The Deep Stays

Participants:

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Scene Title The Deep Stays
Synopsis The river runs deep.
Date July 6, 2021

Broadway Street
Ruins of Toledo
Ohio


She hadn’t thrown up again after they’d gotten her set in the boxcar, but even with the splint made to hold her leg still, it was impossible to ignore the throbbing pain of it. Someone had at least wiped the tears, grime, blood, and sweat off her face after peeling her up off the road. Now, she lays on her back on the floor of her makeshift cell, a blanket her only buffer from the metal and the evening chill.

There’d been a consideration given to leaving her broken leg uncovered and sparing her the weight of the blanket on it, no matter how slight, but to not have the blanket over all of her proved too uncomfortable. She alternates staring up into the black and closing her eyes, without much of any change in the visual.

There's a bullet in the gun, the gun went missing
Suspicion blew up like a shotgun shell
Zipping your lips, keep the truth in prison
Gonna throw away the key like you can't make bail

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Blue eyes glint in the dark as she steps off the loading dock, scanning for signs of anyone watching her. Taking a deep breath, she hurries off down the cracked concrete of a service road. A road she hopes will bring her closer to the place she needs to be, if not the place she wants.

It’d been too easy to lose track of herself here. Lose herself in a pair of steel blue eyes capable of unwavering intensity. Convince herself that the ends justified the means. Mikey’s visions reminded her that this was not her purpose.

All of Gracie’s things fit in a bag she didn’t even own before coming here leaving plenty of space for the other necessities. Food, plenty of potable water, blankets… Everything required to leave.

A crunch of gravel off to her right brings her to pivot quickly and Gracie cries out, having jolted in her half-sleep and sending pain shooting through her leg. It chokes her to the point where she can’t even make the sound of agony that builds in her chest, begging for release.

The cat's in the bag, the bag's in the river
And the river runs deep and the deep stays down
Better dot your eyes, the lie's getting bigger
Don't lead 'em to the needle in the haystack

Beyond the confines of the car, she hears boots shift on the loose rock, realizing that must have been what woke her. No one slides the door open to check on her even after the first ragged sob finally works its way out of her. It takes several minutes before she’s able to force herself to start breathing again, trying to push her way through it. Techniques she learned in the aftermath of the world discovering that others with supernatural powers existed and the conflict that followed.

By the time she finds calm, she’s more exhausted than before. The floor is hard beneath her back and her hips, but trying to move to reposition herself and try to alleviate some of the pressure on her joints is unthinkable right now. When her eyes close heavily this time it’s to try and find sleep again. Perhaps if she doesn’t unwittingly slip there from memory, but instead finds it by intent, she won’t experience the same pain twice.

The deep stays down
The deep stays down
The river runs deep and the deep stays down

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Closing night parties are certainly the best parties. Opening night has the best rush, but no one can really throw themselves into it, because they have to perform again the next day. This one, though? This one, she’s going to have champagne.

Rue normally shows up for these in simple, comfortable clothes. Tights, skirt, a shrug over a bodysuit and plain flats. Tonight, she’s opted to dress up. An iridescent beaded bodice giving way to an orange-red tulle skirt that falls to just above her knee. She’s hoping to make an impression.

Stepping off the curb and crossing the street to the event hall, she’s barely made it inside before she’s approached by the most beautiful girl in the room. Her hair is blonde with hints of rose gold in mid-lengths to the ends; eyes so green a girl can get lost; a smile is so dazzling, it could light up the sky. And she’s holding out a bouquet.

The deep stays down
The deep stays down
The river runs deep and the deep stays

White carnations, and clover, red chrysanthemums, yellow jasmine, and tiny purple-pink flowers of meadow rue are a beautiful splash of color in the short woman’s arms. “I asked the florist for help,” she says with a softness to her. “I hope you like them.”

Rue’s breath catches in her throat, her eyes wide, lips parted. She had been waiting for her to arrive for this. “Liza.” They met in a parking lot, chatted, exchanged numbers, and now she’s here. A smile spreads across her face slowly. She remembers herself suddenly and reaches out to accept the flowers. “They’re beautiful. I didn’t think you would—”

I, I thought I told you
I thought I told you that the deep stays
I, I thought I told you the river runs deep and the deep stays down

“I had to see you dance, and this was my only chance!” Liza Messer grins, clearly excited. “You were wonderful!”

The dancer shakes her head, an errant curl falling free from the loose bun at the back of her head as she laughs helplessly. “I was in the background! I hardly mattered at all.” The red hair makes her easier to spot, and she’s considered coloring it darker to blend better with the rest of the ensemble. But she wants to stand out, to be noticed, and she’s now been noticed by the only person she’d dared to hope would.

Liza’s nose wrinkles as Rue downplays her role in the company, but she doesn’t pursue it. Instead, she seems to channel her nervous energy like she means to leap into the deep end of a pool. She takes a deep breath and blurts, “Will you go out with me?”

Confusion and surprise cross her features before she finds herself nodding quickly. “Yeah! Y- Yeah!”

The trap got sprung, I read it in the paper
And the paper got read all over this town
The jury's still hung, got a snake oil savior
Who's trying catch a fox in the henhouse now

Waking from memory brings with it the dismay of returning to grim reality. The people she’s fallen in with and relied on when the alternative meant dying alone in the snow, the things she’s done to continue to ensure her survival…

They aren’t this. They aren’t what they suspect her of. The prisoner cringes in on herself, wanting nothing more right now than to be able to curl up into a ball and cry it out. How many nights has she done that now? It’s been less since settling in the Pelago in the spring, but the security she’d found there is gone now and she may never see its like again.

The deep stays down
The deep stays down
The river runs deep and the deep stays down

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She’s a vision in the champagne-colored dress borrowed from a friend. It’d be right at home at a spring formal, and it’s more than good enough for this day. It isn’t as though boutiques exist anyway. While it may not be what either of them imagined when they were girls, but in this moment they wouldn’t have it any other way.

The bouquet is more a collection of herbs that will be relinquished once they’ve finished saying the words, given to the kitchens and the apothecary. They just need to be pretty for a few minutes, and the verdant foliage does that job admirably.

The deep stays down
The deep stays down
The river runs deep and the deep stays

There’s a bible that could be quoted from; a ritual, rites that could be recited. They forgo that. Rue knows her heart shows plainly in her eyes as Liza walks between rows of chairs, occupied by their friends and neighbors, and joins her at her side. The breath leaves her lungs and she feels an overwhelming sense of awe and good fortune.

They don’t exchange rings, but they do say vows. They’re simple. Liza’s are sweet and her own are punctuated with nervous laughter and coated in humor. In the end, they kiss and are reintroduced to their witnesses.

I, I thought I told you
I thought I told you that the deep stays
I, I thought I told you
The river runs deep and the deep stays down

“The newly-wed Elizabeth and February Messer.”

I, I thought I told you
I thought I told you that the deep stays
I, I thought I told you
I thought I told you that the deep stays

It’s the discomfort of her cold sweat that wakes Gracie again. She shifts uneasily and wipes at her face with her sleeve, tugs at the arms of her dress to try and discourage the damp from clinging to her skin. It’s less than effective.

She should have pointed out the stump of the tree pried up from the dirt by what was likely straight line winds. Should have explained that the last time she came through, it had lain in the middle of the road. Maybe she was stupid to think that no one would have salvaged and cleaned it up in the intervening month. It never occurred to her that anyone would be equipped to do so. She wouldn’t know what to do with a tree that large anyway. Maybe someone cut it to size for firewood. Maybe someone’s built a shelter from it.

Gracie smiles faintly at the thought. She’d like that, actually, and finds herself hoping that it’s the case.

I, I thought I told you
I thought I told you that the deep stays
I, I thought I told you
I thought I told you that the deep stays

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“Let’s get out of here.” Rue smiles and holds both of her wife’s hands, swinging them to and fro between them. “We can go to the south. It’s cheaper there. We could have a nice house. Get away from all of…” Her head cants to one side, a strand of her red hair falling free from the bun at the back of her head brushes her shoulder. “All of this.

Liza shakes her head and laughs breathily. “This again? What, you think we’ll just retire?” Her smile is brilliant, and it inspires Rue to change her hold. Releasing her hands, instead Liza finds her face framed by slender, graceful fingers. There’s a callus on the first knuckle from where her pencil settles when she scribbles notes on that clipboard of hers. Liza finds it endearing. “Rhubarb,” she sighs.

“I mean it.” Blue eyes stare into brown, imploring. “I’ve always wanted to own a comic book shop. A store for used video games.” Rue leans in to kiss the blonde woman firmly, praying that it will only show her sincerity, her earnestness. “Because this is fucked. All of this. The things we do are fucked.

The other woman’s features crease with concern as she reaches up and gently curls her hands around Rue’s wrists. “What has gotten into you? We’re doing important work, you and I. We’re helping people.” Concern shifts to confusion. “I know you kind of force departments to crunch in order to make quota, but you can take that up with management, right? I’ll help you put together the data. You can make a pitch for eased schedules.” Her head dips as though she needs to catch Rue’s gaze, which hasn’t left her.

“You’re just stressed,” Liza posits with a gentle sympathy.

At first.

The deep stays down
The deep stays down
The river runs deep and the deep stays down

Gracie feels a profound sense of loss, of being utterly alone. “I miss you,” she whispers to the air, like a breeze might carry it away and find those the words are meant for. “Where did you go?

The deep stays down
The deep stays down

“Are we alone, Rhubarb?”

Rue starts, leaning back and blinking. Stunned. “Yeah.” The suspicion catches her off guard. “Yeah, it’s just us.” She glances around the room as if to confirm. “Those are the rules. Nobody’s watching us here.” Except perhaps for the reflection of the windows in their highrise condo. Liza, too, looks around, squinting at the muted pair of them also visible against the surface of the darkened television on the wall above the fireplace. The way she squints inspires a wounded look. “The den is for us. No one listening.” She tries to infuse some humor into their exchange, smiling slyly. “Unless we get loud enough to be heard in the other room.”

Rhubarb.” The sternness looks wrong on Liza, and Rue regrets her attempt at deflection immediately. It makes her edges soften sooner than she intended. She sighs. “I have to think about it, okay? If getting out of the city will help you feel less worried, we can go stay at my place in Cambridge for a week?” She smiles assuringly, encouraging Rue’s hands to come away from her face so they can hold on to one another again. Back and forth she moves their joined hands the way they began this conversation. “Or maybe we’ll find a B-and-B.”

There’s no relief in her when Liza leans in for a kiss, slower and sweeter than the one Rue bestowed earlier. Still, it’s a sign that they can revisit the issue later. Maybe that’s good enough. “Okay.” She resigns herself from the argument. There’s too much for Rue to smooth over before she can sway her. “Okay.” She closes her eyes and kisses her back one more time. “I love you, Li.”

“I love you, Rhubarb.”

The river runs deep and the deep stays

The crickets are only company now. The crickets and the occasional scrape of boots outside when whoever’s keeping watch adjusts their stance. Or maybe how they’re seated. It isn’t as though she can see through the thick metal and know.

That’d be a neat trick.

Pray for rain, it's a bone dry summer
Been sweatin' like a mother and the sun just beats

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The fever has burned through her for days. She’s barely been conscious. Every time she coughs, there’s more blood. She’s dying, and there’s no medicine in this godforsaken world that can save her.

But she’s alone. The loneliness has settled deep into her bones and left her empty. Rue’s made a certain kind of peace with the looming promise of her finale, when the curtain will fall and she won’t rise for a final bow.

In the moments when her courage was the strongest, her legs were too shaky to make her way to the edge and take that leap. She imagines herself graceful as the Swan Queen, her end as tragic, but one she has an agency in.

And in those moments when her legs were steady, the foundation of her courage was too eroded to provide that jumping point. The moments of reprieve were the worst, because they allowed for hope.

And hope is a dangerous thing.

Standing at the threshold, a hand reaches for her and she thinks it’s the hand of death, come to draw her in and to whatever lays beyond.

Rue Lancaster doesn’t believe there’s anything beyond this world.

The thought is terrifying, but the hand doesn’t lead her where she expects.

She doesn’t feel anything. There’s no miraculous recovery, no sudden feeling of health, but that reprieve would transition from moment to enduring. “Check, fixed. No longer dying.”

“What was that? What did that do?”

It isn’t the River Styx she’s led to, but its waters are no less dramatic in the way it changes her story. From condemned to die to being able to ride its currents back toward home.

Who they gonna blame?
Who's a-gonna pay for every single secret that the river don't keep?

Hope led her here. That dangerous, treacherous hope told her she might recapture the things she lost by dangling the prospect of starting over in the remains of New York. It was foolish to think she could escape her ghosts.

That hope now rings so very false.

A broken sob breaks the stillness of the boxcar. Gracie digs the heels of her palms against her lidded eyes. Still, she cannot stem the tide of her anguish.


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