Marie was wringing her hands in the time it was taking for Azusa to run the search, the other woman's fingers flickering across the keyboard with a speed that anyone would be envious of. It was obvious to everyone that the woman had been a court stenographer before she got involved in the business of emancipating cyborgs.
Everyone seemed to hold their breath, the entire room felt like it was made out of gasoline and matchsticks, everyone watching the screen as face after face went by, rejected immediately if it didn't fit before the next one passed over.
Marie had sounded the general alarm to everyone in the group as soon as she could. With what happened to Crona, she couldn't take a risk. The lack of serial numbers, no model, no batch number.
She didn't want to believe that what happened to Crona had happened to anyone else in the world, but she would put no cruelty past Medusa. She knew how to ruin anything without any remorse.
The world stopped when the screen did, Marie's eye zeroing in on the face of a young man on a digital Death Certificate. And it was like entire Earth simply didn't spin for a few moments, but the ground beneath her feet felt like it was wobbling.
No wonder they couldn't find him through the cyborg databases. He would never have been there. He wasn't originally a cyborg. Just like Crona hadn't originally been a cyborg.
Marie swallowed down what felt like her heart in her esophagus.
He was so young.
In the certificate, he looked like she did when she was still in University. He couldn't have been any older than twenty in the picture they had unearthed.
His eyes were still the same, Marie realized. She had looked into that same golden-gray-green many times, too many times. It must have been painstaking for someone to have to replace them with glass. The color was uncanny.
They'd have to be handmade, she realized. No one would ever sell that color on a market. It was too unique. He was a unique looking man, overall. And he had glasses on, in that picture. After a moment, Azusa pressed a button and a news article popped up, and with a pang, Marie saw that they had used his university ID picture as identification. He wasn't smiling in the photo, but there was something amused on his face. His hair was combed, his eyebrow raised. He was in a crisp, button-up shirt with three buttons undone at his throat, where she could barely make out the Star of David he wore.
He was gorgeous. His hair was the palest white-blonde she had ever seen in her life, his eyebrows and eyelashes matching. Instead of where the seam was on him, now, there was a small scar through his eyebrow. Perhaps from some childhood brawl.
Childhood.
He had a childhood. He wasn't born fated to be a cyborg. He wasn't outfitted with a metallic skeleton at birth. He had been an entirely organic being.
And, now, he was in her home, one she didn't know if she could still call entirely hers, trying to piece himself back together.
"Frank Stein," Azusa read off, her voice flat and sad, "supposedly killed in a car accident eight years ago on his way to an interview for a surgeon position at a local hospital."
"Stein," Marie said, and she hadn't realized she was crying until she stepped forward, her voice coming out watery. Spirit had to look away when he saw his close friend's face, Marie's expression looking broken open, something so deeply sorrowful seeped into every line of her body.
"He was human before?" Naigus whispered, horror in each vowel.
Marie sobbed, the sound reverberating in every corner of the room, and Azusa lowered her head as though in mourning.
"I can't believe-" Marie started, breaking herself off with a harsh gasp inward.
Human experimentation had been illegal for years. Ever since she was a little girl. Crona had been the closest she had gotten to something so horrific, the child having revealed to be exempt from becoming a cyborg, yet forced to become one from their disgusting Mother's urgings. But Crona was spared growing up human, spared having to experience the agonizing switch. They had been changed at barely five years old, but Stein?
Stein. . .
Marie felt a warm hand on her back as she curled inward, feeling like she was choking on her heart.
She didn't know whose hand it was.
She just knew it wasn't the one she wanted.
It was a frenzy, after that. The knowledge had been like a sucker-punch and no one knew what they were meant to do now that they had it in their grasp.
"Damnit, we should have known," Spirit said, wanting to hit anything nearby that didn't feel pain. Azusa shook her head.
"How should we have? After Crona-"
"All the signs were like Crona-"
"No, they weren't. Crona was emotive, responsive-"
"And then so was Stein-"
"We just found out about that-"
"Well, what do we do, now? We couldn't find her last time-"
"We can't do anything, honestly-"
The room seemed ablaze, everyone talking over one another until Marie's voice broke in, frozen as an arctic. "So, what? We can't do anything so we're just gonna shove him away in some underground safehouse where he can only get visitors once in a while?"
The room yawned in its silence, and Marie's singular eye seemed to glare at everyone, still stinging from her tears before. Azusa shifted in her seat as Naigus looked away.
"Marie-" Sid began, one of the few brave enough to face the infamous Pulverizer's wrath.
"What, Sid? Are you going to tell me Crona is doing okay?"
No one could say that. Not with a straight face, not if they told the truth.
"Maka went and visited them last week," Spirit said, quietly, and Marie whirled around. "She said they were happy that she came-"
"So that means they're okay? Job well done, wash our hands of it?" Marie asked, and Spirit lifted his hands up as though to placate her, though it did nearly nothing to calm the blood boiling in Marie's veins. She locked gazes with everyone, one right after the other, but no one wanted to look at her intense stare for longer than a few moments. Her lips pinched at the edges, the breath in her body feeling combustible.
"It isn't fair!" Marie cried out, eye squinting. "Crona spent their entire life being abused by that monster and we can't do a damn thing about it! And now Stein. . .eight years he. . ." she cut herself, fists curling, looking every bit her namesake of the Pulverizer that she earned after breaking multiple doors down with just her bare hands. "Aren't they why we started doing this in the first place? What good are we if all our answers are that we can't do anything?"
There was that damn silence again. She took in a deep breath, refusing to cry. She cried enough about Crona, Crona who didn't get the chance for revenge. Crona who stayed in what everyone nicknamed Death City, living in a random safehouse, just so Maka could still visit them.
Crona whose heart was too big for what they got. Crona who reminded her why she fought so damn hard for that bill to be passed, for B.Y.E to collapse down to rubble and dust.
Marie despised Medusa and she never even met her.
Spirit shifted his gaze to the floor, eyes downcast. It was still a personal failure for him to have let her get away with it. He had all the evidence, was compiling it, secretly, so he could present it to his boss in one fell swoop and find Medusa to be prosecuted for experimenting on human beings. And then it was gone. One day. And his boss, who everyone only referred to as "Death", told him not to get tangled in things too big for him.
He was getting so close to a location. And then it was ripped from him. Crona absolutely refused to give it away.
Stein could be their only chance to get somewhere. He felt bad, for a moment, at the thought of using Stein to get to some conclusion, but it was more for everyone's benefit. There was no malice. And if they both suffered at the hands of the same person, getting the two of them in a room could prove the most fruitful, as well as the most comforting, for them to have someone who could actually understand. He lifted his eyeline back up, meeting Marie's dead on.
"I think he should meet with them."
The room was so silent they could hear a pin drop, they could hear their heartbeats in their ears. Marie stared at him for a moment, before she blinked, slowly nodding.
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I think he should."
Evidence File #125 for Case 3419
March 9th
Naigus looked over Stein's [scribbled out] Frank's [scribbled out] Stein's skeletal structure again through a few scans. Azusa didn't even grumble about how much energy it ate out of the generators.
His spinal column is still original. So is his pelvis. Skull is mostly still organic save for his left side, where a massive chunk was replaced with the metallic, and a small portion on his right where his bolt protrudes.
Organs are still mostly organic, save for minor modifications through means of a pump.
She can't be sure, but there could be an internal generator located behind his ribs, which are metallic.
All his other bones had been replaced.
[small tear marks evident on paper]
It's different than it was with Crona, but it's so similar. Crona had grow-with-you metallic bones implanted, just like the prototype cyborgs. Stein's taller than his Death Certificate indicated. Medusa must have modified his height.
The pain he must have gone through [remainder of page is ripped away]
They should have been more specific when they told Crona they were bringing someone over for them to visit. How could the child have known who they meant? If they had dropped a name, a description, anything, no one would have to be in the awkward scenario they were in.
It was almost like it was some sort of spectacle: Spirit and Azusa were already in the room, and as Marie's footsteps clacked down the hallway she heard "And Maka is going to be over later today, okay?" and she had smiled.
And then they walked into the room.
The first thing she noticed was that Crona's head had lifted, their warm, kind eyes looking the same as always until they zoned in on Stein, and when Marie heard him inhale sharply, she knew something was wrong.
Crona's mouth opened, Azusa and Spirit both looked at the doorway where Marie and Stein were, and Crona breathed out "D-doctor?" with the most disbelief Marie had ever heard in her life.
Stein took a step back, his blank face seeming to crack open.
Marie brows met in the middle, her hand twitching to grab Stein's shoulder and steady him. "Doctor?" she called out, and her voice must have been too close to Medusa's. Something must have been wrong wrong wrong, because Stein wrenched away from her and his back hit the wall of the small room, causing a massive thud. Marie's eye widened just as Crona yelped.
"D-doct-" Crona began again, and Stein's voice was sharp and harsh when he almost hissed.
"Don't call me that!" he commanded, his breathing heavy.
Marie didn't know what to do. What had gone wrong? What had happened? What could she do-
"I-I-I-I'm s-s-sor-r-ry-" Crona started, but Stein put his hands up to his ears, shaking his head as he supported himself against the wall.
"Stein!" Marie called out, immediately stepping forward, her hands so desperate to soothe.
"Crona?" Marie heard Azusa ask as Stein slid down to the floor. "Crona, what's going on? Crona?"
There was panic, but Marie's world was narrowing. Stein was shaking so bad she was surprised she didn't hear clanking from his bones knocking together.
"Stein? Stein, I'm here!" Marie said, and everyone's voices were starting to mix together.
"Crona, how do you-"
"Stein, you're oka-"
"I-I'm s-s-orry-"
"It's alright, just-"
"Breathe! You have to breathe-"
"I thought he was d-d-dead-"
"What happened-"
And then Stein's voice broke through all of it. "Shut up!" he yelled, pressing his palms more firmly against his ears.
His shaking was so bad, Marie thought he was going to overheat. Crona was shivering in the corner, having pushed themself there and simply staring at the scene, their head shaking, side to side as though unknowing what to do.
Marie thinks she hears Crona, muffled by the pillow they burrowed their face in, and her heart throbs. It aches. She is burning to help, to do something.
She thinks if either of them could cry, they would.
Marie stepped forward and fell to her knees, bringing her hands over Stein's where he was using them to cover his ears.
His eyes flew open immediately at the action, but instead of flinching or jerking away from her, he calmed, slightly.
Her touch, once upon a time something he would react to almost violently, was helping him. It was positive.
It was more than she could have ever asked for, and she brought her face in close to his.
"I'm here, okay? I'm here," she muttered, and though he couldn't hear her with how hard he was breathing, with how covered his ears were, his eyes focused on her lips and he seemed to relax beneath her gentle coaxing. Even if his world was spinning and he didn't want to be in reality, even if he was spiraling outside of his skin, she wanted him to know that she was there for him.
Everything had spiraled down so quickly. She didn't know what else she could do if not offer her comfort.
Behind her,Marie hears Azusa whisper out "Marie?", likely reaching her hand toward her.
Maybe now she'd believe her. Maybe now Azusa would see that Marie hadn't been lying, that Stein really had found his emotional center again.
What she had compared to PTSD before wasn't a comparison at all, but a fact. Marie couldn't believe she hadn't realized before. She couldn't believe she had been ignorant for months. All the signs pointed to this very outcome.
But Spirit must have grabbed Azusa's arm and directed her back to what was important. Crona was important. Stein was important. And Marie had tuned out the rest of the world, simply talking to Stein and thinking that, if she just listened in hard enough, she'd hear his frantic heartbeat in her ears. But Crona needed someone, too, and Azusa couldn't focus on anything else, at that moment.
It was like the world was shuddering.
Stein held onto Marie like she was his only buoy.
She knows she was clutching him the same way.
Evidence File #127 for Case 3419
[Mira Naigus's Audio Account of the Cyborg Codenamed "Crona"'s Original Medical Report]
Crona was showing signs of severe trauma in abdominal region. Likely starved. Clearly malnourished. Signs of PTSD are evident. Safe-House status granted, room 782 in Safe-House #326. Organic functions all but shut down. Tear-ducts had been removed.
Confirmed signs of experimentation. Blood-testing came back positive for organic compounds. Nanotech has ravaged marrow production, resulting in [severe static]
No serial or model numbers evident. Obvious signs of abuse, both physical and mental. Mutterings of a "Doctor" are not elaborated upon.
Mutterings of a "Medusa" are, though not without severe emotional reaction. Broken skeletal structure reveals off-market materials being used in maintenance. It has been revealed that Medusa Gorgon is Crona's [sharp thud].
Severe bruising. Multiple fractured ribs. It has been deemed best to put Marie Mjolnir as primary Careworker until the foreseeable future.
They had been put in separate rooms. Marie felt like, with each step forward, the earth was bottoming out from under her shoes when she walked into Crona's room, knocking a few times only to see Crona flinch, bringing their shoulders up to their ears.
"Crona?" Marie asked, her voice soft. Drained.
Tired.
"M-Ms. Marie. . ."
"Crona? Can I come in?" she asked, waiting until Crona nodded, bringing their pillow in closer to their chest, to open the door further and come in. "I brought some cookies."
Crona only nodded, once more, fidgeting and shivering.
They wouldn't meet her gaze.
Marie put on a thin smile, gently setting the tin of sugar cookies onto the table that Crona was sitting at, having brought it to the corner.
"We can read some poetry, if you'd like?"
A shake in the negative.
"Not even Dickinson? I know you love her poems-"
"I-it was my fault," Crona cut in, blinking rapidly. And Marie noticed a moment too late that the child's eyes were wet.
"Crona? What?"
"I-it's my fault d-doctor S-S-S-Ste-Stein-"
"Crona, it isn't your fault!" Marie reassured quickly, reaching out as though to grab Crona's hands, but they flinched away from her, looking up.
"B-but it is! I-I-I l-list-listened to her! I-I-" Crona had started sobbing so hard, Marie thought the table would start rattling.
"No, Cro-"
"I-I'm sorry!"
"Crona-"
"Marie," Azusa called from the door, and Marie whirled around immediately, her eye wide and confused. "Marie. . .give them a break."
"Azusa-"
"Just. . .give them a second."
She feels like there is nothing under her. Like these is no foundation.
"Crona. . ."
"I-I'm sorry-" the child sniffles again.
She was, too.
An accomplice. An unwilling accomplice.
Was there nothing that was sacred? No low that witch of a woman wouldn't stoop to? Was there any part of a living being Medusa wasn't ready to demolish?
Marie wanted to vomit. One foot in front of the other, she felt off-kilter as she walked to the room they had corralled Stein into.
No wonder Crona had been so shocked. No wonder they were so inconsolable.
They thought they had killed him. They thought they were a murderer.
Nothing in her felt strong. She didn't feel like she could support anyone.
If she had anything beautiful, anything valuable left in her, she would cull it out and lay as offering to try to ease Crona's pain. She would give everything she had.
But there was nothing any of them could do.
There was nothing she could even say.
The tears were so sudden, she couldn't help them. She ached so deeply for Stein, for Crona. The same woman had been their agony and she felt helpless to stop their hurt, helpless to prevent Medusa from harming anyone else.
It wasn't about her. It could never, would never be about her and she felt guilty for tearing up on their behalf. Stein wasn't able to cry for himself. Crona had lost their tear-ducts.
She thinks someone should weep. Anyone.
She knows Stein is probably waiting for her, since Azusa didn't want to leave him in the dark, but she didn't want him to see her that way. He had calmed, but had simply stared ahead, blankly, when she had left to talk to Crona.
She didn't know if he was remembering. If he was reminiscing. If he was reliving.
Marie hadn't wanted to leave him, but she couldn't live with herself if she left Crona on their own. All the good that did, she thinks, bitterly. Why she insisted on applying importance to herself, she didn't know.
She hoped Stein assumed that she had just taken a detour to go to the bathroom or something equally as simple. She couldn't go back to see him if she was going to be a watery mess. In the narrow hallway, she felt, for once, thankful of the lack of light, and she contemplated actually going to the bathroom to cover up the sound of her sorrow, but she didn't get far before she sniffled, bringing her hand to the right side of her face to wipe the tear away.
She didn't want anyone to hear her. She didn't want anyone to be saddled with her grief over them. Not Crona. Not Stein.
Stein.
He didn't want anyone's pity, she could tell. He didn't want her to treat him as anything other than strong and capable.
And he was. He was on almost every level, just like Crona was.
As she kept walking, the tears had already started to come down, and when she pressed her palm to her cheek once more, the wetness felt disgusting on her hands.
Far enough away, where she thought no one could hear, she finally bowed her head, her shoulders hunching as her back hit the wall and she covered her eye with her hand, the other scrabbling at the cheap walls as though trying to find some kind of purchase, some foundation, something to cling to when it felt like the world was spinning.
She curled it into a fist, slamming it against the walls and worried that someone would hear, but she found that she just needed to get her fury out on something, on anything. Considering the true source of her anger was nowhere to be found, the scapegoat would just have to do.
She didn't hear the footsteps. She didn't hear the soft thud of them as they approached her, as they followed the sound.
Her face was hidden into the shadows, and she had her eye covered, so when he finally stepped in front of her, she didn't realize for a good few moments until she went to wipe her eye again and found herself face to chest with him.
She jolted, nearly jumping up in surprise and nervously cleaning her face off with the sleeve of her hoodie.
"Stein, I-" she couldn't find it in her to finish, the water wail that was her voice the only sound in the general area.
She couldn't face him. She didn't want to. To see disgust or fury or annoyance on his face would be too much for her in that moment and she'd simply crumble to nothing.
Yet, when his hand came to the top of her head, she felt delicate in a different way, fragile.
It was stupid of her. It was stupid in general. And it wasn't fair that there she was, shedding tears he should have had for himself, making it about her once again.
Selfish, she remembers with a bitterness and hopelessness that yawns and stretches inside of her. He was right from the beginning, then.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles out, turning her face away from him even more.
He said nothing. There was no "Don't cry", least of all no "Don't cry for me", but his hand roved over her hair as though curious to how it felt, and she supposed he must have been. It was that curiosity that drove him to do everything. To stay in her apartment, to fight for his emotions, to kiss her.
To kiss her.
They weren't anything. She wasn't his girlfriend, he wasn't in love with her, she wondered if he would even consider them friends: she had no right to sob for him.
Didn't she?
She felt his hand come to the back of her head instead of the top, his fingers looping through her hair, and suddenly, she was facing forward, guided by a gentleness no one could have expected out of a man with a machine for a skeleton.
He brought her face to his chest, just like in the films they had seen together. Just like in those cheap romance movies she'd sighed and pined for, and the sorrow coiled into a ball so heavy in her stomach, vibrating and humming in pain and fury and frustration and overwhelming protection for this man who had everything torn from him, she finally sobbed, loud and embarrassing.
"It isn't fair," she choked out, burrowing her face in his chest and fisting his shirt, leaning onto him entirely. "You and. . .and Crona. . .and it's. . ." she found that she could barely breathe, her lungs refusing to cooperate with her, her heart aching in each way.
Slowly, she felt him bow his head until his cheek was at her crown, and his shoulders hunched in.
Protection, she realized. He was protecting her.
And the selflessness in the action made her hiccup, made her bring an arm around him though she knew touch wasn't what he found pleasure in most, made her hold him as she wept for him and for Crona and for every person that would ever, had ever been in their situation.
"It isn't fair," she said, again, taking in the smell of his shirt and the feeling of his hard body against her. She memorized how his fingers stroked over her ear, how his free arm dangled limply at his side.
That pose she'd never seen before, not in books or films, not in videos or paintings.
It was organic. It was all him.
"I'm so sorry," she finally muttered out, closing her eye and shaking in his hold.
And he pulled her closer.
Evidence File # for Case 3419
[continued from previous entry, page ripped at the top and torn around edges]
was horrible. The very thought of someone having replaced his skeleton makes me want to vomit. Stein. . .he doesn't seem to know what to do.
Who can blame him?
We printed out his Death Certificate. I think he wanted to rip it to pieces. I hope he doesn't. But he looked at it almost like he hated it. Like he hated what was on the page.
I think he folded it up. I hope he keeps it.
Crona. . .Stein.
When I was young, I wanted to be a nurse for them, so that I could heal any of their hurt. I didn't know back then that hurt was more than physical.
Crona was inconsolable. Spirit said he'd take Maka over later so that she could help. They have a circle of support. That's the best thing to have.
Stein was quiet when we went back home. He thinks so much. Keeps so closely to himself.
I want him to know he never has to be alone, again.
Coming home, nothing felt better. It felt bitter. It felt hopeless. But home was home, and when Stein walked in, the tense line of his shoulders loosened, slightly, as he made his way to her couch.
She was glad she could give him a safe-haven. She was glad he could feel safe somewhere.
Anywhere.
It was the only way she could get to sleep, though the fact that she felt drained certainly had something to do with it. And she didn't know how long she had managed to doze off for until frantic beeping hit her ears.
When Azusa called her, Marie didn't even realize what time it was. She woke with a start, probably mid-snore, she thought, her entire mind hazy and her body aching. She was so emotionally drained she had practically fallen into bed the second she got to her home, and though she was tempted to offer Stein a place next to her, just for comfort and nothing else, she had swallowed down the invitation when they got home and simply retired to her room.
She thinks it's a good thing, since the last thing she was when her ringtone blared in her ears was attractive.
She rolled over, her hair in her face, some of the strands coming to her mouth, before she groggily checked the ID and accepted the call, setting the device to the side of her face.
"'Zusa?" Marie asked, running a hand over her only good eye, rubbing some sleep out of it. "What's going on? What happened?"
Her voice was so slurred, she worried if Azusa would think she was drunk.
But she sobered instantly when Azusa's voice, sharp and crisp and barely heard over the whir of an engine called back to her. "It's Crona," Azusa said, some of the vowels cut off. "Ran. . .miss-. ..tracker- Sid! Slow that damn engine!"
Marie sat up immediately, the sound clearing up slightly. "What? Azusa? What?"
"It's Crona," the woman repeated. "They're missing. We're tracking where they went off of the chip on the jacket they picked up, but they left the safe-house."
"What?" Marie all but screeched, throwing her covers off. "What do you mean they left the safe-house? Where are they going?"
"We're following the trail right now. We'll be at your place in a few minutes."
"'Zusa-" Marie started, but she was cut off by the dial tone that indicated that the call had been dropped.
For a moment, Marie could only sit in her bed, the darkness pressing in around her, before her body jolted and her bare feet were meeting her carpet, her light flicking on after she hit the switch. Clothes. Clothes. She had to find her clothes. She couldn't run out in her sleep shorts. She flew her closet door open, and the noise must have disturbed her house-guest, because the next thing she knew, she heard footsteps.
". . .Marie?" Stein asked through the door.
At least he had the courtesy not to barge in. She wouldn't really appreciate that as she was throwing on her pants, fishing her sports bra out from her laundry basket and quickly clasping it behind her, one foot still stuck in a pants' leg.
"Marie?" he asked again, more urgency evident in how he said it. Marie's voice was muffled as she threw her shirt over her head, tugging it down her body though it got stuck around her face as she spoke.
"Sorry! One second!" she called, adjusting her shirt, setting her earpiece into her pocket, and putting her hairband in her mouth as she jumped around, sliding her socks on whilst simultaneously trying to pull her hair up in a ponytail. When she finally managed to throw her door open after putting on her eyepatch, she must have looked like a mess.
He quirked an eyebrow at her, but there was something nervous in his body language as Marie raced past him, making her way to where her combat boots were in the living room.
Her ringtone went off again while she was trying to tie her shoes, and Stein followed her into the living room. If she looked behind her, she'd see that his eyebrows had twitched together, but she was too busy trying to ignore the loud, obnoxious cawing coming from her earpiece. No doubt, it was Azusa telling her that she was at the apartment, waiting for her.
There was no time to spare, and as Marie finally finished lacing up her boots, standing and racing her way to her door, Stein grasped her upper arm and she gasped, whirling around.
Face to chest with him, she had to lift her chin to look at his face.
"Stein-"
"What happened?"
"It's Crona," she started, absolutely breathless from how fast she had to get ready. She thinks if there was a record for anyone pulling on clothing and running out the door, she'd have beaten them by a landslide. "They're missing. We're following the trail and—what are you doing?" she asked, watching with wide eyes as he, too, pulled on his shoes, reaching for his jacket. "Stein, what are you doing?"
"Not staying here."
"Stein, you can't come with us! It's dangerous! You don't know where they're going-"
He turned to look at her, throwing the hood up over his head, his bolt entirely invisible from under the material, pulling the collar up over his lips. She glared, but he met her stare dead-on.
"You're not coming," she assured.
Topping off the list of people who shouldn't have been crammed into the car but where was Maka and Kid, both of whom were immersed in calling out directions from their devices. Evidently, it was Maka who sounded the alarm on Crona being missing. Spirit didn't take too kindly to finding out that his daughter had been visiting the Safe-Houses after hours, sneaking around after dark, let alone at 4 am in the morning, to meet with her friend.
Marie pinched the bridge of her nose, stuck between Stein, who was squirming slightly from his spot next to her, and Naigus, who was immersed in three different maps, trying to find out where Crona could have possibly heading toward. Sid was at the wheel, likely trying not to throw himself out of the car due to Azusa being the worst passenger's seat driver in the history of the world.
Spirit didn't look too happy, sitting between Maka and Kid in the third row of seats, likely wondering how he was going to keep both of them safe. He was still in his police uniform, his shirt rumpled.
The military vehicle couldn't have been in their possession if it wasn't for Kid, and Marie knew that was the reason he was in the car at all. His close connection to Crona would convince him to break any set of rules for the cyborg, even if it involved abusing his privileges as Lord Death's son.
"Changing coordinates! Crona is headed West," Maka called out, her eyes glued to the small screen with a bright pink dot on it, indicating where Crona was headed.
"Where do I turn?" Sid asked.
"42nd Street," Kid called, practically stretched over Spirit's lap to keep his own eyes on the device.
It was five AM in the morning and Marie felt so disoriented that she didn't even know which direction they were going to turn until Sid took a sharp left, forcing her to fall against Stein's arm, her hand coming to his knee as leverage.
Marie had the distinct feeling that Naigus was staring at her as she said sorry, looking up at Stein's face and seeing the barest ghost of amusement flicker on it. It smoothed over barely a second later to reveal his tired expression.
She couldn't blame him. She was tired, too. And moreover, she had no idea where they were going.
"Any idea where Crona's headed?" she asked, twisting around to look at Naigus. When the woman didn't answer immediately, Marie followed her gaze to see that her hand was still on Stein's knee, and Marie moved her palm immediately, not even noticing.
Naigus's stare met Marie's, and the two of them looked at each other for a second too long, forcing Azusa to peer over her shoulder and for Spirit to zero in on the interaction. After a second, Naigus only looked back at her maps.
"They're in the desert," she said, simply.
"This is an off-road vehicle," Kid added, seemingly uninterested in the tension taking place.
"Then why are we still following the roads?" Sid asked, going at least forty miles over the speed limit.
"Take a right," Maka commanded, not having looked up the entire time, chewing her lip so bad, it must have been chapped to kingdom-come.
And with that, Sid swerved.
The wheels hit sand, kicking up granules into the air. Marie reached over Stein to get the window to close.
Sid pressed down on the gas pedal.
Stein was on edge when they finally made it to the dilapidated building Crona had stopped at.
There was something eerie about it. The arrows drawn all over the exterior seemed like they would confuse most people. The sand seemed to swirl in the very air, and Marie worried that if she breathed in too hard, she'd find that sand weighing her lungs down until breathing was impossible.
Finding the entrance was the hardest part, but it was Kid who had located it, finding a small opening in the bleached brickwork.
It looked like something out of a horror movie, and all of Marie's instincts were screaming at her while she forced her way through the tiny door. How anything larger than a snake could make it through that tiny slit, she'd never know, but somehow, they had strong armed their way through.
Crona had always been small, thin. Resourceful. She had no doubt that they would have no problems getting in.
The rest of them, however, that was the issue.
She heard cracking behind her and found that, unlike she and Azusa, everyone else couldn't just slide in. Sid had kicked away some of the brickwork, but it was Stein who was standing there with rock crumbling from his fingers.
Marie shuddered. Times like then was when she was most aware of the fact that Stein was mechanically enhanced.
It was cooler in the hallway they had broken into than it was outside, and Maka was running, following the coordinates on her device with Kid hot on her heels. Spirit sprinted off after them.
And then, she finds that they are all running, their footsteps echoing as the floor sloped downward, leading them into the belly of the building. If anything, Maka's long legs extended in front of her, stretching her way ahead of everyone else.
When they took a turn and the dirt of the building changed into chrome, that was when she heard the gasp. Crona's voice was echoing down the hall, shaking, scared.
But so powerful. So determined.
"Y-you s-s-s-said he was-"
"What? Speak up, will you?"
"D-d-d-"
"Deactivated? Oh, Crona, darling. You always were such a dramatist. And you're here for, what? Revenge?" The laugh that bounced arund was cruel, mocking. "How sweet."
"I'm here to. . .to- I'm here to. . ."
And then Stein was running so fast, Marie couldn't even reach out to him. His jacket slipped from her fingers and she didn't even know when she had been holding onto it.
The crack of his boots against the floor was so sharp, Marie had to inhale sharply, and he nearly knocked Maka over as he ran forward, his massive, hulking body taking up almost the entire narrow hallway. There were arrows on the floors and the walls, but he didn't seem to pay them any attention.
Maka gasped, nearly falling into Kid and only kept upright by Spirit grasping her upper arm.
It was almost like Stein knew where he was going.
Like he had been there before.
The inhale Marie took was ragged, her body screaming at her to slow down. A stitch was developing on her side, but she ducked her head down and pounded after Stein, slipping past Maka and trying to keep up.
There was no keeping up with him.
When his footsteps stopped, she thinks her heart did, too.
"I-I'm here t-to m-m-make sure y-you never h-h-have the c-ch-chance to d-d-d-do that again!" Crona lifted the shaking tire iron up in a sloppy grip, their knees almost buckling together.
"Now, is that really any way to speak to your owner, Crona?" Medusa crooned, a hand on her hip and a smirk on her face. "It's downright rude, don't you think so?"
"L-Lady Medusa. . .I-"
"I know you had to return here because you're pitiful, but really. Would you stop your pointless stuttering? I thought that was removed with your last upgrade." The woman scoffed, sashaying her way over to where a massive computer was, before she leaned against it. "Waste of money, frankly."
"M-Medusa-"
"Yes?" she said, drawing each "s" out so that the word ended in a hiss.
"Y-you. . .y-y-yo-"
"Oh, do speak up. You're a disgrace when you can't even finish a sentence. So many years of technological advancement and you're still just a sputtering pile of spare parts. But don't worry, I'll go ahead and take you apart for scrap in just a second. After all, you did your job." She tsked, shaking her head. "I never thought you'd be good for anything, but it seems you make fine bait, Crona. Wouldn't you say so, Stein?"
The very air went cold when Medusa turned her back to Crona, the child's grasp loosening on the tire-iron in surprise. Stein's stare was icy.
"I'm so glad to have my sweet cyborg back. I seemed to have. . .misplaced you, earlier," she commented, her lips tipping up, and when she looked over at the side, her smirk curled.
Marie had almost barrelled into the cavern immediately, only held back by Azusa and Naigus' quick thinking. Spirit had leaped back right at the mouth of the opening, putting his hand against Maka's lips tokeep her quiet, doing his best to hold on his daughter firm, despite the fact that Maka was desperately trying to race forward.
She knew an enemy when she saw one. Kid, on his part, could only watch with his eyes wide, his hand coming to the wa;; to support himself.
Azusa and Naigus both had a hold on Marie's shoulders, the two of them staring at her as though to tell her not to do anything foolish, even before Sid had gasped.
"She's recording-" he whispered, and that was all it took before Kid looked down to the tracking tablet Maka had passed off to him while he ran, and when he looked at the screen, instead of the tracking diagram, where Crona's pink dot should have been, it was the scene they were looking upon.
Medusa was recording them.
The air felt thick.
She was broadcasting it every newsfeed. Kid flipped through the stations on the tablet frantically, finding the same video on each of them, being filtered in, live. When he stepped forward, his hand outstretched to warn Crona, Sid caught the boy around his waist, covering his mouth.
"Misplaced," Stein droned, stalking forward, nothing but his bare hands at his side.
"Yes. And it was such a shame, don't you think so? We had such fun before." When she smiled wider, it was like something flashed in her eyes.
She looked like a snake.
She looked like she was winning.
Stein said nothing, simply stepping ahead, his eyes never leaving Medusa's face. Behind them, Crona was shaking.
"After all, I really do love you, you kno-"
It happened faster than anyone could have even imagined it. Marie's voice screamed out, a banshee's wail, calling "No!" so loudly, she thinks it shook the building. She mixed in with Crona's sharp gasp, with Maka's struggled shouts.
Suddenly, the sound all exploded as though in warning, but it was too late.
Medusa was recording. Medusa was recording and she had just captured a cyborg murdering a human being.
Marie practically hear it in real time, what people were thinking.
Dangerous. Villains. Monsters. Evil. Cruel. A threat to humanity. A terrorist group.
Marie thinks she was hyperventilating.
Stein's hand had been thrown in through Medusa's diaphragm, the elastic skin giving way almost immediately due to his enhanced skeleton, and the woman sucked in a harsh breath as he worked his way between her ribs, bringing his arm in to the elbow until he went beneath her sternum.
Her lungs shuddered as he grasped hold of something tough and beating, hard, his fingers clamping and feeling the muscle throb in his palm. Medusa's hand didn't even come to his upper arm in an attempt to pull him away. Instead, she looked to the side, where the screen was, and through Kid's device, the saw her look directly at them, her eyes wide and innocent, her expression horrified.
And Stein looked cruel. He looked horrific as the pop and tear of the ventricles seemed to squelch in a sickening symphony, and her ribs cracked, the noise sounding like the crunch of a bone beneath teeth. How Medusa's body was still alive enough to manage the movement of looking at the screen, no one could know, but Marie's howl was still bouncing off the walls as Stein gave a tug and ripped Medusa's heart out from her body, holding it in his hand.
Marie almost vomited. It was still beating, though quickly stopping. Blood was spurting around her and onto Stein, onto the floor and the camera, all around as though a gush of confetti, cherry blossoms at a parade.
Stein looked at Medusa, watching the life leave her eyes, and as she mouthed, one more time, something that looked like "I love you, you know," he tightened his hold on her heart, feeling it, as slippery as it was, crush in his hands.
The muscle of it gave him resistance, but he felt it stop beating against his palm, watched her die.
"What do you know," Stein started, his eyes cold, cruel, unapologetic even as Crona wailed out and Marie's yell faded, "you do have one."
And Medusa fell to the ground, her body giving off a sad thump.
She was still smiling.
When Stein let go of his hold on her heart, it fell next to her, barely making a single noise.
"I would have never guessed."
She didn't think her lungs understood breath, anymore. Everything in her shuddered, growing cold and crushed. Slowly, she set her gaze on Crona, standing in front of Stein, in front of the corpse of Crona's once-mother, the tire-iron clanking out of their hands.
Stein must have felt her stare on him, because he turned to look at her, and for one heart-wrenching moment, there was nothing on his face but a few flecks of blood, looking more like a gory constellation than anything else. She is stepping to him before she even knows what she's doing, and the world has stopped turning. She doesn't think she hears anything at all. Not Maka's muffled screaming from behind Spirit's hand, not Kid struggling to go to Crona, not Azusa biting off Marie's name while it is halfway out of her mouth.
Marie knows she is stepping into the camera's eye. She knows.
And she doesn't care. Not at that point. Not when he looks so lost, so hurt.
She promised herself that he would never be alone. How could she leave him to deal with the aftermath of Medusa's corpse at his feet? And, at the thought, as she finally makes her way in front of him, she jolts, her feet glued to the floor where Medusa's hemoglobin was slowly pouring. Maybe it would coagulate beneath her feet, maybe she'd be stuck there forever.
And then his face changed, the pinpricks of pain registering so faintly, she wonders if anyone else would be able to make out the signs. There was something tense in his shoulders, the same way it was at his mouth, the way his lips pinched at the edges. His eyes crinkled slightly, and what she thought was blankness in his green-orbs were, instead, a blown-wide pupil, adrenaline running through his entire body.
"Stein. . ." she whispered, trying to command her body to move, and finding that she couldn't.
She heard the struggles of the kids behind her, but she was glad Spirit and Sid had the good sense to hold them back. No doubt, Baba Yaga had gotten the feed. They were probably tracking the location.
The world was bottoming out from beneath her feet, legs buckling from the pressure of the situation. Her life, regardless of how meager or flimsy, regardless of how hard, was being pulled from her. In one motion, Medusa had been their entire downfall.
Or, perhaps not.
Marie took a deep breath, feeling as though she were going to explode, turning into a massive supernova of light that would take everything with her. But she didn't. There was no starlight to stain the walls, no planetary collision.
There was only a slowly cooling corpse, a shaking child that fell to their knees just as Stein stood, staring at her, and when she finally moved, her body gravitating to him, he curled his shoulders in as though trying to compress down to nothing.
"Oh, Stein," Marie repeated.
He looked shattered, but not worn down. Something had broken in him, but whether it was free or open or down, she didn't know.
What she did know was he was keeping a sky on his face, a flicker of bloody stars across his cheekbones, and though she wanted to cup his cheek, instead, she slowly reached up, having to stretch her body to reach his face, and gently swiped away the dots that adorned his face. "Oh, Stein."
"I don't know who that is," he told her, lips barely moving. The vulnerability on his face was so new, and she realized a moment too late that he was shaking. "I don't know who I am. Would who I was do that?"
She thinks her heart, previously sunk to her belly, lifted to her throat as though it were punched, and her fingers stuttered over his flesh, his gaze nearly hopeless.
"Who you are," she told him, the words bubbling out of her, "saved Crona. Who you are killed the woman who hurt both of you."
"Marie. . ."
When she looked at him, she knew she would hide him away from anything, shoulder his body through any tempest, and her thumb gently stroked over his cheekbone without meaning to.
"You are who you are."
His stare was unnerving, but it had changed. Something in his eyes flickered to life. He seemed to flicker to life, and she could have been imagining it, but he seemed to lean into her touches.
His unblinking gaze didn't let up, but his olive eyes seemed to warm, and she tilted her chin to look him head-on. Though there was nothing to be joyful about, the tenderest scrap of a smile comes across her lips, and she cupped his cheek in her palm.
He was shaking beneath her touch, and she didn't know to put her arm around him for support until he was sinking to the ground, his pants getting blood-soaked, his head bowing down, breath shuddering. She threw her arm around him and followed him down, knowing that the knees of her pants were going to be darkened.
The gore collected into the fabric, the smell already making her sick, but she tugged Stein to her, and his chin hooked over her shoulder, his hands shaking.
"Marie," he whispered, and it sounded so delicate she couldn't help but pull him closer to her body, wanting to hide him from an entire world that was watching them.
"I'm here," she said, reassuring as her fingers smoothed down his spine. "I'm here. I'll always be here."
He burrowed his face against her shoulder, and she finally felt both of his palms on her back before he pressed her against him, shuddering in her grasp.
When she lifted her chin, turning her head to look into the cameras, she thinks that she wanted everyone to memorize her face. She wants them to know who she is, that she does not stand for what her society has done.
That she is Marie Mjolnir. That she will go to her grave fighting for what was right.
She looks into the eye of the camera and she hopes everyone is watching when she turns away, setting a kiss to where Stein's bolt meets his skull.
"I'll always be here."
And the world watches.
And she holds Stein close.
Azusa couldn't leave Marie to the wolves. And neither could Naigus. And neither could Sid.
Besides, what did they have to lose? It was die trying and they always knew how to kick and fight their way out of any messy situation. Sid had thrown Kid to Spirit's grasp, the two of them almost overwhelming the redhead as he stayed in the shadows, keeping all their faces hidden from the cameras.
"Cut the feed!" Azusa screamed, her fingers flying over the massive supercomputer that had been set up. Naigus's and Sid's and Spirit's police phones were going off like crazy. The entire force was going to be on them in record time. They were tracking the feedback.
"I'm trying!" Naigus called back, her bare hands grasping exposed wires and pulling, sparks flying when they disconnected. The lights flickered, backup generators likely turning on. Sid cursed before he pulled back, staring at where Crona was, seeing the tire iron on the floor.
When he gunned forward, Crona made no reaction, simply staring at the corpse of their once-mother. Sid grabbed it up, and didn't even hesitate before he slammed it into one of the screens, watching glass fly from the smack. Azusa ducked to the side and Naigus covered her head with her arms. Maka was still shrieking, trying to get Crona to look up, to look at them. Kid was yelling, fighting in Spirit's grasp as Sid continued to destroy the entire workspace.
"Sid!" Naigus yelled, turning away as more glass went flying, as well as chunks of metal that were chucked around the room like shrapnel.
"We don't have any time!" he replied, rearing back and slamming the tire-iron against more of Medusa's lab.
"What if it combusts, Sid?" Azusa screeched.
He didn't listen to her, and after Naigus took a glance around the room, she locked eyes with Azusa before she picked up one of broken pieces of metal on the ground, running forward and slamming it against one of the cameras.
"Then I'd rather go down in flames," Naigus said, snarling as she repeated the motion with another of the cameras.
Azusa's mouth opened for a moment before she closed it, her teeth clicking.
When she picked up a chair, calling out "Duck!", Sid almost fell to the floor before Azusa threw the entire thing into the massive screen.
"It's cut!" Spirit screamed, barely sounding like himself.
"And the audio?" Naigus asked, her eyes wide as she whirled around. The tablet that had the broadcast on it, that had once been in Kid's hands, showed nothing but static.
"It's all cut!" Spirit said, finally releasing Maka and Kid, the two of them gunning forward to Crona.
"Crona!" Maka shrieked, skidding so badly she almost passed her friend. "Crona! Crona talk to me?" Maka asked, pressing her hands against Crona's arms as the cyborg stared at the corpse in front of them. Kid was slower, sinking down to the ground and gently reaching forward, whispering the bot's name.
Azusa was breathing hard, all the adrenaline in her body coursing through her. Spirit was supporting himself against the wall.
"It saw all of us?" Azusa panted out, staring straight ahead.
Spirit was silent, swallowing hard, before his voice croaked out. "Yeah. . .everyone but Maka, Kid, and I."
Naigus turned, looking at where the two children were, next to Crona, supporting the bot, whose shoulders were shaking so hard, there was no doubt that, if they had the ability to cry, they would be. Then, her eyes flicked to where Marie and Stein were, still holding each other with Marie's cheek pressed against Stein's scalp. The man in her hold was slumped against her, as though using her as support.
"What do we do now?" Azusa asked, her back to the long-dead corpse on the ground that had made everything crumble, her voice small.
"We have to run," Naigus said, suddenly feeling like she were going to collapse.
"Where? Where is there to go?" Sid asked, taking in a deep breath.
"Anywhere," Naigus countered. "If we stay here, we're dead."
Over their police phones, they heard the furious call for all personnel to come to the coordinates, that a murder had taken place at-
"I. . .Guys, I-" Spirit started, cutting off the sound of the feed, his beautiful green eyes, such a close match to his daughter's, blinking back what looked like a sheen of wetness.
There was a hesitation before Sid dropped the tire-iron, walking over to his friend. Sid's palm clapped over the other man's shoulder, a solidarity that seemed to ground the redhead, and he looked around at the accepting gazes of his friends, his heart feeling as though it was going to burst, emotions welling up harshly. "I can't do this alone," Spirit whispered.
They all heard a rustle before Marie's voice called out, and everyone turned to look at her.
"You won't be alone," Marie said, finally standing up with Stein, her caramel eye accepting and kind. "You have Justin. And. . .well, we've survived this long. You can't get rid of us this easily."
"But-" Spirit began, biting his inner cheek, hard.
"We'll find a way."
"When was the last time we couldn't come up with some kind of solution?" Naigus asked, a wistful, almost amused look on her face, though it was tinged with such obvious sadness.
"We have an accuracy rate of 98%. Our track record is immaculate," Azusa added.
"But. . .where will you go?" he asked, biting at his lip.
"Anywhere," Marie told him. "Anywhere safe."
"And if there is nowhere?"
"Then we'll just have to make a somewhere," she replied back.
"And we will," Naigus reassured.
"But-"
"Spirit, you don't have any time left. . .you need to get out of here so you can join the police ranks on their way here," Sid cut in, and when Spirit looked at the man, they locked gazes."You need to get Maka and Kid out of here, Spirit."
At the mention of his daughter, Spirit nodded a few times, swallowing hard.
"Please be safe," Spirit requested. "Please. . ."
"We will be," Sid said, smiling softly, a determined expression on his face. "Now, get those kids out of here and give Maka a chance."
Spirit's lip was wobbling as he made his way forward, walking woodenly over to where Maka was, where she began to shriek and scream, refusing to get away from Crona. Naigus closed her eyes, all but falling against the ruined mess that was Medusa's workplace, trying to block out the sound of Maka screaming "I won't leave her like you left Mama!"
Then, there was quiet.
"You need to go, Maka," Crona said, their voice small, but steely.
Naigus whipped her head up, her eyes widening, the same as everyone else's, focusing on the scene.
"Crona-" Maka started, her face set. "I'm not-"
"Y-you need to go. . .t-th-think about Soul. . .Black*Star. . ."
"But Crona-"
"L-Liz. . .and Patti."
"But what about you? Crona?" Kid butted in, his heart thudding painfully in his chest as he searched Crona's face. Maka had started to cry, the tears coming over her cheeks and dripping down her chin.
"I. . ." Crona looked around, looking over Maka and Kid's heads, meeting the gaze of everyone else. "I have my. . .family," they said, finally looking over at Marie. "I. . .I have to. . .I h-have to help them."
Marie smiled, though she had to wipe her own tears away. She looked like a pillar of strength, like a beacon of light in nothing but darkness.
"Maka. . .Kid. . ."
"Maka," Spirit said. "We have to go."
Maka let loose a sob, clutching onto Crona's shirt, only heaving forward to hug her friend when Kid lowered his face to Crona's shoulder, shuddering against them.
"Y-you have the tracker," Crona said, though it was uncertain as to which of the two children they were speaking to.
Maka nodded against Crona's shirt before she pulled away. "I'll find you. I'll find you, again, Crona. And then. . ."
"Yeah," Crona said, nodding.
"I'll come back for you," Maka promised. "I'll always come back for you."
For the first time in too long, Crona smiled, and from over Maka's head, Crona could see that Kid was nodding. "I will do everything I can to see you again, Crona," Kid said, his voice sad, but determined.
"I know you will," Crona told them. Behind them, Spirit wiped his face and turned to his friends.
Naigus was the one who met his eyes, and when she mouthed "Ditto," Spirit only nodded, extending a soft, sorrowful smile.
"Maka, Kid. . .let's go," he said, finally hauling the two of them up and hiding his face as they raced out of the vicinity.
"Remember! Remember, Crona! We'll be back for you!" echoed through the room.
And then, they too were gone.
Azusa stood up, though her knees felt like they'd knock into each other and break beneath the pressure. "We need to go," she said. "We need to go, now."
"There's nothing but desert for miles, so if we wanna make it out of here with our lives, we need to gun it," Naigus added, looking around the lab and trying to find anything useful to grasp up.
Marie looked at her friends, watching as they surveyed the vicinity to see if there was anything of value they could sell to start up a life, any hint to a vehicle or a safe-house, any sign of a hidden room they could hole up in.
Marie knew they'd make it. They always had. Slowly, she looked up at Stein before she looked over at Crona, and the man nodded, a sign for her to make her way forward.
When she came over Crona, the child looked up at her with eyes that looked like bottomless pits. Marie offered a smile, a hand.
"No one blames you. . .for anything," she said, and it took Crona a second. They looked around her, glancing at Stein who locked eyes with them as though analyzing before he nodded.
Crona took in what felt like the first breath of the night, their fingers reaching fr Marie's.
Crona's hand was so much larger than her own, and the child was shaking like a leaf, but at Marie's touch, they seemed to calm.
"She was my mother," Crona said, and Marie realized that at no point had their fingers touched Medusa's long-paled cheek. Instead, they had settled on their haunches, simply staring at the corpse the entire time.
"It takes more than birthing a child to make a mother, Crona," Marie informed, and Crona only shook their head.
"I didn't want. . .I didn't want this to happen."
Marie's palm settled on their back, softly. "We know. . .Crona, we know."
At that, Crona looked down, back to the corpse, their pink hair swishing across their cheek. "A-and now-"
"And now we run. Now we can start all over," Marie reassured, and around them, Naigus and Azusa and Sid had stripped the room of everything useful, calling out that it was time to go, that there was a car, that there was a chance.
"Crona, do you want to start over?" Marie asked, ducking her head and gently moving Crona's hair out of their eyes.
"I. . ." Crona looked up, over to where Stein was, watching as he walked to them. "I. . .y-yes. . .I w-want. . .I w-want to," Crona said, and Marie hold on their hand tightened, pulling the child close to her side before they had to follow Azusa's lead as she looked over the blueprint of the catacomb-like cavern that was Medusa's lab.
Marie left hand was curled around Crona's, leading the child out, and to her side, Stein was a warm, comforting presence. It was nothing like the first time she met him, when he couldn't hold himself up, when she raced them out of their potential graveyard and nearly made that possibility a reality.
She almost jolted when her thoughts were disturbed by a cold, calloused touch on what of her arm was exposed, and she looked down at her right hand, finding Stein's finger trailing down her wrist.
The blood on his hands had dried, flecking off like paint chips and falling to the floor, revealing clean, pale skin beneath it. After a moment, when she looked over at him, meeting his eyes and then down, to where his hand was waiting for her, she sniffled, the weight of their future pressing against her.
But on three sets of shoulders, on more than that, she thinks she could support the entire world.
She opened her hand to him, spreading her fingers as though inviting him to slide his own between them, filling her spaces.
The touch was hesitant yet familiar. They knew each other, knew the feeling of palm against palm, nothing but a sliver of space left. And through it, she knew everything he could want to say to her.
That he was there. That he wouldn't be there if he didn't care. That he cared. That he was there for her.
As they raced out of the tunnels, one foot coming in front of the other, her hand rubbed against his, forcing more of the dried blood off. They were all haggard, making their way to the car where Sid would have to hotwire. The sirens were starting to come into their hearing, an impending doom she knows they'd avoid by barely the skin of their teeth.
She heard the sound of the engine Sid managed to start.
When they finally caught up to where Azusa and Naigus were already settled in their seats, the light nearly blinded them, forcing their hold to tighten, their fingers still intertwined.
Crona let go first, jumping into the vehicle, and then, Stein made his way in, still holding her hand.
When Marie looked at where they were joined, where he was grasping her with a lover's touch, she couldn't help but smile.
His hands were clean as they pulled her into the car where there was barely enough space for all of them. Crona was curled at the far left side, Stein to the right, and Marie found her place between them just as the car reared forward.
As Sid slammed on the gas pedal, kicking sand up all around them, swerving sharply to the side, Marie fell into Stein, her hand coming to his chest where she felt his heart beating. His hand came to her own, covering it.
And neither of them pulled away.
Oh, man, it's finally done! This massive behemoth of a fic has been the absolute bane of my existence, as well my baby, for months now! Huge huge HUGE thanks go out to Jcrycolr3wradcse, who has supported me more than I can ever say, and Crimson-Lia, who is too sweet for words. Both of you have been incredible betas, and this fic wouldn't even EXIST without you guys.
The INCREDIBLE LostLegendaeri at lostlegendaerie .tumblr ( dot com) is responsible for the amazing cover art! The link to it can be found here (lostlegendaerie .tumblr (dot com) /post /135045029678/ it-was-the-whisper-that-made-her-stop-the-slight) and lemme give a HUGE s/o to her for putting up with me. She is gloriously talented! Check out her art if you value creative ideas, clean execution, and IMMACULATE colors!
I actually ended up handwriting the diary entries, and if you would like to see them, please go ahead and visit this fic on Archive of Our Own, found here (archiveofourown (dot org) /works/ 5405687/ chapters/ 12488639)
Thank you to the excellent mods of Resbang for giving me this opportunity, and thank YOU for reading!