Archive of Our Own

Warm tones suffuse the room as the setting sun casts its light through the hospital window. A tree, old and dry in the half-cold of autumn, paints the image of slender fingers wrapped around the room with its shadows. Machines drone on and on, feeble heartbeats marking a long-tired beat. 
 
Sana breathes in the smell of antiseptic, of stale sheets and saline. Sana winces as a beam of sunlight reflects particularly harshly from a bump in the worn linoleum floors. Sana’s ears feel as though stuffed with cotton, the world making itself known to her through heavy filters, conversations half-muddled by walls and curtains and the hustle and bustle of the hospital, but none of that matters in this moment. 

Ninomae Ina’nis is beautiful. 

Pale skin, like that of a doll, adorns her slender frame, white on white in the dinky hospital bed. Her hair is brushstrokes of smooth, deep purple, and framing her face are two bands of hair tipped in a vibrant orange dye. 
 
(Sana reminds herself for the umpteenth time that she has naught to fear of old gods and eldritch powers now, looking at the fading dye on individual strands of hair. Not bulbs. Hair, silky and stringy and real and different) 

Thin fingers, small hands laid atop each other, resting on a notepad. There are traces of smudged charcoal on the tips of her fingers, on the side of her hand—her left hand, Sana notices with a shock—and even a little under her eyes. 

‘Watch those hands, little missy,’ Sana would’ve said, would say, in a life long passed, scrubbing at Ina’s face with one of many wet wipes she kept on her whenever they went out on their little escapades across the world. ‘I swear, you always manage to get more of the pencil on your own face than on the paper, love.’  

The laugh that would rumble from Ina’s chest was gentle, loving as the gloved hand that would reach up to grasp Sana’s, mid-scrub. Half-lidded, coy sky-blue eyes rise to meet Sana’s reproachful gaze, and gentle lips press against the side of her hand. The faintest dusting of pink flashes across both women’s faces.  

‘But then how am I supposed to do stuff like this?’ Ina would taunt through the blush burning the tips of her pointed ears a ruby red, single sharp tooth peeking from a smug smile. The sight drives Sana mad.  
 
Sana’s hand would rest against Ina’s slender waist, she would drag a thumb across a pale, now-clean cheek. Space incarnate, gravity folding into itself between them, the two women would lean towards each other, irresistible, tide against shore, and— 
 
“Um, hello.” 
 
Ina’s voice cuts through Sana’s thoughts like a star across the night. Sana’s breath hitches at the sound, at the soft timbre, at the half-forgotten way it resounds across all that Sana is, a bucket of paint splashing and dripping and smudging across the walls of Sana’s mind like a piece of art yet to be deciphered.  

Ina, covered in scratchy hospital blankets, machines beeping the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, reaches a charcoal-stained hand at Sana before realizing her mistake, and hastily extending her right hand instead, eyes wide. 

“My name is Ninomae Ina’nis. That’s a bit of a mouthful though, so most people just call me Ina,” she says, while Sana grasps her hand gently, like one might a small animal. The setting sun stretches the shadows from the old tree outside the window, snaking branches and bony fingers dragging across the hospital floor, the ghost of a tight grip on Sana’s lungs. 
 
“I’m sorry for asking, since you went through all the trouble of visiting and everything... but, um, do I know you?” 

It is, altogether, much easier than expected to convince Ina of a great many things. Sana reveals that she is the embodiment of Space, and Ina simply looks her up and down, eyes sharp and inquisitive. Sana freezes under her scrutiny, the familiarity of critical sky-blue roving over her dousing her in cold and filling her with heat.  

‘I can see it,’ Ina finally answers, and nods her head slowly, before making eye contact with Sana. The taller woman hopes the turmoil in her eyes is not as visible as the twisting of her stomach into knots and the ramming of her heartbeat against her ribs feels. ‘You certainly give off the feeling that you’re... larger than life, shall we say’  

Sana’s heart soars at Ina’s acceptance. The bedridden woman pleads with Sana for a show of her powers, for a pop of color, for a glimpse at some far-off darkness, and Sana, weak to Ina’s pleas, always acquiesces. A small galaxy perched on the palm of her hands, Sana revels in the shine of Ina’s eyes, giggling as shy fingers slide across the illusion, throwing stardust across the room in waves.  

Sana reveals that she has known Ina in a past life, and Ina simply stares out the window of her hospital room, a curtain of smooth hair separating her from Sana’s view. Ina’s throat bobs. She takes a deep breath, chest rising and falling against the flimsy fabric of her hospital gown. Sana sees the way Ina’s hands shake, for once not clasped serenely atop one another, white-knuckle grip straining against a well-worn pencil, graceful movements against the blank paper of her sketchbook ground to a halt. 
 
‘Was I happy, in my last life?’  
 
Quiet as the words are, they seem to suck in all the air in the room, seem to take more strength to shove into being than anything Ina has ever uttered in her life. Ina turns to face Sana, and orbs of sky-blue fill with clouds, a film of grey blotting out the warmth of the sun. The beeping of machinery, spiderweb shadows from a dead tree, the softest pitter-patter of rain against a window.  
 
‘Can I be happy in this life?’ Sana hears, unspoken and unbidden.  
 
Sana’s fingers wipe away at a single stray tear on Ina’s face, and though her tongue feels leaden in her mouth, though that same hand shakes with unspeakable emotion, with regret and pain, with love so overwhelming it nearly kills her, Sana lets out a shaky nod, smiling. 

‘Yes,’ Sana answers, and hopes that Ina feels that it is her response to both questions.  

A thought surfaces in the corner of Sana’s mind. She has been ever-so-careful not to let Ina know of how they knew each other in the past, for fear of how the other woman might react. Ina is, much like her past life, one of the kindest people Sana has ever met, and that is precisely what scares her. She doesn’t want the existence of another Ina’s past to determine this one’s future. But the idea will not leave her alone, the possibilities, the hope it could offer this Ina...  
 
Sana’s mouth feels dry as she opens it once more. Thorns wrap themselves around her bleeding heart, words tumbling out like so much lifeblood as Sana prepares to give herself away to Ina once more. 

‘Would you like to see?’  

Sana paces around her section of the Council’s meeting space. Her steps sound against nothing as she beats the same circular path, back and forth, jitters and nerves obvious in the slope of her back, in the chewed end of a thumb nail.  
 
Stacks of sketchbooks form a wall in front of her. Different brands, different colors, some from entirely different companies from different countries across the old Earth, some full of little sticky notes jutting from the pages, some so clean and crisp you couldn’t tell it survived being stuffed in backpacks, being dragged through the humidity of jungle trips, being beat against arid wind and sandstorms.  
 
The sketchbooks are Sana’s last and longest enduring link to her past, to the Ina she had already loved and lost once. Trapped in these pages, Sana sees how Ina once saw her—finds comfort in it in her loneliest moments. She wishes she could see herself like that sometimes, caring, and bold, and loving. She wishes she was not embittered so after Ina’s death, wishes she was not so fearful of someone she loves now again. 
 
(‘Do you really love this Ina,’ a voice in the back of her head hisses, venom in every syllable. ‘Or do you love the idea of a second chance? Of not having to move on?’) 
 
“It can be both,” Sana hisses back, near desperate, as if she will come undone if the sincerity of her words is found wanting by whatever cruel god set her on this path an existence ago. She grasps at the edges of a sketchbook, opening to a random page and seeing her own eyes staring back at her. 

Ina always drew her like this. She always picked the moments where Sana was looking at her; had always taken so much special care to get the curve of her jaw just right, the view reflected in her eyes. Sana was curious, one day, and asked her why she always picked these moments in particular as Ina’s pencil sketched away at another drawing, this time of a quasar, energy spewing white-hot from the depths of the black hole in its center. A spell, retrieved from the thousands kept within the Ancient Ones, kept her safe and alive, the two drifting about on a stray piece of a long-dead star. 

‘There’s love in your eyes,’ Ina mutters distractedly, her profile lit up by the jet of light streaming in the distance. Her beauty melds seamlessly with the ethereal reaches of deep space as she meets Sana’s gaze, the vast cosmos yawning behind her a paradoxical negative space that still shines with the light of far-off galaxies. ‘I never want to forget what love looks like on you.’  

Sana squeezes the sketchbook to her chest and prays that this Ina can’t see it as clearly as hers ever did. 

Ina takes to her past self’s sketchbooks like a fish to water.  

There is a strange gleam in her eyes, the first time Sana hands one to her. She flips through its pages, silent as a stone. She flips through a shoreline, a waterfall, Saturn’s rings, a comet shining against a night sky. She flips past her sketches of the girls in the Council. She flips through friends of a life gone by. She flips past Amelia and Gura nestled together in a hammock by a sunset-lit beach, dozing without a single care in the world. She flips through Kiara and Calli trapped in a fierce embrace as Kiara goes up in beautiful orange-blue flames.  

She flips through Sana, face alight at the forefront of unimportant scenery, again and again. Every time, she pauses, dragging a finger gently across Sana’s sketched features. Sana, for her part, freezes like a deer in the headlights every time a drawing of her rears its head. She holds her breath, back ramrod straight, only barely holding herself back from squeezing her eyes shut every time, waiting for the disappointment, the pity, the disgust to show on Ina’s face.  

It never comes. Ina’s gaze flickers to her for a breath, inscrutable, and she moves on. 

Ina turns to Sana with a fire in her eyes, asking for more sketchbooks as she throws herself into her own with even greater aplomb.  

‘I can’t let myself be outdone by myself, now, can I?’ she jokes, flashing Sana a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, hiding secrets she isn’t sure she can handle uncovering.  

Sana is weak to Ina’s pleas. Sana is, quite simply, weak to Ina. She acquiesces once more—knows she will do so always, as autumn gives way to a white winter, snow falling in thick clumps across the walkways of the hospital grounds, gathering on the small jut outside Ina’s room window.  

Sana nearly has a heart attack one day when she walks into the room, sketchbook in one hand, warm tea—that she hopes remains Ina’s favorite across lifetimes—in the other, and finds the smaller woman in a heap on the ground, tongue sticking out from her mouth as she painstakingly commits every single detail of a particularly intricate snowflake stuck on the window to paper. 

Sana, panicking, throws the sketchbook onto a chair and lowers the mug of tea onto a table as quickly as she can without spilling it everywhere before rushing to Ina’s side. 
 
“You stupid, silly little girl!” Sana squawks as she picks Ina up, one hand slipping under her knees while the other loops around her back. Ina lets out an indignant whine but is incapable of fighting out of Sana’s grasp. “You’re gonna give yourself bruises kneeling on this godforsaken floor! Did you know all those bumps you see in linoleum and vinyl floorings are literally little calcium deposits? Those are rock hard, and you’re just there kneeling on them!” 

Sana gently lays Ina down on her bed, the smaller woman letting out a giggle as Sana continues ranting on and on about the inefficiency of vinyl flooring and how bright the reflections on linoleum are as she covers her in blankets and hands her the mug of tea. Sana’s rant stops in its tracks at the sound, wide eyes shooting over to Ina, dainty hand covering her mouth as if to stifle the laughter bubbling out. 

The sound clatters around Sana’s mind like some half-remembered dream, so familiar and yet so new, the nauseating feeling of falling down a pit accompanied by a sensation like stepping out into the sun after spending too long in the cold.  

“You’re such a mother hen, Sana” Ina finally lets out once her laughter has subsided, and flashes the first genuine smile Sana has seen from her, eyes crinkling at the corners as some final vestiges of mirth shake her shoulders. The muted tones of winter light bathe Ina in a silver sheen. 

Ninomae Ina’nis is very, very beautiful.  

“Well, I’m sorry that one of my best friends just happens to be a maniac that kneels in front of windows for sketch practice!” Sana forces out, trying to instill in her voice some sense of stability, as if in denial of her total disorientation in the face of the somehow-forgotten realization that she is so very—nearly unbearably—in love. 

Something seems to shift in Ina’s behavior when Sana calls her a friend. Her shoulders hitch, a slow wave of crimson growing from her neck up to the rounded tips of her ears. Her eyes fill once again with some unspoken emotion as she locks eyes with Sana. 

“Friends, huh...” Ina mutters, and Sana nearly trips over herself as she seats herself near the hospital bed once more.  

Sana wrings her hands together, eyes fixed firmly on the floor as a thousand whispers of memories flit through her mind like smoke, as the venomous voice in her head surges like a rising tide. 

“I... I’d like to think we are, yeah?” Sana answers, voice unsure. Because who is she to determine for herself that they have become friends once more? In the silence that follows, every single worst-case scenario Sana has had to grapple with boils to the surface like angry welts. The thought that she is forcing this relationship—whatever it is now, whatever it may become—onto Ina, the thought that considering their peculiar circumstances, Ina would decide there was simply too much baggage to deal with. 

The very real possibility of losing Ina once again, not to death, but to sheer indifference, to rejection, to disgust, weighs on Sana’s limbs until she feels as though her core has collapsed into itself a million times over, like the universe has decided to finally claim her for all her tinkering; to swallow her and everything she knows in an event horizon borne from her own fears and insecurities. 

A single pale hand enters Sana’s vision, gently disentangling her hands from where they grip desperately at the edge of a sketchbook, holding shaking fingers in her palm. 

“I’d love nothing more,” Ina’s voice sounds in Sana’s ears, cleaving through the tide, radiation slipping past the infinite gravity of a black hole. Sana raises her gaze, vision filled with Ina, flowing silk hair, rounded, flushed ears, familiar and startling sky-blue. Gray clouds blot out the sun, and the now-familiar shadows of the tree outside Ina’s room window retreat into the tinkling white of snowy ground and icy pavement, and Sana finally feels like she can breathe again, like something has fit into place in the grand puzzle of the world. Ina’s hand feels light in hers, but her words are heavy with meaning, heavy with hope that Sana convinces herself she has the right to reach for. 

Pressed against the window, an intricate snowflake slowly thaws beneath the warmth of a hospital room full of laughter and a mug of Ina’s new favorite tea. 

“I want you to take me somewhere,” Ina asks Sana one frigid winter night. The hospital’s visitation hours have long passed, but Sana has foregone the formality of following the rules. She is a borderline deity, and she will not let something so trifling as a hospital’s curfew keep her from Ina. 

Sana pauses, hair hanging in waves as she floats in a lazy circle around the roof of Ina’s hospital room. She turns in the air, reorienting herself before landing gently at Ina’s bedside. Sana perches her elbows on the bed and rests her head upon her hands as she looks up at the bedridden woman.  

Ina’s eyes are flighty, nervous. Her gaze flees from Sana, her hands uncertain, fingers tangling ‘round themselves as she struggles to keep her composure. Sana doesn’t know why the question seems to make Ina shrink into herself; wonders, briefly, if there is something to hide behind it, before pushing the thought away as a wave of guilt washes over her.  

“Anywhere,” Sana answers with what she hopes is a reassuring smile. 

Ina flashes Sana a shy smile in return before gathering her hands together, almost shy. Her gaze lifts to the dreary popcorn ceiling of the hospital room, fluorescent lights beating down on them with a harsh heat and harsher buzz of constant white noise. 

“I want to see a nebula,” Ina whispers, throat bobbing, and there is a universe of longing there that seems to eclipse even Sana, in all her grandeur as the embodiment of Space. Ina’s gaze falls back down to Sana’s, piercing, pleading. 

Sana’s breath stalls in her lungs. A tide of emotion surges in her, passes through her, leaves her ravaged and waterlogged in the half-second of its path, razing across Sana’s memories and fears. 

‘I want to see the part of you... that you love the most,’ Ina says, caught in a shoddy dance that mostly consists of the two shuffling and swaying across a small, darkened pocket of the Andromeda. Ina’s half-gloved hands sit like brands on her hips, anchor points that keep Sana from flying away—  

“Of course,” Sana whispers back. 

The taller woman ambles to the center of the hospital room. Her eyes meet Ina’s, and Sana takes a deep breath before cupping her hands in front of her mouth, as though she is holding water in her palms, and blows.  

Miniature stars tumble from her hands as she spreads them in slow, arching paths across the expanse of the room. Sana’s hair blows in a simile of a solar wind, deep purples forming the backdrop of her own personal work of art, settling into place as Sana’s breath runs out.  

Neon oranges trail along the edges of Sana’s long pigtails as she twirls once, twice, arms outstretched in a ballet, fingers lathering cerulean splotches across the spider-legged center of the cluster of light. 

Sana walks, slowly, to the very center of the nebula. Her hands land over her chest, where a small, impossibly radiant light bursts forth. 

‘It's like a heart,’ Ina marvels, breathless, looking at the explosion of light at the center of the Tarantula Nebula, largest of its kind in the whole of the universe, and Sana wishes so badly that she could rewrite her entire existence and make that one cluster of newborn stars her heart. Simply so that anything Ina says will be right, simply because Ina has her actual heart so firmly in her grasp that wherever she decides to place it might as well be its rightful home.  

Sana lifts her hands, the light falling into place amidst the beautiful, ardent chaos of this painting of hers, a canvas made of air for an audience of one. 

Sana’s heart races in her chest, cheeks flushed, as she turns to face Ina, and stops short at what she sees. 

Rivulets of tears carve a path down Ina’s cheeks, mouth agape. The shine in her eyes reflects the light of the stars back at Sana, and she feels almost guilty for thinking that even Ina’s tears make her beautiful. Ina’s hands trail across the reaches of fake stars that gravitate towards her, sending another plume of orange into orbit around the room. 

“Welcome to the largest known nebula in the entire universe—” 

“The Tarantula Nebula,” Ina cuts Sana off, voice far away with an emotion Sana cannot parse. Those beautiful sky-blue eyes fill with wonder as they are drained of tears, however, and Sana smiles proudly at her handiwork as she skips back to the seat by Ina’s bedside, handing her captive audience a sketchbook, opened to a blank page. Ina grabs the offering like a drowning man does water, tearing colored pencils out of a nearby packet of them, fingers flying across paper as she starts committing every minute detail of Sana’s laid-bare heart to yet another notebook. 

“You know, when drawing something like this, most people might just be content to draw a bunch of pretty colors in random shapes and call it a day. You can just say something about abstractionism or expressionism and voila!” Sana exclaims, jazz hands added for effect. “Talk of the art world for the next 30 years to come!” 

Ina scrunches her nose in response in that cute way she always does when she’s annoyed but too focused to really care about it. 

“Oh please. Beyond the fact that I actually quite enjoy the challenge of drawing something this intricate,” Ina starts, gesturing with a pencil at the sea of lights surrounding them. “I’ve always hated all those—” 

“’Snotty, stupid, absurdly pretentious artists with nothing better to do than throwing paint at walls and telling ignorant people it’s the height of art?’” Sana finishes with a giggle, voice high-pitched in quite easily the worst imitation of Ina’s voice she could bear to muster. 

Ina, at first, is embarrassed. Her cheeks light up bright red, and her eyes narrow at Sana accusingly as she hides behind a curtain of silk hair. Shortly after, though, a pensive look overtakes her features, and she looks back at Sana in that disconcerting way that makes her feel like she is being picked apart or looked through. 

“I don’t think I ever told you what I thought of that kind of art,” Ina’s voice cuts through Sana, cold and sharp. There is a question—an accusation, if Sana is being pessimistic—in that statement. 

‘How do you know?’ rings across Sana’s head, and she is a slave to Ina’s demands whether voiced or not. It does not surprise her anymore. 

“The... the other you,” Sana starts, looking away from Ina. “Used to hold the same, uh... strongly worded beliefs, shall we say.” 

Ina’s silence is deafening, an indictment. 

“I... I try not to force her onto you,” Sana says hastily. “You’re both very similar, and all that but... but I know it's not really fair, for me to expect you to fill the same role and live the same way as a woman you’ve never met, that you’ve never really been. And I...” 

Sana trails off, finally facing Ina again as she feels those delicate hands grab hold of hers. Ina’s eyes carry no judgement, no anger, no fear, no disgust. Sana swallows past the lump in her throat. 

“I just want you to be you. To be happy.” 

Ina, frail, sickly Ina, swings her legs over the edge of the hospital bed and leans into Sana, throwing her arms loosely around Sana’s neck. Honey brown eyes water, arms stuttering before wrapping around Ina’s waist, and the smaller woman squeezes Sana gently when she feels strong fingers dig into the thin hospital gown. 

“I already am,” a whisper sounds in her ear, and a single tear falls down Sana’s cheek, another tiny, flickering star among the ocean of them spread across the room. 

In this moment, it truly does feel like Sana’s heart is a burst of light, warm and bright and always, always drawn, across the realms of impossibility, across worlds and across lifetimes, to Ina. 

Ina’s condition waxes and wanes, but it is on a good day that the two decide to take a stroll around the hospital for no real reason other than to do something together. Sana acts as Ina’s guardian, a beacon and lighthouse that parts the foggy crowds with her presence and illuminates a path through the winding, unfamiliar territory of the world outside Ina’s room. 

Sana is content to engage in idle, unimportant chatter the entire way. She is decidedly lost, and has no real intention of getting un -lost, as it were, so she simply keeps Ina talking about anything and everything that she can so that she, hopefully, won’t notice that they’ve passed by the same broom closet four times in a row. 

Their arms, hands, fingers brush against each other every now and then. The contact feels like a tease, a pointed blade caught under Sana’s jugular and pressed, razor-thin, against her pulse, blood drawn to the surface of her skin, nearly beading onto the blade. 

A group of toddlers run across the hallway, and in the ensuing wave of tiny limbs and shrill screeches, Ina is almost dragged away, panicked look in her eyes, until Sana leans into the knife, blood rushing as she reaches a hand towards Ina’s and pulls her against her chest tight while the children pass. 

Both women stand there for but half a second, and then continue on their merry way, Ina’s palm warm and real held in Sana’s. 

Suddenly, the closet door they had been circling for the past 10 minutes lets out a shudder, and the sound of something tumbling to the floor can be heard through the door. Sana’s gaze shoots to meet Ina’s, both women frowning. 

“That door hasn’t done that the other four times we’ve walked past it, has it?” Ina asks, and Sana almost faints when she realizes that Ina had her figured out this whole time, while another part of her swoons at the idea that maybe she hadn’t said anything because she, too, wanted these moments to themselves.  

Sana shakes her head, letting out a hum. Reluctantly, she lets go of Ina’s hand, the pleasant warmth giving way to the chill of an air conditioner and apprehension. Sana’s hand creeps towards the doorknob, and the door swings open after a slow push. 

The sight inside is one that, frankly, Sana could have gone her entire life without having to actually see. 

There, amidst a tangle of toppled-over brooms and assorted boxes of janitorial equipment, lay none other than Hakos Baelz and IRyS, making out. In a hospital’s storage closet.  

The rat and the Nephilim are both in varying stages of disarray, one of Bae’s pigtails hanging loose, IRyS’ hands tangled in the tri-color locks. Her lips (and the Nephilim’s) are kiss-bruised, and other, more conventional bruises line the curve of IRyS’s neck, who lays in a satisfied heap under the rat. 

Ina leans against the door frame, snug under Sana, and lets out a soft gasp, followed by a quiet exclamation of ‘oh my!’ which drags the lip-locked pair in the closet to a halt as they turn panicked eyes towards the entrance, spotting Sana and Ina there. 

Sana’s mind whirls into overdrive as she loops an arm around Ina’s waist, dragging her into the closet along with her, and quickly closes the door behind them, locking it with a pointed glare at the now-mortified couple that is lost in the ensuing darkness. 

Ina quietly slips from Sana’s grasp, finding a cord that, when she gives it a small tug, turns on a single, yellowed-out lightbulb. Sana quickly gives Ina an approving nod, to which the woman replies with a gentle smile, sidling back to her side, where Sana places her hands over Ina’s eyes in a vain attempt to preserve her innocence, and then Sana’s attention is redirected to the two culprits in front of them. 

“What the hell,” Sana’s voice cuts, razor sharp. “Do the two of you think you are doing?” 

“Damnit Bae, I thought you said you locked the door!” 

Bae’s eyes narrow before locking onto IRyS. “Well, I’m sorry that some-some she-devil dragged me by the collar before I could so much as catch a breath when we went in this stupid closet!” 

“Why are you two even here!?” Sana blurts out, interrupting Bae and IRyS’ spat, hands still clasped firmly over Ina’s eyes. “This is a hospital!”  

Ina moves her hand up, gently prying Sana’s fingers away from her eyes, and moving them instead to a spot right at the curve of her neck, where she holds a smooth palm against the back of Sana’s hand. Sana chooses to blame the sudden uncomfortable warmth settling around her collar on the awkward walk-in more than Ina herself 
 
“People in hospitals need hope all the time!” IRyS says, and Bae, who still hasn’t moved from her spot straddling the Nephilim, lets out a hum of agreement much too quickly to be anything even close to casual. 

“And with how much stuff goes down in hospitals, there’s always bound to be a little bit of chaos too, y’know?” Bae blurts out nervously, the quiver in her voice drawing a half-hearted glare from IRyS and a blank, unimpressed stare from Sana. Ina’s thumb drags gently along Sana’s knuckles. 

“And this happens to justify both of you hiding away in a broom closet to shove your tongues down each other’s throats how, exactly?” Sana inquires, every word hissed through gritted teeth, free hand gesturing vaguely at the rickety broom closet. IRyS raises a hand, finger raised. Ina’s fingers slide between Sana’s own, squeezing subtly. Sana squeezes back. 

“I’d like to make it clear that it was my tongue shoved down her throat, if we’re being specific here,” IRyS clarifies. 

“That sure isn’t what it felt like from up here, angel,” Bae mutters, eyebrows wiggling salaciously.  

“Okay, enough of that! I have had literal lifetimes to get accustomed to your particular brand of insanity but need I remind you that I am not the only other person here?” Sana says pointedly, and Ina lets out a wave followed by a small, shy smile that lights the room up more than any old lightbulb ever could. 

Bae and IRyS seem to finally take notice of Ina, and the twin squeals they let out are enough to make Sana wince. Promiscuous positions on the floor abandoned, the two women bound to Ina’s side with wide eyes and wider smiles, and Ina seems to shrink away at first, before a reassuring squeeze from Sana’s hand puts her at ease.  

“It’s so good to finally meet you again!” Bae exclaims, shaking Ina’s free hand up and down with both hands, before making way for IRyS to give her a much more subdued, normal-people handshake.  

“I’m IRyS,” the Nephilim says, calmly, slowly, like she’s speaking to a cornered animal. “And this ball of energy next to me is Hakos Baelz, but everyone just calls her Bae, and she is literally the embodiment of the concept of Chaos, so I hope you’ll forgive her for being a little...” 

IRyS side-eyes Bae, smirking. “Blunt. In more ways than one.” 

Before the couple can continue arguing, Ina cuts in, voice quiet, strained. 

“I’m sorry, but... you two... knew me? The old me, I mean?” 

Bae hops in place, laughing. “Yeah! We could barely ever stop hearing about you, actually, after you and Sana-” 

“Hey, Bae, can I talk to you in private, outside this room!?” Sana interrupts, clamping a hand over the rat’s mouth and dragging her outside the closet without waiting for a response. “Ina, keep talking with IRyS, I’ll be right back and then we can head back to your room, okay? Okay!” 

The door slams shut behind Sana and she drags a flailing Bae down the hall, ignoring the confused look of passersby before rounding a corner into a relatively secluded area. Sana lets Bae go, and as soon as she does, she turns around, mouth open, hand raised, fire in her eyes— 

“I haven’t told her yet,” Sana cuts Bae off, and that seems to take all the wind out of Bae’s sails, indignation shifting to confusion shifting to worry in her eyes. Her hand falls to her side as her eyes widen, and Sana feels almost shameful under her gaze. 

“Tsukumo Sana,” Bae’s voice is, for once, a whisper, harsh but quiet. “You have not told Ninomae Ina’nis, the reincarnation of the last Ninomae Ina’nis, quite possibly your soulmate, the woman you loved for a thousand years and grieved for billions more, that she is... all of that!? Not even a little bit!?” 

Sana sighs, dragging a hand down her face and nodding. Bae throws her hand in the air, pacing around the mostly abandoned waiting area Sana had pulled them into. Her face cycles through so many emotions that Sana cannot even name them all. There is anger there, there is pity, there is remorse. She turns back to Sana with a pained look on her face. 

“You know how much it hurt me when I lost IRyS. How much it hurt all of us, the truly immortal ones, when our loved ones... died. You helped me grieve, Sana, after you were forced to do so as well.” Bae’s eyes water, but she meets Sana’s gaze, emotions softened down to something between curiosity and confusion. “You also know how happy we all were when they all came back. The first thing I did when IRyS came back was tell her I loved her; Kronii, Fauna and Mumei all started living together, and sure, she’s been having her own rough patches and doubts and insecurities but none of us have ever been shy about loving again. So why are you?”  

Sana grips her arm, looking away. Bae is forcing her to out the ugliest parts of herself—the selfish, the fearful.  

“I do love her,” Sana starts, slow and pained. Words she repeats in her head feel like weights as they drop from her tongue, and she feels them land just as heavy when Bae’s eyes widen in shock. “I love her so much it hurts, Bae. But I can’t shackle her to who she was in another life. Even if she is so similar she might as well be the same person, even if she has the same quirks and the same thoughts and she still wants to see the same things Ina begged me to see for a lifetime— she isn’t the same Ina. She’s left-handed Bae. And it makes no sense to be afraid of something like that, but I see her holding her pencils in her left hand while she draws the nebula she asked me to make in her room and I am filled with fear.”  

Tears gather in the corners of Sana’s eyes, and she wipes them away roughly with the heels of her hands. “I don’t want to force her to be the woman I used to love,” Sana finishes weakly. “I just want her to be happy, Bae.” 

The four women meet back up outside the closet, and promptly part ways. Ina jokingly tells IRyS not to get involved in any more steamy hospital makeout sessions, and it really doesn’t surprise Sana how quickly they seemed to have become friends—because who could ever resist Ina? 

Bae throws Sana a meaningful look before trapping the taller woman in a rib-crushing hug, gripping at Sana’s forearms tightly before leaving with IRyS, and Sana nods subtly before both pairs go their separate ways. 

“You and Bae seem... very close.” Ina says on the way back, tone guarded, eyes forward. 

Sana laughs softly. “Yeah. She, Kronii—the embodiment of time—and I... have gone through a lot together.” 

Sana takes Ina’s silence as an invitation to continue. 

“We all lost a lot... the first time the world—the world where humans lived at least—ended. Kronii lost Fauna and Mumei, the embodiments of Nature and Civilization respectively, and Bae lost IRyS, since her ascensions and descensions are linked specifically to humanity’s hope. But hey, it took a while, but everyone is back now!” 

Sana tries to imbue her voice with as much cheer as she can, tries to show Ina that it’s all okay, she doesn’t have to worry. If Ina’s worried glance is anything to go by, she isn’t exactly succeeding. 

“What did you lose?” Ina asks, voice shaky. That ghost of a touch from where the backs of their hands graze together lights Sana aflame, memories of a thumb dragging across her knuckles and fingers interlaced with hers fresh in her mind. “ Who did you lose?” 

Sana rips herself from Ina’s side, skipping a few steps ahead before turning back to the smaller woman. There is a frown upon her brow, a downturn of her lips. One of Ina’s hands lays halfway between them, as if in the moment Sana skipped ahead Ina was afraid that... that she would leave her behind. Sana smiles, wet and vulnerable, a concession and an apology, before gently interlacing her fingers with Ina’s as she manages to catch up. Ina’s hand squeezes reassurances into her. 

“That’s a secret,” Sana says, and Ina inquires no further. 

Ina’s condition gets worse.  

Sana had always known this was a possibility, ever since she found out that this Ina was one plagued by a rare, chronic disease. Has always hidden from that shadow in the corners of her mind, has always hoped that Ina would simply be able to live a long, if unconventional life, and that Sana would be able to supplement her the happiness she could not achieve for herself because of it. 

Reality, as it is wont to do, decides that Sana has kept her head in the clouds for far too long. 

The two of them still meet regularly, but Ina is called away for tests more often, is more subdued. Sana sits through it all with her, grips her hand from the bedside, promises her that things will be okay, even if it feels more and more like a lie every time she says it. 

‘Take me to a black hole.’ 

‘Take me to a dying star.’ 

‘Take me somewhere where there’s nothing at all.’ 

Sana is helpless in the face of Ina’s demands. She grants every single request, throws herself into the privilege of making art for Ina to imitate, puts her very being into each and every one, wears her arms and legs out in dances that spread light across the room. Life is not good, nor is it certain, but Sana will at least make it bright, will not leave Ina to face the unknown by herself. 

“Thank you for being a friend to her,” Sana hears one day, and turns with a shock to find Amelia Watson, tired, bright blue eyes and golden blonde hair just as she remembers them, though the woman herself is different, clad in scrubs and a yellowing lab coat—an uncanny sight if she’s ever seen one: a doctor, not a detective, this Amelia Watson. “She hasn’t really... had a lot of those, in the time that she’s been hospitalized.” 

Sana shakes her head, fond smile in place as she remembers Ina’s past life, remembers Amelia herself finding Ina, befriending her, giving her a home and hope that Sana never could. Remembers Amelia Watson, drunk, but intense, holding her arm in a tight grasp. 

‘Never let her go, Sana.’ the detective breathes harshly, the smell of alcohol wafting from about her. ‘I freed her from those assholes at the monastery, I gave her a home, I gave her a family—’  

‘But you can’t give her love,’ Sana interrupts, and the flash of guilt that flits across Ame’s face is heartbreaking. ‘Not the kind she wanted from you.’  

Ame sighs, her vice grip on Sana’s forearm receding to play with the coral-blue ring wrapped around her right ring finger. ‘Yeah,’ the detective finishes lamely, before meeting Sana’s eyes once more. ‘But you can.’  

Sana does not bother with feeling offended that she was found out this quickly. She simply swipes the half-empty bottle of beer from Ame’s hands, downing it in one go before turning back to the crowd of their friends gathered here to celebrate Ame’s engagement, spotting Ina unenthusiastically nursing a glass of champagne.  

‘What better time to start than now, then?’ She mutters to herself, before bounding forward, leaving behind one indignant Amelia Watson one beer poorer.  

“I can assure you that the pleasure of being her friend is entirely mine,” Sana says with a smile, joy coloring her voice. She fidgets at the entrance of Ina’s room, a new set of sketchbooks, more coloring pencils, and, as always, a hot mug of tea balancing in her arms. 

“I would tell her,” Ame whispers, and it sends a shiver down Sana’s spine. “Before it is too late.” The detective—doctor, she is a doctor this time—does not refer to Sana’s façade of a declaration of friendship, and they both know it.  

The door opens, Sana walks in, and she is determined, today just like all other days, that she will make Ina happy. 

Because life is cruel, Ina tells her that she has decided to go through with a surgery that has a chance of prolonging her prognosis, not for long, but it is something, some feeble spark of hope. 

Because life is cruel, Sana says nothing as Ina is wheeled away to an operating room. 

Because life is cruel, Ina’s already-weak constitution does not respond well to the surgery. She is alive, but only barely. 

Because life is cruel, Sana starts regretting not taking Ame’s advice. 

Sana paces around the Council’s meeting space, crashes in Kronii, Fauna and Mumei’s apartment to at least feel like the world is slipping out from under her somewhere familiar, patrols long-forgotten reaches of the universe with Bae, the shorter woman’s arms wrapping around her in a reassuring hug. 

Sana stares at her collection of Ina’s sketchbooks. She has divided them into two distinct piles, one for each Ina. It scares Sana deeply, looking at the small pile of sketchbooks she has collected of this Ina, to think that this is all she will have to remember her by. But fear will not do her good now, fear will not wake Ina up, fear will not assuage the tidal storm of emotions raging in Sana’s chest. 

Sana spends an entire day with IRyS. The two do much of nothing, walking the empty streets of the city outskirts. It is foolish, really, to think that the Nephilim’s power over hope could have a tangible effect on such an otherworldly being as herself, but Sana is not beyond resorting to metaphor to soothe her fears. 

Sana walks IRyS to the door of her shared apartment with Bae, and the other woman smiles, sad, but not resigned. Hopeful. 

Sana stares up at a crescent moon, stares far beyond that at the sun she had made and raised like her own child, a work of art to light the way for Ina’s future. Sana’s hand weaves between moonbeams, light of the child star she has made, her true North Star, her lighthouse in this, her darkest of moments, and whispers a quiet plea into the night. 

‘I will make you into a beacon,’ Sana remembers whispering to the clump of dust and cosmic debris she would then turn into a star. ‘So please—’  

“Please bring my Ina back.” 

Sana waits outside the hospital door with all the lethargy of a corpse. The hard plastic of the hallway chairs digs into her legs and back, and her legs are assailed by that strange soreness that comes not from overuse, but from not using them at all for too long. There is a spot on the opposite side of the wall where the paint has begun to chip away, flakes of baby blue giving way to old, black, dried-out cement. 

A bouquet of flowers hangs from Sana’s limp grip. Yellow roses and pink tulips make the bulk of the arrangement, pops of color that Sana hoped could remind Ina more subtly of the far reaches of space she has shown her in the past. Pale, white gardenias, a burst of light, a heart of alabaster, top off the bouquet, laying at the very center. 

‘I’ve never been very good with flower meanings,’ Ina says, picking at the messy flower crown grasped in her hands. Sana quickly replaces the shoddy arrangement with her own much nicer one, a crown fit for royalty, but made just for Ina.  

‘Me neither,’ Sana chirps happily, placing Ina’s flower crown atop her head with a beam, and giggling at the fond scoff that Ina lets out at the sight. ‘I just think that someone finding me precious enough to give me flowers is a gift in and of itself!’  

Ina hums, eyes on Sana’s head, then her eyes, then flitting to her lips. She picks a dandelion from the wild fields around them and tucks it gently behind Sana’s ear, resting her hand on Sana’s cheek afterwards.  

“Excuse me, miss.”  

Sana’s head snaps up at the sound of a nurse’s voice. Sana scrambles to her feet. 

“We’ve seen you waiting out here, and just wanted to let you know miss Ninomae is ready for visitors once again.” the nurse says, quiet in the hustle and bustle of the always-busy hospital, but the words are like foghorns in Sana’s ears, and she gives the woman a quiet ‘thank you’ and a quick bow before scrambling into Ina’s room. 

The warm browns and bright whites of autumn and winter give way to the vibrant greens of spring. The glare of linoleum floors is outdone by the Sun in the sky, beams meeting skyscraper windows and office doors and reflecting a world of color into being. 

The tree outside Ina’s room covers the room in spotted shadows, no longer bony fingers but an outstretched hand, blocking the harsh rays and covering the room in cool shade and half-darkness. Sana, though, stands just far enough from the window that she is in a patch of sun-lit floor. 

Ina is pale against the explosion of color that is spring. Her skin bleeds its rosy tint, her eyes are gaunt, shadows grown underneath them so deep that Sana must wonder if Ina isn’t the one who has been awake for eons and epochs. In her left hand, a pencil flows across the empty canvas of a new sketchbook. The sight chokes Sana up as the room door clicks shut behind her. 

“Stop. Don’t walk any further forward.” 

The sound of Ina’s voice tethers her feet to the ground, anchors of rusty metal slicing her heart apart. Ina, however, simply stares at Sana, hand in perpetual movement across her sketchpad. Sana sees what must be the stroke of a pencil that defines the shadow separating the room in front of her. Sana sees pink- and yellow-colored pencils scratch pops of color onto the page. Sana sees a honey-brown that must be her eyes. Sana sees a light blue that must be the walls of the hospital. 

Sana cries. Sana sees Ina drag her pencil down the page and knows the river of her tears is being immortalized, troughs and channels dug into her cheeks. 

“Please,” Sana whispers into the silence, after much too long. Her legs do not ache from standing, her arms do not ache from holding the flowers, but her lungs and her heart have been in a vice grip for hours. Ina lifts her gaze from the drawing in front of her, then turns the sketchbook around to show it to Sana, and there she finds herself. 

Honey-brown, vibrant pinks, bright purples, a heart of alabaster. Drab, unimportant walls surround her. Sana stands in the spotlight of sun created by the spotted shadows across the room, and Sana sees her own tears reflected back at her, but it is beautiful, because when has Sana ever cared what Ina has made beyond the fact that she has made it? Is that not what she told Ina, albeit in a different context, all those years ago?  

“You were beautiful,” Ina says, tears tracking down hollowed cheeks to a lovely, shy smile. “You walked in, and I saw you standing in the sunlight, and I thought that you were absolutely... beautiful.” 

Sana runs forward, out of the sunlight into the cool shade, and almost throws herself at Ina, catching the woman in a tight embrace. Small hands circle Sana’s shoulders, returning the hug, grasping tightly at the fabric of her shirt. 

The two hold each other, shoulders shaking, sobs wracking their frames, and for just a moment, they allow themselves to grieve. 

Sana decides that if there is ever a time to ignore hospital curfews once again, now is that time. 

The day cools off into night, full moon illuminating the inside of the hospital room in gentle hues. Sana is nestled into a corner of Ina’s bed, cramped but comfortable, Ina herself leaning against her side, slipped under her arm. They are both content to sit here in silence with each other, companionship their only requirement of the other. Ina traces circles into Sana’s palm where their hands sit, clasped together between them. 

“I love you,” comes unbidden from Sana’s mouth, despite that. “I have loved you ever since I saw you here for the first time. I’ve loved you for a billion years since you died, and I’ll probably love you for a billion more.” 

Ina’s thumb freezes, and sky-blue eyes, royal blue in the dark of the night, land on Sana’s honey brown. Sana does not look away, for once. She holds eye contact, holds to her conviction, holds onto this love which has survived the destruction and creation of the world. 

Ina surprises her by lifting Sana’s hand gently to her lips, leaving a feather-light kiss on her knuckles. Heat wells in Sana’s cheeks immediately, and Ina lets out a laugh at Sana’s bashful reaction, leaning further into the taller woman. Ina’s breath ghosts across the hollow of Sana’s neck and it is intoxicating as it is debilitating. 

“I know, you big, silly idiot.” Ina says, and Sana cannot even muster the energy to be surprised. She shifts in the bed, turning towards Ina with a frown. 

“Was I really that obvious?” 

Ina hums. “No, not in... not in a conventional way.”  

“But ever since I first saw the other me’s drawings of you in that sketchbook, and every time you looked at me after that...” 

Sana feels her lungs fold in on themselves, feels her heart burst out in a Big Bang. Ina lifts her gaze to Sana’s, placing a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her forward with that gravity that Sana has never, ever been able to resist. She is helpless, totally and utterly, now and before and always, in the face of Ina’s demands, her pull, her.   

“There was love in your eyes.” 

Sana’s hand comes to rest against Ina’s slender waist as she drags a thumb across a pale cheek, where a stain of charcoal may have one day marred the skin. Space incarnate, gravity folding into itself between them, the two women would lean towards each other, irresistible, tide against shore, and— 

Their lips meet in the gentlest, loveliest kiss.  

The feel of each other is a drug, and they revel in it, grass tickling at their hands, flower crowns slipping off their heads to the ground, but nothing is more important now than them, now.  

Sana pulls away from Ina, both of them beaming, before a shadow crosses Sana’s face.  

“What if next time we meet, you won’t want... this? What if the next Ninomae Ina’nis I meet is different, different enough to want a life that doesn’t have me in it?” Sana asks, and Ina’s response is another peck on her forehead, a press of lips on her nose, a softness against her lips.  

“I will always want this,” Ina says, fervent, a priestess true, sanctifying the words with her conviction, willing them into truth with a spell far more powerful than any in the book at her beck and call.  

“As long as you still love me, as long as I exist for you to love, we will find each other. I promise you, for this life, the next, and however many more follow.”  

The doctors will claim that in a rush of desperation, not a single one of them witnessed the phenomenon. They will scratch their heads and say that it was a night like any other, darker than usual, maybe, under the watch of a new moon, but that’s about it. 

But ask Doctor Watson, get her just drunk enough to blur the lines of what she thinks she should remember and what she does remember, and she will tell a different tale. 

“It was like walking into nebula,” Amelia will say, eyes filled with a sheen that is half from the alcohol, half from emotion. “There were clouds of stars, and they were orange and blue and purple, and in the middle of it all, there was a blinding, brilliant white.” 

Amelia will wipe her eyes and look off at nothing, pensive. 

“She had a frequent visitor, this really sweet girl named Sana, Tsukumo Sana.” Her voice will turn brittle, uncertain. “They loved each other, those two. So much it nearly hurts me to think about. But I never did manage to find out if they ever told each other.” 

She will throw her head back with a sigh. “Someone picked up her belongings—those sketchbooks she always kept, a thick, old purple book that she was found with when they admitted her—but no one can seem to find it on record who exactly did. It’s a mystery to this day. I tell you, in another life where I’m a detective, I’d probably be ripping my teeth out trying to figure out what happened, but...” Amelia throws her hands in the air. “Well, I’m not.” 

So yes, ask any other doctor or nurse what happened that night, and they will tell you that Ninomae Ina’nis, tragically afflicted with a rare and chronic disease, passed away in the dead of night, the shrill drone of her flatline her only companion. 

But ask Amelia Watson, drunken ramblings or not, and she will tell you that Ninomae Ina’nis did not die at all, not in any true way. 

“That woman was happy,” Ame will say, eyes fixed on some faraway star. “That nebula in her room was her ascension. Ninomae Ina’nis traveled to the farthest reaches of space, the same ones she drew in her old sketchbooks, and there she must live today.” 

“Because Ninomae Ina’nis died with a smile, even as the machines droned her flatline. She held tight to that crumbling bouquet that she never allowed anyone to throw away even long after the flowers wilted, and she smiled. And if nothing else, I choose to believe that it means she is happy where she is now—and can you really call that death?” 

Sana smiles and takes a swig from Ame’s half-full beer pint.  

“I think that’s a beautiful thing to believe. Now let's get you to bed before your wife throws a fit again.” 

Ina has always loved the stars. 

Her mother and father were used to the coasts and open waters more than anything. Her mother operated a diving shop, and her father was a fisherman, so Ina would often get dragged along on voyages to the open seas, where her father would point at the sky, telling Ina of countless constellations, of the North Star and its importance to sailors in ancient times, before there were ever compasses or fancy navigation equipment. 

Ina, for her part, was always enthralled by the sight of the stars reflected on the rippling waves. Out at sea, there was no light pollution, no obstruction to blot out the wonders of their beautiful galaxy. The Milky Way and the Andromeda play out their galactic collision in the far skies above, a reflection shining in the seas below. 

Now, as an adult, she studies in the pursuit of new discoveries in the grand cosmos. 

Already, she is accredited with the discovery of the largest nebula ever observed. Hints of its past show a form akin to a tarantula, winding trails of stars curving inwards like a spider, brown-tipped and deadly and beautiful. But in its current state, arms outstretched in long waves, cardinals and intercardinal directions all occupied by lights of long-passed supernovas, Ninomae Ina’nis was given the honor of renaming it. 

The Kraken Nebula, she had decided on, eyes drawn to a small, cartoonish doodle of an octopus she had fashioned a sticker out of and pasted onto her laptop.  

A cool summer breeze blows along Ina’s flushed cheeks as she climbs to the top of a nearby hill, telescope set shoved into a pack she has hefted onto her back. A tree, sturdy and summer-green, whispers its welcome to Ina, an old friend cupping her in its palms. Crickets and cicadas drone on and on, shrill and loud in the midnight air. 
 
Ina breathes in the smell of the world around her, of just-fallen rain and flowering buds. Ina smiles as a moonbeam shines across her path, guiding her to her oldest friend, her most treasured observatory. Ina feels like she blends into the world, in this moment, every sensation, every sound, every smell going right through and around her, but her bliss is interrupted by the unexpected surprise awaiting her at the top of her secluded hill. 

The woman is beautiful. 

Sun-kissed skin, almost a shining bronze, adorns her frame. Her hair is brushstrokes of smooth, flowing white, and two winding pigtails frame her from head to toe, long hair reaching almost to her feet. 
 
(The hint of cream-brown in her hair, the way the locks seems to blow, unruly, in the wind, the multicolored hair accessories holding her pigtails in place—she cannot help but think of Kraken, in this moment, in all its grand scale and immeasurable awe) 

Rugged fingers, hands in perpetual motion, flying across a notepad. There are traces of smudged charcoal on the tips of her fingers, on the side of her hand and even a little under her eyes, Ina notices, as the woman turns around, thousand-watt smile aimed squarely at Ina, making her feel at once like she is on fire and has been dipped in an icy bath. 

“Hello there!” 

 
The woman's voice cuts through Ina’s thoughts like a star across the night. Ina’s breath hitches at the sound, at the cheerful trill of it, at the half-forgotten way it resounds across all that Ina is, a bucket of paint splashing and dripping and smudging across the walls of Ina’s mind like a piece of art yet to be deciphered, and yet oh so familiar.  

Sana, covered in blades of grass where she has been sitting against the ground, cicadas screaming Ina’s horrible, internal, very sapphic panic into the air around them, reaches a charcoal-stained hand at Ina, and the shorter woman grabs it, uncaring of the fact that her hands are probably stained now too. The touch sends a current running up her arm. 

‘Come with me,’ Sana whispers into Ina’s ears as the machines around them beep a steadily decreasing rhythm. ‘I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’  

Ina brings her lips to Sana’s one final time.  

‘Take me with you’ 

“You definitely don’t know me yet, but my name is Tsukumo Sana! Um, there’s no real easy way to say this, so I guess I’ll just start from the beginning. Would you believe me if I told you that I’m the embodiment of the very concept of Space?”