Aisa wasn't immediately concerned when she didn't see Tristan where she'd left him. He was only five, but the three of them, her and Lys and Juniper, they'd made their home as safe as it could possibly be for him. There was nowhere on this hill that he could go and get himself into trouble, and he knew not to go down the hill by himself. Despite that, she decided to leave what she had been doing in the house and go out to check.

She paused and stared down at the small mounds of dirt in her vegetable patch, along with clear evidence of digging, though Tristan had clearly taken his little tool set with him wherever he'd chosen to go. She sighed and shook her head, reminding herself that she really needed to find Tristan his own mud kitchen space before he really did end up digging up all of her vegetables. It had been trouble enough for Hanako to bring up the seeds and plants for them in the first place after all…

"If you're looking for Tris, he's hanging out with Jun."

Aisa turned to see Lysander dragging a bag of deadheads and withered leaves to sort into either the compost bins or the plant bins.

"What's he doing?"

"Oh just digging while Jun's doing the cutting-some of the blue ones got infected so he can't help with those."

"Good, good."

It sometimes occurred to Aisa that the lines they drew where Tristan was concerned were arbitrary. Juniper had taught Tristan to hold secateurs and clippers responsibly almost from the time he'd been strong enough to grip onto them properly, so he'd been 'helping' to prune for almost as long but touching infected leaves? No, no way.

When she entered the garden, she spotted Juniper frowning as he cut away the rose plant that had had blooms that were almost as blue as a summer's sky. She looked around to see if she could spot Tristan and caught a flash of the bright green t-shirt he was wearing through the leaves, a little further into the garden. Satisfied for now, she turned to Juniper:

"What happened?" she asked.

"Rust," he said shortly. "It's not spread anywhere else, though a few of them've got black spots too. Still, it's not too bad. I managed to save some of this one, too. Look."

Aisa blinked when he gestured to the ground, then looked down to see that there was a small pot, filled with a mixture of compost and soil with one small bud poking out of it.

"Tris helped," he said. "I'll sort it out properly later but I think after a while, we'll be able to re-introduce these ones. You like these ones, don't you? Relatively speaking."

Aisa smiled at Juniper's attempt to backpedal on the idea that she had to like the roses. She knew what he'd meant, after all.

"The colour's good, yeah," she conceded. "But the main thing is to make sure we don't lose the garden."

After all, we need to keep it alive for him, she thought. These flowers that sprung from his death, we need to keep them alive. Even after all these years, the question of whether she could ever like or even love these roses hadn't acquired an easy answer but in some ways that wasn't the thing that mattered.

"Don't you worry, Ai, we won't lose it. All under control." Juniper reassured her.

He went on to tell her about anything else she might have needed to know about the condition of the garden, and then she went to see Tristan. He had moved on from wherever he had been previously, a little further into the garden. His bucket had been abandoned and she smiled, shaking her head as she bent down to pick it up and then turned a corner.

"Hey, Tris, you dropped your bu-"

For a moment she couldn't process what it was she was seeing.

"Tristan," she said slowly, too slowly. "What are you doing?"

Sitting there and absolutely covered in dirt, Tristan turned to her, his little smile faltering as he held up his spade and used it to point to the hole he was digging. The hole that was right next to the deep red roses, digging right underneath.

Right to where Han was.

Lunging forward, she yanked the spade out of his hand and threw it behind her, letting it clatter along with his little bucket before glaring at him. There was a part of her that made her keep her limbs close to her body, to not raise her hand and cross that one awful line and another part of her that realised she was close to crossing another. But that wasn't enough to prevent the swelling, suffocating feelings from rising up and spilling and making her cross that line anyway as she hissed:

"I've told you so. Many. Times not to dig here! Haven't I told you, so many times, who is lying here and why we keep this place so sacred to us? Haven't I?"

Tristan didn't say anything, but then of course he wouldn't. He never did.

"Get away from there, now. I said, get away!"

Tristan's little face crumpled and his eyes filled with tears that spilled almost immediately and she felt herself deflate, suddenly frozen and unable to do anything as she watched her son cry in fear. Fear that she'd caused, even though she'd sworn that she'd never, ever be that type of person.

She became vaguely aware of Lysander and Juniper rushing over, the former wasting no time in scooping Tristan up and cuddling him close. Juniper patted Tristan's head and murmured silly, comforting things and then he looked over.

"What happened?"

Aisa couldn't speak, only pointed to the ground, to the deep red roses that grew where Han was. Both of them looked over, and then they looked at her.

"Oh, Aisa," Lysander said. "It's just a little hole."

"It's…." she tried. "But…."

Tristan was still whimpering, burying his face in Lysander's shoulder and she knew that even if she hadn't actually struck him, there were no justification. Nothing she could say that would make it better. So she didn't even try.

Instead, she turned away and ran out of the garden.

…

She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but as she lay on her bed she heard Lysander with Tristan, the two of them playing a game that was making the little boy giggle again. She couldn't hear the words that Lysander was saying, but they had that up-and-down lilt to them, that particular tone of voice that people used when talking to children. That kind voice, the reassuring one, the way one was supposed to speak to the children they cared about. Perhaps in this life nobody had ever taken the time to be kind to her child-self the way they should have done, but there were plenty of her other lives in which she'd been a safe and loved child right up until the moment she had died. She should have known better, from that. And she had, hadn't she? She'd realised that her anger was wrong, that Tristan hadn't meant to be hurtful-he'd just been digging. And yes, they had all told him that he couldn't dig there but he was five. Only five.

She sighed and curled up smaller, more tears of her own soaking her sheets. In a weird way it was funny that even after all the horrible, law-breaking things she'd done in this life before Han had died that this one lapse horrified her more than that. There was only one thing that she had done that horrified her just more than that, even though that in the end had been exactly what had saved them. But now she was lying here, looking at her hands and imagining Han's blood all over them as her angry words from today whirled around and around in her head.

"Yo, Ai?"

A couple of knocks accompanied Juniper's voice and momentarily halted the words in her own head, but she didn't want to see him. Didn't want to see how disappointed he'd be in her.

"Go away." She mumbled.

Of course, she should've known that Juniper wouldn't have listened to her. She closed her eyes and curled up tighter as she heard the door open and then shut slightly and then felt the other end of her bed dip slightly. She expected him to say something, but unusually for him he didn't. Instead, a moment or two passed and the silence just kept stretching and eventually a mixture of curiosity and irritation drove her to sit up slightly, her eyes feeling swollen and tired. She scrutinised his face carefully, searching it for condemnation but instead finding something softer. Melancholy, even.

"Don't look at me like that." She murmured.

"Like what?"

"Like you're about to call me by my old name."

Juniper reached out and patted her shoulder, but then he frowned at her quizzically.

"Wait, I have a face like that?"

Despite herself, she laughed.

"Apparently so," she said. "But still, don't look at me like that, okay? The person I was before…all the people we were before, they would have been horrified by what I just did."

"Eh, it wasn't that bad."

"Wasn't that-" Aisa gawped at him. "Wasn't that bad? I yelled at him, I snatched his spade from him and shouted at him and made him cry! I'm one of his parents, I'm supposed to keep him safe from everything but that everything wasn't supposed to include me-"

"Yes, but you didn't mean to, right? You're sorry about it."

"Of course I'm sorry about it, but-"

"Then, apologise to him. Apologise and then figure out how to make sure that you won't do it again. I can help. I mean, I don't know how, exactly, but…."

"I have to, don't I? I mean, it can't happen again. I won't let it happen again, or anything like it but how am I supposed to know what's going to knock me off my feet next?"

Juniper looked thoughtful.

"Well, I mean, how can any of us know? I mean, we know some things, but we can't predict everything that might hurt. I'm not sure I can predict it for you, either."

Aisa bristled at that:

"You're not just saying that-"

"No," he interrupted. "Not because of that. But because you were the one, who, you know…and I was the inverse, wasn't I? The day he left?"

Ah, that day. When we still had no clue of who we really were…Whenever she looked back at it now, it was with the knowledge of what it meant, and just how carefully Han had planned it all, right down to making sure that he aimed the blow in just the right place to make the injury look serious and distressing without actually causing permanent harm, right down to predicting exactly what all their reactions would be and how to walk away without responding to any of their pleas. Any of her pleas. But still, she could not help but watch the memory of seeing Han's back turned to her, retreating further into the distance and feel her heart folding in on itself. Each and every time, she felt it.

"I wonder about that, sometimes, you know?" Juniper added absently. "Why he chose me to stab, rather than one of you two. I wouldn't have wanted it to be either of you but…"

He leaned back against her sheets, and she sat up properly, hugging her knees to her chest and watching him. After a moment, he looked at her.

"Maybe we should explain to Tris?"

"Explain?"

"Well I mean, not everything in one go. But…I wonder, does he really understand what it means? That Han's there? I mean, we read him old books and things but he won't understand burial as being for the dead, would he?"

"I….oh, of course. Of course. I didn't think of that."

I didn't think of that, and I shouted as if he should have understood.

"Hey, it's okay, don't look like that! It only just occurred to me, too. But….I dunno. What do you think?"

Juniper sat up to stare at her, and she gazed back at him, thinking. Then she sighed and nodded.

"That's a good idea."

…

She found Tristan and Lysander in the kitchen, eating dinner. Is it really that time already, she wondered idly as she stood in the doorway, watching them for a moment. It was only when Juniper poked her shoulder from behind that she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and stepped further into the room.

"Aisa." Lysander said, simply.

The look on his face was a great deal warier, and matched only by Tristan, whose eyes seemed wider than ever as he peered up at her. She smiled waterily and then went over to the table, kneeling down so she was at his level. He had a teddy bear with him, wearing one of the bibs that he'd used as a baby, and he clutched that tightly as he stared at her so solemnly. It made her want to cry again, but she forced herself not to. It wasn't about what she felt, after all.

"I'm sorry, Tristan."

Tristan blinked once, looking uncertain.

"I'm really sorry for shouting at you," she said. "I was upset, but it wasn't your fault and I shouldn't have scared you like that. It wasn't very nice of me, was it?"

Slowly, Tristan shook his head, then hugged the teddy bear closer.

"Yeah, it wasn't very nice at all," Aisa smiled reassuringly. "And I know that, and I'm really sorry. I'm going to do my best to make sure that I won't do anything like that again. I promise. Look, we'll even do a pinky-promise. It's what we used to do, Lys, Jun, me…and Han, when we promised something to each other as children. I hold out my pinky finger, my little finger, just like this, and you hook your little finger onto it, yes, like that!"

She smiled wider this time, a little more genuine as Tristan's little finger linked with hers and he smiled back at her.

"Then we shake like shaking hands, and that's the promise."

She gently unhooked her finger from his, and then searched for something to say. Tristan watched her for a moment, then carefully reached out and patted her hand.

"Alrighty then," she heard Lysander say. "What do you say to giving them dinner, then?"

Tristan looked over his shoulder at Lysander and then giggled before looking at Aisa and nodding.

"Oh good," she laughed. "I'm glad-I'm very hungry, after all."

And when Tristan giggled again, her heart felt just a little lighter. But there was still one more thing to do.

That, though, could wait for after they'd eaten.

…

She'd wondered if Tristan would be cautious about going back into the garden after what she had done, but it seemed as if the promise of blankets, cupcakes and hot chocolate-and a delayed bedtime, of course- were more than enough to compensate for that. Nonetheless, although he raced ahead into the garden at first, he stopped as he got closer to the center.

"It's alright, kiddo."

Lysander was quick to scoop him up and spin him around to make him laugh before Aisa laid a blanket down on the ground, and they all settled on it, folding up the other blankets to use as pillows. While the boys munched on cupcakes she took the time to prepare herself by pouring the hot chocolate from the flasks into the mugs and handing them around. Then, she snuggled up beside Lysander, who had Tristan nestled quite happily in his lap. He looked up at her and smiled through a mouthful of cupcake, before pointing to the drink.

"You want to drink? I'll hold your cake for you."

Tristan handed her the cake, and she carefully passed the cup over, helping him to get a proper grip on the handle before letting him drink by himself. It was a large mug, but she knew he could handle it. After a few sips he handed it back, and she returned the cupcake and put the mug down before asking him:

"Hey, Tris, do you…do you understand what it means to die?"

He frowned up at her.

"You've seen plants die before, right? The flowers fall off, they're not bright and healthy anymore, they're just shrivelled. They stop growing. That happens to people too, you know. When life finishes, they stop breathing and eating and thinking and they can't come back."

It occurred to her that plants were a good comparison to use when she eventually told him about their other lives-just like sometimes new versions of the same plant grew after the old ones had died, so they had had new lives as different versions of the same person. But as Tristan waited for her to continue, she knew that tonight wasn't the night for that. Not yet.

"Usually, people die when they're old and it's time for their life to finish, because they've had a long life and done lots of things and they're ready to go. But sometimes people die because they get hurt and their bodies can't manage that hurt. That's how Han died-he got hurt very badly, and he got hurt to protect us. So that one day we could come here and have this garden, and so that one day we could find you, too."

Tristan pointed at himself in astonishment and she smiled, ruffling his hair.

"Yes, you. He did all of that for us, but because he died, we can't say 'thank you' in the usual way. He won't hear the words, and we can't hug him like you hug us to say thank you, and he can't eat anything nice we could make him, or anything. But that doesn't mean that he shouldn't be thanked, and the best way to thank someone who has died is to make sure that their body is kept somewhere safe, peacefully."

There was a moment in which Tristan studied her, all while nibbling his cupcake. Then, very cautiously, he pointed over to the red roses.

"Yes, that's right. That's why we buried him there."

Tristan's eyes widened and he stared at the roses for a moment before looking at Aisa.

"What is it?"

He blinked at her for a moment, and then carefully crawled out of Lysander's lap and into Aisa's. She sighed and hugged him tightly, savouring the feel of him and the knowledge that she hadn't completely destroyed his trust in her. That she still deserved him, wonderful child that he was.

"We loved Han a lot, you know. We loved him so, so much. But we love you, too. Don't we?"

She looked over at Lysander and Juniper who smiled at her.

"Yeah, we do." Juniper said.

"We love you lots and lots." Lysander said.

Tristan beamed up at Aisa, and then held up his cupcake, some of the icing brushing on her nose as a result. She giggled and wiped it off.

"No, no, you enjoy your cupcake."

Tristan kept beaming, and did just that while Lysander and Juniper decided to contribute by sharing some of their stories of Han. Just little, simple ones, the happier memories from all of their lives until the cupcakes and hot chocolate were finished. Despite what had led them all here in the first place, Aisa didn't want to move from this moment. And despite what she'd told Tristan about the finality of death, and the fact she knew that he would never be 'regrown' as a new life, she wondered if Han could see them. If he could see Tristan. And if he did, would he love him as much as they did?

Surely you would have. Right?

A breeze ruffled the petals of the roses, and she looked up at them for a moment. As she always did in moments like this, she imagined Han as he had been, smiling at her. But just as it always did, the image dissipated and she was left with the present.

And what a gift it was, this present.

She looked down at Tristan, meaning to ask him if he thought it was time they went back into the cottage, only to see that he was fast asleep.

"Well, I guess that answers that, then?"

"Huh?" Juniper glanced over. "Oh, it's way past his bedtime, huh?"

"Yes, it is. Come on, let's go back in."

Juniper gathered up their things, and once they were all in the cottage he went to wash up their cups and put away the blankets, while Aisa first pulled off Tristan's shoes and socks, and then carried him upstairs. Since he barely stirred, she concluded that they would just have to forego brushing his teeth for tonight. One night won't hurt, surely? It's such a little thing…

Reaching Tristan's bedroom, she pushed open the door with her own weight and headed straight for the bed. Since he was already in his pyjamas, she just laid him down in the middle of all his pillows and plushies, and then pulled the quilt over him. After a moment's consideration, she plucked one plushie from the assortment-a dinosaur-and tucked it in his arms and then re-adjusted the quilt before smiling. Gently, she smoothed aside his hair to kiss his forehead.

"Goodnight."

She looked at him one more time, then quietly left the room.

I actually wrote these a little while back, soon after the webcomic first started coming out but then I kind of just...forgot about them? Anyway, at least I've uploaded them now :)

Also, I suspect that this story is now the most angst-ridden of the bunch.