I wonder if any of y'all have figured it out yet.

Hehehehe

Disclaimer: Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee and all its affiliates are the property of Hiroyuki Asada. Fanfiction user PsychoticObserver owns this story, the plot, the Ivory Tree and all its employees. Please support the official series!

Chapter 13: Past

"Writing still?"

Bree turned from where she was wistfully staring out the front window of the café to look at Azalea, smirking as she folded dish cloths at the next table over. Bree looked down at the…well, it could hardly be called a book. It was more of a hastily bound pile of pages, wrapped together in cheap string and some old fabric she bought with her last pay-check from the sale table at the shop down the road.

"Yeah…" Bree chuckled. "I'm a bit behind schedule."

"I don't know if it's a journal or whatever but you're definitely dedicated, I'll give you that. You've been writing since I met you." Azalea shook her head in disbelief. "How many books has it been now?"

Bree ran her hand over the frayed edges of the fabric 'cover'. "I always lose count."

"I really want to know what you're writing. I mean, you're way too dedicated for it to be just a journal." Azalea lips quirked into a smile as she saw Bree's hand tighten protectively around the book. "But I won't. That's your business. And besides, Zal would get mad at me."

"Empress forbid you anger our lovely princess."

Azalea shrugged. "She's all I got. I have to make my baby sister smile."

Bree smiled fondly, but her eyes were sad. "I know."

Azalea wondered what the meaning was behind those eyes.

But she knew better than to ask. As she said, it wasn't her business to pry into the secrets of the one who gave Zailia and her a home.

"So, uh…hey! Haven't seen that Bee kid around lately. The little one with the silver hair."

"Lag? Yeah, he's heading to Honey Waters today." Bree answered absentmindedly.

"How'd you know that? I just said he hadn't been around lately." Azalea frowned and paused mid fold.

Bree seemed to freeze only for the briefest of moments as she realised her mistake. She tried to keep her voice even as she covered for her blunder. "I heard it from Sylvette. You know, the girl in the wheelchair he's been bringing with him?"

Luckily, Azalea seemed to buy it, considering she didn't really associate too much with Bree's new entourage, and merely hummed in response. The Sylvette girl seemed to get along well with Zailia too, perhaps she would get to know their new regular customer next time she popped in.

"Anyway…Honey Waters, huh? You think he'll be alright? There's drama in those parts, isn't there?" Azalea moved her pile of unfolded dish cloths to sit on the opposite side of Bree. "Last I heard they hadn't changed on their whole 'no Bees' thing."

"One of his friends is going with him, plus they both have their dingos."

"I still can't believe that tiny kid is a dingo." Azalea scoffed.

"Niche? Tell me one time you've looked at her and not felt threatened."

"Felt like looking a mirror."

Bree's hand stopped writing but she didn't look up from her page. Azalea had never brought up her past before. She never even talked about herself unless it was unabashed gloating or singing her sexual conquests. Bree didn't want to pry. She was scared of breaking this moment but she was also scared of letting it continue. This was unprecedented. It was new. She hadn't recorded anything like this before in her notes—

"Zailia has gained some weight."

Bree's gaze snapped up, her eyes wide at Azalea's words. "Really?"

"Yeah, Thunderland's pleased with how she's going. She'll be able to drop the supplements soon."

"You're still going with her to those appointments?"

"I don't trust that fuckin' guy! You should'a seen Zal's face the first time we went in there! She could barely keep it together!" Azalea smacked her hand down on the table.

Bree smirked. "Isn't Rupert acting as her guardian for all this stuff? I thought he was doing okay."

Azalea huffed, turning her head to the side to spit. "Yeah, he's not a deadbeat but I know my kid sister better."

For a moment there was comfortable silence. With Azalea staring out the window into the distance, Bree returned to her writing.

"They tried to talk to me too."

Bree glanced up through her lashes before returning to her writing. "About Zal?"

"About me."

Oh.

Bree fidgeted. Now they're back in this weird moment where Azalea weirdly has emotions and Bree is unprepared.

"When that woman disappeared, Zal was could still be called a baby. I did what I had to, so she could live."

Of course, Bree knew all this already. About the Hetran sisters and their runaway single mother. She knew that they had nothing, that Azalea sold what little she had so that Zailia could get something, anything to eat. All Azalea had was her sister and herself and if selling Zailia was off the table then there was only one thing she could do.

When Bree met them after five years of that horrible life in their decrepit hometown, the damage was visible. Zailia was dying, no medicine to fight seasonal illnesses and even less food, her childhood no doubt left permanent scars on her body. Always so fragile and never growing. Azalea was no better, her physical scars only outweighed by her psychological ones. She had been hurt enough and was ready to burn the world herself. Bree knew very well that Azalea could have and would havesucceeded at that.

"I kept a kid from becoming road kill." Azalea continued. "That's all there is to it. I told them where they could shove their 'professional support'." She spat again, and Bree really hoped she would clean that particular area of the floor later.

Azalea was silent again and Bree was nervous to move even to continue to write. She knew Azalea to be distant and almost sociopathic in her behaviours, completely hollowed out from her past. She also knew her to be quick to anger and merciless in her actions. This situation they were in right now…

It was so unbelievably uncharacteristic of the older girl that Bree felt the urge to just run.

"Rupert talked to me after." Azalea's voice quietened a little. "He said we weren't so different. How he was dealing with shit after he lost his own kid."

Bree just stared at Azalea, not daring to even blink.

Azalea turned her gaze to match Bree's. "Why'd you bring us here? Why'd you even take us anywhere? Give us jobs and a place to stay and a fuckin' normal life? Why'd you pick Rupert Geodes of all people of Central?" Her voice grew louder with each question.

"I just…" Bree blinked slowly. She genuinely didn't know what the right thing to say here could be. "I just thought it was better to feel shitty together than alone, I guess." She hoped that was vague enough. She knew Azalea would lose it if she thought that the older girl needed help or that she was too dangerous to live freely.

Azalea, thankfully, seemed to accept that answer and her voice was more measured when she spoke again. "Did you know if it would work out?"

"No." That statement was true without a doubt. The choice she made then was a desperate whim; to bring the sisters to Central, to Rupert Geodes, and hope that the domesticity would stabilise Azalea and the company of a new adoptive family would fill the void in Rupert he was filling with alcohol. Bree had never attempted such a thing before, she was sure lady luck would be against her in this gamble, along with everything else.

Azalea said nothing more and Bree waited carefully before she spoke again. "Do you regret coming here?"

The older girl stood, taking the long forgotten pile of folded dish cloths and heading towards the kitchen at the back. Bree was almost consumed with doubt when she was saved by Azalea's reply.

"I don't."

"Isn't that enough?"

"Yeah."

With that answer, Bree was pretty confident that Azalea was not going to have a breakdown.

"What brought this on?" She asked.

Azalea shrugged as she placed the dish cloths by the sink. "I'unno. Rupert said it would help me or something."

"And since when do you give a shit about Rupert?"

"I dunno. I've been having nightmares lately. Like super realistic ones. Ones where you never showed up back then and I just…lost it. Killed a bunch of people. Like a bunch of people. I even… killed your little Bee friend. I don't know why but it really got to me. The dreams, I mean. Rupert said he's been having something like that too so he's helping me out and it's working. That's it." Azalea's tone clearly indicated she was done with this conversation. As she described her dreams…Bree had never heard Azalea speak so softly.

These weren't just nightmares. Something was up. Bree needed to know exactly what Azalea saw in her dreams.

She hurriedly packed up her writing utensils and shoved her book under her arm. "I have to go. I'll cover someone's shift later so cover for me this time, okay?" And with that Bree was out the café's front door before Azalea could even reply.

Bree had to restrain herself from outright running home. Azalea having nightmares. Rupert having nightmares. Explicit nightmares. Nightmares about serial murders. Azalea deciding to rely on someone and open up.

All of this was new. Too new.

Something about this Time was different.

Wow would ya look at that

Review

-psyche