Archive of Our Own

“In the part I was reading it says the Word was in the beginning, and that's right. I used to think water was first, but if you listen carefully you will hear that the words are underneath the water.”

“That's because you are a preacher first and then a fisherman,” I said. “If you ask Paul, he will tell you that the words are formed out of water.”

“No,” my father said, “you are not listening carefully. The water runs over the words.”

In retrospect, Noelle can’t say she’s 100% sure what she thought was going to happen when she and the Kris that is not Kris dragged themselves deep into the lake. 

At the time, there had been a plan. In the new and unforgiving landscape of her mind, it had been logical, fitting the fresh rules of reality and physics she'd uncovered this week. 

High on the list of things she wasn’t expecting was to open her eyes from where she’s sprawled on the ground and look up into the disapproving face of December Holiday. 

“Dess,” Noelle says. Her limbs feel heavy. Though her mind is foggy, it’s clearer than it has been in almost a week. Actually, it feels clearer than it has in years. 

She’s still soaking wet, and she’s cold, but not quite shivering yet. She turns her head. Everything is dark, so dark it might as well be white, like color or absence thereof has lost all meaning and can’t be processed by mortal brains. Except for Dess, who looks like… well, like herself. Noelle can’t say if she looks older or younger than she did when she went away, because it doesn’t matter, it’s just December standing there above her in an old flannel with her arms crossed and a baseball bat that looks darker and heavier than the one she used to have at home propped against her hip. She thinks, faintly, that if she’s managed to end up wherever Dess is, something has gone terribly wrong. 

On Noelle’s right, Kris is soaked through, too, and shivering just a little bit. She’s not sure if they’re really breathing, if they even need to. They’re either asleep or rendered unconscious. Whichever one it is, it hasn’t stopped them from the tight, tight hold they have on her sweater. 

“You are so lucky I haven’t beat your ass yet,” Dess says by way of greeting. “I’m still considering it, so act wisely.” Her voice is tightly controlled, but there’s no twitch of her hands, so Noelle knows she’s angry but all talk. Not that she’s going to push her luck. December is her parents’ daughter and therefore the delicate balance here could change at any second. 

Noelle thinks about the lake, mentally seeing the treeline in clearer lines than she had when she stepped into it. Her lids feel heavy, and she swallows, trying to steady herself. The feeling is painful. “Dess, I did something bad,” she whispers. 

“Oh, I know,” Dess says. She bites her cheek, lips pursed, and swallows like breathing hurts. “Elly, this isn’t supposed to fucking happen. It doesn’t go like this.” 

Noelle turns toward Kris, but closes her eyes again when she sees the bruise on their wrist that she knows is from her own grip. Rolling towards them, she reaches for their hand with her left and holds it more gently this time. When she opens her mouth, her voice is soft and frail. “I’m really tired. I don’t want to talk right now.” 

Dess shouts, “Get up, stupid!” 

Noelle winces, curling in toward Kris. She notices that she can’t feel a pulse in their wrist, and she’s truly not sure if that can be attributed to her numb fingers or inexperience or if it’s something else. Their grip tightens on her sweater, pulling her closer. 

Dess pokes her with the bat. “You’ve gotta go back, okay?” The sound of a foot stomping carelessly. “They need you on the shore.” 

Noelle opens her eyes. 

“Kris needs you.” 

Noelle shakes her head. She knows she probably looks childish, rubbing her head into the ground that's not there; wet, mangled curls scratching against her cheek. She's exhausted and Dess is here which either means she's safe or in serious danger and she just doesn't care. “No, no, I need Kris.” 

Some looks pass over Dess’s face that Noelle can’t quite identify. She’d guess something like frustration, and anger, and pity, and despair. But right now she’s aware enough to recognize that she’s not very discerning, so she doesn’t puzzle over it too hard. 

Then Dess sighs and looks an awful lot like Mom. Or maybe Mom just looks like Dess. “Come here, dumbass,” she says in a voice that suggests she’s fallen into a state of resignation about the light that’s so dark there’s nothing to see and Kris shivering on the featureless white ground and Noelle soaked to the bone and half insane. She’s also definitely holding back a number of curse words infinitely larger than anything she’s said out loud yet. 

Dess helps Noelle sit up, gently detangling Kris’s hand from her clothes. She’s grumbling, but her hands are as careful as they can manage when she brushes dark hair out of their face and gives them an unnecessary pat on the shoulder. Then she turns back to Noelle. 

“I did something bad, and I don’t know how to fix it,” Noelle says, feeling rather than hearing her voice tremble. She shrinks into herself, her knees knocking together and definitely leaving her looking like a child in trouble for breaking a glass. December being here has her feeling 12 again. “I’m really sorry.” 

“Hey, don't apologize to me.” 

“I don't know what's… I don't know.” 

“You’ll figure it out,” Dess says, sitting applesauce-style catty-corner to her, but still close enough to touch. The bat lays across her knees. 

“I hurt Kris.” 

Dess shrugs, like she doesn’t care, even though she clearly does. This is the voice she always used whenever she was upset about something but had decided it was none of Noelle's business that it upset her. “Kris hurt you back. Kind of,” she adds under her breath. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Mm. Look.” A frustrated sound from the back of her throat, and Dess brushes an unruly lock out of her face and eyes Noelle steadily. Her gaze is sure, but she chooses her words uncertainly. “You… you know Kris is sick right now, basically. They’re not… normal, they’re not themself.” 

She does. Kind of. It’s not a surprise, but she knows that she doesn’t really know what’s going on. “Oh,” she says. 

“They don’t want to hurt you. But that doesn’t mean the things they do can’t still hurt you, really damn bad.” 

Kris is different, and it's opened Noelle up to a world she never knew existed. Kris is different, and December is saying that this is wrong. Kris has changed, and December is saying that this is hurting people. 

"I can help them,” she decides. If she thinks hard enough, she can pinpoint where things went wrong. She can decide what the issue is, uncover whatever bit of rot is taking over and disrupting the whole. 

Dess squints. “I guess…” 

“I’ll help them. I can fix things. I can make them better.” Somewhere in the back of her mind is an echo, saying, You can’t save everyone. You can’t save anybody. You do not need to make yourself responsible. She knows that’s true, that just because she thinks Kris needs help doesn’t mean they think they need help, but something even louder is saying, “There's gotta be something I could do.” 

“Well, you can't do anything if you're dead.” 

That's where the anger in her voice truly flares, and Noelle lets herself be a little surprised. Dess gets angry at Kris, sometimes mad at Asriel, and of course plenty annoyed with Noelle, but almost never angry at her. (And here she is thinking in present tense again, because right here and now it feels like Dess never left, but she doesn't have time to think about that.) 

“It was an accident,” she says quietly. She tries to keep the guilt out of her voice. If she doesn't speak it, it's not true, and she didn't mess up that bad, and it's not her fault, and she's fine and Kris is definitely going to be fine.  

“Like hell.” 

“I mean… It was just a game, I think. I don't know.” She can't understand her own thoughts anymore. “It didn't feel so serious at the time. I don't really know how to think right now.” 

“They've infected you,” Dess says with a half nod toward Kris and a bitterness Noelle can't quite gauge. 

“Don't say that–!” she starts, upset, because isn't it Kris who taught her everything new? Isn't it Kris who showed her how to be something else? 

She pauses, biting her tongue. “But…. I mean, nothing has actually changed this week. But everything is still different. And it's all wrong.” 

She takes a minute to really look at Dess. Dess, who she hasn't seen in years. Dess, who is now sitting next to her in the absolute nothingness like it's a Tuesday night in sixth grade and not the end of something terrifying. Dess, all gangly limbs and warm arms when you're scared, dry and put together while Noelle is soaked and bedraggled body and soul. 

She doesn't ask if this is real, because she doesn't believe in that idea anymore. Reality and unreality have been meshing and twisting unpredictably this week. The only truths she really knows are December and Kris. 

So she doesn't ask how, or why. She doesn't ask if this is real, partly because she knows it would piss Dess off. Hell, she looks pretty pissed about being here, anyway. She's never been into crisis-averting big sister advice so much as she's been into let's play who can hide from Mom and Dad the longest without leaving the house. 

“Where are we?” Noelle asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don't want you coming back here. I'm already kicking you out ASAP.” 

There's a dozen questions she's been wanting to ask for so long. Scariest, most pressing one: “Are you dead?”

“I'm not answering that.”

“Am I dead?”

“What makes you think I would possibly answer that one?”

Noelle swallows, brushing lank hair out of her eyes. “Do you miss me?”

“That one,” Dess says, “is the most ridiculous question you've ever asked,” and she wraps her arms around Noelle.

He was never “my kid brother”. He was a master of an art. He did not want any big brother advice or help or money, and, in the end, I could not help him.

Noelle wishes she could stay here for maybe forever, crying softly into her sister's shoulder, because when push comes to shove she's a good big sister who decides not to care all that much about getting wet from your hugs even though you're still kind of dripping with lake water, and maybe if Noelle stays she can stop crying when she feels like it, even catching up and getting real answers and telling her everything she's missed. But Kris has started coughing, a pitiful sound that’s all the more impressive because Noelle wasn’t all that sure they were even breathing to begin with, and Dess says that means their time is running out and things are over with here. 

“You're gonna get sent back,” Dess explains as she helps her up. Noelle's not sure if that means she's sending them back, or if somebody else is, or if Noelle is going to have to turn around and start walking, but she lets Dess finish. “Make better choices this time.”

“I'll try,” she says uncertainly. “I'm not thinking very clearly back there. I don't think… um, I don't think my brain is very… reliable right now.” 

“No 'trying'. If you end up back here I really will whoop your ass.” 

She throws her hands up in exasperation. “What do I do?” 

“I dunno, kid. No offense, but you picked the worst option on the first try. Go, like, go for a walk and have a snack and take a nap or something.” She tilts her head, thinking, then smiles. “Definitely take a nap, yeah. Then try again.”

She helps Noelle pull Kris up and sling their arm around her shoulders. From there it's a fairly easy feat to lift them most of the way and get her arms under their legs because Noelle (tall) works out and Kris (short) thinks singular zebra cake and diet mountain dew is the most important meal of the day. 

She takes a step, then—

“Wait.” Noelle turns back around to face Dess, shifting Kris in her arms because a cold and unforgiving pressure against the side of her ribcage tells her Kris is definitely not happy to see her and absolutely has a large knife in one of the side pockets on their pants. 

Dess lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Am I going to see you again? If I don't come back here, I mean.” 

Dess smiles and tilts her head, then shakes it a little ruefully. No. 

“I want to see you.” Noelle's voice cracks. She's not quite as strong as she thought she was, and her arms are getting tired already. Kris's hair tickles her neck. “I want to have a real conversation about stuff that doesn't matter, I don't want just this. Mom and Dad need you. They miss you so bad. Nothing's the same.”

Dess shrugs sadly. Noelle gets the sense that she resigned herself to whatever this is a long time ago. “I'm not the same either. No, you won't see me for… a long time, probably.” 

Noelle sniffs and steels herself, partly because as much as she'd love to argue and demand refuge or contact she is holding about 5’4 of dead weight and Dess is holding a baseball bat that she's clearly itching to use.

And, for better or for worse, she trusts her sister. 

So she swallows her apprehensions and her despair, replaces it all with something called Taking Care of Kris, and says, “Okay. I love you. See you later.” 

“See ya later, Elly.” Then she starts faux-yelling at them and waving her arms like she's trying to release Bigfoot back into the wild: “Go! Get out of here! Just go!”

Noelle laughs through the tears she refuses to shed as she whirls around with Kris wrapped around her like a boa. She takes one slightly unwieldy step—

Even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help.

The water laps at their waists. Her hands are tight around Kris’s wrists, and the vivid sunset orange of everything around them shocks them both for half a second before they remember they've been here the whole time and nothing’s changed. 

“Proceed,” says the SOUL. Kris feels sick. 

Noelle takes a step back, but it’s almost hesitant. 

“Proceed,” it repeats. 

Noelle swallows. “Kris, wait. I need a second.” She looks confused, like she’s not sure why she’s saying this, but she continues, “I feel… weird. I feel like we’ve done this before.” 

The SOUL has a tight rein on their expressions of emotion, but Kris is able to tilt their head. 

“I feel like… I don’t feel brave anymore. All of a sudden. Is that a bad thing?” 

Kris can sense the SOUL calculating, but neither of them do anything. 

Noelle closes her eyes and dips her head. The ends of her hair brush the surface of the water, dancing like gold thread on a spinning wheel. “I’m scared of the water, I’m still scared. But I’m not scared like I need to fight it. I’m not scared like I need to defeat it right now. I just want to go h— go away.” 

Kris manages to twist their wrist just enough to give her hand a light, awkward squeeze. They’re not always good at hope—that’s why they’re in this mess in the first place—but they feel something spark inside them. Noelle's slowing down, suddenly, like she's starting to put the puzzle pieces together in the right direction. Keep going, they think, trying to keep it quiet. 

“I gave Susie a lot, ‘cause she needs it more than I do. I… I cleaned my room before I left. I knew I wasn’t going to be coming home again for a long time. Maybe longer.” 

She shakes her head and looks up. “I don’t care where we go. I don’t care if we ever come home. But I think we need to be able to. We need to be able to… go home, if we need to. If we want to.  

“You can… keep saying it.” She steps a little closer, their hands tangled a little tighter between them. “You can keep telling me to go, and I’ll go anywhere with you. I want you to be happy. I trust you. You know that, right?” 

Kris mumbles, shaking their head ever so slightly. 

“I didn’t really hear you.” She pulls even closer. Even half-dulled with… with whatever’s happening in her head right now, her eyes sparkle in the golden light of the evening. They have a torn partial vision fading in and out of their mind while Noelle stands here in the autumn lake close enough to lick or chomp or kiss, a version of this moment where they’re deeper and deeper in the water until it’s over their heads and Noelle’s stopped screaming and stopped moving and Kris can’t breathe. 

They blink and see her standing here again, a concerned half smile on her face, and her golden hair backlit by the setting sun, and they’ve never been more terrified in their fucking life. Without a doubt, they think and feel so strongly they’re surprised the SOUL can’t sense it, they’re going to tear apart anyone who tries to do anything like this to her ever again. 

“Kris,” she says softly, “you know what, I think I’m really tired.” She puts her head on their shoulder suddenly, and they use that opportunity to take a step backwards. “And I would like to go play at the bottom of the lake. Did you ever float down to the bottom of the pool and try to stay there? Like, lay down on the floor and try not to float back up? It feels really good underwater when there’s ten feet of water pressing down on you. It’s like that weighted blanket your mom made you for school when we started kindergarten, you remember?”

Noelle turns her head so her face is pressed against them. Kris can feel her eyelashes against her neck, closed but fluttering all the same. Her antlers are starting to tangle in their hair, and they do not care. Her grip on her wrists has slackened, and they take this opportunity to put their arms around her back and take another step toward the shore. She doesn’t seem to notice. 

“But I’m kind of tired,” she murmurs again, “and I don’t think there would be anywhere cozy to sit down there. 

“Maybe we could do the lake another day. We’ll get through to the other side, I know it. I don’t think I’m quite strong enough yet, and I don’t want to mess it up.” 

We should try something else first, they think at the same time that they think, We won’t mess it up. 

Out of curiosity or maybe just ambivalence, the SOUL makes its choice, and therefore Kris says, “We should try something else first.” 

“Ooh, you know what we should do? We should walk as far as we can.” They feel her smile. “I read this book once, about a boy who decided to move out of the city and live in the mountains for a year? 

“He carved out his own tree to live in, and he’d curl up in there to sleep, unless the weather was nice. It was really cozy, even though it turned to winter pretty fast and he got cold sometimes. 

“I think after seven or eight months his family finally found him. They were so mad, but they understood after he explained how beautiful the trees were, how the hawk had become his friend and the coyotes knew him. And then they weren’t mad anymore. 

“Or maybe they were still mad, and he just didn’t care. ‘Cause he knew he’d done something spectacular, something nobody else could do. Just him. 

“I don’t like this spot in the lake, I think. I think we should go live in the mountains, as practice.” 

Kris nods stiffly, and she lifts her head. Her eyes aren’t exactly clear, but they’re not on fire anymore. 

They make their way out of the lake together, wet from the waist down and kind of cold. Noelle wants to go up through the shallows by the trees instead of the garden path, she wants to hip through the floating leaves and climb out through the bushes for some reason, and if the SOUL has an opinion on this whim of hers (is it a shortcut? Is she just trying to do something ridiculous? Is she hoping Kris will trip and be covered in muddy wet leaves?) it doesn’t argue, and it lets Noelle lead them by the hand through the brush and into the woods. 

Moving keeps them almost warm enough. The first night it's still damp from yesterday's storm, so after a couple hours when Noelle is slowing down despite insisting that she has enough energy to keep going the SOUL lets Kris look for somewhere dry for them. Eventually they move aside some large rocks to create a little burrow where the ground is practically smooth and there are even dry sticks. 

Living in the woods is nowhere near as fun as TV and movies make it sound. It takes twenty minutes to get a fire going. Noelle sits shivering while Kris, also shivering but honestly feeling fairly hardy or either fueled by adrenaline and spite, coaxes sparks to flickers to flames. 

The sun has long since gone down when they are sitting both stripped out of their top layers in a feeble attempt to get something or other dry. Neither of their hair is wet anymore, so Kris mentally decides they're probably out of danger. 

While the fire dies down, Noelle collects dry leaves from hidden places like it's a scavenger hunt to make beds for them against some thick tree roots. She comes back with one last armful of leaves, drops it on the ground, and stands looking thoughtfully at the embers. 

“Have you ever seen anyone walk over coals before?” she asks. “I've always wanted to firewalk, just to prove I could do it. I know I wouldn't be as sensitive as you---" she scratches at the ground passively with one hoof---"but I've always been too scared to try.” 

She's got a tilt to her head Kris doesn't like. By the dim lamp of the dying fire, her eyes have gone far away again, to somewhere they're not sure how to reach. 

“I wouldn't even tell anyone,” she continues. “I would just know for the rest of my life that I was capable of that. That I could do it.” 

She turns to look at Kris. Her shape is vague in the darkness, but they know what that look means, what she's waiting for. 

Don't, they think even as the SOUL pinpoints Proceed. They try to be louder in there— don't don't please don't— but their vocal cords start to form those sounds without permission. Pro—

Just in time, they bite down on their tongue hard enough to taste blood. The result is a slightly strangled sound, but Noelle is not here with them enough in a way that lets her notice it's off. 

Then she shakes her head, like she's forgotten what she was thinking about, and goes back to fixing the leaf piles. She curses when her hair gets caught on a branch that made it into the pile, and gets distracted trying to work out the knot it found. 

I wonder what Susie’s doing, Kris thinks loudly. Let’s think about what Susie’s doing. Let’s think about what Susie’s doing right now. 

It works. The SOUL, the stupid, aimless, curious SOUL, drifts away, and Kris’s head feels emptier. 

They don't want to push their luck, though—if they make a fuss they might lure it back—so they don't do anything crazy. 

“Let me help you with your hair,” they say. It's hard to see by the flickering of the small fire and the scant moonlight drifting in through the trees, but they can make out enough that her hair is more wild than it was even after they climbed out of the lake, and there's leaves caught in it. A lot of leaves. 

They don't have a comb, so they make do with their fingers, trying to be gentle. Even starting at the bottom and working out the knots slowly, Noelle still winces every once in a while when something tugs painfully, but she doesn't say anything to tell them to stop or go slower or even just express that it hurts. This does not make Kris feel better. 

She kept insisting that they had changed, they remember. That they had changed and broken free of what everyone expected and wanted them to do. She seemed so resigned to either living the rest of her life the way the world wanted her to, or else breaking out of it in some completely irreparable fashion, like running away or destroying something or—or destroying herself in the process. The thought upsets them so much that they pull a hand out of her hair to squeeze her shoulder. 

Noelle insisted that they had changed, and she was stuck. But Kris hasn't changed. They're the same stubborn, distracted, self-centered kid they've been for years. They went through the motions, until they got pulled into things they didn't really understand, and in the in-between times they just sat and let nothing happen. 

And Noelle was changing, slowly and steadily. She kept getting hurt, and they didn't notice. Or maybe they didn't care. 

They decide her hair is as detangled as it's likely to get for now. Halfway through pulling the front back to put in a braid, they realize with a start that Noelle is crying. 

“What's wrong?” they ask, leaning to the side to look at her profile, lit by the fire. 

She turns to look at them, smiling sadly through the tears. “Kris,” she says, voice shaking, “do you hate me?” 

They're a bit thrown at first. She seems to take their hesitation as confirmation that she's done something wrong, but Kris hurriedly shakes their head and pulls her around into a hug. 

She's half mad with grief and loss and paranoia and a lot of it is their fault. She's been wandering off the path since December went away, and Kris has let her. She's hurt people, really hurt them, hurt all those Darkners and hurt Berdly and hurt Kris. She almost got them both killed just today (something cold and serious tells Kris she was this close to not stopping, and the SOUL would have let her drag them into the lake and then right down to the bottom because she is not as good of a swimmer as she thinks she is). Carol is definitely going to kill them both when they get back home, but Kris knows they'll be blamed more than Noelle, because Noelle is fragile and needs someone to take care of her and watch her so she doesn't go off the deep end and if Carol's not gonna do it then Kris should have stepped up automatically. That's all if the stress hasn't done her father in, and if Susie and Ralsei manage to keep the world from ending without the SOUL. 

“No, Elly,” they say softly, “I could never hate you.” 

It's the Angel's honest truth. 

Sunrise is the time to feel that you will be able to find out how to help somebody close to you who you think needs help even if he doesn't think so. 

Kris dozes, and Noelle sleeps for about four hours, judging by her watch. Then they get up and hike four or five more miles, by Kris’s estimation, although it might be more and they just can't tell. Later, as the sun is starting to come up, she looks tired again, so the SOUL decides they should stop and have another nap, strongly indicating it thinks Kris should sleep again, too. 

The first time they set up camp, the immediate fallout of the day's events had them too tired and shellshocked to do anything. The second time, Kris crawls away while Noelle is half asleep, tears out the SOUL, lodges it in a tree trunk with shaky instructions to stay the hell put, and crawls back. 

It's colder now than it was earlier. They're concerned about Noelle and her thin, only mostly-dry sweater. Though Kris doesn't feel as though they're freezing to death or anything, so she's probably fine with her thick fur and all, they really don't trust her right now to tell them or even notice if she's getting too cold. 

“Noelle,” they whisper, shaking her shoulder. “Noelle.” Their voice feels rough from disuse and soullessness has them shivery and out of control of their vocal cords. 

She rolls over, looking up at them sleepily over her shoulder. “Mmhm?” 

Something about the light of the embers flickering in her eyes and the faint wash of early morning light coming in through the trees, about being able to see it themself without the influence of the SOUL, feels brand new and wondrous. It hurts all the more for knowing they can't keep any of this. 

“I just wanted to make sure you weren't cold,” Kris manages, swallowing. 

“‘M just a little chilly. C'mere.” She lifts her head and stretches out her arm, but Kris puts their arm behind her shoulders instead and leans back against the tree. She curls towards them and manages to rest her head on their chest without her antlers getting in the way by some miracle or perhaps freak of flexibility. They swallow and begin brushing hair out of her face, trying to pick the new leaves out of it and smooth her sweater. 

“Noelle,” they say very softly, “I just want you to know everything's gonna be okay.” 

“Mhm.” 

“I'm gonna make them be okay. But I need you to help. I need you to do your side of it.” They tilt their head to look up. They can almost see some stars through the heavy covering of leaves above. “You've gotta start learning how to say no. And…” There's not time, there's not clarity of mind or reality enough to say everything they've wanted so desperately to say to her for days. “You're gonna have to learn to be strong. Not… not messed up strong, just Noelle strong.” They're fucking this up, but she's half asleep so it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing they've done this week matters, except that everything they've done matters so deeply, and there's so much at stake, and angel above can they not catch a break for once. “You need to be okay when I'm not there. Because I'm not always going to be. When things are really rocky and even I'm not there you need to be able to find your footing.” 

They watch the leaves sway above for a few minutes, rubbing her shoulder with their thumb and thinking and feeling once again like everything is too much and they're ready for it to be over. They're ready to be ten again. 

“Noelle?” they ask again. 

Her breathing is steady. She's settled down further with her head in their lap. She's relaxed for the first time in who knows how long. There's just enough light to put a small, probably ugly braid in the rest of her hair, so they start one. Their hands are shaking so hard it takes multiple tries to separate the chunk they've chosen into strands that are anywhere near the same size. 

“Mostly,” they whisper, “we really, really need you here, okay? I don't know where you're trying to go. I don't know if you're trying to find Dess or if you're just trying to get away. But we need you here.” They swallow, feeling their throat tighten and their eyes sting and why is this the thing that's getting them after all this time. “I'm sorry. I wish I could help you more, I wish I wasn't hurting you. But don't go anywhere yet. I'm gonna fix things.” 

When the SOUL manages to worm its way out of the tree they wedged it in and make its way back, the tears have dried on their face. They look up at the rising sky again as it reinserts itself and once again takes control.

At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.

Once they've settled into a sense of near-normalcy, it actually becomes pretty fun. The SOUL is restless, but doesn't bother Kris all that much. Noelle wants to walk, and time spent walking is time not opening dark worlds or trying to phase through reality or hurting people, so they're fine with that. They have responsibilities back home, but Noelle has become their responsibility right now, and she's more important than anything else. 

They walk, and they sleep or doze, usually during the day. They make little fires and scavenge for food because of course Noelle knows how to do that, and they huddle for warmth and fall asleep with elbows against spines and bony knees stabbing stomachs and faces pressed into arms. And then they keep walking. They tell stories, and they make up nonsense games, and sometimes Noelle cries quietly to herself, but when she stops she's usually come up with a new joke she's ready to tell.

Thank heavens Hometown is practically in the middle of nowhere. There's miles and miles of land to ramble, with no interruptions and no surprises. It feels almost like being little again and wandering around the park with Elly and Azzy and Dess, hiding under the park benches and pretending they were caves. At first Kris thought they were imagining it, but the further they get from home, the more Noelle seems to act and think like her old self. 

When the two of them are finally discovered, woken up by a ranger's flashlight in their eyes just after they'd settled down for a dusk nap, Kris is almost as disappointed as Noelle. 

When they're caught and brought back to Hometown, Noelle's mom is absolutely devastated. 

Maybe devastated isn't the right word. Distraught. Relieved. Furious. Melancholy. She apparently can't even bring herself to yell at the two of them. She's such a mess on the ride back to town that Kris keeps finding excuses to look away, feeling completely embarrassed, and then she sits in the hospital waiting room with them and keeps opening her mouth like she has something angry to say, then closing it again. Then she goes back to holding Noelle's hand, tight. Carol is rarely speechless—if she's being quiet it's usually purposeful, like having a loaded gun pointed at you with the knowledge that the only thing standing between you and disaster is the click of the safety—and Kris just keeps thinking that her mother's silence seems to amount to nothing for Noelle. It all washes over her like… like the waves at the lake. Gentle and terrifying in its own right and she barely even notices. It's lost on her. 

It's not lost on Kris, though. 

Mom keeps acting in a way that Noelle knows should really be freaking her out. She took time off work to look for Noelle, and then actually takes even more off to be with her. When they're caught, and bundled into a Jeep with a blanket thrown over the both of them, and Carol and Asgore have dashed up to meet them at the nearest ranger's station, Mom holds her like she's remembering holding her 15 or so years ago for the very first time. And she cries. Asgore is a little teary, too, but he seems too tired to burst into tears. Well, Mom is apparently too tired not to. 

A month ago Noelle would be almost in hysterics with guilt and shared remorse and whatnot. Mom hasn't cried in years, as far as she knows. Noelle has probably cried about eight times in the past two weeks. Now her eyes stay dry, and when she apologizes for leaving it feels more like a rehearsal of lines she used to know perfectly than a genuine expression of sorrow. 

Instead, she asks, “Is Dad okay?” 

Carol looks a little surprised for a moment, then rolls her shoulders and said, “Yes, Elle. He's alright.” 

“No better?”

“Hm. He paced a lot when we first realized you were not in town. The doctors seemed to like that, actually, said it was good for his heart. Then he laughed and said something along the lines of, ‘She should disappear more often,’ which I did not approve of.” 

“Ah, well, that's good.” 

“He is very angry with you, you know.” Mom's never seemed to have a good grasp on eye contact as a tool for connection rather than interrogation, so she doesn't look her in the eyes, but she does pull back to look at Noelle's antlers (Kris poked leaves through them yesterday like a kebab and she doesn't remember if she got them all out) and her hair (definitely full of debris and tangled even braided). “He's so angry, I think he may even yell at you.” 

Noelle laughs. “Despair! Anguish! Horror!” 

Mom does not laugh with her. 

Kris and Noelle are separated even though that's the last thing she wants, under the guise of being looked over and cleaned up. Kris must have said something to someone else while they were apart, something that inadvertently exonerated them and condemned her, because an hour later when they're back together Kris tells her, “They're kicking me out soon.” 

“Let me come with you,” Noelle says immediately. 

They shake their head. “They said you need to stay here.” 

“For how long?”

“At least until tomorrow.”

Noelle bites the inside of her cheek and furrows her brows. “Why?” 

Kris shrugs but won't meet her gaze. They try to change the subject. “Susie wanted to come in as soon as she heard, but they said she had to leave, but she can come back in the morning.” 

“I want to get out of here,” she says. Implied is, I can't stay locked up anymore I've got to get out and run before it's too late and I'm too tired to do anything ever again Kris please. Kris knows her better than she does, so she knows they can hear it even if she doesn’t explicitly say it. 

There's a pause, like Kris is weighing their options before speaking. “I'll go talk to Carol,” they say flatly. 

Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew that there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as “our brother's keepers,” possessed of one of the oldest and possibly one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting instincts. It will not let us go.

“What happened?” Carol asks, massaging her brow with the palm of her hand. 

She's sitting across from them in a waiting room. Kris has the SOUL stashed in a med cart down the hall. This is probably unwise, considering a nurse might, you know, open it up and see a loose human soul scurrying around like a mouse, but it's pretty late so they're hoping it's not too busy here and anyway the SOUL has proven it can take pretty damn good care of itself. 

Their hands are shaking around the large choco milk (long twirly straw included, thanks Dad) but it's not so much from the soullessness anymore. “She, um.” There's not really a good way to say I'm not exactly sure but I think combined years of stress and emotional neglect and grief and constant pressure have had your daughter on the verge of losing it a little anyway and the stupid soul you gave me is trying to turn her into a codependent killing machine so I think somewhere in between putting Berdly in a coma and giving Susie all her worldly possessions she had a mild psychotic break and I decided hiding out in the woods and letting her sleep it off was better than letting her drown herself in the lake. They want to laugh, but they swallow the impulse.

“She's not… She… I don't know.” 

“How much of this has to do with the SOUL?”

“...Some of it.” 

She is very tense, taught like a bowstring seconds away from loosing the killing blow. But she manages to say, “How much of this has... has to do with me?”

Kris won't meet her eyes. “Some of it.” 

“I have been preoccupied. I thought she was the one I could trust to take care of herself while I turned my back for a moment. Apparently I was mistaken.” 

“Hey, don't make this her fault,” Kris interrupts. 

“You're the one who's been with her. Who do you think is at fault here?” Her tone is not accusatory. It's a simple inquiry. This is the stronghold from which Carol makes decisions, and they want nothing more right now than to see it in flames and crumbling into the sea. 

“Lady, I'm the only reason your kid isn't dust at the bottom of the lake right now,” they snap. They feel dizzier all of a sudden, and they stop to have a long drag of chocolate milk to steady themself before they continue. “So unless you're prepared to be the only Holiday standing, stop complaining.” 

They've already seen enough Carol Holiday In Tears tonight to last them a lifetime, but when they look up from the milk her jaw is shaking like she's just barely keeping it together again, and she stutters, “Noe- She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't do that to me.” 

Ah. She's just now putting it together. Kris put it together at least two days ago, and they forget that this information can even be novel. It feels like a new fact of reality, something now permanently woven into the world they live in. The sky is blue, except for when it's not. Trees are green, except for when they're not. Noelle is happy and safe and can be trusted, except for when she's not. 

“‘Do it to you-’" For some reason, the fact that not everyone is caught up yet just makes them mad. "It wasn't about you. I mean, it is, but— oh, Angel.” Kris puts their head in their hands. Normally a good adrenaline rush is present to get them through soullessness, but sitting in a chair talking to someone doesn't really trigger that same physical reaction, even if that someone is Mayor Holiday. As a result they're exhausted and blurry and thinking straight is halfway impossible. 

“But you don't mean… She wasn't going to…” She shakes, and doesn't finish her sentence. There are things she has never been able to say out loud, rendering them as yet unrealized, and therefore Dess is not dead nor is she unreachable and Noelle can never get hurt. 

Wordless Carol is scarier than yelling Carol. “I don't know,” Kris says wearily. “I don't think she wants to die. But she doesn't exactly want to live. And the SOUL has been getting real far into her head. It's the reason Ber-”

“Don't,” she interrupts, putting up a hand. “Don't tell me.” 

As in, I can do my job as mayor much better the less I implicate myself in this very serious Light World crime. Even though this involves my own daughter. Whatever. They clear their throat. 

“I don't think she really knows what she wants, but yeah, we were halfway into the water before she changed her mind. I'm not sure what made her do that, actually. But she pushed back against the SOUL a little, for once. Maybe that's a good sign, I don't know. She was much, much scarier on the night of the festival than she was tonight, by the way.” 

“A few days running away in the woods was good for her, then,” Carol fills in. She tips her head back and blinks purposefully at the ceiling. Kris finds something else to look at out of respect. 

“We're gonna get her through this whole thing,” Kris promises after a moment. It has to be true, they'll make it true. “We should just… be careful.”

“I will need to keep a close eye on her from now on.” Carol sighs. “One more thing to add to my plate.” 

“You should have been doing that from the beginning.” Kris doesn't mean to snap, but the words come out before they can think about them. 

Noelle needs a mom, not a watchman. As a matter of fact, Kris needs a mom, not a crossing guard—they need a dad, not a substitute teacher. Theres a lot of things they need that they can't have, which makes it hard sometimes to remember how brightly the things they need and actually have - Susie, Ralsei, the occasional glimmer of hope - still shine.

It doesn’t matter what Kris needs or wants. What they want is Aunt Carol, but the prophecy, the plan, doesn't need a piano teacher or babysitter or carpool organizer. It doesn’t need a music student or a sidewalk chalk artist or a Sunday school scheme crafter. 

It needs a cage. 

“I will thank you,” she says lowly, level in that familiarly dangerous way, “to keep your opinions on my parenting to yourself.” 

She's just insecure and hurting right now, so Kris decides not to take it to heart. Not when there's so much else that they could take much more personally. 

“Seriously, though, we need to be careful about the SOUL,” Kris says, trying to change the subject. “It's not me I'm worried about, it's other people. I'm not sure what this thing is doing sometimes.” 

“What's it doing to you?” 

“Not much.” 

“Don't lie to me.” 

“I'm not lying. I'm okay. It hasn’t hurt me. Well, not anymore than I hurt it.” It's just curious. I think that's the biggest threat. 

Carol sits and looks them up and down again for a minute, and they wonder what she's calculating this time. A fresh wave of dizziness hits, and they clutch the glass of milk a little tighter and elevate their feet on one of Carol's armrests. Her eyes narrow, but she doesn't say anything about it. Perks of selling your soul to somebody and also coming back from scaring the shit out of them, they guess. 

Instead, she says, “It's almost all over.” 

“I know.” 

“We just need to get through the last stage, and then you'll be free.” 

Kris smiles ruefully. They're so damn tired sometimes, and the two things keeping them going are the assurance that the plan will work and the prophecy will be concluded, a conviction mostly fueled by sheer force of willpower, and the knowledge that no matter how this all ends, it's going to be over soon. Kris will finally get a break. 

“Have you thought about college yet?” 

Kris snorts. “What the hell kind of question is that?” 

“It is the ‘are you making plans for after graduation’ sort of question.” 

“We still have a couple years, and I've been a little preoccupied.” 

“Noelle has three picked out already.” 

Noelle does whatever she thinks she's “supposed to do” most of the time, and does exactly what she's not ever supposed to do about 1% of the time. They don't say that. They also don't say,  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be around for college. Instead they say, “I, uh, haven't thought that far ahead yet.” 

“Start thinking,” Carol says, and they know her tones of voice enough to suspect that there's a veiled threat in there somewhere. She rests a hand on their ankle in a motion that would be effectively comforting if her hands weren't so cold all the time, then politely but definitively moves Kris’s feet to the floor and out of her way. 

“Mm. I've been considering clown college.” 

“You are more talkative than you used to be, when it isn't in you,” she comments, standing. It's clear from her tone that she feels this is not a good thing. Kris isn't offended; they, too, hate the desperation they feel to express to her or to Ralsei when the SOUL is gone. Normally they would pick their words more carefully, speak more sparingly, but now when they have full agency they feel like a runaway train. 

Carol brushes off her slacks; they have dried mud and dead leaf bits still on them from Noelle. “I'd like to kick the living daylights out of that thing," she continues, "but seeing as how you need it to be alive it seems unwise to do so.” 

“Oh no it's fine I hit it with a hockey stick the other day and nothing bad happened—” Kris freezes midsentence, staring straight ahead, chocolate milk halfway to their mouth. 

Carol jerks in surprise, waving a hand cautiously in front of their face, but Kris doesn't even blink. She pats them on the shoulder experimentally. “Kris,” she says, habit moving her hand to feel their temperature, “Kris, are you alr—” 

Kris takes the opportunity to lick her hand while it's in transit to their forehead. They grin slyly as mild shock registers on her face, then annoyance. She rolls her eyes, wiping her hand off on the top of their head, but there's a subtle twinkle in the corner of her eye that tells them things are okay. Or at least almost okay. 

“You disgusting, irreverent child,” Carol says as she moves toward the door. Truly heartwarming; she hasn't called them that in years. “No wonder this town is a wreck half the time if you're allowed free rein in it. Do try not to get killed by any Dark creatures this week. We've spent enough time in the police station as is and it would be simply exhausting to have to extend that experience.” 

“Damn, I'll have to reschedule the suicide bombing I had planned for Castle Town. How does the thirtieth sound?” 

She snorts and shuts the door behind her. 

So Mom was acting weird. She hugged Noelle and cried when they were found, she threw looks at Kris over her shoulder that Noelle can't decipher. She's acting new; or, rather, she's acting like she used to be, back when their families were intact and the world seemed like it made sense. 

But the Noelle that's sitting in front of her right now isn't the Noelle that went to study in the computer lab last week. She's also not the Noelle who stood ankle deep in the lake and held onto Kris so tight she left bruises. She's changed, she realizes abruptly while Mom is doing her hair for bed, and she's not sure how she feels about it. 

Mom hasn't berated her for disappearing. She berated Dess every time she snuck out her window to go smoke in the park, and she chews Noelle out every time she’s out fifteen minutes past curfew. This time, Mom isn't lecturing her. She just keeps asking why, but she asks it like she knows she's not going to get an answer, or like she's afraid of what it might be, or maybe like she already knows. That's fine, because Noelle doesn't have one for her mother. 

“Dess is gone,” Noelle says abruptly. She doesn't know where the knowledge came from, and she doesn't know where “gone” is, but she knows that it means she's not coming back, maybe ever. 

“I hope,” Carol says softly but firmly, “that you've never thought that I gave up on her. I haven't, not once.” 

Noelle knows she hasn't. Mom never stopped trying with December. That's why they're here now, with Noelle halfway under house arrest and Mom truly looking at her for the first time in years. 

Mom runs the pearl-handled boar bristle brush through her hair one more time before she starts dividing it for braids like she used to wear when she was little, and Noelle thinks that a month ago she would have done anything for this kind of attention, but that not much interests her now that she's seen halfway across the lake and deep into Kris's eyes. 

For some time, though, he struggled for more to hold onto. “Are you sure you have told me everything you know?” he asked. I said, “Everything.” “It's not much to hold onto, is it?” “No,” I replied, “but you can love completely without complete understanding.” “That I have known and preached,” my father said.

They have a sleepover in her room at home the next night. Carol seems hesitant to allow it, and as much as Kris wants to keep an eye on Noelle they can’t help but feel like they need to keep the SOUL as far away from her as possible. But permission for Kris to stay over is literally the only thing Noelle has asked for since they got back to town, even though the nurses and her dad and the Dreemurrs have been asking almost constantly if there was anything she wanted, so she gets it. 

There’s such a thing as fun sleepovers, which means there’s also such a thing as not-fun sleepovers, and this is one of the latter. Kris is fine with that.  

Ask Noelle how she is feeling.

“You doing okay, Noelle?” they ask while they're both trying to fall asleep. They're curled up in a nest of blankets on the floor, and she's sprawled on top of her covers, but with her head at the foot of the bed to give the whole thing a little more novelty. They stare up at the dark ceiling with an arm tucked under their ear. 

“I guess,” she says. 

Noelle seems to have started to realize that she lost it a little bit and truly freaked everyone out. In a perfect world, this would mean things were going to get better. Kris doesn't think the storm has passed, though, not while the SOUL has anything to say about it. It hasn't done anything out of the ordinary since they got back to town, but Kris suspects it's just lying low while everyone's got their eyes on Noelle. Then it'll be back to its old tricks. Kris is just going to have to try to be ready. 

“It's just… hard to be okay when other people aren't,” she says quietly. 

“I really think your dad's on the upswing.”

“Not him, stupid.” Noelle rolls over to look down at them. Her hair hangs in a wavy golden sheet over the side of the bed. Kris fancies it glitters in the moonlight filtering in through the blinds. She's sleepy, but she sounds dead serious when she says, “I mostly meant you.” 

Kris starts without meaning to.

The SOUL seems to be on the same page, and Kris’s mouth says, “I've been… I mean… We haven't hung out in, like, three years before all this. You shouldn't need to worry about me.” 

“But I do.” She smiles gently. “Just because we've been, I don't know, busy doesn't mean you guys stop being family.” 

She's still waiting for some sort of response. 

Kris thinks about the SOUL that's dragging them from one disaster to another and isn't afraid to go scorched earth if it has to. They think about Noelle, and how if the SOUL were to tell her to walk off a cliff she'd probably still do it, and they couldn't stop her. They think about their parents, and how Dess is still gone and her coming home isn't a sure thing yet even if Carol insists it is. They think about Susie, who is so hopeful but still so very alone, and Ralsei, who has both more and less freedom than Kris themself. 

Kris thinks about the very real possibility that they're not making it through this prophecy alive, feeling the same sense of resignation they've had for a long time. 

The SOUL picks their response, but it's the same thing they would have said anyway, so they're not mad. 

“I'm okay, there's just a lot happening,” they reassure her, sounding as honest as they can. 

She squeezes their hand. “If you're okay, then I can be okay, too,” she promises. 

They fall into a quiet lull. Clouds start to gather outside. 

“Kris,” Noelle says quietly after some time. “Are you awake?”

Pretend to be asleep.

Mentally groaning, they obey, only making the slightest “Mnm” sound in response. 

“O-okay?” 

She pauses in the type of silence that usually means she's chewing on her tongue. 

“My mom, um, she's pretty mad at me, I think.” Her voice is really soft, like it doesn't matter if they remember this in the morning, she just needs to say it. “Well, Dad says she was just upset. Scared. But either way I have to take the week off school. 

“Mom's making me spend the days with Dad while she's at work. She keeps kind of suggesting it's to keep him company, but we all know it's because I need a babysitter. It's… ugh. It's fine, though, I guess. I like spending time with him. And not being at school. I'm sure I'll get bored real fast, but. It's not so bad.” 

She breathes tightly, shuddering on the inhale like her chest has clammed up. “I don't know if I want to go to the other side of the lake anymore. Would you be upset? If I didn't go?"

Kris holds their breath.

"I want to do something crazy, still. But I want to… No, not crazy. I want to do something wild.” 

She sits up and looks down at them vaguely. Moonlight hits her full on through the window and turns her hair to ice, while Kris is huddled motionless in the shadows on the floor. They can see her just barely through sleepy lids, but when she looks down Kris is certainly lost in the shapeless dark. 

“I want to do something wild.” It comes out sounding almost like she's casting Heal Prayer, reverent and determined. “I've never been wild before, Kris. I think I'm overdue. We'll do it together.” She smiles half to herself, and a strand of the knot of fear that's been living in their chest for months frees itself. This, Kris thinks, they can work with. 

Suddenly Noelle's eyes snap up, meeting Kris in the dark, and her gaze is so cold it almost gives them a headache. 

“I don't know, exactly,” she says to someone who is not Kris. This voice is not Heal Prayer. This voice is IceShock. “I don't know if you're listening right now. But I will not let you hurt them.” 

Then she laughs, light and tinkling like normal, the sound of bells they know so well, like before Kris and the SOUL dragged her down and stuck their arm in her head deep enough to jumble everything up. Then she lies down and goes to sleep. 

Kris does not dream.

It is a strange and wonderful and somewhat embarrassing feeling to hold someone in your arms who is trying to detach you from the earth and you aren't good enough to follow her. 

“Your mom and I are okay, so that's good,” Susie says while they're on a sanctioned walk after school's out. She's got her hands shoved deep in her pockets. “I mean, I don't think she likes me or anything. But we're… okay.” 

“How on earth did that happen?” Noelle asks. They're not holding hands. Hers are behind her back, but they itch to move and be free. She twiddles her thumbs instead. Today they are finally having The Discussion, which she has been avoiding because she knows there's not a way to make Susie understand. 

Susie shrugs. “I think Toriel probably talked her down at some point, honestly. And I think she, like, thinks slightly better of me because I was the first one to look. As soon as I realized you guys were gone, I—” She swallows. “Well, there were footsteps going into the lake, and I didn't see any coming out.” 

“We climbed out on the bank, under the trees,” Noelle explains. Her mind is far away, feeling the touch of Kris’s hand in the water as she pulls them along, pushing through the rippling orange reflection of the trees and the layers of fallen leaves and sticks floating on top. “I wanted to swim through the leaf pile.” She and Susie are not holding hands. 

“Right. Well, I didn't know that. But as soon as I realized you guys were gone, I ran to find Toriel ‘cause I knew something had to be wrong.” Susie laughs. It's a bitter sound, something Noelle hasn't really heard from her before. “She didn't quite believe me at first, she was just humoring me. Trying to calm me down, I guess. You know who did believe me? Carol. Like, immediately. That still wasn't a fun conversation. 

“Everybody thought she was being dramatic at first, like for the first few hours, but she sent people to look around the lake—and in it,” Susie's half smile is awkward and apologetic, “and nobody could really say no to her. I guess they thought they'd find you guys, I don't know, smoking in somebody's shed or something, and then she'd calm down. But then they just… kept not finding you. 

“Anyway, then she stood and just yelled at me for a while. And don't take this the wrong way, because I promise I still totally wanted to scream in her face, but I just let her. Then when she was done I yelled back just a little, but mostly ‘cause I didn't want her to think I didn't care. I just kept thinking, I've dealt with Queen before—”

“Who?” Noelle asks before she can stop herself, because as the words are leaving her mouth she remembers that she knows exactly who. 

Susie stammers. “Oh, just, uh, somebody I used to know. But anyway, I thought, I'd dealt with her before, so why couldn't I handle your mom like that? And it kinda worked. She's just, uh, not as funny. Sorry. 

“But then after all that, she was just… scared.” 

“Did she tell you? When we…” There's not a way to phrase it that doesn't make them sound like escapee vagabonds hiding from the cops and finally being caught by a night watchman while sleeping in a haystack, but that's pretty much what happened. Noelle's hands are empty behind her back. She scratches at her ring finger. 

Susie nods. “I was with Toriel, and Carol called her and said to make sure to tell me as soon as they found out.” 

“She trusts you,” Noelle realizes, blinking in surprise. She trusts you with me. She doesn't even trust me with me. “Wow. Good.” 

Noelle doesn't think she trusts anybody right now. Except maybe Kris, although she's beginning to understand that there have to be caveats to that. 

“I guess,” Susie admits uncertainly, as if she's not the only person who wasn't a blood relation or a medical professional that Mom has let take Noelle out of her sight in three days. 

They're quiet for a minute. Leaves crunch. They take a loop around the church. They do not go near the lake. 

“Why did you do that?” Susie asks suddenly. There's desperation in her voice. 

She knew this was coming. 

“I just have to get out, Susie,” she replies quietly. 

“Yeah, and you got away for a little while."

She doesn't understand the lake. She doesn't know about the song, about what's underneath and beyond the water. She doesn't know where Noelle and Kris have been to.

"Are you good now?” Susie brushes a hand against her arm. 

“I don't know,” she says honestly. It's painful, but Susie deserves at least a little bit of truth in her life. “I don't know if that was enough. I just… I can't just stay like this.” 

“Could you stay….” Susie begins hesitantly. “Could you… stay here, if I stayed here, too? In Hometown?” 

Could I be enough? Could you stay for me? Could you stay so we could be us? 

Susie is sweet, and wants so badly for everything to go right. She believes in a world where people are safe and friends are around every corner. She believes in a world where determination always wins, and family always makes it home, and no one ever gets sick and slips away while you watch powerlessly. 

And Susie is lovely, but she's blind to the horrors Kris or something that looks like Kris has awoken inside Noelle, and she doesn't understand the thousands and thousands of microscopically thin layers of exhaustion and loss and grief and inability to overcome that Noelle is trying to escape. She doesn't understand that some day the only thing that will be left is the water. 

But Susie is sweet, and so very hopeful, and a lifetime in the Holiday family has taught Noelle that sometimes a little lie can be just as useful as a big truth, so she smiles gently, and tells her, “Yes, I think I could,” with a kiss on the cheek.

The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.