Inheritance of ash

day three - part one

Liane did not challenge the lie. She chose a different tack. "Have you been using it?" she asked, nodding to the beige loop.

Vicky let out a humorless little smile. "Yeah." The smile was too small to be prideful. It was admission enough for now.

"OK." Liane's pen hesitated a fraction as she made a note, then put the notebook on her knee and folded her hands. "How long has it been since you last..."

She didn't quite finish the phrase; the room recognized the missing word and let it sit there.

Vicky lied again, the way people did out of habit. "Weeks," she said, because weeks sounded safer than the actual math. "I don't really— I don't remember."

Liane's mouth softened. "You don't have to say everything if you don't want to," she murmured. The permission was no more than a kindness until, this time, it was different.

Liane didn't let the conversation slide away. She drew in a breath and met Vicky's eyes. "But Vicky, I'm going to press you on this, because I'm worried."

The worry was steady, clinical, not theatrical, and it made Vicky flinch in a way that was almost involuntary. She found her fingers worrying the band on her wrist and snapped it once, a soft, inward sound.

"I stole a lighter," she said, all at once, the words tripping out faster than she'd planned.

Liane waited.

"From the gift shop at the hospital. I wanted it... in case." Her voice went small around the edges. "In case I needed it."

Liane's handwriting made a quiet rustle across the page. She looked up, not surprised, not shocked — a quiet, neutral curiosity that made Vicky more honest than she had intended to be.

"In case you needed to burn?"

Vicky swallowed. The admission landed like a stone and she let it sink. "Yeah," she whispered. "Just in case."

The clinic clock ticked, an ordinary metronome. Liane set down her pen. "Did the urge come?" she asked, gently.

"Multiple times," Vicky said, and there was a brittle little laugh in it that sounded like a reprimand. "But I didn't do it. Not until we got back home. Less than three days ago."

The number had the taste of truth, bitter and clear. She hadn't meant to say it aloud, and yet the confession felt like setting down something heavy. It made the rest of her feel unaccountably lighter.

Liane made a small, nonjudgmental noise. "Thank you for telling me. That took a lot." She tilted her head, as if listening to the way the words sat in the space between them.

"Your honesty is important," Liane said, breath-steady, steady enough to anchor. "I want us to be practical. There are ways to reduce your access to things that can harm you. Would you be willing to give me the lighter?"

Vicky's hand closed around the band on her wrist like it was life-support. "No," she said before she could stop herself. "I can't."

Liane nodded slowly. "Okay. Then what about giving it to someone you trust? Not me. Someone in your life you trust to keep it safe."

Vicky's throat worked. She thought of Tony, of a thousand ways he'd tried to be overbearing and protective; she thought of Steve, of the way he walked with a weariness that broke and terrified at once. Then, the thought arrived with a sudden, jagged clarity.

Her voice was steadier than she felt. "Natasha."

Liane's eyes took this in, and a small, approving smile curved at one corner of her mouth. "All right. Natasha it is."