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The first time El visited Kali…
No, the first time Kali noticed El visiting her, was three weeks after El ran into the dark of that alleyway, leaving Kali to grieve the loss of a bond she hadn't known she wanted.
A bond that made her feel less alone, even if just for a few days.
The first time Kali noticed El visiting her, it was because she spotted the disruption in the air. It was like when it was a hot day and the air itself seemed to wobble and wave with the pressure of the heat. Except this disruption outlined a person, and Kali could not imagine anyone else would — could — be there but El.
The distortion flickered away before Kali could do anything but notice it and, though she searched for it, she didn’t see anything to suggest El had returned for another fortnight.
In truth, Kali spent most of that time veering between two possibilities; that either El had been spooked by Kali catching her and was staying away, or Kali had imagine the entire goddamn thing in her desperate attempt to keep hold of some part of their link.
No matter how much she considered the others family, there would always be a distance between them. No matter how much they cared, they couldn’t ever understand.
And after the rumours about what happened in the Rainbow Room, there was only one person left who could.
Kali had never allowed herself to sink into any sort of despondent introspection before and she would ardently deny that was what she was doing when El appeared next. But she had been sat in the room by herself for over half an hour, bouncing a tennis balls against the wall opposite, and tormenting herself with gloomy thoughts, so her self-denial was yet another charade.
The tennis ball veered wildly off course on one bounce, pushed by something unseen, and Kali blinked a few times to clear the strain from staring at the wall for so long.
There she was again, a glimmer in the natural order of things, brushing against the reality in front of Kali’s eyes. This time she didn’t leave straight away.
Kali gave a flick of her fingers and brought the illusion of butterflies, the same thing she had shown El before, to the room. They danced in a cloud of movement around the shape of El and the disruption rippled as El, wherever she was, moved around to look at them.
“You came back,” Kali said, with a cautious glance at the door. The last thing she needed was the others to think she had lost her bloody mind, talking to no-one. Then she tapped the side of her head. “You could come visit sometime?”
And before the disruption disappeared once again, there was one final motion.
A nod.
Kali left the tennis ball in the corner and went to find the others; leaving the thoughts that had been so heavy earlier behind as well.