While they fight, Camille finds it’s not all useless.

Even if their supposed powers elude them — all of them, when they come out to spar as well — Camille is still learning enough about self-defense. Her reflexes are pretty quick, or so Zephyr and Laika have told her. She chalks it up to having three younger siblings she raised pretty much solo.

“Maybe we should switch it up a bit.” Laika announces, on their fourth sparring session, “But again, Gideon and Zephyr—”

“Yeah, yeah, keep separate.” Gideon goes, already walking towards Hyacinth. Zephyr smiles warmly at Camille, making to walk away.

“You’ve learned a lot, so keep going.” he says, shooting a thumbs up. She giggles again, looking to see Namir approach her. He stretches his arms overhead, exposing his skinny hips underneath his shirt.

He really is pretty.

He just needs to work on that mean mug of his.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Zephyr teach you much yet?” he sighs out his question.

“I learned some.” Camille says; her voice drops a little, then, “I could probably take you.”

“Just don’t snap my arm like the big guy did.” he jabs his thumb in Zephyr’s direction. Namir might be taller than Zephyr, but the latter dwarfs the former in terms of body mass. He’s built much broader than Namir, who is pretty skinny in comparison.

“I’ll try to take it easy on you.”

“Come on, then.”

-

They end up fighting themselves into exhaustion, pointedly not talking about anything other than the task at hand, although Namir’s snap at her still looms over the both of them. Does he think the air is clear now? Does she? At what point should they talk about it, what should they say — if they’ll say anything at all?

She lays on the ground, chest heaving with each breath. Namir lays beside her, hands resting on his abdomen. He seems more fit than she is, as his breaths don’t come nearly as ragged and deep. Still, they worked up a sweat.

There’s voices floating from the other pairs, from their audience. Laika doesn’t approach them yet, and Camille can’t be assed to look to see why that is. Her breathing slowly evens itself out, and Namir turns to face her.

“Hey, do you remember anything about me?”

“No.” she says, “I don’t think so.”

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“Mmm.”

“Why?”

“I’m thinking about your sibs. We were close.”

She rolls over to face him, immediately jolted into shock, “What do you remember?”

“Sometimes … You’d have me over to help with the kids.” he says, voice just a little tight, “When you were working too many hours or you were just too tired.

“I’d sleep on the couch and get ‘em ready for school. Let you sleep in.” he continues, and so his voice eases up as he remembers each of them, “James was my lil man. He’d — wait, is this too much? You look like you’re having a stroke.”

Camille covers her mouth but speaks through her fingers, as though the digits will filter out the shakiness of her voice, “No, keep going.”

He pauses, but looks back up at the sky; it’s weird, how it doesn’t seem to horrify him like it does her. Or maybe it does, and he’s just good at hiding it. She can’t tell.

“I was the one who taught him to ride a bike.” he laughs lowly, “But you were the one to patch him up when he fell off and scraped his palms and knees.”

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she sniffs, tears leaking messily down her face and into the grass below.

“Tell me … Tell me about the girls.” she whispers.

“Ophelia, she … she’d put on concerts in the living room for us. She liked Lizzo as much as she liked The Hush Sound. Bad at make-up, good at stage presence.”

She laughs despite herself, and that gets a grin out of him.

“Artina … Clumsy kid.” he goes, “But so sweet. She … She hit her head once, falling off a chair—”

Camille sucks in a deep breath and doesn’t let it out. She remembers that now that he’s spoken it; it all comes back to her in a rush …

Artina, falling off the spinning chair, hitting her head on the edge of the table. The blood, the unconscious child in her arms. Tearfully — hysterically — calling 911. By the time the EMTs arrived, she was awake and just a bit woozy, wobbling where she sat.

“Milly,” she had asked, “Why did they put a bandaid on my finger? I didn’t fall on my finger …”

She’s laughing and she’s crying, when she comes to. Evidently so loudly that the rest of them have begun to surround her, concern across their postures and voices—

“—Camille, what’s—”

“God, I—” she reaches her hand up towards the sky, “—I miss them … so much.”

She feels positively woozy herself on that memory; it occurs to her that this must have been how Artina felt when she hit her head. How strange, the memory affecting her like this. There’s not much to be done, and nor does she think about it the pain. The images of her siblings — there with Namir, riding bikes, singing loudly, sitting with bandaids all over — is enough to make her burst into tears and laughter all over again.

“What happened?”

“I just started telling her what I remembered about her sibs. Told her about her youngest hitting her head and then she …” Namir lets the sentence run off a cliff.

“I think … I think that’s one of her abilities.” Laika says, that tone tentative, as though they’re remembering something old and storied themself.

“What, scaring the fuck out of us?” Mikael goes, though his voice holds no derision — rather, there’s trembling concern and humor in its stead. Attempting to lighten a strange mood.

“No, I mean … She immerses herself so deep in memories that she …” Laika searches for the words, “They affect her, y’know? The good and the bad.”

“Sounds whack. What good does that even do against—”

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Camille cuts in. She doesn’t want to hear it; even soft voices feel like too much to her.

Camille sits up and manages to get to her knees and then to her feet, supportive hands coming out to help her.

“I just need … Need to sit somewhere that isn’t grass.” she mumbles, making her way towards the basement door, in a daze. Zephyr is quick to rush to her side, opening the door and then guiding her down the rickety steps.

“I’ll get you some water,” he offers, sounding incredibly frazzled himself, “D’you need anything else?”

“Blanket.”

“Got it.”

She’s seated on the couch, then, and Zephyr makes to go get what she needs. Namir slinks into the room, sitting on the chair adjacent.

“You gonna be good?” he asks lightly, as though any other words might make either one of them implode. An apology would feel strange in that short tone of his, and anything else from Camille would feel just as jumbled.

There’s hushed, hurried murmuring outside of the curtain, but Zephyr quickly comes in to hand Camille a bottle and spread a blanket out around her shoulders.

“You mind if … I sit here with you? This sort of thing makes me …” he gesticulates; Camille just nods.

“Go ahead.”

So he sits next to her, and once again silence falls over them. This time it’s fuzzy and thick, strange and odd in the way it settles in one’s bones.

Camille wonders briefly when it’s going to get less awkward and weird … She wants them to be friendly, like they used to be.

She falls asleep with her head on Zephyr’s shoulder.

He doesn’t move the whole night. She smiles through her dreams, just as fuzzy, thick, and strange all about her. Sunshine and song lift her from the bad brainspace into something like morning.