#murphystartedthefire

“It won’t be easy,” she says, so as to not concede anything, but also to recognize that his stance is valid.

“When is anything?” he responds, but with a note of humor. He reaches for her hand, so that they’re clasped as they continue to walk. “We’ll survive.”

There’s a sureness in his voice, the same as there’s a sureness in her steps, despite the dark and unknown that surround them. She stops, catching his wrist.

When she kisses him, it feels like the first time in a long while. The first proper one at least, with one hand in his hair, and their lips catching. It’s not like how she remembers kissing him in the temple, not like watching herself through a water of a stream, far away and murky. It’s like how kissing him should be, exciting, reassuring.

“I missed you,” she says when she breaks away and puts her feet flat on the ground again. She means today, when she was sitting alone in the cave, but she means from long before that too. As if the chip wearing off compounded all the days where she should have been missing him and wasn’t.

“Yeah well I’m not going anywhere without you anymore,” he says. There’s that flick of his mouth turning upwards, and his thumb running on the edge of her jaw, briefly. She’s glad he doesn’t see her care for him as soft or weak. She knows people who would. That’s part of why she favors John over the rest of them, she thinks. “C’mon,” he says, taking her hand again, “we still have a while to go.”

They need to remain fairly quiet walking down a road like this in the dark, she’s not the only bandit in this woods. But at the right register their whispers blend in with the wind and the rustle of leaves overhead. John takes advantage and tells her what to expect of the Arkadians, as if she doesn’t know all his stories already. She wouldn’t say he’s eager to see them again, but rather just eager in general. Almost as if finding a balance between themselves and Skaikru is a puzzle he wants to crack. She can’t say she doesn’t understand, but she’s still not convinced Skaikru are worth the trouble. She still listens of course, cataloging the information as it comes and attempting to filter for John’s particular biases.

Morning comes harshly, no soft glow slowly strengthening alongside the growing hum of insects or the twitter of birds, instead light breaks over the treetops in a single cut. She squints against the brightness. In the daylight there’s more speed in their steps than she can ever remember them having before. In the past they never travelled anywhere with urgency, never had anything more than a temporary destination in mind. Now each day will dwindle away without the promise of more to come.

The trees thin the closer they get to Arkadia, and her fingers twitch in her glove. She hates how vulnerable they are, in the empty field Arkadia rests in. They’re easy targets to spot, especially from it’s intimidating walls.

The whole structure is imposing really; it reminds her of Polis, with it’s crowds and tall structures and the noise of people that she can hear even from so far away. Skaikru and the clans like to pretend they’re so different, but they all build these little cities, with walls around them to keep others out.

“I don’t like it,” she mutters, loud enough so that John can hear, but not quite so loud that he should feel the need to respond. He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back, happy to put her energy into something other than the nervous shaking in her chest.

He lets go long before they reach the gate, but the fortitude it gives her means her chin is still lifted by the time they get there.

“Hey!” John calls once they’re within earshot, waving both his hands above his head to show he’s unarmed.

“Murphy?” A voice calls back, and it takes Emori a moment to identify who it belongs to. She’s a young woman, younger than John, probably, with her hair in one long braid down her back, so different from the styles Emori is accustomed to. She’s armed too, although her gun isn’t raised, and her finger doesn’t rest on the trigger. A taller red-haired middle-aged woman stands beside her as they stride forward.

“McIntyre, long time no see. You missed the party in Polis.”

Harper McIntyre, Emori recollects. John had known her before he came to the ground, and had mostly neutral feelings about her. He had mentioned in passing that he didn’t think she was still alive.

“You’re really gonna have to make up your mind about whether you’re sticking around or not,” Harper says, her tone judgemental. “I know the Millers let you in just last night before you ran off again. None of us have time to deal with your shit, Murphy.”

“Figured all of this end of the world business, you’d need as many hands on deck as possible,” John counters with an easy shrug, “and now you’ve got four more.”

“Who’s she?” the woman next to Harper asks, and John’s eyes flick to her like he’s seeing her for the first time, which he might be.

“Emori,” John answers for her, forced casualness in his voice.

“What clan?” the woman asks, her eyes squinting at her tattoo as if she’ll be able to distinguish her based on it.

“None,” Emori speaks up, for once not fearing the repercussions of answering that question. The woman hums, suspicious, and looks like she wants to say more before John cuts her off.

“I’ve already talked to Abby,” he tells Harper, “we have an arrangement. So if you want we can wait here while you go track her down to confirm it, or you could just let us inside instead of playing twenty questions.”

There’s a pause, as the two women weigh his truthfulness. Luckily John is very good with words.

“You still suck,” Harper huffs, but she steps aside, one hand loosening the grip on her rifle. John smirks and winks at her as they pass, because he likes to throw sticks on an already roaring fire. Emori restrains herself from giving him a push forwards as an indication to keep moving. They really can’t afford to antagonize anyone, even in jest.

From the inside, Arkadia is even stranger. It’s shape is noticeable from a distance, but it’s much more pronounced up close. The circle that stretches above all the other structures has people climbing all over it, the sound of metal banging on metal is very nearly overbearing.

They don’t raise much attention as they walk through the community. It seems everyone is too hard at work to notice. Children whose legs haven’t yet grown into running transverse the fields with buckets of water in their tiny hands, passing cups to men with backs hunkered from hard work and woman with burnt faces. The dissonance and movement strike home how dire the situation is. The end of the world is truly coming.  

John leads the way into the metal structure, and it’s just as active inside, people rushing from place to place. No one stops them, and hardly anyone stops to look twice; not at John at least. One or two look at her with unease, although her hand is in its glove and tucked deep in her pocket. Their eyes linger on her face instead.

Despite those few looks of distrust, they make it to the medbay without issue. There’s two people in the large room when they get there, and Emori looks to John, who also seems to notice the absence of all those bodies he had mentioned. The remaining sick woman is obviously not an Arkadian, with nearly healed rashes on her face. The other is an Arkadian man who seems to be taking inventory, sometimes stopping to pack away supplies. Jackson is his name, she suddenly remembers, he had been in the city of light, and in Polis.

“Where’s Abby?” John asks, setting his pack down on one of the empty cots.

Jackson doesn’t look before responding, “She’s with Kane, they’re trying to sort out details for the trip.”

“What trip?” John asks, his voice edging towards accusation and volatility. She reaches out, rests her hand on his lower back so the others can’t see, but he can feel it. His next exhale is more controlled, and it doesn’t seem like Jackson noticed his near slip up.

Jackson has paused, no doubt wondering how much he can reveal.

“Apparently there’s a an island lab with medical supplies that Jaha has been to. We think we’ll be able to synthesize nightblood there.” At this his eyes flicker over to the patient, who is following their conversation with her eyes, Emori has been keeping track of her out of her peripheries. There is a tremendous amount of strength in her arms, in the lines of her face, not even something an illness would take away. She doesn’t say anything, even as she knows that attention is being placed on her. There’s a grief about her mouth.

“I’ve been there,” John says, “probably a better person to take you than Jaha considering that’s where he went batshit.” That gives Jackson pause, an uncomfortable crinkle around his mouth. Of course it would, he had taken the chip too. She glances at John’s composed face, the quick way he licks his lower lip. He knows it’s a good line.

Jackson takes the radio off his belt. “Abby, it’s Jackson,” he says into it, “John Murphy and his friend Emori are here, apparently they know about the lab too.”

They wait for a response, hardly any time passes before the crackle of the radio breaks through. “We’ll be down in just a minute Jackson.”

Jackson looks eager to ask questions, but he reigns it in, going back to the task he had been undertaking before their arrival.

“We want to be on that trip,” John says under his breath to her. She turns so her ear is to him while eyes watch the sick woman.

“I agree,” she says quiet enough to match him. “What’s this about nightblood?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and she can tell it bothers him that he’s been gone only a handful of hours and is already out of the loop. “Maybe they’re using it as some soft of medicine? Whatever it is we can get it out of Abby.”

“My blood is immune to radiation, they want to make it for the rest of you.” It’s the sick woman, standing slowly from her perch on the cot. Emori shoots her a glare for eavesdropping on their conversation.

“You’re a nightblood? Who are you?” Clearly she’s not Commander, but logically she should be, with the rest of them dead.

“My name is Luna kom Flokru,” she says slow and lilting, and then, as if knowing her thoughts, “and I have no desire to ascend.”

Emori presses her lips together and says nothing more. There’s something unsettling about this woman, the steady way she’s looking at her maybe, or the grief still resting on her shoulders, threatening at any moment to tip her over. No one has that much composure unless they use it to cloak something more brutal. She makes no comments about Emori though, either too downtrodden to care about her presence, or uncaring to begin with. She’s clearly not the type to adhere to expectations.

Another man enters the room then, his heavy footsteps distracting. His tattoo suggests he’s Trikru, but the hand he rests on Luna’s shoulder betrays that idea. He has dried tear tracks on his cheeks, and his hands are large and covered in dirt. Emori would wager it was from grave digging. Flokru leave their dead to the sea, but without it the ground is probably better than a pyre.

Jackson speaks quietly to them, at least in part tactful of their loss. But there’s an underlying urging towards the next step in the plan.

Any illusion of the Arkadians being implicit in presenting their dominating strategies to reaching their goals is dashed when Abby and Kane stride into the room, Jaha on their heels. All standing with sure direction and assertiveness. She feels John stiffen next to her, and can feel herself standing taller too. The third adult stands a step back and to the left of the other two, but he’s the one her eyes follow. His head is bare now, as if he wants to emphasize his increasing age. She hates the softness in his face, the lack of reaction to the group of people assembled in the room.

“John, Emori, it’s good to see you both,” Abby says, as if she knows her. “You’ve been to the island?”

“Yes, John arrived there with me, and Emori was responsible for supplying the appropriate technology for…the project,” Jaha says with that haughty way of explaining he has. It’s clear he hasn’t yet seen reason to mention them.

“Really? You let him back on the decision making team so quickly?” John says. The comment is directed at Abby, mostly, but Jaha seems to appropriate it for himself. He still has the overly calm presence about himself, like he’s still forgotten pain and anger and grief. Emori is comforted by the hate for him that sizzles under her breastbone.

“In these times we must all do our part, John. I’m glad you see that too.”

“Didn’t I tell you to go float yourself?”

She presses the length of her arm against John’s. This is no place to make a scene, regardless the strength of his anger.

“We’ve all made mistakes Mr. Murphy,” Kane interjects, with his hand presented in a stopping position, and his eyebrows raised in pointed emphasis, “That doesn’t mean we can’t make amends, and continue to help our people in the face of catastrophe.”

John shrugs. “All I’m saying is maybe you don’t want him in the heart of ALIE’s fortress. Just a thought.”

Kane and Abby turn to each other, obviously seeking guidance and confirmation from one another. But Jaha looks at her.

She meets his eyes, sticks out his chin. He knows he can’t look at John, and now he seeks something from her. But there’s nothing he deserves, certainly nothing she’ll give him.

Say you’re sorry for getting my brother killed. She urges. Say you’re sorry for hurting John. Say you’re sorry for stealing my mind.

Foolish wishes. Skaikru, like her people, put little stock in apologies. Remorse and forgiveness are for people too weak to take the blood they are due.

“I have a boat,” Emori says out of a desire to hear her own voice. To establish her value. A gaze and carefully constructed words from a disgraced sky-fallen leader won’t make her silent again. The harsh edges to her words make it clear she is barring his access. “It’ll be fast and safe.”

Kane looks pleased, and Abby surprised. John nudges her with his elbow and flashes her with a smile. They’ve made the better offer.  

“That’s good news. You’ll be needed here Thelonious, especially if Raven goes with them. It seems we’re always short of engineers.” Kane says after a short moment of deliberation. He smiles a bit a her, and she remembers him smiling as they stood next to each other while making their way through the Polis tower. This version of him knows joy, even if only in small doses. “So where’s this boat?”

She explains where it is on the river, and Kane takes notes, talking to Abby about rations and personnel and strict time frames. Jaha slinks out, recognizing he is no longer wanted.

“So we leave at first light tomorrow,” Abby surmises. Kane doesn’t look too happy about that, but he nods anyway, squeezing Abby’s arm as he exits. “You continue resting Luna, you’ll need your strength for tomorrow.” Luna lays down, Nyko’s hand on her shoulder, but Emori doubts Luna lacking strength will be a problem.

Abby turns to them, tired but refusing to show it. “Thank you both for your help. Have either of you slept?”

“No, we walked through the night,” Emori answers, grateful both for the opportunity to rest and to be alone with John.  Abby nods.

“I can show you a room. We’ll meet at the gate to load the rover at 5:30 tomorrow.” Abby seems eager for an excuse to leave the med bay for a little while so they follow her to a higher level of the settlement. “Unfortunately there are a lot of available rooms now,” Abby says, showing them to where they’ll stay till tomorrow. “The door doesn’t lock, but it should be enough for the night.”

“It’s good,” John says shortly, “See you tomorrow Abby.”

Abby nods once, offers a tight smile and leaves. John pushes open the door once she turns the corner, keeping it propped open just a bit after they enter. It’s remarkably small, with no windows, and a single chair and bed the only furnishings. John flicks on the room’s only lamp, casting the two of them and the left wall into half shadows.

“You’re tired?” Emori asks, sitting on the bed. It’s softer than any place she can remember sleeping, but the blanket is so thin as to be almost irrelevant. She hates to think how cold it would get to be during winter in this metal fortress.

“Sort of,” he says, sitting next to her. “My mind’s all wired, you know?”

She rests her head on his shoulder. She’s tired. Hours had passed slowly waiting for him yesterday, until her eyelids had grown too heavy to keep open, but even then her sleep had been uneasy and unrestful.

John kicks off his shoes. “C’mon,” he says, “you’re tired.” With slow movements he shrugs her off so he can take of his shirt and jacket, then reaches down to undo her laces for her.

“John, you don’t have to,” she says, but he just tickles the underside of her foot in response. “Stop!” she laughs, scooching further back on the bed, and tucking her feet under her. “Uncalled for,” she says, as he situates himself next to her, pulling the blanket back to lie under.

“Ah, but it made you smile,” he says as Emori lays her head on the pillow. The bed is narrow, hardly made for two people, but they fit, no space between their bodies. John stretches to turn off the lamp, and with a sharp click, the room blinks into darkness again, with the exception of the line of light shining through the crack in the door.

John settles his arm under her shoulders after resting his head besides hers, close enough that she’s sure that their foreheads will knock together.

The blanket may be too threadbare to insulate heat, and John’s circulation tends to keep his skin cool with fingertips like icicles, but she feels warm now. There’s a reason she couldn’t sleep last night.

John turns on his side—it’s less cramped that way—and lays his other arm around her. His hand runs over hair, tugging mindlessly on the tied end of her bandana until it unravels.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks, because he’s obviously restless.

“Being back here,” he says, “It’s…I don’t know. I keep waiting for everyone to tell me to get lost.”

“They won’t,” she says. “They need us now.”

“And we need them,” he points out, his hand stilling. His voice is very tentative; he doesn’t know whether he’s okay with their new symbiosis yet. Emori doesn’t trust them, but they were never her people. She can understand John’s division. She had thought for a little while, after meeting him, that Skaikru was different. That they didn’t carry the same torch of blind hatred as the people on the ground, but she’s not so disillusioned now. In their cruelty and crassness they are hardly different. John knows. But if there’s any sort of kindness among them then he knows about that too.

“Do you think this will work?” she asks. There’s no way that these people understand how rare it is to be a nightblood, how lucky you need to be. Emori has never been lucky, she’s not stupid enough to rely on it. Not now.

“I don’t know,” John says into the dark—quiet, as if someone might catch the vulnerability through the walls. She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb to remind him it’s only her. “But if it does, we’ll be some of the first people to get it.” His hand lays under her shirt now, palm cold against her waist as he uses it as an anchor to pull himself closer to her. He swallows, deep enough for her to hear. “And if it doesn’t, the lighthouse bunker is there too. Enough room for the two of us.”

“John…” she says, turning her gaze to his half-lidded eyes. His face is carefully composed but when she cups the back of his neck his jaw clenches and he allows the fear to shine in his eyes. Emori’s convinced there’s no place on Earth or in space that he hates as much as that bunker. “I’m hoping this nightblood works.”  

“Yeah, me too,” he says with that special kind of almost-softness he saves just for her. “But we’ll be together, so no matter what it’ll be okay.” It’s a worrying platitude, but one she likes the sound of, so she closes her eyes and turns herself into his chest. “I mean, the two of us? We could totally outsmart Raven and Abby. No problem.”

Her smile breaks out against his skin. She’s missed his teasing jokes, missed his hands and his voice and his almost-softness.

“Hey,” he says, like he’s checking if she’s asleep. She’s turns to look at his vague outline, all dark greys and near-blacks. The darkness doesn’t bother her though, she’s lived in it too long. “We’ve already survived the end of the world once,” he says as he returns to playing with the ends of her hair.

“And we will again,” Emori finishes.

John moves to kiss her, half a smile on his lips. This place is unfamiliar— it has a bed, and metal walls—but the way John kisses her is familiar enough to drown all that away. Like he’s both chasing and settling into her at once. His arm curled around her back and nose nudging against hers.  

“We should probably sleep,” John says as he pulls back

“Then go to sleep,” she tells him, but not before kissing, quick, once more.

“Sleep well,” he says and brushes a strand of hair off her cheek.

She knows where it is. It’s in Gideon’s hands, halfway to the island. Their theft was insurance for a life after this -- a life after Baylis and the others tire of the frikdreina and her brother and cast them out, the latest in a years-long story every mutant knows well.

She looks over her shoulder at Otan. Did you do it? His eyes ask.

No, hers reply. Did you?

He shakes his head ever-so-slightly, fear creeping over them both. They know they are lying. They know what happens to thieves.

Emori is chained in the dark, kept immobile by knots and metal too strong for her aching muscles to break. They come with knives, with crude whips and seawater to burn the wounds they make. She groans, but doesn’t cry out, cries out but doesn’t scream, screams into the silence, but doesn’t beg-

Doesn’t beg until Baylis returns -- this time, with her brother, and she wants to cry because he looks like hell, bruised and beaten, shoulders slumped and eyes dull -- and even then, she says nothing until he moves over her, holds a knife curved like a scythe under her right eye and presses down and down, smothering her, making Otan bloody his wrists to reach her, and in the distance she hears herself begging, but never once confessing.

He throws them out after that. He and his crew take everything they own as payment, and they run.

Emori doesn’t speak for days. Her pleas wasted all her words.

retention

They return to the desert -- the only place that covers their tracks without being asked. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs and the half-full canteen Emori swipes from an abandoned pile of supplies on their way out of camp.

Their first day back, Otan kills a Wastelander -- those soft idiots who think they can live on this barren land -- and takes his horse.

You idiot, Emori thinks, watching the Wastelander’s blood seep into the sand. You can’t live out here - only survive.

She watches until his blood runs dry. Otan lets her.

She likes the horse. She doesn’t name him, but she likes to stroke his soft nose, listen to him whicker and sigh when she feeds him a dried piece of fruit or gives him the last of her water. It soothes the empty ache inside her to make something so innocent happy.

Otan finds her a scrap of cloth to cover her face while the wounds heal. The sand still scrapes against the scabs, and Emori knows they will scar but can’t bring herself to care. She tells herself it’s because her beauty doesn’t matter, but she knows somewhere deep in her gut that she will never feel anything right again.

When she wakes in the middle of the night with a swollen, pus-filled wound from the crescent scar under her eye, Otan groans and swears, punctures it with a semi-clean knife and stitches it crudely, all the while scolding her for letting it get so bad.

“It could have gotten infected,” he tells her while she grips her knee tightly against the pain of the needle on her flesh. “You need to be careful.”

“I don’t care,” she whispers, shifting her eyes away from her brother’s face. “I don’t care.”

He sits back on his heels, wiping her blood off on his shirt. “You were brave,” he says, and she sees her pain mirrored in his eyes. It’s the closest thing to praise she’s gotten from him in a long time, and she takes it, holds it close to her chest and tries to sleep.

They meet Gideon by the water. He’s willing to keep their deal, but they have nothing to trade, so he sends them back out into the Dead Zone to scavenge and steal. Emori revels in it, in the uncomplicated art of the con, the only thing she’s good at aside from pretending she isn’t hungry or thirsty - something she is doing right now as Otan lays a trap for their next mark with an abandoned cart they find near the bottom of a hill.

“Stay here, give them a story and lead them east,” he says, pointing over his shoulder. “Understand?”

Emori doesn’t want to be alone. She only has a knife for protection, and her strength is waning fast. It’s been days since her last meal, and her body knows it. Deep down, she is afraid.

Their horse whinnies. Emori reaches out to pat his side. “I understand.”

He rides away. She winces at the flex and pull of the stitches in her cheek. Her other wounds ache and burn in the sun. She pulls the cloth over her mouth and waits.

realization

She didn’t know there were scars until she catches a glimpse of herself in the water’s reflection.

It’s been more than a few days since she met the boy in the desert, the one she doesn’t allow herself to think about, the one with the laugh caught in the back of his throat and the awkward smile and the stutter and shaking hands as he offered her water.

She gave him directions to the place where he could find her. His companions were searching for the City of Light, but he wasn’t, and she hopes against all that one day, maybe today, she’ll return to the island, and he’ll be there. She doesn’t think he’ll be waiting for her, but maybe she can convince him to forgive her for knocking him out.

It was a survivor’s move, after all.

She leans on the boat’s rail, the searchlight illuminating the dark water below, and looks down, hoping to catch a glimpse of the silvery fish that sometimes swim beside the boat, hungry and curious.

She sees herself instead, and bile rises in her throat at the sight of the half-circle scar under her eye, the gashes along her jaw and cheekbone. They don’t look as harsh as she guesses they would under real, harsh light, but they nauseate her and terrify her all the same.

Otan blows the boat’s horn. Emori glares at him over her shoulder, then relaxes when she sees them start to near the shore. Gideon is there, as is another figure, a man with dark skin, and another whose back is to them.

Her whole body stiffens, tenses like a rope about to snap. There’s so many of them and one of her, and the newly discovered scars marring her skin itch and burn as a reminder of just how dangerous men could be.

The smaller man, the one whose back is to her, turns, and she squints into the dark to catch a glimpse of pale skin and high cheekbones. Is that-

“John?” She maneuvers around Otan and can’t keep the smile off her face when she sees him, thin and incredulous, but obviously, remarkably the same. “I don’t believe it.”

“Emori?”

She breaks into a smile of relief at the voice, that voice , because it belongs to the boy she’s been begrudgingly missing for weeks. It's too good to be true, she decides, and even better than that when he climbs up next to her and leans on the rail, their arms almost touching.

"Jaha found the City of Light," he says, gesturing to his companion, who is kneeling at the back of the boat, a strange silver thing strapped to his back. 

She looks at him, raising an eyebrow. "Did you?" When he shakes his head, her heart sinks. "Are you alright?"

Her concern must startle him; he looks at her with a sharpness that makes her flinch. "Y-yeah. I'm fine."

She nods. They stand there, side-by-side, and watch the fog roll over the sea. It's the first time in months she has felt at peace.

retribution

The man tied to the chair isn’t Baylis, but Emori doesn’t care.

After the story of theft and darkness and pain clawed its way out of her stomach and into John’s ears, she spent night after night tamping down the nightmares, the paralysis that seeped into her bones and tricked her hands into being bound by invisible ropes.

She will never feel trapped like that again, she vows. But that’s a futile promise now, now that they’re in this house and this lab with people that might take her and lock her into a glass coffin to bleed and break and die.

No. She doesn’t want this. She will not plead for her life. She will not let herself become a sacrifice for the people that hate the only one she loves.

So she will lie, and she will steal, and she will do everything she was punished for in the dark because if she is going to live, she will gladly pay the cost, because not a damn thing hurts her anymore, not after that night, the one that not even John knows about.

And if she uses not-Baylis as a stand-in for all the pain and fear she has kept hidden in the pit of her stomach, that’s her business.

After the first few hits, John stops pacing and watches her. She feels his eyes on her bloody hands and revels in it, in the terror she feels coming off the unknown man in waves. It’s easy to pretend he is Baylis — the trauma is fresh, the wounds only a little less — and it’s even easier to ease the knot in her stomach with fists instead of truthful words.

John could not stand to look at her if he knew. She would be a dirty thing to him, something used up and sad. She will not be anything less than strong. She will not beg. She has spent too many days and nights at the world’s mercy, and she is so damn tired.

John knows this. He lets her run herself out until her fists and knuckles scream for mercy. She feels the pain, winces at it, but doesn’t want the adrenaline to fade.

Oh, is it rush to make someone else beg before her for a change.

absolution

She studies herself in the mirror that hangs across from the bed she and John share. It’s big and empty, like the house around them, but it’s so soft and makes John smile, so she can begrudge them both this impractical comfort. Just the thought of John’s contented smile as he curls under the warm blankets makes her smile; she watches in mild fascination as her reflection’s lips quirk up ever-so-slightly.

Her eyes are dark. Her lungs ache - that dull, clean feeling after a heavy storm or a good cry. She breathes in, out, and touches the line of her jaw, the top of her cheeks. The scars are finally fading, little more than memories that her fingertips chase. The stitches Otan never removed are lumpy under her right eye, but the scar itself is nearly healed, the combination of sun and time erasing the last reminder of the worst night.

“Did it help?” John asks softly, coming up behind her, pressing a kiss to her temple and winding his arms around her waist.

She leans her head back, tipping her head and nosing at his neck until he leans down for a kiss. “Yes,” she says softly, precisely, and he smiles in the mirror. It’s a mean smile, a proud smile.

“He deserved it. For hurting you,” he says, and the ache is back because how does she deserve someone who loves her enough to fight for her?

She hums, reaches her good hand up to tangle in his hair, watches in fascination as his reflection’s eyes close reflexively. “Many people have hurt me, John.”

“You should beat them all,” he says, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of her arm. Then, after a moment, “Why were you staring at yourself in the mirror?”

She takes a deep breath. “I used to have scars. My reflection is strange to me now.”

He nods, sighs. “I remember. The one under your eye looked like it hurt like hell.”

“Why didn’t you ever ask?”

He shrugs. “If you wanted me to know, you would tell me.”

She turns, wraps her arms around his neck, walks him backwards until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed and she’s standing between his legs. “I want to tell you something. And you’re going to hate it.”

He says nothing. She lets the story pour out of her like a waterfall. When she’s finished, his hands are gripping his knees tightly, and there’s a vein bulging in his neck. The phantom scars she searched for earlier burn.

“I swear to fucking-” he starts, then stops. “I’m going to kill him,” he says with vehemence.

“No,” she says, catching his arm as he starts to stand up. She feels like lead, like she could collapse at any second. “Come rest with me.”

She doesn’t ask for it, but he hears her, looks down at her with a soft gaze and leads her to bed, pulling her to his chest and caging her with his arms. Vaguely, before sleep pulls her under, she marvels at his selflessness. Were the roles reversed, she would not be strong enough to forsake revenge for another’s comfort.

Or maybe she would be. He has always been her exception.