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When the threat of war has well and truly passed and Dr. Cable’s influence is entirely unmade, Tally goes back to Diego.
She spends three days with David in the ruins, resting and going back and forth with each other about what the world will be like now, what they want it to look like, what they are scared of and which fixes might be doable. Tally feels half wild animal and half little girl but David is as calm as ever, drawing her out piece by piece until she’s calm. He asks her to stay, to run away with him. She kisses his cheek and shakes her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
He grins at her, the familiar smile that used to feel so dangerous, back before she knew what real danger was, and runs a hand through his hair. “Don’t apologize. I thought that might be your answer. Just felt like it was worth asking anyway.”
“It’s a good question,” she says and she means it, can see how in another world she would take him up on the offer without a second thought. But appealing as running away is, avoiding all the mess around them and only coming back in to play when someone steps too far out of bounds, she can’t make herself do it.
He must see the tension cross her face because he smiles, reaches out and squeezes her hand. “I understand why you can’t.”
“You do?” It’s sort of surprising that he does, because she absolutely does not, only knows that she shouldn’t leave because the thought of disappearing leaves a vaguely unsteady and sick feeling in her stomach. He laughs again, playing his all-knowing-Smokie-David card, and she sort of wants to punch him as much as she wants to ease into the camaraderie. “What’s your guess, genius?” He looks confused for a second, like all of this is a joke, so she tries again, “Really. Why can’t I go?”
His eyes fog over for a minute, like he’s seeing into that other world where she says yes and then he shakes his head to clear it, hair flopping just slightly into his eyes. His expression changes again, to something impossibly soft and this time Tally really is going to punch him because she hasn’t rewired herself that much yet and his I know something you don’t know attitude tonight is extremely unhelpful. “David. What??” She bites it out and his eyes brighten with some kind of humor.
But before she can actually clench her fists he decides it’s finally time to drop his little bomb, “Shay.”
“Shay?” It doesn’t even make sense, like yeah she cares about her friends and yeah Shay is totally the reason she can’t run off into the sunset, because Tally is never, ever leaving her best friend again, but there’s no reason that David should know that.
But apparently he does because he grins again. “Shay. It’s obvious to the rest of us, Tally. I think it’s only ever been a secret to you.”
Which, okay, is not like a cool thing to say, but somewhere in the back of her mind Tally recognizes that this means he’s not scared of her, he really does believe she can get better, that he’ll tell her exactly what he thinks and not flinch away because she’s really not a monster to him, and that’s something. At least he trusts her while he blows up her world. But most of her mind is busy, is tearing through every memory she has of Shay which is basically all of them because she’s with Shay a lot. Maybe David’s actually on to something because apparently she’s been tucking away moments of the way Shay’s skin feels when it brushes against her own and how Shay’s laugh has sounded in every iteration of her body and how her razor-sharp smile fills Tally with an unfamiliar kind of lightness, how when the Smokies tossed Shay’s body into the river as a decoy Tally’s entire world felt like it was dropping out from under each other and exactly how much time they spend curled against each other, like the kittens Tally wasn’t allowed to have, how Shay’s body fits against hers so exactly right and how Shay is the first to know what Tally’s thinking, how Tally would follow Shay basically anywhere, the way that Shay looks at her sometimes across the fire, softer than Cutters are supposed to be. Oh. Huh.
Shay’s surge tattoos are Tally’s favorite and even with her newly cured mind Tally can’t stop thinking about how this Shay is just as wild and fierce and devastatingly impressive as she’s ever been. And like, yeah, she can’t run away with David because Shay is waiting for her back in Diego, because Tally had promised herself that leaving to stop Dr. Cable really was the last time she was ever going to lie to Shay, and if there’s one thing she’s learned about her best friend by now it’s that she hates being left behind.
Tally hasn’t thought much about the future in a long time, maybe never, not past the pretty operation and being happy and light forever, which hasn’t been anything close to her reality in such a long time anyway. It’s not like specials are made for the long term. But the few times that Tally has thought about it, scraped enough of herself together to wonder what the next years might be like, Shay is always there. Tally’s never wanted anything different, it’s just that other stuff kept getting in the way of them, but it occurs to her now that she doesn’t care about a life without Shay. Shay is the coolest person she’s ever met, still, the strongest and smartest and most interesting with armor and tender skin underneath that Tally is still just getting to know.
Shay is the keeper of all the best parts of the world and Tally loves her and oh maybe David really is onto something here. “That obvious, huh?”
David snorts, “Since day one, according to my mom. Took me a little longer to see it, but then she got mad at you like I’d never seen before and you basically made yourself sick over it. And then I understood.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me earlier!” Tally knows she’s being irrational, can hear her voice rising in a totally not-icy way, but she wants answers more than she cares what David thinks, because if someone had just mentioned this earlier and not let her own torn-up brain try to figure it out things might have been a lot easier recently.
David’s voice has the slightest question when he says, “I honestly thought you knew.”
Tally thinks about the way Shay always makes sure to look straight into her eyes, how they gravitate toward each other like magnets, how she’d gone after Shay’s body in the river without a second thought and how when Shay had pulled her out of that awful surgery Tally had known in her ultralight bones that everything would be okay now. “She probably knows, right?”
David chuckles, “Isn’t that your thing? Her always doing things first but you doing them a little bigger?”
David’s all-knowingness would be a lot more irritating if he wasn’t so right and they both know it. “I can’t go with you,” Tally says it and feels the decision take root, “there’s something else I have to do.”
“I’ll still be here, whenever you decide to come back. The world can wait a minute before you save it again.”
It’s a letting her go and she relaxes, like this is always how they were supposed to end. “Thank you, for letting me stay here.”
He hands her a backpack and Tally snaps, hoverboard rising into the air by her shoulder, “Shay would kill me if I didn’t take good care of her girl. And she’s scary.”
Tally laughs, bright and sharp and it sounds empty to her own ears, unused to the sole sound of her laughter after so many months of Shay cackling at her side. “See you in a bit.”
She hops on the board, slings the pack over her shoulder and just before she flicks herself forward he calls out, “Stay safe!”
She winks, whirls around, and then the forest is between them, the ruins fading into the distance as Tally speeds towards the person she really needs to see. The trip is as good as ever, the wildness thrumming through her veins and pulling her mind back together. It also gives her a lot of time to think. With all the operations, all the different things people have done to her brain, Tally thinks one of them might have tried to make this a little more obvious, given her a heads up that she’s been super in love with her best friend since the first time Shay reached out to grab her hand before Tally could tumble off her hoverboard, back to the first time Shay had invited Tally into the best parts of her world.
It feels like being rewired, but not, less like being changed and more like coming home, as if one piece of information has reframed a million questions she’s been mired in since Shay first smiled at her, back in Uglyville when they were both left behind. If nothing else, this clears a lot up, how she and Shay have been circling each other for so long, why outside forces have been so intent on ripping them apart, how strongly Shay reacted to being left behind for Zane and how tortured Tally had been at the thought of Shay thinking Tally didn’t care. None of their other friends ever fought like this, not as uglies or pretties or even specials, like Shay and Tally have always had a streamline to each other and it’s been used for hurting too many times.
But Tally doesn’t think that any of that really has to do with love, how Shay would brave a hospital full of people to get to her and how Tally would jump after Shay without a moment’s hesitation, how they have always picked each other when given the choice. Tally doesn’t understand much, even after all this time, but the one person she’s always had an instinct for is Shay.
And she’s pretty sure they’re on the same page about this.
The battle is over, the war is won, no one is around to toy with their feelings or twist their actions anymore, and the air tastes sweet to Tally, like promise and adventure and doing just what she’s meant to. Shay makes the world realer and better, makes Tally better. After all this time it’s just the easiest thing in the world.
As Diego finally comes into sight something seizes in Tally’s chest, something like everything is too new and too many people and she almost stops, almost pulls back and heads in the other direction, because she can’t rewire herself that fast, but then she flicks on her skintenna and her ears fill with the sound of other Cutters breathing, heartbeats thumping in time with hers, and even here Tally can pick out the sound of Shay’s breath from the rest of them. So she keeps going. Diego is still new to her, even after her previous visit, and the destruction from Dr. Cable’s attack complicates what little she did know. Most of what she remembers is the hospital, Zane’s body lying still and her desperately wishing she recognized the person before her, because they didn’t really know each other, not at the end.
While Tally searches the city, feeling out other’s locations on her skintenna and trying to go unnoticed by literally everyone else, it strikes her that this is the first real thing she’s done completely of her own will in a long time. It fits, she thinks, that all she really wants to do is find a way back to the person she’s been taken away from so often, and the feeling of wanting something and then doing it is a good one, like maybe she’s enough of a person to make her own choices after all.
She finds Shay on a rooftop, looking as icy and Cutter as ever, even with her un-specialed brain. Tally has to stop, has to take a second to just look because Shay’s tattoos are bright and pulsing and her smile is a warm and genuine expression that none of them would have been able to feel a few weeks ago, but her body is still strong, still coiled and sharp and impossibly powerful. The combination of soft eyes and hard muscle, surges lighting up her whole face, is beautiful, a word that Tally thinks hasn’t ever been applied correctly before Shay, and if this is what she and Shay can be when no one’s forcing them to be anyone else it really might be good.
(Also yes, David was right because Tally’s skin feels warm and her heart is pounding and she feels the ache of having been so far away acutely. Tally Youngblood has been so deeply in love with Shay that it just felt like breathing, like she didn’t notice it even as everyone, as Shay, was begging her to.)
She hops off her hoverboard with a soft thump and Shay’s eyes sparkle. And then it’s just them. Standing on the roof. Tally hasn’t felt so human in such a long time, like all the animal instincts she was given have vanished, and it feels extremely uncool, but then Shay hurls herself at Tally, superpowerful muscles tensed and released with the sole purpose of getting Shay into Tally’s arms faster and maybe this is what they were made to do, to use all their icy focus and heighted awareness and strengthened bodies and hyper-connected internal rhythms to love each other.
Shay fits against Tally’s chest perfectly, just like always, like every time that Shay has pulled Tally close or Tally skimmed her fingers across Shay’s arm. If everything Tally’s been through, everything they’ve both been through, has been leading to anything she thinks it might be this, to them, warm and happy and safe without the world crashing around them, on a rooftop with a rapidly changing city spread out between them.
“You left me. Again.” Shay says, but none of her usual bitterness is there. Instead her eyes are still warm (Tally decides she likes Shay’s eyes this way the most, none of the cruelty but all of the concern, glowing and beautiful and all-too-easy to fall into) and her shoulders are relaxed, face dancing with humor and the slightest hint of concern, a question that Tally finally knows how to read. How to answer.
Shay’s fingers are tracing lightly over Tally’s palm, sending a pulse all the way up Tally’s arm, while she waits for an answer. Tally smiles, can feel her whole, tightly-wound, former-special body relaxing under Shay’s touch. “Yeah. I didn’t care for it. Probably won’t try it again.”
Shay’s mouth quirks up at the side (has Tally always noticed Shay’s mouth this much??) and her tattoos start spinning faster. “Promise?”
Tally slides her hands down to Shay’s waist, tensing her fingers just slightly, but Shay has the same heightened nerves that Tally does so Tally knows without question that she’ll feel it. “Totally sucked. Never again.”
Shay snorts, “Took you long enough,” but there’s still no bite to her words, and Tally thinks that in this brave new world they really can be good for each other.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Bo- Shay-la.” It’s not the smoothest apology but Tally thinks it should be said, because all she wants is to get past the terrible stuff their world has made them do and get to being happier in this one.
Shay smiles, her eyes soften more at the familiar nickname, and Tally can’t understand how she was disappointed by Shay’s new softness in the hospital because they are both so much better this way. “It’s okay, Tally-wa. You’re here now, right?”
Tally tenses her fingers again, confirmation that Shay’s skin will recognize, “I’m totally here.”
Shay’s breath is soft in her ear, not carried through their switched-off skintennas but just through the air, straight from Shay’s mouth to Tally’s skin. Tally is still slightly taller, even after all their operations, and suddenly Shay’s fingers are scratching against the back of her neck, pulling Tally’s lips down just a few centimeters to meet Shay’s. A warm buzz spreads through her body, soft but growing by the second, and just then Tally doesn’t feel like a monster or a wild animal or a vapid pretty, a desperate ugly, or superior special, just a girl. Like whatever has remained in her body, the deepest, truest threads of herself, are finally reaching for the light, enveloping her scattered body, as if Shay’s touch has ignited them.
It’s not a feeling any operation could create, or any set of lesions, more like a remaking, Tally’s most essential parts flooding to the surface, called by the heady, sweet sensation of Shay’s mouth on hers. They stay like that for a long time, Shay’s arms looped around Tally’s neck and Tally pulling tightly at Shay’s waist, like she can mold them into the same shape, relishing in the sense of nothing keeping them apart anymore. It’s not an ending, it feels so much more like a beginning to Tally, like the war is won and now it’s just the rest of their lives.
They have a lot to talk about, a whole past of misunderstandings and tightly held pain and sweet, carefully stored bright spots between to pour over, and a whole future to wonder about, because Tally will protect the wild but she’s also going to never stop this, finally being exactly where she belongs, who she belongs with. But all of that can wait, all the future problem solving and past apologies because finally they are on the same page, finally their puppet strings are cut and nothing unsaid fills the space between them and Tally gets to kiss the girl.
(It’s exactly as perfect as it should be.)