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

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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 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."

It fucking hurts.

It hurts because of the anger in Ellie's voice, the reproach in her eyes, and it hurts because nothing she's saying is wrong. Clarisse took on a dragon, alone, with a broken arm. Ellie had to sew her funeral shroud.

What can she possibly say to that? That she's sorry? That she won't do anything like that ever again? How fucking hollow that would sound.

I know you, Ellie says. I love you. 'Despite yourself' is implied. Clarisse's jaw is clenched so tight it feels like she might crack her teeth. If she blinks she's going to start crying, so she doesn't blink. She feels frozen with the shame of it, but in a way, the bite of Ellie's words does more to wake her up than anything else has in hours.

She doesn't know what to say. How can she explain that fighting the dragon felt like something that was meant to happen? To get ripped apart by some monster, the way she'd been expecting to for years? That, in a fucked up way, it was almost a relief?

And then to find out that it was so fucking pointless anyway. Everything reduced to one final act that was never going to succeed, just so she could drown in her own blood, face down in the dirt, alone, and so her girlfriend could find her body and sew her a funeral shroud.

And then... nothing.

"You weren't there." It's all seething just underneath the surface, and she feels like if she speaks any louder than a murmur that she'll just start screaming and not be able to stop. "You have no idea what happened. What it was like."

Ellie should've expected Clarisse to push back, and when it happens it isn't a shock, really. It hurts, but it's in a bittersweet way.

Clarisse is here to be pissed right back at her.

They are still so close. Clarisse is speaking so quietly, like she's not all there. Ellie can see it, static and fog like a building storm. It doesn't give her pause in the least.

You weren't there, Clarisse says, like Ellie hasn't spent four weeks wishing she had been.

Ellie goes silent. Looking at her. Not because Clarisse has cowed her into silence, but because she's listening.

Ellie is quiet, watching her face. Waiting for her to keep going.

Clarisse isn't sure if she can, at first. For Ellie it's been a month, but for her, this feels like it just happened. She still half expects to realize at any second that this has all been a very intricate and fucked up dying dream.

She goes on anyway.

"So many people died," she says, still quiet. "Not just us. Old people. Kids. Everything was on fire. People were screaming. You couldn't see anything, you couldn't breathe. My arm was fucked. It wasn't just broken, there was some kind of poison. I could feel it spreading. I was dying anyway, so when the guy riding the dragon started taunting us, daring anyone left alive to come challenge him, I thought... might as well go out fighting instead of sitting there and waiting for it."

It doesn't really negate any of the reasons why Ellie is pissed at her. She knows it doesn't. But at the time, with the information she had, it had seemed like the correct choice. The only choice.

Ellie stays quiet, listening. Her throat is tight, and as Clarisse finishes speaking her fingers move, tucking that lock of hair behind her ear, laying her thumb against her cheek.

Yeah, Ellie's still mad. But.

"It's stupid to be mad at you when I woulda done the same thing," she admits. Because when she's real with herself... yeah. Yeah, she probably would have. It breaks her heart to think about Clarisse in the moment, making that decision. Staring down her own death, knowing how it ends. Both Ellie and Clarisse know what it is to accept that old age isn't likely for either of them. Both of them feel like they're living on borrowed time. That getting to choose the way they'd go out might be all they can ask for, in the end.

Both of them would choose to go out fighting.

"I get it. I do, it's just-"

Fuck. Don't you cry. Don't you dare fucking cry.

"I don't wanna lose you."

Clarisse sighs as Ellie tucks her hair behind her ear, touches her face. It doesn't make anything feel completely better, but it's at least a little nudge in that direction. At least Ellie can still touch her.

"Not stupid," she says. "I would be furious if it'd been the other way around."

Just as angry and handling it half as well, probably.

"I didn't want to die." It comes out barely louder than a whisper. "I didn't want to leave you, either."

I didn't want to die.

Ellie's about to lose the battle against the urge to cry. She wraps both arms around Clarisse and brings her in close, hugging her tight enough to hurt.

I didn't want to leave you, either.

Clarisse is warm against her, heart beating too fast, face too hot. She feels like she's holding herself so tightly together, for fear of breaking down. Ellie works her fingers into her hair, puts her lips against her temple.

"Good," she whispers, all pain and relief. Like it was in question, even though in Ellie's heart of hearts, she knows that it wasn't.

Things are never so simple.

"I wish I could tell you that I'm sorry for fucking up your objectively really cool death," she says in a whisper. Framed as a joke, sure: but there's a grain of truth to it. An acknowledgement.

Edited (clarity) 2023-08-23 19:55 (UTC)

That's something Clarisse hasn't even had the time or energy to consider yet. Ellie and everyone else who'd been left alive, they undid something huge. Something that maybe wasn't supposed to be undone.

She can't think about it right now. She can't.

Instead she just lets Ellie hug her so tight it hurts, and listens to her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

The way she's lying here, so still, is a fucked up parallel to what seems, to her, to have happened just a few hours ago, and she desperately wants not to feel that way—she shouldn't feel that way with Ellie's arms wrapped around her, her lips at Clarisse's temple. She should be able to relax. She should be stronger than this. She should be able to come back from this.

Her eyes burn with unshed tears. The way she feels right now, so haunted and adrift, pisses her off, but more than that, it scares her.

From the beginning, from the very first time they ever spoke, Clarisse's conversations with Ellie have felt easy. They filled entire nights just asking each other stupid questions and telling stories and even when shit got heavy, it was still somehow effortless. Now she feels for the first time like she has no idea what to say to her. Like there's nothing to say.

There is nothing to say. The relief of having Clarisse back in her arms is immeasurable, but it's like the horror of it all clings to them. Something from that reality, not letting go.

Ellie strokes her fingers slowly through Clarisse's hair, without thought, but riding the wave of that horrible tension until it feels too thick to breathe properly.

Clarisse doesn't answer her. It hurts.

"... Tony and Strange and Viktor and Wysteria," she says finally, "Came up with a way to use a machine to manipulate the rifts. To make one that went back in time."

Her fingers trace Clarisse's ear, mindless, down the side of her neck.

"It was blood magic. But not human. They needed the blood of a seriously ancient dragon to power the thing."

Ellie's fingers slow here, stutter in their path. She takes a breath deep enough to move Clarisse up and down, where she rests against her chest.

"So. Me and a few others went and woke one up. We didn't kill it, but we managed to get what we needed. We sent people back in time, to warn you not to go to Granitefell. And it worked."

Ellie doesn't comment on her silence, only keeps working her fingers through Clarisse's hair, but Clarisse can sense that she's hurting. They both are.

She listens without commenting, waiting until Ellie seems to be finished and her fingers have slowed to a stop, resting tangled up in Clarisse's hair.

Of course it would have taken some serious powerful shit to accomplish what Riftwatch did. Fucking with time like that, going back to undo something so major, that's something not even the gods would allow.

"Did you think," she says after a moment, "that getting blood from an ancient dragon was a good plan, after what happened?" She doesn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but of course it does anyway.

"It was the only plan," Ellie whispers back. Of course not. It was a stupid plan. A foolhardy plan. They could've all gotten themselves killed, all for the selfish want of bringing back the people they loved.

Granitefell, too. But none of them were kidding themselves. Granitefell was just a bonus. The war and the future of Riftwatch was just an excuse.

"By then, I didn't give a fuck. It was our one shot at fixing things." Ellie pulls her jaw tight, and knows Clarisse can see right through her. She doesn't care. Her eyes are damp, but the tears won't fall.

"And I really, really felt like fighting something."

Look, Clarisse gets it. She loves a stupid, foolhardy plan. If she'd survived she would have been right there with them. And, obviously, the idea wasn't something Ellie came up with on her own. There were a lot of other people involved, working out the details, and she'd just done her part in it.

But something in Ellie's tone is off, when she answers. I didn't give a fuck. She has a sudden, vivid recollection of hearing that same tone in Ellie's voice before, in a memory from years before they ever met: I can make it so much worse.

It doesn't sound like the person she loves.

"And if it didn't work?" she asks, quiet, deliberate.

Silence.

She knows what Clarisse is asking, what she's trying to make her see, but she refuses. She can be mad at her all she likes, the point is that she's still alive to be mad at her.

"Then it didn't work," she says, very quietly. It's the way she can keep her voice even.

"But I couldn't live with myself, if I didn't try. Even if I died-" she pauses here, taking a breath, hating that she's saying the words not because she's afraid of them, but because she doesn't want to hurt Clarisse with them, "If it worked, then it would bring me back too. And if it didn't, then..."

Ellie trails off.

"It would have made sense."

Clarisse draws away from her for the first time since she came into the room, leaning back so she can look at her face from some kind of distance. She needs some kind of distance.

Ellie's words do hurt her. She feels sick, furious.

"It would have 'made sense'?" she repeats, disgusted.

Ellie doesn't try to keep her close. She stays where she is, laying on her back, watching her with serious eyes. Any answer she gives will just piss her off more, but redirecting won't help either.

She makes herself look at her, and slowly props herself up on one elbow.

"If I had to die -- and I wasn't planning on it -- then I wanted it to be because I fought with everything I had."

That it was a dragon was just a little bit of the dark humor of the universe. One of those twists of fate.

Ellie doesn't reach out, just watches her. The expression on her face is unwavering, solemn. She completely believes her own bullshit. Clarisse exhales sharply.

"You weren't planning on it. You were just okay with it happening."

She sees you, Ellie. And she's not happy about what's looking back at her.

For a few harrowing seconds, Clarisse is sure it's going to spill over. She's going to lose it, and it won't just be because she's pissed that Ellie was so ready and willing to throw her life away for the cause. It'll be all of it, all at once, all the fear and sadness and confusion of the past several hours culminating in something she's not sure she can withstand.

She tries to remember to breathe. Just keep breathing.

"You know what," she says, and it comes out sounding choked, "I can't do this right now."

Ellie had it all planned out. She knew Clarisse would be furious, and hurt, and scared, and all the other shit that came with dying. She'd thought that if she just explained it-

You would've. You would've done the same thing if it were me.

It's there on her tongue, but at the look on Clarisse's face, it dies there, spreading bitterly across it. Fuck.

Her express goes from walled off to cracking in an instant, and on reflex, she reaches for her, a hand on her upper arm. The phantom of a dark kitchen whispers around them for a second, and she swallows back the fear.

"I'm sorry," she says softly. "I just- I'm sorry. It was stupid, and you can yell at me all you want later, I promise."

Ellie leans in until their foreheads touch, conscious of whether Clarisse starts to pull back.

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