#zary

It had been exactly six months since that had happened. Darci shook her head, trying to clear away the memories. Memories of Claire showing up in armor and trying to warn everyone, only for no one to understand what had been her last words to them. Memories of Toby showing up after the sun rose again and the dust settled, tear stains on his cheeks as he explained what he, Jim, and Claire had been doing during the last months of Claire’s life.

As Darci shook her head, her earrings swung and hit her in the jaw. They had been a Christmas gift from Claire, the first Christmas after Darci got her ears pierced. They had been heavy when she first got them, because she hadn’t been used to dangling earrings. They were still heavy, not with weight but with guilt.

Darci pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked to see if there were any new messages. She had just gotten to the party when she found out Enrique had been kidnapped. Jim had told her to stay where she was, and they’d send her any information they came across because they hadn’t had any information at the time. Darci knew the whole point of them having such a large team of fighters was so that they could divide the load according to specialties, and there’d be less sleepless nights of defending Arcadia all around. Darci didn’t have any special abilities that would make her a good tracker of one-and-a-half year old babies, she just had a laser pistol and an eye that was slightly better at scanning for threats and aiming. But it still stung. Times like this, it felt like the others didn’t trust her to fight, because she had started fighting later than everyone else. And yes, her inexperience had lost her an eye, but they honestly didn’t have many truly long-ranged fighters.

Claire hadn’t trusted Darci to fight, which was why Darci hadn’t found out about trolls until it was too late. Darci owed it to Claire to fight and rescue Enrique, and she wasn’t doing either of those.

Darci checked her phone again and frowned. Zero bars. She could be missing information. Her friends could be hurt or worse.

Darci walked outside, glancing between her phone and her surroundings until she got bars. She then received a series of texts, all from about ten minutes ago.

They found Enrique.

They planned an attack.

Toby had wondered where she had been, and it had been concluded that they’d go in without Darci.

Darci’s hands shook as she typed out an apology.

Her phone rang. It was Toby.

Darci picked up. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah, we’re fine,” Toby said. He sounded oddly giddy. Giddy, and tired, like he hadn’t slept in six months. “We took down the sorcerer, saved Enrique...”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Darce, it wasn’t your fault you weren’t here. But, the only one hurt was Enrique, and it was minor. The sorcerer used Enrique’s blood to open a portal to the Shadow Realm. Enrique wasn’t the only one we saved.”

“You found her body?” Darci felt her organic eye tearing up, and she blinked rapidly to keep her make-up from smudging.

“You could say that. Sort of. We found Claire’s living body. With her own soul inside it!”

“She’s okay?”

Toby took a breath. “Claire’s alive. She’s walking, and breathing, and talking, but, oh Darci, she’s not okay.”

“How bad? How is she?”

“Really, really scared. Jumpy, like every sound or sudden movement is going to try to kill her.” Toby’s voice only sounded tired, now. “You remember those cracks that Douxie got, that one time he nearly killed himself using dark magic? And how his eyes turned black and blue?”

“Yeah.” It had been a couple fights after Darci had gotten her prosthetic eye. All the alerts, showing just how much he was dying due to an unknown error, had been terrifying.

“Claire has those. And her eyes are like that, but purple. But, if not for how much she was limping and the dark magic, she’d seem like she was completely physically healthy.”

“You took her to the hospital?” Darci asked, half because she was trying to keep her boyfriend from spiraling into guilt and self-loathing because of Claire. Half because she felt dazed, and she wouldn’t be surprised if Toby felt the same way.

“Of course! Dr. Lake should be taking care of her right now.” The giddiness was creeping back into Toby’s voice, like when he was not focusing on the fact that Claire was unwell he could focus on the fact that she was alive. “I also just got off the phone with her parents when I called you. Uh, I’m gonna call Mary now, if that’s okay with you. Tell her the news, assuming Zoe hasn’t called her already.”

“Mmm.” In the past month and a half since Zoe and Mary had announced their relationship, Mary had gotten after school detention at least once for just how much she had texted her queerplatonic partner during class. “You do that. Love you. Bye.”

“Love you too!”

After Toby hung up, Darci walked straight to where the drinks were at the party, to grab a glass of water.

Claire was alive. Claire was alive.

“Darci, are you okay?” her dad asked.

“Y-yeah.”

“You’re crying, is everything alright? Are your friends okay?”

Darci reached up to touch her cheek. “Yeah. Can we stop by the hospital? All my friends are alive. Including the one whose funeral we went to last summer.”

A/N: Darci’s dad is Detective Scott, and she’s closer to him because he’s around more often. Her pop is an airline pilot; he’s also technically her biological uncle but Darci doesn’t view him as such (her pop’s younger sister got pregnant, and because her boyfriend bailed on her she wasn’t able to financially support Darci so Darci’s bio mom gave Darci to Darci’s Dad and Pop.) Darci found out about her family history when she was six.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t planning on Mary and Zoe being in a relationship when I started this fic (and definitely not when I started writing this universe). I’m calling the ship zary (one r, not to be confused with a two r ship) unless someone can come up with something better.