Lumaira was sobbing openly by the time they reached the hospital, leaning on Even for support as though if he weren't there he'd simply collapse. The older boy's face was strained into emotionlessness, lips tight and eyes dark. L'Erena's burns had been too severe: they'd become fatal in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Three customers had been injured but she was the only fatality.
"She'll come back," Lumaira was mumbling to himself over and over, like a mantra. "You came back, Even, she'll come back too."
But they both knew that Even came back because he was different, and L'Erena was just an ordinary girl.
They reached the hospital in good time, hurried up to the correct ward. L'Erena's parents where there, damp-eyed and incomplete. Lumaira saw them and knew that this was it, it, and if Even couldn't do something L'Erena would be gone forever.
He didn't want L'Erena to be gone. She was his best friend, his soul mate that always kept him going when he was lonely and where was she now to cheer him up? She was dead.
Lumaira pressed his palm tightly against his mouth lest an inhuman howl escape from his throat. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, if anybody deserved to live it was Rennie, it ought to have been somebody else, it ought to have been him, it ought to have been anyone but her.
A nurse dropped past with a trolley of medications, whispered her condolences. Naminé over in another corner was having a hushed conversation with a stoic doctor. L'Erena's parents were silent in their grief.
Lumaira turned to Even, slumped in one of the hospital's cheap plastic seats.
"You have to bring her back," He said as quietly as he could manage through his tight, staticky voice. "Even, you have to bring her back."
Even didn't look up, lifting his feet up onto the rim of the chair and curling his arms around his knees. He was silent for a long time.
"I can't," He finally squeaked.
"You've got to! It's her only chance-"
"I can't," Even insisted again. "I don't know how, Lumaira. I don't know, I can't just bring people back..."
"You came back!" Lumaira hissed, anger and injustice rising up inside him. "You could at least do the same for her!"
Even glanced up, expression mortified. There were tears, Lumaira suddenly saw, ugly streaks across his reddened face.
"I don't know how," He said again, hopelessly, voice cracking even in a whisper. "I didn't even want to come back-"
"You have to try," Lumaira interrupted. "I won't lose her, not now, not ever. You have to bring her back."
"I can't," Even repeated, as if that made everything okay.
"It's not fair," Lumaira muttered under his breath, fists tightly clenched. "It's not fair, how come you came back? Why not Rennie? It's not fair! Nobody even likes you!"
He didn't mean to yell. He didn't mean to unleash the horrible, unfounded thoughts that had been bubbling in his head since the call from the hospital. But he was too angry, too Goddamned furious at himself and the doctors and life and Even and the world that he didn't even have the guts to swallow his pride and apologise.
Even stood, silently. He opened his mouth once, twice, three times to speak, but nothing more came out than a shaky little sob. Then he turned tail and fled, ran down the corridor and nearly into a poor octogenarian making his way on a zimmer frame.
Too late, Lumaira remembered himself, remembered Even, realised that he'd ruined everything and now he could be losing not just one best friend, but both of them.
"Wait-!" He yelled desperately, hopelessly. Even was gone. "I didn't... I didn't mean that..."
He turned miserably back to Naminé, shoulders sagging. He couldn't follow Even now; the hospital complex was far too vast, the world outside huger still. But he couldn't ignore the wriggling doubts in his mind that Even would try to… but he'd come back again. Wouldn't he?
Naminé gently rested her hand on his shoulder and for a moment he needed her, to cry into her chest. He clung to the fabric of her nurse's uniform, the textiles in his fists real and secure.
"It's not pretty," Naminé eventually whispered. Lumaira shook his head. He knew that.
"I want to see her. Just one more time."
Even ran.
Even ran, letting his legs carry him anywhere, anywhere that wasn't with Lumaira or L'Erena's dead body or helplessness. The hospital disappeared behind his fuzzy sight, tarmac marking his path as he ran. Because ever since his funeral, all he'd been doing was hiding from the truth: Lumaira was right. Nobody liked him; nobody had ever liked him and nobody ever would. The new resolution to die - and properly this time - surged through his veins, and he ran, through the car park and out past the little parade of shops, down an alleyway and through a street lined with pretty, middle class houses.
But worse than that was the knowledge that he was alive and L'Erena was dead. He wanted to bring her back, he wanted to see Lumaira smile the way he always smiled around his best of all best friends - but he didn't know how. It burned, because L'Erena had people all around her who truly loved her and Even was just another lonely, ungrateful bastard.
It wasn't until his feet stopped of his own accord that he realised he'd taken himself home. Not his new home with Naminé and Lumaira; his old house where his old parents lived and his old life had disintegrated into nothing. Neither of the cars were in the drive and Even knew where the spare key was hidden, tucked between the wires of a lively hanging basket. He dislodged it, unlocked the door and slipped inside.
It hadn't really changed. The hall was just the same, the smell of ecological cleaning fluid and books hanging in the air. That was his peg by the door, where he used to hang his coat and leave his shoes - empty now. He crept into the kitchen where everything sparkled, neat and tidy like some scaled-up doll's house, and there at the back of the cupboard was his mug, waiting all this time to be filled with hot chocolate and creamy milk. And there was the living room, a new television and -
He noticed something on the mantelpiece. A little framed photograph, words etched atop the image. It was a picture of him, when he was younger and when he still smiled, with big round glasses to match his little round face.
In loving memory, Even Carlisle.
Even stared at the tiny memorial for a long time, then fell to the sofa and cried until the world seemed distant and suicide felt like a dream. Then he stood, methodically, and climbed the stairs, hands sliding along the rail so familiarly as though he'd never left at all.
He'd wondered a few times what his parents might have done with his room. Made it into another office, maybe, a storage room, or perhaps a spare bedroom. Standing in front of his own door for a few moments, now devoid of the little plaque adorned with his name, he fleetingly imagined that maybe it would be his own body still lying there, forgotten, with wrists lacerated and blood seeping into the sheets, and he was nothing more than a ghost.
He pressed down the handle and slipped inside, feeling like part of some insane, lucid dream.
It was still his room. Still his school notes from months ago tacked to the walls, with a few new additions of some of his stupid little childish dreams pinned on top. A drawing of himself, aged six, with a long white lab coat and goggles. A poster he'd hidden away years ago, all the places a degree in chemistry could take you. Photographs he'd taken and forgotten about. Artworks, stories, exam papers with pretty little green one-hundred-percents circled in the corner. The room was tidy, the bed made with his own pyjamas folded neatly on his pillow. Somebody had come in here, cleaned the place up as though the boy it belonged to would someday return from the dead and turn up hoping for a good night's sleep.
And there were all his books back up on the shelf that he'd stuffed into boxes, ashamed of his passions for genetics and quantum physics. And all his old action figures on another shelf, crowed around in a display of Ultimate Showdown resemblance just like he used to toy with them and his dad's camera when he was young.
There were his glasses, too, lying on the bedside table. Even slotted them onto his face and the world slid into perfect focus. They felt right.
He left the rest as it was, but not before he'd found a pen and a few sheets of lined paper, scrawling a note in his distinctive handwriting. He folded the letter neatly, pressed it into a new envelope. On the front he wrote simply, Mum and Dad. He tacked it to the wall above the chemistry poster and left, a poltergeist slipping through doors and leaving no evidence bar a few lines of writing out of place.
He let his legs take him where they would, following only his heart. He found himself tracking the bus route to the reserve and once he knew where he was going he once again broke into a run. It wasn't a desperate run. He simply ran because he could, because the heave of his lungs was somewhat comforting, the ache in his legs and chest human and real. And he ran through the gates to the reserve, down the path and through the meadows until he reached the stream. In the late afternoon it seemed almost magical, little insects flitting across the still water of the fjord and birds chirping in the leafy boughs of nearby trees. Even pulled off his shoes and socks and slipped into the stream until the cool water came halfway up his shins. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply for what seemed like the first time in years, and left the current sweep past him.
"Whoever you are," He said after a few minutes, his voice sounding odd to his own ears, "Whoever you are who brought me back, I need… I need your help again."
Of course there was no reply. Just a whisper in the trees that nearly sounded like words only because Even wished they would. But still, something drove himself to speak again, out to the empty reserve if only because then he could hear himself.
"However you brought me back, I need you to do the same for L'Erena. Lumaira can't survive without her, and… and I can't survive without him."
Suddenly he sounded stupid, felt a fool. He fell to his knees, the water splashing his clothes and soaking his skin. The rocks on the riverbed scraped him, left a trickle of blood seeping through the water.
"There has to be some way!" He yelled to the murmuring wind in the grass, to the buzzing crickets and the flitting dragonflies. "Goddamn it, why did you have to bring me back? Why me?"
There's no point asking me that, something said. For a second, Even thought he was hearing things. He stood, turned shakily, but nobody was there.
"Hello?" He eventually called, hoping for another confirmative reply. "Who's there?"
I am, came the dreamlike, unearthly reply.
Something was out there.
Something that could speak and something that couldn't be seen.
Even clenched his fists and unclenched them a few times. He didn't want to admit that sweat was beading on his forehead, that his heart was pounding.
"Who are you?" He asked. "Why am I alive? Why did I come back?"
There was a long pause in the silence that was almost thoughtful. Even hissed to himself, eyebrows creasing.
"What's going on?"
Patience, young one, the voice said softly. A breeze picked up, blustered around Even's body, fingers of wind caressing his cheek.
"Why don't you tell me the truth?" He demanded. He wasn't going to have come this far, to have hurt so much, for nothing.
Lumaira knows the answers.
The wind dropped, suddenly. Even felt alone.
He tried to remember the voice, how it sounded. It felt like he'd imagined everything, like he was dreaming again. Nothing was concrete. The words had no tone, no characteristics; they were just sentences that appeared in his ears and confused his mind.
"Damn it."
He imagined a softness to the whispering voice, a deep baritone and a polite, well spoken diction. He imagined full lips, a solid, noble jaw and dusty brunette hair. Blue eyes, bottomless, not quite of this world.
He jolted, suddenly. Lumaira? Not Lumaira. Not quite. Older, wiser, a melancholy depth in the gaze he pictured.
He didn't understand. Old sci-fi movies swam into his mind, the future, the past, aliens, robots, cloning and poisons and miracle cures, and most of it was stupid and all of it was close but none of it was quite the truth.
He dragged himself from the cooling stream, dried the worst of the water from his legs with his shirt, then pulled on his socks and stuffed his feet into his shoes. He could practically feel the answers just beyond his grasp, so tantalisingly, mockingly close.
It was time to run again.
Everything was silent in the hospital ward as Lumaira slipped inside. A nurse was just performing a few last checks but she soon slipped out, leaving him alone. For several minutes he avoided the bed, inspecting instead the blank line of the heart monitor or the hastily purchased flowers lying on the window sill. And then, finally, he pulled himself into the chair by the bed and brought his eyes to rest on his best friend.
It was worse than seeing Even in his own blood, because at least Even's face had still been intact. The fire had bitten hungrily into her skin, leaving patches of burned skin that were blackened and charred. Lumaira was quick to look away, remembering instead L'Erena's face when she was pretty, when she smiled and laughed and looked so utterly beautiful. It was a long time before Lumaira could even focus on her hand, wrought with burns and damage from the explosion.
"H-hey," He said haltingly. "I miss you already."
And he gingerly took her cauterised hand, blanching at the rough texture of her ruined skin, and cried all over again. He tried to speak to her like she was still listening but he couldn't, not even half words escaping the closed prison of his throat. He wanted to tell her how there was still hope because Even came back, and he wanted to tell her that he accidentally yelled at him and felt awful for it, that he really did like the odd boy, it wasn't just pity, and he missed her wanted her back missed her couldn't live his life without her missed her missed her missed her.
His fingers curled so tightly around her palm that it hurt him, and tried to somehow express is grief or turn that sickening burning in his gut into something that could change things, that could make a difference, that could heal L'Erena's burns away and bring her back and have Even by his side and make Even see that Lumaira honestly loved him.
"I tried to get Even to help you," He said when he could finally speak again. He imagined L'Erena was just sleeping, tired from having to deal with the antics of her effeminate best friend, because even if it would hurt more later the pretending comforted him for a moment then. "I said that maybe he could bring you back too like he came back but he said he didn't know how. I wish he'd try, though. Anything's worth trying, right? He's the last hope we have. He's the only one who can save you now."
And he laughed a little, a squeaky, tinny giggle that felt strange and sounded wrong.
"Except I have to go find him first. He ran off. I should keep him on a lead so he doesn't get lost."
He felt lightheaded, so with a quick glance to L'Erena's ruined face he rested his head beside her shoulder on the bed. He let his tears seep softly into the plasticy hospital sheet, let an odd feeling that wasn't quite unfamiliar overtake him. His hand stayed interlocked with hers, smooth skin against rough textures that soon he barely even registered. He didn't know how long he lay beside her body; time itself seemed to have simply melted away.
It was a beep that broke him from his reverie. He glanced up to see a beat fade from the heart monitor. He thought it was some kind of mistake, until another blip sounded, then another and another.
Lumaira stared at the monitor as L'Erena's pulse solidified and steadied, then back at the girl. And sure enough, her chest was rising and falling, if minutely, to a stable rhythm.
"L-L'Erena?"
The girl coughed a little, and lay still. And Lumaira could see the burns receding to the expansion of clear skin. Lumaira glanced around the ward, but there was nobody there.
"Even?" He called uncertainly as L'Erena's fingers twitched a little in his hand and twisted to return the hold, just as tightly. There was no reply. Even wasn't here. So how…?
He turned back to L'Erena just as she coughed again and screwed her eyes tightly shut before carefully prising them open. He might have been smiling, he might have been grinning but he wasn't sure, he had no idea. Everything simply seemed surreal, dreamlike. Lumaira didn't want it to be a dream. If L'Erena was alive he wanted her to stay alive, not to be woken up by a painful, horrific truth.
They peered at each other for a moment, one through foggy confusion and the other through eyes damp with tears.
"Lumaira?" L'Erena eventually croaked. And Lumaira fell back down to reality, and his whole body said to him that this was real and he knew he was grinning, that everything had been fixed, that things were going to be okay again.
"You're alive," He said, because that was all he could say, however insane it was, whatever had made that insanity possible. She laughed a little at him, voice still weak - but there, alive, true to the steady blip blip blip of the heart monitor.
"Yeah. And you're glowing."
"Well, I-" Lumaira began before he'd registered what L'Erena had said, then frowned a little at her when he realised she'd made no sense.
"I mean it," She said again. "You're glowing. Like. Pink."
Lumaira glanced down at his own quivering hands. Sure enough, a slight aura was surrounding his skin, fading quickly.
"What the-"
There was no answer, not even once the unreal radiation had dispersed to Lumaira's usual salmon tone.
"Where's Even?"
"He's not here."
L'Erena, face clear from the hideous burns that had once marred her, stared at Lumaira. He stared back.
"It's you." She finally said, just as he came to the same conclusion.
"It's me."
There was another silence, one filled with the whirring of backwards realisations.
"Oh my God," L'Erena finally said. "Oh my God, Lulu, you're magical."
It seemed to break the tense silence; the serious atmosphere suddenly snapped.
"Oh my God."
And they fell into a tight embrace, both laughing until tears that weren't from pain rolled down their cheeks.
"I knew it," L'Erena was giggling, her voice stronger every second, "Oh God, Lulu, I knew it, you're a fucking fairy."
They were only sobered by a confused nurse popping into the room with a clipboard, wondering what the fuss was. They promised they'd quieten down and she left them, none the wiser to L'Erena's sudden return from death.
"Even," Lumaira said after L'Erena had changed her mind and decided that he was some kind of gay unicorn, "I have to go find Even. I must've brought him back, too. You stay here. I'll be back."
But L'Erena swung her legs out from the hospital bed anyway.
"I'm coming with you," She said fiercely. "I feel fine. Where the hell are my clothes?"
Even skidded around the last corner, gasping for breath, just as he saw a familiar figure leave the hospital entrance. He was in a hurry, glancing around - but as soon as he plucked Even out of the constant comings and goings of the hospital, he diverted his course and rushed over.
"Even!" Lumaira exclaimed immediately, practically crashing into the other boy. "Even, oh God, Even, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I was just upset and I'm so sorry and-"
Even shushed him, one hand flattening his ruffled hair.
"I need to see L'Erena," He said urgently, prising Lumaira away from him and making his way to the hospital's doors. "This is important, I think that I can fix her."
But Lumaira shook his head.
"She's alive," He said, eyes suddenly bright as he more or less dragged Even up the stairs. "You know we all thought there was something weird about you, to come back to life? It wasn't you, it was me!"
Even stopped, suddenly. Around them nurses hurried, relatives and friends mingled, patients hobbled to and fro. Lumaira looked at her, seriously.
"I brought L'Erena back to life. And I was the one who brought you back, too."
Even honestly did not know what to say. For several moments they studied each other in a silence uncharacteristic for the bustling corridor, before Even reluctantly looked away.
"I'm sorry," Lumaira said awkwardly. As if he needed to apologise for saving Even's existence itself.
He shook his head.
"No. I should be thanking you. I… I was being selfish."
His thoughts returned to the photograph on the mantelpiece, the wall in his room tacked up with his achievements, now useless. And he thought about the caption, in loving memory, and he truly did feel selfish. He'd thought only of himself, of his own spiralling depression, and brutally ignored all the people who'd cared, who would have cared, if only he'd spoken up and asked for help.
Lumaira stared at him for a moment, as though he could hardly believe what he was hearing, but then his face cracked into a grin and his arms looped around the taller boy, pulling him into a tight hug.
"That's all over now," He said softly. "Come on, let's go see L'Erena. Her family is with her, and we're family.
Even let him be led up the stairs and into the hospital ward. L'Erena - despite her explicit demands - was lying in bed with the nurses running through the last of a hundred or more checkups, her parents at her side. Lumaira slipped in with Even and quietly took his place at one side of the bed.
"Hey,"
L'Erena smiled tiredly.
"Hello, you."
Lumaira half flopped onto the bed, laying his cheek on the mattress and yawning.
"I feel sleepy," He announced, contentedly closing his eyes. Even was beside him in a plastic chair, holding one hand strong out of sight. And L'Erena looped her arm around his neck, toying with his hair, and they were both there and they were his and Lumaira was happy.