Omnia Vincit Amor

“Yeah basically.
Why?”

“I don’t know
whether to feel happy or underwhelmed.”

“Considering how
important our job apparently is, I’d go with happy. Two weeks is decent.”

Gaia lowered the
paper that her boss had handed her, feeling just a little nonplussed.
Supposedly, as a result of their service both during Operation *Acheronta Movebo* (known as AM) and,
like, over time in general, the entirety of Pandemonium’s Bane was receiving
two weeks’ leave. The Nexus Force would pay not only their wages over the
weeks, but would also front travel costs and any extraordinary prices that
should arise. In other words, they had as close to free reign as maybe
possible.

“What are you
thinking?”

Gaia sighed, not
really wanting to admit what she was thinking. Well, she had been thinking a
lot lately. Not that she had talked about any of it- but yes, no, Dante was
only asking about right this moment. Her reaction to the holiday. Leave.
Whatever it was supposed to be called. What *did*
she think?

“I think…” She
hesitated, but knew that when it came down to it, Dante would appreciate
honesty more than he would appreciate any sugar-coating. She wasn’t very good
at sugar-coating things either way – normally ate all the sugar. “I think I wonder
whether we’d be getting this holiday if I hadn’t lost my leg.” The works were
chosen carefully, and spoken slowly and methodically. Or, at least, *her* version of “slowly” and
“methodically” (which was roughly the speed normal people spoke normally).

To her surprise,
Dante didn’t even look remotely scandalized, or… or anything like that.
Instead, he coolly eyed her for a moment before averting his gaze, spinning
around in the squeaky wheelie chair behind his desk so that he was facing the
right wall instead of her.

“I’ve thought
that to, to be honest.” He admitted. “Like, whether or not one of our members
losing a limb in the field had anything to do with the higher-ups finally
giving us a break.” Suddenly, he stopped talking, before shaking his head and changing
his words. “Or, rather, the higher-ups suddenly being able to *afford* to give us a break.”

On her part, Gaia
didn’t know a lot about all of the back-room drama that went on in the Nexus
Force. He knew that Plue, their friend, and leader of the Force overall, still
found herself regularly accosted by investors and subordinates, and that Dante
had placed as much distance as possible – both physical and… not physical…
like, in terms of their ruling structure – between the Nexus Force and their
little branch (Pandemonium’s Bane).

She was drawn out
of some admittedly pretty ominous thoughts by Dante clapping his hands. The
sound echoed through the small room a bit eerily.

“Still!” He said.
“It’s happening, and it’s a good thing. I wanted to let you know first, because
I think it’ll be especially good for you.” He eyed her wheelchair-bound form
with a look on his face that Gaia didn’t quite know the word for. “I, uh…” And
now, *he* didn’t seem to quite know the
words. “I think it’s good. You should… get out. Do, uh, do something.”

It was nice that
he cared, but if he was saying what she thought it was saying… well, he really
ought to just say it. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t really like stuff being
sugar-coated.

“*Dante*.” Gaia folded her arms. “You’re
worried, because since my leg got sliced off I haven’t really done a lot, and
you want me to enjoy myself and go on a trip instead of sit in the dark like a,
uuh… like a shrivelled prune of a cripple. Right?”

“I wouldn’t have
phrased it like that!” Dante protested, eyes moving wildly around in his
sockets as he looked to a bunch of different places at once. That had to mean
she was right. He wasn’t exactly… denying it.

“Don’t worry.”
Hefting her forearms, Gaia began to twist her chair around where it stood. She knew
that some chairs had automatic gears and movement by this point (and some just
conveniently floated everywhere) but if there was one thing she had learnt –
not that she had learned, like, that much, but still – it was how important it
was to keep your muscle once you got it. Hence her pushing the chair manually,
the old-fashioned way. “I’ll find a way to enjoy myself.” She paused before
sending herself wheeling out of Dante’s office. “Let me tell the others.”

“I was going to
tell them-!” Dante protested, but she was already moving.

“I don’t care!”

### DAY -1

“To Lenway?”

“Yep.”

Gaia was
standing, this conversation. Or maybe… teetering? Yeah, teetering was probably
more accurate. Her prosthetic was white and plain and technically fit her perfectly,
though it didn’t feel like it. It always felt just a bit wrong, like when there
was a tiny stone in her shoe. Or something like that. There was also a dull
ache on her stump, that reared its ugly head whenever she tried to stand.
Putting pressure on the stump, she had discovered, was the easiest possible way
to cause herself physical pain, and she tried to avoid it wherever possible.
Unfortunately, there were other priorities. Such as, y’know, ensuring that she
didn’t sit down for the rest of her life.

She was trying to
stand on it to get herself used to just standing up again. She never really
lasted longer than a few minutes on it, but she had to keep trying. She’d be
damned if she never figured out how to properly walk again. Maybe even… *run*. Ah, how the mighty had fallen. Now
running was nothing but a fond memory. (For now. Dun dun duuuun.)

“I don’t deserve
it.” Reckoned Jacen, sipping from a thermos as he eyed Gaia and Vector
respectively. His head tilted downwards as he began to
stare at the floor angstily. Classic Jacen. “Say what you both want about
how useful you may have been or not been, but at least you were there. As it
is, I feel like I’m piggybacking off your competence. *That,* and, well,
don’t you think it feels a bit scummy? Like they’re trying to distract us from
the fact that one of our operatives got injured and we let a guy die.”

“Yeah, but you’re
still coming.” Vector pointed out. Gaia turned around just in time to see him
fold his arms, emphasising his seriousness. That intensity that was there
whenever he was serious about something was entirely visible in his deep brown
eyes (mostly brown, there was a bit of blue in one of them now, which just made
them look even cooler), and her heart fluttered. Classic Vector. Classic *heart*.

She wasn’t quite
sure how or why, but even she could tell that something about them had… had
changed. Their dynamic, and their relationship, had kind of shifted since
Operation AM. She didn’t think they’d gotten into one dumb argument since, even
if they’d done it all the time before. She had mixed feelings about that – it
was nice to just relax around him, but at the same time, she missed their classic
ol’ back-and-forth routine, and it had been nice to just be stupid with
someone. And now, there were just these moments, of… moments of hmm. She had
come to terms with *roughly* how she
felt about Vector a little while ago – that she thought of him as more than a
friend, that there may have even… may have even been romantic feelings involved.
On her part.

It seemed weird,
and surreal, and really kind of hard to believe overall, but she couldn’t think
of another explanation as to… *why*.
Why she would go to the ends of the world for him if he asked, why his being
there would make everything seem richer and better, why she wasn’t against the
idea of just staring at him for hours. (Even though it was about as
unproductive as she could get.) It was why she had been able to rise, with her
left leg gone and her right foot sliced and burnt – because Raleigh had been about
to kill Vector. She couldn’t have let him die. It would have been as bad as her
herself dying.

Ugh, she was
hopeless.

Anyways, since
then, she definitely felt like there had been something between them that she
couldn’t quite put her finger on. Logically, she should have been upset,
because they didn’t act as much like friends as they once had. But there was
definitely something else to replace that friendship there, she just knew it. So,
she wasn’t upset. Just… just curious.

Hadn’t there been
a conversation going on?

She shook her
head to see Vector gone, and Jacen eying her strangely. She raised an eyebrow
in kind.

“What?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know
what you were daydreaming about, but I think this might be the longest you’ve
ever actually stood on that leg for, so you’re not going to hear me complain
about it.”

She looked down
to find that he was right. She was still being supported by that uncomfortable
prosthetic.

“Yay!”

### DAY 0

“It’s going to be
great.”

This all was
being said by Andy, the newest formal member of Pandemonium’s Bane. He had been
brought on right after AM – with Gaia somewhat unable to do anything, someone
had needed to pick up the slack. And he was Rose’s cousin, and he had worked
with them before. So… that was that. They – everyone on the team – were
strapped in and flying to Lenway itself, whilst Andy wouldn’t shut up about the
place.

“It’s basically
party city.” He said. For the… third time? Or was it only second? Gaia wasn’t
60% sure. “The locale is hospitable, there’s a humongous beach, it’s cloudless
basically every day, and the nightlife is – it’s on another level!”

“Did you come
here with your band?” Dante asked, being the only person paying a whole load of
attention. Rose, who was sitting to her cousin’s right was already asleep,
complete with a sleeping mask over her eyes. Jacen was sitting to *her* right, and looked to be asleep as
well – though he was facing the window, so Gaia didn’t know. After them was
Andy, then there was an aisle, then there was Norik, had his phone all but
pressed to his face as he watched a video. One of his earbuds had fallen out,
and as Gaia watched, he absent-mindedly, stuffed it back into his lughole
without taking his eyes off the screen. She had no idea where his intensity
came from, but she envied him a bit. Then there was Gaia,
the sandwich’s filling, then there was Dante, who was leaning over and
listening to Andy talk. The fact that he was leaning over her to talk better to
Andy was annoying.

After Dante was
another aisle, then it was Skye, who was reading a book. (Not surprising. The
nerd.) Vector was to her side, neck pillow behind his head, and the sound of
his snores echoing so loudly it was a wonder that a member of the flight’s
staff hadn’t come to wake him up yet. Completing their group was a woman called
Hera – Skye’s girlfriend. Apparently, when hearing that Skye was being forced
to go on a two-week holiday as a workplace benefit, she requested to come too,
citing the fact that she could bring Skye to heel if she got too embarrassing.
As it turned out, Plue (faction leader, Pandemonium’s Bane sort-of member,
Dante’s significant other) had been unable to get away from all the work that
being the leader of the Nexus Force entailed, and had been more than happy to
send Hera in her stead. Dante had been fine with it as well, and then that had
been that.

As for their
other members? Shadow had gone missing a week ago, as he always did, and no-one
had any way to contact him, so that was that. And it was tradition for at least
one person to man the Pandemonium’s Bane HQ at all times, and Max had
volunteered. He had insisted that he didn’t need a holiday anyway, because
robots didn’t get tired or worn down. They had promised to send postcards.

Sighing, Gaia
slumped further down in her chair as she tried to think of something to do. If
nothing else, she had to distract herself from what she had been told were “phantom
sensations”. Where she felt as though her leg was tingling or itching, even
though said leg wasn’t actually *there*
anymore. Which SUCKED. It was worse than an unscratchable itch, because those
were a case of false advertising – they were normally perfectly scratchable.
But the “phantom” part was bang on the money. The only joy the could bring from
the affair was that it was just phantom sensations now, as opposed to the
phantom pains she had felt earlier on, in the weeks directly following the
operation. At the time, her stump had felt like it had been on fire. That was
all that she really remembered. Just pain, and arrrgbleh. Some… some nasty
stuff.

Dante
and Andy were still talking, and her leg stILL FAKE ITCHED. >:(

The flight dragged on for several more hours, and Gaia managed to
sink into a sort of disgruntled comfort. Like, she was still bored and a little
annoyed (the worst thing was probably being cooped up for so long, unable to
move), but she was… well, “fine with it” didn’t really work, but she was… uh…
no, not happy… ugh, words were hard. Being in the middle of the row meant that
she couldn’t look out of the windows either. When the plane finally touched down
in Lenway, she felt her body jolt with the plane, and clenched her armrests in
surprise. She hadn’t seen it coming. Everyone around her seemed less bothered.
Heat crept up her neck. Great. Now she felt jumpy, and cowardly, and… she
sighed out loud, forcing her fingers to unclench from around the armrests. They
left impressions because she had gripped them so hard. Whoops. Ah well, it was
probably fixable.

From the station where the plane had landed, it was a short walk
to the hotel that had been booked. (A difficult one, too – stubbornly, she had
kept their wheelchair within their luggage, unwilling to unpack the device and
suffer the indignity of being *pushed*
(because someone would doubtlessly offer (as it was, she had been forced to
lean on Jacen for most of the way there)).) Dante had wanted a private
estate/house thing, but it probably hadn’t been in the budget. As it was,
though, the hotel looked to be fantastically fancy. From bottom to top, Gaia
could see patterned velvet carpets, walls adorned with paintings, and a ceiling
inlaid with metal patterns and chandeliers. Not that she personally understood
any of it, but by this point, she at least understood that they signified…
fanciness.

“Very nice.” Andy remarked as he stood in the hotel’s main
hallway, arms akimbo as he surveyed the scene like a big game hunter sizing up
his latest prey.

The group were quickly shown to the five rooms that had been
booked – most people had to room with a buddy. Gaia found herself with Rose,
which was nice. She wasn’t entirely sure who else was with who. She supposed it
didn’t really matter.

“*Very* nice.” Rose echoed
her cousin as the two dumped their bags in their shared room. (Gee, it was
almost as if they were related, or something.) A sofa in front of an enormous
flatscreen TV, two double beds (so PLENTY of sleeping room), a balcony with a
table and chairs, and a bathroom with a bath large enough to be a jacuzzi.
There were also all the supplies needed to supply the pair with tea, coffee,
and other hot beverages for what looked like the better half of a year. Rose
immediately busied herself with preparing drinks as Gaia claimed her bed (the
left one, further away from the window) and paused to sit down, taking the
weight off her leg.

Almost as weird as using the term “leg” instead of “legs” mentally
was the feeling of the prosthetic. Or, more specifically, the lack thereof.
(Unless it was hurting which, to be fair, was often, but she digressed.) The
feeling of metal on flesh was kind of weird, but then there was just… nothing.
At least, nothing beyond the feeling that something was *off*, that something just wasn’t right. It was hard to walk, with
that feeling. Her body kept telling her: “something isn’t right”, “stop
walking”, “you’re down half a limb, you moron”, and it meant that standing up
wasn’t really comfortable anymore. Only when sitting, or – ideally – lying
down, could she actually get some comfort from her situation.

Yeah, getting used to the whole amputation thing hadn’t really
been a walk in the park.

…

Wow. Oh, wow. Walk in the park. Damn it. Damn it all. She hadn’t
even meant to do that.

She was wretched from her musing by Rose asking her:

“Do you want anything to drink?”

“Tea.” She responded almost automatically. She wasn’t normally
someone who drank tea, but what the hell. She could do with some soothing.

The sun was setting. It hurt her eyes.

### DAY 1

“Nice to just have some time to myself.” Gaia muttered as she stared
unemotionally at the ceiling.

The morning of Pandemonium’s Bane’s first full day in Lenway had
found Gaia probably the most chilled-out she had been in, like, forever. She
had slept until about eleven, and spent the following three hours drinking tea
and eating toast in bed while playing mind-numbing games on her phone. Productive?
Hell no. Satisfying? Hell yes. Leave anything to be desired? Hell maybe. She
had only moved at Rose’s behest, who had eventually grown tired of seeing Gaia
so inactive. To be fair, it had been a contrast from normal. It was odd, she
recollected as she finally dragged herself out of her room (her prosthetic felt
heavy), that she was willing to suck it up and chillax considering how bothered
doing nothing had had her on the plane, but she supposed that choice had
something to do with it.

Almost falling down the stairs three times managed to wake her up
enough to at least “walk” properly out to the hotel’s front (it had still taken
about four times as long as it would have before, but it was all about the
small victories and all that), where she could see a couple of familiar faces. Andy
and Dante were still animatedly talking with one another, and Norik was sulking
a little way away. Upon seeing her, Dante waved an arm. She waved back,
half-heartedly, wishing that she had it in her to properly wave. (She used to be a *great*
waver.)

“Gaia!” He called her name, as way of greeting. “We were planning
on, uh, on heading on a stroll this afternoon. You interested?”

“Nope.” She said, bluntly, still limping towards them. “Even if I
wanted to, my current top speed is around the speed of a turtle with a brick
strapped to its shell. But y’all enjoy yourselves.”

Dante shrugged. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.” She said. “Just show me where the nearest restaurant is,
so I can stuff my face. I feel like I haven’t eaten for too long.”

Dante complied, and the face-stuffing was suitably satisfying.

### DAY 2

“Let’s do something.”

This was suggested by Rose, who was eying Gaia warily. It was
eleven-thirty in the morning on day two, and so far, Gaia had been about as
productive as she had been during day one.

“Do what?” Gaia responded airily, who had remained content to sit
in her bed. Rose gave her a one-over with judgmental brown eyes before sighing
and leaning back on their sofa.

“I was hoping that you’d have some ideas.” Rose said. The implication
was clear. *I think it’s unhealthy that*
you’re not doing anything*. But Rose, bless her, was just being too polite*
to say it out loud. Still, there was nothing Gaia could think of that really…
really appealed to her. She shook her head in response. Rose shrugged. “Well, I
have an idea at least.”

Gaia raised an eyebrow in her general direction. Rose looked up at
her, and Gaia was a little shocked to see a smirk on her face.

“I was planning,” declared Rose, “to go to the gym, actually.
There’s one built into the hotel, you know. All the exercise equipment you
could toss around like it was nothing, knowing you.”

Well, fitness was appealing, but lethargy and beds still held her
in a firm grasp. More to the point, she had no real desire to escape. She found
herself shaking her head.

“Bed.” She said by way of an answer. Who needed more than one word
to answer a question, anyway? Not her, that was for damn sure. However, Rose
wasn’t finished.

“Well, if you’re sure. I guess I’ll just… uh, I’ll just have to
show you up on all the machines then.” She shrugged, ambling over to their
wooden draws and rummaging through them, eventually pulling out a shirt and
workout shorts. “What’s the name of that one where you sit, and you pull on
bars? Get your arm muscles up. I bet I could do better than you on one of
those.”

“You lie.” Gaia was already sitting up in her bed – not that she
intended to get up, or anything, of course. It was merely her fury that anyone
would insinuate that she weak. Yeah, obviously that.

“Maybe.” Rose shrugged, pulling on her workout clothes. “But
you’ll never be able to prove it from here, now will you?”

Ah, so it was goading. Sadly, an all too familiar tactic. A low
effort on Rose’s part, especially considering that Gaia herself would never be
tempted-

“You’re on, Rosie.” She her herself say as she flung her duvet off
of her lower half, hopping across the room to their clothes drawers. (Her fake
leg lay abandoned by her bed, its regular place when she slept.) Damned if she
let anyone best her at anything, but *especially*
if she let ROSE of all people best her in FITNESS of all things! “I’m gonna
leave you in the dust!”

Rose snickered, standing aside so that Gaia’s path to the drawers
was clear. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Thus followed about… about an hour and a half? Yeah, an hour and a
half of exercise more intense than anything Gaia could remember doing before
AM. (Pre-AM. Heh-heh.) True to her word, Gaia was able to utterly trash Rose in
all the physical activities they tried – though, to be fair, they didn’t try
anything that required the use of legs. They figured that Rose might have
something of an unfair advantage there. Instead, they spent the most of the
time sitting or leaning, so as not to put any uncomfortable strain on Gaia’s
prosthetic. It was a little uncomfortable to wear shorts, and bare her injury
for all to see, but the gym was relatively clear of people, and nobody paid her
a lot of mind anyway, which was nice. The leg itself was still horribly weird
and uncomfortable, but she had to give it credit for holding up. At the very
least, it didn’t collapse under her or anything (though she put effort into not
putting strain on it). It was… she was trying to find positives in the
situation, darn it!

In any case, she had almost forgotten the satisfaction that came
with good and proper physical exertion. And may have overdone it, if lying on
the floor panting at the end of it all was any sort of indication. Rose hovered
over her, concerned. She tried to wave her off, but her aching arm muscles
meant that the wave ended up being little more than a spasm, which only ended
up worrying Rose further. Oops.

“I’m fine.” She muttered.

“You don’t *look* fine.”
Rose told her. “You look like you’ve overdone it.”

Gaia tried her best to glare. (Not her forte, for a few different
reasons.) “I was challenged.” She protested, having to speak slowly so that she
could take in a breath every other word. “I can’t back down from a challenge-”

“We both know that I suck.” Folding her arms, Rose sat down beside
her. Her eyebrow quirked up as she spoke. “I think you were just glad to be
doing something again, personally.”

…Gaia decided that it was best to not answer. She settled for
panting some more and staring at the bright ceiling lights. Everything suddenly
looked too bright, and she clamped her eyes shut as she tried to find the
strength to rise.

“’Sup.” A new voice greeted, suddenly. Cracking one eye open, she
caught sight of Vector towering above her. “You alright down there?”

“Just, uh, trying out a different perspective.” She quipped. “Reckon this is how shorter people see.”

Vector laughed in response, before saying that he considered it
overkill. Gaia had to agree.

Rose stood up again, turning to Vector. “Any chance you could help
me get her out of here?”

Still laughing, Vector reached down and picked Gaia up,
deliberating for a moment before swinging her over his shoulder like a sack of
potatoes. It was unglamorous and a tad awkward, but she didn’t mind.

“Where’s your room?” He asked.

With Rose giving directions and Vector actually doing all the
manual work, Gaia reckoned that it was a great opportunity to have a quick nap.

### DAY 4

“Yeah, maybe I *should* do
something.”

As it turned out, the “quick nap” had ended up morphing into some
kind of mutant eighteen-hour sleep. Waking up so long later had been a bit of a
shock to Gaia’s system, and she had recovered by spending the rest of the third
day in Lenway doing some lovely nothing. However, as the sun rose on day four,
she remembered the fact that actually, it *was*
healthier to be doing things, and that that fitness she had done the other day
had actually been pretty fun. So, she resolved to be more active for the rest
of the trip.

Dun dun duuuun.

(Would that work? Maybe not. It wasn’t a *bad* thing, “dun dun duuuun” was the noise made when something bad
happened, right? Yeah, that was it. Okay, well, what would work?)

*\*Cheering*
noises\*

(Yeah, that was better.)

Upon heading down the stairs and
arriving in the canteen (where breakfasts were eaten), Gaia noticed that the
whole room was practically empty – save the members of Pandemonium’s Bane who
had come on the trip. Skye was in a corner, knitting and staying out of any
conversations. Rose and Jacen were having some kind of discussion. (Given how
smarmy Jacen’s expression was, it was probably an “intellectual” sort of
conversation.) Hera was sitting at a table just short of Skye’s corner and
drinking coffee, with a number of empty cups next to her. How much had she had?
Gaia wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. Vector was reading, Norik was reading… Dante
and Andy had really hit it off, and the two were currently having some kind of
mock fight that looked like it was *just*
about to get out of hand. Eagerly, Gaia stepped forward, but Jacen had picked
up on the tension and broke it up before it could even properly begin like the
spoilsport he was. Sigh.

“So, uh…” She said out loud, drawing
some attention. “What’s our plan?”

“*Gaia*
asking for a *plan*.” Skye drawled.
“Wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it.”

“I don’t believe it either, but I…”
Gaia trailed off, not exactly sure how to put into words the fact that she had
finally become concerned about both her physical and mental wellbeing, and that
it was almost definitely in her best interests to be active and enjoy herself
over what remained of the holiday. “…I need to get used to how things are now.”

“I approve, one-hundred and ten
percent.” Dante interjected, sidling up to her. “So, legs-” he paused, suddenly
deep in thought. “Can I… can I still call you legs?”

It took half a second for Gaia to
understand what he was talking about (because she only had one leg now,
hah-hah), another half to process the emotional whiplash, and a third to get
over it and decide to joke about it.

“I’m pretty sure you’re going to have
to call me “leg”.” She said. Dante hooted with laughter, before turning to the
team.

“So, any ideas as to what leg ought to
do today?”

“A fun run.” Quipped Norik without
missing a beat.

“Kickball.” Suggested Skye, smirk
indicating that she was in on the joke.

“Dance Dance Revolution.” Andy interjected.

From her seat, Rose rolled her eyes. “*Guys*.”

Gaia waved her off. “It’s fine, Rosie. I’m a big girl, I can take
it.”

“That’d better be literal.” Skye said,
putting her knitting needles down so that she could focus wholeheartedly on
mocking Gaia. “Because beyond being over-emotional, I’m pretty sure you still
look for the toys in cereal boxes.”

How *dare* she. “You don’t
have to look!” She protested. “They just fall out!” Another wave of laughter
rippled round the group, and Gaia felt herself be… lighter somehow. It was
probably falling back into familiar and comfortable routines, but it definitely
helped to take her mind off her situation. Which was nice.

“In all seriousness.” Dante intervened, still smirking. “Our plan
was to head to the nearest beach.”

“Oh, there’s a beach?” Gaia repeated, a little surprised.

“Lenway has *everything*.”
Andy reminded her, folding his arms in a smug sort of manner. Gaia wasn’t sure
why, it wasn’t like he was responsible for any of it.

“Think you’re up for some fun in the sun?” Turning Gaia’s
attention back to him, Dante asked the question with a smirk on his face. In
the background, she could see Skye rolling her eyes, but chose to not focus on
that – instead, she chose to focus on seizing the opportunity in front of her.

“Sure.”

What followed was a hastily-eaten breakfast and a scramble to get
the best seats in their hired car (namely, the ones that hadn’t been exposed to
the hot sun). Unfortunately, Gaia’s leg issue had a hand in slowing her down,
so she found herself spending twenty minutes or so seated on scorching black
fabric and trying her best to not writhe too much, as Skye (sitting to her
left, having narrowly escaped her fate) chortled to herself. When they finally
arrived at the beach, Gaia moaned as she sat up, easing her stiff legs (leg)
off of the seat and stretching in the sun. A tap on the shoulder turned her
around, and she was greeted by Vector, who was holding a pair of sunglasses out
to her, and smiling. She accepted the glasses – balancing them on her nose –
smiled back, and began to haltingly walk to where the others were grouped
together, already striding along on the final stretch to the beach.

The grass slowly replaced itself with sand, the shifting landscape
acting well to distract Gaia from everything, if only for just a moment. The
sun was shining relentlessly overhead, and she eventually stopped walking so
that she could rummage around in her pockets for a hair tie (she tried to
always have one on her) and tie her hair back so that her neck could breathe –
well, not literally breathe. Necks didn’t do that. But she knew from experience
that it would be more comfortable if that area wasn’t muffled by her mane of a
hairstyle. Gritting her teeth as she pulled on the matted strands, she managed
to eventually clump her hair together into a rough ponytail.

Now that she wasn’t focusing on the task, she could see that the
group had moved on ahead somewhat. The exceptions were Skye, who was watching
with her arms folded (and making Gaia feel a tad self-conscious) and Vector,
who she decided to focus on. His laidback posture made it look calm, which made
*her* feel calm as well.

It was slightly jarring when Skye spoke up:

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you stop walking to do that.”

Gaia raised an eyebrow, trying to convey the emotion of *what?* that she was feeling. Skye must
have picked up on it, because she continued to speak.

“Normally you’re perfectly fine with walking whilst doing
something, such as tying your hair up. But this time you stopped walking.” She
shrugged. “I just haven’t seen that before.”

Gaia could see where Skye was coming from, now that she thought about
it – it *was* weird. But a part of her
was made bitter by the statement. Of *course*,
when she was still as unsteady on her feet as she was, she wouldn’t risk doing
something else while taking steps. The sight of Vector holding a wheelchair
over his shoulder – a portable one that was lightweight, and could be folded –
only made her crosser.

“Well, master detective.” Gaia tried to keep her words light, she
really did, but she could still feel her bitterness seeping into her words.
“Three guesses as to why that might be.” To emphasise her point, she stood one
her flesh leg with a wince, and shook her prosthetic as roughly as she dared.

Skye’s face soured slightly, and she shrugged before turning and
walking after the rest of the group. Between her pale skin and her platinum
blonde hair, she was all but indistinguishable from the almost white sand
within moments. Vector looked after her for a moment, before turning back to
Gaia. He was frowning, and whatever emotions Gaia had been feeling just before
plummeted like skydivers.

“What, is this the part where you say I wasn’t justified, or
whatever? That I was too harsh?” She said, shamefully pushing her hands into
the pockets of her shorts so that he couldn’t see her clenched fists – truth be
told, most of her frustration was with herself. She ought to have been able to
get over it by that point. The fact that she was still so touchy about the
subject honestly bothered her. Who cared if she had lost a leg? She had a spare
one! It shouldn’t have been as big of a deal as she had made it.

“No.” Vector said. His voice surprised her, but she said nothing
as he continued to speak. “No, I think Skye was the one out of turn. Not that
that’s surprising, considering how blunt she always is, but I don’t think that
dragging up the elephant in the room by pointing out how *another* aspect of your life has changed was the right thing to do.”

*Well… oh.*
Alright. *Gaia wasn’t quite sure how to react to that statement, so*
she didn’t say anything out loud. She stood for a moment longer before
beginning to gingerly walk forward again. Vector waited until he caught up to
her before he himself began walking again. The two trudged onward over the
sands.

The silence was deafening.

After passing over the top of a dune, she caught sight of
the rest of the group, who were walking further along the beach. There was
no-one else there. Gaia was curious as to *why*
no-one else was there, because it looked like a lovely place, but didn’t bring
it up. They kept walking.

After a certain length of time (walking was monotonous, and
her mind had begun to wonder), she realised that Vector was watching her from
out of the corner of his eye. Now, why was that? She couldn’t say. Even as she
turned to look at him, his gaze flashed away, but she could tell that he had
been looking. If nothing else, the slight flush on his cheeks seemed to have
been caused by something other than the sun. It reminded her that he apparently
had feelings for her, which reminded her of *her*
feelings for *him*. What were you
supposed to do, she wondered, when you were walking down a beach with your
crush when you were pretty sure that they liked you back? What was the “right”
thing to do in that scenario?

“Want to use the wheelchair?” He said, suddenly. She turned
towards him in surprise. He looked back at her with a blank expression before
shrugging. “I mean, you don’t have to, I just thought…” He trailed off.

She forced a smile. “I’m fine.” She said, looking down at
the ground as she walked. The sight of one flesh-and-blood foot and one plastic/metal…
appendage thingy was something that she had, surprisingly, already gotten used
to. Already, the memory of seeing two normal feet supporting her was fading.

“I’ve heard that “fine” is the word people use when things aren’t
actually alright.” He pressed, before taking a tentative step away from her. “If
you’re sure you’re alright, I won’t press you, but...” He left the sentence
hanging in the air, suggestively.

Sighing as she walked, Gaia turned to look at him.

“You got me.” She said, in a half-joking voice. “I’m not feeling *fine* about all of this.”

““all of this”?” Vector repeated, a puzzled inflection to his
voice. It was kind of cute. “Is there more to it than the leg thing, then?”

“Yeah.” She confirmed, peering forward into the middle distance to
observe the rest of their party setting up a pseudo-camp on the beach. Why they
were camping out in this particular area, she wasn’t sure (it didn’t *seem* any different to the rest of beach,
at any rate, but she didn’t feel like questioning it). “There’s, uh… there’s
more to it than that.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked her, earnestly. There was
a moment of surprise, as she had come to associate Vector heavily with
everything that had happened during Operation AM, but that cleared as she
reminded herself that Vector was one of the people who hadn’t actually been
present as she had shared everything about her past. About Highwing. She wasn’t
sure how much he had picked up since, but it probably wouldn’t have had all of
the details.

The knowledge both made her happy, and weighted down on her. On
the one hand, it was nice to talk to someone who didn’t have that knowledge.
Who didn’t have that pity in their eyes, or who couldn’t *meet* her eyes. On the other hand, she felt bad that he didn’t know
everything, when (what felt like) so many other people did. It would have been
easy to ask someone what had happened – as, she could only assume, Jacen and
Rose had both done – but that had never really been Vector, after all. He had
instead come to her, to hear her interpretation of what he knew to be *her* story. A mixture of his curiosity
and his consideration, she figured.

But *did* she want to talk
about it?

“Later.” She decided. He looked at her with a puzzled expression
on his face, and she realised that she had been silent for a while. Whoops. Time
for elaboration-! “I want to talk about it later.” She explained, and his face
split into a grin.

“Only if you’re sure.” He emphasised. (“emphasised” sounded a bit
like “elephants”, she suddenly realised. That was weird. Oh well.) “I don’t
want to pressurise you in any way.”

Gaia was moved. Not literally moved (beyond the steady hobble she
was doing), but emotionally? Super-moved. Gosh, what was really nice about
being told that things would happen in her own time was how it felt like she
had been given just a little control over what was happening to her – which was
something that she felt as though she had lost a while ago. It was like a tiny
semblance of stability had been returned to her life, with the knowledge of “I
can talk about this particular topic with this particular person on my own
terms, and not when I’m forced to” buoying her. And it was just… just really
nice of Vector to do that. She appreciated it a lot.

Before she could have a second thought (though, really, *most* of what Gaia did was done without a
second thought), she grasped Vector’s free arm with her own, pulling him a
little closer so that they were practically side-by-side. She pressed her arm
against his.

“Thanks.” She said, looking up at him. “I mean it.”

The beach day, ultimately, turned out to be a huge success. The
sun continued to shine brightly in a cloudless sky, and time passed leisurely.
(As opposed to the normal frantic “Oh-my-God-it-was-morning-a-second-ago”-esque
passage of time.) Dante squirted Skye in the face with a bottle of water upon
finding out how the latter had brought up the sensitive topic to Gaia in an
insensitive way – Skye didn’t complain, which was about as close to an apology
as was to be expected by that point. Yeah, Gaia thought that Skye was great,
but even *she* had to admit that the
pint-sized private investigator could be prickly about things. Ah, well. Wasn’t
like she was planning on holding a grudge.

There were more important things to worry about.

The group spent some time paddling about in the sea, letting the
waves wash over them and the salt soak into their hair. The only ones to stay
completely out of the water were Gaia (who didn’t fancy swimming or paddling
when she was down a leg) and, surprisingly, Andy (who had apparently heard that
in the waters were crocodiles – and he apparently had a deathly fear of
crocodiles). For her part, Gaia wasn’t super sure that there were really
crocodiles in the ocean, but she didn’t have the energy to make a conversation
out of it. Skye kept to the shallows, only venturing into the depths when
coaxed into doing so by Hera. Everyone else took turns duking each other under
the waves.

The highlight of everything was probably the game of volleyball
they played – the teams were Dante, Jacen, Vector, and Skye against Rose, Gaia,
Norik, and Andy (with Hera acting as referee). As it turned out, Hera was a
nice and impartial referee, which was an all-round good thing. (Impartiality
was a key feature of referees, apparently.) Gaia struggled a bit because of her
leg, but she managed to hobble around quickly enough. AND she hadn’t lost her
strength, which still made her an asset to her team. Everyone else seemed to be
enjoying themselves too – quite often, what they’d do was purposefully muck up
their shots for comedic effect, or make sure that the ball landed on someone
else’s head. After Andy hit his tailbone after tripping over a ball that had been
spiked right at his feet, however, the rule of “if you cock up your shot, you
get thrown in the ocean” was introduced to help things cool down. Which was
probably for the best. After that, there were only three instances of
screwed-up shots (though they were all pretty damn good ones).

The first was Rose, who hammered the ball just over the net and
right into Dante’s face. After making sure that their field commander’s nose
hadn’t been broken, they threw Rose fairly easily into the waves, where she sat
shivering for a little while before re-joining the game. The second was Vector,
who hit the ball so hard it careened down the beach, and it took fifteen
minutes for Jacen to retrieve it. Rather than being thrown into the surf, he
chose to retain his honour (and spare everyone else the experience of picking
up and throwing an “absolute unit” such as himself) and voluntarily leapt in,
disappearing under the water with an almighty crash. The final cock-up was on
Andy’s part, who spiked it directly into the ground and sent up a wave of sand
that sent both Rose and Norik into a coughing fit. Rather
than accept his punishment, he threw his shirt into Skye’s face and sprinted
down the beach in an attempt to escape, prompting some of the others to chase
after him (he was eventually apprehended by Dante, who tackled him by the legs).
Gaia herself didn’t go after him, still unable to really run properly, but she
took great glee in watching Norik and Vector work together to hurl Andy an
impressive distance into the waves as Skye used Gaia’s prosthetic leg (on loan)
to slap the edge of the water in a mocking attempt to summon crocodiles.

The sun lowered in the sky, and all of a sudden, the group were
gathered together in a circle, roasting marshmallows over a fire that they had
scrounged together from bits of driftwood. Jacen had pointed out that they
probably weren’t allowed to start a fire on the beach, but Skye had hit him on
the head with Gaia’s leg (still on loan) and Andy had tried to dump a load of
water on him, and he had apparently come to accept the fact that being arrested
would be better for his health than making a fuss about things. And really, he
should have twigged by that point that nobody else on the team cared for
legalities.

“Sitrep.” Ordered Dante from his position, lying on the sand and
staring up at the sky.

“Marshmallows are cooking nicely.” Hera reported back.

“Do marshmallows cook?” Wondered Rose. “Don’t they roast?”

“I like to think that marshmallows bake.” Andy said. Rose rolled
her eyes.

“They roast.” Confirmed Jacen, the light of the fire reflecting in
his glasses. That and the orange hair made him look quite dramatic. Like a fire
man. Well, not a *fireman*, but a man
who had come from or was made of fire. A literal fire man.

“Anything else happening that I ought to know about?” Asked Dante,
not bothering to look at anything or anyone.

“Andy’s about to drop water on your face.” Reported Norik a second
before it happened. Dante jolted up, coughing and spluttering, digging the
seawater out of his eyes before glowering at Andy, who was laughing so hard he
had doubled over.

“I’ll give you three seconds.” Said Dante, and it was only because
of the light of the fire that Gaia saw his eyes shift, and realised that it was
actually Raelyn making the threat instead of Dante. Cut to three seconds later,
and Raelyn was dragging a screaming Andy down the beach. Skye meandered after
the pair, holding Gaia’s leg (and Gaia really should have asked for it back by
this point) ready to make another attempt to summon crocodiles.

Gaia watched, and let their antics warm her. It was always fun to
watch. Maybe at some point, some point a bit later, she’d feel good enough to
actually join it all in herself-

Vector sat down beside her. She felt his hand slip into hers.

“What do you think?” He asked. “Good day?”

She squeezed his hand.

“Yeah.”

### DAY 4.5

“It hurts!”

Gaia wasn’t quite sure why – it could have been the day’s physical
exertion, or the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about things, or… or
something else – but that night, she woke up screaming in pain. Rose was by her
side within moment, panic clearly etched onto her face.

“It hurts…!” Not sure what else to do – what else *could* she do? – Gaia aimlessly groped at
the empty space below her thigh, hoping and begging to herself to *just let it be there*, and she wasn’t
sure whether she was more disappointed at the fact that there was still nothing
there, or the fact that she had actually gotten her hopes up. Again.

Rose swore, and the action was surprising enough that Gaia felt
herself smile for a second before being wracked by another wave of pain.
Phantom pain. All of a sudden, it was like she wasn’t in Lenway anymore. Wasn’t
safe in bed with a friend by her side. It was like she was back in Highwing,
back in those sterile hallways, and her leg was being cut off all. Over. Again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rose fanning herself
nervously before seemingly pulling herself together.

“Try and think about something else. Focus your mind.” She said.

Like what? What was she supposed to think about except for the
hallways and the laser and her leg-?

“What’s ten minus five?” Rose asked.

“F-five.” Gaia managed to say.

“What’s five times ten?”

“Twenty… twenty-five?” It took a moment for Gaia’s frazzled brain
to catch up with the question.

“Three times seven.”

“Twenty-one.”

“Twenty divided by five.”

“Four.”

“Eight times seven.”

“…”

“Gaia?”

“I’m fine, I- I’m fine. I’m just not actually sure about that
one.”

“Oh.” Rose flushed. “Sorry, I just… uh…”

Gaia held up a hand (still shaking, oof) to silence her.

“It’s fine, Rosie.” She said. “I get it. And, I mean, I *appreciate* it.” She breathed heavily,
wishing that her remaining limbs would stop trembling. Rose squeezed her
shoulder. The two of them sat there for a long while, in silence. Rose seemed
uneager to talk about anything to Gaia, and as was becoming the norm, Gaia didn’t fancy talking to anyone about anything herself.

### DAY 5

“I know.” Vector held out his arms in a placating sort of fashion.
“I managed to save you *some* stuff,
but-”

“I… missed breakfast.” Gaia echoed dumbly, as though repeating
this thoroughly gutting news might have made it less true. Vector nodded
solemnly. At least she could trust him to understand the gravity of the news he
was delivering. Visions of buffets and third helpings disappeared in a flash,
leaving just Gaia and her empty stomach. Her stump still ached – a holdover
from the previous night – but she chose to ignore that. Stump pain was still
something she still needed to come to terms with.

Hunger, on the other hand?

“Vector, are you up for some recon? And then maybe some theft?”

“Recon, absolutely.” Said Vector with
absolutely no hesitation. “Theft, I’m not super sure. Is theft really your only
option?”

“It may well be.” Admitted Gaia. “What did you, uh… what did you
save me, anyway?”

Vector smirked. “Thought you’d never ask.” Slipping a bag off his
back, he tossed it to Gaia, who neatly caught it – only to be caught
off-balance by how heavy it was, trip over her own prosthetic, and fall
backwards onto her butt. “I may have beaten you to it in the theft department.”
He told her.

“How- how much stuff is even in here?” She asked, warily pulling
open a zip to the sight of numerous croissants.

“As much as I could steal.” Vector replied, hands on hips – before
moving one of his hands to the back of his neck and rubbing it awkwardly.
“Well, as much as me and Norik working together could steal.” He kept on
speaking: “You know, he’s really good at stealing stuff, it’s kind of
worrying…” but the words trailed off as Gaia stared at the delectable (if
slightly squashed and rank) breakfast-themed feast. She could have cried. (But
didn’t.) This man knew her so well.

“…Thanks.” She managed, after waiting a moment to make sure that
her voice wouldn’t crack while she was saying it.

“Any time.” Said Vector. She suddenly caught sight of his hand at
the edge of her vision (she was still staring into the bag), and looked up to
see that he was offering his hand to her. “Need a hand?” He continued.

“Need a leg, more like.” She grumbled as she raised herself to her
feet. The movement and her own comment both stung slightly, but she figured
that joking about it might help her to adjust quicker. At the very least, she
hoped that it would make people more comfortable around her. Like, if they saw *her* making jokes and being comfortable
about it, they’d feel less weird? She wasn’t super sure, it was kind of a
by-the-seat-of-her-pants plan, but she’d figured that it would be worth a try.

“So?” She asked. “What’s the plan?”

“I was thinking we – as in, the two of us – could head out into
the city with Skye and Hera.” Explained Vector without missing a beat. Damn, he
really had everything planned out? It made sense, Gaia figured. He was a
faction leader, he probably had to be at least *kind of* organised.

“Are- Are they okay with that?” She asked, suddenly remembering
Skye and Hera’s relationship status and realising that she didn’t want to be a
third wheel. Or forth wheel, as the case may have been. “We shouldn’t, like,
butt in if they want to spend some time with each other, right?”

Instead of answering immediately, Vector rubbed the back of his
neck.

“Funny story actually.” He eventually said. “I… uh… it was
actually their idea. To have us go with them, I mean.”

Gaia squinted at him. She felt… confused. “Why?”

Vector’s back-of-neck-rubbing increased in intensity, and a
pinkish tinge began to form on his face.

He never *did* answer the
question, Gaia pondered as she found herself sitting in cafe with Vector by her
side, Skye opposite her, and Hera next to Skye.

“Skye. Honey. Light of my life. My lady.” Hera reached out and
pushed the drink Skye was trying to bring to her mouth down in the direction of
the table. Skye physically resisted. “If you have any more coffee, your body is
going to implode on itself in some horrific manner and I’ll have to handle the
funeral expenses.”

“I drink a lot a lot of the time!” Skye told her in a voice that
implied she would have been talking louder if they hadn’t been in a public
place. “I can handle it.”

“Caffeine and alcohol are very different beasts.” Hera chided her
without missing a beat. “I want to trust your judgement, but I also want you to
not get all embarrassing and hyper before crashing for twenty hours.”

“That’s very specific.” Observed Gaia through a mouthful of cake.
(Her second piece.)

Hera winked at her.

Skye, after another moment of struggling, gave up and let the cup
drop down to the table.

“You… have a lot of pet names.” Vector observed after a moment of
semi-awkward silence. Hera shrugged, pretending to be abashed.

“I’d like to say something romantic and profound, like that
they’re all for different scenarios, but I’m not quite there yet.” She
admitted. “At the moment I just kind of say them at random.” She paused,
tapping her chin in contemplation. “But I *do*
have a lot of them.”

There was another moment of silence which was broken,
surprisingly, by Skye.

“…I have different names for you based on the context.” She
confessed.

Gaia could be coloured surprised. (Was that how the phrase worked?
Whatever.) *Skye* of all people, doing
something wholesome and romantic like that? Of course, she’d glimpsed Skye’s
soft side before, being her best friend and all, but it was still such a
jarring difference to her normal aura that she found herself blindsided for a
moment. The silence was broken when Hera wrapped her arms around Skye, pulling
her into a hug.

“Babe…!” She sounded almost on the verge of tears. Skye began to
wave her arms in a panic, as if sensing that her reputation was rapidly
crumbling.

“It’s not that big of a deal! Really!” She said. “There’s only a
couple! “There’s “dear” for general use, and, like, a couple of others…!”

Hera continued to hug her. “You’re adorable, you know that?”

Skye flushed crimson, sinking into the embrace.

“…Thanks.” She muttered.

Gaia watched, a little touched by the displays of affection. But
she forced herself to shake those feelings off after a moment of indulgence.
There was something she had to do:

“Gay!” She droned loudly. Some of the cafe’s other occupants
turned to stare at them. Hera laughed, Skye blushed even more, and Vector
turned to her with a sort-of exasperated look on his face. Upon seeing it, she
shrugged as an explanation. Upon seeing her shrug, Vector rolled his eyes but
smiled anyway. Hera looked to them like she wanted to say something, but pursed
her lips. Gaia raised an eyebrow at her. Hera sighed.

“You’re a gremlin.” She muttered, though there was a smirk on her
face anyway.

Gaia turned to look back at Vector, who was still smiling but also
looked baffled. Gaia patted his arm in what she hoped was a placating sort of
manner. (She wasn’t really used to comforting pats, she was more used to… like,
punches.)

“Don’t worry about it.” She trilled. Vector still looked confused,
but he didn’t speak, so, yay.

Thankfully, no-one said anything else really loudly, so soon
enough, attention drifted away from them, leaving the four there in various
states of mortification.

Yeah, good times.

Some time later, the four stepped out of the cafe. Gaia, at least,
was satisfied with the day – but was pulled out of her reverie when Hera
grabbed her and yanked her off to the side so hard that she almost fell over on
her prosthetic leg.

“Hera-!” She began, then stopped, sighing. Hera was eying her with
an un-identifiable expression on her face.

“You like him, right?”

*And that*
was just out of left field and also right field and also probably every other
field because WHO?? IN THEIR RIGHT MIND?? WAS SO BLATANT ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE
THAT? WHY WOULD SHE ASK THAT? WHY WOULD SHE THINK THAT? WHAT WAS HAPPENING?

Giving herself a bit of time to pull herself back together, Gaia
remembered her epiphanies and decided that honesty would probably be her best
friend in this scenario.

“…Y…Yeah.” She managed to say. Hera nodded sagely before sighing
and then looking into her eyes.

“Then do something about it.” She said. “I know things having been
moving slowly lately, and-” her eyes flickered down to Gaia’s leg for a moment
“-and I completely get why. But I don’t think you’re doing yourself *or* him any favours by not taking an
initiative.” She paused, as if thinking, before speaking again. “Before you
ask, *he* hasn’t done anything yet
because he doesn’t want to rush you. He knows what you’ve been through, he
doesn’t want to put any feelings-based pressure on you so he’s holding off
until you make it clear that you’re ready to talk things through with him.”

…This was all very complicated.

To be fair, though they’d never actually discussed it, it was
fairly obvious (to her at least) that there was some kind of… mutual affection
going on. And she *had* been wondering
why he’d never done anything about it. It would have been hypocritical of her,
and she supposed it was a little bit, but her mind had been on… other things
lately.

“Right.” Gaia heard herself saying, as if she wasn’t the one
actually saying it. Like it was an automatic response or something. “Alright,
okay.”

“Okay.” Hera echoed, nodding. “Again – I get why nothing hasn’t
happened yet. And I’m not trying to, like, force you guys into a relationship.
You can take it slow if you want. But that’s just it – you have to establish
what both of you want and come to a compromise, and that. Involves. Having a
conversation.” She sighed. “Worst case scenario, you’ll miss an opportunity for
something good. Kapeesh?”

Now more or less lost for words (which had… actually happened a
few times before, just for different reasons), Gaia could only not as she took
in all of this new information. (And hey, she had never normally been a person
who took things in, but this was something she actually cared about.) Hera
nodded back, before letting go of her and ending the conversation as abruptly
as she had begun it, immediately running after Vector and Skye, who had walked
on ahead. Gaia followed – at a much slower pace – but was in kind of a trance
until walking directly into Vector, who had been standing still. (Had he been
waiting for her?)

“Everything alright?” He asked. “What did you and Hera talk
about?”

“I’m okay.” She said, answering the question that was basically
way easier to answer. “And we talked about…” Here was the tricky bit. She still
wanted to talk about feelings and things with Vector… just not at that moment.
She settled for a shrug. “We didn’t talk about anything much.”

“Alright.” Vector looked like he didn’t quite believe her, but he
didn’t push the conversation any further, which was nice of him. He took her
hand and squeezed it softly, before letting it drop and turning around to keep
walking back to the hotel. “Let’s head back.”

Gaia nodded. “Right.”

### DAY 6

“What can we do about it?”

Gaia paused mid-mouthful, several crumbs of toast falling onto her
lap. She didn’t quite understand the question. Neither, apparently, did Jacen,
who faced Dante with a raised eyebrow and a sceptical expression (which was,
like, influenced *by* the raised eyebrow).

“What can we do about what?” He asked, eyes flicking from Dante to
Gaia and back.

“The tension in the air.” Dante said – ironically, this made both
Gaia and Jacen (who he was sitting to the opposite of) tense up. He noticed,
because he sighed heavily. “Sorry, I was… thinking out loud. But you have to
admit that we’ve all been kind of on edge since operation AM. I don’t think I
need to specify *why*…”

If she hadn’t grown used to the glances, she would have missed the
way Dante’s gaze shifted to her leg – or lack thereof. She ground her teeth
under the pretence of chewing her toast. The truth was that it was a difficult
thing to think about. On the one hand, part of her was fed up with everyone
talking about it and felt like it was a dead horse being beaten. On the other
hand, she herself still hadn’t really been able to talk to anyone about her
feelings at that point, and was beginning to yearn for some kind of resolution
or something. Probably or something, seeing how little she knew about
psychology.

“The point is…” Dante continued, before pausing and scanning the
room. It was basically just Pandemonium’s Bane in the breakfast area at that
point (plus Hera, of course).

“The point is, I’ve got an idea.” Dante spoke again, louder this
time, drawing everyone’s eyes towards him. He stuffed his hands into his
pockets as he surveyed the sort-of crowd, and Gaia was once again a little awed
by the way he was able to thrive on people’s attention, and command it with a
handful of words. “And I’m thinking of making it compulsory, because it’s
actually quite important.”

Jacen seemed intrigued at this, and leant forward. Fully aware of
Jacen’s opinion that Dante was sometimes too irresponsible a leader, Gaia hoped
this meant that he would give their commander a bit of leeway.

“It’s… it’s a team building exercise.” Dante explained. “You see,
in recent days, Gaia’s basically bared her soul to us.”

The Gaia in question blanched,
suddenly self-conscious.

“This whole business with the twelve, and with her brother…” He
hesitated, as if trying to find the right words, before speaking again. “I know
not everyone knows everything about what happened, but the fact that that
information is out there means that, in short, we know her in a very personal
way now. At least, we know her weaknesses. Plus, there’s the whole business
with the leg, which is a *physical*
weakness…” He trailed off. Gaia found her hands trembling. Was he wrong? No,
no, he wasn’t wrong, and that was the problem. Raleigh’s arrival and the twelve
had led to Gaia revealing her past to the team – a past that she had more or
less kept under wraps for years beforehand. She had been metaphorically
stripped bare, and though she trusted her friends, there was still a deep sense
of discomfort within her. Like they all knew her better than she would have
liked, better than she knew herself. Part of her felt like she was being
irrational, creating a freakish ridiculosity in her mind and blowing it out of
proportion. But the rest of her was just tired and self-conscious.

“Like I said.” Dante shrugged. “Soul. Bared.” He rose to look at
the rest of the team, his eyes having previously been roaming. “So, I say we do
the same.”

You could have probably heard a pin drop in the room. Thankfully –
oh, God, *thankfully* – there were no
strangers in what was technically an open area. It was early enough.

Before Gaia could ponder the fact that they hadn’t been
interrupted yet, Jacen raised his hand. Dante nodded to him.

“I see the merit in the idea.” He said. “But I have my doubts.”

“Go on.” Dante said, simply. In all honesty, it was what Gaia
liked about him in terms of being a leader – he wasn’t a tyrant. He was willing
to listen to them and their concerns. It was nice.

“I understand that Gaia ending up in a position of emotional and physical
vulnerability hasn’t… hasn’t been a great experience.” Jacen said. “But
logically, I don’t know if putting everyone else in the same position is going
to help.”

“What you’re saying, Dante,” Skye jumped in, “is that you want to
make all of us as miserable as Gaia’s obviously feeling right now. I’m not
saying I don’t think we should try and help her, but I just think this could
backfire.”

““her” is room right now, and doesn’t appreciate being referred to
as if she isn’t.” Gaia reminded them, suddenly feeling techy. Her stump began
to ache again.

Dante held up his hands, placatingly. “It’s just an idea. I
figured that if we were all on the same page as you, Gaia – or, at least, a
similar one – we’d be able to empathize and help you better, and it’d also
solve the problem of fairness.”

“Fairness?” She echoed. Dante nodded.

“It’s not fair that all of this has happened to you and you
alone.” He explained. “That you’ve been left in a position of vulnerability.
But if we bared our souls to you back…” He shrugged. “I figured it might help.”
He sighed. “It’s like – imagine we were all dogs.”

“More of a cat person.” Gaia blurted. Dante laughed.

“Then imagine that we were all cats.” He amended. “At the moment,
Gaia, you’ve been forcibly pushed onto your back. A cat’s belly is, like, a
sensitive zone, right? On your back, you’re vulnerable. And circumstance has
pushed you there, right?”

“Right.” Gaia furrowed her brow and tried to follow along with
the… what was the word? Simile? Analogy? Analogy worked. She tried to follow
along with the *analogy*, and tried to
ignore the fact that the whole conversation was a pretty sensitive one in and
of itself. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that other guests had
entered the cafeteria, and reflexively twitched. None of them gave any signs
that they were listening, but her eyes or something must have shown her
discomfort, because Dante glanced over his shoulder before walking forward. A
moment of hesitation – and Pandemonium’s Bane collective grouped closely together,
restricting themselves to a couple of tables in the corner of the room, away
from any lurking ears. Once they were together, Dante continued to speak.

“Right.” He said. “So, you’re stuck in a bad position. And I
figured that if the rest of us-” he indicated to the rest of the group “put
ourselves in similar positions, it would make you feel better. Rolled on our
own backs. I mean, you’ve been forced to trust us. So… so let us trust you
back.”

It took Gaia a moment to realise that he was waiting on her decision.
It was her call. Oh, gosh. She stood up, not quite sure what else to do. Well,
Dante hadn’t been wrong. She couldn’t claim to be super in tune with her
emotions, but she had to admit that a big part of the problem was how uneasy
everyone had been around her, and the lingering thoughts that she was being
judged for what had happened to her in the past. That she had been made to look
weak by the stark reveal of her weaknesses. If everyone revealed their
weaknesses, not only would everyone be on each other’s level – which would be
fairer – but it would also stop Gaia from feeling like such an odd woman out.
And yet – there was something that still didn’t sit right with her…

“Okay.” Gaia said, surprising everyone because she had been silent
for a little while. “I’m all for it; on one condition.”

“Okay.” Dante said.

“It’s not compulsory.” Gaia asserted. “Like you said: I was forced
into this position. And I appreciate the idea of solidarity, but I won’t put
anyone else through what I’ve been through.” She sat down in the nearest chair
and hissed slightly as she took the pressure off her stump and prosthetic.
“That’s my condition.”

“Condition accepted.” Dante said, without missing a beat, before
turning to everyone else. “Alright then, if anyone wants to opt out of this
soul-bearing session, just say so and we won’t judge. Promise.” He eyed the
group one by one.

Hera sighed, before sharing a glance with Skye and then standing
up.

“I’m going to get everyone some more food.” She declared. Someone
around the table must have looked confused, because she smiled in a tired sort
of way and sighed again. “Look, y’all are great, but I’m not even a part of
this team formally. I don’t think I have the right to listen in on all of your
personal hang-ups, and I don’t think I’m at a stage where I’m willing to spill
my deep dark secrets in any of the various relationships I have with you.” She
paused for a moment, finger on chin as if considering something, before smiling
coyly. “Well… maybe with one of you.” She winked at Skye before giving everyone
else a jaunty little wave and wandering off to the buffet.

“Stupid overly-affectionate woman.” Skye
grumbled, even as her deeply flushed cheeks indicated her actual reaction to
Hera’s “overly-affectionate”-ness.

“So…” Jacen said. “We’re actually doing this.”

Dante shrugged, looking around. “I guess so. Does anybody else
have any thoughts?”

Gaia, for her part, eyed everyone else. Jacen and Rose both looked
deep in thought, Skye had a remarkably neutral expression on her face (fading blush
notwithstanding), Andy had his lips pursed. Norik was staring down and the
floor, and Vector had his chin resting on his hand – clearly deep in thought
about something or other.

It was Norik who spoke first.

“I’m still scared of my power.” He admitted. “I…”

“Norik.” Dante cautioned – but Norik shook his head adamantly.

“I have to talk about it.” He rasped. “I just worry about losing
my temper and using it without thinking, and doing something irreversible,
alright? Gods, you all saw how easy it was for me to…!” He trailed off,
referencing events that most had either seen or heard about since. He breathed
heavily, clenching his fists – but then, he turned to look at Gaia. “I know
what it’s like to just be… scared. Like it’s this fear that you can’t do anything
about. And I also understand how these experiences can really shake you up, and
change you as a person.”

Truth be told, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, Gaia could
understand perfectly (even if they were talking about, like, totally different
scenarios). Since losing her leg, she hadn’t been able to be the same person
that she had been before – living like completely on the edge, like she was
immortal. She had lost something, and come too close to death, and she no
longer had the luxury of saying “it won’t happen to me”, because it had. It
really literally had. Which was just… depressing, but that’s what life was
sometimes.

Rose rose (hah!) from the table with a disturbed expression on her
face.

“I think I’d like to opt out, if that’s okay.” She said, before
moving quickly past the table and walking out of the breakfast area before
anyone could say anything else to her.

“Is she-” Gaia began – it was Andy, surprisingly, who cut her off.

“She’ll be fine, she’s just a bit rattled.” He said, waving a hand
very flippantly as he sipped from a coffee. “There’s just some stuff she… isn’t
necessarily up to talking about yet.”

“And no-one here is going to fault her for that.” Dante added as a
kind of follow-up, glaring at Skye, who rose an eyebrow indignantly.

“What? I’m not *that*
bad.”

Dante smirked. Skye smirked back. All seemed right with the world
for a brief moment. Eventually, Jacen sighed.

“Sometimes I… I dream.” He said, biting the bullet, and looking
Gaia in the eyes as he did so. (Really? It was kind of intimidating, was it
absolutely necessary?) “I dream that I’m in that tube again, in Highwing. Being
held in stasis, and used as a way for them to try and find a cure. As, like, a
source of blood and nothing more for the rest of my life. And I wake up but I
can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything.” He breathed heavily through his
nose. His fingers tapped against the top of the table he was sitting at. “When
you’re helpless like that, it- it feels terrible. Really. And I don’t want to
make light of what you’ve been through by comparing it to my own experiences,
but I want you to know that I’m here for you whenever you need.” This last part
was aimed at her, and she felt a pang in her chest. Surrogate brother feels!

“Okay, I rescind my previous statement.” Skye said, folding her
arms and leaning back in her chair. “This might actually not be a bad idea.”

“*Thank* you!” Dante
spread his arms wide almost melodramatically. “I really wish you’d put more
faith in your leader sometimes.”

Skye rolled her eyes. “I’m a part-timer. Deal with it.” She pursed
her lips and rocked backwards and forwards on her chair for a little while.
Probably considering what she was going to say next, if Gaia could guess.

“I get scared by large bodies of water, sometimes.” She said. “I
mean, I was never a *huge* fan of them.
But someone with electricity powers in a large body of water? No thanks.”

“That actually explains a lot.” Gaia mused out loud. Because it
did – like how Skye had stayed in the shallows when the group had visited the
beach. Skye shrugged, like she had acknowledged the possibility that she had
shown some kind of weakness but wasn’t willing to properly acknowledge it.

“Yeah, well, better safe than sorry.” She muttered, before sighing
and folding her arms. A moment passed, and then she eyed everyone else around
the tables grumpily. “What? That’s all you’re getting out of me.”

“Still more than I expected.” Andy remarked.

Skye hit his arm.

“Your sentiment touches me.” Said Gaia, giving off a mock sniff
from real emotion. “I knew we were really best friends!”

Skye’s yell of “Ugh, shut up about that!” was accompanied by her
flinging a small fork in Gaia’s general direction. It was a half-hearted throw,
meaning the fork fell short, clattering across the plates and coming to a slidy
halt by the side of Jacen’s plate. He raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t
actually say anything.

“I don’t like crocodiles.” Andy said, twirling a lock of hair
between his fingers.

*We already*
knew that, *thought Gaia – and so, she suspected, did everyone else, because*
no-one seemed particularly impressed by this fact. There were a few more
moments of silence before Andy caved.

“Okay, fine, I *also*
don’t like spiders. Or cockroaches.” He shuddered. “What do you want from me?”

Gaia giggled.

Dante, for his part, shrugged. “Well, I don’t know how much I can
go over that most people here don’t already know.” He said. “Personally, most
of my discomfort comes from the alternate personality in my head that likes to
wrestle control of my body for me.” His smile slid. “It’s… It actually used to
be pretty bad, sometimes. Like, I felt like I couldn’t trust myself physically
or mentally. And sometimes I… It… I guess I can just, also relate to the idea
of being scared of yourself, or losing control or something or just… seeing
yourself in a warped way. Where it’s like you need to remember yourself.” He
breathed heavily for a few moments. “Whoa. That got a bit dark there. Sorry.
But, uh, yeah. That’s what makes me feel bad.”

No-one really said anything for a while after that, each lost in
their own thoughts. Hera came back with fresh food, dishing out second and
third helpings of eggs and toast that were eaten in a lacklustre sort of way.
Even Gaia felt a bit unenthusiastic as she ate her sixth piece of toast. She
felt kind of obligated to feel better now that everyone else had made
themselves uncomfortable along with her, which was bad, but it wasn’t like she
had to force herself to do it. It was a feeling of… solidarity was probably the
best way to think of it. Like, comradery. She felt closer to these guys now.
Even if the circumstances weren’t great, the fact that some of her friends
could empathize with her – and, more importantly, that they actively *wanted* to empathize with her and *wanted* to help her – was… really nice.

*Really* nice.

### DAY 7

“Don’t do that! Jaceeeeeen!” Gaia shrieked from her vantage point.
Her prosthetic lay on the ground several meters away – she had friggin’ kicked
it off her leg as she had scrabbled to get ahold, and Jacen’s flailing arm had
knocked it away. Speaking of Jacen-?

“*God damnit Gaia, get off me*
right now before I pull your arms off and make you eat them!*”*

Right. He was still mad.

With the benefit of hindsight, she *probably* shouldn’t have shoved him into the hotel pool three times
in a single day (twice while he was in a dry set of clothing). The third time
was the unlucky time, however, as he had actually had his phone in his pocket –
the phone was now soaked to death and refusing to turn back on. Unsurprisingly,
Jacen had reacted badly, trying to chase her around the pool. Him slipping and
landing awkwardly on his side had only made him *more* angry, which had led to Gaia being forced to use her ultimate
calm-down technique – the sloth. She had hauled herself up onto Jacen’s back
and covered his angry little eyes with her arms. It did normally calm him down.
Normally. Though it did make him *angrier*
first.

“*Where did my GLASSES even*
go?*” Jacen roared, stumbling around the pool blindly as Gaia readjusted her*
grip on him. She kept almost slipping off, not used to only having one leg to
cling to him with. “*If you’ve broken my*
glasses *as well-*!*”*

Gaia’s eye’s flicked to the snapped glasses by the side of the
pool. Whoops.

Grunting, Jacen tried in vain to pull her off of him – but even down
a limb, she was still significantly stronger than he was, so he didn’t get very
far. It was at this point that Rose – who had been sunbathing by the pool when
Gaia had pushed Jacen in the third time – stepped forward, lightly glaring at
Gaia as she inched forward to the still-flailing Jacen.

“Move your arm?” She asked. “I need to talk to him.”

Gaia rolled her eyes (it was always easier to placate someone when
they couldn’t see!) but moved her arms up onto Jacen’s forehead. Jacen himself
blinked in the sudden light, which gave Rose the time she needed to play
negotiator. Grabbing Jacen’s sodden arm to get his attention, she spoke.

“Jacen,” she said, “I’m sure Gaia didn’t really mean to drown your
phone.”

“I didn’t.” Gaia confirmed from her vantage point.

“See?” Rose said. “We can sort this out without, uh, ripping her
arms off. Just calm down, and then she can get off of you, and we can… you
know, talk this out. Like the adults we legally are.”

Gaia couldn’t see Jacen’s expression. He stared at Rose silently,
who blinked before donning a more sympathetic expression.

“Come on, Jacen.” She smiled softly. “It’s okay. It’s just a
phone.”

Jacen stared for several moments longer. Rose began to look a bit
less serene and a bit more scared. “Uh, are you alright?”

More silence. Eventually – *finally*
– he sighed.

“I… uhh… yeah, m’fine.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Gerroff.”

Rose eyed Gaia, who obediently slid down Jacen’s back and balanced
on one leg.

“I really didn’t mean to soak your phone, bro.” She said. “I’ll,
uh… well, I mean, this holiday *was*
all-expenses paid. So we can probably do something about that.” No response.
She chuckled nervously. “I’m just going to… go get my leg now.”

By the time she had finished both hopping over to where her leg
lay and reattaching it, Jacen had vanished. Rose sat by the water, looking
concerned. Still feeling awkward (because it was sort of all her fault), Gaia
hobbled over to Rose before tiredly sitting down by the pool. Between her
exhausted right leg and aching stump, she didn’t feel up to walking anywhere.

“Oops?” She offered. Rose rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything,
which was fair.

They sat in silence for a while.

“I went too far.” Gaia eventually admitted out loud.

“You went too far.” Confirmed Rose. “Thrice in a row when he
didn’t even ask for it once is a dick move.”

“Yeah, I know.”

More silence.

“I’m going to go after him.” Gaia said, again out loud (as how
people normally… said thing.)

“A good idea.” Rose sipped on a juice box. Gaia eyed her
suspiciously.

“You’re annoyed at me, aren’t you?” She asked. Rose shrugged.

“I know that you’re you and that’s how you do things, but being
shoved in the pool and having his phone suffer all that water damage definitely
upset him.”

“Ah, right.” Gaia tried to stand up, but her legs weren’t quite
working yet. She settled for talking to Rose a bit more. “That’s you being an
empath, right?” She chuckled.

Rose didn’t laugh. She continued to stare out at the afternoon sky,
sipping on her juice box. She looked very solemn. Gaia was impressed, but also
a bit concerned.

No more words were spoken, and eventually, Gaia was able to
clamber to her feet and hobble back into the hotel in search of Jacen. The desk
reported seeing a wet man with ginger hair walk past (though, to be fair, the
trail of water was kind of a clue as well), and Gaia followed the trail of
witnesses and evidence like a proper detective. Skye would surely be jealous. Eventually,
she arrived back at Jacen’s room to find the door open, and Jacen sticking his
head inside his room’s complimentary freezer.

“Jacen?” It felt a little as though their roles had been reversed,
but more than anything else she was just exited. Was Jacen… finally learning
how to loosen up? “Why is your head in a freezer?”

Jacen didn’t immediately reply, instead tapping his fingers
against the side of the machine as cold vapor continued to pour out of the
doorway he was sticking his head into. Eventually, he pulled away and stood up,
shutting the door as he did so. His hair was covered in bits of ice, and his
cheeks were blazing red – probably from the cold. He sniffed loudly.

“I was cooling down.” He said in a funny voice. “I needed to- uh-
it’s nothing.”

Gaia folded her arms. She would have done a sort of lean as well,
but – leg. “It’s obviously not nothing. That’s, like, something *I’d* do, you know? Not something *you’d* do.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” He said, sounding a bit
more normal as he walked past her and made a beeline for the room’s exit. Gaia
would have let him go, but then she realised something.

“I thought you were super angry at me?”

“I’ve got something else on my mind!” He called. The sound of his
footsteps disappeared down the corridor, and then he was gone, leaving Gaia
standing by the freezer and wondering what exactly had just happened. And
whether or not Jacen’s face was going to freeze off and he was going to die.
Judging by the pool water that had half-frozen on his face, death seemed
likely. She figured that she ought to do something about that.

“Jacen, your face is going to freeze off!” She called, running
after him. “Jacen!”

(She ended up having to drag him outside before his freezer burn
got too bad, so that his face could get some sun. (She also maybe
too-enthusiastically hit him in the face to get all the ice off. (And that was…
probably going to scar. (Whoops.))))

### DAY 8

“So what, then?” Said Gaia, ever-so-slightly annoyed. She had
woken up late in the day to the discovery that almost everyone else had already
gotten up and had left to go do things. (Vector and Rose had both left behind
apologetic text messages, at least.) The exception was Norik, who had wandered
onto the hotel’s veranda five minutes after Gaia had plonked herself down with
a smoothie, looking like he had just woken up from a coma. What had followed
was *another* five minutes of Gaia
suggesting things for the two of them to do, only for Norik to make rebuttal
after rebuttal with undignified grunts and dissent. Eventually, Gaia’s patience
had worn thin. “What exactly do you want to do around here?”

Norik considered for a moment, before scratching his bony chin.

“If you really want to do something,” he said, “let’s go into
town. Day of just… just wondering, I guess.”

Gaia had no argument with that. After stealing a sunhat and
sunglasses from Rose’s supplies (to make her look like an easygoing tourist),
she and Norik began to meander away from the hotel and towards the town.

“Wait!”

Turning, they saw a curious sight. Andy was running after them at
full pelt. He came to a stop shortly behind them, panting like a dog.

“Did the others leave you behind?” Norik asked. Andy gave no
reply, but Gaia wasn’t sure if he didn’t want to admit it, or if he was just
too tired to actually say anything. From what little she knew about Andy, it
was probably both.

“Of course not.” Andy recovered quickly, striking a fabulous pose
in what Gaia could only assume was outrage, or… or something.

“Of course they did.” Norik muttered, turning back around and
continuing to walk. Gaia could only shoot Andy an apologetic look before
carrying on after him, not wanting to get left behind what with her slowness
(on account of the leg thing). Andy called out after them, dragging himself
further forward despite his tired-ness to make sure he wasn’t left behind. (Why
had he been posing if he was still tired? Gaia had no idea. It was just an Andy
thing, she supposed.)

The walk to the bus stop was quick, and the bus ride into town
(once it arrived) was even quicker. The town itself was, like, totally packed.
There were large buildings jutting up in blocks, people flooded the streets in
various states of undress – which was probably due to the weather – and street
vendors were just about everywhere, peddling off every possible good that could
legally be sold. And some that probably couldn’t. Be sold legally. Hmm.

Tearing her eyes away from what looked like several dead flies
floating in a jar of water, she paid a bit of attention to the day’s
companions. Andy was perusing the stalls like a cool cat with nothing to lose
and nothing to gain, eying the wares for sale and dipping his sunglasses below
his eyeline to flirt with the vendors. She sort of envied his skill, that sort
of ability to make people both pay attention to him and make himself look
attractive. After being hit with a wave of envy at seeing one of the vendors – a
hot girl with a shaved head – giggle as he spouted off some pick-up line, she
turned her attention to Norik, who was basically, like, the spiritual opposite
of Andy at that point. He was looking at nothing but the ground, and even then,
he had a really dead expression on his face. Like he wasn’t looking at the
ground like it was interesting, just like he had nothing better to do. Well.
That sucked.

“Hey, Norik!” Gaia hobble-marched over to him and grabbed his
hand. “Let’s look for a place to sit, yeah?”

Norik raised an eyebrow but didn’t actually say anything, and let
her guide him through the mess until they reached a café with outdoor tables covered
by umbrellas.

“Shade!” She crowed in triumph as she sat down in one of the
plastic chairs so hard she heard something crack. Norik shot her a look, and
she stood up to see a fault line all up the chair’s leg. They shared a glance,
she kicked the chair across the patio, and she sat down more carefully in
another chair while he reclined against the table, both of them trying to look
innocent and almost certainly looking more guilty because of it. (That seemed
to be how that stuff worked, unfortunately.)

“…So.” Gaia said, leaning forward in her chair to eye Norik, who
looked to her before huffing and turning his back.

“You don’t wanna socialize.” She continued. What was she saying?
What was her point? She had no idea. She was probably just bored. Or something.

“Nope.” Confirmed Norik.

“Right.” Said Gaia.

Neither of them actually said anything for a while, after that.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Andy appeared. He was on a
skateboard (?), and he had a bag slung over his shoulder that was so full of
stuff that it looked like it was about to spill at any moment.

“Can you believe it?” He asked. “Man, there’s so much good stuff
back there. Unbelievable, honestly.”

In a case of what Gaia thought could
have been irony, a door handle fell out of his bag and onto the table that Gaia
and Norik had claimed.

“Did you flirt for discounts, or something?” Gaia asked before she
could really stop herself. Maybe it was the envy – she didn’t think she was
normally *that* salty. She also still
hadn’t really forgiven Andy (or Dante) for talking across her the entire flight
to Lenway. That had been a painful experience.

She’d expected Andy to brush the comment off, but his face
actually fell as he registered it. He grabbed the doorknob and tossed it up and
down in his hand.

“No, actually.” He said. “It- That’d probably fall under toying
with someone’s feelings, you know?”

“Not really.” Gaia admitted. “I don’t know. You’re not looking at
a bona-fied flirter over here or anything.”

Andy raised an eyebrow at her.

“Well, it’s like… the golden rules of flirting.” He said. “Number
one: you flirt to express interest, and not to just get your own way. That gets
peoples hopes up over nothing, and that can be a dick move.”

“There are rules for flirting?” Norik asked, but Andy ignored him.
Gaia ignored him too. She was interested.

“Number two.” Andy continued. “Be smooth, but not too smooth. You
gotta let yourself feel and sound genuine.” He threw a gaze over his audience
(one member captive, one member indifferent). “Anything that sounds too slick
and too cool sounds like that because it’s been practiced. Be wary.”

He stopped to think for a moment, hitting his fingers against each
other.

“Number three.” He eventually said. “A lot of people think that
flirting’s all about the physical. And it is, kind of, because that’s what your
first impression is probably gonna be. But as soon as you can, try and make
comments that are more personal-”

“Pretty sure that’d just alienate people.” Norik said. “Won’t you
just come across as overbearing, or too pushy? Or like a creep?”

Andy waved him off casually. “This is all in the context of the
flirting being accepted and maybe reciprocated.” He explained. “Anyways, that’s
really the *golden* golden rule – if
someone tells you to bog off, you bog off.” He looked at them again – Norik
first, then Gaia. He suddenly sounded more intense. “Body language is key.
Watch how they act, judge how they feel, and if you think you’re makin’ them
uncomfortable or roaching on creeper territory, then just, uh, bow out gracefully
and don’t bother them anymore.”

“Wow.” Said Gaia, after a moment’s silence. “Didn’t expect that
coin deposit in my maturity box.”

“Question.” Norik put forward, lazily blinking as he eyed Andy.
“If you weren’t flirting for discounts… why were you actually flirting?”

Andy threw his arms up in the air like Norik had just asked a
stupid question. Gaia wasn’t sure what was so stupid about it… unless she’d
missed something. Which happened a lot.

“Rule number one!” He snapped – like he expected them to remember
anything he’d said.

“…Express interest, right?” Norik asked tentatively. Gaia snapped
around to look at him. He’d actually remembered?

Wow.

Andy nodded. “Yeah. I wanted to get a date.” They must have looked
surprised, or something like that, because he threw her hands up in the air.
“Are you really so surprised?”

“In hindsight? No.” Said Norik, bringing out a phone and beginning
to scroll through a feed of some kind. The rebuttal made Gaia cackle.

Andy may have been more offended – Gaia noticed that he got
offended pretty easily, sort of – but he actually didn’t register Norik’s
comment. Instead, he looked… thoughtful. Compared to the other expressions Gaia
had seen him make before, it was out of place. This oddity of an expression was
quickly made not-odd when he snapped his fingers and grinned at the two of them
in a move that was far more like how he normally acted.

“I have an idea!” He said, even though neither of them had asked.
But whatever. “You guys should try it!”

For a moment, no-one said anything. Gaia and Norik eyed each
other. Their non-verbal communication was quick and efficient.

*I’m a*
solitary grumpy loner and if I’m forced to hold a conversation with another
person I shall explodenate*, Norik*
said.

*I already*
have someone I like and actually *flirting* with him would probably kill me*, Gaia said back.*

…of course, most of the details were probably in her mind. But the
general reluctance? That, she figured, was real.

“It could be fun…!” Andy encouraged them, waggling a finger. Norik
eyed him.

“Didn’t you say that you flirted in interest, and not to further
yourself? What does this count as?”

Andy splayed his fingers across his chest. “Norik, you insult me!
What do you take me for, some kind of hypocrite?”

“Yes.” Said Norik. Surprised, Gaia let out a laugh that quickly
turned into a cough she was forced to quell down as the others continued to
talk.

“What I *meant*,” Andy
said (without answering Norik’s retort at all), “is that it’d be a fun
experience for you, as in, it’d be a good experience and might help you find
someone you’re interested in. That kind of fun. Not trivial fun. Like, deep
fun.” He turned to Gaia. “You up for it?” While the offer was just a little
tempting, because people were hot and she could have used some sort of activity
to keep her mind occupied, she had to admit to herself that she really wasn’t
up for it. Even if she wasn’t *taken*,
she was… taken. Sort of.

She waved a hand. “I’m good.”

Andy nodded. “No shame. All’s fair in love and further love.”

“You know what?” Norik stood up, suddenly, shoving the phone into
his pocket. “I’m game.”

Gaia wasn’t sure who was more surprised: her or Andy.

“Are you sure?” She heard herself ask. Norik nodded.

“Honestly, the fact that I should probably try and get experience
with this sort of thing aside, I- I mean- hmm…” He trailed off, stroking his
bony chin. “Anyone know a way to say “what’s the worst that could happen”
without saying those exact words, thus inciting a jinx upon yourself?”

“Nope, but whatever!” Andy grabbed Norik’s shoulders and spun him,
beginning to force him to look around before he himself could get into it. “Okay,
let’s try this. Who here do you find attractive?”

“Uuuuhh…” Norik pondered the question seriously. He looked super
tense. Eventually, he raised an arm and blatantly pointed at a golden-haired-
man? On the other side of the road.

Andy fist-pumped. “Target acquired.”

“Wait!” Gaia interrupted. “Norik, I never knew you liked guys!”

Norik shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “I… I think I’m bi.” He
admitted.

The next second, Gaia was spinning him around in a hug. Because!!!
Holy shit!!

“You know what that means!” She yelled. “We’re *bi buddies!!!*”

“Yeah, say that again.” Norik grumbled. “I’m not positive the next
planet chunk over didn’t hear you.”

“Bi buddies!” She repeated, hugging him tighter.

A minute or two later (after she’d stopped hugging Norik), the
trio refocused on the golden-haired man that had caught the fair Norik’s
interest.

“How come I’m the “fair Norik”?” Norik complained as they watched
the man buy oranges at one of the stalls.

“Isn’t it obvious, man?” Andy hissed at him, before throwing his
arm up and across his forehead, arching his back like he was about to fall over
(how he *wasn’t* falling over, Gaia had
no idea). “That peak masculine specimen over there hath stolen from you your
affections!”

“*What’s with the old speech?*”
Norik hissed back, but Andy was on a role now.

“With mine guidance in the arts of flirtation, t’will be your
quest to steal *back* your affections
in the form of reciprocated attraction! And then you’ll exchange contact info!
And then you’ll go on a date! And then you’ll-”

“I get the idea!” Snapped Norik.

“For the record,” said Gaia, slurping loudly on a milkshake she’d
picked up off the wall (yeah, it had been abandoned, but it tasted fine, so oh
well, finders’ keepers), “I think it’s cute.”

“You find a lot of things cute.” Norik pointed out. “You stole a
lobster!”

“I *rescued* a lobster.”
Gaia pointed out. “There’s a big difference.”

Norik looked like he was about to say something else, but a
commotion from the other side of the road cut him off. The three turned their
attentions towards the side, where a woman with a scarf around her neck and
covering her lower face had snatched the backpack that Norik’s “peak masculine
specimen” had been wearing.

“How the hell do you steal a backpack like that?” Gaia gasped.

“I think he took it off to-” Andy was cut off as Norik shot
forwards.

Sprinting and then leaping through the air, Norik tackled the
thief. The two of them skidded along the floor, before grinding to a halt near
the side of the road. Norik was kneeling on the thief’s back, holding the bag
in one hand and holding her arm behind her back with the other.

“Citizen’s arrest!” He barked.

Gaia and Andy didn’t move, awestruck.

A few people gathered, including peak masculine specimen, who
looked at Norik in a starstruck sort of fashion as Norik turned to him and
offered the bag.

“I believe this is yours?” He asked, completely unaffected by what
he’d just done. Gaia saw peak masculine specimen flush a little at the words –
and hey, she couldn’t blame him.

“I- um- thanks.” Peak masculine specimen said. Their fingers
brushed as he took the bag. They were both still for a moment. Then, peak masculine
specimen said:

“Do you wanna get a drink?”

It was clearly spur of the moment, seeing how he moved his hand
towards his mouth afterwards – like he hadn’t even meant to say it – but Norik
nodded.

“Sure.” He said. “Do you want to lead the way?”

“Um. Yeah.” Peak masculine specimen said.

It was at that moment that local law enforcement (bastions)
arrived, presumably alerted by the commotion. A pair of men in armour surveying
the scene.

Andy tugged on Gaia’s arm. “I think they’ve got it covered from
here.” He said, before whipping out his phone and beginning to type something.
“Let’s head back to the hotel for now.” He spoke as he typed, tongue sort-of
hanging out in concentration. “I’ve got a date tonight and I need to prepare,
and I think we just peaked in terms of daytime excitement.”

Gaia raised an eyebrow at him. “Who are you texting?”

“Norik.” He replied. “Just letting him know what we’re doing.” He
looked up and winked at her. “And wishing him luck, of course.”

“Of course!” She echoed, enthusiastic. Right, Norik had a date! Or
something! That was good for him!

…wow, this was surreal.

She peeked over Andy’s shoulder to see what he’d written – it took
a moment to read and another moment to understand, because Andy texted using so
many abbreviations. The text read “*N – me*
n G heading bck 2 hotel. GL and enjoy ur d8 ;)*”.*

After a moment, Norik responded:

“*k*”

“Aaand we should head back.” Andy pocketed the phone. “Shall we
go?”

“Go we shall.” Gaia agreed, hauling himself to her feet (foot).
The two began to walk back. In… well, it was in silence, technically, but not
for very long.

“You know, for what it’s worth, you really are good at flirting.”
Gaia said. Andy eyed her, then shrugged.

“You flatter me.” He said.

“I’m serious.” She said. “I mean, I know you gave us a rundown of
the rules and stuff, but like… I don’t know. You’re really great at making
connections with people quickly. Saying the right things. That sort of thing.”

“Ah.” He grasped one arm with the other, drawing it over his
chest. “Well… thanks.” He sighed a little, before turning back to her with a
smile that looked a bit weary. “To be honest, there’s only so much advice I can
give. Just because I’m doing it doesn’t mean I know *how* I’m doing it, you know?”

Gaia couldn’t relate. “Not really, but it’s fine.”

Andy’s face twitched a bit but he kept talking anyway. “Sometimes,
I don’t really know. I think it’s just innate, like I open my mouth and the
right words come out. Bit like magic.” He focused. “I think the main mistake
people make is they treat the people they’re attracted to-”

“Girls, in your case.” Gaia cut in. Andy nodded in mock
solemnness.

“Girls in my case.” He confirmed. “Anyways, people treat them
totally differently. Either they’re lesser beings only there to see to their
needs, or they’re higher beings placed on a pedestal. A lot of the time, people
are either too gung-ho and come on too strong, or they don’t even try properly
because they think they don’t have a chance.” He shoved his hands in his
pockets. “When what you really need to do is just… see them as people.”

“…That’s deep.” Gaia said, not quite sure what else to say. Yay
for brain food?

“I guess.” Andy shrugged again. “I mean, it definitely helps that
I used to be a girl myself.” He kicked at a stone by the side of the path they
were walking along. “I mean. Physically. I can only really remember identifying
as a guy, but it still helps with a bit of perspective stuff…” He smirked in a
self-satisfied sort of way, but didn’t say anything further.

Gaia nodded. Even with the knowledge that she really did like
Vector, there was still a part of her that wanted to ask him to teach her what
he knew about girls. Because hey, life was short and girls were hot. She opened
her mouth to say something when two things happened. One: she remembered that
she was also a girl. Two: a noise caught her attention. Reflexively, she shoved
a hand in front of Andy, who walked right into it.

“Ow!” He hissed, but she ignored him, scanning the environment
before fixing her gaze on where she’d heard the noise from. The fronds by the
roadside rustled again. She sensed Andy shift his weight behind her.

Out from the bush stepped a cat.

Both of them stopped and stared at it. It was a lanky ginger tom
with dark eyes, filthy paws, and matted fur. On its flank were a set of claw
marks, and one of its ears was missing. The scars on its head made it look like
it’d probably been lost in some kind of fight. In the middle of the road, it
stopped walking, sat down with the air of a creature who had seen all he intended
to see in a day, and then turned to look directly into her eyes. It was the
most beautiful animal that she had ever seen.

“Catch me, Andy.” Gaia said. “I’ve found my soulmate.” She
melodramatically crumpled (and it wasn’t even that hard, ‘cause her prosthetic
was beginning to chafe) only to actually fall backwards on the path. Her teeth
rattled as her head smacked the dusty ground, and she sat back up in a mood.

“You suck at catching people!” She yelled at Andy, who looked kind
of annoyed.

“How was I supposed to know you were gonna do that?!” He
protested. His fingers twitched. She sighed, because *really*, it was obvious.

“I *said* “catch me Andy”,
Andy!” She shot back. “How could I have made it more…” She caught sight of
something, and trailed off. The cat limped up to her, approaching her leg,
looked her in the eyes again, and then headbutted her thigh, just above the bit
where leg ended and prosthetic began.

“Mrrow.” The cat said as it headbutted her.

“Oh my God!” Andy and Gaia both said. Gaia personally was saying
it because this was pretty much the best thing ever, but she heard Andy say
“nature’s such a cliché!” or something like that, which didn’t someone like
something someone would say in response to the greatest thing ever. So he couldn’t
have been thinking that. Deduction!

Gaia reached a hand out to the cat, and suddenly worried. What if
it was too small, and what if her hand was too big? What if she touched it and
it collapsed? Wracked by nerves, the stopped and let her hand hover near… her
waist-ish.

The cat looked at her hand and paused for a moment. Then sniffed
it. Then decided that it wasn’t as interesting, and instead leapt up onto her
stomach, curling up on it.

“*Oh my God*.” Andy said
again. Gaia could hear the eye roll in his voice but she didn’t really care
because!! Cat!!!

“I think it just adopted me!” She hissed in excitement.

“Is that even how it works?” Asked Andy – but she didn’t care
again. She made to reach for the cat, but when it saw her hand approaching it
eyed it with such obvious disdain that she pulled it back. Wack.

“Welp.” Looking up, she saw Andy begin to walk away. “I’m walking
away because I don’t wanna catch lice or whatever it has.”

Gaia was hurt – without really thinking, she scooped the cat into
her arms and stood up (shakily because of the leg), not really paying attention
to the surprised “mrrow” noise it made as she grabbed it. She began to say
something like “I’m sure its lice will be as friendly as it is” but ended up
distracted as the cat clawed at her arm.

“Oi!” She hurriedly leant down and dropped the cat, before
examining her arms. Thin red slaw marks now scored across her forearm. She
glowered at the cat, feeling betrayed. “You utter gremlin!”

The cat demonstrated how much it cared by bending its head and
licking its private parts.

Gaia felt hurt, and folded her arms.

“Well then!” She sniffed in indignation and held her head up in
the air. “See if I care!” And with that said, she began to much off as well as
her fake leg would let her.

A shuffling noise distracted her, and she looked down to see the
cat brushing against her (actual) leg.

“You’re sending out real mixed signals, cat.” She muttered, but
didn’t say anything else as she continued to walk. The whole time, from there
to back to the hotel (she didn’t see Andy, he’d obviously walked too far
ahead), the cat stuck by her side like… glue, or something. It was alright
until she walked into the hall and someone – some other guest – shot her a *look* that she realised something wasn’t
right. What was it?

“You’re back!” Andy waved at her from a mid-hallway sofa, which
she hadn’t noticed until that point. “How was…” He trailed off when he saw the
cat, which was now slinking in and out of Gaia’s ankles. “You know you’re probably
not allowed animals in here, right?”

Well, now she knew why she’d gotten that look. Probably. But
anyway, when had rules stopped her before?

Not wasting a moment, she bent down to the cat. It turned to look
at her. With its deep brown eyes.

She waggled a finger at it. “You’re gonna have to trust me.” She
said.

It mrrowed and tilted its head slightly.

Sensing that that was as close to consent she was probably gonna
get, she took off her sunhat and bent her head down. For a moment, she was
worried that the animal wouldn’t actually understand what she was trying to do
– but then it clambered up onto the top of her head. She’d never been happier
to feel claws digging into her scalp. Wasting no time, she popped the sunhat
back onto her head and adjusted it. It was a *little* snug, but it seemed to work. Having done that, she stood up
to face Andy, who’d watched the whole thing with no change in facial
expression. Trying to ignore her prosthetic chafing the stump, she folded her
arms.

“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I don’t see an animal here.”

Andy eyed her for a moment longer, before he shrugged and sipped
on a cocktail he was holding.

“Fair.” He said. “I guess I must have mistaken your hair for an
animals’ pelt, or something.” He winked at her.

“Thanks.” She deadpanned, before turning to hobble back up to her
room.

The rest of the day was spent in bed watching movies, cat snuggled
by her side. She had no idea how Andy’s date had gone, or how *Norik’s* date had gone, or what anyone
else was doing besides her and the cat. She realised, blearily, late into the
night, that the cat needed a name – but was asleep before she could think of
one.

### DAY 9

“Just… be… patient…!”

Gaia woke up to Rose yelling (at least, by *her* standards), as well as muffled at yowls. Both were coming from
the bathroom.

Not bothering with the prosthetic, Gaia hopped over to the ensuite
and pulled the door open to reveal Rose absolutely sopping wet, thrashing with
a soap-covered cat (a male cat, to be specific, she could see that now) as it
writhed furiously at her, trying to escape the bath she was apparently trying
to give it.

Gaia laughed at the sight. Rose jumped and slipped backwards onto
the bathroom floor, and the cat scampered off of the edge of the bath and right
up to Gaia, before shimmying up her leg like she was a tree and perching on top
of her shoulder, hissing wildly and dripping water all down her. That all just
made Gaia laugh harder, although Rose didn’t look like she thought it was
funny.

“I… have several questions.” She said.
“First of all, where did you find it?”

“Who, this guy?” Gaia reached up to scratch his ear, and he leaned
into the touch. “He found me, on the way back from town yesterday.”

Rose blinked at her. “Did you think to maybe give it a clean and
make sure its wounds weren’t infected?” Gaia wasn’t quite sure what to say to
that (she hadn’t) and Rose kept talking. “Your, uh… your bed is a mess now.
That’s not gonna be easy to explain to the cleaners.”

Oh. Whoops. She hadn’t thought of that.

The revelation made her realise that her leg was tired and she
wanted to sit down. And sit down she did. The cat yowled a bit again at the
sudden movement, and Gaia felt the pinpricks of his claws as he clung onto her
shoulder to stay in place.

Rose twirled her fingers around each other. “Does… does it have a
name?”

Gaia looked at her curiously. She pointed. “The cat.” She said.
“Does it have a name?”

Gaia turned to look at her clinging companion, who looked back at
her with its deep coppery-brown eyes.

Wait.

“Jacen.” Gaia said. Then she grinned. And laughed. “His name’s
Jacen.”

“What?” Gaia looked over to Rose. She looked surprised, but there
was a smile on her face as well.

“His name. Is Jacen.” Proclaimed Gaia, before standing back up and
resting a firm hand on the cat. “Ooh, look at me, my name’s Jacen.” She said in
a terrible imitation of her pseudo-brother’s voice. “I’m ginger and I’m angry-”

“Stop, stop!” Rose giggled, but Gaia was on a role now.

“Grr, look at me, I have the emotional range of a teaspoon. Where
are my glasses? Are they just on my face again?” To cap it all, the cat had an
unimpressed look on its face that *totally*
mirrored the actual Jacen, and soon she was laughing as well.

“Gaia- did you- break my glasses?” Gaia managed to choke out another
impression through laughs.

“Nooo!” Rose laughed. “I feel bad!”

The laughter continued, uninterrupted, for a long time. The cat –
Jacen – batted at a lock of her hair, like it wasn’t sure what was happening
and wanted to get her attention, but she ignored it for a bit to laugh some
more.

Eventually, they stopped.

“Okay, okay.” Rose said. “I- I’ll clean the bed, and you go and
check the policy on actually keeping pets in the hotel.” She looked nervous
again, but Gaia figured she knew why this time. She nodded, and tucked Jacen
the cat under her arm.

“Gotcha.” She said, standing up with a wobble but before she could
hobble over to her prosthetic, Rose yelled. She turned back around.

“Ah- I- don’t take the cat with you!” She hissed, before averting
her eyes nervously as if talking loudly embarrassed her. Gaia rolled her eyes
and cat Jacen clung to her arm, twisting around and stalking back up her
shoulder, leaving some nice claw marks on her bicep.

“I don’t think he wants to leave me alone.” Gaia pointed out. Rose
sighed.

“Well, he’s going to have to.” She sighed, before holding her
hands out. “I’ll take him.”

What followed was a good few minutes of tugging – and, at one
point, the cat actually got physically tangled in Gaia’s hair, and had to be
cut loose – but eventually, Gaia was cat-free and leg-ful, and eased her way
downstairs to the dining area. Most of the others were already there. Vector
waved at her from behind an enormous pile of croissants, and Dante and Skye
looked to be playing some kind of board game as Hera watched from the
sidelines, absent-mindedly eating a scrambled egg. Before Gaia could get more
involved, however, *Jacen* of all
people darted forward and grabbed her arm.

“Sorry.” He said, which wasn’t much of an explanation. But then:
“I- uh- can we talk?”

Gaia nodded. Suspicious.

Half-leading, half-dragging, Jacen pulled Gaia out of the dining
hall and out into the corridor. Then up a flight of stairs. Then halfway up *another* flight of stairs before he
suddenly gave up and sat down. After a moment, she sat by him, honestly glad
for the opportunity.

“Sorry.” He said again. “I just… needed to, like, think and talk
about something.”

“And you chose me?” Gaia placed her hand over her heart. “I’m
touched!”

He didn’t reply. Not in an earnest way, not in a sarcastic “get
over yourself” sort of way either. Something was up.

“Something’s up.” She said in what she thought was a
matter-of-fact manner, adding a “bro” afterwards for good measure. “You’re…
acting off.”

He sighed. His face was the face of a man distraught. “Gaia, I
think… I think I’ve realised something.”

He was talking *suspiciously*
seriously now. Gaia shimmied closer, eager to hear what he had to say. She
wasn’t quite sure what to expect –

“I think I like Rose. As in, *like*-like
her.”

– but it definitely wasn’t *that*.

“You- but- huh- hangon!” Gaia was trying to get her thoughts AND
words together, because honestly? *What*.
Yeah, she had teased them about it, but she hadn’t expected it to be, like…
actually… a thing! Sort of! “*No*!”

“Yep.” He said dumbly, popping the “p”, like he couldn’t quite believe
it himself.

“Noooo.” She insisted, drawing out the no. Because. What. The.
Heck.

“Is it really that hard for you to understand?” Jacen snapped
suddenly, and Gaia threw her arms up in the air.

“I get it! I’m just… surprised.” She lowered the hands when it
became clear that his anger was dissipating. “When did this even happen?”

“Uuh…” Jacen scratched his chin. “The day before yesterday.”

“The day before yesterday?” Gaia repeated. Jacen nodded.

“It was right when she was asking me to calm down while you were
still on my back.” He explained. It took Gaia a few moments to remember it, but
when she did-?

“Oh yeah! You went all quiet!” She remembered. Then laughed. “*That* was why-?”

“Laugh it up.” Jacen muttered, not meeting her eyes. “But yeah.”

Oh, right, yeah. This was probably a big deal for him. Heh-heh, this
guy was such an awkward bean.

“That’s cute though!” She said, though she regretted it at Jacen’s
incredulous glance. “I mean… maybe. What’s cuter than falling for the person
who’s stopping you from committing homicide?”

“Wha-the-da-who said anything about falling for anyone?” Jacen
blurted. There was a tell-tale flush on his pale cheeks. She poked one of them
with a smirk.

“No-one said anything with words.” She revealed. “With *words*.”

He shoved her hand away. “Shut up.” He muttered, no real sting behind
it. She responded by slinging an arm around his shoulder.

“To be fair, you’ve got good taste.” She said. “You know how great
Rose is – I mean, I guess you *do*
know, hence this, but like… she’s so kind! And adorable! And her eyes are so
pretty!” She thought about it. She’d only *really*
looked at Rose in a platonic context, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t able to
humour the thought. “I mean, she’s got a really cute bu-”

“Ew! Enough!” Jacen shrugged her off. “Look, maybe I’m just
jumping the gun! Maybe it’s not even a crush, I don’t know!” She didn’t put her
arm back, because maybe stressing him out wasn’t the best option. Maybe.

“Don’t worry.” She consoled him. “I mean, first of all, crushes
are different for everyone, so write that down. And you can trust me, I’m an
expert.”

“The fact that you can earnestly say that bothers me.” He said.

“Look alive!” She told him. “Because you are in luck, my
brother-turned-disciple. The love guru is here to save the day!”

“You’re not a “love guru”.” Snapped Jacen. “You’re not even a love
guru-in-training! It’s not like you’ve been any more successful than me,
anyway.”

Gaia forced a laugh, and then turned to Jacen probably as stricken
as she suddenly felt.

“Not cool, bro.” She said. “Just then? Laugh was fake, pain was
real.”

Jacen’s hand twitched.

“Sorry.” He muttered.

“Look…” Gaia thought for a bit, which was always weird to do, but
he clearly needed the help. “It can be… a bit of a thing when you realise you
have, well, a bit of a thing. For someone.” She thumbed at herself. “Love guru
or not, that’s one thing I *can*
actually say.”

Jacen nodded. Then he said:

“So, what should I *do*?”

Gaia tapped her fingers together.

“Whatever you want.” She said, eventually.

Jacen sighed. “That’s not helpful.”

Gaia waved her arms in… denial? Whatever. “No, no, that’s now what
I- I mean- think about it.” She urged her brother-from-another-mother. “You’re
not under any specific obligation to *do*
a thing just because you’ve got a crush. You could tell her now, you could tell
her later, you could tell her never. You could think it some more so you’re *sure*, or decide that it’s a
flash-in-the-pan sort of deal, get over it in a week, and never worry about it
ever ever again.”

Jacen looked more thoughtful now. Gaia pressed on. “I mean, it’s a
crush and it’s freaky, but it’s *your*
crush. How you act on it is up to you.” She fixed him with a pointed glance.
“Just as long as you don’t act as a jackass about it, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jacen muttered. Then – suddenly – he wrapped an arm
around her shoulder, pulling her into a half-embrace. “Thanks.” He said, super
quietly.

She smirked in satisfaction. “Any time.”

Her pocket buzzed – her phone was going off. It was, according to
the feed that she brought up, texts from Andy. Ah, interesting. The first read
“meet u5 is the lobby”, so Gaia bid farewell to Jacen and ran back down the
stairs.

Andy and Norik were both in in the lobby, looking flushed in
success in their own ways. (Andy puffing his chest out like a rooster, Norik
sort of self-consciously hugging himself but looking happy.) When Andy saw her,
he raised his arms like a martyr about to preach.

“The conquering heroes return!” He proclaimed. Behind him, Norik eyed
him and then dragged his hand down his face, probably tired of the theatrics.
“Sorry we didn’t talk sooner, but I just woke up and Norik just got *back*, apparently.”

“And how were the conquering heroes’ conquerings?” Gaia asked.

“Ah, simply divine.” Andy replied, shaking his head and letting
his hair slide around before stilling and letting it cascade back down his
forehead. He then looked back and forth before sidling a little closer to Gaia
and dropping his voice. “Doesn’t look like we’ll be getting into anything
long-term, but she was nice enough. So, hey! New friend if nothing else.”

“Sounds great!” Gaia gave him a thumbs up, despite almost not
having a clue what he was really talking about. How did relationships and
dating work? Unknown. She turned to Norik. “And you?”

Norik stayed silent, but his cheeks got a bit red. Gaia noticed
that the shirt he was wearing looked suspiciously like the one that peak
masculine specimen had been wearing the previous day. Andy hooted and slung his
arm around Norik’s shoulder.

“No shame in having a good time!” He announced. “Don’t worry about
it man, just relax.”

Norik nodded. “Yeah, it was nice.” He said. Gaia shot him a
thumbs-up, and he actually smiled in response.

“You guys wanna have breakfast? There should still be… something…
left…” She trailed off as she realised how long she’d spent talking to them,
Jacen, and Rose. What was she doing? Food!

On the plus side, her sprint back to the dining hall was probably
the fastest she’d run since before losing the leg.

### DAY 9.5

“I don’t think that’s gonna work.”

It was Dante who’d actually said the thing, but on this one, Gaia
had to agree with him.

Him, her, and Skye were gathered together outside of the hotel,
watching it all happen. According to their friends, who had apparently managed
to get a motorbike stuck in a tree, were now trying to get it down by throwing
sticks at it.

“That’s how you dislodge a ball, or a frisbee.” Skye hissed,
before taking a long swig of whatever was in her mug. Gaia hadn’t asked. “Not a
whole motorbike.” She scoffed scornfully. “Idiots.”

“Your girlfriend is one of those idiots, you know.” Dante pointed
out, nodding in the direction of Hera, who was winding up to lob a branch at
the lodged vehicle.

Skye wheeled around to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She snarled. Dante backed off about three steps and shoved his hands in the air
like she was pointing a gun at him. He bumped into Gaia, who almost fell down
the steps of the hotel entrance (where they were standing, and watching the
action on the other side of the street). He shot her an apologetic look before
turning back to Skye.

“I- I mean that she’s part of the group you’re talking about!” He
protested. “Come on, you should know what context clues are!”

“Bold of you to assume I “know” anything this early in the
morning.” Skye said venomously, before taking another swig.

To be fair, it was, like, three.

“You’re not joining in?” Dante asked after waiting for a few
moments. “I figured this’d be right up your street.”

It was only after a few more seconds had passed that Gaia realised
he had been talking to her with that.

“Hrm.” She… said? Did that count as “said”? Probably not. But hey,
no-one could blame her, it wasn’t as though she had gotten much sleep to begin
with. It had been… another bad night. And she just felt down. Depressed.
Grumbly. So she was gonna sit out the stuff for once.

She was drawn out of her musings by a crunching noise that made
her jump out of her skin. Her eyes darted around. Were they under… attack…? She
quickly realised that the noise was the bike getting hit head on by a small *log* that Vector had hurled at it, and
felt a wave of shame wash through here. Why couldn’t she just….. stop seeing
danger at every turn? Why was she like this?

The bike slid from the branches it was lodged in, before falling
to the ground with another crunch. Gaia heard glass shatter. Someone swore. She
saw Jacen raise his arms to his head in shock, and realised that *oh yeah, falling from that height would*
probably damage the bike*.*

In frustration, Skye tossed her mug to the side, raising her hands
into the air in a pleading gesture to the sound of said mug breaking into
pieces on the floor.

“That proves it.” She almost shouted.
“The whole pack of you only has twenty-odd brain cells, and you all have to
share.”

“You say “whole pack of you” like you’re not a part of that pack.”
Dante pointed out. Skye glared at him, and he folded his arms. “Hey, don’t
blame me. You’re on the payroll.” He grumbled.

Gaia sniggered despite herself. Skye turned to her angrily.

“I will *punch* you.” She
said. Gaia rolled her neck and shoulders.

“Oh noooo.” She drawled. “I’m sooo scared.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Skye turned back to the chaos that was
unfolding in front of them (it looked to Gaia like they were trying to put the
bike back together, but she didn’t really have any idea ‘bout anything) and
folded *her* arms. “What are you, six?”

“Only six heads taller than you.” Gaia said before she could stop
herself. A moment where nobody spoke – then Skye yelled in anger as Dante burst
out laughing and yelled something that sounded like:

“Got ‘em!”

Skye slapped at Gaia’s arm, but just like all the last times, it
didn’t really hurt.

Gaia brushed her off, and then to turn around to see if she could
get some sleep.

### DAY 10

“I mean, you never know.” Gaia pointed out. “Maybe it’ll work.”

Gaia had only woken up in the middle of the afternoon, coming out
of a bad dream about suffocating to find cat Jacen sitting curled up on her
chest. She hadn’t been able to stay mad at him, but she had been sure to stick
her tongue out at him as she had got up and let him fall onto the bed with a
startled noise.

She’d still had no idea what the hotel policy was on cats, so her
plan had been to just. Hide him. It was like four more days, she could deal
with it. Probably.

Rose hadn’t seemed to think so.

“I’m just saying!” She had said, as Gaia had been strapping her
leg on (which tended to take several minutes, and had quickly become one of the
most annoying aspects of actually having to use a prosthetic) “I mean- you
obviously really like the cat-”

“Jacen.” Gaia had corrected. She’d blinked, then nodded
apologetically.

“*Jacen*.” She’d echoed,
sounding weirded out. Then she’d blinked and continued. “So shouldn’t you be
more careful?”

“I *am* being careful.”
Gaia had lightly patted her stomach, where she’d stuffed Cat Jacen under her
shirt. He was clinging to her abs with his claws, and it hurt a bit, but she
didn’t figure he’d take kindly to being kept in a room for so many days, and
that he needed to get around more.

This was where she was now – trying to convince Rose that it was
an okay idea to let her wander around with Cat Jacen just under her shirt and *oh good grief what was she doing*.

“That is…” Rose squinted like she was trying desperately to think
of something to say, but eventually slumped her shoulders. “Not subtle.” She
indicated the cat, which was, Gaia had to admit, was making a bit of a shape
under her shirt. She shrugged.

“Well, uh, it’s…” And now she had to think of an idea. She sucked
at that!

…she could do it. She sighed.

“I’m going now bye.” She said, all in one word, before standing up
and darting out of the door and shutting it before Rose could say anything
else. Not that she was totally gonna – good old Rosie didn’t really have a
harsh thing to say to anyone – but the last thing she needed was someone in the
real world doubting her like her brain was already doubting her. Cat Jacen
mewed grumbling-ly as she moved, and she hoicked him up as he was about to fall
out of her shirt. It was okay. She could do this. She could-

“Gaia?”

Looking up, she saw Vector and Norik standing in the corridor,
eying her. At this point, several things hit her.

·        She was still suspiciously clutching onto Cat
Jacen, which was making him stick out and making it look like her stomach was
all knobbly and swollen.

·        This was a terrible idea.

·        Cat Jacen had just meowed, which was something
stomachs didn’t normally do.

·        Vector was wearing… were those sweatpants? Holy whoa those were grey sweatpants and a black tank top he
was wearing and now her goblin brain was screeching to her that the only
logical course of action was to get NSFW with him.

·        Andy and Rose were the only people who knew
about Cat Jacen.

·        *This was a*
terrible idea*.*

·        Beyond friendship bonds, she couldn’t see why
Vector and Norik *wouldn’t* report Cat
Jacen to the hotel staff.

·        Vector was still wearing the sweatpants.

·        Would human Jacen get in trouble? Would there
be a mix-up between Cat Jacen and human Jacen?

·        **This was a terrible idea**.

“Hi again!” She waved with one hand while holding Cat Jacen up
with the other. After a moment, she felt the by-now familiar sting of claws
sinking into her flesh, and let Cat Jacen go while she waved with *both* hands. It was only after the two of
them looked at her weirdly that she realised that regular normal human people
didn’t really do that. Or maybe Cat Jacen had done something? Oh, wow, this was
so confusing!

“…Hi.” Vector said awkwardly. Norik didn’t even bother, he just
started at her before saying:

“What the hell’s up with you?”

“What, this?” She glanced down at her stomach, as if noticing it
for the first time, before forcing a smile back on her face to look up at the
others. “It’s, uuh…. a food baby.”

Neither of them seemed to buy it.

“It’s moving.” Observed Norik drily, reminding her of Jacen. She
looked down again. Cat Jacen was shuffling around, and his tail was swishing
from side-to-side and distorting her shirt.

Obviously, this was going to need some next-level
recovery-slash-conversation salvation. The question was whether she would be
able to cook anything up?

“Tapeworm.” Was the first thing that her stupid brain threw out of
her mouth. Inwardly, she cringed.

Vector winced. “Looks nasty.” He said.

Before Gaia could ask if he’d actually genuinely believed the
tapeworm thing, Norik stalked over to her. She felt a shiver down her spine. He
was shorter than either of them, and she could have probably rested her chin on
his head if she tried hard enough, but sometimes he’d give her bad vibes. Like
now.

He grabbed the edge of her shirt.

“Whoa, whoa!” Vector yelled. “Norik, you can’t just-”

“Hey, that’s not- I’m not-” Norik seemed flustered all of a
sudden, and the bad vibes cut out. “I just-”

Cat Jacen’s tail flicked out from under the shirt. Norik and
Vector both stopped talking, stared at where it had been, and then looked back
up at Gaia, who couldn’t stop the sudden and unappreciated feeling of
embarrassment that washed over her like a slightly-too-cold wave at the beach.

“Is it wrong that this doesn’t surprise me?” Norik asked, looking
at her with curiosity. And earnestness. Man, talk about whiplash.

“I dunno.” Gaia admitted to him. The next thing she did was admit
to herself that the jig was up, reach up her shirt, and pry Cat Jacen away from
herself to lift him up into her arms. She heard Vector say “oh” softly, but
ignored him as Cat Jacen began to writhe in her arms. She loosened her grip,
and he scrabbled up onto her shoulder where he perched like he thought he was a
bird. “Anyway, I guess I have a cat now.”

“Recent development?” Asked Norik.

“Oh yeah.” Gaia admitted freely. It was… slightly liberating to
not be secretive. Man, honesty was nice. “We met like two days ago.”

Norik raised an eyebrow. “Cats aren’t *that* friendly in such a short space of time, as far as I know.”

Shrugging, Gaia scratched under Cat Jacen’s chin – he purred.
“Well, I dunno about cats, but he seems to like me.”

She turned to look at Vector, who looked… actually, she wasn’t
sure how he looked. He didn’t look bad- well, he never looked *bad*- no, hang on. Rephrase. He hadn’t
looked like he’d been displaying a negative emotion (nailed it!), but she
hadn’t seen an expression like his before.

“You alright?” Norik asked. Then Vector had slowly pointed to Cat
Jacen. And he’d begun beaming.

“W…” He hesitated before speaking. “What’s the little guy’s name?”

“Jacen.” Gaia said immediately. Norik- choked on air? And began
laughing. Vector was still beaming.

“Can I…” Vector reached out with his hands. Gaia paused for
thought.

“I mean, maybe?” She reached for Cat Jacen, who mewled unhappily
but complied as she popped him off of her shoulder and held him out. “Be
careful though, because he climbs all over me but doesn’t like to get held-”

Cat Jacen jumped into Vector’s waiting hands. Vector tucked his
arms back into his chest, making it look like he was almost cradling the cat,
and Cat Jacen mrrowed before sitting down, totally complacent.

“-Or he’ll just be completely chill about it, I guess.” Gaia remarked before leaning in to glare at Cat Jacen.
“Dude, what the hell?” She hissed.

Vector lifted one of his hands and, with a gentleness that she
hadn’t thought possible from him, began to rub the cat’s head.

“Hey there.” He crooned. He was still smiling. “Hey, how are you?
You doing good?”

“Aaand we’ve lost him.” Norik remarked. But it was Gaia’s turn to
space out, as she stared at the whole thing. Vector holding Cat Jacen so
tenderly with such a dopey but also compassionate expression on his face was
doing funny things to her heart. Cat Jacen purred, and Vector smiled the
biggest smiles she’d ever seen a human smile, and-

Oh her God, she was totally in love with him.

After that sort of stunning realisation, the rest of the day
passed in a bit of a blur. She and Vector took Cat Jacen down to the hotel
desk, and after a moment’s deliberation, the receptionist said that since they
only had a few days left anyway, they could be allowed to take care of Cat
Jacen provided that they left behind no mess, and that they didn’t let Cat
Jacen wonder the hotel all by himself. After that, Gaia slinked back up to her
room, pooled Cat Jacen off to Rose, and let the rest of her energy fade away as
night drew in.

### DAY 11

“Let’s try this.” Said Dante, raising his hand in the air enthusiastically.

“I don’t know what “this” is, but it’s too early in the morning for it.” Said Hera, staunchly. Gaia had to agree with her.

“It’s midday.” Pointed out Jacen.

“What are we trying?” Pressed Andy.

Dante began saying something, but Gaia zoned out. She was still feeling kind of buzzed and also the clouds outside the dining hall windows looked interesting that day. Could she see any shapes? There was a bike. A… ball. A chair. A bike. Another bike-?

Jacen saying something drew her out of her daydreaming. She looked back at him just in time to see him point at her.

“Why is there…?” He trailed off. Gaia looked around – Cat Jacen was perched on her shoulder again. Oh, right.

“That’s Jacen.” She muttered, groping on the table for her mug. It didn’t actually hit her that she had called the cat Jacen and Jacen was already called Jacen for a few moments, until she saw his face again. He looked cross.

“What do you mean, *that’s* Jacen?” He snapped. “*I’m* Jacen.”

“Looks like you’ve been replaced.” Commented Hera idly, not looking up from where she and Skye were hunched over a phone together.

“Oh, come on!” Yelled Jacen. No-one else really reacted, which Gaia wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not. She put the mug that she’d finally found back down on the table.

“Uh… I mean, it’s okay.” She said. Trying to calm him down. “He can be Cat Jacen, and you can be Human Jacen.”

Vector and Norik both sniggered to themselves. Jacen went red.

“*I’m not sharing my name with a cat*!” He hissed. On the other side of the table, whispers began.

“Who’d you prefer?” Andy asked Skye. “The cat or the guy?”

“The cat seems to have a better personality.” Skye pointed out loudly. “But I’m not allergic to the guy.”

Andy laughed. “Rock and a hard place, much?”

“Okay, okay, knock it off.” Dante said loudly. Jacen sat down, looking like he was about to start punching things. Andy was still laughing to himself. Rose eyed both them and Gaia nervously, like she expected someone to flip the table.

Dante eyed Gaia reproachfully. “Dude, did you have to name the cat after him?”

Gaia shrugged, suddenly feeling ashamed. He then turned at said something to Jacen, but she didn’t really catch it.

“Call it Ja*son*.” Said Rose, suddenly.

Everyone turned to look at her. She shrank in her seat, but kept talking anyway.

“If he’s going to answer to something that sounds like “Jacen”, call him “Jason”, because that’s different enough to distinguish him from our Jacen, but not so different to the name he has… now…” She trailed off. Then began blustering as her confidence ran out: “Okay, forget I said anything, we can come up with something-”

“Uh, I love it.” Gaia interjected. “Practicality plus the resemblance!” Because hey, she did love it, and she hadn’t really taken Jacen into account when naming a cat after him, so this was probably the least she could do anyway. After she said that, there was some *more* silence, but then everyone began to turn and nod at one another like it was genius.

“Sounds good to me.” Vector said. Dante nodded sagely.

Eventually everyone turned to Jacen. His arms were still folded and he was still sort-of glaring at Gaia, but he didn’t look nearly as ticked-off as he had. She couldn’t help but wonder how much of it was genuinely just him cooling down, and how much of it was him agreeing with what Rose said because of his crush on her. Talk about a top ten question that science still couldn’t answer.

“Well, that’s that sorted out.” Dante said, probably trying to brush anything vaguely uncomfortable under the rug. She couldn’t say she blamed him, it wasn’t like she was really in the mood for anything vaguely uncomfortable either. “What should, uh, what should we do today?”

“I vote for another beach day.” Skye, of all people, said. Hera looked at her in surprised.

“Who are you, and what have you done with my beloved?” She asked. “Skye, we *both* know that you don’t like being in the sun. Far as I remember, you’re on record as saying you’d kick the sun’s ass given half the chance. Or something like that.”

Skye grumbled something Gaia couldn’t make out. Hera leaned closer. “What was that?” She asked with a grin on her face. Skye said something else again, and suddenly Hera was hugging her so fiercely Gaia wondered how Skye’s spine hadn’t been broken in half.

“Oh my God babe!” Hera squealed. “That’s so cute!”

“Shut up, shut up!” Skye hissed, face burning read. Hera let her go and shrugged.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” She winked, before turning back to Dante. “Alright, I second the beach thing.”

Dante still looked kinda shell-shocked at Skye accepting such a blatant show of affection from someone without slapping them in the face, but he managed to nod.

“All in favour?” He asked. Everyone’s hand went up (and a couple of people sniggered). Skye shot everyone around the table death glares, one by one, but Skye wasn’t too fussed.

Cut via another long drive (though Gaia, at least, wasn’t in the hot seat this time) to the beach. Gaia sat herself back down in the sand, sighing heavily and hissing as she took the weight off of her stump and unstrapped her prosthetic. The wheelchair was still folded up with the rest of their supplies, unused.

“You sure you’re okay with not using that thing?” Dante asked her. “I mean, it’s supposed to make stuff easier.”

“Easier and more constricting.” She grumbled, the discomfort making her a bit snappy, and refusing to elaborate any further. That was a bag o’ feelings she didn’t want to unpack, right there.

Dante rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well, it’s there when you need it.” He said awkwardly, before lumbering off. Ah, well. He tried. She appreciated him for that.

Gaia looked all around. Hera was sunbathing on a towel a little way away, while Skye was under an umbrella beside her, sipping on cans of fizzy drink as she wrote something down onto a notepad. Vector and Norik looked like they were… sparring? The two of them were dancing around on the sand, Vector trying to strike Norik with his heavy blows while Norik was darting around him, getting a kick or a punch in here and there when Vector overbalanced or over-extended himself.

Aw, hell, that looked fun. She shot her prosthetic a look of disgust.

Beside her sat Jacen, reading a book idly. Cat Jacen – Jason – was slinking around between the food bags behind them, probably looking for a snack.

At that moment, Andy arrived using his “hunter surveying a kill” pose to stare at the ocean. He looked totally psyched.

“Another day in paradise.” He monologued, before stripping out of his shirt.

“You are… very eager to take off your shirt.” Jacen dryly and hesitantly observed, as Andy tossed said shirt over his shoulder (Rose ran in from what felt like nowhere to catch it).

“And you’re very eager to point that out.” Andy remarked. Jacen stuck his tongue out in disgust, and Andy laughed so hard he bent backwards. He eventually (eventually) straightened back up, done laughing at Jacen’s expense, and shrugged casually. “What can I say? I paid good money to be able to go topless in public, and I don’t take it for granted.”

Jacen’s gaze flicked down to the scars on Andy’s chest, and then back up. He didn’t say anything else, which in Jacen talk generally meant “you’re right, I just don’t want to admit it out loud”. Apparently, Andy could understand Jacen talk, because he shrugged again and sauntered off to do things. Rose waved at Jacen (who stiffened) and then ran after her cousin, leaving him and Gaia sitting on the towels. After a moment’s silence, Jacen buried his face in his hands.

“This is intolerable.” He muttered.

“You mean Rose?” Gaia asked. He nodded.

“How am I- I mean- it’s like, now that I’m self-aware, it’s so obvious and so much worse!” He groaned. “Now that I *know* I like her, it’s all my brain tells me whenever I see her!”

“Ride the wave, bro.” Gaia patted him on the back. “Embrace the feelings.”

He looked at her like she was stupid.

“Look.” She tried to elaborate. “You are a rock on a beach and these feelings are big waves that keep crashing over you. If you try to resist, you’re just gonna get smacked with them each time and you’ll keep being caught off guard and nothing good will ever happen. But if you roll with it, either riding on top of the wave or give in and let it take you, you’ll be able to go with it and move on to good things.”

“If a wave sucked me into the ocean, wouldn’t I just drown?” Jacen asked. *Honestly*! That wasn’t the point! She sighed.

“This is, like, a good ocean.” She tried to explain. “It is the ocean of love.”

“You could say something for how love drags people down.” Said Jacen, who still wasn’t really getting it apparently.

“Oh my God.” Gaia hit him on the arm. It was a gentle hit, but he still grasped said arm as hissed through his teeth, glaring at her. She rolled her eyes. “It’s not that deep!” She explained. “Quit reading into it so much.”

“You’re the one who brought up the metaphor in the first place.” Jacen told her, harrumphing to himself.

“Shut up.” She said. He rolled his eyes at her before going back to his book. Classic evasive manoeuvre. She was tempted, for a moment, to throw his book into the sea (she could *probably* make it from here), but eventually decided not to. It may have been an accident, but she *had* already wrecked his phone. It wouldn’t be fair to waterlog his book as well.

“Not like you’re doing any better.” Jacen muttered. The words made Gaia want to reconsider her decision.

“Whaddya mean?” She asked, indignant, before indicating herself fiercely. “*Love! Guru!*” She hissed.

Jacen scoffed. “Yeah, a love guru who isn’t doing the obvious thing and getting together with the person who has feelings for them, who she also has feelings for.” He revealed.

Caught off-guard, Gaia blustered. “Wha- I-” But Jacen wasn’t done.

“If you like a person, and that person also likes you, then why would you not get together?” He argued, before glowering at Gaia. “And don’t tell me that you didn’t know he likes you – even if you never discussed it outright, you can’t be *that* metaphorically blind. It’s obvious he’s besotted with you.”

She had… sort-of noticed, yeah. Or at least suspected. And Hera had basically confirmed it- wait.

“How did Hera even know?” She asked out loud. Jacen looked at her like he had no idea what was cracking; which, she realised after a few moments, he probably didn’t.

“Oh- Hera talked to me about how Vector was, like, giving me time and space because of what I’ve been through.” She explained. “Kind of… cornered me and just told me about it, as well. And I just realised now that I have no idea why she’d have even known that.”

“Not quite sure how your brain made that link, but alright.” Jacen sighed. “Well – aside from the fact that she has *eyes* – maybe she cornered *him* first and got that info? I have no idea why she would, but from what I’ve see of her personality, it’d make sense.” Gaia looked at Jacen curiously, and he shrugged. “Enthusiastic and romantic.” He elaborated.

Gaia had to admit, it made a certain amount of sense.

“I mean- maybe.” She admitted, before sighing and sinking back onto her towel. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Well, alright then.” Jacen didn’t sound very satisfied, but whatever. “Well, anyway, my point- my point still stands. You can’t call yourself a love guru while you’re standing here twiddling your thumbs instead of being the go-getter that you are, like, ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“Hey!” Gaia pointed at him accusatorily. “I’m going through stuff! I’ve straight-up not had a good time!” She waved at her prosthetic indignantly. Jacen sighed.

“I mean – okay.” He said. “That’s fair. But you’re going to want to ask yourself whether you’re genuinely still being held back, or you’re using it as an excuse because you’re scared.” She made to speak, but he beat her too it. “I’m not saying you *are*.” He said. “I’m not, like- this isn’t an accusation. But you’re gonna want to make sure that you’re not, you know? You don’t want to miss out on something that could be good.” He looked wistful as he turned his gaze back to the ocean. “You don’t want to miss taking that chance while it’s actually there.”

For a moment, Gaia was stunned into silence. Then:

“Alright, love guru apprentice.” She acknowledged. “I’ll be sure to keep myself in check. Make sure that any issues forcing me to take my time are genuine issues. And not me being a scaredy-cat.”

“Not that being a scaredy-cat is inherently your fault.” Jacen amended. “But yeah.”

Gaia sat back up. She and Jacen stared at the ocean for a little bit. She wondered what he was thinking about. Maybe Rose. Maybe not. Maybe love. Maybe not. Whatever it was, she was grateful to him.

“Hey, I have a question.” Jacen ventured. Gaia snapped her fingers at him.

“Shoot, high-top boy.” She ordered him. He rolled his eyes, but continued anyway.

“I know that it was you, Vector, Plue, Dante, and Norik who were involved in all this…” he waved his hands generally. Gaia saw his eyes glance down to her leg. (Her surrogate bro wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was, sometimes.) “Stuff.” He finished. He was probably referring to the mission where Gaia had lost her leg to begin with. “But who else was there? Because it sounds like there was a lot of other people involved, and, even with all of you working together on it, there was the… the Twelve of Infinite Sight, right? As in, there were twelve of them? Twelve on five are shit odds.”

“Shit odds they are.” Gaia agreed, silently thinking about how four on ten wasn’t great either, and that one on, like, ten, was even *worse*, and both of those were what she’d dealt with at one point. “I mean, we had Cadmus and Ivy on our side by the end…” She trailed off – the death of Cadmus was still… a sore point. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t *used* to people dying by this point, but in this instance, Cadmus had been with her – in her group. The fact that he’d died wasn’t one she wanted to dwell on, because it was… because she might have been able to stop it. If she’d been better.

“Those members of the Twelve? The ones that defected?” Jacen whistled. “I’d forgotten about them. Okay, so that’s ten on seven.”

Gaia shook her head. “Well, their side also had their big boss. Ironsides.” She didn’t really remember the guy – he’d been among the twelve, she knew that much, but all she could remember was a guy in a suit. “He sounded tough.”

“Eleven on seven.” Jacen jumped in and amended. Gaia shook her head with a snigger.

“*And* there were those guys from another dimension that ended up helping us.”

Jacen glanced at her wearily. “You know what?” He mused. “I’m just going to stop trying to keep account.”

She giggled again. “Sounds like a plan, smart guy.”

“Guess that answers my question, really.” He continued. “‘Hey, how did you stack up against ten-to-twelve people by yourself?’ ‘Well, Jacen, we had some guys from another dimension come in and help us’. I should expect anything less from you – from *any* of you – by this point.”

“You say that as though you’re not part of that ‘you’.” Dante appeared from nowhere. Jacen shrieked like a little girl, which Gaia thought was hilarious.

“I- well, I’m saner.” Jacen protested. Dante looked sceptical, but didn’t actually say anything.

“One of us, one of us.” Gaia lowly chanted, clenching her fists and pumping her arms as she stared at Jacen with all the enthusiasm she could muster. He rolled his eyes.

“Whatever.”

“It’s not *whatever*! We’re a team! We’re family!” Dante protested, leaning down and pulling Jacen in for a sideways hug before Jacen could escape.

“Ack!” Jacen gasped. “Personal space, personal space!”

“Say it. Say we’re family.” Dante ordered.

“You don’t think that the coercion could make it a little insincere?” Jacen joked. “That making me say such a thing under duress casts its validity into doubt?”

Dante hummed, but then shook his head.

“Nah, that’s only a thing when law enforcement are conducting an interrogation.” He said with a grin, before moving back in in an attempt to give Jacen a noogie.

Jacen, ever vigilant, managed to free himself from Dante’s winding arm. “And are we not law enforcement?” He fired back.

“And does this look like an interrogation to you?” Dante’s response was to spread his arms wide and gesture at all of the nice-looking scenery that they were surrounded by. Gaia had to admit, she’d seen way nastier shit in terms of interrogations than this.

“Sure *feels* like one.” Jacen rubbed at his shoulder with an indignant look on his sad little face.

Gaia snorted. “Wimp.”

Jacen shot her one of his trademark disparaging looks, but didn’t actually do anything else. Which was just proving Gaia’s point, really.

“Hey.” She said. Jacen looked up at her, a sceptical look in his eyes.

“What.” He deadpanned.

Gaia smirked. “I didn’t even mention the fact that my daughter travelled back in time from the future.”

“What?” Jacen *and* Dante both blurted out. Gaia, surprised by the team leader, wheeled on him.

“You were *there*, Dante!” She pointed out.

Dante spluttered. “Yeah, but, like- no-one told me that that was part of it!”

“Oh my stars.” Gaia rolled her eyes. Jacen just gawked at the pair of them.

“No shit?” He asked.

Gaia waggled her head at him. “No shit.” She confirmed.

Jacen narrowed his eyes and rubbed his fingers against his temples like his brain was exploding. Maybe it was.

“There are… multiple things I find disturbing about that.” He eventually admitted, pulling his hands away from his braincase and wrapping his arms around himself in a sort of “protect me” gesture. “Firstly – the fact that time travel is apparently real. Secondly – the fact that you-” he gestured to Gaia, his features contorting into a horrified expression Gaia had to resist the urge to burst out laughing at- “…*reproduce*… at any point in said future.” He turned his attention to Dante. “And thirdly: that despite BEING THERE, this is apparently NEWS to Dante.”

“Hey, it was a busy day!” Dante defended himself adamantly. “Sorry if that particular revelation slipped under the- under the radar…” He trailed off, suddenly, arms freezing mid-emphatic motion as his eyes acquired a sorta glazed look. Jacen and Gaia exchanged glasses.

“Uh, you okay?” Gaia ventured.

“Youngest of three.” Dante murmured to himself. Gaia heard Jacen make a classic Jacen[TM] confused noise, but she ignored it. She recognised that phrase.

“Oh yeah…” she muttered.

“Youngest of three…” Dante repeated, before groaning and slapping his hands onto his head. “Oh my God, I’m such an idiot!”

“Who am I to argue?” Jacen remarked out of the corner of his mouth. Gaia snickered.

“She was the youngest of three! As in three kids!” Dante was waving his arms around again. “And she… and you… how did I *miss* that?”

“*Three* kids?” it was Jacen’s turns to have a minor breakdown, if the sounds his mouth was involuntarily making were anything to go by. “You- I- *three kids*?”

“Yeah, keep repeating it.” Gaia encouraged the pair of them, enjoying the whole scenario far too much – both because she had a front-row seat to her friends going bananas, and because whenever she heard that she had three kids, it sent a wave of warmth and happiness through her. (She was gonna be a mum!!!! She was gonna have three kids!!!) “I’m not sure everyone on the next planet over managed to hear you yet.”

“THREE KIDS.” Dante emphasised again, nodding vigorously at Jacen, who blinked at him for a solid few seconds before groaning and dragging his fingers through his hair.

“Oh, great.” He commiserated. “She multiplies.”

A regular person would probably have been offended, but Gaia didn’t mind.

“Look on the bright side!” She leant over to where Jacen was sitting and slung her arm around his shoulder. Sucked for Jacen, to get put in a headlock for the second time that day, but really, it was his own fault – he was such an easy target (and she meant that in the most loving way possible). “You’re gonna be uncle Jacen!”

“Uncle- no.” Jacen groaned, glasses askew after being shoved to the side by Gaia’s bicep. “I refuse.”

“You have no choice!” Gaia crowed.

“I would be a terrible role model.” He pointed out. “We’d *both* be terrible role models!”

Gaia said nothing, instead making her headlock a bit tighter and deciding to be a bit wilfully ignorant.

“Uncle Jaacen~!” She sang. “Oh, man, I need to talk to you about my kid!”

“You really don’t.” Wheezed Jacen, but it was too late. The mother’s instinct was kicking in.

“Her name’s *Kaida*.” She recited in a trill voice. “And she’s got my eyes and my hair and she punches things almost as well as me and she has these really cool prosthetic fingers and she loves dancing and-”

“Dear god, your names even rhyme.” Jacen stuck his tongue out. “That’s disgusting.”

“It’s poetic!” Gaia argued. “‘Cus we’re *family*!”

There was no further addition to the conversation, after that. Dante’s phone began ringing, and he darted off to answer, and Jacen escaped from the headlock she had him in to go and… do something else. What he was up to, Gaia didn’t know. She wasn’t really bothered, either. He was a sensible man. He could take care of himself.

(Most of the time.)

And okay, it was a bit of a punch in the pants, because she wanted to brag about her kid to someone. But aside from that, she was *basically* content, just kinda,,, sitting on the beach and watching the waves.

…oh geez, was she really content? Did she even know what that word meant? Ew, adulthood was weird. So weird, that she almost missed Vector sitting down next to her.

Emphasis on *almost*.

‘cus she didn’t.

Because she was really, really aware of him these days.

“Hey, big guy.” She hummed.

He smacked her arm. Lightly, of course. “Hey, big gal.”

“How was the sparring?” She asked, referring to what she’d seen him doing with Norik earlier. Not that she actually knew if that *was* supposed to be sparring. But, ehn. Whatever.

Vector snorted. “Weird.” He answered, gesturing with a hand off to the side. Looking past him, Gaia could see Norik now face-down under a beach umbrella, groaning. Andy was using his power to slide a bunch of water up and down Norik’s back. To cool him down, maybe?

“Weird how?” She asked. She remembered seeing Norik fight, briefly, during the whole… *thing*. He’d been good with a pair of swords.

Vector waved his hand in the air in the universal symbol of “mixed/middling/comme si-comme sa/whatevs”. “He’s this really bizarre mixture of hilariously competent and hilariously out of shape. It’s like fighting someone who knows every hypothetical of how to fight, and talks like they have all this experience, but has never actually fought anyone before.” He paused, taking a moment to sagely chew on his thumbnail. “Well, okay, it’s obvious even now that he’s fought before. But he’s got this big focus on evasion rather than engagement. He tried to hit me, like, twice, and both times I’m pretty sure I’ve felt more from a mosquito bite.”

“Well, he does have those swords.” Gaia pointed out. “He’s probably more of a weapons freak than a brawler like us.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure.” Vector agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “But that always runs the risk of becoming over-reliant on tools. Like- with us, it’s not like we’re going to lose our *bodies*, yaknow?”

Gaia wanted to agree; but, as someone who’d had their leg sliced off the other month, she knew that he wasn’t entirely on the mark with that one. So, she pointedly wiggled her stump at him. Vector blinked.

“You know what?” He decided. “That’s fair. That’s a fair counter-argument.”

Gaia sniggered.

“But you know what I mean, though!” Continued Vector, apparently determined to see his point all the way through. “It… yaknow. Over-reliance on tools, yadda yadda yadda.”

“Oh, Vector.” Gaia feigned batting her eyelashes at him. “You’re so verbose.”

Vector squinted at her. “Okay, I know it’s sarcasm, but even so, I’m pretty sure you’re not using that word right.”

Gaia waved her hand at him. “Semantics!”

Vector squinted harder. “Or that one.”

She laughed, and was hit with the urge to lean on him. She eyed his shoulder, probably not being very subtle, but he didn’t notice. At least, he didn’t *look* like he noticed. Maybe he DID and was just pretending he hadn’t to be nice. Oh, crap, was she overthinking things? She’d leant on him before, because they’d been friends for two years and it had definitely happened at some point, but that had been… before. Before she’d realised her love-love feelings for him, before she’d had her leg cut off… yeah. Things just felt different now.

Still.

Ugh.

The day petered on, as days were generally wont to do, and Gaia continued to be low-key wracked with indecision about leaning on Vector’s shoulder, and then continued to feel weird, and then continued to feel weird about the fact that it felt weird now. It was a kinda depressing cycle, and she was happy when their group packing up their supplies and heading away from the beach gave her a chance to stretch her legs – leg – breath in the fresh air, and get a chance of scenery down her senses.

Looking around the bar the group had found themselves in, however, she wondered if the chance in scenery had really been one for the better or not.

She’d never really been one for drinking. For one thing, she already had all the energy she needed – she’d never needed alcohol to give her that buzz or burst of confidence that people always talked about. She had that already. (Or, at least, she’d had that *before* the whole forced amputation thing.) For another thing, she had a very sensitive sense of taste, and all the drinks she’d tried in her life had been *disgusting*. Apparently the taste improved the more you drank? She’d never been able to actually been able to bring herself to drink enough to hit that point and find out. She could smell the beer that her friends were drinking now, and the smell was bad enough. Bleh.

Maybe she would have been fine with it under ‘normal’ circumstances, but as things were right now, it was just… not doing it for her. The ceiling was too short and the lights were too bright and she was feeling too cramped to really enjoy herself. Suddenly the beach, awkward though it might have been, was looking *way* more appealing.

Still – at least everyone else seemed to be having fun. It wasn’t like she couldn’t be mag… mag… what was the word? Magnonymus? Hrm. Never mind. It wasn’t like she couldn’t be nice, and think about other people. Because a good time seemed to be being had by most, if not by *all*. Vector was drinking his drink straight out of the pitcher it came in, even as Rose looked on in mild disgust. Hera was trying to cajole Skye into using straws to drink out of the same glass as her, Norik was face-down on the table (Asleep? Dead? Having an existential crisis? Gaia wasn’t sure.), and Andy and Dante were talking animatedly about ukuleles.

Gaia huffed a breath, and focused her attention on Jacen, who was sitting in front of her, and who was the only other person who didn’t look like they were having the time of their lives at the moment. She eyed him, curious. He must have picked up on her unspoken question, because he shrugged, casting a weary eye over first to Vector – who was holding a triumphant fist in the air as he finished the pitcher – and then to Hera and Skye – who were now playing an energetic game of tonsil hockey.

“Not my thing.” He huffed. Gaia snorted.

“You don’t have a thing.” She joked. “*Nothing*’s your thing.”

Jacen frowned at her. “I don’t like drinking, and I don’t like… PDA.” He blushed. “That doesn’t mean I hate everything.”

“Au contraire,” interjected Andy, inserting himself in the conversation out of nowhere, “some would argue that there’s nothing more to life than that.”

“Than what?” Jacen sounded sceptical. “Drinking it down and macking it up?”

Andy rolled his eyes. “Than good times and personal connections, of course!” He patted Jacen’s cheek. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Dante snorted; Jacen’s face turned red again, and he leant back away from Andy’s palm.

“Don’t touch me.” He said in his harrumphy ‘I’m annoyed’ voice. Andy, for his part, seemed genuinely mollified, leaning back in his seat.

“Sorry. Alright.” He said. “But, man, there must be things you enjoy, right?” He folded his arms. “If this place isn’t your scene, that’s all well and good, but I don’t think I’ve seen you smile *once* this whole trip.”

Jacen sneered, obviously finding Andy’s musings ridiculous. “Of course I’ve smiled!” He protested.

Andy said nothing – perhaps unwilling to push the issue any further – although Gaia noticed that he remained sceptical-looking as he leant back and began to chat to Dante once again.

Conversation dry, Gaia stewed at the table and tried not to look like she was bored and overstimulated out of her skull; she drummed her fingers on the table until she could see tiny indents from her nails, and she even tried a sip of beer at one point, from a glass that someone else at their table had left unattended. It was disgusting.

Sighing, she pushed the glass away. Maybe everyone would get tired soon. Then she could get back to the hotel, and… she wasn’t sure. Sleep, perhaps?

Ugh. She’d been doing way too much sleeping lately.

(Actually, no she hadn’t. Sleep wasn’t the problem; nightmares were.)

((Damn it.))

Her attention was diverted by loud voices coming from decently-close-by. Tearing her attention away from the table, she looked up, observing as she did so that almost everyone around her was staring as well. As it happened, the source of the commotion was Skye having an argument with some other woman at the bar. (Not the bar itself, but the bar’s bar, so to speak.) Gaia couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying – there was still too much background noise for her to make the actual words out – but she could tell it was getting heated by how raised their voices were getting. Also, Skye was doing that adorable thing where she held her arms up and clawed her fingers like she wanted to strangle somebody.

“Uh, Hera?” Dante ventured. Hera nodded.

“On it.” She replied, before standing up and striding over to the conversation.

Gaia blinked. “What’s she doing?” She whispered to Vector.

Vector stroked his chin with an uncoordinated finger. “Mediating.” He eventually supplied.

Gaia hummed as she watched. It looked like it was going alright – Skye was still obviously fuming, but Hera was holding her hands out placatingly, and talking to the other woman, whose arms were folded. As everyone watched intently, Hera placed a gentle hand on Skye’s shoulder, and guided her away from the bar. Mediation successful? (Not that Gaia was normally one to hope *against* a fight, but she just really wasn’t in the mood tonight.)

Of course, that was when it all went wrong. The other woman stood up straight to say something to Skye and Hera as they walked away, and the hub-bub of conversation across the bar seemed to die down just in time for everyone with working ears to hear her:

“Keep your bitch under control next time.”

Gaia heard Andy hiss through his teeth.

Skye kept walking, but Hera stopped, and stood stock-still in the middle of the floor for a second. Gaia could feel the atmosphere of the room changing, spiking- like a lit fuse. The fuse burnt as Hera clenched her fist, spun on her heel and walked back to the bar, the fuse just about reached its limit as Hera came to a stop in front of the other woman, and the metaphorical power keg was set off in a not-so-metaphorical explosion as Hera launched her fist upwards and ploughed it into the woman’s jaw with such force that she was sent sprawling backwards. She floundered for a grip on the bar, dazed, before slipping and hitting the floor with a groan. Hera stood over her, fist still raised.

“No one,” she intoned in a voice like divine judgement, “talks to my woman like that.”

Gaia had to admit, she was impressed. It wasn’t like Hera was scrawny, but even so, Gaia hadn’t expected that kind of strength from her. Sure, the effect was slightly ruined by how, right after delivering her one-liner, she swore and began massaging her knuckles, but it had still been a solid knockout.

In an ideal world, that would have been the end of that, but the world was far from ideal, and the woman that Hera had just decked had apparently been there with a group of people – a group who were now looking decidedly unhappy.

“Oh, shit.” Breathed Vector, pushing his chair back. Dante, confusingly, took his shirt off and wrapped it around his face. He was muttering something to himself as he did so.

“…not killing anyone.” Gaia heard. Ah. He was talking to Raelyn. Made sense.

The woman’s group surged forward towards Hera, and Gaia’s table began to stand up. One of them seized Hera by the collar of her shirt, and pulled her forward.

“You scrawny little-” He began, only to be cut off by Vector, who strode forward, lifted the man solidly off the ground, and pulled him away from Hera before setting him down to the side. Everyone held their breaths for a moment, and the man himself remained stock-still; presumably his brain was taking its time processing the ease with which Vector had been able to manhandle him. Gaia didn’t blame him – she was still processing too. In a different way.

“Any chance we could talk about this?” She heard him ask, and forced herself back into the present. Would his attempts at diplomacy, she wondered, actually work?

The answer came quickly, in a form of one of the other people at the bar swinging at him. He raised his arm to the side of his head to block the blow, and then chaos erupted. Bystanders backed away, the woman’s group began to coalesce around Vector and Hera, and bodies pushed past Gaia as her friends stood up to offer the rival group a good old Pandemonium’s Bane rebuttal. Someone smashed a bottle on the bar counter, and the sound echoed across the room.

Gaia, for her part, felt herself jolt at the noise, and felt adrenaline pump through her – but it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t “yah hah, let’s beat ‘em up now” adrenaline, it was more like “I am very scared” adrenaline. She felt her legs shake. She clenched her jaw and grabbed the edge of her chair, willing her body to stand up and fight. It didn’t. *But of course*, she figured, *this is the first fight I’ve seen since Highwing. Since*… she gripped at her leg, both relieved and disappointed to feel the plastic and metal of the prosthetic under her fingers. Her stump throbbed. *Stupid lasers. Stupid Twelve.*

*Stupid me.*

One lost limb, and suddenly her brain was this out of wack, sending her into flight mode instead of fight mode at the sign of trouble? Where was the logic in that? Where was the fairness? She *knew* she could take care of herself, she knew it, and one slip-up shouldn’t have been able to change that. Before she’d even realised it, tears of frustration were welling up in her eyes. She brushed them away with frantic flick of her thumb. Was she not good for anything anymore?

A hand laid itself on her shoulder, and she flinched, turning around to see- Skye? Skye with her hand outstretched and an… an expression on her face that looked almost apologetic.

Why was she still here? What was she still doing?

“You’re girlfriend’s in trouble.” Gaia managed to rasp, referencing the fight. But Skye just smirked.

“She can handle herself. And she’s not alone.”

Gaia craned her neck to see how the fight was going. Vector was being mobbed, but he was taking it like an absolute champion. Dante – Raelyn – had dived across the bar to attack someone. Norik was there too, twisting arms behind backs and kicking kneecaps with just enough restraint to not break them. And Hera’s hands were now buzzing with electricity, and she was wildly waving them around to get people to back off. Right, Hera was a savant too. Gaia had forgotten.

Skye patted Gaia’s arm again, and Gaia flinched again. Although, less this time.

“You’re the one who looked like you needed saving, if I’m being honest.” Skye continued.

Gaia ground her teeth together.

“What? From myself?” She snarked. But Skye just fixed her with a piercing gaze.

“Yes.”

Gaia had no answer to that.

“Well,” Skye shrugged, and the intensity faded, “more specifically, from. You know. Your trauma and inner brain workings. That shit sucks.” She sighed. “So, I figured I’d… I dunno. Try and lift your spirits.”

“You, lifting my spirits?” Gaia wanted to laugh in spite of everything. “That’s so weird.”

“I could say the same thing about you expressing an emotion other than ‘annoying optimism’.” Skye fired back without missing a beat. “But hey, that’s how things are right now.” That said, she seemed to abandon the conversation entirely, looking up and beginning to yell at the fighters. “Come on, call that a shoulder barge? I’ve seen gusts of wind stronger than that! Go on, Norik, another-! Another-! Come off it! You think it’d be that simple? Come on, babe, go in for the nose! That’s it, Norik, well fended! No biting, Raelyn! Come o-”

“What are you doing?” Gaia interrupted the commentary, baffled. Skye looked down at her in mock surprise.

“Doesn’t it look like fun?” She asked, knowingly.

Gaia groaned. “Don’t do this to me.”

“Alright.” Acquiesed (? Was that how you spelt the world?) Skye. “Different tack. Does this place at all resemble where you were injured? Does the context, outside of the fact that people are fighting, resemble where you were injured?”

Gaia shivered involuntarily as she flashed back to Highwing. Bright white lights… cold, sterile, hallways… the burning head on her foot and thigh… she looked around. This place still sucked, but it *was* different. It was warm and disgusting and tiny. Highwing was open and freezing cold and made her want to cower into a ball. It felt – had felt – oppressive. This felt more… compressive. Like she wanted nothing more than to burst out of an egg, to stretch her limbs- to fight back.

Her hands shook again.

“And hey, you know what? Fuck dignity.” Skye offered, snapping her fingers. “Get up. Stand up.”

Gaia obeyed automatically, stump stinging, and swayed unsteadily on her prosthetic. Skye leapt up and grabbed onto her shoulders, hauling herself up Gaia’s back and clamping onto her waist with her legs.

“I’m watching your back.” She said, and Gaia twitched at the feeling of breath on the back of her neck. “Anyone tries to – I don’t know – forcefully amputate you from behind? I’ll give you a shout.”

Gaia huffed, not sure how to feel about everything. Exasperated? Happy? Tired?

“Why are you doing this?” She eventually settled on confusion. This was *Skye*. Notorious dickhead and proud of the fact.

“Well,” Skye sighed, “you’re always going on about how I’m your best friend or whatever-” she paused to hoist herself up a bit further, so that she was now sticking her head out above Gaia’s shoulder. “I figured now was a good time to fulfil that contract, so to speak.”

“Contract?” Gaia snorted, despite herself. “You’re so weird.”

“You’re calling *me* weird.” Remarked Skye. “Things really have taken a turn.” She patted Gaia’s shoulder. “Do us both a favour and get things back to normal ASAP, will ya? Preferably by starting with beating up the people who are currently trying to beat up my girlfriend.”

“Oh, so *now* she needs help.” Gaia shot back, unwilling to let herself lose whatever battle of wits was going on right now, even as she took a step towards the rapidly-escalating fray.

Skye snapped her fingers again. “Less talking, more punching. That’s what you’re good at, right?” The lack of venom in her voice, despite the mean words, was still odd, but Gaia could definitely get used to it.

She clenched her fists and broke into a stride. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, it is.”

She reached the fight. Vector was doing well, but two people were holding his arms and someone else was punching him in the face. Gaia winced at the sight and sound of knuckles colliding with Vector’s sharp jaw, and dived in to preserve it. Grabbing the assailant with both hands, she lifted them up with a roar and pitched them across the bar. They slid over the wooden surface and fell off the other side to the sound of shattering glassware. Vector, without missing a beat, wrenched one of his arms free, and used it to clothesline the person on his other side.

“Hey! Missed you!” He called over the noise of the fight, and it took Gaia a second to realise that he was talking to her. The realisation made her heart throb in her chest.

“Missed you more!” She replied, stepping forward to punch the remaining guy at Vector’s side in the throat – making sure to pull it, and not use her full strength. The man choked and dropped like a sack of potatoes, wheezing and massaging his neck. Confident that he’d be distracted for a while, Gaia took another moment to observe the scene. She and Vector were standing side-by-side, surrounded by bodies. Norik was currently holding Raelyn back – Raelyn, enticed by the throes of battle or whatever, was trying to attack the closest bartender. (Gaia couldn’t say she couldn’t relate.) Hera was wrestling with a member of the woman’s group. Off to the side, Jacen and Rose were watching in… in disappointment, probably, knowing them. Andy, meanwhile, was gleefully filming the whole thing on his phone. There were another three people from the woman’s original group still standing, but they were hanging back; rightfully wary of people that had been doing a pretty good job of kicking their asses so far.

It was all almost picturesque. Gaia wished she could take a snapshot, put in on a card, and save it for the holidays. But, of course, it was gone too soon. The door to the bar swung open, and multiple armoured figures entered – bastions. Law enforcement guys. Uh-oh.

“Guess someone made a call once a fight broke out.” Skye, still hanging onto Gaia’s back, mused. Gaia thought that her making observations from her side kinda felt like having a cute little fairy hanging around and whispering secrets into her ear, but she didn’t say that out loud. She had a feeling that Skye wouldn’t take kindly to being called ‘cute’, and *especially* not ‘little’.

“We don’t look good right now, do we?” She muttered, out loud. Skye and Vector, both within earshot, answered at the same time.

“Not really.”

“We look GREAT.”

Gaia and Skye both turned to look at Vector, who stared back at them in genuine confusion.

“What?” He asked, indicating to himself and then to Gaia and then back to himself. “We’re both sexy.”

Skye groaned. Gaia fell a little more in love.

The leader of the bastion squad came to a halt in front of the scene, the rest of her troops, maybe ten in all, falling into formation behind her. Most of everyone had stopped what they were doing to eye the bastions now – except for Raelyn, who was still straining against Norik’s hold. The leader looked around, and then sighed behind the helmet.

“You’re all under arrest.”

Immediately, a chorus of voices spoke up – the loudest of which was Andy, who sprinted forwards and skidded to a stop between the bastions and the members of Pandemonium’s Bane.

“You’ll never take us alive!” He proclaimed, really quite boldly.

There was another short silence.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Muttered Skye.

“Incriminating himself.” Murmured Vector.

“Why?” Mused Gaia.

“He’s probably drunk.” Mocked Skye.

The bastion leader remained stony-faced. At least, Gaia *presumed* she did. It was honestly hard to tell, with the helmet covering her entire face. But then, she motioned with her hand, and her squad began to move. They had tools, Gaia suddenly realised. Handcuffs and batons. She could see holstered guns as well, but that was about as much deep analysis her brain was willing to let her do before it set off the fight-or-flight instincts again. (Hey, it wasn’t her fault that the bastions looked too much like the guards at Highwing for her to be comfortable.)

The good news: her fight-or-flight jerked her hard towards fight this time around, so she didn’t have another embarrassing moment of panicking in the corner.

The bad news: her first instinct was to throw herself forwards and tackle the closest bastion, ripping the baton out of his hands before slugging him twice in the chest.

The bastion took some steps back, but stayed standing. Gaia hesitated for a moment, but then Skye yelled “Nice job, stilts!”, and then Vector yelled, and then – to put it mildly – all hell broke loose.

A chair flew. An electrified baton flared to life. Someone swore. Onlookers began to stop on-looking and start on-running out the door. Andy rugby-tackled the leader of the bastions, and Norik knocked a bastion’s baton out of their hand with a well-aimed serving tray. Gaia, for her part, decided to finish what she’d started, and grabbed the helmeted head of the bastion she’d already punched before slamming her forehead into it with a metallic *thunk*. She reeled, but the bastion crashed to the floor. She shook her head.

“I can’t believe you did that.” Skye observed. “Can’t believe it worked, either- behind!”

Gaia heeded the warning and ducked into a crouch. A plate flew through the air where she’d been standing. She struggled to her feet, wincing at the chafing of her prosthetic.

“Hey, hey, watch the friendly fire!” Skye called. Gaia turned to see Raelyn holding another plate. She couldn’t tell what expression the gem using Dante’s face to make under the t-shirt, but judging by the furrowed brows, it probably wasn’t anything all that regretful.

Getting back a bit of situation awareness, Gaia saw that Jacen and Rose were backing away and heading out of an exit. Smart, she reasoned. Or maybe just cowardly. Eh. The two were the same, in some ways. She wouldn’t judge.

Her musing was interrupted by a baton slamming into her chest, and she quickly jumped back into the action to defend herself. The situation had developed rapidly in a remarkably short timeframe – and by ‘devolved’, she meant ‘become absolutely awesome’. Skye was yelling orders and insults across the fight; Vector was effortlessly muscling bastions aside and clearing a path out of the building; Andy was enthusiastically trying to wrestle his way out of the leader’s chokehold; Raelyn was breaking a furnished chair over someone’s head. Norik especially seemed in his element – as Gaia watched, he ducked under a swing by a bastion, and propelled himself up, ploughing into the bastion’s chest and sending the man flying into a booth in a display that totally contradicted what Vector had been saying earlier about his strength. As he turned around, Gaia saw that his teeth were bared in a snarl, and stained pink with blood. Whether it was his or not, she had no idea.

“Everyone!” Bellowed Vector, knocking a pair of bastion’s heads together. “Outside!”

He didn’t have to tell them twice. Drunk on thrills and alcohol alike, Pandemonium’s Bane barged past the last bastions and stumbled out into the street, gasping and shivering in the cold night air. When had it become night-time? Gaia had no clue, and she didn’t much care either.

“Stars above.” She gasped. “Vector-”

He wheeled to face her. His hair was mussed up, his face was slick with sweat, there was blood streaming down his chin from a split lip and his eyes were practically glowing (whether that was from whatever Talia had done to him, or just the look in them that promised nothing but exhilaration and fun for the rest of their days, Gaia couldn’t say). And in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to kiss him – to slam that face into hers, and to wrench her fingers through that hair, and to taste that blood on those lips. It hit her like an ache, and it felt like it should have hurt, but no pain had ever felt anything like this. Given another moment by themselves, she might have actually done something; as it was, she was snapped back to reality by the honk of a horn.

As it turned out, there were more bastions arriving outside. A *lot* more.

“Fuck me.” Skye mused as she raised her hands into the air. “This security is efficient.”

Andy stumbled into Vector. “Whaddya think?” He asked in a stage whisper, waving his hands and using his powers to pulling a puddle up from the ground. “Should we fight them too?”

Vector and Gaia exchanged glances. Vector’s expression cooled, and he sighed.

“Sometimes,” he said as he raised his own hands, “you just have to cut your losses.”

Gaia looked around. Skye and Hera were inching closer together with their hands in the air. Hera’s nose was bleeding. Andy was flipping the bird at the bastions as they got out of their cars. Norik’s face looked like it had been carved from stone. There was no sign of Jacen or Rose – or Raelyn/Dante, who had apparently disappeared into thin air as they’d all left the bar. It was weird, thought Gaia. She’d be hard-pressed to call this anything other than a loss…

but it certainly didn’t feel like one.