Chapter Text
Elizabeth Renée Bates never truly had her mother with her.
The rain pattered off of the windows as Ellie laid in a new bed, in a new house, with new people she never met. She didn’t know her way around, her whole life was stuffed into a black garbage bag. She didn’t even know where the bathroom is. These people were strangers to her.
Whenever Ellie closed her eyes, the same vision would take over. She would see Norma, smiling softly at her. She was in her room, with her toys. She was laying in her bed, with her mom. She didn’t have that anymore. Instead, she had a strangers room, she was laying in a strangers bed, in a house that wasn’t hers. Her brand new foster mom seemed nice, but she wasn’t Norma. She wasn’t Ellie’s mother. And, just like in the movies, her new foster mom had no idea how to handle a grieving kid. She would just leave Ellie in a room with orange walls and pink bedding, hoping that she would stop being difficult. It didn’t feel like home to Ellie, she hated the colour orange.
If she closed her eyes hard enough, and allowed herself to get lost to the sound of the rain pattering against the window, she could barely feel Norma’s hand stroking her hair. Norma’s face was nothing more than a blurred image to Ellie, she forgot what her mother’s smile looked like by the time a year passed since she died. All Ellie had were those small photographs she took when she was hiding from the police, and even they had fake smiles in them. Ellie didn’t know what Norma looked when she truly smiled, or what she sounded like when she laughed. Norma was nothing more than a blurred image in the back of her mind.
This was Ellie’s first night in this home. Or any home, for that matter. Just last week she would’ve been sleeping in her own bed, scared of the thought of Norman coming into her room during the night. And now, she wanted that fear more than anything she’d ever wanted. She had only recently been placed into the foster care system, and so far, it was the worst thing ever. When she first got placed into Susan and Phil’s house, all hell broke loose. It was late at night, and nobody could get Ellie to calm down. When the couple came in to say hello, Ellie made it very clear that she didn’t want a new mommy or daddy, or a new brother and sister. She wanted her old family, the one who went to heaven. And for some reason, Susan and Phil decided to not try. If Ellie really wanted her old family, they wouldn’t intervene.
She was placed into that house in the early morning. It was simple, just a small house in the suburbs. There were no other kids, Ellie was the only one there. From what Ellie was told, any kids could come in at any time, and the house wouldn’t feel this lonely all the time. Although, Ellie didn’t really care. She never went to school, she played alone in the park, and she never really cared about other kids. She cared about her mom. The mom that had been gone for two years.
Ellie didn’t notice the tears slowly falling down her cheeks when she sat up in the bed. She looked around the dark room, unable to see anything but the occasional light of thunder through the windows. Ellie hated the dark, and she hated thunder. She hated a lot of things, really. But Norma knew what those things are, and how to cheer Ellie up when she was scared, Susan and Phil didn’t.
Through the dark, Ellie got out of bed and tried to figure out where the door was. It was late at night, no lights were on in the hallway. Luckily, this new room only had a bed, some drawers, and Ellie’s trash bag in the corner. There wasn’t much to bump into.
When she eventually found the doorknob that lead to the hallway, she opened it slightly. Her first reaction was to run to her mamas room, and sleep in her bed where her scent still remained. But she couldn’t anymore, because this wasn’t the house she had grown to be attached to. This was a strangers house, Ellie was nothing more than a guest.
“mommy!” She wailed. Maybe if she cried loud enough, she would awaken from this two year nightmare. Maybe Norma would shake her awake, and she would wake up in her room, underneath her unicorn bedding. But no matter how much she cried, she was still left in that unfamiliar hallway, in a house she didn’t recognise, with people she wasn’t familiar with. She was not where she truly wanted to be. “mama!”
It took about thirty seconds of Ellie wailing to wake up Susan and Phil. They sprung out of bed, determined to find the source of the cry. Susan grabbed her pink robe, wrapping it around her waist. They turned the hallway light on, to find the little girl in the middle of the room, looking around for someone, whilst fidgeting with her hands. She was sobbing, but both Phil and Susan knew she wasn’t wailing for them.
“mama!” Ellie wailed. She stopped calling Norma mama when she was three.
She never really had time to grieve Norma’s death. When norma passed away, she lived in fear. Fear that Norman was going to do something bad, that fear never went away. Ellie saw him at the worst of his blackouts, but he also held her when she cried. Love was such a complicated feeling, all that love comes out as a type of grief that made her heart hurt. She wasn’t just grieving Norma, she was grieving everybody she’s ever lost. Her mom, her birth father, the man she called daddy for only two years, her brother, and the other brother who left her with these strangers. She had nobody. The nickname Bates was now nothing more than dead weight on her shoulders. Everybody was dead, there was nothing more to it. And Ellie couldn’t fix that. Not even Alex’s unicorn powers could fix it. Ellie was simply going to be alone for the rest of her life. In those strangers house, in that room with the orange wallpaper. Forever.
- — -
After what felt like the worst night of her whole entire life, Ellie awoke from her light slumber. It was around 11am, which Ellie overheard from both Susan and Phil when they noticed Ellie waking up. She slept on the couch, she refused to be put to bed. After around half an hour of resistance, Phil and Susan gave up with reasoning. They put her on the couch with a throw blanket, telling themselves that they’ll deal with her once they both got sleep and a little bit on coffee into their systems.
“Baby, we can’t just give up on her. You know what they told us about her past.” Phil tried to reason. Susan wasn’t having it, she shook her head over and over, clearly needing a bit more coffee than Phil would’ve needed.
“Phil, you heard her screaming when we tried to bring her back to the room.” She said, pacing the kitchen. Phil sighed, skimming the morning paper at the kitchen table, taking a fat gulp of the coffee that was in his mug. “We can’t do this, she’s out of control, for gods sake!”
Phil sighed. He dropped the paper and walked up to her, grabbing her hands to stop the pacing. Part of him knew that Susan was right, Ellie was out of control. Usually when traumatised kids entered the house, they were quiet and kept to themselves. Meanwhile, Ellie made it clear that she wasn’t going to settle. She would just get meaner and louder the more she got comfortable. Although, Phil refused to settle. “Baby, give her a break. She only got placed in the system a few days ago, she’s only known her old house and her old family. We just.. need to focus on making her comfortable. She’s only scared.”
Susan sighed, aware that Phil was correct. Although, it didn’t make the job easier for both of them. They both knew that Ellie was going to be harder to control as time went on. The best thing they could do right now was take it one day at a time, with more coffee.
Both Phil and Susan stopped talking when they heard the sound of feet pattering into the kitchen. Ellie stood there, looking like a deer in headlights, small and defenceless. Susan attempted a small smile, staring down at the small child. “Good morning, sleepyhead. Would you like breakfast?”
Ellie shook her head, both Phil and Susan furrowed their brows. Ellie had gotten to the house at around afternoon the day before. She hadn’t eaten once. Phil and Susan made her lunch and dinner, but she only stared at her plate, saying she wasn’t hungry both times.
Phil softly sighed, looking down at Ellie. “Elizabeth, you have to eat. Do you want to look around? You can have whatever you want. We have cereal, bacon, and Susan makes amazing pancakes. How about some chocolate chip pancakes?”
Ellie ran her teeth over her top lip, her lips were covered in small cuts from her biting her lips over and over again. Her cheeks were raw and sticky from all the tears shed, and the waves of her hair was tangled all together. When was the last time somebody brushed this girls hair?
With no other choice, Ellie slowly nodded. A small, relieved smile appeared on both Phil and Susan’s face. The first smile that was on their faces since they first met Ellie.
It didn’t take long for Ellie to get those pancakes, Phil helped her sit down at the kitchen table, pushing her chair in. Ellie kicked her legs off the side of their chair, her legs were too little to reach the ground. She picked up a fork, taking a small bite of one of the three pancakes which Susan put on her plate. Truth was, Ellie was starving. She’d barely eaten, the only thing that entered her stomach in the last 24 hours was a quarter of a bottle of water, and some crackers that the cops gave her as Norman and Norma’s body got escorted to the EMS truck. The cops gave Ellie those crackers as an attempted distraction. She wouldn’t stop screaming and crying for Dylan, crackers was the only thing to get Ellie to calm down, by even the tiniest bit.
To Phil and Susan’s luck, Ellie went in for a second bite, and a third, and even two more pancakes. Phil and Susan weren’t sure if they ever felt so much relief in their whole entire lives. Eating was the first step to gaining some sort of trust between them. The steps were wobbly, and short. But they were making progress. They just had to take it one day at a time.
Susan and Phill managed to go six more months with Ellie before she ended up back where she started. In a play room with blue walls and a rainbow carpet, every other kid in the exact same position she was. Her life was back in that black garbage bag, where it remained for two more years.