Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ekko arrives just as she pulls the pin.

There's no time to think before he yanks the chain of the Z-Drive at his hip. Time bends and molds in front of him, reshapes itself as it puts Jinx’s body back together in a single instant.

“Wait!” is out of his mouth just as quickly.  From where he stands, he can see the spark of recognition in her eyes and slowly, as if not believing her ears, she turns her head. 

She’s hunched over, caved in on herself and cradling a bomb like it’s the most precious thing in the universe. Her hair - her hair - once in long, blue braids is now sheared off into a choppy bob. Tear streaks form a jagged black path from her eyes that, despite their vibrant color - eyes that used to be blue, he notes - are despondently empty. Lifeless.

He’s seen Jinx in many ways over the years. He’s seen her happy in the moments when they were young, working on gadgets together and still full of hope for a brighter future. He’s seen her sad, when said gadgets would jerk and fizzle out instead of exploding in the way she’d hoped. He’s seen her at her most ruthless, shooting down his friends one by one without mercy. He’s seen her frustrated, ecstatic, angry, excited, all of it. But he’s never seen her like this.

It’s such a stark contrast from the Powder he last saw that it almost knocks him over.

He takes a single step forward on shaky legs. Too many questions are running through his head right now- Who did this to her? What happened? Why is she doing this? Why? Why? Why? -  but he forces his focus down to one goal. “I just… want to talk to y-”

“Get out of here, Ekko,” she cuts him off, and pulls the pin again.

This time he anticipates it, and yanks the chain right as the force propels him backward.

Once again Ekko watches the sickening way Jinx is blown apart and put back together, but he pushes the image away the same way he pushes bile back down his throat. Time is a delicate thing not to be wasted, even when you can rewind it. He takes another step forward.

“I just want to talk to you Pow-,” fuck, “Jinx.”

This time, Jinx says nothing as she looks him dead in the eyes and pulls the pin again.

He’s propelled backward once more, but the impact of the blast catches him this time on the edge of his right eyebrow.

Time warps and reorients itself to just moments before, but the blood dripping down the side of his face and out of his nose is new, as is the smoke coming off of his skin and the heat buzzing just underneath it. His face contorts at the putrid smell of iron assaulting his senses. No matter how many fights he’s been in, it’s a smell he’s never gotten used to.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

“You’re too late, Ekko,” Jinx’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts.

“Wait!”

He hears the pull of the pin more than he sees it, and he closes his eyes before he has to see anything else as he yanks the chain again. He’s seen her die enough times now. He really, really doesn’t need to see it again, but in that thought there is a memory, followed by a sense of deja vu.

This is just like that night on the bridge. But also just like that party in the other universe, and all the games they used to play when they were kids. It’s the push and pull, the cat and mouse chase that runs through the undercurrent of everything they’ve ever done together.

“Always a dance with you,” he says, a hint of fondness slipping into his voice despite himself.

And maybe it was the playfulness in his words cutting through the tension, but something in Jinx shifts. It’s almost imperceptible, and he isn’t exactly sure what it is, but he can tell it’s got her listening. Seeing an opportunity, he takes it.

“I think I’m just gonna sit here for a minute. You know, catch my breath.” Slowly, he lowers himself down to the ground. It’s a gamble. From this position there’s no way he’s moving fast enough to get out of the way of another blast, but it’s a gamble he’s willing to bet on. “See if I can talk an old friend out of blowing us up,” he finishes with an awkward chuckle.

One second passes, and then two, and then three. Jinx removes her thumb from the trigger of the pin, and for a moment there is a swell of hope in Ekko’s chest before-

“I’m tired of talking.”

She pitches forward off the ledge.

“No!”

He’s up in a second, but it’s a second he no longer has.

He yanks the chain again. Her ascend back to the ledge happens in slow motion. In the four seconds he has, he prays to an unknown entity that he wasn’t too late. He can’t lose her again. Not after everything.

Four seconds end, and Jinx is back on the ledge, standing steady. The breath of relief that leaves his lungs could topple buildings.

They’re right next to each other now and he knows, from this position, that if she pulls the pin again she's taking them both out no matter how fast he is.

One more shot.

“You know,” Ekko starts, unsure to even himself where he’s going with this, but he needs to do something - anything - before she does. “I learned from someone…” he pauses, contemplating how much he should say. 

But this world is cruel. And he’s reminded of just how many refugees they were taking in before the anomaly at the hex gates threw him into that other dimension. Their resources were dwindling, as was their space, but he insisted on not turning people away. Try as he might he knows, deep down, that he can’t save everyone. This might be his last chance to even hint at exactly what he feels for her. She could still choose to pull that pin.

“... very special, that no matter what happened in the past, it’s never too late to build something new.”

Her gaze is a knife through his heart, and he follows it as she drags the tip of it down his body to the Z-Drive resting on his hip. Her eyes squint when they land on the monkeys nestled within their glass container.

Looking up, Ekko catches her eyes again. “Someone worth building it for.”

What seems like an eternity passes. It's only now that he takes notice of the music playing in the background. The singer's voice is high pitched and melodic, but the lyrics are haunting, giving him goosebumps all over.

Jinx quizzically looks down at the Z-Drive again with gears turning behind her eyes as she puts the pieces of what he just said and what she’s looking at together, and there's no doubt in his mind that she knows exactly what he's trying to say.

In all universes she is the smartest person he knows.

He has every reason in all of Runterra to be terrified right now. This is the most vulnerable he’s been with her in close to a decade, but despite the fact that they’ve been fighting on opposite sides for all that time and there is now a long, ugly trail of blood behind them, he’s not afraid.

Because even after everything, she is still his best friend.

“And that someone is supposed to be me?” she asks, looking back up at him. He doesn’t even need to think about his answer.

“It's always been you,” he says.

Her eyes widen a bit, and her lips part with a small gasp, but just as soon as the surprise is there, it’s gone. Still, those words hang in the air, demanding attention. All of his efforts over the last few years to create something good among the grime and dirt and blood and war - the firelights, the hideout, building a new kind of community -  converge into this one simple truth. It was all in pursuit of making sure what happened to Jinx never happened to anyone ever again.

It’s something he’s never admitted to anyone. It's the first time he’s admitting it to himself.

The sigh that leaves her lungs is heavy with the weight of all the unspoken words between them, but she’s not quite as dead looking as she was when Ekko first found her. The tear streaks on her face have dried a bit, but she’s still inarguably drained. And so, so unbelievably tired.

“I’m not worth anything, Ekko,” Jinx says, followed by a bitter laugh. “I can’t even kick my own bucket without taking someone with me. How pathetic is that?” Unceremoniously, she removes a hextech gemstone from the bomb, and tosses the bomb into the abyss. “Why are you even here?”

There are a million different answers to that question, and each one would be truer than the last. 

Because I can't give up on you again.

Because Vi would be heartbroken if she knew what you were doing.

Because you still l mean the world to me.

That last one he can’t say. At least not now. He had only come with the intention to talk, even if only to smooth things over, come to an agreement to leave the past in the past and then go their separate ways.

He certainly wasn't expecting to walk in on her trying to kill herself.

How he would start that conversation was a mystery to him as well, as he was kind of expecting to be met with an array of bullets on sight. He doesn’t even have a proper weapon on him. Not his smartest move, admittedly. He usually thinks his plans through a lot more thoroughly than this, but now that it's much safer without the bomb in her hands, he takes a couple more steps towards her.

“I had this… dream… where things went another way,” he says, recalling the same words he said to the other Powder. “And things were…. not perfect. But better. Zaun was thriving in ways I couldn’t have ever imagined before. And you and I were there, but so were Mylo and Claggor-”

Jinx flinches at the mention of their names.

“And Vander and Benzo,” he presses on. “Hell, even Silco was there.”

Jinx's eyes narrow. “What about Vi?”

Ekko takes a deep breath, and another gamble, sitting down cross legged just off the edge because there are no railings here in this universe, and taps the spot next to him. Hesitantly, Jinx sits down too, occupying the space next to him but her gaze stays fixed forward, staring at nothing. 

“Vi….. wasn’t alive in my dream. But-” he interjects upon seeing Jinx’s face twist into something painful, “despite the fact that you still went through things you shouldn’t have had to, life was good. You were good.”

“Good,” she says, like the idea is foreign to her. She pulls her knees to her chest and cradles herself. “You and Vi are exactly the same. You're chasing a fantasy.”

Ekko scooches in closer and takes another gamble. This time, it’s his hand on her shoulder. She's stone cold to the touch and it almost makes him jolt away, but he forces his hand to stay where it is. Evidently, she needs it.

“Maybe. But chasing a fantasy is the only way to find a good reality,” he says. “That’s how I started the firelights. But even then, it’s something I had to relearn recently. I got complacent. Too caught up in all the things I still haven’t done that I stopped being proud of what I accomplished.”

She presses her lips into a thin line and sighs, so big and heavy that Ekko sees and feels it more than he hears it. “I just… I don’t know, Ekko. I hear what you’re saying but…. I’ve tried to change so many times already. I don’t think I have it in me anymore.”

“Then don’t try to change,” he says. “Just try to be happy.”

Something close to a chuckle leaves her lips. “Happy, huh?”

Finally, Jinx turns her head, but instead of looking at Ekko, she looks past him. His hand drops from her shoulder as he follows her eyes, landing on a set-up where, in the other universe, Vi's memorial was. But instead of pictures of Vi, there’s a tent hovering over a bed just big enough for two. Jinx’s signature chomper ornaments hang from a fishnet enclosure above it all and, notably, so do a pair of bunny ears that catch him off guard.

They look so out of place, so unlike the Jinx he knows that he impulsively turns around with a question on his tongue, but once he sees the smile on her face, the question dies.

It’s timid, the kind of smile you give to a nostalgic memory, but it lights up her entire being regardless.

“And you think you can make me happy?” she asks, eyes meeting him with a faint glow and a hint of a challenge, but not a challenge laced with malice. More like the idea amuses her.

“I know that I used to.”

Jinx gives a noncommittal hum, pressing her cheek to her knees. Strays of blue hair fall into her face.

“A lot has changed since then.”

“Yeah. It has.” He takes one more gamble. He raises his hand, slow enough that if she wants to stop him, she can. She doesn’t. 

Delicately, he tucks the loose strands of her hair behind her ear. “But that doesn’t mean everything did.”

She forgoes outwardly reacting in favor of being impassively neutral, looking at him like he's a puzzle to solve. It's unnerving how cutting her gaze can be, especially now that her eyes are an uncanny violet. But as the song in the background fades out with a final piano note, a playful spark appears. She unfolds herself and sits back on her hands, a smirk dancing on her lips.

“The me from your dream must have been a real number for you to be all googly-eyed like this.”

Ekko is instantly hot all over. “I- well, um-”

“Can you tell me more about her?”

His stuttering comes to a halt, and he tilts his head. “Hm?”

“The me from your dream,” she says. “Can you tell me more about her?”

For a moment he can do nothing but blink, his brain refusing to register the words he just heard. But when they do, Ekko is so overwhelmed by the feeling of triumph and relief that he’s sure he looks positively goofy trying to keep the giddy smile off his face. Even if he does, there’s not a force in this universe or the next that could make him care.

“Yeah, I can. But,” he jumps up from his sitting position, extending his hand. “You have to promise to come with me.”

Jinx rolls her eyes, but some emotion from her, even if it's annoyance, is better than no emotion at all. A win is a win.

Without further preamble, she takes his hand.

-

She should be dead.

Jinx needs all ten fingers - well, nine now - to count the amount of times she’s narrowly escaped it. Some willingly, some unwillingly. The how doesn’t matter though. What matters is that it always happens. Even after all the people she’s hurt - some on purpose, some on accident - and no matter how many reasons the universe gives her to just disappear because clearly everyone is better off without her, that same universe always finds a way to make her stay.

She should be dead.

Instead, Ekko’s hand’s are over her eyes, leading her through the depths of some dark, dingy tunnel where the only light source is… whatever that thing is slung over his shoulder.

Ekko, who, right before showing up to her lair completely unannounced, had disappeared without a trace months ago. Ekko, who she hadn’t seen since that night on the bridge. Ekko, who everyone presumed was dead. Who she presumed was dead, and was nothing but a cruel, final hallucination to remind her of all the ways she’s hurt everyone she ever cared about, until he said those words.

Always a dance with you.  

How fond he sounded, endeared even, while she was holding a literal bomb in her hands. It was so ridiculous in the moment that even her fucked up imagination couldn’t have conjured it up.

“Where are we going?” she asks, not for the first time.

“I told you, I’ll tell you when we’re closer,” Ekko says.

“Well how close is closer?”

He chuckles. “Give it a few minutes. We’re almost there.”

She groans, but leaves it at that. There are worse things to be doing than walking through musky tunnels with a boy you've been at war with for almost a decade, she supposes.

She could be dead.

Closer ends up being about fifty more steps (not that she counted. But also, not like she had anything else to do), and he finally moves his hands from her eyes.

There’s a giant iron wheel in front of them about another fifty feet away with tiny rays of light peeking through in a couple spots around it. Jinx tilts her head with a scrunched up face. There’s no way there’s any natural light reaching this deep in the underground.

“What is this place?” she asks.

Slowly, Ekko steps out from behind her. She’s immediately suspicious of the apprehensive look on his face.

“Spit it out, wonder boy.”

He rubs his hands together. “We’re… at the firelight base.”

The firelight base.

The firelight base?

She gasps. Too quickly, an onslaught of memories come back to her pounding on the walls of her skull.

Memories of every raid she ever encountered the firelights on.

All the traps she set.

All the weapons thrown between them, shots fired, fists flying. 

His fists flying, that club swinging at her followed by a ferocious growl, furious that she just shot down another one of his friends. 

Blood, blood, blood. 

So much blood.

She has him pinned against the wall in an instant, shimmer pumping through her veins so hard she can feel the sting of it in her eyes.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” She presses her forearm into his throat. “A trap so you and your bug friends can finish me off for good?”

“Told you it was too good to be true,” Mylo’s voice echoes through her head. 

She shuts her eyes tight and her muscles twitch, jerky and disjointed as she violently tries to shake it away, but the momentary lapse of defense has her pinned to the wall this time with her wrists bound in one of Ekko’s hands above her head. She fights it, but he squeezes tighter, not enough to hurt but just enough to restrain.

Forcibly, her breathing evens out, and when she comes to there’s an angry look marred across Ekko’s face - he never did have the longest fuse - but then it gives way to a look of genuine hurt that reminds her of that night on the bridge and for a moment, she feels guilty. He takes a deep breath of his own to reel himself back in.

“If I really wanted you dead, I would have just let you die back there.”

Right. She should be dead. But still.

“Or maybe you just wanted to do it yourself. All those years fighting me, letting me do it would be pretty unsatisfying wouldn’t it?”

He sighs, shakes his head and looks down. When he comes back up, the hurt is replaced with a somber expression. Slowly, he closes the distance between them, stepping into her space until his face is so close to hers she can feel his breath.

“You know me well enough to know that’s not my style.”

Now she genuinely feels guilty, because she does know him well enough to know that’s not his style.

Ekko lets her wrists go, but he doesn’t back away. Instead, he brings his hand up, palm up. “Are you going to trust me now?” he asks.

Jinx bites at her chapped lips until she tastes iron. She wants to trust him so badly it aches; she's tired of existing for other people. It's the reason Jinx was so willing to go with him in the first place, because for as long as she can remember now almost everyone wanted her to be a certain way because they wanted something from her. Be a soldier on this battlefield, fight for this cause, build this weapon for this enemy, be this symbol, be strong, be brave, so on and so forth. Jinx can't even blame them. She’s spent her whole life chasing that approval. But because of that, very few people had ever given her permission to just… be. Ekko did.

But she has a hard time believing anyone else behind that door would be so on board with her newfound happiness.

“They’re not going to accept me, Ekko.”

“Let me handle that.” He hands her his palm once more.

She switches back and forth from looking at his hand to the base entrance, and slumps her shoulders. Finally, she relents, taking his hand. It’s warm, making her hyper aware of just how cold she is everywhere else. “Well, I don’t really have a choice, do I? It’s not like I know my way out of here. You made sure of that.”

“Exactly,” he says with a wink, and guides her closer to the iron wheel.

Jinx tries to ignore the flutter in her chest. Being this close to him after all this time is so weird. And yet, they’re falling back into place with each other like they never had a day apart.

He used to make her happy, after all. Maybe some things really don’t change.

“Sorry for all the mystery. It's a security measure. We do it with every newcomer.”

When they’re at the entrance, Ekko turns to her. “I’m going to go in first. Hold back a bit until my say so.”

Jinx puts her fingers to her forehead in a mock salute. “Aye aye, captain.”

He raises his fist to the wheel, knocking on it in a complex pattern.

Nothing happens. He backs up a bit, tilting his head with narrowed eyes.

Jinx snorts. “Did they lock you out?”

Ekko pointedly ignores her comment but lets out a frustrated huff, trying again.

This time, there is a rumbling behind the wheel and it’s pushed to the side slowly, just enough that there’s a full ray of light illuminating Ekko’s face. Then, it’s pushed to the side in one swift motion.

From the shadows, she watches who she recognizes as the Chirean from Stillwater and Ekko’s number two, looking at Ekko up and down - stopping at the contraption on his hip - as if he’s seeing a ghost. Not believing his eyes, he grabs his shoulders.

“Is… is it really you?”

Ekko, on the other hand, couldn’t be more confused.

“Yes? Why wouldn’t it be me?”

“Because you’ve been gone forever. We… we thought you were dead.”

Ekko looks over the Chirean’s soldier, and whatever he sees makes him take a step back as if he’s been slapped. “Dead? Scar, I’ve only been gone a couple weeks.”

The Chirean - Scar - looks at Ekko like he just grew two bat ears himself. “A couple weeks?” he asks, pulling Ekko into a tight hug. “You’ve been gone for months , brother.”

From where Jinx is standing, she can see Ekko freeze. Carefully, he steps out of the hug. “Months?”

“Where the hell have you been?”

Idly, Jinx wonders the same thing.

“I…okay, clearly I have a lot of explaining to do,” he starts, “And I promise I will eventually, but right now I need a favor and I need you to trust me on this one, okay? This is probably going to be harder than I thought now,” he mutters that last bit to himself.

But then he looks back to her, gesturing for Jinx to step out into the light.

The first thing she sees is the tree. It’s hard not to. It’s massive . But there’s a million little ledges built around it with stairs and ladders connecting each one. There are firelight lanterns hung around it too, hanging from carefully placed wires and fixtures that cast a gentle glow over the entire encampment. Even from a distance, Jinx can feel the warmth engulfing her, like a weighted blanket on a cold day.

Isha would have loved this place.

The second thing she sees is the people, all of them having abandoned what they were doing or talking about to look at their new guest in eerie silence. Some of them were the people with blue hair. Jinxers, she thinks they called themselves. There were others without blue hair, too, but within both groups, many of them had kids attached to their hips. 

The third thing she sees is the mural painted on the side of the tree. There are some faces she doesn’t recognize, but there are many she does. Vander, Benzo, Mylo, Claggor, Ekko. Vi.

Powder.

The last thing she notices is the look on the Scar’s face, and she flinches. Not because he's angry, but because he's not angry. Instead he is calm, quietly contemplating.

Ekko is the first one to break the silence. “She needs somewhere safe to stay.”

Scar looks her up and down a couple times and under his stare she remembers what she looks like right now, and immediately wishes she could hide. Her hair is still a choppy mess, her cheeks are tear streaked, her clothes are torn, and her skin is still covered in dirt and lingering bruises. She crosses her arms in front of herself, a makeshift shield from prying eyes. Scar crosses his arms to mirror her.

“Okay.”

“I know there’s a lot of history be- wait, what?”

Scar laughs to himself. “I said okay.”

Ekko squints his eyes at him. “I’m not joking.”

“I know.”

“Just like that?”

Scar steps forward and gives a friendly slap on Ekko’s shoulder. “You missed a lot while you were gone, mate,” he says, giving Jinx a nod of acknowledgement right after, much like that night in Stillwater. Tentatively, Jinx returns it.

Ekko, properly shocked, looks between them. She can tell he has a million questions of his own, but for now, ignores them in favor of just living in the moment.

Scar squeezes Ekko’s shoulder and throws his arm over it and then - as if she always belonged there - extends his hand to Jinx, too.

She takes a cautious step forward, but before she could take another Ekko’s hand is also extended. His eyes are expectant, his smile warm. This time, she doesn’t fight the flutter. She embraces it, the same way he embraces her hand and pulls her into his side, slipping his entire arm around her waist.

He leans in close to her ear so only she can hear. “Told you you could trust me.”

“Don’t get cocky,” she says, but there’s no real bite behind it.

Scar raises his fist to the sky and leads the entire base in a cheer, the sound coming from every direction. Jinx doesn't think a crowd ever made this much noise over her presence. At least not in a good way. It surrounds her, cradles her in its surprisingly accepting arms.

Maybe….. maybe …this could work. Maybe.

Chapter Text

Ekko’s return was not met with questions but with stares, all from people who had only ever seen his face on the mural on the side of the tree. And there are many of them, a testament to just how long he’s been gone, which, apparently, has been months. He’s still trying to wrap his head around it, how much time has actually passed when it felt like a blip in space to him.

In hindsight, he should have realized more time has passed than he thought. There were more murals than he’s ever seen covering the walls of Zaun’s buildings, as well as abandoned checkpoints - for what, he didn’t know - that they passed through on their way here. Some of the murals were of that enforcer Vi brought down to the Lanes, but missing in these paintings was the naivete she had when they first met. In these paintings she was draped in a dark cloak with a popped collar that gave her the impression of a monarch. Her eyes, in the ones that didn’t have blue spray paint across them, were cutting. Condescending, almost.

The other murals were those of Jinx. Specifically, the one of her standing with a blue flag raised high in the air. It was a rougher painting, not as refined as some of the others he saw, but it was the most raw one. Whoever painted it put all the desperation and hope they had into it, so much that Ekko could feel it like it was his own. Initially, though, he assumed it was in response to Jinx’s attack on the council, but now Scar’s words have him questioning, and right now Jinx doesn’t seem willing to answer any of them.

So much time has passed. All that allotted time was filled with things that happened without him there to be the person to offer a soft place to land. It’s a role he’s grown so accustomed to, and the feeling that he let everyone down is pressing, even when he knows it’s not his fault. It hurts because it’s familiar.

The only thing he can do now is try to pick up where he left off, starting with getting Jinx things to wash herself up with and some food. 

Surprisingly, his room is still his room, but even more surprising is that it has been clearly, deliberately preserved. Months of everything untouched would have made for an incredibly thick layer of dust, but the place is spotless. The mess of blueprints and drawings that he knows he left on his work desk are organized into neat piles, and the stack of books he remembers sitting on the edge are now tucked into his bookshelf.

His pens and brushes as well are sorted by size into their respective cups, whereas before they were thrown together just to have them out of the way. Even his bed is made, his pillows perfectly fluffed, and all the sheets freshly washed but cold, absent of body heat.

Knowing that even in his supposed death, someone still took the time out of their day to take care of his things is bittersweet.

He gestures to Jinx. “Feel free to take a seat anywhere,” he says, turning to his closet. “I’m just gonna get you a towel.”

He turns around and starts rummaging through his closet. Even his clothes have been taken care of. The smell of fresh outside air wafts off of them, and they’re  sorted by piece and color. He keeps his towels in the cubbies at the bottom, and he hears a plop behind him just as he grabs a purple one. He expects to see her on his bed or in his desk chair when he turns around but instead she is perched cross-legged on the desk itself fiddling with a scalpel, tracing the tip of it along that metal finger.

He jolts, and then freezes.

Instantly he sees the dark of her hideout against the silhouette of her pulling that damn pin, the flash of light, the pink smoke, the heat melting the skin off her bones that then dislodge and disperse on immediate impact over, and over, and over again. His stomach rolls, and he can’t suppress the gag that escapes his throat.

Jinx stops her ministrations and looks at him with a raised eyebrow. “Are you ok-”

“What the hell are you doing?”

The towel is abandoned somewhere behind him and he's immediately in front of Jinx, snatching the scalpel out of her hand more aggressively than he means to.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks again. Jinx looks up at him, incredulous at his sudden outburst but that quickly becomes scowling.

“What the hell are you doing?” She retaliates, attempting to kick him away but he’s faster, grabbing her by the leg to stop her. He doesn’t say anything in response. He can't. His mouth won't let him. All the words are stuck in his throat that is now all at once too constricting. The memory of her jumping replays cruelly in his head, and with each replay his heart thuds against his ribs even harder than the last.

“Let go of m-” she starts, but stops when she realizes he's not fighting back, frozen where he stands. Her eyebrows knit together as she bites her lip, and then she looks back and forth from the scalpel to his face. Her features slowly click together in understanding.

The air in the fissures is dense, but the tension that falls over them could rival it, threatening to crush them. All that can be heard is the sound of their breathing, giving and taking, and the slow rumble of the community down below. Neither of them speaks. Neither of them knows what to say.

She's the first one to try to break the silence.

“I'm not… I wasn’t gonna…”

She struggles, restarting her sentences multiple times. It's a side of her that's completely new to him. Ekko's never known Jinx to be at a loss for words, even when they were kids. This is uncharted waters. All of this is.

Finally, she sighs, looking just a little bit guilty when she drops her head and rubs her arms. “You already got me here. No point in offing myself now.”

Ekko doesn't know if that makes him feel better.

He keeps his eyes on her, looking for a lie that he doesn't find. Instead, to his surprise, Jinx puts that same hand with the metal finger on his shoulder, giving it a firm but gentle squeeze. It's the first not hostile touch she initiated all day.

“Seriously, you can relax,” she says. “I'm okay.”

One by one, Ekko's muscles relax and carefully, as if learning how to move his limbs for the first time, he puts the scalpel back in the bin with all of his other art tools. 

He did get her here, that much is true. But this… thing, whatever it is - it's not quite friendship again yet - is incredibly fragile. One wrong word and it could easily break again if he doesn’t keep his cool. 

He places his hands on either side of her on the edge of the desk, and hangs his head. “I'm sorry,” he says.

She shrugs. “I get it. I must have scared the shit out of you back there.”

He huffs out a small laugh. “That's an understatement.”

She re-crosses her legs. “Well, I'm sorry too. But at least it wasn't like that night on the bridge, right?”

He tightens his grip on the desk.

She said it so casually that it's a fight to not lash out again because it wouldn't be fair. It's not her fault that she has no idea just how heavy the weight of those words are. None of it actually happened for her. It only happened for him.

He's suddenly hyper aware of the weight of the Z-Drive at his hip, reminding him that right now only he has the burden of knowing.

And he can’t tell her. Not yet, at least.

“Right,” he says, forcing what he hopes is a small smile. “At least you didn't hurt yourself this time.”

He turns around and picks the towel back off of the floor and hands it to her. “There’s a bathroom that we built into the lower levels. I'm gonna go ask Scar if his wife has something that might fit you.”

“I have my own clothes, you know.”

He gives her a deadpanned look. “Don’t be ridiculous. Those are basically rags now.”

She rolls her eyes, but says nothing more, letting him leave without further argument.

-

He finds Scar at the base of the tree, looking up at the mural. There's a bunch of hustle and bustle around him below, mostly from the kids - some orphaned and some with parents - playing what looks like a game of tag. Ekko looks over it all, nostalgic but also with a weird taste in his mouth. He tries to count all the unfamiliar faces but stops once he hits ten. That’s already too many for him.

He looks back to Scar who, even in the midst of all the commotion, stays transfixed, deep in thought. Ekko almost doesn't want to bother him, but necessity outweighs his discomfort at the thought of having to talk about…well, everything else. 

Scar must have felt his eyes on him though, because he turned his head in Ekko's direction, and a sense of understanding passed between them. Ekko needs an anchor right now, and Scar has been that anchor for him for years now. He gestures with his head for Ekko to join him.

When he settles next to Scar, standing shoulder to shoulder, he looks up at the mural with him. He's not naive enough to think that there was never a possibility he would end up here, next to the faces of all of his other fallen friends, but in that case he wouldn't have been alive to see it. It's surreal, almost. Like maybe he did die. Or maybe he is a ghost. Or maybe he never made it out of that other universe and this is some elaborate dream. The Z-Drive, however, is proof that it can't be. Even he couldn't have dreamed up an invention like that.

The tree itself has noticeably withered, but at least it too is not dead. Ekko can't help but feel like that's symbolic somehow.

He crosses his arms over his chest. “At least you got my good side.”

Scar snorts, and faces him. “Was hard to paint you without that permanent scowl on your face, though.”

“Piss off, man,” he responds. He says it with a smile, but judging by the look on Scar's face he sees right through it. 

He doesn't call Ekko out on it though. Instead, Scar puts his hands up and says “Hey, I haven't had the chance to push your buttons for months now. Just trying to make up for lost time.”

Ekko huffs. “Fair enough,” he says. And then, after an awkward pause, “Thanks for taking care of my things.”

“Of course, mate,” Scar says with a nod, like it was never a question that he would.

Ekko turns his attention back to the mural, scanning the faces before landing specifically on Mylo and Claggor. After seeing how they grew into young men in the other universe, seeing them as kids again, frozen in time, made his chest ache. He wishes he had more than a couple weeks to get to know the adult versions of them better.

But that wasn't possible, because it had only been a couple weeks for him.

Ekko shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Has it really been months?”

Scar presses his mouth into a thin line. “Yeah, it has.”

“How many?”

“Six? Maybe seven?”

“Fuck.” 

He breathes heavily through his nose, and has to turn around to grip the railing tight, so hard his arms shake, to keep his composure. It’s not his fault. The rational part of his brain knows that. But his guilt doesn't give a single shit.

It’s so demanding that he shuts his eyes tight so he doesn’t have to look at it all right now. But shutting his eyes only means he can better - unwillingly - imagine all of the people that came down here sick or injured that he wasn’t here to help. How many of them were children? How many of them were elderly?

And what of the people who were already here relying on him? What do they think about his sudden return? How can he swoop back in and resume being their leader after he abandoned them, and was absent when it came to everyone else?

No, any hand he had in building what is now is just fingerprints, remnants of the past, and it tears him up inside.

A firm hand on his back is what breaks him out of his spiral. When he opens his eyes Scar is standing there with his other arm open, inviting.

Over the years, from the time he found Ekko as that scared, helpless kid that just lost everyone he held dear to now, he stopped asking outright what Ekko wanted or needed. Whether it was out of it no longer being a necessity, or no longer wanting to put up with Ekko's resistance to opening up, or both, he doesn’t know. But it made things easier on him, and he was grateful nonetheless. It's one of the things he loves about Scar.

Without a word Ekko steps into Scar’s arms, letting himself fully let go of every negative thought and feeling he’s been holding on to since he stepped foot back in his universe. He melts all at once, relying entirely on Scar holding him up. He can’t believe how exhausted he already is. He could cry - he wants to cry - but he doesn’t. Not with so many people around.

“It's alright,” Ekko hears Scar whisper. “You're alright.”

When they part, instead of separating completely, Scar puts a hand under Ekko's chin and forces Ekko to look at him so he can see that on Scar's face is nothing but forgiveness. He puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.

“It’s okay,” Scar says. “We managed.”

“You shouldn’t have had to.”

Scar only shrugs. “Shit happens.”

Ekko looks back over the ground with hunched shoulders. A couple of the kids have noticed him now, looking up at him, to the mural, and then amongst themselves inquisitively. “Tell me about it,” he says.

Slowly, Scar removes his hand from Ekko’s shoulder and examines his face, raising an eyebrow. “And I know you wouldn't have disappeared for that long if you didn't have a damn good reason.”

Scar meant it as a statement, but it sounded like a question, opening the door for Ekko so he didn’t have to.

Ekko rubs a hand across his forehead. “I don't even know where to start.”

“The beginning is always a good place.”

Ekko turns to face him fully, leaning against the railing. “Remember when Heimerdinger and I left to figure out what was wrong with the tree?”

Scar leans against the railing with him. “Yeah.”

“Well, what we found was an anomaly at the base of the Hexgates connected to the utility ducts.”

“Anomaly?”

“Yeah, like… a giant ball of corrupted magic,” Ekko says, trying to paint a picture with his hands.

“Sounds freaky.”

“Way freaky. It was… alive almost,” Ekko says, recalling the pulsating energy around it, reaching him even from the distance in which he stood. “Got even freakier when we actually touched it. It was like the whole world flipped upside down and then inside out, and I was pulled apart in a bunch of different directions and when I was put back together, I was in a whole other dimension.”

Scar’s eyes widen. “Another dimension?”

Ekko nods.

“No bullshit?”

“No bullshit.” 

Scar adjusts his position on the railing. “What was it like?”

Ekko takes a second to remember it all. The clean streets, local businesses flourishing, the fresher air. No Chembarons. Vander and Benzo sitting in the bar, laughing and having drinks together. Mylo and Claggor working on their plant prototype for the innovators competition. The soft press of Powder’s lips against his.

“It was everything I ever dreamed of.”

“Why’d you come back?”

Ekko looks up towards his room, thoughts wandering to the girl with blue hair waiting for him there. He could answer that question many different ways, but he goes with the most simple one.

“Because it wasn’t mine.”

Scar hums. “I guess I can understand that.”

“Mhmm. And this,” Ekko says, grabbing the Z-Drive at his hip and bringing it up to his face, “is how I got back. Heimerdinger helped me build it.”

He deliberately leaves out the involvement of Powder, wanting to keep it close to his heart. Scar on the other hand looks around, just now realizing Heimerdinger was missing.

"He didn't come back with me," Ekko says in a way that let's Scar know that's all he's going to say about it.

Scar gets the memo and leans down. The blue light illuminates his face as he examines it. He fixates on the design itself before moving to the inner workings. He trails over the monkeys, and raises his eyebrows at them, but his eyes linger on the tiny anomaly.

“What is it?” he asks

“It's a time loop. Let's me travel four seconds back in time.”

Scar's jaw practically hits the floor.

“Far out, mate. Can you show me how it works?”

Ekko chuckles. “Some other time. Right now I got a favor to ask.”

-

Just like how Scar kept Ekko's room, his room is spotless. It's not as decorated as his, furnished with only the essentials, which probably makes it much easier to keep the sheets wrinkle free on both his bed and the baby bed right next to it, and completely free of even a speck of dirt despite living deep underground.

“Talia's somewhere around here. She usually doesn't travel far when she has the baby but I can’t be bothered to find her right now. I'm sure she wouldn't mind, though.” Scar says, grabbing a few items of clothing out of the dresser by their bed and handing them to Ekko.

“Thanks man” he says. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me about five things,” Scar responds, refolding the clothes in the drawer that got ruffled. “But since you just got back from interdimensional time travel I'll let it slide.”

Ekko weighs the fabric in his hand. The cuts are plain and colors are neutral. Not exactly Jinx's style. She’s definitely going to make a fuss about it, but it'll do. He’s just glad he was able to get her through the door without much of a fight in the first place.

“So, speaking of Jinx,” Ekko asks when they emerge from Scar's room, and back out into the commune. Because of the baby, it's ground level. “What was that about earlier?”

Scar stops in his tracks to look at him.

“Considering everything, I was expecting to put up a much harder fight for her to be here.”

“Ah.” Scar looks out in the open space. It's approaching night time so it's noticeably dimmer, but it's cozy, and the people are starting to wrap around the tree to where the kitchen is to grab dinner. In order to feed everyone, they all take turns being on kitchen duty for the day. He needs to pick up some food for Jinx too, he remembers.

“Well, to make it a long story short, she busted us out of Stillwater.”

Ekko almost drops the clothes in his hands. Not believing his ears, he turns to Scar with a cocked head.

“She busted you out of Stillwater?” he repeats, dragging the words over his tongue as he tries to get them to make sense. “The maximum security prison, Stillwater?” And then, “Wait, what were you guys doing in Stillwater?”

Scar abstractly waves his hand. “You remember how those enforcers were trying to use the grey to catch the Chembarons?”

Ekko scowls. He certainly remembers the influx of innocent people that got caught in the crossfire.

“Yeah.”

“Well, sometime after you left, Jinx thought it would be a good idea to redirect it to topside. Put on quite the show of it, too. Even made it colorful.”

Ekko can only laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like her.”

Scar continues. “But after that, Piltover started working with the Noxians and put the entire undercity on lockdown to find her. She disappeared after that. Don’t know where she went, but in her absence she became a symbol of rebellion.”

“Really?” he asks, but more so to himself. Guess that explains the checkpoints and the murals.

“Mhmm.” Scar points his thumb to the open space. “That's why there's a bunch of people with blue hair down here now. But anyway, there was a rally that I and the other firelights were at at Vander's statue that got raided. They arrested everyone. Didn't matter if they were peaceful or not.”

Ekko, for probably the fifth time that day, hangs his head in shame. “I should have been there.”

“If you don't stop kicking your own ass I'm gonna do it for you.”

Ekko shuts up after that.

“You know, even with everything I ever read about Stillwater, I wasn't prepared for what it actually is,” Scar says, looking up at the sky as his eyes go distant, remembering. “Your cell is this dark, dingy metal hull. There’s no air circulation, so everything is still and stuffy. The lights barely work so it's basically dark.”

From where he stands, Ekko sees the gathering of years at the corner of Scar’s eyes, threatening to spill. “And I remember thinking ‘What if I never see my family again? What if I die here? Are they going to be okay without me?’”

Ekko’s heart squeezes itself.

“And then, like some miracle, the cell opened, and at the end of the hallway there she was with an enforcer's helmet and mask over her face. Made a show of that, too,” he says, almost fond, which was never a tone Ekko expected Scar to use when talking about Jinx. And then, in an exaggerated cartoonish voice, Scar says, “Our big fat hero. I gotta say, she's a real force to be reckoned with no matter what side she's on.”

Ekko mulls what he's hearing over on his head and stares, stunned. But underneath that, he recognizes, is a mix of hope and pride.

A smile slowly breaks through his shock as warmth spreads throughout his body. Scar looks at him knowingly.

“You two used to be close, right?” Scar asks, bringing Ekko back to the moment. “Has she always been like that?”

Ekko looks up towards his room. “Honestly? No, she hasn't always been this bold,” Ekko answers, recalling their younger selves holed up in some room while they grumbled over being left behind by Vi, Mylo and Claggor again. “But she has always been this crafty. Clever, too, and always eager to prove herself. I used to help her make her gadgets, believe it or not.”

Scar snickers. “That's not hard to believe at all.”

Ekko looks towards the food line. It's getting long, and he really should hop in now so he doesn't make Jinx wait any longer, but there is one question at the back of his mind still nagging at him.

Why would she bust them out of Stillwater after being missing for months?

When he asks Scar about it, he answers, “I’m not sure. Up until now I've been believing that it was out of some newfound sense of duty.” But then his eyes light up and he tilts his head. “Actually, there was this little girl there.”

That piques Ekko's interest. “A little girl?”

“Yeah. Couldn't have been more than eight years old, but she was dressed like Jinx. Well, a lot of people were dressed like Jinx, but she was dressed exactly like Jinx, even down to the braids. And she stood on top of Vander's statue with a blue flair, as if she really was Jinx. It was…. surprisingly convincing. But she got taken, too.”

Disgust settles in Ekko's stomach. He would like to say he can't believe topside would be cruel enough to throw a child in Stillwater, but he can. They already did it once, that he knows of, with Vi. 

“And you think she had something to do with it?”

Scar shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe.”

Ekko considers the possibility, but he can’t figure out how the dots are connected. Jinx hadn't mentioned a little girl on her way down here, and there wasn't a little girl at her hideout with her either.

But. There were the bunny ears.

He tucks that thought away for another time.

“Anway, thanks for the clothes,” Ekko says. “Give Talia my thanks, too.”

He starts towards the food line, but Scar's hand on his shoulder stops him. When Ekko turns around, Scar is suddenly grim. He shifts uncomfortably.

“Yes?”

“There’s one more thing you need to know about,” Scar starts, carefully, “And I feel bad springing it on ya considering you just got back but since you're here you need to know.” Scar leans in close. “Something real bad is about to happen.”

Ekko narrows his eyes. “Define ‘real bad.’”

“Yesterday there was a meeting topside. Everyone who's anyone was there, top and bottom. I was there as an undercity representative.”

“Even people from Zaun were there?”

“Like I said, everyone who's anyone. Silco's number two, that burly woman with the mechanical arm? She was also there.”

“And what did they want?” Ekko asks, swallowing something thick.

“Help,” he says, and then, quieter, “It looks like a war coming.”

“A war,” Ekko repeats. “Between who?”

“I can't even be sure. While you were gone, there was word of this miracle healer. Cured the injured and the sick. Some of our people went to him, but none of them ever came back. And at the meeting, there was this… thing that Jayce had laid out on the table.”

“Jayce?” Ekko stops to ask. He hadn’t even thought about whether or not he made it back, too. “What was it?”

“Looked like a robot, but with the way Jayce was so shaken up, it was clearly more than that. Said it nearly killed him and Mel. And according to him, more are on its way. They asked us to fight with them.”

“And what did you say?”

“I… needed to think.”

Ekko squeezes the fabric in his hand. Reflexively, one hand goes to rub at his forehead but Scar catches it and puts it back down at his side. He forces Ekko to meet his eyes to keep him present before he starts spiraling again.

“Just something to keep on your radar,” Scar says. “Like I said, we managed. We'll talk but I'll handle most of the logistics.” He gestures towards Ekko's room. “You've got other things to worry about.”

Reluctantly, Ekko nods, and with a slap on the back, Scar shoves him toward the food line. He runs the fabric over in his hands again, at once relieved and shaken.

Chapter Text

The support beams in Ekko's room are much more comfortable than the ones in Silco's office.

They’re softer, these ones being made of warm wood as opposed to cool metal. The entirety of Ekko’s room is warm, in fact, filled with tones of red, brown and mossy green and personal touches like the half finished contraptions arranged into the corner by his bed and the hand drawn pictures on the walls.

Most of them were of scenery, but there were a couple of drawings of whom Jinx assumed were other firelights. And then there was one in particular; a messy doodle in pencil that only gave the impression of a person with two long pieces of hair and what looked like a flare in their hand. She tried not to think too hard about that one.

It was cozy, safe, and all so entirely Ekko that it was equally as comfortable as it was uncomfortable. Some memories and feelings remain, it would seem. Insistent even after all of her efforts to bury every bit and piece of her old life into the depths of the underground, and now with nothing to stop them from rising to the surface, they’re at the forefront of her memory again. An old friend. Just like him.

But it's been so long since Ekko was someone Jinx trusted and confided in that being in his personal space like this set her nerves ablaze. A part of her can't help but still feel like it’s a trap, even when he’s been so reassuring in that agitating way that he always is. That in and of itself is part of the problem, though. Reassurance, in her experience, is usually followed by her irreparably breaking things.

Hanging out in the support beams turned out to be a neat hack into tricking her brain into thinking she was home, just enough to satiate the buzzing beneath the surface of her skin. In the silence, she could even imagine it was Silco down there, rummaging through whatever paperwork it was that always kept him so busy. She doesn’t hear his voice like she did in the prison cell, though. That she can’t force and, in any case, it felt like a violation of Ekko’s privacy for some reason to try.

So she waits, replaying the conversation she overheard between him and Scar.

She had only meant to get a breath of fresh air and then find a vantage point to get a good view of it all; if she was going to be staying in this place, she wanted to have a mental map of every angle of it. But in looking for a branch she also found the perfect spot to listen in and remain unseen.

She didn't mean to eavesdrop. It just sort of happened.

And out of all the reasons she expected Ekko to give for why he had been missing for so long, “I was thrown into a parallel dimension” with a dollop of “and also I built this time machine” was the absolute last thing she expected to hear. But crazier things have happened. And it definitely helped put some pieces together for her.

Looks like this “dream” he had wasn’t really a dream after all.

Footsteps outside of the door announce Ekko’s return and Jinx rolls off the beams and onto his bed with a plop just as he opens the door. There's a bowl of food in one hand and some folded black and tan clothes cradled in his elbow. He looks just as grumpy as he did when he left, the space between his eyebrows noticeably pinched but when his eyes find her, he softens up just a tiny bit.

In contrast, Jinx’s eyes narrow in on the alleged time machine at his hip and, more specifically, the monkey’s inside of it. They caught her attention back at her lair, but through the fog in her brain she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them. All she could deduce was that for some reason, their presence had something to do with why he was so insistent on playing knight in shining armor. He told Scar that that former councilor - Heimsomething or other - helped him build it, but Jinx can recognize her signature anywhere. Those were her monkeys, she’s sure of it.

“Hey,” he says, snapping Jinx’s attention to him, walking towards his desk with calculated steps, and Jinx almost rolls her eyes but is able to stop herself. Despite her annoyance, she can’t blame him for being cautious.

“I got something for you to wear. I know it’s not your usual style, but it was the best I could do. I also got you some food,” he adds, extending the bowl out to her as he sits in his chair. For the first time today, he finally takes that hunk of metal and magic off his body and sets it down on the desk. “No offense, but you look like you haven’t eaten in days.”

Jinx takes the bowl, lazily swirling the contents in it around with the wooden spoon as she thinks about all that food she was given in her prison cell that she refused to eat. There were multiple trays untouched by the time she escaped, some left by the gates and others that she managed to muster up the energy to stash into the corners. It already feels like a lifetime ago.

“I haven’t,” she says plainly. “Food doesn't seem that important when you want to die.”

Ekko's face pinches before it's gone again, but his hands stay balled into fists. Jinx raises an eyebrow - he's been doing that all day - but Ekko ignores her inquisition, schooling his face back into typical concern.

“And now?” he asks.

Jinx bites her tongue about it and instead she looks down at the hearty mix of meat, potatoes and vegetables. It’s the perfect thing to get her strength back up, packed with protein and vitamins, and she has no doubt that’s exactly why Ekko picked it out of any of the other choices that he might have had.

How thoughtful, she thinks.

She scoops up a spoonful of it and takes a bite. It’s still warm, and the heat hits her stomach and then spreads throughout the rest of her body like a balloon being filled with air. She’s so overwhelmed with gratitude over finally getting some nutrients that she can’t stop the dreamy sigh that leaves her mouth.

“That good, huh?” Ekko says with a smirk. Jinx puffs her cheeks around the spoon.

“Anything tastes good when you're starving,” she replies, trying to brush him off, “but I guess this is one of the better things I've had. Almost better than Jericho’s.”

Ekko only smiles and nods. “I'm glad,” he says softly into the air between them.

They don't speak much after that, Jinx too focused on her food and Ekko too focused on making sure she eats all of it. By the time she’s about halfway done though, his owlish stare has not left her, and she starts to feel like a naked statue on display.

“You really don't have to stare at me like that, you know,” Jinx says.

Ekko blinks, as if broken out of a trance. “What?”

“I told you, I'm not gonna off myself.” She puts her right hand over her heart in mock salute. “That also means I solemnly swear to eat whatever you put in front of me.”

“Oh! Um,” Ekko shifts his eyes down while rubbing the back of his neck. “That…wasn't why I was starting.”

Jinx shoves another bite of food into her mouth. “Then what were you staring at?”

Ekko hums thoughtfully, reaching over to drum his fingers on the glass. “I was just… reminded of something. That’s all.”

Jinx turns her attention to the glowing cylinder on Ekko’s desk and taps the spoon against the edge of the bowl. “That parallel dimension you were stuck in?” she asks, tact be damned.

Ekko’s eyebrows shoot up and his mouth gapes as he snaps to attention, and Jinx is giddy watching him look everywhere except at her. Flustering him used to be one of her favorite things, largely in part because it was always so easy to rile him up. He even makes the same face, eyebrows furrowed with the left side of his lips quirked up. “How did you-”

“You live in a giant treehouse,” Jinx cuts him off as if it were obvious. “It wasn't hard to find a branch to eavesdrop from.”

Ekko shifts through many different emotions in a second, but she was waiting for him to look impressed by her resourcefulness. She did this with Silco all the time, randomly dropping in with the earnings of some hairbrained scheme, leaving him dumbfounded at first before being blown away. She waits, but with Ekko, it never comes. When he finally does land on an emotion, what she sees instead makes her lungs feel heavy. She saw it the same day Vi left her soaked in her own tears and surrounded by fire and blood. It’s not as intense, but it’s unmistakable.

Betrayal.

She only meant to tease, but of course she would mess it up.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” is out of her mouth before she can think about it. “I just wanted to get some air and I just… happened to hear. I didn't do it on purpose, I swear.”

She can hear herself becoming hysterical, and Ekko must have heard it too, because violation is replaced with concern in an instant.

“Hey, hey, it's fine,” he says as he reaches over and takes her hands in his, steadying her. “You just caught me off guard, that's all.”

Jinx takes a couple deep breaths to calm down and so does Ekko, but he still sighs, exasperated. “How much did you hear?”

Jinx shrugs. “Checked in at ‘alternate dimension,’ checked out after ‘time travel’ when you and bat boy went off to where I could no longer hear.”

“And that’s all?” he asks, not even a second after she had finished speaking.

“Yeah. That’s all.”

“Okay,” Ekko says, leaning back in his chair and letting his shoulders slump, and then, “His name is Scar, by the way.”

“I'll workshop it.” She gestures to the device on his desk with her spoon. “And you said Heimenjingle-”

“Heimerdinger.”

She waves her hand. “You said he helped you build that to get back but I know it wasn’t either of you guys’ idea to put those,” she points to the monkeys, “in there.”

Ekko runs a hand through his locs, avoiding her gaze the same way he did when they were young and got caught doing something they shouldn’t have been. The muscles he sports now from years of fighting for his survival almost look ridiculous contrasted against the sudden boyishness. But it’s also cute. In a way.

Jinx continues. “I also helped you build that, didn't I?”

“Yeah. Well, the uh… other you, did,” Ekko says, grabbing it off the desk and drumming his fingers on the glass again. “She was a really big help, too. I probably wouldn’t have gotten back in time if it weren’t for her.”

Jinx nods, taking that in. She doesn’t know why, but a thick lump settles in the pit of her gut.

“She and her Ekko must have stayed friends then?” she asks, daring to look up again, trying to not let the question weigh too heavily on her. But when she asks there’s another flash of something across his face that gets her attention and almost has her charging forward with questions. But just like before, it's gone as quickly as it appeared.

“Yeah, we were. They were, I mean.” Ekko corrects himself, looking at the monkey’s through the glass. The blue light emanating off the magic trapped inside illuminates his eyes, putting a spotlight on the unmistakable fondness there. “It was… nice.” He turns to her. “Reminded me of old times.”

The pit in her stomach becomes heavier. She bites her lip, twirling the remainder of her food in the bowl. “And she was good?”

“Yeah. She was sad about Vi a lot, but after Vi died she was like the glue that kept everyone else together. Always willing to help, and always ready to look out for others.”

Jinx recoils like she’s been shot. The pit in her stomach is crushing now, demanding as she finally recognizes it.

She’s never handled jealousy well.

Feeling bitterness on her tongue, she nearly slams the bowl on the desk. “She sounds nothing like me.”

Ekko, undeterred, leans forward. “Actually, I think she was a lot like you. Witty. Crafty. Brilliant.”

“Laying it on pretty thick there, buster.”

“Used nicknames as a sign of affection.”

Jinx pauses, watching the grin spread across his face.

“She called me that, too. And,” he puts the device back on his desk, “she also had trouble recognizing her full potential. Like you.” He leans back in his chair. “I think after Vi died, she held herself back out of fear of messing up. So, if you ask me, the only real difference between you and her were your circumstances. She was still you underneath it all. Just like you're still her underneath it all.”

Jinx studies him. They’re such sickeningly sweet words that she would have called bullshit on them coming out of anyone else’s mouth. But this was Ekko, and he watched her grow firsthand from the girl she was to the monster she became. And yet he’s still here with her, for no other reason than that he wants to be.

“You think so?” she asks, curling in on herself.

“I know so.”

Jinx doesn’t believe that yet, but for now she can pretend. Instead of dwelling on it, she shifts focus.

“I should probably go take that shower now.”

Ekko starts to stand from his chair. “Oh, yeah. I’ll show you where it is.”

“I scoped this entire place already, remember?” she asks rhetorically. “I know where it is.”

“I remember,” he answers anyways, heading back to his closet to pull out a towel. “But in any case, I need to shower, too.”

-

The bathroom at the firelight base is, surprisingly, more endowed than she expected it to be for being built around a tree underground.

For one, it’s not just one bathroom, but a bunch of individual ones separated by doors, which she learned by Ekko slipping behind one of them once they arrived. Jinx wasn’t even expecting a functioning shower, just a tub or something that they filled with water but not only is there a shower, there were multiple, but also a sink, a mirror, and a toilet with actual plumbing.

Through her haze - not for the first time today - she finds herself in awe. Ekko was smart and capable. She knew as much already, but with each new innovation she finds down here she’s reminded, and it’s bittersweet. She’s glad he was able, but also sad that he had to.

Sad that part of it was because of her.

She drops the clothes and the towel on the ledge of the sink catching her reflection in the mirror. Her mascara streaks have faded, but the bags under her eyes are a deep purple. And her hair is a fucking mess, but in her defense she thought she would be dead right now.

She’ll have to do something about her hair later.

Her clothes fall to the floor one by one - Ekko was right, they are basically rags now - and she turns the faucet to the shower on, grabs one of the towels Ekko gave her and steps directly under the stream of water. It isn’t scalding hot, but it’s warm, pleasant as it runs over head, down her body and over the cuts on her body that sting until they don’t. Looking down at herself, she can now tell what’s actually bruising and what is just dirt, and there are, luckily, less bruises than she thought.

On the shelves in the shower, there are a couple different soaps to choose from. She goes with the pink one and lathers it in her towel, a light floral scent coming off of the suds and begins scrubbing her body.

The dirt and grime fully dislodges itself off of her skin and washes away down the drain, taking all of the weight of the last few days with it.

When Jinx turns the water off, she can’t deny that she feels lighter. Somehow, it makes her feel more deserving of the clothes gifted to her, even if she personally wouldn’t wear them in any other context. The colors are neutral, muted and unassuming, but not sticking out is what she needs right now.

Last year, Jinx would have made fun of herself for this.

It’s fully nighttime outside when she finally emerges. The only light is coming from the lanterns hung throughout, but there are still a few stragglers out and about. Many of them are children and who Jinx assumes are their parents watching along the edges.

She hangs out for a bit, looking on from the shadows, until a little girl turns her head and catches her eye.

Jinx’s heart drops.

It’s not her. This girl is older, probably around 12, but her short, tousled brown hair and chubby cheeks give such a strong impression of her that they could have been sisters. The girl tilts her head, looking over to Jinx like a puzzle until there’s a flash of recognition in her eyes, and Jinx doesn’t have time to react and walk away before the girl is standing right in front of her and throws her arms around her waist.

Carefully, Jinx returns the hug. It’s comforting, but it’s brief, and the little girl pulls away way too quickly. But then she looks up at Jinx with big green eyes and says, “Thank you for saving my mom.”

There’s no time for Jinx to react before the girl is bouncing over to the other side of the commune towards an older woman with cropped, blue hair.

For a moment, she stops and watches. The mother catches her eye and, from across the commune, gives her a gentle nod. Jinx briefly debates whether or not she should return it.

It’s not that this new attitude people have towards her is unwelcome. It’s that she still feels so unworthy of it. But eventually, she does return it before making her way to the steps towards Ekko's room, cursing him all the way up for picking the highest point on this damn tree.

She’s too exhausted for this, but eventually she gets there, opening the door - to her surprise - to Ekko, already out of the shower and now wearing a different set of clothes with his hair still dripping wet and a lack of face paint, and Scar, also out if his usual armor.

The conversation stops immediately, both turning to look at her. Ekko is the first one to soften.

“All good?” he asks.

She doesn't answer right away, too busy adjusting to seeing Ekko’s face unhidden behind the face paint. She hasn’t seen him without it since they were 12 and baby fat still clung to his cheeks. Now as an adult, the baby fat is gone, replaced by sharp cheekbones angling down to an even sharper jawline and the features that once looked too big for his face now fit together in perfect harmony.

She almost gasps, but covers it up with a fake clearing of her throat.

“Yeah,” she answers. “Pretty sweet set up you got down there. And the clothes fit well, too. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” says not Ekko, but Scar, with a warmness she didn’t expect.

She still doesn’t know what to make of that. She freed him from Stillwater, sure, but she’s also shot at him more times than she can even begin to justify.

Ekko turns to Scar. “We’ll pick up on this tomorrow?”

Scar nods, putting a fist up for Ekko to bump. When he gets to Jinx on his way to the door, he stops and raises his fist to her.

Instinctively, she flinches out of the way, pushing herself up against the wall. She knows her eyes are glowing by the sting of shimmer behind them, and she immediately feels ridiculous. Her mind may know she's not in danger, but her body still sees him as an enemy.

They both look to Ekko, who's perched to step in if he needs to, but he doesn’t, because Scar doesn't move closer. Instead, he looks between his fist and Jinx and presses his lips together as realization clicks.

“Sorry. Probably should have thought that through,” he says.

“Ya think?” Jinx and Ekko respond at the same time.

“Hey, don't gang up on me.” Scar opens his fist, palm up. “How about a handshake?”

She looks between his face and his hand, waiting for the punchline, but there isn’t one. Instead he waits patiently, letting her take her time. Hesitantly, Jinx takes his hand. It’s firm, reassuring, but Jinx has to turn away from his face. It’s too friendly.

“You guys have a good night,” Scar says, and makes his exit.

With Scar gone, her body relaxes, heart rate slowing back down to a rest, and she finally notices the blankets on the floor.

She gestures to them with her head. “What are those for?”

Ekko spares a quick glance to them. “Ah, well. I asked around and it looks like we don’t have any rooms left over so we have to share. These are for me.”

Jinx pouts. “I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed.”

“You need it more than I do.”

“Says the guy that just got back from a parallel dimension. We’re both exhausted to hell.”

“Well what else would you suggest?”

“We could just share the bed.”

Ekko’s mouth gapes at the suggestion. It takes him a beat too long to answer. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh come on, it’s not like we’ve never shared a bed before.”

“We were ten.”

“So? We still have all the same parts, don’t we?”

Ekko nearly chokes on air. “Okay, I really don’t want to talk about this. Just take the bed, I’ll take the floor.”

Jinx shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

Ekko goes to turn off his lights and, below her, she can hear Ekko adjust the blankets while Jinx settles into the mattress. She hasn’t slept in one of these in a while either. Not since she went to get Vi to find Vander. The beds in that commune were comfortable, but they were also made of mostly straw. This one was made of a firm but soft layered cloth, and it was all too easy for her body to ease into it and begin to shut down from how tired she was. Her eyelids are heavy, and she’s asleep in minutes.

-

Jinx recognizes this field. She had been in it only a few days ago, dust blowing in the wind beneath the russet sunlight piercing through the clouds just like it is now. But this time, the field is entirely empty. Empty except for one person, staring at her from across the way.

Her younger self looks on stoically, neither moving nor blinking. For a second Jinx is still, too surprised to see her to move but then her younger self - Powder - raises her hand, beckoning her forward.

Slowly, she walks, but with each step she takes Powder gets further and further away, until her mouth opens in a scream. Jinx breaks into a run, but it’s futile. She can't go fast enough, and Powder only gets further and further away until another figure appearing behind her has Jinx skidding to a halt.

It’s her again, but this time, a vision of exactly what she looked like a mere week ago. She stands taller behind Powder, long braids swaying behind her back with pow pow strapped to her, looking back at Jinx with a devious smirk on her face, like some evil twin. Jinx shivers. It's unnerving to see herself as other people do, but she keeps going, but this time she slows up her speed, approaching carefully as if she were approaching a wild animal.

But then, the other version of her pulls pow pow from behind her back and takes aim. Not at her, but at Powder.

Jinx breaks into a sprint again, but she’s still too slow. Why can’t she run faster? No matter how hard she pushes, she feels like she's running through molasses. And her heart drops entirely into her stomach when the other Jinx puts her hand on the trigger, pressing the barrels right at the back of Powder’s head.

From the helpless distance, Jinx sees the squeeze, and just as the barrel fires, it’s no longer Powder on the other side of the other Jinx’s gun.

It’s Isha.

-

Jinx doesn't know if it was her screaming that woke her up, or if she woke up screaming.

The tears on her face match the cold sweat on the rest of her body and she reaches out aimlessly, convulsing so violently it hurts her ribs. Her eyes open to near pitch black, a perfect canvas to replay the last scene from her dream, and not even closing her eyes again will shield her from it. She reaches around to grab hold of something, anything, to ground her. She grabs the pillow under her head, and clutches the strands of her hair and pulls until it hurts, but it’s not enough. She can’t stop it, just like she was only able to scream helplessly when Isha shot that gun into the sky.

She screams one more time, but this time it’s a deliberate, desperate cry for help. Help she didn’t think she would receive until there’s a weight next to her and strong arms lifting her from where she was just laying down.

She hears gentle shushes as she’s pressed into someone else's body. Her face is buried into their chest and their arms wrap around her fully, completely engulfing her body with their own. She can't deny how warm they are. Solid too, surrounding her in a way that's pressuring but not oppressive.

A hand pulls her hand from her hair and replaces it with their own, smoothing it down in gentle strokes, and the other hand drapes around her back and rubs circles into her waist, rocking her side to side. She’s still crying, but her cries are stifled now, absorbed by the body of the other person.

“It’s okay,” she hears, the voice sleepy and rumbley, but still full of care and comfort. Ekko’s voice.

Right. She’s at the firelight base. And she is - was - asleep in his bed. And now his arms are holding her like she’ll fall apart at the seams if he lets go. Maybe she might.

“It’s okay,” Ekko repeats, but doesn’t dare let go until her cries completely subside some minutes later, but even then he doesn’t let go fully, resting his hands on her cheeks instead.

In the little light from the lanterns outside peaking through his windows, Ekko's worry is on full display across his face, in the dilation of his pupils. She hates it, hates that she just woke him up in the middle of the night with all of her mess, but she hates the despondent look on his face even more when she jerks out of his grip.

Hates that she keeps hurting people.

“I’m sorry,” she says because she feels like she has to. She doesn’t know what else to say. She doesn’t even know what she’s apologizing for.

Ekko’s hands hang in the air like he’s unsure what to do with them, but eventually they fall into the space between them.

“Nightmare?” he asks.

Jinx rubs her tattooed arm and nods to the side.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Jinx gives a quick shake of her head. She really, really doesn’t. Maybe eventually, but right now it’s all too fresh. Both the wound and whatever… this is. But that doesn’t mean she wants nothing.

She wraps her arms around herself and tilts her head to hide herself behind the curtain of her hair. “Can you just lay with me for a bit?”

She doesn't see or hear his response, but she can feel the way the weight on the bed shifts. When she looks back up, he's adjusted to a half lying position, looking at her expectantly.

Jinx situates herself back down on the bed, tucking one hand under her head and leaving the other out in the space between them. She watches as he mirrors her, but he tucks both hands under his head, faintly smiling when his head hits the other pillow.

Jinx lets the tenderness of it wash over her, taking the tension out of her muscles with it even though she doesn’t have it in her to return it. But she keeps her eyes on him, and she hopes Ekko can still feel how much she appreciates it. How much she appreciates him.

“Guess we ended up sharing your bed after all,” she says, keeping her tone deliberately light.

He doesn’t say anything, but she can see him shake with laughter.

She doesn’t know how much time passes until her eyes feel heavy again, but it hits a point where she can no longer keep them open. She closes them, and the sleep takes over.

But not before another hand squeezes hers.

-

Ekko isn’t there when Jinx wakes up, but the imprint of his body on the sheets still is, indicating that he stayed with her through the rest of the night.

She rubs the sleep out of her eyes and peels herself off the sheet, once again alone in his room, surrounded by his things. She overlooks the room once, twice and then a third time. All the same things she's seen before.

The brightness coming in from the outside still feels uncharacteristic for how deep underground they are, and judging by the muted noise coming from outside below, she figures it’s probably around mid morning.

Well, with Ekko gone and everyone else awake, no point in staying cooped up in here then.

She swings her legs over the bed and stands, meaning to walk to the door but a piece of paper that wasn’t on the desk the night before catches her eye.

Left to hold a meeting with the Firelights. Wanted to let you sleep.

Jinx can’t help the smile that breeches her face.

The outside is even brighter now that she’s actually outside. From this vantage point, everyone looks like tiny little bugs scurrying about or flying about on one of those hoverboards. They look alive. Joyous in a way that Jinx doesn’t think she’s ever felt. But then Ekko’s words are repeating in her head.

It’s never too late to build something new.

Building she can do. It's the ‘building something for good’ part that she’s still not so sure about. But then there was also the other thing.

Just focus on being happy.

And that… maybe that she can do after all. She’ll never know if she doesn’t try.

So, head high, she bounds down the stairs.

She receives a couple looks when she reaches the bottom. None of them bad. Just curious. Some of them even smile at her.

After a couple waves and even a few returned smiles of her own, she catches the eye of a dark skinned girl with her hair pulled back into a puff. Immediately, Jinx recognizes her as the other Firelight she busted out of Stillwater, and the girl, after eyeing her up and down, gives her a nod.

Jinx, after waving to her, looks at her with squinted eyes, because if she’s out here, then that means the Firelight meeting must be over, and Ekko’s around here somewhere.

She scans the crowd, but sees no sight of him. She’s half tempted to walk up to that Firelight girl and ask where he is, but she doesn’t want to push anything with the others just yet, even if they’re acting like everything is water under the bridge. Instead, she walks the base of the tree, exploring new stairways and hidden corners, and when she sweeps around the bend towards the marsh into a corner completely hidden by a canopy of leaves, she stops.

She doesn’t find Ekko, but what she does find knocks the wind out of her.

Almost not believing her eyes, she slowly walks towards it, running her fingers along the curve of metal to make sure it’s real.

The circle bike.

Their first ever invention together. They had to fish through a heap load of sump scrap for usable parts, and their first prototype went haywire and slid off right into said sump. The next one they made waterproof.

She can't believe he still has it.

It's not quite in the condition it was in when they last rode it together. It's rusted over a bit from disuse and one of the pedals is hanging off of it's hinge, but it's still intact.

And it's here. Even after all these years, even after everything that happened between them, he held onto it.

Of course he did.

One by one, the memories flicker through her head. How she had to dig him out of a pile of junk when he made the wrong step during their digging. Sneaking off to Benzo’s shop so they could work on it some more. Picking through the pieces to determine which ones to use.

The way he would look at her as they were building it when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.

And one pertinent one of him flipping off enforcers on patrol as they rode through the lanes together.

There are tears on her cheeks before she can stop them, followed by a wet, disbelieving laugh to herself.

How much fun we used to have, she thinks, grazing her metal finger along the seat cushions. It’s a shame it probably hasn’t been used in years. The kids here would probably have just as much fun as Jinx and Ekko did with it.

And then her hand stops abruptly and her eyes light up, a flicker of an idea forming in her brain.

-

“Hey, have you seen Ekko?” Jinx asks for the fifth time. This time it was some unlucky schmuck a head and a half taller than her and about three times her size. Unlucky, because her patience was running thin at this point.

He looks at her, dumbfounded at first as if he hadn’t heard her until the words finally register

“Actually, yeah. He asked me if I’d seen you just a few minutes ago.”

Jinx’s eyes widen. Maybe he wasn’t so unlucky after all. “Where did he go?”

Nameless Behemoth pointed in the direction of the bathroom area. Jinx is off before she can even say thank you.

She’ll do it later.

When she finds Ekko, he’s holding more food in his hand.

“There you are!” She says, perhaps a little too loud because he jumps, but quickly readjusts himself before he drops his plate.

“Hey,” he says. “Where’d you go?” I went back to my room to bring you this, but you weren’t there.”

Jinx crinkles her brow. “Did you expect me to wallow like a hermit all day?”

Ekko shrugs. “Figured you would. Hoped that you wouldn’t.” He offers the plate to her. Cinnamon roll bread and banana chips.

“That was yesterday’s me,” she responds, snatching a slice of bread off the plate, exaggeratedly taking a giant bite. “Today I am new and improved.”

Ekko chuckles. “Good to hear.”

“And speaking of new and improved,” she says after she swallows, “you still have the circle bike.”

Ekko freezes for a second before, very measured, says, “I do.”

“I want you to help me fix it up.”

Ekko’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jinx says, as if she can’t believe he would even question her. “We had so much fun on it when we were kids.”

“We’re a little too big for it now, don’t you think?”

“Not for us, dummy.” With her head, she gestures out into the open field where a group of kids are playing with a bubble machine. “For them.”

Ekko follows her head, and his mouth falls open, just a little bit. When he turns back to her, it’s like he’s seeing the sun for the first time. “Oh,” he says, so softly that it’s more like a breath.

“Have you seriously never thought of it before?” Jinx asks. “I figured you would have.”

“I have.” Ekko scratches the back of his neck. “It’s just that uh… well. You were the only one I ever trusted with it.”

And oh, that does something to her insides that she doesn’t want to put a name to yet.

Instead, she takes a step closer, swiping a banana chip this time. “Do you still trust me?”

“Yes,” he says without a moment's hesitation.

“Then trust me when I say it’s time to pay it forward.”

Ekko looks out to the field one more time before turning back to her. And when she sees the glint in his eyes, Jinx knows she’s got him.

“When do you want to start?”

Jinx takes the entire plate from him. “Right now.”

-

Ekko’s actual workshop, as it turns out, is located much lower on the tree than his bedroom is. She thought it was a massive inconvenience at first, as her lair doubled as where she slept so she always had the means to busy her hands in the nights that she couldn’t sleep, but when she had to lug the circle bike with him up one of the multiple swirling staircases, she understood why. Dragging this thing all the way up to the top would have been a nightmare.

It is, however, a lot like his room. Spare parts sat on the counters along the walls decorated with personalized pictures and diagrams. One of him and Scar on yet another bookshelf on the far wall, another of younger him and Benzo on the giant island in the middle, and another of him and his parents right next to it with all of his tools.

She didn’t know much about them. All she knows is that they died with her parents on the Day of Ash, and she didn’t meet Ekko until after that. He never talked about them much.

“We should probably start with greasing it down and scrubbing the rust off to see what it’s still capable of,” he says, reaching underneath to pull up containers and set them down on the island.

“Boring!” she teases. “Why don’t we just take it apart and revamp the whole thing?”

Ekko gives her a leveling look. “That’s gonna take a lot more time.”

“And you don’t want to do it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

They stand in silence. Jinx puts her hands on her hips and Ekko crosses his arms. A stalemate, waiting to see whose stubbornness is going to win out. Ekko looks to his tools in front of him, contemplating, and then grabs a wrench and throws it in Jinx’s direction.

“Show me what you got,” he says with a smirk.

Jinx twirls it in her left hand, feeling the weight of it, and smirks back. “Try to keep up.”

-

It’s a little after mid day when Jinx’s stomach starts yelling at her. She supposes that’s a good thing. Usually when she stops eating frequently, her body responds accordingly, knowing better than to bother her with the fact that she’s in need of food. But now that she’s had two meals within a reasonable time frame, it’s back to being demanding, almost like it can sense the stability around her. Stupid, bossy little organ.

She fetched it herself this time, though. If she’s going to be staying here, she can’t rely on Ekko forever, and she’d like to pick her own food. Something light and fruity, not what Ekko the Bodybuilder would eat.

With the lunch break also comes a break from the workshop entirely. Something about separating work and leisure - whatever that means - so they eat in Ekko’s room instead, with Jinx taking her spot on the bed and Ekko once again in his desk chair.

It remains quiet when they eat, which is fair. They’ve spent the entire morning discussing blueprints and mechanics, and some silence is probably needed.

But in the silence is when the voices get loud.

It’s why she usually works with music blasting. The back and forth with Ekko was a good replacement, but now that it’s gone she’s itching to fill the silence again.

“Give my compliments to the chef,” Jinx says around a mouthful of salad.

“I’ll be sure to let Remy know,” Ekko responds, but doesn’t keep it going.

Jinx shifts her focus to the contraption on his desk.

“So, this time machine thingy, how does it work?”

Ekko takes the turn in conversation with ease. “It's actually not as complicated as you’d think.” He points to the dial. “This is how far back you want to go. I have it marked off to the max amount of time. And to make it work all you have to do is yank this chain. I call it the Z-Drive.”

“That’s a stupid name,” Jinx says, but doesn't hesitate to stand up and grab it off the desk, ignoring Ekko’s sound of offense as she twists it around, feeling the weight of it in her hands.

“I'm going to be honest, I still don't know if I fully believe you.”

Ekko looks at her with a challenge. “Do you want to try it for yourself?”

Quickly but calculated, Jinx looks around, finding something to put it to a real test. Her eyes land on the bowl of half eaten food and without a second thought she picks it up and drops it to the floor, watching the bowl crack and all of the food splatter.

Ekko flinches hard, but before he can say anything, Jinx yanks the chain and time warps around her in varying shades of blue. When it stops, the bowl is back on the desk, intact and untouched.

“Do you want to try it for yourself?”

Jinx snaps her head to him, and then back and forth from his face to the device. On the fourth look back, Ekko smirks.

“I’m guessing it worked, then?” he asks.

Hastily, Jinx puts the Z-Drive back on the desk. “That’s-”

“Amazing?” Ekko cuts her off.

“Well I was going to say ‘freaky,’ but that works, too,” she says, and means it. As unsettling as that was, the engineer in her can’t help but be fascinated.

“Have you used it yet?” she asks.

Ekko’s eye twitches.

That same twitch from yesterday. That won’t fucking stop but before Jinx can ask, he says, “Well, yeah. I had to use it to figure out how it works.”

Jinx stares daggers into him. “I meant here.”

And there it is again, but Jinx has had enough of this and barrels forward before he can speak. “Why do you keep doing that?”

Ekko shifts in his chair. “Doing what?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

Ekko meets her gaze until he can’t. Defeated, he sighs. “I had to use it… to get you to come with me,” he says, but even as he speaks, he speaks slowly, carefully picking his words and looking everywhere in his room but at her. Jinx studies him, hard and scrutinizing until the voices start to seep into her consciousness.

He’s lying to you.

He doesn’t trust you.

This is a trap.

She stomps towards him.

“Wait, I-”

She swings her legs around the sides of his hips and straddles him, using her body to pin him to the chair. His eyes widen, but her right hand has a firm grip on his chin before he can try to say anything more.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Jinx asks through clenched teeth.

She can feel him struggle underneath her, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees him reach for the Z-Drive but shimmer induced adrenaline stops him and she pins his hand to his side. “No rewinding this time, Firelight.”

Finally, when Ekko realizes his window has passed, he stops struggling, but he doesn’t speak immediately. The only thing filling the silence is their heavy breathing. Jinx squeezes his jaw a little bit tighter, but it doesn’t scare him into talking. Instead, he’s looking at her with a sadness so deep it borders on despair. It almost makes her let go. Almost.

Slowly, in measured words, he says, “I used it to stop you from pulling the pin.”

Jinx’s grip on his jaw slackens, trying to process the words. Slowly, for the first time in her entire life, her mind goes completely quiet. There is not a single hum, whisper, or whir of electricity, just complete emptiness as everything fades around her until she is back on the ledge, staring into the darkness with that bomb in her hands.

She was so ready to die. Most of her family was gone, dead by her own hand. The relationship she had with the only family she had left was broken beyond repair, and the only person she had that loved her for just being her, that precious little girl who deserved better than her, was dead too.

And she wanted to join her. She wanted to join all of them. So she pulled the pin. She can even recall the way her muscles tensed as she did it.

But she can also recall the way that, in a flash, that feeling was gone, whisked away from her body.

And then, as if appearing out of a cloud of smoke, there was Ekko. And then it happened again. And then it happened again. And he himself gradually looked more beat up as the seconds passed.

She lets go of his arm and takes in the way his face paint is smeared across multiple little cuts. She reaches up towards the cut on his eyebrow that's now beginning to scab over, grazing it with her fingertips. He recoils a bit. It's still tender.

Absent-mindedly, she drops her other hand to his collarbone and she turns to the cup his art tools are in. She lands on the scalpel, her focus narrowing down to the tip of the blade.

“I'm sorry,” Ekko's voice cuts through her mind, but it's in one ear and out the other. “I wanted to wait to tell you-”

“How many times?” she whispers.

“Jinx-”

“Tell me.”

Ekko presses his lips together. “Five,” he says, his voice cracking on the word but otherwise just as quiet. “But the fifth time was because you jumped.”

Nestled against his collarbone, her hand trembles. Her whole body trembles.

She should be dead.

She was dead.

But Ekko brought her back to life, not just once but five times and put himself in danger in the process. But what she doesn’t understand is-

“Why?” she asks. Why does everyone insist on sacrificing themselves for her? Her voice shakes in her ribcage. “Why would you do that for me? I’m not-”

Worth it, she thinks, but never says.

Ekko’s hand in hers at his collarbone brings her back to reality. He squeezes, stopping the trembling in its tracks as he gently pushes her off of him until they’re both standing, keeping her hand close to his chest. When they were younger, she was taller than him. Now he’s got a couple inches on her.

“You still don’t understand,” he whispers, letting go of her hand so both of his can cradle the sides of her face, forcing him to look at her when he says his next words.

“I’m not giving up on you again. Even if it kills me.”

“But why?”

She doesn’t feel the tears on her face until Ekko is brushing his thumb across her cheeks.

“Because you’re my best friend.”

Jinx breaks. She doesn’t know how she could possibly have any tears left from the amount of times she’s cried lately, but she manages to find them as she turns away from him, holding her hands to her chest like she’s trying to keep her heart from falling out of her body. She can’t look at him head on. Not when he’s looking at her like… that.

Just a couple days ago, she punched Vi for saying the same thing. She can’t bring herself to do that here, and she doesn’t know why. Maybe because a couple days ago she truly believed there was no good version of her, but then Ekko reappeared back into her life with not just platitudes, but proof.

Like a campfire on a cold day, Ekko’s arms wrap around her. One hand wraps around her front, enveloping both of them in just one of his, while the other arm wraps completely over her shoulders, pressing her back against his front, all encompassing. Secure.

He’s so warm.

In her ear, he whispers, “I missed you so much.”

She can hear in his voice that he’s crying, too.

-

It took the better half of the day to get it ready, but the new and improved circle bike now runs on a steam powered engine with a gas and brake pedal instead of manual ones. They both wanted it faster, and the marsh from the runoff provided the perfect renewable energy source that was also tree friendly.

The other big additions are two wings attached to the spine of the back seat; better aerodynamics meant smoother turns, and secured to the handle bars are headlights, for use in the dark. The final touch was a fresh paint job, and it now sports a dark silver with bright splashes of blue and pink with Ekko’s green hourglass and Jinx’s pink monkey painted onto the front and back seats, respectively.

Jinx can’t wait to see it in action.

The lack of light from above lets them know the sun is setting, but Jinx is determined to find someone to test it, scanning the field for a child that’s brave.

Ekko trails behind her as she pushes the bike into the field ahead of them, struggling to keep up as she barrels forward. “We can always wait until tomorrow, you know?

“Positively not,” Jinx says. She ignores the sigh at her back and scans the area again.

In actuality, she’s looking for someone specific.

That little girl from yesterday is exactly who she had in mind when she was remaking the bike. And she found her across the way, playing with the bubble machine with the others.

Jinx makes an immediate beeline towards her.

“Hey, kid!” she calls out. Every single one turns her head towards her, but the girl from yesterday is the only one Jinx singles out, gesturing for the girl to come closer.

When the kid is standing right in front of Jinx, she kneels down to her level. “I got something for ya.”

The little girl looks between the bike and Jinx. “For me?” she asks quizzically.

“Yeah,” Jinx responds. “Think of it as a… ‘you’re welcome.’”

Hesitantly, the girl walks around to the bike and runs her hands across it. “It looks… scary,” she says.

Jinx’s heart constricts, but she presses on. “A lot of things in life are scary, kid,” she says, melancholic. She is, after all, an expert in that. “But someone reminded me recently that facing your fears can be a good thing. And besides, this,” she runs her hands over the front seat, “is an Ekko and Jinx exclusive. One thousand bajillion percent safe, or your money back, guaranteed.”

The girl giggles. She walks towards the bike and Jinx steps aside to let her pass, and jumps a bit when she sees Ekko standing right behind her.

Looking at her like that again.

A grunt brings her attention back to the bike to see the girl struggling to get on it and Ekko takes the reins this time, helping her onto the seat.

“There you go,” he says once she’s fully adjusted. “And when you want to go, push this pedal, and when you want to stop, push that pedal.”

The girl gives a quick nod, tentatively pushing down on the gas pedal, feeling it inch forward. She presses again, harder this time, and this time she travels a few feet.

Before pressing down again, she looks back to Jinx and Ekko and waves, small and quick, before pressing down fully. From the engine, a plume of pink colored steam shoots out as she rides it back towards the other kids who immediately swarm it.

Beside her, Ekko moves in, placing a hand on her shoulder. “They’re really going to love it,” he says.

“That was the plan,” she says back.

As the sun fully sets and they take turns taking laps in circles they don’t talk, just watching, until sometime after Ekko puts his arm fully around her shoulders, pulling her into him, he asks, “Why was this so important to you?”

She takes a deep breath. She’s still not yet ready to tell him the full story, so she settles for a vaguer truth. “You said to build something new.”

He squeezes her shoulder, somehow pulling her even closer.

“And,” she adds, “we make a pretty good team, don’t you think? I mean, we invented time travel.”

Ekko’s laugh shakes her frame. “Yeah, we do make a good team.”