Archive of Our Own

So here’s how xe finds out. Beck Whitney, captain of the Boston Flowers and effectively xir new boss, calls Margarito into the coach’s office before practice one day, barely six weeks into xir tenure on the team. She stares xem down with a mixture of confusion and frustration and lays the sports section of the Herald on the table.

Next Round Of ILB Draft Decided, the headline reads. The picture below is a young woman, long dark hair splayed out behind her as her bat makes contact with a fastball. She’s wearing a jersey Margo doesn’t recognize, but xe knows she moved out west a couple months back. Nevada somewhere.

“Are you, by chance,” Beck starts, squinting at xem, “related to anyone named Nagomi?”

“Well, shit,” Margo mutters, leaning down to look at the paper a little closer. “She didn’t tell me she was moving up to the big leagues.”

“That’s a yes, then,” Beck says. She adjusts her ballcap, seats it more firmly on her head. One of her canines digs into her lower lip. “Is she any good?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask,” Margo says. “We haven’t played together since high school. Everyone always thought it was so cute, putting us on the same team. Didn’t matter that we were over the whole matchy twin thing by then.”

“Twins?” Beck asks, eyes glancing down to the photo. “There are two of you?”

“She would take great offense to that, actually,” Margo says. “We are very distinct in the Nava family. Striving for individuality. I once stole one of Gomi’s shirts and she burned it afterward.”

It’s a true story, which is a shame. Margo had really liked that shirt.

“Well, it seems like maybe it’s time for a family reunion,” Beck says, picking up the paper and folding it in half. “She’s signed on with the Moab Sunbeams, over in the Lawful Evil division. I’m not sure how often we’ll play them, but I’d appreciate any pointers on what we might expect.”

Margo almost wants to ask for the paper. It’s weird to see xir sister printed out in all her glory, across nearly half a page. She’d seemed to be doing well in the Blittle League, from what Margo heard; this is still a surprise.

“Oh, no worries there, Cap,” xe says instead, waving a hand. “As far as I know, she’s just an unsettling weirdo. No supernatural abilities, but she did go pagan a year or two back. Makes the holidays a real nightmare.”

Beck tilts her head to the side. “Do I want to know?”

“Absolutely not, thank you for asking,” Margo says.

“Great,” she says, and she waves a hand. “Go on, then, go get ready for practice. We’ve got a lot of work to do today.”

Margo does so readily, closing the door to Beck’s office behind xem. Once at xir locker, Margo takes out xir phone and scrolls through dozens of text conversations until xe finds what xe’s looking for.

They haven’t texted since their birthday last year. Just a quick check-in, hardly anything memorable. Margo is the worst kind of sibling, xe decides, and unfortunately Nagomi isn’t any better.

Xe fires off a quick text. A simple congrats on the contract! call me tonight? does the trick, xe thinks, and then Beck is calling the team out to the field for practice.

--

Their father always used to tell this story. The way it went, Margo and Nagomi were born on opposite ends of an eclipse. Margo had been born while the sun was high in the sky, completely undisturbed. Xe had been safely delivered without any fuss or concern, but Nagomi? Not so much.

Allegedly, Nagomi had taken her sweet time coming into the world. She followed after Margo, but she waited a good hour to do so. By then, the moon had risen and progressed to the point of totality. She took her first breath in that moment of surreal darkness, let out a cry that shattered the stillness.

Nagomi hates that story. Honestly, Margo kind of hates it too; it put all this pressure on both of them, pushed xem to be this constant source of positivity and forced optimism, made Nagomi out to be some kind of black sheep before she decided for herself what she wanted to be.

Margo’s never been able to figure out whether it was actually true. Mostly, it gained power in the retelling, collecting validity through familiarity. They were always trailing after one another anyway, whether by chance or by choice. And now, Margo supposes, they’re going to be in the same orbit for a while.

--

“Were you even going to tell me?” Margo asks. Xe’s struggling to unlock xir apartment around armfuls of groceries. “I’d like to think I would have figured it out the first time we were on the field together, but it would have been nice to have a warning.”

“You got plenty of warning,” Nagomi says, irritation clear even through the phone. “It was in the paper.”

“Well, yeah.” Margo shoves the door open with a grunt. “But like, I could have sent over a fruit basket. Or a singing man in a sun costume.”

Xir apartment is too dark upon entry. Margo hears a few of xir precious groceries tumble to the ground and roll off and away, likely for xem to trip over later after completely forgetting. Xe stumbles to the table and drops the bags before hunting down a light switch.

“So you can understand why I didn’t tell you,” Nagomi says.

Margo opts to ignore that. “You should come by Boston sometime soon. It’s been a while.”

In all fairness, though, Margo never bothered to visit her after she moved. They really haven’t seen each other much since xe left home, other than the occasional holiday. Margo’s been busy, what with the constant games and traveling across the country.

“You would hate the Moab,” Nagomi tells xem, and Margo wonders if xe’s been delivering xir internal monologue out loud. “It’s too quiet for you. Not enough color.”

“Perfect for you, then,” Margo says.

“It’s worked out so far.”

Margo leans against the counter, runs a hand through xir hair. “They’re taking care of you out there?” xe asks, and it feels a half-step off, like something xe isn’t allowed to ask.

Nagomi is quiet for a minute. Margo tries to picture her, but all that comes to mind is how she used to look when they were kids: braces, hair in two long French braids that fell well past her shoulders.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she says finally. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, sure, I know,” Margo says. And then, because xe can’t just let things lie, “Tell me about your new team, though. My captain wants a full, detailed report by tomorrow morning.”

“I actually need to go.” Something rustles on Nagomi’s end of the line. “The movers are coming tomorrow morning, and I have a lot of packing to do.”

“Right, yeah,” Margo says. “This was nice, though. I’ll see you around?”

“Sure,” Nagomi says. And then she hangs up.

Margo lets out a giant, heaving sigh. Xe drops the phone on the counter and rubs xir hands over xir eyes, takes a minute to think about xir life choices. And then xe starts unpacking produce.

--

Running a restaurant is stressful even in the best of times. Margo does not know why xe thought it would be any easier to keep Margaritoville going as a member of a blaseball team. Xe’s been trying frantically to bring on enough staff to cover the work xe used to do and still be around enough to justify keeping xir name on the sign over the door.

It’s much harder once the season actually starts. Margo is off and traveling across the country every day of the freaking week, and even when xe’s in town, xe’s either playing or exhausted. Evening shifts at the bar after a home game become the new normal, even though Margo often feels like xe can barely keep xir eyes open.

Which is probably why xe doesn’t notice Beck at the bar immediately, why xe barely even looks up to take her order.

“How about you grab yourself a beer and we chat,” Beck says, and it’s so unexpected it jolts Margo out of xir apparent fugue state.

“Christ, Whitney,” xe says, staring at her in confusion. “I didn’t realize you knew how to leave the stadium. Are you lost or something?”

She grins, but there are dark circles under her eyes. Margo doesn’t know much about xir captain, but even xe knows she’s incapable of stepping away from the Garden for more than an hour or two. “Consider this a work-related visit.”

“Does that mean I can expense this to the Flowers?”

Beck waves a hand. “Open a tab in my name, I’ll cover you.”

Margo takes a moment to look around the bar. There aren’t many people in tonight, mostly just regulars xe’s already taken care of, which means xe has no reason not to pour a drink and chat. Xe grabs a couple glasses.

“Sorry, fresh out of O negative,” xe says, sliding a beer over to her. “You’ll have to drink an IPA like the rest of us.”

Beck raises her glass in acknowledgement. “I think I’ll manage.”

“What brings you to the neighborhood? Rough night?” Margo asks, leaning against the counter across from her. “I’m a bartender; legally, you have to tell me all your secrets.”

Xir jokes don’t seem to faze Beck much, though she’s still smiling. “No dark secrets here, actually,” she says. “I just like to get to know the people on my team. I’ve been meaning to stop by for a while, but I couldn’t find the time.”

“Shocking, given your famously empty schedule.”

“You’re one to talk.” Beck, it turns out, is a fidgeter. Margo watches her pick up the napkin from under her drink and fold it into triangles. “When was the last time you had a night off to enjoy yourself? When was the last time you visited your sister?”

Margo takes a sip of xir drink, hums. “Not since before she moved out west. We’re not the visiting sort.”

It’s not that Margo doesn’t want to see Nagomi. She’d be fine having xem there, probably. It’s more a question of navigating the awkward, unfamiliar bits, the parts of her that have grown in since they last spoke.

“That’s a shame.” Beck tears off a corner of the napkin and twists it, starts bending it into a new shape. “We’ll have to invite the Sunbeams for drinks after a game sometime.”

“Ah, so that’s what this is!” Margo says, pointing at her. “Beck Whitney, you are trying to meddle in my personal affairs.”

“Not at all!” Even despite the amount of stress she’s under, Beck Whitney is quick to laugh. Her shoulders shake with it, even as she tries to hold back. “I’m trying to leverage your complicated family history and easy access to alcohol to create a team alliance. Those are different things.”

“You are one screwed up lady,” Margo says, shaking xir head. “The audacity! Assuming I would mix business and personal like that. How dare you. I am a professional businessman!”

“All right, fine.” Beck’s still grinning, canines on full display. “How do you feel about sponsored team events, then? Autographs, meet and greets, that sort of thing? I bet you’d have people lined up down the block for a chance to meet the Boston Flowers.”

“Oh, that’s perfectly fine. My moral high ground does not object to honest nepotism.”

“That’s not at all what nepotism means, Nava.”

--

Turns out, they aren’t going to play the Sunbeams at all. Not once in the entire first season. When the schedule is released, Margo immediately sends a text to Nagomi: guess we’ll have to wait to find out the superior Nava twin.

Nagomi doesn’t respond for a few days. When she does, it’s simple: Lucky you.

--

Moving from a stadium to an actual garden had seemed like a good idea at the time. “Seemed” being the operative word, Margo thinks, as it’s overall been pretty messy.

Xe pushes a wheelbarrow along the new first base line, maneuvering around players already pulling out weeds. Isaac and Castillo are each tossing their compost into Jorge’s open mouth, because apparently whatever kind of lizard he is means he can eat whatever they find. Margo doesn’t bother stopping to collect anything; instead, xe comes to stop beside Matheo and Hurley, who are pulling grass out by the handful.

“Need a hand?” xe asks, setting the wheelbarrow down.

Hurley sits back on their heels, squinting up at Margo. “How many you got?”

“Just the two,” Margo says, waving them in front of xir face.

“Good enough.” Hurley gestures to the ground beside them. “Come on down, the dirt is fine.”

Gardening is not something Margo would ever say xe’s good at. Prior to joining the team, xe didn’t have any experience with it at all. So far, most of xir forays into actually growing things have led to disappointment.

The dirt is warm against xir skin as Margo scoops discarded grass into the wheelbarrow. It’s a nice day out, at least, though the sun is blazing. When xe starts to pull up grass xemself, though, Hurley holds out a hand to stop xem.

“You have to pull them up gently, Nava, from the root,” they say. They part the grass in front of them to demonstrate, digging a few fingers down into the dirt and clearing it away from the roots. “Otherwise, they’ll grow back in no time.”

Margo mimics their movements, digging xir nails into the dirt and pushing it away from the root system. It’s all tangled together, a web of thin white lines. But Hurley and Matheo have already done some of the work, so at least xe’s got a clear place to start.

“So how’d you end up with the,” Margo starts, then pauses. Xe waves a hand at the general area of Hurley’s abdomen, to the outline of her external ribcage beneath her shirt. “Exoskeleton.”

Matheo is actually the one who answers, not even pausing to look up. “Stole them from nosey people who don’t keep their questions to themselves.”

It’s blunt, and Margo thinks for a second xe’s crossed some kind of line. But then xe catches Matheo smirking, sees Hurley roll their eyes.

“Don’t mind Matheo, he’s heard this a hundred times,” Hurley says. They lean forward and start working again, fingers pulling much faster than Margo’s. “I did Bryanayah a favor once. She’s got a funny way of saying thank you.”

“Oh, god,” Margo says. “I got her a coffee this morning. Do I need to be on the lookout for extra appendages? What’s the exchange rate here?”

Hurley chuckles, shaking their head. “You’d be lucky to get an extra thumb for that kind of thing, don’t worry.”

“Hey, I’ll take it.” Margo pulls a fist of grass free from the ground and tosses it over xir shoulder. “Maybe this time it will be a green one and Castillo can get off my back about plant murder.”

Matheo follows Margo’s lead, lobbing a handful of roots and dirt over xem. It lands solidly in the wheelbarrow with a thump. “Castillo gets on everyone’s back about plant murder. I’m surprised Beck could convince him to pull up grass.”

“Where is Beck, anyway?” Margo tries to seem nonchalant, tossing another handful of grass behind xem. It lands on xir shoe, which is nowhere near the wheelbarrow. Damn. “I thought she’d be out here with the rest of us losers.”

“Meeting with the Groundskeeper,” Matheo answers automatically. “She’s got a lot on her plate, kid. The forces that be didn’t really want us to leave Flenway.”

And that’s a real shame. Margo hasn’t really spent a lot of time with most of the Flowers. Outside of practice, they’ve all kind of kept to themselves. Beck is the one person xe’s been able to actually talk to.

“Ah,” xe says. “Bummer.”

“Chin up, bud!” Hurley reaches out and grabs xir hand. Their grip is strong, despite the mud and dirt on their fingers. “We’re no Beck Whitney, but Matheo and I make for great company. We do a fantastic rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Margo knows that already, actually. Hurley is very enthusiastic on karaoke night.

“You know,” xe says, “I hear plants like it when you sing to them.”

Matheo shoots xem a very pointed look, verging on threatening. “Careful what you wish for, Nava. Old Hurley here doesn’t need much encouragement.”

And, in fact, apparently Margo has already said enough. Hurley grins and nudges Matheo in the side, humming the opening notes. Despite a lengthy groan, Matheo joins in.

--

The Flowers make the playoffs, and Margo has the audacity to think that’s it. They get eliminated pretty early on, and xe invites everyone over for drinks at Margaritoville. But xir mind is already on the next season, on pre-season training and scrimmages.

But that’s not it, apparently. Beck holds a team meeting the day after the finals, and it isn’t about any of that. It’s about the Election. Margo hasn’t thought much about that, honestly; a few new players here and there aren’t going to change xir life in any major way.

Only that isn’t what happens.

The Election results roll in, and the Forbidden Book opens. A Garages pitcher dies on the spot, standing in the field surrounded by her teammates. And the Moab, Nagomi’s home, is swallowed by the Hellmouth.

--

“How does it feel?” Margo asks, standing too close and not close enough at the same time. “Does it… hurt?”

Blaseball has introduced Margarito to plenty of weird things. Flowers players have extra bones or limbs, supernatural abilities xe wouldn’t have believed without proof. But this, the thing taking over xir sister, takes the cake. Other members on her team got it worse, or at least that’s according to her; Margo’s not sure xe wants to find out for xemself.

Nagomi bites her lip. Dark shadows stretch across her face, marring her features. Margo chooses to focus on her right side, to look at the parts of her that are familiar.

“It depends on what you mean by hurt,” Nagomi says, which is incredibly unhelpful.

“Thank you for that detailed explanation,” Margo says. “I completely understand now.”

Nagomi sighs. Her hair seems to levitate for a brief moment, curling in the still air of the apartment. “I don’t think this is something we are meant to understand, Maggie.”

“Oh, so it’s Maggie now,” Margo says, and xe can’t help smiling just a little bit. “Haven’t heard that in a while. Are you feeling sentimental?”

“Old habits.” Nagomi turns and walks away, leaving the door open for xem; a rush of warm air fills the space, bringing sounds that could be whispers but might just be her skirt rustling. “Don’t make it weird.”

“Right, because I’m the one making things weird here.”

Nagomi’s apartment is small; Margo steps in and finds there isn’t really anywhere to set xir things, barely anywhere to sit down. Xe closes the door and decides to lean against the wall, between framed prints xe can’t begin to understand.

Nagomi grabs a deck of tarot cards from the end table by the door and takes a seat at the kitchen table. “I did not make this,” Nagomi tells xem, one hand motioning to the left side of her face. She cuts the deck and starts shuffling methodically; it’s much smoother than she used to be, more practiced. “I didn’t open the book.”

It’s surreal; she still sounds like herself, still acts as collected as she has ever been. But as she lays out the cards, Margo can see her hands shaking. The smoke hovering over her left eye and cheekbone grows and retreats in unequal, wavering strides. Sometimes, Margo can barely see her face; other times, the smoke nearly dissipates completely.

Nagomi lays out cards too fast for xem to see, takes them back just as quickly. She goes through several, maybe half a dozen layouts, without so much as pausing for breath in between.

“Gomi,” Margo warns, pushing off the wall to step toward her. She holds up a hand to stop xem, but xe takes another step anyway. “Why did you want me here?”

Nagomi doesn’t even look up. “Why did you come?”

There’s a lot of things Margo might say to that. Because xe was worried, or because Nagomi had sounded so unsettled over the phone. Because she had actually called xem, instead of the other way around, and every photo and video that came out of the Hellmouth for three days straight had been something out of a nightmare. No matter how distant xe and Nagomi had become, xe couldn’t just leave her alone in all of that.

“Because you asked me to,” xe says instead. And then, to soften the words, “And you refused to come to Boston.”

“I don’t know that I can come to Boston,” Nagomi says. “A lot of this is still new. The team captains wanted everyone to stay close, just in case.”

Margo takes a seat across the table from her. Xe fights the urge to reach for her hand; xe knows better than to think she’d appreciate the gesture, knows she would rather pull away than meet xem in the middle.

The movement still seems to startle her. She looks up at xem sharply, eye wide. And then her gaze shifts away to a point behind xir shoulder. “Can you hear that?”

Margo stops to listen. The apartment is mostly quiet, but outside has been full of sirens and car horns since xe arrived in town. “What, the never-ending chaos and our imminent demise, courtesy of your new hometown?”

“No.” Nagomi looks up, head tilted to one side. Margo wishes xe could look at her without feeling anxious, without wondering how much more of her will end up engulfed in smoke. “Something spoke.”

Margo doesn’t know much about tarot. What xe does know, xe learned from brief vacations home in college. Slowly, Nagomi had filled her room with crystals and plants, had pinned cards to the corkboard on her bedroom door without explanation.

Today, she’s landed on the Wheel of Fortune. It’s on the table, inverted; based on Nagomi’s expression, that isn’t good news.

“I think there’s something in my head,” she says.

Margo leans in. “What does it want? Is this a Casper the friendly ghost situation, or demands for ritual sacrifice?”

“No, nothing like that.” Nagomi doesn’t even kick xir shins under the table, which means it’s serious. “I think it’s saying… hello.”

In the depths of the smoke around her head, a phantom eye appears.

--

Boston is not as easy to navigate as Margo remembers. Xe used to be able to count on muscle memory for most things, could get by with the occasional navigation app or directions from a stranger. Lately, though, xe’s been getting lost. And xe isn’t the only one.

“I think you have to take a left,” Jacob says. “Like, not a left-left, but the half-left.”

“Dude.” Margo laughs, looking around the intersection. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Margo has been to this exact intersection before. Or, at least, xe thought xe had. Xe could have sworn it was a standard, four-way intersection, but it looks like there are five or six roads converging here.

“The left next to the hard left,” Jacob tells xem, and he sounds so exasperated that it’s hard to be upset with him. “Listen, I’m doing my best here. I have no idea what you’re looking at right now, I’m not even sure you’re in the right Boston.”

The city is changing, they all realize that. But Margo had thought xe’d be able to run to a deli a few blocks away without getting completely turned around and screwed up. The best xe can hope is that xe’s still in Massachusetts somewhere.

Margo spots a break in traffic, jogs across the street. Jacob is yelling something on the other end of the line, though whether he’s calling for backup or telling Margo xe’s been lost in a wormhole is hard to say. By the time xe gets to the next sidewalk, King has taken the phone.

“Margarito,” he says, voice unnervingly calm.

“Your Majesty.”

That earns xem a quick chuckle, a barely-there huff of laughter. “Tell me what it is you’re seeing right now, if you would.”

“Well. I see a very angry Italian man in a Prius, who is absolutely not happy at my taking up residence in the middle of the street.” Margo offers a little wave to the driver in question, mouthing a quick sorry.

“Perhaps remove yourself from active traffic.” King has more patience than anyone gives him credit for. “And then see if you can find a sign for an African market.”

Margo does as xe’s told, sprinting to the next spot of safe pavement and looking around. It takes a minute or two, but there’s a sign off in the distance that looks like it might be what King wants. “Copy that, Your Honor.”

“Just King is fine, Margarito,” he says, as he always does. “The deli should be down that way. If you come across a hot dog cart, you’ve gone too far.”

“How’s Jacob doing?” Margo asks. “He lost his marbles yet?”

King’s smile is practically audible. “He’s stepped away to compose himself. His apartment is in that area, as it happens.”

“Tough break,” Margarito says, staring down a superfluous street full of inverted colors and squiggly lines. “I send my condolences.”

King says his goodbyes, and Margo hopes that’s it for fun, interdimensional adventures for the day. When xe returns to the Garden later with half the deli order and an armful of errant hot dogs, absolutely no one can blame xem.

--

The bar is packed after the first series against the Sunbeams. Beck has kept her word about using the bar more; almost every team in the ILB has stopped by at some point or another, and apparently, demonic mutants from the Hellmouth are no exception to the rule.

Everyone is feeling raucous, ready to let off steam. Three solar eclipses in a row and not one player lost. Even getting shut out doesn’t negate that kind of relief.

Margo still stays behind the bar most nights, despite the celebrations. But today xe makes a point of getting out into the crowd a little bit more, if only to get a better feel for the people Nagomi is spending all her time with. It takes a while to realize Nagomi isn’t even there.

Xe goes outside with the intent to call her, to find out exactly where in Boston she’s run off to. Instead, Margo finds Nagomi standing in the back alley with two of her teammates, surrounded by white smoke that smells distinctly like weed.

“Shit,” Nagomi says, handing the blunt over to the one with horns – Randy, Margo thinks, though they haven’t met before. “Hey, Maggie.”

Margo holds out a hand. “Fork it over.”

“You never told us your brother was a narc, Nagomi,” Randy says as he passes xem the joint.

“Xe isn’t,” Nagomi says, and Margo grins as xe takes a hit. “Xe just isn’t great at sharing.”

“Relax.” Margo blows the smoke out xir nose and passes it back to Nagomi. “We’re all adults here, I’ll wait my turn.”

Randy’s mouth splits into a wide, toothy smile. They look so young that Margo immediately wants to take the weed back and tell them they’ll have to wait until they’re older. Instead, Margo rocks back on xir heels and shoves xir hands in xir pockets.

The third Sunbeam Margo is less familiar with. They’ve got a smiling emoticon up on their screen, and they don’t seem to be partaking in the recreational drug use. Margo wonders if that’s a choice, or because it would mess with their circuitry.

“Margo,” Nagomi says, motioning to either side of her, “Randy and Emmett. Randy and Emmett, this is my brother Margo.”

Emmett types a brief Hello! before returning to the smile. Margo offers a wave.

“Good game out there today,” Randy says, and it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. The Beams shut them out one day, and barely let one run by the day after that; it’s hardly anything worth congratulating.

“We’re welcoming people out here in Boston,” Margo says. “Couldn’t let you look bad the first time we played you.”

“Right.” The joint burns brighter as Randy inhales, a spot of orange in the shadows of the alley.

“Not that I don’t enjoy standing in a cold alley getting high,” Margo starts. Nagomi snorts, and xe shoots her a glare. “But there’s a whole crowd of people in there who seem to like you all.”

“Getting drunk in front of Sandy always feels so weird,” Randy says. “They aren’t like, openly disappointed, but you still feel like maybe you’ve made some kind of irreversible mistake and they’ll never forgive you.”

“They’re not mad,” Nagomi mutters, and Margo can see her smirking even through the smoke and shadow, “just disappointed.”

The sound of Sandoval Crossing’s voice comes, distorted with static, from Emmett’s speakers. “If that’s really what you want…”

Randy and Nagomi both laugh, and Nagomi shoves Emmett with her shoulder. “Yes, exactly like that.”

“Listen,” Margo says, “I don’t make this offer lightly. But if you come inside, I will cover your drinks for the rest of the night.”

Margo has lost track of the joint at this point, is almost surprised when Nagomi passes it back to xem. “Why,” she asks, drawing the word out slow, “would you do that?”

“Maybe I miss my sister,” Margo says, “and I want to spend time with her while she’s in town.”

Normally that kind thing would set Nagomi running. Margo isn’t sure it’s going to work at all, but Randy looks over at her with an arched eyebrow and Emmett’s screen changes to a question mark, apparently waiting to follow her lead.

She seems to hesitate, sucking in her cheeks. Margo takes another hit while xe waits. It is really damn cold outside, and xe isn’t exactly dressed for it; the warmth of the smoke filling xir lungs softens the bite of the wind, just a little.

Finally, Nagomi turns to Randy and shrugs. “Go on in, I’m right behind you.”

Neither one of them says anything until Randy and Emmett are gone, door clicking shut behind them. Even then, Margo bites xir tongue and waits for her to make the first move.

“You’re being weird,” she says after a minute, good eye squinting at xem. “Why are you being weird?”

It isn’t like Margo had planned it. Normally, xe’d be just fine keeping xir distance, interacting with xir own team and letting Nagomi do whatever it is Nagomi does. But they’d played against each other in three solar eclipses this week, one right after another, and after all of that it’s hard to keep acting like xe doesn’t worry.

“It’s just nice seeing you around again,” Margo says. “And meeting your friends, even if they are demons and computer programs.”

“One of your teammates is literally a zombie.”

“Not sure why we keep Chang around, actually.” Margo drops the remains of the joint on the ground, stomps it out. “She kind of brings down our batting average.”

“Did you have a point you wanted to make, or something?” Phantom eyes stare out of the shadows on Nagomi’s left side. They’re more present now than they were before. “Don’t tell me weed makes you sentimental.”

Staring at the thing that has become a part of xir sister, Margo isn’t entirely sure what it is xe wants. It’s not like they’re going to be best friends now that people are dying left and right; it would be silly to assume that kind of thing would happen overnight.

But Margo doesn’t want to wake up one day and find out Nagomi is gone and know xe could have done more. Better to reach out while it’s still an option.

“Maybe it does.” Xe shrugs. “Just. Don’t be a stranger, I guess?”

“Sure,” she says, pushing off the wall. “But don’t start coming to the Hellmouth unannounced, or anything. I don’t need the anti-tourism board on my case.”

“Of course not.” Margo moves to open the door and Nagomi walks right past, bringing with her a rush of warm air and the smell of smoke.

--

News of the first incineration spread fast. Margo remembers huddling around the dugout television to watch the footage: the moon drifting in front of the sun, an ump screaming as their body twisted into something else. Fitzgerald Massey barely even had time to cry out before fire descended.

It was pretty clear, after that, that incineration wasn’t restricted to Elections, that it was going to keep happening. But Margo had hoped that maybe, somehow, the team would get through it. Beck had said she’d do whatever she could to keep them safe; Margo had believed her.

Everyone had a plan. They’d gone over it after Massey, had reviewed it after watching the Magic lose Sosa and Famous in the Garden. If the eclipse reaches totality during a game, if an ump goes rogue, everyone makes for the dugout.

“No grandstanding, no attempts at heroism,” Beck had told them all. “You hear someone start screaming? You run.”

They’d even done it a couple times during practice, almost like a fire drill. And Margo wasn’t exactly the best runner on the team, but xe could make like a bat out of hell if xe needed to. Margo ended up face-down in the dirt of the dugout more times than xe could count, skinned knees and bruised elbows be damned.

Hurley, though. Hurley had never been particularly quick.

Season two, game seventy-six. The Fridays on defense, Flowers batting. Margo can feel the tension, sees everyone on the field checking the moon’s position in the sky all goddamn day. By the time it finally passes in front of the sun, Margo almost feels relief. At least there’s no more waiting. At least it will be over soon.

But then the birds go quiet. The waves stop rolling in, an unnatural stillness resting on the water like a heavy blanket. The entire world comes to a halt just for a moment, holding its breath while it waits for the moment to pass. It has before; dozens of eclipses happen every day now, and nobody has to die.

Behind home plate, the ump screams.

Sound comes back all at once, wildlife and fans shouting as they make for an escape. Beside home plate, Hurley drops her bat and stumbles backward.

“Hurley!” Beck shouts. She’s standing just behind the fence of the dugout, hands cupped around her mouth. “Run!”

Margo doesn’t see it happen. Xe drops to the ground, presses xir face into the sand and covers xir head with xir hands. It’s both a blessing and a curse; at any moment, an ump could turn on xem and xe wouldn’t even know it was coming.

Xe feels the incineration more than xe hears it. The ground shakes with the force of impact, and even pressed against the ground this far away, Margo can feel waves of heat rush over xem. Xe hears Beck breathe in sharply, hears her start to cry as the world once again goes still.

“Oh god,” she says, and it very nearly echoes in the quiet. “Hurley.”

Margo doesn’t move from the dirt. Even as the fans return to the stands and light filters back into the dugout, xe stays curled up, keeps xir hands over xir head. Xe wouldn’t move at all, if not for Matheo gripping xir shoulder.

“Nava,” he says, and even though he’s whispering, it makes Margo’s ears ring. “We’re on defense. You have to get up.”

“Absolutely the hell not.” Margo can feel laughter bubbling up, a little hysterical. “No way.”

Matheo’s hand smooths Margo’s jersey down. He moves it steadily back and forth, and Margo tries to level out xir breathing.

“I know, kid,” Matheo says. “But we can’t stop. That’s for after the game.”

He’s right. Margo knows he is, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Xe takes a deep breath, so big xir chest hurts, and unclenches xir fists, releasing handfuls of sand. Matheo keeps a tight grip on xir shoulder and helps xem up to standing, though xir knees still shake.

“There you go, nice and easy,” Matheo mutters. His eyes are steely, but Margo knows this has to be killing him. Xe thinks of Hurley singing in the Garden, nudging Matheo to join in.

The other Flowers don’t look great, either. Isaac is sitting stock-still, both hands gripping the edge of the bench. Jorge is at nir feet with his tail pulled over his eyes.

Beck still stands at the entry to the dugout. She’s pale, even by her standards, and her eyes are trained on the patch of black sand by home plate.

After the game, reporters crowd around the new guy. Nic Winkler. He’s got a jersey already, Margo doesn’t know from where. Somebody asks him the obvious question, the one Margo xemself is wondering: how was he ready to step up and play so quickly?

“I heard it coming,” Nic says, motioning to the hearing aid wrapped around his left ear.

And that raises a whole bunch of new questions for Margo. Mainly, xe has to wonder how anyone could want to pick up a bat after hearing a rogue ump scream.

--

Margo doesn’t have to ask Nagomi to call xem that night. Somehow, xir phone starts ringing as soon as xe steps into the apartment.

“I’m sorry about Hurley,” she says immediately, the second Margo picks up the phone.

Margo leans against the door, running a hand over xir eyes. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“I know I don’t.” Nagomi stops herself. She takes a deep breath. “What do you normally do, when you have a night off?”

There’s no easy answer to that. Normally xe’d be at the restaurant, working until late in the evening. But that’s not happening tonight, maybe not for the rest of the week.

“Top Chef marathon,” xe decides, after a moment.

Nagomi doesn’t miss a beat. “Tell me what season you’re on. I’ll watch it with you.”

Margo knows it’s only because of the incineration. Xe knows this isn’t something that Nagomi wants to do. But xe isn’t very well going to say no.

--

It isn’t a planned thing, starting the memorial forest. Beck has called them all out for a team huddle before practice, a brief moment of remembrance. She’s holding Hurley’s bat in her hands, fingers stark against the burnt wood.

“We can’t guarantee anything,” she says. Her eyes are rimmed with red, and her lips are pressed into a thin line. “But we can remember, if we have to.”

Margo has heard about the Groundskeeper. Xe knows it spends time in the Garden, maintaining the plants and wildlife while the team is away. But nothing xe’s heard prepares xem for seeing it. A massive beast of vines and leaves exits the trees that line the outfield, lumbering forward toward their tiny team.

“Holy shit,” Nic mutters. It occurs to Margo, briefly, that it’s likely no one has told him about the things that live in the Garden.

The Groundskeeper towers over them all, a mountain of living plant debris. Margo isn’t quite sure where to look, until vines part to reveal knotted wood that almost, almost looks like a face.

“Hurley Pacheco will be missed,” it says, with a voice deep enough to set the earth vibrating under Margo’s feet. “If I may… their bat, Captain Whitney.”

Beck holds the bat out in both hands like an offering. She seems just as speechless as the rest of them, willing to do whatever she’s told. Margo wonders how much of that is because of the Groundskeeper, and how much of it is Hurley.

“From their bat, we will grow another. Materials for those who may come after, so that the loss will not be in vain.” The Groundskeeper reaches out with what looks like ivy, leafy vines wrapping around the bat and pulling it into the mass. “The Moss Woman sends her regards.”

And Margo isn’t exactly sure how it works, how a scorched bat is going to grow into a living tree in the woods. Xe doesn’t bother asking at the time. But, sure enough, a tree does sprout; it starts as a sapling, one Beck sends team members out to check on every few days. Within a month or two, it’s tall enough to see from home plate.

--

Rhys Trombone is the first to go in the third season.

Margo doesn’t know the guy; xe has met a few of the Sunbeams at this point, but somehow Rhys was always busy when Margo was in the Hellmouth. They’d played their saxophone a few times at the bar, though. Margo remembers thinking how unfair it was that they were so good with a bat and with an instrument.

Xe’s gotten into the habit, since Hurley, of keeping an eye on Beams games while xe’s in the dugout. Gomi would scold xem for that if she knew, would tell xem to keep an eye on xir own game instead of watching hers. So xe hasn’t bothered to tell her.

But Rhys gets got and the Flowers are buzzing with it, eyes on the sky in every free moment. Beck pulls Margo aside between innings, even, worrying her lip between her teeth.

“How’s your sister?” she asks, voice low.

Margo stares at a spot above her left shoulder. “Not sure. I haven’t reached out.”

Beck frowns. “Margarito. She could…”

“I know.”

There hasn’t been a double event yet. That doesn’t mean there never will be. Margo would love to walk out of the stadium right now and head straight to the airport, grab a plane over to the Hellmouth. Xe’d love to call Nagomi, just to make sure she’s still alive. But xe doesn’t want to be the reason she’s distracted at the wrong moment.

“Tell you what,” Beck says. She reaches out to grab Margo’s shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Come with me after the game. I think I might have something that can help.”

“Ump repellant?” Margo tries, and it feels a little off to be cracking a joke but it’s the best xe can do. “Fireproof vests? Don’t tell me you’ve been holding out on us, Whitney.”

Beck rolls her eyes, releases her grip on xir shoulder. “One day you’re going to say something stupid in front of the wrong person and it’s going to get you in so much trouble.”

“Well, yeah. That’s what the fireproof vest is for,” Margo says.

It’s the wrong thing to say, and xe knows it as soon as it’s out of xir mouth. Beck stands on her toes and leans in close, ensuring she is at eye level. “You are absolutely not, under any circumstances, allowed to crack jokes at umpires, Nava. Understood?”

“Jesus.” Margo holds up both hands in surrender. “Aye, aye, Captain! I yield.”

The game goes on, as usual. Margo barely pays attention to it; xe finds xemself reaching for xir phone whenever xe has the time, checking for updates on the Sunbeams game. By the end of the most forgettable game of xir career, xe’s practically ready to jump out of xir skin. 

But Beck had been pretty serious about showing xem something. So Margarito changes out of xir uniform and grabs xir go bag, camps outside of the coach’s office while she wraps up a few things.

Xe shoots a text off to Nagomi while xe waits. hey, you need anything?

She replies almost immediately. Photos of Rhys at Margaritoville. We’re doing a memorial later.

not what i meant.

This time, it takes a few minutes for Nagomi to get back to xem. When she does, it’s a brief I’ve got it handled.

That’s when Beck finally wanders out, giving Margo minimal time to think of a clever reply. “Let your sister know you’ll be there for dinner,” she says, pulling her hair up into a bun.

“We getting on a plane tonight, boss?” Margo asks, doing as xe’s told.

Beck hums a little bit, shakes her head. “Not quite.”

She leads Margo through the streets of Boston, far from the Garden and down back streets. She’s got a backpack slung over her shoulder, though Margo isn’t sure if that’s because of where they’re headed or just to hold her jersey.

Xe barely even notices the way the buildings are changing around them until the sky turns smoky and red. When Margo looks around, xe finds the sun-bleached stones of Hellmouth houses on either side of the street.

“What,” xe mutters under xir breath, “the hell.”

“Found it after the Forbidden Book opened,” Beck says, by way of an explanation. She looks over her shoulder at Margo. “Do you know how to get to Nagomi’s place?”

Margo looks around. Xe isn’t even sure which way to go to get back to Boston, and they were just there. But some of the buildings look familiar.

“I can figure it out,” xe says.

“Cool.” Beck comes to a stop, pulling her backpack off her shoulder. She unzips the main pocket and pulls out a to-go container. “There’s a cupcake in here for your sister. You are absolutely not allowed to eat it.”

Margo takes the container when she offers it, but xe can’t help staring in disbelief. “How could you possibly know to be prepared for this?”

“Oh, it’s not like that.” Beck pulls her bag back on. “I keep snacks in the office in case anyone loses a family member or a loved one. This seems close enough.”

“I am raiding your office tomorrow after the game.”

“All you have to do is ask for one, Nava.” She’s smiling, somehow perfectly happy to hand over her emergency treats just because. “Now go see your sister. I’m off to visit Sandy.”

Margo nods and watches her leave, turning the corner at the next intersection. Xe pulls out xir phone to find half a dozen messages from Nagomi, all varying levels of confusion and capital letters.

what’s your address? Margo shoots back. i think i’m lost.

Xe arrives eventually, after plenty of text messages and even a couple phone calls. Nagomi opens the door and Margo can see candles spread out everywhere, casting the apartment in a peaceful orange light. Randy and Emmett are on the couch, but they wave in Margo’s general direction.

“How?” Nagomi asks, blocking Margo’s entry. “How did you get here so fast?”

“Beck’s magic, I think.” Margo holds out the cupcake in front of xem as a peace offering. “I brought snacks. Or, a snack.”

Nagomi takes it. “Thank you for coming.”

And, well. That’s more than Margo expected to get from her tonight.

--

The eclipses blur together.

Margo wishes that weren’t true. Xe wants to give some kind of value to the losses, to Bryanayah, to Jorge and Isaac. It’s not like they were all in the same game; there were weeks between each one, a brief interlude to adjust to new players and recover.

But it isn’t that simple. Every other week Margo finds xemself diving to the floor of the dugout and covering xir head to avoid a fireball, and when xe looks up someone is gone. It isn’t always a Flower, but that hardly matters. It’s someone, and one day maybe it will be xem.

The memorials grow taller. Sometimes, the team will walk into the dugout to practice or play and there will be a new bat on the bench with someone’s name on it. Hotbox, Caligula, Vito.

Caligula had been a surprise, actually. Margo knows the Garden is full of inexplicable things, from the Groundskeeper and Moss Woman to plants with flowers shaped like blaseball gloves. But it was another thing to watch a plant sprout from the ground and pick up a bat, fully prepared to take Jorge’s place.

Margo makes a point of being gentle on weed-pulling duty after that. If the Garden is going to replace xem one day, xe wants it to be in remembrance, rather than out of spite.

--

The most noteworthy victim of the relentless ILB schedule is perhaps none other than Margaritoville itself. Margo doesn’t even realize how little xe’s been doing for the restaurant until the siesta, when xe finally has a chance to sit down and consider the menu and the staffing and the state of the building.

Cold water doesn’t run properly. The front door is crooked, hinges all out of alignment. Some of the meats in the walk-in are so covered in freezer burn as to render them completely unrecognizable. And Margo has just a few weeks to sort all of this out before the next season starts and it falls apart all over again.

So xe isn’t exactly in the best mood when Nic stops by. If xe had a choice, Margo wouldn’t even be behind the bar to greet him; xe’d be asleep, preferably at home in a bed. But that’s not happening.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Nic says, eyes going straight to the bucket Margo had pulled out to catch water from the leak in the roof. “Homey.”

“I will gut you where you stand, Winkler,” Margo threatens, waving a spoon at him. It isn’t very effective, given the fact xe’s about three seconds away from falling over. “I’ll have you know, she cleans up nice. It’s been a rough three years.”

“I was wondering how you managed to play in the ILB and run a restaurant.” Nic smiles, leaning against the bar across from Margo. “This clears some things up.”

And, well. Margo can’t argue with that. It’s been a difficult line to walk, and if not for the siesta, xe’s sure the restaurant would be shut down for health code violations any day now. Even so, xe’s got customers scattered around the dining area, and now Nic’s here. So Margo’s going to play host for a few more hours and pretend that it’s completely fine.

“Pretend for just a moment that I am not covered in blood and sweat,” xe says, throwing a towel over xir shoulder. “What can I, your extremely handsome bartender, do for you this evening?”

“Nah.” Nic shakes his head. “I wouldn’t trust you to pour me a shot right now, Nava, get your ass out from behind that bar.”

“What! I’m fine, I’m a professional,” Margo insists. “Also, there are other people here. They’d die without me to watch over them.”

Nic sighs, lightly slapping the wood of the bar with the palm of his hand. “I’ll cover for you.”

“You a licensed bartender, bud? Cause I’ve got to tell you, this is harder than it looks.” Margo turns around to grab a glass for xemself. Nic can get one after he decides to stop being weird. “We at Margaritoville don’t let just any schmuck off the streets tend the bar, you know, it’s an ancient ritual earned only by the-”

Margo turns around to find that, perhaps predictably, Nic has hopped over the counter.

“Oh,” Margarito says. “Hello, there.”

Honestly, xe hasn’t paid too much attention to Nic. He’s a solid player, but he tends to be pretty quiet, forgettable amongst the various plant monsters and undead creatures. This visit is unexpected; Nic’s decision to start bossing Margo around, even more so.

“My family owns a bar over in Somerville,” Nic says, stealing the towel from Margo’s shoulder. “And you look about one stiff breeze away from collapsing. So get out from behind the bar, sit on down, and let me pour you a drink.”

“Well Jesus,” Margo says. “Maybe you should just take the whole restaurant from me.”

Nic ignores that, taking the glass from Margo’s hand and shooing xem out of the way. Margo does as xe’s told, surprising them both as xe exits the bar and hops onto a stool near the register.

“What are you having?” Nic asks, and Margo has seen him play blaseball plenty of times but xe’s never seen him this much in his element. “A margarita seems too on the nose. Long Island?”

“You’re going to be on bar duty the rest of the night if you give me that,” Margo says. “That’s not a no! I’m just giving you ample warning.”

Nic nods and gets to work, taking a moment to familiarize himself with the setup behind the bar before he pulls out a whole slew of liquors. He’s quick, that’s for sure.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, actually,” he says. “Think you’ve got an opening for a spare bartender? I could start picking up shifts here and there, give you some time to actually run the place.”

It’s not a bad idea. Margo has been reluctant to ask anyone from the team to step up and help xem out; blaseball is a lot of work, and plenty of xir teammates already have gigs on the side. But an extra set of hands to pick up the slack after game days would do wonders, Margo thinks, and apparently, Nic doesn’t even need all that much training.

“When can you start?”

Nic pauses his work, eyes flicking up to meet Margo’s. “Really? That easy?”

“Consider this your interview,” Margo waves a hand. “You make me a decent drink, you’re hired.”

The drink is, in fact, pretty good. It’s hardly a surprise; after all, Margo watched Nic make it, and xe knows the signs of someone flying by the seat of their pants. Nic stays behind the counter after that, and Margo keeps him company under the guise of supervising.

--

One day, maybe, Margo will learn to love the Hellmouth. That’s assuming it doesn’t kill xem first, which is a distinct possibility.

Nagomi doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. Which is unfair, Margo thinks, considering it’s only even been the Hellmouth for a year or two. She apparently took to it like a fish to water.

“It isn’t like Boston,” Nagomi reminds xem, rolling her eye. “Things don’t change as often over here.”

“Last I checked, Boston didn’t have giant scorpions crawling over half the buildings,” Margo hisses. Xe ducks behind Nagomi to get out of the way as a stone giant lumbers down the sidewalk toward them. “And we don’t have anything like that guy, either.”

“Sounds boring.” Nagomi turns down an alleyway, leaving Margo to scramble after her. “Why did you even come, if you hate it so much?”

“You refuse to come to Boston,” Margo says. “Apparently, you prefer the literal gates of Hell to the east coast. Go figure.”

“At least the Hellmouth is honest about the nature of things.” Nagomi comes to a stop at the end of the alley. She turns to face Margo and motions to a rusty ladder a few feet above her head. “Help me pull down the fire escape.”

“The fire escape?” Margo asks, raising an eyebrow. “Who the hell is this guy, a Spy?”

The ladder is a little too high, just out of reach. Margo tries standing on xir toes, ends up jumping halfheartedly to get a hand on the bottom rung. It gives away easily after that, though, sliding to the ground with an alarmingly loud groan.

“Ugh, the Spies.” Nagomi sticks out her tongue. “Absolutely not. They’re just eccentric, it’s fine.”

Margo gestures to the ladder. “After you.”

“No way. I have to stay down here and watch for any spooky demons.”

The smoky tendrils of her hair float up to frame her face, as if to emphasize her point. Red eyes stare out at Margo from within, and xe wonders exactly how much control Nagomi has over that side of her face now that she’s had time to adjust.

“I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not,” Margo says slowly, “but now that you’ve brought it up, I am absolutely going first, because I want to laugh at you if demons actually do show up and you’re stuck down here.”

“So brave of you.” Nagomi points up the ladder. “Go on. Third floor, the one with string lights that look like suns.”

The ladder is easy enough to climb, but it leaves rust stains on the palms of Margo’s hands. Xe reaches the first landing of the fire escape without issue, and from there climbs a rickety staircase up to the next floor. Just as Nagomi said, the window is decorated with sun-shaped lights, all of which have been given sunglasses or mustaches by an enterprising artist.

The window is cracked open an inch or two, so Margo assumes they’re expected. Xe slides xir fingers in the open space and pushes it open further, enough for xem to slip through.

Xe doesn’t notice the stop sign coming until it’s almost too late. The metal swings toward Margo at an alarming speed, and xe barely manages to fall back onto the landing and avoid getting decked in the face.

“Christ!” Margo yells, backing all the way up until the metal railing presses into xir back. “What the hell!”

“That’s what you get for trying to get one over on a crossing guard!”

Sandoval Crossing stands inside the window of their apartment, sign held aloft over their shoulder. They squint at Margo for a moment, but then their face softens.

“Ah, Margarito!” they exclaim. “You look just like Nagomi when you frown, has anyone ever told you that?”

“What is happening,” Margo breathes out, pressing a hand to xir chest. Xir heart is pounding, head spinning.

“Sorry for the rude introduction,” Sandy says. They push the window open and hold out a hand. “But you could have just used the front door, you know. Is entering from the window a Boston thing?”

On the ground below xem, Nagomi is cackling. “Hi Sandy!” she calls up, words broken up by fits of giggles.

“Hey there, Gomi!” Sandy leans out the window and waves, apparently oblivious to the fact Margo is dying of a heart attack on their landing. “Come on up!”

Margo takes several very deep breaths, gripping the landing for dear life. “I take it you actually don’t want visitors to use the fire escape.”

Sandy looks at xem in apparent confusion. Margo can practically see the wheels turning, but then it seems to click. “Nagomi told you to come in this way?”

“Yes,” Margo says, “and I might have to kill her for it.”

“Well, at least wait until after dinner,” Sandy says. “It’s not every day we have family over.”

Sandoval Crossing, it turns out, is a very good cook. Margo offers to help out, but they don’t need xem at all. The table is overflowing within the hour, before anyone else has even arrived.

Then the Beams do show up, and it’s not one at a time, not in any way for Margo to be able to keep track. One moment, the apartment is empty and oversized; the next, it’s full to bursting, an entire team packed inside the kitchen and living room.

“So this is them, huh?” Margo asks, nudging Nagomi with xir elbow. “Who do I need to watch out for?”

Nagomi grins. “Me and Randy, mostly. Everyone else is fine.”

Xe’d thought she’d abandon xem the first chance she got, let xem muddle xir way through an evening around a couple dozen strangers. But Nagomi sticks with Margo, at least for the first hour until xe has everyone’s names down.

It’s nice, Margo thinks. One of these days, xe’ll get Nagomi to visit the Flowers and return the favor.

--

“It’s not a curse.”

Beck must have said that fifty times in the last two hours. Her vowels are rounder than normal, smoothed out by the alcohol. Normally, Margo would cut her off; tonight, xe’s in the booth with her.

“Don’t curses need witches or something?” Margo asks, extending the hand holding xir beer. “Like, if there were a curse – and I’m not saying there is – wouldn’t we have known it was coming?”

“Exactly!” Beck’s head falls onto xir shoulder as she lets out a heavy sigh. “Someone would have seen, or heard, or… something. Someone would have known. I would have known.”

Feedback isn’t as bad, Margarito thinks. At least they can still talk to Hotbox if they want, or see Vito on the field during games. It isn’t like they’re gone. It isn’t like…

“Matheo never finished the new cabinets for the team kitchen!” Beck sits up suddenly, jostling Margo and barely avoiding spilling both their beers. “We’re going to have to do that, Margo, what do you know about wood finishes?

“Can get wood finished just fine,” Margo retorts without even thinking about it. Beck snorts. “We’ll figure it out, boss.”

“I don’t even think Matheo was that good of a carpenter,” Beck mutters. She leans back again, settling into Margo’s side. Xe wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Like, he didn’t really seem to have a grip on it, you know? That bat rack he made was crooked as shit.”

“Whitney, that’s because the man was an electrician.”

“What!” Beck turns to slap Margo on the chest, but it doesn’t stop xem from laughing at her. “No he wasn’t, he – it was in his name, Margo!”

Margo is shaking, full to bursting with hysteric giggles. It isn’t funny; it isn’t funny. This is Beck, the captain-slash-coach-slash-manager of their team, and she’s apparently been hiring an electrician to do all their woodwork and renovations for years.

“That’s the whole bit, Beck! Matheo Carpenter, certified electrician!” Margo finds xemself waving xir beer around wildly, splashing them both in the process. It’s messy and it’s gross but xe cannot bring xemself to care. “He complained about it all the time!”

“Well, then,” Beck says. Her cheeks are pink, whether from the alcohol or the embarrassment it’s hard to say. “I guess anything we do will be at least as good as what he could’ve done.”

Margo’s eyes drift for a moment. The bar is closed, partially because Beck asked but mostly because Margo didn’t feel up to serving customers all night. Even now, Nic is doing most of the work. Margo is too far gone to do much other than grab the occasional beer.

The other team members are spread out around the floor, in pairs or in groups. There are a lot of names Margo still needs to learn, a few new hybrid plant people xe’ll need to get used to.

“I’d say you need to focus more on getting your team in top shape, Cap,” Margo says. “What are a Venus flytrap and a lotus good at, do you think?”

Beck is slow to respond. When Margo looks over, xe catches her watching the pair in question, gaze pensive. She twists her mouth to one side before she speaks. “I’m sure anyone the Garden sends will be exactly what we need,” she says.

“Great!” Margo says, pulling a strand of her hair to make her wince. “Maybe one of them will get you to take a step back from work every now and then, you maniac.”

“You already do that plenty,” Beck says, poking xem in the side. “Is there a return policy for Navas? An exchange program? I feel like Nagomi at least does what her captain asks.”

“Depends on the captains. The Beams have six, last time I checked.” Margo isn’t actually sure how that kind of thing is decided, but xe almost wants to make something up just to make Beck’s jaw drop a little further. “Why don’t we do that, again?”

Beck seems to take a second to respond, clearly processing the insane inner workings of the Sunbeams. But she’s quick on her feet; within moments, she says, “Because clearly I am the only thing standing between the Garden and the manifestation of a second, bigger Hellmouth.”

“Ah, right. How could I forget?” Margo asks. “Please don’t ever leave us, we won’t survive without you.”

Feedback isn’t as bad. Feedback isn’t as bad. Feedback is – it’s disruptive and it’s horrifying and Margo would never want to look around to find that Beck wasn’t in the dugout next to xem, or that xe wasn’t next to her. Xe doesn’t want to lose Nic or Jacob or King to another team.

It’s survivable, maybe, but it’s never going to be okay. So the words come out a little more sincere than xe meant, less of a joke and more a confession. Beck takes it in stride, though, the way she always does.

“Me? Leave Boston?” She brings a hand up to her chest. “I could never, how dare you.”

--

It isn’t even that no one is upset over losing Morrow. They are, of course they are. It’s just that they’ve lost so many, even just this season; to lose another so close to the end, as they all thought they might be entering the relative safety of the postseason, is more than Margo can manage to feel anything about.

Morrow hadn’t even been with the team that long. They were infamous by the time they arrived, but Margo never actually learned all that much about who they were. The Grand Unslam, temporal instabilities, all that was so complicated and so dense that it felt like something that had to wait until the postseason to unwrap. Even Beck hadn’t had much to say about them when it came time to spread their ashes in the Memorial Bat Forest.

The Garden answers their needs at every turn. It always has. The grass is green no matter the weather, the produce is always ripe and ready for team meals, and new players literally grow from the ground when they need it.

But even the Garden cannot protect them from rogue umpires. Even the sunny skies on practice days can’t stop the eclipses, and the heavy undergrowth can’t prevent the deafening ring of feedback when it tears across the field.

The Garden loves the Flowers. Margo has learned to appreciate it, too, to find a home in its roots. But xe knows even that won’t be enough to save xem, when it comes down to it.

--

Game nights at Beck’s place have been a staple since before Margo joined the team. They’re mandatory, though some players don’t bother to play any of the actual games. The apartment is small, a tight fit even when their numbers were dwindling, but it’s always felt homey to Margo. There are pictures of the whole team pinned to her fridge and decorating the walls, and a blueprint of the Garden hangs over the couch. Everything Beck has, everything she is, is the team.

Beck herself is away from them all at the moment, though; she’s retreated to the kitchen with King and Zeb to grab more snacks, leaving almost an even split between plant and person at the rickety card table.

“Do you have any swordfish?” Margo asks, with little to no hope.

Xe’s had the same card since the game started and Inez is the last person xe’s asking, both because xe’s not sure they will understand the question and also because they’re a humming, bustling, absolutely terrifying collection of bees.

Inez shakes their head. Or at least, Margo thinks they shake their head. Several bees part from the hive to hover over the pile of cards in the center of the table, a clear enough answer: Go fish.

Nic nudges Margo in the side, leaning in close enough to stage-whisper. “I think that’s a no.”

“Yeah, got it,” Margo says. Xe reaches into the pile and pulls out a card. Beta fish. “Fine, that’s my turn.”

“Cas, you got any guppies?” Nic asks.

Castillo shakes a card off one of his needles, letting it fall to the table. “Dig it,” he says, in about as unenthused a tone as a cactus can manage.

“Lucky bastard,” Margo mutters into xir drink. Nic grins and sets the cards down in front of him, beside a long row of successful matches.

Nic turns to face xem, still smiling. “Got any swordfish, Nava?”

Margo’s groan is loud enough to startle Inez into disbanding, sending errant bees onto almost every surface.

--

There’s very little that is beautiful about the Hellmouth, in Margo’s professional opinion. Xe’d begged off gardening night at the new portal-slash-greenhouse under the pretense of needing to cover at the restaurant, and Beck had very gracefully ignored the fact xe was clearly full of shit.

Margo had thought xe’d be left alone with the average Bostonians for the first night in a long while. The door swings open while xe’s throwing a few glasses in the dishwasher under the bar, though, so it takes xem a moment to realize who it is that’s taken up residence at the counter.

“Hey, is that offer for free drinks still on the table?” Randy Marijuana hops onto a stool, Nagomi and Emmett just behind. “We don’t get paid til next week, you know how it is.”

Margo leans against the countertop, looking between xir sister and her friends. “What,” xe starts, and then realizes xe doesn’t have anywhere to go with that. Xe tries again. “Where did you come from?”

“The Hellmouth,” Nagomi says, and even the spectral red eyes in the smoke around her head are rolling. “Obviously.”

“Sure.” Really, weirder things have happened to Margo than xir sister showing up unannounced at xir bar just because. Not a lot weirder, but still. “First drink’s on the house, I guess.”

“Great! A mojito for me, and motor oil for my friend,” Randy says, jerking their head toward Emmett.

Margo looks to Nagomi. “Seriously?”

Nagomi’s got a good poker face. She stares xem down for what feels like a full minute before relenting, sticking her tongue out. “No. Emmett will just find an outlet somewhere.”

Emmett’s screen lights up with a thumbs-up emoji. Then, Have you thought about investing in arcade games?

“What kind of establishment do you think I’m running here, kid?” Margo asks, even as xe starts measuring out ingredients. “Arcade games would ruin the décor.”

Nagomi snorts. “I forgot how obnoxious you are when you’re behind the bar.”

“I’m this obnoxious all the time.”

Randy says the words at the exact same moment Margo does. It’s enough to make xem freeze, looking over at them in alarm. Even Nagomi and Emmett seem surprised – or at least, Nagomi does. Emmett is harder to read.

“Huh,” Randy says, blinking like there’s something caught in his eye. “I thought precog was only supposed to work with blaseball stuff.”

The latest election results had been blissfully boring for the Flowers, but xe’d seen the Sunbeams got precognition. Specifically, xe knew Nagomi had it. But they’d talked since then, and she hadn’t seemed to be able to predict the words about to come out of Margo’s mouth like that.

“I don’t think I like this,” xe says. “Nagomi is already too good at arguing with me, she doesn’t need to be able to see the future.”

 “How did you do that?” Nagomi asks, leaning in to inspect Randy’s face. The smoke tendrils reach out, too; Margo is impressed that Randy doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t pull away when one comes too close and dissipates against his shoulder. “What did you see?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Randy says. The words come slow and measured. Margo can practically see the wheels turning in his brain. “It’s like when you’re batting, you know? You don’t think too much, you just swing.”

“Weird,” Margo says, pouring out the mojitos. Xe pushes them in front of both Nagomi and Randy and, after a moment of consideration, passes Emmett an empty glass. They take it in both hands, which xe’ll count as a win.

Nagomi pulls away from Randy and turns to face Margo. The corners of her mouth are turned down in a frown. “Say something.”

“Something.”

She sighs, once again rolling her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t want to.” Margo steals her mojito and takes a sip, winces. Xe’s never been a fan of mint. “There. Did you see that coming?”

“Gross,” Nagomi says, and then, “No. Also, you owe me another free drink.”

“You’re family, you get free drinks by default.” Margo waves a hand in her direction and goes to pour xemself a beer. “Besides, if you didn’t want me stealing yours—”

“I shouldn’t have sat at the bar!” Nagomi finishes for xem, words coming out quick and excited. It’s the most animated Margo thinks xe’s ever heard her. “I saw that coming!”

“Hell, yeah!” Randy crows, and offers Nagomi a high five. She takes it. “We’re freaking psychic!”

Emmett plays some chipper 8-bit tune from their speakers, screen lighting up with poorly rendered fireworks. The words Update Successful! scroll across in flashing script.

Margo takes a deep pull of xir beer before returning. Xe can’t fully explain the feelings growing past xir stomach into xir throat; there’s some concern, sure, but something else is mixed in there too. It feels a little like panic, a little like fear.

But Nagomi’s already got some kind of cursed demon attached to her, and she’s adjusted to that just fine. One more thing won’t kill her, Margo tells xemself. Xe hopes xe’s right.

“Well hey,” Margo says, moving to stand in front of them all and hold out xir glass. “Cheers, and please tell me if I’m ever about to be on the wrong end of a rogue ump.”

“Oh, please,” Randy says, scoffing. “Gomi’s never going to let that happen. Neither are we.”

And that surprises Margo, catches xem off guard just enough that xe stops in xir tracks. “Oh, really?” xe asks, looking at Nagomi.

“Whatever,” she scoffs, elbowing Randy in the ribs. “We’ll keep you posted on any rogue ump activity, probably.”

“Works for me.” Margo holds up xir glass. “Cheers on the new superpowers, kids.”

“We aren’t even that much younger than you,” Randy says, but he clinks his glass against Margo’s anyway.

It isn’t the first time Margo has seen Nagomi with her teammates, but it never stops being surprising. She’s more animated, more excitable, and sometimes she smiles so wide it’s visible on both sides of her face. The Nagomi Margo knew before didn’t really let herself go like this.

Randy pulls her and Emmett up to the karaoke set for a truly horrible rendition of Don’t Stop Believing and she goes, tipsy and smiling and even singing along.

Margo is surprised to find xemself thinking that maybe the ILB is exactly where they were both meant to be.

--

The problem with a team full of plant and bug people, Margo thinks, is that half of them barely know how to hold a bat. The other half don’t know how to swing. And all the people are too traumatized to do much better, including xem.

Practice is hopeless, derailed every ten minutes or so for Beck to show someone a better batting stance. She’s helping Cali now, hands on her elbows as she guides her through a swing.

“The Garden could stand to teach them the basics before sending them to us,” Margo says, though there’s very little heat behind the words. Xe’s covering first base today, mostly so Beck can focus on instructing everyone.

“That’s not really fair.” Moses was up to bat before, and now she’s stuck waiting at first just like Margo. “I mean, Cali’s got a way better batting average than either of us. She doesn’t really need the help.”

Margo crosses xir arms, turning to face Moses. She hasn’t been here nearly long enough to start talking smack about the other players, xe thinks, but at least she acknowledges her own shortcomings. The flowers in her hair are a nice touch; Margo’s been meaning to ask if they were self-inflicted, or another gift from the Garden.

“What?” Moses asks, straightening up. “Do you not look at the leaderboards?”

“You were on the Tacos,” Margo says. “Do they even know what the leaderboards are?”

Moses snorts. “Sure, we did. We used to bet on whether any of us would even crack the top twenty.”

“And now you keep monitoring them.”

“Yeah, and Cali’s like top three for our team,” she says, gesturing to home plate. Her voice drops down, not quite a whisper but soft enough that it won’t carry far. “So it doesn’t make much sense for Beck to be walking her through an at-bat, especially when she didn’t do the same for me.”

Margo isn’t sure what to make of that. Cali could have asked for the extra instruction, or maybe Beck sees potential for her to get better. It’s the bit about not helping Moses that stands out as noteworthy.

“What, exactly, are you suggesting?” Margo asks. Xe looks around and catches Nic’s eye in the outfield, clearly listening in on their conversation. Jacob’s doing the same thing, slowly creeping closer from second base. “You jealous?”

“Nah.” Moses shrugs. “I just think it’s interesting, that’s all.”

“That’s a very unsatisfying ending to this conversation, Roses,” Margo says. Xe reaches up to adjust xir ballcap and turns back to home plate. “You gossip about as well as you bat.”

“That’s still better than you.”

Nic barks out a laugh, which Margo chooses to ignore. Xe focuses instead on Beck and Cali, who do seem to be taking their time with all this. Cali drops the bat for what must be the fifth or sixth time, based on the way Owen sighs; Beck, apparently endlessly patient, picks it up and hands it back to her.

--

And then Emmett Internet gets incinerated.

--

“Nagomi, can you please open the door?” Margo asks. “I know you’re in there; Sandy told me they stopped by.”

It’s dead silent inside the apartment. Even the hallway feels muted. Margo’s prepared to wait out there all night if xe has to, will stay as long as xe can before the games tomorrow. But it only takes a few minutes before the door opens just a crack, letting loose a few phantom eyes and smoky tendrils.

“I bet the pizza delivery guy loves that party trick,” Margo says, waving smoke out of xir face, “but you aren’t getting rid of me that easy. Open up, I brought udon.”

Nagomi opens the door just a little more, enough to poke her head around. Her eye is bloodshot and rimmed with red. “If I ask you nicely,” she starts, and her voice is level but hoarse, “will you leave the food and go home?”

“Not a chance, Gomi,” xe says. “You want dinner, you have to spend quality time with your big brother.”

That seems to do the trick. Nagomi pulls open the door, but she doesn’t wait for xem to enter before she turns and walks away.

“You’re only older by an hour,” she mutters. Nagomi walks to the kitchen table and sits, crossing her legs underneath her. “And I’m only letting you stay for as long as it takes to eat.”

Margo didn’t know Emmett well. They’d never seemed the talkative type, more prone to the occasional sound effect or dry commentary. But it was a shock to hear about their death, and Beck had immediately given Margo the night off to go to the Hellmouth. Xe owes her a dinner or twenty.

“Then I’d better eat slow,” Margo says. Xe heads to the kitchen to grab actual dishes and assemble. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Margo nods. “Understood.”

Silence stretches out between them the entire time Margo is prepping and reheating. Nagomi plays with the hem of her sweater and picks at a loose thread in her pants, doing basically anything she can not to engage with xem at all. Xe’s fine with it, at least for now. She can talk when she’s ready.

She stays quiet even when Margo sets a bowl down in front of her. Xe takes a seat across the table and waits; the food isn’t for xem, so they keep xemself busy with a glass of water and xir phone instead.

“You can have some,” Nagomi says, motioning to the counter. “I won’t starve.”

“I ate mine on the train,” xe says. “The rest is for you, and I’ll be over in a couple days with more.”

Nagomi sets down her chopsticks and looks xem in the eye for the first time in what feels like hours. “You don’t have to do this, Maggie.”

“I know I don’t,” Margo says, and xe wishes it were easier to talk about this. Xe wishes Nagomi would listen if xe said it was hard to know she was out there playing too, that any one of these days the news could have her name and photo on an in-memoriam reel.

If Margo can’t protect her from all of that, xe can at least bring food.

She stares xem down for a moment, and it looks like her hands are shaking where they rest on the table. When Margo holds her gaze, doesn’t flinch or look away, Nagomi sighs and drops her eyes.

“I didn’t see it coming,” she says, and her voice cracks on the last word. “I didn’t – we didn’t know.” She picks up her chopsticks again, although she mostly seems to pick at her food rather than eat.

Margo kicks xir foot against the leg of xir chair. “Welcome to the club, I guess.”

“What good is it to see anything,” and Nagomi is trying to take deep breaths now, forcing herself to get the words out, “if I don’t see what matters?”

“I don’t think it works that way.” Margo can relate to some of what Nagomi’s going through; xe’s lost plenty of teammates over the course of last season alone. But that – the thing living on her face, and whatever the shelled one put inside her head, is so far beyond what Margo understands. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” She shoves her bowl away from her, a clear sign she’s done eating.

That’s Margo’s cue to leave. Xe stands up and goes to take her bowl away for cleanup, but she grabs xir wrist before xe can.

“You don’t have to leave,” Nagomi says.

It’s about as close as she’s ever come to asking Margo to spend time with her, and xe’s not one to look gift horses in the mouth. Margo takes Nagomi’s bowl to the sink, but xe doesn’t head for the door. Instead, xe grabs a bottle of wine from the fridge on xir way back to the table.

--

Margo wouldn’t say Beck had been unhappy before. That’s kind of a broad statement to make about a person. She was stressed, sure, and Margo always thought she seemed a little melancholy, but she loves the Flowers and she loves the Garden and that had seemed like very nearly enough.

It’s just that Margo isn’t blind, either, and it’s pretty damn obvious that things have shifted. Beck didn’t even bring her laptop to the bar tonight.

“It is cruel and unusual punishment to withhold gossip,” Margo says, pointing accusingly at her. “I might have to withhold your beer.”

“Does it count as gossip if it’s about me?” Beck asks. She shrugs her jacket off and lets it fall over the back of her chair. “Besides, I don’t have anything to hide. If you’d ask a straightforward question, I’d answer you.”

That’s a fair point. As soon as Margo had noticed she didn’t have her messenger bag, xe’d kind of jumped to conclusions and accusations. Direct questions are for people with more impulse control, xe thinks.

“You’re not going to spend the whole night working,” Margo says slowly, gesturing emphatically to the completely clear counter. “No notecards, no notebook, not even BNN playing on your phone. Why?”

“Because.” Beck brushes her fringe out of her eyes. Margo thinks she might even have eyeshadow on. “This is a social outing, not a work thing, and I trust you not to be weird about it.”

“You’re a terrible judge of character.” Margo moves away to get her the usual. “This first one’s on the house because you came to see me, and I have been told that’s easier to do while inebriated.”

“I never said I was coming to see you!” Beck says, and when Margo glances over xir shoulder she’s rolling her eyes at xem.

Margo winks, setting the beer down in front of her. “Ah, well, unfortunately old Winkler has the night off for one of his several dozen brothers’ birthdays. So it’s me you’ll be spending time with.”

The bell over the front door rings while Margo’s grabbing a drink for xemself, so xe doesn’t even realize Cali has entered until xe turns around to find her leaning on the back of Beck’s chair.

Beck doesn’t blush often. It’s part of the whole undead vampire thing, Margo suspects. But she’s blushing now, and refusing to meet Margo’s eyes on top of it. A tiny puzzle piece slots into place in Margo’s brain.

Several of Cali’s eyes are trained on xem, and not with the friendliest expression. Xe knows that look; it translates roughly to “Behave, Nava,” and has been a regular part of xir life for the past season and a half. One arm creeps up to drape over the back of Beck’s chair.

“Hello, Caligula,” Margo says, words tight with the smile xe’s trying to tamp down. Xe’s practically vibrating from the urge to jump up on the bar and demand some kind of explanation. Or a conga line. “What can I do you for?”

“Margo,” Beck says, and it comes out as a groan.

It is a little unnecessary to ask. Cali’s been to the bar plenty of times; xe knows what she likes, much like xe knows the orders for everyone else on the team. The plantfolk, surprisingly, are the easiest ones. Margo grabs a glass and fills it with water, tops it with a splash of simple syrup.

“On the house,” xe says, sliding it over to Cali. Xe looks between them both. “Should I… give you two some space?”

“Absolutely not, we’re going to sit in a booth,” Beck says.

She stands up with her drink in hand. Cali automatically grabs her jacket for her, draping it over her free arm. Cali reaches out to slide her fingers across the back of Beck’s hand, spelling something out too quickly for Margo to decipher.

“No, pick wherever you want,” Beck says. “I’m right behind you.”

She and Margo both watch Cali walk away, waiting until she’s out of earshot.

“Don’t you dare be weird—” Beck starts, just as Margo hisses, “Why did you come here, Whitney!”

“We can’t go anywhere else! She’s a plant monster and I am undead, Margarito!”

“About that!” Margo exclaims, placing both palms on the bar and leaning in close. “I have a question. Several questions, actually. How does that work? Like when you—”

“Oh, my god,” Beck mutters, hiding her face in her hands. “I’m not having that conversation with you. We haven’t even done—it’s none of your business, Margo!”

“Is this why you demoted Castillo from shortstop?” Margo cannot seem to make xemself stop, looking back and forth between Beck and Cali. “I know he doesn’t have legs, but that’s cruel, Cap.”

Beck takes a breath so deep Margo thinks it might hurt. She lets it out slowly and brings her hands down to grip her glass. She looks Margo dead in the eye, face bright red but eyes serious.

“I am going to go sit with Cali, and I am going to enjoy myself,” she says, keeping her voice level through some kind of vampire magic. “And you are going to stay over here, at the bar, and leave us alone until we need more to drink. Understood?”

“Aye, aye,” Margo says. Xe reaches for xir phone, if only to ask the team group chat if anyone else knew about this.

“And do not text anyone else.”

Margo tries to surreptitiously slip xir phone back into xir pocket. Xe’s not sure it works. “What do you think I am, some kind of narc?”

Xe waits until later, when Beck is a few drinks in and a little less alert. She’s moved to Cali’s side of the booth, tucked against her side and under her arm. Cali is spelling out something in the condensation on the table, or maybe just playing with the water. It’s hard to tell from this distance.

Margo snaps a picture of them and very nearly sends it off to Nic. But xe decides against it, sends it to Beck’s number instead. Use protection, or whatever <3

Beck is slow to check her phone, but she gets there eventually. And then, without looking over, she flips Margo off.

--

The Wild Low Clubhouse was a good idea, although no one really seems to know whose idea it was. The place just kind of appeared one day, manifested at the center of some weird web of portals and spatial displacement. It makes downtime a little more exciting, anyway.

It’s pretty deserted today, though, just a handful of players spread around the common area.

“You’re never going to win.” Margo knocks xir knee gently against the side of Nic’s head, surveying his cards. “She can literally see the future.”

Nagomi glances up at them both, completely expressionless. “Ignore my brother. Xe likes to make up all kinds of excuses for why xe can’t win at poker.”

Margo would love to have some kind of witty retort locked and loaded for that, but xe doesn’t. The first week of the season is always a special kind of exhausting, a return to the nonstop work at a breakneck pace with little to no time to adjust. Xe’s more worn out than offended, at this point.

“I mean, that’s part of it,” Alaynabella says, which is hardly fair considering she barely even knows xem. “But to be fair to your brother, you do have an advantage.”

“Two advantages!” Margo insists, holding up two fingers. “She also has the whole cursed face thing. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking.”

“That was true before the ‘whole cursed face thing,’” Nagomi says, arching her lone uncursed eyebrow. “Why are you still here, anyway? We ran you out of the game forever ago.”

Margo frowns and pushes up onto xir elbows. “Nic, I’ve changed my mind. You have to beat her to defend my honor.”

Xe’s lying down on the couch behind where Nic’s sitting on the floor, perfectly situated to see his hand and play the game vicariously. It probably puts Nic at a disadvantage, if anything; Nagomi knows how to read Margo, even if xe can’t always read her.

Nic reaches back to pat Margo on the shoulder, but his hand lands somewhere on xir abdomen. “Whatever you say, Mags.”

Margo resists the urge to grab his hand and keep it there. That would be a little weird, even for xem.

Alaynabella keeps her gaze trained on her cards and slides scrap paper to the center of the coffee table. “Dish duty after dinner tonight,” she says.

Nagomi’s mouth twists into a frown for a moment while she considers, but she, too, places a paper in the center. “Closing shift at the cat café.”

“Would anyone even let me do that?” Nic asks. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to Randy.”

“That’s for you to find out when you lose,” Alaynabella says without missing a beat. “Besides, Randy’s chill. He won’t care.”

“Fine,” Nic says. He takes a moment to consider the chores he has written out in front of him. “Feeding the carnivorous plants at the greenhouse.”

“Ugh.” Alaynabella’s nose wrinkles. “Too rich for my blood. I fold.”

“Shall we?” Nagomi asks, nodding to Nic’s cards. When he nods, she spreads her hand across the table. “Two pair.”

Margo ruins the reveal. Xe starts cheering before Nic can even show his hand, reaching forward to ruffle his hair in celebration. Nic laughs and sets his cards down.

“Three of a kind,” he says.

Nic collects the papers in the center and starts to redistribute them accordingly, returning Nagomi her chores and a few of his own in addition. “How’s that?” he asks, tilting his head to look at Margo. Xe can’t help grinning. “Has your honor been defended?”

“Obviously.” Margo leans forward to press a loud kiss to the top of Nic’s head. “My hero!”

It is maybe just a step too far. Nic’s hands falter in their work, and Nagomi’s gaze is sharp enough to pin Margo in place. She opens her mouth to ask something; Margo already feels every muscle in xir body preparing to sprint for the kitchen under false pretenses. Luckily, xe doesn’t have to.

“I hate you all,” Alaynabella says, interrupting whatever was about to happen and saving Margo’s skin. She flips her cards over to reveal a full house. “Someone shuffle the deck for me, I’m getting more wine.”

--

The sun goes dark, and it’s like every other eclipse for the past six years and completely different at the same time. The game has barely even started; there’s been no time at all for the buildup, for the creeping sense of anxiety. Four batters in and the field goes completely silent.

“Dugout!” Dunn yells, and it’s a hell of a thing to hear her mechanical voice echo around the silent stadium.

Margo runs, doesn’t bother looking around to see where the ump is. Xe makes it as far as the first base line before the roar, before a wave of unbearable heat knocks xem to xir knees. Margo curls in on xemself, covering xir head and closing xir eyes.

Beck’s scream is so loud it turns Margo’s blood to ice. Xe thinks, for one terrifying moment, that the ump has gotten to her – but then she yells Cali’s name.

Margo doesn’t see it happen. Xe doesn’t see anything at all, for a very long time. The heat builds, and the sound of an explosion rocks the ground beneath xem, but Margo doesn’t get back up. It feels just as bad as the first time, as bad as every other time. In the quiet, Beck’s sobs ring out like gunshots.

It’s been a long time since xe thought about Matheo Carpenter. Too long, probably. But his words come back now: We can’t stop. That’s for after the game.

Margo pushes up onto xir elbows, enough to look over to the dugout but not enough to see the damage on the field behind xem. Beck is on the ground with her fingers gripping the fence hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Dunn has wrapped an arm around her waist, presumably held her back as it happened; Inez buzzes furiously in the entryway.

Maybe things would have been better if they had stopped after that first time, when they lost Hurley. Pushing through the pain, Margo thinks, never seems to stop it hurting.

--

“How’s she doing?”

Margo barely saw Beck after the game. Jacob and Nic had led her out of the dugout while xe and King handled the press pool. Owen took care of the new kid, a moth, Margo thinks zir name was Hiroto. It all ended up being kind of a blur after a while, and honestly, that’s a relief.

“Not good,” Margo says. Xe’s holding the phone between xir ear and xir shoulder as xe scrubs dishes, the result of more than a few hours of stress-cooking. “But I think Zeb is with her, at least.”

“When is it your turn?” Nagomi’s voice is low, almost like she’s trying not to be overheard.

“Tomorrow.” Margo fights back a yawn. “Had to make her some food first.”

It’s late. Logically, Margo knows it is too late, and while for Nagomi it is only marginally past a reasonable bedtime, xe is going to be absolutely exhausted come tomorrow morning. It’s hard to imagine sleeping after everything that’s happened, though. Margo feels a little like xe’s stuck xir finger in an electrical socket, like every nerve is thrumming with so much energy it almost hurts.

“How are you doing?” Nagomi asks. “I’ll know if you lie.”

Margo had tried not to get caught up in everything. Xe’d avoided the dark, burnt patch of grass between first and second, had shown the new kid what xe could when there was time. But there have been a lot of dark patches in the past few years, a lot of people xe’s had to teach. It’s hard not to wonder if, one of these days, Margo’s luck might run out.

“I’m just doing what I can, Gomi.”

--

Doing what xe can translates, roughly, to bringing Beck meals. It translates to cutting out holes in the back of Hiroto’s jersey to make space for zir wings, and it translates to making sure the bus driver knows which portal to take to get the team to their games on time.

It’s more than Margo expected to do when xe joined the team. Xe’s never considered xemself captain material; until now, there was no reason to think about it. Beck was more than capable, and anything Margo might have done would be superfluous in light of that.

Even at the height of the curse, when teammates were dying left and right, Margo never thought it would come to this. It was impossible to imagine the Flowers without Beck Whitney there to pull them all together. And, to be fair, they haven’t lost her yet; she’s still there, on the bus beside Margo, though her eyes are closed and she hasn’t said a word in the better part of a week.

She’ll come back to them eventually, Margo thinks. She just needs a little time.

--

“We should have had a contingency plan in place,” King says. The steam of his coffee collects around his head, weaving clouds in and out of his braids. “It was a mistake to wait this long.”

It’s rare to see him actually agitated about something. Margo kind of wants to poke at that, to unravel the string and see what happens. But xe can recognize a death wish when it suits xem, and today doesn’t feel like the right time. Margo shifts to sit on xir fingers instead, but ends up shaking one leg against xir chair.

“To be fair,” Nic says, reaching out to put a hand on Margo’s knee automatically, “if an ump had gone for Beck, any one of us would have jumped in front of her. The chances of her dying were always pretty low.”

“Dig it.” Castillo bangs an arm against the table, leaving needles embedded in the wood.

It’s an argument they’ve had half a dozen times already. Was there more they could have done to help Cali, should they have even tried? Is it worth it, trying to protect one another over and over again when there’s only ever going to be another ump a few days later?

Cali’s their only death in over a year. Margo would love to say the curse is over and done with, that this was an isolated tragedy, but it’s hard to believe that when her absence is tearing old wounds open with reckless abandon.

“We need to pick a new captain,” Margo says. Xe watches half a dozen heads turn toward xem at breakneck speed, like xe’s just revealed the peanut god is in the next room. “Temporarily. I’m not saying for the rest of the season, even. Just to give Beck some time.”

Nic’s hand tightens on xir knee. Margo isn’t quite clear if it’s a gesture of support or a warning. Xe doesn’t look over at him, doesn’t want to see which one it is.

“No one’s going to be a new Whitney,” Jacob says. He looks particularly miserable, running a hand over his face. “Like, you guys are great and all, but is anyone at this table prepared to file our taxes?”

A moment of horrified silence falls over the table. The coaching, Margo thinks they could manage; it’s the mountain of paperwork piling up on Beck’s desk that brought this meeting to pass in the first place.

“What we ought to learn from this experience,” King says, slowly, “is that it would be unrealistic to place the full burden of management on any one person. Suppose we split the managerial duties, and each take on a little bit more as individuals?”

It’s probably for the best. And King’s right in that it’s something they should have been doing all along. Just because Beck enjoyed most of the work doesn’t mean it all belonged on her shoulders. Margo has a moment where xe feels genuinely guilty for that, for not offering to do more to help her before it came to this.

But then Nic is patting xir thigh, the only warning xe gets before he says, “I nominate Margo for interim captain.”

“What the fuck,” Margo says, and then immediately claps a hand over xir mouth. “Sorry!”

Zeb raises a hand. “I second that.”

“Anyone have a better idea?” King asks, looking around the table.

Margo pulls xir hand down from xir mouth, about ready to protest. So many other names are better, like King, or Jacob, or Nic himself. Literally anyone else sitting in the clubhouse right now would be a better option for captain than Margarito Nava, xe thinks, but Nic leans in to interrupt xir thoughts before xe can say so.

“Don’t worry about it,” he whispers. “I’ll help you with whatever you need.”

Satisfied, King tips his coffee in Margo’s direction. “Congratulations, Captain Nava.”

“Interim!” Margo says, and doesn’t miss the way Nic rolls his eyes. Xe says it again, aiming for quieter and a little less panicky. “Interim captain. None of you can blame me when this all crashes and burns, either.”

Xe might as well have not said anything. Hardly anyone is paying attention to xem anymore; now that the captaincy has been decided, there are other things to discuss.

“I can handle the press conferences,” Moses says. And, well. At least that makes sense. Moses, for all the weird flower sprouts and the gray concrete growing over his skin, still has more media training than anyone else in the room.

Nic starts to pull his hand back from Margo’s knee, apparently willing to let xem vibrate out of the chair now that he’s enlisted xem in a leadership position.

Margo reaches up to hold his hand in place.

--

Beck’s hair is a mess. Margo knows she washed it; xe practically shoved her into the shower when xe arrived, despite her protests, and she was in there long enough that all the hot water vanished while Margo was still washing dishes.

It’s been a long morning. Xe’s done what xe can, swapped out the sheets on her bed and vacuumed the rugs and stocked her fridge with meals that only need to be reheated in the microwave. It doesn’t really feel like enough, so now her head is in xir lap while the television runs through hour after hour of reality shows.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” Beck mutters, face half-hidden in the blanket pulled over Margo’s lap. Xe pulls the brush through her hair again and tries not to tug too hard on her scalp. “I never thought I’d say that. I always thought I cared too much to give up.”

Margo’s never been good at braiding someone else’s hair. That always seems to surprise people, as though having a twin sister automatically meant xe’d been pulled into every game of dress-up and make believe. In reality, Margo learned to braid xir own hair, learned to play pretend on xir own. Nagomi was always tucked away in a corner with her nose in a book.

Xe stumbles through the motions though, aiming for something presentable and less than perfect. Normally, this would be an ideal moment for a joke, an attempt to diffuse the tension or something. Nothing comes to mind.

“Caring about things is a mistake,” xe says instead. It’s easier to commiserate than try for platitudes.

Beck shakes her head a little, disrupting what little progress Margo has made on her hair. “Not a mistake,” she says. Her fingers twist into the blanket. “Just never good enough.”

“I’m sorry there wasn’t more we could do.”

“Me too.”

Margo keeps xir hands busy, shaping Beck’s hair into something a little more like her usual style. It’s still damp. The water seeps through the blanket, chilly against xir legs. When Beck falls asleep, xe stops. It’s probably the first time she’s gotten rest in days; the braids can wait until she wakes up.

Xe turns xir attention to the television, trying hard not to think about anything at all.

--

Incinerations are brutal to witness on the field, in a way that never manages to carry over on television. More often than not, channels will cut away to an anchor for analysis rather than show the game as it happens, either because they don’t want to get fined for the excessive violence or because they literally can’t see what’s happening through the darkness and smoke anyway.

Feedback isn’t like that.

Feedback is a long, screaming note, and bright flash of light that turns the shot green for a frame and then fades. There isn’t really enough time to cut away, and even if there were, it’s over in literal seconds. There’s no death, and no new player to frantically research so everyone will know who’s suddenly on the field. So the news crews keep rolling, and announcers wear special sunglasses to see who got hit, and the world keeps turning.

It sucks. Margo can’t bring xemself to rewatch that kind of thing, most of the time. Beck did, nearly compulsively; after a game, the whole team would hear it from inside the coach’s office. That long, abrasive screech, followed by booming thunder, would play through the tinny speakers of her laptop and set everyone in the locker room on edge. Over, and over, and over.

So Margo recognizes the sound the instant Nagomi picks up the phone.

“Turn it off,” xe says. “That’s not helping anyone.”

Nagomi sighs. “It’s not mine, Sandy’s got it on.”

She must still be in the locker room with everyone else, then. Margo is surprised she answered. Part of xem wants to tell her to turn it off anyway, or to start the trek over to the Hellmouth to do it xemself.

“There’s not going to be anything there,” xe says. “Believe me, I’ve watched Beck pick apart those clips frame by frame. There’s nothing anyone could have done.”

“We have to figure that out for ourselves.” A door closes on the other end of the line, cutting off the thunder abruptly. Margo is equal parts relieved and annoyed. “It’s… still new, for us.”

Margo almost wants to say it will get easier. Xe’s not entirely sure that’s true. Feedback isn’t the worst thing in the world, but then, that’s compared to a fireball.

“I’m sure we can steal him back,” xe says instead. “It’s the Jazz Hands, they’re too busy running community theater productions to notice a kidnapping.”

Ordinarily, Nagomi would scoff or roll her eyes. Instead, she stays quiet. Margo hears the sound of birds; she must be out on the field again.

“You should come back to the Hellmouth sometime soon,” she says eventually.

It’s the last thing Margo expected to hear. They just had a series against the Sunbeams a few days ago, but xe knows that’s not what she means. It’s been hard to visit since Cali. Even now there’s more to be doing, flights to book and practices to schedule.

“Tonight?” xe asks. “I think I could swing it, if you want.”

It’s not what she means, and xe knows that. The Beams will want to spend the evening with each other, with Randy if they can get away with it. Margo can come tomorrow, once the dust has settled.

“Okay.”

“That’s fine, some other-” Margo stops. “What?”

Nagomi snorts. “Randy invited us all to the café for drinks and a send-off. You should come.”

There’s still so much to do. Margo has no idea how Beck has managed it all this whole time, doesn’t understand how she ever took time off. But that’s not how Margo wants to be. And right now, xir sister is asking xem to spend time with her; that’s not something xe’s going to say no to.

“Sure,” xe says, picking xir backpack up off the floor. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

--

Hiroto swings like a whirlwind, wings and arms flailing wildly in every direction. Every now and then on the follow-through, ze’ll get too excited and zir wings will flutter just enough to lift zir feet off the ground, moving just a few inches toward the pitcher’s mound.

It’s the kind of thing someone should have corrected ages ago. It’s the kind of thing Margo should have corrected, but there just hasn’t been any time. Jacob offers, once or twice, but one look at Hiroto’s spindly moth legs and he backs off like he’s been set on fire.

Margo is ready to call for a water break after about twenty minutes of it, prepared to come back to it another time when xe has a little more energy and isn’t quite as hungover. But xe doesn’t get the chance. Beck climbs out of the dugout, and even with her hair a mess and dark circles under her eyes, it’s the best she’s looked in weeks.

She heads straight for home plate to stand beside Hiroto, muttering something. When Hiroto nods, she puts her hands on zir bat, guiding zem to the proper grip.

“Oh Captain, my Captain,” Margo mutters, and a weight is lifted from xir chest.

--

Of all the people they could have lost in the feedback, Beck Whitney is definitely the worst.

--

“You look good in black, Cap.”

“Shit!” Beck startles, dropping the pile of papers she’d been holding. She takes a deep breath, eyes trained on the desk. “Nava, please. Not now.”

Margo leans in the doorway and crosses xir arms. “What, am I not allowed to call you that anymore?”

It’s easier to act like nothing is wrong. Like the weather didn’t come back one more time just to screw them over. Margo doesn’t want to think about the work xe’s going to have to take on again, or the way Beck had looked curled up on the ground next to third base when the feedback settled. Xe wants to pretend like this is a normal day and xe’s coming in just in time to annoy the hell out of xir captain before she heads home.

“No,” Beck says. Her shoulders heave with the force of her sigh. “No, I guess you shouldn’t.”

“And here I thought you were going to stay on for a couple more weeks,” xe says, “at least to make sure I don’t run the place into the ground.”

Beck’s backpack seems unaffected by the feedback; it’s decorated in roses and has her number embroidered across the front, just as it always has. She shoves a binder into it with more force than it probably needs before looking at Margo.

“You’ve been running the team for weeks, Margo, you don’t need me.”

The sky outside is dark, casting long shadows across the floor of the room. It’s hard to make out Beck’s expression, but Margo can guess that she’s crying.

So maybe acting like everything is okay isn’t the right way to go about this one.

“We’ve always needed you, Whitney,” Margo says. Xe steps into the room and closes the door behind, on the off chance anyone else is still around. “Probably a little too much. I’ve tried walking in your shoes; it sucks.”

“Lucky for me, I don’t have to do it anymore.” There’s a note of hysteria in Beck’s voice, and Margo is reminded of the days after Cali died. She drops down into the chair.

“We’re always going to need you, Beck,” Margo says. “Maybe not as our captain, but as a friend, or something.”

“Or something,” Beck huffs, swiping a few tears away. “As your ‘in’ at cool parties, you mean?”

“What, with the Dale? Nah.” Margo moves to sit on the desk, kicking xir feet against the drawers. “We’re way cooler than them. I meant we’ll need you to sabotage them from the inside.”

“Sure, you did.” Beck looks up at xem. “You’ll call, right?”

“Whitney, I’m going to call you so often you’ll need to sick a rogue ump on me.”

That gets a laugh out of her, although it’s a small, shaky thing. She hits xem in the side. “Never, don’t joke about that.”

They don’t say much, after that. Margo hangs out while she packs her things and she runs xem through the most important information – spare bats in that locker, burn kit in this drawer – out of necessity, but it’s obvious the two of them are talked out.

As she leaves, Beck leans up to press a kiss to xir cheek. “Thanks for everything, Mags.”

Margo watches her go, but xe doesn’t follow. Xe hides in her office for hours, running playbacks from BNN on loop.

There is nothing to see. A long, sustained tone and a flash of green, and then it’s over.

--

There are muffins in the team lounge. There are muffins, and they’re decorated with rainbow sprinkles, and that kind of thing hasn’t happened in the Garden since before the curse set in.

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Hahn says, a bit sheepishly. She tips forward onto the toes of her chucks, falls back down hard enough to upset her tentacles. “For welcoming me to the team after everything.”

Welcoming is the wrong word; the team hasn’t been mean to Hahn, but they could do a lot better. Margo knows that. Losing Beck has hurt morale, and unfortunately, Hahn is a constant reminder of that. Maybe Margo can talk to a few people after the game, try and sort out some way to welcome her properly.

“Thanks.” Margo leans in to grab one, but doesn’t eat it right away. “We don’t have a lot of bakers here on the Flowers. What’s, uh. What’s in them?”

“Oh, I think it’s,” Hahn pauses for a minute, tongue caught between her teeth. “Lemon poppyseed, or pumpkin maybe? My wife did most of it. I just added the sprinkles at the end.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t say sprinkles are a traditional muffin topping,”

“You clearly haven’t been spending enough time with the Dale, then!” Hahn says. She tries to sound upbeat, but Margo can see her hands fidgeting with the front of her jersey. She’s left a few buttons undone near the bottom, opting instead to tie it up. “You should come to the— I mean. I’ll have to ask Qais if they can invite the team over, sometime.”

Margo feels for her. They’ve had plenty of transfers in the past, and there’s always at least a little bit of an adjustment early on, but they’ve never gotten any former captains. It’s only fair, xe thinks, given they lost their own.

“That would be nice,” Margo says, opting to ignore the slip-up. “And hey, if you want to stop by the bar after practice today, first round is on me.”

It seems to catch her attention, at least. Her wide eyes narrow, one side of her mouth quirking upward. “When you say first round, do you mean shitty beer?”

“Hey, I can make a mean margarita,” Margo says. “If I couldn’t, it would be a real embarrassment for everyone involved.”

“No, no, no!” Hahn laughs, and it’s nice; sort of bright, enough to make Margo smile right back. “You’re making me a hurricane, Margarito, I deserve a real drink after all of this.”

Margo hasn’t had to make a drink like that in years. By now, most of the people who come by the bar are regulars or Flowers, and they all seem to live off of beers and the occasional rum and Coke. There’s a blender somewhere in the cabinets, but Margo genuinely couldn’t say where it is.

“Don’t we all,” Margo says.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Hahn backs up to the kitchenette counter and hops up onto it, kicking her feet against the lower cabinet. “First chance we get, I’m taking the whole team to the Party Yacht and we’re going to get you shitfaced, Captain.”

“Ugh, no. Call me Margo,” xe says, waving a hand. “Everybody else does.”

She gives him a shoddy, two-fingered salute.

--

Randall Marijuana is incinerated in Breckenridge, Colorado, staring down an umpire in the middle of the Pocket and surrounded by strangers.

--

The café is quiet. Normally it’s full of music and crowds and clinking dishware, but the “closed” sign hangs over the door today and there’s no one inside but the three of them.

“So,” Alaynabella says, and her voice is raspy. “Where do you think he left all the receipts?”

Margo hadn’t gone to the funeral. It didn’t feel right to just show up, especially considering xe had barely known Randy at all. Xe’d stayed behind at Nagomi’s apartment, cooking up enough meals that she wouldn’t have to think about feeding herself for at least the next week or two. Somehow, though, xe’d been roped into coming to the café to help sort things out.

With Emmett, at least there had been something. Nagomi has never been one to talk about her feelings, but she had asked xem to stay. She had wanted the support, and the company. All this week, though, it’s been like rooming with a ghost; she gets out of bed and takes the tea from Margo’s ready hands, and then she sits silently on the floor surrounded by tarot cards for hours on end.

Even now, her face is a blank mask as she surveys the room. Cats are napping in every corner and the little suns hang from the ceiling around the register, a peaceful scene despite the circumstances.

“No idea,” Nagomi murmurs. She walks forward, moving through the tables like she’s in some kind of trance until she arrives at a row of cat beds. She stops in front of one where a tiny calico is curled up. “Hey, Peaches.”

The cat uncurls slowly, reaching a paw up to bat at Nagomi’s finger. The curse is active today, in a way Margo hadn’t been expecting. It flickers and flares, sometimes coming close to covering her entire head with smoke no one could hope to see through.

“She’ll be okay,” Alaynabella mutters to xem.

Margo snorts. “Yeah? How are you holding up?”

Xe doesn’t know her well. They’ve talked here and there over the years, but most of the Sunbeams seemed peripheral to Nagomi beyond Emmett and Randy, so it’s not like they crossed paths often. Her preferred drink is a gin and tonic, and she has a pet lion somewhere; that’s about all Margo knows.

She seems to take xir bad attitude in stride, though, shrugging one shoulder. “I feel like shit. We all do.”

Peaches rolls over onto its back, all fluff and extended limbs. Nagomi kneels down to get closer, hair and smoke like a curtain over them both as she pets its stomach and murmurs praises.

“We should get to work,” Alaynabella says. She flips the light switch by the door. One by one, cats of all shapes and sizes unfurl from small corners or crawl out from under the furniture.

Nagomi lifts Peaches up into her arms and turns to face them both. “Maggie can help with the budgeting,” she says, one hand steadfastly scratching behind the cat’s ears. “I’ll make sure all the cats are fed.”

“Great.” Alaynabella, in one smooth, practiced motion, pulls her long curls up into a loose ponytail. She twists it around into a messy bun and somehow, like magic, it stays in place. “I’ll be in the walk-in checking expiration dates. If you hear screaming, ignore it.”

She marches off, heels clicking against the tile. A few of the cats trail after her, mewing softly as they go. Margo waits until xe hears the door to the kitchen click closed behind her.

“Maybe you should take that one home,” xe says, nodding toward the cat in Nagomi’s arms. “It seems to like you a lot.”

She takes a deep breath and sets the cat down. “I don’t want to separate any of them from each other.”

“Take two.” Margo is only partly joking.

“Margarito,” Nagomi warns. There’s just enough acidity in her voice to make xem consider the consequences of pushing buttons, but not nearly enough to make xem stop.

Margo takes a few steps into the room. “Are you going to talk about it? At all?”

For a brief moment, the smoke dissipates. It’s just Nagomi standing there, eyes rimmed in red and lips bitten raw. She stares at Margo, muscle twitching in her jaw. There’s a long pause, a silence drawn so tightly it could snap at the slightest provocation. And then Nagomi speaks.

“I knew he was going to die. I saw it coming, and there was nothing I could do.”

Margo hasn’t hugged xir sister in years; if xe tried, she’d kill xem. But the urge is strong anyway, enough to make Margo take a few steps forward before xe can stop xemself. For all the teammates Margo has lost over the years, xe’s never had to go through anything like that.

“You didn’t deserve that,” Margo says. It isn’t enough, but then, nothing could be.

“I don’t need you to make me feel better.” Nagomi’s voice is tight, strained; she takes a shallow breath, and Margo can hear the way it wavers. “I just need you to help me run this damn café.”

That, at least, is something Margo can do.

--

Somehow, another change to the roster is barely enough to catch Margo’s attention in the next election. Alaynabella Hollywood, the latest transfer to the Boston Flowers, sits on xir floor with a literal pet lion as the rest of the results roll in and, by comparison, it isn’t even noteworthy.

Margo has seen a lot of weird shit in xir time on the Flowers. Players have literally sprouted from the ground, out of the burnt ashes of someone else xe knew by name. But nothing could have prepared xem for the way the skies go dark, nearly pitch black even in Boston, when the announcer calls Jaylen Hotdogfingers’ name.

The live feed switches to the Big Garage where Jaylen is standing on the mound. Her hair is damp, falling over her eyes as she sways in the wind. Every inch of her is covered in dirt and grime, and her jersey clings to her ribcage.

Her head tilts up slowly, eyes so wide Margo can see the whites of them as she zeroes in on the camera. The sky over Seattle flashes blue and a curtain of rain falls over the field, covering her until she’s barely a shadow within it.

“We’re in trouble,” Alaynabella says, fingers twisting tightly into her lion’s mane.

Outside, thunder roars.

--

Ruby Tuesday hits like a goddamn freight train.

It isn’t even like it directly affects the team. Margo knows they aren’t set up to go against the Garages, at least not this season. But the weight of it bears down on xem, a reminder of what has happened before and what can happen again.

Nagomi called an hour ago. Margo had stepped away from the team to talk to her, but it was barely anything more than just making sure they were both still alive. Now, Margo is still hiding out in the coach’s office, primarily because xe isn’t really sure where to go. It feels like the best xe can do is stay put, pouring over Beck’s notes about possible ways to prevent further incinerations.

But a knock on the door grabs xir attention. Before Margo can make up xir mind about whether to hide under the desk or tell them to go away, Nic is in the doorway with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a pizza in the other.

“I’m just here to make sure you aren’t dead,” he says, moving into the room without giving Margo a chance to respond. “You eat the food, and I’ll listen to whatever’s going on in your head.”

Margo motions to the empty chair on the other side of the desk. “You’ve won me over. Have a seat.”

The pizza’s still warm; Margo wonders if Nic left to pick it up himself, or if he’s been sitting in the locker room waiting for a delivery this entire time. Either option seems equally possible. Margo goes to move all of Beck’s notes off the table, both to get them out of the way of the food and to get it off xir mind for a little while.

It doesn’t really work. Nic’s quick, and his eyes scan over Beck’s messy script before it can be safely hidden away.

“Not you, too,” he sighs. He drops into the chair across from Margo and slides the pizza onto the table. “You can’t get caught up in this stuff, Margo, you saw what it did to Beck.”

That’s true; for every time Margo was able to get Beck out for drinks or a movie, every time xe saw her on a date with Cali, there were half a dozen nights spent pouring over game strategies and statistics. She made burning the candle at both ends into an Olympic sport. Margo hopes the Dale have been helping wean her off of it, but it’s not like they can stop her if she gets going.

“You don’t get to complain.” Margo’s already got a mouth full of cheese and bread. Nic rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything, so xe continues on. “You’ve got the whole super-hearing thing, right? You always get a head start.”

It’s not something Margo had ever bothered asking about. Xe thinks now, seeing Nic grimace and look away, that maybe xe should have.

“What?”

“I didn’t realize,” Nic starts, and then lets out a long sigh. He’s looking anywhere but at Margo, fingers worrying a tear in the knee of his jeans. “I thought you knew that was a bit, Margo.”

An ocean roars in Margo’s ears. “What do you mean?”

“It was a joke, the whole thing about hearing an incineration coming. I have a hard enough time hearing people talk some days, I thought it would be pretty obvious.”

It’s impossible not to stare, not to look over every inch of Nic’s face for some kind of tell, some giveaway that he doesn’t mean it. Margo had known it wouldn’t mean he was completely safe – no one is ever completely safe – but it was something, some barrier against the worst that could happen.

Whatever appetite Margo had, it’s gone now, replaced by something heavy and sour in the pit of xir stomach.

“I’ve seen you do it,” Margo says, because xe has. Nic has to turn his hearing aids off during feedback to avoid them shorting out, and on the few occasions they’ve seen reverb he’s almost had to take the rest of the game off to recover.

Nic is worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, apparently mulling over his next words carefully. When he speaks, it comes slowly. “Electronic interference, sure. And sometimes – sometimes – the air pressure when a rogue ump changes can make my ears pop. But it’s not a reliable thing, I don’t get to… I don’t get a countdown.”

It feels like stepping out on a tightrope and realizing there’s no safety net. It feels like every single muscle in Margo’s body has been swapped with icicles, like staring down Jaylen fucking Hotdogfingers on the pitcher’s mound. It feels like nothing, and like everything all at once.

Margo lets out a laugh, and it sounds more than a little hysterical even to xir own ears. Xe puts xir head in xir hands, rests xir elbows on the table. “You can’t just drop this on a guy, Winkler. Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, come on.” Nic kicks Margo’s foot under the table. He’s quieter, like he doesn’t want to startle xem, but Margo’s pretty thoroughly rattled already. “I’m not going anywhere.”

But that’s not a promise any of them can make. Beck had said the same thing to Margo, years ago, had told xem she was never going to leave Boston. Despite everything, Margo had believed her. It’s harder to make that mistake a second time.

“Nic Winkler,” Margo says. Xe drops xir hands to find him leaning on the other side of the desk, eyes trained on Margo with concern. “If you ever so much as think an ump is going to go rogue—”

“Margo, don’t do this to yourself.”

“No, you listen to me,” Margo insists, holding out a hand to stop him. “You run like hell, you hear me? I can’t – we’ve lost enough already. We can’t lose you.”

It’s one step too far. Margo knows it before the words leave xir mouth. There have been half a dozen deaths on the Flowers since xe joined the team, and every single one has hurt – but none of them hurt half as much as the way it would to lose Nic. Margo knows that, without question; xe just never bothered to think about it before now.

“Okay,” Nic says. “You won’t.”

He goes to reach out, and his hand seems to hover in the space between them for a beat too long, like he didn’t think this far ahead and isn’t sure what to do next. In the end, he opts for leaning forward to pat Margo on the shoulder.

It’s almost enough to make Margo laugh again, the stilted, impersonal nature of it. Instead, xe nods and takes a deep, unsteady breath.

“Great,” xe says. “Because I’ve been meaning to ask if you can take on some more shifts at the bar. I’ve kind of got a lot going on.”

That gets a smile out of Nic, just the slightest quirk of the lips. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

Something still feels a little off kilter, like Margo has set off a trap in an action movie but the giant boulder hasn’t started to roll yet. That’s a problem for later, though; right now, xe’s got pizza and Nic to keep xem out of harm’s way.

--

It isn’t even about winning, at this point. It’s about surviving. Margo runs practice when xe can, which is laughably infrequent compared to the schedule Beck used to have them on. Every single game sends a new wave of anxiety through the dugout, as the moon creeps close to the sun or clouds drift in to cover the stadium.

Not only that, but being too good comes at a cost now. They’ve all seen the footage at this point, Jessica Telephone trapped inside a peanut shell and stationed in the center of the field in Philadelphia. Landing too many hits can place a target on your back.

“Maybe what we need to do,” Layna muses one day, as she sits on a bench tying her cleats, “is see how bad we can be.”

“Oh, is that what you’ve been doing that this whole time?” Moses quips, glancing over at her. They laugh as she launches her mitt at them, ducking into their locker to protect themself.

“Shut up,” Layna orders, even as she grins. “I’m just saying, there’s that whole enhanced party time thing everyone voted for. Maybe we take advantage of it.”

Margo pauses halfway through buttoning up xir jersey. Nic meets xir eye from across the locker room and shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, why not?

“Alright, everyone,” Margo says, clapping xir hands together. It’s still a little weird, feeling all of their eyes on xem and knowing they’ll do what xe asks. “It’s time to take a page from Layna’s book. No matter what, do not hit that ball.”

“Hey!” Layna yells, laughing. “Not you, too!”

The Flowers have been through a lot. No one can argue that. It’s about time they took a break. So maybe, Margo thinks, they need to make one for themselves.

--

Nagomi doesn’t send packages often, so Margo is surprised to find the small paper square sitting outside the door of xir apartment. There’s no real question where it’s from, even without a return address; the paper is singed around the edges, and stamped with the Hellmouth Anti-Tourism seal.

Inside is a tiny stone, dark as charcoal except for a golden engraving of three diamonds bisected by a straight line. It’s hung on a thin cord with a clasp, long enough to be a necklace.

Margo snaps a picture and sends it off to Nagomi. Did I forget our birthday or something?

Yes. Several times.

Xe rolls xir eyes, ready to shoot off some kind of retort about how Nagomi’s never sent anything either, but she texts xem again almost immediately.

It’s for protection. Humor me.

They haven’t really talked about what’s happening, with Jaylen or with the leaderboard. After a certain point, it’s easier to call a couple times a week and watch reality cooking competitions together than to talk about the overwhelming horror of the world around them.

Margo slips the necklace on without questioning it, feels the cool weight of it pressing against the hollow of xir neck.

What about you? xe asks. Maybe Beck or Layna would know someone who could find something similar, something to send back in return.

What do you think this thing on my face is for?

To scare small children. And prevent frizzing.

Nagomi doesn’t respond. Margo assumes that means xe’s right on the money.

--

Despite the results of the election, Hahn Fox is good on her word. The Flowers end up on the Party Yacht more than once over the course of the season, even when they have absolutely no reason to be there. Margo finds it hard to complain; it’s a lot better to be on the other side of the bar when you don’t have to clean up afterward.

The first order of business every time, though, is to track down Beck. That’s no different tonight. Margo finds her leaning against a railing on the upper deck, with a drink in one hand and heart-shaped sunglasses pushed up on top of her head.

“Do my eyes deceive me,” Margo calls out, long before xe’s anywhere near her, “or is the great Beck Whitney taking a night off to relax?”

Beck shakes her head and laughs, but she waits until Margo is within arm’s reach to respond. “A night off from what? I’m practically unemployed out here.”

“Yeah, well. You’re better off that way.” Margo pulls her in for a hug and she groans against xir chest, one hand pushing at xem halfheartedly. “Missed you, Coach.”

“I missed you too,” Beck says, the words muffled by Margo’s jersey. Xe lets her go after a moment, but she stays close anyway, pressed up against xir side. “How’s everyone doing?”

“Oh, you know.” Margo waves a hand and narrowly avoids spilling xir drink. “Inez built a hive in the away dugout last week, so that was fun. And we’re trying to teach Gloria not to chew on Hiroto. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same.”

The music on the main deck is still audible out here, lights flashing over a mix of everyone from the Wild Low. Somewhere, someone sets off fireworks; they fly up above and explode with a bang! that sets everyone cheering.

Beck flinches against Margo. It’s small enough xe wouldn’t have noticed, if not for the fact they’re so close together.

“Come on,” Margo says, turning around and taking her with xem. “Let’s find somewhere quiet, I need a progress report on all the sabotage you’ve obviously been doing.”

Xe expects her to turn xem down, insist that Margo stay out and enjoy the party. But she doesn’t, instead leading xem down a staircase and around a few corners until they reach a door with “WHITNEY” written on a whiteboard.

“Home sweet home,” she mutters. If it wasn’t already clear the room is hers, it is the moment she opens the door; the walls are decorated in purple and pink, with Flowers flags and flyers hung on the wall around her old jersey.

Margo takes the time to set xir drink down on the desk, and then immediately collapses onto the bed. “Nice crib!” xe says, spreading xir arms out wide. “When can I move in?”

Beck toes her shoes off just inside the doorway before padding over to lie down next to xem. “You’d fit in much better here than I do,” she says. “Don’t you have family in Miami?”

“Eh, distant cousins. We aren’t close. Besides,” Margo waves a hand in the air above them, gesturing to the ship as a whole, “this is great for you. A nice, long vacation from coaching duties.”

It isn’t really like that, Margo knows. All the problems before still followed Beck here. No amount of party music and EDM can make up for the way the ILB has treated their team, especially her. But here, in the quiet of her new bedroom with alcohol in Margo’s blood and the boat rocking gently underneath, it’s easier to envision a future where those things might hurt a little bit less.

“I miss having things to do,” Beck says. “I miss taking care of the team. I miss the Garden, and dirt under my feet, and the bugs and the weeds. I want to be on weeding duty again, Margo! So badly.”

“So start a garden here,” Margo tells her. Beck groans, and xe can hear the protests building but xe pushes on. “No, I’m serious! Ask Qais to start a garden on the ship, and make that your new project. You can even plant Castillo, I’ve been trying to get rid of him for ages.”

Beck doesn’t respond right away. They lie together in silence for a while, her foot knocking against xir shin as they stare up at the blank ceiling.

“Is everyone doing okay?” she asks eventually, voice so soft it’s barely audible. “Without me?”

Margo snorts, turning xir head to look at her. “Absolutely not. We’re last in the league, Beck; we literally could not be doing any worse than we are right now.”

She doesn’t meet xir eyes, still staring resolutely at the ceiling. “And that’s… okay?”

“It’s easier,” Margo says, which isn’t an answer to the question she asked but is the honest truth. “It’s what we need right now.”

“What if what I need is to come back?”

Margo slides an arm under Beck’s back and flips her over until she’s halfway on top of xem, wrapping her in a hug. She laughs, but it’s wet and uneasy; it hurts to hear her this way, and Margo would take her back to Boston in a second if xe thought it would stick.

“Whitney, you are always welcome back,” xe says. “But I am not letting you within ten feet of the coach’s office. I hate to tell you this, but you have a tendency to micromanage.”

“Ugh,” she says, one hand coming up to grab Margo’s shirt. “Captaincy has made you a real bitch, Nava.”

Margo laughs until xir stomach hurts, holding Beck as tightly as she’ll allow.

--

A lot of weird things live in the Garden, and Margo is well-versed in most of them. Talking plants, a garden of trees grown from dead players’ bats, and even the Groundskeeper are familiar sights by now, part of the fabric of the place.

Margo has never, in xir entire time with the Boston Flowers, seen a dragon on the field.

No one was even supposed to be here. They’re all enjoying a few days off ahead of the next election, Captain’s orders. Margo is only around because xe needed to do captainy things – although, admittedly, xe’s having a hard time remembering what those things are right now.

“Um,” Margo says, staring up at the thing that hovers just off the ground in the middle of center field. “Can I help you?”

The thing, it turns out, sounds like approximately seven dozen wind chimes going off at once. “Yes,” it intones, black eyes blinking. “I wish to play your game.”

Again, plenty of weird things happen in the Garden. For all Margo knows, this is just something else Beck neglected to tell xem about. Maybe sometimes, mythical creatures show up in the outfield between seasons and demand admittance onto the team roster. Maybe xe’s supposed to turn them away, to protect the integrity of blaseball or something like that. No team has ever had an extra player before, xe thinks; look what happened to that Townsend guy.

But Margo is only human. In the face of a floating lizard ten times xir size, there’s really only so much xe can do to stop it from getting what it wants. “Sure,” xe says. “Welcome to the team. Try not to breathe fire on the roses, if that’s a thing you do.”

Just like that, the dragon becomes a woman. She’s wearing an elaborate jumpsuit, and so much jewelry it’s a wonder she can remain upright. Margo thinks xe should be able to remember the way it happened, to be able to envision the silver monster that was there before, but xe can’t.

“Wonderful!” the woman says, clapping her hands together. “My name is Glabe Moon. I believe I must be one who holds a stick.”

Margo nods, a bit dumbfounded. “Right. A batter.”

Presumably, there’s something official xe should do at this point. Draw up a contract, maybe, or find Glabe the equipment she needs.

Instead, Margo says, “We have practice Monday morning. Assuming this hasn’t all been a hallucination, I’ll get you sorted out then.” And xe turns on xir heel, and xe walks away.

--

The whole blooddrain deal has never been Margo’s favorite. It’s less traumatic than the incinerations and the feedback, but if given the choice, xe’d choose the birds – or, hell, even the peanuts – rather than wade through it, through puddles that stain xir socks red and leave everything smelling like rust. It’s not like there’s any avoiding it, either; much like every other weather in blaseball, it doesn’t stay away from anyone just because they’ve got an umbrella.

Unlike feedback or incineration, though, it’s almost impossible to tell when it actually hits someone. When Nic makes it back to the dugout, the dozen or so papercuts across his arms and neck just look like droplets from the sky. But when he runs a hand across his face, his cheek keeps bleeding.

Margo goes to patch him up but he shrugs it off, despite the grey tinge to his skin. It takes until well after the game, when they’re in the locker room and everyone else has showered and left for the hotel, for Nic to let Margo near enough to get anything done.

“You shouldn’t just leave it like that,” Margo mutters, rubbing antibiotic ointment on what feels like the seventeenth cut on Nic’s arm. Xe keeps xir eyes trained on xir work, but can hear Nic let out a little hiss at the sting. “It could get infected or something, and then what would we do?”

“It’s fine, Margo,” Nic says. “It’s a tiny little scratch, it isn’t going to kill me.”

“No, but if you become a zombie, I’m definitely going to have to fire you,” Margo retorts. “I’m pretty sure the FDA has strict regulations against letting corpses serve food.”

Nic laughs just a little bit, shoulder shaking under Margo’s hands. Xe almost keeps going, already prepared to keep the jokes coming if it helps lighten Nic’s mood. But it’s then that Nagomi walks through the doorway, leading a very upbeat Sandoval Crossing.

“Are we interrupting?” Nagomi says, eyebrow raised as she looks at them both. Margo sits up and shifts, just barely, away from Nic.

“Nope, couldn’t possibly,” xe says. “We still on for dinner tonight?”

“Actually, I was hoping I might come along.” Sandy nods their head toward Nic, smiling in a way Margo would best describe as apologetic. “I figure I owe you one, given I did such a number on you out there.”

“The more, the merrier,” Nic says, smiling. “Right, Margo?”

Margo points a finger at Sandy in what xe hopes is a menacing fashion. “I am going to make you pay for that blooddrain, Crossing,” xe says. “Top-shelf alcohol, all night long.”

“I wouldn’t dare do anything less!”

They’re good to their word. The Hellmouth, despite all evidence to the contrary, has some nice restaurants hidden throughout its burning, haunted streets, and Sandy seems to know everyone at the bar they end up at. Their drinks get comped, the food is on the house, and Sandy keeps the liquor flowing just as fast as the conversation.

Margo doesn’t notice Nic and Nagomi signing to one another across the table until xe’s far gone, the world hazy around the edges. Xe waits until Sandy and Nic leave to get another round before saying anything, though, waits until Nagomi meets xir eye with a steady, steely gaze.

“Something wrong?” she asks, foot knocking against Margo’s shin under the table.

“I don’t know.” Margo narrows xir eyes, leaning forward to get a little in her space. “What are you saying to Nic? You two don’t talk.”

“I’ve had Nic’s number since season six.” The smoke around her head reaches out and pushes the straw in Margo’s drink, moving it away from xir mouth. “Not my fault you never started a group chat.”

“I don’t―” Margo pauses, pulling xir straw back. “I don’t know why you two have any reason to talk to each other. Unless you’re trying to convert him to the Sunbeams, in which case, I will challenge you to a battle to the death.”

Xe wishes, far too late, that xe’d tapped out before the last two drinks. This is not a conversation to be having drunk, when even the human side of Nagomi’s face is a little out of focus.

“We have plenty of reasons to talk,” Nagomi says, pointedly ignoring xir tangent. She looks over to the bar, and Margo follows her lead. Sandy is talking up the waitstaff, and Nic is gathering three glasses of water in his hands. “We have you.”

There’s not really any time left to grill her on it, not that Margo was doing a great job anyway. Xe picks up a spare straw on the table and blows the wrapper at Nagomi; she sticks her tongue out. And then Nic is sliding back into the booth beside Margo and setting a water down in front of them both.

“What did I miss?” he asks.

Nagomi signs something, and it’s too quick for Margo to understand even if xe was sober, or if xe knew any sign language. Nic laughs and waves her off, turning to Margo.

“How are you holding up?” he asks.

Margo looks between him and Nagomi, trying to discern exactly what they could be saying to each other. Either it’s the most protected secret in the world, or xe’s heavily inebriated and couldn’t even tell left from right by now.

Xe leans against Nic’s shoulder and tries to ignore the way it sets xir head spinning. “You two,” Margo says, motioning between them haphazardly, “are being very, very cruel to me.”

Nagomi grins. “As your sister, that’s my god-given right.”

“What’s your excuse?” Margo asks Nic, turning to face him.

Nic’s grinning too, though it’s less aggressive than Nagomi. “I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.”

“Very cruel!” xe repeats. “I’m never going to speak to either of you again, and no jury will convict me for it.”

He nudges Margo with an elbow lightly, not enough to move xem away but enough to make xem groan in the back of xir throat. “Do you typically need juries to settle that kind of thing?”

Sandy comes back to the table then. They take their seat beside Nagomi, holding two baskets of fries in each hand. The conversation shifts almost immediately and Margo doesn’t bother following it. Instead, xe rests xir head on Nic and lets the sounds of the bar drift over xem until it’s time to leave.

--

Technically, Beck isn’t the one who kills an ump. That’s what she says, anyway, when reporters hound her after the game. It was Raúl, Raúl and the blessing and good timing. Margo finds that hard to believe; the ump went for her because she stood her ground.

Xe’s seen the footage, or at least what BNN has been able to scrape up. The cameras had cut away under the assumption that someone was going to die, so a lot of the news coverage uses videos scraped together from social media and cell phones of fans.

Even there, in the shaky and uneven shots, the umpire is a giant, hulking thing, big enough to make Beck look an inch tall. She’s barely visible as she throws her glove on the ground, waves of heat whipping her hair out behind her.

Everyone else has cleared the field or found cover somewhere. Everyone else ran away. But Beck has always been stubborn, and Margo figures it was only a matter of time before she stopped running away. She stands tall and she digs in her heels. The ump breathes in, every inch of it growing bigger, brighter and louder.

And then.

A shot of blue electricity darts its way across the field from the Dale dugout. Beck is surrounded by a halo of bright blue light, and a bat is in her hand. It blows out the cameras, turns everything white and overexposed for a split second.

She yells something. In some videos, it almost sounds like she’s egging the ump on, asking it to come closer.

The umpire gives in. It throws a meteor of flame and smoke and ash. Beck Whitney, former captain of the Boston Flowers, star hitter for the Miami Dale, swings.

It’s a perfect, cinematic moment, Margo thinks, watching the umpire disintegrate into absolutely nothing as Beck stands tall. The cheering of the crowd is almost louder than the explosion.

--

“It felt amazing,” Beck mutters on the other end of the line, like it’s something secret, like she shouldn’t be saying it at all.

Margo stares at the moon outside xir apartment window, arm tucked behind xir head. “Did they pour Glatorade over your head when the game was over?”

“Mlountain Dlew!” Beck laughs so hard she snorts. Margo can practically see her frantically reaching up to cover her mouth, embarrassed with herself and hoping xe won’t comment on it. Her muffled giggles are bright and sunny in a way she hasn’t been in a while.

Margo laughs with her. “Next time I see you, we’re going out clubbing to celebrate.”

“We should!” Beck exclaims. “Avila showed me the coolest place the other day, I think you’d love it. They give out flower crowns on Friday nights.”

It had been hard to lose Beck. It had been devastating, one of the hardest losses the Flowers had ever faced. Margo knows she never would have left if she didn’t have to, and part of xem wishes she’d stayed with them through the end. But it’s clearer with every passing day, xe thinks, that she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.

“Speaking of flowers,” Margo says, crossing xir ankles over the arm of the couch. “How’s the garden coming along?”

“Great! Actually, I wanted to ask if you could send over a few clippings from the Hellmouth.”

Margo listens to her talk for the better part of the evening, lets her tell xem about the lotuses and the succulents and the rose bushes. She talks until she’s all out of words and her voice is tired, and even then they stay on the phone. When she falls asleep sometime after midnight, Margo doesn’t hang up right away; xe keeps her company as best as xe can, and hopes the warm feeling in xir chest stays around for a while.

--

The Steaks have the right idea with Hlomecoming. It’s been way too long since an ILB-sanctioned party, and Dallas is still warm enough they can all gather on the field instead of piling into a convention center somewhere.

Beck, unsurprisingly, is at the center of a huge knot of people. Killing an ump will do that to a person, Margo thinks, and anyway, xe gets to see her way more often than most of the people here. The Flowers are spread throughout; even Inez seems to be enjoying themself, vibrating near some of the floral centerpieces.

Margo is hanging out by the dessert table, more because it has the best view of the proceedings than because of any particular sweet tooth. Xe’s seen a few Beams around, but somehow, Nagomi has managed to stay out of sight. That is, until she’s right in front of xem.

“You look ridiculous,” she says, with absolutely no preamble. “Shorts are not formalwear, Margarito.”

“I’ll have you know these are all the rage in Boston,” Margo says easily. “How’d you even afford a dress like that? Deal with a crossroads demon?”

Nagomi’s brow furrows. Her gown is long and grey, moving like smoke even though there’s no wind. “No. Jeff doesn’t know anything about gowns.”

“Jeff,” Margo says slowly, tilting xir head to one side. “Do I want to know? It feels like I don’t want to know.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll meet Jeff if you need to.” Nagomi turns away from xem, grabbing a cupcake off the table. She runs a finger through the frosting and licks it clean; Margo makes a face, but she ignores it. “Where’s Nic?”

“I am capable of spending time by myself, you know,” Margo says. “Besides, you two are too chummy lately. I don’t trust it.”

Nagomi doesn’t respond right away, choosing instead to eat more frosting. Margo counts eleven eyes trained on xem, drifting in and out of the shadows on her face.

Unsurprisingly, Margo caves first. “He’s talking to Beck.”

“So you’re over here.”

“Yes. I am over here. Stellar observational skills, Gomi, you really should be an analyst.”

She whacks xem on the arm for that, light enough that it barely even registers. Xe gets her back on instinct, almost immediately. If not for Kit Adamses walking past, they might have kept going; as is, Margo shoves xir hands in xir pockets and pretends to look unbothered.

“Smooth,” Nagomi mutters, biting back laughter.

Margo moves quickly, snatching her cupcake out of her hands. Nagomi shouts in dismay, and a few heads turn in their direction in alarm.

“Sorry!” Nagomi says, waving to them all. And then she turns back to Margo, right side of her face turning pink. “You’re the worst.”

“You started it,” xe says, shrugging one shoulder.

No one is paying attention to them anymore, even as Nagomi once again tries to steal back her cupcake. Margo holds it up over xir head, relishing the fact xe’s just a few inches taller.

“You’re being so childish,” she hisses, standing on her toes in an effort to reach. “You’re not even going to eat it!”

“Tell you what,” Margo says, “I’ll give it back if you agree to dance with me, one single time.”

Nagomi falls back on her heels with a huff, glaring at xem. “You’re so weird. Why do you even want that?”

“I’m in a good mood.” Margo lowers the cupcake, finally, holds it just an arm’s length away from her. “What do you say? You going to stop pretending that you’re cooler than me for five minutes, or do I get to eat this?”

She rolls her eye so hard Margo thinks it might fall out. “Fine,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I am cooler than you, for the record. Objectively speaking.”

Margo grins. “I’ll have you know, I was elected coolest bartender in Margaritoville three years running.”

“My point exactly.”

Xe hands the cupcake back and Nagomi, apparently satisfied, sets to picking off pieces with her fingers. The music starts up before long, bringing players from every team to the dance floor. To Margo’s surprise, xir sister holds up her end of the bargain.

--

Admittedly, reading is not Margo’s strong suit. Xe’s not even sure why xe was invited to this, why Layna thought it would be fun to start a book club with the Flowers. Margo is fairly certain a number of the players don’t even know how to read, even if they wanted to do it recreationally.

“I think,” Layna says, swirling the wine in her glass thoughtfully, “the use of industrial imagery to convey ideas of isolation and loneliness was incredibly effective. It brought to mind a lot of classic literature, for me.”

King nods thoughtfully and flips open his book to one of at least a few dozen sticky notes, eyes scanning the page. “I agree, Alaynabella. I felt that was particularly evident in the scene where they visit the robotics and engineering department.”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I was thinking of!”

Glabe, apparently satisfied to remain in her human form indoors, holds up her teacup in agreement. “I felt the protagonist’s struggles with self-actualization were particularly poignant in that chapter.”

Margo feels like xir brain has shut off almost completely, showing only static. Xe’d tried to read the book, had made an honest to god effort, but mostly xe’s here to show support for team bonding activities. Xe makes eye contact with Jacob on the other side of the circle, who looks just about as bewildered and lost as Margo feels.

Gloria lets out a guttural hiss, mouth closing ever so slightly.

“Well, yes,” Glabe says. “I agree there could have been a more distinctive narrative shift between perspectives. But given this is the author’s first attempt at original fiction, I’m willing to forgive that.”

That seems to satisfy Gloria; xe closes xyr mouth, leaves rustling slightly.

“It’s better than anything I could do.” Nic flips through the pages of the book idly, apparently not looking for anything in particular. “I liked the scenes with the pilot. It sucks he died so early on.”

“I’ve actually heard he might come back in the sequel, Nic, so you’re in luck there.” Layna types away at her laptop, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. “It’s set to come out later this year, I think. Maybe we’ll add that to the list of titles we want to read next. How does everyone feel about that?”

There’s a chorus of affirmations, and Margo joins in if only to feel as though xe’s contributed something.

“What about doing a graphic novel next?” xe tries. “I think that might be easier, for some of us.”

“Or maybe,” Nic says, smiling at Margo from across the table and clearly trying not to laugh at xem, “we should read one of Layna’s books next. She’s got plenty to choose from.”

Castillo shakes in his pot. “Dig it!”

“Oh, you’re all too kind!” Layna looks up from her laptop, grinning from ear to ear. “I can send a list around with a few options and we’ll take a vote. How about that?”

It is a better idea to read one of Layna’s books every now and then, if only because they all know it’s what she actually wants this book club to be for. Margo makes a mental note to steal Nic’s notes before the next meeting.

--

The Hellmouth has a way of changing everything that it touches. Margo used to think it was a corrupting force, but xe sees it a little differently now; it’s not malicious, or inherently evil. It’s like writing notes on a paper and pulling away to find ink has smeared along your hand, a stain that just won’t wash out.

Hahn Fox, for whatever reason, seems to be incapable of smearing ink of any kind. Her tentacles glow a soft pink in the dim lighting of her home, but otherwise, she’s the exact same Hahn that showed up in the Flowers’ locker room three years ago.

“Well, yeah,” Hahn says, “but I also haven’t legally changed my residency to Utah yet. Maybe once I do, I’ll get sick smokey eyes like your sister.”

“Maybe she’ll let you borrow hers,” Margo says, motioning toward where Nagomi is talking to Hendricks. “Set up a timeshare situation.”

“I kind of already asked that.” Hahn kicks the toe of her shoe against the ground, frowning. “She said no. Could you put in a good word for me?”

That’s when Priya joins the conversation, handing off a glass of wine to Hahn. She’s too elegant for the various cursed and monstrous beings currently inhabiting her home, but she seems to take it in stride.

“What are we asking for?” she asks.

“Nagomi’s curse tentacles,” Hahn says, in a voice that conveys this is not new information for her wife. “Margo’s going to ask her to let me borrow them sometimes for fun.”

“I did not promise that!” Margo holds up both hands, fully prepared to start running. “She listens to me just about as much as she listens to you, which I assume is not at all.”

Margo hasn’t spent a lot of time with the Foxes. Hahn was only on the Flowers for about a month, so there wasn’t really a chance to meet Priya or get to know her. She surveys Margo carefully now, like xe’s a puzzle to unlock.

“It’s nice that you and your sister can spend so much time together,” she says. “Hahn tells me you two are quite close.”

“We make it work for us,” Margo says. “Sometimes I think she wants to sick a rogue ump on me, but it helps that we aren’t on the same team or anything.”

“Well, but you and your partner are on the same team, right?” Priya asks. “What’s that like?”

Margo has a brief moment to be confused. She must see it on xir face, because she opens her mouth to elaborate, but Hahn is quicker on the uptake and leans in to whisper something in her ear.

“Oh!” Priya says, and then, “My mistake. I had you confused with someone else.”

“Who,” Margo starts, running through a list of blaseball players in xir head. Xe’s not the most memorable player by far, but xe’d like to think it’s hard to confuse xem for anyone else.

“I think I hear someone calling for us!” Hahn interjects, breaking Margo’s train of thought. “We’d better, um. Go make sure everything’s okay upstairs. Bye, Margo!”

Xe doesn’t even have a chance to say goodbye before the two of them scurry off, leaning in to talk to one another. Margo’s left standing in the middle of the living room with absolutely no idea what the hell just happened.

That’s how Nic finds xem, coming up from behind to drape an arm around xir shoulder. “They left awful quick. What were you talking about that scared them off?”

Margo hums, tilting xir head to one side. “I’m really not sure.”

“Ah, well.” Nic passes Margo a beer. “Sandy brought cake. Something about owing you for all your home runs, I think?”

“You’re so full of shit,” Margo shoots back. “It was only two, and they weren’t even pitching for either of them.”

“Believe what you want.” Nic holds out one of the plates, and sure enough, a piece of cake sits on it. “I grabbed you a corner piece.”

“Nic Winkler, you are the epitome of a perfect man.” Margo takes the plate from him readily, scrapes off some of the frosting with xir finger. “Looks like Nagomi’s in the middle of a very interesting conversation with Richardson. Want to go ruin it?”

“After you.”

There’s no real way to sneak up on a dragon. Margo comes up behind Nagomi, fully prepared for Hendricks to call xem out before xe can actually manage to surprise her. But Hendricks, it turns out, is a reasonable guy; his eyes lock on Margo, and then he pointedly turns away to survey the rest of the party.

Margo knows an opportunity when xe sees one. “Hey Nic? Hold my beer.”

-- 

When the Dale won the electric blood modification, Beck said it didn’t feel like much. Margo hadn’t believed her at the time; it seemed impossible that something so significant could change and she wouldn’t even feel it, wouldn’t know that something was different. It got more obvious as time went on, she’d told xem, growing until every part of her was attuned to the energy running underfoot during a game or out on the town.

Margo thinks xe gets it now. The grass blood blessing is designed, apparently, to build up over the season. It’s not like xe wakes up one day to find xir skin turned green, or flowers growing from under xir fingernails. It’s much subtler than that, a feeling of caffeine or adrenaline as xe picks up a bat and prepares to swing.

Xe’s been testing that out for the better part of two hours when Jacob finds xem out on the field, empty but for the crickets signaling the oncoming sunset.

“Hey, Nava,” he says, dropping the bat from his shoulder. “You want a pitching buddy?”

“Sure, join the party,” xe says, motioning to the bucket of balls on the ground next to xem.

Jacob isn’t exactly a top-tier pitcher, but he’s better than Margo just tossing balls up for xemself. He winds up and throws once, twice, both flying far out of Margo’s range.

“Maybe we need to spend more time talking to our rotation,” Jacob says, stretching out his arm. “This is going to make for a rough evening.”

“No, come on,” Margo says. “You’ve got a few stars in pitching, you just need to warm up a little. Give me a couple more.”

Finally, a pitch sails into Margo’s strike zone. The bat makes a solid crack! as it connects, sending the ball flying out to right field. Jacob lets out a long, low whistle, watching it pass overhead.

“You’re going to catch me up one of these days,” he says as he leans down to grab another ball. “You’ve been killing it this season.”

Margo shakes xir head and digs a heel into the dirt, readying for another swing. The lights in the Garden are bright but not quite blinding, casting them both in long shadows across the field.

“I’m just keeping you on your toes, Haynes!” Margo says. “If I keep nipping at your heels, maybe you’ll learn to run bases.”

“Ouch, Nava. Harsh.”

Jacob lands another solid pitch; Margo sends it down the first base line, narrowly avoiding a foul. Xir lips pull to one side as xe watches it go.

“You think we could have done better without the curse?” Jacob asks. “Like, if we still had the original lineup.”

It’s a tricky question, one that Margo doesn’t know how to answer right away. Xe motions for Jacob to throw another ball, waits until xe’s landed a few solid hits to respond.

There were plenty of chances for the Flowers to do well. They’ve won the division a few times, made it to the first round of playoffs here and there. It never seems to amount to much; in the end, their record is forgettable, unremarkable to anyone but their own fans. The more memorable thing, xe thinks, is the long list of people they’ve lost.

But every team’s gone through that, at this point. No one’s been left alone by the death and destruction of blaseball; some, maybe, have had it even worse than the Flowers.

“I think we’ve got just as much a chance of being a good team as we ever did,” xe says, eventually.

“So, slim to none.”

Margo grins. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Would you trade any of us? If you could?” Jacob asks.

“Never!” Margo lifts a hand to cover xir heart, makes xir best impression of a pained expression. “I love you like the son I never had, Jacob.”

The next time Margo swings, xe doesn’t even come close to making contact. The ball flies behind xem, ringing out in the quiet air as it bangs against the fence. Jacob laughs in delight, apparently surprised to have gotten one past xem.

“Alright, maybe I’d trade you off after all,” Margo mutters, but it only makes Jacob laugh harder.

They fall easily into the rhythm of it: pitch, swing, crack. Margo doesn’t think about much of anything, focusing instead on xir breathing, xir swing, the dirt under xir feet. It’s nice, and Margo thinks maybe it’s something they should do more.

They run out of balls eventually, but that’s hardly an issue. On the edge of the field, the shadowy, hulking form of the Groundskeeper rolls them all into a pile they can collect easily enough.

“Alright, hot stuff.” Margo finally steps back from the plate and rests xir bat on the ground. “Your turn. Show me how it’s done.”

“So long as you don’t make me run any bases,” Jacob says, smiling.

--

Margo wasn’t expecting to hear from Nagomi today. Sandy is cooking a big family dinner for the finals, and she’s supposed to be there with everyone to watch the game. So when xir phone goes off and her number pops up on the screen, xe answers on the first ring.

“What are you doing right now?” she asks, in the very no-nonsense way that means she’s not in the mood for Margo’s particular brand of bullshit.

Margo grins, shifting the phone to sit between xir shoulder and xir ear. “Committing crimes against humanity. Why?”

In actuality, xe’s testing out some new recipes for the restaurant, mostly in a last-ditch effort to keep xir own sanity. Xir counter is full of half-finished prep work, chopped vegetables and herbs and every kind of meat xe could afford to pick up from the butcher. It hasn’t been going well, though; despite xir best efforts, no actual ideas for what to cook have come to mind.

“I have a feeling,” Nagomi says.

“Good feeling? Bad feeling?” Margo asks, knife frozen partway through slicing a tomato. “A feeling somebody’s watching you?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“But how will I know if there’s an eldritch horror waiting under my bed?”

Nagomi sighs heavily. Margo can practically see her sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment, surrounded by crystals and tarot cards and pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t know what kind of feeling,” she says. “There’s just… something. Have you been wearing that rune I sent over?”

“I have,” Margo says. Xe reaches up instinctively to feel it, to remind xemself of the weight of it hanging around xir neck. Impulsively, before xe can talk xemself out of it, xe asks, “Why don’t you come over? I can help you work out whatever it is, or at least keep you company as you descend into madness.”

Something rustles on the other end. “I shouldn’t. I need to keep an eye on everyone over here.”

Maybe, under different circumstances, Margo would just let it go. Nagomi still doesn’t come to Boston often, and xe knows she has the café and a dozen other things to worry about. But the Crabs are in the finals, so close to ascension that it feels inevitable. No one even knows what that means; Margo doesn’t want to find out alone, and xe suspects Nagomi doesn’t, either.

“Gomi, come on,” xe says, and hopes it doesn’t come out desperate. “It’s one night. The Hellmouth will survive without your sparkling personality.”

Nagomi still hesitates. There’s a moment of silence on the line. She must really be nervous, because eventually, she breathes out a long sigh. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

Margo hums, glancing at the TV. “Bummer, you’re going to miss the end of National Treasure. Want me to start it over for you?”

“Absolutely not.” She pauses just long enough for Margo to bark out a laugh, and then she presses on. “I’m not going to try any of your weird new recipes, either. Call Nic for that.”

She hangs up before Margo can fire off a response.

Xe sets the phone down on the counter, finishes dicing the tomato xe’d already started. Thirty minutes is plenty of time to make some comfort food before she gets there. Margo moves the rest of xir groceries out of the way and goes to grab some kimchi and rice from the cupboard.

--

In the end, Margo is glad to have Nagomi there when the pods descend.

Neither of them are particularly attached to anyone; they know the names, certainly, and Margo has spent some time with a few of the Tacos here and there. But for the most part, the people on the television screen were strangers even before they were shelled. It’s almost like watching a horror movie, not a blaseball game.

It’s hard to tell how to feel when it ends. The Shoe Thieves could have died – should have, probably. But there they stand, bruised and battered and staring at the sky as the pods drift off camera, and they’re alive but they don’t look any better off.

Nagomi takes a deep breath beside xem, lets it out so slow and quiet xe can barely hear. “Told you I had a bad feeling.”

Margo doesn’t say anything at all. Instead, xe reaches across the couch cushion and grabs ahold of her hand.

--

The thing about being captain of the Boston Flowers is that it comes with a lot of responsibilities that, frankly, Margo is not in any way prepared to do. Today is just one example of several, xe thinks, shoveling small scoops of dirt around Castillo.

“Dig it!” he says, in the voice of a cactus that has lost all patience.

Margo sits back on xir heels and huffs, pushing xir hair out of xir eyes. “Listen, you ungrateful little man,” xe says, “it is not my fault that you keep breaking your pot. I have told you not to slide into the bases several times. This is on you.”

Gloria sits on the grass beside them, awaiting xyr turn to be repotted. Xe stretches out one long tendril to spray xyrself with the water spritzer and hisses, mouth moving slowly around the sound.

“Yes, that applies to you,” Margo takes the spritzer in hand and sprays xem a little more thoroughly, coating xyr roots. “I know it’s not hurting you, but it’s a real pain to have to do this all the time.”

“You could always try metal pots! Maybe we could put them on wheels.”

Margo wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here. As far as xe knows, all the other players are on a scavenging mission in the Memorial Bat Forest, so the actual human voice makes xem jump a little. Xe looks up and spots what might best be described as a green mermaid, sitting in a wheelchair a few yards away.

“What?” Margo says. And then, for good measure, “How did you get in?”

They look young, with coveralls up over their shoulders and glasses so big their eyes look like saucers. As far as Margo knows, children aren’t supposed to be in the Garden at all; something about dangerous terrain and legal responsibilities should any of them end up in the carnivorous section.

“I’m your new batter!” the kid says, and Margo wonders for a second if child labor laws permit that kind of thing. “My name is Scores Baserunner, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Life’s a garden,” Castillo says, and Margo knows just enough to think it means something a little closer to you have got to be kidding me. Xe can relate.

When Glabe had shown up, Margo had let her join purely based off fear and confusion. Technically, their team is already full, and they don’t have room in the lineup for anyone else. But xe remembers something about a blessing, a loophole that would allow for this kind of thing.

“Have you considered the Blittle League? Or mini glolf?” Margo asks. “I hear the Hawai’i Fridays are looking for a mascot, maybe you could try that. It’s a little less deadly.”

“Excluding the incidents with Miss Hotdogfingers, I would say the risk to join a blaseball team is the lowest it’s ever been! Statistically speaking, incinerations have dropped by nearly ninety-four percent since their initial introduction to gameplay,” she says, and hearing the word incineration thrown out so candidly by someone so small is enough to make Margo’s jaw drop. “And besides, the Commissioner has already accepted my petition.”

“Far be it from me to argue with the Commissioner,” Margo says, despite the fact xe wants very badly to argue with the Commissioner. Xe sighs, turning back to Castillo and Gloria. “What do you two think? Any comments from the peanut gallery?”

Gloria snaps xyr mouth closed and wavers from side to side. Beside xem, Castillo shakes off a few needles, but otherwise remains silent.

“Oh, so now you shut up,” Margo mutters. Xe turns back to Scores - honestly, Scores? -  and waves her over. “Alright, kid. Come help me pot these two, and then we’ll find you a bat.”

Scores doesn’t argue, wheeling herself across the dirt of the infield until she comes to a stop next to Margo. She picks up the bag of fertilizer and starts to pour it, slowly, around Castillo.

“This,” she mutters, almost too quiet for Margo to hear, “is the greatest day ever.”

--

When Beck stared down an umpire in the middle of the field, Margo had thought it was the worst xe would ever feel. Even knowing she made it through, watching the footage was unbearable, like any second xe would find out everyone was wrong and she’d been incinerated somehow.

It is so, so much worse with Nagomi.

The cameramen have learned from their mistakes. While the television announcers and livestreams might cut away to avoid showing the worst of the violence, they keep the cameras rolling now on the off chance that something interesting happens. So when the eclipse hits and an ump bursts apart into flames behind home plate, everything is recorded with the best technology available.

The entire field is painted in reds and oranges, shadows flickering in and out on the stadium walls. Nagomi is there in the middle, a bundle of smoke standing all alone in front of it. The Spies have all fled the field, too quick for any of the Beams to possibly keep up – but Nagomi doesn’t even try, doesn’t back down.

“Enough!” Nagomi yells, and it’s loud enough to hear over the screams of fans, the crackling flames.

Margo only knows what happens next because Nic watched the video and told xem. Xe couldn’t manage it, couldn’t stand to see the ump building up a ball of flame to throw at xir sister.

According to Nic, the fireball lands. No blue electricity darts out of the dugout to save her; no magic bat appears in her hands. The wind blows the smoke and shadow away from Nagomi’s face, leaving her cast only in the light of the fire coming straight for her as she screams.

And then it’s gone. The fire disappears, almost on impact, and Nagomi is left standing as the ump falls apart. The next time she’s up to bat, she hits the ball clean out of the park.

The newscasters call her a fire-eater. Margo wants to call her stupid – and xe will, as soon as the game is over.

--

Nagomi beats xem back to xir apartment somehow. Margo hadn’t even bothered to call, was only coming home to grab some things to spend the night in the Hellmouth, but she’s already standing at the kitchen counter making a cup of tea when xe opens the door.

Margo doesn’t even realize xe’s going to hug her until it’s already happening, until xir arms are around her shoulders and she’s protesting around the fabric of xir sweatshirt.

“You almost made me spill my drink, Maggie!” she says, one hand pushing at xir chest. “I’m fine, come on, get off.”

Margo does not let go. “If you ever do that again, I will incinerate you myself.”

“Maggie,” Nagomi scolds. Margo can tell she’s trying to sound dignified. “I can’t be incinerated. Remember?”

She pokes xem in the side, just under xir ribcage. Margo jumps, giving her just enough leeway to slip out of xir grasp and turn back to the tea like nothing ever happened. Margo just barely resists the urge to hug her again.

“Don’t say that!” xe says immediately, reminded of the way Beck used to scold xem for joking about pissing off umps on purpose. Xe understands how she felt now, feels the sudden shock of cold fear in xir stomach.

“What?” Nagomi asks, glancing over at xem out of the corner of her eye. “Worried about me? Gross.”

“Worried the umps are going to get tired of your shit and beat you up with a bat,” Margo says.

Xe tries to find something to occupy xir hands or to just keep xem busy, but finds nothing feels appropriate. Xe leans xir elbows on the counter next to Nagomi to watch her stir in cream and sugar, trying to let that bring some sense of normalcy. It’s hard not to think about it. It’s so hard not to replay the scene in xir head over and over again, the small outline of xir sister in front of what might as well have been a roaring volcano.

“Why didn’t you run?” xe asks, apparently unable to keep xir thoughts to xemself.

“I’m a little tired of running away.” Nagomi passes the cup of tea off to Margo; xe looks at her, confused, but she motions for xem to drink and starts preparing a second cup.

The Sunbeams haven’t had the best luck with precognition. After Emmett and Randy, Margo spent weeks wondering when that same rotten luck would transfer to Nagomi eventually. Much like the Flowers’ curse, either one of them dying by rogue umpire felt distant and inevitable all at once.

The past few seasons have been quiet for them both, though. Margo had managed to forget the worst of those fears, at least until today. If not for the tea in xir hands, Margo would probably be wrapping Nagomi up in bubble wrap and telling Sandy to find a new batter.

“Just don’t do it again, please,” xe says.

Nagomi takes a deep breath. She sets a strainer in her mug and fills it with tea leaves, pours water over it in slow, rhythmic circles as she speaks. “What if I told you,” she says, “that you were a fire-eater too?”

“I would tell you that you’ve clearly been through a lot today, and unfortunately, that fireball inflicted some brain damage.”

Nagomi smacks xem on the arm, nearly upsetting xir teacup. “Margo, I’m serious. I saw it.”

“You saw me getting incinerated?” Margo tries xir best to keep xir voice level. Xe’s mostly successful, except for the part where it’s an octave too high.

“I saw you eat fire,” Nagomi corrects, turning to look xem in the eye with alarming intensity. “Not a prediction, really, I don’t know if it’s going to happen any time soon. But I know that you’ll survive if it ever does.”

Generally speaking, Margo tries not to ask about the whole future sight thing. Part of that is to keep the peace; it’s better not to think about how much Nagomi knows at any one moment, what she will and won’t tell xem. But it’s also better, xe thinks, for Nagomi to open up at her own pace. She’ll tell xem whatever it is xe needs to know, when she’s ready to tell it.

This, though, might be a little too much. Margo walks right over to the kitchen table and drops down in one of the chairs, bringing a hand up to cover xir face. “I wouldn’t go chasing down umps, even if that’s true.”

“Really?” Margo hears a spoon clinking as Nagomi stirs sugar into her tea. “What if you saw an ump about to incinerate Scores, or Layna? If Nic was in danger, you wouldn’t try and get in the way?”

“Please stop.”

They’re both silent for a while after that. Nagomi finishes making her tea, and Margo tries not to think about how it would feel to watch anyone else stare down a rogue umpire in the middle of the Garden. It doesn’t work; xe runs through the whole lineup, thinks about every single one of them, even the ones who are already gone.

By the time Nagomi takes a seat at the table and reaches out to cover xir hand with hers, xe’s forgotten what the point of the conversation even was.

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice soft. “That was out of line.”

Margo takes a deep, unsteady breath before finally meeting her gaze. “We have both already lost a lot,” xe says. “I don’t want to save anyone. I want them all to be safe.”

“They will be.” Nagomi says it with such conviction that xe almost believes her. “We’ll make sure of it.”

This should be a happy moment. It should be a celebration. But every fiber of Margo’s being has been wound tight since xe first heard a rogue ump showed up in the Hellmouth, and it’s something xe just can’t shake even with Nagomi right there in front of xem.

“Will you stay here tonight, for the sake of my sanity?” Margo asks. “I need to make sure you don’t go off and enroll in an illegal boxing ring, or something.”

She smiles, one shadowy eye winking at him from the depths of her face. “Can we watch Bluffy?”

“Hey, we don’t watch that show in this house. My best friend’s a vampire.”

Somehow, though, Nagomi wins out. She pulls up the first season while Margo makes dinner, and the two of them sit on the couch and crack jokes about the special effects and cheesy one-liners until the early hours of the morning.

Margo falls asleep first. But when xe wakes up in the morning, Nagomi is still there on the couch with xem. Xe takes a minute to appreciate that, and then xe goes about making breakfast. They’ve both got games in a few hours, but they can stand to spend a little more time together.

--

It’s worse than Margo thought.

There’s never been any reason to doubt Nagomi. She doesn’t tell xem everything, but whatever she does say usually comes to pass. This shouldn’t be any different. But Margo has seen a lot of rogue umpires loose in the Garden; xe knows flowers tend to burn underfoot.

The wind whips the sand of the infield into a frenzy, stinging the skin of xir arms and dragging across xir face. The ump is staring right at xem, with deep, black caverns in its face where eyes should be. Everyone else has fled the field, gloves and bats abandoned. Only Margo is left, staring at the ump and trying to hide the way every bone in xir body wants desperately to run.

“Alright, buddy,” xe says, digging the heels of xir cleats into the ground. “My turn?”

Between the halo of the sun in the sky and the beast hovering in front of it, Margo can barely manage to keep xir eyes open. It’s too bright and too dark all at once, too muddled. But xe can hear the way the umpire roars, can feel the ground shake beneath xem.

“Come and get it.”

The fireball is so bright it’s completely blinding, so hot it turns blue the split second before it arcs through the air toward xem.

It feels like burning alive. Every inch of xir body burns and aches and screams, and Margo thinks maybe xe is screaming too.

And then it feels like absolutely nothing at all.

--

“How about,” Nic says, eyes scanning over Margo’s face, “you tell me, next time you find out you’re immune to something?”

Margo laughs, a little hysterically. Everything still smells like smoke. “You jealous, Winkler?”

Nic pulls xem into a hug so tight it cracks xir ribs.

--

There’s a beehive in the Garden. Margo tends to avoid it, because xe has a sense of self preservation. But it’s certainly there and, in this instance at least, it’s pretty convenient. Even if it’s also terrifying.

“So what exactly am I supposed to be doing here?” Margo asks, eyeing the beehive with a moderate amount of concern. “Do I just reach in and grab some?”

Inez buzzes in a way that is probably supposed to sound encouraging, but it’s hard to hear that many bees at once and feel anything other than alarm. Zeb laughs and pats Margo on the back, practically knocking the breath from xir lungs.

“Yep, that’ll do you,” Zeb says. “Just pull up one of those little rectangles and we’ll scrape off more honey than the team will know what to do with.”

It sounds so much easier than it is. Margo takes another step closer to the hive, but none of the bees seem to pay xem any mind, which is reassuring. Margo knows Beck used to harvest it regularly for the kitchenette; Zeb has pretty much taken over at this point, but it should be Margo’s job. Xe’s been avoiding it, for what xe thinks are understandable reasons.

“Just to be clear, this is not honey that Inez made, right?” Margo asks, taking two more slow steps forward. The bees circle around xem slowly, a few landing on xir shoulder. Xe resists the urge to smack them. “Like, I’m not harvesting byproducts from my own actual teammate as a present?”

“Nope, these are my bees! I let them hang out here and they pollinate my garden,” Zeb reassures xem.

“Too much information, Zeb,” Margo says, because xe can’t help xemself. “I wasn’t asking about your love life.”

Zeb lets out a laugh so loud it makes Margo jump. Unfortunately, that makes him laugh harder.

The beehive is small, a neat row of frames full to bursting with honey. There’s more than enough there for the Flowers. Maybe, if Margo can get enough of it, xe can take some to Nagomi as a present to celebrate the Beams’ winning streak. If xe can bring xemself to get any closer, anyway.

It can’t possibly be that hard. All xe has to do is grab one of the wooden frames and walk away, and from there it’ll be smooth sailing. And yet, when Margo grabs onto the wood and starts pulling it out of the box, it feels like the most stressful thing xe’s ever done, including fighting with rogue umpires.

“Inez?” xe calls out, voice wavering.

If Inez responds, Margo doesn’t hear it over the sound of all the other, non-Inez bees currently buzzing around xir head. But Zeb’s voice is loud and clear as he translates.

“Inez says you’re doing a great job, and none of the bees want to kill you yet!”

“Yet?” Margo yelps.

Zeb doesn’t acknowledge that, opting instead to press on with his instruction. “Come on back, Captain, you’ve got all the honey you need right there.”

Margo doesn’t mean to run. Xe wants to be calm and cool and collected, to slowly walk back to where Zeb and Inez are waiting for xem. But that’s not what happens. Another bee comes to land on Margo’s hand where xe’s holding the frame full of honeycomb, and xe books it out of there like a bat out of hell.

It must look ridiculous. By the time xe makes it back, Zeb is laughing too hard to stand, leaning on his knees for support. Inez might be laughing too, but it’s much harder to tell. They do their best approximation of patting Margo on the back, and motion over to where empty jars are uncapped and ready to go.

Margo hopes the honey isn’t even good. Xe doesn’t ever want to do that again.

--

The second incineration attempt isn’t any easier. Neither is the third, or the fourth. It’s hard to forget how to run away, to hold xir ground in the face of something Margo has spent so long being afraid of.

Every time the eclipse strikes, xe still feels that same twist in xir gut. The fear that is buried in every part of xem, the thing that kept xem safe for a decade, always rears its head when the sun goes dark.

Every time, Margo swallows it down. And then xe swallows the fire.

--

It’s nice to be reminded that the Party Yacht is not always in rave mode. Margo finds Beck stretched out on a plastic chair beside the pool, covered from head to toe but sipping on a colorful drink and clearly enjoying herself despite the sunshine.

Xe drops into the chair next to her, dropping xir own drink on the table between them. “Long time, no see, Whitney.”

“Ugh.” She lowers her sunglasses to look at him out of the corner of her eye, smiling just enough for her canines to peek through. “Here I was having such a nice, quiet day.”

Players are milling about on the deck, and somewhere on the ship someone’s playing pop music loud enough for it to drift over them. But compared to the way the Dale normally are, it’s all very serene.

“Fine. I’ll just head on back home, then.”

Beck laughs and shakes her head. “No, you came all this way! Stay a while, Nava, I missed you.”

Xe sighs and settles back down into the chair, crossing xir legs at the ankle. “Whatever you say, boss.”

The boat is sitting in the harbor. Margo knows this, logically, but it doesn’t feel like the same place at all. When xe left the apartment this morning the sky had been shrouded in grey clouds and the air had been cold, hit with a premature autumnal bite that covered the orchard in frost and caught them all off guard. On the yacht, the sun beats down like a hammer, coating everything in gold and warming xir skin.

“How’s everything?” Beck asks, folding her legs under her to sit up a little straighter. “How’s the team, and Nagomi?”

It’s the wrong thing to ask about, at least in the moment. Margo must make a face at that, because she automatically shifts from curious to concerned, mouth turning down at the corners.

“What’s wrong?”

“Haven’t you noticed the new tan, Beck?” xe asks, motioning to xir arms. “The Nava family can’t be incinerated! We’re ump killers, just like you.”

Margo should be grateful for it, and to some extent, xe is. Xe can’t put to words how happy xe is that Nagomi survived, that she’s still here to make xem pull xir hair out. It’s just also impossible to understand that, ten years into this whole ordeal, xe gets to stop being afraid when so many still can’t.

“You don’t seem too happy about it,” Beck says.

“It’s great to know I probably won’t die by incineration.” The words sound a little flat, even as Margo tries to sound sincere. “And that Nagomi is safe.”

Something like recognition dawns on Beck’s face. “Ah,” she says, one hand coming up to point at xem. “You’re worried about the rest of the team.”

Margo nods, bringing an arm up to cover xir eyes. It was easier before xe was captain, before xe felt responsible for everyone. The Flowers haven’t lost a player since Margo was promoted; xe’d like to keep it that way, but being fireproof just means more fireballs are on the way, and now xe has to run on the field to catch them all before anyone else is set alight.

Xe’s so busy moping, xe doesn’t even realize Beck has gotten up from her chair until she’s climbing into xirs and tucking herself against xir side. “I get that. I worry about you guys all the time.”

Margo automatically brings an arm down to wrap around her waist, holding her in place. “Still?”

“Well, yeah.” Beck nods, and her hair tickles Margo’s nose. “It’s great knowing everyone on the Dale is safe, but I want that for all of you, too. I want to know you’re all okay.”

There are questions xe wants to ask. The one xe lands on, without really thinking about it, is, “What if it stops working one day?”

Beck hums, and the feeling of it reverberates in Margo’s chest. “Then we’ll get you a different blessing. The team can’t lose another captain, and Nagomi can’t lose her brother.”

She smells like sunscreen and flowers. The tip of her nose is already turning pink from too long in the sun, even though she hasn’t been outside for all that long. It’s the same Beck Margo has always known, the same person who brought xem onto the team and taught xem how to lead; she’s just a little gentler now, a little more relaxed.

“The Dale have been great for you,” Margo says. Xe reaches out to tap her nose, watches the way her face crinkles up in irritation. “But the sun has not.”

“Margo,” she says, because apparently she won’t let xem off the hook that easily. “It’s okay to be afraid. But you should still appreciate the good things, when they come along.”

--

Margo has given up on the idea of making it to the championship. It’s nice, honestly; there’s something freeing in not caring how far the team makes it, so long as they all make it intact. Plus, it allows for playoffs screenings at Margaritoville – one of the few events xe can still count on to bring in enough customers to keep the restaurant afloat, most of the time.

They’re prepping for the first game of the semi-finals, Nic rearranging tables to accommodate a few extra chairs while Margo runs inventory of what’s available behind the bar. It’s quiet for now, but the whole place will be packed with screaming Bostonians by the first pitch. That includes the Flowers, at least this year.

“When was the last time we ordered more absinthe?” Margo asks, staring at the mostly empty bottle in confusion. “I don’t think I’ve bought any in years, and yet we still have some. Who drinks this?”

“Me, whenever Ace gets up to sing Piano Man,” Nic shoots back, glancing at Margo over his shoulder. “Given that we’re not letting anyone do karaoke tonight, that should be enough to get me through the evening.”

Margo hums and puts the bottle back on the shelf, behind various other liquors xe’s pretty sure they don’t actually need. “I should really just sign this whole place over to you at this point. You’re here way more than I am.”

It’s not even sad; Margo’s just got a lot going on, between running the team and making time to meet with people. There’s only so much xe can do before there isn’t any time left at all.

Nic sets up the last of the chairs and turns to face xem. “Nah, wouldn’t feel right. You’re the one with your name over the doorway.”

“Yeah, Nicaritoville doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“Winklerville?” Nic tries, and then immediately grimaces. “We should just leave it as is, I think.”

He makes his way behind the bar and pulls down a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, pouring doubles out before Margo can even protest. Nic slides the glass to xem across the bar top and leans back against the wood.

“Could make you captain of the Flowers instead,” Margo says. Xe grins around the rim of xir glass as Nic grimaces and shakes his head. “What, you get the veto power? I don’t remember getting that same luxury when you nominated me!”

“That’s because it actually makes sense for you to be in charge.”

Margo points a finger at him, takes a breath too fast after drinking. It makes xir throat burn. “No, hold on,” xe says, sounding a little hoarse already. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Why the hell did you nominate me for captain, anyway?”

“You’re asking me about this now?” Nic asks, raising one eyebrow. “It’s been years, Mags.”

“Yeah, so you’ve had time to ruminate and realize the error of your ways!” Margo sets xir glass down a little too hard on the countertop, sends some whiskey splashing over the side. “Four whole years of losing constantly and going to party time, and somehow you still think I’m the right choice? Are you being bribed, Winkler? Is it the Spies? Legally, you have to tell me.”

Nic laughs, running a hand through his hair. It’s grown out a little bit lately, just long enough to end up looking ruffled and out of sorts when he does that.

“I’m not being bribed, Margo,” he says, and Margo didn’t realize he was moving closer until now, when they’re standing less than a foot away from each other. “I just know you can do it.”

It feels like Margo is standing on the edge of a precipice, like one misstep could send xem falling down to a painful, brutal demise. Xe doesn’t dig into those feelings at all, choosing instead to push forward on the same stubborn path xe’s already made for xemself.

“I do not understand you at all,” Margo says, trying resolutely to keep xir voice steady. “Clearly, you have some kind of ulterior motive for doing this to me.”

That seems to do the trick.

Nic moves quickly, one hand moving to the back of Margo’s neck as he presses his lips against xirs. For a moment everything is still, like the world has stopped spinning to allow them this one small thing. Margo forgets about everything, whatever words xe’d been about to say evaporating into thin air.

It’s quick, barely enough for Margo to even respond before Nic is standing back on his heels. Margo licks xir lips, throat suddenly dry.

“Oh.” Xir entire body feels hot, and xe fights back the urge to run away. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“Well, I’ve been trying to tell you for at least half a decade.” Nic smiles, thumb moving in circles against the skin just under Margo’s ear. “You’re kind of a terrible listener.”

And, well. Maybe that should have been obvious. Several dozen things are clicking into place, times xe caught him staring, finding out he’d been texting Nagomi. The way Nic never pushed Margo away, even when xe’d gotten well inside his personal bubble. But no one ever said Margo was smart.

“Can you tell me again?” xe asks, and xe doesn’t know when or how xir hands ended up balled in Nic’s shirt but xe isn’t letting go now.

The rest of the team is on their way. It won’t be long before the bar is full to bursting with friends and family, until they’re too busy to do anything but make drinks and remind everyone not to stand on the bar. Their time would be better spent starting to prep food in the back, or pouring a few beers in advance.

Nic puts a hand on Margo’s hip, moving in until their lips are almost touching. “Absolutely.”

--

The Crabs go up against the Shoe Thieves and it almost feels like a foregone conclusion, like ascension is guaranteed and there’s not much anyone can do. But then Tot Fox hits a single, and the sun goes out.

It’s only for a moment, almost like totality. One minute, sunlight is drawing long lines across the floor of Margo’s apartment, and then everything goes dark. The light that comes back feels wrong, too white and thin.

Xe’s calling Nagomi before xe even thinks it through, off the couch and pacing the rug in front of xir television. “Pick up, pick up, pick up.”

Nagomi, for possibly the first time in Margarito’s memory, does not pick up the phone. Margo calls again. A third time, a fourth. Every time, the call goes to voicemail, until xe’s about ready to run to the Hellmouth on foot. And, well. Xe’s had worse ideas.

Margo doesn’t think about it much more than that, opting instead to slip on xir shoes and head out before anything worse can happen. Things are a bit of a blur after that, a montage of sidewalks and street signs and the entryway to the nearest MBTA station.

It’s cold out. Margo hardly even notices how cold until xe’s waiting for the train, standing on the platform in flip-flops and shorts. Xe didn’t even bother to grab a jacket, not that xe’ll need it in the Hellmouth.

Margo checks xir phone again. No missed calls, not even a text message. Xe pulls up Nagomi’s number for what feels like the hundredth time, and every single ring sends electricity down xir spine.

This time, Nagomi picks up.

“I’m fine.”

“Bull goddamn shit, you’re fine,” Margo hisses, and xe catches other people on the platform looking over in alarm. “It’s been an hour, Gomi, what happened?”

The other end of the line is unbearably quiet for too long. Margo wants to pull xir hair out, but finally, Nagomi clears her throat.

“The sun is gone,” she says, and her voice is hoarse. “I… My face, it’s...”

“Did it make it worse?” Margo demands, bouncing on xir toes. “Are you – How does it look?”

Nagomi laughs, but it sounds hollow. “Maggie, I look like me. Like I used to.”

And that’s not good. Maybe it would be, for anyone else. Margo doesn’t fully understand all of Nagomi’s feelings about whatever the thing is that lives on her face. Personally, xe finds it unsettling, would rather be able to look xir sister in both eyes without a demonic smoke monster interfering.

But she wouldn’t want that, Margo knows. This must be killing her.

“I’m on my way,” Margo says, and watches the light of the train as it approaches. Xe wants to aim for levity, to cheer her up, but it’s hard to think of anything other than how much she must be hurting. “What should I bring with me? Incense, the blood of your enemies?”

The portal to the Hellmouth is too far away. Boston has been shifting in unpredictable ways lately, and now it takes two transfers and walking a few more blocks besides. It’ll be another hour before Margo gets there, and there’s no way to know how things might get worse in that time.

“You don’t have to worry,” Nagomi says. “It will come back when it’s ready.”

Her breathing is uneven, obviously shallow and shaky even over the phone. Margo is worrying, whether she wants xem to or not. Nagomi is a lot of things; she’s strong and stubborn and relentlessly composed. It’s been a long time since Margo has heard her sound genuinely scared.

The train doors open. Margo rushes in, doesn’t even bother to grab a seat. Xe needs to stand, to bounce on xir toes and grip the railing tight enough to keep xem steady. Xe isn’t sure it helps, but it’s easier to convince xemself that xe’s making progress.

“I’m on my way,” Margo insists, still trying to sound lighthearted but not quite managing it. “I have to take pictures for posterity.”

“People won’t believe you got to have a normal sister again,” Nagomi says, at the same time that the words leave Margo’s own mouth.

“Okay, fair point,” Margo mutters. “You’re still weird, even without the face demon.”

She laughs. It’s small and barely audible, but it’s the best thing Margo’s ever heard.

--

The Crabs ascend, and somehow that isn’t all of it. Somehow, the Pods stay on the field as the cameras shake and the ground of the outfield splits, revealing water so deep even the stadium lights can’t breach it. Somehow, a line of players haloed in pale blue light climb out, dripping wet but recognizable even from a distance.

When Caligula Lotus steps out onto the field, shaking the water from her petals, Margo’s heart stops. Randy and Emmett follow after, and though Nagomi stays quiet, Margo turns to her to find she’s crying quietly into her hands.

“We should be there,” she mutters. “We should be with them while they – while they’re still here.”

Margo can understand the impulse; a part of xem wants to call Beck and coordinate, find a place in Baltimore to meet up and grab supplies. But then the cameras pull away from the players to show the sky.

The moon has moved in front of the new sun, and seems to be stuck in place. The bright halo casts strange shadows over everything, turns the sky above Baltimore a bleeding red. Darkness lingers, not clouds or fog or mist but a shadow of something bigger.

“I know,” Margo says.

There’s not much else to do but watch. The scoreboard has changed into something almost unrecognizable, not counting runs but detracting points for any act of gameplay. Umpires roam the field at random, casting fireballs as feedback flashes on the pitcher’s mound. Margo can hardly make sense of what xe’s seeing, much less understand what it means.

Nagomi doesn’t seem much better off. She stands up around the fifth inning and starts pacing around the room. Every step, her slippers rasp against the hardwood, creating a rhythm that matches every pitch. She runs her hands through her hair over and over again, and almost like she’s frustrated to still find it there.

The ending isn’t really an ending, either. The Pods lift into the bloody sky and vanish, and the cameras catch each of the ghostly players as they vanish in a puff of blue smoke.

The gaping maw in the ground closes back up with a crash so loud Margo thinks xe can hear it, not only through the television but through the air itself. The stadium lights shut off, and then…

A voice, louder than any announcer, echoes: hey.

--

The Moss Woman doesn’t like Margo. It’s not even something xe can take personally; no one has died since xe became captain, so it’s not like xe’s been visiting her. Like everyone else, Beck’s loss hurt her in a profound way. Margo’s never going to live up to that.

Xe knows where she is, though. It’s hard not to. By now, the Memorial Bat Forest is living up to its name. The trees have grown tall and dense overhead, branches providing new baseball bats for every player on the team. It’s well beyond what any of them could use, but given Margarito keeps losing xirs to fireballs, xe supposes xe should be grateful.

She’s sitting next to a pond when xe finds her, weaving grass and flowers together.

“Captain Nava,” the Moss Woman says. Her voice is so musical Margo almost wants to laugh; there’s nothing lovely about this part of the Garden, made up of the ash and dust of fallen players. But apparently, the deity in charge of it is goddamn picturesque. “I was beginning to think you had forgotten all about me.”

“Hard to forget about this place,” Margo says, looking around at the gray, barren branches that twist and turn overhead.

It’s hard to describe the Moss Woman. Margo has tried a few times, when Nagomi or Scores have asked. But looking at her is like staring at a time lapse; the plants in her hair bloom and die off in moments, drifting through the seasons as xe blinks. Her face shifts from the green wood of a sapling to the dry, dead bark of an ancient oak in seconds.

Two red eyes of hardened amber peer at xem from under a curtain of daisies, petals drifting off almost as soon as they’ve opened. “You have not lost another Flower. Why visit my domain?”

Beck was always better at this kind of thing. She knew how to be respectful and memorized the offerings, wrote a whole list out for Margo after she left. The only thing xe remembers now is that the Groundskeeper prefers Blutterfingers.

But xe has a mission here, a specific purpose for coming to see her.

“What does it mean to be Released?” xe asks, not bothering with any kind of preamble.

The Moss Woman carefully lifts the woven mat from her lap and sets it on the ground beside her. She motions for Margo to sit.

“I’m fine where I am, actually,” Margo says, automatically taking a step back.

“Join me,” she tells xem.

Her voice doesn’t leave any room for arguments. Margo, reluctantly, does as xe’s told. The grass is soft, woven thick enough to make the ground more bearable. This close, she smells like honey and campfires.

“There are many forces at work in the game you play, as I’m sure you understand.” The Moss Woman brings one hand up to motion to the trees around them, and small white moths flutter out from within her sleeve. “I have planted the ashes, but your teammates do not stay here with me.”

The Garden is warm and full of sunshine and summer heat. But something about those words sends goosebumps over Margo’s skin, makes xem shiver. Xe wants to ask questions, but this doesn’t feel much like a discussion; it’s more like a lecture.

“You will all come back to me in the end, Margarito Nava,” the Moss Woman says. Once again, she turns her eyes on xem, clear and icy blue, dripping water down her cheeks. “But for now, I have found only one.”

Margo goes to speak but finds xir throat suddenly dry. Xe licks xir lips and swallows before trying again. “Cali?”

Flower buds grow along the green of her robes. A few burst open, revealing pink lotus flowers. The Moss Woman smiles, and unsettling as it is, Margo feels warmth.

“Caligula Lotus is at rest, where she is meant to be.”

Margo thinks of the Hall Stars, of the fourteen players crawling out of the ground covered in dark water. Cali wasn’t the only one from the Flowers.

“What about Morrow?” xe asks.

The Moss Woman nods in understanding. “As I said, there are many forces at work. Morrow chose another.”

It makes sense, in some respects; Morrow was on the Flowers for a while, but they were part of the Shoe Thieves for much longer. The trees sway around them as a wind blows, letting loose dozens of lotus petals from the Moss Woman’s clothes.

“What about the others?” Margo asks. Xe remembers Hurley showing xem how to dig up roots, the way she loved and cared for the Garden, how Matheo would grumpily go about watering the seedlings on Sunday mornings. “The ones who weren’t on the Hall Stars?”

“Margarito,” the Moss Woman says, looking down at the ground. She sounds sad, Margo thinks, something xe didn’t ever expect to hear. “I do not have all of the answers. There are some places even my gaze cannot reach.”

Xe still has so many questions, so much more xe’d like to ask. But a swift breeze moves through their alcove, bringing with it the sounds of birds and rodents in the underbrush. When Margo blinks away the stinging feeling in xir eyes, xe opens them to find xemself standing back in the field, behind home plate.

“I wish you would at least warn me before you do things like that!” Margo calls out, hand coming up to rub xir temples.

A breeze blows through the infield, mussing Margo’s hair. Somewhere, wind chimes ring out.

--

Game night is different now than it used to be, and Margo thinks that might be okay with xem. The Flowers are bigger than they’ve ever been and they’ve had to move into the bar to make room for everyone, for the friends and family that inevitably join in. By now, it’s hardly even Boston-specific. Practically every team is represented, at least from the Wild Low.

“I know you’re cheating,” Nagomi says, staring across the table in a way best described as deadly. “I don’t know how, but you are.”

Scores hides their grin behind their cards and shakes her head, braid flying over one shoulder. “I’m not! I just know that, statistically speaking, it’s impossible for you to have two fives, and I call peanut butter!”

“The proper terminology is ‘bullshit,’” Nagomi tells her, reaching into the middle to grab the pile of cards. “Which, oddly enough, also describes the way you keep calling out everyone else.”

“That’s our Scores,” Nic says. He reaches over to ruffle her hair, jostling Margo where xe sits in his lap. “She’s the reigning Peanut Butter champion around these parts.”

Margo raises an eyebrow at Nagomi. “This is why I don’t play anymore. There’s just no beating this kid.”

Hiroto’s wings flutter in quick succession, signaling zir irritation. Every spare hand is holding about half a dozen cards; ze’s on track to collect the whole deck, at this rate. Ze sets a card down on the table, and Margo doesn’t quite understand semaphore yet but xe gets the idea: One six.

“Maggie,” Scores says, in the voice that means she’s about to ask for something she isn’t supposed to have, “if I beat your sister, can I try some cider? Inez says it’s really good.”

“You have to survive at least six more seasons before you can try that one on me,” Margo says. “You can have sparkling apple juice, though. It’s pretty much the same thing.”

The game continues on and Margo takes a moment to look around at the bar, packed to bursting with so many people it would be hard to even make it to the counter for refills. Xe locks eyes with Beck, standing on the platform next to the jukebox.

“Nava!” she calls out, loud enough to be heard over the crowd. “You owe me a duet!”

She slams her hand against the play button, and the opening notes to Don’t Go Breaking My Heart ring out over the speakers.

“That’s my cue,” Margo says, untangling xemself from Nic’s grasp. Xe presses a kiss to his cheek. “Gotta go.”

Nic smiles. “Hurry back.”

Margo turns to make xir way up to the stage, where Beck is waiting for xem with growing impatience. Behind xem, Margo hears Nagomi slam a fist against the table.

“Bullshit, Scores Baserunner!”

All in all, it’s a pretty perfect night.

--

The sky opens up to reveal stars hundreds of lightyears away. One day, a black hole hovers over the Solarium and pulls trees up by the roots. The next, a bright, monstrous sun beats down on them in waves of heat that turns the sands underfoot to glass almost instantly. Each time, the clouds sew themselves back together again immediately after, hiding until enough runs are scored again.

For whatever reason, the Sunbeams refuse to stop running. It’s the semifinals and somehow they’re still in it. Somehow, they just keep going, circling around the bases. The Tigers, too; neither team seems to be willing to cave and swallow down the loss, even as the universe itself turns against them.

Margo stays in Nagomi’s apartment. If xe could, xe’d be in the Solarium with her, in the dugout or in the stands. But Nagomi had told xem to stay behind and out of the way of danger after the first game. So instead, xe spends every game camped out in front of the television in her apartment, or in the kitchen cooking enough food to feed an army.

After the fourth game, Nagomi comes home bone-tired and weary. The shadows on her face have regressed to just the occasional wisp of smoke.

“You could stand to score fewer runs,” Margo says, mostly to push back on the feeling of fear building in xir throat. Xe’s already moving pans around to make room for the kettle on the stove. “I know you know how to strike out. I’ve seen it happen.”

Nagomi doesn’t respond right away. She silently drops her bag beside the door and slips off her shoes, wanders over to collapse onto the couch.

“You don’t get it,” Nagomi says quietly.

Margo busies xemself with measuring out tea leaves into a strainer. “Back in my day, we didn’t run around opening black holes into other dimensions. We got incinerated, and we liked it.”

“Margarito.”

“Tell me, then, Gomi. What don’t I get?”

The kettle starts to hiss. Margo pulls it off the burner, probably a little too early. But it gives xem something to do while Nagomi sorts out whatever it is she’s about to say. She takes a deep, shaky breath. A flash of red blinks over her eye, and then dissipates just as quickly.

“I’m not going to let the weather decide how I play the game,” Nagomi says. “I’m not going to stop hitting the ball just because the ILB wants me to feel bad about it. And the Tigers aren’t going to lose on purpose, either, even if it means they ascend.”

Some of that makes sense to Margo. The Flowers may have taken a different approach in the past, gone for record-breaking party time entries and pointless blessings, but the idea was the same. Nothing the gods throw at them will make them stop playing the game the way they want to; it’s just that the Beams want to play differently than Margo does.

Xe spoons some honey from the Garden into Nagomi’s tea and brings it over to her, sitting on the coffee table for a moment. She looks about ready to pass out.

“Don’t you want it to be over?” Margo asks. “Can’t you just back off, a little bit?”

“Never.” Nagomi’s lips twist into a ghost of a smile, one eye cracking open to peer at Margo. “It’s not as fun that way.”

Margo shakes xir head and sighs, pushing xir way to standing. “I made veggie pozole. Want some?”

“I did not have the ingredients for veggie pozole here this morning.”

“That’s what grocery stores are for, Gomi,” Margo says. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about them. Big buildings, full of vegetables and fruits and meat? Sometimes alcohol?”

Xe starts walking back to the kitchen, but Nagomi throws a pillow at xem. It goes wide, thumping weakly against the leg of the kitchen table.

Margo laughs. “It’s a good thing you’re not a pitcher.”

--

The Randall Marijuana Memorial Cat Café is pretty much exactly the same as it was before he died. Layna didn’t change much in the short time she was running the place, and Nagomi followed her lead. The cats are always different when Margo stops by, except for Peaches; she’s always there, asleep in bed near the register.

Nagomi had asked xem to come by and bring some supplies. But when Margo walks through the door with grocery bags full of cream and sugar and cat food, Nagomi isn’t the one standing behind the counter.

“Welcome to the Randall Marijuana Memorial Cat Café!” Hiroto Wilcox chirps, with a smile that shows far too many teeth. “How can I help you today?”

Last time Margo saw Hiroto, she’d been running around in the outfield of the Solarium screaming at the sun in the middle of the Hell Series. It’s a little jarring to see her now, mostly composed and wearing an apron covered in cartoon cats.

“What’s happening,” Margo says, at the same time xe hears Nagomi call out from the back.

“Is that Maggie?” she yells. “Send xem back, Ro.”

Hiroto quirks an eyebrow up, orange eyes flashing. “Maggie?” she asks, clearly delighted.

“Not to you,” Margo says, walking around the counter and to the door separating the dining area from the kitchen. “Just Margo is fine.”

“Aw.” Hiroto twists her lips to the side. “I like Maggie better.”

Margo pushes open the door to the back and finds Nagomi, surrounded by baking equipment and piles of paper. Her hair is pulled up and away from her face, which is once again halfway hidden in shadow.

“I have a joke for you,” Margo says. Nagomi rolls her eye at him and opens her mouth to interrupt, but xe doesn’t let her. “Why did the Tiger go to the cat café?”

“Because she’s my friend, Margarito,” Nagomi says. She pokes her pencil through her bun and holds out a hand. “Give me the bag with the cat food in it, it’s almost dinner time.”

“No, actually.” Margo holds out the bag in question. “It’s because she wanted a ca-paw-ccino.”

Nagomi scrunches up her nose in distaste. “Not your best work.”

“I’ll keep workshopping it. In the meantime, why is a Tiger manning your storefront?”

Margo hasn’t seen anyone other than Nagomi behind the counter since she took over. If there’s a game, she’ll close the place down rather than let anyone else in; Margo has even offered to cover shifts here and there, not that xe has the time.

“I told you, she’s a friend of mine.”

Margo snorts. “You don’t have friends on other teams.”

Nagomi walks away from xem, into the back office where all of the cat bowls are lined up along the wall. Margo sets down the rest of the groceries and trails behind her, leaning in the doorway to watch as she measures out food for each one.

“Hiroto offered to help out after the Hell Series,” Nagomi says, not bothering to look at xem as she talks. “It seemed rude to turn her away, and I’m sure she’ll do just fine.”

“Who are you,” Margo mutters.

Nagomi doesn’t dignify that with a response. She finishes the task at hand and walks right past Margo, pushing back into the kitchen.

“What about, it wanted some caf-feline? An Ameri-claw-no?” Margo tries, once again following behind her as she heads to the front of the store. “Or maybe something about whiskers?”

“None of those are in any way tiger-specific,” Nagomi says, which at least proves she’s still listening. “If you want it to land, it can’t just be a joke about cats.”

Hiroto is still there as they exit the back. Margo isn’t sure why that’s surprising to xem, but it is; xe has to fight the urge to jump when xe sees her leaning against the counter with her arms crossed.

“I think you have everything you need.” Nagomi turns to face Hiroto, and the sudden stop almost makes Margo walk straight into her. “There’s cookie dough in the freezer with instructions on how to bake them, just in case. Otherwise, everything should be stocked in the pantry.”

Hiroto offers a lazy salute in response. “I promise not to burn the place down while you’re gone.”

It’s not entirely clear how much of that is a joke. Nagomi doesn’t seem bothered, though, pulling the keys out of her pocket and passing them over. “Go wild, as long as the cats are taken care of.”

And Margo knows why she doesn’t let people manage the café instead. Xe knows why there are only one or two employees on the payroll, why Nagomi doesn’t really spend time with anyone other than the Beams and the Flowers. So xe can recognize the significance of passing the keys onto someone else, even for a few days.

“Good luck out there,” Hiroto says. “Never look back, right?”

For some reason, Margo thinks, that slogan gets more applicable with every season.

--

The Sunbeams fly to Seattle to finish out the series after two grueling games, and Margo ends up in the world’s smallest hotel room with Nic, Nagomi and Alaynabella Hollywood.

“You two aren’t going to be gross, right?” Layna asks, staring them down from her spot in the middle of the bed she’s sharing with Nagomi. “Like, how much cuddling do I need to prepare myself for? I will book another room if I have to.”

“Good luck,” Nic says, dropping his bag onto their bed and sitting down. “Everything’s booked by now, I think.”

Margo sees an opportunity, and xe takes it immediately. “Besides,” xe says, dropping down into Nic’s lap and wrapping xir arms around his neck, “we’re completely capable of keeping our hands to ourselves.”

Nic laughs and wraps his arms around Margo’s waist automatically, anchoring xem in place. He leans up to press a kiss to xir cheek.

Layna pretends to gag. If Nagomi were here, she’d likely be doing the same thing. But she’s at practice for now, and in a few hours the three of them will be driving up to the stadium to watch the final game of the ILB Championships.

--

The stands in the Big Garage are nearly silent as the game progresses. There have been too many “final” games for Margo to believe this will actually be it, every one punctuated with a black hole in the sky as the teams try to cinch their third win. Layna has already moved into the dugout, but Nic and Margo remain seated in the stands, watching everything play out on the field below.

“She’s going to be okay,” Nic says. He runs the pad of his thumb in circles on the back of Margo’s hand, and xe focuses on that feeling as an anchor. “Win or lose, they’ll all be okay.”

“Tell that to the Shoe Thieves and the Crabs,” Margo mutters.

There’s something different about this season; everyone can feel that. The new boss, whoever it is, seems to have eliminated the threat of a game against the Pods. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no risk, that nothing is going to happen after the final run is scored and a winner is declared. Being a champion doesn’t mean safety, not by any means.

Nic nods. “Point taken.”

They both keep their eyes firmly on the field the entire time, and as the Sunbeams inch closer and closer to ten runs, Margo can feel a knot getting tighter in the pit of xir stomach. In xir pocket, xir phone starts to vibrate, and the sensation practically sends xem leaping out of the stands and onto the field in shock.

It’s even more surprising, somehow, to see Nagomi’s name on the screen. She was in the dugout, just a minute ago. Margo had seen her, the floating pinpricks of red in a haze of grey.

“What’s wrong?” xe asks, the second xe picks up. Nic looks over in alarm.

Nagomi laughs. There’s a hysterical edge to it. “Maggie, we’re going to win.”

Margo looks at the scoreboard, where the score has been stuck at nine to five for the better part of an inning. “You’re sure?”

Xe can hear her smiling. “I saw it. We’re going to win the championship.”

There have been moments where Nagomi didn’t see things coming, where she’s been caught by surprise or wasn’t prepared. But she’s never been wrong.

“Well, then,” Margo says, “what are you calling me for? Get out there and do it.”

--

The game ends in a strikeout. Five grueling days of black holes and extra wins, the Sunbeams running around the bases like they’re running from an umpire, and that’s all it takes. Three pitches from Lars Taylor, landing into Dudley’s glove with a thud.

The stadium is quiet for a moment. A moment stretches out into minutes. Every eye is aimed upward, searching for a shadow in the sky that isn’t there.

And then yellow confetti sprays out from behind the scoreboards, and the cheering is loud enough to shake the concrete underfoot.

So here’s how Margo celebrates. Xe and Nic crash the Sunbeams’ afterparty, arms full of beer and baked goods. Sandy invites them in with open arms, and Nagomi runs forward to wrap them both in a hug.

Margo laughs, running a hand over her hair. Smoky tendrils wrap around xir fingers; xe doesn’t mind.

“Thank you for letting the game end, and for being reasonable for once in your life,” Margo mutters.

Nagomi snorts. “You’re one to talk.”

They stay up all night, walking through every single play of every single game until their throats are sore and their voices are hoarse. No one wants to go home, so no one does; the Beams drift off one by one, and Margo follows, head in Nic’s lap.

In the morning, the Herald’s sports section will proclaim it in loud, italicized font: Hellmouth Sunbeams Make History With ILB Championship Win. Margo buys enough copies for the whole team, and two more besides. One to hang in xir office, and one for Nagomi’s café.