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Dani can’t sleep.
It’s their fourth week staying in Leo’s apartment, and she even has a bed now, so she can’t blame her restlessness on being in a new, unfamiliar place. And as far as new, unfamiliar places go, Leo Tarkesian’s apartment is no Amnesty Lodge, but she actually likes it. The place is comfy and cozy. It’s warm and safe.
Of course, what this really means is that the apartment is the perfect size for a man in his late sixties living alone. Not so much said man plus four sort-of temporary houseguests. It’s especially cramped in the mornings, when Moira is impossibly everywhere, always giving Dani that look if she accidentally steps through her, and Jake is taking forever in the bathroom, and Leo is… Dani’s not sure what to call it. Something like pilates or yoga, right in the middle of the living room. While wearing his sweatpants with ‘I ❤️ NY’ printed across the butt.
She tries not to be too irritated. It is his apartment, after all, and she can understand wanting to salvage routines. When she wakes up in the morning, she still automatically heads to the sink, reaching for a watering can that isn’t there. She misses her plants. They… had to leave them behind.
She also tries not to think about leaving the Lodge.
So, yes, Leo’s is small, and the furniture, which there might be too much of, is all old and worn (she’s pretty sure those dark spots on the couch are blood stains) and she sleeps with a heating blanket to stave off the lingering winter chill, but she likes it. It’s undeniably a home. It’s the kind of space she thought she might share with Aubrey one day.
Aubrey.
She tries not to think about any future beyond the battle ahead, because with every new thing they learn it seems more and more unlikely they’ll see the other side of it. She tried not to think about Aubrey for the same reason—them both being dead soon, and not in the Moira kind of way—but she gave that up once it became clear how pointless it was.
Aubrey is Aubrey. If she wasn’t, Dani would’ve been able to stop thinking about her a year ago.
But tonight, Dani isn’t thinking about Aubrey for once. She lies awake on her air mattress in Leo’s spare bedroom, which is more of a craft room really, listening to the soft sounds of Jake’s breathing through the open door. Thinking about things she’s spent far longer trying not to think about than a few weeks.
Her brother’s breathing. The way her mother used to crack open the door to check on her, eyes glowing like embers in the dark.
Leaving. Her arrest. Her family’s downcast eyes at her deportation, how they turned away even before the Minister pushed her through the gate.
Leaving the Lodge brought it all back to the surface.
Breaking the surface, gasping, hot spring water bubbling all around her, Barclay’s hands on her shoulders—
She snaps awake, heavy breathing loud in the stillness. She listens for the sounds of Jake stirring or Moira manifesting and only relaxes minutes later when she’s sure there’s none.
She can’t sleep. When she does, she dreams. Relives memories, sometimes even memories she doesn’t have when she’s awake, like flashes of a hotel room or Ned Chicane’s booming voice coming from underwater. A starlit clearing before everything went wrong.
Dani sits up, hugging her knees. The cold air hits her back in a gust. She shivers in her thin t-shirt, a threadbare, well-loved thing donated by Sarah Drake, who’d embraced her admission to the Chosen One Club insofar as “there’s very little I can do but I’ll do it.” She reaches for the sweater draped over her box of possessions.
It’s a cardboard box, full of what clothes and belongings they’d been able to grab from her room in the evacuation following the broadcast. Jake had packed it for her once he realized she was nowhere to be found. She’d been able to grab a little more after she came to in the hot spring before the FBI showed up, but only what she could shove on over her wet clothes. Barclay hadn’t wanted to stick around or be slowed down.
Luckily it’s a warm sweater. She huddles in it, fingering the chunky knit weave. She had another sweater like this, a mustard yellow. She doesn’t have it now, but she doesn’t remember seeing it in her room amidst the chaos. Maybe Aubrey stole it. Maybe Aubrey has it now.
She slips out of the spare room, tiptoeing past Jake on the couch to the door. There are four locks. She knows by the third Leo’s always awake, though he never stomps out of his room to stop her. Just slides her one of the extra large mugs of coffee in the morning.
She makes her way to Duck’s apartment. She and Aubrey have a special knock for nights like these, a gentle rap that so far has—thankfully—only woken Minerva once.
Aubrey opens the door after some shuffling, rubbing her eyes. “Dani? You okay?”
Her heart clenches. Aubrey’s hair is a mess, and not in a cute way, more like a Dani pities her hair brush way. Standing in the doorway, she still favors her good leg, and her legs. They’re mostly bare, the boxer shorts she’s presumably borrowed from Duck cutting off mid-thigh. Her sleep shirt though, that’s definitely one of Barclay’s, and it hangs off Aubrey’s frame accordingly, exposing the hollow of her throat and the wings of her collarbones. She’s wearing the Flame Bright pendant. She hasn’t taken it off as far as Dani knows.
Dani just wants to bundle her back into bed, a real bed, and hold her close.
Aubrey stifles a yawn. “Dani?”
“Do you have my sweater?” she blurts out.
Aubrey blinks. “Do I… have your sweater?”
“The um, yellow one.”
“Uh, I can go check, I guess? Everything’s kind of a mess, so. Do you want to come in, or just wait here—”
“Wait!” Aubrey gives a little nod, eyebrows furrowed. Dani frantically grabs her arm. “No, I mean, I don’t want to wait! Forget the sweater. It’s not important.”
Aubrey softens. She steps closer. Taking both of Dani’s hands, she says, “Hey. It’s okay.”
Aubrey’s hands are warm. They’ve always been a little too warm, like the fire she summons never really goes out beneath her skin. Dani focuses on that familiar feeling as Aubrey’s thumb sweeps back and forth across the back of her hand.
“I—I’m sorry,” Dani whispers. “About the sweater. That was dumb. It was just an excuse to come see you.”
She expects Aubrey to laugh, so then Dani can smile and they can move on. Aubrey just gives a little chuckle that is full of such sadness. “Dani, you know you don’t need an excuse to come see me, right? I love seeing you. I was so worried—I still worry, I catch myself and have to make myself stop. So seeing you? It’s always a good thing.”
Dani shakes her head. She doesn’t want to have this conversation, especially right now, in their pajamas standing in Duck’s hallway at midnight. But Aubrey has a way of making feelings so big they can’t be ignored or contained. They just get worse, hurt worse, if you try. She tugs her hands away, eyes burning. “Aubrey, I don’t know how to be a good thing. I’m scared all the time. I’m—I’m sad all the time too. And everything that’s happening, you’re going to be right in the thick of the danger, and I don’t know if I can be brave enough for you.”
Aubrey wraps an arm around her stomach, following Dani when she takes a step back, eliminating any distance she half-heartedly makes. “You don’t have to try to be a good thing. You just are one, to me. Just as you are. And I’m scared too! And—and I’m sad.” She swallows. Rain starts to patter on the roof. As it picks up, her voice grows in strength. “You don’t have to fight. I won’t ask you to. I know it’s like, all hands on deck, but no one is going to make you. I won’t let them, Dani. I won’t. I already almost lost you and I didn’t even know it. I don’t care if it’s the end of the world. I’m not losing any—”
Aubrey cuts off abruptly. Anyone else.
Dani hugs her tight. She says nothing, just wraps her arms around Aubrey and hugs her so tight letting go is unfathomable. Hugs her so tight their bones must fuse together, creating a cavity inside of them big enough to hold their pain.
Aubrey sighs into Dani’s hair. “I’m tired. And I’m sick of being scared.”
Dani rubs her back. “It won’t be much longer, right?”
A few more weeks, and it will all come to an end one way or another. Whether it’s the next abomination arriving through the archway or the FBI starting a war with Sylvain, their limbo can’t last much longer. Their fear, at least, will break. The waiting. The unknown.
“Right,” Aubrey murmurs. Her breath washes hot over Dani’s neck. “And then we can go home.”
Dani’s heart pangs. “Home.”
She must give it away in her voice. Aubrey draws back, lambent orange eyes searching hers. “Did you have another nightmare?”
Dani shrugs. It’s hard to call it a nightmare when she doesn’t remember falling asleep.
It could be worse. She could remember being locked away in the creature’s coffin. She could remember what happened in the clearing. It could be worse. She should be glad it isn’t.
Aubrey takes Dani’s face in her hands and gently wipes away her tears.
“Did I ever tell you,” Dani begins, sniffling, “that when I was a little girl, I would dream about what my own home would look like? I saw what my family had, and my parents had, and I knew I wanted that for myself some day. I had trouble sleeping at night—I used to lie awake imagining what it would be like.”
Aubrey smiles. “I used to dream of traveling.”
Dani returns it. “I never wanted to leave, though. It was a content longing. I was okay waiting for it. But life likes to do funny things to dreams. Like traveling to another planet. Or taking away your home over and over again, so all you can do is wait.”
“We’ll get the Lodge back, Dani,” Aubrey says. “We’ll go home.”
“I know.”
Aubrey glances over her shoulder into Duck’s apartment. Dani can see a fuzzy white lump that must be Dr. Harris Bonkers on the couch, and another brownish lump curled up in the blue glow of the TV that’s probably Duck’s cat. The old-looking movie plays on, muted and missed.
“Do you want to come in?” Aubrey asks. “I know we have that trip to H2Whoa with the Hornets in the morning, but if you don’t want to try sleeping again, we can finish the movie.”
Dani wrinkles her nose. “I should probably try to sleep. In my own bed. Jake will—well, you know how he is these days. Protective, and still feeling guilty. If I’m gone, he’ll freak out.”
“Then tell Jake,” Aubrey grins, “to chill out.”
Dani sighs. “Goodnight, Aubrey.”
“’night, Dani. Are you—you sure you’ll be okay?”
She’s so earnest, and she’s still standing there in her borrowed, rumpled pajamas with her messy hair and big, caring eyes.
Dani leans forward and kisses her lightly. “I’ll be okay, Aubrey. See you in the morning.”
Aubrey smiles. “See you.”
Dani turns to head back down the hall to Leo’s, wondering how long it will take Aubrey to realize she’s slightly on fire.
The next night Dani manages to fall asleep fairly easily, feeling refreshed and much more at ease in her own skin after their trip to H2Whoa that morning. There’d almost been a close call with the Sheriff on the way back, but Keith had split off to cause a distraction without anything more than a nod from Hollis, and they’d made it safely to the rendezvous at the Cryptonomica in the end.
Barclay, who’d been part of the other group piled in the Crepes by Monica van, had grumbled about the Hornets’ bikes being trouble magnets.
Hollis was watching Jake—they watched Jake a lot these days, since learning Jake was a Sylph too—climb off a bike that used to belong to a fallen Hornet. They shook their head. “You all attract enough trouble on your own.”
They were right, of course. But the Hornets never shied away.
It had been a relatively easy day. Dani didn’t expect the soft rap at the door that wakes her.
She stumbles through the living room, trying to tie back her hair at the same time as she fumbles with the locks. When she finally gets the door open, she sees the familiar back of Aubrey’s vest retreating down the hallway.
“Aubrey!” she calls softly.
Aubrey spins around, relief written across her face. She holds Dr. Harris Bonkers in her arms. She’s still wearing the clothes she had on earlier and her boots too.
With a jolt Dani flashes back to the dozens of times Aubrey approached her just like this. Her stomach would always drop when she realized Aubrey was fully dressed, coming to ask her to take care of Dr. Harris Bonkers before she left on a hunt.
She starts to reach for the rabbit until she remembers there is no hunt. This is something else.
“Are you going somewhere?” Dani asks, propping her hip on the doorframe.
Aubrey startles at the question, then seems to realize she does look ready to go. She scuffs her boot awkwardly across the hallway carpet. “No, I, uh, just got back. I’ve been at the Cryptonomica. Talking to Hollis and Keith, and helping Kirby with stuff, you know.”
“Oh. I thought you came back earlier.” She could’ve sworn Barclay mentioned giving Aubrey a ride when he was helping Leo fill out insurance claims.
More boot scuffing. “I did, but I left again. Had to get away from Janelle for a while, to be honest. Being around your mentor twenty-four/seven is a lot different from seeing them once a week.”
“You and Duck have that in common,” Dani says with a smile.
Aubrey gives a halfhearted smile back. It lasts a few seconds before it melts into an almost grimace.
“Aubrey?” Dani shuffles closer. “What’s going on?”
Aubrey hugs Dr. Harris Bonkers to her chest. “Nothing. Nothing’s going on. I was just thinking, while I was at the Cryptonomica…”
“About what?” Dani prompts. She reaches out and strokes along the rabbit’s back. For a second, Aubrey and Dr. Harris Bonkers both relax.
Then Aubrey tenses back up, her voice rising in pitch. “About…what we were talking about last night? About homes? About what you said, and what makes a home, and—”
Dr Harris Bonkers makes a soft noise, and Aubrey visibly forces herself to take a breath. Let her shoulders drop. Release the tension wound in her frame.
“—and I know what you mean. After I lost my mom, I couldn’t go back to that house. I went out on the road, and I didn’t have anyone or anything for a long time. Until Mama found me and brought me back here. Then the Lodge was my home, but it wasn’t because of the place. It’s a nice place, but it was the people that made it home. Mama and Barclay and Jake and Duck and—”
She cuts herself off. Dani touches her hand on Dr. Harris Bonkers’s back.
“And you, Dani,” Aubrey finishes. “You all made it home. I just wanted you to know that. You can still have a home as long as the people you love are with you. You have a home with me.”
Dani just breathes.
As the heaviness of everything Aubrey said tries to settle within her, Dani breathes. They are things big and true and no less hard for that, and the easiest thing she can do right now is to keep breathing so they don’t get stuck. The warmth welling up in her chest finally chases away that chill she’s been fighting, and it feels like a gift Aubrey doesn’t even know she gave. Or maybe she does.
You have a home with me.
The weight comes to rest. Dani musters what words she can, but not quick enough.
Aubrey takes her silence in the exact opposite way Dani intended.
“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same! I know it’s all been really busy lately, so we haven’t gotten to hang out, except in the hallway at night, and even before, we couldn’t kiss a lot because stuff would catch on fire—I get it, if you don’t,” Aubrey rambles.
“Aubrey,” Dani interrupts.
Aubrey bites her lip. “Yeah?”
Dani says, “I love you too,” and pulls her forward into a long, deep kiss, scorch marks be damned.
Knocks wake Dani from the best sleep she’s had in weeks. They aren’t Aubrey knocks, so they aren’t her problem, which she knows because they’re hard and loud and Aubrey is in bed beside her.
They’d shared a bed a few times back at the Lodge, and if possible Aubrey is an even worse bedmate now. She’s like a space heater strapped to Dani’s back. It was one thing for Aubrey to splay out like a starfish on the queen size mattresses at Amnesty Lodge. It’s another for her limbs to be everywhere on Dani’s twin air mattress in Leo’s spare room. One of Aubrey’s arms is snug around Dani’s middle, and their legs are a tangled pretzel. She can feel Aubrey’s lips pressed against her shoulder.
She never wants to get up.
So when the knocks wake her, she groans and shoves her face into her pillow. Aubrey chuckles, her breath tickling Dani’s ear.
She hears Jake grumbling in the living room and Leo’s door swinging open. Then the unlatching of the front door, followed by Duck Newton’s tired voice greeting, “Morning, Leo. Jake. Hey, uh, by any chance, have you seen Aubrey?”
Dani’s eyes fly open. Aubrey freezes at her back.
Jake yawns. Dani can picture him scratching his head. “Aubrey? Why? Is she gone?”
“She wasn’t there when I woke up this morning, and to tell you the truth, I don’t know if she came home last night,” Duck replies.
“What?” Jake sounds significantly more alert. “Is she in trouble?”
“Shit,” Aubrey whispers.
Dani feverishly hopes for Moira to manifest, maybe drag along that specter Aubrey knows who follows the Sheriff around, and distract everyone before they can launch a search party.
Or Leo! Leo knows about their midnight hallway rendezvouses. Surely he won’t let this go on. He’ll cover for them, save them the embarrassment and awkwardness.
She hears Leo clear his throat, and for a second Dani thinks they’re saved.
“Jake,” Leo interjects, “why don’t you go ask Dani if she saw Aubrey?”
In the time it takes Jake to cross the living room to the spare room, several decisions are made. Aubrey bolts upright. She looks at Dani. She looks at the door. She looks at Dani again, and then her eyes cut to the open window. She kicks her legs free of the sheets, making for the window, as the knob turns. Dani makes the fastest calculations of her life and tackles Aubrey back to the bed. There’s no chance she could have made it outside, but there is still a chance they can make it out of this without having to do a shuffle of shame through the apartment.
“Trust me,” Dani urges.
Aubrey nods frantically. Dani kisses her hard as the door opens.
“Hey, Dani, are you awake? Have you seen—AUBREY? Oh my god, MY EYES!”
Aubrey slips her tongue in Dani’s mouth and throws out her arm at the same time. The door slams with a gust of wind.
“It’s like seeing your parents make out, oh my god!” Jake wails. “No need to worry, Duck, I sure found her. And her tongue in Dani’s mouth!”
Dani pulls away. She touches the corner of Aubrey’s mouth with a smile. “Nice touch.”
Aubrey shrugs very unconvincingly, especially given the grin stretching across her lips.
“We all need to evacuate! Immediately! I can’t eat in the same place where that is happening. Duck, this is your fault. You owe me breakfast,” Jake continues, his voice an entire octave higher than normal. “Come on, Leo, we need to stop at the store and get candles and sage to cleanse the apartment.”
From the sound of the footsteps, Jake’s hysteria works. Within five minutes, the apartment is empty.
“That’s like, the fifth time he’s walked in on us,” Aubrey notes.
“I think he gets more dramatic every time.”
Aubrey laughs. “I wish I could’ve seen Duck’s face. Actually, I don’t. He’s probably going to instate a sleepover ban so he doesn’t have to ever walk in on us himself.”
Dani shakes her head. “I can’t believe Leo is such a snitch.”
Aubrey shrugs again. “I don’t really mind. I don’t—I don’t want to keep secrets.”
“Well, you can trust Jake’s big mouth to ensure our sleepover is anything but a secret.” Dani tucks her face into Aubrey’s neck. “Mmm, you smell good.”
“If I get any shit from Keith about going soft, I swear there will be one less Hornet. And thanks, babe. I’m trying out this new shampoo, Juno actually recommended it.”
Dani sniffs deeply, not bothering to hide it. There is an almost woodsy hint to Aubrey’s scent, an earthy tone that could be from Juno’s shampoo or Aubrey’s magic.
“You smell like home,” she says, and as soon as she says it, she knows it’s true.
Aubrey stills, just for a moment. Then she finds Dani’s hand and laces their fingers together.
“I love you,” Aubrey whispers.
Dani murmurs, “I love you too.”
The sheets are only a little singed.
Duck does instate a no sleepover rule, but he’s awful at enforcing it. A few times Dani has fallen asleep on the couch watching movies with Aubrey, then been awoken by Minerva heading outside to do her—well, it looks like a more refined and graceful version of Leo’s morning exercises. Anyway, since she’s already awake, most of the time Dani will head to the kitchen and get the coffee going. Duck will stumble in with only one of his sleeves rolled up and take the mug she offers him without even realizing she technically shouldn’t be there.
They pass the weeks plotting and planning and waiting, interspersed with trips to H2Whoa and occasional calls to and from the FBI. The calls mainly consist of questions they deflect answering and demands to see Mama that the FBI basically ignore.
Dani learns Moira’s specter friend is named Dewey, and that they aren’t friends so much as exasperated mentor and bumbling but endearing pupil. It seems to be a common relationship theme in Kepler.
She also learns how to knit, courtesy of Mrs. Pearson, and how to bake, courtesy of Barclay, who apparently cooks to relieve stress.
Leo teaches her and Jake how to pick locks one afternoon. He calls it a skill you might never know when you’ll need, and neither of them argue. He is and was a Chosen One, and as far as anyone knows, he fought his abominations alone.
It’s been almost two months when Leo startles them all awake with his dream. He jumps out of bed and draws his sword, nearly decapitating Jake when he rushes in at the strange noises. Leo mutters about teeth and a living storm before brushing past them and heading out the door.
“Sounds like the Quell,” Dani muses.
Jake groans, slumping into the couch. “Seriously, why this planet?”
Plans become strategies. On the night before the Pine Guard is to leave for Sylvain, Aubrey knocks on Leo’s door.
He answers. His cragged face is as worn as ever, but he softens just a bit when he sees her.
“Dani’s not here, Aubrey,” he says. “She left looking for you.”
Aubrey’s eyes shine in the dim light of the hallway. “I know.” She removes a wrapped parcel from behind her back. “Will you give this to her tomorrow, after we leave?”
Leo wants to refuse, but he takes the package. It’s light, covered in brown paper and tied off with twine.
“It’s not a good idea to give goodbye gifts, Aubrey. You have to believe you’ll come back if you want to stand a chance.”
Aubrey straightens. Flames flicker in her orange eyes. “Oh, I’m coming back. Don’t worry about that.” She gazes at the package. “It’s just for the meantime. While I’m gone.”
Leo gives a short, approving laugh. “Duck’s lucky you have his back.”
Aubrey hums in agreement, and adds, “I’m lucky he has mine.”
A week later, Aubrey Little wakes up in the hospital. Her friends—her family—surround her, at least the ones not confined to their own beds. Her aching chest fills with joy to see all of them safe and sound, the grief for those not temporarily held at bay. That is all the attention she spares them. She has eyes for one person right now.
The woman sitting next to her hospital bed, wearing a mustard yellow sweater.
“That’s the sweater, right?” Aubrey croaks. She coughs. She’s a little hoarse. She probably had a tube down her throat at some point. “The yellow one?”
For a second, Dani looks like she wants to finish the job the Quell started, but then she just laughs and laughs. The sound draws everyone over, and Aubrey’s absorbed into a raucous reunion, the first of many to come. One or two nurses try to break up the party before ultimately deeming it a lost cause.
Aubrey thinks it can’t possibly get any louder. Then Jake Coolice rounds the corner to prove her wrong.
He’s got one arm around Hollis as they limp slowly down the hallway, pushing their IV pole along as they go. Jake has sacrificed his omnipresent ski jacket to go over Hollis’s papery hospital gown, and Aubrey almost doesn’t recognize him without it.
They recognize her just fine, once the two of them are in sight of Aubrey’s room and it’s maximum capacity of occupants.
Hollis says something to Jake. He hesitates briefly, prompting Hollis to elbow him, and then he unloops his arm from their waist and takes off at a sprint.
(Aubrey always forgets that however small Jake appears, he’s still a Sylph—and she’s pretty sure he’s in the class of abominable snowman.)
“AUBREY!” Jake skids into the room, nearly bowling over Barclay, who still looks a little worse for wear. He all but launches himself onto the bed. “You’re awake!”
“I can’t leave you guys alone for too long, can I?” she rasps. She coughs again, trying to clear her throat. “Just lost without me.”
“Hopeless without you,” Hollis corrects. They lean against their pole in the doorway, smiling tightly. “All I heard was ‘When is Aubrey going to wake up?’ ‘Do you think Aubrey is going to wake up today?’ ‘What if Aubrey is already awake?’”
Dani picks it up. “‘Dani, promise you’ll tell me if Aubrey wakes up and I’m not here!’”
Jake points a finger at her. “Hey, at least I didn’t nearly go feral on a nurse!”
Aubrey raises her eyebrows. Dani averts her eyes.
“Alright, kids, that’s enough,” Barclay interrupts. He sets his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “We were all worried. Some of us were just a little more vocal than others.”
“None worried so much as Beacon! A truly noble blade, he languished day and night until his champion Duck Newton regained his strength!” Minerva announces, heralding the arrival of the rest of Team Chosen. She has to duck under the doorframe to get inside the room, Leo and Sarah Drake following after her like baby ducklings.
Aubrey giggles to herself.
“Come again?” Duck sputters.
“It is true! Ask your blade yourself if you doubt my recounting!” Minerva insists.
Duck, who had been resting in a chair at the foot of Aubrey’s bed, stands up enough to pull his belt from his pants. Beacon unfurls, and Aubrey is even glad to hear his awful voice join the chorus as Duck and his sword get into an argument over whether or not they care about each other.
Someone finds a chair for Hollis, and Jake climbs up onto the bed next to her. The room is loud and busy and stuffed with too many people, but Aubrey wouldn’t have it any other way, especially when Dani takes her hand.
Aubrey can’t help smiling. “I like how you look in my sweater.”
“You mean my sweater,” Dani says, and Aubrey swears her eyes sparkle.
“Mmm, no, it’s mine,” Aubrey decides. “I’m just letting you borrow it.”
Dani sighs. “Fine.” She lifts Aubrey’s hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “We have plenty more at home.”
Home. A rush of warmth sweeps through Aubrey. She tugs Dani in by her hand and kisses her, and this time the only thing set aflame is her heart.