The Inside fic: Rebecca/Gem - Home
Title: Home
Fandom: The Inside
Pairing: Rebecca/Gem
Rating: PG
Word count: 555
Prompt: femslash100's 300th Challenge Celebration, Damaged Goods (I just made it a little too long to post)
AO3: here
Spoilers: 1x12
A/N: For aphrodite_mine, because not only was it her prompt but with anything to do with this fandom she's pretty much my muse.
--
When the case was over, Webb had told them no one was to be in the office for at least 12 hours. He said, looking straight at her, it was time to go home.
Rebecca wasn't sure she'd ever had a home. It was a thing that implied familiarity, stability and comfort, none of which had been great descriptors in her life. At the moment for her, home was a computer, phone full of voicemail messages from Corey and countless boxes of files detailing the depths of human depravity.
No, she thought, the last time I had a home I was a different person. With a different name.
Inside her apartment for less than an hour and she was at her computer, cup of instant noodles in one hand, mouse in the other as she scrolled through a list of old missing person cases, not yet ready to forget the girl Gem and all she had suffered through. The tentative knock at her door hours later didn't register through her focus until after the sound had died away.
She pushed away from the desk and rubbed at her dry eyes trying to make them see something other than the phantom light left by the computer screen. She opened the door without thought, her mind still thinking about little girls who have a home to go to, but haven't yet found their way.
When she looked up, the corridor before her was empty. Stepping out she looked one way and then the other, pausing in her motion at the still figure to her right. In the dimly lit hall, Rebecca had no doubt of who the girl was.
"Angelica?" The girl shuddered in response. If Rebecca had been anyone else, Mel maybe, she might have tried to comfort her.
"Please don't call me that." She whispered.
"Why are you here? How did know where I live?"
"The hard man with the sad eyes told me to come to you. He said," she looked up at the blond with empty, seeking eyes. "You would understand."
Rebecca looked over the shorter woman, the body held tighter and lower than necessary, the clothes picked out by her mother, the scars that weren't visible unless you held the same. She thought back to the bedroom that showed a stunted personality, one driven by the needs and wants of others, both similar and different to her own bare apartment.
When her eyes fell back to the girl's face, unable after all her years of abuse to show an emotion such as hope, she saw within them a flash of Becky George and felt her heart clench.
If there had been a Rebecca to show Becky out of the dark all of those years ago, if there had been a Rebecca to show her how to live, she might have had a home to go to tonight. If she could give that to someone - if she could give that to Gem - well, Webb never did anything without a reason.
She tried to smile but ended up frowning at the result as she opened the door wider and let the tentative girl walk in ahead of her. "The best way to start," she began while sliding the chain onto the door and turning back to her new charge. "Is with a name."
--
Fandom: The Inside
Pairing: Rebecca/Gem
Rating: PG
Word count: 555
Prompt: femslash100's 300th Challenge Celebration, Damaged Goods (I just made it a little too long to post)
AO3: here
Spoilers: 1x12
A/N: For aphrodite_mine, because not only was it her prompt but with anything to do with this fandom she's pretty much my muse.
--
When the case was over, Webb had told them no one was to be in the office for at least 12 hours. He said, looking straight at her, it was time to go home.
Rebecca wasn't sure she'd ever had a home. It was a thing that implied familiarity, stability and comfort, none of which had been great descriptors in her life. At the moment for her, home was a computer, phone full of voicemail messages from Corey and countless boxes of files detailing the depths of human depravity.
No, she thought, the last time I had a home I was a different person. With a different name.
Inside her apartment for less than an hour and she was at her computer, cup of instant noodles in one hand, mouse in the other as she scrolled through a list of old missing person cases, not yet ready to forget the girl Gem and all she had suffered through. The tentative knock at her door hours later didn't register through her focus until after the sound had died away.
She pushed away from the desk and rubbed at her dry eyes trying to make them see something other than the phantom light left by the computer screen. She opened the door without thought, her mind still thinking about little girls who have a home to go to, but haven't yet found their way.
When she looked up, the corridor before her was empty. Stepping out she looked one way and then the other, pausing in her motion at the still figure to her right. In the dimly lit hall, Rebecca had no doubt of who the girl was.
"Angelica?" The girl shuddered in response. If Rebecca had been anyone else, Mel maybe, she might have tried to comfort her.
"Please don't call me that." She whispered.
"Why are you here? How did know where I live?"
"The hard man with the sad eyes told me to come to you. He said," she looked up at the blond with empty, seeking eyes. "You would understand."
Rebecca looked over the shorter woman, the body held tighter and lower than necessary, the clothes picked out by her mother, the scars that weren't visible unless you held the same. She thought back to the bedroom that showed a stunted personality, one driven by the needs and wants of others, both similar and different to her own bare apartment.
When her eyes fell back to the girl's face, unable after all her years of abuse to show an emotion such as hope, she saw within them a flash of Becky George and felt her heart clench.
If there had been a Rebecca to show Becky out of the dark all of those years ago, if there had been a Rebecca to show her how to live, she might have had a home to go to tonight. If she could give that to someone - if she could give that to Gem - well, Webb never did anything without a reason.
She tried to smile but ended up frowning at the result as she opened the door wider and let the tentative girl walk in ahead of her. "The best way to start," she began while sliding the chain onto the door and turning back to her new charge. "Is with a name."
--