Chapter Text
Stars drift like snowfall past the windows of her satellite.
Cress watches, and waits.
Behind her, the pale blue hologram of Little Cress dances in the starlight. Her dress twirls around her, and her bare feet trip and jump and skip easily around the only floor she has ever known. A soft melody drifts from the speakers, and her little voice hums along--old Italian opera, country-western, a fast, upbeat pop song all at once. Every few notes, static buzzes discordant through the blank netscreens, then fades quiet beneath the music.
She dances, and hums, and in the reflection, Cress watches.
“What are you waiting for, Big Sister?” Little Cress sings.
Waiting? Cress is… dreaming. She’s dreaming. And, she feels, pressing her hand against the worrying knot in her chest, waiting for something important.
Her focus shifts--past Little Cress, past the gentle starfall--to Luna, taking a slow turn around Earth. White clouds marble the surface of the homeworld, and its blue oceans shine from the light of the sun.
It is beautiful, both foreign and familiar, and so very, very far. Her heart aches with the distance.
“I’m waiting for someone,” Cress realizes.
Little Cress giggles, disbelieving. Static pops through her voice. Her image flickers as she glances towards the windows. “Down there?”
“I think so.”
“For how long?”
How long will she have to wait? Has she been waiting this whole time? Years have gone by--most of her life has gone by in this cradle-cage of a satellite, trapped by her shell blood and her life debt to the queen--and Cress isn't sure if she's ever taken a full breath.
She tries, anyway; inhales. A star falls toward Earth. “I don't know how long. Forever, maybe.”
“Perhaps,” a different voice says.
The air turns thick in her lungs, clings to her throat. Cress whirls around. Little Cress and her music have flickered and died. Sybil Mira stands before her now, silent as the void, her pristine thaumaturge jacket stained a bright red around the collar. A trickle of blood runs from her ears. She seems not to notice; she blinks, and stares at Cress with terrible, cold, bruised eyes, and folds her shaking hands in front of her.
Cress cannot move. Sybil Mira is supposed to be dead. She--she saw her die, on that roof, driven mad by her own gift turned back on her.
This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream.
“Perhaps you will spend your remaining days here,” Sybil Mira says, “while he grows old without you.”
The knot in Cress’s chest pulls, tightens. A handsome face. Bright blue eyes. Carefully arranged hair, carefully gentle hands. She remembers soft lips, and the indent of dimples beneath her fingertips, and a warm chest held close to her own.
Thorne.
“No,” Cress gasps.
“He will be happy on Earth,” Sybil Mira says. “And you shall stay here, forced to watch, and to wait, forever.”
“No,” Cress says, pressing a hand to her heart. It pounds loud against her palm. Sybil Mira is gone; Sybil Mira is dead.
When Cress takes a step forward, to--to plead, or push--to make this all stop--Sybil Mira’s form shivers like static, shifts into someone safer.
“Cinder,” Cress exhales.
Cinder nods. Her dress sparkles, slim and silver, and though she looks regal, almost untouchable, there are a few spots of grease on her worn silk gloves that makes Cress smile. Cinder. Her Cinder.
Cress takes a deep breath, calms her pounding heart. “What are you doing here?”
Cinder motions to the wide desk and computer bank against the far wall. An unfamiliar portscreen appears. It is sleek and Lunar-white and glowing, and Cress, fingers itching, reaches for it automatically.
Small print lines the screen, pages and pages of indecipherable text that blur together as she scrolls. A few words appear to her, familiar parts and phrases. She thinks that it might be a cyborg guardianship contract.
One that she has already signed several times over.
I, Crescent Moon Darnel, hereby take full responsibility…
I, Crescent Moon Darnel, vow to protect…
I, Crescent Moon Darnel, swear to accompany...
The portscreen warms in her hands. The end of the contract brings an empty line, and a bold, red X.
“He will be yours forever,” Cinder warns.
The computer bank hums. Opera, western, a crackle-pop static that brushes against her skin like fine waves of sun-warmed sand. When she looks over, Little Cress is hugging the home of her broken server. Her holographic body flickers, and a shower of sparks bursts from the dusty, cracked desk. The suppressive Sahara heat curls around her skin, her fallen satellite.
Little Cress blinks at the sun peeking through the window frames. Sand falls like snowfall into the satellite, buries her little blue feet. “Forever is an awfully long time,” she says. “What are you waiting for, Big Sister?”
Cress breathes, and signs the contract.
Cinder frowns. “Cress?”
“Yes?” Cress tries to hand the portscreen back; Cinder reaches for it, but it falls through her cyborg hand and tumbles to the ground. Sand has already reached their calves, rises quick, quicker, blows in from the East where the sun rises bright and burning, buries them fast. Knees. Hips. Cress can't move, she can't move, she can't breathe--
Little Cress is gone. Her satellite is gone.
This is a dream.
“Cress,” Cinder says, disappearing beneath the sand. “Cress, wake up.”
*
Awareness comes back to her slowly, like crawling back up to consciousness through all that sand. Sometime during her vigil, she must’ve tipped sideways onto the couch and fallen asleep; she’s since been covered with a soft blanket, and though the lights of the sitting room are dim, she can see a blurry outline of Cinder, an arm’s reach away and smiling at her from her perch on the edge of the coffee table.
“Cress?”
She blinks. Dream-Cinder gives way. Her sleek, silver gown is gone, replaced by loose cargo pants and a tank top. Amusement eases the lines of stress at her forehead, and the flyaway hairs escaping her loose ponytail make her look more like herself than she has since Cress arrived in Artemisia a few days ago.
“Wha,” Cress starts, swallowing and sitting up on the couch, smoothing out the skirt of her dress. Thorne. She’s been waiting for Thorne to come out of surgery. “What time is it?”
“A little after four?”
“Already? I… is everything okay?”
Cinder offers a hand. Cress doesn’t know what that means. The procedure went terribly? They had to rid him of his remaining fingers? He had a bad reaction to the medication and the surgeons couldn’t understand why and they had to put him in the tank and now he won’t regain consciousness and since Cress signed those awful forms naming her as his guardian, they want her to come and look at his body and--
“Hey.” Cinder takes Cress’s hand and squeezes. “Relax. Your cyborg is fine.”
Your cyborg.
The words tug at her heart.
“He’s not my cyborg,” Cress mumbles, blushing. She stands and allows Cinder to lead her from the room.
Cinder snorts. “I wouldn't want to claim him either. Come on.”
Hand-in-hand, Cinder and Cress walk quickly down the elegant hallways of Artemisia Palace. Guards and thaumaturges and servants alike nod respectfully or bow as they pass. The attention seems to glance off of Cinder; she guides Cress along, eyes forward, and takes a deep breath once they finally enter a recovery room on the medical wing somewhere within the palace.
It’s a small room, bright and clean, and made comfortable by a plush sofa against the wall and a few potted plants hanging near the tall window. A nurse, checking on a monitor, looks up as they walk in.
She says something, and Cinder responds, but Cress only has eyes for Thorne.
He lies in bed, eyes closed, stiller than he usually is in sleep. Bandages wrap his hand, keeping his fingers--old and new--in place. There’s an IV feeding medicine and nutrients into his arm, and his pulse beeps steady on a nearby screen. Cress steps forward as if hypnotized by the rhythmic beat of his heart, by the easy rise and fall of his chest. As far as she knows, everything looks fine.
Cress breathes.
He looks--he looks fine.
“He is fine,” the nurse says, tapping on her portscreen. “He may be groggy when he wakes up. He’s allowed water, but no food yet. Just press this button if you need anything. Your Majesty.”
Cinder accepts her bow with a stiff nod, and then the nurse is gone.
“Still not used to that,” Cinder says, standing next to Cress at the side of the bed. She looks at Thorne. “Dr. Mahsa said the surgery went well. He should have full use of everything in a day or two.”
That’s good. He’ll be relieved. Probably not relieved that he’s a cyborg now, because Cress… because she shot him, mutilated him, took his fingers and part of his humanity and now he’ll have to live like Cinder has, looked down upon and restricted, when all he’s wanted to do was fly free--
“Hey, stop it.”
“I’m--I’m not. I’m not doing anything.”
With a sigh, Cinder drags a chair next to the bed and pulls at Cress’s shoulders until she sits into it. “Has he said anything about blaming you, Cress?”
“No,” she says, teary. She swipes at her face. She can’t stop crying today. “But he--he wouldn’t.”
And he hadn’t--not when it happened, not even the months after. Not when his hand healed, and he had to make do with three fingers. Not when she saw him he staring overlong at the scarring on his hand, running his thumb over the bumps of his knuckles. Not when they spoke about him getting replacements, during their worldly travels, and what him being a cyborg might mean.
“He wouldn’t, because he doesn’t,” Cinder says. “He loves you. So sit here for a while, hold his hand. Maybe mess with him when he wakes up, tell him he’s been sleeping for a few years.”
Cress giggles. “Thanks, Cinder.”
“Let me know if you need me. There’s a portscreen here, I think it’s connected to the netscreen, if you need it.” Cinder taps Cress’s shoulder. “See you in a bit.”
It’s a little easier, after Cinder leaves, to look at Thorne without so much guilt. It lingers, but then she studies the mess of his hair, the pale wash of his skin, the way he seems so unlike himself in this medicated rest. Even in sleep he’s often restless--alive with movement, twitching and snoring, feet tangling in his blanket.
This Thorne is unmoving. She scoots her chair a little closer, reaches out for the hand closest to her, unbandaged, long fingers nicked with faded scars. He’s warm when she touches him. She wonders what he’s dreaming of, if he’s dreaming at all.
*
Cress is curled up in her chair, watching the third episode of Caturday Rescue on the big wall netscreen, when she feels Thorne’s hand twitch underneath hers.
A gasp wrenches free of her throat. She sits up so fast she almost topples from her chair; her momentum carries her to standing, and she leans eagerly over his bedside, looks closely at his face. Still, closed eyes. Perfect lips. A wriggle, just there, at his brow.
“Thorne?”
His fingers jump again.
“Thorne?” In quick succession, her hands like briefly alighting hummingbirds, she touches his hair, his forehead, the short stubble on his cheek. “Carswell? You’re fine. You’re out of surgery, and your hand is fine. You have ten fingers again.”
A second passes, two, and then he takes a deep breath, works his jaw. His eyes move beneath his eyelids. He squeezes her hand.
Breathlessly, she waits for him to say something. “Carswell?”
He blinks, squints at the light. “Mm… Fingers?”
And she feels silly for crying, again, again, but she’s never wanted to admit how afraid she was that Thorne wouldn’t wake up, not until she hears his voice, sees the bright blue of his eyes trying to focus on her.
“Yeah,” she says, “Yeah, they put two more on for you.”
He flexes his free hand, then raises his other to his face. It’s bandaged from fingertip to forearm. Wires and tubes disappear beneath the gauze. He twists his arm slowly one way and the other, and then drops it to his lap, rolls his head back on his pillow to look at Cress. It takes him a moment to focus. He smiles. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Wow, you are beautiful.”
“Oh,” Cress laughs. Heat rises to her face. “That’s--thank you. You too. You’re beautiful.”
“Yeah, but. Wow.” He looks at her, looks and looks, gives her a silly, dazed grin. He motions to his own face. “You have so many freckles. Like stars. And your eyes. And your hair. Wow.”
“You cut my hair, remember?”
“No, I didn’t!”
She can’t help it--her heart feels like it’s floating free in her chest, and she’s still a little teary-eyed, and she loves him so much. She laughs again, and leans down so that she can take his free hand and press it to her hair. It’s longer now. He threads his fingers through to the ends, brings his hand up so that he can start at her temples and do it again.
“I would never cut your hair,” he says, gazing at her. “It looks like gold. I love gold.”
She brings her head up. His hand falls to her shoulder, and she rests her cheek against his knuckles. “I know you do.”
It takes him another long moment to give her a lazy smile, and another to blink. “I’m tired.”
“The nurse said you might be. It’s okay to sleep.”
“Don’t wanna leave you.”
“I’ll be here,” she says. She points toward the netscreen. “I was watching Caturday Rescue before you woke up. They just pulled a family of kittens from a storm drain.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
“That’s adorable.”
Cress nods. It is adorable. He is adorable. She watches his face as he turns to the netscreen, watches as his eyelids droop, as his breathing slows. Carefully she takes his hand and returns it to his side, smiles at him when he catches her eye.
“Hey, come lay down with me,” he says.
Her mouth is already forming the words of a refusal--what if I mess up your wires, what if the doctor comes in, what if I hurt you, I’ve already hurt you so much and I’m afraid you will never forgive me and I can’t do that again, I can’t, I can’t--but then he’s scooting over and patting the space he’s left, and, well, it is hard to say no, not when she wants to be close to him, not when he wants her there.
So, as gingerly as possible, she crawls into the hospital bed next to him, rests her head on his shoulder, tucks her hands safely into her chest. She lies quiet and still, her eyes on Caturday Rescue and the whole of her attention on the rise and fall of Thorne’s chest.
“Cress,” he says, amused.
“I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hey.”
He takes her hand and gently pulls, presses her palm to his chest, right over his heart. It’s beating steady and strong, and she looks up to see him smile right before he leans in to kiss her forehead. “You’re not gonna hurt me, alright?”
“Okay.”
Cress wriggles more comfortably into his side, hums pleasantly when he wraps his arm around her shoulder. Together, they watch the team on the netscreen set loose a litter of kittens in their new home. The furry babies run around the room, exploring their plush bed, the toys littered around the room, the bowls of water in the corner. One of the gray ones pounces on its sibling and chews on its tail.
“No cats,” Thorne says sleepily, resting his cheek on her head. “No furballs on the ship.”
“But look at them,” she murmurs. “They’re so cute.”
“Mmm. You are.”
Warm and comfortable and relieved, Cress keeps vigil as Thorne drifts to sleep, his body heavy and lax next to hers. They don’t fall asleep together often--she has her own room on the Rampion, and likes having a space that is all her own--but she loves the way she can sink into his side when she wants, the way she can feel his heart beating, enjoy the warmth of his body like trust and love radiating from his skin.
Cress smooths the hair from his forehead.
Maybe she can convince him to get one cat. One little kitten for the ship. Surely he’d come to love it.
*
“Alright, Mr. Thorne, and… how about now?”
Dr. Mahsa touches a metal instrument to Thorne’s new ring and pinky fingers. They jump and curl inward as if tickled; almost a reflex itself, a wide smile stretches across Thorne’s face. He looks up at the doctor, at Cinder, Cress, and Iko standing just beyond the doctor’s shoulder. “This is amazing!”
Cress, who’s been watching the postoperative assessment with a careful eye, can’t help but beam.
Iko laughs. “It’s not so bad, huh?”
“You’ll still want to be easy with this hand for a few weeks,” Dr. Mahsa says, slipping his tools back into a sleek black case. He wheels his stool to the cabinet on the far side of the wall and puts his case away, takes a little white pill bottle from a drawer, and wheels himself back to Thorne’s bedside. “Take one of these if you experience any pain or tingling phantom sensations. It may take a few weeks to two months for your new cybernetics to adjust seamlessly to your system. You have read all of the information from the packets you and your guardian have signed?”
Thorne glances at Cress. The pages upon pages of legalese that she and Thorne read through before going through with his surgery were extensive--because he would be a cyborg citizen, regardless of his age, it would be best for someone to act as his guardian and advocate. As a member of his crew, as somebody who would continue to travel with him upon his ship and accompany and watch over him, Cress had been the perfect person to volunteer.
It hadn’t been a hard decision. She’d taken his fingers away; the least she could do was help get them back.
So Thorne had signed the forms, his signature an easy flourish, and handed the portscreen over as if this weren’t akin to handing her his life. She’d taken the portscreen, held it in her hands, watched the words swimming before her.
“You know Kai and I are trying to change the laws,” Cinder had told them, sitting beside them in her grand royal office. “But… until then, this is kind of something we have to do. Just in case.”
And Cress had stared, and stared, and stared. In some ways, she’d be responsible for him. Minor ways. In case he got arrested, or needed medical care, or somebody gave him trouble for having cyborg fingers. She’d have to stick by him and work with him on his ship, she assured herself--it wasn’t anything she wasn’t going to do anyway.
Cress nods at Thorne and Dr. Mahsa. Yes, they’ve read the information packets--both legal and medical.
“Of course,” Thorne says.
Dr. Mahsa nods. “Alright. It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Thorne. Give us a call if you have any concerns.”
“Aye, aye.”
The doctor bows to Cinder before making his exit, and Thorne is whisking the blankets from his legs and moving the instant the door closes. He’s already dressed in his tan pants and blue button-down, and his socked feet hit the floor before anybody can tell him to relax.
When he wobbles, Cinder rolls her eyes and catches his weight. “I’m reluctant to let you leave.”
“I’ve been cleared! You heard the man.”
“You can’t even stand up straight on your own.”
Thorne scoffs. “I’m fine. Tell her I’m fine, Cress.”
Cress forces herself to not to blink beneath both Thorne and Cinder’s gazes. “You--you should stand still, at least. Until you aren’t dizzy.”
“I’m not dizzy,” Thorne says, but he does not move away from Cinder, and lets himself lean back against his hospital bed. “I’m fine.”
“Sure,” Cinder says, patting his shoulder. “Listen, I have a new job for you two, if you’re interested.”
Together, Cress and Thorne both say, “Already?”
“It’ll be an easy one,” Cinder says, ducking out from under Thorne’s arm. As she walks across the room to grab the portscreen from the far counter, Cress raises her eyebrows at Thorne--is this too soon, are you ready?--and Thorne waves her concern away with a cavalier grin. He wriggles his fingers at her, all ten, two of them shiny, silver, and new, and then Cinder is back, tapping away at the portscreen. “We have been working with a research lab that’s specialized in bioelectricity. We’ll have you deliver some of our newer chips along with some vials of shell blood and however many cases of letumosis antidote we can fit in the Rampion.”
“Sure,” Thorne says, nodding. “And where are we going this time, your majesty?”
Cinder grins. “Ever been to Hawaii?”