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Charlie’s the one who picks Van up from the airport. The flight from Saskatchewan to Jersey is rough for all of them. Hell, the detail arranging their return blatantly offer the girls Xanax for that very reason. But Van chooses to feel extra sorry for herself because the only person waiting for her on the other side of this nightmare is the half-brother she hasn’t seen since she was thirteen. When they told her in the hospital that no one could get a hold of her mom, Van hadn’t been surprised- the only thing that changed while they were out there was themselves; irrevocably, inconceivably, unforgivably so. But no matter what, Van’s still a lonely kid and Bev Palmer is still a useless drunk. It’s all so much the fucking same that it makes Van nauseous.
So when they ask if she has someone else to call, she gives them Charlie’s number and prays he cares enough that she’s not embarrassed for doing so. He moved to New Hampshire for a contracting job before Van was old enough to know that he never planned on coming back.
Van wishes that was an option for her now; to just fucking take off, shrug off the past like an old coat and put on something better.
It’s not an option, she knows.
Van’s inclined to attachments. This is clear in the way she stays glued to Taissa’s side, hands entwined despite prying eyes, for the entire, agonizing walk from the tarmac to the room where the survivors’ families are waiting. But even they manage to untether the moment Taissa spots her parents, falls into their waiting arms, lets them pat her short hair and whisper soft things and look so undeniably relieved that it makes Van’s heart ache. She understands loving Tai that much. But as she locks eyes with her brother, she knows not to wish that love for herself.
He doesn’t look much different- the same clean-cut brown hair and tall stature, filled out with age, and dressed in blue-collar attire. He has a beard now, a shock of curly red hair along his jaw that matches Van’s, matches their mother’s. Like some inescapable thing.
The look on his face is a bit unreadable as he walks over to her, and Van doesn’t have the courage to move towards him in return. Just lets him get closer and closer until he’s grasping her by the shoulder and pulling her into a deep hug. She’s thought about this moment before- the theoretical return, the tearful reunion, so out of reach, never quite sure what arms she’d be falling into anyway. But there’s no tears now. Just Charlie’s rough voice by her ear, muffled in her hair.
“I can’t fuckin’ believe you’re alive.”
Van thought it would feel like more than this- that there’d be more relief, more joy. Even grief, guilt, fear. Anything.
Instead, there’s just a pit in her stomach as she watches the other girls over Charlie’s shoulder. Watches them hug their families and cry and fall apart and wants to scream out what they’ve done. Why they’re alive while others are not.
Charlie isn’t staying, he told her over the phone while they were still in Canada. He’ll help her get settled, get things sorted with Mom, wherever the fuck she is, and then he’s on his way. Van’s fine with that- decided sometime during that hellish flight here that she doesn’t really want to be around normal people anymore. It’s just that she doesn’t know where the fuck else to go.
Still pressed to Charlie’s chest, breathing in a scent that is no longer familiar, Van replies.
“Me neither.”
___
The strangest thing about returning, Van realizes very quickly, is the quiet. Out there, there’d been no escaping the brash sounds of the forest, the constant hum of voices, the creak of that old cabin. Never a moment of true silence. Now, there’s nothing but.
On the drive back to their mom’s, Van turns the volume on the radio as high as Charlie will let her, blasting some classic rock station that grates at her frayed nerves. It’s better than nothing, she decides. Better than the silence that greets them as they open the door to the trailer, greeted only by the smell of stale alcohol and cigarettes. Every light in the house is off, which, combined with the fact that the phone is obviously not working, has Van venturing a guess that the power’s been shut off. Fucking ace.
Charlie finds Bev sprawled unconscious on the couch, the mirror of a morning from lifetimes ago, and he gives her a rough shove. Van watches with her back to the front door and her arms crossed as he struggles to rouse her, feeling young like she hasn’t since Charlie still lived at home. When it was always him taking care of this shit and she was the one watching from her bedroom door. She prods at the scar tissue inside her cheek until it burns.
Bev wakes with a stilted groan, sitting up lazily and taking in the sight of her son.
“Charles?” she rasps, eyes slitted and hair disheveled. “The fuck are you doing here?”
“No one’s been able to fuckin’ reach you,” Charlie tells her coldly. “They found Van, Ma.”
“No,” is the first thing Bev says to that. Van can’t fucking move. Charlie is still looking down at Bev but she’s rising slowly to the edge of the couch, hazy eyes locking onto Van with such force that it makes Van’s stomach swoop. “No, she can’t..”
“They tried calling you, it’s all over the news.”
Charlie’s words mean nothing to the two women as they continue to stare at each other, Bev advancing at a glacial pace, trepidation in her steps.
“We buried you, baby” she murmurs, an accusation to Van’s ears. She tenses, finally returning to her body, backs herself further away. “We buried you next to your daddy- Charlie was there.”
Van knew not to expect comfort, relief, love. But she wanted more than cold reminders of just how fast the world has kept spinning. It’s like she’s surrounded by people from a different planet. She longs very suddenly for Taissa, a gut-punching sort of ache.
Bev closes in and Van has nowhere to go as shaky hands come up to her cheeks. "God, what happened to your face?”
It snaps Van out of her frozen stupor; she steps out of her mother’s touch and sets her jaw. “I’m not staying.” It’s a decision she makes in that moment, smelling soured dishes in the sink and feeling the chill of no central heat in the middle of November. Seeing her mother’s haggard face and feeling her cold hands. Hearing nothing but deafening silence, a soundless thrum that pounds in Van’s skull. She has nowhere to go but she can’t stay here.
“Don’t be stupid, baby, I just got you back.”
Van just shakes her head, already beelining to her bedroom. A duffel thrown onto the bed, clothes she can’t remember ever owning, a room she can’t remember ever sleeping in. She throws together everything she’d ever want to keep; clothes and a shoebox full of pictures and mixtapes Nat gave her and the Walkman she bought with her first paycheck. Her life fits neatly into two bags that she listlessly dumps in the hall at her mother’s feet. Her mother, who yells things Van can barely hear.
Charlie throws the bags over his shoulder and pushes Van firmly towards the front door. She doesn’t quite feel like she’s in her body, feels like she’s floating, barely breathing. Distantly she wonders if Charlie knows this too, if that’s why he leads her back to his car with a steady hand on her back, gentler than she knows what to do with.
Bev is shouting from the doorway, crying. The trunk of the car slams shut and Van tunes in just long enough to hear something her mother says.
“I just want my baby back.”
As they pull away, Van thinks that's one of the million things they have in common.
___
“You did the right thing back there,” is the first real thing he says to her, as they sit in a Burger King parking lot. Van’s picking at her fries and trying not to gag at the smell of Charlie’s burger.
She doesn’t respond, doesn’t trust her voice, opts for a nod.
“Look, I don’t know what your plans are but I’ve got a room at my place until you get back on your f-”
“I don’t have any fucking plans,” Van spits out tiredly. “I don’t have- I don’t even have a driver's license anymore because it exploded in a fuckin’ plane crash so could everyone just…”
She trails off, unsure what ‘everyone’ she’s referring to.
“I know- I know, I’m sorry,” Charlie tries his best to placate, setting his burger aside- much to Van’s relief. “I just- I have to be back in Hartford by Wednesday so if you want to stay with me for a while, you’re welcome to, I just-“
“You live in Hartford?”
It catches Van by surprise, the betrayal she feels. She had been thinking for years that he was four hundred miles away in New Hampshire, too far away to help. But he was two hours away in fucking Hartford.
He has the mind to look sheepish. “Yeah, I moved there for work a couple years back.”
Van considers him for a long moment, mulls over the useless hurt she feels, her rising nausea. They’re sitting here hashing out dysfunctional family bullshit that Van hasn’t even had time to think about for the past nineteen months. She thinks dully that she’s never felt more displaced- not even after crash landing in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. This bone-aching loneliness is somehow more jarring.
This conversation and these stupid french fries start to feel completely meaningless and Van takes in a sharp breath before asking, “Do you have a cellphone?”
He’s caught off guard by the question, seeming almost relieved at the subject change as he procures the device from the pocket of his jacket. Van takes it and steps out of the car.
Leaned against the side of Charlie’s old pickup, she types out a familiar number with fumbling fingers, musing at how easily these things come back.
“Hello,” a mature voice answers, forcing Van to call back on ancient instincts to muster a fitting reply.
“Hi-hi um, Mrs. Turner, I know it’s a bad time but could I speak to Tai?” The words hurt to speak, bring forth some stinging bout of nostalgia, a reminder that nothing will ever be normal again. That they left the world young girls, kids, and returned as aliens. She chews at the scar tissue in her cheek.
“I’m sorry, who is this? Now really isn’t a good time-”
“It’s Van Palmer,” she replies quickly, maybe desperately. She’s called this house a hundred times, had countless study sessions at their kitchen table, slept over on their couch after games. Van wonders if she sounds just as different as she feels. “I was- I mean, could I talk to her?”
Mrs. Turner doesn’t ever reply, but there’s a rustle and then a soft voice filling the line, filling Van’s chest with air, filling her eyes with water. “Van? Is everything okay?”
Van considers that it’s the first time someone has referred to her by name since she got off that plane this morning. If she weren’t so hollowed out, she thinks she might have collapsed into sobs right there. Instead, she swallows back a choking lump and says, “Yeah I just… I just left my mom’s. Like- left. For good. I don’t know, I think that might’ve been stupid- I don’t know where to go now and Charlie’s been in fucking Hartford this whole time and-”
“You don’t have anywhere to go?” Taissa sounds genuinely surprised by that for some reason. It’s not like Van had ever explicitly discussed her home life with Tai but it hadn’t been a secret- she knew the neighborhood Van lived in, recognized that it was the smell of cigarettes that seemed to linger in Van’s clothes, knew Van’s house wasn’t somewhere they should go. There hadn’t been a question about what their worlds would look like if they returned; it hadn’t been worth considering. Nineteen months ago, Van had an acceptance letter to a local college, a scholarship generous enough to cover tuition, and musings of renting an apartment with Taissa one day. Now, she has two duffel bags, Charlie, and fucking Hartford. Everything between those two points weighs Van down to this very spot, makes her sink further against the side of the truck.
“No,” she breathes the single word out.
“Are you with your brother right now?” Taissa asks, tone clear and direct, leading Van through her haze expertly.
“Yeah.”
“Have him bring you to my house.”
Van startles to alertness. “No, no- Tai, I can’t- you just got back, your parents-”
“Van, hey, I’m not asking you to move in, just… at least for the night. Let my parents feed you something annoyingly vegan.” Van gives a small huff of amusement. Tai’s voice is much quieter as she adds, “I don’t really want to sleep alone anyways.”
Van nods in deep understanding, even though Taissa can’t see it, lets the action fortify her anyway. “Okay. Okay, yeah- just for tonight, I swear.”
Tai’s voice is even quieter, even gentler when she replies, “Baby, don’t worry about it.”
A tear breaks loose, sputters down her cheek and tracks itself across the grooves of her scars. For the first time today, she feels what she thinks she was supposed to feel from the very beginning: relief.
___
Showing up at the Turner’s front door with two duffel bags thrown over her shoulders, Van feels younger than she has in years. She barely has to knock before Taissa is swinging open the door and gathering her into a hug, a desperation in it that belies the fact that they’ve been apart a mere five hours.
“Hey stranger,” Van mumbles into her shoulder, glancing up just enough to see Taissa’s parents watching indiscreetly from the living room.
“Are you alright?” Tai asks in reply, her tone measured, body stiff where it holds Van tightly.
Van nods against her, pulling away so she can look at her. She smells freshly showered and her clothes are soft and warm which is oddly off putting, unnatural almost. Van lets herself believe that it’s nice even though her stomach curls at the foreignness of it all. “I’ll tell you about it later.” A promise.
Tai nods, moving to grab one of Van’s bags and usher her inside. Then it’s all three Turners with their full attention on Van, tight smiles on all of their faces. Van chuckles nervously.
She can’t be sure what Taissa told them after that phone call but, judging from the witheringly pitious looks she’s receiving, it was enough for this to be extremely embarrassing.
“Van, it’s so wonderful to see you back,” Mrs. Turner breaks the awkward air, moving forward to give Van a brief hug, her eyes lingering only slightly too long on the scars across Van’s face. She had the opportunity to bathe and change into fresh clothes at the hospital back in Canada, had showered that morning before they left. And yet, she feels strangely dirty in the presence of this family, like the evidence of the forest is embedded in her skin.
“Thanks,” she forces out with a smile. “I’m sorry for showing up like this, I just-”
“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” Mrs. Turner shakes her head, her hand lingering on Van’s shoulder as she continues, “You girls have been through so much together, you kept each other alive- it’s the least we can do.”
The words leave a sour taste in Van’s mouth and she looks over with wide eyes at Taissa, who winces at her mother’s forwardness.
“I really appreciate it- I just hate to intrude when you just got-”
“Please, it’s no bother,” Mr. Turner waves her off. “Friends of Taissa’s are always welcome here- and I made way too many gyros anyway.”
“Yeah, why don’t you girls go put away Van’s things and then we can dig in,” Mrs. Turner offers with an enthusiasm that is forced and a little desperate. That same stilted way her mother had called out to her from the doorway.
Taissa nods and tugs Van by the hand upstairs to her room before she can think too hard about it. She lets herself be led, lets Tai tuck her bags neatly in the corner, lets her sit them both down on the edge of the bed, lets Tai rest her head into the crook of Van’s neck. Van sighs deeply, hand finding Taissa’s and holding it in her lap. She’s quiet, her movements stiff, hand barely twitching in Van’s grasp.
“This is so fucking weird,” Van whispers.
“Yeah,” Tai agrees, voice thick. “I can barely look at them.”
Van knows she’s referring to her parents; and a bitter part of herself wants to throw something spiky back. At least you have someone to fucking come home to. But it’s a half-formed sort of anger, mostly because she knows exactly what Taissa means.
“I almost threw up at the smell of Burger King today,” Van offers up, probably the mildest of the million self-implosions she’s experienced over the last few hours. But it’s a truth, one that she knows will get at least a huff out of Tai.
It does- of course it does- and some of that dreaded stiffness fades. Tai’s shoulders drop, her hand squeezing Van’s where it lays in her lap. She lifts her head, planting a soft kiss to the side of Van’s mouth. Van grins against it.
“Then it’s a good thing these are vegan gyros- nothing but soybeans and chickpeas, thank god.”
Van leans in, kisses Taissa properly, deeply. Lingering as long as they dare with the Turner's waiting for them just downstairs.
“Please- Tai, you had me at soybeans.”
___
The blow up mattress next to Taissa’s bed goes comically unused that night, sitting on the ground covered in fresh sheets like a callback to sleepovers past. Sleepovers in which Van would slip under the covers of the makeshift bed before sunrise the next morning, when Mrs. Turner would come up to tell them that she had made breakfast. Now, in the grand scheme of things Tai is hiding from her parents, Van figures sexuality has been knocked out of the number one spot by a mile.
This is clear in the way Taissa holds Van impossibly close that night, keeps her tucked under her arm, pressed to her side, a hand trailing through red curls. They’d made their excuses soon after dinner, preparing for bed while Mr. Turner prepped the tragically useless air mattress. Van finds herself staring at it now, her ear against Tai’s chest, letting the steady thumping drown out the unfamiliar hum of electricity in the house.
“We missed a whole season of X-Files, you know?” Taissa murmurs into the quiet. “Apparently season five just started.”
“You’re kidding- we didn’t even see the season three finale,” Van huffs. “You think Mulder and Scully have boned by now?”
Tai’s chuckle rumbles under Van’s cheek. “I seriously doubt it.”
They lapse into comfortable silence. Van traces patterns against Taissa’s hip until the last of that high-strung tension finally ebbs away.
When Taissa speaks again, it’s even quieter, her cheek resting against the top of Van’s head. “Something happened with your mom.”
It’s not quite a question, but it begs for an answer all the same. Van breathes in deeply, feels it catch in her chest. Tai has started moving her hand up and down Van’s arm, almost anxiously.
“Same old shit,” Van starts, aiming for dismissive but falling a bit flat. “She’s strung out, the house smells like shit, bills probably haven’t been paid since I’ve been gone…” Two years ago, Van would have never told Tai any of this. Two years ago, she would have been too embarrassed to even call her in the first place. Too embarrassed to show up to Tai’s nice fucking house in her brother’s hand-me-down flannel smelling like cigarettes, ushered onto this same air mattress with the fresh fucking sheets. Now, shame is nothing in the face of what they share. What they’ve done. Shame is nothing when they’ve loved each other through that. This is something she has to get out, and this is the person she needs to tell it to. “She doesn’t even know I’m alive- she’s staring at me like I’m a fucking ghost and the house was so cold and she just-”
Van unravels herself from Tai quickly, sitting up against the headboard next to her instead, knees drawn, elbows against them, head cradled in her hands. Tai is shifting instantly, one hand settling on her knee while the other traces the scar along Van’s cheek, urging her to meet Taissa’s gaze. Van does- can’t ever deny Tai anything. Eyes meeting for the first time since they settled into bed, Van finds Tai’s eyes are soft in that way they only seem to get when they’re alone. It makes something warm blossom in Van’s chest and she clears her throat, continuing.
“I shouldn’t have expected anything but… I guess I just figured she’d at least hug me or something, tell me she missed me, ask if I was okay… ‘we fuckin’ buried you.’ That was it. She said ‘we buried you next to your dad.’ And she-” Van pauses, face scrunching as a wave of unwelcome emotion washes over her, unexpected and insurmountable. Tai is moving closer in an instant, muttering a soft hey as she presses a kiss to Van’s shoulder. Van tilts her gaze up to the ceiling before letting it fall to the soft floral duvet, tripping over a deep breath. “She asked about the scars with this- fucking, this look… like she was looking at roadkill or something. I know it’s stupid but I just had to leave- god, I don’t even have a debit card anymore, but I had to get out of there, I just-”
“Hey, hey Van,” Tai soothes softly, ducking to meet Van’s lowered gaze. “It’s not stupid, not at all. You never ever have to go back there again, I don’t want you to.”
Van’s still averting her gaze. Taissa scoots closer, legs pulled under herself as she places her hands on Van’s cheeks, forcing Van to meet her eyes, the serious set of them.
“I’m proud of you, alright? You did the right thing, baby.”
Those words seem to make something untether inside Van. Her face crumples where it rests in Taissa’s palms, silent tears spilling as she nods frantically. It’s more of a release than a breakdown, like a rush of all the shit she’s been holding back all day. She reels it in quickly, old habits and all, but finds she feels better when Tai is wiping away those last few tears with the pads of her thumbs. She nods once more, sniffs. “Thanks.”
Tai shakes her head with a miniscule grin. “Always.”
Van wishes it wouldn’t stab at her chest, that word. Like Tai isn’t dooming them just speaking it. But it feels like they’ve had one foot in the grave since they landed in that fucking forest.
She can’t help herself when she asks, “Do you mean that?”
Taissa’s brow furrows at the question, a familiar look of incredulity coloring her features. Van considers every inch of her carefully.
“Are you asking me how committed I am?” She asks it sarcastically, condescension clear in her tone- that tone Van is so used to hearing. She understands now that it’s so often rooted in fear.
She doubles down. “More or less, yeah.”
Taissa sobers, brows still drawn, a frown pulling at her lips. “Well that’s a stupid fucking thing to ask,” she speaks coldly. Her hands have long since fallen from Van’s face; they fiddle in her lap now, picking carelessly at a hangnail. Van doesn’t dare move a muscle.
“Why? Everyone’s seemed pretty set on going their separate ways these past few days- everything’s changing, if things changed between us it would make sense-”
“I don’t want to do this without you, Van- this whole coming back thing. I don’t want you to move to Hartford or wherever the fuck it is, I want you here. Because I’m scared to go to sleep and everything smells so weird now and my parents are making me feel insane so… I don’t know what you’ve got planned but… us going our separate ways is not part of my plan, alright?”
Van grins despite herself, letting Tai’s words settle that childlike part of her that is waiting for everything to reach its end. “Alright, Tai.”
Taissa visibly softens, the defensiveness falling away as she settles back into bed, opening her arms for Van. They assume the same position as before, Van tucked against Taissa’s side, half draped across her, Tai’s cheek against her hair. Van wonders if Taissa prefers them sleeping this way, allowing Van to anchor her, a physical weight keeping her from disappearing into the night.
She catches sight of the air mattress once again, thinks about asking Tai to set her alarm clock so she can switch beds before sunrise. But Tai’s breaths are so steady, her body so lax, Van can’t bring herself to do so. Instead, she listens to the steady beat of Tai’s heart and muses on what might have been the longest day of her life.
Van whispers into the darkness, “I love you, Tai.”
A reply comes in the form of a kiss against her hairline and a murmured, “I love you too, Van.”