#elliot x cross brothers 002.

[ofwrxth]

+ ISLA / THE BAR

Elliot exhales as he sets down another beam inside the bar, going back to his repair task. It's been several weeks since the run to Nelson and even more since his and Hunter's run to Cache Creek. There've been half a dozen runs since then, and hundreds before, all fruitless. They all leave Elliot with empty hands and a hollow heart. But he keeps on because if he stops, he knows he'll shatter. Already held together by the thinnest of threads, he wakes up each morning feeling like Atlas. The world settles on his shoulders as his last bit of hope seems to sustain him enough to see each day through to its end. Even as he does shifts that keep him in town, that take him away from his search, he gets through them. And when there are days he's certain that small flame has gone out altogether, his family fights to keep it burning. To keep him going. It's why he can be here now, helping his brothers with the bar, focusing on the moments when things don't feel so heavy.

The repairs had started a few weeks back, but they'd been unable to complete it with other needs in town. Elliot recalls Wolf's words about how fast the town is growing, how many homes need building. He might've felt regret before for how the supplies are being used now, but he can't bring himself to feel remorse. Not really. Not when the fight had let him feel something other than his own despair. The pain of each blow, the satisfaction of doling out his own – it had all blocked the ache in his chest. "Who's call d'ya think it was to separate our repair shift from theirs?" Elliot asks aloud, jerking his chin in the direction of the west side and the vampires who resided there. He wipes his brow with a rag and continues to help repair the beam his head and Wolf's body had nearly bulldozed.

Working alongside his brothers is a good distraction, even if he'd rather be out searching. The only thing Elliot found on his last run that week was disappointment. So this work becomes a solace of sorts: actually accomplishing something helps him feel sane. Elliot hears his brothers talking around him as he hammers away, but his mind is somewhere else. H's running over routes and turning over maps in his head, thinking of the next run, the next search, the next stop. Nail. Hammer. Town. Nail. Hammer. Facility. Nail. Hammer. Another map. Nail. Hammer. Elliot. Nail. Hammer. Town. Nail. Elliot. Hammer. Elliot! He freezes, hammer hovering over a nail and he looks around for a beat, at his brothers working, at the beam before him. At the hammer in his hand. He waits for a beat. And then another before he takes another nail from between his teeth, going to hammer again. Nail. Elliot! Elliot drops the nails and hammer in a clatter to the sawdust covered floor. Before he can think, his feet are already moving and he's tearing out of the bar. He'd know her voice anywhere.

[ofwrxth]

It feels like Elliot’s moving through honey. He’s frozen outside the bar, hearing the voice he’s dreamed of for years calling his name. But he's stuck in place, feet rooted to the ground as his mind tries to process what his eyes are seeing. She’s here. She’s alive. “Isla.” He chokes out her name and the years shrink to nothing before him. Thousands of miles evaporate as he takes one hesitant step, and then another, and then he's running. Elliot races to close the distance between them, colliding with Isla as she meets him with the same vigor. His arms encircle her as his heart tries to escape from between his ribcage. There's nothing that can tear him from this moment, not the whispers, not the onlookers. They don't even register because she's here. She's here and she's alive. Like a man who's thrown a rope after months at sea, Elliot clings to her. He repeats her name like a prayer through tears.

How long has he thought of this moment? Agonized over it? How many days and weeks and months had gone by with Elliot trying to keep this one hope alive. And now here she is, in his arms. But even as her hands run across his face, and hair and arms, he doesn't know if it's real. If she's real. Even as he runs his hands over her face, and hair and arms, he doesn't know if this is actually happening. If it's not, he doesn't want to know. "Isla," he says her name again and doesn't even notice the dampness on his cheeks as he presses his forehead to hers. "I'm so sorry," his voice cracks as his arms tighten around her, somehow keeping them both upright. "I'm so sorry." I'm so sorry it took so long. I never stopped looking for you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. He's so focused on Isla, on anchoring himself to her, that he doesn't see the looks of slow-growing concern around him.

;

She could do all of this with her eyes closed now, feeling as if it's all happened a thousand times before. Because it has. Reach a town boundary, walk while escorted within until she has to give her name and details. Isla Alvarez. Is it just you? Yes. She can't give her sister's name anymore, she can't give her daughters. Their names are now given when she's asked who she's looking for, along with a name that she's given for three years at every single town. Elliot Cross. And while she does this all from a rehearsed script, a muscle memory, Isla scans the town hall. The faces may as well be a blur to her because not one of them belong to who she looks for. Who she can't stop thinking about at every waking moment, or dreaming of when she finally is able to sleep. There's a dullness in her now, not quite knowing how much more she can go on. Keep going. I am. It's repeated over and over again, knowing Elliot wouldn't stop so neither can she. But from the corner of her eye she notices a look from the other wolf after the name Cross is mentioned. That's never happened before and it brings Isla out of the haze that she's been existing in for...it feels like forever. Every dead end, every empty answer. It's become what she expects until now. There's a Cross pack here, let me just- not sure wher- Isla has abandoned her place in line before the words even finish. She can hear she's being called after but she doesn't care. It's them, it has to be them. It's him.

She doesn't know where she needs to run only that east side is where the wolves are and she isn't sure how her legs are still carrying her, other than the almighty rush of knowing they're here, it's them. It's him. "Elliot!" she calls, desperate and loud and suddenly nothing is a haze any more. It's a speeding blur as she runs but she is scanning every detail to either side of her and ahead, or turning in case he will appear behind her. "Elliot!" another call sounding out louder than she thought she could be as she looks at every cabin, every face, every bit of life. Even while she hears the bustle of movement, it's her rising heart beat that thunders in her ears. No, it has to be them. He has to be here. The fear creeps in as she screams again, "Elliot!" it's pleading and terrified that this is another dead end, that maybe she wasn't listening properly. And the fear turns to tears within an instant, that all too familiar drop of her heart that he isn't here. He has to be, he- he's there. She sees him. He appears as if he's just always been there. As if they had just had a day apart and then there he is, just there. He's there. Except it hasn't been a day, it's been years and even when she thinks she's cried as much as she can during them- the tears flood from her like she could never stop. Isla sobs out in a relief that she's been grasping for. It's him. Her pace quickens all over again to reach him, almost scrambling on her own footing as she rushes. Faster than she even has the energy to be until she's colliding with him, nearly collapsing once she reaches him. She's grabbing his arms and then his face, his shoulders, his hands, his face again. Like she's checking this is real. It's real. It's him, it's him. "Oh my God." the words are barely even audible, a noise of shock, surprise, relief, sadness. Every single emotion all there in the way she clutches at him and falls into him.