Michael was there before it could turn into a poking war, pulling Ellie away from Sharon and onto his lap, where Sharon wouldn’t dare to poke her. Nor Ellie poke Sharon, for that matter. The plug in Ellie’s ass shifted, heating her lower body even more.

“Bad subbies,” he said, his tone wry, although he was definitely amused. Ellie giggled.

In the past two weeks, she’d opened up more than she’d ever thought possible... she hadn’t even realized how much she’d held back or withdrawn when hanging out with her friends until they’d all started calling her on it. She’d even started asking them to come over and hang out with her at her place. Angel and Leigh had come over for dinner last week and Sharon and Kate this past week. The others hadn’t been able to make it, but she hadn’t felt bad or rejected... she’d understood they really were just busy. They’d been too pleased to be invited and too sad about missing out for her to believe anything else. This morning she and Andrew had gone out to breakfast, just the two of them, as friends and he’d been pleased as punch. She’d still worried a bit about what Kate would think, but Andrew had reassured her that Kate was taking the opportunity to spend some time with his sister, and both of them were happy to have him out of the way.

Now, instead of everyone reaching out to her while she remained sheltered but grateful, she was reaching back.

And it was awesome.

She’d already taken the initial steps even before everything had fallen apart - calling Lexie for help with clothes, for advice when she woke up at Michael’s, even trying a club contract with Michael - but then she’d stalled out. Tried to take just a tiny step and then stop. But life, people, didn’t work that way. She couldn’t just stop until she was comfortable and then take another tiny step. Not everything was about her and how she felt about things, she needed to take other people’s feelings into consideration too.

Considering how surprised and happy her friends had been to get something as simple as an invitation to dinner from her, she hadn’t been doing a very good job of it.

And, even though he’d been careful not to talk about his feelings, she hadn’t been doing a very good job of thinking about Michael’s feelings either. Everything had been about how he’d made her feel or how she’d worried he’d make her feel. She’d always assumed he’d be just fine without her, but according to club gossip - which was frighteningly reliable - he’d been a bit of a mess.

It felt strange and a little scary to have responsibility over someone else’s feelings, but good too. Like she was taking another step into the ‘normal’ relationships she wanted (even if she really shouldn’t be thinking of them that way). And she’d upped her visits with Dr. Amy to once a week while she worked through things. Michael was even going with her to her next visit, just so Dr. Amy could meet him and all three of them could talk about things.