Chapter Text
"Can you ever forgive me?"
Alex saw the look in Ryan's eyes as he barely managed to get the words out, his voice clearly on the verge of breaking.
At first she didn't know how to respond. After all, Ryan knew about Typhon and that they couldn't be trusted. Ryan knew about her powers. Ryan knew how much she cared about getting justice for Gabe. Ryan knew how much she cared about him. So for him to completely turn his back on her after everything they had discovered - after everything they had been through together - has really sent her head spinning. She stood there clearly injured and covered in blood begging for Ryan to believe her. To back her up. To do something. And yet he shut her down.
A part of her wondered if she was being unfair. After all, Jed was Ryan’s father. Of course he believed him over her, a girl he had barely known for a month at that point.
But then Ryan’s words from that awful moment came seeping back into her memory, alongside all the anger associated with it.
“I thought we were in this together. For Gabe. ” She couldn’t believe he would use her own brother as an argument against her. The anger inside of her was starting to creep up again just thinking about it.
While the seconds ticked by as Ryan waited for a response, she could see the slight swell of hope on his face begin to form, which made it all the more difficult to look him in the eye.
“...And me. I thought you cared about me.” She wanted to forget that part of the memory. It didn’t matter anymore. It was over.
She then looked at Ryan firmly and began to slightly shake her head. "I'm sorry...I don't think I can do that."
She watched Ryan's posture slump as he briefly closed his eyes, only to open them again immediately.
"After everything we went through together, you weren't there for me when I needed you most. " Her words were coming out more scathing than she had intended, but part of her needed to get some semblance of her anger out. "How can I ever trust you again?"
A tense few seconds went by before Ryan responded.
"I understand," Ryan forced out while nodding his head slowly, as if he were a soldier trying to hold the line in spite of every rampant thought besetting the action.
For all his control and levelheadedness, each a characteristic that Alex had always admired, Ryan struggled to hold down his discomfort at the thickness of the air as his gaze hit the floor. But even then, he fiddled with his fingers for a few seconds in order to calm his nerves, and finally looked directly at Alex when he was reasonably confident that he would not grow too sick to do so. He straightened his posture, kept his hands clasped together, and willed his voice into stability despite every thought that lingered on the tip of his tongue.
He took it like he should have – braced for impact, as was standard procedure in encounters such as this – but it clearly left him shaken all the same.
Alex's gaze was fixed on him, seeking some form of refuge from the dull ache in the pit of her stomach, all but knowing that she would not find it in Ryan's eyes.
Alex had witnessed the complete deterioration of her family and old home, been rejected by one foster family after another, witnessed firsthand the death of her own brother that she had barely reunited with, and somehow still powered through all of it. Just the other day she had faced death itself at the hands of Jed, and still managed to pick herself back up and unravel every single lie he had been telling himself for years, culminating in her completely condemning him without an ounce of remorse. So why did the devastation in Ryan's eyes now make her stomach churn?
“Damn it Ryan...don’t look at me like that.”
“Well, I guess, good luck with...whatever comes next.” Ryan said plainly. It was all he could do.
Soon it was Alex’s eyes that hit the floor, only to immediately look back up at Ryan, who’s expression at this point was completely blank.
“Thanks. You too.”
Ryan fiddled with his fingers once again before slowly turning himself around.
Alex watched him go. She watched him slowly make the turn to the stairs that led down to the Black Lantern where she worked. Where she used to work. She then gripped the side of her apartment door and gently closed it behind him. But for some reason the air was still so thick, as though Ryan had never left, and Alex proceeded to close her eyes and exhale the breath that had been stuck in her throat the entire time.
She had thought it through. She had gone through every possible justification for her decision. She had made the right decision. And still the coiling ache in the pit of her stomach felt distinctly like regret.
It had now been two years since she left Haven Spring by herself, and things went about as smoothly as you’d expect.
A few months after she left Haven, she decided to visit Riley who was now a full time college student, and they still regularly keep in touch with one another.
Steph had also left Haven Springs a mere four days before Alex herself did. Steph tried giving her the keys to the record store if she decided to stay in town and take up the job herself, but Alex immediately declined, having already made up her mind about leaving prior to that conversation. She and Steph also still regularly kept in touch, and even played some remote tabletop games online occasionally through video calls. Steph herself had relocated back somewhere in Seattle, resuming work as a DJ for certain gay nightclubs before eventually finding herself working at a local record store again. She seemed really happy.
Alex managed to find work by playing at local pubs and restaurants for a while, only for the pandemic to hit and everything was promptly shut down. With that out of the window, she now found herself working as a retail sales clerk at a generic clothing store. The pay isn’t good whatsoever and she now has to hop from one shitty motel to another in order to stay off the streets. It reminded her too much of her foster care days, not knowing where or who to turn to for a place to sleep.
She almost thought about giving up and going back to Haven Springs, praying that her old apartment hadn’t been rented out yet. She wouldn’t budge on the matter, however. She knew being in that town with so many bad memories associated with it would only plague her stay there. It’s why she left in the first place.
There was something else though. A nagging at the back of her mind every time she thought about the town. She at first thought it was just the residual grief she had over Gabe or even possibly her father, but for some reason that just didn’t seem to sit right with her.
“Do you think we were too harsh on him? Ryan, I mean,” Alex remembered asking Steph during one of their video calls, who at that moment was still setting up a tabletop game. Steph briefly paused, and Alex could swear she saw the outline of a red aura flash around her for a split-second before it promptly disappeared. Steph then looked directly at Alex through the call and sighed.
“I don’t know, man. I’m still fucking pissed at him for what he did, but the more I think about it, the more I regret how hard I was on him.” Steph said with a frown, her eyes now completely looking down at the tabletop game. She seemed to be in deep thought, as if she was remembering the exact moment she blew up at Ryan that fateful day at the town council meeting.
“It was his own father, y’know?”, Steph continued, looking back up to meet Alex’s eyes through the call. “I don’t think I can ever truly forgive him for turning his back on us like he did, but I do wish him the best. He was a great friend...” She trailed off.
“...Yeah, just not when it mattered,” Alex continued, her mouth twitching at the words that just came out of them.
Steph didn’t respond to that, and continued to set up the game. There was nothing else to say on the matter.
Alex’s thoughts were now rampant when it came to the man. She didn’t know if it was because she was mourning a relationship that never came to fruition, or if it was because Ryan had a connection with Gabe and he was just an extension of how much she missed him. Regardless though, Alex just couldn’t seem to get the man out of her thoughts.
Maybe...maybe this was time’s way of letting her know that she needed to let her grudge against him go. Holding onto this anger forever wouldn't help her in any way, and it certainly wouldn’t help her move on.
A year ago during one of their phone calls, Riley brought up to Alex that Ryan had left Haven Springs recently. Alex was taken aback at first, but ultimately didn’t think too much of it, at least not at the time. She didn’t want to think about the man at all, much less hear about him. Now she was starting to realize just how big of a deal that really was. Ryan was born in Haven, and to her knowledge had never left the town ever. She remembers running into so many memories left on certain objects pertaining to his childhood within the town. She remembers a lot of them had to do with his mother, someone he rarely talked about, except that night with her on the rooftop. The night they kissed.
A lot of those memories were encased in joy.
Why would he leave? She needed to know why.
Alex then went through her phone and found that Ryan had changed his number. She wasn’t too surprised by this, but it did make it all the more troublesome to get in contact with him. She then decided to ask Riley if she could send her his new number, as she was the only person Alex knew who was still on good terms with him. She didn’t know if Charlotte had fully worked out her hidden resentment towards him at this point, and she wasn’t going to ask.
Before Riley responded, Alex decided to look Ryan up on the internet. Ryan wasn’t the type to use social media all that much, but he surprisingly did have a Facebook account. There were only five photos uploaded to the account, and all of them had been posted around three years ago. The photos themselves were simple shots of wildlife, mainly birds and deer. The account also didn’t have a profile picture, which only further led Alex to believe that Ryan rarely used it.
Riley soon texted her Ryan’s new number, and it was here that Alex stopped herself. Was she really ready to do this? It had been two years at this point, but she could make the argument that the wounds were still too fresh. Still too painful.
Alex lightly shook her head and refocused herself. If she finally reconciles with Ryan, maybe this horrible feeling that has been gnawing at her these past two years will finally go away. She pulled up Ryan’s number and began texting.
“Hey Ryan, it’s Alex. I know we left things off on a pretty intense and bad note, but since it’s been awhile I was hoping you and I could talk and maybe hash things out?“
The response came faster than Alex predicted.
“How did you get this number?”
Alex’s eyes slightly widened as she saw the response pop up on her phone screen. She assumed Ryan would respond to her request the way he did with, well, any conversation she saw him have with someone. The man always seemed to be so cordial, so inviting, and very open to conversation. He was introverted, but always answered everything with a slim smile that would for some reason make Alex’s heart leap inside her chest. And yet, after her single, plain, and understandable query, Ryan rebuffed it.
Alex decided to ignore his question and began typing once again.
“Ryan, I just really need to talk to you. I think it would be important for the both of us if we just..talked things out.”
Truth be told, she didn’t really know any other way to communicate her need to talk to him. It had been eating away at her mind for so long, she didn’t know how to really explain it at this point. She just needed to know why he would leave the only home he had ever known behind. All of the memories of Gabe. Of his mother. Of her.
“Do not contact me again.”
Alex recoiled into herself when she first saw the message. Ryan didn’t want to talk to her.
Wait, what? He’s the one angry at her? After he completely betrayed her trust and turned against both her and Steph when they needed him most? What the fuck is he on about?
Her anger was starting to bubble again. She didn’t understand it. She couldn’t understand it.She couldn’t understand how Ryan could somehow flip this entire situation and make her out to be the bad guy that he needed to avoid.
She was currently struggling to make ends meet, working a shitty job with rude customers that didn’t see her as an actual person with feelings, and she was living a sad lonely life completely disconnected from any of the friends she had made back in Haven.
And yet, none of that mattered compared to the horrible truth that Ryan didn’t want to talk to her.
Alex closed her eyes, not wishing to see the screen anymore.
“God, what would Gabe do in this situation?” She asked herself mentally, fully knowing that she didn’t have the answer.
She turned off her phone. She didn’t need this. If Ryan didn’t want to talk to her right now, then she wasn’t going to force him to. At the moment she needed to better her own current living situation and firmly put the focus back on herself. It’s what she promised she would do right before she left Haven.
So for now, she would listen to Ryan’s request and not push any further. She would wait.
But she knew that she would have to try and talk to him again, at least for her own sake.
So the waiting began.