A/N: Post DYFAM. I tried to avoid mush, not sure it worked. Sean/Ellie.

She walked out the door of the Dot and kept walking. She wondered idly if having no destination still meant she qualified as having made a dramatic exit.

Left, right. Cross the street. Cut through an alley. Blend into a crowd, dart between people. It was ten whole minutes of avoiding the puddles and crushed cigarette butts that littered the sidewalks before her hands stopped shaking enough to dial her cell phone.

"Hey El. What's up?"

"Marco, he's here. He's back. Sean's here." Her words came out in a twisted jumble, and continued, backed by the steady beat of her footsteps. She recounted the meeting in excruciating, lucid detail: the sound of his voice coming simeltaneously out of her her phone and across the room, how his arms had nearly crushed her as they hugged, the familiar touch of his lips, the exploding beat of her heart that had accompanied her retreat.

Marco was silent for a moment after she finished the story. "Ellie... the guy you referred to. Who were you talking about it?"

Walking was easier than coming up with a reply for that particular question, so she kept walking and said nothing.

"It wasn't Craig, right? Because, you know, technically he's still with Manny, and I thought you guys were just friends..."

Silence.

"And it couldn't have been Jimmy, because just the other day you were telling me that you don't think you could be in a relationship with him, you just want to spend time with him as a friend."

Silence.

"I get it. The guy in question is your long standing crush, Mr. Defense Mechanism."

"Shut up, Marco. I -- "

"No, El, shut up and listen to me. All you've said, ever since Sean left, is that you just want one conversation with him so that he can explain himself. Two minutes of running into each other is not that conversation. He obviously didn't come back from Wasaga just to enjoy the drive. He came to see you, El, so do what I know you want to do and call him and talk to him. Don't screw this up."

"He's the one who left me." She hadn't expected her voice to sound so shaky, so desperate, so grade six.

"And I'm not the one you should be saying this to. I'm hanging up, don't call me until you talk to him." Marco hung up, and Ellie stopped walking. She had ended up in a park, somewhere, and she wandered over to the steps of a monument surrounded by a set of well manicured flowers. She took a seat on the steps, noticing that the shaking had progressed from her hands to her legs.

She dialed her phone again, and he picked up on the first ring.

"Hey. I'm glad you called."

"Where are you?"

"Driving downtown. Where are you?"

"A park, somewhere. Um..." She squinted towards the enterance. "On Winchester Street."

"Can I meet you there?"

"Okay." She hung up the phone before she had time to change her mind. She stared at the smooth concrete step she was sitting on, at the way the grass ruffled slightly in the wind, at the pair of squirrels chasing each other up and down a tree. She found that she was crying, and ended up burying her face in her arms, because staring at her shirtsleeves was easier.

She hadn't changed positions when he arrived. Ellie heard him sit down next to her, and blinked a few times to check her own emotions. Abscence of tears, check. She raised her head, but didn't look at him.

"Sorry I didn't get here sooner. I took a wrong turn and somehow ended up on a one way street." Without even glancing over, she knew that he was staring right at her. It was how their "serious" conversations had always gone: he would look at her face, touch her arm, kiss her forehead. She would look anywhere but his eyes so that she could maintain some semblance of control. They had been working on that, and making good progress, too. She was taking down her barriers, letting him in, trusting him -- and then there was paint and feathers and a gun and he had left her.

"Bueller died." She leaned forward, and picked up a leaf that had fallen to the ground. She began to play with the stem, she needed something to occupy her hands. "I couldn't take care of him well enough. And I moved back in with my mom. She said she was going to try to stay sober. She's doing ok, I guess."

"I'm -- I'm sorry about Bueller." Ellie could hear the guilt in his voice, and while it pleased her a little, it also made her want to cry all over again.

"And Alex became a lesbian."

"What?" Sean started to laugh, and Ellie found that she could look at him for a little bit.

"Yeah. With Paige. I don't think Jay is dealing with it very well."

Sean continued to chuckle. "Now I know how to respond if Jay ever tries to make fun of me again." Ellie grinned, and then as their laughter died out, she went back to her leaf. Maybe she could knot the stem without breaking it.

"What you said before... about someone else... is that true?"

"No, Sean. I make up invisible boyfriends named George Glass."

He was silent, then, and she felt the need to make it better before the lump in her throat exploded.

"How are your parents?"

"They're ok, I guess." He had looked away, and now he was looking at her again. She could tell. "My dad got a new job and is trying to move up there -- there's a supervisor opening, or something. My mom... she's pretty much the same."

She nodded, now concentrating on tying the ends of the stem into a bow.

"Have you heard from your dad?" His tone was a little quieter now, and he had leaned in a little closer. She could feel the denim of his jacket pressed against the material of her shirtsleeve, and his voice seemed to make tiny vibrations buzz all over her skin.

"There was -- we saw on the news, that a bunch of soliders had been kidnapped. And we couldn't get ahold of him for like a week. But then he emailed, saying it wasn't him, it was another unit. They relased most of them, but they killed two of the guys, shot them in the head, and dumped their bodies on the side of the road. My dad knew one of the guys, they went over together. He's still got another seven months, so... yeah." She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she reclined her self backwards onto the ground, closing her eyes as she did so. After a moment, she heard him settle down beside her, and she felt the deja-vu kept kick in, but kept silent.

A breeze ruffled overhead, children shouted from the playground across the park, and again she could feel the side of his arm pressed up against hers. Birds sang, a car backfired on a neighboring street, and she wondered if he would try to hold her hand, but he didn't, he just lay there next to her, and if somehow their breathing in and breathing out fell into sync, she ignored it. She focused on the the weight of her skull on the hard concrete, on the slight taste of cherry gloss still on her lips, on the fact that her arm was the only part of her body that was still warm. The breeze was feeling cooler, and as the minutes ticked by she realized the sun must be setting and the temperature dropping. After what might have been an hour, Sean sat up and her arm was instantly cold again.

"It's dark outside. We should probably go. Do you want me to drive you home, or..."

She opened her eyes and was surprised at how dark it had gotten. Sean was only a faint outline against the night sky, standing impossibly high above her. She sat up and felt kind of dizzy, and then stood up and felt even more so. They began to walk towards his car.

Inside the car, Sean turned up both the heater and the radio. Ellie closed her eyes again, and let the warm air and the sounds of Tool wash over her. Sean drove in away that was conductive to her sleepy state: no sharp turns, no slamming on the breaks, no jackrabbit acceleration. Even when he drives, he's so fucking considerate, she thought, and then the motion of the car really did put her to sleep, even if it was only until they reached her driveway.

Sean parked the car, and he didn't tap her on the shoulder, he didn't say her name. He turned off the engine, and climbed out. Ellie watched him through the winshield as he walked around to her side. She unbuckled her seatbelt as he opened the door, and he crouched down next to the car, blocking her exit.

"Ellie, listen. I know that I made you mad, I know, I left you --"

"No, Sean, you really don't know. I could've helped you, ok? I could've been there for you. Everyone said you were so damn brave, standing up to Rick, and you weren't even brave enough to tell your girlfriend what was going on in your head. You cut and run, Sean, and left me there. What if we do this again, and something else happens? Huh? Are you going to run away again? My dad left, Ashley left, Craig left... and I can't do this anymore. I can't grow attatched to someone and then have my heart ripped out and shattered into pieces." She was snapping her rubberband without being aware of the motion.

"I screwed up, okay? I know I screwed up. I killed someone, and I had no clue how the hell to deal with it. It wasn't a good decision, but I can't turn back time, Ellie. I can't change what happened. All I can do is try to rebuild my life, and that's what I'm trying to do. I want to move back here. I want to go into business so that I never have to ask my parents for help and so I can make something better of myself. And I want to be with you."

She kept snapping, kept listening, kept remembering about the three -- no, four -- wait, no, five times that Sean had found her in the bathroom and found the dried blood and found the pile of bandaid wrappers in the garbage. About how he hadn't yelled or lectured or talked to Suave, he had just helped her rub on the Bactine and let her control the remote without argument and not forced her to talk about it until she was ready, both of them laying in bed hours later as she whispered tearful confessions into his chest. About how every time she had broken her promise he had still believed her the next time she made it. About how he had kissed every single one of her scars every night as they fell asleep, and how she marveled that he took the ugliest thing about her and turned it into something he could make better.

And this time, when he leaned in and kissed her, she didn't pull away.

I will be your misfit queen
I'll take you where the grass is green
Past the littered sidewalk to the stars
I hear the traffic move outside
Yeah but if I close my eyes
I can make it sound like waves rolling -- Widescreen, by Heather Nova

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