Waiting

***

It was cramped in my little room with two beds, and it made getting changed in the mornings especially crowded.

"What's this?" I said, grabbing Dorsey's t-shirt sleeve and pulling it up. There was a tattoo of a tiny black cat on her shoulder. There had definitely been nothing there last time I saw her.

"Blackheath gave it to me," Dorsey said, eyeing it with a mixture of sadness and affection.

"What do you mean, he gave it to you?" I said suspiciously.

"He did it."

I frowned at her.

"Doesn't getting tattoos hurt?"

"Yeah… no, it's not like that," she said, catching sight of my repulsed expression, "I wanted a tattoo, he offered to do it for me." I did not look convinced. "Oh, you're just anti tattoo."

"I thought you said he'd cut his hand off before he hurt you. And I'm not anti tattoo."

"I don't see you getting any."

"I just wouldn't know what to have," I said defensively. How had this become about me?

"You're just expressing yourself, saying something about yourself."

"Doesn't just plain me say everything about myself?"

"You could get a little moth or something…"

"Oh God no, not Hawkmoth," I shuddered. "But if I did get a tattoo, I'd get it done properly, with No Pain and… I don't understand how you could just sit there and let him hurt you."

"Better him than a total stranger, surely?"

"I don't know…"

"Look…" her forehead creased in concentration, "having babies hurts, doesn't it? But it's worth it, because you're making something you really want." I knew what she meant there. In some ways, I felt I had that taken away from me with Ayasha.

"Well, that's part of the process isn't it? It hurts, but it's worth it. I wanted to share this with him. I wanted it to be something we did together."

I didn't want to understand, but part of me did.

"I still think you're weird," I grumbled.

"Well, there was never any doubt about that, was there?"

***

"How're those troops coming?" Alex's voice was firm today, and I took heart from his strength.

"Another lot will be down your way tomorrow."

"That's it?"

"For now, yes."

I recognized Alex's intensely frustrated sound.

"We've got two entire cities half full of people and we don't have enough people to defend them."

"You cannot expect Souls to fight, Alex. It's like expecting humans not to retaliate."

"Humans can do that, you know."

"All right, bad example. Seekers will fight with you, if you let them use their methods. The rest of us…"

"Would prefer to die?"

Melts Blue Ice sighed.

"Because that's what's happening down here, if we don't keep Blackheath on the back foot. You're really telling me they'd prefer to die than fight for their future?"

"It's a decision for each individual to make. I know they'd prefer any other option than to fight. Get them cooking, cleaning, healing, organizing, running messages, anything else but actually fighting."

"Alright, fine."

"Ah, the sort of stuff Bhaskar is doing," Melts Blue Ice said, after I had prompted him with several looks.

"What?" Alex replied after a stunned silence.

"Flame's just been asking after him, that's all," Melts Blue Ice said lamely, sweat beading on his brow. I frowned at him fiercely.

"Yeah. Ok. Tell her he's fine? Now, what have you heard about Area 4?"

Melts Blue Ice glared at me, but I was someplace else, lost in daydreams of healthy sons.

***

Dorsey and I sat in front of the television, watching the same footage being replayed for the fifth time that day. We watched side by side in silence. We wanted the same thing – no casualties - but different victors. It made commentary difficult. We would have both been happy with a truce, but there seemed to be no suggestion of that.

"You know what the worst part of war is?" Dorsey exploded suddenly, "The boredom. The sitting at home and waiting. I hate it! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!"

I had a pile of communications on my lap and was sorting them into two more piles of useful and not.

"You'd rather go down and join Alex?" I replied, reading through a report of a truck accident and trying to decide if was worth bothering Melts Blue Ice about.

"Frankly yes. But he wouldn't trust me."

"Can you blame him?"

"No, I wouldn't trust me either," she sighed, then grunted in frustration, "Yashie: do something interesting!"

Yashie stared at her, then slowly held out one of Cara's blocks.

Dorsey took it and sat down on the floor next to her, pouting.

"What did you do in the civil war, mum?" she said in a high fake voice, "Oh I played blocks!"

Yashie smiled at her encouragingly and gave her another block.