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Season 9, Day 103:
Nagomi Mcdaniel's heart leaps, there in a back room of the bustling Crabitat, as she picks up the receiver and her fingers dial that familiar Hawai'i area code.
"Honey? Honey, it's me. It's Nagomi. Oh my god, I've missed you so much! ... Just now, I got out during the first match of the playoffs, if you can believe it, and I called you as soon as I could! They say we're in season 9 now? I can't believe it's been so long! How have you been? What did I miss? ... And how's York? I hear the Fridays haven't had a great season, but... Oh. Oh god." Nagomi stifles a sob, her mind filled with fresh, sharp memories of darkness, and silence, and enclosure. "He'll be okay, honey. After all, sure, I was in there for a while, but I'm out now, and I'm the same as ever." The thick, ridged carapace now covering much of her left hip and leg itches, reminding Nagomi of their new weight as she lies to the woman she loves. "It'll be okay. I promise. Soon, he'll be back to normal as well, and we'll all be together. Sure, we'll both still be off playing, but we can be a family again. ... Yeah. ... The team? I'm back with the Crabs now, apparently, and they're pretty much the same as ever - Ollie's gone over to the Garages, and I hear he's come out of his shell a bit more... What? ... Honey, no, don't cry, I didn't mean it like that... Shh, it's okay... But yeah, I think you'd like the new kid, they seem nice. They kind of remind me...Never mind. They've brought some of that musical team spirit over from Seattle as well - voice of an angel, but, you know, the nice kind. Axel's...like I was, but you probably already knew that. Tillman's gone, and by the sound of it, it went the way we always kind of hoped it would. His manager - did you know he had a personal manager? Anyway, his manager released a will afterwards, and he left me precisely $17.23 of the twenty I lent him at the hotel bar that one time. Asshole. The lady that replaced him seems... Cool? She's pretty intense, but I guess people say that about me too. ... No, honey, I don't think you should - I mean, that's okay - it's a long flight, and it's the playoffs, so they're probably all sold out already. Besides, I should probably focus - they say this is the team's last step to Ascension, and I don't wanna let them down. It'll just be a couple of weeks at the most, and then we can spend the whole offseason together. We can even go back to that beach you like, on Moloka'i?" ...see the sea..., whispers a barely-heard voice in the back of Nagomi's mind, and she pushes it down as she keeps talking. "Yeah. ... Yeah. Anyway, I should probably go - Silvaire - that's her name, the new batter - she's invited us all out for a celebration drink, says she knows a good place nearby. Pedro asked her where, because we know all the good spots around here already, and she just said that it 'hadn't been nearby until recently', whatever that means. I can appreciate the air of mystery, though, so I'm gonna see how that turns out. ... Honey, you know I'm not. Always and only. I'll talk to you later. Love you."
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Season 9, Day X:
Nagomi Mcdaniel's hand shakes as she reaches for the phone in a hotel room in Charleston, trembling with fear, and horror, and barely-suppressed rage. As she dials that Hawai'i area code, her ears are still full of that awful voice, echoing through the husks of the people she knew and loved, and her claw hand shreds pieces from the edge of the bedpost, slowly, unconsciously.
"Hi honey, it's me. I'm okay - I don't know what you heard, but... Yeah. Stuff went down. ... I'm safe, I promise. I'm in the hotel - I'm sharing with Sutton, but she's down at the bar. I guess we all deal with these things in our own way. ... Yeah, I know. But yeah, here's the story. The...the Peanut came back. People are calling it "The Shelled One" now, I don't know if you've heard - I guess, trying to add some more gravitas than just 'The Peanut'? The way I see it, anything that big and malicious is plenty serious, whatever it might be. So yeah, after the Thieves stole the trophy at the last second, the Peanut came back, said it was going to fight them and "teach us some discipline", whatever that means, so it took all the players in shells, and it...did something to them, and... What? ... Oh my god, I assumed somebody told you. ... Please honey, it's okay ... He's - all of them are - different, now. They seem physically okay - I mean, they still play and everything - but they're not there any more, it's just...the Peanut. ... I know, but I didn't. I'm okay now, and I'm going to find a way to fix this." A long pause. Slivers of cheap wood litter the beige hotel carpet. Sutton will probably be too out of it to care, but the room bill might have something to say about it. "I tried to get to him, you know... When I saw him up there, looking like that, talking like that... Yeah, I know. Three of the guys held me back, and Forrest said the sound of a birch twig snapping on a midwinter morning, which I think means about the same thing. What would I have even done, if I'd gotten to him? And besides, I had a feeling, like that game...needed to be played, and I shouldn't interfere. You know how blaseball can get. ... Yeah. ... I...no, honey, I'm really sorry, but I think I need some space for a little bit so I can sort this all out, and help the team get through it. Besides, I think I need to stay inland for a while." She hears that soft whisper again, and her nostrils thrill to the smell of salt. "I promise, though, when this is all over... Yeah. ... Love you too, babe. Always and only. Speak soon. Bye."
As she hangs up, Nagomi knows what she will dream tonight. The woman she loves, recoiling from the monster she has become, and then her glittering green eyes - the eyes her son shares - clouding over a dark, shocking red, and that voice, the voice that will haunt her for years:
"MY DORK."
The bedframe snaps and collapses. She will have to give Sutton her bed tonight.
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Season 10, Day 47:
In a Breckenridge hotel, the lights of the slopes gleaming faintly in the distance, Nagomi waits to see the slow, gentle rise and fall of her teammate's chest, curled up against the plating down her left side, before picking up the receiver and dialing that Hawai'i area code.
"Hey honey, it's me. ... No, it's okay, I know it's late here - just keep it quiet, Tot's asleep." She gently strokes the fox at her side with the back of her claw. "I know it's been a while. Still no advances on...everything. ... No, I know. I'm sorry. I wanted to see you too, but..." Nagomi is silently weeping now. ( ...salt..., whispers that part of her mind, as the tears reach her lips) "Honey, I'm scared. ... No, not that, but I'm...different now, too. While I was in the shell, I... Well, you know how people in Baltimore say 'Nature abhors a non-crab'? I guess they were right. And then since then, with the decrees..." Nagomi remembers the moment before the start of the season, when all the umps in unison spoke three words that she felt more than heard, searing three changes into the bones of every team. "MoCo and some of the other pitchers can talk to birds now, did you know that? And there's... There's something inside me, now. I don't know what, but I can feel it, this tight fire in my chest, and if I don't know what it is, how do I know I can control it? I was talking to the other Nagomi, the one on the Beams, because she said she had the same thing, and then last month a rogue ump tried to incinerate her, and she just...she just stood there, and she took it, and she came out goddamn glowing!" Nagomi is fully shouting by now, and a groggy Tot Fox rubs against her leg, trying to reassure his friend. "I just... I don't know what I am any more, and I don't... I don't want to hurt you!" All of this is true, but not the only thing - Nagomi remembers two of those dark, scorching words entering her, and she remembers the first match of the season, and how she used the power of the blooddrain to draw out the sparkling, electrical, ...salt... taste of her former teammate's blood, then, for the first time, somehow turned it back on her, using some new power to twist the fabric of the game. A long pause, now, as Nagomi cries into the fur of the fox now stretched across her lap, and listens to the reassuring words that she desperately wants to believe from the other side of the phone line. "No, honey, you don't have to... Please don't... Honey, I think I still need some time to sort this out. Even if it doesn't matter to you, it...it matters to me. Please? ... Okay. Speak soon. Always and only."
As Nagomi cries into the tail she is offered, she checks her calendar. Only 38 days until they play the Fridays at home. By then, she will have to have worked out who she wants to be.
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