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Lucretia took a deep breath of crisp night air as she stood on the porch, gripping the large wooden frame in her hands like a lifeline. Ostensibly, this event was a house-warming, even though Taako and Kravitz had been living here for nearly a year – “We just finished unpacking, what can we say, perfection can’t be rushed.” Also, ostensibly, she had not been invited, per se – Lup had mentioned it to her offhand during one of their biweekly stone calls, called it out specifically with a date and time. The fact that she was here, on the porch, present in hand, made her stomach twist in knots; for everything she had become over the last decade or more, the inscrutable, spine-straight, do-what-she-must Director, there was something about this situation that absolutely terrified her.
Hey, breathe. Lup wouldn’t have mentioned it if it weren’t okay – for all they joke and tease she would never risk making Taako this angry. You can drop off the gift and leave if you need to. You’ll see Magnus next week and Angus the week after that. It’s okay. Breathe.
She willed her hand not to tremble as she knocked on the door, taking a step back off of the welcome mat to make it clear that she wouldn’t press to stay if she was truly unwanted. The hallway light on the other side of the door flipped on, visible through multi-faceted glass panes that glimmered with warding magic, and suddenly the door was open and Taako was standing before her, lazy smile freezing on his face as he took her in.
It wasn’t—it wasn’t that they hadn’t talked¸ since the Day of Story and Song. For close to a month afterwards, the crew of the Starblaster and their closest adopted family had holed themselves up in a house outside Goldcliff and, in Lup’s words, vibed. They had laughed, they had cried, they had screamed at one another – mostly people had screamed at her, Lucretia conceded, but that had overall been worth it. Davenport started to be able to meet her eyes again. Taako would pass dishes across the table to her instead of handing them through Barry. They reached catharsis, but what they did not reach was forgiveness, and she didn’t blame them, not a bit.
And it hurt, of course it hurt, but that was the cost of the calculated choice she had made when she slipped those pages into Junior’s tank. It was the heartbreak she had tried to prepare herself to live with for years as she hunted the relics, the conclusion to the sickly sweet feeling she’d felt daily while her friends – her brothers – had walked the moon base without an inkling in their minds about who she really was. And every day, when she woke up on a decidedly not Hunger-consumed world, when she ran her fingers through her whitened hair and stretched the aches out of muscles whose age had finally started to catch up with them, she told herself – loudly, vehemently – that it was worth it. It had to be. She could live with this hollow place in her heart because in the end, she’d saved them, they had saved everyone, and, well, she would manage.
Standing on the porch under Taako’s scrutiny, however, the careful mantras seemed to shrivel up on her tongue. She wanted to hug him. She wanted him to shoulder-check her playfully into the hallway, tell her snarky jokes until she ugly-laughed, act nonchalant when she complimented his cooking or his outfit or his beautiful home and beautiful partner but go a little pink in the ears regardless. She wanted her brother back, but as he shifted in the doorway she realized she couldn’t read the micro-expressions on his face in the way she’d become so adept at during their century across the planes. Taako, this Taako, was halfway between her brother and her employee and also neither at all, and though Lucretia could feel every crack in her chest widening at the thought she forced a smile onto her face.
“Hey, Taako.”
He cocked his head minutely. “Hey, Lu-Director. Whatcha got there?”
She shifted the frame in her arms, willing her eyes to raise to his without cowardice. “This is, uh, a house-warming present. Lup mentioned you were having this—this get-together, and I wanted to give you something. I don’t have to stay, if you don’t want, just…here.”
Lucretia turned the great frame around, illuminating the contents under the glow of the porch lights. On one side, taking up about two-thirds of the frame, was a copy of the group portrait of the seven of them that had occupied every office she’d had since it was made. They looked the way they had looked for a hundred years, but somehow so young – tired, naturally, and a little frayed at the edges, but laughing and making goofy faces and holding each other close. On the other side was a much newer portrait, one Lup had helped her to procure, of Taako, Kravitz, and Angus. Kravitz had Angus half-upside-down in his arms and was grinning at him wildly, and Angus’ head was thrown back in a fit of laughter. Taako was looking at the two of them with such undisguised affection that it made Lucretia’s heart clench. She cleared her throat and looked away from the portraits, saying, “I wanted to make sure we were all a part of your home, whether we’re here every day like Kravitz or—or not necessarily welcome. A home should be a place of love and family so I thought I’d bring you a portrait of yours.”
When she met Taako’s eyes, she was once again struck with the fact that she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He didn’t seem upset, which was probably good, but when he moved his arms toward her she truly didn’t know what to expect. She moved to hand him the frame, but rather than taking it and stepping back inside, he instead rolled his eyes, placed it on the floor against the wall, and pulled Lucretia into a tight embrace.
Despite her shock, Lucretia immediately crumpled into the hug, clinging to Taako with everything she had. He almost chuckled at her response, squeezing her tighter, and in that moment she was reminded of every so-called “hug battle” that the crew had had on their journey (mostly instigated by Magnus), and—oh, when she did start crying? He held her close as she let out a gasping sob, relaxing his arms a fraction so she knew she could pull back whenever she needed to, and murmured, “It’s a great gift, Luce, really. Not sold on the stain color on the frame, if I’m honest, but we both know which of us an eye for décor and which of us thinks notebooks count as accessories.”
She laughed at that, snapping herself out of her head and back into the present, and pulled away to swipe at the tears on her cheeks. “We can’t all be good at everything, I guess.”
His smile was back, small but real, and he leaned up against the door frame a little too casually before gesturing over his shoulder with his chin. “Lup made those tamales you like, if you want to come in.”
Heart in her throat, Lucretia nodded and took a tiny step forward. “I—if you’re sure I’m not imposing.”
And, like he’d read her mind earlier, Taako shoulder-checked her gently as she stepped over the threshold, a hundred years of gathered affection transferred in that single touch.
“Pssh, why do you think she made them?”