Chapter Text
It feels almost like a long, never-ending dream.
Anya doesn’t really process any of it. It goes faster than time on the ship ever did, and every single day is a blur. For some of it, she wishes she had gone down with the ship.
“It’s normal,” Swansea says, somewhere in the meddle of her memory, “to feel a little sick, girlie— just hol’ on for a moment longer, yeah?” He had held her with one arm and Daisuke with the other, a hand on each head, his voice gruff from overuse. One of Daisuke’s hands was splayed against her back. The position was slightly uncomfortable, but even so, it was the best comfort she’d felt in years, and she wouldn’t let go for the world.
Both Daisuke and Swansea were elated to return home— to their families, even if the latter refused to show anything other more than a smile at the thought— but Anya? She had nobody to come home to. Hell, the ship was the only home she’d known for so long, and even then she never truly felt safe within its walls.
Neither did Curly. Curly, who Anya didn’t quite hate. Curly, who Anya almost loved. Curly, who was so close to death and yet she held, in a sick way, a resentment towards him— not a fear, she never truly feared him like she had Jimmy— almost like a grudge, or as close as one as she could get. It felt too cruel to call his state a retribution or even something as violent as revenge, it hurt her to see him like this, but it was…
…she wasn’t sure how to name it. But, Anya wasn’t expected to. Curly had been taken to a hospital. She had been taken to Swansea’s and told to rest.
It brought them around to where they were now. Daisuke and Swansea, still living with their families, helped move Anya and Curly— Anya from Swansea’s daughters’ room and Curly from the hospital— to a close by apartment. For safety, Swansea said, but Daisuke said it was because they would miss being with the two of them if they were too far away. The thought made her smile. The notion of being loved was simply so strange.
The apartment was about as good as good got. She had her own room (with a lock! Swansea had pulled her aside gently, a hand on her wrist, and made sure she knew), as did Curly, slowly recovering and regaining what little voice he had left. The speech tablet had been brought from the hospital and remained fixed to his wheelchair.
Daisuke brought a few old posters he had lying around, Swansea brought kitchenware, and before Anya knew it— it had become home. Home, a word so foreign before, familiar now. It was a beautiful thought.
Even Curly thought so. She spent her days at work—a new job as a nurse at a nearby hospital that saw nearly no patients, but it was enough to keep them going— and she spent her nights at home, with Curly, in the excruciating journey to give him back his autonomy. There was an irony to it, she thought— that the two of them had their own bodies taken from them, hers with the marks stretching across her stomach from one agonising night on the ship, and his with the skin and flesh that had been torn from him— but also a beauty, maybe. They would survive together.
“Ah, look how pretty it is!”
Anya, shaken from her thoughts, glances up to where Daisuke is pointing. Swapping the grocery bags she’s holding to her left side, she rolls her right shoulder to relieve its tension. Moonlight sparkles over the distant ocean, and the shore glows silver under the night. “Oh…it’s a beach.”
Daisuke, holding onto the second bag of groceries to fill Anya and Curly’s fridge, grins and pulls her with his opposite hand, tugging her towards it. “It’s so pretty! I’ve never seen it at night.”
It was quite pretty, she had to admit, as the hard cement beneath her feet slowly turned to sand. Anya had never actually been on a beach before in her life. It was considered a luxury when she was young, and remains as faraway and unfamiliar now as it had then.
“Come on, Anya!” Daisuke laughs, already kicking off his shoes, tossing the bags of groceries to the side. In the moonlight he looks almost younger, Anya thinks. “Live a little!”
She wants to protest. Anya has barely had time to live, let alone survive, let alone even think for so long— Curly is waiting for them, Swansea is waiting for them, for the groceries too— but the boy seems so…happy and carefree, that the argument dies in her throat. “Oh…alright. Just for a while, okay? And then we—”
“—have to get back or else Swansea will grouch, yeah, yeah,” he smiles, holding his hand out. “Dance with me, Anya?”
Anya always believed that a person’s worst moments didn’t define them as a person. A monster didn’t do one bad thing that branded then as such. That then leads her to the conclusion that a good moment in someone’s life didn’t mark them as a good person, either— that this moment here, the wind in her hair, the scent of salt drifting from the ocean, Daisuke’s laughter ringing out for miles, wouldn’t define her, as beautiful as it was. A
s much as she wanted to think of herself as good, it was difficult. One good moment wouldn’t define her. A thousand bad ones would.
But…it was about time that Anya learned to live.
“I don’t know how to dance,” she says meekly, pulling off her shoes and placing them next to Daisuke’s. It was true. She was anything but a dancer, but it didn’t seem to deter Daisuke, who still incessantly tugs at her hand.
“It’s fine! You don’t need to know— just follow how I do it!” He makes it sound so easy. He makes so much sound so easy, this young boy, this young man. This kid who had barely seen the beginning of his life. Daisuke beamed with the age of the sun and the joy of the sky, barely a scar— physical or mental— from their time on the Tulpar. Anya bore the marks of something that haunted her across her stomach, eyebags from countless sleepless nights, and he bore nothing but a bright smile.
Anya tries. She tries to follow his movements, follow the beat— he hums and sings a song unfamiliar to her, grinning and laughing between the words— and he takes her hands and guides her along. “How do you do this?” She says breathlessly as he spins her around.
She could be talking about anything— about grief, about tragedy, about living and laughing and breathing, or about dancing on a beach— but all he does is grin and finally finishes his dance with a dramatic flourish.
“Well, that’s the thing, Anya,” Daisuke brings her in for a tight hug. Months after everything, she’s finally comfortable with being held, and Anya sinks into the embrace. “We just keep going.”
“Took you young’uns long enough,” Swansea huffs, when the two of them make it back to the apartment. There’s sand uncomfortably wedged in her socks, but a smile on her face, one that Curly seems to notice as his face stretches and he smiles back at her. “What kept ya?”
Daisuke grins and takes Anya’s grocery bag from her, piling them both on the counter, much to Swansea’s chagrin, who starts picking up the groceries and putting them away. “We stopped at the beach! Anya’s never been, did you know? It’s so pretty at this time of night!”
Anya nods, before moving to Curly’s chair. Coming out of recovery, he is no longer as restricted in voice and movement as he had before. She’s glad— he had always loved expressing himself.
“We should all go together one day!” Daisuke laughs, tossing the milk carton in the air and catching it again. “Maybe if we renovate Curly’s wheels, so he can come too. Real big ones for the sand. What do you think, Captain?”
Curly wheezes out a laugh and gently wheels himself towards the kitchen. His voice is hoarse, but it becomes stronger by the day. “Sure, Daisuke, if…you stop calling me captain. Do…you need help at all, Swansea?”
“Wheel your ass back over there,” Swansea scolds him. “You’re on bed rest. I s’pose we could pay the beach a visit one of these days…if Miss Anya’s up for it.”
Daisuke tilts his head, smiling. “You in, Anya?”
“Yeah,” Anya smiles, thinking of moonlit waves and silver sand. “That…sounds like fun.”