had a dream (Judas!)

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]"Ellie! Hey, long time no see! You know, rumor has it that you had to take a sabbatical or something like that."

Ellie looked down at her assistant, who was sitting at the desk beside her office door. "Something like that. I'm back now, though." Was she ready for this?

Did being back home necessarily mean that she was ready to go back to work? The redhead felt so lost, she felt like she didn't really belong anywhere. Now that she was home, and completely sober, she realized how lonely and depressed her life was without Sean. She had called his number a few times, but couldn't bear to actually let him pick up. She had always hung up after a couple of rings. She had used the house phone, too, so he might not even know that it was her. It had been so long, Ellie was sure that Sean wanted nothing to do with her.

She couldn't stay home all day, every day. She wasn't ready to go back to being the Ellie that had everything under control, the Ellie who could juggle a million different things, the Ellie who didn't have cancer or a drink in her hand. That Ellie hadn't been there in so long, she didn't know if she was ever coming back. But, she had to try and do somethingwith her life. So, she had returned to work.

She didn't actually go to the studio just yet. She called up her assistant, and told her that she wanted to find a book and turn it into a movie. She asked her to gather all the suspense books that had been sent to Vampire Pictures within the last three months. And when they were delivered, Ellie was surprised by how much there was. It made her realize just how much she had been missing out on when she was drinking.

She went through them, skimming over them and making phone calls. The ones that had agent contact information, she called the agents. Some of them were no longer interested in selling their rights to her; a couple of them had already found a company. Thanks but no thanks. That was the general response to her.

She was about to give up. Maybe she was just too far gone. Nobody wanted to work with her. Ellie had disgustedly thrown the last book onto the neat stacks of books, making them fall over. She was ready to call her assistant and just call the whole thing off. Throw in the towel. About everything. But, something inside of her, a small piece of her, didn't want to give up. And it was strong enough for her to decide to just try once more.

She picked up the book closest to her foot. It was written by Judas Darwin. Ellie skimmed over it, before calling her assistant and giving her the contact information for the agent. "I don't care what you have to promise. Just get me an appointment with him."

That was two days ago. And as promised, Ellie did manage to come in. It felt so strange; the last time she was here was before she got sick. Once she was diagnosed with cancer, she had taken a break. She didn't even know if she was ready. But, ready or not...here she was.

"Did you make the appointment?"

"Yes. Mr. Darwin will be here today."

Ellie nodded. "As soon as he's here, let him come on in." she told her as she opened the door to her office. Her eyes centered on the bottle of champagne on her desk, with a bow around it and the words WELCOME BACK, ELLIE! pasted on a banner on the wall. It was a nice gesture. But what she was focused on was that bottle.

"Get it out of my office. now"

"but--"

Ellie grabbed the bottle and threw it at the girl's desk. "now!" Her voice wasn't angry, but panicked. It could have pushed her right back over the edge. She felt shaky suddenly. She felt weak. God, what was she doing?

[Judas Darwin]

All of his life, Judas had been a little more prone to suspense and horror as a genre. As a kid, he'd been the one huddled in front of the TV, half covered by a bowl of popcorn that he could hide his head behind if it became too much, with a fort of blankets to keep him safe from the images on the screen. That inkling of fear and suspense had been fun for him even then and as he grew older, that stayed with him. He spent a lot of his childhood and adolescence with horror novels and it went on through his adulthood, when he started to pick up the pen to write for himself. He'd always been a writer. That was something that Judas knew he'd be doing for a long time. He was good at it young and his wild imagination needed somewhere to spill out onto. And any other kind of art just didn't work. He couldn't draw to save his life and forget singing, he didn't have that talent either. He was a writer.

As far as success as a writer went, it wasn't an easy road. He had taken hundreds of odd jobs throughout the course of his career and his first attempts hadn't even been picked up. It took him a long time to find the right literary agent and then a publishing company that would stand behind him. By now, he had things worked out a lot more, but there was no lie in how many rejection letters you had to go through to get anywhere in that world. And now, things were better, he had several books that had done well for themselves and while there were still those that didn't hit it off so well, he had something to be proud of. And naturally, most of his books revolved around suspense. That was what he wrote. It had been a couple of months since his agent attempted at getting his book thrown into Vampire Pictures and so he was surprised when he received the call from his agent, telling him he had an appointment. He took it seriously, of course, showing up at the right time, but apparently, the wrong one for the office. It looked like he had just missed some kind of excitement through the look on the secretaries face. Then, glancing over, he recognized Ellie at the door. He'd never met her in person, but he knew who she was. "Ellie Cameron?"

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Six months ago, Ellie Cameron was all over. She was the hottest celebrity in Toronto, except maybe Craig Manning, but Craig was always on tour. She had produced movies that won awards six years in a row. Everyone would have killed to be in one of her movies. But that was six months ago. Things changed. People changed. Fucking articles came out. And yes, her reputation had taken a beating. But, there was still hope for her. Because one writer accepted the appointment. And now, she was looking at him.

Ellie wondered how much worse she looked from what he expected. She had early wrinkles on her cheeks, and even though she was sober, showered, and had makeup on, Ellie felt like he could probably still tell that she had put herself through some torture. It was hard not to hate herself for it, too. Despite anything that Marco said, Ellie knew the truth. She had brought all of this on herself. She even blamed herself for Sean cheating. Sean. God, how she missed that man. No amount of alcohol would change how much she loved him.

But for now, she was attempting to turn her back on the past three months. Judas was her key to getting her normal life started again. Attempting a smile, she gestured. "Come on in." She wanted to make him an offer he couldn't refuse. Ellie was going to bring this man into her life as much as possible. Maybe then the void would be filled. As she invited him in her office, she turned to her desk and got the paperwork that had been set in her drawer out, along with the book. She had done this a million times, she could do it again. Business as usual.