Who: Gwen and Wren What: Walking and talking Where: Between Rainier and Bathos When: When the fog started Warnings: None
Wren found a change of clothes at the local thrift store, a skirt and shirt and white sneakers, and she left the tawdry yellow dress behind. But she didn’t go home, not wanting to get Gwen hurt, afraid Cassidy would make good on his threat about flaying the skin off people. She didn’t risk calling Luke or Aubade, though she wanted to. Instead, she had five cups of coffee at a Rainier hole-in-the-wall, and then she found a place to hide amidst the forgotten lives of the Valley.
The sky was just beginning to darken when she gave in and called Gwen. She had started dialing Cassidy’s number, but the promise she’d made to Luke kept her from it. By the time she hung up, the fog was rolling thick and dark. She couldn’t see the sky anymore, and she wasn’t even sure the street (only feet away from the sidewalk she was standing on) still existed. Everything was silent, like nothing existed save the occasional screech and squeal of car tires. She counted crashes as she waited. One, two, three, four, and she wondered how many people were dying so that she could be a silly little free girl.
Wren kept her comm on, knowing Gwen would find her by the GPS, and she would have called Cassidy right then, if she wasn’t so worried that he’d come and find the woman there. Gwen had tried to help her, and she didn’t want anything to happen to her. She slid down along the stone wall at her back, and she sat on the dirty concrete, knees hugged to her chest.
By the time Gwen was halfway to Wren’s location, the fog had permeated everything. Her cabbie didn’t even have to insist on going straight home. She just handed over some cash and hopped out, knowing it would be better on foot. She stayed far on the sidewalk, turning a blind ear to the honking and holler of people on the street, or the distant sound of crash followed by the sound of more arguing. At least they were alive. She sighed and shook her head as she followed Wren’s signal on her phone.
Gwen was closing in and she made the sound of her boots louder, her steps obvious, as she came through the fog. Dressed in a pair of jeans she had grabbed her cream colored coat on the way out, knowing the sun wouldn’t be visible much longer, and tied it tightly around her with only her pink shirt peeking out at the neck. When she finally found Wren, crouched down on concrete, she slipped her phone back in her pocket and stretched her hand out to lift the girl back on her feet. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Wren heard her before she saw her, but only by a few seconds, and when the hand came out of the fog toward her she braced herself. She wasn’t armed, opting not to carry any knives since her release from jail. One of the conditions of her bail was that she not be armed, and she didn’t want to risk Thomas losing his money by violating it. But without the weapons, she felt vulnerable, and it took her a second to realize it was Gwen. Her breathing calmed, and she took the hand that was offered her. Standing, she shook out the worn skirt, and she smiled a sad, sheepish smile. “I should have walked on my own,” she said, when she realized Gwen hadn’t been able to drive at all.
Another crash rang out in the distance, and Wren winced at the sound. “We can walk to Aubade, and I can go upstairs to where Cassidy is, and this can all stop,” she suggested, even though she was fairly sure Cassidy wouldn’t be there. But she knew him, he would find her if she went there, somehow. “Or maybe to the safehouse he bought,” she looked over her shoulder, in the direction she thought it was (it was hard to tell in the fog). “He bought a safe house for girls, and all I needed to do was go and be there, and it would open.” She sounded guilty about the fact that she hadn’t followed through on that, too. “But I got arrested the night before I was supposed to go, and he made it snow.”
Gwen only shrugged when Wren mentioned walking on her own. It really wasn’t a matter of walking or driving, but making sure Wren wasn’t running off. “I’ve gotten really into walking and running lately,” she said easily, knowing the younger woman would understand. “I could use the exercise.” The number of people in Seattle who knew her when she was in a wheelchair seemed to be growing smaller and smaller. She wouldn’t have to explain why she preferred to go everywhere on her own two feet when she could.
“This won’t stop if you go there.” Gwen’s voice was even, but firm, sure in her words but not trying to push. “Maybe for a while, because he’s momentarily satisfied that you’re giving him what he wants.” She slipped her arm loosely through Wren’s, out of reassurance, in case she would bolt, and for safety as they walked. While she couldn’t recognized the signals of all cars, certainly anything in the last few decades had enough electrical sensation for her to notice. They’d be fine in the fog together. “What happens if his wants change? What if he wants more from you? More than you can give or want to?” Not that Wren wanted to do any of the other things either. “Didn’t he say he’d stop if we showed him that you weren’t taken by the Bodysnatcher? Look how long that lasted.”
Wren did remember. She remembered Christmas with Gwen and Kyle and Quinn, and it made her look down as she walked, memories making her silent and pensive. “Can I ask who he is? Whoever’s making you smile these days? It’s nice.” When Gwen slipped her arm through hers, Wren didn’t move away. She just leaned into the other woman a little, the warmth helping to remind her that someone was there, in the fog that reminded her of something out of a child’s nightmare.
“I know it won’t stop if I keep leaving,” Wren admitted. “He says I can leave and see Lu- my friends, but I know that won’t last for very long at all,” she admitted, because she did know that. She wasn’t so silly that she couldn’t tell that Cassidy had lost his grip on reality while he was away. “Before he left, he would get angry and yell, but he wouldn’t do this. I’ve told him, too, that it’s not me that he loves. We argued about everything when I was working for him. He didn’t like that I said love didn’t exist, and he wanted me to be someone I couldn’t be.” She smiled a little bit and looked over at the older woman at her side. “I know you probably can’t imagine me fighting with anyone about anything, but we did fight. I care about him, but I don’t love him. No one ever wanted me how Cassidy did, as something more than just a little girl to sleep with.” She took a deep breath, and she looked ahead. “It would be easier if I could just love him back. I tried. I really did.” She shook her head slowly. “And then I fell in love with someone else, and I told him, and I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for it. So, it’s a little my fault,” she said.
Gwen smiled, though she shook her head. “It’s not... it’s not someone. It’s not as simple as that. And it’s not that I’m smiling more. It’s just...” But she shook her head, not minding the topic but not wanting to get too off track. She had a feeling they’d get back to it, that the topic at hand would find it’s way back to her and her smiling issues, but she would wait and see.
“It’s not you leaving that does this,” she gently reminded Wren. “It’s his lack of total control that makes this happen. You leaving, you being in love with someone else, is something that he needs to deal with. The fact that his coping mechanism of choice is punishing an entire city isn’t your fault. I can’t imagining you fighting him,” she laughed softly, squeezing the arm that was wrapped around hers, “but I couldn’t blame you. He doesn’t respect your feelings, or your wishes. He doesn’t respect you, and to be honest, it doesn’t sound like he loves you. If he really did, we wouldn’t walking in the fog, having this discussion.”
“It’s someone,” Wren said, knowing, because she knew when people were in love. It made them smile when they thought no one was looking. “But is it being able to move again, too?” She asked, not sure how to ask without sounding nosy, but she knew Gwen would understand. “Is it like being free again, like leaving jail?” she asked, because she imagined it might be.
“I know it’s his ability, and I know it’s his fault, but it’s because of me. None of this would be happening if he didn’t want me where he was,” Wren said. “If everyone you cared about was being tortured, and you could stop it, wouldn’t you do it? I would have just gone once, but now it’s harder.” She didn’t explain why, because she thought it was obvious, and she just shook her head, dyed-blonde hair falling about her shoulders. “And part of me thinks there’s no point in not going. Quinn will be back someday.”
Gwen merely shook her head, amused that Wren knew something, and amused that it wasn’t quite what she thought it was. “Even that is still too simple. It’s freedom, but not just from the wheelchair. It’s something new but it’s not just someone."
Humming softly, Gwen gave Wren's question a fair amount of thought, but it was an one that every vigilante had considered more than enough times and she was quick to answer. “I would. If there was something I could do, I would do it. I would do practically anything for people I cared about. I’d die for everyone I loved. But that’s the funny thing about people who love you. They don’t want that. They want you to live. They’d rather you do things with than for them. People who care for you are willing to make sacrifices for you too. And if they know, and I’m sure they do, they would never want you do something like this on their behalf.” She stole a sidelong glance at Wren for a moment and delicately added, “Someday’s still a while off, you know.” If someday ever came at all.
“You can’t be sure,” Wren said about someday, and she bit her lip for the next few seconds. “It’s not new, my feeling this way. I don’t want you to think it’s new because she’s gone and I’m just trying to take all her things.” She said it in a rush, all the words running together as thickly as the fog that surrounded them. “It was before, during Bunny, after the warehouse, I think, but maybe before that, too? But we’re just friends,” she insisted. “And it seems kind of silly not to go to Cassidy just because I want someone I can’t have. We don’t know when someday will be, but when it comes things will go back to how they were before. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for me,” she said, shrugging the arm that was looped through Gwen’s. She glanced over at the other woman. “Can you tell me what kind of something new it is?” honestly curious.
Gwen laughed softly as Wren apologized once more. “You’re not taking anything from Quinn. No one thinks that. And even if you’re just friends,” Gwen clearly didn’t sound like she thought it was just that, “that doesn’t mean you should compromise to give someone else what they want just to satisfy them. Silly or not has nothing to do with it. Would you want Luke to be with you just because he knew you liked him? Would that make you happy? I don’t think so and you should think about the kind of man that makes Moran since having an unhappy kept woman at his beck and call is what he wants.” She sighed as her tone became a little more clipped and for once, she was glad for the change in topic. She felt a rant coming on.
As for the something new, that was a long story, and they were still some ways away until Bathos. “I was shot close to four years ago.” It felt so much longer than that. “I spent much of that time angry, swinging from bitterness and acceptance depending on the day. When we moved through the portal, I stayed inside and spoke to no one face to face. I worked with people, I helped them, but keeping the distance was something I felt I needed to do to keep them safe, even if it never meeting them, or never leaving my apartment. I did everything I could, I protected them to the absolute best of my ability, to make sure I was never a liability or a hindrance. I thought it was the only way for us. And then I was...” Her words faltered, though her steps didn’t. It still was difficult to talk about it and though she wanted to be honest, she wasn’t ready to tell Wren about all of that.
“... And when I came back, everything turned upside. Quinn and Kyle....” More trailing off, more things unsaid. “But after the anger, and there was a lot of it, I realized that I held back so much, and it hadn’t made a difference. What I was doing didn’t make anyone safer, didn’t make anyone’s lives any better or anyone happier.” She shook her head. “I always said that we’re entitled to lives. That we have the right to live, really live and I hadn’t done any of that in many years. And it took me this long to realize it, and honestly I’m still working on accepting it most days, but it’s not selfish to want and try to be happy. So I’m trying. Some days are better than others, and I’m faking it more than most people realize, but slowly but surely getting there.”
Wren slipped her arm from Gwen’s while she was talking, and she twined her fingers with the other woman’s instead and squeezed. Not hard, just a reassuring I’m here kind of squeeze, and a small swing of their joined hands as she talked. Once she finished, Wren slipped her arm back through Gwen’s, and she was quiet, thoughtfully so, not hurried to say anything until she thought it through. “When I was fourteen, I got hurt really badly. I spent almost a year in the hospital, and I had so many surgeries. When I got out, I went to live with the local sheriff, “ and live was emphasized as not living. “He made me do a lot of really bad things, and once I got away, I was really angry for a long time. I learned how to use my knives, and I thought that would make it better. Keeping everyone away, and having a mission.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t. It’s nothing like going out and dancing in the aisle at a planetarium just because it’s fun and you like the boy you’re with,” she said. It was much smaller than what Gwen had been through with the chair, and Mockingbird, but she thought maybe it was a little the same. “I guess what I’m saying is I understand a little, maybe not all the way, but a little.”
Wren stopped when a crash rang out in the distance, feet hesitant and stand-still, and then she moved again. “I just want Luke to be happy, and I’m causing him a lot of problems with Thomas,” she said. “And Cassidy is really not well, Gwen. I don’t think anyone can logic with him, not anymore. Not even me. If I went to wherever he is, I don’t think it would be any better. And I think he’d still go after Luke and keep the fog going. This,” she said, motioning at the air around them, “is angry. Can’t you tell?”
“Very few things are better than dancing in an aisle at the planetarium,” Gwen gently teased, focusing on the good rather than the sad of Wren’s story. And though she had never done so herself, she knew the sentiment all too well. “We gain very little from locking ourselves away. If anything, we lose so much.”
As for Cassidy, Gwen squeezed their held hands gently. “He needs help, that’s for sure. What you’re considering is just enabling. That’s pretty much the exact opposite of help. But I’m glad that you know that he’s beyond any reasoning, even with you. And now that we’re in agreement of you not going to stay with him, since it won’t do any good, then we can start coming up with a better plan.” Another gentle squeeze and Gwen’s voice returned, as casual as ever. “Any weaknesses?”
“He gets tired,” Wren said. “I saw him after the rain, and he had passed out from exhaustion, and there was a break in the snow, I think, too. So he gets weaker the longer it goes on. If we can find out where he is, we can wait for him to pass out?” she suggested, though she knew finding out where he was would be hard. “I can try to get to wherever he is. He might at least get in touch with me? And then when he gets tired, I can call someone?” She answered her own question a second later with the shake of her head. “Maybe something with GPS? He might not put me somewhere with a phone.” Any fear she felt at the prospect was outweighed by the probability of making this stop. Then, hesitantly, “do you know how mad Thomas is at Luke? We weren’t supposed to be seen together ever.” There were hurt feelings in the admission, and she bit her lip.
Gwen didn’t know about whatever rules Thomas had laid down for Luke and Wren but she frowned ever so slightly before shaking her head. “You need to stop worrying about things between them. I know, I tell you this all the time. But whatever problems they have between them? You can’t fix. They might try to make you the subject but you aren’t the root of any problem they might have.”
More thoughts on Cassidy made her hum thoughtfully. They couldn’t just wait it out. Not if they could flush him out beforehand and stop this. “Would he trust you though? Now that you’ve run out.” Gwen didn’t exactly feel fine using Wren has bait but GPS was easily an option. So was having someone on hand nearby to take Moran down. “Do you know where he might go into hiding? Any other properties he has, I can find. Any paper trails, etcetera, but if he lays very low it’ll be harder. Any other friends he might have? Any places he particularly likes?”
“You don’t understand. It’s hard not to worry about things between them, because they affect Luke a lot. We talk about that more than anything at all. I know Thomas means well, but he’s going to run him off if he isn’t careful, and I don’t think that’s good for either of them,” Wren explained, and she wasn’t sure if it was okay to talk about that with Gwen, but it did worry her. More and more lately, it worried her. “He tries so hard to be what Thomas wants, that he stops being himself to make that happen.”
The mention of Cassidy brought Wren’s thoughts back to the problem at hand, and she shook her head. “He wouldn’t trust me, not again. But he might help me if I was in a lot of trouble. I can get in a lot of trouble. I’m kind of good at that,” she admitted, adding. “He might go after Luke. I know Cassidy. I don’t think he’d be able to make himself hurt me, but if he blames Luke, Luke might be able to get him to come out of the woodwork.” She shook her head about the properties, not knowing any. “Cassidy spent a decade locked inside his house. He has cash money, and he can disappear really easily. He doesn’t even need to go to the bank, or to go outside.”
“They have more than enough people meddling and trying to mend their bridge.” Well, one person, but Gwen thought Max had enough clout to be counted plural. “It’s hard not to worry. I get that. I’ve been worried too. But they’re not going to fix anything unless they want to and whatever apologies they might have aren’t going to be heartfelt if we’re pushing. Have faith. They’re good men, the both of them. Smart too, sometimes.” A small grin. “They’ll figure this out.”
Gwen frowned and hummed unhappily at the mention of cash on hand. She could do very little with that. Luke was an option. This fog they walked through was just a manifestation of Moran’s anger. Something or someone to be angry at might do the trick instead but she liked that just as little as setting up Wren herself. Maybe they could get Spider-Man to convince him to come out. Maybe Bat to coerce. Something. Anything. “We’ll get him out. We’ll find a way.” They always did.
Wren hoped Gwen was right about Luke and Thomas figuring things out, but she wasn’t as optimistic, so she didn’t add anything but a nod in agreement. The assurance that they would find a way to get Cassidy out didn’t make her feel better, either, not really. She did feel that this was her problem, even if going back to him wasn’t really an option anymore - she’d burned that bridge, and she knew it - but she nodded at that, too. Maybe Gwen was right, and maybe it would be okay. She could hope.