Saving Grace (707XReader)

Staring At The Sky

|You know... when I feel depressed, I stare at the sky. You should try it next time you feel depressed.|
Seven led her out of the apartment building and down the street. They walked in silence for a while, just aimlessly. He was looking up to the sky, his hands in his pockets while she was looking at her feet, walking close to him so that if he turned, she would know, and if a person started walking towards her, he could pull her out of the way. They were walking for a while and just when _____ was going to ask where they were going, Seven turned into a park. They walked until they found an empty bench and Seven sat down, patting the spot next to him. When she sat down, he spoke.
"Remember what I told you a while ago? About looking at the sky?"
"Sort of."
He chuckled slightly. "I guess I should remind you," he said and looked at her. "I said that I do it when I'm depressed and that you should try it. I don't know what it is about the sky, but looking at it just... makes me feel better some times."
_____ looked at him for a moment before she turned her head and started to look at the sky like Seven had told her. Despite how she was feeling, it was blue and there were fluffy clouds moving across the sky. She could see a flock of birds flying, too. The whole scene felt a little contradictory to her. Her life was so dark right now, but the sky... it was so bright and, if she had to put an emotion to it, happy. Surprisingly, though, what Seven said was right. It was actually making her feel a little better. The pain didn't seem as bad, manageable almost.
"Well?" he asked, a hint of teasing in his voice. "Did I give you good advice or was it completely wasted, be honest now."
When _____ looked at him, she saw the smile on his face and she returned it with a small one of her own, hoping he would understand the meaning behind it.
"Thank you, Seven," she said.
He brushed his hand over her arm lightly before slipping it back into his pocket. "You don't need to thank me," he said. "I told you this before."
"You know for a fact you can't stop me from saying what I want," she said and bumped his arm with her shoulder.
His smile widened just a faction. "Now there is the _____ that I know," he teased and then stood up. "If I'm going to be living on your couch, I'm going to need to pick up a few things from home," he said. "Care to come with me or would you rather promise me that you won't do anything before I get back?"
_____ bowed her head and thought a moment. She never saw Seven's house before and despite everything, she was rather curious. She also knew that she probably shouldn't be alone right now because if she was, she would start thinking again, and thinking as the exact opposite of what she should be doing. But she also didn't particularly feel like going anywhere either. She sighed.
"I'll go with you," she said and stood up.
"Cool, come on," he said and started walking towards where he parked his car.
It was a silent walk and she followed mostly behind him because it was more crowded outside now. As the crowd got denser, there was almost a time where she lost him, but just before she did, she felt him grab her by the wrist and guide her hand onto his sleeve. He smiled back at her.
"Don't want anyone to try to steal you from me," he joked before he kept walking.
She couldn't think of any witty remark to counter what he said. She actually kind of missed the days of mock flirting, but right now, that word didn't really seem to be in her vocabulary. She also didn't want to give him the wrong idea and make him think that she had feelings for him. She just got out of a relationship, one that she thought was really good, and jumping right into another one would be wrong. But still, a small part of her entertained the idea of talking to Seven like she used to in the chat rooms. It might even help bring back a sense of normalcy into her life.
She was abruptly snapped out of her thoughts when Seven stopped walking and she ran into his back, getting a face full of black and yellow jacket. She stepped back and looked at him. He wasn't looking at her, instead he opened the car door for her.
"After you," he smiled.
She gave him a small smile back. "Such a gentleman, God Seven~" she said.
A little red tinted his cheeks and he ruffled her hair before closing the door and walked to the driver's side. Once he was in, he started the car. "Next stop, the fortress that is my home."
They drove in silence and _____ found herself looking out the window, towards the horizon, and thoughts swirled around her head. The same thoughts from earlier before Seven came over and... She took a deep breath to try to calm herself, but it didn't work out that way. One deep breath led to another and another and another.
A hand on her leg stopped her just before she started to hyperventilate. She looked to her side and Seven looked at her for a second before turning his attention back on the road, putting his hand back on the wheel.
"Talk to me," he said. "What are you thinking?"
_____ hesitated a moment and then sighed. "I just... I don't know anymore. What to do, what to think. I want to understand what went wrong. Part of me wants the chance to fix everything, but then the other part..."
"The other part what?" he asked.
She shook her head. "This is what I was thinking just before I went to the bathroom..." she confessed. He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "I'm here for you. You can tell me and I won't let anything happen to you," he said.
She sighed. "The other part of me is afraid that if we do get back together that something like this would happen again and I wouldn't be able to handle it. And I keep thinking that if we do get back together, the only way to prevent it from happening again, would be to give up everything I have; my sanity, my mental stability, everything; just to make him happy and keep him with me. The way he's acting now, it almost seems like my problems never meant anything to him, that he thought all of my problems; my relationship with my mother and sister, issues at home, stressful days; were completely meaningless. He's making it seem like that I cared more about my problems then I did about his, when I only complained to him in the moment and it was never anything overarching. But with him... his were deeper and would take a while to resolve and he placed all of that responsibility on me and now that he dumped me, he's trying to make it seem like I never cared about him, that everything wrong with how he ended things was my fault. I don't know what I would be able to do if something like that happened again," she reached up and clutched the leather that held the two promise rings she was supposed to give him. "I want to be able to forgive him and build a stronger relationship if he does come back to me, but at the same time, I'm not sure that would be the right thing to do..."
Seven frowned as he listened to her. "I can't give you the answer to that because it's not my place to tell you what to do. Just know that whatever you do decide to do, I will be there and I will help you through it," he said and reached up, pressing a button on a device clipped to his sun visor. "I do know one thing, _____," he said as he looked at her as he pulled the car into his garage. "You'll make the right choice, the choice that will ultimately make you happy. And that's all I want. Your happiness."
She looked at him and smiled. "Thank you, Seven," she said.
He put the car in park and ruffled her hair. "You're welcome," he said and then got out of the car. "Wait here, I'll call you when the door is open," he smirked. "Can't have you knowing all my secrets yet~"
She couldn't help but giggle. She nodded and watched from the rear view mirror as he walked towards the door. She let out a sigh and then pulled out her phone and found herself scrolling through some old photos. A grave mistake on her part. On her phone were photos of her... ex... looking happy, smiling. A sad smile found its way onto her face as she looked at a saved snapchat picture where he had stuffed his face with grapes. Or a picture where he was holding the new born child of her older adoptive brother. She opened up the picture she took of him from his most recent haircut and found herself staring at it, remember all the times when they were happy, laughing with each other, just being idiots and kissing.
That's when her phone rang, the picture of Seven appearing on the screen. She slid her finger across the screen. "When you said call, I didn't think you meant on the phone. Couldn't you have just shouted?" she asked, internally cursing when her voice sounded like she had been crying.
She could see him frown from the rearview mirror. "Come here and talk to me," he said simply and hung up the phone.
_____ sighed and locked her phone before she could look at the picture again and got out of the car, walking over to where Seven was waiting in the doorway. He pushed up his glasses when she stood in front of him and looked down at her.
"What happened?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I was just looking through my pictures and I came across the ones of him and well... I look at him and I remember the good times. And then I remember how he broke my heart and how cold he was when I went to talk to him a week after and I just..." she shook and stopped talking.
Seven reached out and picked her up in his arms and carried her inside. He didn't say anything as he walked her into the living room and set her down gently on the couch. He sat down next to her and put his arm over her shoulder and pulled her so she was leaning on him.
"I know how much this hurts," he said. "Something is missing, you feel like everything from this area," he place a hand just under her collar bone, near her heart, but was careful not to accidentally grope her, "is gone and you feel incomplete. I know what that's like. I wish I could take the pain from you so you don't have to deal with it, I really do," he rested his chin on the top of her head. "You're strong. You will get through this. You'll be even stronger when it's over. That's my promise to you."
_____ wrapped her arms around him and hugged him awkwardly, burying her head in his shoulder. "You know, I'm kind of embarrassed," she said, her voice muffled in his jacket.
"Why?"
"You're seeing me like this, ugly crying, being the worst version of myself. Not even he's seen me like this. I don't even know if he cares," she said.
He smoothed out her hair. "I don't mind. Honestly, I'm actually honored that I'm here to help you, that you trust me enough to see you like this," he said. "No one can see me in my darkest moments, so getting to see other people and help them through theirs, especially yours, it makes me feel honored."
She squeezed him a bit and then let go, leaning back and sitting up on her own. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and slipped it into his. "Go get your things."
"You sure you trust me with your phone?" She nodded. "If I have it, I'll just end up torturing myself," she said and smiled weakly at him.
He nodded and stood up. "All right, make yourself comfortable. I shouldn't be too long," he said. "If you really want, you can explore a bit."
"All right, thank you Seven."
"You seriously need to stop thanking me," he joked and then walked out of the living room towards his room.
When he was gone, _____ sat there for just a moment longer before she started feeling restless. Her fingers itched to open up her phone and scroll through social media or something, but she also knew that when she saw him posting things like nothing was wrong, she wouldn't be able to handle it. Especially if it was things about relationships and negative things that her paranoid mind immediately took as a passive aggressive jab at her. So instead, she stood up and started walking around. His home was a mess. She wasn't exactly the tidiest person in the world either, but Seven's home looked like a tornado blew through followed by a category 5 hurricane. Empty cans of Dr. Pepper were littered on the floor as well as bags of Honey Buddha Chips.
Automatically she started to gather all of the garbage and put it all in one place before she realized that she would need some garbage bags. One for recycling and one for just straight up garbage. She looked through his cabinets in the kitchen until she found a box of trash bags. She grabbed two and then started gathering up the soda cans in one bag and empty chip bags in the other. That's how Seven found her when he returned with a duffle bag with what she assumed to be his clothes, and an over the shoulder computer bag with his most important computer gear for his work.
"You know, when I said explore the house, I didn't exactly mean clean it," he said, his voice sounding particularly teasing.
_____ looked over her shoulder at him as she threw in the last Dr. Pepper can she could see in it. "I was getting restless. And I didn't want to accidentally go somewhere you didn't want me too."
Seven put his bags on the couch and walked over to her, taking the trash bags out of her hands and tying them off for her. "Well, I guess I should say thank you to you for doing a little cleaning and not snooping around," he said and bumped her lightly with his shoulder. "But you really didn't have to. Ms. Vanderwood would have taken care of it."
_____ shrugged. "It gave me something to do. And I was happy to help. It kept me distracted enough."
"Then maybe I should hire you as my maid instead~" he joked.
_____ couldn't help but giggle at that, just a short burst, but a laugh nonetheless. Seven's grin widened and bumped her again before he brought the trash bags over towards the door to the garage.
"Now that's something I was trying to get out of you all day," he said.
"Well, then you must be a master, God Seven. Making depressed women laugh despite themselves," she joked lightly.
"It's just the first step of my 7 step process," he said and then grabbed his bags. "Come on, let's grab some soda and chips and then head back to your apartment."
_____ nodded and then followed him out of his home and to his car.
|How long have you been staring at the sky?|