This is a shift day. There will be another upload this afternoon: Give of Yourself, chapter 7.

"Troika"

21. Departure

One Day Later

She sat on a bench, staring at the departures board. Their train wasn't boarding for another hour. She absently played with the edge of her cast, the one clear and still present reminder of how she'd gotten here, because as for the rest… Her clothes were new, and after getting her hair cut three weeks ago because some of it had met the flames, now her whole head was a flame, turned red in the back of Winger's store and now matching the photos on her ID's. It would take some getting used to, but really that was just the smallest of her transformations… She had a whole new life.

She blinked as he held the coffee to her. "Thanks," she took the cup, looking to him as he sat at her side. His hair was all but gone. He'd shaved it, leaving just enough that it still covered his head. She reached out and touched it, breathing out.

"Are you sure you're not hungry?" he asked, holding out a danish. She smiled, taking it. She wasn't used to this American voice of his yet. She had always loved the Scottish accent on him, but she knew in public he had to be Tommy, not Spencer.

"Thank you," she repeated before returning her eyes to the board.

"How are you?" he asked. It was a simple question, with a complicated answer. She looked to the cup, flexing her fingers against the warmth.

"I really liked being here… in New York. It was the closest thing I had to home in a long time. I'd sort of forgotten before, being on my own, what it was like to have people there who cared for you. Then I had them again and… I never wanted to be without it again. Now I look at what I've become and… I don't know who I am anymore."

"You've got me," he promised. "And that won't change." It got her smiling, and he returned it.

"I was looking forward to so much. Rachel and Puck's baby, now Santana and Brittany's… I'll never know them…" she spoke her thoughts aloud. "Not if they'll be boys, or girls, what their names will be, who they'll look like more… I was with all of them for so much, and now I'm not… I guess I really am dead."

"It'll get easier… Not because you want to but because it has to."

"There's still so much you don't know about me, and so much I don't know about you… Does it even matter anymore?" She dropped the danish bag in her lap, reaching to wipe at her eyes. In doing so, her eyes had gone to the cast on her arm.

She remembered sitting with Brittany, the two of them 'cast twins,' fraternal, she'd said, since they didn't look the same. They didn't want to have the whole thing covered in signatures and drawings like they might have had when they were younger, but they still wanted to do something to make it theirs. So Brittany had made her get a marker. On Brittany's cast, Quinn had drawn a smile, and on Quinn's cast, Brittany had drawn a heart with a '3' inside, just below the hole for her thumb.

Now she looked at it, and she remembered what her friend had told her after she'd finished. She'd told her how she knew Quinn felt guilty, but that she shouldn't, that she didn't blame her for what had happened to her, and that she was just glad it was over, and they were back together.

By then, of course, Quinn already knew what she was about to do, and she'd come so close to spilling the beans right then and there, because it would have felt so much better than what she had to do instead, which was to lie to her face.

She thought about her, about Santana, all their friends… She knew she had to power through, to stop getting lost in grief or she'd never recover, but… As much as they were losing her, she was losing all of them… That would take time to heal over.

"It will always matter, to us. It's where we came from," Spencer told her, and she chuckled.

"Where I came from… I came from this, from one girl on her own, to all of us… You know, it was so small at first. Just one thing, easy. And then it got bigger, and I… I was too far in to just make it small again. I was helping people, and that felt good. I'd hurt so many people before, maybe not the same way, but… it felt like I was making things right."

"You can still do that. You'll find a new way… I'll help."

"I know you will," she looked to him, breathing out. "I'm just stuck in this place now, all I can do is look back. I think once we've left New York, that's when I'll be able to stop reflecting and just start looking ahead." She looked into those blue eyes, her one good reason to smile lately. "I just keep talking about me, but… you've just…"

"Don't worry about me," he promised.

"No, but I do worry, I should…"

"I know you do. You have a tell."

"I do?" she looked down.

"You touch my hair," he nodded, and she laughed.

"Fine, maybe I have a tell."

They shared the danish, drank their coffees. Soon the call came for them to board the train. They didn't have much in the way of baggage. When they got to their seats, he let her have the window seat. He could feel her tensing, looking out that window. So when they felt that first jolt of motion of the train, he reached for her hand. He held it as they rode out of New York, as Tommy Walker and Allie Archer began their new life, with no plans, and only each other to depend on.

THE END

(End of the story, not the series ;))