#mxdsummer's tales

When you see the shapes of the new flight crafts on the hill, looming far in the distance, you understand at once. It’s happening. It’s happening, neatly lined up in the golden rising sun. It’s happening in a hundred pairs of boots on the ground, and the distant orders of the faraway man. Kavalier’s promise is bearing fruit.

By the time the sun has risen, there are already men scrambling up those hills, gathering in swarms, all a blur of black headgear and blue navy bodysuits. You watch from the high balcony of the main complex, already feeling the heat of the day, already wishing for the wind. Curly is here too, leaning over the edge of the bannister in a way that makes your heart beat faster for the worry of it. As the last of the sunrise fades into the day, the ant-men far below weave between each other, alive and in wait. From here, you can see the early morning fog is hanging heavy as it drapes across the horizon, but the swarms of Kavalier’s men are above the weight of simple fog.

Treasures, you remember being told. Yutani’s ship is going to bring treasure to the world. And here are the little men sent to fetch all the King’s gold.

“They’re all everywhere,” Curly pipes up from her bannister edge. You bite back a nag as you watch her. “I’ve never seen them do this before. Are they going somewhere special?”

You have to bite back your reply to this, too. Special to him. “You know, I’m not entirely sure, Curly.”

“Well it’s odd. But then, I’ve never been up here watching, so maybe I’ve just never seen it.”

“Maybe,” you agree. “Maybe they’re doing some kind of….practice drills.”

Curly steps back from the bannister and bounces on her heels. You breathe a sigh of relief, only to find it souring into contempt when her face scrunches up. “Drills for what?” she asks. “Nothing happens around here. Why would they need to do drills? It’s not like we’re at war or something. Not these days. Are we?”

Credit where credit is due, Curly’s intuitive nature is bang on the mark. Unfortunately for you, this is just too much and too soon. “We’re not at war,” you say, and throw in a laugh to reassure her. Not yet anyway. “But this is an island of highly classified experiments and highly important people,” you reach over and touch a finger lightly on her nose. “Like you. They’re just here to keep you all safe.”

“Safe from what?”

A drizzle comes on, too, ominous as ever a bad omen there was to be. And as ever, Kavalier’s men move as if they are untouched.

You breathe another sigh. “From the world. It’s dangerous out there. Strangers.” Technically, this part isn’t a lie; you just neglect to tell her which strangers, and what form they’re taking.

Whatever was stirring up in the West, your friend was going to get it all. Come rain or shine, storm or strife.

Down in the tech rooms, business swans on exactly as it always does. Curly bobs along behind you as you make your way down, and takes a usual seat beside Arthur for another one of the tests. Tone Indication, he tells you, but you just yawn into your palm and wave for him to continue. All these names and technicalities ring familiar to you, but it’s nothing you care to bother with. Not this early in the morning, at least. All you’re here for is the children.

The slow atmosphere tells you all you need to know about the situation. No one here seems to know about the crash just yet. Definitely not about Kavalier’s plans, either. You’re certain everything might be different if they did. There’s a lack of anticipatory bated breath, you feel. No one’s on edge. There are just more contagious yawns, and the steady clicking of keys, and the rattling of pens on clipboards from muffled corners.

Something about the monotony of the task settles the oddest sense of calm on you, despite the day’s happenings. All that’s up in the air remains far away from you as yet, and the steady lull of Arthur’s industry tests threatens you to the call of your dreams.

The tests themselves are simple. All the children need to do is don some headphones, sit tight, and raise their hands whenever they hear the tone trilling prompted by Arthur. These are strikingly familiar; some of the very first tests you'd watched them subjected to after they were put into their new bodies. Most are done between ten and fifteen minutes, with daydreaming and lack of concentration being expected within this short frame, of course.

Curly is up first. Then Tootles. Slightly and Smee insist on taking their trip together, which only ends up totalling their test times to thirty minutes each, but allows the entire room the respite of a genuinely heart-warming hour of tired smiles and a steady contentment of a good laugh. It’s a worthy trade-off; the screens on the left wall are starting to tell the tales of Kavalier’s plan. In full motion. The crash is no longer happening. It has officially happened. And here you are, laughing in a plush chair in the tech room floor, miles away in a safe building on an island, breathless because of the potty humour of two children.

Nibs is next up. Her wide-eyed watchful nature almost undoes all the distraction the boys had given the floor. You’re lucky she’s more interested in knowing what you had for breakfast and lunch than the screens. She finds it amusing when you tell her Kavalier denied breakfast with you this morning, and more so when you exaggeratedly pretend to be infuriated by his actions. Though at first you worry she’s showing in-empathy for the crash scene, you’re assured by her regular stolen glances that you’d been far off the mark. This little girl is doing what you’re doing - distraction. Distraction is easier a currency than in-empathy. You thrive in it. So, when Wendy brings up the rear end of the day’s testing, you’re hardly indulging yourself in the happenings of the screen at all, and hardly paying attention to the tone indication, too…hardly paying attention to Wendy, almost falling asleep…

“Why don’t you have kids?” Wendy asks Arthur curiously, raising her hand. Your eyes snap back open as you shoot him a panicked glance.

He waves you off with a brief nod as he addresses her. “Well, we…we tried to have kids. But I…I have a low sperm count.”

“Sperm,” she repeats, ghosting on a giggle.

“Yeah, sperm. It’s a funny word.” Arthur continues to fiddle with the test controls.

“Isn’t a sperm what comes out of a boy?” She raises her hand again for the test. “And then goes into the girl’s egg?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

You bite back your own amused giggle when Arthur shakes his head at you with an exaggerated eye roll. For what it’s worth, you think he’d have made a great dad. Previous conversations with the couple pass through your mind. Interactions with Dame Sylvia. Off-handed remarks about you being motherly to the Lost Boys rather than a nanny. You begin to suspect the unease between you might be down to something far deeper than an unwillingness for more than a professional relationship. Something far more delicate than the sharp undercut of pre-ordained judgement you’d previously assumed her behaviour was attributed to.

Wendy swivels her chair to you, on her right. “You’re an adult,” she nods, as if only making note of this fact right that second, “Why don’t you have kids?”

Your tongue gets stuck somewhere between ‘I’ve been busy’ and ‘I have you guys’. Really, there is no answer, but ‘I don’t know’ has not so far seemed to suffice any others of the ducklings’ childishly curious questions. Your mouth is still gaping when the crew to Arthur’s side start rattling off the immediate test results. Something about 75,000 hertz and being higher than human frequency. They’re scrambling. Arthur falls silent. Wendy’s attention darts away from you. There’s no time for a sigh of relief; her attention is not on the crew or the results. It’s on the screens.

You stand up as she pulls off her headphones. “Wendy?”

“Oh, Wendy…we’re uh…we’re not done yet,” Arthur tries to hand them back to her. “Put these back on. We're not…uh…we’re not finished here.”

Her attention remains firmly on the screens.

And then Wendy begins to swipe through the footage on the screen behind you using only her index finger and a concentrated impulse. Both you and Arthur exchange another startled look with each other. She sorts through the clips until she lands on the video of soldiers running in the site of the crash, where she pauses, and watches closely.

“Has she done that before?” he asks you, his voice wavering as the two of you watch the synthetic girl hone the footage in front of her.

“You didn’t know she could do this?” The question, though only half-meant, is answered with silence. It’s easy to understand that this counts for the affirmative. No one here knew she could manipulate the screens this way, and, by the befuddlement written on the staff’s faces, certainly no one can understand how she’s managed it.

It’s all you and Arthur can do to watch the video in stunned silence. Between her newfound skill and the chaos erupting on the crash site, you finally feel it. The shift. The trepidation, the danger, the coin tossed in mid-air. The ‘Happening’ of Boy Kavalier.

There isn't much conversation when you steer Wendy back in the direction of the central room, where the other children wait. Most of the polite small talk you try to start up falls into barely muttered responses in the face of blatant distraction. Wendy's mind is far away. Wendy's mind is at that plane crash. Halfway there, she stops abruptly, tells you she needs to find Kirsh, and darts out of your sight.

You sigh and rub your hands tiredly over your face. What you wouldn't give to be back in bed three nights ago, when all of this was nothing more than a distant future or a fading nightmare threat.

In the central room the other Lost Boys seem content enough, lolling against each other and the couch, staring into nothing and laughing over stupid kid-like jokes. You've caught them assigning animal counterparts to each other and everyone they know on the island. Naturally, they're all an explosion of giggles, an explosion of which bursts afresh when you poke your head round the door to tell them you're going on lunch. It's here you make a mental note to chase one of them up on what animal they've chosen for you. It won't be a hard task. In fact, you're sure any of them are like to give in and spill the secret with only a mild prodding to get the answer. But whatever animals they've chosen for each other, it makes little difference to you; they're still your ducklings.

Admittedly, lunch this afternoon seems wholly a trivial affair. You could almost hear what Kavalier would've said. What time is there for sandwiches while the world is changing? And to this you would've laughed back at him. Well, the world is always changing. You are not entirely sure you're very hungry either. Perhaps more in want of the mundane of your routine, the assurance that one thing is normal at least. Perhaps the chance to hide your slow brewing panic from the children. Whatever the reason, your feet are operating on autopilot, and you find yourself in the mess hall before you realise where you are.

Taking meals here is not a usual habit for you, not with the constant invite of Kavalier, but then, there's no chance of lunch with your best friend this afternoon. You know that much is true without asking. Kavalier had been so distracted this morning he'd not showed up for breakfast in the sun room as he usually did, so distracted that he'd forgotten to cancel his plate, or cancel his breakfast invitation with you. His place lay in futile wait with empty dishes before it, his seat an unusual absence of chatter and snark. The morning had turned out to be an undeniably peaceful affair. Your own pick of breakfast, your own pick of music, and your opportunity to freely yawn into your palm as you relished the early morning silence. There was the sound of your own thoughts, too. And yet in some strange way you missed him despite it all.

Lunch is sordid; run of the mill not-quite-satisfactory options with an underlying scent of bleach and chem -fresh accompanying it all. These silver canteens are never a match for the careful plates atop of Kavalier’s table in the sun room. There are soggy bottom pizzas, the usual leafy salad you once saw a bug in, standard triangle sandwiches, quiches, pastas, three kinds of fritters, boiled vegetables. You notice the steamed fish is particularly untouched. Everyone's still markedly skittish from the recent large-scale salmonella incident, particularly after it'd been chalked down to the fault of native fish. This dish is likely to end up straight in the trash. Poor things, you think, gazing down at the white fish meat in the overfilled canteens, you've died for nothing.

A few of the lower floor white coats wave you over to sit with them while you eat. Though you're sure you don't have much to say to such high level scientists, the opportunity not to sit alone is a beckoning all too sweet to refuse. You quickly learn two of them have siblings working in Kavalier’s Prodigy corps. They tell you that neither of the two know if their siblings have been dispatched to the crash this morning. The other has parents who live close to the site.

“Alexei from upstairs is the same…so are a bunch of others, from what I hear,” one of the coats, June Sethi, details to you. Beside her the others mutter their agreement.

Hearing of the connections between them all is largely unsurprising. It's well known that Prodigy is fond of making deals with its people. Work for us, your family will be better off. Jobs for all of you. One sibling in the militia almost guarantees another a spot higher up, one higher up almost guarantees another a spot in the militia. For Kavalier and the company this means loyalty against the others of the Five. Even if employment with the company doesn’t offer a family member a job, more often than no it affords them a place in the city. For the employees this means stability, plain and simple. And with job scarcity at an all time high, you can only imagine these kinds of offers are not to be taken lightly. And now, this means most people here must have family who live right where the crash has happened. As you chew, thinking about how your best friend has so much sway on the lives of the masses, even outside of the crash, the food in your mouth begins to sour. You've never thought about it this way before.

“I've been trying to buzz my sister whenever I can but…”

“No joy?” you finish.

June Sethi laughs lightly, contained. “Yeah. That's her name, funnily enough. Joy,” she shrugs. “Guess Mom and Dad never pictured her with a hard hat and a rifle when they picked that out.”

To her right Walker Erwin points at you. “She could find out if they’re alive. Or dispatched. You could do that, couldn’t you? Isn’t she Boy Kavalier’s best mate? Or something?”

“Or something,” another of the coats says. His name evades you, but you don't like the way he stares.

June nods. “Couldn’t you?”

Your mouth gapes and it takes a moment to regain your composure. “I…I don’t know. My job doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Nanny,” Walker scoffs. “You know my Ma loved you when you were a kid. Had copies of all your songs. Said God made you special. You, and your mate. Boy Kavalier. She thought you two hung the stars.”

“Great good that did you,” the other coat sneers.

“Look at her now, Ma. Eating rotten fish with the rest of us.”

“Bet she doesn’t love ‘em now.”

“Wouldn’t know, she’s dead,” Walker glares at you sourly.

June waves a hand to back them off. “Leave it.”

“Why? It was hard work that did her in, and I bet those two haven’t had a hard day in their lives, have they?” The other coat smirks. Walker stares. Even June doesn’t disagree. “If anything happens to our families because of the crash, and your friend is sitting up high, it’s blood on his hands. But you should know that, shouldn’t you? Fuckin’ prodigy.”

“Shut up. It’s not worth your job,” June is saying.

“No. You’re not going to get fired for saying the truth,” you reply. They look taken aback at that. Are they? It’s here you realise everyone is staring. There are cameras above you and all around. Even if you keep your mouth shut, you can be sure the word will reach him anyway. “He can’t help if Yutani’s people crash a plane,” you lie easily. “He’s just trying to get everyone out okay. I’m sure your families are just fine.”

Walker runs a hand through his hair, sighing deep. “The Five are always playing their own games. On the land we live in. There’s bound to be repercussions eventually.”

This much you can’t deny. Again, you’ve never thought of it this way. “I hope that day is not today.”

“You’re really clueless, aren’t you? That day is every day.”

The attentions of the others fall behind you. The silence that has befallen the surrounding mess-hall benches are filled in with the sounds of soles on stone. It’s Kirsh, and he’s beelining for you. It’s the sight of him that settles the balling panic inside your chest.

He stops short in front of you. Briefly eyes the white coats. “The Founder wants to see you.”

“What? Now?” The timing could not be better and could not be worse. So it goes with the pattern, you’re realising.

“Now.”

The gaze of the scientists burns into your back as you leave the doors, and Kirsh is silent as you walk. Down the corridors he doesn’t answer any questions you pelt at him, and doesn't ask any about the mess-hall incident, either. Eventually, you too fall silent, grateful at least he is not pushing you for information about a moment you’re all too aware he’s curious about. When you reach the elevator, the button is pressed, and the doors seal shut, Kirsh at last turns to you. “I'm going to be stark. He has something to ask of you. And you're not going to like it. But it's important you keep an open mind.”

His eyes are dead on yours. Unwavering as ever. Your mind whirs with the possibilities, but you fall flat, drawing on a blank. “What does he want? What is it?”

“I'm not at liberty to say.”

“Please,” you ask. He doesn't speak. “Kirsh!”

“I am advising you on the basis of a guess. I know nothing for fact. But if it's any consolation, you'll know yourself shortly.”

Then the doors slide open, and Kirsh faces forward.

When you pass the ground outside the roomy office lounge belonging to Kavalier, he'd already waiting for you. Kirsh peels away from your side wordlessly before you have a moment to ask him to stay. As soon as he’s gone, the ball of panic returns.

“Have there been civilian casualties?” you blurt, the instant you’re inside.

He raises his brows. “Hello to you too, Silly Girl. Venus,” as he talks, he pucks his rubber ball to and fro. Desk to hand, hand to desk. He catches it again and points to the butler. Eins. “Details.”

Eins looks to you. “Thanks to the Founders Day celebrations, there have been no doubt countless causalities avoided. Most were at the grand park for the festival. Couldn't have been better timing.”

“Right. So you don’t want any help with that. Designing care packages or whatever.”

“What?” Kavalier questions.

“Well, you want me here for something. I’m trying to figure out what exactly that is.”

“Hm. Smart, aren’t you? Care packages,” his ball pucks. Back and forth. “Write that down, Atom. We could do with some good rep in the bank. Get the people on our side. Good books and all. You know, we could do with you up here more often. You come up with some real striking ideas sometimes.”

Kavalier sees pleased. You’re unsure what to make of the suggestion, given what his work is evidentially entailing as of late…but you can’t help but feel a glow of pride anyway. A shell of satisfaction. Remnants of the need for validation left behind on the shores of the childhood in the spotlight, irrevocably printed inside of you without clause. Nowadays the satisfaction appears entirely less. You’ll take what you can get.

“What am I here for then?” you prompt him.

In one deft throw the ball is in Eins’ grip. Kavalier is giving you his undivided attention. “I’m sending my Lost Boys to investigate the site.”

It takes you a full thirty seconds to fully comprehend the words he has spoken.

Walker’s bold statements converge with Kavalier’s. And the hapless soldiers sigh runs in blood down palace walls. Had you really been so blind?

“I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me you know this isn’t a fucking game,” you spit out abruptly. Kavalier chuckles at the curse, especially when you are as surprised at its appearance as he is. “Tell me!”

He waves off his butler - Eins - and his eyes trail behind the synthetic as he makes his sour exit from the room. The minute you're alone, Boy steps three feet closer. “It’s always a game,” Kavalier tells you, with all the tell tale shades of sheer nonchalance.

Not for the first time, you have the burning urge to want to slap the stupid grin off of his glee filled face. “You know, you can play whatever little game you’ve cooked up for yourself and your company friends all day long and forever if that’s what makes you happy. But you can’t sit here high up on your throne and push the kids around like they’re your pawns. Or the people. They’ve nothing to do with it.”

“They signed up for this life,” he shrugs. “So did the Lost Boys, to relinquish youth.”

“They signed up to get out of their sick and dying bodies. They didn’t conscript. It doesn’t entitle them to line up and put on a vest. They’re not expendable. They’re not soldiers.”

“They’re not children either.” He watches you, his expression ghosting on satisfaction as he delivers the words. A heavy silence spills out in the air between you, as if he’s waiting for you to come biting back the same way you so often have at the somewhat taboo mention of their adolescent-non-adolescent status. 

Do you want to take his bait tonight? He waits. You think. He waits. You purse your lips.

“This is going to be valuable time and energy spent,” he continues, seeming satisfied all the more, “I don’t mind you knowing that I’m not making this decision….uh…lightly, yeah? This feels monumental. I want to make them part of that. See what they see. The world through hybrid eyes,” Kavalier snatches forward and grasps your hand tightly in his, so sudden you catch yourself mid-flinch. “I want to make you part of that, too, Venus.”

“Me?” you scan his face, taken aback. You?

“You’re always taking them to and fro their techy tests. Back and forth, back and forth, pinging all about the place, ever playing the part of the dutiful little nanny. Don’t you wanna take them outside? Field trip?” he pinches your wrist as he straightens up, but as you snatch your hand away, you can see the suddenness of the serious in his eyes just as it settles into place. “Don’t you want to witness the birth of the new world?”

Kavalier steps forward. You can’t tell if he’s going to pull you into his arms or pull on a strand of your hair. Without realising it you find yourself stepping back. That glint in his eyes. Is that glint of a greed? A hunger? A gambit?

“I’ll go,” you accept. His eyes become legible once more as they fire up. He’s back to his old twisted glee. “But for the children. Lost Boys. Whatever you want to call them.” Your job is to keep them safe, and safe you shall keep them. “But on one condition. You have to send Kirsh with us, too.”

“Five steps ahead of you, Silly Girl.”

Kirsh himself stands in wait by the elevator doors. His hands are folded behind his back, and his gaze is firmly locked on your walk. “Well?”

“What do you think?”

“He wanted you to join us,” he speaks delicately. You grunt in response, and he gives a brief nod. “Ah. I was correct. And your response to his request?”

“I'm sure you can guess that, too.”

You’ve been studying me, you know me so well.

“You agreed,” Kirsh correctly sums. “You always do.”

You probably knew what I'd do before I did it at all.

In the elevator, Kirsh’s stark words tumble in your mind.

Of course you’d agree. That’s what you do when you love somebody. You stick by them. And this is where it has taken you, over and over. Chasing that same old flame of validation. Every time Kavalier calls you’re there. Every time he stubs you you’re right back with a wave and a yes. Smiling all the while he looks the other way. You’ve the strangest feeling his Happening is not the only omen to come out of today. Not for the first time, and far from the last. You're staring in the face of this bad omen and seeing right through it. You’re sitting right beside him on the ride of his whims for the thousandth time. Not the first, far from last. Because Kavalier is your best friend, and this is what you do when you love someone.

now

“You’re giving me, what? The silent treatment?” Kavalier asks from across the breakfast table. Smart-ass. It had only taken the forty-five seconds between you both being seated and the food being served for him to figure that one out.

It’s your instinct to shoot him back a clever retort, but that would entirely detonate your efforts at actually being silent, so you settle for a scathing glare instead. He gives you a half chuckle as he chews his cereal. “You’re really doing this?”

You give him another glare. This time you squint your eyes at him too as you bite into your morning toast.

“Oh, you’re really doing this,” he nods in confirmation, “Okay. What the fuck? Are you five?”

“Are you five?!” is what you end up exploding back, caving almost immediately watching him prop his bare feet onto the table, much too close to your plate for comfort. Kavalier knows all too well how to make you talk. “It’s the dog,” you burst, a scowl on your face. “The dog.”

“What dog?” He shakes his head in confusion, smirking as he watches you inch your plate and chair away from his feet. At first you think he’s teasing you, but another look at his blank expression assures you really has no clue.

“Nana,” you huff, crossing your arms. As tempting as it was to make him keep guessing, to string him along, your frustration is bubbling too high to have kept it contained a second longer.

“Oh,” his eyes widen in realisation, “The Darlings’ nursemaid.” You watch as Kavalier begins to crack and as the laughter takes a hold of him. He lets it rack him completely, so much so that his hands fly to his face, spiling his glass of orange juice all over the plate of pastries in the process. “That’s why you’re mad? Over the dog in Peter Pan?”

“Yeah! Of course I am, asshole. In your little Peter Pan fantasy, I equate to the dog! The cheap convenient nanny. I'm Nana. I’m the fucking dog.”

Kavalier slow claps you with a cocky grin. “Brava. You know, I didn’t even think of that. You’re smart when you put your mind to it. When you really, really focus, that brain of yours can do incredible things.”

“It’s not funny,” you insist. You’re trying to hide it best you can, but you know he can still see the smile you’re fighting at both his teases and the utter absurdity of the situation.

“Please. Nana and Peter aren’t friends. They don’t even know each other. Your analogy is flawed.”

You groan and slam your face into your hands. “Oh, man. What if the kids notice? Please ban them from watching the films. Please!”

“Which one? Take your pick,” he teases. “There’s only about, what? A dozen?”

“Any of them. All of them!”

“And you’re aware I read it to them every night?”

“I might die of embarrassment. I might really die,” you groan into your hands again. “Is that what you want? Because I will just drop dead.”

“You’ll…play dead? Ha! That was a good one. I told you you’re smart sometimes. You practically handed that one to me.”

“I’m so serious, any minute now, I’ll drop.”

“Alright, listen, I don’t know how things work in that, uh, creative mush that you call your brain, but here in sane people ville, where I live? You’re not like Nana. I mean, you are a bit,” he stops and grins as you shoot him another glare, “But actually, more like...uh…the first fairy friend Peter makes. Someone must have taken him to Neverland, right?”

Although you’re still attempting to appear perturbed, you nod along at his attempts to subvert your views. “Right.”

“Yeah. J.M. Barrie wasn’t so hot on the backstory front, but the way I see it, there’s no way Peter could’ve flown past any second star on any right without some fairy dust first.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.”

“Although…it’s common knowledge that dogs are considered a boy’s best friend.”

Your immediate reaction is to grab an orange juice-soaked pan au chocolat and hurl it as hard as you can at his head. Unfortunately, he ducks, and it skims past him, landing somewhere far off on the floor with an ugly splat. “You’re an ass,” you retort, though holding back a laugh, “you're an ass, Smart boy.”

⭑ ✦ ⏾ ✧⭑

This morning’s main job is taking the children to and from their appointment in the designated tech quarters. Today, they’re going to be put to work. An examination, you’re told. Perception and comprehension tests. Dame Sylvia had explained it all to you yesterday over a cup of tea in the central room. According to her, written exams are important to ascertain and document the development of the child’s brain in accordance to what they’re learning.

“Different experiences will help them grow in different ways,” she had said. “But as these are children who cannot grow, the state of their mind as these experiences pass them are unique. We need to know exactly what they’re understanding and how they’re perceiving it. It’s not enough,” she had told you, “For a child to take in information. They must understand it, too.”

She’d also told you it was imperative they would treat this like traditional schooling. Sitting apart, no talking, no cheating. Just raw unfiltered responses to get the most accurate of data from them. You could tell they were taking this seriously. Again, just like when Kavalier had asked you to be their nanny, you’re reminded of the children’s unfortunate realities; their existences being boiled down to nothing more than products. They’re guinea pigs. They’re strings of data on a spreadsheet.

Aside from making you the tea and taking the time to explain the agenda, Dame Sylvia didn’t stick around for amicabilities. So far, she’d been polite, but nothing much beyond that. Something nags at you every time you interact with her. The small voice at the back of your head, convincing you she wasn’t entirely thrilled you were there. For now, you had no idea why, or if you were even correct in your observations. But that’s a small problem for later, you remind yourself when you see her again in the halls this morning. She only gives you an acknowledging nod before promptly walking away. No use dwelling.

As you’d instructed them each to do the previous night before bedtime, each of the Lost Boys are ready and waiting outside of their bedrooms, fifteen minutes before the exam time. Seeing them follow your instructions gives you a flicker of pride you allow yourself relish in. Even if it’s something simple as waiting in the hall, their willingness to listen tells you they’ve already accepted you. They trust you.

Your pattern of being proud of the children continues as you take them down to the designated room. It’s one of the tech ones, which has been cleared out and filled with six separate desks and chairs, each of them boasting a booklet and stationery neatly presented and waiting. You’re also proud of them as they follow your instructions to stay quiet and listen to Sylvia. Again, when they keep their questions for when she asks them. Again, when she starts the timer and they flick open their booklets to begin. You’re not so proud of them, however, when they start daydream instead of working. Not so much when they start making eye contact and giggling, either. You’re also not proud when they stop working altogether and begin whispering not-so-subtly the minute they think they’re not being watched. Behind the two-way window, you cover your mouth with your hand, halfway between amusement and mortification.

Beside you, Dame Sylvia opts for the latter, while Arthur the former, which she scolds him for. Kirsh simply stares with his arms crossed. You almost roll your eyes at this, but catch yourself when you notice the entertained expression is settling over his face again.

“I should go in there,” Sylvia says to no one in particular. “I should, right? And settle them down.”

“Woah, woah,” Arthur shakes his head at her. He holds out a hand just as she looks as if she’s about to make a turn for the door. “I say we give ‘em a chance. They’re excited. They’ll settle down on their own.”

“On their own? Arthur, they’re kids who think they’re not being supervised. They’re not going to do their work unless we get them to do it.”

Arthur points into the room, towards the front, where Tootles is still hunched over his paper. “Our trooper! He’s working!” As if on cue, Tootles turns around in his seat and starts talking to Wendy. “Oh.”

“Nibs has just flown a paper airplane into Curly’s neck,” Kirsh informs you all.

“I think they need to do something else,” you suggest, raising your voice to get it over the children’s. “They’re clearly not in schooling mode right now.”

“I think you may be right. Uh...” Arthur scratches his head briefly as he thinks, “We’ve still got their agility tests tomorrow. We could swap them around. Do that now and this tomorrow?” he proposes.

“Something that’s not prodding and poking at them, I meant.”

Dame Sylvia gives a loud huff. “You want to reward them for not working? Darling, that’s never going to get them to behave.”

“These kids have gone from being terminally sick in hospitals from one day to being experiments in a lab the next. We need to let them do something real. Give them a break.”

“They can’t sit around and …do colouring all day.”

“They’re kids. Let them be kids. They don’t need to be playing with real toys or be doing something crafty to have fun. They’ve got big wild imaginations. Isn’t that what this has all been about?”

“This is about teaching them to be the best versions of themselves. Improving their quality of lives, in the long run. We can’t do that for them by letting them go wild, we’ve got to make some sacrifices now to ensure they’re better off, later!”

“Later will always be later, but what about now? Let them have a break. They’ll work better if they’re relaxed, anyway.”

“So, what do you suggest?” Kirsh speaks up.

You think for only a few seconds before blurting the first thing that springs into your head. “We can take them outside. What do you think?”

“Outside,” he echoes, and you can tell you’ve sparked his interest, “To do what?”

“Play with mud. Search for bugs. Hike. Be kids.”

Arthur thinks it’s a good idea, but Sylvia remains unconvinced. Kirsh doesn’t offer his opinion on going, and isn’t prompted to, either. His only further suggestion is to ask Kavalier.

You’re all fortunate to discover he’s free enough to answer the call, which he makes sure you’re all fully aware of when he does. When he is asked for approval on the impromptu trip, you’re not much surprised at his speedy agreement. He’s never been one for knuckling down and filling out papers the day long, even when you were kids. You’re also not surprised at how incredibly hilarious he finds the news of the children’s distractions. During the discussion, the predicament arises that Sylvia and Arthur have too many tasks piling up, especially now that the exams have to be moved to another day. It’s clear they won’t be able to take the Lost Boys out. You feel your heart sink as you realise you’ll be facing every bit of the responsibility alone.

“Can you get Sylvia or Arthur off work? Just for the day?” you try asking Kavalier over the call. “I don’t wanna take them all out on my own. Not for the first time, at least.”

“Nah. They have things to be getting along with, don’t they? Not prancing about in the trees. Reports pending, overdue forms,” he disagrees with an exaggeratedly bored snort, “Blah, blah, blah. Kirsh - you’ll go with?”

Oh. No.

All of a sudden, the prospect of taking them alone sounds like it could be nothing short of total bliss. It’s too late now, though. The call is cut and the kids have been told. You watch them, their eyes alight as they push away their papers. At the front of the room, Tootles and Curly spring up excitedly and begin talking to Kirsh, who nods along to their overlapping, bubbly chatter. It’s all you can do to sigh as the frustrated denials of him joining you die out on your tongue. Who are you kidding? They want him there. Out in the forests of Neverland, it’ll just be you and Kirsh and this ragtag crew of children who can’t get into focus mode. It’s like shaking a can of soda before opening it. Almost definitely bound to be a disaster.

It takes another forty-five minutes before you're clear to leave. First, the Lost Boys are rushing around to their rooms and to pack their bags with all the things they want to bring with them. There are hiking sticks someone offers, but as Kirsh reminds them, the Lost Boys won't be needing that. Barring you, the singular human bodied person in the party of eight, Slightly and Smee are the only others ones who accept them. Kirsh gives them a questioning look, but they explain they’re doing it ‘for fun’.

The six of them change into jumpsuits deemed more appropriate for the outing while you and Kirsh are told the parameters of what you're allowed to do and what information you should be ready to give back upon return. It’s all boring procedure drivel, but you're hardly listening to this, anyway. You’ve made it clear this outing is about the kids being kids. You know already that your report later will reflect just that.

When you’re all at last outside, it takes a while to walk out of the facility and accommodation blocks and wind up out in the forestry. And once the buildings are completely out of sight, it’s as if you’re in another world entirely. You can’t help but stop. Pause, step back. In total awe, yes, but also in total spite at yourself as you wish you’d paid attention to the island sooner. Long ago, coming to a place like this would’ve been the stuff of dreams. You suppose you had become so lost in your own mind upon arrival to Neverland its beauty had never fully dawned on you. Of a sudden, your previous deep annoyance at Kirsh’s presence almost completely dissipates. It becomes buried deep, barely there, overshadowed in its absolute by every green wonder and every stone foothold your eyes meet.

Ripples and ripples of vibrant, exotic greenery stretches out before you. Far up, into the swathes of dutiful mist, the very mount of each structure is long lost into the clouds, of which there is no shortage, but a vast and glorious abundance. Your breath catches in your throat the longer you gaze. When you look up, your amazement only grows; in between the tufts of white, the azure blue of the sky shines through, utterly dazzling. Another fresh thrill runs through you when you notice the sun, too. You can see, almost clearly line for line, the cut of each ray shining down and into the trees, as if some invisible being had painstakingly drawn each one themselves with a precision known only by a burning passion.

You don’t even realise, for a few moments, as the words begin to tiptoe, creeping into your mind - the whispers of melodies and poems, arranging themselves with a rhythm of your design. These are your old habits come to play again, because old habits do not easily escape their beholder. It’s only when you catch yourself humming and tapping your foot against the gravelled ground that you shake yourself out of your inspired stupor, and bring yourself back down to Earth.

In front of you, you quickly realise, everyone has walked on already. That is, everyone except Kirsh, who lags back behind the group with a look of unsatiated curiosity as he watches you. His eyes, once again, are locked onto your face. You almost feel embarrassed, and, fearing your face will flood red, whether from frustration or otherwise, you duck your head and rush to catch up. It won’t do to ruin the splendour of what surrounds you by something as ugly as anger.

For a while, a solid two or three hours, if you had to guess, the group of you make your way through the forest in a sensible stroll. The Lost Boys seem far tranquil out here than they had in the classroom, as you had correctly hypothesised. The realisation is relieving. It means you’ve made the right choice. Wendy kicks off the group at the front. Curly walks with Nibs near you, both looping you into the various conversations they slip in and out of. Slightly and Smee, who you are beginning to realise you often see together, are just behind Wendy in their own bubble of amusement with her. They seem as happy to follow along her talk as she is to lead them along. Tootles is the only one who walks mostly on his own with his notepad and a pen, though he sticks closely beside Kirsh, often directing questions his way and noting the odd thing down.

The group stops here and there as you all notice your own assortment of particulars among the scenery. Nibs sees a miniature curved door-shaped hole in the bottom of a large tree trunk, which she and Smee agree looks a lot like the door to a fairy’s house. Somewhere further, after a lot more of the children spotting other ‘fairy houses’, Slightly sees a dead frog, which Tootles wants to take home to dissect, ‘for science’. Unfortunately for him, when Wendy pokes it in the belly, it jumps right up and starts hopping in their direction, which causes everyone, including you, but minus Kirsh, to scream wildly at and scatter, fast. Three more fairy houses later, you’re all still jumpy and giggly from the frog when Tootles finds what he identifies as a rare kind of ‘assassin caterpillar’. Kirsh corrects him, calling it a ‘Lonomia Obliqua’, and also calling it poisonous. Again, everyone jumps back. This time, Kirsh physically takes your arm and pulls you away from the branch it was crawling on, chastising you about not being careful enough in his monotone way.

“You’re all slow!” you hear Wendy call out from where she is at the front of the group. She climbs eagerly over every rock and root, a hunger in her face to do more, and more. You’ve no doubt the excitement of the spotted creatures has broken her previous contentedness at the sensible strolling. “Did you forget we can go so much faster now?”

Each of the Lost Boys exchange looks with each other, apprehensive. Then Curly follows suit and bounds on with Wendy, and Tootles can’t resist after that, and the other three soon follow. In a moment, they’re off into the trees. Realising you can’t see any of them anymore, a panic takes a firm hold of you.  “Shit,” you curse loudly, “Three hours in and we’ve already lost the kids?!”

“I’m not worried. I can hear them,” Kirsh informs you. He then reaches for his grey side bag, quickly unzipping it and retrieving a flat screened tablet from inside, “And their trackers will allow us to keep an eye on their location from wherever we are. You shouldn’t panic. It will inform us if they’re in danger.”

“We’re supposed to be watching them properly. With our own eyes.”

“And we’re still doing that, just with this,” he gestures to the tablet in his hands. “It’s efficient.”

“I’m going to throw that off a cliff,” you threaten with a huff.

“Then I would have to run after the children, and you would be left behind to the mercy of the elements, alone, and that wouldn’t be very practical.”

“Great, I’ll actually have some peace.”

“I would much rather stay here to keep an eye on you than go after the children,” he continues, ignoring your remark. “Compared to machines, animals are much more at risk out in the wilderness.”

Your mouth drops open and you stare down Kirsh, your frustration only multiplying when he doesn’t give that a response, either. Trying once more not to be angry at him, you speed up walking and purse your lips. God, he knows how to push your buttons.

“Take the Lonomia Obliqua from earlier, with its anti-coagulant venom,” he continues, catching up to you with a significant ease, as if trying to enforce his point. “You are prey. We are not.”

You shoot him yet another glare. “Yeah, I got it the first time.”

As if on some terrible cue, your own body betrays you and you feel your stomach gurgle. You hear it, too. It’s loud. In your distraction at breakfast this morning you hadn’t had much time to actually eat very much, and you’re guessing the walking has already got your body craving something more. Kirsh turns to you, like he’s about to say something, but you already know what he’s going to say, and you’re definitely not going to let him. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m an animal. My primal desire is to eat food to survive. And you know what, you’re actually right, because I’ve got the most amazing sandwich just waiting for me in my bag.”

Your initial plan had to been to pause and eat while the kids had been ahead of you, but before you can stop him, Kirsh is rounding them all up for a break. They all claim they’re not tired – which is good, because they shouldn’t be – but then he corrects them with a reminder that while none of them need a break, someone else in the party does.

Most of the Lost Boys find this quite funny, which you suppose had been Kirsh’s intention.

“I wasn’t going to eat in front of them,” you tell him to the side, and crossly. All of the kids are now sitting around on a few fallen trunks in the small clearing you and Kirsh had found. You check they’re not paying attention before you continue, “Because I didn’t want to remind them that they can’t.”

“It’s not wise to coddle them. They’re going to have to get used to not eating at some point. Why not now?” He speaks quietly to you in his signature calm tone. “Besides, none of us have the capability to feel hungry. Except you. So eat.”

Wendy sidles up to you. You hadn’t actually realised she’d been listening in on the conversation, even despite checking. “He’s right,” she nods, “You should probably eat. My brother always used to say that empty stomachs aren’t good for anyone.”

 “No man can be wise on an empty stomach,” Kirsh replies back. “That’s a quote. From a very old book.”

You’re familiar with this. “George Elliot,” you say, and see Kirsh is nodding approvingly at this. You feel, alarmingly, a deep thrill in your stomach, fluttering right up to your chest. It freaks you out, and you squirm.

Before you can let yourself think about it any further at all, you turn back to Wendy and change the subject. “Your brother was right, you know. But would you do me a favour?” You root around in your bag for a few moments until you fish out a blue, hand-sized pouch with the ‘Prodigy Corps’ logo and bear blazoned across its front. Inside are as many flavour strips as you could possibly cram with the zipper still being able to close. You go ahead and hand it to Wendy with a sad smile. “Can you share these out, please? There are about…ten different sandwich flavours in there. Oh, and like a whole bunch of candy, too.”

“Really? Thanks!” she takes the bag off of you gratefully and moves back over to the other Lost Boys, seeming happy to be given some responsibility. You watch them break off from their conversations to choose over the flavours in the pouch. So much like a group of normal children with a normal bag of mixed candies.

It’s better for you that they’re distracted too; the flavour strips ruse had worked well. Now that they’re otherwise occupied, you hurry along with your sandwich and your flask of water. Despite what has been said, you’re still not keen to flaunt your food in front of them.

This thought is extremely short-lived.

“Hey, that was mine!” you hear Nibs cry. “I called dibs on that!”

“Oi, Slightly! Give that back to her,” Curly demands.

Slightly disagrees entirely with this. “But I got it first, that’s not fair, man!”

The children then break out into an argument over the singular popsicle flavour and who it really belongs to. Shit, you think, alarm bells going off in your head. Bad idea, bad idea. You’d forgotten to factor in the childish desire to have what others have. Even despite that actually being what had prompted you to do this in the first place. You vaguely remember you and Kavalier having similar arguments over chip flavours way back when you were around their ages. And even older. And actually, just last week, when he stole your last lollipop right from the stash you’d thought was well hidden under your bed.

“Settle down,” Kirsh calls over to them. He stands up from beside you and puts his hands on his hips authoritatively. “If you can’t decide this rationally, Reader and I will just have to confiscate them.”

“But I got it first!” Slightly groans, holding the flavour strip close to himself. “It’s totally not fair.”

Curly begins to deny that, which leads to Wendy butting in, and then Slightly saying something else, and then Smee, too – and then they’re all lost arguing again.

“Quiet now,” he silences them once more. You consider offering your thoughts, but you’re curious to see how Kirsh will handle this, and so continue eating your sandwich in an entertained silence. “Tootles,” he calls. All of your eyes fall over to the boy, who had been the only one not involved in the argument. He’s off to the side, crouching over the fallen log and scribbling something down in his flip pad.

“Um, yeah?” he answers apprehensively as he pauses his writing.

“Do you know who claimed it first?”

He thinks for a moment, clearly hesitating. You almost break out into a laugh when you catch Curly giving him a sharp look. “Yes.”

“And?” Kirsh prompts. He raises his barely-there eyebrows arrantly, which very, very, nearly tips you over into audible laughter.

“It was Nibs,” Tootles admits. Slightly lets out an audible ‘aww, man’ in response. “Sorry, dude, but she did call dibs. Hey, that rhymes.”

Kirsh nods and gestures between the two children. “Hand it over to Nibs,” he instructs calmly. “There’s plenty of other flavours.” With another sigh, Slightly follows what he’s been told, and steps back beside Smee, who throws his arm over his shoulder in a sweet display of consolation. “Though I should remind you all; this is not sustenance. You need to learn to share, and to come to adult decisions about these things. Petty arguments are for infants and idiots. You are neither. Understand?”

The Lost Boys grumble varying levels of enthusiasms in the ‘we understand’ echoes they direct back to Kirsh. He nods again, satisfied, and waves them to get back to what they were doing before he reclaims his seat beside you.

“You’re almost natural with them,” you smirk at Kirsh, taking care to capture the same tone as he’d had when he’d said the same to you a couple of days ago. Your head bounces from side to side jovially as you paraphrase. “He did well in selecting you.”

“Were you watching me?” he retorts, using your words, too.

“I was observing,” you mimic. “You can laugh. That was funny.”

You’re just realising you’ve actually never heard him laugh, and wonder briefly is this is something he can actually do, when the kids interrupt asking to go back on the walk. You resume back into a similar rhythm as you had earlier, and all the while they’re keeping their eyes out for the next interesting structure, or creature, or fairy house. Half of your mind begins to drift off into a far daydream as you coast by, and the other half stays firmly on auto-pilot of walking along and monitoring the children. You can’t help but smile as you watch them all, bobbing along merrily behind yourself and Kirsh, a sweet string of baby ducklings.

Somewhere after the tenth ‘fairy house’, you’re starting to feel so absurdly achy and dreary, you’re practically dragging your feet along. The heat of the day is starting to catch up to you, too, and you find yourself wiping your face and stopping for water more and more often. Kirsh, noticing this, tells you, rather assertively, it’s high time to go home. You nod nonchalantly, pretending you’re still okay when you know he knows you’re not, and you help him to round up the ducklings.

Everyone begins to mix up who they’re walking with on the way back. You find yourself in between Slightly and Smee at one point, and have a very interesting conversation about their favourite Star Wars characters. You pretend to be impressed as they battle with their hiking sticks, hopping along to keep up with everyone and calling them lightsabers.

At some point, you notice Nibs is beginning to approach you. She’s carrying a bunch of flowers, white little sprouts you hadn’t noticed were around you at all. Nibs doesn’t say much as she drifts closer, but has a pout on her face you recognise too easily to be a pre-cognition of tears in any child – though, as you had a little while before with Kirsh and laughter, you wonder if the hybrid-children are capable of actually, physically crying. You’re not sure if it’s better they can or if they can’t. Kirsh looks over at her questioningly, but you decide it’s best you take this one, and give him a short look to convey this to him.

“Are you okay, there, Nibs?” you ask, “You want another flavour strip?” You know that’s not really the issue here, but you’re hoping you can get her to open up herself.

“No, I’ve had enough of that,” she tells you. She holds up her flowers. “We’re not allowed to talk about it.”

“About flowers?”

“They’re jasmine,” her voice drops lower and she leans closer to you. “We used to grow these around the farm, at home.”

Oh. They’re not allowed to talk about home. And their old lives. You ponder over it as you muse a response, thinking it must be so awful to be so young and pretending their past isn’t a part of who they are. “They’re beautiful. Do they smell good?” you try your best not to shut her down while tiptoeing around her mentions of her home. It’s not that you think they shouldn’t be allowed to talk about it, but more that you’re afraid you’ll pay the price later when she has too much trouble settling in, if you enable it now.

Nibs hands one over to you, which you hold up to your nose, inhaling long and deep. It really is beautiful, deeply sweet with a tone of underlying musk. “Mmm. It’s gorgeous. Would you like to put them in your room?”

She nods at you enthusiastically. You smell again, but this time the scent goes right up your nose and tickles, causing you to sneeze far too loudly, your head jolting forward as your body briefly takes control. “Oh crap, Nibs, I’m so sorry,” you apologise, biting your lip in guilt, the flower still hanging from your fingertips. You’re unsure how close to her the sneeze actually came, as she doesn’t reply, just blinks up at you.

“Ooohh! Nibs! Nibs, you've got germs now,” Smee chuckles. He jumps back about half a step from her. “That's so gross, dude.”

“Thanks for that,” you mention, teasing him with a feigned offence.

She looks mortified at Smee’s words. “What? No. No, I don't have germs!”

“She sneezed by you, you totally do, bro!”

“No, no, I don't, see?” Nibs reaches over and smears her palms all over Smee's shoulder as he attempts unsuccessfully to lean even further away. “Look, see, no germs!”

“Ew, Nibs gave Smee her germs!” Curly snorts from where she's standing on the rocks, almost doubling over in laughter as she provokes them.

“What?” Smee shouts as he turns to see the others laughing. He reaches for Wendy, who is directly beside him, only for her to go eyes wide and madly dash over to where Curly stands. She peers over to Smee, who stands still a moment, almost looking stunned as Slightly, Tootles and Nibs run all the way down the distant clearing until they're small in your vision.

“Not too far!” you shout over, but you're smiling anyway. “And Smee, what are you waiting around for? Go! Give it to someone else before they all get away!”

He nods, fiddling with his hands a few more seconds before he too zooms off to the rocks. At your words the others break into nervous giggles, and they also shoot way off, and they're all of a sudden going from zero to one hundred in a mad game of germs tag. Watching them, you feel a satisfied buzz run through you. Your agenda has been fulfilled. They’re running. They’re laughing, and playing, and they’re acting rightfully their age. Seeing them get along, too, brings you a new kind of happiness you haven’t quite felt before. You wonder how it is that these six children have so quickly been able to elbow themselves a place in your heart. The scar-strewn heart, with barely enough love for yourself inside of it, has grown six times its size for these ducklings in so little time with neither your intention nor your realisation.

So Kavalier was correct in suggesting you were doting, after all, and your own half-baked assumptions of having nothing left to love them with had been entirely, wholly wrong. Once again, Smart Boy’s brain has trumped yours. Not for the first time, you know well, and certainly not the last.

“The game makes little sense,” Kirsh says beside you, after a few minutes of the children having been weaving around the trees in their chases.

You take a seat on a flat, moss-covered rock just behind you both. You’re finding them so endearing you can’t even be mad that you were meant to be heading home, no matter how tired you’re feeling. “What are you talking about? It's just tag. Did they teach you about that in that chip of yours?”

“They can't be infected by germs. They don't have immune systems. Therefore, they have no reason to run.” Kirsh too takes a seat on the moss-rock directly next to you.

“They're having fun, Tin Soldier. Logic and technicalities don't have a place in children’s play.”

“I know,” he claims, though you're not entirely convinced he does, “But these are multimillion machines with the capability of making a thousand discoveries and changing a thousand lives. The batteries inside of them are so powerful they’re enough to charge several cities. Together, perhaps an entire small country. Yet you are content having them run around and play a game of false infection.”

“They're having fun!” you exclaim. “I know you're plastic and metal and programming through and through but you’re lying if you’re telling me you've never had fun.”

“That’s not my directive. I have a job and I get it done.”

“…that's the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life.”

His head tilts in sparked interest. “Why?”

“Because life is more than working, Kirsh. If all I had to do for every waking moment was work…” you let the thought dry in your mouth as you consider the possibilities of the alternatives of your life. Even though it hasn't felt like it at certain points, being a prodigy has been a blessing in more ways than one. Not having the day long, week long drivel of a job is just one item on that list. “Come on. Do you not have anything you enjoy doing? And don't say your work, because that doesn't count.”

“I assume this is your question for me. At last,” he says. You nod and roll your eyes. “I suppose it's ‘fun’ to analyse the behaviour of animals. Even the most grotesque of them are often unexpected and entertaining in their primal confusion.”

You assume he's talking about humans again when he says this. “‘Primal confusion’,” you mutter, no longer allowing yourself to be surprised, and shake your head. “Better than nothing, I guess.”

“Every animal has them. Primal urges they surrender to. Like you, letting the children run and play because your body couldn’t walk much further without a break.”

“That’s just not true,” you deny, stung by his words yet again, and how awfully correct his scrutiny consistently proves to be. “I just wanted them to have-”

“To have fun,” he interrupts, with a curt nod. “Of course.”

You go to have some more water from your bottle, only to find you’re drinking the last few drops. Sighing, you make a mental note to either bring more next time, or try and corral the group out of the forest much sooner. You can feel yourself getting hungry again, too, as the time for your evening meal is fast arriving.

“Question,” Kirsh begins. You turn to him, brain already searching around for one to shoot back, eager save yourself from the previous predicament of not having anything to ask. “What do you do for fun?”

“Analyse the behaviour of artificial beings,” you chuckle, then shake your head as your turn more serious and as he gives you another half-smile. “I like a lot of things. Music, obviously. Painting. Cooking, sometimes, when I can be bothered. It’s the good thing about fun. Nothing really ever runs out. There’s always something, no matter how small. It’s fun being out here with everyone, and it’s fun to get to know the kids. To spend time with Kavalier. When he’s not being a self-righteous ass. It’s even fun to just sit here, and feel the sun hit my skin, and think about everything for a while.”

“Your question,” he prompts.

“Do you want to try any of these things?”

“I don’t care for much of it. My question."

"Your question."

"What do you mean when you say you feel the sun hit your skin?”

now

You'll later put the time at about sunrise when three sharp raps at your bedroom door had cut into your sleep. Lifting your head, barely conscious, you call out groggily in question. There are three more knocks, and you groan, flopping back down. You know those knocks.

“Why are you even awake?” the question falls out of your mouth as a mutter, before you shout across the room, “It’s unlocked!” because you know your friend too well to even fantasise he’ll give up or walk away from a lack of response.

“Just the girl I was hoping to see,” Kavalier grins as he bursts in, and as if he hadn’t just barged into your quarters with no warning and with that express interest in mind. He splays his arms out as he talks, then surveys your room with a particular interest towards your personal effects. “I see you’re still a late riser.”

“And I see you’re still a pain in the ass,” you groan, burrowing under the dark, warm cave of your sheets. “Come back,” you grumble, “in three hours.”

“Uh-uh, not happening,” he protests. He shuffles around the room a few minutes longer, and under the muffle of the duvet you can hear him picking up various objects as he does. You’re far too tired to care. You’re just slipping back into a comfortable depth of dream when you feel him slam down onto your mattress. A stretch of cold air smites your skin as he yanks your sheets out of your desperate grasp. Kavalier grins again from where he’s sitting at the end of your bed, and you shiver, eying up your lovely duvet all piled up beside him. “I’ve got a task for you. A favour, really. An honour even, because I want you to-”

“Boy!” you interrupt, “Come back in five hours.”

“I want you to be the Lost Boys’ nanny.”

“Huh? Shh, I’m sleeping.”

“What? Come on, I thought you’d be all excited. You seem to like them,” he pokes you sharply in the calf of your leg. “Come on!” he bugs. He’s silent for a few seconds. “Venus.”

You freeze. “Did you just…?” When you look up at him, he’s got his head cocked with what you know to be a stab at an endearing smile.

The last time he’d pleaded Venus, he was asking you to come to Neverland. It’s few and far between, but once he’s invoked the Venus card, that’s it. He’s serious. Venus means this is important to him. Venus means you can’t say no.

“Mhm. You heard me. Venus.”

You sit up properly now to squint at him. “Jupiter,” you sigh heavily in agreement as you take in his seriousness, and swing your legs out of bed. You watch his grin widen and hear his reactionary glee upon your confirmation. “But I’ll have you know that it’s my turn to plead. You were the last.”

“Okay, well, uh…that’s not how it works,” he laughs.

“Yeah? Well, you had two in a row. That means it’s definitely my turn next, Smart Boy.”

“Alright, Silly Girl,” he shakes his head at you, taking you completely by surprise by using your nickname of old. “But it’s hardly my fault you can never come up with a reason to ‘Jupiter’ me.”

“I’ll think of something,” you promise, “But anyway…why do you want me to nanny them? I don’t know very much about childcare. Why not get someone else, or…a synthetic for it?”

“Let me see…waste of time and resources, everyone else is busy with their own jobs, and androids can’t help with what I need, but-! You’re here. You’re perfect. I seem to recall you hosting painting classes for the tinies. At one of your universities? That’s basically childcare, isn’t it?”

You’re surprised he remembered. You’d done several classes of many art types for children of a similar age to the Lost Boys, in the past. The memories pass fondly through your mind. “And I seem to remember offering you a similar gig with kids. Several times. Maybe I should’ve used my ‘Jupiter’ on that,” you jest.

“Hm, yes, that would’ve been the single most amazing use of your plea,” he shoots back sarcastically.

“So you think I’m perfect for this job ‘cause I do nothing all day anymore except float around?”

“Because you were always the doting one. I’ll never understand how you manage to give even a quarter of a shit about all the things you do, but that’s important,” he nods his head, “…for the children. And children are so needy, in constant want of so much attention. I’m thinking if you fulfil that for them, you’ll get to see hybrid data that no one else can notice. You know…get the deep dish. I have their attention, but you’ll have their trust, which is necessary for this to work.”

“So…do you want me to look after them? Or do you want me to…collect data right from the source?”

Kavalier plays around with the tassels on one of your cushions. “Can’t it be both? Because it’s both. They’re my kids. Who else would I trust with them?”

There he goes again, sweetening you up. Infuriatingly, and you realise this is probably why he’s doing it - you can’t resist.

It’s an interesting choice, the decision to steer away from giving the Lost Boys a mother and a father, and instead to stick them with a hoard of guards and researchers, and…a nanny. But you knew better than most that Kavalier did not approve of mothers and fathers. He had never taken to approve of anyone who could have total authority over him, back then. You suppose now must not be so different. Something about never being told what to do.

Kavalier wanted you to watch over them, like a guardian. Spend time with them, you conclude. That wouldn’t be so bad. You haven’t met every one of the children properly, but from what you have seen, they all seem sweet enough. Perhaps it would be good for them, you think, to spend time in the company of someone who isn’t attempting to study their every move. No matter what Kavalier wants from you.

“It can be both if there’s no paperwork involved,” you negotiate, and mime gagging over the side of your bed, “You know I hate all of that crap.”

“Don’t worry, Silly Girl. You’re the birdy who will whisper straight into my ear,” he laughs, and flicks your foot, “Now get up. They’re making waffles.”

“Should’ve opened with that.”

— - —

then

Being young children in a big school like the one the girl and Boy attended, it was easy to be extraordinary, and it was easy to reap the benefits of such a position. The two of them would have total spotlight, have their own study spaces, have their own tutors, and all the opportunities for advancement the older children there would only receive after they had.

According to what Boy told her of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, for every action there always existed its equal opposite reaction. In a similar fashion, it was easy too for them both to reap the drawbacks of their position. Odd looks in the hallways and whispering behind hands. The piercing glances of the bone-tired. There was the weight of expectation, and the pressure - the never-ending pressure from all angles - to be spectacular, at all times, for everyone, for always.

It was the worst when the big events arrived. The ones that they had been preparing and agonising over for weeks. For Boy, a lecture, or a speech. For the girl, a showcase, maybe, or a concert.

One particular night was the girl’s dance recital. A twenty minute long, multiple ballerina feature she had choreographed herself, with music she had composed exclusively for the dance. She had wanted simply to watch her work in front of her, to see the ballerinas prance in fluid motion to the melodies of her making, and watch her daydreams manifest on the stage. Sadly, the grown ups did not to care for this, or that she had no desire to dance this dance. They said people would want to see her star in her own work. All her protests fell on deaf ears as they pushed her into the position of centre stage. Boy told her it was an expected reaction, and that it was logical, because guests would come from everywhere to see the prodigy girl, and guests meant money.

“Grown ups like that,” he told her, “Money. And power. They like that, too.”

The voices all around were deafening. Half in disbelief over her craft, the other half in total awe. But her predicament was that no one would tell her the truth. Every compliment over her every performance, from previous recitals and concerts, always felt sugar coated in the sweetness of over commendations reserved to be fed to small children. The girl did not wish to know whether the dance was spectacular by the standards of an eight year old - she wished to know if it simply was just spectacular.

In the dressing rooms, Boy stood beside the girl. He had been allowed in right after she had put on her pink tutu, and had arrived to see she was staring unhappily into the mirror. The girl wasted no time in explaining her dilemma, though she almost did not need to, because it was easy for Boy to figure her out.

“Grown ups always lie,” he shrugged, “What’s the deal now?”

“I don’t want lies. I want to know if my work really is good. Really, really.”

“Uh…no, but you know who you should ask? Yeah, me,” he said, as if it was the obvious singular solution, “I won’t pretend. Silly.”

“You don’t count. I want to know what they’re all thinking. Not you.”

“Oh, you mean you want…you mean normal people.”

That was one way of putting it, but not a way the girl would’ve chosen. Helplessly, and mostly blinking back tears, she nodded.

“What does it matter anyway?” he asked, “If they say you do well then it’s a compliment. I like it when people say that.”

“You wouldn’t if you knew it was all fake. People say lies block growth. I want to grow.”

“You mean you want your work to grow,” Boy thought about it for a moment, though it didn’t take long before his face lit up. Of course, as was always the case with him, he found the answer to be a simple one. “Listen. You dance and I’ll go around and catch what everyone is saying about you. I’ll watch all their faces, ‘kay?”

The girl nodded as she attempted to push her pout away from her face. “Okay.”

“And after, if they ask how you know all these things, just tell them…a little birdy told you,” he instructed her, with a knowledgeable shrug, “’Cause that’s always the grown ups’ excuse for knowing things they shouldn’t.”

“And you’ll tell me the truth?”

“I’d never lie to you,” Boy told the girl. The two of them still stared into the mirror, eyes flickering between faces, from her tight ballerina bun to his curly mop, from her worried pout to his eyes-wide smile.

The girl turned around to him and held out her right hand. She balled it up and then extended her little finger. “Pinky promise?”

Boy faced her now, too. In his own funny way, he did not interlock his pinky with hers, but instead held onto it with his whole left fist. He gripped it tight, and looked her directly in the eyes. “I swear.”

— - —

now

You don’t get to be there when the rest of the Lost Boys are ‘born’ into their new bodies. But then, nannies never really are there for that part, just to pick up the child later when their parents can’t be there. Kavalier finds it amusing when you mention this thought aloud.

You’re unsure if the order of their birth will matter in conjunction to their real ages, but you follow along anyway, and the order went something like: Wendy, Slightly, Smee, Nibs, Tootles and then, last of all, Curly. Dame Sylvia and Arthur are first up with them, checking each of the children over for technical mishaps and clearing them psychologically.

One of the foremen in the tech room hands you a floppy blue file from Sylvia, who you’re told is currently prepping to conduct Curly’s evaluation in the central room. In front of you, Tootles sits with Arthur for his hearing analysis, and you watch him raise his hand in accordance to the exam.

Tootles has a nervous grin about him and it makes you smile to see his boyish qualities bleed through; the way he fidgets in between rounds, the way he’s eagerly drinking in every corner of his surroundings. Even when he raises his arm it’s adorable, as he watches out for Arthur’s reactions. The hunger in his eyes for approval makes it easy to remember, that, even though his body is of a young adult, he’s still the same small boy from just hours before. On the inside. Or, more accurately, in the mind.

You go ahead and start to read through the file, which turns out to contain all the basic information you need, a re-run of the scrambled debrief Sylvia had earlier given you. Kavalier’s order to have you as their nanny appeared to come out of the complete blue for the entire team, not just you. Though you got the general idea that Sylvia found this somewhat vexing, she was still nice enough to you about the whole thing.

As you flick through the file, the rest of the world seems to melt away. You find yourself so absorbed that when someone next to you clears their throat, embarrassingly, you jump. Beside you, standing there in his blue-grey two piece with his hands behinds his back is none other than the white-haired Kirsh. Kirsh, who has no real need to clear his throat other than to garner your attention.

“So this is why you're here. To babysit,” his voice, while extremely soft, came with a teasing lilt and a speck of a smile you don’t find very amusing.

You feel a similar cloud of anger spread in your chest as you had felt yesterday, in the lab. “It's called nannying, actually.”

“The difference is subtle,” he says.

The two of you watch Tootles as he takes off the headphones and converses with Arthur. His eyes catch you both and he waves enthusiastically. Briefly, Kirsh waves back, and you do too. You feel Tootles watch you a moment, no doubt his curiosity clouding his judgement in that childlike manner of staring too long without regard. Then Arthur is snapping him back to the present. He puts the headphones on again and within seconds is back to raising his arm intermittently, attention firmly drawn to the task at hand once more.

“I gather you’ve yet to meet the children,” Kirsh breaks the silence.

“Apart from Wendy, yes. But I saw them all, before. When they were still…tiny.”

“When they were still human.”

You give him a sharp side-eye. “They are still human, I don’t care what Prodigy Corps’ technicalities say. Synthetic bodies or otherwise. I mean, look at him,” you gesture over to Tootles, who is spinning around in his chair, “and tell me that’s not a kid.”

“I see. Would you consider them more human than you would consider them synthetic?”

You hesitate before turning to look at him properly. “You ask a lot of questions, you know.”

“And you seem invariably reluctant to answer each one of them.”

“Can you blame me? I barely know you.”

Kirsh faces you now, too. Again, like yesterday in the lab, you feel his eyes fixate on yours. Again, he’s staring right down into your soul. Again, you have to remind yourself to breathe. His eye contact is incredibly intense, though he’s annoyed you so much that even though you’re burning to look away you force yourself to remain. You decide you won’t give him the satisfaction of noting the effect it’s had on you.

“We’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other now,” he states as a matter of fact, “So in due course, you will know me, as I will you. Questions simply hasten this along, which, considering the job, is an imperative process. Do you follow?”

“Fine,” you sigh. As reluctant as you are to agree with someone who has so far been disagreeable, you understand you’ll need to have a united front if you’re both handling the children. At least in front of them. “But if you’re asking me questions, then I’m asking you questions, too.”

Kirsh stares at you a moment. He smiles in the way that shows less on his mouth, but more in his eyes, like you can tell he’s amused. “Yes, that seems like it will work. It’s only fair.”

“That means for every one you ask me, I’ll ask you one back.”

Kirsh nods at you, moving his hands from folded behind his back resting on his hips. “So, will you be joining myself and Dame Sylvia for Curly’s evaluation?”

“No. I’m meeting the kids after, though.”

“That’s fine. Feel free to ask me my question, now that I’ve asked you yours,” he says, with the same smile as before. “It’s only fair.”

You gape, mouth void of response. Instead, you could have sworn, and it’s all you can do try and stop yourself from appearing visibly annoyed, well aware of how he’d set you up knowing you had nothing to ask. “I’ll get back to you,” you reply bitterly.

Kirsh nods at you and you could swear he’s still smiling, even if his mouth isn’t showing it. Again, something to do with that look in his eyes. It’s something right inside of them, unnerving you. Like his expression is almost…human? You push that thought away the second you feel it spring up, and, finally caving in, your eyes dart away from his locked-on gaze.

He leaves for the evaluation before he can say anything else to bother you, or before you can have a moment to gather your frazzled thoughts. At some point Arthur beckons you over to join himself and Tootles with the more minor of his hearing and comprehension tests. For most of it you’re simply hanging back and watching as you’re unsure what is being done or the meaning of it all. For a while it stings, not knowing, but you level with yourself - if you were a regular nanny taking the child to a teeth appointment, you’d have no clue what the dentists were doing either. This isn’t much different. After all, knowing isn’t your job. Being present is.

“You’re doing awesome, kid,” you let him know once the thought has dawned on you. “Almost done.”

“Cool!” he shouts back much too loudly, his headphones still firmly on his ears, “I’m kind of bored!”

Once the tests are fully over with, Arthur tells you Dame Sylvia has moved Curly’s session to the office nearby to the central room as the rest of the children are currently having their down time there. You realise down time must be the more formal way of telling you they’re having playtime. He asks if you can accompany Tootles to join them. You feel a wave of nerves wash over you, especially when he vocalises your thoughts and suggests now is a good time to introduce yourself to them all. Swallowing the self-doubt, you smile and nod at Arthur on your way out of the door. If it’s got to happen at some point, it might as well be now.

“So, your name is Tootles, isn’t it?” you prompt.

“Yes. The Boy Genius gave it to me,” he tells you, with a note of pride in his voice, “It’s like one of the Lost Boys, you know, in Peter Pan,” he continues. “And you’re Reader, aren’t you? Arthur told me. But I haven’t seen you before.”

“That’s because I’m new to this whole programme. I’ll be meeting everyone else in just a minute. Should I be nervous, do you think?”

Tootles chuckles quietly. “No way. Everyone’s cool, you’ll see. So, is your job gonna be like Sylvia? Or are you a scientist?”

“I’m…I’m your nanny,” you admit, feeling odd to have told it to him so…simply.

“Oh, that’s nice. I want to be a scientist,” he nods seriously. The two of you grow nearer down the hallway to where the central room is. “I want to study things and make discoveries, like all the old guys in the books.”

“I see. Like how the techs here study you?”

“Yeah, exactly. And isn’t it so strange I’ve got a new body now?”

“Hm, I heard about that. It is strange. How are you finding your new body so far?”

You catch Tootles wrinkle up his face. “Tall,” he admits, “But awesome. It’s nice. I don’t feel sick anymore.”

As you’re pressing to get the door open you make an effort to hide your face from him. His words have brought the memories flooding back of those sick little kids in their hospital gowns, so tiny in the abyss of the vast facility. You swallow, willing yourself not to get so caught up when you barely know them all. Yet.

The doors slide open to let you into the central room, which is home to a large and circular multi-colour couch the rest of the children are perched all over. You do a quick check, confirming everyone is there with the exception of Curly, and Tootles, of course, who breaks from your side and goes running to join the others immediately.

When you step into the room, each of the children immediately perk up, heads shooting in your direction. You scan over them all, one by one, trying to appear friendly as your feel their gazes. Slightly and Smee are colouring at the table with a spilt carton of crayons and oversized sugar paper. Both of them stare at you slack mouthed. Tootles hops down to and climbs onto the couch beside Wendy, who appears to have been reading. In the very corner, curled up and playing with a fluffy stuffed animal is Nibs, who you quickly realise is the one who looks the most startled by your presence.

“Who is that?” she asks, still looking at you, but directing the question at Tootles.

“Oh, that’s Reader. She’s our nanny,” he informs her, settling down into the couch against a cushion. “She’s new like us.”

“You’re a hybrid too?” Wendy’s eyes light up as she asks you. It feels awful to have to shake your head as you had just seen the visible excitement spring about her presence. She nods at you, deflated, and sinks back down. “Oh. But you’re the Boy Genius’ friend, aren’t you? We met before. And I saw you with him.”

“I am. And I’m glad to properly meet you!”

“I never knew we had a nanny,” Smee speaks up, putting down his blue crayon.

You walk closer to the group with the profound hope that you’re not giving off an awkward vibe about you. The last thing you want is for the children to sense you’re nervous, or worse - that you’ve got such little idea of what you’re doing. You decide against sitting on the edge of the couch, reasoning you’re more accessible, more confident seeming if you sit in the middle.

“You know, in India, Nani is what you call grandmas,” Slightly tells everyone. This makes Wendy, Nibs and Tootles giggle and then peer back at you, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. It strikes you they’re testing you out. Checking if you’ll snap or if you’ll roll over.

Smee is the only one who laughs freely at his comment. “Are you serious, bro?”

“Yeah, I’m totally serious, man. Means grandma for real.”

You just chuckle softly. “I’m a different kind of nanny, Slightly. I’m here to look after you and I’m here if you need me, if you need to talk,” you focus your attention on Nibs, who is peering at you over the head of her wolf toy, “if you’re scared, even,” you say, and then look over at all the others too, not wanting her to feel singled out.

“Oh, we’re not scared,” Wendy announces proudly. “And I’m their big sister now, so I’m extra not scared.”

“Wow, okay, so is that true? You’re all not scared?”

All of them nod, and Tootles seems the most enthusiastic about this. Smee and Slightly then scramble to have the last word over who is really the most ‘not scared’ of them all. Even Nibs joins in, though Wendy still insists it has to be her, since she’s looking after them, too. You laugh again lean back against the cushions.

“I’m definitely not scared,” Tootles adds, “Definitely.”

“Alright, well, do you guys wanna know my secret?” you ask them. As you had correctly predicted, the buzzword secret snatches each of their attentions right back to you. They look back at you with such a keen interest. As if you’ve just said you’re going to tell them the secret to the universe, and not some small trivial matter. You fight a smile as you hear Slightly whisper to Smee ‘woah, she’s got a secret, bro!’, and then as Wendy says ‘shhh’ to quiet them both.

“My secret is that I’m actually probably the most scared of all of us in this room.”

“Really? You’re scared?” Nibs asks.

You nod affirmatively and take care to look as serious and wide-eyed as you can muster. “I don’t know anyone here, or any of you, or how any of this works. In fact, I’m terrified. I don’t know what to do. I thought if you’re all so brave, then maybe you can give me some advice?”

“You don’t need to be so scared because we can defend you,” Wendy tells you proudly. "We're super strong now. More than adults, even."

“You know what? I like that. We can all look after each other, right? That makes me feel a bit better. Thank you.”

Slightly puts his hand up. “Maybe…actually I am a bit scared. Just a little bit, though. Obviously.”

“Me too,” Smee agrees.

“That’s okay. We’re all looking after each other. So we’re gonna be fine. And it’s nice that there’s so many of us here. Everybody needs somebody.”

Nibs blinks her huge eyes as she stares up. “Who’s yours?”

You don’t get a chance to answer that question. It quickly becomes buried and forgotten in the commotion that comes with Curly entering the room. Truthfully, you’re glad for the interruption. The others are fast to introduce you to Curly, and she does turn to take you in, but the topic too becomes lost as they all struggle, fighting to tell the stories of what they’d each been doing today.

Their chatter grows louder and you take this as your cue to leave them to it for a while. Although you’re not sure on how things will work just yet, or what your responsibilities are, you know you’ll be back soon. Sylvia’s folder had contained a simple routine structure detailing a bedtime that was approaching in the next few hours. You have no idea who has been getting the kids down this far, but you figure that falls into the category of what nannies do, anyway. The job has to start somewhere.

Your dilemma swirls around in your mind as you leave and as you begin to cross the halls, planning to get back to your room. You’re just daydreaming about taking a nice, long nap in bed, when something, someone, catches your eye. Someone who has already noticed you.

It’s Kirsh. Again.

He’s leaning against the wall opposite the viewing window into the central room with his arms folded. “You’re almost natural with them,” he tells you, when you’ve reached him. “He made a wise choice in selecting you.”

“Were…were you watching me?” Damn those one way windows.

“I was observing.”

“How much did you see?”

“I saw enough,” he answers blandly. “And that’s two questions.”

“Wha-?” you stop yourself before the end of the word as you realise exactly what he means. Your earlier agreement of mutual questioning slaps you in the face. For the second time, and in a little over an hour. “They don’t count. They were incidental.”

Kirsh cocks his head. “I suppose I can humour you.” Humour you? All over again you’re getting worked up. More than a little. You’re pissed. Not because what he’s saying is wrong, or even rude - but because he’s not saying anything wrong, even if you’re considering it in the ballpark of exceedingly annoying. “You can ask me another if you have one. Soon, if you can manage it. I’ve just thought of another for you.”

You shake your head. “Whatever. Let’s not waste time. Just ask me.”

He gives you another look. You hold onto his gaze again, hoping you won’t drop it this time. “Your face is red.”

Immediately, your eyes pull away from his. “That’s not a question.”

The Lost Boys had kicked their ball up and over and into the forest a total of twenty-one times before they each got used to kicking with their synthetic legs. Their mid-morning shouts and their cacophony of soccer trilling was a way off, within sight enough to see all their faces, but far enough away to enjoy your own silence.

Glowing midday sun, it seemed, did nothing to disturb their high-tech plastic eyes as they ran about the clearing, kicking the ball between each other. You could not say the same for yourself. The soft solitary of the shadows under the pavilion better suited your own eyes. Faint whispers of the wind rustled the trees about you, the chatter of the Lost Boys faint at your ears.

Before you on the wooden bench laid your notebook, and strewn around was a messy jumble of pens. Mostly, you were occupied with your pencil, scrabbling graphite sketched out onto the smooth cream pages. Rugged busts of your ducklings at play. Your new favourite past time, it was becoming clear. As you sketched, you allowed half your mind to focus only on the rough lines you drew, lazily occupying the other half with the reality you were fast stretching away from. There was so many thousands of matters it seemed, so many thoughts pressing, pressing, pressing on the mantle of your sanity.

You pull your hand away with a sigh as your hand begins to cramp. A chance breeze blows your page over, opening it to one such reality you’d been avoiding. Listed on the page in your quick, almost illegible handwriting: ‘Things for the Ducklings to do.’ Top of the list was already crossed out. Soccer on the beach. It hurt to use one of the ideas so early, but there was little other in the way of choice. You’re hard pressed to come up with fresh ideas for them, lucky, even, you’d managed to find something for them this morning.

The Lost Boys’ solutions to their new realised boredom had been a simple one, and came in the form of each of their constant mentioning of ‘the day we went on the hike’ and, ‘could we go and see more?’ and how ‘we’d barely even actually seen anything that day!’ The latter was indefinitely not true, though you suppose the ratio of island walked and island yet to be explored was askew enough to excuse their dramatic over exaggerations. In any case, it was the pouting your heart could not ignore. Even Kavalier had noticed that, commenting happily at how it meant their realism was shining through. He was right, of course, but you were just glad it meant they were still able to convey the same feelings other children could - for those pouts, you were sure, you would excuse any amount of over exaggeration. But even their exaggeration could not undo the damage your last foray into the forest, and Kirsh has been more than happy to remind you as much.

Having spent the better part of the last week toting the Lost Boys to and fro between their beds and their various exams, it’s no surprise to realise they’re all starting to become bored. It’s becoming clear to you that their earlier novel excitement over all the tests was starting to wear down, and it was wearing down fast. It must have been the attention they loved, those poor sick children. Even this has become less exciting to them. Your suspicions are easily confirmed by their active misbehaviour during the examinations and the morning drills, a misbehaviour of which you are often at the blame of. As nanny, you are told, it’s your duty to keep them in check. Several wardens tell you exactly this, no hesitation. Once, you complained to Kavalier without thinking much of it, only to then never see the warden again, and for the others to act sheepish around you. Kavalier didn’t answer when you’d asked what had happened, but the other wardens didn’t bother you again.

Your suspicions of the children’s feelings are only further confirmed when Nibs tells you exactly the truth of their boredom one tired evening before bed. Her round, round eyes had been so terribly honest and annoyed it struck a chord in you. The round, round eyes had haunted you the night long. You’d been unable to lull yourself into sleep, either, for all the guilt that plagued you. The wardens were correct, were they not? You were their nanny, and it was your duty to care for them.

“You can’t take them outside of the island,” Kirsh’s voice comes from behind you as sudden and abrupt as ever. You dash round, jumping up and covering your notebook protectively behind your figure. Kirsh looks almost smug, to no surprise. His hands are folded behind his back, a glimmer of amusement playing in his synthetic eyes. “Excellent likeness of the children.” His talent for annoying you had, admittedly, taken a brief pause the day your leg had screamed mutiny. The day he’d been in your room. It unnerved you, everything about it, every glance, every flutter. You’d been avoiding him ever since. If his habits of annoying you were making their comeback, you welcomed them.

“I don’t remember giving you permission to look,” you reply. You’re helpless to the smile your lips are perking into. Quip back. Quip back, Tin Soldier. Quip back, and be normal.

“It was displayed,” Kirsh answers as he gestures to the notebook. “Your theme park idea. I’m sure they would enjoy it. But they are not to be taken outside of Neverland. And you seem to be forgetting, in the way human minds always do…They are not children. They’re multi-billion dollar machines, who-”

“Who have the ability to power several small cities, yeah, yeah!” you sigh in return. You snap your notebook shut hurriedly, before he gets another chance to peek at your words. Briefly, you wonder how long he’d been behind you. “I know that,” you answer back stubbornly. “It was just an idea.”

“’Just an idea’ that, had the wrong eyes caught sight of it, as I did, could have- no, would have, become something disastrous.”

You cross your arms. “Remember that conversation we had about fun?”

“Of course.”

“Well then. Maybe you should think about it some more, Tin Soldier.”

He gives you a brief, dismissive nod as he slides into the seat beside you on the bench. You shuffle, making room for him, and sweep your pens over to your side in a swift motion. “May I?” he asks. Kirsh gestures to your notebook.

“No.”

Kirsh takes the book before you can stop him.

“What-?” you find yourself huffing. “Fine. Just…keep to the page.”

Kirsh looks for half a second before he turns the page.

“Hey!” You attempt to snatch it back, but Kirsh is quicker, and he waves you away. Resigning into yet another quick defeat, you slump back down into your seat, and nestle your head into the crook of your elbow. “You barely looked at the pictures of the Lost Boys.”

“The image is stored. ‘Barely looking’ is all I require for information to be filed.” he points out.

“Right.”

Settled into your elbow, you quieten, listening to the children at play, and the gentle rustle of the pages of your notebook as Kirsh ‘observes’ your handiwork. You make no effort to stop him. Why should you? It’s not a bad view. “Hermit,” you bring up suddenly. “Does that mean anything to you?” Kirsh studies your face as the question hangs in the air, and you suddenly become conscious of yourself. For once, you make no effort to school your expression. “It was just something I remember from a dream. Some fragment I snatched, before it all melted away back into my mind. Just that word. Hermit.”

Kirsh watches. There he is again. Dissecting you. “Hermit is the birth name of Wendy. Marcy Hermit.” He shuts the book. Why wouldn’t he? It’s you he wants to observe.

“Right. I thought it sounded familiar. It’s pretty.”

He nods, still watching you. “Yes, it is.”

“Do you have no objection to calling them by these new names?”

“It’s what our leader wants.”

You bristle. And what about what they want? “What Kavalier wants…” the echo ripples out in front of you. “What else does he want? He’s keeping secrets from me, that’s as much as I know. He’s hiding something big and I still can’t see what it is, no matter how hard I try to peek past.”

“I know as much as you.”

“Uh, sure,” you feign agreement.

“Have you asked him?” Kirsh questions you.

“If he wanted to tell me, he would’ve already. He’s my best friend. I know when he’s hiding something…” your voice waves with unsurety. “He always tells me. Eventually.”

Kirsh nods. “I believe you.”

A soccer ball comes flying between you both, skimming close to your head. It lands somewhere behind you and rolls to a stop near one of the doors. Kirsh starts to get up from the bench. “If you want to know,” he repeats, as he leaves to grab the ball, “Ask him.”

—

then

Boy was learning that the girl liked to tell him everything. Everything. Even the secrets others bade her to keep silent in the locket of her heart.

The girl told him all about the handshakes the grown-ups would do when they thought she wasn’t looking. She told him all about the way her mommy and daddy would argue and cry, and how her uncles were looking after her more and more, now. She even told him when she did silly things, like curse in private, or the time she took the prop tiara home from when she was in a play.

Together, they would piece it all together. Every secret slotted into another. It was as satisfying as fixing every mistake in a length of code, he was learning. It was an elaborate puzzle exclusively for the whirring miracles of their prodigy brains. A jigsaw, just for them, to figure out the complexities the grown-ups liked to hide from them.

One day, Boy and the girl figured out the nature of their ‘fortunes’. Money, yes. Fame, yes. Influence, indefinitely so. Boy was sure each of these would only expand as they got older, and would grow as they would grow. At least one of those growths, he could get behind. The girl had other ideas, too. On the topic of fortune, she said, it’s never all material.

“You learn that much when you eat as many stories as I do,” she’d said. Boy laughed. He always found it funny when she said ‘eat’ instead of ‘consume’.

Fortunate, the girl detailed, was for both to be part of the same education district. Fortunate to be born within a few miles of each other, to have met so young. Fortunate was both to be realised on their differences from their peers very early on. Their fortune, they also were learning, could not extend to every corner of their lives.

Their fortune attracted others who had what they had, and who wanted more; money, fame, influence. Big important people with suits and cold smiles and white papers. Their very important papers were very important forms, and with them they wanted to combine all their fortunes together.

When the big important people came with very important forms asking for the children, the girl told Boy what she’d heard. These corporations wanted their genius minds.

“Will they make us special?” he asked the girl. But she didn’t know. If she did know, she’d have told him.

Boy's daddy did not accept the offers from the big important people. He did not sign any of the forms, and Boy knew why; he did not want him to special. The girl’s parents did not sign the very important forms either. Boy thought maybe it was the same, and they didn’t want her to be special either. But the girl told him they argued all night and told her the people behind the papers were evil and so they had to keep her away.

“But shh, okay?” The girl whispered urgently. “They said don't tell. They said never tell.”

Funny then that she told him. But Boy was learning that this was okay. He was allowed to know everything. He was supposed to know everything. And that was the way he liked it.

—

now

As expected, Kavalier beckons you for breakfast the following morning. The affair, as it so often tends to be, harbours an air of awakeness in one of you, and a tired half-silence from the other. You can barely pay attention to the chatter of your old friend, and instead settle for watching him swing his bare feet over the side of a cushioned chair as your mind continues to wonder over your predicament.

A few nods from you, a smattering of mumbled agreement, and he’s none-the-wiser to your far away mind. Kavalier is easy this way. Satisfied as long as he’s been guaranteed an audience. You’d always thought this was a childish feature of his, though now you’re not so sure. The real children, after all, have proved themselves discontented with wide eyed audiences and copious offerings of attention. Your mind wanders to your conversations with Kirsh.

Servers in chef-whites lay your usual breakfasting platters before you both. And as usual, it’s a copious offering for your small party of two. Teas and coffees, jugs of juices in all colours. There’s the cereals and milks, the patisserie spread, and five kinds of eggs, and ten kinds of fruits. Pancakes, waffles, cookies. Everything approved by a fleeting Kavalier desire, just for you both.

This morning, the servers place something new in front of you both.

“Pear crumble? For breakfast?” you raise an eyebrow as you stare down at the bowl. The smell of the sugared fruit sends your mind hurtling back to home. You push the unwelcome thought away. A yawn slips out as you settle, and you fight your mouth stretching as the wave of morning fatigue washes over you. “Seriously? That’s a dessert food and you know it.”

You watch Boy catch your yawn and stretch out what seems to be his entire body in a display of dramatics. He relaxes his body back down as he starts up on a grin. “Yeah? Who makes those rules?” Kavalier just laughs all cockily when you crease your face and cross your arms. “I see your leg isn’t bugging you, well done me.”

“Why Pear? You like apple.”

“But you don’t. Genius. I got them to make this. A taste of home to lift the spirits.” He raises his eyebrows all silly as he takes a heaping spoon and shoves it in his mouth. “For you.”

“If you think this is going to taste anywhere near as good as my uncles’, you’re wrong,”

“I’m never wrong, Miss Venus.”

You want to shrug the conversation off onto something mindless and stupid, like - ‘Oh! We should have a movie night. When are you free?’ because it’s been way too long since the two of you properly cut loose. But there’s that look in his eyes. Tricky, tricky eyes. Those murky blues with the swivel of the questions swirling behind them. Less begging you to ask and more sure that he’d be spouting the answer sometime soon enough. You know what this look entails. His eyes are not begging you to ask. They are waiting for you to.

He’s only lucky you’d already intended to do that very thing. “What is it now, Smart Boy?”

“What’s what?”

“What’s on your mind these days? Come on,” you try to sound light. “What are you hiding from me?”

He smiles big and you understand exactly why, with not even a pause of thought. You’ve taken the bait. The one you knew was right there. To Kavalier, after all these years, you’re low hanging fruit.

“Oh, my Silly Girl. What makes you think I’m hiding something? Huh?”

“It’s me. I know when you’re not telling me the full of it.”

“I want…music,” he tells you, testily. He takes another heaping spoon of crumble and shovels it into his mouth. You catch sight of the skin of the chunks in his bowl as he does. Off-red, not green. Which means two things. One, the chef here doesn’t follow even a remotely similar recipe to your uncle, who swore by peeling his crumble fruits. And two, Kavalier had apple in front of him. Not pear.

“Music?” you drop your spoon in your bowl with a clang. Already the softness of the crumble - which was still delicious, despite not measuring up to your uncle’s - is souring in your mouth. That look in his eye, the too-excited tone, the challenging gaze – it’s his tell. He’s lying.

“You. Teaching. Lost Boys,” he chops each word in quick succession of each other, “Music.”

You grit your teeth. “Get someone else.”

“Why…why would I do that when I’ve got just the girl? Prodigy. I want you to give a lesson to the Lost Boys. You know, the way you used to, with the tinies-”

“With the tinies at the university, yeah, yeah. I remember. But I don’t do that anymore.”

“Well, you do now. Just not with the tinies at a university. Here. With…my tinies. In Neverland,” he clarifies. Of course he does. Because Kavalier was never going to miss even a split chance of stating the obvious, in all its absolute.

It’s been years since you last played. Too long, and for all good reason. You swallow as you fight back the panic that comes with even the thought of picking up an instrument. “You’re still hiding something from me.”

“Am I?”

The frustration begins to bubble, and fast. “I didn’t come to this island to become a stranger in your life, Boy Kavalier.”

“Ooh. Full name, I’m spooked. You haven’t answered my music question. You know, I haven’t heard you play in-”

“Jupiter.” The word comes out desperate. Too desperate. “Tell me.”

Kavalier grins his grin. “Venus,” he says, casually leaning back as he accepts your plea. “There it is. I was beginning to think you’d lost your courage to say the word.”

The wardens aren’t happy when they’re given the order to watch the children, but there’s nothing to be said for that. Your one relief here is that none of them have the gall to speak out at you anymore. There’s still an underlying sense of guilt as they pass you in the hallway; this cannot be helped. That goes double with Kavalier bouncing away in front of you. He tells you not to worry about nannying tonight. But he needn’t have bothered with his assurance, or his command, whichever he’d intended it to be. You know the children are safe. You know leaving them brings you one step closer to the truth.

Kavalier ushers you into the hangar of one of his helicopters, grinning and twirling and dancing barefoot all the while. What are you planning, Peter Pan man?

The answer is no more apparent in the hangar than it is two and a half hours later, when the chopper makes its descent. He has made no more reference to your question, and you make no more effort to push him, cautious already, wary, even, that the peculiar nature of your friend makes him suspectable to spontaneity. The last thing you need is for him to change his mind now. Not when you’ve come so close to biting on an answer. And especially not if his plans are pertaining to the children, as you’re fearing it may be.

He takes you outside, leads you by the hand. Makes you close your eyes ‘for the thrill of the surprise’. There’s a scuffle as you’re shuffling along, wary in your blindness, fearing heading face first into an obstacle that never finds you. Boy Kavalier is eager yet gentle. He leads you blindly but never to danger. You can be sure at least of this, whatever he may be hiding.

You focus in on your other senses as you trudge on. Smooth pavement under the rubber soles of your shoes. Rocky at times, like the road cannot decide if it wants to be wild or civilised. All else you can feel is the wind, whipping smoothly against your skin, through your hair, and Kavalier’s hand, flush against yours. Both are unstopped by any other force. Then you hone in on the smell; asphalt and greenery, and sour smoke from fires still burning. Faintly, there is the smell of food. Familiar and fire cooked. Only when your nose registers this does your confidence begin to waver.

“Where have you taken me, Smart Boy?” you ask, wary all over.

Kavalier only laughs, and insists you trust him. “Don’t you open your eyes. Don’t you dare,” he’s saying. His hand pulls you on, and your feet obey the rhythm of the blind shuffle.

The only way to quell your burning desire to open is to focus on the only sense you have left. All around you, the world is rich with it. The whipping of the wind as it caresses you still. The crackling of the fire married to the sour of the smoke. And there, among it all, is the clue most ripe for your picking.

People. Laughing, chasing, cooking, talking, arguing, whispering. Whispering about you, as it happens to be. You, and the guards, and the barefooted friend who leads you. They wonder why you are there as much as you wonder where ‘there’ is. They whisper too, about the other men who are already here. Men who are guarding one of the homes, they say. Outside of that one.

At his command, you open your eyes already knowing exactly which home they’d referred to. The Dead Man’s Plot, they’d said. To them, it was a haunted empty spot, the site of a murder and the port for an angry ghost. To you, it was the place of other ghosts, the kinds of childhood fear, and of an aged acquaintance, and a life once lived.

“The original sin,” Kavalier speaks boldly at your side. He tips his head towards you with an obvious grin, splays his arms and spins like crazy. “We’re home.”

—

then

No more going to Boy’s house.

Boy’s father was dead. He had died within those walls.

More than that, Boy had made himself a synthetic, and that synthetic had killed him.

Boy told her everything; of course he did, Boy always told her everything, as she did him.

After he said it all, the girl spoke nothing more of it to him. To anyone really. None to any of her cousins, not her uncles, and certainly nobody else, and least so because there wasn’t anyone else to tell. For once, having only Boy to be her friend was a curse more than the bitter blessing she’d always known it to be.

She felt her loneliness, cooped up in her slanted little room, curled beneath the covers in the dark of the night. She felt the loneliness, the ache in her chest, as the tears found their way down her face. She felt it more than ever, that beast of lonely souls, as she stuffed her quilts into her mouth and choked back every sob.

Boy was her best friend. She could not betray his secret.

In her silence the death haunted her within, and came to play at justice within her darkest of dreams. Her silence, she felt, made her just as guilty as he, and just as guilty as the synthetic who’d done it all.

Out damned spot. The mad, mad words of Lady Macbeth were all the girl could think of sometimes. Hours of study had at one time been the source of her joy and so quickly in another time had come to disarm her sanity. Out damned spot. She felt she shared the blood of his hands, and no amount of worrying or tears would wash it all away. Even if Boy’s daddy was evil, he had been killed, and that was murder, wasn’t it? No one knew but the monster who’d done it, Boy, and herself. Did that make them evil, too? Out damned spot.

The first time Boy pretended the synthetic was his father, the girl cried herself sick.

Boy didn’t seem to worry nearly as much as she did. Once, she dared ask him how he could be so happy. He couldn’t answer, but to laugh, and other than to say he was happy to be rid of him. He said it was only fair.

Another line from the infernal play came to haunt her after his words. Fair is foul, and foul is fair. For the first time, the girl wondered if her friend was telling her the whole truth.

—

now

You’re surprised to find no dust has settled on the surfaces of the house. Everything is clean and neat, and just so, as if the recipients of the place have just left it five minutes prior. Every window is spotless, every cushion plumped. It strikes you that it looks better, even, than the days when Boy Kavalier had actually lived there. It smells clean, too, like floral freshness. Not like the haunting follow of smoke and drinks, as it did years ago.

As the guards wait outside, you and he journey through the house. You recall your past days in there, your laughter, your studies, your hours of attempting to coach Boy at his terrible music. There are more unpleasant memories too, and a faux scent of cigarettes among the flowery newness. The two of you reconvene in his room, or what had once been his room, and the site of most of your memories.

You take a seat on the bed, he slips his hands into his pockets and leans towards the window. He flashes you a grin and breaks your comfortable silence. “Speak. Talk to me. Say something good,” he says. “What curiosities are swirling around in that mind of yours?”

“Curiosities? A curiosity to understand why you brought me here, if we’re going to make a list.”

“History.”

“What?” You can’t help but quirk a brow.

“Oh, come on. You’re the one who loves history. I thought you’d appreciate this. One more time.”

“What, are you finally gonna sell your old home? Or are you planning make a bonfire of it?” You ask, as you watch his expression. He leans forward and pokes his head far out the window, curls drooping down as he waves madly at the kids outside. “Oh…are you gonna buy this place? You’re gonna buy the whole area, aren’t you?” Kavalier just leans back on his elbows, all amused. Why would you buy an area? What are you planning? The same questions, entangled with the new ones, battle in frustrated waves at the forefront of your mind. “Are you…going to make another research facility…here?”

“You sound opposed. And you loved Neverland so much,” Kavalier pouts all unserious. “Shame.”

“So…you are?” you explode. Your frustration forces you to your feet. “People live here. You can’t just-”

“Uh, uh…I can do what I like, remember? If I can dream it…”

You shake your head, your mouth all agape. “You’re not…you can’t…” you trail. “Don’t you have enough money?”

“Oh, it’s not about money. It’s never about money, you know that, I’ve got money. Power, fame, influence and all the rest of it. We’ve had this conversation many times, blah blah,” he stops to give an exaggeratedly fake yawn. “Yawn, yawn. Blah blah. It’s getting boring, Venus girl. I thought I told you to say something good. I did, didn’t I?”

You furrow your brow at his brazen words. Staring him down, you cross your arms. “You can’t tear down a town on some stupid whim.”

Kavalier fake yawns again. You’ve half a mind to pull his hair the next time he does that, seeing as he’s insisting on childishness. “Bring the reign in on those horses, Silly Girl. Did you even notice I agreed to none of those questions? Hm? ‘Cause I didn’t. You’re just assuming things.” And then, like he’d heard those thoughts of yours, Kavalier leans forward and sharply tugs on the ends of your hair. “But you know, that’s not such a bad idea, to tear it all down. See, this is why I like talking to you. You’re smart. You think of these things.”

Swatting him away, you frown. “You wouldn’t really, would you?”

Kavalier shrugs. “Why shouldn’t I? This place never did me any good. The people here are the same as they always were. Human trash.”

“How can you…even say that? You were once here. You’d never say that about yourself.”

“My dad was human trash. I built my way out of it. I built myself a kingdom and crowned myself king. You don’t see anyone here doing that. You never saw him doing it.”

Though your instinct is to disagree, you bite back your tongue. You know he’s hurt as he says the words. You understand why he thinks this way. After all, while you see the world through rose tinted shades, Kavalier sees it all black and white. Everything, to him, is either an opportunity or a let down. It’s as binary as the zeroes and ones in all his codes, and not the gentle array of complicated stories, and colours, and philosophies you’re inclined to.

Your friend pouts now, and his eyes glint with a tearful anger. Simply being here has gotten him all worked up. You try to remind yourself why; this was a prison for him. One of the let downs. “I’m not going to do it. I’ve already got Neverland, and the city,” he looks at you properly. “I wouldn’t, alright?”

“Okay. I’m sorry,” you attempt to broker the peace. Maybe he’ll calm down. “I’m sorry I assumed, okay?” He nods, clearly feeling the apology was obligated. Then, seeing as he did pull your hair, you pull his, and you end up in one of your old finger-rib-jabbing battles from your days of old. You put up a good fight, but in the end, you let him have the last jab. You always do.

“You were right, you know. About the other plans. I’ve been working on something.” Here we go. You take a deep breath as you watch him circle the room, then take another as he seats himself beside you again. He plays around with the dust, looks all disgusted, then schools his expression once he’s settled it back on you. “Things are about to change. Soon, the old Earth will be dead, and a new one will be born.”

You must look confused, and rightly so, because he laughs. He laughs, then takes your hands, and makes you spin all about the room with him. He laughs and spins until you can’t help but laugh and spin, too. “You’re crazy,” is all you can get out.

“Watch, tonight, your little stars will shine brighter than the stars up high. Everything will be better than our wildest dreams, you’ll see.”

“You’re crazy.”

“This was an old time. Before the change of the world. I want to remember that, one last time.”

Kavalier is talking crazy, in a pastime of riddles you can turn like stones in your head for days on end and never puzzle out. As always, the riddles are a comfort. His boyish grin, a heart of home more than these four walls or any tree once scaled. However different the world may be or may turn, you know what he’s saying - we never will. Not this bond. Not this safety of presence born over hot coals of childhood wonder. As long as we live, his long ago promise of forever will stand tall. Un-weathered. The world, different. But not the two of you. Never you.

“One last time,” you echo.

“Your place isn’t far from here,” he tells you, watching. He knows you know that. Of course you do. You’d spent so much of your childhoods making the journey, flittering between the area, neither of you ever getting enough of each other. “I mean your uncles’ place. Not your parents’.”

You don’t answer this, either. You can only avoid his eyes, and wonder from what vein of though this prompt has appeared from. Nostalgia? Or is he testing your bounds? As if either of those two ghost-frames of a once-home is anywhere you want to be. The smouldering mess of everything you’ve spent the past few years desperately trying to drown out. First the mentions of the music, then bringing you here, and now mentioning your uncles’ home. You gather it must be harmless nostalgia, after all. He must be as caught up in the old days as you are. The web of entanglement, it seems, has its sticky hold on the both of you.

“We really can go so far and never truly get away, can we?” you whisper.

Sighing, he shakes his head. You haven’t seen him this pacified in a long while. Thinking so deeply. You almost missed this. “Where we’re from is where we’ll always really be,” he turns to you now, serious as never. And then his look changes, and he takes your hand, and his eyes are mad all over again. “It’s Yutani, Reader. I’ve been in contact with one of her ships. The USCSS Maginot, and oh, honey, it’s a floating vessel of the purest gold. The rarest diamonds from outer space. It’s carrying all the secrets of the world. Aliens, Venus Girl. They’ve got fucking aliens. Soon my plans will be in motion, and soon it’ll crash land in New Saigon, and soon…” he steps back, holds his arms out. “Our kingdom will know no bounds.”

For a moment, it’s as if you’re the tiny you again, and standing in front of you is the tiny him. The Arts Prodigy and the Academic. For a moment, nothing has changed. His father is in the kitchen. Your parents are at home. And in this room, it’s just the two of you, and the crazy powerful dreams of the tiny small-town children.

After months of Neverland, it’s safe to say some of the stranger occasions of awakening on this island has been at the behest of a walking bundle of annoyance-warped joy – that, of course, being your best friend, Boy Kavalier. You’ve grown accustomed to his twice a week knocking, to being dragged to breakfast or down the hall for some new and ‘exciting’ plaything of his, still sleep-strewn and dream dazed, barefoot as he and still in your nightclothes. The knock itself is so far embedded into your subconscious that when you hear it you’re already used to swinging your legs out of bed in tired submittance to whatever ruse he’s worked himself up to.

It’s therefore a surprise to you when the knock outside your door this morning is not the usual crazed array of raps. Instead, the knocking is three times soft, and in the pause of your dazed confusion, come two more, sharper, although tentative seeming. You don’t know who this is, but it’s definitely not Kavalier.

You’re just pulling a sweatshirt over your night vest when you hear something else outside the door. Stopping silent and ducking your head nearer to the door, you listen to the murmurs.

“How is she still asleep, bro? We knocked like…ten times.”

Almost giggling, you melt back into a relaxed state. This voice belongs to Slightly.

“Shh,” Wendy speaks now, “you’re being noisy. I think we should knock again.”

“No, no, wait! Isn’t that…rude?” asks Smee. There’s a pause. And then someone knocks three times fast again. “What!? Nibs?!” Smee exclaims now, voice going high.

Stifling yet another giggle, you go ahead and pull your door open. Standing there in the hallway, you’re greeted by the eager, though a little quarrelled, six faces of your ducklings. All your Lost Boys assembled in front of you at – you check the time on your wristwatch quickly – six-thirty in the morning. Each of them blinks at you for a moment. “This isn’t how we rehearsed it,” Tootles whispers too loudly into Curly’s ear. “Now what?”

“Morning,” you yawn as you rub your eyes. “Did something happen?” You ask the question even though all signs point to ‘no’, especially from their sheepish helpless smiles and the panic on Tootles’ face. You’re hoping it’ll nudge them on enough to tell you what’s what without being too obvious and offending their intelligence. It’s a precarious age for making mistakes like this, and you’re never too careful.

Wendy, in the front, elbows Tootles in the ribs and then smiles wide at you. “Morning! We have a surprise for you,” she announces abruptly, and somewhat proudly, too.

You let a loud gasp escape your mouth. “A surprise?” The children nod. “For me?”

Nibs also nods, although vigorously, from where she stands behind Wendy. “Well yeah, nobody else hurt their-” Curly claps her hand to Nibs’ mouth before she can finish the sentence.

You suspect the rest of her statement would have been ‘knee’ or ‘leg’, both of which makes you begin to theorise just what it is they’re all nervously excited over. The unassembled silhouettes of what exactly they’ve been planning up for you begins to play around in your mind, and an excited flutter ripples through your chest. Pretending for all the world as if you still have no idea, you allow Slightly and Smee to pull you along, and, as has become the usual pattern, you’re all following along behind Wendy. From the corner of your eye, you watch Curly and Tootles tag-team keeping Nibs close and pausing her before she can get another word out in between the chatter of the boys.

Though you’re embarrassed to be in your night clothes in the middle of the building, when the ducklings should really be in bed and you getting ready, you’re grateful at least that the early hour affords you some privacy. People will be just getting up for the day in their own rooms and apartments. You’re hoping they’ll stay that way until you get back to your rooms to get yourself ready for the day. It’s probably a long shot.

Your ducklings lead you to the door of the central room. You can’t help but note each of their rising levels of excitement as you’d gotten closer. As always, they’re totally, helplessly, unintentionally, and one hundred percent adorable. You consider knocking off some of that percentage of for how tired you feel at being dragged out of bed - twenty-five minutes prior to your alarm - but another glance at Smee convinces you entirely otherwise. How can you not find them wholly adorable?

Inside the central room, they cover your eyes and you bump along in the half-dark, relying only on their overlapping directions and the slanting fingers of Tootles to get by. Thankfully he’s not covered your vision totally, because you’re sure you would’ve tripped over Nibs’ feet if you hadn’t had some sense of where you were heading. From between his fingers you catch glances at the table, cracks of colours and hauntings of shapes you don’t quite have the time or context to piece together.

There’s some more shuffling, more urgent whispering, a fitful ten seconds of a short disagreement before a voice of reason steps in and enforces order in the chaos. You can’t even be surprised this time. Of course Kirsh is here. Of course Kirsh is here. He says the words, and Tootles moves his fingers at last, jumping to join the others.

In front of you the six smiling Lost Boys have arranged themselves around the curling couch, behind which you can see Kirsh standing with his hands on his hips. On the table in the middle is an arrangement of varyingly colourful items; two glass trays with an array of breakfast foods clumsily organised on plates, several multicoloured envelopes, and a giant sugar paper card you can tell is dangerously close to tipping over with the weight of the glitter piled atop of it. The words ‘Get Well Soon’ are written in thick sparkling letters across the front of the paper. You can immediately recognise this to be Tootles’ careful print.

“Get well soon!” Wendy says, hopping up beside you. Again, your hand is taken and you’re led to sit on the couch.

“Aw you guys did all this for me? Wow, this is all so, so, so, cool,” you begin gushing, taking note again of their excited expressions. “How did you all keep this a secret?”

“We struggled,” Curly admits, eyeing up Nibs, and Slightly, too. “But were you surprised? Do you like it?”

You take your time assuring each of them you hadn’t an inkling of what they were up to, which is true enough save for the last five to ten minutes. Their ‘get well’ card is as endearing inside as it is out; wobbly handwriting of all shades encircle the stuck-on details. Each of them have drawn themselves, wonky self-portraits outlined in their favourite colours. Wendy points to you and Kirsh in the middle, both marginally larger than the children as you smile too-big smiles. You find this interesting, considering they’re all the size of adults now, and some are taller than you and Kirsh, at that. Somewhere in the back of your mind you mentally note to speak to someone about what this means, later. Wendy tells you proudly she’s the one who drew you two, and you applaud her careful creativity, then turn to the others and praise them on their own drawings too.

Before you get a chance to properly read through their individual messages, the sugar paper is plucked from your hands and replaced with the envelopes. Each of them contains yet more of the children’s handmade particulars. Little tickets the size of your palm, old-world looking, reminding you instantly of the thin curved slips used for admittance to all your childhood shows. Forcing back the biting nostalgia, you blink down at them. These tickets are every colour of the rainbow - or rather every colour of the Lost Boys’ crayon tin - crammed into one, an explosion of hues almost shrouding the words they contain. You squint, trying your best to make out exactly what each one reads. Thankfully, Nibs pops up beside you and tells you the one you’re holding is a promise for another hike. As you sift through them, you find more of these little promises; a movie night, a board game afternoon, a day at the beach. There’s even some that just say ‘hug’ on them, which is funny, because you’d been getting plenty of those so far without the need for payment in paper slips. Almost laughing, you cash one of them in immediately and pull them all close to you for a group hug.

“My leg is much better already,” you smile, giving Curly a little nudge. “You guys are the sweetest bunch.”

They serve you up with the breakfast foods, suspect to have been stolen from the kitchens. Most of it seems ready made, but the eggs and the pancakes, you realise, are respectively slimy and gooey, tell tales signs they’re underdone. You opt to taking a bite out of a croissant instead, and distract them by telling them you’ll cash in your movie night ticket today, too. Leaving them chirping back and forth to each other about what movie to watch, you head around the couch, approaching the only other adult in the room.

Kirsh gives you a brief nod as you walk closer and you let up with a helpless smile, too far gone on the children’s sweetness. “I’ve been researching cooking modules to upload for them,” he announces, foregoing greeting, “It was an oversight not to think of it earlier. I see now they need it.”

“Yeah, there’s no way I eat that meal and continue to be healthy this week,” you laugh lightly. “But they tried, and that’s enough for me. Did you help them with this?”

“Of course,” he replies, rather blandly. “Except with the food. They insisted on doing that themselves. Looking at the results, I really can’t think why.”

After another bite of your croissant, you pull your eyes away from the ducklings, and settle them on Kirsh. “Do you know which one of them thought this up? Not that it matters,” you add hastily, “Just that I’m curious.”

“Dame Sylvia and Arthur suggested it to them,” he tells you, “Though which of the two thought of it, I’m not aware.” You feel washed over by gratitude, and make another mental note to thank them later. “They had the window of your outing to plan and prepare. And hours too early this morning.”

“They had you up, too,” you smirk. “Not that it matters much for you, of course. Unless you didn’t…charge enough. Or something.” He gives you a look of fresh amusement as you stumble over your words, though doesn’t offer a correction, simply lets you draw out your confusion until you shake your head in defeat and go back to your croissant for a moment. “The cooking module is not a bad idea. Though maybe we could teach them physically, rather than with an upload.”

“What would be the point? An upload will be much faster. Far more efficient.”

“But they’re kids. Learning and experience are two different things. They’re not machines,” you reply, the sharp brunt of annoyance becoming obvious in your tone. “Not entirely. They should know these things at some point.”

“That is, if they will continue to live alongside humans.”

You hesitate. Something about the way he says this nags at you. As if he’s suggesting they’ll evade humanity entirely. Leave you all behind in favour of synthetics like him. Maybe other hybrids, if Kavalier’s product is as successful it doubtless will be, and are popularised by that time. Any trace of earlier smiles melts off of your face, even when you watch the children. “And is this what you expect they will do?”

“They will do what matters.”

“And what’s that?”

Kirsh turns to you, folding his hands in front of him. “Whatever they want it to be.”

This, at least, you can agree on.

⭑ ✦ ⏾ ✧⭑

Two hours later, the children have yet to make their decision.

By now changed into your clothes and freshened up for the day, it’s all you can do to throw a few quickly shot down suggestions into the ring. So far, they’ve managed to whittle their ideas down to roughly one each. Wendy suggests the next instalment of Ice Age since they’d watched the first one last week. Nibs is the only one who agrees, eventually and after a while of Wendy’s convincing, because she says she enjoyed the first one. No one else proves as susceptible to her arguments. Curly has stubbornly asked for Annie from the beginning and won’t budge. Slightly suggests Jurassic Park, which, after a very quick pitch to Smee, he has gotten him to agree to - despite it being ‘such an ancient old old movie, dude’. You find this funny since Smee’s original pick had been E.T., and if your trivial knowledge of early cinema is correct this movie is actually the marginally more recent one of the two. Tootles brings up the rear by telling you how much he loves watching Meet the Robinsons and how he’s sure the others will enjoy it if you make them watch it. You’d had to properly stand back after this; during the first half an hour they had all started to ask you for your sway, so you’d had to take a vow of impartiality and promised not to take sides.

The easiest way to do this, it proved, was to sit back and let them come a decision on their own. This of course comes back to bite you in your behind when you have to watch them all stubbornly circle back on the same arguments for over two hours straight.

Soon, it has been so long that Kirsh has gone to attend other duties and returned. You’re not pleased by how he’s looking all too amused to find you lounging, bored, watching the Lost Boys chatter. They ask him for his input, at which point he advises them the best use of their time is to be learning. More clamouring finally gets him to pick a movie. You perk your head up, intrigued as to what his answer will be.

“A good science documentary,” he tells them. You break out into a not-very-well disguised snort when you see the utter mortification on five of six of their faces. “Preferably from the 21st Century, to allow us to discuss how far humanity has come from such a fundamental time.”

“Alright, Kirsh, thank you,” you laugh, letting the Lost Boys see your distain for his idea. “And even though none of you asked me for my choice of movie, I’ll give it to you anyway.” The moment the words have left your mouth, all six of their faces light up now as they wait, clearly each expecting, or at least hoping, that you’re about to name their choices. “My choice is a surprise,” you say, anticlimactically, save for the groans the children let out in immediate response.

“That’s not fair!” Curly moans. “You have to pick.”

“Hey! You didn’t let me finish. I’ve got a better idea. We’re going to play a game, and whoever wins gets their movie. So if I win you get my surprise movie. And if you win, you get your movie. Sound good?”

“You have my attention,” Slightly nods at you seriously.

Nibs quickly agrees. “Yeah. Keep talking.”

The game of hide and seek was as easily begun as the rules were to explain. For the most part it follows the same principle as the usual game. People who had the same movie choice could hide together, everyone else had to split. Last to be found would have their choice of film for tonight. Running and re-hiding is allowed as long as you’re not tapped. The hiding spaces are reserved to the main building you’re all in and not outside of it; though this is in itself a vast area for the seeker to cover. Considering the amount of time you’ve got to kill with them today and the obvious fact that they can’t get tired, you’re not too worried about this.

It’s decided pretty quickly that Wendy will be seeking the rest of you. Especially when Curly and the others helpfully point out she’s already had her turn to choose when she made them all watch Ice Age last week. Luckily enough for you, as you are by now done with arguments for the day, Wendy is excited by this prospect and accepts her role quickly - though you’re sure Nibs being her retainer for Ice Age two has something to do with this. Kirsh warns them against cheating and how he can check on this at any point if he likes. The children, already, are excited. Then Wendy is counting, and then everyone is off.

Your first instinct is to hide down in the basement floors. A creeping desire overcomes you, pleading at the back of your head for you to go behind a password protected door you know they don’t have access to. Just for twenty minutes, you reason. Just for some quiet. After all, you deserve some peace and quiet following the two-hour arguments. You bite your lip, half-seriously deliberating as you descend to the lowest floors. As you lean to press a button for the sliding double doors of the hallway, you catch a glimmer on your hand in the fluorescent lights.

It’s pink glitter, from your card. With a heavy sigh and another helpless smile, you turn a corner and slip into a maintenance room.

You crouch behind the pipes and lean against a heated wall. Breathing deep, you close your eyes, listening only to the sound of your own breath, your fast beating heart, and the whispering of the pipes. Fresh oxygen encircles your lungs in tandem with the blanket of warmth as it hugs your skin. For the first time today, your mind clears. Another deep breath. In the inviting tranquil of this room, you just might fall asleep. It must have been less than two minutes before your peace is broken as you hear someone clearing their throat in front of you.

Not someone.

Kirsh.

Your eyes snap open, confirming in one blink the mess of white hair and the misplaced, entertained smile. “How do you…always appear like that? It’s creepy. Were you watching me on the cameras?”

Kirsh cocks his head. “That would be cheating. What kind of example would that set, for the children?”

“Then-”

“Your ‘surprise’ to them is a cop out,” he interrupts you. “You don’t have anything chosen, do you?”

“Of course I do,” you answer defensively, bristling without meaning to. He gives you a disbelieving look. “It’s Big Hero Six,” you inform him. Perturbed. “Happy? You spoiled the surprise. The kids would so love that movie. They seem to be into all the old stuff, don’t you think?”

“Maybe you’re right. Doesn’t make it any less substantial a choice. A good documentary would-”

“Enough. Only Tootles wants a documentary about science. Watch it with him if you’re so inclined,” you say, only really half joking, because you know that Tootles would definitely go for that if offered. “And how did you find me, anyway? If you really weren’t cheating.”

“As the only animal in the game, it’s not hard. It’s almost unfair, because you can’t hide. Not when I can smell you.”

Trying your hardest to ignore his once again remark of your distinctly un-synthetic nature, you shoot him a confused look. “You can smell things?”

“My model is designed for researching biological organisms. Not having olfactory senses would incur incomplete data, wouldn’t you think?”

You cross your arms, quick in your resignation of you own decision to ignore the remark. “Huh. Okay, so you’re not kidding. You really smelt me?”

“Naturally.”

It crosses your mind just how distinctly ironic of a word Kirsh has just chosen to use. Naturally. As if any part of his behaviour can be defined by that word. As if any part of a synthetic can ever be defined in the same category as ‘natural’. Manufactured and designed under careful consideration. A cost of thousands. His sense of smell was not natural in any sense other than imitation. You watch his nose quiver, considering that, maybe, imitation could just be enough. “Alright. And what do I smell like, Tin Soldier?”

Kirsh steps forward, closing the gap between you but for a sliver of space. The stone wall is still warm against your back, though it’s pressing on your spine and the jut of your shoulder blades. Standing there, you know he can read the surprise on your face. When could he not? He stares a moment longer before picking your arm up, specifically and firmly by the wrist, his hand encircling you with insurmountable ease. You know he’s strong enough that if you tried to struggle in his grasp, which you decisively do not, you would have found it virtually impossible to break free. It’s with the same thought you conclude if you did try Kirsh would have let you go without hesitation.

You can scarcely breathe as he brings your wrist up to his nose, adjusting his grip to the same gentlemanly hold he’d shown when he’d fixed your knee. Just like last time, you’re caught off guard, and again, you can’t help but wonder just where he has learnt this. You watch as he closes his eyes, as his nostrils flare ever so slightly, as his head tilts the tiniest amount and incredibly, painfully slow. “At first, vanilla,” he tells you, voice ever low. He smells again, and this time you feel the cool tip of his nose and the barest outline of his lips delicately, momentarily brush your skin. A gasp very nearly spills out of your mouth, stoppered only by the wave of a melting sensation washing through you. “Then, soft powder, naturally sweet, almost floral. But those are all surface smells. Under it all you smell like…the sea.”

“That’s a lot for so little,” your voice slips out a whisper, half caught in your throat.

“It’s representative. I did warn you. My olfactory senses are far heightened, compared to a human.” As he speaks, he lets your hand go and you let it slink back to your side. “Than any animal’s, really.”

“If you can smell so much better than me…and smell me from so far off, then why’d you need to pick my hand up to tell me what my scent is?”

“Detail. I can smell you. But the details lie in your skin. And now I know your exact scent-print, and can always recognise it.”

You hold out your hand in the small space between the two of you. “My turn,” you say. Just like with your back-and-forth questions agreement, you’re demanding reciprocity. And because it’s him, you know you don’t need to explain. Just as you predict he holds out his hand readily to you. He understands.

“Thank you,” you nod as you take his hand. Pressing your thumb to his palm, you turn his hand over gently and bring it to your nose. You can feel him watching you, letting you. The aroma of him enters your nose, for the slightest split of a second, dizzying. You’re not like Kirsh, a machine with the exact description immediately and readily on the tongue. Words evading your mind, you take another inhale. Another dizzied blink of a moment. “It’s…cleaning products, mostly. Like…lab soap,” you admit. “But there’s a warmth. I smell salt on you, too.”

“The by-product of a life on an island,” Kirsh retracts his hand. “For both of us.”

Kirsh doesn’t come out and say it, but you figure he’s joining you in hiding now since he tells you the space you’re currently in is not by any means the most practical. He takes you instead to a middling floor - children are most likely to go to the top and bottom first and middle last, he says - and leads you in the direction of a storage room you’d never paid much attention to.

Considering the amount of surety and effort he had put into this hiding spot, you’re both equally as surprised to find Curly already sitting in there, eyes wide on the floor and looking far too bored. For a while she seems happy to see you both and a quiet conversation lights up between her and Kirsh about the latest lab insights. For a while, you allow yourself to zone out.

“Who is your favourite?” Curly pipes up suddenly, bringing you right back down to reality. Her gaze is settled on your face now, not his. Your eyes flicker between Curly and Kirsh. Your surprise, borne of her sudden question, dies down the moment you register the amused wait on Kirsh’s. As much as you’re about to tiptoe around her feelings, he will not do so with yours.

“Um…” you trail. Your hesitation seems to be funny to Kirsh all the more. “I don’t have a favourite.” You can only hope you’d finished that thought quick enough as not to plant doubt in her mind.

Immediately you can tell is has, as Curly doesn’t seem pleased by this answer. “Come on. Everyone has a favourite. I won’t tell.”

“I don’t have one. I love you all, Curly, you know that.”

She crosses her arms and turns away, eyes trailing over the various cleaning solutions lined up on the shelves. You note her attentions do not fall on Kirsh, and wonder if this is because she knows the answer or because she doesn’t care for it. Considering how much Tootles seems to like to shadow Kirsh, you resign your conclusion to the former.

“Everyone has a favourite,” she insists. “The Boy Genius’ favourite is Wendy.”

Oh shit. Now you realise where this coming from. “I’m sure he doesn’t-”

“No. Everyone knows it’s Wendy, Reader. So who’s yours?”

“Okay, fine,” you turn her gently to face you, deciding you want her full attention now. You want her to look you in the face. To trust you head on. “Wendy seems to be his favourite. But he’s also very, very, very silly,” you say. Her eyes dart between you and Kirsh nervously, a small helpless smile fighting at her lips. Good. She finds it funny. “He doesn’t always make correct choices. It’s silly to have favourites. Right, Kirsh?”

Kirsh, who has remained thus far silent, raises his bleached brows in response. He clearly hadn’t anticipated you roping him into your predicament. You raise your eyebrows in turn, daring him to agree. “He’s a genius, yes. It depends. Are geniuses always correct?”

“Okay, never mind,” you roll your eyes and turn back to Curly. “Clearly, they’re not.” Curly smiles small again at your jesting. “Listen to me. I really do love you all the same. I love when you all hug me and when you all do nice things for me, like today. I love you even when you’re driving me up the wall with silly movie arguments, and when you wake me up at six am. And I love you all the same.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. It really doesn’t matter if Kavalier likes her the most,” you wave you hand dismissively, “Because even at his best of loving you I’ll love you more. Think of it as less a competition between the six of you and more a competition between who loves you more of me and him.”

“But he designed us. He…made us.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m here with you. So obviously, I love you more.” As you speak, you allow your tone to go all funny and joke-like. You’re not looking to create a real conflict here, but to assure her his very incredibly stupid choice of singling out Wendy does not pertain to you. Later, you decide, you’ll have to have a serious word with him about this. Earlier, you’d assumed his attentions on her had been purely down to her being the first and most well-known to him. Now, when you can see it affecting even one of the others, you recognise the poisonous threaten this quirk of his contains.

“Okay.” Her answer is plain but her face assures you she’s taken in your words.

“All good?”

“All good,” Curly echoes. “I think I’m going to go find Tootles. I like the sound of his movie, actually.”

Curly gives you a curt nod, then tosses another one over to Kirsh before she cracks open the door. After a brief pause to violently toss her head in either direction of the corridor, she concludes she’s in the clear and slips away, letting the door close with a soft click. In the wake of her absence, you turn over to Kirsh and cross your arms. Again, you raise your eyebrows and give him a pointed look.

“So helpful, thank you, Kirsh.”

He shrugs, a slight of a smirk perking up the corners of his lips. “Just doing my part.”

“Yeah, okay,” you scowl in response. “Or not, because-”

“I thought you handled it well on your own. You didn’t need my input.”

Narrowing your eyes at him, you scan his face again. Then you shake your head in disbelief. He’d not given his input because he’d wanted to see how you would handle it. He wanted to watch it play out. To observe you. Passive only to take exact notes of your behaviour when confronted with an uncomfortable question. “Do you always have to be so…” you shake your head once more, searching for right word to describe his contrary observations. “So...”

“Yes,” he nods. And then: “So…what?”

You don’t feel like finishing your question now that he seems to be daring you to answer. You can see it in his eyes, what he really means to say. Your question. “Clinical,” you at last find a word. “Observational. Secretive. Annoying.” As the rest of the words tumble out of your mouth in an unstoppable stream, you give him the same look as he had just given to you. My question. “Are you really so unfeeling?”

“I’m a machine,” he answers you with the vaguest of possible intel. “Would you prefer our interactions were more humane?”

“You are humane. Humane and unfeeling are not mutually exclusive terms. One can exist without the other.”

“Your question,” prompts Kirsh. His eyes lock on yours for another slip of a moment. And then they’re not. They’re trailing down your face. They’re almost sensational, as if he is tracing your skin with his fingers and not pure gaze.

“My question.” His eyes flit back to yours. Your eyes flick down his face. Flick back up. “What are you feeling right now?”

“That,” he begins, “Was my question.”

Before you have a chance to spring back another question or retort you’re interrupted by the sound of screaming outside the door. It starts far off but very rapidly approaches the room you’re both in. Kirsh exchanges a look, confusion rapidly brewing between the two of you as you both spring into action.

The ducklings zoom past you down the hall; Slightly even tries to hide behind Kirsh for a brief few seconds before panic screaming and dashing right back down. Wendy is hot on their heels, but it seems like they’re looping around the same two floors as they keep going past you with mad waves and coming right back down. They keep using the elevators to get down and then run back up the stairs, only to get back into the elevator, which seems like it’s going to backfire on them soon enough, but you’re too happy they’re having fun again to intervene. At some point Smee runs up, jabbing you in the arm rather politely and yelling ‘tag’. He kindly lets you know that they’ve decided to go with your secret choice so that they can play tag again like back in the woods. All too soon, the elevator rings, bringing the other children back up to the floor, their eyes wide when they realise you’re ‘it’.

You’ve barely put one foot forward before they’re all racing off down the stairs. “Great,” you throw over your shoulder to Kirsh. “How the hell do I beat a bunch of hybrid kids at tag?”

As it would turn out, with great difficulty, and a once-more inflamed knee. It hadn’t been impossible to tag back even machine-bodied children. Being children still, you figured you could trip them up on careless mistakes. Later, when they’re all watching your choice of ‘Big Hero 6’ in a projector room, you and Kirsh discuss how, next time, their game of tag could be turned into a learning curve. It will have to be done subtly, of course, but for now it seems a good way to bridge the gap between his desire to have them be productive with their time and your desire for them to have fun. You both settle on it being a good method of sharpening their personal safety skills if nothing else.

Trying your best not to wince, you walk with him to join the children on the couch. It’s enjoyable for you to see just how much they’re enjoying the movie, and you settle into watching them for a while.

“Would you prefer I treated your leg in the clinic room, or in your own?” Kirsh’s voice comes suddenly in your ear, and so low it takes you a moment to register what he’s saying. You chastise yourself for even daring to hope he’d not have noticed your pain. But even if he does notice everything, it doesn’t mean you have to let him have his way.

You shake your head as small as you can, wary of catching the children’s attention. They all seem to be glued to the screen, laughing at some cartoon spoof, so you go ahead and look at him properly. “I don’t need your help. I’m fine.”

“Yes, I can see that. Partly in your hobble, partly from your frown,” he answers sarcastically. “The question, to be clear, will expire shortly.”

“I don’t need your help, Kirsh. I’ll rest. I’ll be fine.”

“Because that worked out so well for you the last time, didn’t it?” Kirsh’s eyes fall onto your knee as he speaks, clearly emphasising just how high his disapproval for your excuses are. You can tell he’s not going to let up. Especially when your medical wellbeing has been put in his two hands. His objective. “Your leg is like a chipped cup, and I’m the only one with both the glue and the willpower to keep putting it back together.”

The analogy is an eyebrow raiser, though the expression on his face remains entirely unchanged. He’s serious and he’s not budging. You’re beginning to realise that not answering is just going to cause you far more headache than you care to deal with. “Fine,” you eventually give in with a tired sigh. “The clinic room, then.”

Kirsh lets your answer hang a moment, blinking, before he smiles at you. “It’s really a shame your time on that decision expired.”

By the time the movie is over, all six of the Lost Boys are buzzing again. It seems your choice of film for them has been a hit success. Kirsh walks away to see to some errands, leaving you to watch them alone for the remainder of the evening. Before he departs, he reminds you again he’ll see you shortly. You only give him a bitter look before he leaves, turning your focus instead on the Lost Boys. Secretly pleased at their chatter, you watch them all settle on ‘who’s who’ of the main characters, since there were six of them, and six of the children. The discussion is long and treated with the utmost seriousness. You’re just glad they all enjoyed it enough to talk to each other about it long after it’s off, and happier still that this discussion has stayed amicable and civil in comparison to this morning.

Kirsh is waiting for you outside your door when you’ve arrived from putting the children to bed. “How long?” you ask, sighing as you swipe your card. The door gives a low beep as it unlocks.

“Not long,” he replies. “How’s the pain?”

It takes you a gathered moment before you allow yourself to answer. “Six out of ten. Six and a half. Are you gonna stand out in the hall forever?”

Once inside you busy yourself pulling you curtains closed, snapping on the light, and self-consciously pushing away various bits of clutter to toss in your closet for later. Even if it’s just Kirsh, you’re mortified at the idea of one of his stupid observations to be that you’re any level of messy slob. When you turn to catch a gage of his expression though, expecting it to be once more amused, you realise what he’s really paying attention to. It isn’t the mess at all. It isn’t your nightclothes in a messy heap, or the duvet on the floor from earlier, or the litter of makeup by your mirror.

Kirsh is looking at the wall. More specifically, he’s looking at your painting on the wall adjacent to your bed. In the day time it would be in perfect lighting from your window. Right now, in the soft glow of your low lamp, the shadows dance as you move, rippling on the painted images ominously. “You didn’t mention you still painted. Why?”

“It wasn’t relevant. Do you like it?”

“It’s quite good. What does it represent?”

“It’s a mural. I don’t like the rooms here, even if Kavalier gave me one of the better ones. They’re so grey and…. institutionalised, these block rooms. It’s so easy to tell they were quickly sprung up in a rush, and not designed with thought and care. All about efficiency. I thought if I painted it up I wouldn’t feel so grey, too. Maybe I’d be happier if there was something to look at, you know?”

What you’re telling him is not a lie. It’s also not the full truth. The mural is, in reality, supposed to represent your life here. All the days since arriving on the island converging in your mind, a port in the storm of your recent chaos. There’s Kavalier. And you. And the kids. And, yes, even, for some reason you couldn’t seem to justify to yourself, Kirsh. You wonder now what Kirsh sees when he looks at your painting. There are no faces on this mural. You can’t see your faces because you’re staring in the sky; the mural is the sky. When you look at it, it’s like you’re staring up at pieces of the galaxy. An incomplete galaxy cherry picked to your mind’s desires. Venus. Jupiter. And the moon. In the darkened galaxy void around them are stars. Exactly six stars.

“You can always see the moon next to Venus and Jupiter,” you whisper, hugging your arms to yourself. “And the stars. They’re always there, too, aren’t they?”

“Six stars,” he says. And then he turns to you with his hands folded in front of him. “Shall we begin?”

Your rhythm falls in place the same as it had in the medical room. You settle on your bed. Kirsh washes his hands in your bathroom as you remove your cargos. This time, you’re able to slip on some shorts in place of the blue paper towel covering from days ago. He removes your brace carefully for you before he begins on your knee. When he applies the anti-inflammatory pack, you can’t help but let a relieved sigh leave your lips. “Thanks. But…why didn’t you let me do this in the clinic room?”

“I was curious,” he lets you know with a bluntness you find almost impressive. “Do you not find this more comfortable?”

“Yes,” you admit. Even though it stings to. “Is your curiosity satiated?”

“For now. How’s the pain?”

“It’s already getting better. Maybe a four.” The two of you have fallen into your promise of back and forth questions without reason nor acknowledgement. They move artfully, each word with careful meaning, flitting between the two of you with the fluidity of spinning silk. “Why do you…why are you so interested?” the words fall out of you a low hum. Kirsh pauses for a moment, his fingers stilling against your skin. As he resumes, you watch him through heavy lidded eyes, the fatigue that comes with the feel of his work overtaking you. “I mean…by me, in particular?”

“My objective is to care for your health. Specifically, your knee.”

“No. That’s why you’re here right now. But it’s not why you’re interested.” Kirsh’s fingers push gently against the crease of your knee, warm and supple. Each movement, each tiny flush of his skin against yours sends a satisfying ripple up and down your body. “You don’t think I notice you? You observe me, like one of your specimens. You don’t do that with anyone else. Why? Why me?” your words, though still low and muted, carries an injection of urgency.

“If that’s true, I can ask you the same thing. Why do you observe me?”

“Do I?”

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe I should ask you then…what separates us, in our motivations? If my excuse is being an animal, as you’d say, with chemical impulses firing in my brain, begging me for interaction, what about you? If my excuse is the innate, primal, years-refined desire for relationships and meaning…then what’s your excuse? You take pride in separating yourself as a machine and me an organic. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say, you, Kirsh*…*are acting like an animal. What makes you so different from me, if you really don’t have those desires, and yet are still drawn to me?”

Kirsh doesn’t say anything, but you can see the cogs of his mind turning over as he continues to work on your knee. Sitting up now, you put a hand a top of his, shaking your head. A silence settles between you. A silence charged with a thickness of air comparable to your time down in the storage closet just hours ago. His eyes trail down to your lips again as they had. For just a few seconds, as you’re sitting now, your faces are as close as they were before. As he watches, it’s as if he’s taking the very shape of your lips to memory. Knowing him, he probably is.

“An animal.”

“Yes. Following me around all the day long just to observe my behaviour? Sniffing me out? Arriving at my personal habitat,” you gesture around your room, “When the sun has set? A predator, almost, to prey.”

“It’s not you,” he begins. “It’s what you represent. Artful and succinct, an imagination rivalled by none. Who else could I talk to, if I wanted to understand this? And art is so human. So human to create all these things to comment and talk about the same convoluted topics washed and reused over and over in cycles.”

“So…it’s not me, it’s humans in general,” you echo. Some part of you gets the distinct feeling that Kirsh isn’t telling you the full truth, just as you had done before. Even as he says the words, the day of the hike and his interests as it progressed weighs in your mind. He’d wanted, of all things, to know what sunlight felt like. Sunlight. “What else about humans would you like to know?”

“Whatever I observe in motion. There’s plenty of scope for that with the intelligent minds of the island.”

And yet, here he is, talking to you. “And that’s enough? Do you even understand emotions? The other day, when I spoke to you about sadness, did you even fully understand that?”

For a moment he stops and stares ahead of him, resuming only when the words have found his tongue once more. “I understand what it entails. It’s not something I can empathise with. Do you wish you could also never feel sadness?”

“Sometimes. Everyone does, when it gets bad. But…not feeling sad would mean I can’t feel happy. Or excited, or nervous, or angry, or…anything. To be emotional is to be human. It’s a package deal, really. Do you wish you could feel these things?”

“No. I don’t care about that. What do you think is our leader’s goal?”

You have to stop and think about what he’s said. This has come entirely out of the blue comparative to the rest of your conversation. At least, it seems that way to you. Is he trying to change the subject? Briefly, you wonder how long Kirsh had been sitting on the question. Does he know the answer, and just wants to see how you respond? Or is he genuinely asking?

“I think he wants to be great,” you eventually settle on saying. “What do you think?”

“I think he’s already achieved ‘greatness’. By the human standard. He’s the owner of one of the Five. And look at what he’s done,” Kirsh juts his head in the direction of the card the children have made on your bedside, and their messy pile of handmade tickets. You recall them from earlier, and as they play in your mind, they’re all still running madly, chasing each other and jumping mighty high. Their echoing screams of your recall are just as joyful and plenty as they had been hours ago. “A path to immortality.”

“He’s a contradictory to himself. He wants to be the smartest person in the world. He loves to be the smartest person in the world. And yet he’s lonely. He still wants someone smarter than him. Just so he can talk.”

“While that may be true, is that not why you are here?”

“Honestly, I’ve no clue why he wants me here, because his search for more and more confirms I’m not who he really wants to talk to. I don’t know what he’s planning with…” The name of his closest attendant escapes you once more. You squeeze your eyes shut as you attempt to level the panic this brings, repeating in the silence of your mind the slow backwards recall of your past. A trick from your rehab therapist to retrieve the darkest floating facts. “Eins,” you finally get out. “But I’ve heard them talking about…Yutani. I don’t know what it is, but he wants something. He wants too much. It scares me, because it reminds me I don’t know my place here, and that once, I used to be enough for him. I used to be. But now I doubt even that.”

“He outgrew you.”

“He outgrew me,” you repeat. In the face of a truth you had shied away from, you feel naked. Stripped bare. Kirsh has peeled back every layer and seen into the pits of the darkest doubts you could not bare to explore.

“You’re a fleeting flicker of nostalgia. Retrieved from the ashes of a pained past. An appendage of familiarity in a convoluted present,” he stares into your eyes as he talks, “You remind him of what he once had and what he wants to achieve.”

“Oh. Okay. No sugar-coating there,” you mutter. “What about you, huh? Don’t you ever feel…obsolete?”

He stares at you with a renewed interest. “Why would I?”

“You’re not new. You’re not the latest model.” You gesture back to the Lost Boys’ card. “They are. He’s outgrown you, too, so why are you still around?”

“He hasn’t outgrown me. Or I wouldn’t still be working for him,” Kirsh tells you. He pauses, and for a while, you both sit there. In your mind, you still see them; the children screaming with glee, and laughing, and flitting between the rooms as they fought to tag and to stay untagged. At some point, you laugh. Kirsh turns back to you and gives you another one of those looks - the almost human looks. From it, you can tell he’s been thinking carefully all this time. “He cares for you. The most of anyone alive, I think. He outgrew your mind, yes. But you’re still here because he’s not completely outgrown you, not yet. He has not outgrown the other part of you. By my observations, he likely never will.”

“Other part?”

“Your soul.”

— - —

When the dream comes for you, you’re not ready. But you never really are, the dangerous and disturbing thing about dreams being that it never quite allows you to remember that you aren’t. Poised, the dream envelopes you with a suffocating warmth until you don’t remember you were ever anything but in the embrace of this happening.

The space around you is dark, so pitiful and empty. A vacuum in space, a void, a black hole of impossible stillness. No pull, not even a breeze. This cover of velvet darkness stretches out beyond mind and body and thought, broken only by the maroon sheet table you sit at. In front of you is a faceless man with white hair. You’re not sure why, but you know you’re just like him - faceless. A prickle spikes the back of your neck. You’re aware now that you’re not alone in this void. Everyone here is faceless too. Nameless, voiceless children dancing solitude like stars as they shine around you.

Someone else arrives at the wordless invite of the table. This one is not faceless. How could he be? This face you know more than any other. Never studied but fully committed to the deepest corners of memory. He takes his seat as naturally as if he had always been apart of it. Your best friend doesn’t look at you as he sits. His smirk alight, dark curls a crown to his cunning, and those eyes…those eyes, you see galaxies swirling within.

At the table he presents a stack of cards. Tarot, you realise. A distinct feeling comes over you. A recognition; these cards are your cards, your design. Something deep within you recognises the curl of each brushstroke. You know that these were painted by your own careful hand. Each branch, each root. The swirl of the lover’s fire, the glow of high priestess’ halo, the sword in the skeletal hands of death, the bleeding heart.

Boy Kavalier dolls each card out between you all. Face down. One for you, one for him, one for the white-haired man. One between you. Each card, when pressed onto the tablecloth, gives a distinct click. The white-haired man has eyes no more than you, but you’re both watching, and you feel your chest flood with a fiery warmth when you realise he’s looking at you. Boy has finished laying out the cards. When he holds out the remainder of the deck, one of the stars takes the stack, and, in a trail of haunting childish laughter, the gaggle of them disappear into the silken curtain of the dark void.

Boy turns over the card in front of the white-haired man. The words at the bottom read ‘Justice.’ “Cause and effect,” Boy says. His voice is as plain and as even as you’ve never heard it. “Dishonesty.”

He turns the card in front of himself. The Hermit. “Search for truth. Lost.”

Boy moves on to the one in front of you. Wheel of Fortune. “No control. Inevitable fate.”

then

Boy’s worst problem right now wasn’t silly things like mothers and fathers. Who should care about that? Boy only needed his brain and his machines. And he was getting awfully good when it came to his synthetics. No, Boy’s problem was the hunger. Running on the streets scraping money by selling his machines, with another one for a father, and paying for the roof over their heads, it wasn’t anywhere near enough. Not yet. He reasoned he would sort that unwelcome crease of existence right out in a few years. One day he would invent a way humans would no longer need to be curbed by hunger, as he was for all these long days. But he hadn’t quite figured that one out yet, so the best he could do now was keep thinking with that once-ever glorious mind of his and keep turning up at the girl’s house for his next hot plate of sustenance.

The girl’s house - the Canary house - would never awake with an alarm clock like everyone else, particularly her, with her squashed-up bedroom being right next to her uncles’ coop. It was one of the Boy’s favourite parts about staying there, but in truth, there weren’t many parts of the girl’s house that he did not enjoy. The rooster’s crow would slip into their dreams and shake them awake far better than any hands ever had, stirring them from sleep better even than the first rays of the dawn sun. Every bright and muted shade of colour was a strike different from his own home, every laughing voice sweeter, every other thing a comfort. Especially it was sweet now that his daddy was gone and there was nothing as terrible to dread going back to once his time here was up.

It wasn’t exactly a large farm all on its own, but way out on the outskirts and away from the block jungle, as her uncle Mel Malachy would call it, it was as close to one they would get for miles. If Boy sat outside and faced away from the towers and blaring neon lights of the city, all he could see would be stretch after stretch of crop and field. If he closed his eyes, all he could hear would be the chatter of the animals and the hum of her uncle Jordie, under the song of the girl and her cousins carrying over many a haybale to his ears.

She would bring each instrument outside sometimes. A different one each time from a different ancestor long-dead, as if she had taken them in tribute purposely at each turn. And each turn would come with a new song of hers. A new dance taught to her cousins. The most honeyed melodies becoming of her place and her home and her rainbow of inherited frocks. All the animals would listen, entranced as him by the world and the music.

Sometimes he wondered how it came to be that mindless creatures as stupid as these could ever come to live such a coveted and sweet life as this, and not him, a perfectly well-deservingly smart boy.

The smell wasn’t much enticing, being an almost-farm. Mel Malachy’s dinners, on the other hand, was another part of life in the Canary household Boy was utterly entranced by. More than besotted, rather, Boy was as green as the sour apples of their orchard tree - green, that was, with insurmountable envy. The more time he spent there the deeper the entrancement would become, and the hotter his stomach would burn with jealousy over every tiny detail of the girl’s life.

No mother and father anymore to tell her what to do. His own father was gone now, but any fool could see that her uncles were far better for a growing child than Atom was. Her rare talent was nurtured like another one of the thriving plants outside, another calf fresh born and learning to walk with steady watch to guide it. Sure, Boy was smart, smarter than anyone, and no fool at all. And any fool could see this nurturing was what growing children needed.

Boy decided he'd have to figure that out too one day. A way humans could live, but would never have to grow. 

— - —

now

Jealousy. That’s the only explanation you can muster when Kavalier leads you onto one of his planes after breakfast. All he’d told you was that you were in for a surprise, and that you’d be having a good time, so you had to dress classy. You can only hope at some point this will pay out, because at present, beside Kavalier’s usual plain-yet-eccentric fashion and the dark bleakness of the swarm of guards accompanying you, it felt like major overdress.

Out of the window, the sea itself is a glittering beauty. Dazzling under the sun and sparkling like pieces of stars have scattered themselves all over. Just like in the forest, you feel yourself slipping back into your old ways. Your natural patterns of artistry among the normal. Picking up the vaguest details of patterns invisible to others and slotting them together in a jigsaw you were still creating. You’re just slipping into a comfortable daydream, a reasonable lull of creativity you hadn’t indulged in for too long, when a hand sticks in front of your face. The hand begins to wave erratically. Right. He was jealous now, even, of the sea. Proving you correct without even realising you had him figured out. Briefly, you wonder if he has even noticed it in himself, or if he is simply acting on his bitter emotion without a single regard for why he’s reaching for what he wants.

A reassuring grin later he’s back to his own antics. You’re all strapped in and he’s wandering - barefooted - around the cockpit, annoying the pilot, all the while tossing over insightful fragments of glee. You watch him, carefully offering more reassurance you still have his attention. He tells you he’s got it all planned out. Clicks his fingers. He tells you he hasn’t taken you away from your nanny duties and your precious Lost Boys so you can stare at water. You know then that your suspicions are correct; Boy Kavalier has dragged you all way out of Neverland and all the way across the ocean because of jealousy. You can see it written all over him. He moves like he’s drunk on it, talks like he’s had too much of it, looks at you like he’s nursed a bottle of it all night long.

And knowing him, it’s more than likely he has been spending far too long feeding on it.

If this were absolutely anyone else, you’d have been confused at the invariably blaring and blatantly obvious contradiction. Why should he be envious of the attention you were paying the Lost Boys when he had been the one to insist upon your position as nanny in the first place? But again, this wasn’t anyone else. This was Kavalier. Kavalier, who had vied for your attention - and the attention of as many as he could garner - from as far back as your mind could stretch in knowing him.

The pitiful thing is that, despite often having the worst of it over these hurried years, you can’t help but find yourself enjoying it at times. Times like now. On route to your surprise. Dressed to the nines. Excited. Under the special order and organisations of one of the most important and influential men to exist. All of Prodigy, all of the affairs he could be dealing with now, and yet he’s still left them behind on his island in preference of his old friend. Despite Kavalier’s utter absurdity, confusion, contradictions and otherwise, you’d be lying to yourself if you denied to admit his want for your attention made you feel good. Special. Wanted.

There’s a small lull where you feel Kavalier watching you. “You didn’t remember him,” he eventually speaks up. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that.” Immediately you recognise what he’s alluding to. You’ve only had this conversation far too many times, albeit in varying forms. Far too many to count. Eins. His ‘butler’. Atom Eins. “Well?”

“Atom,” your voice slips out a whisper. Though it should have been lost in the overbearing whir of the engine, Kavalier has you read. He cocks his head, waiting on you to continue. “I remember Atom. It’s Eins I don’t remember.”

“Oh, but they’re not mutually exclusive, Silly Girl. It’s not Atom and Eins. It’s just Atom Eins. Who you conveniently forgot. And now I’m picking up the pieces, again.”

“He looks different now, is all.”

“Uh-uh. How long do you think you can keep saying that? He’s been around for years and you still pretend he doesn’t exist.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine. This isn’t about him today. It’s about me. And you. Us.”

You give him a sharp look. “It seems like it is about him. Can we just drop it? I forgot. That’s it.”

“No, you were doing better. Before rehab. You were finally remembering his name. Finally acknowledging his existence. Then you went and drugged yourself up and decided Eins no longer cut it for you, didn’t you?”

“That’s not what happened, okay? Sorry I wasn’t thinking about you and him the whole time. And you know what? You want him around so much, I’m surprised he’s not here with us. Today. Right now.”

“And, what, you’d love it if he was?” You hesitate to answer. He notices. Obviously he notices. “Don’t tell me what I want to hear. It’s me. Tell me what you’re thinking. I want the truth, Reader.”

“…no,” you admit, still low-voiced, “I wouldn’t.”

“Hm. Yeah. And you thought…I wouldn’t know that? Get smart,” he shakes his head. Picks up a stray seat buckle his eyes fall on. Tosses it from hand to hand. If Eins was here, you realise, that buckle would be a ball. “Today isn’t about that. It’s about us,” he repeats.

“Aww. You’re getting sentimental, Smart Boy?” The two of you are unused to serious brazen confrontation. Not real confrontation. Not properly. Not when it matters the most. Not when it comes to the jagged shards of your combined past. Deflection is your friend as much as he is. “That’s weird.”

“Aww,” he echoes, doing an over-the-top pout and tilting his head, because deflection knows him well, too. “If only I was a synthetic.”

The rest of the journey is taken up by odd flitters of fizzled out conversation as you both evade the awkwardness left in the wake of your dispute. Before you’ve even realised, the pilot announces touch down, and the soldier guards are flurrying around to escort you to your destination.

At first, you think, upon your initial glance at the decided location, that you have been taken to see a ballet. The old-world stone architecture and the screen-posters lined outside with the prancing ballerinas positions you for assumption of the worst. Your heart falters, your previous resolve immediately beginning to waver as the possibilities flood your mind. Just two days ago, fixing your knee. Today, a recital? The last thing you need right now, the last thing you can even ponder to desire, is a reminder of everything you used to be. Everything you can’t be. Everything you’re not. You find your knee momentarily sparks up with a jolting pain.

Kavalier, perhaps noting your momentary pause, grabs your hand at the door. He pulls you along to join his skip, twirling the both of you all around as you make your way inside the grandeur of the music hall. Your earlier thought of ‘old world’ is only further inspired the further inside the hall you venture. The lighting is low, the curtains and drapes a rich shade of scarlet all across the ceiling-high intricacy of the windows. Even the stone floor beneath you, though no doubt having been refuge for many, many a person in these long years of existence, lays as prettily clean as if it were the very first.

“You’ll have time for your creative mush pondering later,” Kavalier urges, tugging your hand to further you along, “You are going to make us late. And I had it all planned out.”

“Late to what?” you ask apprehensively. Don’t say the ballet.

“The play.” He shakes his head at you. Halfway between disappointed and self-satisfied you haven’t yet figured him out.

His words allow you relax afresh and you let your hand melt down into his. As he continues to pull you through the halls, half of the guards push along in front of you first. While earlier you had been slightly dismissive of the army of them Kavalier had seemed to amass for the journey, it’s the mere sight of the clamouring crowds outside the doors that finally lets you appreciate just why they were necessary. They’re a protective circle the two of you float in, allowing you to be whisked past the crowds to Kavalier’s own specific skip-along pace. His gait is purposeful, his mannerisms smug. His guards are blades in the crowd; cutting the people apart for him. For both of you.

An escort meets you somewhere near the front desk and leads you along to a higher floor and through a velvet-bound door – another detail you note of seeming like old-world specifics. You’ve been taken up to a grand box high above the stage and the seats below, allowing you perfect seclusion while perfect angles to watch. It’s the best viewing box, if the escort of the day is to be believed.

“We don’t usually open any time before the evening sets in. Let alone noon,” he informs you as he shows you to your seats.

Kavalier flops down into his chair and immediately props his ankles up onto the red velvet half-wall of the box. Anyone looking up would have a stark view of his grubby, mud-caked bare feet. “Hm. Well then. It’s a good thing I’m so generous, isn’t it?”  The escort doesn’t offer a reply, though you catch his sullen expression on his way out. “Stupid rules anyway. Look at the turnout. I’m making those losers rich.”

You poke him in the ribs; he pokes back. “They’re not losers. This is art. They’re artists.”

“Right. Forgot who I was with,” he quips back, “Art.”

The lights dim and the curtain rises. Kavalier seems far too excited at your side and you try to ignore him as you watch what’s appeared on the stage below. A forest scene. When the music begins to play, it’s a familiar tune.

You turn to face Kavalier, tearing your eyes away from the stage to search his face. “Is this…”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Old Mr. Shakespeare. Surprise,” he finishes for you, butting in before the words have been able to find their way out of your mouth. He splays his hands out. You can’t find the heart to be mad. “Got you,” he adds in, sounding smug.

All you say is, “You remembered,” and watch that old, boyish smirk take over his face. Looping your arm through his, you’re helpless to your own stupid smile, too.

“As if I could ever forget.”

— - —

then

In the end, it was a plate of Jordie’s cookies and a promise from Mel Malachy that finally got Boy to agree to playing a role in the girl’s upcoming play. Puck. The naughty fairy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, beside her as she played Titania. All the grown ups had been hard at work to make the play perfect with all the children taking part, so when the other Puck dropped out, they’d needed a new child of a similar age to replace him immediately. The girl had been full of giggles Boy didn’t care for when she first asked him to take it up. She’d said the role was meant for him. A fairy boy who causes trouble all because he thinks he knows best.

“But I do know best,” he’d told her, sorely crossing his arms. “I do.”

“See. Exactly!” she’d carried on laughing, omitting the part where Puck’s nature is what causes all the play’s troubles. “You have to fill in.”

Unfortunate as it might be for the previous child actor, who had broken his leg a week before the opening performance, it was fortunate that the girl knew someone with the memory of a computer to learn the script lightning fast. And fortunate still that his stubborn refusals were easily persuaded by the promise of week-long sleepovers and endless chocolate-chip cookies.

“I’ll just have a conversation with your old Dad,” Jordie had told him. “And we’ll have it all sorted.”

“Oh, he’s going to say yes,” Boy replied. “He always does.”

The girl looked away uncomfortably. Though she would never betray Boy’s secret, every singular reference to Boy’s replacement father had her searing with a guilt she had no real reason to harbour. It’d been a few years since Boy had done what he had done, and still, a mere mention, a tiny reminder would have her seized up as if she had been there to witness it herself. All it took was Boy’s perfectly memorised recount of the events hand in hand with her own over-active imagination. At his words her mind had conjured up the images. She felt, just by knowing, she was as guilty as he, even if he did not feel he was guilty.

What was the synthetic’s name again? The girl couldn’t remember. Again. Boy wouldn’t like that. Even then, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to remember.

Her production team were thrilled to have yet another child Prodigy agreeing to perform. One had been an honour enough - but two? They were all over him, excitable with their novel new bubble with their renewed cause of amusement. The girl found she didn’t much like to see them fawn so much over him. And even outside of her beloved theatre, Boy was fawned over by everyone and so easily, earning the title of ‘young sir’ and a thousand shining smiles for the un-toppable mind of his. It made her stomach feel all hot and made her wish she hadn’t asked Boy there after all.

Mel Malachy and Jordie laughed backstage when they noticed it for themselves and told the girl she must be feeling a little bit jealous. After all, her spotlight was being shared by the one other person in the world who could ever hope to rival her. Don’t you worry, they’d told her, because it doesn’t make you any less of the star to us. Performing is in your blood, little Canary. The girl wasn’t so sure they were right about being jealous, and crossed her arms in response, but her feelings did not last long. Not when they left, and she looked out across the stage to see her uncles and her cousins sitting right beside Boy’s synthetic replacement dad.

“Atom said to tell you to ‘break a leg’,” Boy whispered right up next to her. He was watching her. Had probably noticed what she was looking at. Right. His name was Atom. The girl looked at him funny. “Don’t actually break a leg, it’s a turn of phrase,” he rolled his eyes at her.

She stuck her tongue out. “I know what it means. I’ve been on stage longer than you.”

Boy just laughed. “Oberon kid got sick, did you hear?”

“Yes,” she lied, feeling upset for not actually having heard the news herself. She was supposed to know everything about this place, not him. “It’s probably nerves.”

“His understudy is a synthetic kid,” he told her. “Could’ve been Puck, too, if you didn’t invite me. The synth will play Oberon now. So…you have to kiss a synth,” he teased, and poked her hard in the ribs.

The girl poked back, and he poked back, and she poked again in return. As always, he still got the last jab and still managed to win back her unwilling smile, like a real-life Puck-Boy enchanting her with his charms.

As they performed that opening night, mischievous, bare-foot, vine covered Puck and beautiful, musical queen of the fairies Titania, all of their troubles fell behind them. On stage she forgot all about her jealous hot-belly and the Atom-dad watching in the audience. It was just the forest and the fairies and the mistakes put right by morning. By the time the curtain called, the girl was so full of the lovelorn themes and so happy Boy was beside her that it was almost as if he had really enchanted her. Once again his charms had worked. His smile had won her over. His presence made her comfortable in front of the crowds. The girl forgave him, and all between them seemed forgotten.

And as everyone cheered, and threw flowers, and clapped, and met them after the bows, she stayed smiling. When they met their families, the girl even remembered Atom’s name. At least for the rest of that night.

-- - --

now

“Boy?” you call him over to attention by a rare use of his first name. Your serious tone brings you both down from the excited nostalgic high you had been in from the theatre to the plane. Words you know are overdue find their way past your childhood re-living. “I want to talk about him.” You clear your throat, hesitating. Building up the courage. “Atom.”

He watches you a moment. He seems unhappy at your words, having been clearly enjoying your shared reminiscence. “I thought I said today wasn’t about him. It’s about us.”

“I know.”

“I was giving you an out. Surely you even you can guess that. I was giving you an out.”

It’s your turn to stare at him now. Was he really giving you an out? Or was he looking to go back in time, and take you with it? A time uninterrupted by adult quiffs and feelings he was too bored or too impatient to confront. You’re not entirely sure. “Yeah, but…I owe you an explanation,” you justify yourself to him, nevertheless.

After this, the rest of the words come pouring straight out of you. A split carton, spilt milk. Your bottled truth and no use crying. Everything sharp you both avoided, dredged up by the sweeter reminders of your past.

You never used to remember his name when you were kids, and he knew that, too. The therapist at rehab had said this was consequence of your fear addled mind. A coping mechanism, she said, for the parts that scared you the most about your past. When the years passed and you got older and more capable of dealing with hard pressed emotions, the mechanism had fallen away, shedding your younger mind for the growing one. That’s when you had started to remember Atom’s name. Started talking to him properly, talking about him properly, started to let Boy Kavalier’s embed of him into your lives become normal.

“And then everything fell apart,” you finish, just as your mouth begins to dry.

The plane’s whir fills the silence you leave behind. You know you don’t need to remind him of the rest. The accident, and the losses. Flaming disaster. Opioids. Rehab. Kavalier’s eyes are round and staring, a glisten of something in them as he watches you. His jaw taut. Frowning. The seat belt buckle has found its way into his hands again. Absent mindedly, he tosses it between them. “Hmm. Fell apart. And you with it.”

You can only stare back as his words sink in. His words cut. But the problem isn’t his bluntness, it’s that he’s right. He’s always right. Smart Boy. Genius. Prodigy.

Kavalier hands you the seat buckle, pressing it into your palm. He looks you in the eyes. “Forget about that. It’s just us, ‘kay?”

“But it’s never going to be like it was. Never.”

“Well we don’t need that. Just us.”

In your dreams, you dance again.

Twirling, and twirling, you stand on point, you smile, and you gracefully preen. In the costume of a white-feathered swan, you’re ever the performer for the never-there audience of the empty plain. The plie comes naturally. The pirouette, as if it were yesterday - and off you go, leaping higher and higher across the surface of this strange land called Venus.

Boy’s there too. Of course he is, dancing in his own funny, barefooted, inexperienced way. As you twirl, he spins, as you round your hands, he waves his. When you ready yourself for the allonge, to go soaring in the air, he leaps up, too. There’s a twinkling laughter he gives that you can never seem to quite get away from. As you land dutifully to the ground you look back up to see that Boy stays way up high and is still laughing as he’s circling you. And as he circles, floating above your head, the stars themselves have wreathed together to become his halo.

You may possess the most beautiful swan dance ever to grace the land, but it doesn’t matter - not to the stars - because Boy has conquered the impossible. He has learnt to fly.

Again, you leap up. This time, as your feet leave the ground, the very surface of Venus opens up beneath you, a wide smile ready to devour. Boy wastes not a second and grabs your hand, calmly though with bubbling laughter, and he pulls you far, far away just as Venus’ teeth graze the very bottom of your slippers. The stars around his halo burn brighter the further he takes you, and his laughter, his grin, both of them grow, too. Boy clasps your hand tight as you fly across the black night sky.

He takes you to a place he calls Jupiter, and on Jupiter, you’re safe. It’s better here, though colder, and further from the light of the sun. The crowds on Jupiter are not invisible and they cheer as you dance. Once more, you leap up, with Boy flying around you and basking in the applause. And yet, high in the air, you can’t bring yourself to pay attention to them. Not now that something catches your eye.

No, someone.

Standing there, all by himself on the surface of the moon - it’s a figure. You’d never noticed the moon when you were on Venus, and from here this person is so far you can barely see him at all. Not his face, not the grey blur of his clothes. The only thing you can see, as you feel the sharp brunt of his gaze, is his hair. Wild, untamed, and whiter than the feather of a swan.

— - —

now

To dream of dancing is a particularly cruel fate, when awakening as you do, to the reality that you haven’t done so in years and likely never will again.

This particular cruelness is exacerbated this morning as the dream begins to melt back into the confines of your subconscious. All it takes is you sitting up in bed to feel it - a tense ache that rips through your left knee, burning. The moment the pain registers your heart sinks and a tiredness overcomes you; this pain is a familiar pain. A hollowness inside of your very bones, an intense pressure, almost an implosion. An ache. An ache you know all too well is going to follow you around the day long, maybe the week, and maybe even the month.

You haven’t felt this pain in a while now, in particular since your arrival to Neverland. You’d assumed it was because the heat was far kinder on you here compared to the unforgiving nature of the cold back at home.

Great, this is perfect, you think, helplessly rubbing your affected knee and the surrounding muscles. You’re embarrassed at the thought of walking around with even a hint of a strange hobble. It’s an invitation for stares and a prompter of uncomfortable questions you’ll offer an assortment of tainted half-truths and mouthfuls of lies over. Aside from the leg, you can already tell today is going to be one of those days. Dreary days, where all you want to do is lay in bed, in the dark. A day for dreaming of forbidden recluse and silently begging your body for even the slightest moment of respite. A day where you’re on the verge of tears at every minor inconvenience and a day you can’t seem to conjure up a smile.

You decide to forgo your morning shower in favour of a trip to the med bay, once you’ve managed to pull on some new clothes. It takes a lot of deep breaths and biting down onto your lower lip to get your left leg into your pants. This pain, while it had been there, had always had its good and bad days. Today it feels it’s falling somewhere on the more intense end of that measure.

One foot in front of the other you brace yourself for the trudge. Your duties today will not allow for the nothingness you’re craving. The Lost Boys have their agility tests this morning, which you’re supposed to be taking them to, just as you had with the failed written exams yesterday. At least that had ended with smiles, even if it’s now coming back to bite you in the ass.

The group hike had been so much of a happy time for all of you. The kids had been buzzing long after your return to the facility. Arthur and Sylvia almost couldn’t hear the end of it, right up until you dragged the kids away to their beds. Even you had been bursting to tell Kavalier how proud you were of their endeavours, counting down every moment of his Peter Pan reading that evening to burst out with your excitement. Kavalier had reminded you of the times long pushed to the back of your memories, of the two of you having gone on similar run-arounds when you were feeling particularly rebellious, years ago. Though you wouldn’t exchange most of yesterday’s experience for anything, having had a better time than in too long of a while, you do find yourself wishing you hadn’t gone so hard at it. Maybe if you’d cut the walk short, or if you hadn’t have insisted on pretending you weren’t tired just because everyone else had been fine…maybe your knee might not have flared up again.

In any case, you’ve no idea how you’re going to sit through half a day of watching the children run around expertly on their hybrid legs while trying your hardest not to expose your own pain. You know you can’t be the reason they show up late, whatever happens. After all, it’s your job now. You rush to finish getting yourself ready, and walk to the medbay as fast as your knee will physically allow you to go. Though it probably ends up being double the time it would’ve, you’re all hot and sticky by the time you arrive, and it feels more like you’ve gone on a long run. You’re so breathless you can’t help but slump against the wall for a while as you force yourself to gulp in as much cool air as your lungs can take.

Once your heart has stopped hammering quite so fast and you let yourself in, you’re taken aback; inside is an undeniable storm of chaos. Sick people are everywhere. Practically lining the walls. Someone to your right throws up into a cardboard container and you swallow nervously, becoming quickly wary of being here. The bright, white-walled interior is all a flurry with staff members, some of whom you recognise, but most of whom you don’t. It takes another frantic five minutes of filtering through the busy rooms and passing by all of the full-of-groaning people beds for you to finally manage to track down the one doctor who isn’t talking to anyone. She’s in a mess of a mad rush herself, and almost doesn’t stop to talk, dismissively passing you over to a white-coated synth. Then, just as she’s leaving the room, she does a double take as she seemingly catches sight of your pained limp.

“You wake up like that?” she asks, pausing in her steps. When you turn back around, nodding as you briefly sum up your situation, the doctor shakes her head at you sympathetically. She gestures all around the medbay. “Non-urgent, sorry. It’s been a busy night. Block B all got food poisoning, you believe that? Stay away from the island fish,” she advises, with a hefty sigh, “You’ll have to wait in the reception for a slot to open up. I can put you down for a consult in about an hour?”

You glance at the time. You don’t have an hour. In an hour, the children will be starting off their exam. After they missed yesterday’s perception papers, there’s no way you’re going to be the reason they fall even further out of Sylvia’s schedule. “I…I think I’ll have to pass. I’m sure my leg will be better in the morning.”

“You sure? I can write you a prescription if you come by.”

Her words bring a cascade of proverbial alarm bells sounding in your mind, and you feel the pace of your heart pick up with an incredulous immediacy. One simple fact is trying its hardest to stay afloat in the storm of today’s dilemmas; you shouldn’t. But as you shift in your spot, your knee screams, and a gasp sticks at the back of your throat. You have to take it. It’s wrong, but you’re desperate. The pain is dizzying, and it won’t be like last time. Just one prescription. The room almost spins - you don’t know what’s worse, standing still, or moving.

When it was just you, the pain wouldn’t have mattered, a storm you could weather all on your own, clamping down on your desperation in the isolation of the dark. Today it’s not so simple. Today you’ve got six children who depend on you, and to do that, you’re going to need all the help you can get.

“Okay. I’ll try and make it,” you sigh shakily in response.

The doctor nods approvingly before pinching a notepad and pen out of her side pocket. “What did you say your name was?”

“Uh, I’m Read-”

“Ohhh, that’s you!” she interrupts, immediately looking up from her notepad and taking you in. You feel her watch your face first. Then, your leg. You’re just working up to asking her why she seems to know you at all when she starts tucking her pen away and folding up the notepad. You look back up to her in confusion. “Right, well…sorry. Can’t see you. Can’t offer you meds.”

“Wait…what?”

“You don’t know?” she squints, “We got specific orders about you. When you first got to the island we got mass memos. Y’know, real serious,” she shrugs. “We’re told we can’t treat you. Not for that knee. It’s outta my hands. Sorry,” she repeats.

“Please. I’m desperate. Can you just get me something, anything for the pain?”

“There’s a specialist here for you somewhere, we were told. Your best bet is going to find them,” she gestures all around the space nearby and nods in the direction of various busy medics. “No one here will risk their neck to help you.”

You feel yourself spiralling into a panic you’re forcing yourself to cram under control. “But I can barely walk!”

“Go speak to the Founder,” the doctor is already moving away from you with another apologetic shrug, “It was his orders.”

Fuelled on by the burst of anger her words have conjured, you leave the medbay and head straight for the children. The pain blurs your way along. Mutters of distaste at Kavalier’s orders takes care of the rest. By the time you reach them, you’re equal parts exhausted and disappointed to discover they’re not waiting dutifully outside their doors as you’d asked them, and as they had yesterday morning.

The only ones who have followed through are Curly and Tootles. Both are conversing chirpily over the sounds of the boys’ commotion. With a heavy sigh, you burst into one of their rooms to find, of course, Slightly and Smee together, and both are playing. When the two look up at you alarmed, it’s all you can do to hold open the door and step back as they collect themselves and hurry out into the hall looking sheepish. You find Nibs brushing her hair in her room. She tells you she didn’t know the time, and you make a mental note to sit them down and teach them all about keeping to their schedule at some point. Whenever your leg is better.

Just to add to your troubles, it’s with another tired sigh that you discover Wendy is not in her room. According to Curly, she had gone ahead because she wanted to look at the screens in the tech room. When you press for why, you’re met with blank stares. Then you try and ask why she didn’t tell you earlier, and you’re met with more blank stares.

“It’s alright,” you rub a hand over your face and force yourself to breathe out. “Just…let’s just go, okay? We don’t want to get even more late.”

All five of the present Lost Boys nod and begin to shuffle along. This morning, you allow your ducklings to go on ahead of you, trying your best to conceal your awkward limp and the pained expression you know will become a focal point of your face in a few more steps. It works well until Smee departs the group and waits up for you. He’s still looking all guilty, so you’re obliging, almost feeling bad yourself.

“Are you mad because we were late?” he asks. Oh dear. He sounds so earnest in his question it makes your heart clench. “I’m sorry! We won’t do it again, I swear.”

“Oh, honey. It’s okay. Really. I’m not mad, alright? Please don’t worry.”

Slightly’s the one who turns around now. “Then what’s wrong? You’re really not mad?” he calls over in question. As he does, the other three crane their necks to get a look at you, too. You survey their worried expressions and your heart flutters again.

“I’m not mad, I promise,” you assure them as best you can. “I’m just not having a great day. Not mad. Just…sad, a little bit.”

“Oh,” Nibs nods, eyes wide and round as ever, “Is it because you’re walking funny?”

You’re upset with yourself for not hiding it well after all, and decide you’re going to do a much better job in front of everyone else. At least they’ll be distracted with the kids while you’ll be somewhere off to the side. Sitting, and therefore not in obvious pain. You’re almost not surprised Nibs has noticed, and wonder if each of the others have too. After all, they’re each keenly observant in their own childlike way. They’d proved as much yesterday in the forest. Though you’d much preferred Nibs bringing attention to the fairy houses than to the state of your leg.

“It’s…another secret,” you reply, thinking fast. “My leg is hurting me, but it’s a secret. Promise me you’re not going to tell?” Scanning their faces, you see all of them nodding, though a couple, namely Curly and Tootles, find this a little funny. They seem to agree anyway, which is enough for you. “Okay. Thank you.”

You’re just grateful you all get to cram in an elevator for the last stretch of the drop-off walk. This would’ve been an entirely insane morning for them to come up out of order. Luck is on your side in one singular shred, but it’s one you’re taking, and one you’re taking gratefully.

The rest of the party are waiting outside near the back-entrance of the building. You do a quick scan as you allow yourself to rest your leg a moment. Wendy’s there, already chatting to Arthur. Dame Sylvia is talking to a cloud of white-coats with clipboards. Then there’s Kirsh, who is walking over to your group, plus Smart Boy with his ‘butler’, who you’ve recently learned is called ‘Eins’, both standing directly by the door.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Kavalier asks the closer you get, his eyes darting over your face. You try your hardest to appear normal as you stop and stand beside him. “Well?”

“It’s just her leg she says,” Slightly tells him in total earnest. “Hurts.”

Your head whips over to his direction and you poke his shoulder. “Hey! Secret, buddy!”

“Oh,” he replies. “Oops.”

Kirsh gives you a look you don’t care to dissect, not today, and he starts to steer the children in the direction of Dame Sylvia, Arthur, and the other techs who stand in wait. You’re grateful as they’re shepherded away, even though some of them are still throwing concerned glances over their shoulders in your direction.

Kavalier waves Eins off and you briefly notice him walking back into the building from the corner of your eyes. It’s not him you’re paying attention to, it’s the Lost Boys. After a beat, Kavalier ducks his head in front of yours so that your vision is blocked with only the sight of his face. Though you try to swat him away, he steps backwards only enough to give you a slight of space, and not enough for you to continue looking at the children in the near distance. “Hey. Eyes on me,” he’s telling you, as he tucks his hands in his pockets. Your eyes still wander, so he grabs your shoulders and turns you both all the way so that, once he’s done, your positions are completely swapped. “What the fuck? Your leg? Explain.”

“It’s my knee,” you sigh. “You know how it gets.”

“Your knee hurts so you skip breakfast? Why…why didn’t you come to me?”

“I was trying to walk it off,” you answer vaguely.

He gives a sharp inhale. “And that’s going to help…how?”

“I don’t know, I just…” you trail off and raise your eyebrows at the know-it-all madness you see brewing behind his eyes. “Listen, I’m not taking shit from a guy who dresses like knock-off version of Prince.”

“I’m more like a King, actually, considering all this,” he spins as he gestures all around you, high and low, to the buildings and the land, too. “All of Neverland, my Kingdom.”

You roll your eyes. Trust him to assume you were talking about royalty when you’d been referring to a singer. That long-gone 21st century musician, famous for his fashion as well as his arts. Figures Kavalier and his ego wouldn’t pick up on that. “Sure thing, Mr Jupiter.”

“Mhm, yeah, deflection over. So - what’d you do it? And did you take anything for it? The medics in that place give you anything?”

“What? No! Nothing! Not even ibuprofen, alright? I just woke up like this. Probably because of all the hiking,” you answer back defensively, trying your hardest not to be hurt by his accusation. You know he’s only looking out for you, but the frustrations of today are just building by the minute. Truthfully you don’t know what anyone could say next that might set you off. Your eyes narrow suspiciously. “And how did you know I was in the med-”

“Listen, listen, it’s all so much easier when you remember I’m always ten giant’s steps ahead of you, ‘kay?” Kavalier stops for a moment to itch behind his ear with a concentrated and disgruntled look on his face.

“You kept tabs on me?”

“You seriously thought I’d let you meander your way into some idiot doctor? That’s on you.”

You frown at him. “An idiot doctor who you hired.”

“I hire millions of people, most of them are idiots. It’s a given, since we’re in a world of dumb and blind sheep,” he shakes his head like he’s given up already, “Look, haven’t we had this same conversation five thousand times? They’re stupid, we’re smart, and I’m a genius. So just accept I’ve made a wiser decision about those doctors, and draw the line.”

“Alright, fine, whatever, Smart Boy,” you retaliate with a sourness in his usual nickname as opposed to your usual sweetheart-endearance. “Then who’s this specialist she was talking about?”

Kavalier’s face immediately lights up into a grin as his eyes settle behind you. You spin. See what he was looking at. Lo and behold. Kirsh. Of course it is. You hadn’t even noticed as he’d stepped away from the Lost Boys, or that he’d come back up to where you both were, his steps as ever silent in their purposeful manner. “Our very own Chief of Science.”

“What?” you blurt. Kirsh moves up from behind you to stand beside Kavalier, and you watch him fold his hands neatly in front of himself.

“Gave him all the information,” he taps his dark curls with his index finger, looking pleased with himself. “Everything he needs to get that prancing princess knee back to health.”

“Why? Why him? Why not some other artificial pers-”

“Uh-uh,” he interrupts you yet again, shutting his eyes momentarily as he waves you off. “You’re being ridiculous. Didn’t I tell you to accept I know better?” You can feel the frustration is only fizzling on further the longer you’re involved in this argument. Sometimes, you really, really, want to punch your friend. Right now, however, your main concern is not bursting into a puddle of tears in front of them, so you keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself. Kavalier clicks his finger at Kirsh, and the points in your direction. “Well? What the fuck’s going on with her?”

Kirsh steps forward, hands still folded, as you’ve so often noticed they are. He doesn’t come close, simply stares fixatedly for a few seconds from his side. “It looks to be inflamed. My guess is the hike yesterday, as she suggested,” he concludes. “She needs it seen to.”

“Okay…so see to it,” he orders. Again, he says the words like they’re the most obvious thing in the world.

“No!” you protest a little too quickly. “No. It’s really not that bad.”

“Don’t…don’t try to be smarter, Silly Girl. You’ve been rubbing it more and more the whole time you’ve been in here. And, uh, you were in that shithole medbay five seconds ago begging for drugs.”

Your face burns hot. “It wasn’t like that. I’m not gonna take anything. I’ll rest it.”

“So you’ll need physio.”

You eye up Kirsh, weighing out your options. He’s standing there. Just standing. Just watching. A silence you know all too well betrays what actually lies behind his expression of muted interest. The last thing you need right now is to endure another mindless spat. You’re already fraying at the seams. Today, you just don’t have the energy to be playing mental chess with him. And not just because you know if he says something out of line, you might burst into a bought of tears. “I can wait. For the med bay to free up.”

“Why? So they can hop you up on painkillers, you get all weak about it, and I’m sending you right back to fucking rehab?” his head gets closer to yours, and he’s got that serious, raising tone, practically spitting out those last words. His statement, as he doubtless knew it would, stuns you into silence. He’s done it now. He’s vocalised the thought flashing in both of your minds from the moment your dodgy knee came into play. He might aswell have just plead Venus for all the power his words have had. Your eyes dart over to anyone in the near vicinity - but there’s no one there. Only Kirsh. Kirsh, who doesn’t offer a speck of a reaction at his words. “And there goes all that hard work with my kids. No, you’ll do it this way.” Kavalier looks over at Kirsh, “What are you doing waiting around? Take her,” he commands, sounding annoyed now.

Kirsh pauses, staring down at Kavalier and then back to you and your once again bright red face. After a beat too long, he nods in agreement, ducking his head. “Of course.”

“School is in session. The Lost Boys don’t need their nanny right now. Off you pop.”

⭑ ✦ ⏾ ✧⭑

“Everything okay?” asks Kirsh. He’s the first to break the silence all the way from outside to ten minutes later in this grey stone, windowless, reserved medical room.

“Obviously not, Kirsh, do I look okay? I can barely walk and Boy has just ordered me to let you fix it,” you blurt the words out at him so fast it feels molten. As soon as they’re out, you almost clap your hand to your mouth, already ashamed at your own brazen rudeness. “Sorry, that was out of order.”

“You’re in pain.”

“Not an excuse.”

“I didn’t say it was,” he replies, and gestures for you to lay back on the examination bed. “I asked if everything was okay because you seem…off. Not your knee. Just you.”

You stay silent as you take your seat.

Kirsh flicks on the harsh bright white light near the side cabinets and walks back to the drawers around the far end of the small medical room. He goes through most of them until he finds a few items he seemed to have been looking for, which he puts down on the wheeled metal table beside the bed. “Lie back,” he instructs you, “and I’ll have a look. I’d ask if it’s okay, but I’m guessing you don’t have a question to retaliate with.”

“Ask what you want. I’m not in the mood,” you tell him honestly, because you’re too tired to beat around the bush.

“What happened?” Kirsh tilts his head slightly as he asks the question. “Is this a symptom of the early hour? Fatigue? Or is it your knee?”

“None of that,” you sigh. “I’m having a grey day.”

“Grey? Boredom?”

“I don’t mean that. I mean…some days I wake up and things just feel grey. Monochrome. Like I’m wading in an ocean that’s not really there,” you try your best to put it carefully. In a way that would translate to someone who doesn’t understand feelings. Or, at least, only understands them from a completely subjective and informational perspective. “I don’t know if that makes sense to you. Basically…I’m just kind of sad. So many people around me but I feel like I’m the only one. I don’t know,” you repeat. “It’s kinda stupid, shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“You didn’t bring it up. I did,” he reminds you. “And you’re not alone. I’m right here.”

“It’s just an isolating feeling. I forget that…every time, until it comes back.”

“Human feelings are a result of the chemicals present in the brain. You can’t help it,” explains Kirsh.

“You think I give a shit about chemicals? This is real. It stings. It hurts. The way I feel is the way I feel.”

“Would it help if you asked me your questions?”

“Kirsh,” you start off. “You know we don’t have to do that forever, right? Keep asking questions back and forth? It’s tiring. We could just talk.”

“Of course. Though, I’m sensing there’s something you’d like to say,” he prompts. You bite your lip, unsure of where the question - which he’s entirely right about - might lead you. “A question you have, for me.”

“It’s just…you didn’t seem surprised. When he mentioned…” you trail off. The word sticks in your throat, refusing to budge. Rehab.

“Before you arrived on the island, your friend made all the necessary preparations,” he begins to tell you. You’re glad he understood what you’d been attempting to say. Preparations. Remembering the doctor in the medbay and what she’d told you about the memo, you almost snort. “Including setting me as your medical first. Naturally, this came with informing me of your history.”

“So…you know it happened because I danced?”

“I know.”

“And you know I got…” your voice trails yet again. Got hooked on opioids. The words are right there but it feels as if your own subconscious is shying away from ever letting them see the harsh light of the world. A shameful secret inside of you. Dormant until the day you give into it. Immortal until the day you die.

“I know,” repeats Kirsh. For once, lying here dizzied with shame and pain, you’re grateful for the low lull of his voice.

There’s an awkward pause where he quietly reminds you that, in order for him to get access to your knee, you’re going to have to take off your cargos. At this point, knowing you can’t take anything heavier than ibuprofen for the pain, you’re past the point of argument. It’s just whatever gets your leg better. Which is taking off your pants in front of the guy you wouldn’t voluntarily around with fully clothed.

While you take them off, again with as much struggle as it had taken you to put them on, Kirsh walks away and busies himself at the sink. It takes the whole time of him washing his hands, patting them carefully dry and putting on some gloves for you to wriggle out of your pants. You’d be lying if you didn’t admit to yourself you feel a whole lot less confined without them on. Your pain doesn’t go, but some of the discomfort melts away. It’s more comfortable. Even if you’re nothing short than horrified to be lying there in your underwear.

Kirsh walks back over to you and for the first time you’re glad he’s looking you in the eyes. He doesn’t ever once glance down. He rips off a length of blue towel from the roll on the nearby counter and holds it out to you. “Cover yourself,” he’s telling you. “I only need to see your knees.”

It dawns on you that your face is probably red. Again. Even after the paper is over your middle. You shuffle down, leaning on the edges enough to be assured it won’t fly away mid-exam.

As he begins, you’re grateful the almost-upright position of the examination bed allows you to have full view over what he’s doing. His choice to sit beside you as he conducts it helps, too. Slowly, his gloved fingers make their way around the contours of your kneecap. It surprises you, to discover how gentle Kirsh’s touch is. His hands, which you had expected to be harsh and prodding, transpire as absolutely anything but. Even his eyes are at work. Fixated now on your inflamed skin. Ever so meticulous as they take in every cell and every bone they observe. When he feels under your knee, your leg jolts up, and his eyes flick instantly over to your face. You’re completely helpless to the giggle that falls out of your throat, to his expression, and his surprise.

“It tickled,” you explain, forcing your leg to relax back into his still-outstretched palm. “Sorry.”

The only thing he says back is ‘interesting,’ in a barely-there mutter before getting right back to his examination. As he continues, you can immediately tell he’s attempting to work even gentler than before. His fingers trace so softly they’re skimming your skin, and yet, the effect it has is almost worse. Again, he has your knee jolting away from his hands violently and your voice betraying you in helpless laughter.

This time he doesn’t speak. You can see, however, that he’s all too amused. He pulls away and tells you he’s seen what he needs to, in any case, and picks up one of the items on the metal trolley. A clinical white flat pack looking similar to those cool-gel packs from your childhood days of bruised knees. He explains it’s an anti-inflammatory pad, which he activates by peeling off a top layer and pressing the contents together with his thumbs. He places it right over your kneecap and stretches it to cover all the way around. A sigh escapes your lips, soft and unmeaning. The steady warmth of the pad brings your pain down several notches in one swift moment.

“So…what, you’re just my doctor now?” you ask. Your head relaxes properly against the cushioning of the examination bed now. Your lack of pain makes you want to get up and start dancing right here and now in some incredibly stupid and contradictory way. Instead, you settle for the smile you had earlier assumed you’d never bring yourself to make on this day. “Gotta make sure I don’t start downing pills?”

“Our leader has given me full medical responsibility over you, yes. I’m more used to dealing with specimens in a lab. Though with a few extra files of information I’m not as unskilled as you might think.”

“You said you like observing animals, anyways. Count this as part of your fun,” you half-tease back.

“I suppose it’s really not much different.”

“Okay, I was kidding.”

“So was I.”

He continues to work on your leg mostly in silence. You find yourself grateful for the opportunity to relish in your pain free moments in some degree of peace. After removing the anti-inflammatory pad, Kirsh makes quick work of beginning your physiotherapy.

You recognise most of these exercises from your recovery days; lying knee bend, static quad strengthening, the seated knee extension stretches, the supported leg raise and the lying leg raise. He helps you the whole time, even though you both know you realistically are more familiar with this than he is. He helps you stretch it one way, then helps you stretch another. Gives you a harsh side-eye when you start to get bored. Other times, you feel your eyes stinging and you can’t help but inhale sharply at each spring of pain coming to greet you upon each movement. When this happens Kirsh proves tenderly obliging. Even now his gentleness continues to shock you. You wonder, is this attributed to his medical care modules? Or has he always been this way, from the very beginning? Everytime you’re in pain, whether or not you’re attempting to conceal it bravely, Kirsh notices. He’ll stop, and apply the anti-inflammatory pad once more. Wait until you seem to have relaxed again before he slowly gets you back into the exercises.

He shows you a brace after the physiotherapy is finished. It’s a navy-blue bit of kit not unlike the usual support braces you were given from the hospital during early recovery. He tells you this one will be much better than any of those can hope to be. This one is an experimentary prototype. Much more advanced medicine. Inside, Kirsh points out, there are mesh strips which will sit precisely against the softness of your leg. As he says this, he runs a finger down the exact part of your knee he’s discussing. It doesn’t tickle this time. It’s soothing, instead, and when he stops, you find yourself wanting him to carry on, in some inexplicable and fleeting way. Kirsh tells you the mesh will help to target your pain points in a similar way to the anti-inflammatory pack.

Just for good measure he helps you on with it, throwing various instructions about its care here and there, altogether with the same careful gentleness as he’s shown the whole session.

Even with the brace, it’s much easier to get your pants back on after he says you’re done. This time you’re finished changing long before Kirsh has finished up at the sink. This almost makes you smile, and you find yourself cursing out Kavalier in your head. He’s done it again. Thought ahead. Made you mad. Proved himself one hundred percent correct. You hope, as you run a hand over your knee, that you never see the light shine on a day his calculations come hungrily baring at you both. So far, you’ve reaped benefit after benefit from that crazed genius mind of his.

When you’re about to swing off the bed, Kirsh surprises you all over again. He holds out his hand to you with an expectant look. Although with a note of hesitation, you take it. This time he’s touching you but he’s not wearing gloves. This time you feel his skin, flush against yours. Remarkably soft. Unexpectedly warm. His fingers close over yours in a way your brain can only define as gentlemanly as he helps you down from the bed. Where did he learn this? You feel his other hand press against the small of your back as he helps you to steady on your feet.

“How’s the pain?” asks Kirsh, once you’re up.

“Almost gone,” you admit breathily. “I don’t know how you did that.”

“As I mentioned, intense preparations were made before your arrival,” nods Kirsh. “Do you still feel a desire for painkillers?”

Pursing your lips, you shake your head. “No. I don’t need them. I’m okay.”

Kirsh nods again though this time with a certain glint of satisfaction. “We’ll have regular physiotherapy sessions twice a week for the foreseeable. If you feel more pain than usual, I can offer you a targeted massage for some relief. You won't need to take anything. All you need to do is ask.”

After everything that has happened today, and everything that has bought you closer and closer to the edge, in a way your brain cannot make sense of, it’s this sentence that finally brings you to cry.

— - —

Kirsh

Long after the session is over and She had left to re-join the children, Her tears stay with Kirsh. The tears, the sound of Her sobs, the expression as She darted away and the silence that followed. He sorts them in his mind over, searching for a rationalisation for Her feelings. Her ‘grey day’. The definition She had given it. Her definition of sunlight.

Up there on that examination table She had been vulnerable to him in a way he had never before come across. She was trusting. Anxious and clammed behind the facade of bravery he could so easily see through. She had opened up while they were there, too. He could almost see into Her. Almost read Her eyes. Almost. Kirsh adds the look into his complied notes of Her so far. A study of character he wasn’t yet growing bored of.

Humans, he muses, are complex creatures he could study for all eternity and still not understand. Not fully.

Kirsh meets Boy Kavalier that evening to deliver his report on the session. He explains what he did and the treatment. He explains Her reaction and how Her desire for pain killers had diminished after it was over. He explains how he gave Her the knee brace, but didn’t disclose Kavalier had been the one to design it, as per his instructions.

“You know, none of this would happen if she would just take me up on my offer. I told her so many times before to just let me, but does she listen?” Boy Kavalier shakes his head and lets out a high laugh. “Never easy with her. Always a chase.”

An offer? Neither of the two had mentioned this before. In the space of a second a thousand possibilities run through his head, and none of them are astute enough to fit. “What offer?”

“A new leg,” he answers, “At the very least a new knee. I’ve built an empire on my synthetics. You’d think she’d be the first one to line up. Still, she denies me.”

“If you give her a synthetic leg, she would be a cyborg. It’s likely this is what she fears. By not forcing the matter, you intend to spare her the moral confusion?”

Kavalier gives another ironic laugh. He throws his ball high up in the air and catches it. He throws it off of the wall, catches it again. “If I turn her into a cyborg, she’d never speak to me again. You’ve seen what she’s like. She’d break Venus over it. By sparing her I’m sparing myself. If we did it? She would be pain-free! But me? Money can’t buy that one back. Not even for a trillionaire.”

Kirsh turned the information over in his mind. Each angry throw of the rubber ball and each puck as it bounced back against the stone of the wall. The exact clench of Boy Kavalier’s jaw at each precise word. He could never quite figure out the eyes but he took that in, anyway. This, for him, must be a game. Not so dissimilar from the ball. Back and forth, calculated toss, calculated grab. A puzzle for him to take apart and put back together. Boy Kavalier’s plan is to convince her to replace her leg with plastic and metal. This game to him is yet unsolvable, and solvable yet. This game has enthralled him.