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Basira was tired.
Of course she was. She had thought getting Daisy back would mean getting protection, a new guard dog after Melanie’s rage had been curbed in their little impromptu surgery. But the woman that crawled out of that coffin -- gaunt, pale, covered in dirt so thick she could barely tell where her clothes stopped and her skin began -- was not the same woman Basira had known.
Closing the door to the tiny women’s bathroom behind her, Basira let herself sink to the floor. Eight months. Eight fucking months thinking Daisy was dead, she was gone like Tim and she would never come back. Basira had mourned for her, even if some small part of her mind had told her that Daisy’s death wasn’t important. That she could only have done so much and would have been a wild card in this war the Institute had found itself in. Maybe if it was anyone else, that thought would have been comforting, but even Basira couldn’t reason her way out of a loss like that.
God, she’d almost managed to forget how much she loved her. She’d almost managed to forget how Daisy’s short shock of blonde hair looked mingled with her sweat. She’d almost managed to forget how small she was compared to Basira, yet how commanding of a presence she held. Or used to, anyway. Now, Daisy lingered in the break room, not looking at anyone or anything, making herself as small as possible on the ratty old couch.
Since Daisy and Jon had returned, Basira had been avoiding them. It just wasn’t natural that Jon could get out in three days when Daisy - strong, fearless, determined Daisy - had been rendered helpless by the choking captivity of the Buried.
Basira remembered how Daisy looked when she first met her: standing at her full height of five-foot-nothing, a dangerous gleam in her eye like a dog tracking a scent. What she was tracking, Basira still didn’t know, but until two days ago she had never seen Daisy without that look: an animalistic intent to destroy anything between her and her prey. Basira had only recently transitioned at the time, and had often found herself trying to appear smaller and less noticeable when in public, intent upon not being seen as a threat. Seeing a woman as strong as Daisy be accepted and admired and depended on, well, it gave Basira hope.
Of course Daisy hadn’t been much of a good role model, what with her habit of committing extrajudicial murders and pinning crimes on innocent bystanders to get what she wanted, but Basira hadn’t known that at the time. From her position on the floor (which really was disgusting, when was the last time Lukas had had the place cleaned?) Basira let out a dry laugh. How could she have been such an idiot? Maybe Daisy deserved to be in that place after what she’d done. Maybe that would be better than her drifting around the Institute like a goddamn ghost, even smaller than Basira had been on that day she’d first met her.
Basira took a deep breath against the door that separated her from the rest of the world. Sure, some eldritch voyeur might be watching, but no one that mattered was. She was safe here, away from Daisy’s shy and stolen glances, away from Elias’s constant taunts, away from Jon’s shameless pining and self-pity.
Fuck, when had she started crying?
A knock on the door shook her from her thoughts. Basira scrambled to her feet and wiped off her face, trying to sound calm as she answered, “Yeah?”
“Basira, are you in there?” A voice she knew intimately, though absent of the bite it had once held. Daisy’s voice.
“Uh, yeah, Daisy. I’ll be out in a second.” Shit. Basira risked a glance in the mirror. Her mascara had known better days, to say the least. She went to wipe her eyes, remembered the disgusting floor she’d been sat on, then turned on the tap to wash her hands.
There was no response from behind the door, and a long pause, with only the sound of the water from the tap, followed. Had Daisy gone? Had she decided to continue drifting through the dark halls of the building like a ghost? Basira wiped off her hands, fixed her face as best as she could, straightened out her hijab, and with one last breath in privacy she opened the door, immediately colliding head-on with a pale and drawn frame.
“Shit, Daisy, I thought you’d left!” Basira exclaimed, trying to recover from the scare. Daisy tumbled onto her back (When had she gotten so weak?), and she stared up at Basira with an expression that Basira couldn’t read. Fear? Anger? It couldn’t be relief, could it?
As soon as it was there, it disappeared, and Daisy again looked away as she struggled to get up on her own. After staring dumbfounded at her partner for a few awkward moments, Basira realized Daisy had dropped her cane in her fall. “Do you… want some help?” she offered, hovering uncertainly. Shit, she wasn’t used to a Daisy that needed help.
“Does it look like I need help, Basira?” came the response, and now that sounded like Daisy. Although it still was missing the strength her words used to hold.
“Kind of, yeah,” Basira shot back, and she definitely did not mean her words to sound that harsh. To make up for it, she bent down to grab the cane Daisy had been given after Melanie decided to rob Elias’s old office the previous day and handed it to her. Daisy took it with shaking hands. After another awkward moment of Daisy trying to shift her weight so that the cane would support her as she stood, Basira extended a hand to help her up, which Daisy again took.
With some work, Daisy was on her feet again, one hand on Basira’s arm and the other on her cane. Basira opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly she became very aware of her hand on Daisy’s waist. She was even more aware of how sharp Daisy had become in her imprisonment, her pelvis jutting out under a tight layer of skin. Despite all that, she was warm. She reminded Basira of the times she’d touched Daisy like this before, when muscle had filled out the gaps that now were part of her frame.
Daisy looked up at Basira, that same unreadable expression having returned. She didn’t say anything, and Basira found herself trapped under her gaze. All she could do was keep her hand on Daisy’s waist and look into Daisy’s eyes. It felt like an eternity they stood like that, staring at each other and paralyzed by some unknown and overwhelming feeling that united them.
Daisy was the first to pull away. Her eyes were the first to break, then her hand left Basira’s arm (she felt so cold now, like the hand had been replaced with ice), and Basira feared she would have to move her hand from Daisy’s waist. But instead, Daisy covered Basira’s hand with her own, keeping her eyes trained on the wall behind her.
Somehow that broke Basira out of the trance she’d found herself in, but before she could decide what to say, Daisy interrupted her thoughts.
“Basira, I… I know this isn’t what you expected.”
“Daisy, I --”
“Let me finish. Please.” Daisy’s gaze never left the wall, but Basira still was transfixed. “When I was in the coffin, I had a lot of time to think. About my life, my mistakes, what I could have done differently and what I wouldn’t have changed for the world. I thought about you. A lot. About how I lied to you, about how I would do anything to keep you safe, about how I got you trapped here under the Eye. I thought about how beautiful you are. I thought about how much you depended on me as something strong and powerful to keep you safe. Jon told me while we were in there how you counted on Melanie when I was gone, and how you saved her from the blood and rage that infected her.” Daisy’s eyes shifted to Basira’s once again, her hand squeezing Basira’s on her hip. “I know when you saw me you thought I could still do that for you. And I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.” Daisy looked away again.
Basira just stared, unsure of what to say. What do you even say to something like that? I’m sorry you were trapped in an evil coffin hellscape for eight months and you feel bad that I can’t use you anymore? Fuck, Basira had known she’d been using Daisy, of course she had, but it had never occurred to her how Daisy felt about that until then. Until she was weak and in need of support, and Basira had just avoided her because she was uncomfortable.
She barely even registered it when she put her free hand around Daisy and brought her in for a hug. Basira held her tight, trying and failing to find the words she needed. The closest she could find was, “I love you.” Basira whispered it over and over as she wrapped Daisy up, and Daisy, at first tense and stiff, slowly relaxed in her arms.
Basira had always been a woman of logic. She’d dismissed sympathy and pity, panic and misery, attachment and love, in favor of measuring people by how useful they could be to her. But now, logic and facts had been tossed out the window, logic and facts had been buried in an impossible coffin.
“I love you, Daisy. You’re safe, you made it back to me. It’s my turn to protect you.”
Basira pulled back just enough to see Daisy’s face, and as she had expected, tears had made their way down her face.
Daisy and Basira had kissed before. A boring stakeout. An adrenaline-fueled hookup after breaking a big case. A goodbye before the Unknowing, the last time Basira saw Daisy as the woman she was before. This was nothing like those had been. This kiss was full of hope; it was a promise to take care of each other despite all the gods and monsters determined to tear them apart from the inside out. There would be no happy ending for them, they both knew. But this moment let them forget as they held each other close.