Work Text:
Mama worries about Juno.
Mama met Juno when she was thirty years old, when Arlowe Thacker, God rest his soul, had dragged her into the Lodge covered in blood and dirt. They'd run into the Abomination on a walk, one that Juno had convinced him to take. ("You work too hard," she would tell him. "You need a break.") As soon as Juno woke up, she asked what she could do to help, and Mama laughed. Juno pressed on.
That sums Juno up pretty well, Mama thinks. Juno pressed on. When Mama told her not to call her Madeline, Juno pressed on. When Mama told her to get the Hornets out of her way, Juno pressed on. When Mama told her to take a nap... Juno pressed on.
It isn’t sustainable, Mama thinks, before wandering into the main room to find Jake curiously eyeing Juno's sleeping form on the couch.
"Mama, do you think we should wake her up?"
"No... She needs the sleep."
"Well, we oughta do somethin', right? We can't let her sleep here all day..."
"Yeah... You're right. Jake, can you ready a room?"
"You got it." Jake gestures somewhere behind Mama, and Dani, who Mama thought was in the garden, bounds past her to join him. They wander towards the guest rooms, which Mama realizes they’re running out of with a sigh. She sits on the floor next to the couch, almost guarding Juno until Jake and Dani come back.
Mama is strong enough to carry Juno on her own, even though she feels her bad knee strain as she lifts Juno into the air. When she reaches the room, she tucks Juno in with care, but doesn't bother trying to remove her shoes– They'll have to clean the sheets, anyways, what's a bit of dirt?
As Mama starts to close the door after her, leaving Juno to sleep in peace, she heard a quiet voice saying,"Stay".
And she doesn't know what comes over her as she murmurs, "I will, I just need a book." As she gives Juno one last look, she sees Juno smiling blissfully, almost completely asleep.
She smiles back.
When Juno wakes up, it's to the sound of the quietest, most peaceful, and most beautiful humming she'd ever heard. She blinks once, twice, sits up in the soft bed in what she recognizes as a spare room of Amnesty Lodge. Oh. Right.
Who’s humming?
Madeline is humming.
Madeline stayed?
"Hey, Maddie." The humming stops as Madeline closes a paperback she'd had in her lap.
"I've told you not to call me that," Madeline jokes. Nobody else is here, so they both know it doesn't matter.
"It's not like anybody's gonna hear."
"Yeah, yeah. It's the principle of the thing." Madeline actually has a small smile on her face, and Juno feels her heart skip a beat.
"Thanks for staying. I feel safer when you're around, you know."
Madeline lets out a little huff. "Quit trying to butter me up."
"You know that's not what I'm doing. I'm being honest." Juno turns onto her side fully, gazing at Madeline in her chair. She looks like a queen.
"You don't– You shouldn't say stuff like that. You know it's silly."
"You know I like you." Juno sits up, rubbing at her eyes. Madeline is blushing. "I can stop, but... Do you really want me to?" Juno tries not to sound betrayed.
"I don't– I've known you for eleven years, Juno, that's plenty of time for you to have found someone else."
"You aren't answering the question, Mads. Do you want me to stop?"
There's a moment of silence. Madeline sighs, deep and tired. "It doesn't matter what I want, it matters that we don't get hurt. In this line of business... It's dangerous, falling in love. Besides... I'm too old for you." A corner of Madeline's mouth twitches upward, but she still looks sad.
"Madeline, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that it just wouldn't be right for me to let you get hurt, and, for that matter, it wouldn't be right for you to die on me, either."
"...Madeline. Why are you so afraid of being happy?" Juno feels something deep inside her strain as she looks into Madeline's eyes. Ever since Juno met her, Madeline's been like this– Staring at the wall wistfully, giving Juno those sad little smiles. "Sometimes things go bad, but that doesn't mean you have to mope around like you've been doing. I could show you that, if– If you'd just let me."
"Juno..." Madeline stands up, walks to the foot of the bed, sits back down. "I just can't. I can't let myself fall in love with someone who goes and dies on me. Not again."
Juno takes a hand from the other woman's lap ever so gently, like she's trying to befriend a deer. "You know how careful I am. You know I'll always come back."
"I don't know that, nobody knows that, Juno. You've seen the Abominations lately, those things are– They don't have emotions, Juno, they don't let people go home to their families like nothing happened just because they cried a little. You've probably faced a hundred of them, but I've faced even more. I barely survived, Juno, and I was more careful than you could imagine. Every day that you stay with the Hornets, you're putting yourself in danger. And I can't let myself get any more attached to somebody like that."
"...I understand. I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do, but– But keep me in mind, okay? Please? I– I'm always going to be here for you. Always."
"Don't say always, Juno." Madeline squeezes Juno's hand, and Juno watches a tear slip from her eye. Juno reaches up, brushes it away, and Madeline smiles. "But... come talk to me when you hit retirement age. Okay?"
Juno smiles. It's a real smile, one that she feels in the very core of her being. She leans forward, bumps her forehead against Mama's. "I will."
They sit there for a long moment, foreheads touching, feeling each other breathe. When the trance finally passes, Juno is still smiling.
"I have work tonight, and the full moon meeting's tomorrow... I should get going." Juno doesn't pull her head away, and neither does Madeline.
"Don't let me keep you."
They sit like that for another minute before Juno pulls away, gets out of bed, picks up the ranger's hat that Madeline carefully balanced atop the bedside lamp. "I'll see you soon."
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Madeline smiles, and Juno smiles back.
"Why are you smiling like that?" Duck Newton grins, leaning over Juno's desk. "I thought you were with family today."
"Oh, you know. Just thinking about retirement."