Honesty

"We're going to lunch today, Ellis. No excuses."

Carson had that look in his eye, so she didn't try to remonstrate.

He held her hand all the way to the station, and then all the way to Holborn, and then all the way to My Old Dutch.

"Pancakes?"

Carson grinned at her. "Pretty much."

He studied her as she studied her menu. She's gotten skinnier and skinnier, and it was beginning to worry him.

Halfway through the meal, she'd gotten a call. She'd looked at the screen of her phone with distaste.

"Are you going to take that?" Carson asked.

She sighed, but she picked up.

Her mumbled responses didn't tell Carson anything: "No... In Holborn... A friend... No..." but suddenly she was defensive. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? - Look, I'm going now. I'm -" she pulled the phone away from her ear and hung up.

She didn't look up at Carson as she excused herself from the table.

When she returned she was still shaking.

"Who was that?" Carson asked after she called a waitress over to ask for a glass of water.

"No one. A... friend."

"Friend?" he asked, interest piqued.

She only nodded.

As he looked closer he saw the heightened redness of her eyes. "Have you been crying?" he asked. She didn't answer, and he decided it could wait. He shrugged it off, and took a large chunk of her pancake instead.

-

The next time, he took her phone away before she could answer it.

"Hello, you've reached Ellis's phone," he said in his best 'operator' voice. "I'm sorry but she is not able to take your call right now. Please leave your message after the tone -" he pressed a random number before putting the phone back to his ear.

Ellis was watching him blankly, like she didn't know what was going on.

"Who is this?" the voice on the other side said, "Where's Ellis?"

Carson laughed, his rich deep laugh. "Hi, I'm Carson. Who is this?"

"What? Just pass me to Ellis, please."

"Is it life-threateningly important? Because we're kinda busy right now."

"I... I just wanted to know that she's okay."

Carson looked at the girl opposite him. "She's fine. She's not coughing up a lung or chucking her guts up -" a flinch here - "nor is she crying or even frowning. We're just having pancakes."

"Pancakes?"

"Yes," Carson paused here, to check the caller ID, "Carry, pancakes. So if you don't mind, we're going to carry on with our meal. Lovely speaking to you. Bye!" And then he hung up.

-

"You know, you're a pretty girl," he said to her as they left. "But you were prettier when you had more flesh on you."

"I can't help that," she all but whispered.

Carson slung an arm around her waist. "You can't? Explain."

She was silent, but Carson was used to this.

"Come on sweetheart. What's so bad that you can't tell me?"

She shrugged.

"Ellis, I can keep this up for a long time. So you can tell me now, or you can tell me later, but I won't drop it."

"It's nothing, Carson," she muttered stubbornly.

"Hey, I wanna see your house. You gonna invite me over or what?"

She didn't say anything, but he wasn't expecting her to.

"Why no, no I'm not doing anything right now, Ellis, of course I can come to your house today. Awesome."

He smiled winningly at her. She could only look away.

-

"Get inside of Ellis's room; check," Carson said, ticking off an imaginary list with his finger. "Next: get Ellis naked. Any chance of that happening soon?"

Embarrassment crept across her skin as she vehemently shook her head no.

"Ah well. I can dream."

He stretched himself out on her bed.

"So. Why are you so skeletal all of a sudden?"

"It doesn't matter. Shut up about it."

"No can do. I consider you my friend, so if something's up, I wanna know about it."

"You what?"

"I wanna know what's bothering you, Ellis."

"Why?"

He saw what she was getting at, and suddenly things were much simpler: much clearer. "Because you're my friend, and I like you."

A very small smile flittered onto her lips, and she finally stretched on her bed beside him instead of sitting stiff by the post.

When Carson next looked at her, she was asleep.