Work Text:
Sara spends her days in a haze of pain. Of grief. She doesn’t smile. She barely talks.
Of course she doesn’t. Her entire family is dead.
She lies in bed, eyes focused on the ceiling. Memories flit around her like ghosts. Memories of people that she can’t believe are gone. That she has to accept are gone. That she can’t accept are gone.
Every morning, she is woken up by a tap on the door. And if she can will herself to get up, to push a blanket that feels like it is made of iron off of her, and shuffle to the door, she always finds a bottle of water and some food.
Sometimes she eats. Sometimes she doesn’t.
Diogee spends a lot of time in her room, curled up next to her. As sad as she is. Diogee lost everything too. And the house is quiet. Too, too quiet. No disasters. No breakages. Everything is in one piece.
Sometimes the tears come thick and fast. Sometimes she can do nothing other than sobbing into Diogee’s soft fur, until her throat is dry and her stomach hurts.
Sometimes she can’t even do that. Sometimes tears take too much energy. Sometimes she lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling, a blanket of stones covering her.
Every afternoon, another tap. More food and water. The eaten or uneaten leftovers taken away. And again in the evening. If grief wasn’t casting a dark shadow on every other emotion, she would feel embarrassed that a little kid has to take care of her.
A tap on the door. But this time, Melissa breaks their routine. “Sara? Can I come in?”
Melissa’s voice sounds strained. “Sure.” Sara manages to sit up, struggling against the stone blanket. The girl edges into her room, clutching something tightly in her hands. Milo’s backpack, which sends a tsunami of overwhelming grief that threatens to knock Sara over. She chokes back tears and manages to stay standing on the fragile shore. “What’s up?”
“I, uh, should we move?” Melissa asks, fingers tightening on her backpack. “They know where we are, they might come back.”
Sara blinks. “What?”
Melissa shuffles her feet. “Y’know, the Normbots. They might come back for us. I dunno where we could go, but maybe we should go somewhere?”
Sara just stares at her. She hears the words, loud and clear, but it’s like there’s a block between her ears and her brain.
“It’s just… I’m scared.” Melissa admits, voice quieter.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Melissa.” Sara manages, but now there are stones in her voice too. “We probably should move, I’ll… I’ll sort it.” Sort it? How can she sort anything? She is filled up with rocks, filled up with grief.
“Not just about the Normbots. I’m scared about you.” Melissa’s voice gets even quieter. “It’s like you’re gone too, Sara. And you’re all that I’ve got left.”
Melissa’s nervous words dislodge a rock.
Sara stands up and walks over to the younger girl, moving like there aren’t rocks tied to her ankles. “Hey, it’s ok. I’m not gone. I’m right here.” She notices the bags under Melissa’s eyes, her tight grip on the backpack, the red stains on her face, and curses herself. She isn’t the only one who lost everything. And Melissa has been handling it alone. Has been looking after her too.
“C’mere.” She pulls Melissa into a hug, a hug that Melissa seems to collapse into. “I’ll figure out where we’ll go.”
She hugs Melissa there for a while. She hopes that it comforts Melissa, and it sort of comforts her. It dislodges a few more rocks. And then she heads downstairs and starts picking through her parents’ old notes and maps and documents.
It’s not easy. It’s not even just difficult. It feels near impossible. But she does it, because she can’t do anything else. Because Melissa needs her. Diogee needs her.
She finds the location of a safe house, and circles it. And then she looks into the mirror, and winces. She looks as terrible as she feels. So pale that she is almost translucent. Bags under her eyes bigger than the house. Bright red tear stains.
Nothing is alright. Nothing is ever going to be alright again.
But she can make food, and she can fake a smile to comfort Melissa, and she can pet Diogee and fill up his bowls. She can make a plan and she can show it to Melissa and promise that she will keep her safe. She can pack up everything she might need and she can wait in the hallway for Melissa to be ready, while Diogee sits at her heels.
Her mom’s green shirt is over her dark t-shirt, and under dad’s jacket. Both are too big, dwarfing her a little. She doesn’t care. Her eyes start to burn with tears, but she blinks them away. Get to the safe house first. Then mourn.
They get there as fast as possible. As they walk away, Sara glances back at the house. Her house. Where she grew up, where all of her happiest memories are set. A house filled with ghosts and rocks.
“C’mon.” She takes Melissa’s hand. Melissa’s other than is clutched around Milo’s backpack strap. Sara realises that Melissa has been carrying that backpack around everywhere. Sara realises that Melissa hugs it at night, that she knows that because Melissa sleeps on the sofa, she can’t cope with sleeping in the room she shared with Milo. Not for the first time, she regrets the weeks that she left the younger child on her own to cope.
The safe house is empty. A house filled with nothing.
Too quiet, everything is too quiet. She keeps stopping to cry, stopping to mourn. But then she gets up and pushes on. Pushes on to take care of Melissa, take care of Diogee, then take care of herself if she has time or energy left.
She pushes, and mourns, and pushes again. Rocks are tied to her arms and legs, but she takes step after step anyway.
One day, she flicks through her parents’ resistance stuff. Completed missions, plans that were carried out. She was so proud that her parents fought back, that they were training her to help. If they hadn’t done that, would they still be alive?
Or would her dad and brother’s condition had them taken anyway, even if they complied in every other way?
Plans and brainstorming, ideas. Her parents wanted to take down the emperor, save Danville. Make the world a better place for her, and Milo, and Melissa, and everyone else. And now they’re gone, gone forever, and-
She buries her face in her hands, tears bubbling up.
Then she looks back down at the papers, even though her eyes blur. Her parents wanted to make the world better, and they got killed for it. But she’s still here. She could still do it.
Something solidifies inside her.
———
“It’ll be dangerous.” She explains to Melissa. The younger girl is hugging Milo’s backpack on her lap. “If you don’t want to do it, we’ll figure something out. But I need to do this. Someone’s gotta carry on mom and dad’s legacy.”
“And someone needs to carry on Milo’s.” Melissa’s hands tighten on the backpack, and when she looks up Sara can see determination in her eyes. For the first time in weeks, Melissa doesn’t look quite as miserable. “I’m in.”
It’s a pathetic little resistance. Sara, a little kid, and a dog. But it’s something. Sara tries to be like her parents, tries to be strong and brave and clever. And then she goes to her ‘office’ (a little room with a desk) and she stares at the ceiling and she tries not to let the rocks piled on her break her ribs and crush her lungs.
One day, while getting supplies, she runs into a kid. A dark haired little girl in Dooferalls, who Sara vaguely recognises as having been in Milo’s class. “Amelia?” She guesses when the kid approaches, tense. People don’t talk in public much anymore. That’s dangerous.
“It’s Amanda.” She notices now that Amanda’s eyes are stained red. “I need somewhere to stay.” She mumbles. “Your mom said that if I ever needed to…”
Sara’s mom isn’t around to fulfil any promises that’s she made. But Sara can. “Ok, c’mon.” She holds out her hand for the girl to take.
Amanda spends a while sitting around, crying, staring into space. And then she proves to be a huge help. She’s organised, she’s clever.
A knock on the door. Crap, who knows that she’s here? She peeks out through the peephole, and sees a black haired boy. A very frightened looking black haired boy. She opens the door. “Kid?”
“I, uh, I didn’t know where else to go.”
So she invites him inside. And suddenly, unintentionally, she has the start of a resistance. She has more people who she needs to protect. More people who she needs to ignore the rocks to look after.
There are some more kids, after that. Why is it always kids? She starts to feel like an older sister to each of them, which hurts. She likes these kids, her scrappy little resistance. Loves them, even. But she had a brother. And she lost a brother.
———
Milo’s alive.
The truth, in front of their eyes, confusing and shocking but unmistaken. Her little brother is alive.
Her little brother is a prisoner. Her little brother is being used as a weapon.
“We need to go and save him!” Melissa slams her hand on the table.
“From that building? Do you want to die?” Bradley asks sceptically. “It’s got security coming out of the ears.”
“If you don’t want to die, you’ll shut your mouth.” Melissa snaps at him. “We need to do something, we can’t just leave him there. Right, Sara?”
Sara just stares. Breaking into that building truly would be impossible. They have only done a few small missions so far. She would get her whole little resistance killed doing that. Those kids.
But if she doesn’t do that, Milo is still a prisoner.
“We’ll work something out, Mel.” She claps a hand on her shoulder. “Just calm down for now.”
Shocked anger burns in Melissa’s eyes, that they aren’t starting a rescue mission immediately. That was when she began losing the younger girl’s respect. And every time she said not yet or soon, she lost it a little more.
So she has a meeting with Melissa. Just Melissa. She often has meetings with Melissa, and Amanda, and Bradley. But she knows that this time, Melissa is the only one who needs to hear it. “We can’t go save Milo yet.” She says, voice low with regret and guilt and grief. “It’s too dangerous.”
Melissa’s eyes flair with anger. “We can’t just leave him!”
“We aren’t. But we need to be smart about it.” Sara tries to soothe her. “We won’t save Milo by rushing in and getting everyone killed. I’m wor-“
“Your little brother’s in a cell and being used as a weapon, and you’re just sitting around!” Melissa slams her hands on the table. Sara jumps, shocked. And then the girl stands up and marches out, casting a withering glare over her shoulder as she goes. The door slam practically shakes the walls.
Sara sits back, sighing. She can’t do this. All she wants to do is march up to that building, scoop up Milo, and never let him out of her sight again. But she can’t. She has to make choices. She has to be a leader.
But god, she just wants to let an adult do it.