Who: Rachel and Chloe What: Aftermath of the Isabela Boat Incident and Apartment fire When: That day Where: The trainyard Status: complete Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, abuse and gaslighting discussion
The fire had gutted most of the apartment. All of Rachel’s things that she hadn’t had the chance to stow away at the trainyard were gone. Mark was gone, at least she hoped he was. But she’d last seen him trapped in the fire. She was free, and it was terrifying. Rachel could barely remember what it was like not to be dependent on someone and that realization made her nauseous. For the girl that prided herself on her independence, she’d been pretty well trapped.
With just her phone, the cat she’d rescued from the first floor apartment and the escape bag she’d been making before Mark had betrayed her, Rachel made her way to the trainyard, collapsing inside it, barely having the energy to text Chloe. She didn’t know if she’d answer, or come. Rachel was pretty sure Chloe wouldn’t have put in near the same effort for her as she had for Ilia, anyway.
She didn’t deserve that kind of effort.
Rachel crawled into the seat in front of the table and laid her face down on it. Her left eye was still bruised and swollen shut, blood caked her nose and the side of her head, and now her skin was covered in smoke and soot. Isabela was dead, Mark was dead, her home was destroyed and her dreams had died along with all of that.
The cat curled up on the corner of the table, as exhausted and frightened as she was.
The difference between Ilia disappearing and Rachel disappearing was that Rachel had done it before. And it still stung Chloe, though that was dulled now mostly because of Max being around and that was the real wound. And the fact that both Ilia and Rachel had disappeared somewhat close together, Chloe felt like a nervous wreck. After all, people she cared about kept disappearing, and her abandonment issues kept getting prodded to life. She wanted it to stop.
At least Ilia was back and it hadn’t been her fault she’d been gone. Chloe wanted to fight the assholes that had hurt her, but she’d only end up dead, or worse, if she did. So she just ensured to help Ilia as much as she could, which seemed to just be doing the things they usually did together. Feelings were nigling at her, but she still refused to acknowledge them. After all, the people she loved the most tended to hurt her the worst, and after Rachel...she was more than terrified of being hurt again.
When she got Rachel’s text, she was relieved that she was both alive and contacting her. That was a step in the right direction. So without much of a second thought, she texted Rachel back and headed for their hideout. Upon arriving, she stepped inside and saw Rachel, and a cat.
“Rachel?”
Rachel lifted her head, looking every bit like someone had raged a war on her, “Oh you came. Hey.”
She tried to get up, and ended up mostly just leaning on the table feeling defeated.
When Chloe saw the state Rachel was in, her jaw dropped. “Holy shit, what happened?” She asked as she moved over to Rachel. She wanted to help if she could.
“Mark happened.” Rachel moved a little too fast, jarring her ribs. She grabbed her side, “I found out something bad. He…”
She waved her free hand in the direction of her face. “I should have...I don’t know.”
Chloe frowned, carefully stepping closer to Rachel. “He did this to you?” And then things started to click together. “Do you need a doctor?”
“Yes. Probably, no,” She shook her head, groaning, “I don’t want to go to the hospital. I really don’t want to go. Please don’t make me go.”
It meant she probably should go. “They’ll ask questions. I can’t…he was into way more than drugs Chloe.”
“Please, sit down and let me help you.” The least she could do was clean up Rachel’s face a bit, cleaning the blood and so forth away. Though sooner or later she’d have to insist on a doctor, or at least a healer.
She grabbed a cloth and wet it with water from a water bottle before she came back over to Rachel and started to very gently clean the blood from her face. “What was he doing?”
Rachel winced, turning her head away at first as the cloth stung her bruises. “Girls. He was moving girls. I found out and he...hit me and threw me into the cargo with the rest of them.”
She needed a moment to swallow her anger again. “Isabela freed us.”
“Sorry,” Chloe quickly apologized when Rachel winced and turned away from the cloth. Chloe tried to keep as light a touch as possible. “What the fuck? That fucking asshole!” Rachel may have swallowed her anger, but Chloe wasn’t going to swallow hers. “I’m glad she freed you, though.”
Rachel swallowed hard. She could still see Isabela rolling off the dock as her ship burned in the distance, “I think he killed her. He drugged her and threw her into the water and then dragged me back to the apartment and...I don’t know what happened, suddenly everything was on fire.”
“Holy shit,” she said. It seemed like the asshole had finally come unhinged. Though when Rachel mentioned the fire, Chloe stared at her. “Holy shit, I’m glad you got out of there unharmed by the fire.” Which explained the smoke and soot on Rachel.
“Yeah.” She gestured to the cat, “Kicked Mark into the fire. Saved the neighbor’s cat.” She was pretty sure that Mark was dead, which left her feeling all sorts of conflicted. Rachel leaned into Chloe, “I was planning on leaving him anyway. Just...kept waiting for the right time…”
Chloe looked at the cat. “That’s more than a good trade, I’d say. The cat for Mark.” Not that Chloe had any resentment towards the man or anything. “At least he’s gone now.” She carefully wrapped an arm around Rachel, not sure what parts of her body hurt and which didn’t.
Chloe’s comments actually made Rachel laugh. A short, barking one, but at least it was a laugh. She groaned after it jostled her ribs. “Yeeah… yeah he’s gone. I don’t even know where to begin?”
“I wish I knew about that. But I suppose just...start with going for the basics?” Chloe wasn’t exactly one to know the best way to start a new life. She’d basically lived in her truck until she’d gotten here. Though she did at least have a job and she was trying to get enough money to save for her own apartment.
“Did we ever get power to this caboose?” Rachel turned her head, careful of her bruised half, into Chloe’s shoulder. “I can’t remember. Fuck. I keep expecting him to show up and just...take me. I hate this, Chloe. How did I…” How did she end up like this?
“Not yet, but I can probably get something rigged up for that.” Chloe could probably figure it out. It wasn’t all that different from putting a car engine together, right? Well, there was also YouTube for that if necessary. “He’s gone now, he won’t be taking you anywhere.”
“I … I tell myself that.” Rachel made a face, “God I’m so pathetic.”
She pulled away from Chloe, moving to the door to the caboose and sitting down, letting her legs dangle. There were things she needed to tell Chloe, but if she did Chloe might hate her and Rachel needed Chloe right now. It was selfish of her and maybe that was Mark talking again.
“You’re not pathetic, Rachel. Far from it.” Chloe said, watching Rachel move to sit in the doorway of the caboose. After a few moments, she went over and sat down next to her. “You survived something that no one should ever have to experience. That makes you strong, makes you a survivor.”
“I’m supposed to be the independent one. The one too above everything to care.” She rubbed her palms on her knees. “But I care. And I let him use me. I let him… poison how I felt about you. Let him cut me off from everyone I loved.”
Chloe looked at Rachel, frowning a bit at what she was saying. Of course, she could go ahead and draw conclusions as to what Rachel meant, but she wasn’t going to put words in Rachel’s mouth. “What do you mean?”
“He didn’t like you. Obviously. Didn’t like my parents either. Or any of my friends. He’d take things you’d say or do, and twist them. And keep twisting them until I believed it. And he did the same about me. I’d call him out on something and he’d twist it around until it was my fault.”
It was so much clearer now that she was relatively safe, but it was still so hard to say. She actually glanced around like she was afraid he’d show up. “It’s why it was…. So hard to leave him. It wasn’t just the hitting. It was other threats, it was taking over my bank account, shit like that.”
She closed her eyes, “You know, seeing you again was like… a breath of fresh air. It contrasted everything he did and said. Maybe if I’d let myself listen to that more, I wouldn’t have almost died tonight.”
She listened to Rachel, and she couldn’t help but to get upset over it all. The fact that someone would manipulate and hurt Rachel like that was infuriating. And she was even angrier over the fact that was why Rachel had left her. But she kept that to herself because right now this wasn’t about her, it was about Rachel.
“I can’t relate, but from what I see, it’s hard as fuck to break away from manipulative assholes like that. I’m just glad that you’re alive and here now.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Chloe.” Rachel turned her head to look at her, thinking that Chloe had every right to hate her, and hating that she felt that way.
Chloe looked at Rachel, some tears starting to well up in her eyes. She looked away, trying to keep her shit together. “It really fucking hurt, you know. You broke my heart.” She knew that now wasn’t the best time for this, but Rachel had opened the door.
“I know.” For the first time, Rachel was able to look at it, and maybe even own up to it. Even if she felt a little raw, and tired, and like she wanted to die.
It would be easier than facing Chloe, easier than picking up her life without Mark.
Still, she was desperate not to lose Chloe too, so she chose her words carefully, even if they were the truth. “I loved you and I let him poison it.”
She pressed her lips together tightly, trying to keep herself from crying. She glanced up towards the sky, trying to hold her tears back. “It was probably easy for him to poison it. I’m a fuck up with plenty of shit wrong with me.”
Rachel snorted, reaching over to take Chloe’s hand and squeeze it. “Remember that girl, the really prissy prom queen who was perfect in every way and we both wanted to kiss her then claw her eyes out? You could have been her and he still would have found cracks to break open.” Maybe later, she would think about wanting to fall back to old habits.
And that thought made something click in her head. Like it was a little easier to understand some of Chloe’s habits.
“Probably of the whole perfect is boring sort of thing.” Chloe said, still trying to hold her tears at bay. She looked down at their hands, a few tears falling from her eyes as she did so. “Life is such a pile of shit. Nothing good ever lasts, no matter what anyone thinks.”
“I understand, if you don’t want to forgive me,” Rachel said, not sure that she would in Chloe’s place. She wrapped her other arm around herself, pressing lightly and wincing as her rib objected. “I know I’m a piece of shit.”
“I don’t know yet.” It was something that Chloe had struggled with since she’d run into Rachel again. She didn’t know if she could forgive Rachel, but that was something she was going to think about for a while yet. “We’re all pieces of shit, honestly. We all do shitty things at times.”
Rachel didn’t want to imagine what it would be like without Chloe. She kind of knew already, only now she wouldn’t have Mark to fall back on either. Her grip on Chloe’s hand loosened, “Is it bad I miss him? I don’t want to, but I do.”
When Rachel loosened her grip on her hand, Chloe didn’t pull it away. Even if she didn’t forgive Rachel, she did still want to be part of her life. The worst thing to Chloe would be not having Rachel in her life at all. “I don’t think it’s bad to miss him. I mean, you were with him a lot. It seems natural, even if he was an asshole.”
It was probably the hardest thing that Rachel could admit, but she needed help. Help that Chloe couldn’t give. How to ask for it was another question entirely, but she’d worry about that later.
“I didn’t even want to do half the bullshit he made me do on camera.”
There was only so much that Chloe could do to help Rachel. She wasn’t a shrink. Though Chloe herself needed help, but she refused to admit it. Nor did she even want help.
“Look at it this way, you never have to do that shit again if you don’t want to.” Chloe said, offering a brighter side.
“Want to be my manager?” Rachel asked, only half joking. Her hand tightened around Chloe’s hand again.
“I … get it now. How you can fall back on old habits, how easy it is. And how it might feel like your fault but it isn’t.”
“I’d be a shit manager,” Chloe responded with a little chuckle. She didn’t know anything about being a manager. She could potentially wing it if she was managing a band or something, but that was about it.
“Yeah. It’s easier than you think it is. But it’s not something anyone gets unless they’ve been there themselves.” Chloe always hated people that told her it was easy to not be depressed. It wasn’t easy. She also hated the people that told her she didn’t have to be depressed. Depression wasn’t a choice. If she had a choice, of course she wouldn’t be depressed or suicidal. But that’s not how it worked.
“Can you, uhm, stay here tonight?” Rachel asked. She didn’t want to be alone, and she didn’t know where she was going to be staying after this. Probably here, for a week or two. She’d like to avoid blowing the money she’d saved up on a hotel room, and she’d figure out what she’d have to do without her photographic equipment. Well, Mark’s.
She was lucky she saved her laptop.
“Yeah, of course I’ll stay here tonight.” It wasn’t even much of a serious consideration on Chloe’s part. Even with Mark gone, she didn’t want to leave Rachel alone in this state. Especially not after what she’d gone through. Chloe didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, and she wasn’t the best at putting lives back together, but she could try and help Rachel as needed.
Obviously, Rachel didn’t deserve Chloe, and she could even admit it, at least to herself. But she needed her, especially right now. So she leaned against her, and sighed, the full emotional weight of the past few days settling onto her as she sniffled.
When Rachel leaned against her, Chloe slid her arm around her shoulders. Though she did so carefully as she wasn’t sure where all of Rachel’s sore spots were. She didn’t want to cause her any more pain than was strictly necessary.
Rachel was certain she was going to start crying, and she didn’t want to, but she didn’t think she could help it either. Her life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Nothing at all had gone right or according to plan, her dreams crushed even if her Dreams seemed to be better. She let her head fall onto Chloe’s shoulder, her own movements slow and careful.
Chloe didn’t mind if Rachel would start crying. After what she’d been through, Chloe definitely wouldn’t have blamed her. After all, she’d been through a lot, and crying was a valid response to it. Holding Rachel, she turned her head and gently pressed a kiss to the top of Rachel’s head, hoping to give her a little comfort.
At least for now, Rachel would take all the comfort she could get, and she let herself break down in Chloe’s arms.