Archive of Our Own

Despite what everyone had expected, Zoe is fine with working in food service again. Sure, it brings up some past memories, but she was, like, good at her job, too! The problem is that all her circus-friends know about that part of her is Spudsy's, and she's never actually been like that at work.

Zoe's not in love with it or anything, but she knows what she can handle by now. And having to search for jobs again after about a four year absence doesn't really make for a good time. Zoe had been twenty-one when she disappeared and had limited skills then. It was best to find a place she could convince she was somewhat competent and move up from there.

She's still better off than Jax, though. He'd been a teenager when he arrived, and had left six years older and without a GED. Mikhail and Alice were apparently trying to do something about that, though Zoe hadn't asked for details. They'd escaped the circus together, but Jax wasn't really her problem.

Or at least, she doesn't want him to be. But that doesn't stop Jax from showing up at her work one day.

He doesn't ask for her. She notices him first. Zoe thinks she might have a sixth sense for him now, even though this purple-less, slouching human, looks nothing like the rabbit that tormented her.

"Jax?" Zoe says. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey Ribbons." Even as a human, Jax's grin is the same. "Just the girl I was looking for. Think you can use your manager privileges to snag me some free food?"

"Why don't—do you not have money?" Zoe asks. It's only now does it dawn on her that Jax is not in the stereotypical ripped jeans and a hoodie outfit she's seen him in every time they've met up since they escaped the circus. "Were you—did you have a job interview?"

Jax's face falls.

"I have money," he snaps. "Just didn't think you were such a cog in the machine that you cared about making your boss some cash."

Zoe isn't sure whether she's more or less convinced Jax has money by that statement. He must, she thinks, because Zoe had never told him which McDonald's she was working at and the fact that they meant at all was probably coincidence. Jax was like that sometimes, making up a convenient lie to make himself look more powerful—Zoe knows she would have been trembling in her ribbons at the thought of him knowing where she worked, before.

If he's still jobless, then he's probably depending on Alice for money. They did all get some money from signing the NDA with C&A, but Alice probably convinced Jax to do something reasonable with it, like put it in a trust or save the money for a rainy day, instead of doing what Zoe and Xio had and used a portion of it to rent an apartment and move in together as soon as possible. Zoe can understand why Jax wouldn't want to spend any more of her money than he'd have to. It's probably extra embarrassing having to tell an accountant you're running out of cash, even when that accountant isn't… whatever Alice is to Jax. Zoe's not sure if they're dating, but there's definitely something going on there.

"I can get you fries," Zoe offers. Jax blinks, like he's surprised his own plan worked.

"You're—You're not just saying that because you want to get fired, right?" Jax asks, suspicious. "This isn't some weird convoluted way to cash an unemployment check."

"I wouldn't do that!" Zoe protests. She puffs out her checks in offense. "Free fries are only for friends. I'm not going to offer you again if you're mean to me."

To Zoe's surprise, Jax clasps his hands together and bows towards her.

"Oh great Gangle," he says. "Queen of working in fast food. My very best friend. My favorite artist. Will you please let me have free fries, because you're so beautiful and kind?"

Even for a joke, it still feels nicer than some of the ways he joked with her in the circus. Maybe being human has done some good to him.

"You know, you can call me Zoe," Zoe says. She gestures to her nametag. "I know you didn't just forget."

Jax goes very still for a moment, his usual smile replaced by a vacant stare. It's long enough that Zoe almost reaches out to him before he snaps back to that smile.

"Nah," Jax says. "You can take the mask off of the girl, but I won't let them take your name, too."

"Who's 'them?'" Zoe almost asks, but something about that statement feels suspiciously like psychosis and Zoe doesn't think either of them have the mental capacity to process her talking him out of a delusion.

Instead, Zoe just goes to the kitchen and gets Jax a bag filled with fries. She gets him a cup for a drink, too, because she's nice like that.

"Hope you get the job," Zoe says.

"Ha!" Jax laughs and grabs the bag. "I won't."

It turns out, he's right about that. But a few weeks later, Xio comes home one day and asks Zoe if she'd be okay if they suggested Jax get a job at a friend's piercing studio.

"It's kind of close to where you work," Xio says. "I won't offer if you think he'll cause problems for you there."

"Um." It catches Zoe off guard sometimes when Xio is considerate of her like this. She's still used to being an afterthought. "I think I'll be. Fine? He's been a lot calmer since we've been back."

Zoe thinks about his apology more often than she'd like to admit. I wouldn't have been so rude if I knew you could actually be happy. How could anyone just not be capable of feeling happy? Yes, Zoe knows, sometimes it's hard for her, but that just makes the rare moments she does feel happy feel like a victory. Until that point, she had assumed Jax understood that. She'd forgotten that all the time she'd been spending trying to claw her way up, he'd been looking for ways to fall faster.

"He's not really as scary as a human," Zoe adds. "Besides, he apologized. I told you."

"Sure, but you accepting that apology doesn't mean you're ready to see him," Xio says. "You don't have to invite him back into your life even if things are different now."

Zoe appreciates casual decency she sees whenever Xio stands up for her. It's like there's no question her feelings come first. And Xio doesn't make a big deal about the fact she needs a reminder of that, sometimes.

"I really will be okay," Zoe promises. "We spent a while together when we were dealing with C&A, anyway. At least now we're not stuck in the same hotel room together."

Xio snorts at the reminder. The truth was, Jax had been actually pretty tepid then. Not calm, exactly, but definitely lacking the usual energy that had frightened her in the circus. The newly-human Jax seemed to have the capacity for no more than one conversation a day, which was admittedly not much different than Zoe, who could handle at least two. Still, she's taking that as a sign she's doing better than him now, which means the least she can do is let Xio give him a hand.

"I would have looked for somewhere else for him to apply to if you said no, you know," Xio says. "But I think working somewhere a little… alternative might be good for him. I'm not sure if he's even capable of conventional work at this point, honestly."

"It's not in his personality," Zoe agrees. For someone so terribly convinced they all had roles to play, he was terrible at customer service.

"It isn't," Xio says. "There's also—other stuff. Al says he gets super weird when anyone mentions his birth name, too, and he has to put that on job applications, so I figured it might help if he works somewhere that's kind of accepting. Even if this isn't—y'know."

"Oh." Zoe's eyes go wide. "Do you think it might be?"

"I'm…" Xio winces. "I've been catching some signs. But I don't know if Jax's figured it out yet. And I don't—don't tell them I said anything. Some people are really sensitive about this stuff."

Zoe remembers Jax's rage at the maid dress, and how angry they got when Xio had suggested this might be a thing he liked. If Xio's read this right, Zoe can't help but feel bad for Jax. They must really hate themself.

Of course, Zoe's known Jax has hated themself for a long time. It had just been something she couldn't afford to worry about.

"Don't worry," Zoe says. "I won't say anything. I know who we're talking about."

Predictably, Jax does come to bother Zoe at work. Now that she knows what Xio thinks, Zoe appraises them once more.

Jax never cut their hair after they left the circus. Whatever stasis chambers they had been trapped in had allowed it to grow freely. That doesn't mean it looks any better than the first time she saw them, though.

When they'd gone in for that other interview, they'd tied it up neatly in a bun, but with it down, Zoe can see how many split-ends haven't been taken care of. Their bangs cover most of their eyes, too. Zoe would offer a spare hair clip, but she thinks that part of the look might be intentional.

They're back in their hoodie, too. And now that the have a job, the pants they wear with it are slightly nicer.

Nothing about the look automatically convinces Zoe they're a girl, or even just less boy-adjacent that she originally thought. But it's not like Zoe is an expert on what the closet looks like, even if the bangs do remind Zoe of her high-school self to an almost uncomfortable degree.

"I'll take a burger with fries," Jax tells Zoe. "And yes, I'll pay."

"I really appreciate that," Zoe replies, who's not even working the register today. "Do you want me to take my break so we can eat together?"

The way Jax blinks makes Zoe think they honestly never considered it.

"Do you," Jax says slowly. "Want to eat with me?"

"If a friend is asking, sure!" Zoe says cheerfully. "Just give me a few minutes."

It brings her a bit of childish glee to see how unsettled Jax is by this. Whatever they expected Zoe to do, it wasn't this. Maybe Jax had hoped an apology was enough for Zoe to forgive them, and then they could both get their character development and go their separate ways. But Zoe doesn't work like that. She had forgiven Jax because she had thought they needed it to get better. And eating lunch together is a good way to look for some of that necessary self-improvement. If she doesn't find it, she might even take her forgiveness back. Being able to do that feels like being granted an awful lot of power, and with that comes a surprising amount of confidence.

Sorry, Zoe thinks. You're still stuck with me.

Sometimes looking at Jax is like pressing on a bruise that won't heal. But there's a bit of satisfaction in seeing them start to wince at her pain now, too.

Back in the circus, Gangle's emotions felt like drowning in a never-ending ocean. Wearing her happy mask put a small amount of plaster on a sinking ship, allowing her to briefly float above the water before falling back in. Now, her good and bad days are a bit more complicated than that. There were a hundred different emotions you could feel that couldn't be easily divided into just good and bad. Not every one of them made her a good employee, but she was finding more and more that she could avoid the all consuming sadness that used to plague her.

Zoe still feels sad, of course. But now it's like standing on the beach instead of actually being trapped in the ocean. She can still see what awaits her if she goes out too deep, but as long as she remembers where she is, she won't want to.

So Zoe recognizes the look in Jax's eyes when she sees them. It's the only look Gangle's ever seen in Jax's eyes, the one Kaufmo had insisted had started with Ribbit's abstraction—something that, unfortunately, bringing her back hadn't changed. Jax had been drowning next to her all this time. No, they'd been trying to drag Zoe under with them. And Zoe's not sure what she's supposed to think of them now that she's safe on land while Jax is still trapped out at sea.

Jax doesn't tell Zoe anything about their day, so Zoe fills the space between them with complaints about work.

"Sometimes people are so—ugh!" Zoe wrinkles her nose. "It's like, the world won't end just because it'll take five more minutes for me to get your order done."

"Well, that's what you get for being a manager," Jax tells her. "They pay you more because they know everyone's going to yell at you."

"Not that much more." Zoe snorts. "But some of the people I'm working with are just kids, you know? I kind of would rather customers yell at me than a teenager working their first job. I know how scary that can be."

"So, what, you're trying to save them from the horrors of working minimum wage?" Jax snorts. "It's cute that you think you can."

"I know I can't make the job fun, but I can at least make it bearable," Zoe protests. "Even a little bit of kindness can go a long way when you're trapped in a terrible situation."

"Working fast food isn't living with Caine, Ribbons."

"I know." And she does. She's in a good enough place that she rarely mixes up the circus with reality, even if she does sometimes wake up and search for her mask. "It's not exactly a good time, though."

Jax has no argument for that. They shrug.

"I kind of wish I could hire you for, like, a day," Zoe admits. "Just to see what happens when you have to deal with a really terrible customer."

Jax laughs.

"You took the adventure way more seriously than this," they say.

"Well," Zoe begins. She knows it's true. "I guess… I'm not worried about getting a high score?"

Jax just looks at her, unimpressed. They're probably still very aware of how quickly Zoe had abused her authority. They're probably also aware of why she punished them first.

"When I was the manager at Spudsy's, it was the first time in years I felt like I had any power," Zoe admits. "But now I'm here, and being a manager is just something I have to do every day. And I get to go home and see Zooble and we can do whatever we want together. I'd rather spend my time thinking about them then someone trying to insult me here."

"Ugh, don't start." Jax pretends to be sick. "Next you're going to tell me you've changed thanks to the power of positive thinking."

"I mean—" Zoe raises an eyebrow. "We got out of a digital nightmare. Now we're using an evil corporation's money to help our friends get therapy. Isn't worrying about what someone said because they couldn't find the mustard kind of silly on top of all that?"

Jax stares at her blankly.

"I thought everything made you want to cry," they say.

"Some things make me want to cry less than others." Zoe shrugs. "Maybe I'll feel differently once I've worked here longer. I don't know. It's still kind of exhausting to be in customer-service mode all the time. I'm trying not to overdo it. Zooble says that if I get fired because I don't smile enough, it's a sign I should have been searching for a different job, anyway."

"Well." Jax waves a hand. "The economy."

Zoe nods solemnly.

"Zooble's working, too, though," Zoe says. "If I need to take a break, they'll support me. And I'd do the same. Just like you and Pomni."

Jax flinches at Alice's name.

"You know it's not like that," Jax says quietly. As if Zoe might be making fun of them for bringing the subject up.

"I don't know you well enough to know what it's like," Zoe protests. "I just know you're living together. You're helping each other out, right?"

"I think I'm more like an expensive poodle someone tricked her into looking after," Jax jokes.

"I don't think Pomni likes dogs enough for that," Zoe says.

"She's a bleeding heart," Jax argues. "If she doesn't take care of me, someone'll put me in a shelter."

Zoe can't help but giggle at the thought, even though she's afraid Jax might be serious.

The first thing Zoe had seen when she'd lifted the headset off was Jax staring at their hands. It annoyed her a bit, because the romantic in her had wanted the first thing she saw with her human eyes to be Zooble, but then she realized that their headset was still on and managed to get the romantic meeting they had dreamed of.

And then Zoe glanced back at Jax, who was still staring at their hands. There'd been a moment Zoe had wondered if they hadn't gotten brought back properly. But then Kinger had started waking up the abstracted, and Zoe saw the sluggish way they walked, staring at the world like they were stuck in a dream and suddenly Jax's behavior didn't seem that strange at all.

It was only once Ribbit's headset was off did Jax seem to return to reality. Whatever happened to Ribbit's mind, they'd returned to consciousness prepared to fight, and instantly chose Jax as her target. A small part of Zoe couldn't help but wonder if this was the proof of a claim Kaufmo had made—that Ribbit's abstraction had been all Jax's fault.

Jax hadn't seemed bothered by the pain. They had let Ribbit claw at them and howl, and had only moved closer when Ribbit finally bit down on Jax's arm. Jax had simply moved closer, running a hand through their hair and making sounds like you would calm a dog.

Kinger hadn't wanted to move them, so he and Pomni had left the building to get help, while the rest of them stayed to take care of their friends. That was when Zoe had finally introduced herself to Zooble, who said their name was Xio, and Ragatha had quickly chimed in and told them to call her Andy.

Then Andy had turned to Jax and asked for their name.

"What are you talking about, Rags?" Jax asked, still petting Ribbit. They laughed. "I'm Jax. You'd think after all those years we spent together, you'd remember my name."

"No, I…" Andy looked at Zoe and Xio, then back to Jax. "I mean, your real name. I'm not—My name isn't Ragatha. I'm Andy. Don't you—Don't you remember what you went by before this?"

"I've gone by a lot of names." Jax grinned and it looked more hollow then ever. "Can't let the cops catch me, or they'll start making me pay taxes."

"You can't convince me you've ever paid taxes," Xio said, and then they looked at Andy and Zoe, and the three of them all privately decided to drop the subject.

They stayed together for a few hours, until Kinger came back with Pomni and a few men in suits, who had led them all to different C&A building where there had been a lot of fighting and conversation about what the company would allow them to say to the public, until finally they were allowed to go to a hotel and continue the rest of the conversation in the morning.

They'd been given a suite so that all of them could stay in the same room. Zoe had seen Jax without their hoodie only briefly, when she had woken up in the middle of the night and found the light in in the bathroom. Jax had been inside, wearing just their undershirt and Zoe could see the ugly bruise that Ribbit had left on their arm, the one that was turning even uglier the longer they pressed down on it.

Hadn't Pomni asked them if they were injured? Why hadn't they told her that Ribbit had broken skin? Zoe saw the blood pooling up the longer they pressed down.

Then Jax had noticed her staring and scoffed.

"Come on," they said. "Like you of all people have any room to judge me on this."

Then they closed the door.

But that had been before the apology, so Zoe had mostly decided she was over it by now.

Despite being close to her work, Jax doesn't come by that often. If anything, Zoe seems to be mostly a convenient person nearby for Jax to bother when they're bored. That's perfectly fine by Zoe, who appreciates this chance to slowly dip her toes into the idea of actually being friends with Jax, instead of being forced into constant proximity and having to pretend like she's over it. She doesn't think Jax is doing this to be considerate, because it's hard to imagine that Jax spends that much time thinking about her and her feelings, but the limited contact feels good. And Zoe doesn't even spend any time at work worrying whether or not Jax will come in, which she thinks is a sign she's doing better.

She has other people to worry about, anyway. Like her parents, who want her to contact them at least once a week now. It's a pretty fair response to going missing for years, Zoe thinks, but it doesn't make it any less exhausting. To put it as kindly and possible, Zoe gets her temperament from her mom. Every time she calls home, Zoe leaves the call with a new thing to worry about and has to go find Xio to help her calm down.

But it could be worse! She could still be living with them. So Zoe will indulge her parents for as long as she can, even if Xio is right and it's probably best for all of them that Zoe tries to talk to her mom about going to therapy herself. She's… working up to that, really. But she knows her mom would see it as a failure of sorts, so Zoe's got to figure out how to word it just right.

Until then, Xio's gotten back into working with clay, and they're helping Zoe make figures of some of their original characters. It's a good way to destress from everything.

She hasn't actually started working on her comic, though. She's still trying to find the perfect place to start it.

Zoe still draws in her free time. She's working on a portfolio now. She wants to get popular enough that she can start taking commissions. She's not sure if she's really good enough for that right now, but Xio says it's more about finding a style than anything else. Xio knows a bit about about marketing yourself from their tattoo days, and they say Zoe needs to be a bit more confident in promoting herself. That's why most of the art she posts are requests of things she's drawn for Xio. If they love it, she reasons, it has to be perfect.

She draws things for her other friends, too. Whenever she visits Andy and Mikhail, she draws characters from old cartoons for Andy, and Mikhail lends her some of his wife's books on bugs so she can learn their anatomy better. Sometimes he even brings Reyna the sketches she does when he goes to visit her. He's the one who said that she should start putting an artist signature on her work, but since everyone in the facility Reyna lives at are also from the circus, Zoe finds herself signing everything with the name Gangle in looping script.

After a little bit of time, she changes her names on all her social media accounts to match.

"It's important to keep a consistent brand," Zoe tells Xio.

"Well." Xio shrugs. "As long as you still like it."

Jax had suggested the name Gangle for her before anyone else could offer one. It had been cruel, and Kaufmo and Ragatha had both yelled at them for it, so Jax had offered other names as a replacement.

"What, c'mon," they had sneered. "You think an all-knowing AI can't handle the concept of someone changing names?"

(Later, when Zoe tells Xio about this conversation, that line makes them laugh.)

Ragatha had relented and suggested Cherry. Kaufmo thought it might be cuter if she went by Bow. But Jax had offered her names with the most variation. It was like they were trying to figure out what part of her body was most important to her. Did she want to call herself Porcelain, and define herself based on the way her mask shattered? Would she be Rain, and be constantly reminded of the teardrops on her face? Rosy, Satin, Tulle, Two-Face, Double-Vision—if there was one thing Gangle learned fairly immediately about Jax, it was that they had an endless supply of names and an endless list of insults that came with them.

Gangle hadn't been a perfect name, but it seemed like the least offensive. She was, after all, very thin and tall. There was something about being known by her droopiness that felt right to her, though she hadn't understood why until she had gotten out and seen her own terrible posture. When Gangle had said that she was fine with what she'd been given, Jax gave her a knowing smirk, and slung an arm around the part of Gangle's ribbons that almost passed for a neck.

"You see?" they said. "I'm helping you already! Stick with me, newbie, and I'll help you get this whole circus thing figured out."

Now, though, Zoe barely thinks of Gangle as a name Jax gave. Even though they'd been the one to suggest it, they still called her "Ribbons" more than anything else.

"It's the name I used when I met you," Zoe tells Xio. "I think that counts for something."

Xio smiles and takes Zoe's face in their hands, cradling it gently so they can place a soft kiss on her lips.

"You're too sweet," they tell her. "I'm so lucky I found someone like you."

Zoe just giggles and kisses back, because she feels the same way.

Back when they first got out and were still sharing that hotel together, Zoe used to have nightmares about being back in the circus. They all started the same way—with Caine and his confetti, congratulating them all on winning his new and improved "Escape the Circus" adventure. He'd explain that their bodies were new models he had made for "improved realism" and that now that the adventure was over, there was no need for them to look so ridiculous. And then, of course, he'd take Gangle's face, and with it all of those bad emotions of the drowning ocean would flood back in.

Sometimes, she'd wake up and claw her face just to remind herself it was still flesh. But she'd had too many people around her who cared about her to let her injure herself like that, so she'd learned to ground herself in other ways, like deep breathes and rubbing the nails she couldn't grow, back when her body was a single strip of fabric. Sometimes she'd shut her eyes tight and feel the pressure on her lids and remind herself that she actually had something she was capable of seeing out of.

The nightmares had continued when she'd moved in with her parents. Zoe got into the habit of waking up Xio with requests for video calls.

"Hey," Zoe would ask, once she got her partner on the other line. "Are you human?"

"I think so," Xio would say, eyes tired but judgment-free.

Okay, good, Zoe would think. Then so am I.

Now, most of Zoe's stress dreams are work-related. Instead of circuses, Zoe would find herself trapped at the register, with a line of customers so long it went out the door, or being forced to make hamburgers until the patties are piled up all around her, blocking any possible exits.

"I guess that's life," Zoe tells Xio, when they're making her coffee one morning. "Sometimes you're just trading one stress for the another."

Xio hums and hands Zoe her cup.

"Well," they say. "Just make sure the trade is worth it."

Zoe can't help but laugh at that.

"I think any dreams are better than circus ones," she says.

"Maybe," Xio agrees. "But those aren't your only two options."

Xio says they dream about the circus sometimes, and having more detachable parts. Sometimes the dreams mix with reality in strange ways, and Xio spends the night being mostly human but with limbs of Zooble Parts. It's more off-putting than frightening. They're not afraid of losing a limb—they've lived their entire life with one leg, after all. Losing another would be painful, but they have faith that they'd be able to move on. The real nightmare is waking up after, when they return to their human body and suddenly feel so limited.

When that happens, Zoe helps remind them of some of the joys of being human.

One of the countless benefits of dating Xio is that they're always doing something new. Zoe has never met someone who has managed to fit so much life in a single day before. It's inspiring. Zoe knows she doesn't always have the energy to do as much as Xio, but she can still find pockets of free time in her own life to take advantage of. Xio signs them up for art classes at a local art space. Originally, Zoe had wanted the two of them to make a comic together, but Xio had admitted to not being much of a writer. They're still interested in collaboration, though, so the two take classes together to find out which parts of the creative process they each love most. Xio is better at backgrounds, but Zoe loves drawing people. Zoe can draw most animals, but Xio is better at figuring out a character's fashion sense. The story they're figuring out together isn't the comic Zoe had planned before the circus, but that's because that had always been Zoe's story. If this is something they do together, Zoe wants Xio to be attached to it just as much as she is.

They've got the main character figured out, but not the plot. Zoe's two greatest loves are slice of life and magical girl animes, but neither feel like the perfect fit. If it's slice of life, it's got to be something a bit more mature than what Zoe is used to—like a comic about an aspiring rock band instead of just high schoolers. The problem is even at twenty-five—almost twenty-six now—Zoe has very little real, adult life experiences. Teenagers are easier to write. Zoe still remembers being one, as much as she wishes she didn't.

But, like she's said, Xio's always doing something new. They go wine tasting together, and Xio leans close to Zoe and murmurs, "How about a comic about a sommelier?" and Zoe can't help but laugh at the thought.

"I don't know anything about wine," Zoe whispers back. "You'd have to be my sensitivity reader to make sure I got all my facts right."

"It's not as complicated as you think," Xio says.

The bar Xio works at hosts a drag show and Zoe spends the night sketching the outfits of the performers. Zoe takes a knot tying class hosted by one of Xio's friends—and yes, one of those kinds of classes. Zoe gets back into learning how to sew so they can cosplay together. Xio teaches her how to make bread. There's no sudden burst of inspiration that gives Zoe the idea of the perfect thing to write about, but they have fun together, and Zoe's still drawing, and all that seems like more than enough for now.

One thing Gangle had always been jealous of was Jax's seemingly endless amount of confidence. The little she had heard about Ribbit made it seem like she was the same way, too—someone bold and unafraid to take risks. So it's a little funny now that out of the three of them, Zoe's the only one that's still trusted around knives.

According to Kaufmo—who reintroduces himself as Moses—Ribbit had to be sedated for the first few nights because of her inclination towards self-harm. Mo tells her this because Zoe brings up the idea of visiting Ribbit, too, since they're Mo's friend and Zoe had just missed them, and Mo has to very gently suggest that Ribbit might not be up for visitors.

She still hasn't given anyone her name. There'd been no identifying information on her body, either, and none of the C&A or hospital staff could find a family she might have belonged to. Apparently, someone had asked Jax to encourage Ribbit to give out more information, but whatever Ribbit had told Jax, they wouldn't repeat it, either.

"They always did like to make things difficult," Mo jokes. Zoe offers a tight smile in response. She's glad he's doing better, at least. The first time she had come to visit him, he'd been so paranoid he'd been drafting an entire diary filled with escape plans "just in case" the world around them turned out not to be real. She remembers he asked her how she could be so certain they had actually made it out, and Zoe hadn't known what to say. The things that convince her aren't things she can really share with someone else. Xio's face, for one thing, is handsome in a way Caine wouldn't know how to craft. He wouldn't allow some of the things they do together, either. But most of all, she's not fragile in the way she was before. Every day, she walks a little farther away from that ocean.

"Caine wouldn't have gotten my mother right," Zoe had said, instead of explaining any of that, and Moses made a face because he'd already decided to leave his family behind, just like Jax.

Zoe draws Mo a portrait of himself before she leaves. He asks her if she's willing to draw him as Kaufmo, too, just as a comparison, and Zoe laughs and admits she hasn't drawn anyone's avatar since she got back.

"I'm still getting used to seeing everyone as human," she explains. "I'm trying to get my brain to remember you all as you are now."

"Huh," Kaufmo says. "I think I looked cuter as a clown, though."

"What are you talking about?" Zoe exclaims. "You're beautiful!"

She can tell by the way he looks at her that he doesn't think she means it, but she does.

Zoe draws Xio the most. She loves the shape of their eyes, the curve of their smile and every single outfit that's in their closet. And unfortunately, Zoe's not the best at drawing dreads—her fault for learning how to draw from popular anime, really—so she wants to keep practicing until she gets them down right. Andy and Alice are both very easy and very hard to draw because they still look a bit like their avatars. Zoe has to focus when she draws Alice to make sure the proportions are right, and she hasn't accidentally given her her scrawny clown arms, or made Andy's dress too tattered. Zoe knows they both have complicated feelings on the bodies they had before—honestly, they all do—so she tries to emphasize the differences between the forms. Like Alice's toned muscles and the way her hair never lies flat unless it's trapped in a hat, or the way Andy's bad eye almost adds an extra dimple to her face. Andy's curls are more beautiful and more complicated to draw than Ragatha's yarn. Zoe thinks she'd be doing Andy a disservice to pretend they're anything close to the same.

Mikhail is hard to draw only because he gets distracted any time Zoe tries to sketch him. He doesn't mean to, but his mind still wanders. Zoe understands. She does her best to capture him in motion. Like the way he leaps up sometimes and grabs a piece of paper to jot something down, or the way he always seems to know when Andy is looking for something and what she needs and sometimes he'll get up and wordlessly hand it to her before continuing what he's doing.

Mikhail's hair is a bit wild, too. Zoe's seen Andy walk over sometimes, just to smooth it down. Every time she does, he smiles at her like a father being cared for by his daughter. It's sweet. Zoe's glad they're living together now, even if they're a bit further away than Alice and Jax.

Moses carries his weight differently than Kaufmo. His body is more round than pear-shaped, and there's a small scattering of freckles across his chubby cheeks despite his tan skin. His hair looks like it should be curly, but whatever conditioner that's been offered him isn't the best, or he simply doesn't have the energy to take care of it. Zoe can't judge him for that, considering how many times she's put her own hair up in a ponytail and willed the world not to look at it. He still looks nice, anyway. Moses had a great smile, even as Kaufmo, because he always looked happy to see her and something about being human has added an extra bit of earnestness to it. She hasn't managed to capture the warm fuzzy feeling she gets when she sees it yet, but she will. Her art is getting better, every day.

Zoe doesn't draw Jax for a very long time. Ribbit either, but it'd be rude to try and capture their image when they're clearly in so much pain. Even when she gets more coherent, she still seems bitter, like she's upset they went so far to save her. Mo says it's more complicated than that, but he won't explain. Zoe doesn't push. It's not her story, she knows.

Jax, though, Zoe doesn't draw simply because she assumes they won't appreciate it. She's not sure where the thought first comes from, but she remembers thinking it back at the hotel, sketching Alice while she's on the phone with her parents and thinking that Jax would probably be offended, if she drew them in clothes they'd been stuck wearing for years.

It would have been easy to draw Jax back in the hotel. While everyone else was phoning family and figuring out their lives, Zoe would often see Jax laying on one of the beds, staring up at the ceiling blankly. It would have been a simple pose to capture. But it also would have been rude.

Zoe thinks this must be the thing that convinced Alice to ask Jax to move in. Zoe imagines she'd probably been thinking about offering her apartment to all of them out of consideration for the fact she was the only one still left with a life, but the rest of them had plans. Andy called her mother to let her know she was alive and that she'd be coming back for her things, and that after that, they'd never see each other again. Mikhail had somehow managed to get C&A to hire him back part-time, and even give him most of the legal rights to Caine. Zoe and Xio had both talked to their families, who had insisted they move back home, just until they got back on their feet.

"I don't want to leave you," Zoe told Xio, after she'd finished talking to her mother.

"It'll only be temporary," Xio insisted. "Once we're settled, we can start looking for a place together."

The thought of living together had kept Zoe from unraveling during her time at home. Her mother was exactly as paranoid and intense as she'd always been, though now her father had been infected with her fear as well. Zoe didn't know how to explain that what happened. That there was nothing she could have done to prevent losing that time, because the circus wasn't exactly a thing you could warn for. She had simply gotten unlucky and found herself a situation that she couldn't escape from. There was no method of preparing for the horrors of the world that could account for that. Sometimes bad things just happen and you have to move on or they just drown you.

In all of their time living together, though, Zoe never saw Jax call anyone. They hadn't made any kind of plans either, until Alice pulled them aside gently and asked if Jax might be able to handle being her roommate.

It had been a relief to know Alice would be there for Jax. Zoe knows if Alice hadn't offered, Zoe would have spent the time she spent looking for an apartment with Xio terrified she should ask Jax to move in, too, and that the fact she didn't want to made her a terrible person. It would have been a silly thing to worry about, and the fact Jax would have never agreed to living together wouldn't have stopped her.

The thing about Jax was that they never really hurt Gangle in a way that lasted. Jax treated her pain as incidental, as if it was always bound to happen and therefore not anything that could be blamed on one person, even if they were the one crushing her mask beneath their foot. Gangle was the toy they turned to when the rest of the world refused to play along. She didn't know why she kept agreeing to everything they asked of her. Now that they're out, she can see all the countless ways she could have fought back or stood her ground. After all, what could they have done? She was ribbons. She couldn't even break a bone. Still, that confidence Jax portrayed had been terrifying. There had been a small part of her convinced that if she could manage to get hurt in some way, they would find it, and it was best to go along with whatever they wanted before her refusal required them to get creative.

For the most part, though, Gangle went along with Jax simply because she was too exhausted to say no. It wasn't like Jax could know how much they bothered her if she never mentioned it. She couldn't place the blame all on them when she had so easily allowed herself to be a victim. She had tried to remind herself of that when she refused to join Jax for the gun adventure, willing whatever replacement she had for a heart to stop beating so loud at the thought she might have offended them.

But in the end, nothing had happened. Jax hadn't made a point to go after her on the adventure, and they'd done nothing to her after. She was free of their antics, and all it took was a single sentence. They probably hadn't even thought about her the entire time.

If Zoe was going to draw Jax now, she'd start with their eyes. They always look tired whenever she seems them now, and if they think no one's watching them their gaze becomes slightly unfocused, like they're still in a dream. Then she'd move on to their hair, still wild and untamed like a feral animal, but also somehow curling around them like a blanket. Xio says they need to convince Jax to get a haircut, but they can't imagine Jax letting anyone but Alice touch them.

"Give it a few more weeks," Zoe says. "They'll want your expertise."

Xio had just started cosmetology classes. Zoe thinks Jax would be willing to be their guinea pig, as long as it meant they were getting something good for free. Especially if Xio dyed their hair. That stuff could get expensive.

Neither of them really want to talk about Jax, though, so that's the end of the conversation. Zoe goes back to sketching the girls from the new Precure series, and Xio gets distracted by texts from a friend with a fashion emergency.

Eventually, Ribbit introduces herself as Cass and her mom comes to visit, though there seems to be a complicated relationship between the two. Zoe hears all this from Mo, who asks her for updates on Jax in return.

"Doesn't Jax come to visit, too?" Zoe asks.

"Not as much since he's a real man with a job now," Moses jokes. Zoe presses her lips together at Jax being called a 'man,' then tries not to make it obvious because if Mo doesn't know anything than it really isn't any of Zoe's business to share.

"Oh," Moses says, clearly misinterpreting her expression. "Sorry. I know things haven't been… good between you two, I just—I wanted to know if he's still doing that thing where he pretends we don't have names."

"It's—" Zoe falters. She remembers using Xio's name around them once, and them asking how they could cheat on Zooble like that. It had been so genuine, Zoe had almost tried to explain what they got wrong. "It's not great, yeah. I just—I don't know all the details. We don't talk a lot."

"Well, this is Jax we're talking about," Mo says, as if that explains everything. Zoe lets out a nervous laugh. Maybe it does. She knows the two of them had been good friends at one point, but for most of the time she'd known him as Kaufmo, it had seemed Jax was using her to intentionally avoid him. Zoe had asked why once, and Kaufmo had just sighed and said it was anyone's guess what went on in their friend.

"I think he and Alice went rock climbing the other day," Zoe offers. The two of them were always doing something active together. Even though Jax wasn't very talkative, Alice shared a lot of selfies of the two of them in their group chat, which had originally just been meant as a way for Mikhail to give everyone updates on C&A stuff. Jax always looked a bit uncomfortable, though Zoe was never sure if that was because they hadn't forgiven Alice for making them do a physical activity, or because of the reminder that they had a human form. "She's got him exercising a lot. I think they go hiking together pretty regularly, too."

"So it's pretty serious between the two of them, huh?" Mo says. Zoe laughs.

"I think they just both like the adrenaline," she says.

"I don't think Jax likes dirt," Mo insists.

"One time he got down on all fours and pretended to eat me in the middle of a fake desert." Zoe raises an eyebrow. She doesn't think the dirt is the part Jax minds. "But I'm sure Jax's favorite part of the whole thing is being with her."

Jax and Ribbit had been close like that at some point, she'd heard. Zoe wonders if her being back will complicate things. Zoe likes Alice a lot, and doesn't think she deserves to be caught up in a love triangle with their previously-dead friend. Not that Cass really seems like they're in a place for romance right now. Not that Jax seems like it, either, really.

"She did kind of save us all," Mo hums. "Even Jax has to see the good in someone like that."

Sometimes Alice texts Xio and asks them to check up on Jax. It's been happening more and more frequently lately, though Zoe doesn't know the cause. Probably because it's dawning on them there's no escaping this, Xio thinks. It's almost a little funny, because that's exactly the reason Zoe feels better every day. She'd been worried at first that all of this was just a manic episode. Her mother had insisted she must be in one, when Zoe first mentioned the idea of moving out.

"I know you feel good now," her mom had said. "But that feeling won't last forever."

Xio had said this was a very cruel thing to tell your daughter. Personally, it had just reminded Zoe of Jax, and that had terrified her too much to take any of it to heart. Maybe the problem was they both just could really use some therapy.

Anyway, Zoe wouldn't say she's happy. Happy is what you feel buying your favorite ice cream. It's an emotion that can disappear at any time, if you don't keep filling your life with something to hide the void. What Zoe is is satisfied, and that's a harder thing to shake. Xio is the only one who seems to understand that.

"Are you going to keep talking to Jax for Alice?" Zoe asks.

"Not if you don't want me to," Xio says. "I care about them, but not more than you."

Zoe shakes her head, a bit too rapidly.

"No, I just—" she hesitates. "Do I seem like I'm doing better than they are?"

She's heard it before a hundred times. The claim that one day, you'll outgrow your bully. That the best revenge is having a good life, being a good person, and not thinking about them at all. But as cruel as Jax had been, Zoe doesn't want to stop thinking about them, because not hearing from Jax means the worst has happened and Zoe's not that selfish.

"Yeah," Xio says. "I think you're in a lot better place."

"Oh." Zoe laughs. "Then I guess Jax probably needs all the help they can get, huh?"

It doesn't feel good to say. There's a time maybe it would have.

"Well." Xio shrugs. "Offering help doesn't mean anything if they won't take it. I'm just trying to stick around long enough to remind them there's another way."

Back in the circus, if you tried to offer Jax a helping hand, they would have tried to bite your entire hand off. Now, they just seem confused, like they can't figure out what getting better has to do with someone like them. It's a feeling Zoe understands pretty well, but there's something unsettling about seeing it on Jax. Maybe that's why the only times they meet up together are in public. Maybe Zoe's afraid of what she'll see if that mask finally drops, and just how much of it will look familiar to her.

It's been a while since Jax has bothered her at work when they finally eat with Zoe again. Jax makes no attempt to hide how depressed they are, so Zoe tries to offer some platitudes as a form of encouragement.

When Jax tells her they hate her, she flinches out of habit rather than offense.

"How the fuck do you have the nerve to fix what you hate about yourself?" they demand. "How the fuck do you even have so many things you hate about yourself when you have this prima ballerina femme look that makes the rest of us look like apes next to you? You're supposed to be quaking in your boots every time someone looks at you weird! Not—not walking back into your life like you never even left!"

Zoe looks at Jax and thinks about the apology they had given her.

"Of course I can be happy," she had said. "I'm a human being, aren't I?"

"Right," Jax said. "Well, you weren't."

If Jax had asked Zoe what made them so afraid of her, she thinks that's what she would have said. She had never imagined a world where Jax could be happy. It would have been like imagining a hurricane smiling at a summer's day.

"Why don't you think I can be happy?" Zoe imagines Jax asking. "I'm a human being, aren't I?"

"Of course," Zoe would say. "But don't pretend you always were."

Expect that wasn't true, was it? Jax wasn't an unknown thing that had been placed in the circus to cause her harm. They had entered the circus as a child and missed their high school graduation. They had been learning about abstraction when they should have been studying for their SATs or going to prom.

Zoe wonders if Jax has ever thought about what they would have worn or if they had anyone they planned to go with. They think Jax might appreciate having the chance taken from them, actually, rather than having to keep up the appearance of enjoying a body they so clearly hated dragging around.

Instead, Zoe says, "Oh. You're jealous of me."

It's easier to see why, now that they're sporting their Xio-approved new haircut. They'd done it in the bathroom while Zoe was at work. They look pretty like this, hair the same purple that's still staining her bathroom sink and not a split end in sight. Xio had said they'd had to give Jax a lecture on how to actually care for it, and Jax had been looking at the door the entire time, with an expression not unlike a child having to suffer through a parent's lecture about safe sex. Sometimes Zoe wonders what things were like for Jax growing up, that made them feel like their own happiness was taboo.

"Don't get it twisted." Jax slumps back in their chair. Their bangs still cover their face when they move. "I'm jealous of everyone."

But it's different with Zoe. It's different, because Jax hadn't expected her to get better, either. Her sadness was supposed to be a constant, just like their's.

"Well," Zoe says. "If it helps, I know how that feels."

Jax looked at her with big, wounded eyes, like they can't understand why Zoe is still being so nice. What Zoe won't say is that she hates Jax, too and that she had wanted to say it since her first day of the circus, but had never been able to.

"Stop it, Jax." She'd imagined shouting it in their face. She imagined screaming it while she gripped the sides of a mirror. "I don't want this. I hate you!"

She's thankful they said it before she could. Now she's still the victim and they're still the monster, no matter how wilted or small they look next to her, and the balance of the world is exactly as it should be.

"You know," Zoe offers. "Crying is great stress relief."

Jax snorts.

"It's cathartic," Zoe insists. "Sometimes when I have a really bad day, I reward myself by having a breakdown about it. Then I talk to Zooble so we can actually fix what's wrong. You should do that, too. Talk to Pomni—or any of us, really."

Jax won't meet her eyes.

"What if it can't be fixed?" they ask softly. Even though it's Jax asking, Zoe's heart breaks at how fragile they look right now.

They never would have asked her this before. They never would have cared about her answer.

"It can still be changed, can't it?" Zoe replies, because she knows she still isn't better. "Doesn't that count for something?"

The next day, Zoe calls out of work because she feels an indescribable amount of dread preventing her from leaving her bed. Instead of asking her what's wrong, Xio climbs into bed with her.

Zoe tries to think what might have set her off. A con filled up before she could get tickets for the day she wanted to go. She missed her bus twice this week, and got to work late on a day she was supposed to open the restaurant. The gas store near their apartment was out of her favorite snacks the last time she stopped by, and she hasn't had the chance to buy more.

She knows that trying to pick out a cause for her current state of being like this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Even worse, actually, because sometimes there really isn't a reason. Sometimes a day is just a day to be sad and there's nothing you can do but live with it. That's a fact Zoe knows well.

And, oh, Jax said they hated her. It's funny how far down that ranks on her list of terrible things. Maybe one day their feelings won't even make the list at all. Before, it would have ruined her entire month. Now it just seems like part of a child's tantrum.

Really, Jax should have grown past something like this by now, but they had spent some of their formative years in a circus, so Zoe will cut them some slack on this one. She doesn't want to think about Jax while she's sad, anyway, so she puts them out of their mind and snuggles up close to Xio.

Zoe loves the smell of their shampoo and the way it mixes with their cologne. She loves how safe she feels wrapped in their arms.

"I have an idea for a comic," Zoe says. Quietly, because her heart still feels tender, even though it's just the two of them. "It's a little shoujo-y, but I think you'll like it. It's about a girl who's face shattered into a bunch of small little pieces, and each of those pieces are a different emotion. And the main character has vowed to put all the pieces together, so she can get her sadness back. So they go on all these different adventures together so she can remind the girl what it's like to become a person again."

"They're not looking for her smile?" Xio asks.

"No." Zoe shakes her head. "See, the girl's greatest wish was to cry without feeling guilty about it. But she didn't know how to. That's why she broke her face in the first place. And now all she can do is smile, so she thinks she's better off like this. But our main character is going to prove her wrong."

Xio is quiet for a moment. If it was any other person, Zoe would worry that what she said was too honest and too raw. But she trusts Xio enough to know they're simply processing the idea before them. Even on a bad day like this, Zoe remembers how loved she is. That's kind of a new feeling for her. She's proud of herself for that.

"Have you been thinking about this for a while?" Xio asks.

"I don't know." Zoe considers this. "Maybe. I think it took me a while to get the words right."

"Well," Xio says. "It sounds to me like this girl would make a good princess."

Zoe smiles.

"I was thinking that, too."

Eventually, Xio untangles themself from Zoe's arms and makes them both breakfast. By the time they come back to bed with a cup of tea for Zoe, the sadness inside her takes up less space, enough for her to sit up and eat what Xio brings her.

"Did I get your order right?" Xio asks, because that's their way of asking if they made Zoe's tea too sweet. Zoe takes a sip and lets the smell of mint wash over her.

"It's perfect," she says. "I'd give the service here five stars."

She knows it's not happiness she's feeling now, because she still wants to cry. But even so, she knows there's no other place she'd rather be than right here and there's no one else she'd rather think about besides the beautiful and handsome person beside her. Zoe thinks that maybe that's is all she ever really wanted.

Everything else must have been worth it all to get here, surely.