Homecoming
She's a little more broken and a little more sad, but despite it all, she's exactly as he remembered her.
Her fiery pink hair is still in that signature ponytail and that intense fire still alight in her eyes. Her face is set in determination and her chin is lifted. It's that same haughty confidence she has carried herself with ever since she was a bossy little six-year-old.
Nothing can break me, her expression says to her captors. Not you, not anybody.
Felix takes off his mask and Jenna's face changes.
Except you, the tears seem to scream. Felix has to stop himself from clutching at his own heart. You can break me.
"You're my brother and I trust you."
She whispers in the dead of night when Saturos is on duty and the crickets chirp their nightly song. The crackling of the fire hides their hushed voices from unwanted ears although the only reason why they would be unwanted is because Felix just wants his little sister to himself.
She is looking at him so intensely. Her eyes say everything she wants to say, but can't. You're my brother and I've missed you. You're my brother and I love you. You're my brother so why didn't you come home?
Felix grabs her hand and holds it tightly in his own. He's worried he's hurting her because her fingers are turning pale underneath his grip, but she doesn't say a single word. She simply stares at him, her eyes full of unshed tears.
I can't believe you're in front of me. I can't believe you're alive.
"You're my brother and I trust you."
It isn't until Jenna's breathing stills and her eyes close and her hands fall limp under his grip that Felix realizes he doesn't know if she was saying that to him, or to herself.
Her smile makes him want to cry.
Tinged with a little sadness and a little pain, it is a mere shadow of what it was three years ago, when the world consisted of fussing mothers and fond fathers, of friendly neighbors and free laughter. Now, it speaks of three years of loneliness and three years of sadness, and the strength it took to lift her head above it all.
Felix was foolish to think that his miraculous reappearance would heal anything at all.
"Why did you never come back?" she asks one day. "I thought you were dead."
She doesn't say, "I was all alone." She doesn't say, "My heart was broken nearly beyond repair." She doesn't say, "I had to learn how to live again without you and that hurt more than anything else." She doesn't say any of that, but she doesn't have to; Felix knows that's exactly what she's thinking and he can almost taste her bitterness upon his tongue.
I wanted to come back, is what he wants to shout to her. I wanted to come back to you more than anything.
But Saturos pulls him away from her before he can answer and Felix leaves his little sister on the ground, looking lost and abandoned and he can't do anything about it.
Maybe Jenna was right, Felix thinks bitterly. Maybe he is dead.
Sometimes, Felix calls her to his side as the group moves to confront some monsters but she just stands there and stares at him instead of following his orders. He has to call her once or twice more before she finally snaps out of her reverie and draws her sword. She moves to stand obediently a half step behind him.
He wants to say something, anything, to convince himself that she's still his. "Careful, Jenna."
"Okay, Felix."
He's a little disappointed, but he reminds himself that he has no right to be.
They see Isaac and Garet at Mercury Lighthouse's aerie and Jenna immediately moves toward them. Menardi stops her and Felix says through clenched teeth, "Jenna, what did I say." But Jenna made the move and Menardi punishes her later.
She's near tears and is shaking from the pain. Felix whispers her name comfortingly. He reaches toward her. She turns away from him and curls into herself even more.
Felix thinks he can hear his heart breaking.
For the thousandth time, Felix argues with Saturos and Menardi about being with Jenna. He just wants a few moments to be alone with her. To explain things to her.
"And let her escape from our grasp?" Saturos adds sarcastically to his reasoning.
"Like, we'd ever let that happen." Menardi glares at him and that's supposed to mean that the conversation is over.
But Felix is desperate. He's desperate because even though Jenna trusts him enough to let him protect her, she doesn't trust him enough to comfort her aching heart. She's closing herself from him and if he doesn't mend her shattered heart now, then he might be too late and she'll never be his ever again.
But his outburst is met with a sharp kick to his side by Saturos and continuous Psynergetic attacks by Menardi that burns through his clothes and skin and Felix is left trembling on the ground, barely able to walk.
The conversation is over, Menardi spits at him and Felix can't do a thing.
Kraden nurses him back to health while Jenna squats next to her brother and takes his hand in hers. Felix throws an arm over his eyes and apologizes to her over and over and over again.
Sorry, Jenna, his heart screams. I can't do a damn thing.
Just because he gets hurt sometimes doesn't mean it stops him from trying.
This is the first time where Felix is allowed to be with Jenna alone, so he takes full advantage of the situation and tells her everything. He tells her of the fate of their parents and Isaac's dad. He tells her of his three years spent away from her and everything he loved. He tells her of days of loneliness, shivering from cold weather and colder people. How his heart grew hard because Proxians were hard and how there was no room for flowers in little sisters' hair or warm cookies in front of open windows.
But you were on my mind every day. I lived and breathed for you. I fought thinking of your smile and your laugh, hoping against all hope that I'd see you again.
He wants to say all that and more, but what comes out instead is a choked, "I missed you."
Then, Jenna is against his chest, sobbing into his shoulder, shaking in his arms, as she says repeatedly, like a prayer. "I missed you, too, big brother."
And the ice surrounding his heart breaks into a million pieces in the face of his precious sister's tears and he sobs into her hair, never wanting to let go.
Felix thinks back to a time when Jenna never hesitated to take his hand. A time when she would unflinchingly jump onto his back and demand he carry her home. A time when Jenna's bright grin could light up Mount Aleph and her laugh would ring throughout the village as though she had the whole world in her hands.
He offers her his hand and she hesitates ever so slightly. But she takes it.
Felix realizes that in a time like this, he'll take whatever she can give.
There will come a day where she offers her hand to him and when that happens, Felix won't let go.
He'll wait; he was always the more patient of the two after all.