“Where are you going?”

Zero turned to face the woman, his hand on the doorknob to the only bedroom in the home. “My room,” he stated simply.

Sakura stared at his hand, willing it not to turn to prevent her from being forced to confront that which she’d avoided for years. “Why do you sleep in there?” her voice quieter than normal.

“Ren told me to.”

Of course he did.

It had always been easier for the man to come to terms with all of the horrible little things that life loved to sprinkle along the way, picking each one up and giving it a cozy little spot to live, viewing it for what it was.

It was so much harder for her. If she couldn’t ignore it, pretend it wasn’t there, then she’d run and hide until it went away.

But it never did.

It was always there.

Waiting.

Her eyes snapped towards the man as she tried to keep her voice in check. “Why does he sleep in there?”

Ren shrugged, having never been concerned about it. “Why not? Raz is gone. He doesn’t need that room anymore. It makes no sense to let that space go to waste. But it was never my room, and to be fair, I have no interest in ever changing that, so in there Zero went.”

“How long has he slept in there?”

“I don’t know,” he mulled it over, “Awhile now. Ever since he got over his fear of the dark and decided he was too good to cuddle up with me anymore. It was probably for the best. There’s no need for him to be around while I cry myself to sleep every night. That’s your problem to deal with, not his.”

She looked back at the knob, her heart sinking into the pit of her stomach. There would be no point in arguing against the boy staying in the room after all this time.

She had finally stopped running from it.

Now, she had to stop hiding.

“Oh. Okay.” The fox watched as the devil turned and opened the door, stepping into the room she hadn’t entered since she had retrieved Raz’s glaive. She stood frozen, steeling herself against all the horrific terrors she had convinced herself were hidden behind that door.

But there was nothing.

Only a room.

Everything else had been in her head.

Having only the power she had given it.

Ivy looked between the room and Sakura, conflicted on what to do. “Where do you want me to sleep?” she asked gently.

The girl had tolerated so many things over the years. The woman may have given everything she had in order to care for her, but Ivy had also sacrificed in order to tiptoe around her unwillingness to deal with her own issues. How long had Sakura denied the girl’s needs in order to fulfill her own wants? In what ways did the girl suffer so that the woman could avoid her own suffering?

How unfair had she been?

Sakura sighed deeply, snuffing out the panic that had begun to pick at her. “With Zero. In the room.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am.” The woman forced a smile at the girl. “It’s your room now. Go on. Go put your stuff away.” She paused, realizing she would have nowhere to put her things. Not with Raz’s clothes in the way. “I’ll empty out the drawers for you.”

She really didn’t want to.

But it needed to be done.

“Don’t worry about it, I already did.” Ren looked down at her with somber blue. “The first time I came back, I got everything and burnt them in the yard.”

“Oh.” She nodded and turned away, unable to face him. “Alright. That’s probably for the best.”

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It really was. There was no use for them now. They would only take up space, be another inconvenience, another reminder when there were already so many.

“Come on.” He took her hand and led her to the corner where their beds were. “I kept one for you. I know how much you love stealing everyone’s stuff.” He offered her what upturn of his lips that he could muster before opening the bottom drawer of the dresser they shared and handing her the neatly folded square.

Sakura took it, letting it fall open to expose the buttons, the faded white fabric, the long sleeves.

The first thing she had worn when she had arrived here.

What she wore the first time she met the man, and when he took her in as his own.

“He kept it,” she mumbled as she examined the old shirt, finding the familiar frayed shirt tail, the chewed-up cuffs and collar, the holes and rips and stains she had created. “He said it was disgusting, but I would scream and run away with it every time he mentioned tossing it. He had to sneak it out of the wash, and I was so mad at him when I couldn’t find it. I thought he got rid of it.”

“Well, he was right. It is disgusting,” the man agreed. “But I guess he didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. I found it at the bottom of one of his drawers.”

Her mouth opened to respond but no words found their way out, only the gasps and squeaks of her sorrow that spilled suddenly without warning. The shirt pressed against her face, muffling her oncoming wails as Ren lifted and laid her in the narrow bed they had always shared, his body curling and wrapping around hers in the small, cramped area.

She had convinced herself that it had been so much easier running from her fears and misery, keeping it far behind in a place where it couldn’t reach out and drag her back. But it never mattered how fast she moved away from it. Ultimately, she just ended up running straight for it, like going in circles. Go as fast as you can for as long as you can and keep your head forward, but sooner or later, you end up right back where you started, unable to escape.

There is no escape.

Nothing from the past will change.

You can never have it back.

Or leave it behind.

You can only accept it.

As it’ll always be there.

Casting its shadow.

But you can live with it.

Understand that it is a part of you.

Move forward with it.

She laid there even after the tears were long dried and her breathing calmed, listening to the rhythm of Ren’s heartbeat.

He was still here.

And so was she.

And so was Raz.

In his own way.

Sakura pushed herself up out of bed, and the angel did the same. She took his hand and led him through the house, past Zero and Ivy as they made supper, and out the front door. Their feet took them to the tree line.

To where Raz lay.

The woman had avoided the spot since she dug it, having convinced herself that she could never bear to look upon it again. But here she was, peering down on where the man who had raised her rested.

She didn’t feel frantic, or out of control.

She didn’t feel like crumbling into a billion tiny bits and absorbing into the earth, vanishing from what was in front of her.

She felt at peace.

At least, as much as she could be.

Neither she nor Ren had a mother.

Neither did they have a father.

They only had Raz.

And now, he was gone.

Sakura could smell the salt, and she turned towards Ren, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him to her. He had taken her tears, and she would take his.

He pressed his forehead against her shoulder. “I’m only crying because that cross is so fucking bad. It hurts every time I see it.”

She laughed, an expelling of her remaining overwhelming sadness. “I know. It’s so, so bad. Will you make a new one?”

They held each other, allowing life to pass, feeling the brunt of it.

Letting it wash over them.

It was theirs.

They would share it.

Be strong when one was weak, and weak when one was strong.

Ren straightened himself, and they went to the shed. Sakura watched as he chose the wood and the correct sized nails. As he sawed it to the desired length and shape and put all the pieces together. She rolled her eyes and barely paid attention while he lectured her on her impatience and lack of forethought and inability to not swing the hammer wildly.

He neatly carved the man’s name into the wood.

Raz

He hadn’t been their father.

But he was.

In every real sense of the word.

In every way that mattered.

The ground was solid, having had years to reclaim itself as Ren pounded the larger cross into the ground behind the one that Sakura had made.

“Leave it,” he told her when she went to remove the smaller one. “It’s held up this long. It's earned its place.”

They went inside and unpacked their things, putting everything in its new spot. She removed a shirt of her father’s, a dress of her mother’s, and a small blue dress that had been hers and set it in the top drawer before Ren put the pink dress of his choosing with them.

He then moved the bed that Sakura had never spent a night in against the one they both claimed as theirs, making something new.

She finished pulling everything from her bag.

Almost.

She gripped the ivory bracelet and freed it from its pocket, rolling the stones in her fingers, feeling the smoothness against her skin. Like the softest of feathers. She placed it on the dresser, a cozy place for it to live.

Ren grabbed the chair by the fire and took it to the table, turning three to four as they all sat down and ate their supper in the home that was theirs.

It was the first.

Though, it wouldn’t be the last.

Raz had once been their life.

But that life was gone.

And this was their life now.

It wasn’t the same.

But it was still so good.

A true blessing.

One they wouldn’t take for granted.