33When Darcy was fifteen she brought a dog home- a gangly thing she'd found behind a dumpster, fur thick and scraggly and hiding just how thin he was. Her mom had warned her: Darcy, she said, he won't live through the week.
And Darcy had hooked her arms around the dog's neck, looked him in the eyes, and said he won't leave me.
It was Sciff that she was remembering, as she laid out what little first aid supplies she had. It was the hot Texan summer, and the way his coat had shone after his bath that she was thinking of when she prepared the needle and thread. And as she shakily unwrapped Helen's bandages and whispered soothing nonsense: the sleepless week she'd spent, sitting with her dog under the stars and willing him to eat.
And it was the shallow grave and hand-made cross that she thought of, as she looked at Helen, and said, "you don't get to leave us."
There wasn't anything Darcy could do for the pain, not even a meagre offering of ice; so she whispered an apology, and stitched the gash up as fast as she could. Helen didn't do more than bite into the seat cushion she was laying on- and that was either nerves of steel, or she was already losing feeling. Darcy prayed (quietly and probably not as under her breath as she thought) that it was was Helen being a total bad-ass.
She rambles as she stitches Helen's back up, talking about how Leena's made toys out of the staplers and a puppet stage out of a combination of rulers and office chairs. She can feel herself saying things- about how her mom runs an apartment complex, about how Texas has armadillos and she misses the little buggers; noticing the freckles on Helen's back and telling the woman about how she'll have a scar on her back in the shape of a lightning bolt you'll make for one kick-ass Harry Potter substitute.
The watery laugh that Helen gives as a response is painful, and Darcy shuts up if only so she won't have to hear it again.
After the stitches have been tied off Darcy doesn't know what to do. It feels like balmy nights all over again- the moon rising slowly and the grain from the farm across the street clicking quietly. She can almost hear the labored rasps of Sciff in the way that Helen tries to get comfortable. It feels like the inky blackness of space and the fuzzy hue of stars- the gaping calm before the cold of death. She doesn't know what to do.
In between the world falling apart outside and the girls re-inacting The Little Mermaid with paperclips, she hears Helen speak.
"I never wanted to move to New York," it's a whisper of a thing, and Darcy scuttles as close as she can to hear, "I grew up in Montana- the Big Sky Country. I wanted to raise horses," Helen's voice just barely carries over the scuffle the girls are making about who gets to play Ariel, so Darcy lays down next to her, head resting on the same pillow.
"Yeah?" And it's not a ploy to keep Helen talking, even though it should be. Darcy's always loved to hear about people, the choices they've made that have brought them to who they are and why they're here. She suspects that it's a developed habit- part growing up alone on the trailer lot with just her mom, part being taken to the apartment complex when the tenants needed something.
Helen's head nod is small and just a touch painful but it's there and so it's enough to get Darcy smiling.
"I was going to own a ranch, take in a couple retired race horses, maybe have a vegetable garden," the pause after Helen's statement is just long enough to make her worry, but almost as if it's been calculated she starts up again before Darcy can do anything, "I got in with the wrong people though." And here her cough is rasping and long, wet and loud and so very very worrying.
Darcy's too busy crushing up tylenol and mixing it into a water bottle to notice that Helen's coughing up blood. To see Helen wipe it away like she's already done several times.
"Here," Darcy says, making Helen drink the water, watching as she can barely keep it down.
Helen chokes, groans, rolls over; Darcy tries not hover while simultaneously making sure the stitches don't pull.
"My real name's not Helen," she finally gasps out, after five minutes of both women fussing. Darcy doesn't really know what to say to this, what can you say to someone who's telling you their life story? That they've gone and created themselves a different person? So she settles for pressing a cold washcloth to Helen's head, and waiting for the rest of the story.
"I was- was eighteen, just out of high school," Darcy can see the muscles in Helen's body start to relax, slowly, like she's holding on less and less the closer the sun gets to setting. "And there was a boy. Remember that, there's always a boy," they lock eyes, both glassy and intense, both trying to tell the other something, "I thought he was going to take me places. You know, just because I wanted a ranch; to settle down and have a family, none of that meant that I didn't want to have the Ferris Bueller Day Off adventure."
Darcy nods, and gently forces Helen to drink more water, before asking, "and so he wasn't everything you wanted?"
There's a coughing laugh of a response, water dribbling down Helen's chin, "gods no!" Even her forceful exclamation is weak, and Darcy doesn't know how she's going to make sure this woman stays with them. "He was a little shit, but he wasn't the problem. The problem was his big ideas, the ones I thought I loved him for, and the people he owed money to because of them." Helen gets quiet after this, and stares at her purse for a long moment. Darcy doesn't want to push, because who wants to re-live painful memories when they're living through hell? But she also doesn't want her to stay still for too long, there's too much oppotunity to slip into unconciousness that way.
"After- just, after, I had to get out of Montana. I had to live the opposite, you know? Clean slate- if I was a different person, in a different spot, then nothing had ever happened to me. So I moved to New York, became Helen instead of Monica, got a degree in accounting. Everything so distant and removed from that cornered little eighteen year old. But that fear, it never leaves you," she began struggling to grab her purse, and Darcy didn't have the chance to help before the purse was being flopped into her lap, Helen looking up at her like she was supposed to be doing something.
"Don't let the fear consume you, too; I almost let it keep me from Mike and Leena. It wasn't until I got this-" and here she paused to dig into the purse, still sat in Darcy's lap, "that I began feeling like I had control over my life again. Take it," Darcy's fingers are curling around the object before she can register what it is, but she knows she'll keep it, if only because it's something Helen feels so strongly about. How can you turn down a woman who's giving you something that represents personal agency?
Later, when they sun's fully set and Helen's breathing has gone from loud and labored to shallow and sickly, Darcy will look at the object that Helen found so important, and discover it to be a taser.