind is wiped clean of everything except sensation and she doesn’t have to think about the food or the concussion or the conversation that’s inevitably going to happen when the sex is over and Foggy remembers finding her on the floor. She has a focus; she has a purpose; as long as this goes on, as long as she’s got her fingers dug into Foggy’s shoulders and her face pressed close between her breasts, as long as there’s sweat and musk all around her, and Foggy’s moving inside her, she can hold on to this and make sure there’s nothing but the moment and-

Her orgasm takes her by surprise, ripping through her like a tornado, stealing the breath from her lungs. She screams- at least, she thinks she does- and jerks her hips back and forth, chasing the sensation, trying to keep it from slipping out of her grasp. It’s no use. As the waves of pleasure recede, the rest of the world begins to intrude again, and she can hear the cars passing by outside, feel the ache in her head and her muscles, remember what happened yesterday. She’s now aware more than ever of how exposed she is, how naked and vulnerable and open to anyone who might come by and try to swipe her feet out from under her- how she’s already done that herself. And there’s the radiator hissing in the other room, and the neighbours talking and the cars outside and she still can’t make them stop and she can’t fix anything, and. And, and, and.

Foggy pulls out, and Maddie rolls over onto her side, bringing her knees up to cover her stomach. She can feel the burn of tears gathering in her eyes and tries to force them back, but she can’t even do that properly. At the very least, she thinks, she should be able to swallow this lump in her throat- she is not, not crying in front of Foggy, not giving her any more to worry about, not fucking things up between them any more than she already has. Which is . . . a lot.

“Maddie?” Foggy’s voice is close in her ear. Maddie squeezes her eyes shut, but it’s no good. “Maddie, oh my god, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“M’fine,” she tries to say, but it comes out high-pitched and wrong, and she hates herself for the way her voice cracks down the middle like a prepubescent boy’s while she’s trying to seem normal. She is normal, goddammit; why is this so hard?

“Maddie,” Foggy says again, and her hands slide under Maddie’s shoulders, pulling her up and away from the pillow. Maddie fights it, tries to squirm away and keep her face hidden, but her muscles have all gone liquid and she flops around in Foggy’s grasp like a wet rag. Foggy curls an arm tightly around her shoulders, pulling her in and down so that her face is pressed close against Foggy’s chest, and it’s- her scent is all around, drowning out the stale air of the apartment, and she’s soft and warm and yielding against Maddie and it makes her think of early, fuzzy impressions that are more imagination than memory; of feeling safe and secure and cradled somewhere gentle and warm. It breaks something in her that she didn’t know was left to be broken, and she shakes all over with sobs, curling close so that her legs and Foggy’s are tangled together and their arms are wrapped around each other so that there’s no empty space left between them. Foggy’s stroking her hair and her face and murmuring “shhh, Maddie, it’s okay sweetheart, don’t cry.” She only cries harder. She cries so hard, it pulls at her already-strained muscles, and for once the pain doesn’t ground or calm her; it only seems like more weight piled on, when she’s already too overburdened to stand upright, or even speak. She’s lost all semblance of control, and all she can do is keep crying and crying until she’s left with nothing but dry, shaking sobs.

Foggy doesn’t move through all of it, except to stroke her hair and kiss her forehead, occasionally hugging her a bit closer, like she’s trying to make sure Maddie knows she’s still there. Gusts of warm breath waft across Maddie’s face like spring wind, and she tries to cling to that, focusing on the attendant rush of impressions- the smell of cut grass, rain hitting the pavement, sweat prickling under her clothes- until her breathing finally slows to something resembling normal Her pulse is still crashing in her ears, impossibly loud, but that’s more normal; she can deal with that. She seems to have cried herself out, though not out of any conscious decision or force on her part. Her body’s just given up, thrown in the towel and stopped trying to move. She hurts all over.

“Talk to me,” Foggy says, her thumb rubbing gently against Maddie’s upper arm. Maddie lets out a wheezing breath. “What do you want to hear?”

Foggy’s grip tightens, and Maddie almost immediately regrets her choice of words. “It’s not what I want to hear, it’s what I want to know. How long has this been going on?”

“Um,” Maddie says. Her thoughts are coming together, but they’re jagged around the edges, and they don’t quite fit. “Just this time, or in general?” Again, if she wasn’t so tired, she’d be kicking herself for letting that slip- she’s fairly certain the key to de-escalating this whole situation is not admitting that she’s done this before. But it barely draws a reaction from Foggy, except for an almost imperceptible tightening of her grip. “Let’s start with just this time.”

Maddie thinks back, or tries to. Today is Thursday- no, Friday. This whole bed rest ordeal started on Monday, but she didn’t go off her food until the second day, so . . . “Three days?”

Foggy’s still stroking her upper arm. “Okay. Why?”

God, she was afraid of that question. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“You wouldn’t,” Maddie insists. She’d raise her head, but she’s afraid of making eye contact, even though she technically can’t see the look on Foggy’s face. She can imagine it, though, and that’s almost worse. “It’s- it’s a Catholic thing. It wouldn’t make any sense if you didn’t grow up in the Church.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to me now,” Foggy points out, “so you might as well give it a shot anyway.”

Maddie sifts through her vocabulary, trying to pick out the right combination of words. “There’s- you know about penance, right? When you do something wrong, you punish yourself to atone for it. Sometimes that means not eating. And . . .” She takes a deep breath. “I . . . focus better when I’m hungry. It gives me something to concentrate on.”

“Funny,” Foggy says, “I was under the impression that being hungry makes it harder to concentrate. On anything.”

“It does, but that’s the point.” Maddie shifts her head slightly, rubbing her cheek against Foggy’s still-damp skin. “It means I have to work harder to get things done. There needs to be a . . . a struggle. Something to fight against. I don’t do great when I don’t have anything to fight.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Foggy says, with something that might be a dark chuckle. “Why food, though? Couldn’t you pick something else?”

Maddie shrugs. “It’s easy. It’s there.”

Foggy hugs her closer, pressing another kiss against her hair. “You gotta know it’s not healthy.”

“I know,” Maddie says. She squeezes her eyes shut. “But it’s what I have to do.”

She expects Foggy to argue that, because that’s what she always does- process whatever Maddie’s just said and throw all the inconsistencies and missing pieces of logic back at her, like a verbal game of catch. It’s what made them good partners in law school, what makes them both good courtroom lawyers. But Foggy doesn’t say anything, which is the most unnerving thing Maddie’s experienced since all this started. Instead, she kisses Maddie’s forehead again, a silent reassurance, before slowly, gently untangling herself and sliding out of bed. “Karen’s gonna be here soon,” she says. “So we should probably get dressed.”

Maddie raises her head. “Are you going to tell her?”

“I kind of have to.” Foggy’s voice is gentle, but there’s a hard layer of steel underneath. “And I definitely have to tell Claire. You could’ve fucked yourself up even worse than you already were.”

Maddie presses her face against the pillow. She knows Foggy’s right. She also knows that there are a series of deeply uncomfortable conversations in her future, and she’s not looking forward to any of them.

When Karen arrives, she hears a low murmur of voices in the kitchen- Foggy probably drew her in there to try and keep Maddie from overhearing them. It was a futile gesture, but nice of her anyway. Maddie- now dressed again in a t-shirt and boxers- catches stray phrases like “freak out” and “hospital,” and the occasional soft gasp from Karen, but not quite enough to piece together what Foggy’s saying. She knows Karen’s got the gist of what’s happened, however, and when she hears footsteps approaching the bedroom, she tenses, expecting- tears, recriminations, the usual reactions from someone who’s just been told that their friend’s been starving themselves for almost a week. She’s not really sure how she’s going to be able to make any of it better. Apologies are the usual course of action, she thinks, when you make your friends cry, but what good is an apology in this case? She’ll say I’m sorry, I fucked up, but it’s not like Karen’s going to say it’s okay, because it’s not okay, but what other reply is there? There’s no script for this. Karen’s not usually the type to yell, but if a situation ever called for it, Maddie thinks it might be this one.

But Karen doesn’t yell, or cry, or even ask any questions. Instead, she just lowers herself down to sit on the edge of the bed and says “oh, Maddie,” quietly sliding her cool, dry hand around Maddie’s clammy one. She doesn’t say or do anything else, just sits there and waits for Maddie to say something.

Maddie licks her lips; her mouth’s gone dry. “I guess you talked to Foggy.”

“Yeah, I did.” Karen gives Maddie’s hand a little squeeze. “I guess you don’t really feel like talking anymore?”

It’s more of a reprieve than she deserves, but the kindness in Karen’s offer makes Maddie smile weakly anyway. “Not really, no.”

“I figured.” Karen twists away for a moment, and when she comes back, Maddie can smell slightly burned toast balanced on a plate in her hand. “Breakfast? It’s just a piece of toast.”

Maddie accepts the food without saying anything, and takes a bite. It’s dry and tasteless, but under the circumstances, it’s what she prefers. When she’s done chewing and swallowing her mouthful, Karen passes her a glass of juice without a word, and Maddie washes the food down. The rest of the meal passes like this, in silence except for the (unnaturally loud, to Maddie’s ears) sounds of chewing and swallowing. Karen’s hand stays where it is all the while.

When she’s finished eating the toast (three pieces, in all) there’s a small clink as Karen sets the plate on the bedside table. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” she says, “but we’ve got a new client.”

Maddie nearly drops her glass of juice. “What? Who? When?”

“Calm down or you’ll choke,” Karen teases gently. “He came in the day before yesterday. He wants to file a worker’s comp lawsuit against his employers, and he says we might be able to make it a class action if we track down some other former employees.”

Maddie drains the rest of her juice and hardly notices it. “What’s his complaint? Negligence?”

“Yeah, and malfeasance on the part of the insurance company.” Maddie frowns, and Karen leans in a bit closer. “I know, it doesn’t sound like it should be part of the same case, but I went and looked it up. The company doesn’t offer health insurance, but they give all their employees a list of potential insurance companies to sign with. Our client and half the people working for this company have their insurance through a firm called the Basso Brothers. It’s named after the two agents who work there, but they don’t actually own the agency. I tracked down the name on the lease of the building they work in, and it’s the same as the one on the factory that our client worked in. And when our client tried filing a claim with the company, they said his insurance wouldn’t cover it unless he paid extra, but his fees would get cut in half if he signed an agreement not to hold their employer liable for damages. He says the same thing happened to the other employees he talked to.”

Maddie whistles. “And if we use this their testimony to establish a pattern of behaviour-“

“-then we can prove they were protecting themselves from damage while pretending that they had no connection to the insurance company.” Maddie can sense Karen beaming triumphantly. “Now, the client’s only talked to people who were with the same insurance company as he was, but he says there were at least five on the list his employers sent out. I think what we need to focus on now is figuring out whether or not those other companies were also owned by the same corporation.”

“Wow,” Foggy says from the doorway. Maddie had been so busy listening to Karen, she hadn’t heard her come in. “We should have you on retainer.”

Karen’s hand grows warm in Maddie’s as she blushes. “I’m just doing what you guys do.”

“Yeah, but you’re doing it better.” Foggy comes into the room and perches on the other side of the bed. “So which companies do we still have to look into? How many?”

“Four, and I’ve got a list.” There’s a rustling noise as Karen rifles through something- a briefcase, probably- and pulls out a sheaf of papers. “Here we go. Safety Brothers Incorporated, Doors Alliance, Blue Financial . . .”

They spend the rest of the morning like that, papers spread across Maddie’s bed as they comb through the evidence and debate the best way to proceed. Maddie feels alert in a way that she hasn’t in days, her brain suddenly active and hungry for more. It’s the feeling of hitting the ground running that she’s missed so much, forward motion keeping her awake and excited to see what comes next. She loses track of time entirely, engrossed in debating the legality of company partnerships with Foggy, until Karen says “It’s almost three. I should probably get back to the office.”

“Huh?” Maddie blinks, and realizes Karen’s right; the sunlight is hitting her face at a mid-afternoon angle, ergo it must be mid-afternoon. “Oh, right. Okay. Let me know if the client calls again, okay?”

“Will do.” Karen stands up, and bends to kiss Maddie’s forehead quickly. “Feel better soon. I’ll talk to you both tomorrow.”

“Talk to you then,” Maddie says, and listens as Karen and Foggy exchange their goodbyes and Karen’s footsteps click out of the apartment. When the door closes behind her, Maddie flops back on the pillows. “What now?”

“Well,” Foggy says, a cautionary note in her voice, “now I’m going to give Claire a call. She said she wanted to check up on you today anyway.”

Maddie blows out a long breath. “Have you already-”

“I haven’t talked to her since Tuesday,” Foggy says. “Though yeah, I probably will tell her some of what’s been going on when I call her. She’ll probably figure it out anyway when she looks you over, but just in case.”

“It’s not like I’m emaciated,” Maddie says with a slight grumble, but she doesn’t protest any further as Foggy hauls herself off the bed and goes into the kitchen, where the phone is. This time, she does listen in; it’s not a huge deal, she figures, since Foggy and Claire aren’t really friends independent of both being involved with her, ergo there’s far less chance that she’ll hear something that was meant to stay private. She can’t hear Claire on the other end of the phone, but Foggy’s voice is calm and level- surprisingly so, really, given what’s transpired over the past twenty-four hours. Maybe she’s just putting a brave front up, but her heartbeat is slow and steady, calm flowing from her like slow-moving water. Maddie knows that it’s a hard-won peace, gained in spite of her own bullheadedness, but she’s deeply- pathetically- thankful for it anyway. Thankful, at least, that Foggy can be the functional one; that when she hasn’t dragged her girlfriend down with her on the fall, despite all her best efforts.

Claire’s there in under fifteen minutes, which Maddie is pretty sure means she’s worried. Despite Foggy’s assurances over the phone, her voice is clipped and tight as she prods Maddie’s head wound, shines a flashlight in her eyes, and stabs a needle into her upper arm to draw blood.

“What’s my white cell count got to do with my head injury?” Maddie asks at that last, and she can feel Claire glaring at her in response.

“I’m not looking for white blood cells,” she says tightly. “I’m checking your iron levels to make sure you haven’t developed anemia.”

“In the past three days?”

Claire doesn’t even bother dignifying that with a response, which is Maddie’s cue that she may not be in the mood for teasing. She sighs, tipping her head back to rest against the wall. “How’s the concussion doing?”

“Recovering,” Claire says, still clipped. “Which is a goddamned miracle, given you apparently decided to treat yourself with a starvation diet and an exercise regime. You know I’ve treated drug addicts who give me fewer problems than you?”

Maddie picks at the ragged edge of her thumbnail. “I believe that.”

“You should.” There’s a clink and a click as Claire puts the blood vial away and shuts the clasp on her bag. “All right, no, you probably haven’t developed anemia in the past few days- assuming you had enough iron in your diet beforehand. Which, given the fact that you’ve apparently done this before, is apparently not something I can take for granted, so blood test it is. Anything else I should be testing for? Amphetamines, maybe?”

“I’m not doing drugs, Claire.”

“Funny,” she says. “It would be just about the only self-destructive habit you haven’t picked up yet.” She picks up Maddie’s wrist, pressing her thumb against the pulse point. Her touch is softer than her voice. “I realize this might be the most pointless advice I’ve ever given, but have you ever considered talking to a psychiatrist?”

Maddie nearly chokes with laughter. “I don’t think that would go very well.”

“Yeah, neither do I.” Claire must have her pulse by now, but she hasn’t let go of Maddie’s wrist. “Do you talk to anybody, though? Anybody who isn’t me, Karen, or Foggy? It doesn’t have to be a licensed therapist, because I know you’d just lie your way through the sessions, but you’d benefit from some kind of counselling.”

Maddie considers this. “Does a priest count?”

“It’s better than nothing.” Claire finally releases her wrist. “Not that I’m a huge fan of picking religion over medicine, but I’ll take what I can get. If your priest helps you out, then by all means, keep talking to him. Just do me a favour and do it before you completely self-destruct, all right?”

Maddie laughs hollowly. “Isn’t the point of self-destruction that you don’t realize until it’s too late to do anything about it?”

“You’re smart.” Claire stands up. “You’ll figure it out.” She pauses, and a long silence stretches out between them. It feels almost like a physical gulf, like a marathon Maddie will have to run to gain a sense of trust back.

“Punishing yourself doesn’t help anyone else,” Claire says quietly.

Maddie swallows hard. “Yeah. I know.”

“Do you?” Before Maddie can say anything in response- before she can even think of something to say- she senses Claire turning away. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” she says over her shoulder, and walks out without waiting for Maddie to say anything.

Foggy appears in the doorway in her place, her shape a familiar comfort. “How’d it go?”

Maddie lets out a long, shaky breath. “About what I expected.” Maybe a bit worse, actually. Because when Claire stitches her up and puts band-aids on her bruises, she doesn’t scold- she’s given up, Maddie guesses- so she’d forgotten Claire’s ability to cut to the bone with only a few words. It had been a pleasant forgetfulness, while it lasted.

Foggy slides onto the bed next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Well, she’s still patching you up, so it can’t be that bad,” she says. She hesitates. “Should I ask what you want for dinner?”

Maddie considers. “Something bland?”

“Bland,” Foggy says. “I can definitely do bland.” She gives Maddie a squeeze, then stands. “One order of bland, coming right up.”

“Bland” ends up being plain pasta, which Maddie eats without protest. Her mind still rebels, but her stomach embraces the sense of fullness, and for once she feels heavy in a pleasant way rather than a punishing one. The food makes her sleepy, too, and she falls asleep just as she’s thinking about getting a head start on the files Karen left behind.

There are two days left of her bed rest- Claire hadn’t added any more, so Maddie assumes she doesn’t need them- and they pass in relative peace. Maddie gets up the morning after Claire’s visit and pads to the shower, rinsing off the accumulated sweat from the past several days. Afterwards, she sits down at the kitchen table, hair still wet, and feeds Karen’s files through her computer, listening to the OCR software read them out loud. In between, she takes bites from a pear; it’s under-ripe and woody, but that makes it relatively tasteless, which suits her well. She misses the sound of her stomach rumbling, but for the most part, the OCR fills the silence for her. It makes things easier. She has leads to chase, calls to make (though she’s not making any of them yet; she needs to confirm a few things first) and notes to take. The notes can wait, she decides, until Foggy comes over; in the meantime, she leaves her Dictaphone on and talks to herself at random, noting inconsistencies and potential points of interest. By the time Foggy does show up, she’s already covered both sides of the tape.

“Wow,” Foggy says, setting a bag of what smells like groceries down on the table. “I didn’t realize your apartment was actually a wormhole back to 1985.”

“Ha, ha.” She clicks the Dictaphone off and pushes it across the table. “Listen, I think I might actually have something here.”

“Whatever you say, Marty McFly.”

As promised, Claire returns that evening to check on her again. Her manner is slightly less chilly than it was, possibly because the remnants of dinner (omelettes) are still sitting on the table. She goes through the same motions, and just before she leaves, she slips something thin and stretchy around Maddie’s wrist.

Maddie goes to touch it, and feels rubber against her skin. “What’s this?”

“Elastic band,” Claire says briefly. “Try snapping it against your wrist when you get frustrated. It’ll keep you from doing anything worse.”

She can still hear the noises outside her bedroom window at night, even over Foggy’s snoring (she’s insisted on sleeping over until Maddie’s back at work, and Maddie didn’t put up much of a fight) and it makes her want to get out of bed and start running. Instead, she does as Claire said, snapping the elastic against her wrist. The flashpoint pain biting into her skin feels good, even though it’s brief, and she falls asleep with a band of inflamed skin just below the heel of her palm.

The next day is Sunday, and Sunday means one thing: Mass. The day before, Claire and Foggy had both grudgingly admitted that she was up to an outing, so she pulls her church clothes out of the closet and goes. It’s a muggy day, sticky and oppressive, but she still heaves a sigh of relief as she steps onto the church lawn. Even lacking her abilities, she would still be able to find her way through the churchyard; it hasn’t changed much since she was a kid. She pauses in front of the statue of Jesus, fingers trailing over the inscription. Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. An ironic smile curves across her face. Claire might not have been so gung-ho about the church idea if she’d known this was there.

She almost misses Father Lantom coming up behind her; as it is, she barely keeps from jumping when he clears his throat. “Interesting jewellery.”

He means the elastic, she realizes, and her fingers curl around it almost instinctively. “Gift from a friend.”

Father Lantom just makes a humming noise in reply. “I haven’t seen you in confession all week. That’s . . . unusual.”

Maddie swallows. “I’ve been . . . busy.” The churchyard is bustling, and she knows at least a third of these people will be lining up for the confessional booth. “But, um. I’d like to stop by later. I’ll bring coffee?”

“Coffee would be nice,” he says, voice still in that neutral priestly cadence she knows so well. “I suppose allowing my parishioners to feed my verges on bribery, but since you’ve never yet tried to buy your way into salvation, it can’t hurt.”

“Uh-huh.” There are sirens in the distance. She snaps the elastic again. “Hey, Father?”

He makes a noise of assent.

“What do you think of . . .” She struggles for the right word, the balance between not giving enough and revealing too much. “Of martyrs? St. Sebastian and all that. Why do we worship them?”

There’s a long pause, then: “I suppose that depends on who’s doing the worshipping.”

She bites the inside of her cheek. “Okay, let’s say we’re talking about me.”

“Hmm.” He doesn’t sound surprised. “Well, in general I find that those who are drawn to martyrs are those who have suffered greatly in some way. It can be comforting to think of pain as a way of growing closer to God, rather than questioning why He would allow such things to take place in the first place.”

“You said ‘it can be,’” she points out. “You don’t think it is?”

“I think . . .” he says slowly. There’s a pause, and she resists the urge to pull at the rubber band again. “I think that while martyrs can be a comfort in times of trouble, it would be a mistake to look only to their method of death for guidance. Not all saints are distinguished by the end of their life. Joan of Arc, for example . . .”

Maddie smothers a smile; she’d picked “Joan” as her confirmation name.

“Joan of Arc,” he says again, “was burned at the stake, yes, but she was also celebrated for her bravery in battle and her conviction that she would accomplish what she had set out to do. Thinking of her only as a victim would do a great disservice to what she represents. Keeping faith in times of suffering is not only an appeal to pain; it’s also an appeal to the eventual end of it. Does that answer your question?”

She traces the lettering on the statue, running her thumb along the groove of the G. “I think so. Thank you, Father.”

He nods- she doesn’t see it, obviously, but she can sense it- and moves away. A breeze tracks its way through the churchyard, lifting sweat-damp strands of hair from the back of her neck. She touches the inscription again, mentally completing the psalm it came from: the one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God.

Foggy kisses her in bed that night, and she kisses back, tucking I’m sorries under her tongue. Foggy holds her closer and kisses her face, her neck, the hollow of her collarbones, and it feels something like forgiveness. Or absolution. She’s not really sure which; she’s not really sure what difference it makes.

She shows up to work on Monday with a stack of papers under one arm and a lunch bag under the other. Yogurt, string cheese, and an apple: she can get through it one bite at a time.

Karen’s already sitting at her desk, and the clatter of her keyboard stutters as Maddie comes into the room. “Hi!” She jumps up from her desk and nearly runs across the room, grabbing Maddie in a hug. Maddie smiles against her shoulder and hugs her back.

“You look good,” Karen says when she releases her. “Are you- how are you feeling?”

“Good,” Maddie says. She holds the stack of papers out. “Busy. But good.”

“Busy’s good,” Karen agrees, her hair rustling as she tucks it behind her ear. “Do you want a donut? I brought donuts. Or . . .”

“Donuts sound nice,” Maddie says, before Karen can trip over her own words. “I’d like one, yeah. Foggy’s going to be here in a few minutes- you want to spread all this stuff out in the conference room, and we can go over what we’ve got so far?”

“Sure!” Karen says, tugging the papers from Maddie’s hand and replacing them with a donut. Her heels click as she walks over to the conference room, and in her absence, Maddie takes a bite of the donut. Her stomach rumbles slightly, but it’s a noise of pleasure rather than disgust; the glaze melts on her tongue, almost immediately, leaving a lingering sugary taste behind as she chews. It’s not bad.

“Hey!” Karen’s heels come clattering back towards the office door. “I almost forgot- the client’s coming in around one. I didn’t tell him you’d be here, so if you’re not feeling up to it, you can take the afternoon off.”

“It’s fine,” Maddie says. “I’m fine.” And if it’s not true, it will be soon enough. “Let’s get to work.”