The taxi ride to Shirogane's home was strangely mundane given everything that had happened over the course of the day, and that gave her a chance to think. To cry, if she were being honest. Shirogane barely spoke to her—Kana wasn't sure if she was angry, unsure, or just sensible—and that meant she could crawl into the corner of the seat and curl up without anyone pointing out that she was crying. That was nice of her, really. She didn't feel like talking. Shirogane's hand on her arm was a constant reminder that the woman certainly didn't trust her.
So she thought, as best she could when her thoughts still jittered from place to place, and cried occasionally when the emotions became too much to bear. And when the taxi stopped moving and Shirogane gave her arm a little tug she stumbled after her, finding herself led into a relatively normal house and left alone in a bathroom with the door shut behind her—a bottle of shampoo pressed into her hand by Shirogane before the woman left again without another word.
Kana looked around the bathroom for a few seconds in blank confusion, feeling like she was missing something important but not really knowing what it was that she was supposed to do—until she caught sight of herself in the mirror and flinched away from what she saw.
"That's me?" she mumbled quietly, hesitating for a few seconds before wrenching off her clothes.
She'd had-
She'd had quite a few third-degree burns, she supposed. All that was left of that was patches of pink, tender skin where Amu had healed her—the new skin a stark contrast against the rest of her body, which was tanned from spending so much time outside—but she barely recognised the girl staring back at her in the mirror. Her hair was burnt and tangled, matted in places and smelling of smoke; a slight breeze from the air-conditioner ruffled what remained of it as she stood there in confusion.
"Wash up," Shirogane said from outside the door, her voice muffled through the wood but still clearly audible. "You can take your time. I'll make dinner while you bathe."
She was covered in bruises and dried blood. Darkened, mostly. Amu had fixed everything that needed fixing, but hadn't gotten to cosmetics.
"Suits me," Kana mumbled, hugging herself and closing her eyes. Shirogane didn't reply, and Kana was glad of that; glad of the privacy.
She was ugly right now.
Didn't matter—what she thought or wanted—she didn't get to be pretty anyway, but...
'Wash up,' the woman had said, so Kana looked around for a bath or a shower—perhaps irrationally scared of disappointing the woman despite having just tried to murder her—and found both, because this was Shirogane Naoto and why wouldn't she have both in her house—and her shampoo smelled nice—so Kana washed up and started crying again halfway through because the warmth felt nice and everything felt wrong and she just wanted to curl up and die-
She'd said goodbye to Amu without breaking down.
That was good. It was what Amu needed from her; the kind of strong face that told Amu that, despite it all, Kana could hold herself together. That Amu didn't need to speak up, or do anything but go home and hug her mother and fall into her bed, all things that Amu had wanted very badly, and Kana might have wanted too if she'd had those.
She was so tired, and she'd walked downstairs right into a presence so strong that she'd nearly collapsed on the spot, a feel like a building falling on her as she desperately tried to scramble backwards and realised she couldn't move her legs. Amu had been perking up behind her but Kana couldn't hear her over the ringing in her ears and the terrible certainty that if she moved her head too far in any direction, she was going to die.
And that had been their backup.
An eight year old boy with enough presence that it might have broken Yui-chan if he'd come in looking for them.
Who'd also brought a limousine.
Amu could have helped. Amu had been serious, when she'd told Kana that she knew people who could help, and Kana had known that, because she'd literally been reading her mind at the time. But also: Kana had seen the terrible, terrible look of consternation on Amu's face when Amu realised that while Amu's secrets were 'being a not-a-magical-girl', Kana's were 'I've killed someone'. And Kana hadn't quite believed her anyway, so Naomi hadn't believed Kana at all.
So now she was alone.
Kana scrubbed at her skin until she felt like it was coming off, trying not to think as she did so. Her thoughts swirled endlessly around regardless of how desperately she fought to escape them. Only she'd given up that privilege, hadn't she? When she'd let herself be consumed by the fire within her head until it was too much to bear, and only the dark thoughts remained—and Kana had listened to those thoughts because it was easier than trying to stop them, and she'd hurt Amu because of that decision.
But there was also that not-so-little part of her. The part that was a little girl who just wanted someone to look after her and make her problems go away. Even if that meant being a burden, because there was no way she wasn't going to be a burden on anyone who spent too much time around her—but god she didn't want to be alone again. She couldn't pretend she did. Not anymore.
She sat for a while in the bathtub and struggled to think past her exhaustion; trying to come up with some course of action that didn't involve admitting that all she really wanted was to crawl into a hole and hide forever—because Amu had said: 'Let's stay friends'—and so Kana should be doing something about that now, something other than getting Shirogane's bathroom dirty.
There was a towel.
There were clothes too, once she summoned up the willpower to pull herself out of the bath, and she dressed herself after drying herself off because Shirogane wouldn't want her to drip all over the floor, and then she wandered outside of the bathroom looking for the detective. It didn't take her long to find the woman. Kana followed her trail—the nothingness—and Shirogane was sitting at a table with food on it when Kana found her.
"Feeling a little better?" Shirogane asked. Kana didn't reply immediately—too busy looking at her feet—and Shirogane repeated her question again after a few seconds. "Kana-san?"
"Yeah," Kana lied.
Shirogane stared at her for a moment and then sighed, pushing out a chair with one foot for Kana to sit in. Kana sat down and fiddled with the hem of her shirt, pretending not to notice the woman's scrutiny.
"You need food," Shirogane told her. "I'll ask Marie-chan to do your hair in the morning. Until then, please try to eat something." She paused before continuing on; her voice turning unexpectedly gentle. "I know today has been difficult for you."
Kana nodded numbly in response, barely registering the words.
Today had been difficult.
Was difficult.
Would be difficult again tomorrow?
"I thought of asking my boyfriend to come over, too, but that might be too many people for one day," Shirogane continued on, picking out some salad and a few pieces of chicken, along with a generous helping of rice. She slid the plate over to Kana. "So for now it's just the two of us. If you'd rather have another type of food—soup, maybe-"
"No!" Kana protested, accidentally cutting the woman off. "...no. You don't have to do anything for me," she continued on lamely after a second or two. "I'm... okay?"
Shirogane ignored the obvious lie in favour of adding some pork to the plate and pushing it closer to Kana again.
Kana's stomach growled.
She'd had a meal less than an hour ago, but after going several days without food? She was ravenous again already.
"You will be," Shirogane said. "Eat."
Kana hesitantly picked up the chopsticks and shovelled some rice into her mouth, sure that as soon as she swallowed it she'd throw up. But somehow it stayed down—the taste strangely bland and then flavourful all of a sudden as a switch flipped in her mind—and Kana's hunger got the better of her, devouring everything on the plate with a ferocity that surprised even her in its intensity.
She hardly even noticed when Shirogane pushed more rice onto her plate, until it was gone and Shirogane was handing her a cup of water as well. Kana took it hesitantly—wondering when Shirogane had gotten up in the first place—and drank from it in quick, desperate gulps.
Kana wanted more food but-
She suddenly felt a bit like she might burst if she ate any more than she already had, groaning slightly in discomfort as her body finally registered just how much food she'd shoved into it without thinking. Shirogane seemed to have noticed it as well, or she simply anticipated Kana's behaviour—either way she had an arm ready to help her up.
Kana couldn't help but stumble when she tried to push to her feet—even the motion of standing was an effort—and then she was in Shirogane's arms, being lifted up and carried towards the couch as though she were a child again. A couch that Shirogane had converted into a makeshift bed, complete with blankets and a pillow.
"Sleep," Shirogane murmured gently. "Everything else can wait until tomorrow."
Kana didn't argue.
She was already half asleep when her head hit the pillow.
= = =
"I wasn't exactly looking for a daughter," Naoto began slowly, watching the girl breathe softly as she slept.
Kana was comfortably tucked into the corner of the couch, a blanket hiding most of her face—almost childlike in sleep, an illusion shattered by the bruises visible all around the girl's neck. Shirogane had had to pack her inside two layers of blankets before she stopped shivering, though she wasn't sure if that was cold or simple exhaustion.
Could have been either. Could also be mentality. Naoto doubted if Kana felt safe here yet, or—anywhere.
"Want or not, Nao-chan," Marie said quietly, wrapping her arms around her and letting out a heavy sigh into Shirogane's shoulder. "A twelve-year-old is what we've got." She slouched into her, forcing Naoto to hold her upright, and chuckled quietly. There was little humour in the sound. "A fixer-upper to boot. The things you do to me."
"The things we do to ourselves," Shirogane corrected. They kept their voices low, so as to not disturb the girl. "Weren't you just saying you wanted children?"
"When you and Yu-kun are older," Marie replied, making a face at Naoto before glancing down at the girl sleeping on their couch. "Right now it sounds like more trouble than it's worth, 'specially if I don't get to have my own. But needs gotta, and she can't go anywhere else. Just how damaged is she, though?"
"I thought you said you could tell?" Shirogane asked in return.
"I can tell her soul is scorched and smoking," Marie replied quietly, all traces of humour fading from her expression, the tinge of snark and grouch disappearing. "Like a tower already fallen. She had her day, fought her fight, and it broke her. Now all that's left is ash, so the question you should ask is what will grow from there. It isn't a question I can answer. Yu-kun would be better suited to helping her than me, and Elizabeth or Margaret better than him, but Nao-chan... is she worth your time?"
"She is," Shirogane said without hesitation; not needing to consider it for even a moment, to make up her mind.
She'd already made it up on the ride home. Only a monster would look at someone Kana's age, then turn her away because she'd made mistakes that could have been avoided. Children were meant to make mistakes. Kana's were worse than most, but only because of the adults around her. She'd done better than anyone could ask of her—she'd have needed to be someone else to do better than she had. Naoto couldn't, wouldn't ask that of anyone.
"Even though you realise this is for life?" Marie pressed on, letting go to look her properly in the eyes. "She might never be alright. It'll take her months to trust you, if not years. And at the end of it all, what you'll have isn't some cute daughter. She's a young lady who has problems grown men struggle with, and no real faith in anyone at all. You won't get to abandon her in a month, or a year. If you want her soul to shine again..."
Marie blushed lightly at her choice of wording, but didn't correct herself.
"You'll be there forever."
"I will," Naoto said simply, reaching out to touch Kana's face, gently brushing some hair from it and smiling softly when Kana let out a grunt of protest at the movement.
"Of your own free will," Marie murmured, an odd reverb entering her voice. She sounded like two people speaking in perfect harmony. "Naoto," she continued on. "You've made up your mind, to take this responsibility?"
"I have," Shirogane replied.
"Then so be it," Marie said quietly.
= = =
Thanks go to the beta-readers. You know where you are, and so do the unicorn hordes.
