Extremely Long Since Overdue

"Extremely Long Since Overdue" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread started on [IRL DATE] and finished on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
Treepelt hated to take up space, and she forcefully distanced herself from the healer’s camp to prevent too much attention being spent on her. She was feeling better, but still exhausted and frazzled; it wasn’t surprising that she got ambushed only a few short minutes later.
She took a blind swing at the person approaching her. The head of the warhammer stopped in the man’s hands with alarming force, but he didn’t seem to even flinch at what should’ve crushed all his fingers. This didn’t stop Tree; she charged forward and used the thick haft to slam him into the building behind him. The breath left his lungs with a wheeze and a series of segmented clicks, but he still seemed fine. She bared her fangs and heaved the hammer back to smash the haft even harder into his throat, and he just…stopped her. He grabbed the haft with both hands and it stilled in between them.
They stared at each other, panting. Some part of her subconscious knew exactly how to refer to the short man standing before her, even though it had been over two decades, even though she knew it was impossible, even though she assumed it had to be some kind of trick or vision or even a disgusting mockery of death. Her eyes were strained open wide, like it would help her process what she was seeing.
“You’d better run,” she said, almost needing to gasp for air between statements. “You’d better run like Hel before I get–before we–”
“I’m not running.” Tezz–Tezzeret Verdile–lowered the hammer down to their waists. She couldn’t continue supporting its weight; the head dropped down to the street, and the pommel shortly followed with a clatter. Tree slowly backed up instead, adrenaline giving way to fear. He looked, sounded, and smelled like death, so why was he standing right in front of her, with dark veins in pale skin, staring at her with deep bruises around ghostly eyes; how could she still read the sorrow in them? Her back hit the opposite building, and that was when she noticed that her shoulders had started shaking with silent sobs.
“Please,” she choked, sliding down the wall and sitting heavily at its base, tail curling around her boots. “This isn’t–this isn’t fair–it’s not funny–”
Tezz reached out with his good hand, and she flinched at the movement, instantly wracked with guilt by her reaction. He paused, helmeted head tilting, and then he moved his forearm stump forward instead. With a gentle hiss, water gathered around it, lengthening into a wrist, and then into a wavering hand, fingertips dripping gently into the stone below. Tree steeled herself as the watery palm approached, and her breath hitched as it touched the side of her face caked in dried blood. It peeled strangely at the moisture, and then slowly dissolved into the cold water, and with a gentle thumb, Tezz wiped her face clean, leaving rivulets and droplets on her skin. The water was joined by warmer streams, pouring from the corners of Tree’s eyes. This time, when Tezz moved his other hand to her cheek, she let him, even though it was just as cold as the conjured one. He knelt before her and cradled her face as she was wracked with tears with an intensity she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
“Please don’t cry.” His voice, still tortured, was softer. She laughed bizarrely, the sound barely distinguishable from her cries.
“You can’t tell me that. Not when–not when you’re here and–not dead. Worse than dead.”
He glanced downwards at himself, hand shifting briefly on her face as he looked over it. “That bad?”
How he had managed to draw another hysteric giggle from her seemed impossible. She couldn’t believe she still saw a flash of his self-deprecating dry humor in his current state. “Stop,” she begged, upset at the well of emotions. “You’re…”
“Sorry.”
“Is it you? Or him?” Her paw briefly hovered between them, as she sniffed through filled sinuses, intending to make contact, but completely unsure of where.
“Me, I think. Don’t worry either way. He’s always liked you.”
“Okay.” Treepelt truly didn’t know what to say. It felt like Tezz had only yesterday knocked on their front door, tired but beaming, excited to say hello to a year-and-a-half-old Liam, brushing off Tree and Vox’s numerous apologies when the toddler bit him hard enough to draw blood. They’d bonded later in the evening anyways, the baby handing Tezz various random utensils, tools and toys throughout their conversations. Tree had managed to corner Tezz before he could slip away in the late hours of the night, threatening violence if Tezz didn’t stay the night. He’d laughed and accepted, giving her grief about making him late for returning to the half-breed rebellion he’d helped build in Central. The last time she’d seen him before dying to save those same half-breeds.
She suddenly became aware of a second presence watching the same memories, and she startled away from Tezz again, who only let her get so far away before he held either side of the bend between her neck and shoulder. Somehow she knew it was him. “He’s just like you.”
Tree’s eyes darted between his. She hated that his irises were swallowed in gray. “Liam–you’ve seen him?” Tezz nodded. She lost the pretense of avoiding his touch and gripped his shoulders, struggling to grasp him over more hidden augments. “Is he okay–!?”
“Alive and fighting. Kezia wants him because of the Warden. But that means he’s important to the end of this. They both are.”
Tree’s gut rocked with nausea. Her son, her baby, now embroiled in a deadly new conflict she couldn’t even begin to understand. “No, not him…anyone but him…” Her claws snagged in his clothes. “Tezz, please…”
“I’m going back to protect him.” His hand moved to rest behind her ear, stare still fixed on her. “Vox said you were here. I had to check. And say goodbye. Just in case.”
“Don’t you dare pull any selfless bullshit. Not again. Save both of you.” She was trying so hard not to lose herself to mindless grief, but the tears continued. “I can’t go through that again–”
Tezz hesitated, face twisting with a guilt and regret clumsily experienced, and Tree lurched into hugging him, which he only took a moment to process before he embraced her back. “And I can’t see you mourn your son,” he mumbled.
“I hate you,” she cried into his shoulder, clutching him like a lifeline. “You can’t even think about yourself for once, you never could–”
“I wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“That’s why I hate you.” She scrubbed her face, and he siphoned away her tears, leaving her cheeks dry. “You don’t deserve this.”
Tezz remained silent, and Tree took in his haunted face again, scared that he wasn’t going to give her the closure she so desperately wanted. “Come find me after we win,” she pressed. “You owe me so many stories.”
He twitched and looked away. “Okay.” She pulled his face back to hers and pressed the bridges of their noses together.
“I love you.”
“Me too.”
Her arms collapsed inward as frost rushed past her face, and she found herself alone on the ground. Whether out of beautiful relief or soul-shaking anguish, she began sobbing in earnest, head between her knees and covered with her arms. Before her grieving had ended, she was now forced to renew it and start at the first step once more.