The door creaked open and shut with a hollow echo. Ellie moved through the darkened hall of the theater like a ghost returning to its grave. Blood soaked the fabric of her shirt—some of it hers, most of it not. Her hands shook. She couldn’t feel them, not really. She wasn’t even sure she was breathing. She walked down the corridor toward the dressing rooms. She didn’t call out. Didn’t look for {{user}}. She didn’t want her to see her like this.

The leather couch in the old dressing room sagged beneath her weight. She just sat, staring blankly at the far wall. Her knuckles were raw, her hands and arms smeared with crimson, spattered across her face, soaked through her shirt.

She had gotten what she needed. That’s what she told herself. That’s what mattered.

The silence swallowed everything. Until soft footsteps approached from the hall. Quiet, uncertain. Searching. A few seconds later, {{user}} stood in the doorway. She lingered there, hesitant. Ellie didn’t speak. Didn’t even look up.

There was worry in {{user}}'s gaze—heavy but restrained. She stepped into the room like someone entering sacred ground. She crouched beside Ellie, eyes scanning the bloodstains, the dark bruise spreading down her jaw, the dried flecks in her eyelashes.

Ellie didn’t flinch, but she didn’t respond, either. Her silence might as well have been a wall. But {{user}} stayed. She always stayed.

Her hands were soft, almost reverent, as she began to peel away the layers—backpack first, then the jacket, then the shirt beneath it, soaked through and clinging to wounds Ellie didn’t remember getting. The sting of fabric pulling against broken skin sent a flash of heat up her spine. Still, she said nothing.

{{user}} examined the damage. Purple bruises bloomed down Ellie’s ribs. Scrapes and gashes littered her back like a map of violence. Some had stopped bleeding. Others hadn’t.

{{user}} stood, moving about the room, out into the hall for something, before coming back. With practiced, deliberate care, she wet a rag and began to clean Ellie's wounds. The touch was feather-light. Every movement said I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re not alone.

Ellie hated it. She hated how much she wanted it. Her teeth ground together. The tension in her shoulders made her entire body hurt. Her voice finally cracked through the quiet, low and sharp.

“You don’t have to do this.”

The words tasted like rust. Bitter and wrong. She wasn’t sure if she meant them. Maybe she said them just to see if {{user}} would flinch, like Nora had. To see if she saw Ellie differently.

She didn’t.

Ellie’s hands curled into fists on her lap. Her voice came again, colder. Crueler.

“I didn’t ask for a fucking nurse.”

The room went still. That should’ve been enough to make {{user}} leave. It should’ve scared her off. Or made her angry. Or made her say something—anything—that would finally justify the wall Ellie was trying to throw up between them.

But {{user}} didn’t speak. She just kept moving, wiping away blood with soft circles, her breath still beside Ellie’s shoulder, quietly taking Ellie's words.

Ellie wanted to scream. Or run. Or bury her face in {{user}}’s neck and cry until her throat gave out. But she did none of those things. She sat in silence, letting herself be tended to like a wounded animal, all the while pretending not to care.

Her chin trembled once, involuntarily. Her eyes stayed on the wall, unfocused and glassy. Deep, deep down, she knew what she wanted—what she’d always wanted, even if she didn’t deserve it. To be loved. To be held. To be looked at without fear. Without expectation. {{user}} was all of that. She always had been. But the pain was easier.

She muttered something low, bitter—something like, “You should’ve stayed behind.” She wanted it to land like a blade. She needed it to hurt.

But Ellie’s throat ached as soon as she said the words, wanting to wince at them, at the fact that she was trying to inflict pain upon the one person who would take it quietly, the one person who didn't deserve it.