Ellen & Tay Face The Music

**Wednesday March 18, 2020**

Ellen sits cross-legged on the floor of Tay’s place, a.k.a. the broom closet at the Niccals Family Community Center, with an unfolded paper in front of her. It’s a lined sheet of notebook paper, roughly torn from its binding, with a very short list scribbled on it:

* FIND DOORHEART
* MAKE THEM SEND ME FORWARD
* FIX THINGS

Looking at it now, it almost pains Ellen to remember how simple she’d thought this whole endeavour would be all those months ago. Dragging her hands down her face, she sighs to Katayoun. “Anyway, that’s as much of a plan as I had back then, and I’m gonna level with you: I don’t really have much more of one now.”

Tay looks at the piece of paper over Ellen’s shoulder, then yoinks it from her hands and holds it up in the air dramatically. “Ah! An ancient relic!” She laughs. “Man, that really isn’t much of a plan though. How’d you make it work last time?”

Her head jerks up and back, following the paper as Tay snatches it. “Honestly? I have no idea. I think I kinda willed it into happening. Or maybe Doorheart was just in the mood to drop kick someone into the future.”

Ellen stands and stretches before continuing. “Plus, it’s been a hell of a lot harder now. I’ve been trying to track them down again, but, y’know… They know what I want. And for whatever reason, *this time* they don’t wanna help me. So the bastard’s been dodging me every time I get close.”

“Or, at least I think I’ve gotten close. Hard to tell with all the time bullshit.” She drops her arms to her sides and walks over to lean against the wall next to Tay. Rather than look at the pathetic list, Ellen just stares at Tay and wonders how on earth to express how happy she is that she’ll still get to be with her.

“We just gotta *make 'em*.” Tay says, palming her fist and scrunching up the paper. “Oops, sorry. We can make a new one.” She puts the crumpled paper down, and sits on a crate of cleaning supplies. “We just have to find them and then stuff them into like, a… time locker or something. It’ll be fine!”

She frowns in thought as something occurs to her. “Wait, uh, why *did* they agree to send you here? And then all of the copies as well? Are they just playing some fucked up game of Collect The Ellens?” In her head, Tay imagines Doorheart playing a version of Pokemon with all the creatures replaced by different Ellens.

“I don’t know,” she rests her back against the wall now, “at first I thought I’d made a really good case for myself. I didn’t even punch them back then — I just told them what I wanted to do and when they agreed I was like *‘holy shit, E. words are powerful!’*. Yeah right.”

There’s a long pause as Ellen stares at the scuffs on her boots before adding, “If I could tell why they were doing any of this, I’d probably have found them and I’d be gone by now.”

Tay stands up and makes her way over to her girlfriend, grabbing her hands in both of hers. “Then I’m kind of glad you can’t. I like having you around. Who knows, maybe I’m even grateful enough not to punch the time nerd *too* hard when we find them.” She grins.

“Woah, careful. What if you punch their… uh… time-whatever, and we get sent even further forward?” Ellen laughs teasingly, comforted by the pair of cold hands. “Hey. Sorry. For… not telling you. I mean, until I did. I… I’m not really sure how to do this. When I left home, I just told Chris I’d be gone for a few days, and told my parents I was staying at Manda’s -- she’s cool, you’ll like her -- but at least I told them I’d be back soon. I’m not tryin’ to make that promise this time.”

"Hmm." Carmilla closes her eyes. "It's okay. I get it. I just… I want to do this properly, you know? I never got to say goodbye to - to my family," she says, voice breaking at the last few words. "And that fucking hurt. I don't want to do that to anyone. I don't know how to tell people either, but we gotta."

Ellen’s breath catches in her throat at the mention of Katayoun’s family, and at the crack in her voice. She reaches out to touch Tay’s cheek, stepping forward into a hug.

*Ah, fuck. She’s giving up so much, buck the fuck up and do this right, E. For her.*

She winces as the guilt over the steps she’d already taken to create distance washes over her. “Yeah,” she exhales through gritted teeth, “so about that… I guess you’ll have people you want to talk to separate from my list, like that makes sense, but… ma-maybe… could we tell Atlanta together?” Ellen's hands are clammy and she keeps her face turned away. “I don’t think she’s gonna want to hear much of anything from me alone. I, uh, kinda fucked that up already…”

"Nah. I mean, yeah, we can tell her together, but I don't think you fucked it up. Or…" Tay makes a face. "Maybe kiiiinda, but not that badly? Like, Atlanta understands being afraid of shit, that's why she didn't tell me who she was. I think she'd understand doing dumb shit because doing the right thing is scary. That's, like, her whole deal."

Ellen’s chest tightens at the acknowledgement of her mistakes, but the likening to Atlanta makes her smile. *That’s us: dumbass minds think alike. Heh, I wonder if she knows she’s been a terrible influence on me.*

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I know you’re still kinda mad at her, but maybe all three of us can, like, clear the air? I don’t know if that’s just gonna make things worse with her-”

"No, I want to. I hate being angry at her, it's not even satisfying, she just looks all sad and it's like kicking a puppy." Carmilla sighs. "I've never felt more evil than being mean to Atlanta, and I am a literal vampire. It's ridiculous."

“Right?! I swear, if she ever found a way to weaponize her, like, sad face? It’d be curtains for everyone. Seriously, I skipped last period just to make sure I didn’t run into her on the way out of school today. Holy shit.”

The image of Atlanta, with cartoonishly big sad eyes and a pout, in the middle of a terror spree, pops into Ellen’s head and she can’t help but snicker at it. An evil Atlanta was too funny to think about right now. “Ok, so we’ve got Lanta, and I still have Aman, Seth, and Melody to go. How about you?”

Tay takes a moment to think about it, a slight frown appearing between her eyebrows. "I… Don't know? I don't think I have many friends. It's, like, you and Atlanta and… Ernest, I guess. But that's about it, especially after Grim..."

She leans back against a crate and stares at the ceiling. After a few seconds, she says: "I never had many friends. I would blame it on the sick thing, but mama told me even when i was a toddler I was always hanging around like, my one friend, and barely even paid attention to anyone else. She got a lot of complaints about it." She makes a stern face in gentle mockery. "Katayoun! It is not polite to ignore people! Say hi to the neighbours! *Katayoun stop drawing while people are talking to you!*" Tay chuckles at the memory. "I was drawing the neighbor with a huge mouth like Kirby that was sucking all of the words in."   Ellen chuckles at the thought of Tay as a little kid, reminding herself that she wasn’t a baby vampire and wouldn’t just be wearing a smaller version of her cape and ruffled shirt combo, cute as that would be. “Hey, you played it smart, at least. My dumb ass just likes to talk to people, and now I’ve got all these people to let down.” She scooches next to Katayoun and scritches her behind the ears. “Hey, maybe when we get to Berlin, we can go see your friend. Although maybe we should do that before going back to ‘92… I wonder if the time thing can jump us to Germany.”
Tay freezes at the mention of her friend. “I- I don’t think…. We can’t. See him. He… I… He’s dead. The clan…” She swallows, shaking slightly. “He’s dead. We can’t see him. I don’t… I don’t want to see him. Not in this time. Maybe not ever.”

“Oh. Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up another kid fro- wait. Did you say ‘the clan’? Like, the *vampire* clan?” Ellen’s eyes go wide and she slides her hand down to Tay’s shoulder. She nearly launches into a barrage of questions, but doesn’t know where to start; she wants to ask what happened, but doesn’t want to pry or upset Tay further. With a furrowed brow, she tries for some comforting words.

“I’m sorry, Tay. You’re the only vampire I know, so sometimes I forget that the other ones you’ve met are pretty shit. That they’d go after your friend like that… that’s the worst.”

“No!” Tay recoils from the contact, jumping up and backing up against the wall on the other side of the room. “You don’t understand, it wasn’t them! I… Fuck, I never meant to tell you this…” She’s visibly crying now, tears streaming down the grey skin of her cheeks. “But I… I guess I should if we’re going to be leaving together, and we just had a talk about keeping secrets and… fuck fuck fuck fuck you’re just going to hate me and… I can’t deal with that. Please don’t hate me…

...I killed him. His name was Stefan. He was… my best friend since we were both kids, and… he was all I had left, after my family. So…” She closes her eyes, too scared to face Ellen’s reaction, too scared to see the fear and hatred she knows will be there in her girlfriend’s eyes if she does. “So when the clan said I could never see anyone from my life ever again, I… I didn’t obey.”

Tay’s jump pushes Ellen back onto her hands, and she looks up from the floor as Tay cries and spills the truth. She swallows back the words she instinctively reaches for; she’d seen Carm lose control before and she’d been scared, but she was always sure she’d be alright. Tay would calm down, or there would be some way to keep her back, or she’d go after someone else. But the thought of being a regular kid in front of that makes her shudder.

*That doesn’t matter now. It’s not her fault, she’s gotta know that, right?*

“Tay, babe, listen to me,” Ellen stays low and approaches slowly, “I don’t hate you. If you say you did something bad then I believe you, but I'm not gonna hate you for that. I know you didn’t want to do it, however it happened. And let’s be real, I’m the last person who gets to judge you for doing something fucked up.” She reaches up a hand for Tay to take. “You didn’t give up on me and I’m not gonna give up on you either. Promise.”

Tay opens her eyes at that, though the tears don’t stop. She looks at Ellen’s outstretched hand, fear still warring with hope in her expression.

She sniffles and takes it cautiously between both of her own, following Ellen back to where they had been sitting. “...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make comparisons or… I’m sorry. Thank you.

I should probably tell you, though. Because…” She looks sideways, at the person she cares most about in the world. “If we leave together I don’t want you to not know. And if my sire, or the clan… if they ever show up. I want you to know what they are like.”

She is quiet for a moment as she tries to think of where to even start, but then steels her resolve and just goes for it.

“I was turned by my doctor, a woman named Edelgard. She was… I trusted her completely. You have to understand… I had just lost my family all at once, and she was right there, having cared for me for a year. She was kind, and patient, and seemed to know so much about everything.

When she told me there was a way I could still live, I didn’t need much convincing. I had spent most of my life in hospitals and wanted to live a life outside and I think I also felt like I had to live for them now that they couldn’t.

Learning that that way was vampirism changed things, but not that much. I, uh,” She blushes a bit, “thought it was cool, to be honest. Like, what’s hotter than a kinda mean lady in cool clothes that can beat you up? I didn’t think it through, maybe, or maybe I didn’t care, but I accepted.

I don’t remember the… turning itself very well. It was weird. I remember dying but also not? I know I was… buried, and… that I broke out of that, obviously. I was woken up by Edelgard and some other, younger vampires. They were, or seemed, to be around my age to like, 22 or some shit, but for all I know they could have been cavemen. Edelgard is really fucking old.

I hung out with them a bunch. It was cool at first. We lived in this big complex in downtown Berlin, and there was… food, there, so I didn’t have to see it happen. But they had one rule: You weren’t allowed to meet anyone you knew while you were alive. It put the clan - the Noctis Adrasteia they call themselves - at risk.

But I missed Stefan, and I thought… I thought he would be okay with it, and we could keep it a secret. Just me and him, still hanging out past the grave. And like, he actually was, the idiot! I climbed up to his window and after the initial shock he fucking hugged me and invited me in!” Tay laughs, though sadly. “We spent the first thirty minutes of the first conversation I’d had with a living person since dying talking about how much he laughed when the imam at the funeral called me a ‘very nice polite young lady’. It all feels so fucking dumb looking back, like, how were we just casually laughing in his bedroom when only a few weeks later he… ugh.

I got found out. Surprise, I am no good at keeping secrets, and it wasn’t that hard for them to notice me leaving the building and tracking me to a house. All the niceness was gone in an instant and I was thrown in a room and the door locked, and there was Stefan. Still in his fucking pajamas, scared out of his wits. He even calmed down when he saw me, like it was a relief.”

She opens her mouth to continue the story, but can’t find the words. Eventually she looks down at her feet, and says:

“They kept us in there for weeks. Starved me - they fed Stefan, but… not me. I couldn’t control it. He’s dead now. I ran away. The end.”

As soon as she finishes speaking, Tay is pulled into a hug. Ellen throws her arms around Katayoun and holds her there for a while, not really sure what it’s supposed to accomplish. Her heart hurts for Tay and she has to jam her face into Tay’s shoulder to stop herself from crying.

“I’m so sorry they did that to you -- to both of you. Not like words are gonna help right now, and I can’t do anything to make it better, but… man, I don’t even know ‘but’ what. Just… I’m glad I know now, just so that you don’t have to be alone in knowing it.” Ellen wipes her face before lifting it to look Katayoun in the eyes. “I am never going to let anyone hurt you like that ever again.” She doesn’t feel the need to say ‘I promise’ at the end of her declaration; she means it with every bone in her body.

Tay practically melts into the embrace, doing enough crying for the both of them. When Ellen looks into her eyes, she sniffs.

“I can’t believe I have the best girlfriend in the world. Thanks. I’d do the same for you, just so you know.” She grins, wiping her face on her sleeve. “So, yeah, I want to prevent that. No doctor in 1992 means Tay dies peacefully, means no Carmilla in 2017, means no dead Stefan. Win-win as far as I’m concerned.”

“But, like, I don’t know how that works with all the… time… stuff.” Ellen rubs Tay’s back. “Like, what if that makes another timeline? So this one still exists, but we make another one where Stefan’s fine? I mean, there have to be other universes, right? Timenerd pulled all the other mes from somewhere, right? What if dealing with your doc in the past doesn’t change anything here?”

*I don’t want her to go through all of that just for nothing to happen. I could tell her right now it fuckin' sucks. Maybe we can just find another world where this dude is alive and fine and she won’t feel so bad about it.* Ellen knows it’s the coward move, trying to find some way around dealing with Edelgard, but running away has been her answer to a lot of things in recent weeks.

Tay frowns. “Well, that’d still be an improvement! If there’s a world out there where he lives and my family lives that’s a better world and even if it doesn’t change my timeline that’s - I prefer that, actually. Like, uh, if it changed things here maybe I would stop existing, and as scared as I am of becoming like the others I don’t want that either.” She looks at Ellen and her expression softens. She puts a hand on her face, and wipes away the remnant of a tear on her cheek. “Not anymore.”

Ellen smiles at Katayoun, calmer now, taking the hand that had just wiped her tears and kissing the back of it. “I’ve got you, Katayoun.” It’s the most certain Ellen has felt of anything in a while.

“Okay, so ‘92, then… some other version of Berlin where your family is alive. I feel like we’re making a lot of plans without even having a way back yet though. Still gotta catch Doorheart and get a way to go anywhere to start with.” She starts thinking aloud, chin resting pensively in one hand. “Maybe I need to change up my approach…”

“I’ve got no fucking clue how to catch a time nerd, I’ll be honest. Though they seem pretty obsessed with putting Ellens in Halcyon, so maybe we can lure them somehow?” She shrugs. “But like, I don’t know how to do that.”

“I mean, I already tried blending in with ‘the gang’,” Ellen makes quotations in the air, referring to the other Ellens, “but they found me out, like, right away. Nice to know the dye job works, but it kinda sucks now that I need to blend in.” She laughs at the irony of finally getting what she wanted at the worst possible time.

Reaching into her backpack, she grabs her notebook and a pen, and flips to a blank page.

* FIND DOORHEART’S BASE
* GET THE TIME THING (STEAL IT?)
* BE WITH TAY

Ellen looks over the list and scrutinizes it; wondering how, even after all that talking, it’s still so short. She tries to think of things to add, but there are just too many unknowns left up in the air at this point.

“Anything you wanna add?” She hands the book and pen to Katayoun.

Tay takes the pen and looks over the - still very short - list. She blushes at the last part - it’s still a bit overwhelming to her, though in a good way. She puts the pen to her bottom lip. What else is there? It seems like a pretty comprehensive list, really. Sure, it’s short, but as far as she’s concerned all plans longer than two bullet points are needlessly complex. Eventually, though, she gets an idea and scribbles it down.

* RULE 1992 WITH AN IRON FIST