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“You look fucking awful.”
The words are said sharper than you intended, but Julia doesn’t even blink. She leans against the kitchenette counter in the break room instead, with her arms crossed over her chest like she’s trying to play it cool.
“Aw, Sierra,” she croons. “You always have such a way with words. Good afternoon to you, too.”
Only her voice isn’t smooth like it usually is. It’s all raspy instead, rough like sandpaper, and you think it matches how she looks: wan, as if she hasn’t slept in a week. The dark circles under her eyes and her flushed cheeks make the unusual pallor of the rest of her stand out horribly.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” You feel yourself blush. It’s been ages since Psycopathor, since the Rangers got their first glimpse of your face without the mask, and you still regret not being crushed to death more and more every single day. There’s nothing for you to hide behind now. No barrier between you and the rest of the world. “It’s just… you look like—”
Julia cuts you off by placing a finger just a hair’s breadth away from your lips. It takes a conscious effort not to bite it off—your handler used to do that to you. But you’ve been trying to get better at not acting on animal instinct. Real people don’t behave that way, and you need them to think you’re one of them. Even if all it would take to prove you otherwise are the orange tattoos hidden under just a few layers of clothing.
“Nu-uh. Don’t say it.” Julia brings you back to the present with her words, as rough as they sound. “Keep your opinions to yourself, please, unless it’s because you want to drown me in compliments like you do when I make you dinner.”
You scowl and swat her hand away. “I told you I liked your steak. Once.”
“And I treasure it every single day.” She tries to offer you a grin. “Maybe eventually, I’ll even be able to hear it a second time.”
“Don’t push your luck. And you’re avoiding the question. You look terrible."
“Technically, that wasn’t a question, Sides.”
So it’s going to be like this today. You should have known. Why must nothing in life ever be easy for you? Escaping the Farm was difficult enough. How come your partner has to be the most infuriating woman you’ve ever had the misfortune to meet? Haven’t you suffered plenty already?
“Fuck you. Why do you look terrible?”
“Because someone finally caught the cold that’s been going around headquarters, after spending a week boasting about her immune system.” Anathema chooses this moment to helpfully speak up, and twists herself around in the chair she’s sitting in to beam at you. She’s the only person you know who can look at you like that, and make you want to smile back. Usually when Julia tries you just want to hit her.
But Themmy’s words catch up a second later, and you can’t stop yourself from frowning in confusion because they don’t make any sense. “Cold? But it’s eighty degrees outside.”
All too late, you realize you’ve missed something crucial, if the look your friends share are anything to go by. It’s the same expression they made when you told them you’d never been to the beach. Or that you didn’t know what a hot dog was. Or that you hadn’t seen a movie before.
(They were quick to rectify all of that as soon as possible. Now you know you like the beach, and the little white birds that live on the sand. You can say that hot dogs are… okay. And you really enjoy movies, especially at the theater; probably more than you should. You’ve gone alone on several occasions since the first time they took you, but they don’t know that. It’s too embarrassing to admit to them that you think movies are fascinating, with all that lying the actors do in front of the camera. The headache you walk away with after is always worth it.)
It’s the same look they get when you slip up, and inadvertently admit that there’s something wrong with you. That you’ve missed out on some fundamental human experience.
“A cold?” Themmy says. She tries to phrase it kindly, like she does every time a fuck-up like this happens, as if she wants to avoid making you feel bad for being a complete idiot. You appreciate the effort, like how you appreciate just about everything about her. It’s the thought that counts. “Not like temperature. Like a virus?”
Ah! A virus. You know about viruses—in theory, anyway. In your training days at the Farm, your instructors gave you the general information: how they’re like weird little not-technically-alive things that make humans sick. But you haven’t had any first-hand experience with them yourself; the Special Directive always kept the Farm spotless and sterile. Any outside contaminants were attacked with disinfectant at the door. And thanks to your whole “not being a real person” thing, you have a better defense against those sorts of maladies compared to the humans around you.
You didn’t know people called them colds, though. The information is filed away for later. Are all viruses called colds, or only certain ones? There’s much for you to think about. But not at the moment. Right now you have to prove your nonexistent humanity to the few friends you have, before they start to get suspicious.
“I know that,” you say, and scowl so that they’ll hopefully leave the issue alone. “It just… slipped my mind.”
Julia chooses the perfect moment to sneeze into the crook of her elbow. She’s all bundled up in joggers and a heavy sweatshirt, on top of a high-neck tee; almost as many layers as you are. And she looks like she’s freezing, despite the eternal summer weather outside. Maybe that’s why they call it a “cold.”
“If you're sick, shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, not here?” you ask.
Themmy laughs. “It’s no use, Sides. I already tried to tell her she should have called in. She won’t budge.”
“I’m the Marshal,” Julia insists. “I can’t just not come in to work—what if something happens?”
Stupid, idiot Julia, bullheaded as always. She’s the only person you know who’s as stubborn as you are, and it never fails to drive you up the wall, because she’s the human one, and you know they can only push themselves so far. She doesn’t even have a pain gate.
You cross your arms over your chest to give her your best staredown. “The Rangers are a team, right? I thought that was why you keep annoying me to sign up—there’s always others you can lean on, and all that.”
“That’s different,” she insists, but her voice is so rough it doesn’t make her sound as believable as she usually is. “I’m—”
“Being dumb,” you interrupt. “There’s lots of others. There’s Themmy. There’s Chen, even though I don’t like him, and I think he kind of wants to stab me. Sick people are supposed to be at home, or in bed, or dying in the hospital. Or whatever.”
You get an exasperated scoff for that—but it isn’t very believable, because then she sniffles miserably, which makes her response hard to believe. “I’m not dying. It’s nothing. I’ll just make Mamá’s pozole when I get home tonight. There’s vitamin C in lime juice, and that’s what everyone says you should take when you’re sick.”
Well, you don’t know anything about vitamins, but you do know what dish she’s talking about. You have to admit that there’s something comforting about the scent of chili powder in the air, and the way the red broth burns all the way down and sits warm in your stomach, and the zing of cilantro and lime. Tía Elena was the one who made it for you, when you went to stay at the ranch after the Nanosurge incident. Julia had to help you get out of the city because your shields were completely obliterated, and you were—as Themmy says—a “hot mess.”
You recall the memory with perfect clarity. It felt like Tía Elena was right there the second you got out of the car, with her hands on your face so she could look you over.
Sierra, honey, you look exhausted, she cooed. And in that moment, you knew where Julia got her fretting from, which seemed to activate like a sleeper agent every time you limped away from a fight. Come in, come in—dinner’s already waiting on the stove. The bags can be brought in later. Come sit down.
You couldn’t fight her ushering even if you wanted to. She steered you right into the dining room and sat you at the table, and the next thing you knew, you were staring down at a ceramic bowl heaping with hominy and pork and a vibrant red broth. The scent was almost enough to make you weep.
In the end, you had two entire bowls and then passed out on the couch for a solid twelve hours.
You woke up with your head on a pillow that was not there when exhaustion and a full stomach claimed you. And you were sweltering under at least three blankets, because Tía Elena was worried about you getting cold at night—the desert is always cold once the sun sinks below the horizon—and your mind was finally clear. For the first time in days, it didn’t hurt to exist inside your own brain. All you could feel were the fuzzy half-thoughts of the livestock outside, Julia’s comforting static, and Tía Elena’s gentle musings about what to make for breakfast. Did you like savory in the morning, or sweet? Would you want coffee or tea?
Naturally, Julia teased you about your snoring when she found you upright and groggy in the living room. But only a little. She’d been more stressed about you than she wanted to let on, as embarrassing for you as that was, and she was just glad you finally let her help. She was relieved you reached out to her when you needed her. It wasn’t something she said aloud, but you could see it on her face and hear it in her voice. It was perfectly clear with all the things she didn’t say.
And it was… nice. In a weird, uncomfortable kind of way. Being looked after and cared for wasn’t something you’ve ever had happen to you before. It made your heart ache, realizing someone thought you were important enough to worry about, and that feeling was at war with the discomfort that came with having to let yourself be vulnerable. Exposed. In the past, that would have gotten you killed. Or recycled.
But there, though? At the ranch, under the watchful eyes of the tiny Ortega family? All they did was care. The two of them fed you until you were full to bursting. They made sure you got enough sleep. They taught you how to work with the livestock, because sometimes tending to a creature who depended on you made it easier to look after yourself, too.
And you liked it. You liked it so much it scared you, the realization that you were loved, because you knew that it was a gift you could never repay.
But as you stand here and now, in the break room, and watch as Julia sniffles and coughs… you think that maybe you can try. She looks miserable and so unlike herself that you have to admit it hurts. Julia’s supposed to be like the sun: blinding and vibrant with life. Warm. It’s impossible to escape the pull of her gravity, even when you know you should. You don’t like seeing her like this. It isn’t right.
“Stay here,” you say, “while I go grab your shit. Where are your keys?”
Julia gawks at you. “What?”
“Your keys. The little metal things that make vehicles turn on. Where are they?”
“I know what keys are, Sierra. And they’re in my pocket, but I don’t—hey! What the hell are you doing?”
You ignore her exclamations as you lunge forward to root around in the pockets of her joggers. She bats at your shoulders, trying to fend you off like she’s battling an oversized mosquito, but it’s no use. The keys are easy to find, and there’s no force behind her hits, anyway. She’s only protesting for the sake of it. When you retreat, the key ring dangles from your index finger.
“Stay,” you tell her again. Like you’re commanding a dog, specifically because you know it annoys her.
And then you retreat to her office while she shouts for you to get your ass in here. As best she can with a sore throat, that is. Themmy’s delighted laughter echoes down the hallway as you leave; at least one of them is amused. You like her laugh.
Julia’s backpack (Ranger-blue, because of course it is, with Charge emblazoned across the front) is sitting in her chair when you walk into her office. It hasn’t even been opened yet, that’s how awful she’s feeling. You sling it over one shoulder and march right back the way you came to collect the woman it belongs to.
Touch is something you’ve always been sensitive about, because for most of your life, touch meant pain. Themmy is one of the few who can put her hands on you and have it be okay. Julia too. You just like to snap at her for it because it’s easier to pretend to be angry than it is to let her see the truth that’s budding underneath your facade. This time, you’re the one who initiates the contact; you wrap your fingers firmly around Julia’s wrist and tilt your head back to look her dead in the eye—like you’re the one in control here, and not her.
“Themmy,” you say, without looking at her, “will you please tell Chen and the higher-ups that Ortega’s going home sick?”
“I am not—”
“Sure thing, Sides.” Anathema sounds entirely too happy. It’s a nice contrast to Julia’s annoyance. “I hope you feel better soon, Marshal.”
With that, you all but drag Julia away. She protests the entire time, but she still lets you haul her outside, so you know she’s not really mad. Also she doesn’t zap you; that’s a good indicator, too.
Once you’ve left the building, you find her car with ease. At least she didn’t bring her bike today; you don’t know how to drive those.
After you force her into the passenger seat, you get behind the wheel and begin the journey to take her home. Thankfully, it isn’t too far, and you’re parked and bringing her up to her apartment in no time. She stopped complaining after you drove away—probably because she realized there was no way to win, so now she just lets you lead her along while she sneezes and sniffs and coughs.
Upon entering her home, you dump her work bag by the door and lead her down the hall. Only then do you feel your resolve start to waver; you aren’t really sure what you’re supposed to do with a sick person. How is someone supposed to look after them? In the movies, they just kind of stay in bed and moan and groan and blow their nose a ton and eat a lot of soup, but that doesn’t help you any.
…Julia did mention pozole, though. During that stay at the ranch, you liked it so much that you asked Tía Elena if she could show you how to make it, even though you aren’t good at cooking. But it was nice to stand there beside her in the kitchen, and listen to her instructions. It made you feel like you were a part of something special as she guided you through the steps. And it didn’t seem very complicated; you remember everything she told you. You think.
Are you feeling brave enough to tackle something like that?
Not really, if you're being honest with yourself. You can cook eggs, even if they end up burnt, and you can heat up a can of soup and throw some rice into it. You can make sandwiches, but anyone can make sandwiches. That’s about the extent of your cooking ability. What if you fuck this up?
You suppose you could just… always throw it out if it goes sideways. Couldn’t you? Julia would never have to know. You could get rid of the evidence and order in instead, and she’d be none the wiser. Especially if she’s going to be in bed the entire time. Which she will be. She won’t have any choice about that.
Speaking of beds, you push her unceremoniously down onto hers. She grunts.
“…I’ll admit, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I imagined you taking me to bed.” Julia grins at you, but it’s shallow, and she shivers.
“Stop talking,” you snap, and try to ignore your blush. Damn Julia and her stupid flirting. “Get under the covers and go to sleep. I’ll, um… get tissues. And water.”
Water is always a good idea, right? She doesn’t fight you on this, just chuckles like you said something funny and does as you say. You hover in the doorway until she’s all bundled up under the bedding, shoes off and abandoned on the floor, and then you take temporary refuge in the kitchen.
Once you’re alone, you grab her a water bottle from the fridge, and then you root around in her medicine cabinet. Sick people take medicine. You’ve seen it in the films; there’s syrups and pills and all sorts of things.
You gather up everything that looks like it could be useful, find the tissues sitting on her coffee table, and return to dump it all on her nightstand.
She looks up at you with one eyebrow raised in a silent question: Really?
“Shut up,” you say, even though she hasn’t spoken. “Um… take these.”
“All of them?” Now she’s teasing you out loud. Of course she is.
“I don’t know! They’re from your fucking cabinet. You should know what you use.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She’s smiling for real, like she’s genuinely getting a kick out of you trying to play nurse. Why did you even bother with this in the first place? She’s the worst. “What will you be doing while I’m suffering and bed-bound?”
You cross your arms over your chest. “Going to the store. Close your eyes and go to sleep, and don’t get out of bed. I’ll be back soon. Um. Call if you need me.”
Julia closes her eyes; she must really be feeling bad. “You mean you’ll actually answer this time? Wow—it’s a Christmas miracle.”
Only it isn’t even December. You figure it must be the cold that’s making her talk nonsense, and shut the door behind you as quietly as you can. After that, you’re free to search through her work bag until you find her wallet.
There’s an ample amount of cash stashed, and you pocket it. You figure it isn’t really stealing, since you’ll be using it to get things specifically for her. And you’re going to give back the change, anyway. It’s just borrowing. You’re good at that; you borrow things all the time, like her hoodies and her leftover containers. They all make their way back to her place. Eventually.
…You also take her keys again to borrow her car, because you don’t feel like having to carry the groceries all the way back. It’s only fair.
At the store, it doesn’t take long before you have a full cart loaded with everything you need for the soup, and then some. Along with the necessary ingredients, you find more tissues, and at least five different kinds of drugs labeled cold medicine that you didn’t see in Julia’s cabinet. It costs most of the cash you found in her wallet, and you shove what’s left back in the pocket of your jeans so it doesn’t get lost. With the task of procuring the supplies taken care of, now all that’s left is the hard part.
The actual cooking.
God, you hope you know what you’re doing. You’ve never felt more out of your depth before.
When you make it back, you unload your cargo on the kitchen counter and poke your head into Julia’s room as silently as you can to check on her. She never called, which you hope is a good sign…
Ah. Well, that would explain why—she’s fast asleep, bundled up under the covers like a Julia burrito. Given that she’s someone who makes annoying you her sole purpose in life, the sight is more endearing than you want to admit. Overbearing and obnoxiously self-confident tend to be her most natural states whenever you two spend time together; which is usually when you’re trying to keep the city from burning down. Seeing her huddled in bed and sleeping off an illness is like getting a glimpse of some softer side of her that she hides under the title of Marshal.
You close the door and creep back into the kitchen. If she’s sleeping, that means you’re free to focus on your most stressful challenge yet. It feels more difficult than escaping the Farm was; harder than staying hidden from the Special Directive, harder than having to pretend to be human. You might be exaggerating just a little bit, but this is Tía Elena’s recipe you’re dealing with here. If you fuck it up, you might just have disembowl yourself with one of Julia’s fancy kitchen knives to redeem your honor, like how those ronin did in that one movie you watched last week. You liked that one.
One of said knives is pulled out of the block and set on top of a cutting board. You remember that the meat has to be cooked first, so you wash your hands, dig the package of pork out of the shopping bag, and then make the discovery that raw meat is one of the worst things in the world. It’s wet and cold and slimy and sticky all at once, and since there’s no one else around to see, you don’t have to hide your expressions of disgust.
You hack at the hunk of flesh like a killer in a slasher film. It’s a horrible time all around; you try sawing it into little bite-sized pieces as best you can, but by the end of it, all you’re left with is a pile of mangled pork.
It’s all downhill from there.
After you turn on the stove and throw the pork into a pot, you realize you don’t know how to tell if meat is done cooking, so you turn the temperature up as high as it can go to make sure nothing is left raw. Tía Elena told you that the chili powder has to be “almost burned” anyway, so the hotter it is, the better. Right?
Not right, you learn quickly. Wrong. Very, very wrong.
The meat keeps sticking to the bottom of the pot, and you accidentally inhaled some of the chili powder when you were opening up one of the packages, which means you end up hacking and coughing almost as bad as Julia with tears in your eyes. What makes it into the pot turns dark red and clings to the little bits of pork, but it also really likes the bottom of the pot, too. You scrape at it with a wooden spatula, but to no avail.
By now, you’re starting to get the feeling you might have forgotten to add something before you tossed in the meat, but you can’t recall what. All you know is that everything is well-past the “almost burning” Tía Elena told you about. It’s fully burning now, so you panic and start adding cups of water to fix everything. The soup needs water at some point anyway, so what’s the harm? Maybe this can still be salvaged. Maybe you need—
“Jesus, Sia. What are you getting up to in here?”
So caught up in your frantic attempt to save dinner are you that you didn’t even realize Julia had left her room. You yelp in a way that is entirely undignified, and spin around on your heels, armed with nothing but the spatula that you have in a two-handed grip like it’s some kind of sword.
The red-tinted end is only an inch away from Julia’s face, but she doesn’t seem bothered. She still looks like hell, flushed with sweaty, but there’s a smirk on her face as she leans against the fridge.
“Nothing—I’m not…” you sputter. “I mean, what are you doing out of bed?”
Her smile widens. “I came to find out why the apartment smells like red chili before the entire complex burns down. And it looks like it’s a good thing I did; why are you making potions in my kitchen like some kind of witch?”
Only then do you realize that the contents of the pot are frothing with bubbles, ready to boil over at a moment’s notice. You turn the heat down as fast as you can before another disaster strikes.
“I’m not.” You try not to sound like you’re pouting, but it’s a pitiful attempt even to your own ears. “I was just…”
Trying to make you the comfort food you wanted, because you’re sick and I wanted to help you feel better. Because I care about you even though I also want to strangle you sometimes. Frequently. Almost all the time, actually.
But there’s no way you can say that aloud. Not without dying from humiliation, anyway—both from the sort of confession that would border on, and having to admit that you royally fucked up dinner. And the pot. And probably the wooden spatula, too.
Thankfully—or unthankfully, maybe—Julia beats you to the last point. She inches closer to peer over your shoulder, which is easy because of your damn height difference. She looks over the pot, the two packages from the chili that are still on the counter, and the huge can of hominy that you haven’t even gotten to yet. There’s also a package of flour tortillas, which you were going to heat up with her cast iron pan when everything was done. Emphasis on the were.
“Sierra,” she says slowly, with a strange sort of tenderness that makes you want to punch her, “were you trying to make Mamá’s pozole?”
“No!” The word falls from your tongue fast and sharp, like a snake bite. You feel your face get almost as red as the soup broth. “I mean—I just thought… you said you wanted…”
But it’s too late. She’s already added the pieces up, and she looks at you like you did something incredible. There’s been a few times in the past when she had that expression on her face; once was after Psycopathor, when she thought you were dead and you proved her wrong. Another time was when she watched you help a stray cat get one of her kittens out of a street gutter.
It always made you uncomfortable, in a strange, fluttery way deep in the pit of your stomach.
You decide to get rid of it this time by smacking her on the arm with the spatula. Repeatedly.
“Ow!” Julia tries to defend herself, but you’re in better health than she is, and she yields to you slowly by backing out of the kitchen one step at a time. Her voice is hoarse and cracks as she exclaims, “Hey! I didn’t even—Sierra! What did I do to make you hate me this time?”
“You got out of bed when I explicitly told you to stay there. And you… you…” you flounder like an idiot. “You’re being annoying.”
She puts her hands up, like a sign of surrender. “I was literally just standing here.”
Pointing the spatula at her, you scowl. “And you’re supposed to be sleeping. Sick people need to sleep.”
“I was,” she says in self-defense. “But I could hear you causing a ruckus from all the way down the hall, and then I could smell the chili, and I knew you were getting up to something. You’re really trying to make pozole?”
It’s easier for you to focus on the pot of supposed-to-be soup than her face, because there’s something open and earnest about it that makes you feel odd. “You… you said you wanted it. I figured I could try. But I fucked it up somehow, I think—this is why I don’t cook! Everything I touch always ends up ruined.”
A hand on your shoulder guides your attention back to her. But, thankfully, she isn’t looking at you. Her eyes are fixed on the disaster boiling on the stove.
“Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.” You hate the way she’s able to talk you down from your spirals of self-depreciation. “It’s hard to make it wrong. Hand me a spoon, will you?”
You comply—partially because you hope she’ll be able to fix it, and partially because you don’t know what else to do. The secret's already out, so there’s no sense in trying to hide anything anymore. And once Julia gets an idea in her head, there isn’t a single thing anyone can do to talk her out of it. Right now, it’s saving dinner.
She dips the spoon into the pot, lets it cool for a moment, and then brings it to her lips. You’re almost too nervous to watch, so you glance down at your shoes—which turns out to be a good idea, because then she sputters and coughs into the crook of her elbow.
“Ay! Jeez, that’s hot. How mad were you when you made this, Sierra?” she asks, when she’s finally able to breathe again.
“What?” You blink at her like an idiot.
Julia’s grins at you. “Mamá always says that when her food ends up too spicy, it’s because she was mad when she made it. You must’ve been really pissed—which makes sense for you, actually. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” you refute. “And I wasn’t mad—I was just… focused.”
Her hand pats your shoulder again. “It’s just a saying, Sia. Like a joke. And it isn’t as bad as it could be; I think we might be able to save it. Open up the hominy for me, will you?”
And just like that, the two of you fall into a familiar pattern: Julia taking the helm in the kitchen, and you working as her first mate. You use her can opener on the giant thing of hominy while she works her magic over the stove, and when she gestures for you, you bring the can over and add its contents to the pozole. Somehow, she’s able to get it looking closer to what you remember when Tía Elena made it at the ranch. It is considerably redder, though. Maybe you only needed one packet of chili.
A few of the tortillas are heated up on the pan when she says it’s almost ready. You wish you could have made them from scratch, but if this was impossible, then homemade tortillas are definitely above your culinary ability. They’re tossed in her ceramic warmer and you cut up the fresh limes.
When Julia declares that it’s done, the pozole is ladled into two bowls and taken to her little dining table. You sit across from her with your hands tucked between your thighs, afraid to touch the meal before you. What if Julia was just being nice, because she didn’t want you to feel bad for ruining her mother’s recipe? What if it’s bad?
Julia, on the other hand, apparently doesn't have any hesitation. She scoops up a spoonful of pork and hominy and broth, and brings it to her mouth.
Like before, she immediately chokes a little; you feel a part of your nonexistent soul shrivel up and perish.
“It’s good,” she manages, when she’s able to breathe again. “It’s just hot—but that’s good when you’re sick, you know. Spicy food clears out your sinuses, or something like that.”
You dare to taste your own creation for the first time, and almost immediately spit it back into the bowl. It isn’t just hot—it’s so spicy it hurts your tongue. And as you watch in horror, Julia swallows another spoonful. And another.
In a desperate attempt to save her tastebuds and the lining of her esophagus, you try to reach across the table and take it away from her. This was a mistake; you should have known it would go badly. But you can order in instead, there’s those Chinese places you like that sell soup…
But Julia snatches the bowl away and slides her chair back until she’s out of your reach. She cradles it to her chest with both hands, like a dog trying to guard its dinner. “What do you think you’re doing?”
You stretch a little bit further, but your efforts are in vain. “It’s awful. You shouldn’t eat it. It’ll probably make you sicker.”
“You expect me to just throw this away?” Julia looks incredulous. “Sierra, you’ve never made me food before. This is a momentous occasion; I’m not going to just throw it in the trash!”
As if to prove her point, she makes a show of swallowing a little more. You can only watch in horror—she can’t be serious.
…Can she?
She is.
You sink back into your seat with a sort of agonized despair usually reserved for battles that go wrong. But she’s dead-set on finishing an entire bowl of soup that ought to be considered a health hazard. Your own serving goes untouched as she devours the whole bowl and even uses a tortilla to get the remains of the broth. By the end, her face is flushed from more than just her cold, and she’s sniffling awfully. But she smiles at you. Maybe it gave her brain damage.
“See?” she says, with entirely too much pride. “I told you it wasn’t so bad.”
You stare her down from across the table. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”
Her rough laugh makes your heart thump painfully and stupidly in your chest. “Maybe. But it’s worth it, if it means I get to try your cooking.”
“Shut up.” You scowl at her—your favorite hobby, whenever she’s involved. “You’re still sick. You should be in bed again.”
“Will you join me?”
Something about the way she asks makes you pause, instead of just shooting her down immediately. It matches the look she gives you. Like she thinks you’re something special, just because you tried to make her dinner and completely ruined it.
Is that really all it takes to earn a place in someone’s heart? You think it should require more than that. Humans don’t make any sense! The longer you live surrounded by them, the less you understand.
…Especially this one. You’ve never given her anything but sharp words and knives, and you can’t figure out why she keeps trying to draw you back in. Or why you keep letting her.
Emotions suck, you decide. They’re awful. Nonsensical. They follow no rules—unlike you, who’s spent most of your life at the Farm, learning how to be a thing and not a person. A bar code and a number.
Follow orders. Complete missions. Keep your head down. Don’t speak unless spoken to. You’re nothing but a means to an end.
Your biggest fear is that one day, Julia and Anathema and all the others will look a little too close, and find you lacking. They’ll realize you’re missing something that makes you one of them, because you were engineered to be a tool. A weapon. Not a person with depth. And when that happens, they’ll throw you away. It’s why you hide yourself under so many layers and try so hard to keep them at a distance; it’ll hurt less that way, when they finally put the pieces together.
So why don’t you stop her from reaching out over and over again? Why is it so hard to tell her no?
“I have to put the leftovers away,” you tell her. “And do the dishes.”
A familiar expression crosses her face; you’re not saying yes, but you’re not turning her down, either. She understands.
She rises to her feet, and pauses at your side to put her hand on your shoulder like she always does. “I’ll leave the door open. Thank you for dinner, Sierra. And for taking care of me.”
And then you’re left alone at the table, with a full bowl of soup and a silent kitchen once more.
When you’re sure she won’t come back out, you start the cleanup. It doesn’t take long, thankfully, because everything just went into the one pot, which means there’s less dishes to deal with. The leftovers are ladled into containers and tucked away in the fridge, even though you don’t think any of it is edible, and then you attack the dishes with plenty of soap and water that’s hotter than it needs to be. By the end, your hands are pink and protesting, but it helps keep you focused on the here and now.
Only then do you find yourself hovering in the hall, staring down an open doorway. It’s dark, and you can’t hear anything, so you hope she’s sleeping. That’ll make it easier for you to slip away unnoticed.
It feels wrong to leave without checking on her though, just in case.
When you poke your head in, she doesn’t stir. Her hair has been set loose from her braid, and it spills across her pillows in a cascade of rich brown. You love her hair, even if you won’t ever tell her. It’s so soft and thick; she takes care of it, even though she hates the amount of work it requires. That's why she asks you to braid it back for her all the time.
You take a few steps forward, just to make sure she’s still breathing—you’re always worried about that, even though it’s irrational. It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been free from the Special Directive. A part of you will always be the guard dog on the leash; if not for your handler, then the Rangers. Themmy. Julia.
As if she can sense you hovering over her, she stirs, and offers you a tired smile when she finds you.
“C’mere.” She pats the empty half of her bed.
You should leave. You should tell her to call you in the morning, to make sure she’s still alive, and then you should head right for the door. She’ll understand; she always does.
But you don’t.
Instead, you find yourself kicking off your shoes, and crawling on top of the covers. Burrowing underneath them beside her is too much. Too close to what you really want. But with all the bedding between you, at least there’s still a distance. You curl up on your side to face her, and when she reaches for your hand, you don’t stop her.
“Go to sleep,” you say, because those three words are far safer than the ones you’ve been dreaming about saying more and more often lately. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
She doesn’t put up a fight, simply tucks your hand under her chin like she thinks you’ll vanish, and closes her eyes. You watch her for a long, long while, until the sun sinks below the horizon and night cloaks the city in darkness, and wonder how you’re supposed to stay away when you already think you’re falling for her. Hard.
You’re completely fucked.