till forever falls apart

night at the hospital

"There is," Natasha sits at the end of Yelena's bed, "but they both act like they're five, so it's not a big deal."

"And Lena was blipped, so it's a lot less than it would've been," Kate holds on to Yelena's hand a little tighter, not mentioning the fact that she's always been attracted to people older than her. (Case in point would be Carol, and that's not a conversation she's willing to have. Especially now that she's met the woman and realized it was more admiration than any real feelings.)

Carol nods, "Got it. When is your fiancée coming, Nat? I haven't really met her and I've only heard good things."

"Soon," Natasha smiles softly, and Kate can't help but notice that look in her eyes that she has whenever she talks about Wanda. She wonders if that's what she looks like when she talks about Yelena.

She hopes so. It's a good look.

-

If Yelena's honest, she likes Carol. She thinks she understands why Kate likes her. But she doesn't like the fact that Kate likes her.

So, she's relieved when Carol tells them that she has other matters to attend to and is quickly followed by Natasha and Wanda and Anya. It's been a long day and she's just happy to be alone with Kate.

Though, she doesn't know what's up with Kate. She's been weird and unpredictable and distant. And while Kate's normal weird is endearing, the versions she's been shown recently are more concerning than anything and Yelena really doesn't like that.

Their conversations have flitted around during a few rounds of UNO, from wow, Captain Marvel, huh? to Thank god Natasha offered to stay with the dogs and other easy surface-level things. But Yelena wants to know and finally finds herself asking, "Why did you react so weirdly about my choice earlier?"

Kate shrinks a little bit, almost coming to a full stop in her next move. But she puts the card down - a blue one - and responds, "I didn't mean to."

"Well," Yelena puts her card down, a wild card, "Red. How did you mean to react?"

"I don't know," Kate shrugs, picking a card from the deck, "More quietly, probably. My mom always told me that I should work on keeping my thoughts to myself."

"That's not what I'm talking about," Yelena replies, "I just want to know why you were so shocked."

"We didn't talk about it," Kate says softly, eyes trained on the game in front of her, "we normally talk about these things before, so... I don't know. It was a little blindsiding, I guess."

"I'm sorry," Yelena sets down her cards on the table and moves it out of the way, "I should've talked to you about it first."

"It's okay," Kate assures her softly, putting her cards down as well, "How'd you decide, anyway? Last night, you were really conflicted about it."

"This morning," Yelena opens her arms for Kate and pulls her into her arms, a clear switch from what had become their new normal. But she wants to hold Kate this time around and she's relieved when Kate settles against her. "I woke up on the floor. And I thought... I realized that I can't keep living like this. I can't live in this chemo-filled hell anymore. I'm exhausted and bored and sick..." her voice breaks a little, "If an amputation is going to get me away from this, I'll do it. I almost wish I chose it in the beginning."

"You still have chemo ahead of you," Kate reminds her, "and you're going to have a chance of relapse in the future, detka."

"I know," Yelena nods, "but, it's significantly reduced. And I'd much rather take that than a chance that a different combination of drugs will make me feel like dying."