Chapter Text
N went back to the book in his lap and didn't read the same paragraph again. The big clock in the hallway had rung five, twenty-three minutes ago. The rain had gotten bad. The sound pressed through the roof two floors above them and on the window glass behind J, who had been standing there for the last forty minutes without moving. The manor grounds were dark and saturated with water beyond the grass. N couldn't even see the swamp tree line anymore.
Tessa had walked out the side door at noon, and her phone was on the vanity. She'd said she'd be back before dinner.
"She's late." J was still facing the window when she said it.
N closed the book. "Yeah…"
"Over an hour."
He stood up and his hand found his tie and pulled it, his fingers squeezing the knot. The window behind J showed nothing but gray and rain and the lawn disappearing into it. "She doesn't have her phone."
V, on the bed, had stopped reading a while ago. Her book was closed on her lap and she was watching J through her round glasses. Her attention flicked to the phone when N mentioned it and her expression got tight.
J turned from the window. "I'm going to find her."
N's balance processing stuttered and he stepped backwards to catch himself. "Her folks-"
"Are not paying attention to us right now. Dinner prep is running and her mother is upstairs. We go out the side door and we will be fine."
"And if someone sees us coming back?"
"Then we deal with it then. Tessa's out there in the rain with no phone and no light and she should've been home an hour ago, N. If you don't want to come, I don't care. I don't need you to mess this up anyway."
"No- No, I mean-" N looked at V who was sliding off the bed, her feet finding the floor. She pushed her glasses up with one finger. "Okay…" N sighed and swallowed dry. "Yeah, alright, let's go."
They took the service stairs and the kitchen corridor to avoid a possible run-in with anyone who would question why Tessa's toys were out of her room. Only a standard Worker Drone turned its head as they passed the door, but turned back uninterested. J pushed the door open and the rain welcomed them in its cold clutches.
The last time N had been in the rain, Louisa had shoved him out and said to stay there in a tone that overrode any and all orders Tessa could've given him. Had been in the wrong place in the wrong time and the outcome had been a very wet suit and three hours of waiting for Tessa to convince her mother to let him back in. That had been cold and long and boring. This, however, wasn't that. This was urgent and fast and they waded through mud that sucked at his shoes and the knowledge that somewhere in this Tessa was alone and lost or hurt or both made him wish he would be back there standing and waiting instead.
J moved towards the south, past the swamp, toward the dump, half running. They called her name when they hit the dump's perimeter. Every few steps one of them called, as loud as they could, over the drumming sound of rain. More hurried the further they got, further than the eastern quadrant, standing among discarded drone bodies that N tried to look past without seeing. His voice was the loudest, the lower pitch registering over the hiss around them easier.
Just when the slope into the dump got deeper, N heard something faint, below them, south. Maybe it was nothing, but maybe-
"Again," J hissed. "Loud!"
The lungful was pushed out with force. "Tessa!"
There it was. Thin and broken and an unmistakable human voice, female and fading before it finished whatever it was trying to say. Coming from below the dump's edge where the ground dropped off.
They ran.
J reached the edge and N came up beside her and looked down and his processor made a sound he didn't authorize, because he was seeing Tessa ten feet below them at the bottom of a rocky slope. Slumped against a rock wall, knees up, right arm held against her stomach and the normally bouncy black hair plastered flat and dark against her skull. Her face was gray, wrong, and she was looking up at them and her eyes weren't tracking right.
"Tessa!" J went over the edge. "I'm coming down."
The slope was wet loose rock under N's shoes and he slid most of the way down, grabbing at things that crumbled, landing hard at the bottom with his ankle joints locking to absorb the impact. He watched J stop in front of Tessa, staring down at her with wide underlined ovals.
"J." Tessa's voice was gravel and thin. She said the single letter and then sat there breathing for a second like she'd screamed a sentence. "Hey."
He crossed to her in three steps and his hands went to her face, cupping her jaw, the way she'd done to him a hundred times. He could feel her shaking, her skin cold and wet. Up close everything was so much worse. The right arm pressed against her ribs was swollen between wrist and elbow, the skin stretched tight and shiny with visible deviation in the bone's line. The back of her head, from what he'd seen when she had tilted it toward J, had a split in the scalp about two inches long, blood diluted by rain running down her neck in thin pink trails. Her knees were raw, deep road rash, the dermis glistening. But her eyes were what put deep fear into his system. They were open, sure, but they kept sliding, losing focus, finding him and then drifting past. Usually they were sharp, paid attention, beautiful and strong and now-
"Tessa, what happened?"
"Fell."
"Really? No shit?" J dropped down to her knees next to N.
"J!"
Tessa groaned. A quiet, small sound in the back of her throat and both their heads snapped back to her. "I- There was a gecko. I chased it and the scree went… out." A long pause. Her brow creased. "What time is it?"
"Long after five," J said from beside him, already assessing the slope above. "We're taking you home. Can you stand?"
"Did before when I tried… to climb. Couldn't though." Tessa's speech came out in weird fragments, with weight and effort. Her eyes drifted to N's visor, stayed there for a bit and then her face crumbled so suddenly that he moved his hands to her shoulders in case she would fall over. "My arm's broken." The voice was too young for her.
"Tessa-" He was rudely cut off by J.
"I can see that," she grumbled, turned and looked at N. "N, you are on her left side. I'll take the right. V-" She looked up. V was still at the top, her glasses useless in the rain, peering down. "Find us a path. Only solid holds."
V started climbing down with her hands testing each surface.
"Tessa." J sounded softer now, leaning into the girl's space. "Left arm around N's shoulder. The broken arm stays against your chest. Don't use it. At all. Even if you feel yourself falling."
Tessa nodded, but the motion was small and careful and she winced at the end of it.
N moved to her left side with his arm going around her waist and his hand settling firmly against her hip. She was so thin under the wet dress. His hand found the hard ridges of her pelvis and the shallow dip of her waist and there was nothing between his hand and her bones except skin and soaked fabric. Her left arm came over his shoulders and her hand gripped his blazer and he could feel the fine tremor in her fingers and he hated every second of this.
"One, two," J counted, and they lifted.
Tessa came up off the ground between them, unsteady. N and J held her up, though. Forty pounds of industrial machinery on each side of her made her weight trivial against their capacity. She stood - knees bent, but upright.
"Dizzy," she whispered.
"Watch V," J said. "Follow her line."
V had found a route up and pointed at it from above. They went up with N pushing steadily from below, J bracing her back and right side without touching her arm, and Tessa's feet found the holds V indicated with J's help. Under a minute and they were over the lip on flat ground. Quick but hard-won, the last few steps they had to pretty much carry her before she collapsed.
Tessa flopped on her back for a few seconds, breathing heavily. Rain hit her face and she didn't flinch away from it. N knelt beside her and watched her eyes. They were open but focus kept going in and out and he grit his teeth and reached out to wipe some wet strands away that had glued themselves to the skin of her face.
"Can you walk?" J crouched on her other side.
"If you lot… help." Tessa sat up with their hands on her. The motion made her face go tight and pale and she needed to sit still for several seconds with her jaw clenched. "Head's really bad, J."
"I can imagine. Let's go."
The walk back took longer than the walk out. N had Tessa's left arm over his shoulder, V's hand locked on Tessa's left hip and between them they carried most of her weight. Her feet moved but the steps were uneven and she stumbled twice over roots she would've usually stepped over clean any other day.
She was very quiet, something that made N spiral. Tessa was never quiet. Never, unless her parents were in the room. Tessa filled every room with chatter. Talked about drones, demon hierarchies, about whatever she'd read that morning, about crow behavior and CPU calibrations and tools and things he didn't understand but still loved to hear about if it came out of her mouth. She talked to N while he read, talked to J while J drew, talked to V while V sat and listened and she talked to herself when no one was there. And now - Now she wasn't. All she did was breathe and even that sounded like it exhausted her.
Her head was against N's hard hat, turned so her cheek pressed against the surface, and her lungs went too shallow and too fast. Once, halfway across the scrub before the swamp, she mumbled "Cold," in a voice too thin for her. N tightened his arm and hoped his processor heat radiated through his blazer into her side.
They passed the swamp and Tessa's body lurched forward in a sudden sag, all her weight dropping into their arms all at once. Her head rolled off N's hat and her eyes were staring at nothing and she'd gone limp.
"Tessa?" N stopped and V a fraction after him, staring at the girl with hollow circles through her glasses. J turned around. "Tessa! Hey-"
She had her hands on Tessa's cheeks, holding her head up, calling her name over and over for several seconds and N couldn't really breathe anymore. The cooling system stuttered. He could hear the whine of it ramping up.
Her eyes moved, blinked, slow and confused. They moved over J's visor without recognition for a second and then she came back.
"J…?"
"Astute observation, boss."
"I…" She blinked again and her brows creased. "Where…"
"We're in the scrub and almost home. You passed out while we were walking."
"Oh." She swallowed and her gaze moved, trying to orient herself. "Ah. Okay, I'm- Uh…"
J leaned in, her visor close to Tessa's face. N could see she was looking at Tessa's pupils. She'd seen the same thing N had already. The left one was larger than the right, one dark circle wider than the other.
"Keep moving," J said, tighter than before. "We're close."
They moved and Tessa's feet found the ground again and she walked, supported and slow, but they were making progress. She didn't talk anymore but swallowed a lot and once she made a sound in the back of her throat that sounded like she was trying not to gag.
She still worked hard on that when they reached the side door. The silence of the interior nearly hurt after the hiss of the rain.
Tessa's shivering came back the moment they were inside, but now it was a violent, full-body shaking that rattled her jaw and made her breathing hitch. Her legs buckled halfway through the kitchen and N caught her, both arms around her waist, holding her up against his chassis. The back of her head dropped onto his hard hat with a painful thunk he didn't want to think about. Blood was still slowly oozing from the wound there and he was sure it had ended up on top of him. Something he would need to wipe off before she could see.
"Upstairs," J whispered sharply. "Now! Quick!"
Both feet on each tread on the service stairs, slow and painful, but they made it. The upper corridor greeted them dark, suits of armor in their alcoves, lights dimmed low. Then - finally - Tessa's door. J opened it and they stepped into warm air, fairy light glow and the smell of home.
N guided Tessa to the bed and she sat on the edge and immediately sagged in relief. Her shoulders dropped and her eyes closed. V was already pulling the heavy blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around Tessa's shoulders.
"Get the dress off her. She's soaked." J moved through the room towards the bathroom.
V worked on the ribbon at Tessa's waist, the button at the back of her collar. The ruined dress came off in careful pieces, V guiding it over her broken arm without jostling it, and Tessa sat in her underclothes with just a blanket around her. J came back with a towel from the bathroom and N took it to dry what he could reach. Her left arm, her shoulders, her hair below the wound. He was careful near the back of her head. The split in the scalp was dark and crusted and when his fingers brushed the swollen area around it Tessa flinched and gasped.
"Sorry! Sorry, Tessa-"
"S'fine." Slurred. Her eyes were half-lidded. One pupil still the wrong size. "N. 'm so tired."
"Don't sleep," J was pacing in front of the bed now. "Stay awake, boss."
"Trying." Her head started dipping forward, but she caught it, jerked it back up. "Talk to me… or something. I 'unno."
J took a breath through her teeth. She was calculating. N didn't know what, but he hoped it was a way how to make Tessa whole again. Some pills they would steal from Louisa's vanity- Just something.
He swallowed, nodded. "Uh- Okay. So, I found a roly-poly in the sitting room yesterday when I looked for your math book. It was already- I mean, someone must've stepped on it-"
Tessa's eyes were on him, trying her hardest to listen. Her left hand found his and gripped it with cold and weak fingers. He kept talking about the bug, because he knew she loved weird and creepy things, and bugs were included in that - maybe.
Then her grip went slack and her eyes rolled up and her body slumped forward into him. He caught her with one hand on her shoulder and half with his own body, making a startled sound.
"Tessa!" N squeezed her hand. "Tessa-"
V patted her cheek with light taps. Tessa's head just lolled.
"J!" N wheezed, panicked. "J, she's-"
J crossed to the bed and took Tessa's face in both hands and tilted it up towards the light. N could see the pupils clearly now, the left one was blown wide, the black swallowing the hazel. The right was a pinprick.
"Fuck!" J's voice was sharp and loud and a bit too shrill. "Tessa! Wake up!"
N watched Tessa's slack face and the shallow breaths that barely moved her chest and whimpered. He could feel his visor adjust to his emotions; the hollow ovals with the lines below. She looked so small, so weak, so not herself and he hated it. He hated all of this.
It took several seconds before her eyes fluttered, then squeezed into slits.
"Wh…" Her face creased in confusion. "Where'm I?"
"Your room," J said, steadier than N felt. "How do you feel?"
Tessa stared at her, several seconds passed where she was looking at J as if she was something she'd never seen before. Then it clicked and her expression shifted into familiarity. "J! Hi," she breathed, paused. "My head's… 's… 'is really bad."
"Worse than before?"
"Before?" Her eyes were closing again. "Mm. Left side. Like…" She didn't finish the sentence. Her throat moved and her face went tight and V apparently read it before she could herself, because she'd already grabbed the waste bin from beside the desk and got it in front of her just as Tessa lurched forward and retched.
Just bile and water. Her body shook, her broken arm jarred against her ribs, and the sound she made between heaves was ugly and involuntary and N's hand on her collarbones was the only thing keeping her upright. When it stopped she was gasping, tears on her face, her body shaking in the blanket.
V wiped her mouth with the towel edge. N took her hand back in his and looked at J, mouth open and chest full of anxiety. She stood there, grim expression and N could see her thinking. She was reading the situation and putting the pieces together and she did not like it one bit
Tessa dropped against N's hard hat. Her breathing was wrong again. Too fast, too shallow, and too irregular.
"Tessa," J walked up close. "What's my serial designation."
"J…" Tessa's voice was barely a mumble. "J… ten… X…" She trailed off. Her brow creased in confusion. "I don't… know. I knew, right?"
J made a sound and N stared at her. This was something Tessa could remember in her sleep. This was something she thought was important. Why- Why couldn't she-
"Stay awake!" J snapped and grit her teeth, staring at Tessa's bare feet. "Shit… shit-"
"'m trying." Tessa's fingers twitched in N's hand. "N… I'm scared." The words were so small and cracked and young and they went through N's chest like pain.
"J! Do something!" His fingers closed tighter around Tessa's and he could feel himself growing angry.
"I'm thinking!" She growled at him, her hands balled to fists at her sides.
Tessa's grip went slack again.
"Tessa?" N shook her hand. "Hey, Hey- Tessa, wake up!"
She didn't react. Her body was limp against him and V, her breathing shallow, her face white. V looked at N and he could see how scared she was. He wished so much he could tell her that everything would be okay, but-
He looked at J. She was standing still, staring at Tessa with an expression N had never seen before. She looked mortified. For the first time in all the while N had known her, she looked helpless.
"She needs a hospital."
"What?!"
"This is a concussion or something. She keeps getting worse, N! We can't fix this here."
"We can't take her to a hospital, J! We can't just steal the limousine and get her there- We can't just call-"
"Her parents can."
N stared at her with his mouth open and his processor not catching up. "Are you- They- They will kill us."
"Probably."
"J-" The letter came out strangled. "If any of us goes to talk to them- Her folks will freak! Her dad just throws drones out for whatever and her mother will have us incinerated before we can get a word out. I don't want V to-"
"N!" J grabbed him by the collar, her visor almost bumping into his. "She will die!"
His breath hitched. He looked at Tessa. At her slack and pale face, at her chest barely moving with each inhale. She will die. She will die- She will- He pulled her against him and whined. His hand was shaking, the tremors of his fingers transmitting through Tessa's limp hand, her cold fingers, the weak curl of them in his grip. "I don't- I didn't- J, she can't die- She-" He was holding the hand of someone who was dying.
"I'll go." J said. "I'll tell her father. Better chances to be heard out before he throws something at me. Stay with her and keep her head elevated. If she wakes up, keep her awake as long as you can. If she stops breathing, tilt her head back and clear her airway."
"J-"
"When he comes in here let her go and move out of the way. If I don't come back, go to her mother and do your best."
V nodded sharply. She looked like she'd made up her mind. "I'm okay with that," she said and N looked at her with wide eyes. Sometimes he wondered how V could be so strong and so sweet at the same time.
J took a deep breath. "I don't care what happens to us," she looked at N, now. "She pulled us out of the dump and I am not going to watch her die because I'm scared of her father."
With that, she turned and walked to the door.
N watched her and then looked at Tessa, still leaned against him, breathing weakly.
"It's gonna be okay," V said from behind them and N sighed.
"I don't want her to die."
"I know you don't." V sat on the edge of the bed next to him and gave him a smile. "She won't. I'm sure her father will be here soon and call emergency services."
N leaned his head against Tessa's, pressed his cheek at her head that had lolled on his shoulder. "Why did this happen, V? She walked that path a thousand times and nothing ever-" His voice wavered.
"Things just happen," V murmured, her hands folding in her lap.
N stared at Tessa's face from above and reached up to cup her face. Let a thumb glide over the wetness there, the tears still liquid and fresh. Some of them trapped in her lashes, long and pretty and not meant to be so low over her eyes while she was upright.
J's footsteps were soft on the carpet runner. Water dripped from her dress, marking her way on the fabric below her. A dotted line of dirty rainwater and mud making a route from Tessa's room to the private wing.
She took the right branch at the junction, past the master bedroom door. To the end, where the study waited.
Dark wood, heavy and brass handled with light underneath. It loomed above her and she forced her fingers away from worrying her apron. Stand straight, steady. Look like you belong.
Reflected at her in the metal of the handle, she could see the two white glowing ovals of her eyes. She was too aware of how her maid dress hung heavy and filthy, the mud on her arms and shoes.
She swallowed. Set her jaw and raised her hand. Thought of Tessa's breathing. Thought of the girl that she'd come to love, about how small she'd looked when they'd found her.
J knocked.