For Rhodanum, who dragged me into this fandom with a remarkable lack of kicking and screaming on my part.

Along the way

There are times when it just gets too much. When she might as well be chained to her chair instead of sitting on it, when she longs to fly again. When that happens, Eva just bails. She'll get so much crap from her father when the school inevitably calls him, but she can't bring herself to care. It's too much. She needs out.

There's only one place where she feels like she can breathe on days like these. Miguel's garage has none of the cutting-edge technology that her dad has, but it has Stan and Koji. They were on Oban too. They understand.

"Molly!" Koji greets cheerfully when she brings her bike to a stop halfway through the entrance. "Back again? Does you dad know?"

"What do you think?" Eva gets off her bike and walks past him, holding out her hand as she does. Koji chuckles good-naturedly and hands her the wrench he was holding.

"Nothing really big today," he tells her as they make their way further into the garage. "Just a few bikes that need fixing up. You'll like that one, though." He points to an old model in the far-right corner. Eva's eyes widen and she rushes over.

"Is that really an OM-6292?"

"Yep!" Koji grins as she runs a reverent hand over the chassis. The bike is about twice as old as she is. Her mother was only a toddler when production on this thing was discontinued.

"So cool…" she whispers. It even appears to be in working shape. "Can I work on it?"

"Sure." Koji raises his voice: "Hey Stan, Molly's here, she's taking the OM!"

"No she ain't!" Stan appears from under a car, wiping grease off his face. "Hi Molly. I called dibs on that one."

"Nope." Eva brandishes the wrench in his direction. "You get to work on cool stuff like that all the time. This one's all mine."

"I called that one the moment it came in, and Koji knows that very well," Stan says. Koji raises his hands in a placating gesture.

"Hey, if you two can't figure it out, I'll just tell Miguel I'll do it."

Stan raises an eyebrow; Eva stills and narrows her eyes, one hand still on the chassis of the bike. Then she and Stan share a look. Then, as one, they turn towards Koji, who doesn't even have the decency to look scared.

"You tried to trick us," Eva says. Stan shakes his head.

"I should've known. Well, that settles it. We'll be the ones to fix this thing. Right, Molly?"

"Right."

"Aww, c'mon guys, I can help!"

Stan waves a hand towards the many, many vehicles in the garage. Eva is quite sure she recognizes some of them from the last time she came here, over a month ago. Koji's face falls, expression clearly aimed at Stan. Stan wavers. Eva sighs.

"Fine, you can help," she says magnanimously, if only so Stan will stop looking like he's about five seconds away from begging for forgiveness. Koji cheers and kneels down on Stan's other side. They work in companionable silence for several minutes. Neither Stan nor Koji press her on her reasons for coming here. It's one of the reasons she keeps coming back.

"They're all such snobs, y'know?" Eva begins when they've just dismantled the engine. "This one guy just keeps going on and on about how he's been to Australia and how his parents are taking him on a two-month trip through Europe next summer. Like it's this amazingly impressive thing. And I just want to tell him—"

"I've been to two different alien planets?" Koji says softly.

"Right."

They all work in silence for another few minutes. Then Stan drops his screwdriver with a clang.

"I don't get why we're still bound to this damn gag order. It's been a year. Can't your dad do anything?"

"He can't."

He won't, Eva doesn't say. She hated him for it at first. Shouted at him for hours on end: how the world had to know what Jordan had done, how they couldn't let him be reduced to just another name on some memorial plaque somewhere in some forgotten city square. Until her dad had lost his patience. Until he'd shouted that they would end up with a bullet through their skulls and their bodies left to rot in mass grave, and that he couldn't stand to lose her too.

Eva hasn't brought it up anymore after that.

Stan snorts, as he always does when the subject of her father comes up. Eva absently slots a few replacement pieces together and screws them to the engine.

"They think they know everything there is to know in this world. They have no idea."

Of course everyone on the planet knows about alien life. But no one's ever been to Oban or even heard of it. No one's ever battled an ancient evil abomination.

She should be less of an outcast in this new school. When she was introduced as Don Wei's daughter, people were plenty impressed, doubly so when they found out that Maya Wei was her mother. They like her there. She stills feels like running away on most days.

"Well, you're always welcome here if you ever need a break from the snobs," Stan says. Eva nods, looking down at the ground. Koji reaches over and gives her a brief pat on her shoulder.

"Remember that time Jordan tried to help fix the Whizzing Arrow?" he says. Eva snorts.

"Yeah, what a disaster.

"Do you think he'd be better at it now?"

"Some things even a god can't fix," Stan says sagely. Eva can't suppress a giggle and Stan grins widely at her. She looks up at the ceiling. Sometimes she hopes Jordan can see them like this. She hopes he's happy. One day she'll make it out there again. Even if she has to slog through years and years of this school and any that follow it. She'll do it. She's done it before. And if it ever gets too much… Well, Stan and Koji are never short on work.