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“What was Fox like?”
Swan froze when she asked it, glancing up from her book at Mercy where she laid in her arms. Mercy didn’t know what possessed her to ask it then. Well, she did, she wanted to know, but as to why she chose to bring it up right before they were about to fall asleep, she wasn’t sure. She almost wanted to take it back when she saw the flicker of hurt race through Swan’s eyes. They hadn’t been together long, but Mercy was quick to learn all of Swan’s little tells; the slight squint when she was sizing someone up, the way her eyebrows came together when she tried to hide being upset, her tiny hints of a smile that on other people would be a grin. Mercy had gotten good at reading it all.
Swan had that subtle furrow in her brow now as she set her book aside. “What do you want to know?” she asked quietly.
Mercy shrugged one shoulder. “Just what you remember about her,” she said. “I only knew her for, y’know… that night. I want to know more about her.”
Swan nodded. She closed her eyes with a sigh and leaned her head back against Mercy’s chest. “She was a lot shyer than she probably looked to you,” she began. “I think I told you she was the youngest of us.”
“You did.”
“She wasn’t a kid, obviously, she was a full grown adult, but she hadn’t been in the game nearly as long as the rest of us. Definitely not Cleon and Cochise, but not even me. Or Rembrandt, really.” Swan hesitated. “I don’t even really know where to start with all this. There’s so much I could say about her. She was beautiful, she was sweet, she loved her comic books and video games, definitely. And fuck, she was quick. I don’t think we’re ever going to have a scout better than she was. She had eyes on everything, she could talk anyone into anything. I mean, you saw how quickly she got Sully to let his guard down.”
Mercy chuckled. “Sully was an idiot, anyway.”
“Still. I think the only person who was more observant than her was…” Swan’s voice cracked. Disentangling herself from Mercy’s embrace, she sat up and looked over her shoulder as Mercy raised an eyebrow. “She was Rembrandt’s best friend, you know.”
Mercy tried to hide how she flinched. They had this conversation before, with Mercy convinced Rembrandt hated her and Swan reassuring her over and over again that Rembrandt looked at everyone like that, it was resting bitch face, she just didn’t like new people, but it didn’t help when Rembrandt was still shooting her very clear “go die in a hole” looks from across the room.
Swan continued, “They did everything together. On missions, they were together. Days off, they were together. Neither of them were really fighters, they were both better at running, so that was part of it. But Rembrandt recruited her. Her sketchbooks are full of Fox’s portrait. Fox shared an apartment with her and Ajax, that’s why she was staying here while Ajax was still in jail. Cleon didn’t want her alone.”
“I know,” Mercy said quietly. “You told me.”
“Yeah.” Swan dragged a hand through her hair. “That’s also why we don’t bring her up around Rembrandt. There’s still… too much there.”
Leaning forward, Mercy held Swan’s hand and gave it a light squeeze. She flashed a reassuring smile. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just hard to talk about her still.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s alright. I get why you want to know.” Cupping Mercy’s cheek, Swan drew her into a gentle kiss, smiling as she pulled back. “Ask the others about it. They’ll have more stories.”
“Okay.”
“But not Rembrandt.”
-----
Cochise passed Mercy a cigarette as they sat together on the stoop. “Fox,” she said with a smile, quiet and almost reverently. “Where do I even begin with her? I don’t think she said more than five words to me during her whole first month rollin’ with us.”
“Really?” Mercy asked with a soft laugh.
“Really. She was shy as hell. Timid, sometimes, but when she needed to step up to the plate, she did. You saw it. I remember one time, she came with me and Ajax to collect a payment from this bar we have on our payroll and things got out of hand. I’ve got three dudes I’m trying to fight off, one of them manages to get Ajax’s gun away from her, and I’m thinking we’re fucked when bam! ” Cochise smacked her fist against her palm, grinning from ear to ear. “Fox smashes a liquor bottle over the guy’s head and gets the gun back. Saved our asses that night. She’d just barely got her vest at that point, too, so we were all really proud of her. Cleon, especially.”
“Wow,” Mercy chuckled. “That’s… badass.” A smug smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. “How did Ajax feel about that?”
Cochise laughed, bumping her shoulder against Mercy’s as she puffed on her cigarette. “I know what you mean by that. Don’t tell Ajax I told you this, but she was pretty grumpy about it for a while after. Mostly because Cleon cussed her out for losing control of her gun. She was proud of Fox, though. Happy that the shy girl knew how to hit when it was her turn up to bat.” She paused, eyeing Mercy up and down in a way that made the newest Warrior mildly self-conscious. “That look Ajax gave you when you helped us fight off the Furies? That’s the same look she gave Fox that night.”
Mercy gritted her teeth and nodded. They sat in silence for a little bit longer, burning through their cigarettes, watching a helicopter circle in the distance over Coney Island Creek. Mercy risked a glance at Cochise. The elder Warrior wore a quiet, pensive expression as she lifted her face towards the sky, holding her cigarette between the tips of her thumb and middle finger as she finished it. Mercy wanted to ask more but she couldn’t find the words. She didn’t know Cochise well enough yet, or at least didn’t feel like she did, not enough to keep pressing when she wasn’t sure what Cochise’s “stop talking” face looked like.
Fortunately for her, she didn’t need to. Cochise flicked the butt of her cigarette into the street, lit another, and smirked at Mercy. “Want to hear about the time she set Ajax’s kitchen on fire?”
Mercy laughed in disbelief. “You’re lying.”
“On god, I’m not. This is what Rembrandt told me…”
-----
Cowgirl was three shots deep sitting with Mercy at the bar before she started talking. “She had better game than I did,” she said, adjusting the brim of her hat. She had to lean in close and raise her voice to be heard over the loud music and chatter of the club. “And I’m not saying that lightly.”
Mercy raised her eyebrows as she sipped her drink. “I didn’t realize anyone had better game than you.”
“Well, you bagged Swan of all people within a few hours, so you’re up there on the list. I mean it, though. You said it yourself, the girl was a stunner. When she actually did want to go chat someone up, she had them. Obviously, I’m a bigger flirt than her-”
“You’re a bigger flirt than everyone.”
“And proud of it!” Cowgirl proclaimed, raising her glass in a toast that Mercy shared. “But as for strike-out percentage, she had a better track record. Everyone had eyes for her. Even me sometimes, I won’t lie.”
“But aren’t you-”
“I can appreciate women just as much as you, girl, and I never said I’d actually ever go for her. I’m just saying that’s how it was! Honestly, you two would have gotten along really well, if… Fuck, I hate saying this. If you’d had more time with her. I could tell she was already starting to like you that night.” She took a sip of her drink and angled her head towards Mercy without looking at her, gesturing out across the crowd on the dancefloor. “This is the first place I ever saw her really come out of her shell. I made her and Rembrandt come out with me.”
Mercy frowned, hesitating. Swan had asked her not to talk to Rembrandt about Fox, but… she never said she couldn’t bring her up with someone else.
“Rembrandt goes to the club?” she asked, feigning innocent curiosity, trying not to give away her ulterior motive of maybe finding a way to get Rembrandt to despise her a little less.
Cowgirl threw her head back and laughed. “Hell no! That’s why I made her and Fox come out with me. Those two wouldn’t leave the house if it wasn’t for business or trips to the art supply store so I brought them here to get them to loosen up a little bit, y’know? Blow off some steam. Took a full thirty minutes for them to quit being wallflowers and only after I left them alone to go dance with a guy friend I knew. When I came back to the bar to get another drink, I saw them dancing together and they were actually having fun . Fox especially. I didn’t know until later that it was her first time in a club.” She flashed a proud smile. “I’m the reason why she ended up liking dancing so much.”
“Really?”
“Well, okay, not exactly, but I’m the reason she came here and found out that she did.”
Mercy hummed and stared into her drink as she swirled the glass around. “Does Rembrandt like dancing?”
Cowgirl gave her the most pointed side-eye of her life. “Aren’t you a taken woman? Or is that news to you.”
Mercy choked. Cowgirl laughed as she wiped liquor off her chin with the hem of her shirt, glaring and making a halfhearted swipe for the other woman’s hat. “That isn’t what I meant!” she snapped.
“Really? ’Cause you seem pretty interested in Rembrandt.”
“ Not like that! ”
Cowgirl could barely speak with how hard she was cackling now. She smacked her hand on the bar, trying to compose herself as she flicked a lock of hair over Mercy’s shoulder. “I’m teasing. Damn, girl, you’re worse than Ajax. But to answer your question, it depends. Rembrandt likes dancing occasionally, and I’ve only ever seen her do it with Fox and Ajax,” she said. Looking out over the dancefloor, the smile in her eyes faded just a touch, taking on a faraway expression. “I always thought there might’ve been something between them. Rem and Fox. Never really was sure, though.”
“But I thought Rembrandt and Ajax got together before Fox was even recruited?”
“They did. But love isn’t as cut and dry as that.” Her lips curled into a sly, teasing smile. “Which is good for you, if you want to keep checking Rem out.”
“I am not checking her out!” Mercy protested.
But Cowgirl was already out of her seat and heading towards the dancefloor, calling, “Sorry! Can’t hear you!”
“Dammit, Cowgirl!”
-----
Mercy did not want to talk to Cleon. She never intended on bringing this up to the Warlord. Partly because she wasn’t sure if she had the right to bring up something so admittedly personal, and partly because it was still unclear as to where she stood with her. Mercy was painfully aware that her initiation was not… standard. She was even more aware that her relationship with Swan had her under a personal microscope from Cleon, because outside gang business, if she were to ever hurt Swan, Cleon would kill her.
So no, Mercy did not want to bring up a dead Warrior.
Unfortunately for her, she ended up alone with Cleon in the apartment one day, and everything always got back to Cleon.
Mercy had been trying to read a book that Swan recommended, some fantasy novel, sitting on the couch while Cleon wrote in her journal at the kitchen table. She was in her fifth reread of the same paragraph when Cleon shut her journal just loud enough to get Mercy’s attention. She looked up. Cleon crooked her finger, beckoning her over to sit at the table with her.
Cleon wasted no time. “Tell me what you want to know about Fox.”
Mercy stiffened. She didn’t know what she wanted to know, she didn’t have any specific questions, so she simply said, “I just want to know more about her.”
“What have the others told you?”
“Cochise and Cowgirl told me some stories. Swan told me about how she was as a scout.”
“And Ajax and Rembrandt?”
“I haven’t talked to Ajax.”
And Swan told me not to ask Rembrandt .
She kept that last bit to herself.
Cleon nodded slowly. “Swan told you she was our best scout, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“She was. Probably the best we’ll ever have.” Rubbing her eyes, Cleon pushed her braids out of her face. “I want to think she knew that but I’m afraid she was trying to live up to it instead. Live up to…” She gestured around the room. “This.”
Mercy bit her tongue. She didn’t want to say something and throw Cleon off whatever words she had brewing in her mind.
“I saved her from a lot of stupid shit,” Cleon continued after a long silence. “A lot of deals gone wrong. A lot of missions she shouldn’t have been a part of. Some of it was of her own doing and some of it was my fault. A lot of it was my fault.” She pointed sharply at Mercy. “You’re a Warrior now, so know that I’m speaking about all of you when I say this. I’m never going to underestimate you. I’m never going to keep you from something I know you can do so I don’t want you to think I’m doubting you if I ever hold you back. I underestimate other people, though. That was my fuck-up with Cyrus’ summit. I knew Fox would be fine if all went to plan but I didn’t count on what other people would do to make sure it didn’t.”
“Cleon-”
“No, no, let me talk. Fox was smart. She was brave. She was a Warrior . And from what Swan told me, she told you to get them home alive. I want you to hold onto that and hold onto the fact that she trusted you enough after only knowing you for a few hours to give you that task. You are one of us, and it wasn’t Swan that decreed that, and it wasn’t me. It was Fox. Do you understand?”
Mercy nodded. “I understand.”
“That being said, get them home alive includes you. Stand up for your crew, protect your family, and stay alive. Stay alive for Fox. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” Cleon sighed and sat back in her chair. She smiled. “Did Cochise tell you about the time she set the kitchen on fire trying to make French toast?”
“ That was true?! ”
-----
To Swan’s great annoyance, Cleon had tasked Ajax with teaching Mercy their territory. Her reasoning was that she needed Swan for more diplomatic matters in the aftermath of the summit and, with a lack of border wars at the moment, Ajax had the least amount of pressing work for the time being. Everyone knew it was actually Cleon’s way of slowly reintroducing Ajax to real life after she was released from jail, but no one commented on it. No one commented on the fact that they only patrolled in the daylight, either.
It was on one of these patrols, in the early morning hours on the deserted boardwalk, that Ajax called Mercy out on the subject she’d been actively avoiding around the enforcer.
“Why are you asking about Fox?” she demanded. “Really, I want to know.”
Mercy stopped as Ajax turned to face her. “I just wanted to know more about her. I only knew her for that one-”
“You’re never gonna be Fox.”
That hit something cold and hard deep within Mercy’s heart. Her face flushed red, her hands balling into fists as she stepped up to the enforcer. Swan had had years to learn how to ignore Ajax’s dickhead comments and even she still struggled to do it sometimes, so god knows Mercy was absolute shit at letting something like that go.
“Who said I was trying to be Fox?” she shot back.
“You will never be able to replace her.”
“I’m not trying to!”
“Good! Because we don’t fucking want you to! I don’t want it, Cleon doesn’t want it, and Swan definitely fucking doesn’t!” Ajax was in her face now, a mere foot apart as they shouted at each other. “We had Fox and we lost her! That’s it! We’re not getting her back! But no one is keeping you here so you can be another Fox!”
Her words struck Mercy. She was being… sincere. Mercy took a step back, the anger fading as she watched Ajax’s snarl morph into a grimace, pleading and desperate, as if she wasn’t trying to make Mercy hurt but trying to make her understand instead.
“I will tell you more about her,” Ajax continued, “but not so you can try to be like her. You’re Mercy to us, okay? You’re not Fox’s replacement and I need you to know that, ’cause I’m gonna feel like a huge piece of shit if I think that you think we only see you as someone to fill in that space. She still has her space even if she’s not… even if she’s not physically with us anymore. You have your own space, okay? You’re your own Warrior.”
Mercy just stared at her. She didn’t know what to say. In the short amount of time since Ajax had gotten out of jail, the enforcer had been, at worst, downright hostile towards Mercy, or at best, completely avoidant. She had even less intention to ask Ajax about Fox than she had to ask Cleon, and never would have anticipated Ajax bringing it up on her own, and now this.
She thought this whole time that Ajax hadn’t wanted her here at all . And now, not only was she openly calling Mercy a Warrior, she was saying that she… she wanted her as herself. Not as a replacement. Not as a placeholder. Not just another member to bring their numbers back up to where they were. She wanted Mercy the Warrior.
Mercy tried to come up with some halfway intelligent response, but all she could manage was a mumbled, “Okay.”
Ajax nodded, took a deep breath, nodded more forcefully, and kept walking. Mercy was still processing what just happened when she realized Ajax was already stalking away and ran to catch up with her. Ajax gave her a cursory glance as she fell into step beside her but otherwise kept her eyes forward.
“Do you know why Swan wouldn’t let you talk to me for the first two weeks I was home?” Ajax asked after a while.
“Because you wanted to kill me?”
“Wha- No- Wait, what the fuck, did she tell you that?”
“No, but I kinda figured.”
Ajax shook her head with a huff. “It wasn’t you specifically. I wanted to kill everyone. That’s what alcohol withdrawal tends to do to people. Irritability and mood swings and shit.”
Mercy frowned. “You had-”
“I’m not an alcoholic, that’s not what it was,” Ajax said defensively. “I just… I overdid it. Often. And no one liked that I did that but Fox was the biggest one to call me out on it. That molotov that we threw at the Orphans? That was my liquor, and Fox hated the fact that I had it on me because I wasn’t supposed to have it and she hated how much I drank, period. She used to cuss me out for it a lot but never in front of Cleon, so she wouldn’t get me in trouble. She worried about me. Back then, I thought she was just being a little shit about it but now I see that’s what it was. I haven’t touched any alcohol since that night.”
“Fuck, Ajax, that’s… I’m sorry.”
Ajax shook her head. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to have one drink without it automatically turning into ten. For now, though, this is what I’m doing because it’s what she wanted for me.” She never broke her stride, but she finally looked up at Mercy. “If you ever need to know anything about Fox, know that she loved us. All of us. And I know she would’ve loved you, too, if she got the chance to know you.”
Mercy nodded slowly. “Thanks. I… I really appreciate that.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, don’t go thinking we’re besties now because of this,” the enforcer grumbled. It got a laugh out of Mercy, and Ajax smirked in return. “You haven’t talked to Rembrandt about this, have you?”
“Uh, no. I haven’t.”
“Good. Do me a favor, and don’t.”
Mercy hesitated, weighing the possibility of more information against the possibility of getting punched in the face, and finally said, “Swan told me Fox was Rembrandt’s best friend.”
Ajax shot her a look, but nodded anyway. “She was. And frankly this is none of your business, no offense-”
“None taken.”
“-but Rem hasn’t been right since that night. Whatever you think about her right now, that’s not how she really is,” she admitted. Mercy thought that this was the most honest - dare she say, vulnerable - that she had ever seen Ajax. “I’m trying to get her back to the way she was. I’m just not doing a very good job at it. So do me a favor, please, and don’t bring it up.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
-----
“Stupid drunk idiots,” Mercy grumbled as she climbed the stairs of the apartment building to the roof. All she wanted was to smoke a cigarette in peace, but Cleon didn’t want anyone on the stoop due to a gaggle of loudmouthed and absolutely plastered men that had been dicking around on their block for the past half hour. Didn’t want to risk any of them getting jammed up if the cops got called, she said. Everyone thinks they’re Superman when they’re ten shots deep, she said. So Mercy was forced to go to the roof.
She didn’t mind it once she was up there, just didn’t like all the stairs. The city at night was beautiful. In one direction, she could see the far off silhouettes of massive ships heading towards the ports. In another, the rainbow of lights from the carnival and the boardwalk. Behind her, the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan and everything she couldn’t reach and everything she left in her old life, far beyond them.
And then, right in front of her, a small, slight figure standing on the edge of the roof.
Mercy froze. One of the first things Swan told her about Rembrandt was exactly how skittish she tended to be. She swallowed hard, thinking of how best to announce herself so she wouldn’t scare the tagger. She wasn’t exactly sitting on the edge, there was a short border wall, but she was so close that if she jumped or spun she might trip and Mercy didn’t want to be the cause if she fell.
Mercy cleared her throat. Rembrandt tilted her head to the side without turning around. “I already knew you were there, Mercy,” she called. “You can come over.”
Shaking off her nerves, Mercy stepped up beside Rembrandt. She offered a cigarette that Rembrandt took and lit her own as they stared at the ocean together. Rembrandt tucked her cigarette in the corner of her mouth and shoved her hands in her pockets.
“I didn’t know you were gonna be over tonight,” Mercy ventured.
“Cleon wanted Ajax to go meet with Swan near Seagate. You were in your room when we came over and I went straight up here.”
“Oh.”
“Who told you not to talk to me about Fox?” Rembrandt asked abruptly. Mercy froze. “Was it Swan or Ajax?”
“Both,” Mercy admitted.
“Makes sense.” She tilted her head back, blowing smoke at the stars. “What reason did they give you?”
“They said…” Fuck, how much could she disclose without pissing off Swan and Ajax. “They’re worried about you. And they’re worried that talking about her-”
“Fox. Her name is Fox. You can say it.”
“They’re worried talking about Fox will upset you.”
Rembrandt’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Worried. Right. Right, of course they’re worried. Everyone’s fucking worried about me!” she exploded. Mercy jumped. “Shit, it’s like they think I’m gonna go insane if they bring up that night at all! What’s making me insane is those two tiptoeing trying not to upset me, fucking Ajax especially.”
She rounded on Mercy, staring her down with the same go fucking die expression she’d given her since her first real day as a Warrior, and Mercy realized that’s never what it truly was. The avoidance, the death glares, the silent treatment, it wasn’t that Rembrandt hated her. It wasn’t that Rembrandt blamed her for anything that happened. Rembrandt was just… hurting.
“What did you ask the others?” the tagger demanded. “What did they say? Seriously. Tell me. Now.”
Mercy opened and closed her mouth like a dying fish before finding her voice. “I asked what she was like. I wanted to know more about her because-”
“Because what. ”
How the fuck was she more intimidating than Cleon?
“Because I can see how much you all miss her! Swan has nightmares about it and goes all quiet when she gets brought up, Cochise and Cowgirl were the saddest I’ve ever seen them when they told me stories about her, I’m pretty sure Cleon fully blames herself for it! She told me to get you guys home alive that night and I… I wanted to learn more about the woman who trusted me enough to do that.”
Rembrandt stared at her with piercing eyes, free from the anger or hate or hurt or whatever the fuck it was that she’d looked at Mercy with since she became a Warrior. Mercy gritted her teeth and stepped back, terrified that she’d said too much. Maybe she should have just lied and avoided this conversation or smoked out her bedroom window and avoided Rembrandt entirely. But no matter what scathing insults she imagined Rembrandt had for her, the tagger just stared.
She let go of a long exhale through her nose. “And what did Ajax say?”
“She, um, she told me about the alcohol thing.”
Rembrandt’s eyes widened. “She did?”
“Yes. And she told me not to try to replace Fox. She said no one wanted that and she didn’t want me to think I had to because, and these are her words, she’d feel like a giant piece of shit if I did.”
There was a long silence between them, Rembrandt sizing Mercy up, Mercy praying she possessed whatever Rembrandt was searching for in her. Then Rembrandt’s brow furrowed in a way so similar to Swan that Mercy almost burst out laughing. The tagger dragged a hand down her face.
“Mercy,” she said slowly, “have you felt like that? Like we wanted you as a replacement?”
Mercy squirmed a little under Rembrandt’s intense stare. “Not… exactly.”
With a heavy sigh and a groan, Rembrandt sank to the floor, pressing her back to the wall and drawing her knees up as she covered her face. Mercy sat beside her, close but ensuring they never touched. She watched Rembrandt carefully as she scrubbed at her eyes with the hem of her sleeve.
“You’re like her,” she whispered, “in a lot of ways. But you’re not her. We - I mean, I don’t want you to be her, either. I had her and I lost her, and now you’re here and I want you here as yourself. We all do. Swan, especially.”
“I know,” Mercy sighed. “Ajax beat that into my head.”
“Ah shit, did she seriously-”
“No! Not literally! Bad phrasing, I’m sorry.”
“Man, you made me think you two got in a fight!”
“Sorry,” she mumbled. Rembrandt closed her eyes and shook her head. “Will you tell me about her? Please?”
Rembrandt opened her eyes just long enough to glance at Mercy before closing them again. She didn’t smile, not exactly, but her features softened. “She wasn’t someone you could easily look away from,” she said, sad and wistful. “She was sweet. She was funny. Everyone else probably said she was shy, didn’t they? Well, she was, until she wasn’t. Once she was comfortable around you and she got excited about something, she could talk for hours. I think I can explain every Spider-Man comic to you just from listening to her. And that worked for us, you know? She’d just talk and tell me about everything and nothing while I drew portraits of her because it made her feel pretty. She told me, she liked seeing what she looked like through my eyes. Said she wanted to see the world the way I did.”
“Rembrandt…”
“She was brave, too, but you knew that. You saw it. She was so much stronger that night than anyone ever expected her to be. Everyone but me. Fuck, I miss her so much!” Rembrandt pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, gritting her teeth and snarling through the tears Mercy watched her holding back. “I should have stopped her. I knew she had something in her head after the bullshit with the Hurricanes, I knew she would try to prove them wrong, I knew her, I know her too well to not have seen it. I just… I didn’t know she felt like she had so much to prove to us. I wish I got the chance to tell her she didn’t need to.”
Rembrandt dropped her hands to her sides. Mercy shifted closer, grazing her pinky against Rembrandt’s but nothing more. Letting her head loll to the side, Rembrandt looked up at her with the saddest big brown eyes she’d ever seen.
“Mercy, what am I gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. They left it at that, looking away from each other and facing the sky again. Rembrandt linked their pinkies together. Mercy hoped she couldn’t feel her shaking. “Can I ask you something personal?”
Rembrandt scoffed. “How much more personal do you want to get?”
“Okay, that’s fair.” She hesitated. She wasn’t even expecting to get this far. “Swan said you and Fox were best friends.”
“We are.”
“But were you two ever, you know…”
“What did Cowgirl tell you?”
Mercy sat up straight and frowned down at her. “How did you know Cowgirl said something?”
“Because Cowgirl asked us the same thing multiple times.” Rembrandt linked their ring fingers. “We weren’t together. That was never a thing with us. Cowgirl just draws too hard of a line between platonic and romantic love, which is funny considering how close she is with Cochise.”
Mercy laughed. “Okay, so I wasn’t imagining that.”
“Nah. She’s got this thing, though, where she thinks that when love hits a certain intensity, it flips from wanting someone with you, to wanting to be with someone. If that makes sense.” She turned her hand over to brush her thumb across Mercy’s palm. “It doesn’t. That’s not how love works.”
Mercy slipped her hand fully into Rembrandt’s. Rembrandt took it. Then Rembrandt’s head was on her shoulder, and she wrapped an arm around the smaller woman’s waist, and before Mercy really knew what was happening, Rembrandt was fully in her lap with her arms tight around her, nails digging into her back, and she had one hand tangled in Rembrandt’s hair as she buried her face against the curve of her shoulder. They sat there for a long time tangled up in each other, breathing together, and Mercy could feel Rembrandt’s tears soaking through her shirt but she didn’t want to bring it up and risk scaring Rembrandt away from this.
Rembrandt carefully unwrapped one arm from Mercy’s torso and let her hand rest flat against the side of her neck instead. “I don’t need you to be her,” she whispered shakily. “None of us do. We want to remember Fox as she was and know you as you are.”
Mercy nodded as best she could in their current position. “Are you sure you aren’t a poet instead of a visual artist?”
Rembrandt’s laugh was the best sound Mercy had ever heard. “No fucking way I’m letting anyone read the shit I write. Way too lame.” She swept her thumb beneath Mercy’s jaw. “Come with me to the boardwalk tomorrow. I’ll show you Fox’s favorite places and tell you some stories about her, if you really want.”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
“And Mercy?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”