Alexa's Point of View

"Alright, you two."

I folded my arms.

"Spill."

The moment lunch ended, Francine and I had practically dragged Alex and Andy back to our dorm.

The door clicked shut behind us.

Without a word, Alex reached back and turned the lock.

The metallic click echoed through the room.

My stomach tightened.

His demeanor had changed completely.

The joking.

The sarcasm.

The easy smile.

Gone.

He walked to the coffee table, unholstered the pistol from his belt, ejected the magazine with practiced ease, and locked the slide to the rear.

The empty magazine landed beside it with a muted clack.

He placed both on the table.

Then stepped back until he was standing beside Andy.

"You get one shot." Alex said calmly.

He nodded toward the pistol.

"If your first instinct is to use it..."

His hazel eyes met mine.

"...make it count."

The room fell deathly silent.

My heart skipped a beat.

"...What's going on?"

I looked between the pistol and Alex.

"Why would I even think about shooting you?"

Alex didn't answer immediately.

Instead...

He looked directly at me.

"Alexandria Deforrest Orr."

The use of my full name made me tense instinctively.

Almost nobody called me Alexandria.

Then he turned toward Francine.

"Francine Andre Buencamino Yan."

His voice remained level.

Steady.

"We have... a great deal to talk about."

A chill ran down my spine.

Francine glanced at me before looking back at the two boys.

"What do you mean?"

Alex looked toward Andy.

A silent nod passed between them.

Andy stepped forward first.

"My full name is Francis Andre Buencamino Yan."

The room seemed to freeze.

Francine's eyes widened.

Mine did too.

Then Andy pointed toward Alex.

"And his, is Alexander Deforrest Orr."

Neither of us spoke.

Neither of us could.

Finally, I found my voice.

"...How?"

I shook my head.

"That's impossible. My parents never had another child."

"Neither did mine." Francine added quietly.

Alex let out a small, humorless chuckle.

"They didn't."

He folded his arms.

"Because we aren't your brothers."

He looked at me.

"I'm you."

Then at Francine.

"And Andy is you. The only differences are our worlds, our ages, and our genders."

I stared at him.

"...What does that even mean?"

Alex let out a slow breath.

"It means..."

He searched for the simplest way to explain something that clearly wasn't simple.

"Andy and I were born on a planet called Earth."

He gestured toward himself.

"We lived completely different lives."

He nodded toward Andy.

"We grew up there. We had families there. Friends. Jobs. Memories."

His expression softened.

"Then one day, we were at a shooting range. The next..."

He spread his hands slightly.

"...we woke up here. In your world."

Silence.

Neither Francine nor I interrupted.

Alex continued.

"We don't know why. We don't know how. We've spent the last two months trying to figure it out. So far..."

He gave a small shrug.

"...we've got nothing."

He looked at me again.

"The only thing we do know, is that when we met you two..."

He paused.

"...it was like looking into a gender bent mirror."

I slowly sat down.

My legs didn't quite trust themselves anymore.

"...You're serious."

Alex nodded once.

"I wish I wasn't."

Francine looked between the four of us.

"...So..."

She swallowed.

"...You're telling us that somewhere, another version of me..."

She looked at Andy.

"...grew up as a boy."

Andy smiled faintly.

"Pretty much."

She turned toward Alex.

"And another version of Alexa..."

Alex gave a single nod.

"...Is me."

The room fell silent once more.

I stared at the pistol on the table.

Then at Alex.

Then back at the pistol.

My thoughts were moving too fast for me to catch any one of them.

Another world.

Another life.

Another version of me.

A version of me standing across the room with a gun he had just given me permission to use.

My hands curled into fists.

"...You really thought I might shoot you?"

Alex's face didn't change much, but something in his eyes did.

Not fear.

Expectation.

Like he had already accepted the possibility before he ever walked into the room.

"I didn't know what you'd do." He said.

"That doesn't answer my question."

He looked at the pistol for a moment.

Then back at me.

"Yes."

The word hit harder than I expected.

Francine looked horrified.

"Why?"

Andy answered this time, his voice quieter than usual.

"Because finding out someone has your name, your face, your family history, and enough similarities to make it impossible to ignore..."

He swallowed.

"...That can mess with a person."

Alex nodded.

"And if either of you decided we were some kind of threat..."

He shrugged.

"I figured you deserved the chance to make the first move."

My anger flared before I could stop it.

"So your answer was to hand me a weapon?"

"It's unloaded." Andy said quickly.

Alex glanced at him.

"She knows."

"I do." I snapped. "That's not the point."

Alex went still.

For the first time since I had met him, he didn't have a joke ready.

He didn't smirk.

He didn't deflect.

He just stood there and took it.

I stepped closer to the table, but I didn't touch the pistol.

"You thought I'd hear the truth and immediately decide you were something that needed to be put down?"

Alex's jaw tightened.

"...I've seen people react worse to less."

That made the room go quiet again.

Not the confused kind of quiet.

The heavy kind.

The kind that settled over your shoulders.

Francine looked at Andy.

"Is that why you two hid your last names?"

Andy nodded.

"At first, yeah."

"At first?" she repeated.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Then it became habit."

Alex gave a dry chuckle.

"Then it became a problem we kept putting off. But now there's movie credits involved."

He winced.

"...Made putting it off impossible."

Francine's eyes narrowed.

"What movie credits?"

Andy looked away.

Alex suddenly became very interested in the floor.

I slowly turned my head toward them.

"...There's more."

Alex sighed.

"Technically, yes."

Francine crossed her arms.

"Technically?"

Andy muttered something under his breath.

Alex nodded faintly.

"Yeah. That about sums it up."

I pointed at the table.

"No."

My voice came out sharper than I intended.

"No more half answers."

Alex looked back at me.

I could see him weighing another joke.

Another dodge.

Another piece of sarcasm to throw between himself and the room.

Then he let it go.

He looked tired.

"Alright."

He stepped forward, picked up the pistol, checked the chamber again, then set it farther away from me.

Not because he thought I'd use it.

Because he was done making that point.

"There was a student film."

Francine blinked.

"A what?"

"A student film." Andy said. "Second years were making one. Alex accidentally got involved."

"Accidentally?" I asked.

Alex shrugged.

"I walked into the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the right gear."

"That sounds like you." I said before I could stop myself.

For a second, the corner of his mouth twitched.

Then it vanished.

"I helped them with the script, military stuff, worldbuilding, dialogue, music..."

"And acting." Andy added.

Alex shot him a look.

Andy ignored it.

"He became the lead actor."

Francine stared.

"You were in a movie?"

"Against my will."

"That is not true." Andy said.

"Mostly against my will."

"That is also not true."

Alex sighed.

"I was socially ambushed."

I rubbed my temples.

"Focus."

"Right."

He straightened slightly.

"When the credits roll, our full names are going to be there."

Mine and Francine's eyes widened.

Andy nodded.

"That's why we had to tell you before anyone else saw it."

Francine sank onto the edge of one of the beds.

"So everyone is going to know?"

"Not about the alternate world thing." Alex said quickly. "Just the names."

"But people will notice." I said.

"Yeah."

"Because we have the same names."

"Yeah."

"And you waited until now to tell us."

Alex's expression tightened.

"...Yeah."

I wanted to yell.

Part of me really did.

But looking at him, the words caught in my throat.

He wasn't acting like someone who had been caught in a lie.

He was acting like someone waiting for a sentence.

Francine looked at Andy with a wounded expression.

"You've been around us for months."

Andy nodded slowly.

"I know."

"You trained with us."

"I know."

"You ate with us."

"I know."

Her voice cracked slightly.

"And every time I asked where you were from..."

Andy looked down.

"I lied."

Francine flinched.

Andy's hands curled at his sides.

"I hated it."

He looked up at her.

"But I still did it."

Francine didn't answer.

Alex finally spoke again.

"We didn't hide it because we thought you were stupid."

His gaze moved from me to Francine.

"We hid it because we were scared."

That word landed differently.

Scared.

Not cautious.

Not strategic.

Scared.

I looked at him.

"You?"

Alex gave a humorless smile.

"Yeah."

He tapped his chest once.

"This body still does that sometimes."

I studied his face.

The resemblance was there.

Not exact.

Not like a twin.

But enough.

The shape of his eyes.

The way he held his shoulders when he was cornered.

The way his humor came out sharpest when things got too serious.

It was like looking into a cracked mirror and seeing someone older staring back.

Someone who had already walked roads I hadn't.

Someone who had survived things I didn't know how to ask about.

"...How old are you?" I asked quietly.

"Twenty." Alex answered.

I blinked.

"Only twenty?"

He gave me a tired look.

"Ouch."

Andy snorted despite himself.

Francine glanced at him.

"And you?"

"Eighteen." Andy said.

Francine's expression shifted.

"...You're younger than Alex?"

"By two years, yeah."

"But older than me?"

Andy nodded.

"By about a year."

Francine stared at him like she was trying to solve a puzzle that kept changing shape.

I looked back at Alex.

"And I'm seventeen."

"Yeah." He said.

"So you're me..."

I swallowed.

"...from another world."

"Basically."

"But older."

"Unfortunately."

"And male."

"So I've noticed."

Despite myself, a laugh almost escaped.

Almost.

I hated that it did.

Alex noticed, of course.

His shoulders loosened by the smallest amount.

Francine looked between him and Andy.

"Do our families exist there?"

The question was soft.

Dangerous.

Andy looked at Alex.

Alex's expression darkened a little.

"Some do."

That was not an answer.

Or maybe it was.

I didn't miss the way Andy's face changed either.

Whatever their Earth was...

Whatever life they had there...

It wasn't simple.

I sat down slowly across from Alex.

"Tell us."

He didn't move.

"About what?"

I held his gaze.

"Everything you can."

Alex looked toward Andy.

Andy nodded once.

Then Alex pulled out a chair and sat across from me.

The pistol remained on the table between us.

Unloaded.

Silent.

Unneeded.

Alex folded his hands together and took a breath.

"Alright."

His voice was quieter now.

"No more running."

He looked at me first.

Then Francine.

"What do you want to know?"

For the next two hours, they told us everything they could.

Their world.

Their lives.

Their families.

The things they missed.

The things they didn't.

Apparently, Andy had been studying to become a pilot before ending up here. It made sense, in a way. The way he talked about aircraft wasn't like someone who only thought they were interesting. He spoke about them like they were part of him.

Alex, on the other hand, had been working fast food while trying to find what he called "a real job."

He said it casually.

Like it was nothing.

Like the life he had described before that hadn't already made the room feel too small.

Andy had told us a little about Alex's past a month ago, but hearing it from Alex himself was different.

Worse.

Being abused.

Degraded.

Torn down for years by someone who should have protected him.

Trying to take his own life so many times that the number didn't feel real anymore.

A year's worth of pain, with change left over.

And somehow, he talked about it with that same dry, tired tone he used for everything else.

Like it was just another fact.

Like saying it out loud didn't matter.

But it did.

It mattered because I was sitting across from him, staring at someone who was me and not me, and realizing that somewhere, in another world, I could have been born into his life instead of mine.

He had a younger sister too.

That detail hit harder than I expected.

Maybe because of how his voice changed when he mentioned her.

Softer.

Quieter.

Like she was one of the few things in his world he didn't have to force himself to care about.

He admitted he wasn't exactly stable.

Not in those exact words, but close enough.

Depression.

Insomnia.

Anger he kept buried because he knew what it could do if he let it out.

And maybe autism, though he said he'd never been properly diagnosed.

He shrugged when he said it.

Like all of it was just another piece of him.

Another crack in the mirror.

But I couldn't look away.

Because every piece he revealed made the reflection stranger.

And more frightening.

Not because he was dangerous.

But because I could see myself in him.

And that scared me more than the pistol ever had.

Francine was quiet for a long time after that.

So was Andy.

He had told us about his world too, of course.

His family.

His plans.

His dream of flying.

The races his father used to talk about.

The way aircraft seemed to run through his blood like an inherited language.

But the more Andy spoke, the more I realized he kept glancing toward Alex.

Like he was checking on him.

Like this wasn't the first time Alex had told the story, but it still worried him every time.

Finally, Francine looked at Andy.

"Do you miss it?"

Andy blinked.

"Earth?"

She nodded.

Andy leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling for a moment.

"...Yeah."

His voice was quiet.

"I miss parts of it."

Francine's expression softened.

"Your family?"

"Yeah."

He gave a faint smile.

"My parents. My sisters. Flying lessons."

Then the smile faded a little.

"Knowing where everything was."

That made more sense than I expected.

Not the big things.

Not just people.

But the simple certainty of waking up in a world that made sense.

Knowing the sky above you belonged to the same place it did yesterday.

Knowing that if you walked far enough, you would reach roads you recognized.

Knowing your home was still there.

I looked at Alex.

"And you?"

He didn't answer right away.

His fingers tapped once against the table.

Then stopped.

"I miss my mom."

His voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear him.

"I miss my sister."

The room went still again.

"What's her name?" I asked.

Alex's gaze lowered.

"Kylie."

He said it like the name hurt.

Not because he hated saying it.

Because he loved saying it too much.

"She's younger than me."

His jaw tightened.

"She was always better than she thought she was."

I didn't know what to say to that.

None of us did.

Francine shifted slightly on the bed.

"Do you want to go back?"

Andy looked down at his hands.

Alex leaned back in his chair.

For once, neither of them answered quickly.

That said enough.

Andy spoke first.

"I do."

Then he glanced toward Alex.

"But not if it means leaving him here alone."

Alex's eyes flicked toward him.

"Andy..."

"No."

Andy's voice sharpened, just enough to cut him off.

"You don't get to argue with me on that."

Alex closed his mouth.

Francine watched them carefully.

There was something between them.

Not blood.

Not exactly.

But something close enough.

Something built from months of surviving a world that wasn't theirs.

I looked at Alex.

"And you?"

He stared at the table.

"...I don't know."

That answer surprised me more than a yes or no would have.

"You don't know?"

He gave a small, humorless smile.

"My life back home wasn't exactly sunshine and roses."

"That doesn't mean it wasn't home." I said.

His eyes lifted to mine.

For a second, I saw it again.

That cracked mirror.

The same stubbornness.

The same refusal to look away first.

"No."

He nodded slowly.

"It doesn't."

His voice grew quieter.

"But sometimes home is complicated."

I swallowed.

Because I understood that more than I wanted to.

Francine hugged one of her pillows to her chest.

"So what does that make us?"

Andy looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

She gestured between herself and him.

"Are we siblings?"

"No." Andy said quickly.

Then paused.

"I mean..."

He grimaced.

"I don't think so."

Alex rubbed his face with both hands.

"This is why we avoided this conversation."

I gave him a look.

He lowered his hands.

"Not because you didn't deserve to know."

He sighed.

"Because there isn't a clean answer."

I folded my arms.

"Try anyway."

Alex nodded once.

"Alright."

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"We're not siblings."

He looked at me.

"We're not twins."

Then at Francine.

"We're not clones."

He gestured vaguely between all four of us.

"We're... alternates. Different versions of the same person from different worlds. Same foundation. Different construction."

I thought about that.

Same foundation.

Different construction.

It sounded too simple for something so impossible.

Francine looked at Andy.

"So you're me..."

Andy nodded.

"But not me."

"Right."

"And I'm not responsible for anything you did."

"No." Andy said immediately.

"And you're not responsible for anything I did."

Francine nodded slowly.

Then I looked at Alex.

"And I'm not you."

"No." Alex said.

Something about how fast he answered made my chest tighten.

He looked at me with a seriousness I hadn't expected.

"You're not me."

His voice was firm.

"You don't inherit my mistakes."

His hands clenched once before relaxing.

"You don't inherit my damage. You don't inherit my past."

I stared at him.

He looked away first.

"You're Alexa."

A small pause.

"Not Alex."

The words should have comforted me.

They did.

But they also hurt.

Because I understood what he was really saying.

He didn't want me to think I was doomed to become him.

And that meant some part of him believed he was something terrible to become.

I hated that I could tell.

Francine's voice came softer this time.

"And what about you?"

Alex glanced at her.

"What about me?"

You keep saying we don't inherit your past."

She looked from him to Andy.

"But do you two inherit anything from us?"

Andy didn't answer.

Alex gave a faint shrug.

"I don't know."

Then, after a moment, he added,

"But I hope so."

I blinked.

"You hope so?"

He looked at me.

"You two grew up here. With Huntsman training. With people who care about you. With a future that actually seems like it was built for you."

His smile was faint.

Tired.

But real.

"I hope some of that rubs off."

No one spoke after that.

Not for a while.

The anger was still there.

The hurt too.

They had lied.

They had hidden something huge from us for months.

That didn't vanish just because their reasons were painful.

But the fear in the room had changed.

It wasn't the fear of a threat anymore.

It was the fear of what came next.

I looked at the unloaded pistol still sitting on the table.

Then at Alex.

"You know I'm still mad at you, right?"

Alex nodded.

"I'd be worried if you weren't."

Francine looked at Andy.

"I'm mad too."

Andy nodded.

"Yeah."

"But..."

She swallowed.

"I don't hate you."

Andy's shoulders loosened like someone had cut strings holding him upright.

Alex didn't move.

Not at first.

Then he exhaled.

Slowly.

Quietly.

Like he had been holding that breath since the moment he locked the door.

I leaned back in my chair.

"I don't hate you either."

Alex looked at me.

No joke.

No clever little shield to hide behind.

He just nodded.

After a while, I looked down at my hands.

The anger was still there.

So was the hurt.

But beneath all of that was something else.

Something I didn't know how to name.

"If you don't mind..."

My voice came out quieter than I meant it to.

Alex looked at me.

"I could consider you my older brother."

The room went still.

Not in a bad way.

Just... surprised.

Alex blinked once.

Like, out of everything I could have said, that had been the one thing he hadn't prepared for.

Francine looked at Andy.

"Same."

Andy's eyes widened slightly.

Francine hugged the pillow tighter against her chest, but she didn't look away from him.

"I've always wondered what having a sibling was like."

Alex glanced toward Andy.

Andy just shrugged, clearly just as lost as he was.

For once, neither of them had an answer ready.

Alex let out a slow breath and rubbed the back of his neck.

"While that's nice and all..."

He looked away for a moment.

"I've never really had the chance to be an older brother."

There was something in his voice when he said it.

Not refusal.

Fear.

Like he thought he might mess it up before he even started.

I leaned forward slightly.

"Then why not now?"

Alex looked back at me.

His expression softened, but only a little.

He was still guarded.

Still unsure.

Still Alex.

Then he sighed.

"...Very well."

He gave me a small, tired smile.

"I suppose I can be your older brother."

Francine turned toward Andy.

Andy stared at her for another second before his shoulders loosened.

Then he gave a faint smile of his own.

"Same."

Francine smiled back.

It wasn't perfect.

It didn't fix everything.

But for the first time since the truth had come out, the room felt a little less like a place where something had broken, and a little more like a place where something new had started.

"Very well, kleine Schwester."

Alex's voice shifted slightly as he said it.

Not teasing.

Not sarcastic.

Gentler.

"First things first."

I raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

He pointed at me.

"You need to learn how to cook."

I blinked.

"...Why?"

"Because cooking is one of the few normal things I actually like doing."

His expression softened, though he tried to hide it by looking toward the table.

"And it's something I never really got to do with Kylie."

The room grew quieter at the mention of his sister.

I didn't interrupt.

Alex gave a faint, tired smile.

"She liked to take over."

There was warmth in his voice now.

"She'd say she wanted to help, then five minutes later she'd be bossing me around like she owned the kitchen."

Despite myself, I smiled.

"That sounds like a little sister."

"Yeah."

He looked back at me.

"It does."

For a moment, the heaviness in the room didn't disappear.

But it changed.

Softened.

Then Alex cleared his throat and nodded toward the door.

"So..."

He tried to slip back into his usual tone.

"If I'm going to be your older brother, then I'm teaching you something useful."

I crossed my arms.

"And cooking is the first lesson?"

"Cooking is survival."

He gave me a small smirk.

"And if you can make something better than cafeteria food, morale improves by at least forty percent."

Andy sighed.

"He's making that number up."

"Eighty percent." Alex corrected.

"That is worse."

"Still accurate."

I stared at him for a moment.

Then, slowly, I smiled.

"...Alright."

Alex's smirk softened into something almost proud.

"Good."

He turned toward Francine and Andy.

"You two are learning too."

Francine blinked.

"Wait, what?"

"Brother lesson."

Alex walked toward the door.

"Mandatory attendance."

Alex unlocked the door and stepped out before any of us could say anything else.

The door swung shut behind him with a soft click.

I stared at it for a moment.

"Well..."

I let out a sigh.

"There he goes."

Andy didn't move from where he stood.

"Follow him."

I looked back at him.

"What?"

"Follow him." Andy repeated.

Francine frowned.

"Why?"

Andy's gaze stayed on the door.

"Alex isn't a people person."

He paused.

"But that doesn't mean he wants to be alone."

That made me stop.

Andy rubbed the back of his neck, choosing his words carefully.

"He'll talk to people. He'll joke. He'll make it look like everything's fine."

His eyes shifted toward me.

"But when something hits him hard, he usually goes and does something."

"Something?" I asked.

"Cooking. Checking gear. Fixing things. Walking. Feeding those birds on the roof."

Andy shrugged faintly.

"Anything that lets him move without having to say what he's feeling."

I looked toward the door again.

Andy's voice softened.

"So if he's heading somewhere right now, he probably needs someone with him."

He gave me a small, tired smile.

"He just won't ask."

I hesitated by the door.

"How long have you known Alex?" I asked.

Andy looked at me, then leaned back slightly.

"Two years, give or take."

His expression softened a little.

"We met on a writing website. Started talking through that, then somehow became friends."

He gave a faint shrug.

"Guess that's how it goes sometimes."

For a moment, he looked like he wanted to say more.

Then he nodded toward the door.

"Now get going."

I blinked.

"You're not coming?"

Andy shook his head.

"No. This is probably something you need to do."

He glanced toward Francine, then back at me.

"And if my guess is right..."

He pointed upward.

"Check the roof."

I looked at him for another second, then nodded.

"Right."

Turning away, I opened the door and stepped into the hall.

The corridor felt quieter than before.

Maybe because my mind was too loud.

Another world.

Another version of me.

An older brother I hadn't known existed until an hour ago.

I let out a slow breath and started walking.

If Andy was right, Alex would be on the roof.

So that was where I went.

The walk to the roof felt longer than it should have.

Every step gave my thoughts more room to run.

Alex was me.

Not my brother.

Not by blood.

Not really.

But close enough to make the word feel possible.

Close enough that when he called me kleine Schwester, something in my chest had tightened in a way I hadn't expected.

I reached the stairwell and pushed the door open, climbing until the hallway noise faded behind me.

When I finally reached the roof, I slowed.

The door was already cracked open.

A cool breeze slipped through the gap, carrying the smell of soil, leaves, and fresh air.

I pushed it open quietly.

Alex was exactly where Andy said he would be.

He stood near the garden beds, one hand resting on the wooden edge of a planter. The crow was perched on the railing nearby, watching him with sharp black eyes. The raven sat a little farther away, looking almost too calm for a bird.

Alex didn't turn around.

"Took you long enough."

I stopped.

"How did you know it was me?"

"The footsteps."

He glanced back slightly.

"Andy walks heavier. Francine hesitates more. You walk like you're trying to decide whether to yell or ask questions."

I folded my arms.

"And which one am I doing?"

He looked back toward the plants.

"Haven't figured that part out yet."

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

The wind moved through the leaves.

The crow cawed once.

Alex reached into one of his pouches and tossed it a small piece of corn.

"Don't start, Odin."

The crow caught it and hopped away proudly.

I stepped closer.

"So this is where you run off to?"

"I don't run."

"You absolutely do."

He gave a faint shrug.

"Strategically relocate."

"That's running with extra words."

For the first time since the dorm, his mouth twitched.

"Maybe."

I stopped beside him and looked over the garden.

Tomatoes.

Carrots.

Corn.

A few plants I didn't recognize.

Everything was neat, healthy, and carefully tended.

"You made all this?"

"Most of it."

He brushed a bit of dirt from the edge of the planter.

"Some of it was here before. I just fixed it up."

I looked at him.

"Of course you did."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you keep finding broken things and fixing them."

Alex went quiet.

I hadn't meant for it to come out that way.

Not exactly.

But once it did, I couldn't take it back.

His gaze stayed on the garden.

"Plants are easier."

"Than people?"

"Yeah."

He reached down and gently moved a leaf aside, checking the stem beneath it.

"Plants tell you what's wrong if you know what to look for."

Too much water.

Not enough sun.

Bad soil.

Crowded roots.

He didn't say any of that, but somehow I could hear it in the silence between us.

I leaned against the planter.

"And people don't?"

Alex gave a small, humorless laugh.

"People lie."

I watched him for a moment.

"So do you."

That made him stop.

His hand remained on the leaf.

Then he nodded once.

"Yeah."

The answer was quiet.

No argument.

No joke.

Just honesty.

I looked away first.

"I'm still mad."

"I know."

"You should have told us sooner."

"I know."

"And handing me a pistol was stupid."

"I know."

I blinked.

That last one had come too quickly.

Alex sighed and finally looked at me.

"I thought it made sense in my head."

"It didn't."

"Clearly."

The raven gave a low croak from the railing.

Alex pointed at it.

"Not helping, Branwen."

The bird stared at him like she disagreed.

Despite myself, I smiled.

"You named a raven Branwen?"

"Welsh mythology."

"Of course."

"And the crow is Odin."

"Also of course."

He glanced at me.

"You judging me, little sister?"

The words hit me again.

Little sister.

Not kleine Schwester this time.

Just the plain version.

Somehow, that made it worse.

Or better.

I wasn't sure.

I looked back at the garden before he could see too much on my face.

"No."

I paused.

"Maybe a little."

"Fair."

Silence settled between us again, but this time it wasn't as heavy.

I reached out and brushed my fingers against one of the tomato leaves.

"What were you going to cook?"

Alex looked at me.

"For your first lesson?"

I nodded.

He seemed to consider it seriously.

"Something simple."

"Like what?"

"Stew, maybe."

I frowned.

"You consider stew simple?"

"It is."

"It takes hours."

"So?"

"That doesn't sound simple."

Alex gave me a sideways look.

"Simple and fast are not the same thing."

I opened my mouth.

Then closed it.

"That's annoying."

"That I'm right?"

"That you sound like you're about to turn cooking into a life lesson."

He smiled faintly.

"Cooking is a life lesson."

I groaned.

"You've been my older brother for five minutes and you're already insufferable."

"Good."

He picked a small tomato from the vine and tossed it to me.

I barely caught it.

"That means I'm doing it right."

I stared at the tomato in my hand.

Then at him.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"First lesson."

He leaned against the planter.

"Good food starts with knowing where it comes from."

I looked down at the tomato.

It was small.

Bright red.

Still warm from the sun.

For some reason, it felt important.

More important than a tomato had any right to be.

Alex looked out over Beacon, his voice quieter when he spoke again.

"Kylie used to steal tomatoes out of the garden before they made it to the kitchen."

I glanced at him.

He didn't look sad exactly.

Not in the obvious way.

But his eyes had gone somewhere far away.

"She'd say she was helping quality control."

I smiled softly.

"Was she?"

"No."

He shook his head.

"She just liked tomatoes."

The smile on his face was small.

Painful.

Real.

I held the tomato a little more carefully.

"So..."

I said after a moment.

"When do we start?"

Alex looked at me.

Some of the weight in his expression eased.

"Tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Unless you're scared of a kitchen."

I scoffed.

"I'm not scared."

"Good."

He pushed away from the planter and started toward the roof door.

"Then tonight, you learn how to chop vegetables without losing a finger."

I followed him.

"That's your first concern?"

"With you?"

He glanced back, dead serious.

"Yes."

I glared at him.

"I regret calling you my older brother."

"No refunds."

The crow cawed loudly behind us.

Alex pointed back without looking.

"Stay out of the corn, Odin!"

The bird cawed again.

Alex sighed.

"He's going to get into the corn."

I looked at him, then toward the bird, then back at him.

For the first time since the truth came out, I laughed.

Not much.

Not loudly.

But enough.

Alex looked at me for a second.

Then smiled.

"Come on, little sister."

He opened the roof door.

"We've got dinner to plan."
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A/N: And done. kuwebby2, what do you think?