"Do I have to forgive Vi?"

It's too fucking early for this.

He had been woken up by a nightmare, as usual – water and blood, and that's not a surprise either – and the pain behind his eye, simmering into a migraine, has kept him awake. No matter that the sun hasn't risen yet, well above their heads, if he couldn't sleep might as well get to work. There is always something to do, and the distraction is welcome.

It wasn't long before he heard the quiet padding of bare feet in the corridor, the door opening and closing without any sound, followed by rustling above his head as Jinx climbed into the rafters and settled there, maybe to sleep, probably to draw or read. Her presence was rather comforting, a silent company as Silco willed his eyes to focus on the ledger in front of it – until her voice rose in that dreaded question.

He sighs and pushes his chair back, searching for her face amidst the shadows over his head.

"Why are you asking this now, little bird?"

"She asked." A few seconds pass, then: "I'm supposed to meet with her this afternoon. She will expect an answer by then, won't she?"

"She does not have any right to press you for an answer, Jinx, not on that matter, not when she is the one in the wrong. You can take your time. Think about it. You don't have to decide today."

There is silence, then the tell-tale sign she's preparing to drop down from the rafters. She lands with all the grace of habit just next to him and without an ounce of hesitation climbs in his lap. She's getting heavier, sharp pelvis bones digging into his own skinny thighs, but he doesn't have the heart to say anything.

"I don't want to decide at all," she mumbles into his shoulder. "It's hard."

Silco belatedly reaches around her shoulders with one arm. Her braids are falling apart, especially the right one, and he gently tugs on it to free it from underneath her calf and slips the elastic band off.

"I'm afraid you will have to decide at some point", he softly says as he starts redoing the braid. "Every time you go meet your sister, it's part of a choice. You have to find out what feelings you want to let foster, and act accordingly."

She pulls back a bit, making her hair slip from his fingers. She's frowning.

"This is not how feelings work."

"It is. With time."

"Hum."

That skeptical look, chin slightly raised to look down on the other party, eyes narrowed and one eyebrow slightly quirked, this is an expression she has taken from him. It's a bit disgruntling to see it reflected at him like that.

Then it melts into a look that belongs to her only – her face scrunching up, eyes widening briefly before she takes to staring at the ornate window behind them both, chewing on her bottom lip as she clearly does her best to ignore whatever – whoever – she's hallucinating.

She throws her arms back around him without warning and Silco tenses up, gripping the arms of his chair tighter to repress the instinctive urge of pushing her away. Jinx presses her face into the side of his neck, her breath ghosting over the sensitive skin. He hopes that she doesn't feel his heart rate picking up, nor that she noticed how he returns her hug belatedly. She's dealing with enough shit on her own, and she's still so young, and himself is so used to the flashes of panic… he can take it. For her, it doesn't feel that dire.

"I don't want to forgive her," Jinx sniffles, her voice half-muffled. "But I still want to see her. I want us to be sisters again." She pulls away, big blue eyes swimming in reddened whites. "Is that okay?"

"If that's what you want, yes, little bird. That is okay."

She makes some kind of inarticulate noise before burying her face in the crook of his shoulder again. Her cheek is wet to the touch, but her breath is still nice and deep, so Silco doesn't say anything, only resumes redoing her right braid. He can do it without having to look now.

"And you?" she says after a while.

"Hum? What about me?"

"Vander." His hand abruptly stops carding through her hair. "Will you forgive him?"

The answer to that- It's simple.

"No."

Jinx sits back, leaning on her outstretched arms, and meets his eyes. She's one of the rare persons who don't look into one then the other, repeatedly, unable to decide on which one to pay attention to – drawn by the injured one, then ashamed of their morbid fascination. No, she looks at him straight on, monster and man alike, always.

"Will you… forget it, then?"

"I said get past it, Jinx, not forget."

She rolls her eyes, waving the objection away.

"Whatever. You know what I meant. And my little finger is telling me you're avoiding my question, silly."

"I'm not. Why should I reconcile with him anyway?" He's as much asking her than asking himself. "He tried to kill me."

"I don't know. You loved him. Didn't he make you happy, back then?"

Happy? His mind supplies an image from so many years ago – himself curled atop Vander's broad frame because there wasn't enough space on their shared bed, the weight of one big hand on the small of his back, thumb idly rubbing circles over his side. He propped himself up on his elbows when the caress turned into tickling, glaring at Vander, daring him to continue – oh, and he did alright, making Silco choke on a laugh before he managed to wiggle out of the traitorous embrace. He sat at the very edge of the bed, doing his best to repress his smile as he watched over Vander's handsome face, silver eyes alight with playfulness. At the time he barely even noticed the way he had instinctively wrapped an arm around his ribs, sore and bruised, and he wasn't sure if it was from that last encounter with the damn Enforcers still, or from Vander's hands.

Happy, yes. Love makes one blind. Silco absentmindedly rubs at the skin around his bad eye, as if that would help with how blurry his vision has turned on this side.

"It's all water under the bridge now," he finally answers – and Jinx gratifies him with a "really?" kind of look for his choice of words. "I don't see what I will have to gain from talking to him again."

Jinx cocks her head in thought, leaning on her closed fist. He knows her enough by now to know this isn't over yet, and his girl can't be deterred easily. He sighs, refills his glass, and settles to wait for her to speak again.

"What," he ends up saying as she keeps staring at him in uncharacteristic silence.

"He was my dad, once." Silco only hums, unsure of where she's going with this. "Vi still sees him as such, from what she told me. And I… I have you, don't I?"

He's about to tell her that yes, of course, always, but she beats him to it:

"We could be a family."

He chokes on the liquor.

"Eh, don't die on me, silly."

There is a slight edge to her voice, and even as Silco tries to catch his breath, he's well aware that for all his girl loves to babble on, family is not a word she would be using lightly.

In hindsight, he should have seen it coming. Vander stepped in as a father figure for her and the other kids – albeit one overwhelmed by the task, given what Jinx told him – so, it's normal it would still mean something, even after everything that happened. And Vi… If himself was ready to forgive Vander while he was still half-delirious with fever and pain, unsure of whether or not he would survive the infection – if only had the bastard come –, then no wonder Jinx longs for her sister now that she knows she's alive.

He considered letting the pair rot away in Stillwater, far away and forgotten. But problems always resurface one way or another, don't they? Luck has never been on his side. And Silco would hate to give his opponents any leverage, especially one affecting Jinx. He also had to admit he doesn't want a remake of that day Jinx learned the truth; when Markus, that little fucker, told her about her sister and she came barging in Silco's office, perching on her lap as usual except this time she was trying to hurt him, took his injector and stabbed him without even waiting for an answer.

(One night, when she was still trembling in his arms, her breath hiccupping, she asked in a tiny voice if she could see her sister again. How could he say no? He doesn't want to risk losing her. Can't.)

Silco figured, too, that Vi would be more inclined to listen to them both if her adoptive dad was freed as well, and Jinx said she also missed him. Sure, he doesn't like the idea that Vander is back in the streets of the Undercity, somewhere, but he has to admit he loathes even more the thought that any Zaunite would fall under Topside's heel in that way. Stillwater is one more symptom of their oppression. And, once at least, Vander cared about the revolution, so of course, fucking Pilties would be overjoyed to have him locked up.

"Okay, you're not going to die here, it's fine?"

He nods a "yes" to Jinx as he finishes clearing his throat, grimacing at the burn of the liquor going down the wrong way.

"Great," she goes on, "because I'm not done."

She doesn't continue right away though, looking at him thoughtfully. Pondering, maybe, how far she can push it right now – and of course, her response to that question is, as always, "really fucking far", because Jinx does whatever she wants and she knows Silco will never be mad at her. Not for long, at least. He likes that they have come to this point, that she feels completely safe with him, no, he truly does. Until… moments like this.

"You still care about Vander. Why do I have to listen to you monologuing about him otherwise? So, what's the matter? Come on, what's it gonna be? I'm betting on denial." She nudges his leg with the side of her boot, leaning forward, trying eagerly to meet his gaze. "What d'you think? Or! Are you scared maybe?"

"I think that it is not your business, my dear daughter."

"You are scared. Why?" She extends her hand to poke at the scarred part of his face, and he almost manages not to flinch. "Because of that?"

"Jinx. Don't. Why do you even care about my… relationship with him?"

She rolls her eyes and leans back on her outstretched arms, nearly knocking over the mug she'd once gifted him, once they had both settled around the other and realized there were unexpected feelings involved.

"Because Vi's on his side," she says, "and I don't want you hating me because of that."

"Jinx, I would never hate you."

She whistles, looking briefly to the side, then back at him.

"You know… I followed Vander," Jinx continues, "yesterday. No, he didn't see me," she adds as he's about to cut her off. "I know how to be discreet, mind you! You insisted enough th- wait. That's not where I was going." She pauses, eyes darting down, before her face lights up again. "Yes! So, I followed him – down to the Sump levels, and lower still, to the old ruins entrance. Or well, the place you say was an entrance, because it's still very much just a big ol' pile of rocks. I bet that's because you often took him there. So! I'm guessing you're not the only one who's feeling nostalgic, um?"

"I'm not-"

"Or I'm going to lure you both into my workshop or whatever, lock the door and keep you trapped there until you accept to actually exchange words. You know, like human beings. Because that's an efficient method of communication, wouldn't you know that!" She throws her hands in the hair- and suddenly her gaze is drawn to the side, her lips twitch and then stretch into a weird little smile. "Yeah, that's right, you're right," she mutters before her attention snaps back to Silco. "Didn't that conversation start with me asking you about Vi and what I should do? And you know what they say- claim about- eh, parenting, right? Actions and not words, or- what's the saying? Do what I say and not what I d- nah, that's, that's what you've been doing."

She giggles, retracting her feet off Silco's chair before jumping down the desk.

"Go and be a good example for me, um? Also! I had something else to ask you." She whirls around, her blue braids flowing behind her, eyes scanning over the multiple papers scattered across the desk that she only managed to turn into more of a mess by planting herself right into the middle of it. "Where has it- ah!"

She squats to pick up her notes – it's distinctly hers all right, rushed scribbles as her hand desperately tried to keep up with her brain, little doodles on the side – some that could look like blueprints, if one squinted really hard, and some that are obviously mindless, neon little monkeys and sharks.

"Look!"

Silco takes it from her, turning the first sheet and trying to understand which way she even took it because her hasty handwriting seems to spawn across in all directions. He pinches the bridge of his nose, willing his eyes to focus on the page.

"Can I know what I am supposed to be looking at, Jinx?"

Jinx takes a split-second glance and confidently taps her index onto the page, pointing to a word scribbled in bright pink capital letters. Pretty visible, all things considered.

"… is that for Singed?"

"Yep! And I know, I'm not supposed to go to his lab alone, but I went with Sevika!" He looks at her over the paper, unconvinced. "Point is," Jinx muses with that innocent look that's contrasted by the glint in her blue eyes, "I was not alone! See, I do listen to you. Sometimes. When it's not something I've heard for the millionth time before."

He doesn't bother reacting to that, still trying to make sense of Jinx's schematics. She's too bright for him, his girl, he doesn't understand half of what she's doing, even when she tries to explain it out loud. Especially when she tries to explain it out loud. She tends to get… side-tracked.

He rubs at his good eye as if that would help with the headache.

"Okay. Yeah. You know what, I will look at it later. And next time, Jinx? Jinx, hey, look at me. Next time, you talk to me before working on anything for someone else."

"Mmmh, maybe…"

"Jinx. I'm not kidding. Understood?"

She rolls her eyes, sighing loudly.

"Yeah, yeah, fine…"