Title: Gone Astray
Fandoms: Shattered (TV)
Characters: Ella Sullivan, (Ben Sullivan)
Rating: Teen (drug use, minor swearing)
Length: 299 words
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, I don't own them, I derive no profit from their use.
Notes: Also fulfills the "astray" prompt at ds-snippets.
Summary: Ella listens to the sound of Ben not coming home and knows what it means.


Ella sits on the bed, listening to the absence of footsteps in the kitchen, voices in the den, little noises of life anywhere in the empty house.  Adam’s missing sounds have kept her company for years (it’s years already, except in her heart, where the day he vanished is always yesterday).  But tonight, they’re blended with another silence: the sound of Ben not coming home.

Once upon a time she would have worried about him the way a cop’s wife worries.  The job’s still just as dangerous, but she knows that’s not why Ben is missing.

It’s started again.  The blackouts.  She knows what’s coming next: Ben staying out all night, missing phone calls, breaking dates, forgetting promises.  Losing time, losing things, losing track.  His hair already smells of cigarettes.  Soon it’ll be booze on his breath, perfume on his skin.

And when she calls him on it, Ben will look confused and wounded, betrayed by her lack of trust and support.

Other women can yell and make demands when their husbands stray.  But Ben has the perfect excuse for any bad behavior: I don’t remember.  It wasn’t me. Multiple personality disorder: the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.

Goddamnit, she’s lost her only child, surely she’s the one who deserves support?  And yes, all right, it’s hard for Ben too, she knows that.  But when things get too much for him to bear he can disappear, really disappear and become someone who doesn’t hurt and won’t remember.  There’s no escape for her.  No escape, no change, no comfort.

Instead of crying, she pulls the strap tight around her arm.  This isn’t what she needs; of course it isn’t.  But at least she knows what to expect after the needle eases into her vein.  It’s the only comfort she can count on.