Archive of Our Own

Harrow had long been convinced that mandated family mealtimes would be her undoing.

Things really couldn’t get much worse than they had been at Mithraeum dinners, dining with a man who wanted to kill her, the man who’d ordered that man to kill her, and three other people who did nothing to stop that man trying to kill her, but it turned out that things could easily be terrible without necessarily being worse. It was a high bar, after all.

The evening started inconspicuously enough, all things the same as they had been since they’d arrived here. Dinner had been cooked and placed on the table in platters and baskets, allowing everyone to select for themselves so that Harrow could nibble on a few small greens and bread and Gideon could pile her plate with everything in sight. Paul poured water for everyone, and pointedly filled it at intervals to ensure you were drinking. If you refused, they would fill until it overflowed, which Harrow had experienced several times and had no desire to repeat. Humiliatingly, this meant she drank the water.

All in all, the ‘family meals’ were not terrible. Harrow was permitted to eat what she liked for the most part, as long as ‘what she liked’ was something, and nobody ever got piss drunk and started making out at the table. Nobody ever exploded and she never feared for her life. But things still took a turn for the not-so-nice.

“There’s a problem with the water tank,” Pyrrha began, using the serious voice that Gideon referred to as the “listen up, kiddies” voice. “I’m not sure what exactly it is, but until I get a good look at it we need to be watching how much water we’re using, particularly with that damn bathtub. It would probably be a good idea to keep it at once a week for each of us until we get it sorted.”

“What?” Gideon looked up from her plate, fork clattering slightly against the side. “That’s crazy! The tank wasn’t even broken when we got here and that was like, a month ago.”

“The tank was full when we got here,” Pyrrha corrected her. “And after that rain we just had, it should be full again. But it’s not, so I’ve got to go fuck around in there and see if I can find out what the problem is. So, on the off chance I make things somewhat worse, conserving water would probably be a good idea.”

“Yeah, okay, but one bath a week?” Gideon asked incredulously. “I work out, I’m going to stink. One every two days is conservative for me.”

“It’s not ideal for any of us,” Pyrrha agreed. “But it’s better than going on as normal and suddenly running out completely. We still need clean water for cooking and drinking, too.”

“We can debate what times work best,” Paul interjected, spearing one of the leftover cubes of meat from the centre of the table on their fork. “We’ll try and schedule things around it, so that whoever’s day it is chopping wood or working outside gets the next bath, and limit the most strenuous of activities to nearer that time as well. That should make the discomfort minimal.”

“Does that mean we’re only doing wood once a week as well?”

Paul took a moment to chew their mouthful. “Ideally,” they said, once they’d swallowed it. “Maybe twice, each. We’ve got a decent amount stored up already, and the three of us should be capable of keeping up until Pyrrha gets the tank fixed. We can always adjust if the schedule isn’t working out.”

“Great. Schedules.” Pyrrha yawned. “As long as you’re on board with watching our water, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass how you do it.”

“I’m truly shocked,” Paul said, a little smile tugging at the edges of their mouth. “It’s hardly anything dramatic, really, nor does it need to be entirely rigid. One of us will chop wood for a few days and then bathe, and we’ll rotate from there. Of course, Harrow can choose a bath time anytime one of us isn’t using it,” they added, with an acknowledging glance in her direction. Harrow’s muscles stiffened instantly.

“That won’t be necessary,” she said tightly.

Gideon snorted good-naturedly at her right. She still caught the edge of Harrow’s scowl. “What, bathing?”

Harrow didn’t answer for a moment, pushing the remainder of her dinner around her plate. “I am perfectly capable of conserving water without adhering to anybody’s hygiene schedule.”

“Kid, nobody’s asking you not to bathe,” Pyrrha said, a kind chuckle in her voice. Harrow burned at the sound of it. “The situation isn’t that dire, I promise. It just takes a lot of water to have four people running a bath every couple of days. I’m just trying to keep on top of it.”

“I never implied that I was abstaining from bathing under command,” Harrow managed to get out. For all her disdain of sharing meals, she found her appetite was at an all-time low. “I don’t need to be coddled.”

“Harrow,” Paul said gently, in the voice that usually meant they were going to say something right that Harrow wouldn’t like. “We’ve been here five weeks now. Have you bathed since we got here?”

Harrow glared at the table, her muscles still brimming with tension. She didn’t appreciate the turn this conversation had taken, nor the tone of attention it had brought to her. She wished, childishly, that she could lock herself within a very small space and never talk to anybody at this table again.

It wasn’t that Harrow had simply neglected hygiene in its entirety since arriving at the safehouse - there were cloths in the bathroom, and once daily she would strip down and pad a damp one over her body, methodically ridding herself of grime and sweat. It was not as immersive as a sonic or a shower might have been, but those options were not available here. It was the large porcelain bathtub or nothing. Harrow had simply found a way to take nothing and work with it.

“There are more ways to be clean than submerging oneself in a vessel of water,” she replied, her voice dropping to a murmur. She hoped that they would take the hint and wrap up this conversation. No such luck.

“You need to be bathing, Harrow,” Pyrrha said firmly, placing her knife and fork down on the table. “Conserving water aside, a month is too long to go without a bath. I know you’re used to sonics in the houses, but you still have to take care of yourself.”

Before Harrow could disintegrate out of pure rage and shame, Gideon said, “Leave it, Pyrrha,” leading Harrow to decide that when she did lock herself away from every other person in the world forever, only Gideon would be allowed in with her.

Unfortunately, in spite of Gideon’s defence, Pyrrha did not leave it. “Look, I know you might not feel dirty enough for a bath, but it’s just as clean as a sonic would be. You get used to it after a bit.”

Harrow’s mouth moved before her brain could spasm her into silence. “Considering the low amount of times I was nearly murdered in a sonic compared to a bathtub, you could excuse me for seeing something of a difference between the two regardless.”

Silence fell over the table. Paul’s eyes stayed politely on the edge of their empty plate, as the only one unaware of the event in question. Gideon’s foot bumped Harrow’s gently under the table. She couldn’t bear to try and gauge a reaction from Pyrrha.

When the drag of the silence became unbearable, Pyrrha broke it with the scrape of dishware, reaching out for the others’ plates to begin stacking them to take into the kitchen. Gideon’s eyes met Harrow’s briefly as she reached across for her plate, but Harrow simply stood from the table and walked from the room without another word.

Harrow had been so far successful in her mission to avoid every other person in the safehouse when she walked smack into Gideon in the hallway, narrowly keeping from knocking the armful of clothes she was holding everywhere.

“Shit, Nonagesimus,” Gideon complained, because she had to be a shit about it even when it had been her that wasn’t paying attention walking out of her bedroom. “Are you ever going to quit sneaking up on me like that?”

“Not likely,” Harrow replied, bending to pick up a solitary sock that had dropped on the ground. It was one of Gideon’s favourite pairs, and there was a small hole in the toe. “I assume you’re commandeering the bathroom?”

“Yup,” Gideon replied, popping the p. She took the sock back from Harrow and readjusted her armful of clothes. Harrow recognised it as the t-shirt and shorts that she slept in most nights. “I’ll regret going so quickly by the end of the week, but for now I’m choosing to ignore the idea of not getting bath time.”

Gideon started off towards the bathroom, and Harrow rolled her eyes before following. “I don’t understand your enjoyment of those.”

Gideon set down the pile of clean clothes on the hamper beside the bath, shrugging at Harrow’s statement. “Clean is clean, I guess. Plus, I get way sweatier than you do. And I like the warmth of the water.”

Harrow’s stomach turned without her willing it to, shoulders tensing up close to her ears. She shook it off the best she could, trying to remain casual as she leaned on the side of the sink and watched as Gideon set the plug in and turned the water on. She fiddled with the faucets for a while, running her hand under the water until she got to a temperature she liked.

“I can’t imagine being fully submerged in hot water to be pleasant,” Harrow said.

“I know,” Gideon said, rolling her eyes light heartedly. “I remember. Barely ankle deep and hardly warmer than the salt pool.”

Harrow watched her lay out the bathmat beside the tub, pulling a clean towel out from the cabinet under the sink and hanging it on the towel rail.

“It’s not that I haven’t tried,” she confessed. “I sit in it when it’s empty, sometimes. I can withstand it when I’m clothed, but trying to clean off…”

She trailed off, and Gideon said nothing. Harrow knew she understood. She’d been there.

“I don’t think Pyrrha meant anything by it,” Gideon said. “I think she’d forgotten about it. She was there, I mean, but it wasn’t her.”

“I forget that sometimes,” Harrow said. “That it wasn’t her. I still… she still scares me.”

Gideon said nothing for a long moment, but Harrow knew there was no judgement.

“It killed me, not being there,” she said eventually. “I mean, I was, but not really, as myself. All that you went through, and I wished it wasn’t happening, but I just… I wished that I was there with you. To take care of you.”

Harrow didn’t know what to say, except that she knew that. She had apologised for it, and they had fought and cried it all out of their systems at the beginning. She knew that Gideon had seen everything, even the parts neither of them could remember. She knew that when she woke up shaking from nightmares, Gideon was trembling along with her.

Instead of any of that, she said, “I have been cleaning myself, you know,” and the tender moment was shattered by Gideon’s snort.

“I mean, are you sure? You have to be forced into eating and sleeping, which are things that keep you alive, so it wouldn’t surprise me if you hadn’t been.”

Harrow grabbed a washcloth from the rail beside the sink and chucked it at Gideon’s head, making her laugh and nearly tip backwards into the rising bathwater. “Hey, hey, watch it.”

“You’d have deserved it,” Harrow said without bite. She walked over to pick up the cloth, having fallen at Gideon’s feet, and smushed it half-heartedly into her cheek. “Maybe a fall or two will knock some sense into you.”

“There have been a lot of falls across my lifetime, sweet cheeks, so I’ve got to tell you that’s unlikely.” Gideon shuffled along the lip of the bath, seemingly unconsciously, and Harrow hesitated a moment before leaning against the empty space beside her.

“I suppose that’s for the best,” she conceded. “If you were to suddenly become wise and sensible, I’d suspect your soul had made a run for it.”

Gideon grinned crookedly at her. “You like me just as I am, and you’re too chickenshit to say it.”

“I find you far more tolerable than I would if it were necessary for me to compete with you intellectually.”

Gideon laughed, a startled sound of delight.

“Damn, Nonagesimus,” she exclaimed. “As mean as ever. It’s a good thing I like you mean.”

“You’re a documented masochist, we all know it.” Harrow peered behind her to see the rising bathwater. “Are you filling it more than that?”

“It’s not even half full,” Gideon said dismissively when she turned to look. Idly, she reached in with her fingertips to check the temperature again.

“Well, you still have to account for water displacement.”

“I’m not that massive, Nonagesimus.” Gideon rolled her eyes. “So, yeah, accounted for, and it’s still not even over my tits.”

“Nobody wants to hear about your tits, you moron,” Harrow said, flushed desperately at the thought. Gideon didn’t seem to pay her any attention, blessing upon blessings. “You don’t find it the least bit strange to be… sitting in a vessel of water like that?”

“It’s strange as hell,” Gideon said, “but stranger to get naked just to sit in water up to your hips. At least the water is warm.”

Harrow frowned. This was not an argument she particularly enjoyed, and not a particularly compelling point when a much more obvious example of a warm liquid was blood, something she always preferred not to be submerged in in a bathtub.

As an experiment, she turned to dip her fingers into the water as Gideon had before, finding it hotter than she was expecting. “By the tomb, Griddle, are you trying to boil your skin off?”

“You can’t boil titanium, baby,” Gideon replied, despite the fact that restoring her life had also restored her previous semi-mortality and therefore normal skin. “What? Hot water’s good for your muscles. I’d recommend you try it if you had any, though I reckon that kind of tension probably goes right to your bones.” She nodded towards Harrow’s shoulders, which were, humiliatingly, in their typical state of being very tense.

“You never make any sense,” Harrow complained, turning back around and surreptitiously trying to lower her shoulders a fraction.

“You should try it,” Gideon insisted, and before Harrow could shoot a look so complicated she didn’t even know how she’d achieve it, hurried to add, “just put your feet in. You don’t have to get in properly, and I’ll be here with you. It might be a nice starting point.”

Harrow said nothing for a moment. It wouldn’t be difficult to refuse, and Gideon wouldn’t push, even if she made some jackass comment to let both of them save face. But it seemed like a relatively harmless way to, for lack of a better term, dip her toes in.

“If your ridiculously hot water burns the nerves from my feet, I’ll hear no complaints about ‘getting outside’ or ‘wandering in the sunshine’,” Harrow warned, shifting to kick her socks off.

Gideon appeared momentarily surprised that Harrow was cooperating, but quickly recovered with a snort, saying, “Dude, you’re the one in the medical field, you should know that the water isn’t that hot,” to which Harrow snarked, “Skeletal necromancy is hardly the medical field, do I appear alike Sextus to you?” and Gideon sighed and got up to lock the bathroom door without answering her.

So that was how they ended up here: socks off, both in their underwear because their pants had been too tight to roll up to the knee. Both of their shirts hung low enough to cover them somewhat, but they were both bare down from mid thigh. The hot water went halfway up Harrow’s calves from where she was sitting, back to the wall, and was a strange sensation.

“You don’t hate it,” Gideon accused, sitting opposite her with her back to the door. Her legs were a rich brown, the auburn hair on them swaying slightly under the water. Harrow pretended very hard that she had not been looking at them.

“I’ve been in worse situations,” Harrow conceded.

Gideon snorted. “Dude, that is a low bar. I’m honestly not sure which one of us has been through worse but either way, it would have to be a pretty shit bath to even make the list.”

Harrow shifted her legs slightly, sending a very small wave of water in Gideon’s direction. Gideon retaliated in turn, sending a slightly less small wave back.

“How long do you stay in here?” Harrow asked. “Is it hard to gauge without a sonic that tells you when it’s finished?”

Gideon shrugged. “A little? I usually just stay in until it gets too cold.”

Harrow stared at her incredulously. “And you run it this hot?”

Gideon laughed. “I told you, I like the warm water. It’s really nice on your shoulders.”

“I cannot imagine submerging in this up to my shoulders.”

“Well, imagine it. Or better, imagine me submerged up to my shoulders. That’s got to be more tempting.” Gideon winked, and Harrow burned.

She curled inward, just slightly, and bent forward over her knees, trailing her fingers through the warm water. The tap continued to run and filled up the silence.

“That must have been how you felt,” she murmured, before remembering that her train of thought was not in public view for Gideon to follow along with. “Me, on the Mithraeum. That must have been how you felt on the Ninth.”

The air seemed to come out of Gideon, a steady stream of exhalation like water from a cup with a hole at the bottom. Harrow waited for her lungs to empty, a clear ploy to delay the response she’d have to make.

“You were never that bad,” she said eventually, perhaps haltingly. “I didn’t really fear for my life, even when I wished you’d just get it over with. You had too much fun playing with me.”

Harrow wasn’t sure if that was a tease or a statement of fact. It could very easily be either.

“I never thought about it, but it’s true,” Harrow murmured. “I felt like everyone was against me on the Mithraeum. I’d never felt so alone in my life. And that… it must have been the same for you. Those eight months of struggling through hell were equivalent to your whole lifetime.”

The splash of the water echoed between them, swallowing up and spitting back out those terrible words, over and over. Gideon reached over to fiddle with the taps, turning the water off even though it was just past half full and she’d been arguing how much she liked the water all evening. Then it was deafeningly quiet, and in a way that might have been worse.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she said. “I mean, I was there, but… watching isn’t the same as, y’know, helping. I got kind of attached to protecting you. I would’ve liked to keep doing it.”

“I would’ve liked you to as well,” Harrow said quietly.

She had already apologised. She didn’t know what foreign instinct it was that made her want to do so again and again since their reunion, but here it resurfaced again. She had not sufficiently considered the heartbreak she would cause Gideon in keeping her alive; she didn’t regret doing it, and never would, but often the ache of having hurt her made itself loud in her chest.

“You’re here now,” Harrow heard herself saying. It healed something, a tattered up part of her she’d never even paid attention to in the past. Saying it, knowing it was true. “I know I’m safe. My body just forgets sometimes.”

“Your body forgot when I was in it as well,” Gideon said. “Not that I was in it for long, but. I know what you mean.”

“Were you afraid of… of Pyrrha as well?”

Gideon considered this. Her head cocked to one side, letting the awful bathroom light illuminate the stray strands of her hair, making clear the developing freckles on her face. The column of her throat was strong and a pretty, rich brown.

“I didn’t feel afraid, when I saw her - thinking it was him,” she finally said. “I think I remember your body tensing, but it honestly took more effort to untense, so who knows. I mostly just felt angry. Angry at her - him - for hurting you. And once I knew it wasn’t him, I kind of just felt confused. Also angry again, because she wouldn’t shut up about fucking my mum.”

“I think,” Harrow said, “that is what the universe calls ‘payback’.”

Gideon splashed her, sending droplets of water into her clothes. “It’s funny when it’s a joke, not when someone is actually fucking your mum.”

“I’m not saying either variation is funny, I’m just saying that you asked for it.”

Gideon sighed dramatically, leaning back to the point that Harrow started to worry she’d lose her balance and crack her idiot head on the bathroom tile. “You wound me, oh dark mistress. I share my most sacred of rituals with you, and you follow just to mock me -”

“Sit up, Griddle, or sit on the floor. I didn’t go to all that effort putting you back together for you to wreck yourself on the bathroom floor acting like an idiot.”

Gideon made a face at her, but stopped acting like an idiot. At least in the sense Harrow had asked her to.

“I’m at least glad you didn’t know him by my name,” she said, her feet making swishing motions in the water. “Not that you call me by my name anyway, it’s still fucking griddle with you.”

“Kiriona,” Harrow said instead, out of spite, and Gideon made another face at her.

“You’ve always got to make things fucking difficult.” Gideon pushed the hair out of her face, messing around with it slightly. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter what you call me, I’m still here to keep you safe.”

Harrow felt her heart soften slightly. The water was warm at her calves, truly almost soothing, and rather than fear and paranoia, her focus was on Gideon. Smiling at her with kind eyes and a shit-eating grin. Her Gideon. Her cavalier. Here to keep her safe.

This insanely soft thought must have eaten away at the rational parts of her brain, because there was no other explanation for how in the next few minutes, Harrow found herself actually sitting in the tub, up to her chest in warm water and tensed all the way to her ears. Gideon was still there, close, sitting at the side of the tub with one hand over the edge for Harrow to clutch at. It was ridiculous for her to need it. But she was grateful.

She had hated bathing even before the Saint of Duty had attacked her, and had loathed this ramshackle cottage since she’d discovered it to be her only option. She would have been quite content to never get over her now paralysing fear if given the choice to use a sonic or shower for the rest of her life. Even without such options, she was deeply regretting committing to this. She was regretting everything in her life that had led to this moment.

She kept looking up at the ceiling, as if expecting to see the falling ash of dead wards, then looking back into the water and examining her skin for burns from the hot water. Neither of these things materialised. Her paranoia did not abate. Gideon remained, a gentle presence barely a breath away from her side.

“Look at that,” she was saying idly, swaying the hand that Harrow was clutching. “See? It’s not so bad, when you take out all the murder and shit.”

Harrow didn’t respond, neither amused nor upset by the tease. She was relieved that Gideon was talking. She was grateful she was there.

Sometimes she thought back to those months on the Mithraeum, when she was particularly distressed or unable to sleep, reliving what fragments she could remember. The Body had been with her, more than she ever had in life, and her presence had been Harrow’s only balm, kindle to the scorching desire just to be held - blazing riotously, all the time, from wildfire to embers but never out. She had been so alone, with Alecto the only thing to hold her together, her solitary companion.

Each time she thought about it, she considered the idea that it had never been about Alecto at all, but rather about creating a body - any body - to direct her desires and act as some sort of guardian. So that her mind could know she was being watched over, looked after by an untouching presence, even when her brain couldn’t allow her to comprehend who was really there.

Gideon was still watching over the rim of the bathtub, smiling softly at her with no awareness of what she was thinking. Harrow remained trembling, but that smile eased the worst of her tension and brought it back down to a normal level. Gideon’s thumb stroked the back of her hand in a soothing rhythm.

“What do you do?” she managed to make herself say, her voice low but not shaky. “Do you just sit here for however many hours it takes to go cold?”

Gideon snorted good-naturedly at the jab, her thumb skimming over Harrow’s metacarpals. “I mean, I do clean myself. That takes up a bit of time, I mean, with all these muscles to cover.” She flexed a little with her free arm, and Harrow failed to avert her eyes as was her intention.

“I see” was all she managed to say in response, her mouth dry. “And this is such a valued use of your time it requires hours out of the evening three or four times a week.”

“Like how your nerd shit is such a valued use of your time it requires hours out of the night when you should be sleeping?”

Harrow smiled a little in spite of herself before she even became conscious of it.

“Shut up,” she replied, nudging Gideon’s hand obnoxiously against the rim of the tub. Gideon nudged right back, matching Harrow’s crescent grin with a crooked one of her own.

“Make me,” she answered.

All things were calm, and for a moment Harrow even understood the allure of the warm water, the stillness on her skin and around her. It was as if some internal bridge had been crossed, some part of her less broken than before. And then the crash sounded from out in the hallway, and that bridge tumbled right down into the chasm below.

It was not a particularly loud sound, more like the bump of somebody walking into something or knocking something to the floor, but what followed was the unmistakable gruff sound of Pyrrha’s voice. And at that, all Harrow’s rationality seemed to flee all at once.

She wasn’t sure if she was screaming - she didn’t think so - but her head turned to nothing but white noise to the point where she probably wouldn’t have known even she had been. The hot bathwater turned icy all in one second, churning like an ancient sea, and the walls of the bathroom succumbed to a haze that made it all seem like one place she never wanted to return to. When everything blurred to a white background, it was hard to find a part of her trauma-riddled brain that could differentiate between safety and danger.

Her muscles were hard and tense as iron, and she felt them contract, bringing her face towards her knees so that it almost went under the water. Distantly, she felt herself thinking about how this was exactly why the bathwater shouldn’t be this high, and then she thought that this was why she didn’t want to bathe in the first place, and then she was shaking so hard even her own thoughts became aught but distant screaming.

She was distantly aware of Gideon’s voice, her body moving somewhere in her periphery, but all that existed presently was the rushing of her blood and the trembling of her hands. The bathwater sloshed up against the sides with her movement, though she wasn’t certain if she knew that from hearing it or feeling it. She didn’t feel like she was doing much of either.

Her face briefly breached the surface of the water, her mouth open enough that she immediately choked when her body tried to continue hyperventilating. She wasn’t sure if she could remember how to pull herself up, but that didn’t matter when a hand cupped her jaw and pulled her up, drawing her back into a warm, solid body.

Harrow coughed hard, her body spasming, and Gideon drew her in close, holding her gently and yet restraining her enough that she was no longer at any risk of going under. Her arms didn’t waver, not even when Harrow gagged and retched slightly over the side of the tub; just cradled her and stroked gentle patterns over the wet fabric of her t-shirt.

Harrow wished she was able to take it in as more than just background noise. Gideon’s presence knocked against her like a heartbeat, constant and persistent, but just out of focus as she trembled and flashed in and out of seconds that felt like she might black out. When the world came back into focus somewhat she was rocking back and forth in Gideon’s arms, remaining close, and gasping like she’d never tasted air before with her shoulders tensed up around her ears. Gideon’s voice came back in fragments.

“I’m here, it’s alright, you’re safe. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I should have been there… should have known… too much…” Gideon hung her head against Harrow’s and rocked with her, just for a moment. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You’re alright.”

Harrow was still fighting to get her breath back, feeling like her lungs might never be satisfied again. The first thing she managed to get out as far as her own memory served was, in a startling rasp, “Stop apologising to me.”

Upon hearing that Harrow was once again lucid, Gideon seemed to sober up somewhat, though her arms remained solid around her. She hung her head again, tucking her face into the side of Harrow’s neck. “Just breathe, follow me, okay? Slow and steady, like this.”

Gideon’s deep breathing against her back only made Harrow more upset, irrational as it was considering how much she cherished Gideon’s breathing, particularly in rough times like this moment. Her chest seized again, demanding more air than she could hold, and Gideon tried to soothe her as she twisted frantically in her arms and scanned the empty bathroom. After what seemed like ages of scanning the room, working herself into further hysteria despite the evidence she was, indeed, safe, Gideon put a palm on her cheek, guiding her gaze towards her. Harrow startled like a rabbit under Gideon’s intense look, but slowed her panic to allow herself to focus on her.

“It’s alright,” she said again. “Nobody can hurt you here. I promise. I’ve never let it happen before, and I’m not about to now.”

At this, Harrow took her first proper breath and nodded slowly, to indicate her understanding. She leaned forward, allowing herself to be guided into Gideon’s shoulder, and felt the tension in her shoulders loosen, just a fraction. And then, suddenly and unbearably, she burst into tears.

It was horrifying, the speed and intensity with which it overtook her. She buried her face into Gideon’s damp shirt and dug her fingers into as much of her as she could hold, needing her close more than her panicking body had demanded for excess air. She had cried in front of Gideon before, several times, but the way this episode approached the line between crying and tantrum was utterly humiliating. Yet, Gideon put her arms around her and clung right back.

Harrow likely couldn’t have scared Gideon off she’d tried, she was realising. Not with panic attacks or gagging over her shoulder or shaking and crying like a pathetic toddler. The realisation was terrifying and comforting all at once.

She was rocking herself, mostly unconsciously, even as she held on tight to Gideon’s shoulders. Rather than trying to still her or distance herself, Gideon moved with her, matching the rhythm Harrow hadn’t even realised she’d been setting.

“You’re safe,” Gideon murmured into the dampness of her hair. “You’re safe.”

“My body doesn’t know that,” Harrow managed to grit out, a moment of frustration amid the waves of tears.

“Yes, it does,” Gideon said. She continued rocking with her, and Harrow felt the barest touch of her lips against her scalp. “It knows how to fight when you’re in danger. And you’re not in danger. You’re just afraid.”

Harrow sniffled pathetically, but didn’t have a response to that. Slowly, her snotty breathing started to even out, her head still pillowed soft on the muscle of Gideon’s shoulder. Gideon stroked her shoulder blades down the contour of her spine as she hiccupped her way through the last of it. The water lapped, cooling, around their intertwined bodies.

After some time of the silence, Gideon cleared her throat.

“I, uh – sorry. Pulling you out of the tub didn’t seem like the right move for the situation, so I kind of thought this was the next best thing.”

Harrow finally registered what had happened – upon witnessing her panic attack, Gideon had freaked out and climbed into the bath after her, still fully clothed – and managed a weak breath cousin to laughter.

“I appreciate that,” she said. Her voice was very low and hoarse. “That likely… would not have helped the situation.”

“Yeah, no,” Gideon agreed. Then: “We can get out now though, if you want.”

Harrow hesitated, considering the sensation of the water cooling on her skin like blood, and shook her head. It was too much to bear right now.

Gideon nodded in understanding, and they lapsed back into silence. The water moved, subtle and soft, at the top of Harrow’s spine. Gideon’s fingers were gentle but not still, serving to remind her that she was not alone, that she was safe, that she was protected.

Fear was a bitter creature. Crouched over Harrow’s battered brain, it swore to her she was only letting her guard down. That something was still yet to come, and would now find not only herself, but Gideon. If only logic were a worthwhile weapon against fear.

“Talk to me,” she managed to say, feeling her voice rise embarrassingly with the tempo of her breathing. “About anything. Just talk.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment,” Gideon said with an audible grin, lifting one hand to stroke her hair as if it were nothing but a casual movement. “Open permission to talk, about anything that I want to. Hmm. But now I have to actually choose a topic. You know, I don’t think I actually know anything other than traumatic stories of my past and flimsy skin mag plots.”

Harrow closed her eyes, jaw tight and breathing heavy. “Fine.”

“Ha ha, I always knew you were secretly curious about those.” Gideon poked the ridge of her shoulder, barely a tap considering their usual friendly jabs. Though her indignancy rose unbidden, Harrow appreciated it, and huffed an amused sigh. “Where to start? Got a preference – aside from blonde and stringy pipe cleaner legs?”

“Griddle.”

“Right, I’ll pick something. I’ve got enough material for hours, God knows there was fuck all else to do on the Ninth. So, there’s this one that’s set in the cohort, and the soldier is all uptight and sore from training, so they get sent to see this flesh magician masseuse who is supposedly, ahem, very good with her hands…”

“You wouldn’t need flesh magic to be a masseuse.”

“Oh, it might not be relevant to the short-lived massage part but believe me, it’s very relevant later in the story.”

Harrow rolled her eyes and sunk back into Gideon’s arms as she prattled on about all kinds of crude metaphor and symbolism that allegedly enhanced the experience of what was, really, shoddily packaged pornography. It wasn’t a conversation that Harrow had ever necessarily envisioned herself having, but the cadence of Gideon’s voice distracted her from fear and allowed her to pick apart the inaccuracies of her pathetic excuses for literature instead of constructing elaborate hypotheticals in which they were both somehow attacked and killed.

Sometime after the second or third wretched tale, Gideon shifted and said, “Hey, uh. Do you mind if I wash your hair? I can keep talking if you want.”

Harrow paused at this, momentarily. She thought of a quip about Gideon calling her dirty, but the thought of taking the time to say it was painful. She hardly wanted to speak at all, though a short reply wasn’t unbearable. “You’d like to?”

“I mean, yeah, sure. I’ll be gentle, promise.”

Harrow shifted further into the bathwater, tipping her head back against Gideon’s chest. “I wouldn’t expect otherwise.”

Gideon was uncharacteristically silent as she fumbled for the shampoo bottle and fought to get the liquid out. Harrow didn’t mind; her fear had quietened to background noise as it was. She let out a breath as Gideon’s hands wove into the mess of her hair, lathering it until she felt the bubbles.

“I have tried to wash it,” she found herself saying absently. “Soap was too much to bother with in the sink, but I’ve been rinsing it thoroughly.”

“Better than nothing, I guess,” Gideon said. “It’s long. For you, I mean.”

“It’s been longer.”

“I mean, yeah, when it was cursed.” She felt Gideon cup water in her palm and drizzle it carefully onto Harrow’s scalp. She was so careful not to get it in her eyes, as if Harrow hadn’t been accustomed to being submerged in ice cold water since childhood. “I can cut it, sometime. If you want.”

“I haven’t decided if I like it yet.” Harrow tipped her head back a little further to aid her, and tried to avoid eye contact when her face swam into view. “Perhaps it’s nice to look different than I did then. Perhaps I still need some anchor to the way that things were. It’s hard to say.”

“You always look nice,” Gideon said. Harrow wasn’t certain she was aware she’d said it. Her stomach twisted.

“Has Paul been cutting your hair?”

“They did, yeah. I think Pyrrha’s been doing theirs, though. I’m sure they’d teach me if I asked. I’m a very quick study.”

“You are. It’s all that depthless intelligence of yours.”

Gideon snorted, though Harrow had only been half joking. Her hands were gentle and strong, massaging Harrow’s scalp while she washed the soap into the water. She smoothed it back from her forehead, still careful of her eyes. “Okay. You can sit up now.”

Harrow turned to face her in sitting, even though this wedged her knees against the sides of the tub at an awkward angle. Once again, she was confronted with the fact that she and Gideon were sharing a bath in their underwear and t shirts, which was at once laughable and so vulnerable that it hurt. Her chest ached, the same ache of whenever she looked upon her, but more focused somehow.

She said, as steadily as her voice would allow, “Your turn.”

Gideon looked surprised, as if Harrow had to be talking about something else, but said nothing as Harrow raised her eyebrows and gestured to the shampoo bottle. She was speechless as she handed it over, and obediently shimmied down the tub to allow Harrow to reach her ridiculous mop of hair.

At the beginning, Harrow was very careful not to say anything. She could feel Gideon’s eyes on her as she lathered up her hands and leaned forward, somewhat awkwardly, to squish it into her hair. She found herself checking her face for any signs of pain or discomfort, paranoid she was doing something wrong, and then they were just watching each other, Gideon half submerged, Harrow’s hands in her hair. It was poetry given form. She didn’t have the words for it.

She made a noise in the back of her throat, fumbling for something to say, and before she could land on something – probably saccharine and embarrassing like I think my body knew I was safe because you were here or I haven’t needed to fight since I had you back – her hand on the side of the tub slipped into the water. This was immediately a disaster, because trying to catch herself with her other hand only succeeded in dunking an unsuspecting Gideon into the frothy water, and Harrow pulled her whole body back so fast that she lost her balance and slipped halfway under as well. In front of her, Gideon was spluttering, wiping her face and ruffling the suds from her fringe.

“Fuck,” Harrow gasped, elbows weak as she pushed herself back up. “I didn’t – are you -? God, I’m so – “

Gideon giggled a little, which shocked the apology out of Harrow’s mouth. She righted herself at the foot of the tub, leaning forward to pull Harrow flush with her again. Harrow went willingly, pliant, unsure what movements she could make without causing disaster again.

“I figured you’d get your revenge for all the comics talk, but no need to waterboard me.”

The joke was such a relief that Harrow surprised herself with a laugh, relaxing into one of the knees that bracketed her body.

“There’s still soap in your hair,” she said. Gideon’s breath seemed to catch when she reached out to touch a few of the suds, pulling them down the wet lock of ginger hair.

“I believe that was your job,” she managed, her voice a little strained. It was one of those things that Harrow pretended not to notice, and thought extensively about. She dipped her fingers in the water, unwilling to force Gideon down a second time, and lifted the water up to Gideon’s hair. They were quiet, again, aside from the swishing of the water when Harrow lifted it and the drips as it chased her back down.

“Thank you for treating me gently.” The words came out in a whisper, before she’d even authorised it. Gideon’s gaze snapped to her, surprised, and she had no choice but to pretend she’d intended to voice these things all along. “I know it’s not… it’s something we’re both learning.”

For a moment, Gideon didn’t say anything. Harrow ran out of bubbles to wash away and pretended to be busy anyway, dripping water onto Gideon’s scalp and massaging it in. Her arm ached with the reach of it.

“You’re gentle with me,” she said eventually. “No one else has ever felt the need to be before.”

“I’m not meant to be treated gently,” Harrow said. “But ever since I told you that, you’ve… you held onto me. Despite what I was. What I did to you. You’ve gone out of your way for me.”

“Says the girl who literally faced down hell single handedly to put the heart back in my chest,” Gideon retorted. She dipped her fingers into the water then, and mirrored Harrow’s gesture, dripping water onto her scalp. Harrow let her arm drop. “You deserve to be treated with gentleness. Even if you didn’t, I want to. You’re quite small and holdable.”

Harrow knew it was a joke, partly, but she couldn’t stop the blush from rising to her cheeks. She knew that Gideon would see it; she’d been an expert at reading her even before she abandoned the paint, and now was essentially an open book. She also knew that Gideon would adhere to their silent agreement to pretend not to notice such things.

“I wanted to thank you for sticking up for me at dinner as well,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“You and your have tos,” Gideon complained. “I’ve never done anything I was meant to a day in my life, stop acting like you’re surprised.”

“It meant a lot to me,” Harrow continued, trying not to let the vulnerability drain out just because Gideon couldn’t handle it without a joke. “Regardless of whether it was necessary.”

Gideon did not try to make a second joke. Instead, she smiled and poked Harrow in the cheek. Harrow retaliated immediately, sticking her thumb right into her dimples.

“Like I said, Pyrrha doesn’t remember sometimes,” she said. “She still thinks of you as her kid, and you still see her as your killer. I was hoping to stop things before – well. They didn’t exactly get out of hand, but it wasn’t ideal. I was thinking about talking to her in the morning, if you don’t mind.”

“I expect she’ll seek me out if I come out of hiding,” Harrow said, her stomach feeling leaden.

“I can get to her first if you like, ask her not to press it. Be a sort of go-between.”

Harrow loved Gideon. The truth of it floored her suddenly, with such a simple offer held out as casually as the other half of an orange every lunchtime. It had taken them both a long time to be comfortable with Pyrrha, even if Gideon was mostly okay by now, and yet the offer was still so much. It was almost too much, if the strain of Harrow’s heart against her chest was anything to go by.

Love wasn’t always an arduous trek through hell, or a mad dash across a battlefield, sword drawn. Sometimes it was a few mere words promising something simple, so personal and deep that it became incomprehensible. She momentarily lost the ability to speak.

Mouth dry, she managed, “I might appreciate your help, to some degree.”

Gideon smiled at her again. “Just say the word, my mistress of darkness.”

Harrow didn’t have any words to say. They’d all left her as surely as the breath in her lungs. She and Gideon had been staring at her too long. They were too close. Everything silent had been made out loud in the meeting of stares, the parting of lips, the refusal to move away.

It happened slow, and not just in the way that stories would describe everything as slowing down around them when anything happened. Harrow was the first to lean in, just enough to make her intentions clear without crossing any further lines. Gideon watched this movement with something like disbelief, her eyes tracking the tilt of Harrow’s chin, the way her eyes fluttered to her lips and stayed there. Gideon’s movement forward was impossibly slower, as if she wouldn’t be allowed to be the one to make that final movement. They got as far as brushing noses before Harrow leaned up the rest of the way and closed the gap.

Her hands snaked out of the water and found their way dripping into Gideon’s hair, truly exploring it now, eradicating the last of any soap bubbles in the back of her hair. This time when the slippery angles of her body slid against the sides of the tub into Gideon, she caught her without difficulty, pulling her flush like it was instinct. Harrow sighed into her mouth and let them fall together as if they might meld into the same person if she only let them.

Don’t you understand now, she wanted to say, don’t you understand why I never could have said yes to Lyctorhood? Why I could never have said goodbye to the you that I know, and settled for having you protect me from the inside out. Don’t you understand what I wanted?

In spite of the way this welled up in her chest, Harrow couldn’t be convinced to reopen old wounds when Gideon had already done her best to forgive her, so she poured every unspoken word into the way she kissed her, gentle and unyielding, repentance and forgiveness, gratitude and apology. Gideon seemed to be adjusting to the idea that this was happening and she was allowed to be kissing Harrow in return, and began learning the rhythm in which they could move together. Harrow’s lips hurt in all the places where she had bitten them; Gideon felt the roughness of the scabs and turned gentle in response, as if she was kissing them each better, one by one. Her hand rested on Harrow’s jaw, keeping her close.

Distance didn’t feel natural anymore. Harrow could hardly move back enough to breathe without feeling bereft.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Gideon whispered, voice hoarse.

Harrow resisted the urge to huff in annoyance. “Benefits of free will, I suppose,” she said instead. She leaned close again, this time simply running her nose along the line of Gideon’s jaw. In a lower tone, she said, “I grew tired of pretending like I didn’t want to.”

Gideon shuddered, and Harrow planted a chaste kiss on her throat. Her arms hadn’t wavered from around Harrow’s waist. The bathwater was beginning to go cold.

“We should probably dry off and look for some new clothes,” Gideon murmured eventually.

“Have I outlasted all your endless stamina for long baths?”

Gideon laughed a little, as if surprised by the joke, though it wasn’t as rare an appearance from Harrow’s lips as it might once have been. “You stole all the warmth from it. And you didn’t let me fill it up as much anyway.”

“Oh, truly, I’ve made this an unforgivable experience.”

Gideon placed a hand on Harrow’s hip, steadying her at one side of the tub while she hoisted herself up with as much care as she could muster. She shivered slightly at the cold as she stepped out of the tub, dripping water as she reached for the nearby towel. She held out her other hand for Harrow, waiting with the softest of looks on her face.

There was the tiniest measure of consideration in the back of Harrow’s mind, wondering whether it would be more like the event on the Mithraeum if she accepted the hand or pulled herself out on her own, but it was more force of habit than present anxiety. She took Gideon’s hand and allowed her to pull her onto the bathmat, wrapping the towel around her with the expected level of mischief.

“Your attempted waterboarding was hardly unforgivable,” she said, obnoxiously ruffling Harrow’s hair dry. “Besides, if I crash your weekly baths, then technically I get two, so it’s nothing but wins for me.”

Harrow rolled her eyes, unable to stifle a laugh at Gideon’s antics. “Cut it out. You know, I can dry myself, you moron.”

“Funny that. Just like I can wash my own hair.” Gideon did not cut it out. Harrow acquiesced to this, and for a moment they stood in silence, nothing but the rustling of Gideon’s towel and the dripping of excess water to the floor. After long unsuccessful minutes trying to dry Harrow’s still-sodden clothes, Gideon gave a visible shiver. Harrow snatched the towel, reaching up as best she could for Gideon’s shoulders.

“Neither of us are going to get dry without getting changed, you dolt. Don’t freeze yourself.”

“I’m pretty sure the temperature has to be a lot colder to actually freeze anything – “

“Oh, shut it.” Harrow stalked back to the bathtub, immediately undoing Gideon’s hard work to dry her arms by plunging one in to retrieve the plug. The water made an ominous gurgle as it began to retreat. “Come on, get out of here. I don’t want to be stuck listening to its hellish noises.”

Gideon made a choked off noise as Harrow grabbed the t shirt she’d set out and pulled it on over top of her soaked clothes. “Hey, that was mine!”

“Was being the operative. You have plenty of others.”

Gideon grumbled as she gathered her other things, the content of which suggesting it was more for the tradition of grumbling than out of any actual upset. She tossed both pairs of trousers at Harrow’s face, which Harrow caught with a glare she didn’t really feel. It was more of a game now than anything.

They stumbled into the hallway, carpet under damp feet as they shoved one another half-heartedly on the way to the bedroom. Before they could reach the door, Paul walked down the hallway, stopping abruptly at the half-clothed dripping wet sight of them.

They blinked, then shook their head. “No comment,” they said.

They’d probably have one by morning.

Watery sunlight was streaming through a gap in the thin curtains. Harrow blinked in the light, taking in the silhouettes of the room until it began to form a complete picture. Her head was pillowed on Gideon’s arm, and she could feel the soft rumble of her snoring at her back, warm and solid. Her other arm was a comforting weight thrown over Harrow’s waist, limp and lazy where it kept her close.

It had become something of a habit in the previous months. Harrow would stay in Gideon’s room pestering her so late that it only made sense for her to stay when she was finally coerced into getting some sleep, or she would creep her way in in the middle of the night after nightmares, or anxiety, or just general sleeplessness. Gideon pretended to be annoyed about it, but her body was always warm and welcoming when Harrow crawled in to curl up next to the beating of her heart. Secretly, Harrow thought she slept better the nights when she snuck in.

Careful not to wake her, Harrow eased her way out from under the blankets, pulling them up over Gideon’s now-exposed chest and arms. She stirred slightly, grumbling in her sleep, but didn’t wake.

Harrow shivered a little in the morning chill, which seemed to get a little colder with every morning that passed, and pulled on a few layers – the trousers she’d left on the floor last night, the first sweater and pair of socks she could find. She’d warm up after a cup of the herbal tea that she’d been drinking most mornings.

She tiptoed her way out to the kitchen, careful of the creakiest parts of the floor when the day was so early. In spite of her care, she walked out to find the kitchen already occupied, Pyrrha Dve staring up at her from across the counter.

“Oh,” she said, seemingly surprised by Harrow’s willingness to show herself. (Harrow hadn’t really thought about it before bumping into her.) “Good morning. I’ll, uh – I’ll let you have the floor.”

“No need,” Harrow said quickly, before Pyrrha could move out and bustle past her. “I don’t mean to intrude; I was just up to get some water.”

“You’re not intruding,” Pyrrha said, some of the tension leaving her perpetually bunched shoulders. She moved to the tea kettle, which Harrow knew would make an awful whistling sound, apparently deciding that it didn’t matter so much if she was only waking 50% of the house’s occupants. “You live here, too, you know.”

Harrow wasn’t sure how to respond to that, picking her steps across the worn carpet. “I typically think of it as more borrowing a room. Perhaps given board as an extension of Griddle.”

“Just because you don’t do all the physical labour doesn’t mean it’s not your place,” Pyrrha said, and Harrow’s throat went tight. She stopped at the kitchen counter, not brave enough to cross the threshold from carpet to linoleum.

Pyrrha wasn’t quite facing Harrow, but she could tell from the fidgeting of her hands and the refusal to look in her direction that her attention was on her. It was, for a dizzying moment, a deeply Gideon gesture.

“I apologise about last night,” Pyrrha said eventually. “I – didn’t remember. Initially. Those memories are always fuzzy, for me.”

Harrow’s mouth was dry. She found herself unable to speak, but nodded a little, just enough for Pyrrha to see in her periphery.

Pyrrha shook her head, running one hand over the stubble there. “No, kid – Harrowhark – don’t say it’s okay. Let me grovel for a bit. I shouldn’t have said those things even if you didn’t have… the reasons you do. For a lot of reasons. You don’t need me to be treating you like you’re my kid anymore.”

Pyrrha’s voice choked on the last couple of words. Harrowhark wondered what it was like to love a child, or even the idea of one, wanting them to grow up better than you had. The Ninth’s parenting style did not focus on improvement, but perpetuation of all their traditions and generational trauma. There was care in it, but not love. She knew that the way Pyrrha looked at her and Gideon swayed unsteadily over that line in a way that terrified them both. Maybe even all three of them.

“It’s hard to appreciate any gestures you show when I’m still… learning how to see you,” Harrow struggled to articulate. “I know that it’s not you. But my body hasn’t learnt it yet, and I’m still remembering to think of you as anything else.”

“I don’t remember all of it, at least not as automatically as you do,” Pyrrha said, matching Harrow’s tone for softness. “But I remember you saving us. Me, then. In the incinerator. That’s what I think of you as, when I can differentiate you from – Nona.”

They didn’t talk much about Nona, but Harrow knew that was all Pyrrha saw every time she looked at her. She nodded, lump in her throat, and looked at the worn patches of the countertop.

“She’s not the only reason I take care of you, you know. Or I try. You’re a good kid, and you’ve had a hard life, and –“ She hesitated. “Look, you didn’t deserve what Gid – the Saint of Duty did to you. I couldn’t stop him for all that I tried, but I keep feeling like I can make it up to you now. Even when I go too far or forget the specifics or otherwise fuck it all up.”

She put her elbows on the counter, her head in her hands. Harrow could see the contours of her skull underneath the veil of red-brown stubble.

“I should just let you be,” she continued. “Gideon, too. I’m not your parents. You don’t need my meddling.”

Harrow was still for a moment. The kettle started its jarring squeal, slowly rising in pitch and volume.

“It’s hard, to have lived in a body other than your own, or with somebody other than you inside yours,” Harrow said eventually. Pyrrha’s head stayed down, but turned to one side in a way that gave away her attention. “I was much less present alongside Nona as you were alongside Ort… the Saint of Duty. I don’t have any memories, not consciously. But there are feelings that well up, sometimes, and I know they didn’t start with me. A want to be taken care of. Fragments of things that I can’t remember happening. This body remembers your care with it, in the same way my mind remembers violence from yours. It’s a strange conflict of emotion.”

“Sure sounds like it.” Pyrrha wasn’t quite smiling, but she looked a little less tortured. “I guess it’s, uh… something we can work on?”

Harrow knew it was a question beyond the one in the words. She knew her nod in reply had more words to it, too. “I suppose so.” Then, she added, “Perhaps I can relieve you of cooking duties tonight, as a small gesture. How do you feel about soup?”

Pyrrha winced, moving away from the counter to retrieve the now-frantic teakettle. “Gideon must be a damn good influence on you if you’re making jokes now.”

Harrow noticed the sensation of the smile before she noticed giving the command to her muscles to make it. She drew it in after noticing, pursing her lips together, but didn’t banish it entirely.

Behind her, there was a stumbling of sleep-heavy footsteps in the hallway, and Harrow turned just in time to see Paul’s attempt to trip Gideon, quickly escalating into shouts and headlocks and bodies bumping against the ancient cabin walls. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly as Gideon looked up at her and grinned while fighting off Paul’s razor-quick jabs. Again, she noticed that sensation of a smile, and knew that Pyrrha had seen it, too. This time, she made no effort to fight it off.

“I suppose she is.”