❝ YOU didn’t do anything to piss anybody off, Tommy. ❞ That was all her. She could feel it in her bones – this deep ACHE akin to the sensation of a break. The pressure between her limbs was building with tension ( an indication that she was WRONG under normal circumstances, but these weren’t so NORMAL, were they ? ), budding beneath swollen glands & heated skin, ready to BURST. She was going to PAY for the decisions she made, but the ALTERNATIVE was letting HELL run its course without an INKLING of the truth to quell the STORM brewing & that was enough to keep her headed in the direction she was in. Winn was just stop ONE on the Tour de Complication ( the EASIEST if there ever was such a thing ) & she’d already begun looking for EVERY reason to RUN.
Fingers brushed the bridge of her nose gently as she rose to her feet, pulling the coat around her shoulders in a silence she figured he knew all too well. SHE WAS THINKING OF EVERYTHING – of nothing – all at once. A brain that went a mile a minute was of no use, but she couldn’t take her foot off the gas long enough for her to slow down & make SENSE of what was unfolding. She thought, after the first 20 minutes, that it’d be simpler. What she WANTED was to come up with a plan, map it out, & be ready to lift off with it. What she got INSTEAD was a pile of EMOTION she’d BURIED years ago & a streamline of thoughts so USELESS it would’ve been COMICAL had it not been so IMPORTANT in the moment.
Happiness, anger, confusion – a HEAP of emotions all fighting for a chance to break out from beneath the porcelain mask she wore with ease yet none of the screaming LOUD ENOUGH to make a crack. HOW DID SHE EXPLAIN THAT TO HIM ? How did she, someone so COLLECTED despite her better instincts pushing her towards a BREAK, explain to someone so LOST that she wasn’t sure WHAT to feel ? Or what was more IMPORTANT ? ❝ I AM happy you’re back, ❞ she began, the softness returning to her eyes as lips curled into a smile. Despite what ANYBODY thought, she WAS happy to see him. She was ALWAYS happy to see him – it never mattered what he did, how BADLY he screwed up, or to what extent of the law he found himself in trouble with: SHE WAS ALWAYS HAPPY TO SEE TOMMY MERLYN. Some things – they never change. ❝ & I’m going to find out what happened to you, I promise. ❞
Words she rarely said. SHE PROMISED. She had no right to deliver such a large portion of herself – A PROMISE. She barely stuck around long enough to know when the weather was going to turn, but there she was. Promising him the WORLD in a sense. It dimmed her smile a bit all the while bringing more softness to the cool blue that colored her eyes. SHE PROMISED – it spilled out with an intensity she forgot she was capable of & took the breath from her lungs, leaving her gasping for air. SHE MEANT IT. ❝ There’s a BIG BELLY on the way to Winns’. I’ll be in the hall whenever you’re ready. ❞
Promises. Tommy didn’t like promises. He tried so hard to never make promises, because he always broke them. I promise you’re the only one for me. I promise I got your back Ollie. I promise I’ll be home by midnight. I promise it meant nothing. I promise it’ll never happen again.
Promises were sugar glass to Tommy Merlyn, couldn’t even hold them without it breaking. But something he was good at, putting on a happy face. Tommy had learned a long time ago, fake it til you make it. So he looked up, smiling.
“Seeing you always makes me smile Sara. Just never thought it’d happen again for me. Especially not this way around ...”
He’d spent so much money searching for them both. Oliver, and Sara. Whispers of sightings, planes he chartered, the time he’d spent. China, Russia, India. All fruitless. He never truly gave up, just the threats from his father, and the pleading from Winn. What choice did he have?
Winn was all he had in those years. Winn and Laurel. This shared trauma they all went through, each thinking they should have done something, could have ...
He was lost in thought. But the mention of food caused his stomach to growl reflexively, and he looked up. It took a moment, before he nodded, smiling again. That Tommy Merlyn smile, “Only if onion rings are on the table too.”
He watched her leave, the door closing behind her, before he took a moment. Looking at his hands, the bandaged cuts. He could still feel the pain of clawing out of his coffin. The taste of the dirt, the way it felt like there was no hope.
Sliding from the bed he nearly fell, catching himself, before straightening.
A Merlyn doesn’t show weakness
It wasn’t much, but the small bag of clothes there meant the world, he didn’t want to leave in scrubs, feeling like a mental patient fresh on the run. Even if a part of him worried maybe this was all some horrible hallucination ...
Finally dressed and ready, hood up to hide some of the bruising, Tommy slipped out of the room, “Please get me out of here.”
