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It’s late at night when Marcy wakes up.
The moon is but a sliver, silver light tracing the hospital bed’s sheets. She can still taste the salt water of Amphibia on her lips, the last remnants of a sensation she’ll never experience again.
She sits up. The hospital room is quiet, a far cry from the earlier hustle and bustle. She’s been given an almost clean bill of health, save for some malnutrition. The Core missed having bodily sensations, and so they indulged in food and sleep quite a bit, but they weren’t exactly up to date with what humans needed to eat to stay healthy. Living off of cupcakes and other sweets isn’t ideal for a growing teenager.
For a moment, all she does is stare out the window. It’s been so long since she’s seen the moon. It’s strange to think about. For nearly a year the moon has been red, and now that it’s back to the ordinary white she almost forgot what it looked like. Then she sighs, standing up on slightly unsteady legs. She’s still recovering from all the energy the calamity gems took out on her.
She’s not the only one.
Guilt warps at her stomach, making her nauseous. She can feel saliva pooling in her mouth. She spits it out with a sigh. She wipes at her mouth, fingers bracing against a still stinging cut on the bottom of her chin.
“Sasha…”
She’s always known, deep down, that her affection for Sasha went beyond just friends. Maybe she didn’t have a word for it, but ever since they first met, when Sasha was her knight in shining armor, well, Marcy’s always been a dreamer. It only got worse over time, every day Sasha spent with her, protecting her, caring for her in her own Sasha way… it felt like a fairytale come true.
She never said anything about it, of course. Sasha never made any indication she felt the same. If anything, she seemed to feel nothing at all. She never had crushes, or spoke of boys in a dreamy way. Marcy’s not stupid, she’s been around the internet block. But there were days where she wondered if the way Sasha treated her, treated them, compared to everyone else, meant something special. Now… she might not mean anything to Sasha anymore.
Marcy considers going to see Anne. She would understand, better than anyone. But Anne has been all but inconsolable since they left Amphibia. The moment that portal closed she fell to her knees and screamed, sobbing echoing in the small playground where it all started so long ago. And that guilt, it is still there, it is poignant, but Marcy can’t face it yet. She’ll have to apologize to Anne for causing her this pain soon enough, but right now she has bigger fish to fry.
She’s barely even spoken to Sasha since they got back. Not because she didn’t want to, far from it! But Marcy has always been a coward, is still a coward, even after everything. For so long she’s watched Sasha from afar, and now that she is so close Marcy can’t bring herself to do anything about it.
And yet, the guilt is stronger than the fear.
She needs to apologize. Sure, she already did, it’s not enough. She needs to look Sasha dead in the eye and apologize for the pain and suffering she caused. It’s the only way she might ever get Sasha to be her friend again.
Marcy takes a deep breath. She sets her feet down on the cold hospital tile, and pads her way past her parents, asleep on the couch. She wanders down the hallway, past Anne’s room, where she can still hear muffled sobs, and tries not to let the nausea turn her back.
She knocks three times on Sasha’s door. “Sasha?” She calls softly. “Are you awake?”
For a moment, there is silence, and Marcy feels silly for even asking. Then, there is a quiet “yeah” on the other side, and Marcy takes the moment to slip in.
Sasha’s hospital room is the same as her own. It’s quiet, and empty, without even her parents. Sasha’s parents have other kids to worry about, after all, and on such short notice they couldn’t find family to watch them. Sasha sits up in the center, rubbing at her eyes. Even in a moment like this, so disheveled and unkempt, she takes Marcy’s breath away.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” Marcy asks.
“Nah, I couldn’t sleep.” Sasha’s voice betrays her. There’s the guilt again. The Sasha Marcy knew wouldn’t let anyone get in the way of her “beauty sleep”, at least, before. But things are different now. Marcy doesn’t know the full extent of it, but she does know Sasha ran a whole rebellion out of Wartwood. That must’ve meant forgoing sleep when needed. For emergencies. But Marcy is not an emergency, right?
“How are you feeling?” Marcy asks.
“Mm, fine, I guess.” Sasha replies. “They’ve got me on the good stuff.”
“Oh.”
Sasha frowns. She scoots to the side, patting her bed. “You coming?”
“Can I?”
“Why not?”
Why not indeed.
Slowly, hesitantly, Marcy toddles over to the bed, waiting for a last minute rejection that never comes. Sasha’s face stays open, patient, even eager. When she slides into bed, Sasha takes her hand.
“I missed you,” Sasha says.
“I missed you too.” Marcy admits. Her cheeks burn with how close they are. “I mean, as much as I could.”
“Really?” Sasha smiles. “That’s a relief.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, nothing! It’s just…” Sasha looks away. “Some things the… the Core said, is all.”
Marcy frowns. She might not have been able to see or hear the things it did when in her body, but she can sure as shit see the aftermath. She’s never seen Sasha this… pliant. Dejected? Subservient? Shy? “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t you.”
“It was still my body.” Marcy frowns. “And… you’re hurt. I’m sorry you’re hurt, at least.” There. She said what she came for. So why does she feel stuck in place? Is it her exhaustion? Or is it Sasha’s gaze?
Sasha smiles. “Thanks, Marbles. I’m sorry too.”
“For what?”
“For being a bad friend. I didn’t really… get you, before. The way you deserved, at least. You should have supportive friends, and I wasn’t one.” Her smile fades, and Marcy finally clocks the emotion that Sasha is expressing. Self deprecation. “Maybe in a way I deserved–”
“No.”
Marcy blinks, just as surprised by her tone as Sasha. She shakes her head. “Whatever the Core did to you, you didn’t deserve any of it. Neither of us did.”
Sasha hums, but doesn’t disagree. “Is it ok if I– your face, can I…?”
“My face?” Marcy echoes in confusion.
“Your cut.” Sasha blushes.
“Oh!” Marcy says. “Oh, yeah, sure, yeah.” She laughs nervously as warm fingers dance their way down her cheek.
Sasha hums sadly. “That’s gonna scar, huh.”
“Eh, it’s fine!” Marcy giggles, yelps even. Oh frog, she's so close. “I mean, I have worse.”
Sasha blinks, processing the statement, before she barks out a laugh. “Oh my god, Mars. Don’t say it like that.”
“It’s true!”
“That’s so dark!”
“It’s funny!”
“Yeah, it is.” Sasha admits. She sighs. Her hair almost glows under the moonlight. It’s probably grease, lord knows when Sasha last had a bath, but yet she’s more beautiful than ever.
Marcy takes a deep breath. “My turn.” she says.
“Huh?”
“Your back. Can I see it?”
Sasha pauses, tensing. Then, slowly, she relaxes. “Yeah, ok.” She turns around, lifting her hair up and pulling the string on her hospital gown. “Promise you won’t freak out? It’s probably not as bad as it looks.”
Marcy snorts. “Ok.” She brushes back the dressing gown to reveal bright red. Even under the moon, with its cool colors, the skin stands out like a neon flame. It’s patched and raw, bubbling and boiling lava, all patterned down her back in a jagged form. No amount of burn cream and medicinal patches can cover up how red it is.
Marcy resists the urge to vomit. Instead, she presses her forehead into Sasha’s shoulder, squeezing her hand.
“That bad, huh?” Sasha jokes. “It’s cool, though. It’ll make a fun scar.”
“Yeah.” Marcy whispers. “A scar I gave you.”
“Nah. Anne gave me a scar. You didn’t.”
“My hands did this.” Marcy shudders a bit at the thought. Her own hands, covered in red blood, Sasha’s blood. She clutches harder at Sasha.
“Hey, hey,” Sasha’s voice is soothing, too soothing for Marcy to deserve. She pulls Marcy back, changing their position so that they’re looking at each other. “I mean it. You didn’t do it. I’m ok.”
“How?” Marcy whispers. “How can you be ok? Someone hurt you.”
“I’d do it all again to save you.”
“You shouldn’t have.” Marcy clutches at her chest. She’s crying now. “I got us all stuck in Amphibia. I got you put in prison and I got Anne killed and I got stabbed–”
“Oh, Marcy,” Sasha sighs. She goes to hug Marcy, but Marcy pulls back, her skin too sensitive and her wounds too sharp. Sasha settles for resting against her instead. For a moment, they sit there, letting Marcy cry into the night as the pain bleeds them both dry.
“I’m sorry,” Marcy sobs. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know, it’s ok,” Sasha says.
“It shouldn’t be. Why aren’t you mad?”
Sasha goes quiet for a moment. “I was,” she admits. “For a while, actually. I was really, really mad. I wasn’t even sure if we could still be friends. But then I saw that… thing. In you. I saw the Core, and all I could think about was how much I needed you back. How much I wanted to be your friend. A real friend this time.”
Marcy cries. She shakes her head. “I’m not a good friend.”
“Me neither,” Sasha admits. “But we can try, right? Please?” She lifts her head up to look into Marcy’s eyes. “Promise you’ll try with me?”
Marcy sighs. One part of her, the guilt, tells her no. That it’s too late to try, that there’s nothing she could do that would reverse the damage she did. But at the same time… she wants to try. She really, really wants to try, more than anything. Because Sasha is looking at her, with a soft smile and a patient eye, a look that Marcy has wanted more than anything in her entire life to be worthy of. She’s waited years for Sasha to look at her, really look at her, and now that she has it, she can’t find herself caring about anything else.
“Ok, I promise.” She says. “We’ll be better this time. Together.”
Sasha’s face lights up in a pretty pink and a bold smile. She looks happier, truly happier, than Marcy has ever seen her. It’s a wild thought. She made Sasha smile like that. It fills her lungs with exhilaration. With courage, and with impulsiveness.
She looks into Sasha's eyes, watching as molten blue magnetizes. She can feel her breath tickling her skin as they lean in closer.
The moon glows silver overhead when she pulls Sasha in for a kiss.