till forever falls apart

hitting a wall

and here we go.... things have to get worse before they get better

The two-month mark finds Yelena in a very particular flavor of hell.

She's never wanted to be dead more - and when she tries to explain it to Isabel she feels like she's two bad stringing of words together from being sent to the psych ward, but it's not that she wants to die. She wants to have the freedom that's been stripped from her time and time again. She wants to travel and be with Kate and enjoy her life for more than ten seconds at a time. What has her wanting to die, though, is how she's half-convinced that she's never going to get to that spot.

So, there's the part of her that's in the midst of an existential crisis, completely dumbfounded on whether or not there's a point to this stupid existence and wanting to get rid of it completely. But she doesn't want to die exactly - maybe just... skip to the good part.

But that's not how any of this works. And her knee still hurts. And she still can't do most of anything by herself (though that hasn't stopped her, much to the dismay of Dr. Perez). And now, apparently, thanks to chemotherapy literally poisoning the shit out of her, the sniffles can get her stuck in the hospital for a week. During allergy season.

This whole thing is a load of bullshit.

The worst part of it all, the part that makes her skin crawl and makes her want to cave in on herself until nothing's left, is the way she can see Kate's soul slowly disappearing.

She's found herself wondering how long it will take before Kate throws in the towel - decides that she's not worth all of this suffering, decides that Yelena's tragedies are just hers and not theirs, decides to leave with Lucky and leave Yelena alone in what's become their apartment.

This Kate is barely the Kate that she fell in love with. She's quiet and exhausted and overly cautious with anything. Even when the Bartons came to visit, they noticed it. Laura had pulled Kate aside and asked her what was wrong and was met with more brooding than anything. (The only reason Yelena knows this is because she eavesdropped on a conversation with Laura and Clint, but she digresses.)

She wonders if Kate sleeps anymore. She used to sleep through the night, but every time Yelena's woken in the middle of the night because her stomach couldn't handle dinner or she had slept straight through the afternoon, Kate's been wide awake.

But she can't think too much about that today. Today's her scans. The scans that are supposed to tell them if the chemotherapy is working as it should and getting rid of the stupid tumor and the stupid cancer and saving her life.

Before that, though, Natasha's coming over for the morning before they have to head over because apparently, she has a wedding to help plan and Wanda's driving her crazy.

At least, that's what she was told this morning.

Currently, she finds herself in the living room, laying with Fanny and playing stupid games on her phone. She thinks that Kate's sleeping, but she's not exactly sure. It's a good thing that Natasha has a key to their place (in case of emergencies, apparently) because she really doesn't want to wake her up.

A half-hour passes and Natasha arrives, bright red hair tied in a tight braid that Yelena can't help but envy. She misses her hair.

"I brought you something," Natasha hands her a milkshake, "It's from the place down the street, thought you'd like it."

It's a chocolate milkshake, one that actually tastes like chocolate and makes Yelena a little happier than she was previously.

Natasha sets down the bag she brought and her backpack, "Wanda's going insane."