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God, this place was a shithole. The factory they were fighting their way through one of the few active places left on the dying planet, its surface covered with dead trees and the rusted remnants of civilisation. They probably should’ve checked before landing the Aurora but it had been a long time since they’d had any good violence. Lily was so sick of Jonny complaining about being bored that she’d take whatever she could get.
Still, it could be worse. Apparently the factory they’d chosen for their heist was a manufacturing plant for Illorian diamonds, which Raph was dying to get her hands on for some reason. All Lily knew was that they were rare, important and well-guarded. Not that any level of guard could really stop unkillable space pirates, obviously.
All in all, Lily thought the heist was going pretty well so far. It was only her second time joining them for something like this; both times she’d insisted for days on end that she was coming and there was nothing they could do to stop her. Everyone was uncomfortably aware Lily was still mortal and tried to keep her out of the way as much as possible. This usually meant getting her to wait outside while they “commandeered” a bar or resolving disputes in the room next door. This time, however, it meant she was given a long-range laser rifle.
Lily’s aim was pretty shit, honestly. She’d started practising with the gun as soon as Brian had handed it to her and managed to hit her target half of the time. Maybe. At least she would be able to improve before next time (and there was going to be a next time, no doubt about that. Lily wasn’t a child anymore, hadn’t been for over five years, and if she wanted to join the Mechanisms on a heist, well. They’d always had trouble saying no to her.)
Thankfully, aim didn’t matter all that much when the people on her side were immortal. She tried to avoid hitting them, of course, but sometimes they got in the way. Lily had almost cried the first time she killed Tim on that other heist a few months ago. Logically, she knew he would get better, but she didn’t think she’d ever forget seeing Tim drop to the floor through the crosshairs and realising it was her finger that had pulled the trigger.
Lily hadn’t killed any of the others this time. (No promises, though. She’d already gotten Lyf in the arm and Jonny in the leg. They didn’t mind. Much.) That didn’t mean she hadn’t killed anyone; she’d taken out several of the guards now strewn behind them as rapidly cooling corpses.
“One room left!” Ivy called over the deafening guns. Said room had more guards than any of the others, and Lily didn’t need to be told to get onto the metal catwalk. It wasn’t the sturdiest thing -- like basically everything else on this planet, it was more rust than metal, and the whole thing wobbled slightly as she climbed the ladder. As long as Lily avoided the holes in the platform, she should be fine. Right?
Wrong.
Lily had always hated grenades. They were far too messy for her tastes; even after thirteen years with the Mechanisms, she couldn’t stand watching people explode. Guns were fine, obviously, but explosions… They reminded her a bit too much of the way what had happened on her ship all those years ago. Lily had been too young to understand what was really going on at the time, but she was old enough to know that she wouldn’t be able to fix the engine and that her parents anyone who’d been nearby wouldn’t be waking up.
She hadn’t told any of them about it, which was why Ashes was throwing grenades around like confetti. A few of them were incendiary (because Ashes O’Reilly was never far from a way to make fire), but those were a minority in their rapidly decreasing stash.
The grenade that hit the support beams of the catwalk was not incendiary.
Lily’s ears rang with the sound of shrieking metal as the badly damaged structure bent and warped. She held onto the fragile railing, hoping to somehow ride the catwalk to the ground. It was risky, but it was the best plan Lily had; she was too high up to jump and there was no way to descend the ladder safely.
As the platform shuddered and groaned, Lily couldn’t help but stumble. The sudden motion jarred her wrist badly and she cried out, clutching it to her chest. Her gun clattered onto the catwalk and slid under the railing to the floor below. There was another jolt as the catwalk tilted. Maybe if she’d still been holding the railing, she would’ve been okay. But she wasn’t holding on. Lily slipped.
And she fell.
-----
Raphaella noticed Lily’s situation first. She was high up in the rafters as usual, attacking from afar when she wasn’t diving down like a bird of prey to stab someone or collect a sample (after all, Every Time Was A Good Time For Science). Her heart thudded in her chest as she heard Lily’s shout of pain. She didn’t hesitate for even half a second and flung herself towards the catwalk. Wings beating hard against the bloodsoaked air, Raphaella’s arm stretched towards the most vulnerable member of her family.
At the same time, Jonny made a noise of pure anguish that would haunt the nightmares of anyone unlucky enough to have heard it. His eyes blazed with determination as he slaughtered his way towards the catwalk. The guards fell quickly to his bullets, his knives, his goddamn hands--
Raphaella’s hand closed on empty air, fingers grazing against Lily’s hair.
Jonny reached Lily just as she crashed into the unforgiving metal floor.
The rest of them could do nothing but watch.
They all heard the crack as something in her broke.
Raphaella darted down towards Lily, although it would be more accurate to say she simply dropped out of the air. The landing was painful. She didn’t care.
Jonny fell to his knees in front of Lily’s crumpled form. In front of his daughter. He scooped her into his lap, cradling her head as tears flowed freely down his face for the first time in centuries.
Tim let out a vengeful scream, fury and terror burning like thunderbolts through his veins. Everything was a crimson haze as he shredded anyone stupid enough to get in his way, it was horror and metal and blood and he couldn’t get to her fast enough, he had to see her, help her--
Ashes froze.
Marius was vaguely aware that the others followed him as he sprinted over to the wreckage. “I’m a doctor, let me look at her!” he gasped. No one bothered to correct him; most of them knew less about anatomy than he did anyway. It didn’t take long for him to assess the damage. “Shit…” he said under his breath. “It’s… It’s her spine. It’s broken.”
Jonny was vaguely aware of the choked noise he made. As he stroked Lily’s hair, woven with tiny pieces of gold she’d found, her eyes fluttered open.
“I’m scared,” she said, her voice hitching and fuck, she sounded like a child again. “I- I can’t move, I can’t… I’m scared.”
With great difficulty, Marius swallowed the lump in his throat. “She’s badly paralysed. If she survives--”
“Don’t you fucking dare say that!” Tim snapped. “She has to survive, she-- I--” He turned to Lyf, who was gently stroking Lily’s hand. “Can’t you do something with your rainbow bullshit?!”
“I- I…” Lyf’s eyes were full of tears. They were a simple brown, containing none of that dizzying polychrome power. “I can’t. It’s too uncontrolled. I’m so sorry.”
“Then what use are you?”
Lyf said nothing, just kept running his thumb across Lily’s hand.
“Tim…” Lily whispered, her voice weak.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Tim said. The tears he would never be able to cry burned behind his eyes.
“We could--” Ivy started, but Brian cut her off.
“No. She didn’t want that. We asked her and she said no, and I will not let you mechanise Lily against her will.”
“So you’d let her die, then?!” Tim snarled.
“I…” Brian’s mouth opened; nothing came out.
Lily’s voice was barely audible above the rattle of her breath. “P-please.”
Jonny’s fingers stilled against her hair. “You… You want us to?”
“Yes.”
With a glare at Brian as though daring him to challenge Lily’s decision, Jonny ordered the Toy Soldier to pick her up as gently as possible. He wanted nothing more than to carry her himself, to keep her safe, but he knew this was for the better. The Toy Soldier could keep Lily still better than the rest of them, and with someone’s coat as padding against its wooden arms, the short journey back to the Aurora wouldn’t cause her any more pain.
There were very few words as they made their way to Carmilla’s lab, just murmurs of reassurance from whoever was closest at the time. Most of them couldn’t bear to be in the room during the procedure, since it brought back unwanted memories of their own mechanisation, leaving just three of them: Marius, Raphaella and Jonny, who sat there clutching her hand and refusing to let go.
It was a long time before it was over. Jonny knew he'd never really forget what it was like to watch Lily’s breathing slow to a halt.
Meanwhile, Lyf had noticed that Ashes was nowhere to be seen. He searched the closest parts of the ship for them, sure they wouldn’t want to go too far from Lily, before he realised he’d never seen Ashes leave with the rest of them.
As it turned out, Ashes hadn’t moved from where they’d been when Lily fell. Lyf watched them stare at the crumpled form of the catwalk for a moment before moving round in front of them. “Ashes?”
“It’s my fault,” Ashes said, not looking away from the wreckage. “I killed her.”
“You didn’t, she’s going to be okay. Come back to the ship, she should be waking up soon,” Lyf begged. Ashes didn’t move.
“My fault,” they repeated.
“It was an accident,” Lyf told them firmly. “It’s not your fault. Lily can tell you that herself when she wakes up.”
“Why would she want to see me?” Ashes finally, finally, looked at Lyf. “I killed her.”
“Lily is alive, Ashes. You didn’t kill her. They should be finishing the procedure by now--”
“It’s not a fucking operation!” they snapped. “What, you think they’re just going to fix up her spine and she’ll wake up immortal, just like that? Because that’s not how it works. It tears you to pieces and burns you and it hurts and you’re never the same afterwards and I made her go through that!”
Lyf paled. Everything was silent for a few moments. “I- I…” He didn’t know what to say.
Ashes didn’t resist as Lyf pulled them away from the empty room and onto the Aurora. They both slumped against the wall where the other Mechanisms were waiting. Minutes, hours, days; Lyf had no idea how long it was before the door slid open. Raphaella stood there, tearstained and shaky.
“She’s alive.”
-----
Lily had expected dying to hurt more, honestly. Yes, breaking her spine had been agony and the first few minutes of the procedure had been somehow worse, but the actual death that followed… She’d expected that to be the worst part. Frankly, it was just a relief.
Coming back to life was a different sensation. It was strange, not quite painful but nowhere near pleasant either. She couldn’t think of a way to describe it properly; one moment she was dead, then the next she simply… wasn’t.
All things considered, Lily felt surprisingly okay. Her eyes struggled open to see her family surrounding her anxiously and smiled. “Hi,” she mumbled, not really knowing what else to say. She tried to sit up but with a jolt of panic, she realised her body wouldn’t obey her. It hadn’t worked, she was still paralysed and she would have to leave them--
She heaved a sigh of relief as her leg twitched. “I’m alright,” she breathed.
Marius rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “We had to put you under some heavy medication to make sure you stayed still. I’m sorry, I thought it would’ve worn off by now.”
“It’s fine, Marius. Can you help me sit up?”
Once he had, the entire group squeezed her into a tight hug. It was warm and safe, and Lily wanted to stay in the embrace forever. That night, they all slept cuddled together, the Mechanisms as unwilling to leave Lily’s side as she was theirs. She didn’t have a single nightmare. (That would almost definitely come later, but Lily was willing to take what she could get for now.)
The next morning was… tense, to say the least. Ashes wouldn’t meet her eyes, Jonny’s usual shitfuckery was subdued and Raphaella was just quiet. Eventually, she couldn’t take it any longer and spoke up. “I- I’m really sorry. I’ll stay out of trouble, you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“What?” Ashes and Jonny blurted in unison.
“If I hadn’t come with you, you wouldn’t have had to-- I would’ve been okay. I didn’t mean to get hurt, I’m so so sorry!” Lily cried, covering her face with her hands to hide the tears that burned in her eyes.
“Don’t Cry, Lily! You’re Not Hurt Anymore!” the Toy Soldier said, painted smile contradicting its concerned tone.
Ashes locked eyes with Lily. “It wasn’t your fault. I should have been more careful,” Ashes said, their voice firm but full of guilt.
“And if I’d been faster, I could have caught you,” Raphaella said.
Jonny glared at a spot on the table. “If those bastards hadn’t been in my way--”
“It was an accident, it wasn’t anyone’s fault,” Brian interrupted. “I regret that you had to go through that, but what's done is done, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.”
Lily sniffed, wiped her eyes. “Y-you’re right.” She got up from the breakfast table and hugged the three of them. She knew they didn’t really believe Brian and tried to convey her forgiveness for their perceived mistakes. It was silent for a few moments. “At least I don’t have to worry about the violence now?” she said with a weak smile.
“Don’t think you’ll convince us that easy. You’re still not getting a battleaxe!” Nastya reminded her.
Lily made an exaggerated pout. “Rude.”
As Nastya ruffled her pale hair, Lily knew she’d made the right choice.
Eternity wouldn’t be so bad after all.