The past is done with us
Summary
In which the August 8 Cluster celebrates their birthday and wonders what to do next.
"I want to believe that the past is done with us the moment we are done with it."
— From S1E10, "What is human?"
A/N: An announcement about the timeline change:
As my friend Savay ( fiftyeightminutes on tumblr) had kindly pointed out, the August 8 cluster had already celebrated their 28th birthday in the Christmas special. So this story should've taken place in 2017, and I've adjusted the timeline accordingly. Because the São Paulo Pride in 2017 took place on June 18th (it was May 29th in 2016), that means the dates are shifted back, too, since the cluster's got to have a few days after Pride where shit happened before they all headed to London.
There were a couple minor changes I made because of the shift in the timeline: chapter 1 took place 3 days after they kidnapped Whispers instead of a week after, and Kiira and Mavis, who were born in 1996, would be 21 instead of 20. Of course, I can only remember so many details, so if any of you find any more inconsistencies due to the timeline change, please let me know, thank you!
Plus I cut out a couple skipped-over days when I felt like it wouldn't affect the plot so much either way so I could get this chapter to fall on their 29th birthday. And I did it! (Happy very belated birthday to them!)
Now, let's see if everyone else is okay :)
August 8, 2017
The early morning train ride to Manchester was a silent one.
The fatigue from all the fighting last night had caught up to Mavis, and she curled herself up in a corner in the private compartment she shared with Gina, Miki, Leon, and Genevieve. It was impossible to sleep. Voices echoed in her mind, over and around each other, fighting for attention. Voices from her past and present. Voices from memories that weren't hers.
All Mavis wanted to do was forget last night ever happened.
Not the final confrontation with the man Will's cluster called Whispers, of course. And not when she confronted Pelzer and put him in his rightful place, either; she'd dreamed about doing that for years. And Kolovi died, and Veronika, too. All in all, it should have been an excellent end to her revenge story, if it weren't for the cost of a losing a friend.
But you all knew the risks, didn't you? asked Morgan's voice in her head.
She didn't remember the last time she heard his voice. Around two years ago, maybe? When she'd left for London for what she believed could very well be a suicide mission.
Mavis forced the ill-timed irony out of her thought before the others could hear it, but none of them so much as stirred. They sat facing each other, their backs too stiff against the soft cushions of the chairs. Gina fiddled with the ring that was too large for her finger, eyes staring blankly ahead. A quick dip in their minds told Mavis what she'd suspected: they had closed off their connections in fear of the painful absence, trying to convince themselves that this was not real. The situation was too familiar, something Mavis had hoped she would never have to pay witness to again.
In two days' time, one of them would have to pick up Henrik's ashes.
The door to the safe house was left unlocked, but no hackers came to greet them. Most of them had gone home, save for Topher, who was packing upstairs, and María's husband Andy, who had taken the earliest train to down London before dawn. They shuffled in without much sound, closing the door behind them with a final click.
"You're back!" Damien shouted from the living room. He ran up to greet them but froze when he saw the catatonic look on their faces. A question lingered on his lips, but he closed them, forcing it back.
Meanwhile, Gina and the others stood there, still as statues.
Before Mavis could open her mouth to say something, anything, he surveyed them with careful eyes and an inscrutable expression. "Are you here to say goodbye?"
It took Mavis a few seconds to realize this question was directed at her.
"Yeah. I - I'm - I'm going," Mavis finished, swallowing hard. Going home. But home sounded like a cruel word to say when the boy had lost his.
Damien pulled her into a tight hug. She didn't know where to place her hands and settled for a small pat on his head. "Did you kill the Headhunters?" he whispered. His voice was shaking, and a lump formed in her throat, too.
"We… You don't have to hide anymore," she told him, forcing back tears.
"You did kill them. Good." He drew his arms away. When he looked at her, there was a darkness in his eyes she never expected to see from a child. "Make them pay."
"Damien -"
"What did they do?" He looked at Gina, and Leon, and Genevieve, and Miki. "What did they do? What happened to Henrik?"
Mavis found herself at a loss for words again. In another circumstance, she would have kicked herself, but at that moment, she froze, too. She couldn't bring herself to say "they killed him". A small part of her still believed only saying it out loud would make it real, not that it already was.
But their silence was an answer all in itself.
"It's not fair!" Damien stepped away. He looked at them and the stairs, his expression shifting into anger betrayed by tears. "It's not fair!"
Miki jolted from her stupor the moment Damien bolted upstairs and slammed the door. She ran after him, calling his name. In the back of her mind, she left a hasty "take care" to Mavis.
It's not fair. The force of the truth in Damien's words brought Gina out of her trance, too. Mavis felt a flood of emotions and voices and memories surging back into their minds at once. Leon and Genevieve looked on the verge of breaking, and a second later Gina was curled up on the ground, sobbing.
Pointed looks from Leon and Genevieve told Mavis this was a situation best left to the cluster alone. She gave them her condolences through her mind, comforts without words. They nodded and pulled Gina up from the ground, guiding her to the couch.
Take care, Genevieve thought as Topher came downstairs with a duffle bag.
Mavis had a feeling Topher already knew what happened. Tears betrayed him, too, as they made their ways to the train station together, back to London. They were taking the same flight to New York in the evening — in Mavis' case, followed by a layover to São Paulo.
"What about Damien's mom?" Topher finally spoke when they passed through the countryside. He was looking out the window, not at her, and his breath fogged up the glass.
She turned to face the outside, following his gaze. It was a familiar sight, a gentle landscape not unlike the one she saw on her train ride to Oslo only days ago, but now the grasses were too green, the clouds dense and suffocating. The last time she saw so much green, she and Damien were laughing on the train, placing whispered bets on when the insufferable lovesick fool that was Leon would do something about his crush on Genevieve. There were no deaths of allies and cluster-mates and families looming over their heads, only a stubborn determination to put an end to it all.
"We saw her," Mavis told him. She turned away from the window. The lushness of all the green was starting to sting her eyes. It was a rare, sunny sort of day. "Before Henrik -" before Henrik died - "she was there. With the other soldiers."
Topher swore, shut his eyes and breathed deeply. "So she's -"
"Gone," she said quietly. There was no way to sugarcoat it. The woman she saw last night was nothing like the woman who sang in the early mornings and smiled too much. Nothing like the woman Gina and the others remembered. "It wasn't her."
"Did she… Did you kill her?"
Will had to kill her, she thought. He looked at her, surprised, but didn't say anything. Someone ordered her to kill Henrik. Topher, she killed Henrik.
He turned back from the window to face her. "Does Damien know?"
"Not yet. I couldn't tell him. Not when he's already so -"
Topher nodded before she could finish. "They'll tell him."
"Maybe Damien already knows." She frowned. "Sometimes I feel like he knows more than he's telling."
Maybe, he agreed. Then they were silent again.
Will didn't know when he had fallen asleep, but when he woke up that morning with his head on Riley's shoulder, he felt the connection of their minds pulsing like heartbeats. It had come back all at once, and his brain tingled with excitement once he realized he was free. He was free.
Free.
That word, after being on the run for over a year, felt foreign to him. He'd never quite taken the time to contemplate what he was missing until his cluster-mates were roused from various states of consciousness.
He could feel Riley's presence before he picked his head up and turned to face her. She was disheveled from lack of sleep, and there were tear marks her cheeks mixed with black mascara streaks. At the sight of him, she smiled, sniffling from a red nose.
Will reached for her hand, mindful of the gauze around his knuckles. The cuts still stung when he tried to bend his fingers. Her hand was cold to the touch, but he felt warm knowing she was there. With it, came the fear and anxiety of waiting to find out if Sun and Kala and Felix were okay after Will had given in to exhaustion.
They were sitting in the hospital waiting room, and Will had rested his broken leg on a stool, the stiff cast binding his bone in place. His muscles burned eightfold with the aftermath of last night's overexertion. They were all back. They were complete.
Soon, all their memories of last night joined together, overlapped, then branched off at various points, combining into a narrative of how he and his allies had come to bring BPO down on its knees once and for all.
At a price they didn't know they had to pay.
There was one voice in Will's head he had hoped he would hear. That voice would tell him last night was hazy, and he'd gotten more hurt than he'd ever care to experience in his lifetime, but everyone had been saved, and eventually, he came to. Will expected Henrik sitting beside them in the waiting room, running a hand through his incurably tousled hair as he complained about the lack of quality coffee in this hospital.
Henrik was very particular about his coffee. Gina had explained that his parents used to own a café by the Amstel. Will never did see a memory of that place — what little time he wasn't Blocked, he spent trying to get his mind back behind the barrier. Perhaps he should, now that he could. And he could. Henrik's mind was just there, within reach.
He shut his eyes and felt his consciousness halt in front of a void.
Will felt hot tear stinging his face, tears that were not his. Riley dabbed at her cheeks with her sleeves. "You don't remember, Will?"
"I remember," he told Riley. "I remember everything." But I wish I remembered wrong.
"Kala and Sun woke up a few minutes before you." She stroked his head, trying to draw his attention away. Henrik's last smile flashed through her mind briefly, but she pushed the memory aside. "They'll have to stay for a few more days. Felix, too."
Will closed his eyes and saw what happened to Kala through Wolfgang's eyes. He let himself slip into Kala's body for a few moments. She was awake, and she was looking at Wolfgang, who had fallen asleep face-forward with his head on the edge of her bed. Bandages were wrapped snugly around her aching chest, plastering her skin with some kind of healing cream. Will took a few painful breaths in her place before he let himself go over to Sun.
Instead of being in Sun's body, Will found himself standing at the side of her bed… next to Detective Mun, who was looking at her with a dopey smirk that would put Felix to shame. The detective was fighting sleep as he nodded off into his cold mug of hospital coffee. Will felt a painful pull at his side and winced, knowing Sun had gotten slashed with a blade.
I'm fine, Sun thought before Will could ask.
With a nod, he let himself go back to Riley. "What happened to Felix?"
"Stabbed by a Bolger. Dani's been here all night. But he's stable. He'll be okay. The blade didn't go through anywhere fatal."
"God." He groaned. "I can't believe he got tangled up in all this -"
"I know, Will." Riley shook her head.
And Felix wasn't the only one who suffered the consequences of being their ally. The moment he let himself remember what the war had cost, the memories of the last Bolger shooting came surging back. He saw a flash of Jonas' face, Whispers' cold smile, and Henrik his hand letting go of the unfixable wound on his chest, and blood, so much blood -
"Will." Riley's hand tightened around his, drawing him back.
"I'm sorry." He swallowed. "I'm sorry. I should have protected him -"
She shook her head. "Please don't blame yourself."
"I survived." His voice cracked. "I survived last night, and I'm here. What kind of cop am I? He should be here too."
"No one should have had to die," she agreed. "But it wasn't you who pulled the knife."
All of this, Will knew, was true. It was a Headhunter who had ordered the kill using the Bolger, using Damien's mom, as their pawn. But Will had started it all when he declared war on Whispers. Henrik had been safe before Will and the others showed up -
Riley's voice brought him back again. "This is the last life they'll ever take."
He took a deep breath. "It will be. We'll make sure of it."
But it wasn't only the dead who had been lost. What about the ones they'd left behind? What about Gina, and Damien -
"When you rushed into the elevator to go after Whispers, I was worried I'd lose you, too," she told him, her voice breaking, pulling him out from the vicious cycle of self-blame.
Will tried for a smile, but it couldn't convince her when he couldn't even convince himself. "I'm here," was all he could say.
"You are." She squeezed her hand.
He felt grief pulling at the edges of Riley's mind, left by her past memories of loss. She was pushing it away, but echoes of it remained, crouching at dark corners, biding their time.
"Hey," he ran his hand up her arm, "Riley, look at me."
Their eyes met.
"I'm not going anywhere." Saying it made it real, and a smile formed on Will's face before he knew it. He was there. So was she. They were safe. They pulled through. On second thought, he added, "Literally. I can't go anywhere."
Riley looked frozen for a second before she broke into a small chuckle. "You're terrible."
He shrugged. "I'm guessing police work is out of the question."
"Will!" she chastised, then rolled her eyes when she realized he wasn't serious. "You remember what the doctor said. The cast doesn't come out for another two months."
"Two months sounds good."
"For what?"
His hand found hers again. He ran his thumb over the fire opal on her ring and grinned. "Do you know this ring has a matching wedding band? The storekeeper saved it for me."
She shook her head, looking exasperated. "Did you have it all planned out?"
"Maybe?"
"So when are we picking it up?"
"How about -" he put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close, planting a kiss on her temple - "right before our two months honeymoon?"
Dani didn't know how long she spent watching Felix from a chair by his hospital bed. The ambulance had taken them to a nearby hospital — a private one, apparently, with staff who knew not to ask too many questions. A small part of her mind wondered if one of the hackers had set it up this way on purpose. But between the rush to get Felix to surgery, and the waiting, and the adrenaline rush wearing off, she never had time to answer her own question. Her muscles ached as she squirmed in her uncomfortable chair, wondering if Felix had ever been so pale, or if it was just the sheets.
"Hi," Felix mumbled. He opened his eyes widely and studied her face. "You look like hell. Have you even slept?"
She wanted to punch him on his good shoulder, the one that wasn't in a sling. If he weren't lying down right now, she would have. "Felix, you need to stop scaring me like this."
Dani saw the signature twitch between his brows, something he always did before he decided to say something cheeky to get her to roll her eyes. "It's not my fault that zombie decided to pull a knife on you."
"It is your fault for stepping in," she retorted. She didn't roll her eyes. She wasn't about to give him the satisfaction.
He gave her his best approximation of a one-shouldered shrug. "Guilty as charged."
"Thank you." She reached for his hand.
The cheeky look was back. Felix traced the lines on her palm with his finger. "You should know, I am nothing if not a good human shield."
"Felix!"
"Well, I am!" Felix insisted. "I got the job done, didn't I?"
"You almost got yourself killed!"
"He was aiming for your heart," he said, the grin fading from his face.
Her eyes softened. Count on Felix to pay attention to her surroundings better than herself, never mind that they were in the same fight. "Well, then," she tried her best to sound lighthearted, mindful that her voice was shaking a little. "Consider yourself my hero."
"Mm." Felix didn't bother to hide how smug he looked. "Dani's Hero. I like the sound of that. I'm getting better at this fighting thing."
She groaned. "Please stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Fighting." She sat back and crossed her arms. "No more fighting, alright?"
Felix chuckled. "Well, I think we got rid of the worst of them last night. So, sure."
"You promise?" she asked, half-serious. Getting Felix to stop picking fights was like getting Wolfgang to stop brooding. But she could try. He wasn't dying on her.
"I'm not sure I should be trusted to watch myself. I think you need to supervise me."
"Fine," she conceded. "No more fighting from you. I'll make sure of it."
He nodded and looked at her again like he was scrutinizing her expression. The intensity of the gaze made her feel self-conscious about the raccoon-like smudge around her eyes where perfect mascara and eyeshadow used to be.
"What happened to the little girl? From Leicester Square?" He asked.
"Mun said he saw her get into a police car. The cops said something about finding her dad."
"Poor kid." He shook his head.
She sighed. "All this, just because someone felt threatened by people like Lito."
"It's not over, is it?" he asked, but she suspected he already knew the answer. "We killed the top dogs in the pack. But we left a fucking mess to clean up."
"Nomi says they're working on a plan to reveal everything over the years," she recalled. "She, Bug… and the other Veracity hackers."
Nomi and Amanita had come to the hospital at three in the morning to check on everyone after they had explained the situation to the sensates they rescued. Leon and Genevieve had stayed behind, having felt Henrik's death from across the city. Capheus had volunteered to keep an eye on them.
Felix, she realized, didn't know what happened to Henrik just yet. She had cried for him last night, for the kind-hearted man she'd come to respect as a friend and ally. They all had — those who were not in surgery, anyway. Come morning, they had run out of tears.
"They can't break the news at once," Felix agreed. "People are gonna freak out. They always do. And sensates haven't left the best impression with those zombies."
"It's never gonna end." She leaned forward, propping her elbows on the side of his bed. Her eyes were threatening to close, but she forced herself to look up, to meet his eyes again. "There's always gonna be people like Veronika."
"Yeah. But there's always gonna be people like us, too." He gave her that one-shouldered shrug again. "Wolfie's still Wolfie, psychic powers and all. Just… with more friends."
She gave a tired laugh.
"I'm serious. The guy was a loner before I took him under my wing."
"Sounds like Wolfgang," she mumbled, demanding herself to stay awake.
"I'm getting used to it, anyway. His whole freaky brain-connection thing."
"That's good. Me, too."
Dani remembered all the weird little things Lito used to do, things she'd written off as one of Lito's many quirks. She wasn't wrong; the connections were part of him, and now that she knew she'd been living with a sensate all along, she couldn't imagine why some people would see his existence as something to fear. It was just… Lito.
"It's a good thing we're on their side, Dani," Felix declared. "They'd be lost without us."
She mumbled something in agreement to what he said. Last night's sleep deprivation was seriously getting to her, but she wanted to be here, to be talking to Felix for longer. An irrational part of her feared Felix would disappear the next time she opened her eyes.
The next thing she knew, Felix was shaking her by the shoulder. She cursed herself for giving in to exhaustion and sighed in relief when she saw he was still there. "Sleep," he told her.
"'M fine," she insisted.
He snorted. "Come on." He scooted over in his bed. "Plenty of space for two."
That made her sit up with a jolt. "Felix!"
"I'm joking," he said, though the mischievous twinkle in his eyes gave away that he wasn't. At least not entirely.
Dani had to admit, the prospect of sharing the bed didn't sound quite as scandalous when she was too fucking tired to care. "Lito's gonna kill you if I do that," she explained — quite truthfully, really, considering what happened the last time Lito and Felix had had a conversation related to her. "So for the sake of your safety, I won't."
That seemed like a good enough answer for him. "Alright. I'll miss you." He had a sad look on his face, and it made her feel like she'd kicked a friendly but rambunctious puppy. "Go back to the hotel or something, wherever Nomi said we were gonna stay."
She stood up and headed out. "See you in a few hours."
"Dani!" he called after her. She stopped, quirking an eyebrow. He nodded at the front of her blouse. "You might wanna cover up those blood stains."
It was only when Dani reached the ground floor that she realized she never got the chance to tell him about Henrik. But too late now. She walked on, deciding to break the news to him when she came back later. Seeing what was about to happen in the world at large and in their personal lives, this may very well be the last bit of peace they'd get for a long time.
Kala woke up to a stark white room sometime between morning and noon, and her first thought was to fall back asleep. Her lungs burned, and the gauze wrapped tight around her chest, chafing her skin.
"Kala."
Wolfgang stood up in his chair and leaned over, his face blocking the too-bright fluorescent light as he took her hand. She smiled. He frowned for a second as he studied her face, and she felt his presence in her mind. Then the lights were dimmed, and his expression shifted from relieved to guilty.
If it weren't so hard to breathe, she would have sighed.
"She was going to kill you," he mumbled. His face betrayed only the slightest hints of emotions, but she knew he was trying not to cry.
In their shared minds, the rest of their cluster kept their distance. Will appeared for a few seconds, mostly to check on her, and left silently after patting Wolfgang on the shoulder. With only Kala tuning in to his presence, Wolfgang let his mask falter.
I'm okay, Wolfgang, she thought.
"Veronika was going to kill you. She was going to stab you in the chest. And they bound me in a chair, too, and there was nothing I could do, and they made me watch -"
Kala shut her eyes and willed her consciousness away from her body. She stood in front of him, then knelt, taking his hands. Wolfgang, I know what happened.
He swallowed and pulled her onto his lap. She sat there and leaned her head against his shoulder, nuzzling the underside of his chin with her hair. "I'm sorry," he said.
She drew her hand away and reached out to swipe a tear from his cheek. Don't -
"I should have stopped her. She was this close. If Sun hadn't come in -"
Please, Wolfgang. You have spent your whole life apologizing for what your family has done, she cut in, sensing he was about to spiral again. You have nothing to apologize for. It was Veronika, not you.
Kala could tell he was still sorry. Sorry he didn't get to save her sooner.
Wolfgang shook his head. "It was because of me -"
No. It was me.
He frowned, surprised.
They locked me up somewhere else. But I went out to look for you. That's how I got caught. That's why they put me in with you.
She showed him the memory, of her tossing out the lava grenade as a distraction before stumbling out to the hall with Lila and Marcela. She showed him how they held their own against the guards, how Lila's cluster-mates had come just a little too late, how Veronika had set Marcela up, so she unwittingly killed two of her own cluster.
Maybe Veronika would have moved her into Wolfgang's torture chamber eventually, either way, she added as an afterthought. She pushed the thought away before Wolfgang could hear. It didn't matter what could have happened, only what did.
She felt her eyes trying to close. Whatever painkillers they put her on was trying to draw her back in, but she made herself stay for a bit longer, relishing in the fact that he was here, and they were back, connection and all.
"I never wanted you to be tortured like I was." He wrapped his arms around her tighter.
That was different, she thought immediately.
"It wasn't." To Wolfgang, Kala's pain always felt worse than his own.
You were tortured for over a week! She looked at him, horrified. Being electrocuted herself had given her a new level of fear for what Wolfgang must have gone through, only worse. My Ganesha. I don't know how you survived.
He tensed, shutting out his own memories. "I didn't want them to find you. Any of you."
As Kala fought with her mind, trying not to give into the temptations of sleep just yet, she could hear him blaming himself for giving her up. For caving to his weakness and thinking about her when he should have shut the memories of her away.
Please don't punish yourself for loving me, bhediya, she thought as her consciousness drifted into her body once more. She braced herself for the burning pain in her lungs, but they still hit her hard. She did her best to hide her wince. If they had caught me instead of you, I would have done the same.
Wolfgang nodded. Deep down, Kala knew he was getting closer to believing she was right. They'll get there one day. "You're safe now," he said.
I am. And so are you.
She felt him take her hand, and squeeze it once. "Go to sleep," he whispered, leaning in close. "I'll be here when you wake."
Kwon-Ho was staring at Sun when she woke. Sun let out a long and exasperated sigh before she could help it, and his concerned frown turned into a knowing smirk that made her want to punch him, if only there weren't a needle on her hand fixed to IV drip.
"Good to see you back," he said, scooting closer to her bed in his chair.
"Ugh," was her reply.
"Still hurts?" he looked at where her injury must have been, hidden underneath white sheets.
Sun realized, quite treacherously, given the timing, that he was shirtless except for a borrowed jacket he draped over his shoulders like some sort of cape. Her eyes drifted to the two scars on his midsection, one more recent than the other. He noticed where she was looking before she could pull her gaze away.
He smirked. "Ahh. Yeah. Funny how they always seem to go for the same spot."
She felt a tinge of guilt, knowing her brother was responsible for the more fatal of the two wounds. "I'm sorry about my brother."
Kwon-Ho shook his head, and his smirk faded. "I'm sorry, too."
"For what?"
"For, uhh -" he scratched his head, inevitably flexing his biceps, not that she was looking - "not wearing a bulletproof vest when I went to confront your brother?"
Sun let out a snort before she could stop herself. He quirked an eyebrow, and she shot him a deadly glare that shut him up before he could speak. He settled for putting on the jacket properly, zipping it up to hide the scars.
"You should have," she agreed. She remembered what happened when Wolfgang went on an all-out shooting spree at his uncle's, and bulletproof vests would have saved those guards' lives if it weren't for Kala. "For a police officer, you are too reckless for your own good."
"Well, for a fugitive, you're pretty snarky when you're talking to a cop."
That was a fair comeback. Sun shrugged, conceding. "I know you would not simply take me back. You are too curious. You would have wanted an explanation."
"Should I be concerned that you know me so well, Miss Bak?"
There it was again. The old name. The name he called her when he was trying to question her about something. The name that made Sun roll her eyes and walk away. "You don't do anything to hide your expressions," she explained. "It makes you easy to read."
"Funny. My teacher back in the police academy said the same thing."
"Then you should listen to your teacher." And stop pestering me, her mind supplanted. A smile was threatening to betray Sun as she remembered their little conversation before their rematch at the graveyard, but she forced it back.
Kwon-Ho, on the other hand, did nothing to restrain his own "That's something else you're better at than me. Being difficult to read."
"Is that so?"
He leaned back in his chair. "Yeah. You can pretty much read my mind, Sun - no pun intended," he added when she tutted her tongue, annoyed. "When I came to England, you knew I wouldn't insist on taking you back to Korea right away. And before, when we talked on the phone, you knew what action I would want to take to put your brother in jail. Also, you know my favorite chocolate -"
"That was Nomi, not me," Sun cut in.
"Nomi, huh?" He laughed. "Yeah. See? Another reason I should be afraid of you. She's in your head, and she knows more about me than my brother."
She raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with your brother?"
He cringed. "Great guy. Terrible gift-giver. Don't tell him I said that."
Sun nodded, a silent promise, and he beamed. The smile pulling at her mouth finally betrayed her as she found herself smiling back at him, too late to stop herself.
Kwon-Ho had a way of putting people at ease. He may not have been good at hiding his own emotions, but he had a way of uncovering the emotions inside others. So the joke slipped out of her mouth before she could find a reason not to say it. "I believe that makes him a much better brother than mine."
"Then you deserved a better brother."
She shrugged. "It is no use to dwell on what should have been. We all go on with our lives based on what we were given. Our choices shape who we are, more than our pasts."
"Then I'm sorry I didn't choose to arrest your brother sooner. I feel like we failed you."
Kwon-Ho was wearing that sad look again, the one that made Sun feel just a little bad for getting on his case about… well, everything. She hated to admit it was working. But it was.
"No. I turned myself in."
"You did." He frowned. "And when I was investigating your case, I wondered why."
"Do you still want to know?"
He looked surprised that she was volunteering something about herself, something so personal. After she realized what she said, she was surprised at herself, too. But she didn't want to take it back, even though there was no logical reason for her to divulge anything to him. She just… wanted to.
"If you want to tell me," he said finally, "then yes, I'd like to know."
"Before my mother passed away, she made me promise to take care of my brother. She also made me promise to help support my father when she couldn't be there. So I wanted to honor her last wish. This is why I turned myself in. The company could not have survived the scandal if my brother was the one found guilty of embezzlement."
"You did it for your mother."
He looked at her without blinking, the usually upturned corners of his mouth tense as he came to the realization. Sun knew he had seen her at her parents' grave. If he had pulled up her records, which any officer would have done, he would have known when she died. Really, he knew a lot about her past.
But knowing the facts wasn't enough. Kwon-Ho wanted to know the person behind the records. This was why they were here.
"I gave her my word." Sun remembered her conversation with Capheus before she turned herself in. "And I did not want my last words to her to become a lie."
"So what changed?"
"My father. He couldn't live with the guilt of having me go to prison in my brother's place."
Kwon-Ho nodded. "I saw his appeal. But the court never agreed to another hearing."
She sighed. "Do you know why?"
"I have speculations based on the limited evidence I have. It's enough to keep your brother locked up at the moment, but when you give us your side of the story, I'll know."
This, Sun supposed, was as far as she could get to a "yes" from a cop.
"I also have speculations about why you ran. Why you escaped from prison," Kwon-Ho continued. "I believe it all connects back to your brother."
"A reasonable deduction," she said, her face betraying no emotions once more.
He paused for a few seconds, studying her. That was what she believed, anyway. She had a feeling he knew more about her than he let on, though his impressions of her were more speculations than truths — much like what he knew about her case itself.
For now.
When he spoke again, his eyes grew softer, and he looked down at his hands like he was afraid to meet her eyes. "I know the world's not fair, Sun. This is why I wanted to be a cop. I wanted to make it fair, as much as I can. I still do."
Sun's expression softened, too. She knew a certain cop in her own cluster who wanted to do the same. Spending time in his mind had given her a new perspective on people like this. People who wanted to help.
"Kwon-Ho," she prompted. He looked at her, and she saw his shoulders relax when he realized she wasn't about to make a snarky remark about how naïve he was, or roll her eyes. She wanted to understand him, too. "The system may have failed me, but you didn't."
His eyes traveled down to her sheets again, lingering over the spot where her stitches sat, itching underneath layers of gauze.
"This inter-species war is an entirely new problem," she said. "One the world has to address, but not at the moment. And I do believe you saved my life, so thank you."
"You've saved me last night, too. Likely more than once."
She gave the slightest hints of another smile to tell him he was welcome. "I will come back to Korea with you after I recover," she promised. "But no handcuffs. And no reporters."
"You have Nomi. I believe something discreet can be arranged."
"You trust us to do it?" she asked.
"I trust you."
He didn't ask her if she trusted him, but she knew he had already guessed the answer. Now that she knew the detective as Kwon-Ho, she believed that if anyone were to put her brother in his rightful place, it would be him.
Speaking of putting people in their rightful places -
"Are they dead?" she asked. "Veronika and Whispers?"
The moment she asked, memories that weren't hers flashed by her mind, recollections of last night's battle through the eyes of the other. She knew the answer before he opened his mouth again.
"Your cluster says the Headhunter is dead. And I saw your German friend shoot Veronika." His expression faltered, "And -"
"I know about Henrik," her voice shook. And Jonas. She didn't know what to feel about Jonas, but a part of her still mourned the man, the mentor, who had taught them most of the things they knew about being a sensate.
"I'm sorry about your friend."
"The world isn't fair," she echoed what he said, holding back a tear.
Kwon-Ho nodded. "You're making it fairer. All of you who fought last night. I might be an outsider, but I know it saved a lot of people. People like you."
She hummed, not knowing what she'd make of all this. It was a strange feeling, being called a hero. "People like you, too."
"Like me?"
"Yes." Sun met his eyes again. "People who accept us."
Kiira had fallen asleep halfway through their drive into the Borough of Camden. She had given Capheus an address at noon, after they had swapped the van they robbed last night with a rental car. Patience, Capheus. You'll see when we get there, she'd said, when he'd tried to sneak into her memories and see why she wanted them to go there.
When he stopped at a red light, Kiira mumbled something in French in her sleep and turned to face the window, slightly curled up despite the seat belts binding her to the passenger seat. He watched her with a smile, thankful that they had pulled through.
He couldn't say the same about their friends.
After Nomi and Amanita debriefed the sensates who was almost kidnapped and made their acquaintance, Mavis had come to collect Leon and Genevieve from the safe house. But by then their Blockers had worn off, and they had been unresponsive for almost an hour, tears brimming in their eyes. They had all left for Manchester in the early morning to find Damien. Capheus had wanted to say something to console them before they left, but sorry wasn't going to bring Henrik back. So he settled for goodbye.
"There isn't much you could have said," Kiira mumbled, eyes still closed.
Capheus continued driving when the light turned green. With both of them un-Blocked, open, her thoughts swarmed around his, occupying the spaces in his mind reserved just for her. "What did it feel like?" he asked. "Losing one of your cluster?"
The words came out before he could find a way to replace them with euphemisms. Not that it would have helped. The drawback of being a sensate was that no matter what you ended up saying, the emotions behind a question cut just as deep.
"You know the always-occupied space in your shared mind you've grown accustomed to?"
"I do." Capheus thought about the days when his voice was the only voice in his head. It felt like looking at a different version of himself. The days when he was on Blockers made him feel like he was always speaking to an empty room that echoed too loudly.
Her presence flickered in his mind for a second, drawing out his thoughts, then slinking away before he could catch on. He doubted he ever could — she'd had years before him to perfect her sensate skills. "When one of you dies," she said finally, her eyes staring at the road ahead without looking, "the echo never leaves."
"Even when the others are there?"
She smiled, knowing but sad. For a second, she let Capheus into her mind. He heard languages he didn't have time to recognize, most of which sounded relieved at Kiira's presence. "Especially when the others are there."
The application on his burner phone chimed, signifying the end of their route. Capheus jumped and almost took his hands off the steering wheel — he could never get used to this "GPS" thing. She pointed at an unassuming apartment building across the street. He parked in the nearest space, hoping the cash Nomi had given him would be enough to cover the fee.
"How did you do it?" he asked as they approached the building. "How do you manage?"
"You come to accept the echo as part of the mind you share. As a new normal."
Their eyes locked for a second, and she knew he understood without having to ask. "Did having the others help?"
She nodded, raising her hand to press the buzzer. "They did. Liam helped, too."
Before Capheus could recall the photo of Liam she had shown him back in Paris, the man in question appeared. He had all but thrown the front door open, and Kiira greeted him with a giant tackle-hug that sent him nearly crashing into the bike rack behind him. Capheus watched on with a chuckle, her enthusiasm bubbling into his. "Liam!"
"Oi! That was my ribs!" A beaming Liam picked her up and placed her behind him on top of some steps. "Good to see ya, sis."
"Liam, this is Capheus."
The redheaded man turned to look at Capheus, and his beam grew wider. "Capheus!"
"It's good to meet you."
They shook hands. Liam's grip was firm against his. So was Kiira's when she and Capheus first met. Their family resemblance was starting to come through.
Kiira, meanwhile, had already skipped ahead, climbing up the stairs two steps at a time with a spring in her steps. They followed, exchanging amused smirks.
Liam's apartment was small but cozy, just furnished enough to feel lived-in without crowding the space with too much. Several posters and sketches hung on the walls alongside playbills from various plays in the West End. A sketching pad lay in the middle of a cluttered desk off to one side, plugged into a computer with a giant screen. Kiira had told Capheus that Liam worked as a freelance graphic designer after Sixth Form — to the exasperation of their professor parents, he had never been much for academics.
An open suitcase lay in the middle of the living room, and bags of half-unloaded groceries huddled next to the fridge. Clearly, Liam had come back from his safe house not long ago.
"Tea?" Liam asked as they sat down at the round kitchen table on opposite sides, offering Capheus a tray of scones.
"Oh, yes. Thank you."
Kiira plopped down between them with the kettle in hand and made their tea the way they liked without having to ask. They ate in comfortable silence, save for Kiira's occasional giggles. She had apparently discovered Capheus' memory of the last time he had proper, homemade English tea at Riley's place.
"Where's mom and dad?" Kiira asked through a mouthful of scones.
"In the café." Liam stirred his tea.
"The one across the street?"
Liam turned to Capheus. "I asked them to wait a bit. Didn't want to overwhelm you."
Capheus nodded, grateful he wasn't bombarded with all of the Andersons at once. Not that he had much time to get nervous, thanks to Kiira's secrecy. Kiira gave him a wink.
"Thank you." Capheus twirled the mug in his hands.
"So," Liam initiated the conversation again, "big showdown last night?"
"Massive." Kiira sighed. "But we lost someone. One of our allies."
Liam's grin immediately faded. "Oh, Kiira, I'm sorry -"
"Best not mention this to mom and dad," she cut in. Capheus knew it was something she didn't want to get into just yet. At the moment, he heard her think, she was someone who could finally see her family, who could finally go home.
"No, 'course not," Liam agreed, sensing the finality in her voice. "Are you hurt at all?"
Kiira shook her head, and Liam looked at Capheus, who realized the question was directed at both of them. "We're okay," he said.
"Good." Liam looked them over again, just to be sure. "I, uh, I saw you on YouTube."
"You saw my speech?" Capheus felt his cheeks warming up. No matter how much of a natural Jela claimed he was, he didn't think he could ever get used to this publicity.
"Aye. After Her Majesty here -" he threw Kiira a mock-glare - "finally decided to message me and inform she wasn't dead, -" Kiira stuck out her tongue - "she told me about you. Said it was your cluster who rescued her."
Capheus cringed. "I didn't even know BPO took her until my allies got back with her -"
"It was his cluster, and Mavis," Kiira cut in again. "I think he got quite lucky with their collection of skills."
And just like that, Kiira had eased his guilt back in. Capheus smiled, grateful his sister was there to buffer the tension. Jealous?
You wish, she teased. "They've even got a hacker."
"And I thought you bursting into Mandarin one day was odd," Liam grumbled. "So, the blokes who caught you, they're all dead?"
Kiira and Capheus exchanged a smug sort of look. "We took down the worst of them," Capheus told Liam. "And we have evidence to incriminate the rest."
Liam joined in on the unspoken celebration. "Serves them bloody right."
The "no one messes with my sister" part was left unsaid, likely for Capheus' sake. But the two big brothers shared a look, understanding.
"I'm free." Kiira helped herself to another scone. "No more Blockers."
"Got all your head-voices back, have ya?"
"Mm." She swallowed. "My cluster misses you."
Liam waved at the space behind Kiira. "Hi there, cluster."
"They're not here. They're asleep." Kiira rolled her eyes at the same time Liam's phone buzzed. He checked the message.
"Still can't get used to invisible people roamin' 'round my flat all the time," Liam said to Capheus, clearly an attempt to include him in the conversation. "My bloody flat. Where I sleep. Dunno how you do it, mate."
Capheus didn't know how to respond, as much as he appreciated the gesture. So he settled for a nod, silently hoping one of his cluster could jump in to help. "Well, I'm used to it. Sometimes I'm one of those invisible people," Nomi said in his place, then disappeared back into London after a quick you're welcome.
Kiira gave Liam a "you're overpowered" sort of smug look, effectively inducing a groan. "I'm surrounded by superhuman humans." He threw up his hands. "Fantastic."
"Who was that?" Kiira looked at his phone.
"Oh! Right." Liam sat up straight again. "That was mom and dad. They asked if we wanted to join them at the café."
The siblings gave Capheus an expectant look. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. What was up with him today? He was never one to be at a loss for words… much. So he nodded again, wishing Nomi or Lito or someone who knew the right thing to say could stay with him. But for this particular instance, his cluster had all decided to give him space.
"Uhh, y-yes, of course," he blurted out. He tried to appear eager. He probably ended up sounding nervous, which he admittedly was. What if they didn't like him?
Kiira gave him the mind-equivalent of a tut of her tongue, part-sympathetic, part-teasing. "Mavis will be back in another two hours," she said to them both. Then, to Capheus alone, "She promised last night that she'd join us and come say goodbye."
This was one of the times where it would be appropriate for Capheus to just nod. So he did.
Silence overtook them again as they walked downstairs. Liam held the door open for Capheus to go ahead. They stood outside the building as Kiira pointed out the café to Capheus, but hesitated before heading over.
"No one say a word about how we overthrew BPO," she ordered, looking at them both.
Liam whistled. "Why, did you have to kill someone to get away?"
Kiira's eyes twinkled with mischief. "Mm. I'm not sure. I lost count after two." She strode across the street, an incredulous Liam following behind with his mouth open.
"Two?!"
"Two," she confirmed. "Two dozen."
Capheus could tell Liam wasn't serious when he'd asked, but at the look of shock on the younger man's face, he couldn't help but join in — a shared joke just between him and Kiira. He gave Liam a half-shrug, half-nod. "Yes. And we took down two vans near Parliament."
"Bloody hell."
"Oh, it was bloody alright," Kiira whispered conspiratorially as she pushed open the door.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson stood to greet them. Liam and Kiira climbed into the booth after Kiira had been forced into a giant family-hug, and her mom had chastised her for not telling them… well, everything. Capheus stuck out his hand, stuttering out an incoherent good to see you. His heart was pounding too loud in his chest, and he was sure the whole room could hear it. Capheus was more nervous than he had been before he made that speech to the whole of Kibera, nervous that he was making a terrible impression on Kiira's parents. On the parents she had grown up loving.
But then Kiira flashed him a smirk from where she sat. In their mind, she deftly reminded him to not mention their alleged revenge-murders to anyone besides Liam. And, as Capheus took a seat next to Kiira's dad and informed him that, yes, BPO would no longer be a threat to their daughter, the pounding of his heart ceased to be so overwhelming.
As Kala slept on that afternoon, Wolfgang ventured into her dreams. She dreamed of being in her father's restaurant, of bringing Wolfgang home — to Paris instead of Mumbai, but her family was still there, and they were walking around the Eiffel Tower, discussing what to do about Sebastian Fuchs.
It was the strangest of dreams. The discussion of Fuchs stopped abruptly when Kala, or maybe Wolfgang, or both of them, reminded themselves that Fuchs had died along with his empire. Fuchs had died by Lila's hand, and they had a feeling Lila wouldn't be keen to take over his business after what happened to her cluster.
Wait. What happened to Lila's cluster?
The thought of her cluster brought Kala's mind into a memory from last night. Wolfgang saw Lila and the others through her eyes: fighting against Veronika and the guards one minute, lying in pools of blood the next. Kala's dream had erased the part where she was electrocuted by the tasers, where she had blacked out for a second before she was dragged away, when the others had already fallen. Still, Wolfgang looked on, too tired to be angry, too curious to force his consciousness away.
As Kala's dream shifted into a nonsensical one about Lito crying in a chemistry lab, Wolfgang chuckled, then willed himself to leave her in peace. He pulled himself up from the chair he'd sat in for too long and walked out. Three nurses passed by him as he made for the information desk. None of them asked questions.
The woman at the desk gave him a knowing look and pointed down the hall to her left before he could open his mouth to ask. "One of your friends is three doors down."
Wolfgang nodded. He heard a voice in his head he couldn't recognize, a woman's voice like the one he just heard. The voice lingered for a second before it disappeared, too quickly for him to detect what it said. It was only when he stopped in front of the door to Sun's room that he concluded the nurse must have been a sensate, too.
Detective Mun greeted him with a smile.
"Everything okay?" Wolfgang asked, looking at Sun.
In their shared mind, Sun chuckled, amused that he was worried about her safety of all people's. But she didn't open her eyes.
"She's stable." Mun stood up. "I'm going to get coffee. Do you want some?"
Wolfgang knew he should try to be polite, to say something about how the detective didn't have to leave, but all he could do was nod. He could use some coffee. He couldn't remember the last time he slept.
"Kala had woken up," Sun observed after a quick glimpse into his mind. She cracked open one eye to look at him.
"She did."
"I was worried we were too late."
"You weren't." Wolfgang sat down. "You stopped Veronika."
"So did you."
That last statement was met with silence. Sun knew he was bothered by something else. She searched for his memories again.
"Did Kala see Lila die?" she asked finally, stumbling upon Kala's dream.
Wolfgang shrugged. He didn't think Kala had enough time to make sure Lila and the rest of her cluster were dead. From the way things had unfolded last night, he didn't know what to make of it all — in the end, they had faced off against a common enemy instead of each other. He didn't know if he would have finished Lila off, had they not been caught in Veronika's ambush.
The sound of Lila's voice echoed in the depths of his mind, too faint for him to be sure it was there. But the sensation was eerily familiar: hair standing up on his arm like it did the first time they locked eyes, a slight, uneasy tremor coursing through his spine, tingling his nerves. Wolfgang suspected Veronika hadn't intended to kill her.
"What about her cluster?" Sun asked.
Wolfgang frowned, concentrating on the sound of Lila's voice. Behind it, whispering faintly, was another. A man's voice speaking in Japanese. Maitake.
"One of them's alive. Not the others," he muttered.
"You are wondering if you made a mistake."
"Maybe I should have killed her when I had the chance."
Sun didn't move her gaze away, and Wolfgang felt like he was being watched. Scrutinized. "From the way things appear, it would have been kinder to let Lila die."
"I don't know," he admitted. Rarely was he unsure about who he wanted to kill. "Would it?"
"After Veronika did to her?" Kala's memories flashed by again. Sun, no doubt, had wondered about the fates of their enemies-turned-unwilling-allies, too. "I don't think she will have any more reason left to fight."
Wolfgang wasn't so sure. Lila didn't seem like someone who could just give up. But then, she had hidden behind her cluster the last time they confronted each other. And now she couldn't, even if she still wanted to.
Veronika didn't break Lila. She destroyed her.
"Perhaps leaving Lila alive was both kind and cruel," Sun continued when Wolfgang remained silent. "She can start over. But she has no choice but to start over."
"Sounds like something Veronika would want."
The name left a bitter taste in his mouth. He pushed the memory of Veronika's last moments away. Today, of all days, he didn't want to dwell on the last link to his past.
But why today?
Sun, to his surprise, chuckled. "Today is August 8th."
"What?"
A quick glance at the locked screen of his burner phone told Wolfgang she wasn't lying.
"Today is the day we thought we would fight BPO," Sun reminded him. "After the Archipelago gave us the word on the King's Cross attack, Nomi and I realized there was more significance to this day than we originally believed."
"What?" he repeated.
"Nomi and Amanita said they would get us cupcakes."
"Okay." The truth was starting to sink in. Their birthday. Fuck. It was their birthday.
When was the last time Wolfgang checked the fucking calendar?
"Happy birthday," he mumbled. Their birthday. Fuck.
"Happy birthday."
Wolfgang sighed and leaned back in his chair. This day was just full of surprises. A lot more than he was comfortable with. "So, now what?"
"I do believe Kala is looking forward to being with you in Paris."
"Paris," he mumbled, his mind uncharacteristically frazzled, "right. Paris. What about you?"
"Kwon-Ho is taking me back to Korea after I recover."
"You agreed to go back?"
She nodded. "I trust he will not let me go back to prison."
Rarely was Wolfgang so eager to trust someone, especially someone he hadn't even met in person. But this day seemed to be full of exceptions. "He wouldn't."
"Sometimes I wonder if things would have been a lot simpler if I had killed Joong-Ki when I had the chance," she confessed.
They relived her memory of that night again: wind whipping against her skin as she rode alongside her brother's car. Turning his steering wheel with a metal rod. Towering over him as he tried to climb away, struggling as the pain from the crash threatened to overtake him. Wolfgang had felt her rage. If anything, his own reactions had intensified it. She had known where she must strike her brother if she wanted the damage to be fatal.
"There were witnesses," Wolfgang pointed out, remembering the way other night market-goers had watched on with bated breaths, not daring to intervene.
"There were. But I was not thinking about the witnesses when I was deciding whether to strike. That was not why I stopped."
"Then what?"
"Killing my brother would haunt my dreams. And I wanted to be done with the past."
"Wouldn't it haunt you knowing he's still alive?"
Sun gave him a sad smile. "Our pasts may have had overlaps, Wolfgang, but the circumstances with which we parted with our family is different."
"How is it different?"
"I think," Sun said slowly, mulling over her words, "your father would have haunted you whether he was alive or dead. But at least when he's dead, the haunting would only stay in your dreams. So it is preferable that he is no longer here."
"And you think locking your brother up would be the end of it for you?"
"Unlike your family, Joong-Ki has done something that put him in jeopardy from the law. And he does not haunt me, now that he is in custody awaiting trial."
It seemed reasonable. Wolfgang was usually one of the first to feel fear from his cluster, and he couldn't detect any from Sun. Not anymore, at least. "But why?"
"I am not entirely sure," she admitted. "But I suspect part of it is that Joong-Ki had always hired someone else to confront me."
That, and Sun had been older. Wolfgang had been a child, constantly terrorized by a man who was stronger and untouched by the law. These facts were left unsaid, but part of being a sensate meant the other person understood the whole truth either way.
Instead, Wolfgang focused on the discussion at hand. "He was wise not to. If he had confronted you, he would be dead by now."
From the way the slight smirk played at the corner of Sun's lips, Wolfgang knew she approved of his speculation. "Possibly."
"So you don't regret not killing him?"
She shook her head. "Killing my brother would have haunted my dreams. And that is a worse punishment for me rather than him."
"Even if it meant you could go back to prison?"
"Even if it meant going back to prison," Sun said, echoing his thoughts. "To kill Joong-Ki would be to acknowledge that I had killed my brother. In letting him go, I had severed the ties that bound me to him. Now he is nothing to me."
"Mun will make sure he goes to prison in your place," Wolfgang assured her. "That's how things should be."
"It is."
Like most of his conversation with Sun, a part of his reason was left unsaid: Sun deserved protection because she was innocent.
"So were you," she said, catching on to his latest thought.
Wolfgang shook his head. "I wasn't innocent."
"You were until you couldn't be," she insisted. "That was not your fault."
Two months ago, Wolfgang would have scoffed. He was a killer, no matter how much the other person deserved it. But Kala had tried to convince him that he wasn't doomed because of his past. The rest of his cluster, it seemed, had taken Kala's side. There was no talking them out of it. Somewhat unfortunately, their faith in him was starting to get contagious.
"Wasn't it?" he asked, wondering if Sun would humor him.
She took him to the memory of last night, of the first battle she had run into at King's Cross. "When the system fails, what choice would we have except to defend ourselves?"
María talked in her sleep. She always had, but usually, she was loud enough for Lito to hear what she was saying. Now, in her painkiller-induced stupor, the words were all jumbled up, losing all meaning as far as Lito could tell.
Not that it mattered. The fact that María was alive was all Lito needed to hear.
Her husband Andy and Hernando had sat by her bedside for most of the morning, keeping Lito company, speaking in hushed, worried whispers. When she had woken up in the mid-afternoon, the doctor had asked to see her and her husband alone. At around the same time, Dani had woken up from her nap at their hotel and come back to check on her boys. Against all protests, she had dragged both of them back by the hand to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
Which was why Lito found himself back here with Andy in the evening, waiting for María to wake up again.
"What did the doctor say?" Lito asked.
Andy looked at his wife. "She said she wanted to be the one to tell you."
"Is it bad?"
"We could have lost her," Andy muttered, looking down at his hands. Lito had observed that the hacker fidgeted when he was upset, averting everyone's gaze.
Lito sniffled. "I thought we did. I was so sure. There was an explosion."
"Bug called the rescue authorities, yeah?"
"Apparently he did," María muttered, eyes still closed.
"María!" Lito didn't care that his voice broke. He was grinning as he scooted closer to her in his chair, the wheels squeaking against the ground.
She opened her eyes and turned to Andy. "I could use some coffee."
Andy stood up and stroked her hair with a tender smile. Lito continued to look at her, his grin growing wider by the second. "I don't think you're allowed," said both men.
"Okay, don't do that, it's freaky."
Lito raised his hands in surrender. "You haven't changed."
She shrugged, not denying it, and addressed her husband, "Can I speak to Lito alone?"
With a promise that he would be back, Andy left the room to get coffee for himself.
"So," Lito started, leaning closer, "how bad was it?"
Lito noticed she was biting the inside of her cheeks. An old habit, something she did whenever she was nervous. "I got hit in the spine. I can't really feel my legs right now."
"But are you -"
"I inhaled some of that dreadful explosion fume, too, I think," she interrupted. "That was toxic, but I was face-down."
"Thank God."
María nodded. "Yeah. Hey, is my nose broken? It feels broken."
He leaned in closer, aware that she was trying to stall. Whatever she needed to tell him, it couldn't have been easy to say. "I don't think it's broken. Just bruised."
"Oh. Good."
"María, what did the doctor say?"
She opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to find a way to start. "Well, it's not a complete paralysis -"
"Pa-paralysis?" He jerked up in his seat, and his eyes darted to where her legs were beneath the white sheets.
"I might be able to walk. Eventually." She shrugged, trying to play it off.
"Might?!"
"The doctor recommended physical therapy." At Lito's pained look, she added, "It's better than I expected. But he said not to get too optimistic."
Her smile felt forced. Lito always knew when his friend was worried. He also knew not to call her out when she was in denial. So instead, he latched on to something else. "What do you mean, 'better than I expected'?"
"You know the trouble with being a spy, Lito. You could get exposed. We all knew the risks," she added hurriedly, seeing the way he paled. "I mean, if they'd found out I was a spy, I would've been shot at one of their little execution-meetings."
"Fuck -"
"Right?" She snorted. "And here I thought you were dramatic."
If she hadn't come close to actually dying, Lito would have laughed. "But last night -" he sighed and pinched his nose - "last night you could have died from something else." Because of me. Not them.
Lito felt her watching him, scrutinizing his expression. She pursed her lips. If she hadn't been lying down, Lito was sure she would've put her hands on her hips. "Are you doing that thing where you're blaming yourself again?"
"But this is my fault -"
"Ay, you are such a drama queen." María rolled her eyes and tutted her tongue, matching his mamá in the level of disapproval she could muster with one single look.
It was the same look she'd given Lito of when they were teenagers, when he'd ramble on and on about his latest embarrassing run-in with a teacher, and she'd tell him he was making every school-related trouble sound like overkill, "like a telenovela with too many seasons".
"I should have held the door open -"
"Because you could've timed the explosion so perfectly. It's not your fault, Lito! Seriously, who puts a failsafe trigger on a water tower?"
"But -"
"Lito Matías Alejandro Rodríguez -" she cut in, jabbing a finger at his shoulder with her free hand - "you are not the catalyst for every problem in the universe."
"I gave you the grenade -"
"Which I asked for. Which I tossed. Which killed basically everyone else on that rooftop except for me." She let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Agent Lito, let me have my moment."
"But it almost killed you," Lito mumbled. He was wearing a wounded expression, one he used to put on whenever the teasing started, but for once, it was completely genuine.
María looked like she was going to retort with something else, but she swallowed it back. "Guess this is the lesser evil, then," she said softly, forcing another smile. "Hey. I'll be fine. I'm sure I'll still be faster than you in a wheelchair."
"You might recover," Lito said feebly, trying to cheer her up. It was a little embarrassing that she was doing most of the uplifting when he was the one who came out unharmed. "The doctor said you might. You told me he did."
"Maybe." María paused before she said this like she wasn't sure if she'd be lying. It was so rare to see his friend say anything without full confidence, and it worried him.
"You will," he told her, hoping to sound as assured as he pretended to be.
"Mm." She decided to drop the topic. "Well, I get to go home, so that's always good. Andy's looking for a doctor in LA who can help."
"Los Angeles?" He sat up. "Is that where you live?"
"Unbelievable." She pretended to slap herself in a self-deprecating way. "We've been talking for days, and I haven't told you where we lived?"
Lito laughed. "I'm going to be in Hollywood. I can still see you."
"Oh yeah." Her smile brightened, genuine this time. "You told me. For Kit Wrangler, right?"
He nodded. "Iberian Dreams."
"My little penguin's all grown up," she cooed, imitating the way his mamá used to talk every time he did a grown-up thing. It was his turn to roll his eyes. "When do you start shooting?
"September."
"We're going back in September. Andy promised me a late honeymoon before we leave."
"Where? Paris?"
"London, actually. Or up north, somewhere with farms and villages and no people. I am so sick of being inside a skyscraper all day."
"An unconventional honeymoon," he remarked. "It suits you."
María raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Oh, what do you know about me now? We haven't seen each other in ten years."
"Dios mío." Lito gasped like she had just done the math. "That is a long time. I'll never let you out of my sight again."
"You sound like a stalker," she pointed out. "But fine. You can check out where we live and all that. Which reminds me -" before Lito could say something clever in retort, María's eyes brightened, and she looked over his shoulder - "Andy!"
Lito turned and saw Andy standing there through the small window, two cups of coffee in hand. Perfect timing — he had run out of clever things to say, and he did not fancy losing to María in a friendly bickering war. He got up to open the door for Andy, who came in and offered Lito the second cup.
"Which reminds me," María started again, "Lito, you still owe us dinner."
"So you do!" Andy looked at Lito, his smug expression a perfect parallel to his wife's.
"Do I?" Lito asked, feigning ignorance.
María stuck out her tongue. "Hernando will hold you to it if you don't."
Other sapiens in BPO would think twice about resurfacing with Veronika dead.
That evening, Nomi repeated this to herself three times as she balanced the giant box full of cupcakes in precariously on her arm, careful not to tilt the box in case the frostings smeared into one another and mixed up all the flavors. Amanita was holding her other hand as they rode up the elevator to Kala's room, swinging it back and forth. The moment she and Neets left the old London safe house to check on the others at the hospital, it dawned on her that after spending so much time in hiding, preparing for the other shoe to drop, it felt surreal that the battle had been over and done with.
They couldn't quite believe this really was the end of it.
Bug, on the other hand, was taking the victory in stride. "Justice is served, motherfuckers," he'd muttered as he and several other hackers sent forth the documents that would put the other sapiens in their rightful place: just the right amount of truth to incriminate them without exposing the existence of sensate-kind.
Early this morning, the hackers had traveled down to London to meet "the heroes of the hour" at the hospital despite Nomi's insistence that they couldn't take all the credit. Her cluster and allies' involvement in what the police had dubbed as the "BPO massacre" had been conveniently erased, all footages showing their faces gone. The hackers had made it seem like the whole surveillance system had been malfunctioning the night before, which wasn't entirely a lie. The tug-o-war between the Veracity and BPO hackers would have worn down the cameras eventually, anyway.
In mid-afternoon, after all the file-sending and crime-erasing work was done, Bug had been marched to a nearby pub by his new like-minded friends to celebrate. Four o'clock was way earlier than was socially acceptable to be drinking till they dropped, but who cared? The huge, teary smile he had given Nomi on his way out made her heart melt.
"It's your birthday, Noms," Amanita whispered as the elevator came to a stop. "Wow."
"It's my birthday," she repeated as they walked down the hall to Kala's room, just to remind herself this was actually, truly happening.
The others were all there when Amanita opened the door, every member of her cluster sporting a ridiculous cone-shaped birthday hat. Wolfgang sulked underneath his absurd get-up as Felix marched over to put another plastic necklace on him, to Dani's amusement. But his scowl turned into a smile when Kala took his hand from her bed and thought to him, in their shared mind, that he looked very handsome in magenta glitter.
Nomi had a feeling it was Lito who insisted on the dress code.
"Happy birthday, hermana!"
Lito sauntered over and took the cupcakes from her, freeing her aching arm. She sat down on the chair they'd saved for her. Amanita laid the packet of candles on top — twenty-nine candles for twenty-nine cupcakes — before joining her fiancée.
Kala's hospital room seemed crowded with all of the cluster and extended family gathered here, cramped up in a small space. But this was one of the only times Nomi welcomed the near-claustrophobic feeling. The fact that they were all gathered to celebrate their birthday made her want to huddle closer, to make sure they were all there.
Felix waved his free arm like a conductor and bellowed out the first line of the Happy Birthday song in German, horribly and unapologetically off-key. Capheus chimed in with lyrics in Swahili, tapping the rhythm with his foot. Then Lito and Dani joined in with the Spanish version and bullied Hernando into doing the same, and soon everyone was adding in lyrics they grew up singing. Even Wolfgang sang the Hindi version in place of Kala, whose lungs still ached when she tried to talk.
The song extended to eight verses and carried on for what seemed like forever until their voices had gone hoarse and a nurse had knocked on their door to tell them to please keep it down before wishing them all a happy birthday.
They were silent when they passed around the cupcakes and put the candle on top, fishing for their favorite flavors among the vast collection Nomi and Amanita had managed to acquire. A few extras were left on the table for later, and Dani had arranged them in a heart formation and put the remaining candles in.
Sun tried to reach into her bra to take out her lighter by habit, fumbling around fruitlessly in her hospital gown. Detective Mun, who had pushed her over to this room in a wheelchair, was trying not to laugh. Even in her injured state, Nomi had no doubt Sun could beat him up if she felt like it.
Riley found her lighter and handed it to Will, who lit the first candle. He tapped his cupcake against Riley's to light hers as their candles met, whispering cheers. Nomi knew his smile was forced, and Henrik's death loomed over his head even as he expressed his silent gratitude that all of his cluster had come out alive. Will had taken their ally's death the hardest. He had always considered it his responsibility to make sure everyone was safe, never mind how much danger he was in himself.
Maybe it was a cop thing, Nomi concluded. But the room was eerily quiet as all the candles burned. No one spoke for a minute. In the silence, everyone met each other's eyes across the room, mirroring his grief. They shared Will's guilt, sensates and sapiens alike.
"Let's make a wish," Riley said, squeezing Will's shoulder as she broke the silence.
The eight of them closed their eyes, mindful of the rest of their family watching. Nomi's finger stroked against the wrapping paper around the cupcake as she tried to think of something to ask. Last year, all they had asked for was their safety. Without it, nothing else would have mattered. But now that their last wish had been granted, Nomi found herself at a loss for words.
All in all, it wasn't a perfect birthday celebration. It was the messy aftermath of a war, of a final battle where too many things went wrong and a few, crucial things went right. But it was theirs, and it was the first time they celebrated a shared victory as well as the highlights of their personal lives.
Nomi opened her eyes at the same moment the rest of her cluster did. None of them had decided what to say. But the moment they reminded themselves, again, that they were all here, safe and recovering, they knew what they longed for more than anything else. The eight of them shared a bittersweet sort of smile before they made the wish together in their shared mind.
They wished this would be the last time they had to live in fear.
A/N:
Dear Veracity fans,
We may be close to the end of my story, but the story of the August 8 Cluster doesn't end here. If you can, please contact Netflix in whatever ways you can and tell them why this show's important to you. We deserve SO MUCH more than just a special. I have faith we can fight for more :)
- Love, Sas (Nightjar_Patronus)