This might all be for naught.

This city would never truly be free of violence.

No matter how horrible it was to consider, even children were not free of it in this accursed place. There would never be a safe day, a warm meal, nor hardly a loving family for these children. But this city, if nothing else, it raised fighters.

This job alone would not ensure that these children all passed safely from childhood to adulthood. If we were successful here, there was no guarantee that when these kids were brought back to their families or to their orphanages that they wouldn't get sick, that they wouldn't get recruited to a gang, or that they would even make it through this next year.

But something came to mind as I stood there. Actually, lots of things came to mind. Who could possibly come to mind first but my own little brother, poor little Caden. I had not been able to save him. I hadn't been there for him when he needed me most. When he was dying... he had been alone. In the time it had taken me to return to the kitchen, he had already been dead.

I should have been with him... 

I should have been with him. But I hadn't been.

His soul had, fortunately, been laid to rest peacefully. But these children...

My thoughts from weeks ago returned to me, then. I don't want to only be a name. I want to do something good... El saved my life. I want to be like him. Someone good.

I was no hero. At least, not yet. But right now, that's what these children needed and so, whether they were only safe for a minute or for weeks to come, they deserved the chance to be alive.

It was no sin for them to be born, to be a waste of the city's scarce resources.

So... this might all be for naught, but I needed to be what these kids needed me to be right now.

My eyes narrowed and I found myself walking towards the children in the center of the room. I crouched down before one, seeing fair skin, brown hair, and eyes only now fluttering open. I found myself struck by large, green eyes made dull from malnourishment, and by the shock of how much this child looked like Caden.

But then again... every child reminded me of him in one way or another.

I stood, and didn't realize I had started walking towards the door until Farlan spoke up. "Amaya," he hissed, "what are you doing?"

I stopped, wondering that for myself. What the hell was I just about to do? I'd started walking towards the door, with no plan, only with the thought of avenging Caden and protecting these children in my mind. Huh. That was not good.

"I don't know," I answered honestly, looking over my shoulder at Farlan. "We need a plan. I think it goes without saying that our priority is getting these children to safety."

"Right," Farlan agreed easily. "Yeah. If all else goes to shit in there, we prioritize retrieving them."

"The operation here is clearly thought out," Levi said, and he was right. Based on the sheer amount of work laid out on these walls, what they were doing had to be incredibly well thought out. They'd have gotten caught a long time ago, otherwise. "Odds are, they'll have a lot of people in there."

"No matter how you look at it," I said, "this isn't something that would be possible with only a few people."

"That's true," Farlan said, considering it. "We have our gear, which gives us an edge. It'd probably intimidate the hell out of them if we even just walk in there. We can block the door and demand information from them."

"What can we learn from them that we don't already know? It's clear what they want and why they're doing this," I argued. "Besides, I've got nothing to say to them."

"So let us do the talking," Farlan offered. When next he spoke it was soft, cajoling, almost as if he was talking to a child. I knew it wasn't to be patronizing; he was only trying to be considerate. "I know you've got personal stock in this, Amaya, and I know it'll be hard for you to go in there and see... well, you know."

"No, it's not that," I said, shaking my head. "I want to look into the eyes of who is responsible for murdering my brother."

"Are you sure?"

"It's not about me," I said. "It's about him, and every other child who was killed. It ends today. They don't fear bad karma and they don't fear the Military Police, but I'll give them a reason to fear me."

Farlan's eyes widened, and something that might have been pride shimmered in Levi's gaze. "Damn," Farlan said, clearly impressed. "I don't think I've seen you get so fired up about something."

"They're not fighting people who can fight back," I said in explanation. "They're fighting kids. And it's disgusting." When the voices in the other room quieted a bit, so did we, but when the conversation picked back up, I continued. "But we have to be careful. If there are more children in there, they won't hesitate to use them as hostages or kill them outright as soon as they're threatened."

"We can't run in, guns blazing, that's for damn sure," Farlan said. "We have to be smart about it."

"Going in quietly is useless," Levi finally spoke. "They'll notice us right away. How do you want to play this?"

He looked right at me, and all I could do was blink in response. "What do you mean?"

"You're taking the lead," Levi told me. "Unless you don't think you can?"

"Levi," Farlan said unsurely as one of my eyebrows rose.

"I think you're more than capable of doing it," Levi went on to say. "And you know more than anyone how important this is."

I nodded slowly, then more surely. "Yeah. I..." I took a deep, steadying breath in. "For Caden, I need to do this, and for El, too. We grieved for so long, and we never found out who did it." I turned to face the door, squaring my shoulders off. "Until now. El wouldn't have wanted it to come to this. He'd have preferred to catch the killer himself. But it falls to me, now."

"We'll back you up," Levi said.

"The Ikeda heir takes the reins, hm? Levi must really trust you," Farlan said with a chuckle. "Not to say that I don't, because I do, but if he's letting you take the lead like this..." I could practically hear it when he smiled warmly. "Lead on, Amaya."

Still facing away, I smiled, thankful for now that they couldn't see it. When I forced it from my face, I let my brow furrow with concentration instead, and readied myself to enter the room and get started. "Let's go."

They took to either side of me as I started for the door, pausing only to reach down to retrieve my knife from my boot. "Straight to business, hm?"

I looked over my shoulder at Farlan to send a smirk his way. "Of course. Are we ready?"

"On your mark, fearless leader."

I rolled my neck to crack it one way, then the other. "I quite like this. I should take the lead more often."

"That depends on how this goes," Levi said. 

Figuring that we'd wasted enough time, I reached for the doorknob with my free hand, only to falter. They didn't quite deserve the decency of a polite entrance, did they?

No. They didn't.

I kicked through the door, sending it swinging into the wall on its hinges with a slamming thud that seemed to make all the pages in these two rooms flutter and all the people hiding within these four walls recoil with shock and fear. There were about a dozen people in this room - all adults, and no children, thankfully - and all of them were staring at us with wide eyes, mouths agape, and all were visibly shaking in their boots.

Pathetic.

Honestly, they didn't look too intimidating. They were waiting for us to make the first move, speak the first word. They were withered and they were exhausted and they were terrified. They were huddled together, and they were... god, they were savage-looking. There was a wild look in their eyes, looking to me to not be murderers, but prey cornered after a long hunt - prey that would not hesitate to lash out if it meant protecting itself.

But they got no pity from me. Prey if they were, they'd been running and hiding for too long. Now that we had caught the scent and had tracked them down, I wasn't backing down now. I wasn't. I couldn't. 

Mercy was something people earned; something these people did not, not by any stretch of the imagination. They did not deserve mercy for looking scared.

"You left a candle burning upstairs," I told them, and just behind me I could hear Farlan do what he could to keep from laughing. "That's dangerous, you know. You've got yourselves locked up in here from the outside and a fire could start up there." I smiled at them. "I just thought I'd let you know."

One man, sickly and pale and old, pushed his way to the front of the group. Skeletal fingers, bony and white and shaky, pointed at me accusingly. "Just who in the hell do you think you are, busting in?"

"Someone who thinks it's incredibly rude to point," I replied easily.

"And someone who thinks your mother should have taught you better," Farlan piped up.

"We're the last people you'll ever see," Levi finished off. "I'd have hoped for a warmer welcome." The man, with knobbly-knees and standing about two steps away from death, spat on the ground towards us. All our eyes followed its arc as it fell just inches before Levi, who just leveled an even, though incredibly unamused, look at the man. "That's disgusting."

"What are you, some young vigilantes or something? You ain't soldiers, I know that."

"It doesn't matter what we are," I said, "because you'll be dead within minutes. You should be thinking about where you're going to end up, not about who or what we are."

"Awfully snippy for a whore to two men," the man said with a sly, evil sort of smile. Anger bubbled up in my chest and I did what I could to force it down, at least for the moment. But it spread like an intense heat and suddenly my grip tightened reflexively on my knife and my veins were filled with a rush of adrenaline.

My thumb brushed against the handle of my knife, feeling the distinct marks of El's initials carved into it, and mine directly below it. In El's name - and in my own - I would kill this man.

"Men see a pretty woman and assume she's a whore," I said haughtily. "Strange, that."

"Even if you were," Farlan started to say, and I smirked, because I already knew where he was going with this. "I don't think this guy could afford you."

"Neither do I," I said, not daring to break eye contact with the fool who dared call me a whore. "You're so worried about children taking resources from the city, but there's no amount of rations that a child could steal that would improve that face of yours."

"The hell? That doesn't make any sense-"

"Exactly," I said. "Neither does your mission. See how that goes? Regardless," I said smoothly, "You won't be hurting anyone else."

The man opened his mouth to speak but couldn't, for the blade suddenly lodged in his throat. Blood bubbled up, rushing past the blade, and his dying words were lost in a gurgling, choking sound. He didn't have the chance to fall before I rushed across the room to him, pulling my knife from his throat, and it was at that moment that the room exploded into a flurry of noise and movement.

I wasted little time throwing it again, ducking under Farlan's arm as he came to my aid, punching a man who had been coming at me from the side with a swift punch to the face. My next victim went cross-eyed trying to look at the blade embedded in his forehead and before I had a chance to retrieve it, Levi yanked it from the man's skull and made to hand it to me, pausing only swipe the blade on the nearest man's arm to clean it of blood.

"Thank you," I said to him, smiling at him when I accepted my knife from him. The man closest to us noticed when I tapped him on the shoulder, and he whipped around to look at me, only for me to wedge it now between his ribs. "Dirtied again so soon," I muttered.

I took a moment to look around, taking in the pandemonium of the room. These folks were not prepared for a fight but they were doing their damnedest to win, using makeshift weapons of pipes, books, anything they could get their hands on. Levi was hard at work, and Farlan was hard at work, and there was... someone running from the room.

I broke away from the main throes of the fight and pursued him. Despite there being far more of them than there were of us, I had complete faith that Levi and Farlan could handle themselves for now; they'd proved as much time and time again. As such, I knew I could slip away for a moment to ensure that no one - not even this coward - could run away.

By the time I reached the room, the man had reached the children in the center of the room. He made to hit the little girl over the head with a plank of wood, but my knife reached him first.

"Throwing my knife a lot today," I said in realization when the blade pierced his arm. Instinctively, he went to hold his other hand over the wound... only to find that the blade was still in his arm, and so he sliced himself open. Again. Completely of his own accord.

Honestly, it made me laugh.

But I couldn't dwell too much on it, for as he writhed in pain, the little girl had woken up and was now crying out in fear. I shoved the man away from her, putting myself firmly between him and the little girl, tearing my knife from his arm in the process. "Thought you were clever, didn't you? Thought you could slip away?"

The man now clutched his wounded arm, the sight of blood not terrifying me as it once had. The thought of hurting another did not horrify me. I'd hurt people before, and I had killed people before. But none felt so gratifying as killing these people had felt.

No, these people, more than anyone else I'd gone after while working with Levi and Farlan, deserved it. They truly did.

I backed the man against the wall, my knife pressed to the thin skin of his neck. "Wait, wait, wait," he stammered.

"You're living on borrowed time," I hissed. "For every single child you've killed... You're disgusting. Tell me why I should wait."

"Because I... Because he... That man you killed, it was us he wanted to help. The adults, you know. The people who have to provide for the little cretins, and... Oh, wait. I recognize you."

My eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"I recognize you."

"Explain yourself," I demanded, digging the blade further against him, getting a scared, hitched breath out of him. "Now."

"You used to live on the other side of the city," he said slowly. "Isn't that right? You lived with some old soldier and a young boy... Yes, a young boy. What was his name...?"

It started to all piece together with each word he added. The angry pinch in my brow shifted to confusion, but then back to anger, for this... this man...

"Caden," he said, a wicked smile reaching his face as though he was making some kind of great discovery. "That's it. That was his name." He barked out a laugh, a low, sinister sort of sound that had my stomach twisting uncomfortably. "It was me, you know. That little boy didn't even put up a fight."

"You murdered my brother," I murmured, hardly able to believe it. "After all this time..." Something else came to mind, then. "My father. He was murdered, too. Did you get scared he might get on your case? Did you get a little carried away, a little overzealous, perhaps?"

"The hell are you going on about, bitch?"

"My father, that soldier you knew about," I repeated. "He was murdered. Was it you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Convenient," I muttered, sneering at him.

"We don't kill adults, you stupid bitch," the man all but snarled through gritted teeth, eyes glancing down now to what little of the knife he could see. When he looked into my eyes once more, his eyes were narrowed to slits and were venomous, lacking everything that might make someone human. "And we're not idiotic enough to go after soldiers."

I faltered slightly. "Then who...?"

"Like I give a shit," he responded. "Either let me go or kill me already!"

I did as asked. I couldn't just let him go, and if my options were either to let him go or kill him, it was an easy choice to make. Incredibly easy. How could I let him go? I couldn't. Not after he admitted to killing Caden. And so easily, so proudly...

When my knife pierced his throat, I let go of him, letting him crumple to the floor. I should have felt relieved, I should have felt better. I should have. I had finally found - and killed - who had murdered my baby brother, sweet little Caden who hardly deserved to live down here in the darkness, let alone get what came to him.

But I didn't.

I didn't feel any better.

If these people hadn't, then who the fuck had killed my father?

It would have made sense. Who would want a soldier on their tail after murdering his adopted son? I surely wouldn't. But if these people were too stupid to kill him, to wipe their tracks away, then who would have? What reason would anyone have to kill El?

These people had somehow found a reason to kill Caden. I'm sure it wasn't out of the question for someone - anyone - to find a reason to kill my father. But who, and why...?

"Amaya," I heard suddenly, and before I even turned around, Farlan had me by the arm and was leading me towards the children still tied to the chairs in the center of the room. "They've got explosives. We've gotta get out of here!"

"Explosives," I repeated incredulously. "What kind?"

"Does it matter? It looks like some kind of science project but that's all I got. We've got to go!"

"No, wait," I said, panic bubbling up in my chest as I peeked around Farlan to try to see back into the room where they'd all been holed up. "What about-"

"Levi's fine," Farlan told me, crouching down and reaching for his knife. He sliced easily through the ropes constraining one of the children to the chair and I hesitated before doing the same for the other child.

The child Farlan had just freed was a young girl, with blond curls made dull by malnourishment and the child I freed... he was the spitting image of Caden. I had half a mind to hug him forever and make up for all the hugs I wanted to give Caden, when I should have saved him, but I couldn't. What I did do was follow Farlan's lead and take the child into my arms.

"Now hold on," I said, falling into step behind Farlan as he headed towards the stairs only to stop and look back. "How the hell is Levi fine, when he's trapped in a room with explosives?!"

"There was another way out," Farlan explained. "There was a hidden passage leading back up into the house I think but there's no telling if they'll come back for us or the kids. We've got to leave, and now!"

I hesitated, the only thing making me think rationally being the child in my arms, clinging to my neck and waiting for me to move. "Shit," I muttered, finally following Farlan. With the girl in Farlan's arms and the boy in my own, we left. Farlan led the way and I stayed right on his heels as we ran up the steps and rounded the house.

"So you only think the passage led back up into the house?"

"I didn't go through it, so I don't know," Farlan told me, keeping his strides measured to make sure he didn't get too far ahead of me. "It's funny, though."

"What is?"

"He told me that you'd protest," Farlan answered, glancing back at me. Down a different block we turned, and down that block we ran. "I had a feeling he was right, and guess what? Here we are."

"Well, it's stupid," I said right away. "Who the hell leaves their partner alone like that?"

"He told us to trust him," Farlan pressed. "And I think we should."

"But..."

"Has he given us any reason not to?"

"Yes," I said surely. "Just now. Leaving on his own in an impossible situation."

"He'll be fine," Farlan said. "Just you wait."

His words were confident, sure, but... it was clear that Farlan was worried. It was as plain on his face as his nose was. A sinking sort of feeling grew in my stomach but we continued to run and I did what I could to focus on getting these children to safety.

Far behind us now, there were dull, distant booms, ones that shook the rock and dislodged plenty of dust from the buildings, even this far away, and I found myself glancing back towards the house. Goddesses, let there not be other children in that house somewhere...

More than anything, I wanted to hand Farlan this young boy and run back to get Levi. I'm sure he didn't need rescuing, and I had no idea how many people had been left in that room when we left, but what the hell was he to do about explosives?

Maybe there really was a secret passage that led to safety.

Maybe there was a door I hadn't seen, one that Levi had ducked behind when the explosives went off.

Maybe, just maybe, Levi had outsmarted them all and would meet us back at home. Truthfully, he hadn't given me any reason not to trust him. He'd always been fine on his own. Was it strange, then, for me to want to assist him, when I knew damn well that he could take care of himself? Maybe. But I still couldn't shake the feeling that something had gone wrong.

Still, I followed Farlan. If Levi told us to run, it was for good reason. I trusted him, I trusted his skill, I trusted his faith in his own abilities. No matter my feelings on the matter, I did trust him wholeheartedly. All the time together on jobs ensured that much. So even if my heart was yelling at me to run to him, to save him if at all possible, my brain reasoned that he wouldn't tell us to leave him alone if he needed help.

I just needed to trust him.

I'd done it before, I could do it now.

So, I let myself believe that he would meet us at home, that he would return like a hero, safe and sound. I had to. I'd never stop worrying about him otherwise.

"Amaya," Farlan called to me, "I know you're worried about him." Judging now that we'd made enough distance between ourselves and the house, he put the child down after ducking into an alleyway, and I followed, setting the boy in my arms down gently but not letting him go far. It didn't seem that he wanted to, anyway.

Of course I am, I wanted to say. And you are, too.

But I didn't state the obvious, I only waited for him to continue as he assuredly would.

"We should try getting these two talking," Farlan said. "There's no telling what they've seen, and I'm sure they're terrified. And... I'm sure you'd be better than me at something like this."

"I can do that," I said, "but what are we going to do with them? We can't bring them to the orphanage, especially if they have families to return to."

"We can bring them to the MP's," Farlan suggested. "Right? They can find their families and bring them home."

"Will they?"

"They should," Farlan said unsurely. All of this was conjecture; there was no solid reason to believe they would. "They may be heartless towards us thugs, but I don't think they'd turn away from children and let them suffer."

I considered it, finding his words to have some truth in them. Many of the soldiers wouldn't let a child, any child, suffer. But their new leadership... Would he allow it? I thought of Masie and Reyes, of how they babysat me when El was working, of how they treated me like a child of their own, and of how after El's death, they leapt through hoops to keep me hidden away in the medical wing until... Well.

Perhaps one of them would take these kids in, if their leadership wouldn't.

"You're probably right," I said, crouching down and facing the children. With their age, they were just taller than I was if I crouched, so I looked up at them each in turn, offering them a smile. "Hello, you two. You're safe now. Those people can't hurt you anymore."

The children looked at each other, then back at me. The boy spoke up first. "Do you promise?"

My eyes widened and for a moment, I didn't speak, but at long last, I was at least able to nod. "I do. I promise. We took care of them."

The little girl was teary-eyed, sniffling away, and I reached into my pocket to retrieve my handkerchief. I handed it to her and she blew her nose, but it seemed that doing so only released the dam of emotions she had been holding back, because she started to cry in earnest.

"Oh, come here," I said quietly, bringing her into my arms for a hug. I reached for the boy too, and without hesitation he stepped into my waiting embrace. "You're alright," I said. "I've got you. We took care of the bad people." I drew away only far enough to see their faces. "Can I see your smiles? Oh, I bet yours is so pretty," I said to the girl, then turned to the boy. "And yours is probably so handsome. Can I see it?"

The children, to their credit, gave me the best smiles they could, and I felt something strange grasp my heart then, recalling the fact that nearly those exact words had been uttered to me, once. These children were strong, so strong, and so brave too, to be able to smile at a time like this.

Was that perhaps what El had thought of me, when I smiled at him?

I removed that thought from my head, for now, focusing instead on the children. "My name is Amaya, and my partner here is Farlan. We're going to take you to the Military Police so they can help you find your way home. How does that sound?"

—

The little girl, Amy, seemed enamored by Farlan. She kept looking at him and with Farlan walking beside me, the boy named Sawyer holding his hand, I could distinctly tell that it could only be up at Farlan that her gaze was drifting.

I squeezed her hand and bent over a little as I walked. "Amy," I said, my voice a conspiratorial whisper, "do you think he's handsome?" She let out a little squeak and her cheeks flushed completely at just the thought. With a laugh, I picked her up and she ducked her head against my neck as though to hide.

"Aren't you guys soldiers?" Sawyer asked.

"Nah," Farlan said. "We're not."

"But you have the stuff on your hips," he argued.

"Sure," Farlan agreed, "but we're no soldiers. They don't like us very much, anyway."

Sawyer's eyes glittered with enthusiasm and excitement as he leaned around Farlan to look at me. "Did you guys steal this stuff?!"

Farlan and I shared a look, and when I shrugged, Farlan grinned. There was no reason to lie, right?

"We did," I answered, making him downright beam at us. "But don't tell anyone, ok?"

We continued to walk, and we continued nearing the center of the city where the base was. Amy got to talking then, telling us all manner of stories. "My mama also used to tell me that it was wrong to steal," she said.

"She's a smart woman," Farlan said.

"But I think it sounds fun," Amy went on to say, catching us both off guard. I did what I could to hold my laughter in, but Farlan had a harder time doing that.

"Maybe don't let her know that," Farlan said. "If she's anything like our mother, disagreeing with her might bring more problems than it's worth."

At that, I laughed, because of course Farlan did not mean our biological mother, but Levi.

"You two are siblings?"

"Not quite," I said, "but we help our mother cook and clean just like the chores you have to do."

"Well," Farlan said cheekily, "maybe you'd be the mother, Amaya. Levi would be the angry nanny."

"Wow," I said with a laugh. "Actually, you might be onto something there."

"What does that mean?"

I distracted Amy by asking about her brothers, and Farlan distracted Sawyer by asking about his own family. And we kept on as such, at least until we reached the base, in which case we said our goodbyes to the children and watched as they went inside, towards a hopefully very safe, very fruitful, very fun future.

When they were out of sight, I sighed. "I hope we're right about this."

"Hm? What about?"

"The MP's helping," I said.

"Why wouldn't they?"

"The new leadership doesn't seem too concerned about human life," I said. "I met the leader of this branch, and he's not the kind of guy who should be in charge of helping anyone. I don't know what his priorities are, but they're not where they should be."

"If word gets out that they denied children," Farlan said, "there'd be public outcry and I don't think they want that kind of negative publicity."

"Maybe," I said softly. "They wouldn't be able to handle it."

"Not like they can handle anything," Farlan said. "Still. We did what we could. It's out of our hands now."

"I suppose," I agreed reluctantly. "Let's just head home."

—

When we got home, I was disappointed to find that Levi wasn't there, and as soon as I stepped through the threshold, I turned around to head back out, but a broad chest kept me from doing so. "Sorry," I said after bumping into Farlan. "Excuse me."

"Whoa, there," he said, holding his hands out to either side to keep me from getting around him and stepping forward, forcing me to walk backwards, back into the house. "We only just got home, what's your rush to leave?"

"Levi's not back yet," I said in explanation. "I need to go back out there and find him."

"No, Amaya," Farlan said firmly. "Firstly, I'm offended that your first instinct was to do it alone. I'm worried too, you know. But we need to have faith in him, because he'll be alright. It's better if we stay here, so he doesn't come back and find you missing."

"How are you so sure?"

"Of what?"

"That he'll be fine," I said. "That he is fine. I didn't see another way out of that room. Do you just expect me to take your word for it?"

"Yes," Farlan pressed, closing the door behind him. "Because I saw it. A number of them took off down the passage, and Levi followed. The one who had explosives crawled to it because Levi hadn't gotten to kill him, yet. That's when we left. I think he was just trying to cover up their work in case the MP's came to search it."

"Why didn't you follow him?"

"Because I knew you were in the other room," he said. "You didn't know about the explosives and I wasn't going to abandon you there."

"But you abandoned Levi?!"

"He'd already taken off," Farlan said, smiling now. "I didn't want to drag you by the explosive guy as he set it off so we could follow him. That wouldn't make sense, right? Besides, we had to save those kids."

"Farlan, I just..."

"You're worried," he said softly. "I get it, and I am, too. But when I think of Levi, I think of strength. Don't you?" He didn't give me a chance to answer before he continued. "He's undoubtedly one of the strongest people I've ever met, and honestly? You're right behind him, Amaya, and so I know for a fact that you're stronger than this. You know he can take on the entire world with one hand tied behind his back."

"And blindfolded," I added, more of a way of convincing myself than him, and Farlan could see right through it.

"Of course," he agreed. "He's done this before, you know. Let me take care of the hostages while he went off on his own. And he was completely fine. I know it's scary, but he knows what he's doing."

I took my bottom lip between my teeth, thinking it over, before releasing it and looking up at him. "And you're sure?"

"I'm positive," he assured me with a nod. "It doesn't mean that I'm not worried, it's just that I know he'll come back to us. He always has, and he always will."

I considered his words, and could only find genuine care and honesty in them. "Thank you, Farlan."

"No problem," he said easily, walking past me to drop down onto the couch. "We're family now, you know. We'll always worry about our family, but we have to trust them when the time comes. Oh, and give expert advice, like I just did. But if you want to really make it up to me, I think some tea would do us both some good, don't you?"

"You just don't want to make it yourself," I said, crossing my arms over my chest as a playful sort of smile reached my face.

"Maybe," Farlan said. "It's been a long day. Do you blame me?"

All I did in response was roll my eyes and head into the kitchen, because he was right. Some tea would certainly do us some good.

—

I remember that night as one of the longest of my life so far, at least that I can recall.

One was the first night after being taken in with El. It was such a jarring, sudden sort of life change, my poor little mind had a hard time processing it all and I had stayed awake for much of it until El had checked on me and rocked me until I was drowsy and told me stories until I was fast asleep. It had been the first night without my grandmother, but the first with El, so loving.

Another had been the night of Caden's death. I'd had to take care of a sobering El as we both sobbed and mourned the loss of the youngest member of our family. We'd held each other close, both of us wondering why it hadn't been us killed... wondering why his life hadn't been spared, and why we got to live.

The other, and the most recent at least until tonight, was when El had died. Truthfully, sleep hadn't found me for quite some time after his death, but never before had I felt so drained, so lifeless. Sleep hadn't found me, but so hadn't any sort of peace or semblance of normalcy. There had been no one to grieve with, no one to hold... none other than a corpse, cold and still.

I kept glancing at the door tonight, as if one of the times that I did, Levi would walk through the door, alive and unharmed, but as the night wore on, it became more and more frequent, and Levi's continued absence began to weigh on me more and more.

Farlan and I went through a lot of tea that night, and he went through lots of stories that made no sense to my ears, for I had paid attention to not even a lick of it. But despite my worry, and Farlan's best attempts to take my mind off of it which was assuredly exhausting in its own right, I was the first to yawn.

When I had, Farlan stopped his story mid-sentence and smiled. "You should go to bed, Amaya. It's been a long day for all of us."

"If Levi's hurt," I said with a frown, "you can't fix up wounds. So if I fall asleep, who will-"

"We can take shifts," Farlan suggested, and before I could even think of protesting, he continued. "I'm not tired. I'll wake you up if he comes in while you're asleep, Amaya."

"Are you-"

"I'm sure, Amaya," Farlan said gently before I could even finish, making me smile. Another yawn escaped me, and I adjusted how I was sitting on the couch, scooting down so I could lay down with my head to the cushion. "You're sleeping right there?"

"Mm-hm," I hummed in reply, doing what I could to get comfortable on the couch. Farlan was occupying the other end, so I curled up as best I could so I didn't encroach on his side. He let out a low, affectionate sort of chuckle and I'm sure that he was shaking his head fondly, too.

"You're something else," he said, and suddenly there was a blanket tossed towards my head. Shocked, a surprised sort of squeak escaped me as I tore it away from my face and looked at Farlan incredulously, only to find that he was smiling warmly at me, if only a bit mischievous. "It gets cold out here at night. We can't have you getting sick, now can we?"

"I guess not," I said quietly, tiredly. When a third yawn passed through my lips, I wrapped the blanket around me and laid my head to rest. "Goodnight, Farlan."

"Goodnight, Amaya."

Only minutes later, I was asleep.

—

It seemed like only a few minutes passed when I woke up. The first thing I noticed was that I was incredibly warm, but it was comfortable. Very comfortable. The second thing I noticed, when I finally mustered the energy to open my eyes, was that I wasn't on the couch.

My eyebrows furrowed as my sleep-addled brain went back, wondering why I distinctly remembered being on the couch. Oh, that's right. Farlan and I were taking shifts, waiting for Levi to come home. But this wasn't the couch. This was a bed. There was a different blanket over me, and a different pillow beneath my head.

When did I move from the couch? And why wasn't I in my own room?

The third and next thing I noticed was that there was something around my waist, something sturdy and warm, holding me in place, and there were other things intertwined with my legs. As more of my senses woke up, my entire back was warm, and when I adjusted my head on the pillow, it felt that there was something beneath it, something solid and definitely not another pillow.

What the fuck?

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that I...

No way.

I lifted my head from the pillow and then slowly lifted the blanket away from my body, only to see a pale arm around my waist, which confirmed my suspicions but didn't clear anything up. What the hell did I do last night, hire an escort?

Did getting called a whore prompt me to go find one? No, surely not... right?

I expected memories to flood my senses, enough to help me make sense of my current situation, but none came to mind. All I could remember was falling asleep on the couch, Farlan watching over me as he stayed awake to wait up for Levi.

If I did hire an escort, I could only hope that whoever it was, they were pretty.

I turned my head more and saw a mess of black hair, and a defined part just off from the center of their head, and I knew right away who it belonged to.

Oh.

Hm.

Well, at least he was pretty.

Fuck me. Oh, but that wouldn't be so bad, would it?

...shut the hell up, me.

It was strange, but not because it was with him that I was cuddling. No, what I was confused by was the fact that I wasn't uncomfortable. In fact, I was very comfortable. I felt warm, safe, and...

I wouldn't mention the last one.

But it was soothing to be completely surrounded by someone, by him, with his chest pressed to my back and the sound of his soft breathing reaching my ears.

I let my head come to rest against the pillow again and tried to relax, but now I was just worried that he hadn't been asleep, that maybe he was aware that I had been looking at him and now was continuing to lay here.

I honestly couldn't pick any one thing that was more embarrassing than the other.

Levi inhaled sharply, the first sign that he was waking up. So he'd been asleep, then. I let my eyes close, just in case his first instinct was to see if I was awake. Well, I was wrong. His first instinct was actually to pull me closer, the arm around my waist tugging me against his chest. I didn't even think we could get closer, but he had proved me wrong with but one simple movement.

He let that breath out slowly, the air brushing past my hair and neck and a quiet, low noise escaped him as he lifted his head. Fuck me, it sounded like a groan, and I urged myself not to listen to it.

Levi didn't sit up right away, but his hand slid away from my waist and his arm tucked beneath the pillow below my head drew away so he could prop himself up on that elbow. "Amaya," he said, his voice low and cool and gravelly, "are you awake?"

I didn't answer, but I should've known better than to even attempt to lie or omit answering, because he leaned closer, some of his weight resting against my back as he looked into my face. When my eyes opened and I turned my head to look up at him, the intimacy of the moment was not lost on me but I did what I could to remain impassive, as though it didn't affect me at all.

It was a useless venture because just as I said, "I am," in response, my eyes found his own and I realized with a start that he was here and he was alive. "Levi!"

Quicker than he could react, I rolled over and threw my arms around him. It was a move done without regard for rational thought, and with a surprised grunt he fell atop me, but at this point I didn't care because all that worry from the night before dissipated, leaving me feeling nothing but pure, unadulterated relief.

My hold on him was tight, my smile big, and my eyes growing watery despite my every attempt to hold my emotions back.

"Easy, Amaya," Levi said, setting an arm around me to - go figure - pat my back once and then twice, before deciding against it and just holding it there to keep me close.

"You're safe," I said uselessly, my voice as scratchy as it was full of relief.

"I am," he responded. "I got back this morning."

"Are you injured?"

"If I was, do you think I would let you squeeze the shit out of me?"

I pulled away to look into his eyes, my smile growing sly. "You're shitting right now? In your own bed?"

"Shut the hell up," he muttered, only for his eyes to narrow as he saw my eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Amaya?"

"I don't mean to be so emotional," I said, freeing up one hand to wipe my eyes, knowing already what it was he had been about to ask. "Shit, I'm sorry."

"Why are you...?"

"I was just so worried," I admitted, smiling through watery eyes and setting both arms around him again. "That's all. I know you're more than capable of taking care of yourself, but... it was a dangerous situation and it was so sudden that Farlan told me we had to leave, that they had explosives and you weren't with us, so..."

"That idiot," Levi grumbled. "I wouldn't let people as weak as that take me down. You know that."

"I know," I said quietly, setting my forehead against his shoulder. "I just couldn't help it."

"You damn woman," he said, equal parts patronizing and affectionate. "You better not be getting snot and tears all over my shirt." I drew away, checking immediately, and giggling at the fact that while there was no snot left behind, there was a wet spot from my tears. Levi caught sight of it as well, and clicked his tongue with distaste. "You asshole."

"So," I said, "mind telling me why I woke up this morning tangled up in your blanket?"

"Don't put the blame on me," Levi said right away, his embarrassment at the topic of conversation reaching his ears and giving it away. "When I came in, you woke up, demanded to patch me up, then fell back asleep and wouldn't let go of me."

"...What?"

"I managed to pry your hands off me for a moment," he said, "but you were fitful. Like you were having a nightmare."

"So I woke up..."

"Wrapped my arm in the messiest way possible," he added.

"Then fell back asleep."

"Yes."

"What the fuck?"

"Exactly."

I let myself laugh aloud. "Guess I was more worried than I thought I was. I'm sorry."

He seemed to think over my words, or perhaps had to search for something to respond with, because he didn't reply right away. "Don't be," he finally decided. "I didn't mind."

My eyes widened. What was he saying? Before my mind could stray too far away from me, I removed myself from his hold. "Where did I patch you up? Where are you hurt?"

He lifted his arm - and immediately I realized it was the one that had been beneath my head. He'd let the weight of my head be against his wound all night?! "Levi, you..."

"It's only a cut," he explained. "And it doesn't hurt."

"Right, but-"

"Now get out of my bed, already," he said suddenly, gesturing towards the door. "No matter how nice it is to see you in it, it's still mine."

"Levi!"

A smirk found his lips and I fought the urge to punch him. "I'm only joking."

"You're ridiculous," I said, getting up and out of his bed. I looked over my shoulder at him, only to find him sitting up, one eyebrow quirked up, and leaning back on one hand. "...Thank you for returning safely. But don't do that shit again."

With that, I left his room and caught sight of Farlan right away. "Farlan," I snapped, getting hardly a single reaction out of him beside him lowering the cup of tea he was nursing and looking at me with an even, unbothered look in his eyes.

"Good morning, Amaya."

"Why, exactly, didn't you wake me up when Levi returned?"

"You woke yourself up," he said in his defense, "but fell back asleep right away. What the hell was I supposed to do?"

"Wake me up for real," I told him, setting my hands on my hips. "What if he was really hurt?"

"You took care of him," Farlan said with a shrug. "Besides, Levi told me to leave you be, and I certainly wasn't going to go into his room to wake you up."

I scowled. "You promised you'd wake me."

"And Levi promised to have my head if I disturbed you," he responded easily. "He's fine now, isn't he?"

"Both of you men are ridiculous," I muttered, crossing the room to drop onto the couch. At least Farlan had the wherewithal to take the loveseat. "Is anything planned for today?"

"Not that I know of," Farlan answered. "I'll take the day off, but I think Levi might have thought yesterday's job might have taken longer."

"Wrong," came Levi's voice, and both of us looked over to where he now stood in the doorway of his bedroom.

"Huh? There is something planned, or-"

"Nothing's planned today for a reason," Levi said, approaching us and pouring for himself a cup of tea.

"What, is it a holiday or something?" I asked.

"You don't know?"

"Obviously," I answered, and with that, Levi gestured towards the kitchen where we had a calendar. "Go look at the date."

"Today's the twentieth," Farlan said. "November... Oh. Oh, I know what today is."

And then he was smiling, and Levi was smirking, and I was still sprawled on the couch, endlessly confused. "Huh?"

Levi sighed, but Farlan grinned and turned my way. "Happy anniversary, Amaya!"