by Chloe Garner
“Ha,” Cassie said.
“He’s coming?” Olivia asked.
“Even without his spirit, he knows that when you and I are in on something together, it’s in his best interest to go along.”
That had a brass tone to it, but Olivia let it slip past unmarked.
“So what happens when he gets here?” Olivia asked. Cassie shrugged.
“We stage an intervention. You want a sandwich?”
*********
Earth really did have pretty mountains. When you took a minute and looked at them.
Jesse had lots of minutes.
He was waiting for the Lumps to make a mistake.
*********
Conrad stopped the car and looked over at Troy.
“You feelin’ okay, man?” he asked. Troy nodded, looking at the building.
He hadn’t even known which one it was. Conrad had had to look it up from Olivia’s files.
This should have been an important moment, but it just wasn’t.
He had a full calendar today, just like every day, and he was right now missing his next meeting because Cassie had picked up the phone.
And like he always did, he had come running.
It wasn’t just that he was taken with her. This proved it.
There was something about her that he trusted and he would always come running.
Every single time.
Trusted more than Olivia.
He wouldn’t have taken her phone call if Bridgette hadn’t said that it was important enough to do it.
The idea that he was going to be romantically involved with her was foolish.
“Troy?” Conrad asked.
“I’m fine,” Troy said, getting out of the car and closing the door after him. Conrad pointed at the door with the right numbers over top of it, and they went up a flight of stairs. Olivia lived further away from base than Troy did, in a cheaper apartment building. His had amenities and underground parking with assigned spaces. Hers had flowers in boxes and novelty signs to indicate which building was which.
They came to the door and Conrad knocked.
“You don’t have to stay,” Troy said.
“You kidding?” Conrad asked. “I don’t ever turn down an opportunity to talk to a Palta. And Olivia’s been missing for days. Celeste will literally knock me unconscious if I come all the way here and don’t lay eyes on her.”
Troy nodded as the door opened. Olivia peeked around it at him.
“Troy,” she said.
“Where’s Cassie?” he answered.
She opened the door all the way, and Troy walked past her, finding Cassie sitting on the couch with a bowl of ice cream.
She was so Palta.
“Well?” he asked.
She swallowed, looking down at the bowl and up at him.
“I thought you’d either be here ten minutes ago or in another five. Depended on which building Conrad was in.”
“Mess hall, ma’am,” Conrad said and she nodded.
“That explains it.”
“Cassie,” Troy said. “You said you had something I needed.”
“Strange for me to crave cold,” she said, standing and putting the bowl down on the glass coffee table. The television was on, but he didn’t check to see what she was watching.
“Did Jesse explain it to you?” she asked. He raised an eyebrow.
“You found it?” he asked. “Jesse made it out to be a lost cause.”
She tipped her head to the side.
“First, have you ever known me to miss my mark, even if it is a lost cause? And second, we’re talking about a part of you. How did you think I could possibly not find it?”
He laughed grimly.
“What’s Olivia got to do with this?” he asked.
“She’s the one who found you, in the end,” Cassie said, and he looked over. Olivia covered the side of her face with her hand, looking away, and he looked back at Cassie.
“What if I don’t want it?”
She raised an eyebrow and he shrugged.
“I’m making hard decisions. Who lives, who dies kind of stuff. Would have been a lot harder, before.”
She shook her head.
“Of course I have to talk the two halves of you back together,” she said. “You’re both happier apart.”
“He didn’t want to come?” Troy asked.
“You didn’t want to come,” she corrected. “And no, he was on a permanent beach vacation, couldn’t see why he would possibly want to come back here and deal with your big problems.”
“Can’t say I blame him,” Conrad murmured, but Troy ignored him.
“You’re telling me this is a now-or-never event,” he said, and she nodded.
“I caught you once, but if the two of you decide to go your own ways, you aren’t going to let me catch you again,” she said. He frowned.
He didn’t miss feeling things like he had. But it would make him better at his job, and he suspected that being happy was something he should have been missing. He nodded.
“All right. Do it.”
She snorted.
“This what you been like this whole time?” she asked, shaking her head. “Surprised you still have allies.”
“He’s a good commander, brusque or not,” Conrad said. Troy held Cassie’s eye and she nodded slowly.
“It’s going to hurt,” she said. “He’s cold. Been running around without a body for a while, and he got used to just being solid energy. It’s going to be like putting a kidney straight out of the freezer into you.”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” he said. She nodded, stepping forward.
“You can handle pain,” she said softly. “I was there. I trained it right there with you. But you need to know.”
He blinked once as she stepped closer, breathing up at him, close enough for him to lower his head to kiss her. Funny that he had that thought, just now, that memory. He hadn’t thought about physical contact with a woman since before the day portal at the dormitories.
“You done this before, du Charme?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“Been possessed, been dispossessed, but never transferred it to someone else,” she said. “And I don’t have much practice at any of it.”
There was a heat to her that was familiar, like coming in out of snow. He didn’t remember that before.
“He can tell, too,” she said.
“What do you do?” he asked her, and she shook her head.
“We’re figuring it out. Just don’t flinch.”
He took a deep breath and let it settle out of his lungs, feeling the way his body settled, not relaxed so much as firm, and he closed his eyes.
“You aren’t going back to work today,” she said.
“I have work for you to do,” he said on the next breath, forcing his body down denser.
“I’ll do it,” she said. “You’re going to stay here until you’re ready.”
He nodded.
“I have work for me, too,” he said, and she touched his arm.
“Until you’re ready. It’s going to take time.”
“Now or never,” he muttered through closed teeth. He was as small, as dense, as controlled as he could get. Cassie stood chest-to-chest with him, her breath on his neck.
There was a touch, like a hand on his chest, but deep, all the way against his beating heart, and then a flow of cold that could have knocked him back if Cassie hadn’t been holding both his elbows all of a sudden with hard fingers.
His head tipped back, not under his control, and he lost feeling in his feet, gasping, trying to find air. He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t breathing. He was breath. He was air. His heart throbbed and jolted, confused and surged with adrenalin as he got confused at the difference between standing and floating.
“I tried to get him ready,” Cassie breathed. “But it’s…”
He grunted, jolting away from her, trying to find stable, trying to find gravity, trying to find… that didn�
��t make sense.
He was sitting. He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t remember how to see. Light flooded his mind, incessant, flickering, confusing light, but he couldn’t remember how to look at it.
“It will pass,” Cassie said, her voice clear amidst the chaos of confusion in his mind. “I’m here.”
*********
The room was quiet.
Olivia found that she was pressed against a wall, her arms crossed with her hands on her shoulders, staring at Troy on her couch.
He was so small.
It had been awful.
Cassie…
Cassie had tried to warn them, but it had been so much worse than Olivia could have imagined.
It might have been better if he’d screamed. The trying to scream, without being able to make any noise come out, the broken motion… It had hurt to watch.
She’d forgotten Conrad was even there until he came and put his arm around her shoulders. Olivia put her head against his chest, trying not to cry. This was success. This was what she was supposed to be hoping for. She shouldn’t cry now, no matter…
“She’s not worried,” he said quietly, moving his head to indicate Cassie. Olivia nodded.
It did help.
The Palta woman was rocking Troy slowly, even as he twitched and thrashed and moaned. Deep, guttural, weak moans, like the dying.
“Should I run a bath?” Olivia asked after a moment. “Maybe hot water…?”
“Thank you,” Cassie said. “But it isn’t physical cold. The water would just disorient him because he’s used to it being a portal.”
Conrad dropped his head, trying to catch Olivia’s eye.
“You mind catching me up?” he asked. She shook her head.
“I shouldn’t. It’s not my secret.”
He nodded.
“How about how you left through the portal and never came back?”
“Jesse snuck through that portal a dozen times before I caught him,” Cassie said. “You think I can’t sneak through it without getting caught at all?”
“How’d she do it?” Conrad asked, giving Olivia a slight grin to make sure she knew it was a joke. “He’s staying?”
Olivia nodded.
“As long as it takes.”
“Can I help?” Conrad asked. “Is there anything?”
“No,” Cassie said, not unkindly. “I know you have work.”
He nodded.
“It’s chaos. We can’t afford him to be gone, in truth, but… I believe you if all three of you agree this is more important.”
Olivia nodded quickly and he squeezed her shoulders in the way of a powerful big brother. She smiled, wiping her eyes with her fingertips.
“Thank you for getting him here.”
“They’re going to look for him,” he said.
“Tell them that you took him home,” Cassie said. “That he didn’t tell you what he was doing. I’ll give them a story later today.”
She watched as Conrad gave her a little salute and left, then Olivia went to kneel next to Cassie, looking at Troy’s face.
He didn’t look like himself. He was shrunken down so small, so fragile.
“What do I do?” she asked.
“Speak to him,” Cassie said. “Tell him that you’re here, that it’s going to be okay. Just make sure that he knows he isn’t alone. Don’t let him give up.”
“He could do that?” Olivia asked, alarmed.
“Anyone could give up,” Cassie said. “Any time. They do it all the time. You know that.”
Olivia frowned.
“But he’s Troy.”
Cassie nodded.
“And he’s going to be fine.”
Cassie shifted him against her shoulder, his knees twitching like a small animal.
“I didn’t think…” Olivia started, and Cassie nodded.
“I know.”
“Why is it so bad?” Olivia asked. “It’s two halves of him.”
Cassie nodded.
“And they healed without each other. Forgot how to need each other. O, he has two sets of memories to figure out. Two continuous sets of memories that lie on top of each other, and he’s going to have to sort out how they can both be true.”
Olivia shuddered, putting her hand on his knee. His hand twitched.
“He’s doing fine,” Cassie said. “It hurts, and it’s confusing, and it’s cold, but he’s going to be okay.”
Olivia dropped her forehead down onto the back of her own hand, closing her eyes.
“I’m not built for this,” she said. “I should be at the lab.”
“Either you can do this or you can’t,” Cassie said. “I can’t tell you the answer.”
Olivia looked up.
“He came because of you,” she said. “Not because of me. Nothing I would have said could get him here, but all you had to do was say to come, and he did. How could we possibly be together, when we’re nothing like that?”
Cassie tipped her head in toward Troy, putting her fingers through his hair thoughtfully.
“He was thinking the same thing as he came up here,” she said. “He only cared that I was here, and it bothered him.”
Olivia sighed. Cassie had such a familiarity with Troy. Olivia… She just didn’t. Touching his knee was odd, like taking liberties because he was like he was.
She moved her hand.
Cassie looked down at her.
“He can hear me,” she said. “And while I’ll take responsibility for getting in the middle of what you two were building the first time, you two came back together and you’re looking at splitting up again, and this time it isn’t my fault. I’m not going to keep putting you back together just because you can’t figure it out. So this is the last time I’m getting in the middle of this. Okay?
“He and I are the way we are because he is my best friend. He’s always going to be my best friend, even when I’m Palta. We were kids together, we grew up together, and I am always going to know him in a way that you won’t. That’s got nothing to do with the two of you. I’m not competing with you. All right? I’m not and I won’t, ever again. That’s not a promise. It’s a fact. You need to figure out who you are without using the fact that he and I are what we are as an excuse to end it.”
Olivia blinked.
“Okay.”
Cassie nodded.
“All right. We’re going to have to take shifts to get him through tonight. We leave him alone, he’s probably going to freeze to death.”
“I thought…” Olivia said, indicating the bathroom with her finger, and Cassie shook her head.
“I know it doesn’t make sense. It is what it is. I could stay with him all night on my own, but switching is going to be more effective, because a new voice gives him something new to listen to.”
Olivia frowned, and Cassie shrugged.
“He’s struggling. More than I thought he would. It’s not because of him; I didn’t guess at how hard this would be. Not enough. All we’ve got is my instincts on how to help him get through it. If I thought it was force-feeding him cheese, that’s what we’d be doing.”
“Cheese?” Olivia asked, and Cassie shook her head.
“Long story. Come on up here. Sit down on his other side.”
Olivia stood slowly, feeling like she was going to get pushed into something that she wasn’t ready to do, but going along with it, partially because of the authority in Cassie’s voice and partially because she wanted to be the person Cassie was assuming she was.
“Put your arms around him,” Cassie said. “Familiar is more important than right.”
Cassie tipped Troy over toward her, and he twisted his head, groaning. His elbows both twitched at the same time, like he was trying to get away from something and he sat up sharply.
“Grab him,” Cassie warned, getting ahold of his shoulders before he toppled onto the floor. She looked over his head at Olivia.
“I mean it,” the Palta woman said. “You’ve got to do this.”
Olivia nodded, feeling accused.
“I’m trying. Just tell me what to do.”
“Hold on to him,” she said. “Like you would if you found a puppy in the woods.”
“He wouldn’t like that,” Olivia said. Cassie cocked her head.
“You’re the one sitting there on the floor all green that I get to do it. Do it.”
Olivia put her arms out, letting Cassie push Troy over toward her again, and she put one arm across his shoulders as he twitched again, then opened his mouth with another gasping, airy scream, almost noiseless. She winced her face and Cassie pushed him harder against her.
“Like you mean it,” she said.
She hugged him. Angry, insecure, completely out of her league with Cassie, she hugged him hard against her chest and his head rolled, finding the spot where her jaw met her neck and resting there. For a moment his breathing eased and the ticking in his shoulder stopped.
Cassie raised her eyebrows.
See? they said, and Olivia glowered, shifting and still feeling defensive and defiant at the same time. Cassie stood.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.
*********
Jesse sat at a public library in Denver, deep into the internet, things people didn’t know were public, things stored on computers that he shouldn’t have had access to, records that people forgot were even accumulating. They hadn’t been willing to give him internet access without a library card, and they hadn’t been willing to give him a library card without a local address, and while he could have manufactured that pretty easily, it was even easier to just break in after they went home for the day. Gave him all night, anyway. The place was closed more hours than it was open.
*********
It was the longest night of Olivia’s life.
Troy stopped breathing three times, twice with her and once with Cassie, and Cassie had pushed life back into him.
Around dawn, he’d started talking.
“Cold. So cold.”
He buried himself in against Olivia’s shoulder like a small child and Cassie stood from where she was curled on an armchair, going to a hall closet and bringing back a heavy blanket.
“I thought you said he wasn’t physically cold,” Olivia murmured. Cassie nodded.
“Heavy blanket makes you feel warm long before it actually makes you warm,” she said, and Olivia nodded, sliding her legs under Troy’s thighs and holding his knees against her with her elbow.