Archive of Our Own

When she wakes up, crumpled on the pavement, she hurts.

She tries to remember how she got here.

She's fairly certain that she died.

But, if she were dead, then how could she have any thoughts? How could she be in pain? How could she be bleeding?

She sits up, despite the agony. Her hand spreads against her sternum and feels, beneath bone she's fairly certain has broken, her heart pounding against her palm.

She coughs; it rattles hard in her lungs and in the back of her throat, she tastes blood; it hurts, but she swallows hard and presses her spine to the wall and shoves it out of her mind, out of her body.

If she were dead, she would not be sitting up, coughing and crying and trying to get to her feet.

Her hands press into the street, the broken glass.

Her arms don't work; her carefully cultivated muscles don't engage, and she presses uselessly to the ground and struggles for a few seconds before she gives up.

Instead, she casts about for her crossbow. Where did she lose it?

She shakes her head, half to clear her vision, and half to try and dislodge her hearing. All she hears is ringing, the sound of her own breathing, the thundering of her own heart.

Her mouth refuses to work. She would call, "help me!" if she could, but her throat won't form the sounds; her jaw won't open.

Weight presses on her leg and grinds her knee painfully into the pavement; she opens her eyes. She doesn't remember closing them.

Claws press into her; her bones creak under the beast. Its hand wraps around her, lifts her from the ground. Hot breath wafts over her.

She should be terrified. But, she feels like she's an outsider to her own body. She is watching this, not experiencing this.

Teeth, in her shoulder. Bone, splintering.

Then, it hurts. It hurts. It hurts, and now her throat works, even if all that she manages is a weak whimper.

Her hand scrabbles at the scaly hide, even as it jerks its head to the left, and the right, shearing through her flesh.

It stops, vibrating with a growl that she feels down to the very ends of her nerves.

It drops her to the ground. She lands like a rock.

Unbidden, another whimper falls out of her. It's the only sound that she can force herself to make.

The beast roars, a sound she can hear through the ringing and fluff in her head.

Help, help, help, she wants to cry.

Her vision goes dark again. Her eyes roll shut.

He forces himself to breathe evenly, even though he puts far more bolts into the reptillian beast's skull than it takes to kill it, even as Kroos flops uselessly onto the ground.

He watches her. Is she breathing?

Her chest hitches. A thready whimper comes from her.

She's alive enough.

He slowly lowers his weapon and takes measured steps to her side. He's compartmentalizing to the point of fault, refusing to let himself feel anything, like he's the one who did this to her.

She groans when he lifts her in his arms. He ignores the blood that bubbles from her wounds and cascades against his arm. If he trusted his voice, he might say something to her like I've got you, you're safe now, but he doesn't. He knows his face is set in an unreadable mask. He knows he's hurting her, but if he were to leave her here, to go find help, she'll die.

At least now, if she does go on to pass, she won't be alone.

There is a beast in his chest, pacing and lashing his tail and gnashing his teeth, because it's his kid bleeding out in his arms. Not a mark, not a stranger. Someone he has shaped for years into someone strong, someone brave, someone capable of great violence, and yet somehow he has not ruined her, not reduced her to a bitter shell of herself. She still smiles, she still laughs, she still weaves flowers into her braid and paints the stock of her crossbow with intricate knotwork purely because it makes her happy. A scant few weeks ago, at some vapid political hound-and-burdenbeast show they'd been forced to attend, she'd danced with a tall Yanese man who had seemed, by all counts, utterly smitten with her, and Chiave and Broca had to nearly hold him in his seat to keep him from stepping in, because at some point his kid had grown up and it had escaped his notice.

But right now, she's just that, in his mind. His kid. His to protect. His, who is dying, who is in pain.

She sobs, his name lost somewhere in there. He tries to ignore it; he needs to return her to their base of operations.

Her arm shakes as it rises to touch her own face, her fingers trembling with weakness. Her wrist caves, her arm drops onto her wounded shoulder, like she were a puppet whose strings were just cut. He hears his name again.

His eyes burn; he squeezes them shut. He can navigate without sight. Looking at her will make his hold slip, and he cannot crumble.

Chiave has been teasing him, over time, about how he's growing soft. How he's relaxing. How much he cares about his apprentice. If it were a few years ago, he knows he would not be struggling so much. Years ago, he might even be cruel.

He shifts her weight in his arms, cradling her close. "I've got you, kid," he finally says, the words catching in his throat like he's grown lesions there. Crownslayer rarely speaks because doing so makes her throat bleed. He feels like he can relate.

The walk is not far. He barely makes it into their perimeter before someone hails, and three people descend on him. Vanguards, all of them; Chiave and Texas, their cell led by the enigmatic Ines, and he doesn't get to keep moving unescorted.

They barely make it back to the defensive line before people take Kroos away from him. He has to drag the part of him that wants to fight to keep hold of her away by the scruff. She will die without their help.

Warfarin steps into his vision. Uncharacteristically, she looks concerned, not just because her patient is wounded, but for him. "Are you alright?" she asks him, and he wants to snap why do you care, you hate me.

Instead, he shakes his head, then wonders why he admitted that.

Warfarin reaches for his arm, and he staggers back, away from her. If she touches him, he thinks he might hurt her.

"Go help Kroos," a voice says from his right side. Chiave, his tone tempered by unusual seriousness. "Warfarin. This way lies danger."

Chiave steps in between him and the doctor.

Warfarin studies them, instead of complying.

"Doctor," Chiave repeats, a hint of desperation leaking into his voice. "I've got him. Help Kroos, come back later."

Chiave backs into him, shouldering him away from the vampire woman.

"Okay," she says at length. "Should I send someone else?"

"Kal'tsit, or Silence, or Folinic," Chiave fills in, listing their usual doctors. "But later. Go."

She's barely disappeared from their line of sight when his knees give out. He collapses; Chiave catches him, drags him away, to the scant shelter provided by the side of a cold VTOL and a pile of supply crates.

They sink to the damp grass as one, and he knows his hands are pressing bruises into Chiave's arms. A snarl builds in his throat. It's backed by a reedy whine, his animalistic side burning to break through.

He doesn't know how long they are collapsed there. Someone touches his shoulder and he reels back, away from Chiave, drives his elbow into them and earning a loud oof for his efforts. Chiave drags him back, pins his arms; his ears are laid flat, his eyes desperate. "That was uncalled for," he snaps; "Are you alright?" he addresses whoever he's assaulted.

"Yeah," they croak, clearly winded; he'll have brusied their diaprhagam with that one. "It's okay."

"It's really not. He's in a bad spot," Chiave says. His warm, borderline hot hands brand into his arms. "You need to let her look you over. She's just here to help."

It's Silence; his eyes narrow at her, even as she holds her hand out to him slowly. She moves with exaggerated clarity, like he's gone completely feral. "I didn't mean to startle you," she says, her voice a soft murmur, like she's trying to soothe him. "Can I look you over?"

Chiave lets his arm up when he jerks against him, trying to sit up straight. He is unsteady, even though the rational part of him is certain he is uninjured.

He looks to Chiave. Concern roils in his expression, his amber eyes alight like someone has struck a match in their depths.

"Move slowly," Chiave warns her, even though Aosta isn't of a mind to attack again.

He feels weak, winded. He's collapsed on the grass in a gangly heap, half in Chiave's lap, coated in the blood of his apprentice, not even entirely sure if she's alive or not.

Silence's hand wraps around his, gingerly prying his hand from the grip of his weapon. He releases it, his fingers burning, his arm shaking, the lesions on his palms aching.

She moves it out of reach, low in the corner of his eye, as if he wouldn't catch that in his periphery. He is not disarmed; he has his knives, and if those fail him, his teeth.

Chiave's mouth, right by the edge of his ear, breathes at him to relax, please, he's safe, Kroos is safe, they're all safe. Silence has removed his glove and is prodding his lesions with concern; blood streaks his hand, too, and this he knows is not Kroos'. He'd been holding too tightly to his bolter, at the end, and it seems to have done some damage.

His fingertips tingle at the contact. It hurts; he unintentionally curls his hand, jerks his wrist.

She shushes him, softly; her touch gentles. "I know it hurts," she murmurs, "but it'll hurt worse if you get an infection."

Advice he himself has given, before.

He hides, although he later would not admit it. He presses his face into Chiave's chest; the armor he wears is uncomfortable, but he holds on tight. Chiave is scrubbing at his face with a wad of dampened gauze; it comes away rust-red.

He must be quite a sight. Shaking and coated in blood.

He hasn't let Silence touch him since the time he saved her life, and he tolerates her relationship with Broca only because it makes Broca happy. She has no reason to be kind to him; he doesn't deserve her gentleness.

His hand stings in agreement as she cleans the wounds he caused to himself.

She releases his wrist, and he clutches his arm to his chest. His breath rattles on his next exhale.

Silence creeps closer; he can feel her, even if he refuses to look at her.

She touches his elbow. Her small hands wrap around his arm. "Do you have him?" Chiave asks, and he almost whines- he doesn't want Chiave to go.

"Yeah," she replies, and Chiave edges away from him.

He digs his fingers into Chiave's arm, and Chiave kisses the crown of his head. "I have to, I'm sorry," he murmurs, "you're in safe hands, I promise."

The human part of him knows that he is. Olivia won't hurt him; she is, in fact, disconcertingly heart-wrenchingly concerned for him.

Chiave is being re-deployed; their numbers are too thin right now for him to linger. He kisses him again, and then he is gone, leaving him to lean into the cold steel, away from Olivia, despite how close she is.

"Aosta," she says; her fingers are cold, even through his coat and his long sleeves beneath.

He lets out a shaking breath and sucks another in to fill in the void it left. He squeezes his eyes shut.

They sit there like that for what must be a long time, until he pulls his shit together and stops.

Still, his hand shakes as he reaches for hers, and pries it off of his arm. She releases him, as soon as she realizes what he's doing; he doesn't let her go far, trapping her wrist. The restless urge to be of some use has won out; he presses her hand flat between his bandaged palm and his gloved fingers, notes how bitterly cold she is. Brings her hand to his mouth and breathes warm air over her fingers. They're chapped and red.

"You should wear gloves, this far north," he rasps.

She is studying him, allowing this small symbol of care, and she tips her other shoulder in an awkward shrug.

"I need to be able to feel," she says. "I'm normally not sitting outside."

He belatedly wonders how long they've been outside. "Why are we here?" he asks next, snagging her other hand, pressing her frozen digits between his palms.

The look that she gives him is one of deep concern. "You… Kroos is being tended to," she explains slowly. Like he doesn't remember.

"I'm an assassin," he mutters. "I've seen far worse."

"Targets are not her, Aosta."

Olivia is well aware of his attachment to his apprentice.

"You do not need to suffer through watching what they're doing," she continues, and he bites back an argument. He would much rather be aware of the extent of the damage, know how much blood she has lost, know how badly this is going to set her back, before he would hide.

"And you were dissociating, badly, when you got back," Olivia tells him. The hand he's not attempting to warm picks at some dried blood on the side of his face. "You are covered in blood, too. Are you hurt anywhere other than your hands? I don't think this is all yours."

He bats her hand away from his face. "It's Kroos'," he croaks. "And the beast that attacked her. I'm fine. I think."

"You think," she grouses archly.

"You'll catch your death out here," he tries. "Broca will be quite distraught."

"You won't be far behind," she counters, and he remembers that he is arguing childishly with a frighteningly smart woman.

She takes advantage of the fact that he has exchanged his death grip on his bolter for a death grip on her hands to drag him to his feet. He sways, dizzy, like he's the one who has lost blood this day.

She holds him upright by shoving herself under his arm. He allows it. He is realizing that he is frozen, too.

She leads him into one of the scant tents scattered about, and he recognizes it as the command tent. It is warm, and dry; the harsh blue light from the mobile comm centers burns his eyes, and he squeezes them shut and trusts that Olivia will not lead him astray.

She dumps him into a chair and retreats to drag another close by. They are largely ignored by the dispatchers standing around, ordering units to various sectors.

He is so focused on the map on the nearest screen- specifically on the vanguard icon with Chiave's ident hanging over it- that he does not parse that Olivia has said his name three times. She turns the screen away from him.

"You aren't okay," she says plainly, and she pins him with a glare when he opens his mouth. "I am not a psychologist. But I know well enough that you do not have to be physically wounded to still be hurt."

"I'm- I will be fine," he insists, but the argument is weak. The expression that Olivia wears tells him that she does not believe him.

"Kroos is very important to you," she says. "Important to you like Ifrit is to me. She gives you hope, purpose beyond just surviving. You see a future in her. You have spent years of your life guiding her. You love her, because she is part of the family that you have had to put together and hold together to keep."

He and Olivia have never been friends, and he shakes himself to remember that he has done nothing to deserve her kindness, or her sympathy.

"If I had to witness what you did, happen to my kid- and yes, Kroos is still your kid even if she is an adult now- I would be beside myself," she murmurs, continuing on in the space of his silence. She reaches over and takes his hands- bandaged and gloved both- and presses her thumb into the palm that isn't lined with Oripathy lesions.

Something deep in his chest cracks. His sigh trembles in his throat.

"I need to see her," he says, and Olivia starts to shake her head. "I need to," he presses. "I know it's not pretty. Remember that stupid party, two weeks ago? She has always been so alive," he manages, even though his voice gives in to his distress. "She was dancing with a man who I can't find any information on, and I wanted to strangle him for it, but she was happy."

He knows he isn't being coherent anymore; this entire tirade is nonsense, but he hopes she gets the point.

Olivia moves, standing; his head slips off of her shoulder and she steadies him instead of letting him faceplant the floor. "Okay," she says; her voice shakes a bit, like she's not sure she's doing the right thing, but he stands- feeling like his knees are going to crumple, and pushes himself past her.

She trails behind him, uncertain but unwilling to leave him alone. She had told Chiave that she had him; she was at least determined enough to hold to that.

He forces his feet to take him to the medical area, grasps the grey canvas in his unbandaged hand, and peels it aside. People are busy, inside; he sees doctors, he hears the sounds of people in varying states of pain and distress.

He forces himself past it, moves through the crowd until he finds her. Warfarin and Shining are both bent over her, her light armor discarded to the side, her coat, her gloves. Her t-shirt is beyond the point of saving; they've shorn it aside, and despite all of the work they've done to repair her flayed shoulder, the wounds are still bleeding, the flesh still in tatters.

He knows, too, that her bones are broken, that she's concussed. He knows from experience that she is going to be down for the count for months.

Her chest hitches; neither doctor has noticed his presence, yet, and Warfarin murmurs something to her about staying calm. He realizes with a sharp pang that she isn't unconscious for this, as much as she should be. Her eye that isn't bruised shut cracks and finds him standing there. Her throat works, like she's going to say something, but all that does is make her bleed more. He wonders if she even will be able to speak again, after this. He refuses to let the if she recovers rest in his mind, though.

He rationally knows that her life hangs in a tenuous balance, at this moment. He does not want to attend a funeral.

He steps closer, close enough to finally cause Shining's attention to snap to him. "You shouldn't be here," she tells him.

"But I am," he hoarsely replies. Olivia's hand touches his elbow and he shrugs her off. He practically crawls to Kroos' other side, bows over her broken body, squeezes her bruised fingers until she whines.

"Just to remind you that you're alive," he croaks, and her glare is vicious even through the haze over her expression. He kneels, strokes her blood-streaked hair away from her eyes, and wishes her hair tie had survived what happened so he could properly get it out of her way.

Her breathing chokes when Warfarin resumes trying to put her shoulder back together. "Don't have anything to give her?" he snarls; this is brutal, even by his standards, and he now realizes that he had walked in while they were giving her what was probably a much needed break. Sweat beads on her brow, a tear slips from her undamaged eye, and he curses under his breath and swipes it away with his thumb.

Kroos, for her part, has wrapped her hand around his wrist in a bruising grip. He turns his attention away from the doctors, towards her; he tips his forehead into her temple and tries to ignore the reek of her blood. She is fever-warm and shaking.

"Easy, lupacchiotta," he whispers. Her death grip on his arm does not let up. He murmurs to her like she's a child again, wipes the tears that swell from her eyes and tells her that she is brave and strong and all of the things he has built her to be.

It isn't fair, he thinks. Life isn't fair, it never has been, but it feels profoundly unfair that he is so taken with this girl, who he wishes so deeply were his flesh and blood and not someone who, years back, had been a complete stranger, who he had not cared for, who he wouldn't grieve if she died.

He can feel Warfarin and Shining studying him; he feels Olivia's hand on his shoulder. She's saying something, but he is absorbed in making sure that Kroos knows she's safe.

Olivia bends low to hiss in his ear: "You've seen her, Aosta," and he shoulders her away from him. He has seen her. He has decided he will not leave her.

Warfarin continues working, just near his head, when he tucks Kroos' head under his chin and holds her. Up close, the wound is horrific: he can see broken bone, he can see shredded muscle, even as it steadily gets pieced back together by Warfarin's careful hands.

It must be an hour before the doctor finishes, decidedly unsatisfied with the outcome judging by her expression, but it will have to do. She wipes away the lingering blood, revealing stark black seams of stitches criss-crossing ash-pale skin.

"Aosta," Warfarin says, "since you refuse to let go of her, can you help move her?"

He does not need to be asked twice; he shifts just enough to get his other arm behind her legs and lifts her off of the blood-soaked cot that they had used for their surgery. He follows Warfarin across the room, to a clean spot; he settles Kroos like she might break further if he's too fast.

Warfarin is studying him, now; he knows she does not like him, does not approve of Kroos' association with him, and a low growl takes root deep in his chest. He hunches over Kroos. He knows he's being overprotective, rude, that his behavior is unnecessary, but he cannot stop himself from yielding to instinct.

Olivia steps in between him and the pale doctor. She says something to her peer, and reluctantly, she leaves.

She is beyond understanding what to do with Aosta, at this point.

She does not know him well. He has always been cagey around her, even with her insistence on trying to understand him.

Broca tells her that it's just how he is. Aosta is cold and aloof around those he does not know, and given their history, he has resisted allowing himself to know her.

She has no doubts that he has somehow managed to pull her file and do his research. He's just that breed of paranoid.

Chiave tells her that he is the way that he is because to his mind, if he is not always on guard, then something horrible will happen again, and they might not get so lucky a second time. He says this to her with a forlorn look on his face, his eyes narrowed softly, like he's lost in thought and sad about it. The expression is not unusual on him now; if she didn't already know about them, then she might think there is nothing wrong with him, and might find the expression foreign. But she knows better.

She knows that Chiave loves Aosta more than anything else in the world, too. The face that he'd shown her when dispatch orders tumbled through their comms had already been tempered by fear, because it has been a very long time since Aosta has been so despondent, so dissociated that he moved like a marionette and all but collapsed onto the ground.

Presently, after Warfarin has accepted that Aosta will not be able to even begin to relax in her presence and left, she turns to look back at him and cautiously makes her way to his side. She has never feared Aosta- despite Broca and Chiave both calling her a fool, and despite Kroos laughing a slightly deranged laugh when she'd remarked that she had no reason to be anxious about him- until today. Until she had realized how much of a mess he was- collapsed in Chiave's lap in the dirt, not breathing enough for her to be happy, absolutely coated in blood (and her, unable to ascertain if he is hurt or if he has just hurt someone), she will agree that she was afraid of him and not for him.

Now, though, she kneels slowly next to him. He is growling, still; she sets her hand on his shoulder. He does not stop growling.

From this angle, she can see the knife in his boot, the glint of his fangs. He does not need a bolter to kill her, if he deems her enough of a threat. Their broken conversation from earlier is a distant memory, now; now that he has Kroos back in his line of sight, he has reverted back to nonverbal threats.

"Aosta," she murmurs, "you're safe, and she is safe." She is trying what Chiave tried earlier, reminding him of where he is. The scent of blood is still thick in the air; it probably isn't helping anything. "Look at her. She's still breathing. I've sent Warfarin to get something better for her, okay?"

His golden eyes are locked onto the shallow rise and fall of his apprentice's bandaged chest. Though her tablet sits abandoned on a nearby table, she'd pulled the triage record. Most of the girl's ribs are broken, her sternum cracked, her shoulder will require reconstructive surgery if not a complete arthroplasty. The deep tissue damage was highlighted over by Shining, her concern about originium metastasis scrawled in the margin in her thin handwriting. Her concussion fell to the lowest priority; it's not like she's not going to be doing much aside from sleeping, anyway. She is to be monitored for hydrocephalus and medicated for pain, intermediately.

She stands and moves to Kroos's other side, the side that had taken the most damage. She quietly begins her own examination; Kroos is not her patient, but she is her family, by extension of her long term relationship with Broca.

Broca treats the girl like a niece, their relationship defined by his own with Aosta. They joke with each other; he trains her like he does the others because he wants her to be strong. He carries her on his strong back when she's too tired. He is the one who reminds her to mind Aosta, that his pestering to remember her meds and remember her doctor's appointment and remember, remember, remember is done because Aosta shows his love for her by nagging her to take care of herself.

She wishes Broca were here, but he is preoccupied to the northern front, keeping them safe here. It is his duty. When he returns, she will make sure he is okay, that he did not unnecessarily sacrifice himself too many times, that he rests. Until then, she will perform her own duties. She will make absolutely certain that Kroos is as comfortable as she can be, and that she knows her condition herself.

Aosta may not fully trust her, but this is how she shows that she cares: her competency, her carefulness, her binding to her oaths.

The beast that Aosta has become watches her every move like a raptor. She does her best to ignore his stare, but she does begin to quietly murmur what she's doing, if only to try to set him at ease.

Warfarin brushes by, putting a cold vial and a capped syringe down nearby, but she does not linger. She takes up the vial, examines the label, and scowls; to have this, Kroos needs blood first, since her pressure is too low and can't dip further, but they're in short supply at present. This will be the most emergent problem; her pulse is still thready.

She looks at their req list, skimming for her blood type, and scowls when she finds a very scant supply. Aosta has the same blood type, but he is Infected, which automatically rules him out.

"I'll be right back," she says to him, and she bolts away to try and catch her colleague. Aosta does not reply, otherwise preoccupied with his kid.

—

It was hard, but she manages to get close to 700 milliliters of fresh, uninfected blood for Kroos, and presently, she is perched in a chair behind Aosta and trying desperately to not look too much like her narcolepsy is catching up with her as she watches her efforts slowly diffusing into Kroos' arm.

Still, blinking spots from her eyes, she watches the feed from the girl's monitor. Her blood pressure has somewhat improved, her heart rate is not quite so high. She will still be an inpatient for quite some time, but she isn't just bleeding her efforts out of the wounds on her body, a testament to the job that Warfarin did.

She reaches over, touches Aosta's back. He tenses.

"Here," she says, swaying forward and almost overbalancing. He turns to her, confusion creasing his brow.

Once again, she worries that he doesn't quite remember the past two hours. "Look," she murmurs, showing him her tablet. "The blood is helping. Her vitals are improving. It's not perfect, but she will be in a much better state by the time we get her into hospital."

He studies the output. If she were more comfortable with him, she might try to smooth the crease on his forehead, or scrub some of the blood from him, but everything is tense and fragile right now.

His eyes flick to hers, then up and over her head. She turns her head- too fast, and she actually does fall this time.

Instead of colliding with the prefab, she is caught. Aosta had moved fast, and he sets her gingerly back on her chair, surprisingly gentle.

"You've overexerted yourself," he says, in a tone that is hoarse and embittered and angry. She knows he doesn't mean it that way.

"Olivia," the voice of the man at her other side says, laced with disappointment.

She squeezes her eyes shut and takes off her glasses, worrying the arm between her fingers before scrubbing them on her knee. "Broca," she greets. She puts her glasses on, stands up, and sways again.

Aosta snarls under his breath that she's supposed to be smart and that she shouldn't be pushing herself. She waves him off.

"Kroos needed help," she explains, and Broca takes her arm, if only to keep her upright. "I had to find donors. Rush job."

"Well, thank you, but if you're practically passing out-"

"I'm fine," she interrupts him. "Just a bit tired."

His arm tucks more securely around her shoulders. Up close, his armor is cold and damp, and he smells like mud and ash and rain. He seems mostly unharmed, though there is dirt and soot on his face.

But he is familiar, and strong, and she leans on his side and lets her eyes shut until he gently shakes her.

"Need to look you over," she says, suddenly feigning alertness again, although both he and Aosta both are not buying the act anymore.

"You can do it later," Broca grumbles at her. He stoops low, and she's about to ask him where he's going, but then the ground disappears under him, her feathers ruffle embarrassingly at the manhandling, and she scrambles to throw her arms around his neck to steady herself as he lifts her from the floor with frightening ease. "I'm fine, I promise," he says against her ear, and she huffs.

"Warn me next time," she mutters, still somewhat discombobulated by her new orientation.

Aosta, in the corner of her eye, turns back to Kroos, and resumes his position hunched over her.

"Chiave will be back soon," Broca tells them, "the vanguards saved our asses earlier and we pushed the enemy line back enough to give us some breathing room. We'll be getting out of here soon."

"Thank fuck," Aosta mutters, wholly focused away from them.

Broca doesn't take her far. He puts her down on the nearby empty cot, and she scrambles to sit up, despite his visible disapproval.

"You need to rest," he tells her, and she struggles uselessly against the hand that presses her chest back against the thin pillow.

"I'm-"

"If you say you're fine again, I'm going to sit on you," Broca warns, and she fights a snicker.

"Don't do that," she manages.

"Rest," he repeats. He drags a chair over and settles between her and Kroos. "I'll be right here."

She falls asleep alarmingly quickly, and only wakes because Broca is picking her up again. She drapes her arm against his neck again, drowsily listens to the steady beat of his heart against his ear, appreciates quietly that he had undone his armor at some point, leaving him in a somewhat sweaty t-shirt.

"I feel better," she mumbles to him, and he hums under his breath in acknowledgement, but does not put her down. She squirms; he bends and knocks his forehead into her temple and tells her, sternly, to settle.

He sets her down in the waiting VTOL and says something to her about going to help tear down camp. She leans into the wall and continues to drowse until a medic team comes in with Kroos on a stretcher. There are other patients, too, but right now her concerns are focused.

Aosta trails in afterward, pale and despondent. Chiave hovers at his shoulder, as filthy as Broca and seemingly unharmed.

She glides to her knees next to Kroos' head, settles her fingers on her bruised throat and counts.

Aosta's fingers brush her shoulder, interrupting her. She looks to him; he says nothing, but he drops down next to her.

Uncertain, she looks at Chiave, who shrugs, a small smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. She takes it for what it is, and proceeds to ignore Aosta's presence at her side, despite the fact that he sits so close that his knee jabs the side of her leg.

She restarts counting. Kroos is deeply unconscious, now, but despite the traumatic blood loss she suffered, her heartbeat is now strong against her hand.

Satisfied, she sits back, tucking herself deeper into her cloak. Chiave drops onto the bench at her back; she resists the urge to lean on him, because the warmth radiating off of him is pulling her in.

She does not need more sleep, she insists to herself. She is needed. While Kroos is stabilized, moving her could change that, and the ongoing fear nested deep in Aosta's eyes is enough to tell her that he is more than aware of her situation.

He is afraid that she will die. She can see it, on his face, even though he is still hard to read. She nudges him with her elbow. "I won't allow it," she murmurs. "I promise you that."

"Don't make promises you aren't sure you can keep," he snarls bitterly in reply.

He has been relegated to wait, and so he does, pacing nervously back and forth in the corridor of the medical wing, and ignoring the periodic chirp of his comm. He does not particularly want to talk to anyone, right now.

His attention snaps to Kal'tsit as she walks to him, and he stops still and waits.

"Walk with me," she invites, and he melts into her shadow, as he always does at that command.

She continues in silence, her shoes clicking against the spotless floor. She makes her way into her office; he shuts the door behind him as he follows, so that she does not need to ask him to.

"Sit," she says, waving a hand towards the armchair in the corner. More comfortable than sitting at her desk, he figures. It is considerate on her part.

He does as he is told. He feels too brittle to do anything but follow orders, right now. Like he just woke up yesterday, and she is here to send him away; then, though, there had been no invitations to sit, and she had not presented him with tea.

He looks at the cup she holds out to him until she quirks a brow, and then he takes it. It's a strong breakfast blend, distinctly Victorian, and it almost reminds him of the coffee that he would get from the corner café sometimes in Vite, when he still worked for la famiglia.

"Olivia asked me to keep an eye on you," she says, settling into the other chair and folding her hands in her lap.

"How is she?" he asks, figuring he should ask. He knows full well the effort she went to.

He secretly thinks that it was foolish, but at the same time, he cannot help but be grateful.

"She will be fine. I have sent her to rest. Broca is watching over her, as he always does."

"He does," Aosta quietly agrees.

"She told me that you were in quite a state. I'm surprised that Chiave is not here with you."

Chiave likely does not know where he is, right now. His comm chirps again, likely another message from the Vulpo. He pulls it from his pocket, turns it off, and sets it facedown on Kal'tsit's coffee table.

"I see," she sighs.

"I kinda wanted to be alone," he mumbles, taking another cautious sip of the tea.

"I apologize," she says. "But I do not think that is wise, right now."

He scowls, but says nothing. She doesn't seem very sorry, at least.

She takes her tablet up from where she'd set it at her side and scrolls for a moment before holding it out to him. He takes the device; it's Kroos' file. He has a copy of it, for his own records; he doesn't know if Kal'tsit knows that he has a backup of his own.

Still, he reads past the old details in search of the new. Medical output is mostly jargon to him, but he forces his mind to parse the notes on trauma and hemorrage and contusions and broken bones.

"She will survive," Kal'tsit says over the noise in his head. "That is certain."

But she won't be okay, he thinks darkly to himself.

He nods in resignation and hands her tablet back.

"Can I see her?" he asks.

"Once she is cleared," Kal'tsit says patiently.

It could be minutes from now; it could be hours. He hates the uncertainty.

They sit there until the tea is just cold dregs. His head snaps up when the door opens; Kal'tsit is refusing to look at him when Chiave saunters in like it's his office.

"Do you have any idea how long I have been looking for you? Per gli spiriti, Aosta-"

"I have a pretty good idea," he is quick to reply, because it certainly sounds like Chiave has a tirade built up.

"For fuck's sake," Chiave grouses at him. "Sorry, doc, but I'm gonna be taking him home now-"

"I would rather-"

"Quiet," Chiave snips, and he bites his tongue.

"It is probably for the best," Kal'tsit says. Her eyes are still shut, as if by not looking at him he won't pick up that she summoned Chiave. "You need rest, too."

"Come on," Chiave beckons, grabbing him by the arm and tugging. "You smell, anyway."

As if to emphasize his point, his sharp nose crinkles.

"Rude," Aosta mutters, but he lets himself be dragged. He supposes it is true; he hasn't yet washed the battlefield off of himself, and he's sure he still has practically more blood on his person than in.

Now, he can see the barely withheld amusement making the tip of Kal'stit's snowy ear tremble. "Begone," she bids, and he bares his teeth in displeasure but does not dare argue with his master.

"And you call me rude," Chiave scolds as they leave.

—

He wakes in the morning stuck halfway under Chiave and sweating like he's just outrun a horde, because the heat rolling off of his spouse is just that suffocating. Weakly, he shoves at his shoulder; Chiave just tightens his hold.

"Javi," he grouses, "you're killing me here-"

"Shut up," comes the drowsy reply. "S'too early."

It is still dark, but that could mean anything. Landship time doesn't follow the same timezones as the world outside; sometimes, six in the morning in Yan is midnight in Kjerag depending wholly on the time of year and yet somehow it is eight sharp on deck.

"Please?" he begs; Chiave is taller than him, and heavier, but somehow the crown of his head is wedged tightly beneath his chin and the hot sigh that fans across his collarbone belies how far he has contorted his long limbs around Aosta's own body.

Chiave loosens, and rolls off to his side, but keeps his arm barred around his waist. "You need to relax," he mutters, and anger flares in Aosta's gut.

"I'll relax when I know she's going to be okay-"

Chiave sits up, abruptly, and leans over him, pinning him by his shoulders and mashing his back into the mattress. "Look at me."

He doesn't really have any other choice, at the moment.

"You are being neurotic," he says, which doesn't really help anything. "We are all worried about her. She is going to be okay. But you have to give it time."

He fully lays down on top of him now, which is not an improvement at all.

"You are going to sleep. All night."

His gaze flicks across the room and finds the numbers on the clock reading 5:37.

"I did," he mutters petulantly.

Chiave ignores him.

Then, quietly, "She's also not just your kid, anymore."

He knows that. He knows that all of them adore her. He knows it is selfish of him to so tightly cling, when she isn't just his kid, and she's also her own person.

He more firmly shoves Chiave off of him, but does not attempt to rise. "I'm sorry," he mutters, at length; he can tell from his breathing that Chiave is still awake. "I'm a fool."

"You are," Chiave hums. "You're my favorite fool, though."

He turns his face into Chiave's hair. When he opens his eyes next, the sun has risen, and he is alone.

—

Kal'tsit studies him, and seems to approve of what she sees, before she takes him to a quiet, dark room where Kroos sleeps, bound up in bandages and clean of her ordeal.

She lets him fuss, for a long minute, before she lightly clears her throat. "Some items to take under consideration," she starts, and he tries to ignore the ball of ice that forms in his gut at her tone. Still, he rises from where he has stooped over his charge, and looks to her.

Kal'tsit steps closer. She softly traces a line over Kroos' forehead. "At the very least, even when she wakes up, her concussion will make her tired. Her ribcage is quite damaged- we will be monitoring closely for signs of respiratory illness. Her shoulder is the area of most concern, for me. While we have done what we can, her risk of bacterial infection is very high. If she develops a deep-seeded infection, we might not be able to ascertain that fully until months from now. The outcomes of such an infection are… morbid," she says delicately. "I would prefer to avoid this, if at all possible. Her position as an operator here is not in jeopardy, but her ability to continue as a sniper in our armed forces is."

He swallows hard, but nods. Whether she can fight or not, at this point, is of little concern to him. He only wants her to live.

"Thank you, doctor," he says. She studies him, her jade eyes nearly glowing in the dark, and then nods and turns on her heel to leave.

He drops into the chair in the corner. He will keep guard, at the very least. It's how their relationship was born, after all: her watching his back, him watching hers.

—

He is stirred back to alertness when the door opens, and the Yanese stranger who had danced with her steps in. He does not notice him, lounging in the shadows, which is how he prefers it.

Aosta studies him carefully. The man is a somewhat scruffy Liberi, clearly traveled; a pair of glasses perch on his nose, and the bamboo handle of a parisol clacks against the edge of the bed, followed by a soft curse.

He leans low over Kroos, studying her face, a frown gracing his fine features. Aosta does not move, for fear that he will be noticed.

Kroos' face turns, just slightly; she takes as deep a breath as she can manage, and he picks up that she murmurs "hey, C'hu."

The man- C'hu?- shakes his head, a light tsk falling off his tongue. "You find yourself in this state, and all you have to say is 'hey'? Dear benefactor, you underestimate your circumstance."

It is a scold that he approves of, at least.

He had not been aware that Kroos was conscious, although she does not seem to be in any pain.

Her head turns, just so, and she finds him hiding in the corner. She does not call him out; she settles, slightly, as if knowing he is there is enough of a balm.

He doesn't say anything and the man does not stay long, but Aosta gets up and follows him when he leaves, trailing behind him until he stops just shy of the elevator.

"You know," he says, his hand alighting on his parasol, "they say, 'if looks could kill', but I don't believe I've ever met someone who so thoroughly embodies that saying." He turns, his robe flourishing; Aosta grumbles, but drops his stance from tense to casual. He's not really looking for a fight. He just needs to know who this is.

"I don't know you," he replies cautiously. "I protect what's mine."

The enigma demures. "I saw you in the corner," he says. "I know you do. So what role does she fulfil to you? Just a pawn? A sister? A daughter?"

More shrewd than he looks, then, and hard to rattle. Aosta will admit, he can see what Kroos sees in this one.

The rebuttal that it's no business of his rises to the top of his throat, but he doesn't say it- this man is the sort to make it his business. "What is she to you?" he counters, instead.

"A coin for a coin," he replies heartily. "She's lovely, is she not? Sharp like a blade, smart as a whip, yet still capable of great kindness."

He swallows that answer. He realizes, as the silence stretches, that he's not completely sure that Kroos would accept his response, but eventually, he pries his teeth apart and manages, "She's a daughter to me."

A word-for-word answer of what Olivia had said of Ifrit, years ago, but no less true. It is a good way to put it. He would put it more ruthlessly: she's pack, but he doesn't know if that answer makes sense to anyone outside of their circle.

The stranger nods, his hat tipping, his feathers shimmering in the bright hall lights. "Well then. You can call me Mr. Nothing, for that is what I am; I've nothing to offer her, but myself."

"Whatever she wants with you isn't my business," he snorts, and truthfully, he thinks that if Kroos knew that they had this conversation at all, she would kill him. She'd probably make it painful, too.

"Ah, but you're the sort to make it your business, are you not?" Mr. Nothing says, and Aosta turns away and stalks wordlessly back to Kroos' bedside, unused to being quite so transparently picked apart.

—

"Aosta?" she rasps, and he is alert immediately. It's been an hour since he'd trailed Mr. Nothing out; he assumes she's been drifting in and out of awareness since then.

She sounds rough. He supposes that she would, given the state of her.

"Yeah, kid?"

"Did you chase him off?"

"If I say yes, how dead am I?" he jokes weakly, and she manages to raise the hand of her undamaged arm in a weak, yet rude, gesture. "Spending too much time with Javi," he scolds, putting her hand back at her side for her.

"I like him," she mumbles. "Don't ruin it."

"I won't," he begrudgingly agrees. "We just talked."

"About me," she sighs. "All men are idiots," she mutters, presumably to herself.

"I am assuming he'll be back," Aosta says, and she doesn't reply. He bends over her; her eyes have drifted shut again, her breathing has slowed. Asleep again, then.

He gently touches his nose to her temple, and then he leaves.

Aosta is as easy to read as a clay brick, sometimes, but Chiave generally considers himself to be pretty good at it.

Still, Aosta is seemingly trying extra hard to be unreadable, which is baffling, but given the situation with the kid, he's not going to press the matter. He'll be here, even if Aosta is being like this, because it's the only thing he can do. He's no doctor; for everything that he is capable of doing and understanding and fixing, he can't fix Kroos. He can just stand by and watch her slowly recover.

He follows Aosta like his own shadow, at this point. Go to medical, lurk. Go to bed, sleep restlessly. Despite practically holding him down, Aosta has been managing to slip free, and he usually wakes up alone.

It's not healthy, but he supposes they have nothing better to do. Aosta is clearly not okay, but the idea of dragging him to a therapist is laughable. Even if he got into the room, he just wouldn't say anything for the daily hour or so, being silently psychoanalyzed by someone who will tell them what they already know. The mental image of him standing by the door just waiting for it to open so he can slip out and escape is almost funny.

He gets out of bed and dresses silently, and he discovers Aosta's coat still draped over the arm of the couch. Slightly puzzled- it's unlike him to be forgetful- he gathers the garment into his arm and goes to leave.

Aosta is loitering in the corridor about ten feet from their front door, leaning on the wall with his eyes closed. Frowning, he approaches; he expects Aosta to snap to attention, but he doesn't really react.

"You've been being weird lately," he says by way of greeting, offering the coat, and Aosta shakes himself, as if he needs to force himself awake.

"Sorry," he mutters. There's a distinct glassiness to his eyes when he finally opens them, the black and gold of his irises nearly filmy in the dim not-quite-first-shift lights.

Oh, he thinks; slowly, so he doesn't startle him, he steps just into his space, tips his forehead to Aosta's, because it's the only reliable way to check, and yeah, he's burning up, and refusing to comment on the matter.

He folds the arm that isn't holding his coat across Aosta's shoulders. "You have, quite literally, worried yourself sick," he murmurs, and Aosta drops his head into the dip of his shoulder and sighs, his weight settling as he goes.

Aosta doesn't get sick often. Right after the labs, he became horrifically ill, the stress having gotten to his compromised immune system along with the Oripathy and the infections from untreated wounds. But before that? He can only remember once before, and he'd tried to hide it then, too, until Chiave caught him coughing so hard he'd vomitted in the alleyway and dragged him forcefully to bed.

The weight in his arms feels like a confession. "Yeah, I've got ya," he murmurs in his ear. "Come on," he orders just as quietly, tugging him back towards their apartment. "She ain't gonna get better if she catches whatever you've gone and caught," he plies at the first sign of resistance. "You need to get better, too."

Later, collapsed in bed and shivering despite the blankets- Chiave doesn't dare try to help, for fear of overheating him- Aosta chatters out that it feels like failure, like betrayal, like he's broken an unspoken promise that he would keep her safe. Chiave strokes the back of his scarred hand and tells him, seriously, to stop talking like that, because they have raised a warrior, that she's too much of a fighter to give up over a wound.

Aosta is nearly incoherent in his grief. It breaks his heart to see it. It's not as if they aren't all distraught over what happened- no one likes seeing a loved one hurt. But, despite what he told him, that Kroos is all of theirs, it does ring differently. Aosta is the one who devoted years of time into training her. Aosta is the one who bandaged her wounds and praised her victories and went over her mistakes with an uncharacteristic patience. Aosta is the one who killed for her first.

Aosta is the one who loved her first. The rest of them were wary, or certain that it wouldn't last. One by one they succumbed. Sister, daughter, family, whatever she is to them, it doesn't matter.

"She shouldn't have been out there," Aosta mutters wetly into the pillows, and Chiave tuts at him.

"One, she's the same rank as we are now. Two, she's an adult," he reminds him, although he's not entirely certain it sinks in. If the situation weren't so bad, it'd be almost funny how poorly Aosta is reacting to the knowledge that Kroos has grown up. It feels like laughing about it right this moment would be cruel, so he swallows it and sloppily tugs Aosta's hair away from where it sticks to his face and ties it into a loose knot. "You're a mess," he gently chides. "Do you want me to-"

"No doctors," Aosta hisses, and Chiave rolls his eyes.

"Not even Kal'tsit? Or Liv?"

"The last time Olivia treated one of us, she stabbed you," Aosta growls. It's not completely true; Chiave has seen her since then, in part so that she knows he has forgiven her and in part because Kal'tsit is otherwise preoccupied and Olivia is now intimately familiar with their circumstances.

But he doesn't rebuke him. "If you get any worse, I am calling someone," he warns. "I can't have you keeling over on me. I'd be lost without you."

"Would not," Aosta snorts. "You'd be fine."

"Not true," he insists, leaning close to Aosta's face despite the sour smell of illness hanging over him. "I'd be long dead without you."

Aosta shuts his slitted eyes again, a soft huff escaping him. "Probably," he agrees. "You can only sieze the moment so many times before it catches up with you."

"Go to sleep," Chiave demands. "If you get your rest, I might not have to subject you to modern medicine."

"Shut up," Aosta sighs, but he sounds like he's most of the way there anyway.

"Love you too," Chiave returns, settling in to wait.

—

Aosta is good and dead to the world by the time he decides to stretch his legs, so he goes for a walk.

Namely, he goes to the medical wing, to speak to someone about Aosta- not to request a visit, he wouldn't do that to him, but just so that someone is aware.

And then he pokes his head into Kroos' room. To his immense surprise, the lights are on, and she's awake and propped up by pillows and frowning deeply at her hand, which seems unresponsive.

"Thank the spirits you're awake," is what comes out of his mouth, instead of whatever stupid quip he'd tried to work out first, and she jumps. Her face is still a bruised mess, and her breathing still seems labored, but she's awake, and alert to boot.

"I've been in and out," she says. Her voice is hoarse and he doesn't know if it's from damage or disuse.

He cautiously steps closer. He hasn't spent too much time studying her; he has been more occupied with Aosta's despondency than her deep slumber. As far as he was concerned, she was safe and home, and so he could afford to ignore her while she wasn't even aware of his presence.

As such, he hasn't had much time to truly look at her.

He steps around the bed and pokes her wrist. "I can't feel it," she mutters, and he frowns.

He takes her hand in his and squeezes her fingertips until they turn red. "Nothing?"

"Nothing," she agrees. "Warfarin says that I had a lot of nerve damage." Her throat works as she swallows. "She said it might not come back."

"I'm sure there's some stuff we can try," he says, bending to examine her bandaged shoulder.

"Don't get your hopes up," she mutters, and something tells him she's repeating what she had been told herself.

He frowns, but releases her numb hand and drags the chair Aosta normally occupies closer. "How ya feelin', kiddo?" he asks, and she scoffs.

"I'm not a kid," she retorts, a bit tart, but not entirely displeased. It's a long sight from when she was a kid, and the argument was laced with petulance.

He flicks the end of her messy hair. "You're always gonna be our kid," he tells her. "Can you sit up a bit? Aosta's sick, otherwise he'd be here. State of your hair has been giving him half of his conniptions."

"Kinda hard to braid with one hand," she sighs, but she moves- gingerly, like she hurts, because she probably does- and fumbles for the comb sitting in a basket next to her leg.

He reaches over her and grabs it easily. "Warnin' you now, I'm no good at this," he says, and she rolls her eyes.

"Can hardly be worse than I am right now," she replies.

It takes a long time, her hair being as long and as tangled as it is, and she nearly falls alseep again, which he takes as a good sign. If he were hurting her by working over the knots, she wouldn't be a puddle in the hospital bed, at least.

His braid work is sloppy- considering he never has to do them- but it's passable enough and puts her hair away so that it won't get in her way anymore, and hopefully won't become a musbeast nest again. It's missing her flowers, too, but she's not in much of a state to worry about that right now.

"There ya go," he says quietly, settling it over her healthy shoulder.

"Thanks," she murmurs. Her functional fingers pluck at the edge of the blanket spread over her lap. "You said Aosta's sick?"

"Yeah. Yeah, but I think it's just stress. You really scared him," he tells her. "He was in here just about every day. It was all he did."

"I know," she whispers. "I wasn't unconscious the entire time."

He taps her wrist to get her attention again. "He's gonna be fine, kid," he says, with certainty. "He's tough."

"He never gets sick," she points out, and he snorts.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Or at least, he's really good at hiding it."

"It'd explain some of his behavior," she agrees.

They lapse back into silence, punctuated by the soft rasp of her breathing. He sits with her until she looks like she's about to drop off again.

"You okay, Kroos?" he asks her as he stands, and she sighs.

"I guess," she says. "Tell Aosta he'd better get better," she tells him, and it sounds like an order.

"As the lady demands," he laughs. He pats her hand, and takes his leave.

—

Aosta has seemingly not gotten better, or worse, in the time that he had been left alone, and is still asleep when Chiave checks on him.

He thinks it might be the most sleep he's seen Aosta get in a very long time. He doesn't want to wake him up, but he does start jostling him anyway, until he drowsily stirs and blinks up at him and then says, "What time is it?"

"It's like three in the afternoon," Chiave reports, "and I just wanted to let you know that Kroos was properly awake."

Aosta jerks like he's thrown a bucket of water over his head and moves to get up. Chiave swiftly shoves him back into his nest of blankets.

"She went back to sleep but I talked to her for about an hour, she's fine, shoulder's fucked but we knew that, and you need to rest-"

"Get offa me," Aosta growls back, and when he doesn't, he bites him, not enough to break skin but definitely enough to hurt.

Chiave jerks away with an offended whine and examines the fresh mark on his wrist. "That was uncalled for," he grouses, and Aosta folds his arms and stares him down.

"Was it?" he asks.

"She's asleep again, and you are definitely not ship shape," Chiave retorts. "Go back to bed."

"I am in bed," Aosta replies tartly. He can clearly see where Kroos gets the attitude from.

"You know what I mean," Chiave snips back. "We'll see about visiting tomorrow."

Aosta's glare is harsh, even if he doesn't strictly mean it. Chiave's more than used to the bad attitude, but that doesn't mean it's not exhausting at this exact moment.

Whatever he was going to say dies before he gets to it, though, because Chiave bends over him again. "Don't bite me again," he says, before he drops his lips to his forehead. "Just rest, you need to get better," he quietly begs against his overwarm skin.

Aosta sighs tiredly. "You're lucky I like you," he mutters, but his hand slips into the hair at the nape of Chiave's neck and doesn't let him retreat. "Stay?"

"You're lucky I like you," he echoes, collapsing onto the space at his side. "Always."

"If you stare any harder at your hand, I'm sure it'll magically start moving again," a dry voice says from the doorway, and her head snaps up and finds Broca standing there, leaning on the frame with his arms crossed.

She'd moved too quickly; burning pain lances through her neck and along her spine. Her wince must speak for itself; Broca rights himself and steps closer. "Sorry," he says. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay," she croaks. As long as nothing is bleeding again, she's sure it'll be fine.

Apparently Warfarin- and now Kal'tsit- have been having some issues keeping the wounds closed. She's not about to disclose that to any of the guys. They've been worried enough as is.

Broca takes her wrist and turns her hand palm-up. "Javi told me you can't feel anything."

The word paralysis is still hard to say, she's finding. It feels like giving up.

Instead, she just nods. He does the same thing Chiave did; she can see her fingertips turn red under the pressure of his hand, but she feels nothing. If she couldn't see it, she'd be certain it weren't even there anymore.

That had been what she'd thought at first. That her entire arm had been torn off. Not so.

Bitterly, she thinks that this is almost worse. Vermeil, for example, can still shoot and function and fight, but that's because her arm had been replaced. Instead she is stuck with a useless lump of flesh and bone, and looking at it makes metallic pins and needles prick her throat and tongue, just a hint of panic, because years of hard work are now dead in the water.

Broca catches her eye; she realizes he'd spoken, and the question hadn't even registered. Concern creases his brows together.

"Come again?" she asks, and he shakes his head.

"Don't worry about it," is what he says, instead of reiterating the question. He settles into the chair that is permanently at her side now. It's pretty rare to find it unoccupied, now. One of the guys, or C'hu, or sometimes Lava or Hibiscus.

With Beagle gone too, now, the former A1 Reserve has dwindled sadly. She and the Sarkaz girls are all who remain.

"You're spacing out a lot," Broca says, and she looks at him again. "I've asked you two different questions and you missed both of them."

"Sorry. It's probably the pain meds."

"Could be," Broca says with a shrug. "But it could also be everything that happened to you."

"What's another hospital stay?" she asks, trying to force cheer into her voice. He looks a bit disapproving of the forced levity.

"Nearly getting your arm chewed off is what they call trauma, these days, and I don't just mean the physical kind."

He pokes her unfeeling hand again, as if to drive home his point. It doesn't really work.

"I guess you and the others are the eminent experts on that stuff, huh," she sighs. She leans back into her pillows and wishes she could fold her arms.

"If I could put Javi or Aosta in front of a therapist for longer than ten minutes, I think they'd have to start entirely new files for both of them, they'd be so long," he sighs, and that is what finally gets an amused snort out of her. It makes her chest ache, but it's worth it.

"How is it that you're the only one who consistently goes to therapy, anyway?" she asks, half joking, and half serious. He cracks a rare, sideways grin.

"Don't ask me. I think Javi's just too busy to deal with it. And you know how Aosta is."

She does know how he is.

"Is he even still alive?" she asks. "Last I heard, he was sick."

"Javi's been sitting on him to keep him in bed until he's well enough to not fall over five steps out the door," Broca supplies. "He's pretty desperate now that he knows you're actually awake."

It does make something warm swell in her chest, to know that he's so worried about her that he's putting his own health at risk. At the same time-

"Please help Chiave if it means he acutally takes the time to get better," she asks. "He doesn't know how to take care of himself."

Broca laughs again. She's on a roll, today. "That's the truth," he agrees. "What are we gonna do with him?"

"Soon as I get out of here, I'll help too," she says. "Surely he can't escape from three of us."

"Smothering Aosta wasn't exactly on my list of upcoming activities, but fine, I guess that's what we're doing," he agrees.

She feels a smile grow on her face. It's the first time since she's woken up that she's felt something other than boredom and apathy, making silly plans like this.

—

Dr. Warfarin had placed her useless arm into a sling, so it didn't tug awkwardly on her stitches, but once she proves that she can walk around without falling over, they let her leave.

Obstacle number one becomes that her balance is still wonky, even if she's not expressly ending up on the floor.

Obstacle number two becomes that she is desperate for a shower. Weeks of what amounted to sponge baths do not compare to the deep-cleaning joy of hot water and soap.

She opens the door to her bathroom and is immediately taken aback by the stranger in the mirror that stares back at her. She hasn't seen herself since the night before they were deployed, and none of the guys would dare call out the fact that she's more bruised than she thinks she's ever been in her life, that her shoulder slumps unevenly, that the bandages that wrap her throat and disappear under the collar of her shirt hide the true depth of her wound, that her spine slouches because standing straight still hurts.

She tries, anyway, even though it sends a dull, tight ache through her back and ribs and chest. She knows that her sternum had been broken, too; while it is apparently on the mend after being repaired with a metal plate and she's been deemed healthy enough to be unsupervised, she wonders if she's ever going to stand straight again. Kal'tsit's warning to take it easy rings just a bit louder in her head.

Behind her, her comm pings. She turns in annoyance, torn between reading the message and getting to what is bound to be an unpleasant experience, given her state.

She hobbles back across to where she'd left the device on her bed and swipes through the unlock sequence. She has orders- tomorrow, oh-nine-hundred, report to medical for a checkup. Fine, she supposes. That's fair. She's still too close to the falling apart end of the spectrum to be left completely to her own devices, anyway.

She also has a few messages that she's been ignoring for a few hours. Lava and Hibiscus had both sent her well wishes. Her threads with Broca and Chiave both end with them telling her to please call if she needs anything. Her last message from Aosta, a few days before- he's not a big texter, Aosta- is not one of the many that she has to read between the lines on. It just says "glad you're okay, kid."

She hadn't responded; that's not unusual for them either. She'd rather show him that she's okay, even if she's not, so she's avoiding him now.

Figures.

She scrolls through her contacts until she finds C'hu's commlink. It's harder to type with one hand than she realized, but she's getting annoyingly used to it.

You on the landship? is her question, and she doesn't wait for a reply before sending the next one. If you are, I could use a hand.

She smirks at her own stupid joke, but drops the device again and flops back into her quilt to wait. She regrets flopping; it hurt, but she doesn't think she does any new damage.

She hasn't slept in her own bed in so long that it feels unfamiliar now.

It's about ten minutes until there's a knock at her door. "It's unlocked," she calls; her eyes have drifted shut, and the only thing keeping her from completely passing out is the dull pain in her back and chest, and the promise of being actually clean in her future.

For once, C'hu doesn't say anything. She hears the door shut, the familiar swish of the silk of his robe. His hand cups the wrist that she's flung to the side; the pads of his fingers stroke over the soft ridge of her tendon.

Finally: "Your hand has arrived," he says, his tone warm against her ears. Her lips twitch; he's ridiculous, but that's part of what she loves.

"I have not had a shower in three weeks," she finally says, beginning to try to push herself back into a seated position. He slips his arm behind her shoulders and sits her up easily. "I'm apparently allowed to, but I need some help."

"And you called upon me for this?" he asks, a bit surprised at her forwardness probably, but she doesn't want him to think that this is something she'd ask of just anyone.

"I trust you," she says. "If it's okay with you, of course."

"Whatever my benefactor needs," he murmurs. He's very close to her, his arm still secure around her back, although it's slid away from her injuries to rest at her waist.

He knows that she's hardly fragile, yet right now he handles her like she's made of glass. He unhooks the sling from where it presses against the side of her neck that isn't destroyed and doesn't let her arm just fall uselessly, cradling her unfeeling wrist. He guides her shirt over her head, down her arm. Her bandages go further than she thought; as they unravel, they reveal more bruises, fresh raw scar tissue, black reams of stitches under translucent purple surgical glue keeping her pieced together.

Unexpectedly, her eyes burn. She squeezes them shut; she doesn't want to look at what's happened to her, and she feels guilty that she's asked him to instead.

"Kroos," he says; she can feel the whisper of his breath against her temple. Not dear benefactor, not some other flowery nickname, but just her. "It's okay."

Something about the way he says it makes her believe it.

—

When she finally turns up for day one of physical therapy, she's met face-to-face with Broca.

"Why are you here?" she asks, bewildered, because when she had been ordered to PT, she'd been expecting Nowell or Ceylon or Adele and not Broca of all people to be waiting for her.

Just to be sure, she peers around the room. No doctors in sight.

"I'm certified," he shrugs. "And I volunteered."

She blinks at him. "Certified since when?"

He has to think about it. That should be enough of an answer for her.

"Why are you-"

"Because this is one of the ways I can help. Especially with how often Javi gets hurt. But it's nice to help other people, too."

Something warms in her chest, at that.

She knows the guys. She knows them better, she's sure, than anyone else on this ship, possibly even more than Kal'tsit, because while Kal'tsit still holds their invisible chains despite her efforts to throw them away, she's fought with them, she's travelled with them, she's bled with them, she's been raised by them into who she is today. And yet, she's still finding herself surprised, because she didn't know that Broca would decide to help people like this.

And this isn't like her normal training with him. They aren't sparring. He's working on seeing if she has a chance in hell of using her arm again, because it's been two months and she still doesn't have a lick of feeling in her hand. The stitches are gone, the bones are on the mend, and she still can't hold a crossbow to save her life.

"You know that hardly matters," he says, his brow furrowed while he helps her stretch her dead limb. "Whether or not you can fight doesn't matter."

"Then what's the point of this?" she mutters, wincing as her trapezius pulls uncomfortably. She hasn't been able to move it for so long that it's become stiff and tight from disuse.

"Well, I'm sure you'll feel a lot better if you can at least move," he says. "What matters more, especially to us- especially to Aosta, actually, even though you matter to all of us- is that you're alive and happy."

She knows what Broca's hands are supposed to feel like. Broad, rough with callouses and dry skin, always warm. She can feel none of it right now. She doesn't know how she's supposed to come back from that; much against her will, tears come to her eyes for what feels like the tenth time this week. She has cried more since waking up than she remembers doing collectively before.

She scrubs at her face with her other hand. Broca releases her arm, crouches in front of her, a tight frown on his face. "Why are you crying?" he asks, and she laughs wetly.

"I don't know," she says. She honestly doesn't, except for the ongoing cycle of pain and frustration and anxiety and inexplicable grief she's been dealing with. She's exhausted; her appointments are seemingly never-ending, and she reports to medical almost every day at this point for alternating checkups and therapy appointments.

Broca does not seem to know what to do with her vauge answer. She can't get herself to stop.

Silently, he slips her sling back over her head and settles her arm into it while she continues to hiccup. "Think you've had enough today," he says, and then he stoops and hefts her easily into his arms, like she's actually a kid again, and she mashes her face against his shoulder if only to hide from the rest of the company that she's still a soggy mess.

She expects to be put down in her room and told to take a nap. Instead, when she's plopped down, it's on a couch she's spent many nights crashing on, in the lived-in living room of Aosta and Chiave. "Stay put," Broca tells her with a firm pat to her head, and then he disappears.

She doesn't have much of a choice, honestly. She sniffles, and scrubs at her face with her one hand. She's still not looking when a weight drops heavily next to her, making her bounce just a bit. She doesn't resist when an arm folds around her neck and tows her into someone else's chest.

For as long as she's known him, Aosta has worn the same brand of Siracusan cologne, a little personality quirk that she knows comes from habit and a past life of caring meticulously about his appearance. He doesn't pretend to care half as much, anymore, but he still wears the same damn cologne.

Right now, it's just as soothing to her as the habit probably is to him. She calms in fits and starts and wraps her fist in his shirt and refuses to let go.

"You've been avoiding me," he finally says. "Mi sei mancato."

He missed her. "I'm sorry," she sniffles. She's probably getting snot on his shoulder. She can't bring herself to care. "I didn't want you to be disappointed," she admits past the rock that has taken up residence in her throat. Her voice cracks, right at the end; she doesn't want to look at him.

A long time ago, she realized the role she fulfilled for him. The reason why he had so resolutely accepted her, even though he hadn't even been asked before the responsibility had been foisted upon her. She was their proof, that they weren't just outcasts anymore. That they could be trusted with the wellbeing of one of Rhodes' youngest operators.

He makes a soft noise, something low in his throat that she feels more than hears. "Kid, no," he murmurs. "I don't think you're capable of disappointing me." His other arm comes and surrounds her; she presses her forehead further into his collarbone and wishes her eyes would stop with the fucking waterworks. It's giving her a headache, which is not helping in the grand scheme of all of her issues.

Aosta's fingers comb through her loose hair. Her forehead falls against his throat.

When she wakes up, some time later, her eyes feel sandy, and she's still tucked across Aosta's lap, her head still resting against his shoulder, his arm still keeping her secure. His breathing is slow and even; almost disbelieving, she waits to see if he notices she's awake, and then decides that he must truly be asleep.

Her back is resting against something solid and warm. "Chiave?" she quietly asks; she can't twist enough between her scar tissue and disused muscles and Aosta's grip on her to visually verify it's him.

"Yeah," he says. "Botha' you needed a nap," he adds, and she can hear the smirk in his tone.

She huffs, but doesn't argue.

He gets up; she wishes he didn't, because he is as ever so warm, and it was honestly helping her soreness. But he rounds to sit at Aosta's other side- the jostling and sudden change in temperature has undoubtedly woken the Lupo up, but he just stays put, too, and Chiave manages to fit himself in between the arm of the couch and Aosta. Her feet touch his leg, but he does not seem concerned with this.

"Where'd Broca go?" she asks. Her voice is a bit hoarse again.

"He left after he got me," Aosta answers. "Think he figured that I'm what you needed for the time being."

She's not about to argue. His arm is still tight around her. She remembers what he said when he got here- I missed you, and she sighs and stops hiding against his collarbone to look at his partner.

"I'm sorry I was avoiding you, too," she says to Chiave. "For the same reasons I was avoiding Aosta."

He pats her ankle. "It's alright," he says. "I get it."

She knows he means it. Chiave has a big mouth, but rarely says anything he doesn't mean. It's a polarizing trait, but she's used to it, used to him.

She settles. She relaxes again; she drifts again, and she doesn't stir when later Aosta eases her off of him and lays her gingerly on her good side and tucks the blanket on the back of the couch over her. She watches, barely conscious, until their shadows disappear and the lights turn down, and then, she sleeps.

—

The first thing that she does when she wakes up and drags herself off of the couch is meander over to where Aosta is hunched over his bolter at the overcrowded desk and slump against his shoulder.

"Buongiorno," he mutters around the screwdriver clenched in his teeth.

The sound she makes isn't quite coherent in any language. She needs coffee.

The second thing she does is dangle her hair tie in front of his face.

"It's my understanding you know how to use words," Aosta grumbles, but he sits up anyway- upsetting her off of his shoulder- and takes it from her fingers. "Turn around."

He's both faster and neater than Chiave was, at least. It still takes him about two minutes to get to the end of her hair and fasten the braid off.

"Happy?" he asks, and she examines the neat plait hanging over her shoulder for a scant moment.

"Yes. Thanks."

"No problem."

She leans against his shoulder again, watching him work. He's cleaning his bolter, stripping old grease and applying new as needed. There's still dirt in the edges from his last mission. It's scuffed, but well taken care of under his watch. He has used this weapon for as long as she can remember.

She watches, and then she remembers that her weapon has not been seen since before the beast.

"Can practically hear you thinking," Aosta says abruptly, and she has to wonder if he somehow did, or if she perhaps just grew tense against his side.

"Sorry," she says, even though she has no real reason to apologize. "Just occurred to me. Did you grab my crossbow?"

His hands freeze. "Uh," he says.

Well, that's enough of an answer. She sighs; her chest aches a bit and she's not completely sure if it's the healing injuries or sadness or both.

It's just a weapon. She can get another made.

(But it was hers, and she's learned a lot with it.)

"S'okay," she says, because she doesn't want him to blame himself for that.

"You were more important," he replies quietly. "I didn't even think about it."

"I know." She swallows hard and shoves it from her mind. No use crying over a lost weapon when she could have lost her life.

He finishes his detailing in resolute silence, and sets the bolter back into its case. "You up for a walk?" he asks her.

"Walk where?" is her default reply, even though he knows full well that she'll follow him.

"We're gonna go see Chiave. He'll bump you to the top of his list, you know he will."

Anxiety prickles her scalp. "Aosta," she says, "my arm-"

"You'll recover," he cuts her off. His eyes are sharp as he studies her where she sits. "I am choosing to believe you will."

She bites her tongue, instead of talking about the lackluster therapy sessions and the notes from Dr. Warfarin detailing her nerve damage that few people fully recover from.

Aosta frowns, like she's given him the spiel anyway. He crouches down to her level, strips his glove off of his bad hand. The lesions glitter in the overhead desk light. "It's not quite the same. But I have nerve damage too. You know I do. I don't let that stop me."

"You don't need two hands to fire a bolter," she mutters petulantly.

"Then maybe you don't use a crossbow anymore. You'll figure it out," he says. "I think at this point I know you pretty well, Kroos. You've always been resourceful."

Her eyes burn again. She curses her emotions, and nods before he can backtrack on his plan to bring her up to engineering. "Okay," she relents. "Let's go talk to Chiave."

He chooses to not comment on her general sogginess and instead holds out his arm for her to latch onto. It's a gesture that reminds her once again that he was once a normal man, in a normal- for Siracusa, at least- profession. The years of self-flagellation following years of torture and the countless lives ended by his hands have changed him, but they haven't removed everything that once was Aosta.

She never knew that Aosta, who he was before. She knows that he and Chiave had been together through it all, reminds herself that he can't be all that different; or maybe, the both of them changed so drastically that after they were freed it was like a new relationship over again. She doesn't see that, though. The general domesticity founded by over a decade of being at one another's backs doesn't lie like that.

She hasn't ever known him to be a liar, not in the way he lives, and not in what he says to her. His belief that she will recover feels even more infalliable, in the face of that.

She takes his arm up.