~Author's Note~

So I binge-watched both seasons of this show in less than a week, proceeded to lose my sh*t over the season two finale the other night, then cranked out 7k worth of words yesterday, and edited them today. The show is great, like really great, and if it isn't renewed for a season three I'll probably lose it. Oh and Gert and Chase are the ship I never knew I needed until now so thank you Hulu.

Please leave a review with your thoughts down below, I'd love to hear what everybody thinks, and I hope everyone enjoys the story! :)

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you and me till the end

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Dale talks a lot.

He chatters nonstop about the most mundane things he can think of, and if he isn't talking he's singing, voice high-pitched and nails-on-a-chalkboard, and he's acting like his daughter and her telepathic dinosaur aren't locked in cages in the back of his custom Volvo.

One time he tries to bring up the past, tries to bring up Molly and Stacey and how we only did what we did to keep you both safe, and Gert isn't sure if Old Lace growls because she just hates the sound of his voice or if she growls because Gert's having none of it. She didn't want to hear anymore lies. Dale had quieted after Old Lace had shared her opinion and then before he could open his mouth again, Gert had met his eyes in the rear-view mirror with a steely glare. She had nothing to say but her actions spoke enough for the both of them.

Dale doesn't ever bring up the past after that. He's smart not to.

But he still talks, and Gert still wants to eat him, which means that Old Lace really, really wants to eat him, and that is still where they stand a week and a half later, pulled over at a truck stop that houses more runaways in moth-eaten tents than snoring truck drivers.

Gert has to give Dale some credit though, as he pulls the key out of the ignition and the car engine rumbles to a stop, because he's been one step ahead of her enough the whole time they've been on this twisted family road trip of theirs. He doesn't leave her alone when she goes to the bathroom, even going as far to scope out the room beforehand to make sure there's not a window or crevice she can squeeze her way out of, and even after he stands either outside the stall or outside the door leading into the bathroom when he feels like he's invading her privacy too much the other way, which is funny in a sardonic way to her, because through her whole life privacy was never a thing with Dale and Stacey around.

Dale meets her eyes through the rear-view mirror, their only way of communicating these days, "Alright sweetcakes," and his voice is too sweet, sickening sweet, "I'll be right back. Sit tight." He smiles despite himself, and Gert almost rolls her eyes but her stomach's rolling too much to fully permit the action.

He exits the car and doesn't bother to lock it behind him, making his way to the structure ahead that looks more like a shed you'd find next to an abandoned, haunted looking Victorian house than a truck-stop restroom.

Gert wastes no time and neither does Old Lace.

They both spring into action, Gert working at the metal cage holding her and Old Lace attacking the back of the trailer door with her claws. They're close, Gert can feel it, and she can also feel the sting in her hands from picking and pulling and praying, but she doesn't dare let the pain stop her. They only have a little time—it usually only takes Dale about two or three minutes to check the bathroom—and they're already reaching the one minute mark faster than Gert cares to admit.

"Come on girl," she murmurs, voiced strained as she fights the metal, Old Lace growling softly and scrabbling at the door harder.

Dale's not three steps ahead of her anymore. If anything, Gert's four steps ahead of him. She's been working at the metal for the past week and Dale's been none the wiser, too wrapped up in his dull conversations with a girl and a dinosaur who he thinks are listening, and it's nearly off its hinges now, creaking and squeaking in protest at every new slam from her sore palm.

Her head might be better, Dale was quick to find her medicine and Band-Aids, yet no doubt scarred, but her hands were far from it. She's been hiding them in her pockets every time he's followed her to the bathroom, but she thinks the damage might not ever go away.

A loud crack echoes through her thoughts, through her head, as the trailer door gives and Old Lace tumbles out and into the dirt of the road and Gert can't help but smile. Maybe this will all work out in the end after all.

"Yes! Good job girl!" She shoves harder at her own cage, determined. "I'll follow you. Go. Go!" Old Lace seems very reluctant in leaving her behind, but at Gert's prodding she eventually takes off, a blur of scales as she disappears into the brush nearby.

"Okay. Okay. Old Lace is free. Safe." She doesn't know why her voice sounds breathless, but she knows the hot feeling of anxiety twisting in her stomach. She shoves the feeling down, deep down, down as far as she can. She can't focus on that now. "Okay," she breathes, quiet, time ticking down in the invisible timer in her head. "Now it's your turn Gert. Come on."

She pushes against the metal with her shoulder, all her weight behind it, and something must be enough, all the hurt in her heart or all the hurt in her hands or some miracle beyond her comprehension, because the metal breaks with a sharp snap and then she's the one whose free.

She clambers over the backseat and goes to reach for the door handle before stopping herself. Supplies. She needs supplies. Changing direction, she stretches over the handbrake and grabs at the leather wallet watching her from the front cup holder, and she's happy to find two crumpled hundred dollar bills and some change before she tosses the wallet to the floor.

Credit cards are traceable and utterly useless when you're a runaway, so instead she grabs three unopened water bottles from the floor and the half-eaten sandwich Dale had wrapped back up after complaining about the taste three miles from their last stop. Old Lace was fed about an hour ago which means she was good for the next four, so she didn't have to worry about that quite yet, and the only other thing she could take if she wanted to was . . . the tranquilizer gun hidden between the middle console and passenger seat.

Gert can't help but scoff. Dale could preach anything he wanted to yet at the end of the day he was the one ready to tranquilize Old Lace and her if it came to it. Unbelievable. Or, believable, really, if you considered the whole their-parents-turned-out-to-be-murderers thing.

Without a second glance back, Gert takes off into the forest, Old Lace by her side. A lifetime could pass without her seeing that damned car again and that would still be too short.

Dale's humming one of his favorite songs as he makes the trek back to his car, happy with the bathroom situation. It was small, and a tiny bit dirtier than he had liked, but it was secure and safe and good enough for Gert.

She didn't say much anymore, and that hurt, but he didn't know what was going on with Stacey or the rest of PRIDE and he didn't want to stick around and find out, so if that meant Gert stayed quiet around him, well he could take selective silence from his daughter over never hearing her speak again because Stacey wasn't as controlled the next time around. He was stuck between two evils it felt like, and he wasn't taking any more chances when it came to his girls.

"Okay sweetums, we are good to go—"

The back of the car is empty, bare to the bone, and his wallets not where he left it last. Old Lace isn't corralled in the trailer. Gert isn't glaring at him from the trunk with a look in her eyes that's far beyond her years.

Dale puts his head down on the armrest and curses, something akin to tears stinging at his eyes. "God damn it," he mutters to no one in particular, angry. So, so angry. Because he failed as a parent, again. He failed again at keeping them safe, and this time it was only one kid and a dinosaur and he still failed. He's always failing, always not choosing the right way to go about things, always siding with PRIDE over his own thoughts, always, always, always.

"God dammit!" He yells, backing out of the car and kicking at the half-deflated front tire.

"God dammit!" He screams as he pulls at his greying hair, tossing his dark sunglasses at a faraway truck.

"God dammit." He whispers as he leans his arms on the hood and cries into them.

God damn it, he thinks, as he fails again.

Finding the hostel is harder the second time around.

It takes her a while to find her way back. Dale took her far, far away, and two hundred bucks isn't nearly enough to feed a growing girl and a dinosaur who gets way too fussy when she doesn't get three meals a day.

Gert doesn't . . . she doesn't steal but she does borrow money hanging out of careless women's purses and snag twenties off of men who are either too drunk to know what day it is or too distracted with the skinny women straddling their laps.

She's not proud of it, and she puts it as borrowing instead of stealing because that's the only way her anxiety-ridden mind can cope with it, can accept it, and she has her stash of pills—it never leaves her side nowadays, she's too afraid that if she goes cold turkey again she won't make it out—and thank God she doesn't have to borrow pills from anyone because at least Chase's mom had enough care left within her to foot the bill and keep the prescription alive and free if she ever needed anymore (though it might be a while before Gert even needs a new bottle because Chase's mom was also kind enough to fill her current bottle to the brim way back when) and it's there, a few hundred feet from the hostel that her and Old Lace had finally been able to track back down, that Chase enters her mind.

She misses him.

She misses him more than she wants to admit and she can tell that Old Lace misses him too. Old Lace of course misses everybody, but there's something longing in the way that the dinosaur misses Chase, and Gert wishes that was the way she missed him too. But she missed him differently than that; she missed him like he was her oxygen supply and she was suddenly cut off. She missed him like nothing else, missed him most above all the others—excluding Molly—and she wasn't even sure if he was going to be at the hostel or if he was still back at his father's side. At PRIDE's side.

She misses the soft smiles he would give her and only her. She misses his eyes, the firm softness of his lips, the curve of his jaw she always found herself tracing with a feather-light finger. She misses the warm weight of his strong arms wrapped around her, a safely blanket among a fire of chaos. She misses resting her head on his chest at nighttime, one of her arms lazily flung over his stomach while one of his draped around her lower waist in what she could only guess was a protective manner.

She misses the five o'clock shadow he would sport before she helped him shave, because hell if he was going to leave the hostel looking like some Wolf Man, and she misses the way he would kiss her after. She misses the way his hand felt in hers, always loose enough so that if she needed space she could have it, yet tight enough that she wouldn't forget he was by her side.

She misses him.

Old Lace butts her hand with her nose.

Gert looks over and then up. They're here.

"Ready girl?" She asks in a whisper, overcome by a sudden wave of emotion. The hostel was their home, for better or for worse. And she was finally home. They were finally home. She just hoped everyone else was too. Old Lace grunts in lieu of an answer, and then Gert's feet are moving her inside the underground building.

No alarms go off as she makes her way towards the main foyer and she hopes that means that Alex just doesn't have the means to repair things yet, and not that he's gone. Old Lace stays by her side as they enter the foyer together, and the three people sitting together on the stairs talking quietly among one another go silent at the sound of footsteps.

Three heads turn in Gert's direction, and before Alex or Nico can stop her, Molly's bounding down the stairs and into her sister's open arms.

Old Lace brushes her nose against Molly's shoulder as she sobs into Gert's, and all Gert can do is hold tight and try to keep her voice as steady as possible as she murmurs quiet reassurances into her ear. Molly's always so strong, and it's always such a shock to Gert when she finally collapses. The whole thing is almost surreal to Gert as she holds tightly to a sobbing Molly and sees Alex and Nico watching with barely-there smiles, and it's with a heavy heart that Gert realizes why.

Karolina is painstakingly absent from Nico's side.

Chase isn't standing next to Alex with his arms crossed and a knowing smile on his face.

Leslie comes running, or as close as she can be with her belly, down the upstairs hall, and even Xavin's by her side. Gert doesn't understand. How can Xavin be here but not Karolina? How can Xavin be here but not Chase? How does the world call that fair?

"What's going on? Who's crying?" She asks as she starts to make her way down the steps without looking up, but then she does and stops halfway down. Gert meets her worried eyes, and then the oblivious ones of Xavin.

Molly's sobs have reduced to soft sniffles, but Gert doesn't let go of her just yet. Her eyes lock with Alex next, and he almost looks guilty. Like Chase and Karolina not being there is his fault.

Gert knows it's pointless to ask, but she does anyway. She needs to hear it out loud and not just from her whirlwind of a brain. "Chase?"

Nico looks down. Alex tries to avoid meeting her eyes. She won't let him. She won't let him look away until he answers her because she needs to know. She needs to know. Molly's hand grips at her jacket. When it's obvious Alex isn't going to answer, Molly answers for him. The younger girl shakes her head, whispers, "I'm sorry," and hey at least the earth hasn't shattered because it sure as hell feels like Gert's world has.

It's been a week since Gert had saved herself from Dale, and none of them are faring too well. Arguments are started almost daily about if Chase is really in trouble or not, because why devote time and resources to somebody who turned their back on them? It's usually Alex leading these arguments because all he wants to do is find Karolina and move on, and Nico wants to find Karolina too but she has some weird feeling that Chase is in just as much danger, but Alex won't just let it be. Gert is strangely quiet during these arguments, and Molly just wants them all to stop fighting.

The night starts off as any other. After dinner the four of them end up playing a game of cards spiraled out on the steps just because they can. It's distracting enough at least, and Nico's in the lead until she glances behind Gert and all of her cards fall in a clumsy mess overtop the dealer's deck.

"Nico what the hell?" Alex asks but then he inhales sharply. Nico speaks for him.

"Karolina."

She's up and moving faster than Gert's ever seen her, a flash of black hair and smudged makeup as she vaults herself towards the blonde entering the foyer as Alex, Molly and Gert get to their feet. When Gert turns however, all she can see is Chase.

He's standing there, off to the side in all his handsome ruggedness as Nico hugs Karolina for dear life, his posture tense. There's a cut stretching from nose to cheekbone on the left side of his face, still red and still bleeding, and there's more bruises than skin from what she can see in the strange white jumpsuit he's wearing. There's a look in his eyes that says he's been through more hell than she can fathom, and a quick glance at Karolina and—to Gert's surprise—Chase's mom beside her, Gert just knows he played protector. She just knows he put his life on the line at every turn so that the two girls with him would stay safe, and she doesn't know if she hates him or loves him for it because that's who he is with anyone he cares about.

"Chase?"

Gert swears she says it louder but her words come out as a whisper, almost a silent mouth of his name, and he stares at her for a moment, then two, and before Gert can say anything more, he's crossing the distance between them and wrapping his arms around her and oh how she's missed him.

He smells of chemicals, but she can still smell him beneath, that smell of the terrible aftershave he can't live without that reminds her of nearly every rich guy in nearly every rich magazine, and yet it's so uniquely him that she can't imagine living life without knowing it, and it's really not as terrible as she makes it out to be.

He says nothing as her own arms wrap around his body but he holds her so tightly that Gert thinks if either of them pull back too quickly the other will shatter. He buries his head in her shoulder and exhales shakily, grasp tightening. Something in her heart breaks. What happened while he was gone? Her hands rub up and down his back, grounding him back to reality, and she almost worries that he's going to start crying.

She strokes every curve of muscle in his back gently, carefully, and he seems to relax more as her hands move from the middle of his back up to his shoulders, and it isn't until he's pulling back slightly that she remembers he's in nothing but one thin-as-hell jumpsuit.

His lips are inches away from hers.

Gert's hands slide up and hook around the back of his neck as his hands move to grip her hips, and something stirs inside her that won't go back down.

"Gert," he says, and his voice is raspy even though he's whispering, "I'm so sorry." He's blinking a bit faster than usual, and it's nothing but a vain attempt to stop the tears already sneaking down his cheeks. Gert's own eyes start to prickle. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," she breathes as she cups his cheeks, brushing away the steadily falling tears with her thumbs, "you're okay. It's okay."

She doesn't know when their foreheads pressed together, but she can feel him nod against her as she wipes the last bit of his tears away, and then Old Lace is bumping into his elbow, demanding his attention. Chase's lips lift into a soft smile as he turns towards the dinosaur and brushes his hand over her head and Gert smiles when Old Lace purrs in approval and nestles closer.

She doesn't even notice that Chase's other hand is still secure over the bone of her hip until Molly moves in for a hug and he has no choice but to let go, and Gert finds herself missing his touch more than she should.

He did abandon them . . . but as Gert watches Chase hug Molly, snug and family-like, a chuckle bubbling out of him when she threatens to punch him clear through the wall if he ever tries to leave them again, Gert doesn't see Chase the Abandoner.

Gert sees Chase the Runaway. She sees the Chase that helped her to the nurse's office when she sprained her ankle in the eighth grade. She sees the Chase that struggled with putting on his mom's concealer in the mornings before the bus in elementary school. She sees the Chase that called her first. She sees the Chase that kissed her senseless when they thought it was the end of their very world as they knew it. She sees the Chase that kept her close throughout borrowed vans and uncomfortable tents and PRIDE homeless shelters.

All Gert sees is the Chase she knows and trusts, and although he's done some wrong, haven't they all?

He came back to them in the end, didn't he?

"I think we should let them get some rest," it's Leslie who speaks, and Gert doesn't even know when she entered the room and took her spot next to Karolina, Nico steady by her other side, Xavin lingering on the last step of the stairs. Karolina glances over at her mom and smiles as her mother brings her into another hug, and Molly withdraws her arms from around Chase.

Chase looks back to Gert and goes to reach for her hand, but then his mom's there, a troubled crease to her already worried brow. Gert watches silently as she fawns over Chase, poking and prodding.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Mom."

"Do you feel woozy? Dizzy? Does your cheek still hurt? Is your breathing alright? You kids must have some pills stashed around here, maybe some painkillers would help you, here come with me, let me fix you up, you look like you've been through hell—"

Chase settles his hands on her shoulders softly, grabbing her attention.

"Mom I swear I'm fine and I really think you should be the one going and getting some rest. You've been through a lot, and you don't have to worry about me. I've got someone else that can fix me up." His eyes meet with Gert's over his mother's shoulder and the older woman turns and looks at Gert with an emotion in her eyes that Gert hasn't seen on any of the other parents, besides maybe Leslie now when she looks at Karolina.

Chase's hands fall from her shoulders as she moves towards Gert and reaches for one of her hands, pressing her other overtop.

"Thank you," Janet whispers, voice so low it's almost inaudible, and Gert doesn't know what his mother's so thankful for. She's nothing really, just an anxiety-ridden feminist whose dry sarcasm could rival Nico's.

"He cares about you so much," she continues just as quietly, "and I'm so thankful he has someone like you. I'm sorry about how all of this turned out. I'm so, so sorry. I never—I just wanted my son back." She pauses. "But it seems as if my son already has a home in someone else's heart."

She smiles, nods, and then sniffles as she hugs and kisses Chase goodnight. He hugs her back and then Leslie has a hand on Janet's shoulder as she leads her up the stairs to get her settled into one of the guest bedrooms, and then it's just Chase, Gert and Old Lace.

Chase takes a step towards Gert, and his movements are fidgety. "You're probably pissed I just uh, just assumed you wanted to help me, but you don't have to do anything you don't want to and I'll take the couch so that I'm not invading your personal space or anything—"

Gert feels like she needs to interrupt. "No!" Her voice comes out louder than she intends it to and the sudden noise makes Chase flinch. "No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't mean to yell. You um . . . I . . . I want to help you."

A smile lights up his face and it reminds Gert of the look Molly gets when she gets to use her superpowers. It's a smile that means trouble sometimes, but other times it's just a smile that means happiness.

Gert nods and moves past him after the silence stretches on too long. She makes it up three steps before turning towards him and holding out her hand. "You coming or what?" There's no bite behind her words, just an air of comfort and fake annoyance, and she didn't think it was possible but his smile grows even wider.

He takes a step towards her.

And then his hand closes around hers.

Old Lace settles right into her spot on the floor next to the right side of their shared bed, burrowing her head into the mushed pillow she loves and sighing. Gert and Chase watch from the doorway with knowing smiles and the moment's only broken by Gert moving over to her bag. She starts to dig through it, in search of something. Chase worries that she's lost her pills for an uneasy second as he takes a seat on the end of the bed, but then she's propping a sleeveless shirt, boxers and some wrinkled sweats on his lap.

As he looks down at the clothes, his heart hammers painfully. The only reason Gert even has his favorite shirt and some of his clothes is because he'd sling his stuff in her bag instead of his if they were ever in a hurry, or whenever he felt like it because that's where they were.

That's where they were, and he went and stabbed them all in the back, stabbed Gert in the back, just because he believed another one of his father's lies . . . another one of Jonah's lies. He was no better than their parents, playing into Jonah's hand. He was no better than murderers.

"Hey," Gert whispers as she places a hand over his knee, "what are you thinking about?"

Chase almost shakes his head. Don't burden her. Don't do it.

But that longing feeling inside of him wins, as it always does. Because when it comes to Gert, when it comes to Gert everything's on the table. It's not a burden if it's love, right?

"I was just thinking about," he takes a breath and readjusts his hands, "everything, you know? Everything that—that happened. My dad," he chokes on his words, shakes his head. "Jonah's alive, Gert. He jumps from host to host . . . we killed the host body, but we didn't kill the actual host. He's still out there, in my—my dad's body actually, and there's aliens in Stacey and Tina too. There's aliens everywhere, and I don't know where my dad is, if he's still alive, hell if Stacey and Tina are even still alive, and I shouldn't—I shouldn't care about what's happened to my dad, after, after everything but I do and it just makes me feel more shitty."

He chuckles, though it's dry, and humorless. "Aren't I a piece of shit for caring about that piece of shit?"

It's a lot to take in, he knows by the expression plastered across Gert's face, and it was probably too much to tell her all at once, but he couldn't hold it in anymore, and Karolina's probably telling the whole story to Nico right now anyway and Chase just wanted Gert to hear it from him over anyone else.

It's funny though, he thinks absently, what she takes in and then what she latches onto. Of course she latches onto that last part more than the whole 'Jonah is back' thing before it.

Her hand slides up to grip his, and she squeezes tight.

"You aren't," she articulates, firm in what she's saying, "you care about him because he's your dad." Then she laughs a little, shakes her head, "That's your superpower, Chase. You care so much about other people. Even if they're in the wrong, like your father, you still care, and that's something that not too many other people have."

Her eyes flicker between his eyes and his lips and Chase doesn't understand how this girl, this genius, beautiful, dinosaur telepathic of a girl, can like him as much as she does. He doesn't understand why she likes him, or why he loves her—no, scratch that, he knows why he loves her, who wouldn't?—and he doesn't understand how she can always bring him back from the black hole swallowing him whole.

That's her superpower. She's always able to bring him back.

"As for all that other stuff, I think that's a better conversation to have in the morning because my mind just cannot wrap around all of that right now. I'm more concerned about you. You look horrible," she finishes bluntly, and Chase chuckles.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he drones playfully and Gert rolls her eyes as she stands up and moves back over to her bag, digging through it some more before she pulls out a small tube of some crusty antibiotic cream and Band-Aids. She then moves to the adjoined bathroom and wets a small rag before coming over and sitting beside him on the bed, crossing her legs as she turns fully towards him.

"Now," she says, "let's get you fixed up."

She dabs the rag to his cheek as gently as possible, and Chase stays completely still as she wipes the remains of fresh blood away before applying the cream and the Band-Aid. He looks kind of funny, sitting there with an tacky brown Band-Aid slapped across his cheek, and Gert giggles, causing Chase to give her an even funnier look that makes her laugh even harder.

"What's—what is so funny?" He asks with his own laugh as she turns away, trying desperately to hide her laughter in the material of her raggedy sweater.

He grabs at her sides, and she's ticklish there he knows that and it makes her laugh harder as she fights to get out of his grip, squirming and laughing all the while. Somehow she ends up on her back and he ends up on top of her, and he's not fully straddling her because he wants to keep his weight off her, but he's close to it as the tickling suddenly ceases and he just stares. The smile doesn't leave Gert's lips as he leans down, as he leans in close, so close that their lips brush, and then pulls back so that he can move some of her hair out of her eyes.

When his fingers glide over a mark on the right side of her forehead that wasn't there before, it stops him. Gert tenses underneath him, and he knows there's a story to be told as he carefully slides off of her and sits up.

Gert exhales and does the same, and Chase reaches over and runs another finger over the scar, feeling guilty because he wasn't there to protect her from whatever had happened. Feeling guilty because he left her, alone.

"What happened?" He mumbles, his fingers idly sliding down her face to cup her chin and she reaches up and takes his wandering hand in her own, intertwining their fingers together.

"So the whole Stacy being an alien thing? That totally makes sense with how strange she's been acting . . . and how violent she's been. She cornered Molly and me in a market after we all split up to get away from the drones Alien-Tina sent after us, and then we split up to get away from Dale and Stacey. Dale went after Molly and she was able to get away, but Stacey came after me and . . . and I didn't think she would do . . . I was stuck in a shop, and she started talking and then the next thing I know I was out."

Chase is staring at her so intently that she feels that if he had the chance he'd go and rip Stacey to shreds right then and there with the Fistigons. "Go on," he murmurs after her pause goes on just a little too long, and she squeezes his hand before continuing.

"When I woke up, Dale had kidnapped Old Lace and me. She was locked in a trailer and I was locked behind a cage in the trunk of the family car. He said Stacey had been acting strange and that Molly had gotten away but I hadn't, so he snagged us and on the road we went."

Chase feels a twitch in the hand he has enclosed in his and his heart jumps worriedly.

"It um . . . it was scary. But not in the ordinary scary type of way, more like the scary where you uh, you um, don't know what's going to happen next? Like you don't know if you're going to wake up and be deserted in a desert or Old Lace is suddenly going to be gone or if you're heading back to the house that used to feel so safe but then you were locked in the basement in or if you're just never going to wake up again and just sleep forever."

Her grip on Chase's hand is vice-like.

"I was scared and I don't want to admit it but I was, and Dale was smart about it, it took me a while to even think of a plan which was time that could've been spend looking for you and Karolina but I had to get out of there, Chase, I had to, it—it was so small and cramped and I was always so hungry because he didn't feed Old Lace right and she doesn't like most of the stuff other dinosaurs like, but I couldn't even focus on that because the car—the—"

Something doesn't feel right. Something doesn't feel okay.

"Chase I—I think I need my pills," and she doesn't even know how she gets those words out but every other word seems to be catching in her throat, and she's not right, she's wrong, she's so, so wrong.

Just the thought of being trapped in such a little space like that of the car again tears at her gut and blends up her insides, pulling and clawing and pushing like she had with the metal. Just of the thought of being trapped traps her in her head, and she doesn't remember pulling her hand from Chase's or standing up and stumbling to the corner, and when he reaches out and touches her shoulder all she can feel is a dull throb in her head.

"Gert? Come back to me, Gert, come on. Where's your medicine?" He's not shouting but it sounds like he is in her head, and she presses her fingernails into her palm to try and numb the sound. "Gert come on. Come back to me." He sounds desperate, "Come back to me. Your meds, Gert, where are they?"

Her pills. The ones filled by Janet. The pills that make her feel better.

"Gert, please." The ones Chase is asking about.

Her tongue feels like lead in her mouth, and her gums like sandpaper.

"T-They—They're in the—they're downstairs. I—" I was so happy to see you I forgot my pills. "—on the kitchen table." Chase springs into action, promising over and over that he'll be right back, and then he's gone and Gert doesn't know if she prefers the silence or the—

Silence is powerful, and it's always in the wrong context. Silence is always powerful when you don't want it to be, like when you're trying to go to sleep at night or focus on anything other than that thing plaguing the back of your mind.

The silence is powerful and Gert is weak against it.

Suddenly, two pills are being pressed into her open hand.

"Take them," Chase urges, but his words are gentle, "take them Gert, they'll make you feel better. Please. Please."

Gert lifts her hand to dry swallow the pills, and immediately she feels better after. Chase takes both of her hands in his, and it's only then that he sees how oblivious he was, because her hands look like absolute shit and he hadn't noticed, too distracted by his own demons.

Some of her nails are chipped, and others are split in what looks like painful ways. The insides of her palms are discolored and there's some slight swelling around her wrists. There's red splotches and thin cuts in the lines of her hands, front and back, and Chase gingerly traces the more prominent ones. He feels like shit for not spotting the injuries sooner, and the overprotective part of him tells him that she needs a real hospital with a real doctor and real medicine—not some shitty runaway taking care of her instead.

She's focusing on her breathing more than him, but she can still pick up on the nervous energy buzzing around him as he inspects her hands. She still sees the frown overturn his lips and the crease that appears in his forehead as it scrunches up in tight-knit concern.

She closes one of his hands in hers.

"Chase. I trust you."

He wants to kiss her. He wants to plant his lips against hers and never pull away. But he shelves that feeling burning low in his gut, and instead nods and carefully leads her back to the edge of the bed. He then proceeds to use his own doctor skills to patch her up, applying cream and Band-Aids to her aching hands, and then leaving a series of soft kisses across her knuckles.

Gert's able to find her voice after and her hands feel a million times better already.

"Thank you," she whispers, sincere. "For everything."

Chase shakes his head, "I didn't do anything. I should've noticed sooner."

"No," she says, looking up at him, "for everything. For getting my meds, for fixing my hands, for . . . for coming back. Just—thank you. For not giving up on me. On us."

Chase's heart is beating faster and he doesn't know how much longer he can smother the feeling building within him. He opens his mouth, to say something, but then closes it shortly afterwards. There's not really a correct word that can convey what exactly he's feeling right now.

She smiles then. Her smile is soft and thankful. "Now go get changed so we can go to bed."

And of course, like the guy he is, he wiggles his eyebrows. "Trying to get me into bed, huh? I knew you couldn't get enough of me, Yorkes."

"Oh shut up," she groans but her eyes hold that twinkle he'll never get tired of seeing and he laughs all the way to the bathroom.

He doesn't bother to close the door, and Gert swears she looks away as he strips, but she can't help but look back when she sees a flash of purple in the mirror out of the corner of her eye. He's in the middle of pulling up his sweatpants as she takes in all the new bruises covering his torso, the new mingling with the old scars that still haven't faded, and her heart feels heavy. She watches him pull his shirt over his head with a wince and feels her heart grow even heavier.

She lays back in bed with a soft sigh, turning off the nightlight as she goes, and then Chase is following her under the thin covers. They end up facing each other, their fingertips touching on the middle pillow between them and she can see the shadow of a smile on his face when she entwines their pinkies.

Her voice is unsure in the darkness surrounding them.

"Promise me something?"

Her and Molly used to do pinky promises all the time. She wonders if Chase has ever pinky promised somebody something. Sometimes she wonders if he even had a childhood with how his father was . . . with how his father is.

Chase moves closer. His pinky is heavy against her own.

"Don't you mean pinky promise you something?" He murmurs, and Gert knows he wants her to laugh, but this is . . . this is serious to her, it is, and he needs to know that. He sobers up when she doesn't laugh and before he can apologize when he doesn't need to or do something like it, Gert speaks.

"Promise me you won't leave. Not again."

The words hang in the air. Chase moves even closer and he holds her pinky tight. His lips brush against hers. She yearns for more. "I wish I had never left in the first place," he finally says, tone deep and certain and—and promising. He closes the distance between them and his lips press into hers, the kiss hard, the feeling soft. She kisses back with the same amount of intensity. He doesn't let her move the hand his pinky is tethered to so she moves her other one just so that she can touch him somewhere else, and her hand ends up gripping at his forearm.

When he pulls back they're both breathing hard, and he smiles before pressing closer so that he can duck his head into her open shoulder. He leaves lazy kisses there, from her shoulder to her neck, and then when he reaches the shell of her ear, he whispers, "I promise," and releases her pinky finger.

She wastes no time in slipping both of her hands under his shirt and dragging them upwards as he drags his lips back to hers, kissing more fiercely, more lovingly, because oh how he's missed her.

.

into the deep of the blue
ride and die with you