#pollygrayfluff

You opened the doors of the house where the woman who was taking care of you lived. Together with you. From the scent you could tell she was baking something and that made the corners of your mouth curl up a little.

The scent of the food she was making for you filled your nose and you took another deeper breath. Smiling for yourself, you put down your handbag.

As the woman heard the doors behind you close, you heard her put down something what she was holding in her hands. Smiling a little, you knew that she was making her way to you and you just waited.

“Hello,” Polly greeted you and she stopped at the doors which were between the hall you just entered and the kitchen.

“Hi,” you said back and smiled a little. “You are cooking?” Listening to the scents which were filling the house you could guess it was some meat. Polly just nodded her head and wiped her hands in the apron she had tied around her hips.

“How was the horse ride with Thomas?” She asked you only and took out only one plate. For you. Then she placed a full plate of food onto the table and sat down, waiting for you to join her.

“It was alright,” you told her, not knowing what more to say. You were really close to her but somehow… you just couldn’t be that happy and full of joy anymore.

“That’s good,” Polly answered you and you took the cutlery. Not looking up at the brown haired woman, you started eating in silence and it didn’t bother you. You were kind of relieved she didn’t ask you more questions because you were a little exhausted and didn’t want to talk.

Eating the food slowly, you took few breaths. Weird questions started filling your mind and you started to furrow your eyebrows a little when the questions started to slide onto your tongue, ready to fly out of your mouth.

At first you just swallowed them along with the food and didn’t let them bother you. But when the questions started attacking your mind even more, you let out a quiet sigh and placed the cutlery down.

“Polly?”

“Yes?” She asked you back immediately, her brown eyes staring at you at that moment. You knew that you could tell her anything and ask her anything, but somehow, the topic you wanted to talk about was hard to start.

“I know that I am Tommy’s friend and everything… but I have been thinking a lot lately,” you said in a quiet voice and looked up at Polly. She was watching you with her brown eyes full of understatement and a little smile was playing with her lips. “I have been thinking about that, why did you take me in? Why did you decide to help me at the beginning when I was just a stranger for you?” You asked her and watched as she swallowed.

“You remember the first time when I met you?”

“You mean the moment when I walked into your house with Thomas and you aimed your gun at me?” You tried to make the moment you were taking about clear. The woman smiled even more and then shook her head.

“Okay, then maybe the second,” she admitted and you didn’t know what she was talking about. “When you went through what you went through, I mean the shot and everything,” she said and you nodded your head.

“I remember…”

“When I saw your shirt from blood… for a second I saw my daughter in you,” she said and the confession surprised you.

“Your daughter?”

“I saw my daughter I didn’t have in you. My daughter i haven’t met. My daughter I have been crying about every single night since I lost her,” she said and you breathed out, not sure if you took a breath after.

“I am sorry-“

“I saw her in you. A person I could care for. A girl who needed someone to be by her side. And since I lost her, I saw an opportunity to become someone close to you,” she went on, already avoiding the eye contact.

“You- you see me as your daughter?” You asked her whispering. When you saw that Polly’s eyes were glistening even more then before, you bit on your lower lip. You reached your hands out through the table and took Polly’s hands, softly running your fingers over her knuckles.

The woman wasn’t used to that. Her eye’s immediately ended on your hands and you felt her trying to pull away. But then she decided to let you hold her hands and looked up at you.

“I am glad you were the one who did this for me,” you told her, your voice soft and quiet. Polly was watching you without any answer to your little note. She just kept tearing up even more than she had before. “I am sorry-“

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t be,” she said and pulled away to brush her tears away. Then she shook her head and stood up from the table and you knew that her intention was to calm down.

You wanted to give her some space, some privacy. But you hated to see her like this. Standing up and following her, you hugged Polly really tightly once you reached her and rested your chin on her shoulder.

“Thank you Pol,” you whispered and watched the tiles of the kitchen wall behind Polly’s back. “Thank you.”

“You are more than welcome Y/n,” she said back and then she pulled away, wiping away the rest of her tears. Realizing that you were crying as well, she gently brushed your cheek and smiled at you.

And you know that this woman, even if she wasn’t your biological mother, was someone, who cared for you without faking it. Her heart was made of gold, but only for the family members. She had carried lot of weight on her shoulders already.

"I will get you some tea and napkins," Polly only said and you shook your head while you were trying to not choke on your own sob.

"Please don´t leave me. Please don´t," you begged the woman and started crying even more when the reaction didn´t come immediately. Polly realized this pretty fast and even if it was really early in the morning, she walked back to the bed and sat down besides you.

Her warm arms and whole body wrapped around you. Or you were wrapped in them. Feeling her heat was something what could calm you down, but you hid your face in her chest and somehow, your body refused to calm down.

"I am not leaving you. I am right here," Polly whispered into your ear and you closed your eyes shut. You didn´t want to see what you saw few minutes ago anymore, but you couldn´t help it. It came in front of your eyes naturally.

You saw yourself there again. You saw yourself on the edge, between life and death once more. That one time when that happened should have been the last one. But the exact same moment kept replaying in your head and you couldn´t get rid of it.

"The same nightmare?"

"This time I wasn´t- I wasn´t in the Garrison this time-" you told her, trying to not sob and shake so much, as Polly was holding you.

"Would you like to talk about it or not?" Polly asked, trying to be really gentle on you, as Thomas taught her.

"I was- I was on a field. Someone came up to me from behind and had a gun. A-and a knife and then-"

"Shh," Polly pulled you onto her chest and shushed you by showing your face into her body. "Hush. That´s not going to happen to you Y/n. Not until you are with me."

"I want to die Pol. I don´t want to be a burden anymore, I just want to go and never come back and-"

"I know darling. But you are not a burden. You could never be a one. We have dealt with this until now, we will deal with it from now on as well, okay?"

"I want to kill myself Polly, but I am not strong enough to do that," you whispered. As soon as those words left your mouth, you hoped in that you haven´t said them out loud. But it was too late to take them back when the realization of that Polly heard you, hit. You really slowly pulled away from her and turned around so she couldn´t see your face. Tears rolled down on your cheeks and you wiped them off, thinking about that how stupid you were to let that out.

"Y/n?" Polly whispered your name. No touch, nothing. You just heard your name and closed your eyes. You started crying even more.

"I am- s-sorry-" you sobbed and started shaking.

"You feel like that?" Polly asked you quietly and you didn´t want to answer that. You didn´t even nod or shook your head, you just continued in crying.

Polly stood closer to you and in a second, the strongest hug you have ever experienced squeezed your ribs. That caught you off guard and you sobbed really loudly. The sound of that made you cry even harder and you turned to face Polly.

"Shh Y/n. It will be better I promise. I will do anything to make you feel better," Polly whispered to you and you kept crying. "If you would like to, we can talk to someone. Some specialist. And if you will trust them, we can help you to get better,” Polly offered you and you thought about it. Knowing that you wouldn’t open up to some random stranger and thinking if there was someone, anyone like that in Birmingham.

“I-I can’t do that,” you told her honestly and Polly just looked down at you, knowing that you didn’t trust therapists.

“We will work on that,” Polly whispered and you shook your head no.

“No Pol- I don’t want that- I don’t-“

“Shh,” Polly shushed you again as she saw that you were about to start crying even more. She pulled away softly at first, to see in how bed state you were. And then she hugged you one more time, sitting down with you and running her hand up and down on your back.

It felt like hours. You weren’t calm at all when you pulled away from Polly, ready to leave her in the room. Polly didn’t let you walk out that fast and she kept holding your hand, giving you an apologetic look.

“If you’d like to, you can talk to me,” she said really kindly. You measured the woman who was in front of you. She didn’t judge you for that you said you wanted to die. She didn’t judge you for crying or feeling bad. She was there, still there, listening to you.

“Thank you Pol,” you said quietly, not knowing if you should do that at the moment or wait with the talk for few seconds.

“You’re welcome Y/n,” she told you only. You nodded your head and breathed out really heavily, realizing how your hands were shaking. When you looked up at Polly, in her eyes you saw that she was in pain. Psychical pain. You looked back down at the floor and took a deep breath.

“I...” you were about to start something but then you realized that you didn´t want to bother the woman. You just looked up at her and saw her nodding to you, so you took another deep breath and closed your eyes.

“Come. Sit,” Polly sat down and tapped the space next to her on the bed. You joined her and sat down, looking at your hands you were playing with to keep yourself busy.

“I deal with depressions as you know and... and sometimes it is just hard,” you said and then continued. “I have nightmares most of the time and I just don´t want to wake you up, so I just deal with it on my own,” you sighed along with the answer and licked your lips which became dry in few seconds. Just like your throat did.

“How do you mean on your own?” Polly asked and you swallowed. Your heart sunk into your stomach at the moment and you knew that Polly wouldn´t accept if you would just close the topic and disappear. It was hard for you to find the words, so you just took the sleeve of your shirt and slowly pulled it up, revealing the old scars and the fresh cuts.

Silence. Everywhere. You realized it was a bad move and you pulled your sleeves down again, knowing that it was a huge, huge mistake. You were really ready to leave the woman and let her think what she wanted, but one look at her made you stay. She had tears in her eyes.

“Where else? If you are ready to talk about it.” She said, wiping her tears off.

You let out a shaky breath, knowing that lot of tears would end on the carpet and on the bed from then. You slowly took off your shirt, revealing your scarred body and then you took off your trousers.

You couldn´t handle the look at your body anymore, so you closed your eyes and took a deep breath. When you started getting cold and Polly took your hand really gently, you immediately pulled your hand out of hers and started dressing back up again, without giving her any attention.

When you were fully dressed, you didn´t even look at Polly. Folding your arms above your chest, you looked out of the window and tried to figure out how much time could it be. You caught yourself biting on your lower lip and then you had to stop yourself from it. Or the taste of blood did.

She saw your scars. And wounds. She saw the part of you you didn´t want to show anyone. Not even to her. But what you have done, couldn´t be undone. You had to deal with that she saw them. The other side of you.

“May I hug you?” Polly asked you really quietly, her voice quieter than a whisper. You looked at her and when you saw tears rolling down on her cheeks, you nodded your head, even if you didn´t know why. It took Polly only few steps to reach you and she hugged you once again.

Her hands felt gentle. Her arms gave you the feeling of safety and you knew that the woman who was hugging you at the moment was the one who you could open up to. Talk to.

“If you’d like to-“

“I know Polly,” you cut her off because you didn’t want to listen to that anymore. To that you could share anything with her and that she was at here for you when you had the need. You already knew that. “Thank you for that,” you told her anyways even if you knew that you wouldn’t do it.

Polly kept hugging you for few more minutes. When you started to feel uncomfortable, you didn’t want to tell her because you knew that might have hurt her. You just kept accepting the fact Polly wouldn’t let go of you for some time since now and you would be always watched.