Peach Bottom

The ruins of the old ground houses themselves were bizarre - at one point, they had clearly been bright, expensive. They had that clean, outlined look, and through some crumbling walls and broken windows she could see arches and high ceilings. Most were row homes, but on the edges of the neighborhood, she could see mansions - great, sprawling stone and wood homes, porches now almost entirely submerged.

Shockingly, she saw boats and makeshift rafts, even two girls laid out on the roof of one of those porches. She glided around the high rise slowly, looking down, searching, though she knew it was unlikely that a group on foot would’ve ventured into the swamp, even if it did seem like there were folks still living in the second and third stories of drowned homes. There was even something like the Mt Danu market set up on the roof of what could’ve been a school in a previous life.

She hover-burst over the edge of her high-rise, let herself fall a while and then caught herself with another burst on an old rail line winding around the outside of the edge of town, just distant enough to be separate - water lapping at low, sunken arches, the buildings abruptly slumping downwards, drowning out into a lower plane. Distant enough to see.

Distant enough to be seen, Tye thought. She remembered when Sandy had said - two policemen, shot. This would be a real hunt, then.

A real hunt. And her baby-

There was a sudden flash - a reflection off the road ahead, that was all, but the fucked up parts of her took that moment and made a spark into a bolt, leaping through her.

Tye pumped the brakes, teetering for a second and then veering for longer, and then, for only an instant, scraping against the sideboards before she and the bike slammed against the side-rail, a thick old thing that bent with a screaming bang, catching the bike, which in turn caught her handles to gut, air wrenched from her like a solid thing that gagged her, legs flying over her head in slow motion, and she went over.

It took longer than she expected for the smack, and with a frothy gulp the river swallowed her, and then there was a universe of sparkling bubbles against an emerald sky above, a stunning instant before the cold, and the dark, and the sloping decay of that brilliance into nothing but a murky sun.

Something slammed into her shoulder, but instead of falling, instead of something real like that, the world hurled itself around her as she spun off to the side and down, the last desperate bubbles like pearls slipping between her teeth. A momentary cocoon of darkness, with that line of bright, ungraspable - the world slowed, and -

A telephone pole, she’d knocked into a telephone pole, and there were buildings, buildings draped with algae, an old highway clogged with cars that never made it out before the storm, a fallen stampede, a graveyard of desperation encased in steel and flooded fuel.

Fish flicked between, around, through houses and cars, and there must be clean bones down there, and at least she would be among them, she found the thought like a thorn through her soul, because this could be peace. This could be peace. It could just stop, finally.

Xena.

The water was thick as sand pressing down around her, her limbs clunky and frozen, her big boots like boulders at her ankles.

Her hands were claws in front of her, scraping against the black.

The sun was nowhere, now. And then, through frantic force, everywhere.

She burst up in a searing flash of light and a raw gasp, static blooming over her vision as she tried to even her breathing, slow her frantic flailing, breathe, breathe, breathe.

Breathe. Xena whispered it the fourth time, her voice a drop on the surface, rippling out.

Tye leaned back in the water, letting her boots drift as the rest of her body floated, suspended in the arch of her back. She breathed.

The swim to shore always takes longer than you think it will, her mom had said once. Tye’s arms burned and her mouth stung with salt and something sour and chemical that was probably currently cancering her up. Eventually the buildings rose close enough to the surface that she found herself pushing off the sides of roofs and chimneys, superhero soaring over the sunken world below.

When the sun was high and her arms seared too much to work against the current, she clambered up a surfaced roof, the wood bending, groaning with rot beneath her, but the sun shucked water from her in wavering steam, the skin tingling, muscles relaxing despite themselves.

She shut her eyes and the sun stayed there, bleached into the lids. After a moment she sat up, groaning. She pulled off her shoes and sopping socks, stuffing the latter into the toe of the former and knotting the laces together after. The boots hung like weights when she lifted them to hang around her shoulders. She felt stupid for not doing this sooner. Free, her feet felt raw, delicate brown toes curled into each other. Dimly, she noticed pink and red ankles, rubbed raw, blisters like waxy paper where they’d burst.

She couldn’t even feel them.

Tye reached forward, intent on picking one off, but as she stretched her shoulder popped and a jarring jolt of vertigo rocketed through her, the slapping sound of the water fading into a piercing, static whine, her vision greying out and and pain popping, sparking down her spine.

Her head hit the roof with a wet thump.

In the flat disc of bright water before the shore, she saw a shadow she hadn’t noticed before slipping quietly across the way - a boat, a simple rower, and a child standing at the steer, dark skin shining in the sun, her face too far to see, but the familiar shape of her - of baby girls, small and shining and needing.

“Xena!” she shouted, but her mouth betrayed her, whispering it instead.

Too far away to have heard, the girl tilted her head. Turned behind her, and then there was another little girl, and another, and they squabbled in their nest - needing, needing, needing.

The sun burned. Her ears fizzed, and the world was a solid, steady whine.

Tye shut her eyes. For a moment. Just a moment.

-

First came smell - the scent of disinfectant, mildew, and cloth. The cloth was a blanket, she thought, but when she opened her eyes she realized it was a sleeping bag, wrapped intimately around her vulnerably unconscious form. She sat up quickly, head spinning, and took in her surroundings - an empty room that looked as if it had been a classroom in a previous life, dusty desks shoved off into one corner, chairs stacked, a cracked screen hanging lopsided at the front.

What was beside her interested her more, however - a backpack. Not her backpack - that was back with her bike up on the high rise, oh fuck, let it still be up on that high rise - but this backpack was green, and made of thick, rough fabric, and overburdened on all sides with different bundles and wraps, an enormous water-bottle bulging out of a pocket.

The top was unzipped. Inside, an open medical kit, and -

Granola bars.

As if suddenly remembering itself, her stomach moaned.

Tye snatched the granola bars and stood up, swaying for a moment before steadying herself. The room was devoid of the backpack owner, but they’d surely be back soon. It was odd that they’d trusted her, an unconscious stranger, here with their stuff at all. Unless -

Tye tip-toed over to the door, trying the handle. It opened easily, and with one fervent look up and down the hall, she ducked out and into another classroom, where she promptly devoured the granola bars, sucking water from a dripping sink after.

Satiated, she made her way back out into the hall, moving quickly from corner to corner, then down a flight of concrete stairs.

Here, she stopped, frozen. Here, she heard voices.

“... should be fine. You did excellent, bringing her here. Very mature.” A deep voice, slightly accented. Jamaican?

The murmur of a child, and then a great, bellowing laugh that made her jump.

“I think I have some granola bars, if you’d like those,” the voice said, and to Tye’s terror, footsteps started towards the door she’d perched behind.

With nothing else to do without making too much sound and betraying herself anyway, Tye flattened herself behind where the door would open, holding her breath.

In a moment, out came a man - tall, Black, locks tied up behind his head and the flash of glasses. And following him - two little girls, one with a round dark head that leapt out at her - the girl from the boat. Not Xena, then. Not even Xena’s age - so young.

She waited - the urge to breathe thrumming in her chest - until they’d passed her, heading for the stairs, where - she realized - they would turn on the landing and see her cowering behind the door. She caught the door quickly before it closed, not daring to look behind her as she slipped out and around, heart hammering.

The sun was a familiar burn on her face. She felt odd - dry and sticky where she’d been exposed, but whoever had put her in that sleeping bag - probably the man she’d seen, by the looks of it - hadn’t bothered to take off her wet clothes (praise), so she was clammy everywhere else.

Once outside, it was easy to find her way back up the highrise to where her bike was thankfully still lodged between the edge of the road and the low wall that hadn’t done shit to stop her from flying over the edge.

Casting one last glance across the water to the school she’d snuck from, Tye started up the bike again, heart still hammering away despite the lack of danger, a ferocious, pointless guilt now lodged in her granola-bar filled stomach.

She hover-burst over the edge of her high-rise, let herself fall a while and then caught herself with another burst on an old rail line winding around the outside of the edge of town, just distant enough to be separate - water lapping at low, sunken arches, the buildings abruptly slumping downwards, drowning out into a lower plane. Distant enough to see the town in full.

Distant enough to be seen, Tye thought. She remembered when Sandy had said - two policemen, shot. This would be a real hunt, then.

A real hunt. And her baby-

Despite the fact that it was deemed a flood zone and the homes there weren’t registered, there were homes - some folks squatted in the partially demolished buildings, ones that used to be considered ‘skyscrapers’ before the scraper communities. The old Peco building was a popular squat, and the barren, partially collapsed art museum was still a grounder Philly tourist attraction, in its own way.

The primary attraction, however, was the house boats. Docks had been shoddily created and connected, homes that could survive the encroaching flood flocked together and pinned down. This is what was called the Schuylkill, maybe even more than the river.

There were many ways down into that shifting maze of color and bleached wood, but to Martha, there was a familiar rope ladder beside an ancient, crumbled bridge, down into the quickly filling concrete revine, and then the docks, solid and worn beneath her sandals. All of this connected by more ropes, the whole thing moving just slightly, dizzily, around her.

This was where Martha had been born.

That baby’s parents hadn’t named her ‘Martha,’ though, and as she stood before her aunt’s flaking pepto-bismo pink houseboat, this is what she was thinking of. Her name - her real name, Martha, perfectly plucked from a proud branch of her family tree and affixed where it had always been meant to sit, before her: Martha.

It was important. She didn’t even care much, most of the time - let the waitress say ‘sir,’ and greeted an ‘oops, I mean miss’ as if it was some welcome kiss smacked wetly on her cheek, just a plucky forgiving trans girl, friend of the cis! But her name. Her name.

Martha Ortiz the first had been a soldier, gone awol, gone activist, gone prisoner, gone writer. She was a legend, and had had soft warm hands and flowers on her houseboat.

She’d died when Martha was four, but she liked to think-

Martha took a deep breath and knocked. No point delaying it.

There was a shuffle from inside, a dainty cough, and then silence. Martha could feel an eye peeking at her through the window, but she didn’t glance over until the silence stretched long enough that she began to wonder, the thought sudden and prickly, if she was going to be let in at all. Then there was a click and the door swung open and her aunt Claudia was there, arms open. “Mi amor! Bienvenio, oh, I was so worried!”

The words came over Martha like a balm she hadn’t realized she’d been needing, the familiar Spanish placing her solidly in the world again, where things made the most sense and she could understand. She squeezed Auntie Claudia tightly, trying not to cry as she was hustled in and had a cup of tea handed to her before she could get so much as a ‘thank-you’ out.

Martha took a deep breath. The air here smelled musty, incense, and she could see a candle lit at Claudia’s alter with - and this went over Martha in a wave - a picture of her.

But.

There must’ve been a thousand pictures taken between then and now, and Martha knew her aunt had access - her parents sent out personalized cards for every holiday - a whole slew, just for her Quinceañera a few years back. But this picture was old. This picture was from before.

Martha looked away, quickly. She told herself the intentions were pure, even though they weren’t. She told herself it would be fine, and sat down on one of the squat cushy chairs her aunt had crammed into a corner of the only real room in the boat. A familiar collection of small figurines perched crowded on a side table, most all religious, beyond a one - a tiny, cheap looking porcelain boy with a soccer ball. Martha had gotten it for her as a child - because she liked these fragile little dolls, just like mama, and because it was a soccer boy! A soccer boy, like Martha!

Martha picked it up. It felt cool in her hand. She had an odd urge to put it in her mouth.

“Oh chico, you must tell me everything! Have you contacted your parents yet?”

Martha put down the figurine. “I - not yet, no, I was actually wondering if I could-”

“Ah yes, of course, of course! I got an email from your mother earlier, chico, she is so worried, I’ll get the tablet-”

“And Auntie?”

“Yes, love?”

“I don’t mean to - I mean. Uh, just. Can you please stop calling me chico?”

There was a hefty silence. Auntie Claudia was in her room, supposedly getting the laptop. She was barely five feet from Martha in the tiny houseboat, but when she responded, Martha couldn’t hear her - just an odd mumble.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, love, here, take the computer. And - you are staying here, of course. Until your parents get home”

Martha could’ve cried. “Thank-you, Auntie,” she mumbled, and  took the computer, grateful to her core, and quickly logged in. She had thirteen emails, almost all from her parents. They were on their way, they said, but travel into Philadelphia had become difficult. She responded to the last email, and then typed out a quick note to Tye, too, while she had access. Auntie Claudia, of course, had laid out around three meals worth of snacks at this point, and Martha devoured them hungrily - she hadn’t realized how starving she was.

“How did you get out, my love?” Auntie Claudia was still talking. She’d ranted nonstop about Martha’s parents gall, leaving their son alone like that, and Martha had gritted her teeth and typed through it, mumbling responses when necessary.

“I didn’t. They arrested me for a while, but a friend… well, she paid my bail.”

This got a response. Silent, but deadly. Martha quickly added, “I’m paying her back, though! I just needed to borrow money, it’s not - I mean, I’m paying her back.”

“Spanish, please, chico.” Auntie Claudia said.

Martha bit down hard on her tongue. It didn’t work, though. “Please stop calling me that.”

Claudia lowered her teacup from where she’d been holding it before her mouth, hiding her words like a secret - an intimate, funny kind of habit Martha recognized from her mother, Claudia’s sister.

“You would really punish your Auntie for using pet names?”

“That’s not what-”

“Carlos, your parents would be ashamed-”

“That’s not my name!”

Silence on the boat. Claudia took another sip, shaking her head like Martha was being childish again, telling a story rather than the truth. “I believe I remember your baptism better than you, Carlos. I know what name you were given before G-d.”

“Mama had a new ceremony for me! She knows my name, she-”

Auntie Claudia slammed her tea down; the cup cracked, the liquid spilled, she she hissed like a snake, lifting her hand, which was bloody.

Martha leapt upwards, dashing over to the sink to grab a towel - she wet it with warm water before returning to her aunt and, after a hesitant moment, handing her the cloth rather than cleaning the wound herself, as she might’ve done in another life.

Her aunt didn’t take the cloth, though. She was staring at her hand. Martha swallowed.

When she finally spoke, the words were hard, and plain. “In your own home, or in your mother’s home, you may live whatever sin you like. I worry for you, but I have no control. But in my house, Carlos, you will live as our heavenly father sees you,” she reached out suddenly and clutched at Martha’s hand, her eyes fever-bright, “may it give you the chance to atone-”

Martha jerked her hand back. She grabbed her things, not looking at her Aunt, who was quiet. Until she wasn’t, of course, because she couldn’t be - just as Martha was about to make her exit, she broke the silence with a low voice, dangerous in its meekness, its victimhood.

“You were always so… so manipulative. As a little boy. Turning on the doe eyes anytime someone might give you something, always managing to be the only one out of trouble, though I know, I know you lead my little ones astray every now and then. Never any malice, but - it was a game, you liked it, to play this game. Is that-”

Martha could hear each thumpthumpthump of her heart in her ears, steady as a drum. Could feel the hot bile of anger rising in her throat, her face was burning with rage-

“Don’t you dare-”

“Is that what this is? A way to get closer to girls? Break into their secret world, their bathrooms? I know you like the girls; remember I’m the one that caught you watching that girlie movie, I know you’re not a homosexual, even if you think this is-”

“I am, though! I am! I’m a fucking dyke, auntie, I -”

“You will not swear in my house! You will not sin in my house! You will-”

SLAM.

Martha stared down at the tiny porcelain figurine, cracked on the floor, a dent in the wall beside her aunt’s head. The tiny boy head had been decapitated from the tiny boy body. She looked at her hand. “I didn’t mean -” she started to lie, but when she met her aunt’s eyes, she gave up and allowed herself to burst into tears.

Her aunt picked up the pieces of the little figurine. She looked uncomfortable, but Martha knew she couldn’t ignore crying - never could.

“Oh, Carlos. Fetch me the glue. All he needs is glue - just a little fix. Chico, you must watch your temper,” and then she looked up, a smile like she’d won a tiny victory, “All the men in our family have this passion, though. That is what we’ve always said. You must figure out a way to use it righteously! Be a good man, like your grandfath- Carlos! Carlos, come back!”

On her way out, Martha blew out the candle. She didn’t touch the picture, though. It was from when she was nine - she was in her soccer uniform, a ball under one skinny arm and a toothy grin on her face. She might even have liked it, before this moment. It was still her, after all. It was a picture of a little girl doing something she loved. But it had been poisoned, now.

Martha’s self-righteous rage lasted until she’d climbed the ladder back onto solid ground again. Then, with the earth not moving beneath her, what had happened hit her full force.

She had nowhere to go.

Martha wandered a bit, but it was getting dark, and soon she found an old, overgrown park that felt like safety, felt like faeries, and Martha loved faeries. She curled up on a bench with her backpack under her head and cried, softly, until the shouts and sounds of a group of drunk men roused her and scared her into leaving, creeping by them not creepily enough, jeers and laughter following her down the street, though thankfully, they didn’t follow far.

The AedosDynamic tower caught her eye as she turned down a small alley. It was a shining beacon in the dark danger of the old city. She wished she could call it ugly, but none of the towers were - they were pillars of pure light, vegetation bursting from parks up high, the whole thing fractured in some kind of important architecture way that made it disappear sometimes, turn into just the sky behind it on a rainy day, make that bursting garden top look like it was floating.

There were stairs up to the first floor of the tower. And then, buttons besides.

Martha did the only thing she could think to do. The thing Tye had told her to do - and Tye was smart. Smart and hard and loving in a way Martha couldn’t be. So she could only trust Tye, really.

Lemon answered on the second ring. “Helllooooooo?” she said as her image clipped into view on the display screen. Her eyes widened at Martha, and Martha opened her mouth, ready to engage her prepared speech, but Lemon got in there before she could, “Sweet! I was wondering when you’d turn up, girlie. Come in - 744B. I ordered takeout.”

There was a long drone as the door unlocked, and Martha quickly ducked under the motion sensor and passed through.

A wave of air conditioning smacked her in the face.

She’d forgotten what that felt like.

Ignoring the odd looks from the receptionists, Martha made her way across the lobby, which was so posh it hurt to look at - plants everywhere, a fountain, a chandelier, dripping with crystals. Martha felt like a plain stone in a box of diamonds.

Lemon met her at the elevator though, cheesesteak in hand, and to Martha’s shock, she handed it over immediately. “I ate the other one. One and a half. Whatever. Anyway, sorry. You were late.”

Martha laughed, despite herself, and took the cheesesteak. It was heavy with grease and loaded down with fried onions and mushrooms. It felt like the first real thing in this sterile world of wealth. “I won’t stay long. I mean, my parents are-”

Lemon grabbed her bag for her and then strutted down the hallway on a mission, calling back, “Well then it’s time to get the party started! We gotta have some fun before they get here. Come on in, then, babe. Bet you can’t beat my deaths-per-game count in Overwatch.”

“What’s Overwatch?”

“Oh man, I am gonna love showing you, come on come on, let’s do this!”

Martha followed, an odd hope alighting in her chest.

She could do this. Alright. She could totally do this.

Later on she tried to pinpoint the exact moment her mother’s presence had vanished, and she couldn’t, couldn’t place it, could only think ‘before the barricade’ because that was the last time she’d been sure, but that couldn’t be, couldn’t be, she couldn’t have just left her own mother that far back, took off without realizing.

She’d been near the front of the horde. 

Climbing - twisting limbs, stumbling, someone almost going over her, the pressure of the world beneath her, her own weight a tether on the screaming, soaring spirit within, the world moving too quickly and not quick enough, Goober practically carrying her. Falling off the other side and rising in one motion, gripping Goober’s harness. And that’s when the hands had come - they’d grabbed her shirt instead of her arm, she remembered, pulled her up by the collar. That was why - why she hadn’t known then, hadn’t gone back.

The mistake was a stone in her gut, enormous, making the only possible breath shallow.

It had been Hava. She found that out later, when they were already far away, when there were sirens chasing them and people kept yelling about it being too dark, about the street lights being down and the houses empty blackness and the light from the towers too far away now, they were on the fringes of the ground city, and she’d known, had been used to keeping track, the world a textured map in her head, the world there, bright as anything, and she’d said softly around the pounding of her chest, “We’re on Allegheny… if we get to Henry… more isolated,”

That’s when Hava’d spoke, in a shrill, warbling voice that was not Tye’s, not Tye’s smooth, low rumble, and Xena’d started like a spooked bird at, “Hey, she says we’re on Allegheny! If we get to Henry, we can find the park, lose ‘em in the woods!”

Xena’d stumbled, had stopped, had tried to say, “Ma!” but her voice came up empty, pressure building in her chest and head, feet carrying her in a small circle, because Tye wouldn’t, would never be far, not now, not here, never, but no, no no no nonononononono-

Hava’s hand gripped her again, held her arm hard, “Xena, she’s not here,”

“I gotta go back, I gotta go back,” her own voice came out in a muffled echo, like it was underwater. At her feet, Goober was reacting to her energy, and Hava stepped back, letting go of her. Such an old hand, a different texture, pressure, shape than Tye’s, how, how could she have ever thought-

“You can’t. That’s a fact. You can’t, Xena.”

“I have to, I can’t-”

“She told you to run-”

“I can’t, I can’t-”

“Xena!” Sirens, getting closer. “Breathe. Breathe, girlie.”

Girlie. Tye, Tye talking about her grandmother calling her that, ‘girlie,’ how uncomfortable it made her, and how it helped her know it wasn’t what she was.

Negatives opening the possibility of positives, ignorance gleaming knowledge, the world, this intricate world. Thinking that stopped Xena’s mind for a moment, allowed a jolt, and in that jolt, Hava spoke.

“We need you. Your mama can’t be helped right now. You’d only make it more difficult for her, going back. But we need you. You know this part of the city, right?”

“Right,” Xena whispered, because she knew the whole ground city, practically, knew it all, “Right, right, right.”

Hava spoke quicker, the sirens getting closer, the group getting antsy. Xena could hear a smattering of footsteps break off, others crying out at being further separated, and she put a hand out behind her, leaned back for a moment against the pillar of the high-rise she knew was there.

This city lived in her head. Her head was a balloon, stretched thin around this city. Her entire world. The entire world.

When blind Xena started, the second thing Tye did was start taking Xena on walks. ‘Walking the dog’ she’d called it, and they’d set out at five am and get in at least an hour, every day. And every day, Xena had to name the street they were on, describe what was around her, smell, sound, light, the very quaking of the earth. Through this, and through her own static mind, easy to take something in if it was Important - she knew.

“So you have a job here, kid. Don’t you?”

Xena nodded, pushing up her glasses. Something solidified in her. She took a breath, and then started ahead, rallying Goober beside her and holding tight to her harness. She glided through a world of slides, slices of light and dark and the memory of shape to rely on from times she’d walked these streets at a calm pace, smelling them, and repeating their names. Now a rush - oddly free in the openness of it - the stampede in one direction, finally, the motion only forward, no dodging from side to side, the way she did when these streets were at their normal, crowded state. Hava in her footsteps, yelling back, “We just gotta make it to the park! To the park, come on, let’s move!”

She took them down a side street, and then another. The crafts had started after them late, and while they had the advantage of height, gliding over the ground city like birds of prey, Xena had the advantage of darkness. Once or twice they’d shine a light on the group - blinding, incredible, the world going white-hot for a second - and they would all be running again, running instead of sneaking, and Xena would have to wind them tighter into the hidden world of quick turns and shadows, sometimes even ducking through old subway tunnels, wading through dirty water to the other side and waiting till the lights passed to exit. She threaded them through until they were solidly, spectacularly hidden, the sirens a distant wail, her heart in her throat, slamming against the surface of her skin, her bones.

By the time they reached the park, she could hear birds, could see the hazy brightness of morning breaking over them, familiarity gone. So in light, she let Hava lead, let the other woman take her hand.

She could still hear the sirens, distant now.

Hava led them to where she claimed she knew about an old bridge, covered now in foliage, part of the old roads. Though they stayed on paved paths, Xena found herself tripping, now, stumbling over cracks and sticks and the plants that had pushed their way through the asphalt in the years since gasoline-fueled cars had used these streets.

Eventually, though it seemed no different a place, they stopped. Went off the road a bit, into the sloping green. Xena could hear water, and her chest burned, a low throbbing in the back of her throat, thirst like a wound.

Only a few people had brought things like cups, pots. Someone said something about boiling the water first, but Xena, along with many others, was already upon the stream. The water tasted like pennies, and chemicals, but in a thirsty enough mouth out comes something else, something almost like fresh spinach from the Aquaponic farm stand in the market - deep, dark life. Xena could’ve cried into that water.

When she could speak again, she reached out and gripped the arm close by her, “My Mama, I have to go back, I have to find my Mama.” ‘Mama.’ She hadn’t called Tye that in years, but something raw and young seemed to be bleeding out of her core.

“Hava says you shouldn’t,” a voice that wasn’t Hava’s said. Xena’s hand shot back, her whole body startled, and then, even more frighteningly, she began to cry.

Sobs quaked through her in waves, uncontrollable, and the voice - a girl’s voice, awkward and scared as anyone called, “Oh, um… Hava? Hava?!”

Then Hava was there, and old arms, warm and thick, were wrapped around her like she was a baby, and a voice said, “Oh, hon,” and Xena found herself hating her, hating Hava for not being Tye, for putting the burden of their safety on her, for making her leave.

“It’s going to be alright,” Hava whispered, “You did the right thing.” Hate, hate, hate, hate. “If you’d stayed, they woulda taken you, too. She woulda had to pay bail. And, this pup,” Goober had started licking Xena’s arm, concerned, her head lulling on Xena’s hip, “This pup wouldn’t’ve been with ya! Never. She might even be dead. And G-d knows, we might’ve been, too, if it weren’t for your smart noggin. It’s alright. You did good. You were brave, so brave. You did good, girlie.”

Xena stopped crying, eventually. Hava kept holding her, though, until the tears came back, and then left again, back and gone, like tides. Then she was lying down, her head in Hava’s lap, Hava stroking her forehead along her bandana, humming gently. Others were crying around them, other forms moving, the world all hot tears where they were, the world changed, and Xena fell asleep thinking that - the world changed, the world changed, the world changed.

The world, changed.