Chapter Text
Five years ago on Halloween Noelle’s sister said “Love you, Elly,” grabbed the keys to her brand new BMW, disappeared out the door of their house, and never came home.
Today on Halloween, as Noelle is sitting in the churchyard at the foot of her sister’s grave, the nine o’clock bus pulls up to the church doors and a stranger gets out.
So naturally the first thing Noelle does is get out her phone and call her best friend.
Susie picks up the phone, a party roaring in the background, and shouts, “Hell’s up, El?”
Staticy and muffled through the music, a girl’s voice whines, “Who’re you calling? Come dance with me.”
Susie ignores the girl and says, “You need me to come over? I know you said you’re trynta be okay this year, but staying at home and crying doesn’t exactly sound like okay.”
“I’m not at home,” Noelle whispers into the receiver. “I’m visiting Dess. But a human just got off the bus and walked into the church. A human.”
“Woah,” Susie says, and there’s the click of a door and the party goes muffled, is taken over by the buzz of cicadas. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Noelle says, creaking out of the graveyard gate and walking slowly up to the side of the church. Shadows of the forest, spindled and shivering, lurch across the moss eaten paneling of the side church. “I couldn’t see much else though.”
“I’m on my way,” Susie says, and ten minutes later she pulls up outside the church in her mom’s minivan, throws the door open and runs over to Noelle.
She’s dressed as a werewolf and her shirt is strategically ripped to show off the muscles she got over the summer doing repairs at the church. There’s a smudge of black lipstick on her neck and a bit of green facepaint under her chin. Noelle ignores the way her throat goes tight with jealousy. The girl’s never going to see Susie again. Susie never lets any of them stick around long enough for Noelle to meet them. She should be used to it by now.
“Are they still here?” Susie asks, bouncing on her heels. “The human?”
Noelle nods. “Well, I haven’t seen them leave, at least.”
Susie grabs Noelle’s hand and pulls her after her. “Then what’s the holdup, c’mon, let’s go meet ‘em.”
She slams the church doors open, murmurs something under her breath. Probably a prayer. Noelle clears her throat awkwardly and glances around. It looks like the pastor went home already, the office light is off. No one is in the lobby but the door to the chapel is slightly ajar. Noelle and Susie share a look. Susie pushes the door further open.
At the foot of the pulpit, kneeled, apparently praying, is the human. Susie sucks in a breath. The chapel door creaks and the human jolts up, staggers and wheels wildly around.
Their eyes are big and in the dark sharp shadows of the chapel seem to almost glow red. Their hair is long and wild and wind cuts in through one of the cracked windows, sends tendrils of their hair whipping around them. Their mouth falls open and their eyes, already impossibly big, go wider.
They just stare at Susie, mouth moving but not saying anything, until Susie, who had been uncharacteristically speechless, says,
“Oh.”
Noelle glances at her, startled by the sudden timidness of her voice. Susie’s face is strangely pale and her mouth is open too. She starts to say something, stops. Closes her mouth, opens it again.
“Who’re you?”
The human straightens abruptly and stands for a long moment just looking at Susie. And then they sway on their feet, eyes fluttering shut, and collapse.
“Shit,” Susie shouts, and runs over to them, drops down on the hardwood floor next to them. “Shit, El, what do we do?”
Noelle swallows back the familiar staticy unreal feeling that roars up when anything sudden or strange happens, digs her nails into her palms.
“Uhm, we should take them to the hospital, I think.”
Susie is leaning over the human. “Yeah. You’re right.” Carefully, nervously, she picks them up and holds them against her, her eyes not straying from their face for even a second.
Noelle holds the church door open, then pulls the back door of Susie’s car open so Susie can put them in. She does, and then just stands there staring at them for a long moment.
“Are you alright?” Noelle asks, leaning next to her and looking in at the human. “You seem a little…"
Out in the moonlight she gets a better look at their face. Their skin is dark and warm and their nose is crooked like it's been broken before. Their lips are bitten–-she feels strange immediately that just by looking at this stranger she knows their nervous habits–-and their hair looks unwashed. There’s a strange sadness in their face, their brow drawn and lips downturned even in unconsciousness. A cloud passes over the moon above and casts their face in shadow.
“Yeah,” Susie says slowly. “Uhm, yeah, I'm good. Let’s get them to the hospital.”
“Who do you think they are?” Noelle asks, putting her hand out the window as Susie drives to the hospital. “What do you think is wrong?”
“Well they’re definitely not from here,” she says. “We would’ve–we would’ve known, right? If we’d ever met a human?”
“Definitely,” Noelle murmurs, slumping back into the car seat and trying to avoid her reflection in the rearview mirror. “This is so strange.”
The hospital dawns on the horizon, decorated haphazardly with cheesy Halloween decorations. Susie parks in one of the staff parking spots.
“You'll get a–” Noelle starts.
Susie shakes her head, picking the human up out of the backseat. “Ralsei drives my car sometimes, so she put the plate in. It’s fine.”
The lobby is mostly empty, one of the bulbs in the fluorescent ceiling lights flickering in and out and in and out, leaving one patch of the tile floor in intermittent darkness. Susie talks to the front desk and then someone comes out to help them, and when both Susie and Noelle try to follow the cot they’ve brought out for the human the nurse narrows his eyes at them.
“One only.”
Susie nods. “You go, El, I'm gonna call my mom and ask her what to do next.”
Noelle follows the cot into a room, sits for a while alone, kicking her feet and glancing every so often at the human, still passed out in their cot. Their hair spills out around them, tangled and dark against the pale white of the hospital sheets. Noelle presses her palms to her eyes and tries to avoid looking at the mirror on the side table. She catches her own eye, once, when she's checking if anyone's coming to the door. Her reflection leers back at her, strange and foreign. She sighs and puts her hands back over her eyes, annoyed with herself.
The door clicks open and she glances up. Relief fills her.
“Ralsei,” she says, and stands, runs over to hug her. “I didn’t know you were working tonight.”
Ralsei pats Noelle on the back, leans away to push her glasses up her nose and smile at her. Her scrubs are patterned with little jack o'lanterns. “I know, a bit disappointing, isn’t it? I’d been planning my costume for so long, but so many other people called out that I felt too bad to do it too. But since a lot of the real nurses are out, they’re letting the interns do a little more than we usually can, so it's not all bad.”
“So you’re our nurse?”
“Our?” Ralsei glances over Noelle’s shoulder, then runs over to the cot. “Oh my goodness. A human?”
Noelle nods, standing next to her to look at the human. “Susie and I were—”
The human gasps, jolts up, their entire body shaking. They look wildly around, and their gaze catches on Noelle and Ralsei and then the empty space between them and they suck in a breath, and say, breathless,
“Susie.”
“She’s calling her mom,” Noelle is saying before it registers to her. “Wait, how did you know her name?”
The human turns their lip under their teeth, bites it. “You just said it.”
“Oh.” Noelle sits back. Of course. How else could they know her name? But why did they say it? “What’s your name?”
They gnaw their lip. “Kris.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Kris,” Ralsei says, gently. She says everything gently. Noelle always feels sort of sleepy when she listens to her talk. “Now, what exactly happened?”
Kris doesn’t say anything, just stares at the door.
“They were at church,” Noelle says, and tries to think of an explanation that won’t make Kris think she’s some weird stalker. “Susie and I saw them get off the bus, so we, er, went inside–-You know how Susie is about church, she always-–Well, and then they looked at us for a couple seconds and then collapsed.”
“You said they,” Kris says, suddenly, eyes wide.
Noelle nods, feels a bit awkward, glances at Ralsei.
“I found out I was a girl last year,” Ralsei says, gently, holding her clipboard to her chest. “So my friends have learned not to assume. Is they what you prefer?”
Kris nods slowly, sitting up.
“I’ll make a note on your forms. There’s quite a bit of other things to fill out as well.”
Kris’ eyes go wide. Ralsei’s face softens and she glances at Noelle.
“Would you give us a minute, Noelle? Patient confidentiality is required.”
Noelle nods, goes out into the lobby to find Susie and her mom.
“And I didn’t really know what to do so I just brought them here.”
Miss Toriel nods, pulls Susie into a hug. “Good. I’m certain we will be able to call their family and get all of this sorted. Now I must ask why exactly you and Noelle were at church? I had thought you were having a sleepover.”
Susie catches Noelle’s eye over her mom’s shoulder and Noelle motions towards the lipstick on Susie’s neck. Susie pales and pretends awkwardly to cough while she rubs it off.
“Uh, yeah, but then Noelle wanted to visit Dess, since…” She straightens, makeup gone, and swallows. “Y’know.”
“Oh, dear,” Toriel says. “I suppose that makes sense. Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah, fine, totally fine.” She motions Noelle over. “C’mon, El, how’s the human?”
“Awake,” Noelle says. “Ralsei is their nurse.”
Susie grins. “No fucking way.” Toriel makes an incredulous sound and Susie winces. “Sorry, momma. I mean, uh, awesome. You think she’ll let me come in?”
“She said patient confidentiality. They’ll probably be out in a bit.”
“I wanna see Ralsei,” Susie whines. “Feels like it’s been forever. And I wanna see the human too.”
“Their name is Kris,” Noelle says, awkwardly accepting the hug Susie’s mom pulls her into.
“Kris,” Susie mulls. “Cool. I put them, like, under our file or whatever, mom, is that okay?”
“Of course. Oh, I do hope they are alright. That must be so frightening.”
“Passing out ten minutes into being in a new town, yeah.” Susie looks at the doors to the hospital rooms, antsy. “Wonder why they passed out.”
Fifteen minutes and Ralsei is pushing through the doors, Kris trailing behind her, wringing their hands. Susie straightens, blinks quickly.
“Kris,” she says, and they stop dead, stare at her. “Sorry, er, Noelle told me your name. I’m Susie.”
“I know,” they say quietly, and echo her. “Noelle told me your name.”
Ralsei makes a face at Noelle, glances between Kris and Susie like, What’s going on? Noelle shakes her head, shrugs, mouths, no clue.
“Well,” Ralsei says carefully. “The good news is, Kris is alright. It seems like it was just exhaustion and sleep deprivation.”
Kris turns inward towards Ralsei, looks away from Susie, turns their lip under their teeth. Susie keeps staring at them.
“And luckily enough they’re visiting someone who lives close to me and my grandmother,” Ralsei says sweetly, putting a hand on Kris’ shoulder. “So i’ll drive them home. I only have an hour left of my shift.”
“Oh, look at you,” Miss Toriel coos. “What a hard little worker. I am certain I can drive them, it would be no trouble.”
“No,” Ralsei says, quickly, and then blinks, softens her face again, smiles. “No, I’d actually like to keep monitoring them, if that’s alright. I don’t want them to pass out again without someone there to treat them. Thank you, though, miss Toriel.”
“Of course, dear. Don’t forget, you and your grandmother are invited to our little potluck next week.”
Ralsei goes pink. “Yes, we’ll be there. Bye, Susie, Noelle, Miss Toriel.” She leans up to kiss Susie on the cheek, then nods at Kris. “Kris, how about you come with me? There’s a place you can sit in the staff room while I finish up my shift.”
“Thank you,” Kris murmurs and, glancing once back over their shoulder at Susie, follows Ralsei back into the hospital.
“You seem a bit perturbed, dear,” Toriel says, putting a hand on Susie’s shoulder. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah.” Susie swallows. “Yeah, everything’s good. Sorry I called you here, momma, I guess we didn’t need to do anything.”
“You are perfectly alright. Have a good rest of your night with Noelle, and pray for the human a little before you go to sleep. It seems like they might need it.”
“Course,” Susie says quietly. “Was gonna anyways.”
Noelle feels awkward like she always does when Susie's family gets all religious. They say goodbye to her mom, go back out to Susie’s car.
“Are you going to go back to the party?” Noelle asks as she drops down in the passenger seat.
Susie stares out the rearview mirror, watching the dark skyline shift with clouds.
“I think I, like, met my soulmate or something.”
Noelle whips over to look at Susie, sure she’s joking because--because what a genuinely insane thing to say, really, but also Susie’s voice is quiet and nervous in the way it gets when she’s actually very serious. So Noelle shoves crush-Noelle in the trunk and pulls best-friend-Noelle up into shotgun and says, trying not to sound like she’s about to laugh,
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t explain it,” Susie says, quietly, and twists the key in her car, turns it on and pulls out of the hospital parking lot. The radio drones static. Outside, through the cracked car windows, the cicadas are humming. Heat lightning cracks the sky open. “All I know is something really, really important just happened. But I don’t know what yet.”