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They end up back at the old house. It's a mess, even more of a mess after fighting Muriel in it, but there are places where the roof is more or less intact, it's got a place to light a fire and not burn anything down, and no one else around. Gretel's not sure she wouldn't light the rest of Augsburg on fire if they went back or if, on the other hand, they'd have to shoot all the fucking hillbillies who thought their arrest was still on.
This is not the worst job they've ever done, but it's definitely bucking right up there for the honour.
Edward carries Mina's body, because Hansel'd been pretty intense about not leaving it there for scavengers. He obviously got pretty attached to the girl. Gretel's kind of neutral, seeing as she'd exchanged all of a handful of words with the woman, but Mina had helped them out and apparently saved Hansel's life twice, so Gretel doesn't mind giving her a decent burial.
Tomorrow, though. Definitely tomorrow. Everything, everything is definitely going to happen tomorrow.
Edward puts the body down outside the remains of the house and then says, "Going walk."
Gretel wonders if he talks like that because he's not bright, or if troll mouths just aren't meant to make human words. Either way, she figures he's got the right to go where he wants. But she does say, "We'll be leaving sometime tomorrow or the next day, if you want to come back."
Edward makes a snorting noise that might mean anything and then stomps off into the woods.
Gretel starts the fire. She should probably feel something deep and meaningful, starting a fire in the hearth where their mother used to cool and boil clothes to clean them and all that shit, but mostly she's just grateful that the weather's been dry enough to give her lots of wood to work with. Hansel gets water in an iron pot that's lying around in the mess; it's spotted with rust, but that won't matter once it's been boiled.
They learned that early. You don't want to die from infection, you boil the fuck out of water before you use it on any injury at all. And they've got plenty of injuries that need cleaning between the three of them.
Sorting her out, sorting Hansel out: that's easy. They've done this so many times they could probably do it in their sleep. Probably have, more or less. But the kid -
The kid talks. Ben, that's his name. Gretel kind of wants to punch him to make him shut up, but he chatters away at a hundred miles an hour about Muriel, about Hansel shooting her through his shoulders, about the deep significance of killing Muriel in that fucking candy-house and on and on. It's got to be some kind of coping mechanism, because he keeps it up until they start cleaning out his shoulder.
Then, the idiot starts yelling his head off, making it a fucking good thing they don't have any living enemies anywhere near here. Then, thank god, he passes out. By the time they've got him bandaged up, it's stopped being "passed out from pain" and turned into "passed out sleeping" - they can tell by the snoring - and Gretel and Hansel both abandon him, wrapped up in the remnants of blankets they find around the house, with relief.
Then Hansel sort of flops down to sit beside the fire, and Gretel flops down beside him and leans her head on his shoulder so he can put his arm around hers and kiss her hair. They sit and stare at the flames for a bit.
They stink. They smell like death and whatever was on the fucking floor in that cottage and they smell like witches, who smell like rot. Hansel stinks, and Gretel knows she does too, and under that they stink of sweat, sour sweat from fear and exertion and everything in between. And Gretel hurts, hurts pretty much everywhere - bruises, cuts, aching muscles, twisted ankle and wrenched shoulder and bruised ribs. From how he winces when she leans on him, she knows Hansel feels about the same.
But they're alive, and the witches aren't. And they know things now. And the world is a bit different.
"Do we have any food at all?" Gretel asks, finally. The flames are burning little orange and white lights into her eyes, but she feels almost too tired to blink.
"Nope." Her brother's elbow rests on her shoulder, his palm against her head.
"Fuck," she says.
"Yep." His fingers move a little, restlessly. One of them dances over a bruise, but she's too tired to wince.
She sighs. They probably will have to deal with Augsburg, then. With witches and a troll, there can't be much to hunt around here and besides, tomorrow they're both going to hurt way too much for hunting. And they need food. And clothes and soap and other shit wouldn't go amiss either.
"Everything about the last three days," she says with feeling, "has fucking sucked. And I'm going to just fucking fall asleep right here."
"If you do," Hansel warns, "you'll regret it when I fall over and we end up elbowing each other in the head and, you know, everywhere else."
"So fucking lie down already," she says, sitting up to shove his shoulder. "Not like there's any covers we didn't put on the kid anyway, we might as well sleep by the fire."
When Hansel glances back towards the bundle where Ben's sleeping, hesitating, Gretel gives him a level stare. "And I do not give one flying fuck," she adds, "what that kid thinks. About anything. He's trouble, I'll fucking knife him and we can bury him beside your girlfriend."
Hansel frowns at her, as he does slide over and lie down on his side, cushioning his head with his arm and settling as comfortably as possible on old bare wooden floor. "Be nice," he says, as Gretel lies down beside him. "She saved both our fucking lives and died while she was at it."
"Did I say her being your girlfriend was a bad thing?" Gretel demands, squirming back and settling until her head's on one arm, her back is snugly against his chest, her top leg's bent over in front to brace them both and his free hand's fingers are entwined with hers, pulling his arm around her. "Did I say one fucking thing against her? I'm being nice. I'm being so fucking nice I haven't said anything about you screwing her while Sheriff Asshole and his goons were beating the shit out of me."
That's a bit far, and she knows it as soon as Hansel stills. She doesn't really mean anything by it, anyway, she's just so tired and messed up it spills out and she squeezes his hand, hugs his arm. "Forget I said that."
He kisses her head. "I'm sorry," he says, in his way-too-serious voice; Gretel scrunches up her face at the fire.
"Talk about it tomorrow."
Hansel's quiet for a moment, thumb moving over the back of her hand in an idle pattern that's at least one point of not-awful in the rest of her body's current screaming protest against everything, ever. Then he says, "We gonna talk about you being a witch tomorrow, too?"
"Day after," Gretel says. "When we talk about your dead girlfriend being a witch, and how come you're not dead and what the fuck we're doing from here. After we find something to eat and don't stink like fucking witch and have some real fucking sleep."
Everything aches. And it's going to be worse tomorrow. And she's basically just hoping neither of them are going to get infected with anything nasty. Including the kid who, by the way, Hansel shot in the fucking shoulder so he could hit Muriel behind him. The kid might die. Boiled water is only good for so much. You need soap and some other shit to actually do much to ward off infection and they don't have any of it. They definitely don't have clean bandages.
Everything aches. And that includes stuff inside, where thoughts of mother and father are being bashed around into new shapes, along with thoughts of even herself, what she is and what that means, and how the one person who might have been able to help her is lying dead outside because she saved Gretel's brother instead.
Hansel's arm around her tightens after a few minutes, and she realizes her breathing's gone weird and hitchy. He says, "You know I don't care." And she tightens her fingers around his hand. "It's us, Gretel. It's always just us."
Gretel takes a careful breath and says, "The kid's going to want to come too. Maybe Edward."
"We could end up with a fucking army and it'd still be just us," Hansel says. "You know that."
Gretel settles back against him and makes herself relax. Take a deep breath. "I know that," she agrees.
Hansel's breath is warm on the back of her neck. The fire's warm in front of her. Eventually, despite the aches everywhere, inside and out, she falls asleep.