Work Text:
It starts in little ways.
It’s a wet, just starting to be cool evening in early September, and she and A-spen have gone to the movies with their friends. Nearly everyone had come along, in a rare instance of both everyone’s schedules aligning and the movie being to everybody’s liking.
It’s not a bad movie, exactly, Willa can admit despite not really being a movie person, something that Wyatt complains endlessly about.
She doesn’t hate movies, exactly. She finds most of them extremely boring and monotonous, but that’s not the same as hate, is it? And A-spen loves them.
The alien particularly enjoys deathly dull romancey types of movies, where the plot is exactly the same every single time. But then they get this cute, intensely focused look on their face while they’re watching them, and Willa never actually has it in her to say no.
And more often than not A-spen’s head ends up pressed against her shoulder halfway through the movie, whatever it is, because nearly always, no matter how focused the alien is on the movie, they still pass out midway through it.
But it’s another thing that Willa can’t help but find cute, and so they wind up doing it again and again. (Wyatt has a hilarious joke that he loves to tell now, that he never knew all it took was puppy eyes to take her out, after which she shoves him, hard.) (The fact that it actually has to be A-spen remains unspoken by both of them, probably because her brother knows she actually would strangle him then.)
Tonight is shaping up to be a nice night, one of a lot lately. Her brother is up in the row in front of them with Eliza, along with Zed and Addison. Bree and Bonzo were supposed to be here, but Willa’s not sure if they ever showed up.
Bucky might even be here, somewhere in the theater, even though he’d never actually admit to hanging out with them in any way, shape, or form. Willa shifts in her seat. Beside her A-spen still sits up straight in their seat, their eyes fixed on the screen.
It’s a slightly scary movie about monsters from outer space. She wonders if it’s slightly offensive to A-spen.
A-spen has shown a remarkable lack of offense at much of anything, in the time that Willa has known her. Her brother says opposites attract.
It’s not that Willa’s offended at everything. Just, a lot of things.
The movie is maybe three quarters of the way through and A-spen has yet to fall asleep. They're still sitting rigidly straight up in their seat. Willa wonders if she should ask if they're okay, but maybe that’s not fair, maybe they’re just really into the movie.
So she doesn’t say anything.
Maybe she should’ve noticed things sooner.
Later, with hindsight, Willa can remember little things, and she’ll wish that she was more observant, she who claims such loyalty to her pack, her friends.
How could she have missed it?
But that night, when A-spen is quiet, oddly so, even for them, she doesn’t think much of it.
A-spen is sort of like a switch, when they want to talk, they talk, a lot, and then when they don’t, they doesn’t.
The sidewalk is wet.
“It must’ve rained while we were in there.” Willa remarks into the silent night.
A-spen doesn’t say anything, fiddling with their water bottle.
“Wow, that movie was so. Bad.” Zed says from behind her, coming out of the theater hand in hand with Addison. “It…could’ve been a little more pc.” Addison admits.
Willa smirks, hand on her hip, turning towards the blonde. “You think?”
Zed turns around, raising his arms and letting out a moaning screak in an obvious imitation of the undead alien slime monsters from the movie they had just watched. Multiple people laugh, including Bree and Bonzo, who must’ve finally shown up sometime during the movie.
“Hey, you guys wanna get something to eat?” Addison suggests to the group. Zed grins, arm falling around her shoulders and Willa resists the urge to make a face. She might've had a girlfriend too now, but they’re not that bad, obviously.
Speaking of A-spen, Willa turns around to look for them, only to find them standing a little bit back, almost out of the puddle of light coming from the movie theater. Her brow furrows, but before she can do anything, Addison’s voice breaks through the night.
“Willa, A-spen, you guys coming?”
Willa turns to look at the alien, who shifts uncomfortably, having inadvertently become the center of attention.
“Um…I’m sort of tired…” the alien admits quietly.
“Aw, come on.” Zed says, trying to be nice, but it sort of annoys Willa. She knows that unless this is nipped in the bud, their friends, solely out of a desire to be nice and inclusive, will wheedle and beg until A-spen agrees to come, and it won’t take much begging either.
And anyone can see that A-spen doesn’t really wanna go, for whatever reason. “I’ll walk you home.” she says before anyone else can say anything. A-spen opens their mouth, as if to protest, then shuts it again.
They leave their friends behind, walking together down the dark wet sidewalks, the clear, starry sky huge above. They’re silent, but Willa doesn’t mind.
Maybe she should’ve been more sensitive, but she’s not.
She’s the alpha, her heart rarely bleeds. Maybe it’s a flaw.
Maybe she’s just cold.
Either way, she regrets it later.
They walk across town, to where the aliens have put in their strange little blue houses, each with a crystal observatory thingie at the top. A-spen tried once to give her a very complicated, long-winded explanation of their actual purpose, but Willa hadn’t understood any of it.
They stop at the door to the first small townhouse and the biggest; where A-spen lives with A-li and A-lan.
Willa doesn’t see much of the other too. She holds a suspicion that the other two aliens in A-spen’s little pod are less forgiving of that whole wanting-to-rip-their-hearts-out moment than A-spen.
Not that Willa particularly cares.
There’s really only one alien (one person, other than her brother) that she truly cares what their opinion of her is. She turns to look at A-spen, who hasn’t said a word the whole time.
“Hey.” she says, reaching out to touch their shoulder.
A-spen had been trying out more earth clothes of late, and had recently bought a (dark blue, it was always blue with them) denim jacket, used and worn down in the sleeves. Someone, probably Addison, had given them a little enamel planet pin, which they had pinned up in the fabric near the shoulder.
A-spen’s short blue hair is brushed back neatly, and their blue eyes are tired. Willa squeezes where her hand rests.
“You okay?” she asks, voice low. A-spen nods automatically, like Willa knew she would.
She should’ve pressed harder, but A-spen had truly just seemed tired, so Willa had let it go. They had leaned together, lips pressing together in a chaste kiss, and A-spen had seemed perfectly fine, their arms twisting around Willa’s neck.
They had kissed (and then kissed again), and then A-spen had gone inside the house, and Willa had left to go join her friends at the restaurant and she hadn’t thought about it anymore.
But she wished that she had.
Sometime later, but in that same week, they’re sitting in the cafeteria together eating lunch.
Wynter is at Willa’s shoulder and A-spen is beside her on her other side, and most of their other friends are around them. Willa never would’ve thought even just a few years ago that she’d have quite this many friends, ragtag bunch they might be, but here they are.
A-li and A-lan are elsewhere. Sometimes A-spen will eat with them instead, but most days the alien sits wherever Willa does.
The mood is bright, filled with laughter, and so it’s easy to miss the way that A-spen is picking at their food, not really eating much of any of it. Willa notices it from the corner of her eye, but she knows that to remark on it here is to instantly bring it to the attention of everybody, and that’s not something she wants to do, especially to A-spen.
A-spen isn’t shy. But they’re not wildly extroverted either. They flicker between a bright cheerfulness and a soft, thoughtful sort of personality.
Maybe A-spen is just thinking very deeply about something, something that makes food seem uninteresting. Willa does remember hearing them say that they didn’t like the way earth food tasted several times in the past. Maybe A-spen just doesn’t like this particular food for some reason.
Wyatt says she can be controlling. That’s what leaders do.
But she doesn’t want to control them, and she certainly doesn’t want to embarrass them in front of all their friends (and Addison, who at any scent of a problem will hunt you down in an effort to fix it for you.) (the girl truly could have werewolf blood the way she could always find people).
Wynter’s been busy talking all through lunch break about the hunter’s moon party they’re having out in the woods during the full moon on Friday. It’s something like a holiday for werewolves and it’s a fantastic party; and it’s a new thing that non-werewolves are joining in.
But Willa can’t imagine a world without her friends now, so she’s happy about it. A-spen doesn’t seem particularly interested in any of it.
There’s that same droop in their shoulders, that same tired dullness in their normally gleaming blue eyes. Willa’s never seen A-spen like this. Maybe they’re getting sick with something.
Willa knows nothing about sickness; the closest she’s ever come to sickness was when her moonstone was nearly drained, other than that she’s spent her life in perfect health.
Maybe Addison would know. Maybe she should ask her.
Mentally Willa considers, then decides that involving the force known as Addison Wells should be nothing but a last resort. She leans over slightly, bumping A-spen’s shoulder gently with her own.
“Hey.” she murmurs lowly, and A-spen looks up. “You’re coming to the full moon party right?”
A-spen looks at her, and slowly their eyes brighten. They smile, and nod.
Willa grins.
After school A-spen and Addison and Zed and her brother all come out to help in the woods because, as Addison put it, “every party needs streamers.”
Willa’s first urge was to roll her eyes and protest that they had done perfectly fine without streamers for who knows how long, but she didn’t, because if she’s not careful she’ll risk being labeled as a big grump.
And- well.
They actually are kind of pretty.
A-spen has been hovering about with Addison for the better part of the afternoon, helping Addison pin up material off of the rolls that they had brought onto the surrounding trees.
It was some sort of shiny metallic alien material, something that looked suspiciously similar to a pair of pants that she had seen A-spen wear once.
Willa smiled to herself as Addison stapled the last corner into place onto the biggest tree in the forest clearing. With a grin she let herself trust fall into her boyfriend’s waiting arm below, where he had been handing stuff up to her as she needed it.
Zed caught her easily, smitten looks on both their faces.
A-spen lowered themself as well, to where Wyatt stood. He smiled at the alien, offering them a hand, which they took.
Wyatt made no secret that he both liked A-spen, and that he was really happy about them being together. It was almost annoying how hard he tried to be a good brother. She did, however, appreciate him being nice to A-spen.
Addison and Zed were still busy being mushy-eyed with the other, though they were done working, so Willa guessed that it didn’t actually matter all that much.
A-spen came over to her as Willa stood back and examined the clearing. There was a small smile on their face. It was pretty, Willa had to concede.
She admitted as much to A-spen, quietly.
An amused smile formed on their face. “I think everyone has had to admit defeat to Addison.” A-spen said knowingly.
Willa made a face.
“You don’t think I could take her?” she asked, half joking. A-spen only shrugged, peaceable as always.
Their blue hair and eyes shone in the dabbled sunshine breaking through the trees. They looked up at Willa, face unreadable, and a strange, shaking sort of pulse ran through Willa’s body.
Was this love?
A-spen blinked as Willa grabbed their hand and drug them out of the sunlit clearing and into the dark shade of the forest.
“Willa, is something wrong-” A-spen began, but stopped when Willa bent and pressed her mouth against theirs. A-spen let out their usual little gasp, but Willa barely noticed in her rush to kiss them senseless, pressing them up against a tree.
A-spen melted against her, like ice melting against fire, and something about it was soothing to her. Maybe that was selfish of her.
Maybe she was just greedy.
All Willa knew was that she had never been in love like this in her entire life, and something about it made her clutchy, needy, selfish.
She held A-spen’s face in her hands, fingers brushing through their short hair. She felt the alien’s fingers brush her collar bones, felt her own moonstone pulse at the flush of emotion.
She kissed them harder, deeper. Something about love was like a bruise, she thought.
“You’ll be my date tomorrow night, right?” Willa asked, momentarily pulling away. A-spen blinked, once, twice, visibly dazed.
“...Yes.” they murmured, but Willa thought she saw something almost like hesitance flicker in their eyes. It disappeared just as soon as it came, and Willa brushed it off as nothing more than insecurity on her part.
She smiled, and overhead birds chirped in the trees.
The night of the party comes.
Willa wears her short dress and her fur cape.
Wyatt just grins and says, “Who are you trying to impress?”
She shoves him. Really though, that’s not the case, Willa thinks, trying to justify it to herself. She does try to maximize her impact with her clothing (she’s the alpha, being majestic is, like, her job), but A-spen never makes her feel like she needs to try.
“A-spen worships you.” her brother says, slight chiding in his voice.
She turns to look at him, not knowing where he’s going with this. He just shrugs. “Don’t take them for granted.”
Willa tilts her head, feeling slightly hurt. “I don’t.” she says sternly, but inside she wonders, and worries, just a little. Wyatt pats her shoulder, and grins.
“They’re good for you.” he tells her, more than a little smug, and Willa wonders if he’s trying to get her to strangle him tonight. She’d have a hard time explaining that to Eliza.
Luckily for him that’s when Zed and Addison arrive, along with Eliza, and they go out to meet them. The stars and moon are out, shining in sharp, hard points, and the air is cool.
A-spen arrives late, which is strange for them, but Willa’s just glad that they’re here. They have on a buttoned up collared shirt with alien patterns twisting over it, and dark blue shorts, and sneakers.
“I’m sorry, A-li needed help with something and-” A-spen begins, but Willa cuts her off. “It’s fine! I’m just glad you’re here.” she says, meaning it.
The night is in full swing, with werewolves, humans, and zombies all dancing in the clearing. There are fewer aliens, mostly just A-spen comes around. The sky is dark, and Willa can feel the heat, the raw power of the full moon pulsing through her body. A-spen’s hand is clammy in hers.
A-spen is still quiet, and tired, and late, and hesitant, and it makes the wolf in Willa growl with annoyance.
She wants adoration, no hesitation. Absolute loyalty.
That’s what she gives, after all.
Emotions coil in her stomach, tight and hot, and her understanding, her empathy, is fading dangerously quickly.
Because for the past week A-spen has been acting strange, acting like they’re over it, and it’s making her feel insecure, abandoned, and she hates it. At some point A-spen had slipped away, murmuring something about going to get a drink, and they hadn’t come back.
Maybe they like someone else, a hideous voice whispers in her mind.
The full moon is revving her up, she knows, and mentally Willa tries to talk herself down before she does something she regrets.
No. No, no, no, A-spen is hers. Her mate.
Hers.
She’ll kill whoever tries to take them, rip their throat out.
Where is A-spen.
She steps off, a growl in the back of her throat. She’s a step away from disaster, a hair from wolfing out. She passes Addison and she must look bad enough that the blonde breaks away from Zed, looking concerned. “Willa-”
But the alpha doesn’t stop. She finds A-spen sitting on the edge of the clearing, paper cup in hand, staring at the ground. The alien looks up, wide-eyed, when Willa comes over.
“Is something wrong?” Willa asks, brusque. A-spen's eyes widen. Hesitation.
It only enrages the wolf further.
She can feel her friends' eyes, watching her through the darkness. “You’ve been acting weird all week. Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
A-spen eyes dart, avoiding. “There is nothing wrong.” they say, emotionless. She hates that whole side of them.
“Fine, don’t tell me. Just go back to all of your stone cold alien friends, they’re the only ones like you.” she spits, and A-spen’s face turns white.
She regrets the words almost as soon as they leave her mouth. But the wolf is too far gone, too in control now, to be reigned in.
She feels Addison’s hand on her shoulder, pressing her back. She growls, at her. Had she been growling this whole time? From the look on Addison’s face, it seems like it. Willa huffs and wrenches her arm free.
Addison is probably the only person who could get away with doing that without having their arm ripped off, and she knows it. But in that space, minutes or seconds, A-spen has fled.
Willa exhales, slow and hot, and shuts her eyes.
With one darting glance from Addison, Zed had understood that he was supposed to go after A-spen.
It was something he had already been planning on doing, but he was still glad to have the second opinion. He had to go on further than he planned, he had actually had to go all the way back to Seabrooke, to the first bus stop/park bench on the edge of the forest, where the street lights were just coming into view.
He stops, (totally not out of breath) when he sees the blue-headed figure hunched on the bench. He had just begun to think the alien had just teleported away or something, but luckily, that wasn’t the case. Aliens are fast though, damn.
He starts to go over to them, but he freezes when he hears a shuddering sob.
His heart absolutely sinks.
It’s followed by more sniffles.
He’s never seen A-spen (or any of the aliens, A-spen is just the one he spends the most time with) cry. Honestly it’s not something he’d wanted to see. He’d hope nobody would ever have a reason to sob, but maybe that’s not realistic for the world they live in.
He goes over, moving slower. “Hey.” he says, standing in front of them in a hopefully non threatening way.
A-spen has their head in their hands, but they look up at the sound of his voice. “Zed? What’re you doing here?” they ask, sounding…lost. He shrugs, smiling gently.
“I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay.” he says easily. A-spen just looks up at him, and he wonders if they’re not okay.
Willa…has a temper. And, just a personal guess on his part, but he can’t imagine that the alpha enjoys the making-themselves-vulnerable-on-personal-level thing that generally comes with…dating.
And A-spen has been a little off lately. Addison had pointed it out to him when she had noticed it.
They’re more quiet than normal, they just generally seem…less happy than they did. Zed really hopes it doesn’t have anything to do with their girlfriend, with Willa.
It might. Sometimes things- they don’t work out.
These tears, right now, are definitely Willa’s fault. But the rest, Zed doesn’t know.
Overhead the stars gleam and glow in a velvet ultramarine sky.
A-spen still hasn’t spoken.
Zed coughs.
“Willa didn’t mean all that.” he says into the open sky.
“I believe she did. I believe that I deserved it.” A-spen says quietly, voice empty.
Zed looks over at her, baffled. A-spen looks tired, looks miserable. He’s about to say something else, maybe even hug them, because they look like they need it, when, out of the shadows, A-lan steps, face blank.
Zed blinks. “Um, hey A-lan.” he says. A-lan just looks at him.
“Zed.” he says curtly, before turning towards A-spen. They seem to communicate wordlessly for a moment, and then A-spen stands. “Thank you for checking on me, Zed.” A-spen says, trying to smile but they can’t, he can see that.
Zed just nods, and feels bad even though he doesn’t know why.
A-spen and A-lan then leave, walking down the empty road on the starlit night, and Zed just watches them go.
Nobody sees A-spen that weekend. On Monday A-spen is not there, and neither are any of the aliens, not a single one.
Willa’s face is like stone.
Eliza is tempted to talk to her, but Wyatt just shakes his head in a very clear no.
The school feels like it’s had its heart ripped out.
Everybody has an opinion, and the only thing keeping them from saying them louder is a general fear of Willa’s rage. Personally, with all the stuff Eliza’s seen, she doesn’t think the fight with A-spen was all that bad.
Something similar had happened with her and Wyatt after all, and they had patched things up. And the aliens…they’re hard.
Their brains work differently. Even with their emotions turned on, they’re still detached from them somehow, and it's just. Hard.
On the flip side, werewolves, sometimes it feels like they’re nothing but raw emotion. And at the very top of that is Willa, the epitome of raw, passionate feeling (usually anger).
It’s a miracle that A-spen and Willa managed to make it work at all. But Eliza thinks something special must be there because the two of them seemed well and truly smitten with the other.
Eliza just hopes that it isn’t all over now. The question now is, where is A-spen.
That’s what Addison says to the table at lunch. Willa is nowhere to be found, but Wyatt sits down beside her, looking exhausted. Eliza plucks a chip from her plate. It’s obvious, really.
“Where all the other aliens are.” she says. Everyone just looks at her.
After school they go to A-spen’s house, where they live with the rest of their pod, A-lan and A-li.
A-li opens the door, and Eliza can see the clear relief on Addison’s face. Eliza knows about Addison’s secret fear of being left behind, if the aliens really had left earth once more.
Eliza wonders how much it hurts Addison at being left out of the aliens group think. At the risk of sounding nasty, Eliza thinks it’s a little scary just how interconnected the aliens are with each other. She’ll take her independence and free-thinking, thank you very much.
Still though, they’re never alone.
Never lonely.
A-li’s eyes are sharp. But that’s nothing new.
“What do you want?” she says, eyes darting over the three of them, the door opened but a crack.
Addison smiles nervously. “Could we talk to A-spen?”
A-li’s eyes narrow. “No.”
Zed tries next. “We just wanted to make sure they’re all right.”
A-li scowls. Eliza silently notes just how well it suits her face. “Go away. You’re just as bad as the werewolf.” A-li mutters, and Eliza blinks.
Zed and Addison’s expressions also falter, and Eliza knows that they’re thinking what she’s thinking. “Willa was here?” Eliza asks, quiet. A-li’s eyes almost soften, just a degree.
“They’re fine.” A-li says, saying nothing more, and then the alien shuts the door in their faces.
On Wednesday, normality is resumed.
The aliens, as a collective, return to the high school. A-spen returns, pale-faced but no worse for wear, but they are comfortably sandwiched in between A-li and A-lan now. And A-li has a face like stone, and A-spen doesn’t smile, and so it’s not the same.
But Addison is resolved, either way, to talk to them.
She hopes this isn’t all to do with Willa and the party. Surely not.
The aliens, A-spen, do not eat with them. Instead it’s like the old days, and A-spen sits in between A-li and A-lan to eat, quickly, and then in one group movement they all leave together as well.
That afternoon, just when Addison has spotted blue hair peaking out from behind a bookshelf in the library and is about to make her move, because for the first time in days A-spen is alone, she pauses, because she can hear voices, and she realizes, heart beating, that A-spen is in fact, not alone.
“-and I’m sorry.” A low voice says, Willa’s voice says.
Addison bites her lip, knowing just how bad it would be if Willa found out she was eavesdropping.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m…also unhappy about how things went. I wish they hadn’t…” A-spen’s voice.
“It’s okay. Things don’t always have to go perfectly. Still, I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. I guess I just thought…” Willa trails off. Something catches in Addison’s throat, hearing the vulnerability, the tenderness, in the normally gruff alpha’s voice.
Maybe call her silly, but Addison realizes now that she hadn’t realized the depth of Willa’s affection for the alien, and she feels slightly bad.
“I guess I was just afraid you didn’t like me as much anymore.” Willa admits finally, voice ghostly quiet in the library. Even Addison can hear the horrified gasp the alien lets out, all the way on the other side of the bookshelf.
“No! No, it had nothing to do with you, it was all my fault…” the alien says, sounding close to tears. Willa lets out a faint dry laugh. “It’s not you, it’s me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what everybody says.” But there’s humor in Willa’s voice now, and warmth, and then the pair goes silent except for a small sigh and a muffled gasp, and Addison takes her chance to creep away.
Maybe now things will be better, maybe this will help.
Except for Addison isn’t sure what was even wrong to begin with.
On Friday, like a stone dropping, like a storm ending, the air somehow just breaks.
The aliens, as a whole, are at school. But A-spen, A-spen is not there.
Somehow it’s noticeable. There’s no one standing centre in between A-li and A-lan, and the absence is a chasm. And finally, it’s clear, Addison thinks, that Willa has had enough. At lunch the alpha wolf marches, lunging across the cafeteria, to where A-li and A-lan sit.
The rest of them follow, curious in their own ways. A-lan looks up, blinking, at the hand Willa smacks down beside him on the edge of the lunch table.
“Willa.” he says, bland.
Willa just glares at him, like he’s to blame for all of this. Zed subtly moves a little closer to Willa, just in case he needs to pull her off of the alien.
“We were just wondering where A-spen was.” Zed says peaceably, brow furrowing. Addison nods. “Are they- okay?”
A-lan and A-li look up at her, at the small group of people who are standing around, at A-spen’s girlfriend who’s looking at them murderously.
A-lan glances almost imperceptibly at A-li, who immediately shakes her head no.
“Where. Is. A-spen.” Willa says, death in her voice. A-lan just looks at her. “The Mothership.” is all he says, blandly.
The group pauses, thrown for a loop. “Why are they there?” Addison asks, lost, voicing everyone's thoughts.
A-lan and A-li know what’s going on, it's clear. Some kind of silent conversation happens between the two. Addison doesn’t know if she longs to hear what they’re saying, or not.
Finally they seem to come to some sort of consensus, A-lan appearing to be the winner as A-li violently stabs her food with her fork.
“They’re on the mothership to receive treatment for their illness.” A-lan says quietly. Willa frowns, clearly still not happy. “What are you talking about?” she says, angry.
Addison nods. “Yeah. A-spen never said…”
“You shouldn’t tell them.” A-li tells A-lan angrily. A-lan looks tired and hesitant.
Addison pauses, thinking. “...did A-spen ask you not to tell us?” she asks the alien. A-lan nods, blue eyes meeting hers.
“We just wanna make sure they’re okay.” Zed adds. A-lan looks over at his friend. “They’re unlikely to stop trying.” he tells her. A-li just looks reproachful. A-lan turns back to them.
“A-spen has space melancholy.” he tells them benignly.
Addison blinks, trying to think. She can tell everyone is doing the same. “... you mean they have depression?” Addison says slowly.
At the same time as A-lan nods, A-li scowls. “It’s nothing like an earth disease. You know nothing of living in space, you wouldn’t understand.” she spats before going back to her lunch.
Addison softens, wondering how much of her irritation is nothing but worry for her friend.
“A-spen is resting on the mothership. Mothership is taking care of them.” A-lan tells them. Willa takes a breath, but looks much less angry than she did. “How long will that be?” the alpha asks the alien.
A-lan just looks at her, the answer obvious. He doesn’t know.
Addison’s heart tightens.
A week and a half later, on a bright, sunny Sunday morning, Wyatt coughs.
Willa turns to look at him, but he just nods to the opening of the den. Standing there, silhouetted in the morning sunshine, blue hair gleaming, is A-spen.
They smile, a bit nervous, at her. Beside her, Wynter and Wyatt are silent, waiting. Willa hates the drama of romance. Behind A-spen, like two ridiculous silver and blue bodyguards, stand A-lan and A-li.
They look less than pleased at being here, but Willa doesn’t care about them at all.
A-spen looks thinner, and maybe a little paler, from the two long weeks away up on the mothership, but there’s a smile on their face, and the brightness is back in her eyes. Willa gets up, grasps her hand.
“Hey.” A-spen says, looking up at her. Willa glances at A-lan and A-li. A-spen shrugs apologically. “Mothership wanted them to come with me.” they say.
Willa sighs, and tugs A-spen out from the doorway to the den and little ways into the woods. She suspects the aliens won’t let her take A-spen far, but it’s been two entire weeks and she’s going to be alone with A-spen, like it or not.
She’d like to see them try and stop her.
“I told them it would be fine. As long as we don’t tell Mothership.” A-spen says, a grin forming in the corners of their mouth once they stop. Willa smiles, her smile growing, and A-spen mirrors it.
Suddenly a swelling, yearning rush of emotion overwhelms Willa, and she wraps her arms around A-spen’s small frame, lifting them up against her. She can easily lift A-spen off their feet, she's really strong and A-spen is light, even lighter than they were before.
Willa holds them tight. A-spen presses their face into the curve of her neck, into her hair.
“I missed you.” she murmurs softly. She can feel A-spen’s smile against her skin.
“I missed you too.” the alien says. Finally Willa lets go, puts them down, but A-spen’s fingers grip onto her arms still.
“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” Willa asks, trying to keep the hurt from her voice. A-spen doesn’t meet her eyes. “I-I hoped that I would not get so bad this time. And- truthfully- I did not want you to think less of me. That I could be so weak.” A-spen says in a small voice.
“You’re not weak.” Willa says, ferocious. A-spen shrugs halfheartedly.
Willa’s hands lace together behind their back, pulling them flush against her. “Next time, if there’s something wrong, tell me. Please.” she says. A-spen looks at her, and nods.
“All right.” they say.
Gently, they move together, mouths pressing against the other’s softly. The kiss is gentle, careful, and then they part slowly.
Willa thinks that the way she’ll treat A-spen has changed, maybe forever.
They fall silent, just glad to be in each other’s arms. Around them, the forest hums with life.
“Just so you know, Addison has a big party, about a thousand streamers, and an entire cheer routine choreographed for when you came back.” Willa says smirking, breaking the silence.
A-spen winces. “How much of that do you think it will be possible to talk her out of?” A-spen asks.
Willa snorts. “I’ll do my best. But you’re probably definitely getting the routine.”
A-spen just smiles, head pressing against her shoulder.
<::> epilogue <::>
They're sitting on a blanket in a grassy field with the starry sky hanging huge above their heads.
A-spen's head presses into her shoulder with soft, stable warmth. It's October now, and the air is cool. Things are changing, but they're also staying the same.
Willa wonders if this is what it means to be happy.
A-spen folds their fingers into the long sleeves of their (blue) hoodie.
"All of the aliens died." A-spen says out of the blue.
Willa looks over at them, wondering if this is some sort of background information, some relic of a painful past that the alien has just now chosen to divulge.
"In that movie." A-spen says when she doesn't answer. Willa blinks.
"You mean, that crappy movie Zed wanted to see? That was ages ago."
A-spen nods. "It just. Made me think about my own friends, and, I don't know. A-li and A-lan watched the movie too, once I explained how upset it made me, and they did not understand what I meant, but-" A-spen pauses, wrapping their arms around their knees.
Willa just looks at them as they try to figure out what it is they mean.
"I suppose that is a silly thing to be upset over. A fictional movie. But still. All of the aliens died in it, and- I wish they hadn't." A-spen says finally, gazing up towards the sky for just a moment before turning back to Willa.
Willa doesn't know what to say to them, a being from beyond the stars, a person with a vast intellect, a weird sense of humor, and an enormously kind heart. She knows A-spen carries a well of grief within them, too.
It's something that's a part of them, something that might never go away.
But Willa wouldn't wish them different, not for anything. So she only smiles, soft, and maybe a little sad.
"It's okay to be sad about that, A-spen." she tells them.
Something passes over the alien's face, and they nod slowly, wordlessly. Carefully, gently, Willa puts an arm around their shoulders, and A-spen leans back against her.
The stars twinkle down on them.