Work Text:
Tikal can't believe the call. Even when her father tells her again, even when she repeats the news to her friends, it feels unreal. Her baby cousin was alive. Has been, for all these years. She had only been thirteen when their family was destroyed. Her mother and aunt and uncles and grandparents and cousins, all dead on the same day. A birthday party for her aunt, ending in tragedy. Tikal would have been dead too, if not for the cold that kept her and her father home. It was absolutely devastating. Something she still struggled to understand. No arrests had been made, no motives uncovered, no closure to be found. Just reports of gunshots and a black van driving away from the decimated home.
There had been a few years when they tried to find her cousin, the three-year-old whose body was missing. Soon enough though, the cops stopped looking for him and began looking for a corpse. Now, after thirteen years, even Tikal had begun to give up hope. To try and grieve instead of clinging to maybes and possibilities. Then, after coming home from work one evening, her father hugs her tight and can barely slow his speech to be understood.
A teen in foster care, sixteen years old, only going by the nickname "Knuckles", only recently rescued from the crime ring he was raised in, and without memory of any family. A DNA test linked him back to that horrible day. That deadly party. The same one her cousin had gone missing from. The teen would have been three when it happened.
The same age as her baby cousin.
When the news finally sets in, after a full day, it's overwhelming in every possible way. Tikal breaks down sobbing in her friend's arms, on the sidewalk and surrounded by nearly their entire neighborhood. Everyone had been overjoyed to hear the news. The teen is supposed to visit on the thirteenth (Again, thirteen. A number torn between worlds. Her father assures her it's good luck, a sacred number. The shows she's watched say otherwise. It's giving her cousin back after having taken him away.) with the family fostering him. Her father is tripping over himself preparing for the visitors, both the family and the tribal council members who are coming to discuss where to go from here. Tikal gets calls from friends across the reservation; congratulating her, promising favors and help, making sure she knows they're there for her. Some ask if he will be moving in with them, and Tikal wishes she had an answer. She's so wrapped up in the fact that her baby cousin is alive, that she's ignoring the conversation that the rest of the adults will be having.
Tikal doesn’t know how to feel about that yet, one way or the other.
Because on the one hand, she wants to hold him tight and never let go. She knows they'll have the right to do so if they want. The biological family has priority in foster care placements, and ICWA strengthens their case even more. Yet, (there's always something else) her cousin has lived with this family for over a year. Two adults and their adopted children. From what the social worker told them in her brief visit, they're good people who have even inquired about adopting Knuckles. Tikal knows exactly how it feels to have family ripped away from her.
She spends nearly the whole week going in circles and eventually resolves to only decide after meeting the foster family. Her father agrees. Her cousin will have the final say.
And then finally (Finally, finally, finally !) the day has come, and Tikal is on her front porch pacing. Her father and several council members sit inside, drinking tea and waiting patiently. But Tikal can’t . Not when he’s so close. Her cousin. The one she had held close as a baby, watching him scrunch his nose and admiring the mole right above his eyebrow and the tight curls in his hair. The cousin whom she had babysat more times than she could count, laughing when he tried to convince her that "Yes, mommy did say I can have cookies before dinner". The baby cousin who she had worried and wondered over for over a decade.
A car comes up the driveway and in an instant, all her thoughts are forgotten. There is no sound except the crunch of gravel and the breath stuck in her lungs. She can barely make out two adults in the front seats, which must be the foster parents. As soon as the car parks, a teen boy jumps out. His electric blue hair hangs in twists, matching the stripes on the side of his shorts. He wears a grey hoodie that Tikal can't quite read, but can see a baseball and bat. This isn't her cousin, she knows from the easy way he surveys his surroundings and the friendly wave he gives her before turning back to the car and helping another boy out. This one is far too young to be her cousin, with messy blond hair and a hoodie that nearly swallows him whole. He's nervous, but not worryingly so. He clings to the teen in the way that only younger siblings do.
For a frantic second, Tikal wonders if maybe there has been a mistake. She watches a man get out of the passenger seat and ruffle the youngest boy's hair. The world feels like it might end.
Then, from the other side of the car comes a woman with one last teen following behind. He has long locs dyed a fiery red and decorated with gold. While the others wear hoodies or coats to shield themselves from the brisk spring air, he wears a muscle shirt and shorts. It's too far to see, but Tikal knows if she looks there will be a mole above his eyebrow. This is her cousin. Her baby cousin, alive and healthy and well. Tikal tries to wait on the porch and let them approach on their own, but their eyes lock and she can't hold herself back any longer. She’s down the porch steps in an instant, tears already springing to life as she heads straight to her cousin. Distantly she hears the front door open, and more people step onto the porch. She stops right in front of the teen (because he is a teen now. Still her baby cousin, but far past the toy trucks and babbling statements she remembers him for). Without thinking, she pulls him into a tight hug.
"Welcome home." She whispers.
And he hugs her back. Hesitantly, slowly, almost like he's scared, but he does hug her back. It's just enough to bring forth the tears she's been fighting back.