Alex knocked on the door of Charlotte's apartment, tapping the toe of one of her shoes on the carpet as she waited. A few seconds later, the door opened to reveal Ethan, who grinned when he caught sight of her.

"Hi!" Ethan stepped back to open the door further and gestured for her to come inside.

Alex smiled at him as she walked through the doorway, pausing to slip off her shoes before Ethan grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen. She stole quick glances around the apartment as they walked, taking in the paintings, sculptures, and artwork that didn't fit neatly in either category that filled almost every empty space. Some of it looked like Charlotte's work, but there were plenty of pieces from other artists scattered in as well.

Charlotte herself was waiting for them in the kitchen with a spread of ingredients and dishes on the counter in front of her. "Hey, Alex," she said, nodding in Alex's direction with a small smile. There was a muddled aura flashing around her, a blurry mix of shifting colors that changed so rapidly Alex couldn't distinguish any of them.

Come on, Charlotte. You can keep it together for this. For Ethan. And for Alex.

This is obviously really important to both of them. Don't let your own feelings get in the way and ruin it.

Alex's feet started to drag on the carpet, but Ethan didn't seem to notice. He kept pulling her forward until they were opposite Charlotte on the other side of the counter. Ethan sat down on one of the bar stools and motioned for Alex to sit next to him.

Alex sat down, leaning against the back of the chair and fighting the urge to cross her arms as Charlotte's aura swirled again. "What are we making today?" she asked, giving Charlotte a weak smile before she looked at Ethan.

"Mac and cheese!" Ethan said, throwing up his hands with a grin.

Golden light bloomed around Ethan, its emotion easing the pressure from Charlotte's mixed emotions enough for Alex to give him a genuine smile back. "Mac and cheese? Like out of a box?"

Charlotte laughed softly and shook her head. "No, not today. Today, we're making the good stuff. It's pretty simple, but it tastes amazing."

Alex nodded, struggling to keep her smile on her face as she met Charlotte's eyes. "Honestly those are the best kinds of recipes. With a really high taste to effort ratio." Her shoulders relaxed slightly when Charlotte laughed again.

Charlotte gestured to a bowl of cooked macaroni on the counter and then at the oven behind her. "I already made the macaroni, and the oven is heating up. So, all we have to do is assemble." She grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter and offered it to Ethan. "Want to do the honors?"

Ethan took the spoon from her and pushed some of the ingredients toward Alex. "I'll stir and you can add everything else."

Alex helped him add cottage cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, salt, and a beaten egg into the bowl of noodles as he mixed it all together. Charlotte sprayed a baking dish with cooking spray and set it out for Ethan and Alex to fill it with the mixture once they were finished.

After everything was in the pan, Charlotte sprinkled more of the shredded cheese on top before setting it in the oven. She pulled out her phone to set a timer as she turned back to face them. "Now all we have to do is wait 45 minutes and it'll be done."

"Wait, really? That's it?" Alex asked, shaking her head when Charlotte nodded. "Well, damn, if it tastes good, I might just have to make this every day. I don't know what I've been doing making recipes with more than five steps all this time."

Ethan laughed and reached over to tug on the sleeve of her shirt. "It's got to bake for a long time, so we can play board games!" He started to get up from his chair but stopped when Charlotte held up her hand.

"We have to do these dishes first," Charlotte said, smiling slightly when Ethan groaned. "You can help me while Alex picks out a game."

Ethan groaned again but got up and walked over to the sink as Charlotte gathered the dishes. Alex watched them for a second before standing and making her way into the living room. She sat down on the couch, her eyes skimming over the names on the boxes of board games stacked on the table. A box near the bottom began to glow with a yellow aura and Alex reached toward it, closing her eyes as the memory seeped into her mind.

Ethan was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table with Gabe and Charlotte on the couch across from him, watching as Gabe moved his piece around the game board.

"Seven, eight, and nine!" Gabe said, using his piece to knock one of Ethan's off the board. "You guys better step it up, I'm winning by a lot here."

"Wait, I wanna see your card." Ethan reached across the table, giggling when Gabe moved the card out of his reach. "Hey, that's a six, not a nine!"

"Is it?" Gabe held the card in front of him, squinting and tapping his chin as he studied it. "No, it's definitely a nine."

Ethan made another grab for the card, laughing harder when Gabe moved it away again. "If you're so sure, then let me see!" He lunged forward and almost knocked the board off the table.

"Hey, careful," Charlotte chided, smiling at Ethan before turning to look at Gabe. "But that's definitely a six. You're holding it upside down."

Gabe grabbed the pile of cards from the center of the board, looking through the deck for a few seconds before he pulled one out and set it on the board. He put his old card back in the deck before replacing the pile on the board. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, pointing to his new card. "This is obviously a nine." He grinned when Charlotte laughed and shook her head.

Ethan pushed up onto his knees and gestured at the card with both hands. "Yeah, that's a nine, but you only got it because you cheated!"

Gabe shook his head, giving Ethan an innocent look while he tapped the card with one of his fingers. "No, this was always my card."

Ethan sat back on his heels, his arms falling to his sides as he groaned. "If you win because you cheated, it's not really winning."

Gabe scoffed as he set his card in the discard pile. "Gotta disagree with you there, buddy. A win is always a win no matter what you had to do to get it." He paused, a nervous smile flickering across his face. "But I probably won't be winning for too much longer. We're gonna have a fourth player soon, one who cheats even more than I do." He paused and took a deep breath before he continued. "My sister, Alex."

Charlotte gasped and grabbed Gabe's arm. "She agreed to visit?"

Gabe nodded, his smile growing wider. "She did. I sent her a bus ticket and she'll be here in about a week."

"That's awesome!" Ethan said, matching Gabe's smile. "But wait, you said she cheats even worse than you?"

"Oh yeah, way worse," Gabe said, his face growing serious. "She makes up rules and then throws out the instructions so you can't prove she's wrong. She'll even disconnect the Wi-Fi so you can't look them up either."

Charlotte leaned over to kiss Gabe's cheek before pulling back to grin at him. "That's so exciting, I'm so happy for you. And I can't wait to meet her."

"Yeah, me, too!" Ethan looked down at the board, his face falling. "Wait, where did my other piece go? Did you move it?"

Gabe leaned back against the couch, stretching his arms overhead as he opened his fingers just enough to show the plastic game piece in his hand. "Again, I have no idea what you're talking about, dude. I can't believe you accuse me of cheating this much, it really hurts my feelings."

"Ugh, but you are a cheater!" Ethan said as he ran around the table and pounced on Gabe. As they half-wrestled for the piece, joy expanded in Ethan's chest, building until it burst out of him as laughter he couldn't hold back and a smile so wide it made his cheeks hurt.

The memory started to fade, and Alex tried desperately to cling to it, clawing to keep the feelings and images in her mind. But there was nothing she could do and a few seconds later it was gone.

"Alex?" Charlotte asked softly.

Alex blinked and realized Charlotte was kneeling on the floor in front of her, looking at her with a shocked expression. She moved to push her glasses back up on her nose and found tears streaming down her face. "Oh! I-I'm sorry, I just…" She stopped and swallowed, trying unsuccessfully to force down the lump in her throat.

Charlotte continued to stare at her silently and Alex felt heat creeping up the back of her neck.

"Sorry, I…" Alex trailed off when her voice started to waiver. "I-I just…I can leave, I'm sorry I didn't—" She started to stand but Charlotte put a hand on her knee to stop her.

"No. No, Alex, you don't have to leave." Charlotte seemed to mentally shake herself before she sat back on her heels and moved her hands into her lap. "I'm just…surprised. Even with everything that's happened, this is the first time I've seen you cry. I know at first it was probably the shock, but even after that, you just always seemed so…stoic and put together."

Alex opened her mouth to respond but closed it when she felt a sob working its way up her throat. She dropped her head and squeezed her eyes shut, curling into herself as the sadness and confusion radiating from Charlotte and Ethan rushed into her mind.

What happened? She was fine a minute ago and now she's so upset.

Oh no, I must've done something wrong. This is my fault, isn't it?

Was it something I said? Something I did? It's so hard to get a read on her.

I just wanted to make her happy. But I messed everything up. I shouldn't have invited her over, this was a stupid idea.

Where did this even come from? I've never seen her like this. I don't even know how to comfort her.

Alex clenched her teeth around another sob, pressing her hands against her ears as she fought the urge to rock back and forth.

"Alex?" Ethan's voice broke through the noise in Alex's head, and she turned to look at him. "I know you're sad, but maybe you could tell us what's wrong? Then we could help. Like how you helped me after the LARP."

Alex held his gaze for a few seconds before she nodded. She took several shaky breaths as she pushed up her glasses to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "Right, okay, yeah. Just like after the LARP." She let out one more deep breath, flexing her hands a few times as she tried unsuccessfully to get herself to relax. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking about Gabe, and…" She paused and swiped at the tears building in her eyes again, her voice starting to shake as she continued. "And now I don't think I can stop."

Charlotte still had her eyes fixed on Alex, her brow creasing with concern. "Is this the first time you've cried for him?"

"Yeah." Alex dropped her gaze to the floor, shame burning under the tears on her cheeks. "Which probably makes me seem like a total weirdo."

Charlotte and Ethan didn't say anything, and Alex's breathing picked up again, her hands starting to tremble as she fidgeted with her rings. She heard movement and looked up, freezing when she saw that Charlotte kneeling in front of her again.

They held each other's gaze for a second before Charlotte placed her hand on Alex's knee, squeezing it gently as she gave Alex a sympathetic look.

Alex tried to give Charlotte a small smile in return, but her face crumpled as she struggled to hold back a new wave of tears. Ethan moved next to her on the couch, putting a tentative arm around her shoulders, and Alex couldn't hold back her sobs anymore.

Alex cried for the next several minutes, drowning in the aching grief swirling between the three of them. She felt like she was sitting at the bottom of a lake, the weight of the water resting heavy on her chest as she searched desperately for any hint of sunlight above her.

Then Ethan's arm tightened around her shoulders and Charlotte squeezed her knee, pulling her up until she broke through the surface just enough to breathe again.

"You were right before," Alex said around gasping breaths, looking up to meet Charlotte's eyes. "I think at first, I didn't cry because of the shock, but after that I just…I wasn't sure if I was allowed to grieve for someone I only knew for a day. Especially when all of you knew him so much better.

Ethan shook his head and wrapped his other arm around her. "But he was your brother."

Alex took another shuddering breath as Ethan's hug pushed her just a little bit further out of the water. "But he was so different here than how I remember him. It seemed like he really found himself here, like he became the person he always wanted to be." Her next words were cut off by the lump rising in her throat and she swallowed thickly around it. "I only got a glimpse of that person. And now I'll never get to know that version of him. Not the way I want to."

There was a beat of silence before Charlotte spoke. "Ethan's right." Her voice was quiet but didn't waiver. "Gabe was still your brother, Alex, no matter how much time you had with him. You get to mourn him however you need to, just like everyone else." She paused, her gaze dropping to the floor as tears gathered in her eyes. "And you're right about Gabe finding himself here. He figured out who he really was, and he was so wonderful." She looked up at Alex again with tears running down her face. "But you know a part of him that no one here ever got to see. You grew up together. I know you both had a rough time when you were kids, but there had to be some good times in there, too. And that will always be yours. Just yours. You get to keep that part of him alive."

Charlotte stopped as her breath caught in her throat, her jaw clenching as red flared through her aura. "It's so easy to be angry about how little time we had with him. We both know that." She let out a long exhale through her nose, her aura shifting back to blue as she glanced up at Alex. "But I don't think he'd want us to focus on that part. He'd want us to feel however we need to feel without letting it take away from the joy that he brought us."

Alex nodded, giving Charlotte a small smile as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Before we were sent to the orphanage, Gabe had a job at a shitty carwash. It was really boring, his boss was a jerk, and he barely made any money, but he'd go anyway. He'd save up for weeks to buy us a new record, and then we'd listen to the whole thing at once, without stopping for chores or homework. I'd lose track of time and we'd end up listening to a bunch more records and rock out for hours."

Charlotte returned Alex's hesitant smile as gold slowly seeped through her blue aura. "When I first met him, he was really distant. But once he opened up, he was sweet and loving and attentive. He was the funniest—and the most obnoxious—person I've ever known." She paused, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her free hand as she laughed softly. "The first time I showed him a project I was working on, he said wanted to learn more about it. I gave him some of my books on composition and art history, never imagining he would actually read them. But a few weeks later, when the project was finished, he came down to my studio to 'critique' the piece. He did it in a funny accent and purposely used almost every term incorrectly, but he really did learn about all of them."

Ethan sniffled, wiping his nose on the back of his hand before he spoke. "He helped me make my first comic about Thaynor. I came up with him a long time ago, but Gabe helped me write it down and actually draw stuff for it. He drew all the monsters extra weird and read their lines in silly voices." Ethan's face brightened and he jumped up to run down the hallway toward one of the bedrooms. He came back a moment later and handed Alex a dog-eared comic book made of notebook paper. "This is the first one we ever made. It has some of Gabe's drawings and the funny stuff he wrote on them."

Alex took the comic book, flipping through it and running her fingers over the pencil drawings, careful not to let her tears fall on the paper. She could see elements of Thaynor's final design in the pictures, accompanied by comments in the same messy scrawl Gabe had as a kid. She looked up at Ethan, smiling through the fresh wave of tears that were slipping down her face. "Thanks, Ethan. This is really cool."

Ethan nodded, swiping roughly at his eyes. "Maybe my mom can make a copy of it for you, if you want."

"I would love that," Alex said, reaching out to wrap an arm around Ethan's shoulders and pull him against her.

"I'd be happy to," Charlotte said, a full smile breaking out on her face. She pulled her phone out of her pocket to glace at the timer before looking back at Alex. "It seems like we have a lot to talk about, so here's what we're going to do. The mac and cheese is almost done, so we're going to eat some of that, and then we're going to swap stories about Gabe and probably cry some more. And then we're gonna eat some more mac and cheese and just repeat that as many times as we need to before we feel better. Does that sound good?"

Alex nodded, smiling as orange auras bloomed around Charlotte and Ethan, that new emotion washing over her like warm sunlight. "Yeah. I think that's a great idea.