faderift | player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5

Entry tags:

player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.

This is a timeline where, some mild chaos aside, things for the last month have carried on as normal. Riftwatch hasn't lost anyone at all. There were no funerals. The work continued. The late afternoon of August 15 may find people at their desks, in the midst of meetings or debriefs, in the library, in the sparring yard. Or maybe afield, seeing to errands or meetings or missions somewhere else in Thedas. Maybe, if they are particularly unlucky, they are deep in conversation with an ally or embroiled in combat with an enemy agent at the precise moment when the magical connection between two realities closes and the diverging timelines snap together into one existence.

At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.

For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.

For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.

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Ellie can't help but suck back a sob as Clarisse puts her face into her shoulder, the crook of her neck, just as she always does. She tangles the fingers of her maimed hand into her hair, leaning her cheek into her temple, turning her head to lay her lips against her.

"Yeah," she whispers, laughs it, full of tears. "I swear." Good tears. Cleansing tears. The kind she couldn't let loose when they lit the pyre. Clarisse is holding her so tight it hurts, all her strength brought to bear, and Ellie wishes she'd hug her even tighter. It feels like her arms are holding her together.

She reaches up with her other hand, brushes the messy strands of hair back from her ear, lays her lips against it. Closes her eyes. Says what she swore to herself she would say the moment she was back in her arms.

"I love you."

Clarisse has been trying to figure out a way to say it for weeks, but it still feels right that Ellie ends up saying it first. She's always doing that. Giving Clarisse permission to say the things she has trouble saying, to ask for the things she wants, letting her know in so many ways that it's okay to feel the things she's feeling.

"I love you." It's quiet, but her voice doesn't waver. "I wanted to tell you. I've wanted to tell you for months. It's all I could think about. It's the last thing I thought about."

There are things that she might not ever tell Ellie, about that night, and what it felt like. How her fingers twitched trying to reach for her crystal, and how she wouldn't have been able to say anything even if she'd been able to. And it's probably better that Ellie doesn't ever hear those things, but still—Clarisse needs her to know this, at least.

That she was the most important thing, the final picture in Clarisse's head, even in the middle of all that smoke and blood.

It's the last thing I thought about.

Behind Ellie's eyelids, she can see her. The line of her body, still. Broken bones and unnatural bent lines. Her eyes had been open, her lips parted, black blood streaking downward.

They'd cleaned away the blood, slid her eyes shut. Combed her hair. But Ellie still sees her in the dragon's ashes. In the wreckage. Alone.

She'd bled out quickly, but not instantly. It breaks Ellie's heart to know that she had time enough to regret what she didn't say. That she died, not while thinking of Elysium and the hero's welcome that awaited her there, but of what she was leaving behind.

"I knew," she reassures her, fingers stroking through her hair. "I was trying to find the right time to say it, too."

Ellie makes herself take a breath. It crackles with tears.

"I thought I was too late."

Clarisse finally lifts her head, pulling back enough so that she can look at Ellie's face.

That she's crying feels like the biggest fucking gut punch, because unintentional though it was, those tears are because of her. Because of the things she did, or didn't do. And even now, the only thing she can do is lift a hand and brush the tears from Ellie's cheeks, first one, then the other. She presses a kiss to Ellie's forehead.

"I knew, too. It wasn't too late." Even if they weren't having this conversation now. Even if she can't remember being anywhere after... after. She knew.

Clarisse wipes her cheeks, thumbing away her tears, presses her lips to Ellie's forehead. Ellie exhales, releasing the tension inside of her like a knot coming undone. It's like she's had a pounding tension headache all this time, and the kiss finally releases the pain.

Derrica had told her: she knew. And Ellie had believed her. She'd known even before that, that Clarisse knew exactly what she felt. How much she cared without Ellie ever saying a word. But she'd needed to hear it then.

And it makes all the difference, hearing it now. Having her alive. Safe.

"Good," she whispers back. Swallows, as the tears slow and then stop. She tugs her down, and the kiss she gives her tastes of salt.

"But I'm still so fuckin' glad I got to hear it back."

The kiss is soft, slightly wet with the last remnants of Ellie's tears, and disjointed on Clarisse's end. She feels shaky, not entirely whole, and slow to react. Like the world's moving too fast for her, like she's still on that field in Granitefell.

There is nothing physically wrong with her, but she keeps wanting to flex her right arm. Just to check.

"I'm sorry," she says finally.

She's sorry she wasn't here to say it back before. Sorry that even though she's here now, she doesn't feel all the way back.

Ellie can feel it. She'd feel it from her lips alone, the way she seems shell-shocked, the adrenaline fading now that she's safe and allowed to start to crash.

"It'll be okay," Ellie whispers. It's not okay right now, but it will be. Despite how flooded with relief Ellie is, how much she loves her, a part of her is still furious. Still terrified, still hurting. The apology helps, but that's something they can work through later, when Clarisse isn't dealing with the fact that she cheated death.

Ellie guides her back into her shoulder, running her hand down her back.

"I've got you."

It's hitting her, too. The full weight of what they did. The fact that she was dead, dead-dead. Ellie found her, held her. Sewed her funeral shroud. Cremated her.

And then she helped break the laws of reality to get her back. To buy a new future, with her in it.

Ellie's not sorry that she did it, but holy shit.

Later, Clarisse will realize what Ellie said: it'll be okay. The meaning of that, the implication, will be crystal clear once she's lying in the dark of her room. It will be. Not it is.

Right now, she doesn't even blink. Ellie guides her gently back down to her shoulder, and Clarisse goes, tucking her head there like she's too exhausted to lift it, too scared to look up.

Closing her eyes helps, a little. The world feels less disorienting once it's limited to the backs of her eyelids. She takes the first really deep breath she's had since she woke up in the armory, her lungs filling with air that's clear and smells like Ellie's cloak.

"How long?" she asks finally. She should ask, she should know. She wants to know, almost as much as she's afraid to.

Ellie holds her. The sun is warm on them, but she still feels cold. Clarisse is life-warm but clammy, and she rubs her back again, both for comfort and to keep her blood flowing through the shock.

"Four weeks," Ellie whispers softly, to disguise how broken it sounds. Four weeks without them. Without her. Four weeks to grieve. The implications are staggering, she knows. Even without the details.

Ellie braces them both.

The answer she gets feels like a punch to the chest, and all the fresh air Clarisse just breathed in deflates out of her as her muscles go tight and painful.

Four weeks. Four. Weeks. She doesn't understand how that could be possible.

She lifts her head again so she can see Ellie's face. "What?"

She feels lightheaded, panicked. She remembers feeling the same way when she got back to camp after the Labyrinth and her cabinmates had all been laughing and slapping her on the back for managing to stay alive: Dude, you've been gone for over a month—but for her it had only been days, a week at most.

The time lost staggers her. Four weeks.

"Yeah." Ellie eases her arm around Clarisse's back.

In this reality, her body doesn't show the effects of those four weeks. She has color in her cheeks. She's slept. Her hands are not covered in healing burns from the dragonfire. But her eyes are the same. Fierce, near-manic. Hurting and haunted. Like nothing at all was keeping her going but her utter refusal to stop.

The relief there is gutwrenching, so much so that Ellie's almost afraid to feel it. Afraid to trust the weight of her in her arms. Her warmth and beating heart. Like she might blink and find it all a trick of the Fade, a dream her mind conjured.

It wouldn't be the first time.

But it is the first time that she's seen this look in Clarisse's eyes, and as horrific as it is, it's also what convinces her that it's real.

It feels like Ellie's hand on her back is the only thing keeping her here and upright. Clarisse forces herself to keep breathing, and she looks into Ellie's face, staring at her eyes.

She can't imagine what it's been like for her the last month. She has no concept of the utter hell Ellie's gone through. But the look in her eyes is something Clarisse hasn't seen before, ever, and it scares her badly enough that she doesn't want to ask any questions that would get too specific about what's been going on with her the past four weeks.

"Was... Abby okay?" she asks finally, her voice small.

She already thinks she knows the answer. She'd seen how things were going at the end, how hopeless it was. But she never saw Abby, after they parted ways. She could have made it out.

Ellie knows what she must look like, the second Clarisse meets her eyes. Not many things scare her. She's half-immortal, braver than anyone Ellie can name, but Ellie knows that look.

Dina wore it, once. It hurts a lot. But not as much as that question.

It shows on her face, and Clarisse probably knows the answer before Ellie gathers herself together enough to answer.

"... no. I found her, too."

She'd already known, deep down, but it still hurts to hear Ellie say it out loud. Abby died. It might not have even been too long after Clarisse last saw her.

Maybe they should have stayed together. Maybe things could have been different. Or maybe she would've been forced to watch her best friend die, all over again.

Something nags at her, something about what Ellie said. Clarisse can't focus, she thinks—she should find Abby, but she doesn't want to leave Ellie. She isn't sure where to go from here.

"I have to make sure she's okay," she says.

Ellie nods. Reaches up with the arm that's not wrapped around Clarisse, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I saw her a few minutes ago. She's looking for you too."

Ellie doesn't want to leave her either, but- fuck. She knows that Clarisse and Abby need to see each other the way Ellie needed to see them both. They have to reach for each other. Remind each other they're still here.

"I can go with you," she offers. "Or we can meet up later."

Ellie knows Clarisse doesn't want to leave her. Everything in Ellie screams at her not to let her out of her sight. But if there's anything she understands, it's this.

Edited 2023-08-22 02:06 (UTC)

Even still in shock, Clarisse is having a very hard time envisioning an option one that isn't awkward as hell. Unfortunately, the only other option is the second one, then. Meeting up again later.

She leans into the touch as Ellie tucks her hair behind her ear. The kind of simple, wonderful thing she thought she'd never get to feel again.

"I'll find you," she says, "after. I promise."

Ellie nods again. She doesn't like it, but that doesn't change the fact that this is something Clarisse needs. Still, she hesitates, taking a long moment to cup her cheek as she leans into the touch. She runs her thumb along her cheekbone, the way she always does.

It snatches at her; the memory of touching her like this before she lay her shroud of smudged paint over her. Still, pale, cold.

Her fingertips tingle. Her skin itches and aches, and it takes her several long seconds to breathe through it, to find Clarisse's eyes and slowly, deliberately follow the path with her thumb one more time.

She's overwriting it, she tells herself. No matter how many times it takes, she will overwrite it, until the ghost of that moment leaves her entirely.

"Okay," she whispers, blinking fast before she leans in close. Touches their foreheads together. Breathes her in one more time before she makes herself let go.

"Okay," Clarisse agrees softly.

She lets Ellie take her time. She can see how hard it is for her, the way her eyes go sad and distant as she runs her thumb across Clarisse's cheek, and she wishes there was some way that she could be in both places at once, checking in on Abby and holding onto Ellie both at the same time.

"Hey," she says, once it seems like it'll be okay to break away. She presses one more kiss to Ellie's lips before she does. "See you soon. I love you."

She doesn't plan to be gone long, just enough to check in with Abby and anyone else she sees on the way. But time still feels fuzzy, and by the time she makes her way to Ellie's room she isn't sure exactly how long they've been apart.

It's not dark yet, so that's probably good.

Clarisse hesitates for just a second before pushing open the door. Normally she'd just let herself in without a thought, but Ellie's words keep coming back to her: four weeks. She doesn't want to startle her.

"Hey," she says, before she lets herself step over the threshold. "It's me."

It doesn't actually make her feel better to see Clarisse's reluctance to leave her, but it does make it a little easier. Ellie tips her head into the kiss, lingering there as long as she can.

"Love you," she answers, and it's easy, and natural, and sorely needed. She breathes, and lets her walk away.

Ellie sees other people. Talks to them. Re-orients the world in her mind. Nobody is okay, and some people are very much not okay, but with every person she sees back, with every person who got someone back, it cements in her mind just how incredible this was.

They did this.

Later, when she heads back to her room, she makes herself take some bread. She's not hungry at all but maybe that'll change, and bread's more forgiving than other stuff. And if Clarisse has forgotten, then Ellie can be the one taking care of her for once.

Ellie makes herself stretch out on her back on her bed, makes herself close her eyes.

Tries not to think about the possibility that she might have dreamed all of this.

Time slips by, and she blinks her eyes open at the sound of the door, at Clarisse's voice. She bolts up to a sitting position so fast it makes her dizzy, her pulse beating in her throat.

Clarisse looks heartbreakingly real, standing there. Not like a ghost at all. Messy hair and tired eyes and that anxious energy she carries in her shoulders and jaw when something's unsettled her.

"Hey," Ellie says breathlessly. She reaches out with both hands.

"Hi."

Clarisse steps into Ellie's embrace, leaning into her as she begins to nudge her boots off so she can clamber onto the bed beside her.

It's such a weird feeling, standing in Ellie's room. Everything so familiar and so strange at the same time. For Clarisse, it feels like she was just in here the other day, leaving a note for Ellie before she left with the others for what should've been a simple mission. Some clean up, some supplies, then back to the Gallows.

Back in a couple days, she'd written, not even thinking about it.

"Did you sleep?" she asks. Knowing Ellie, if she did, it was restless.

Clarisse leans into her even before she kicks her boots off, and normally Ellie would playfully tug her in. This time she's gentler, arms curling around her shoulders, leaning back to draw her in and settle down.

There's a fine trembling in her hands, but it settles within the minute, the last of the nerves smoothing themselves away. She knows Clarisse understands. But she still wishes she could be stronger than this.

"Not sure," she says truthfully. It depends on what time it is. "But if I did then I didn't dream or anything."

She'd said to Viktor that maybe that was kinder, and maybe it is. Hell, it's better than always wondering whether she is dreaming. Her body feels more rested now than it was, which helps more than she would've thought possible.

What helps most is Clarisse being here.

Ellie's tossed off her cloak, her boots, her armor, but she still smells the same when she pulls her in close. Like leather and horses and charcoal and sweat and feathers. Something green. A tinge of soap.

Her arm curls around her back, fingers splaying between her shoulder blades.

With her boots off, Clarisse can sink onto the mattress, half beside Ellie, half on top of her. Ellie's arms around her, one hand resting against her back, and Clarisse wraps her own arm around Ellie's waist and runs her fingers over her ribs. Just like they've done a hundred times before.

At first she can feel the tremble in Ellie's hands as they press against her, and then, little by little, it stops, and the two of them are still.

Were this any other time, just lying like this with Ellie would have Clarisse fighting not to close her eyes. She'd take in a deep breath and fight not to yawn as her shoulders relaxed, and she'd be content to lie there for a while just like that, not even talking, just being with her.

Today the thought of shutting her eyes and drifting off doesn't soothe her. It's actually sort of terrifying, and her heart beats wildly in her chest for a few moments. She finds herself lying and just looking at Ellie, taking in her features at close-up range. The evening light as it touches her eyelashes, the scar on her lip.

She probably looks fucking creepy, just staring at her, but she's honestly so drained that she doesn't know what else to do. Or say.

The differences are stark, because neither of them has forgotten a single thing. Clarisse doesn't relax against her, and Ellie puts her fingers into her hair, but doesn't stroke through it as she usually does.

The way she's watching her would be weird, probably, if Ellie wasn't doing the same thing. Tracing the curve of her cheek, her lip, memorizing the exact shade of her eyes.

For a time, Ellie gets lost in it, her hair splayed against the pillow. But it slowly, slowly reaffirms reality. Or at least it's a start.

"Only five people came back from Granitefell," Ellie whispers. Slowly, she wets her lips. "They told us so. But I wouldn't believe them until I looked for you myself. I thought- maybe she's hurt, somewhere. Maybe she can't reach her crystal. Maybe they took her hostage."

Maybe that number should be shocking to her. Five survivors, when they'd set out as a group of twenty. It isn't shock Clarisse feels, though, just a sense of dread.

Five. Yeah, she can believe that. She'd seen how things were going.

She listens as Ellie talks, barely breathing. It clicks, what she'd said back in the courtyard: I found her, too. At the time the words hadn't quite settled, but now she understands all too well.

Of course Ellie would be there. She can ride a griffon, and they would've needed people out there right away. She went. Of course she went. They wouldn't have been able to keep her away if they'd wanted to.

"You don't have to," she whispers.

But if Ellie needs to, she'll listen to it. It's the least she can offer her, after all this.

"I have to," Ellie answers, practically snapping it. There's a lump in her throat and she's so relieved to have her back, and she loves her so much, and she understands why.

Ellie loves Clarisse's bravery, her hero's heart. The way she can never back down from a challenge and will throw herself without hesitation into the teeth of the world. She loves that she did everything she could to keep everyone safe, and Ellie can't say that she wouldn't have done the same, in her shoes.

But Ellie had to find her like that.

"You took on a fucking dragon, alone, with a broken spear arm. Your chances of living through that were nil."

Ellie's voice cracks at the edges.

"And I know you. I love you. I love that you are the way that you are and I understand why you did it. But that doesn't change the fact that I had to sew your fucking funeral shroud."

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