i never was ready, so i watch you go

ii

It could've ended any other way.

Kate would've been fine if Yelena left straight after the school year. That way, it gave her time to prepare herself. To say goodbyes. She would've been okay with the Russian moving away and never seeing her again if it meant they ended on good terms and that she had tangible memories to hold on to.

But leaving on her birthday? Without telling her a single word, and then 'breaking up' with her over the phone, or at least cutting off whatever they had for a year, causing Kate to vigorously search for the blonde for the next few years, her heart aching and yearning for the one person who hurt her the most?

Kate hated her after that. She hated her birthday ever since she turned seventeen, because each December 11th would now symbolize the day that Yelena left her without telling her in advance, and breaking up with her over the phone. It symbolized the death of the one-year period when Kate felt alive. The only time she'd felt alive.

After Yelena left, she became number than she was beforehand. If that was even possible. The Widow had helped her discover the real truth about her father, was the only one there for Kate when she broke down crying for him, when she visited his grave over and over again trying to move on from her murderous, psychotic father, and despite herself, the archer had built a skyscraper of self-worth on Yelena. Her cornerstone, her central piece.

And she left without a word. Ripped out any sense of sanity Kate had left and left her with nothing. No revenge to seek on her father, no ambition to make her mother proud, no nothing. Just a broken teenage girl and the trail of blood wrapped around her hands.

So even when she graduated high school and her mother immediately started sharing some of Bishop Security's CEO responsibilities with Kate, she felt it. The pain and hollow feeling when she touches her lips where Yelena used to kiss her, the stinging hurt when she stares at the spots of her body the Russian used to touch, the crook in her neck where she used to rest her head on.

Everything hurt.

So. Fucking. Much.

Kate wasn't a poet; she never was, but where other people turned to words to express their feelings, she punched. She punched until every muscle in her body felt sore and when her knuckles hurt so much that it almost outlawed the hole in her heart, and when just going to the gym wasn't enough, she went back to SWORD. Picked out as many missions as she could, and for a brief moment of time, she wondered if this was what her father felt like.

Feeling so lost and grieved that you'd kill, because if she couldn't have happiness, why should other people?

"That's the period of my life that I regret the most, Paige." Kate's voice cracks and her eyes water not for the first time that night, and the redhead feels her chest heave. "I killed so many people. I wasn't anything better than my father. All I wanted was revenge, and I didn't have anyone to take it out on, so I took it out on anybody and everybody that SWORD told me to, and you must know how inconsistent their database is, if you keep up with the news. Sometimes I think back to when Yelena first opened up to me and I wonder what it'd be like if she pulled the trigger. So many lives would still be here now. Including hers."

"Kate," Paige whispers, feeling absolutely torn. "Don't say that. You're here for a reason; I can feel it, and you're telling me what happened now. It'll be okay. It's all part of healing, of getting better. You're not broken, and you're still alive now." The brunette turns to her and it's in that instant that Paige knows that Kate has finally let her walls down and, before she knows it, she's hugging the older woman so tightly that she isn't sure if Kate is breathing, but she eventually hugs her back, the two women embraced in each other's arms and tears for an extended amount of time.