"What?" Alouette whispers. She can't deal with this right now. Harry is so still, so cold. She's holding his hand but he isn't holding hers anymore. Crying hysterically isn't enough anymore. It isn't enough to express the pain she's feeling, that smothering fear of what will come next. If the sun fell on the world by midday tomorrow, she wouldn't be surprised. It would be expected, because how could the world go on without Harry, as if he'd never been there in the first place?

If he has to shoot her, she wishes he'd do it now. She already hates every second of it.

The man lowers his gun. "Alouette, isn't that right?"

There's a pause of a second. "Yes," she then says. Who is he?

"Ha! Thought I recognised you." He looks away and shouts, "Elijah! I got her!"

Elijah?

Elijah comes running. "Al?!" he exclaims as soon as he sees her, and he seems to be so relieved. "Oh, thank..." His voice dies out in the instant his gaze falls on Harry. Unconscious Harry, with his head on her lap and blood on his clothes. He isn't moving—she doesn't even know if he's breathing anymore. Maybe it's the fear that's blinding her to the truth—whichever it is. "Is he..." Elijah struggles to find the words. "Is he dead?" he whispers out in the end.

Another sob breaks through Alouette's chest when she hears that word. Dead. She hates it—every part of it. The way it starts and the way it ends. Four letters are oddly diminishing compared to the extent of their meaning. Dead means no longer alive, and that means the world has lost something. "I... I don't..." She wipes her tears with her hand, but it's smeared in blood, and she only stains her face.

Elijah crouches beside him. "S... sir?" He's a little hesitant—he doesn't know how to call him. "Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"

Harry gives no sign. The world can't touch him now.

"Sir!" Elijah pats his cheek a few times. The man behind him lets out a gasp.

"I don't know, El, I wouldn't touch him. He might bite."

Alouette wants to take his gun and shoot him. She doesn't—but only because it means she'd have to look away from Harry.

"Shut the hell up, Jesse," Elijah mutters without looking at him. He pats Harry's cheek again, this time a little harder. "Sir! Sir!"

Harry's eyebrows furrow slightly, and he turns his head just barely. A sound comes out of his throat, too short to be any word, and he blinks a couple of times before his eyes fall shut again.

"He's still alive," Elijah announces, standing up and looking at the other man. Jesse. "Call the others. Tell them to bring the car over right now."

Alouette could cry.

Elijah looks at Harry again, taking in the condition he's in again. "Shit, this doesn't look good." He takes off his black jacket and drapes it over Harry's chest. "How long has he been like this?"

Alouette's teeth are chattering, from the cold, the fear, and the tension. "An hour. Maybe two," she can only let out. She doesn't know—she just doesn't know. And Elijah is here, now, and she wants to hope, she really does, but Harry's is just so pale and she's so scared he might not last much longer. Hell—she doesn't even know if the Revolution can help him, at this point.

In the distance, Jesse is talking on the phone.

"What happened?" Elijah asks her, kneeling next to them again so he can be on her same eye level. "How did he get hurt?"

"There was a group of them," she can only say before another sob shatters her heart. Where is the car? Why isn't it coming already? There's no time. Not enough time. "I'm so scared."

"Are you hurt?" He gives her a quick look, and she knows how she must look to him right now. Her hands are red and so is her shirt, and her lap, too. But it isn't hers.

She shakes her head and looks at Harry again, stifling a cry as she brushes her fingers through his dark hair. He isn't moving again, but now that Elijah's presence has calmed her down a little she can see he's breathing, albeit faintly. She knows that if he stops breathing, it'll be it. The Revolution is equipped for emergencies, but they can't bring the dead back to life. She can see her same worry reflected in Elijah's eyes.

"Keep pressure on the wound," he instructs, sending Harry another wary look. She knows how it must look to him right now. Him and her beside the President as he's dying, and yet they're both trying to keep him alive. It feels like the world has suddenly started spinning in the other direction.

She presses her hand on his stomach, but she doesn't even know where the wound is because she tied her jacket around his waist before she had time to check. She doesn't know if there's only one, or more—though the speed at which he went down makes her fear there might be more than one. "Elijah, I'm so scared."

"He won't die." He shakes his head. "People like him don't die this easily." But they both know it doesn't mean much—not when time is flashing past this quickly. "I'm sorry for not answering your calls," he says, "I was in a meeting with Ezra, and I caught them only a moment too late. I called back right away, but I wasn't getting through."

"The phone died." There's something of so absurd in this conversation—they're here, talking about missed calls and dying phones, as if she isn't covered in blood. As if Harry isn't about to die under their eyes. She tries to clean his cheek with her thumb, but she only spreads the crimson smudge more. She feels like she's dying inside, and she can't stop tears from sliding down her face.

"I feared something bad had happened," Elijah replies. He lifts Harry's wrist and feels for his pulse when he notices how still he is, then frowns and tries on his neck, and lets out a relieved sigh. "I had them trace the location of your last call. I'm sorry, I wouldn't have used it like that, but I was really worried something was wrong."

Alouette can't even bring herself to care right now. She's just so glad, because he's here now and he wouldn't have been if he hadn't, and maybe there's still hope, maybe there's still a way. At the same time, though, she's still so scared, because time is running out.

A car stops only some steps away from them—it's a rather large one, and it's entirely black with no license plate. Two men step out and walk towards them. She recognises one of them, but not the other. He must've lived in another building, differently from the first.

"What in the world are you doing?" the one she's never seen before asks.

"Heartfelt reunion over a potentially dead body, I think," Jesse replies, but Alouette can't even bring herself to feel annoyance because Harry is everything she can think about. Harry needs to be okay. He needs to survive this.

"What the—"

Elijah stands up. "Come on, we need to get him inside."

Jesse opens the doors of the backseat as the other three men, with some difficulty, lift Harry up. His head lolls back in an unnatural position as they do, and Elijah turns it so it's leaning on his shoulder instead.

"Al," he only says.

Alouette stands up—her legs hurt because of the fight and the run now, and tingle because they've been folded under Harry's head for a little over an hour. She sits on the backseat—one of the rows, she realises, because there's another row right behind her—and then they carefully slide Harry's form in as well, so that his head is on her lap again.

"Keep an eye on him," the man she's never seen before says. "Doesn't look too good." He and Jesse get on the seats behind them, and then Elijah and the other sit in the front.

"Drive as fast as possible, it's an emergency," Elijah tells the other as he pulls out his phone and types in a number.

The doors are slammed and the car speeds down the street. Alouette has to keep Harry still with a hand so that he won't move too much when they turn into a dirt road—or more like, not a road. Harry's eyes slide open by half when he notices the movement, and Alouette could cry.

"Hold on, okay? Just a while longer," she tells him quietly even though she doesn't even know if he can hear her over the confusion, grazing his cheek in an attempt to keep him awake. The heating system of the vehicle is on but his skin is still very cold and somewhat clammy. Elijah's jacket is a little wet now, too, and it can't be doing much to keep him warm, but he isn't trembling. Somehow, that worries her more. "Harry?" A few gentle brushes of her hand on his forehead are enough to elicit a reaction from him, and he turns his head a little, his eyelids flutter, but he doesn't open his eyes.

"I'm no expert, but he kind of looks awful," a voice says behind her. Then, another black jacket falls on Harry's legs. "Use this against the wound, blood is hell to get off car seats." It's Jesse.

Alouette lifts Elijah's jacket—in an attempt to at least keep a somewhat dry layer on top of Harry to make sure he won't freeze—and presses Jesse's to his stomach. The thick smell of iron has started filling the car, but no one dares to open the window—not when it's so cold outside, and Harry doesn't seem able to retain any warmth.

"Thanks," she murmurs, but she's already looking at Harry again. The ring on his necklace hits her chest with every new jump of the car. She runs her fingers through Harry's curls, slowly, gently undoing any knots and mats she accidentally created earlier. She stops every once in a while to make sure that he's still breathing, and still somewhat responsive. "Just a little longer," she whispers out periodically, she doesn't even know if she's saying it to Harry or herself. Her heart is beating fast—her newfound hope has made her a thousand times more anxious, because there's a chance, now, and they need to get to the Revolution as quickly as possible, so that maybe he'll make it.

"We're coming," Elijah is saying on the phone. "We found them, yes." A moment of silence. "He's wounded badly, wake Anthony up. There's no time to waste, he'll need help. Wait for us."

He closes the call, and then gives her a long, unreadable look through the rear view mirror. Alouette doesn't know what he's thinking, but she doesn't even care right now. All that matters is Harry. It's him, surviving. Her hand is pressed to his stomach, and now she can feel it burning. The pain that was drowned by her heartbreak is starting to sneak up the nerves of her arm, but she doesn't loosen the pressure. She can deal with her hand hurting if it means saving Harry.

"I don't like this," Elijah says. It takes her a moment to understand he's talking about the situation with the driver. "Can you go faster? If he dies we're fucked."

"Do you want me to crash the car? A hundred miles per hour is pretty damn fast."

"Shit," he hisses, and then turns to look at Alouette. "How's he doing?"

She looks down as Harry. He's quiet again. At no point of the drive he's given any sign that he might be in pain, though she knows he must be, no sign of stress, nor worry, nor any other emotion that would prove he's still living. "Harry," she calls him, trying to infuse softness in her voice. When he doesn't react, she pats his cheek lightly. "Harry."

No reaction.

"Harry!" She pats his cheek again, but still nothing. "Harry!" She goes as far as to shaking his shoulder, but he doesn't respond. Tears are falling down her cheeks again. It can't be. No. It can't all end here, so close to a different ending. This isn't right. "Harry!"

"Five mins," the driver announces, without looking at her.

"Is there a pulse?" Elijah asks her. He quickly instructs her on how to feel for his heartbeat on his neck, and she does. Her hands are trembling so hard that it takes her some moments to feel the faint pulse against her fingertips.

Relief comes over her, but it's short-lived. He's still alive, but he won't be for long. She can feel him slipping away in her arms. "Yes—yes."

"For fuck's sake drive faster!" Elijah tells the other man. She thinks his name might be Lucas, but she isn't sure. "I don't care if you crash the car, just get us there."

The car speeds up just as he gets off the road. She can recognise the buildings rushing past them, now. They're close, they're so close.

The vehicle slows down and gets to a sudden halt in the plain courtyard between three abandoned buildings, spraying gravel in a tall wave.

The door of the building on the right slams open and people run out. The doors of the car are opened. Alouette can't stop crying. Jesse opens her door. She can see the light coming from the building—through its main door open wide, only, because the windows are closed off. The door of another building is opened and she thinks she might recognise the person that steps out, but she doesn't care, doesn't care, doesn't care.

Jesse, Elijah and the other pull Harry out of the car, and she follows them out fast. The doors of the car are slammed by some of the newcomers, and then the driver leaves—he'll have to get to the entrance of the hidden garage.

They're taking Harry inside the right building, now, shouting at everyone to move out of the way. Elijah's jacket falls to the ground and Harry's fingers brush against the floor as he's dragged into the light. She runs after them; she knows she must look awful right now, and people get out of her way.

Anthony is waiting for them one floor up. Anthony—she knows him, he's the doctor of the Revolution. He used to be a quite respected trauma surgeon in Greenside before the war. He got in touch with the dark side of the Palace during that period, and decided to join the Revolution. Doctors are hard to come by when you're an illegal organisation, even more so ones with his kind of experience, so he was promptly transferred to the headquarters. He's been with them for nearly ten years, now, and he knows everyone by name. Seeing him now only makes Alouette cry harder.

"In here," he tells them, pushing open one of the doors. They take him inside, and Alouette has to fight against the crowd of people to get closer. It's past one in the morning, but it's like every member of the Revolution has woken up to see what's going on. "I'll need a couple of you, everyone else leave. Now!" Anthony instructs, and Elijah and the other two soldiers leave the room.

"There's nothing to see here," the unnamed one tells the waiting crowd. "Go back to your rooms, Ezra will hold a meeting in the morning."

People start dispersing when they understand they won't be told what's going on tonight, talking to each other and sharing the little information they have.

Anthony steps out. Through the sliver of the open door, Alouette can only see a couple of people that look like they've been awake for less than an hour rush around the room.

"Elijah, come in here," he says. The door is open wider as he passes through, and she can see Harry's figure on a wooden table with a plastic sheet thrown over it. Her legs fail, and she falls to the ground. Anthony sends her a look. She doesn't know what he's looking for, but then he shakes his head. "It's better if you stay out here," he says. Then he closes the door.

Alouette starts sobbing again. She cuddles up against the wall and hides her face in her hands when she notices the dark red streaks her knees have left on the floor. Under the bright light of the corridor, it's impossible to feel like this is all a dream. It isn't—this is reality. Harry is dying on the other side of that door and she's out here, and she doesn't know what to do. There's nothing for her to do, because she's useless. If it hadn't been for Elijah, they wouldn't have even got this far.

There are muffled voices coming from the room, some sounding more urgent than others. She can recognise the pitch of Elijah's, the somewhat soft tone that she's learned to associate with Anthony, but they do nothing to soothe her. They don't tell her anything about what's going on.

Doors slam beyond that one. And she cries. She brings her knees to her chest and hides her face and she can't stop crying. She's so scared. She can't stop thinking about moments of that night, about everything she could've done to change the ending of it—if only she'd hit the three men that were coming at him. If only she'd shot the one that was about to shoot her. If she'd ducked and kicked him instead of relying on Harry. If she'd taken the knife Harry had left in his chest, he wouldn't have used it to stab Harry. If she'd never given Harry that knife. If she'd taken more bullets with her. If she'd charged the phone. She feels sick—she might puke.

Time passes, but she isn't aware of it. Some seconds feel like centuries, hours feel like minutes. She cries until she has no more tears left, and then cries again, and again. She alternates moments in which she stares at the opposite wall with nothing in her mind, her heart beating so fast she can't hear anything but it, and moments in which she's struck by what has happened, she hears the things they said in her mind over and over again, sees Harry dying in front of her, and the despair is so great that she cries her heart out.

She doesn't know it yet, but when the door opens next, it's been three hours. Elijah steps out and closes it after him—he's clearly tired, and there's blood on his clothes. She feels sick, but shoots up anyway.

"What—"

"I'm not a doctor, so I don't know," Elijah says, "but he was still alive when I left. I think that's a good sign? Maybe." He passes his hands over his face. "I knew you'd still be here. You should go to sleep. Amina is with Elodie, so your bedroom is empty."

Alouette shakes her head quickly. "I can't, I—I can't."

"It's half past four," he insists.

"I won't go. I can't... I can't leave him."

He sighs. "Okay." He sits on the ground next to her and crosses his legs.

After a moment of hesitation, she sits down as well. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting."

She frowns. "Don't you have to go back inside?"

He shakes his head. "His assistant is there too, now."

She hesitates a bit before asking the next question. "What's... what's happening in there?" Three hours are a lot. Some would say they're more than enough time to hear some definitive news, but she just doesn't know. She's scared, she can hardly think. She isn't even sure if she wants to hear his answer.

"Ah." He seems to be debating on whether to answer at all, but then he gives in. He's never been able to keep secrets well. "He was stabbed twice. In the abdomen."

Alouette is sure she feels sick, now. It's her fault. She should've killed that man. She should've stopped him. She should've checked on Harry sooner. This is all her fault.

"They're having some issues stabilising him," Elijah continues. "You know, it took hours for him to get here, and he arrived in that condition, and he was outside for so long and it was so cold..." He clears his throat. "He doesn't look worse than he did in the car, though. And at least he isn't freezing, now."

She would cry, but she feels drained. She leans her head against the wall and looks up at the red emergency light on the opposite wall. It isn't on—it'll only turn off if the power goes off—but the colour is enough to make her feel sicker than she already does.

"What happened, exactly? Why were you there instead of the city?"

It takes Alouette some moments to figure out that he actually expects a reply from her. "Dacran was attacked. We ran." She's so exhausted. So exhausted. But she can't fall asleep—she'd never fall asleep, because she still doesn't know what's going to happen with Harry. She doesn't even know if he'll make it through the night.

"I didn't think it would happen so soon. It's likely the Palace will try to step in to do some damage control, now. I hope they don't pin it on us."

I hope they don't pin it on us. But she knows what this looks like, for them. The Revolution has always opposed the Palace, and nearly led a civil war once. And Harry could be about to die in its headquarters. It doesn't look good for them.

Elijah sighs. "I know I said I would wait, but do you mind if I go? I'm exhausted and have to assess the damage in Dacran tomorrow morning. I'd like to get at least a few hours of sleep before then." This brown eyes are darker than usual; it's a gaze she's never seen before on him. She wonders what he saw on the other side of that door.

She gives him a faint nod.

He nods as well and stands up. "Let me know how it turns out."

Then he leaves, and she's alone again. This time, she doesn't cry. She's too spaced out to. Talking to Elijah has calmed her down—not because he soothed her fear, it's still very much there, but because he made that tension fade away, and now she's heartbroken and terrified just as much as before... but she feels so empty. She doesn't move for hours. She doesn't speak nor whisper. She does nothing.

There are sounds coming from the other floors, now. It must be morning, but no one walks down her corridor. Elijah must've blocked it off. It feels like minutes pass every time she blinks.

The door opens at 6:47am. She knows it because she reads the time on Anthony's watch. There's a ball of plastic gloves stained red in his hand. All the anxiousness she's lost comes rushing back to her. She stands up, and her legs are burning.

"He's alive," he tells her. "I'm a little worried about him, we don't have the same equipment of a hospital, as you know. But he's breathing on his own and we managed to stop the bleeding and fix the damage, so I'm hopeful."

Alouette's legs fail, and she hits the ground.

"I can see you care about him," Anthony continues, giving her a once over. He's the one that was in the room for nearly six hours, yet she's the one that looks like a mess. "But I'm not letting you see him until you have a shower and get changed. I'm trying to keep him alive, not get him sick."

She opens her mouth to complain, but he interrupts her.

"I promise I'll let you know if anything happens. But you really need to change. It's morning now, you'll scare the children." He rummages through his pockets and pulls out a key. "You can use my room, it's right here. You don't even have to leave the building, now. I'll have Elodie bring you a change of clothes from your room."

She hesitates a little, but then takes the key and goes to his room. She locks the door of the bathroom behind herself and turns, shivering when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. She truly looks terrifying, but it makes her want to cry again, because it's only the proof of everything that happened tonight. Of everything that almost happened.

I don't want to die. Not like this.

She throws up in the toilet. She flushes and washes her mouth, then retrieves a spare toothbrush, new in its box, from under the sink and brushes her teeth. Her eyes are red and glossy, and she looks like she shouldn't be awake right now. She leaves red marks on the sink.

She takes off her clothes and steps in the shower. She doesn't even care to wait until the water gets warm; she washes herself quickly even if it's so cold that she can't stop trembling. It soothes the pain in her hand, too. She stays there until the water sliding to the ground is clear instead of red, and even then she takes her time with soap to make sure there's no blood in her hair nor on her body. For the first time in hours, she finally smells something other than rust. It's a little easier to think, now, too. Part of her wonders if what has happened isn't just a dream instead, now that there are no longer signs of Harry's struggle on her.

That clarity doesn't last long, though. She gets out of the shower and dries herself fast—and dries her hair, too. She wouldn't have cared in another setting, but she doesn't want to drip water all over Harry. It's so hard to think, all she can focus on are her actions and her immediate future.

Get dressed. See Harry.

He's alive, she thinks when her fear comes back every ten seconds, replaying Anthony's words in her mind until she believes them again. For the next ten seconds. Because she won't be able to believe them for good until she'll see Harry with her own eyes.

She opens the door and finds the change of clothes that was brought for her. She puts them on, their warmth eases her fear a little bit. She got so used to the stiff, sticky clothes she was wearing that the clean ones almost feel weird on her.

When she gets out in the corridor, Anthony isn't here. She hesitates a moment, and then knocks the door to his office and opens it. She immediately feels like puking again.

There's a transparent bag on the ground, filled with clothes covered in dark stains, tissues, towels. Even the plastic sheet is crumpled up and shoved in there, red beads against its corners.

Anthony is cleaning up the floor, and he looks up as soon as she walks in. "Was wondering when you'd show up," he comments, putting down the cleaning tools and walking towards her. "Come on, I'll take you."

He takes a key from the table and a clean blanket from the wardrobe on the other end of the room, and then steps out in the corridor. Alouette follows him.

"I had him put in a spare room we have here, so it's close in case anything happens," he tells Alouette; the pragmatic tone of his voice surprises her—it doesn't seem adequate to the dramatic situation. Sometimes she forgets this used to be his job even before he joined the Revolution. It isn't the first time someone nearly dies in front of him. He sends her a look. "It also has a double bed, figured you'd stay with him."

"Oh—"

"Don't bother making up a lie, Alouette," Anthony says. "I've seen enough emergencies to know one does not react like that unless they really care about the person. I don't mind, if that's what you're worried about."

"How can you not mind?" she asks before she can stop herself. His calm is making her feel calmer, too. "He... I mean, I was sent to kill him. He's our enemy—"

He stops in front of a door. "Before being a member of the Revolution, I'm a doctor. I save people's lives. I don't care who they are." He unlocks the door and opens it. "After you."

Alouette steps inside. It's just like every other room at the Revolution—just the right size, with a door that brings to a bathroom and a window with black tape on it. The headboard of the bed is against the wall on the left, a small wardrobe next to it, and there's a chair and a small, small desk on the opposite corner.

Harry is on the left side of the bed, back propped up on some pillows, and he's sleeping. He's still very pale, but she can see his chest slowly rise and fall from where she's standing, now, and she wants to cry because of how relieved she is.

"There you go," Anthony says, walking past her. He unfolds the blanket and drapes it on top of the bedsheets. Harry doesn't seem to notice the movement. He takes Harry's hand—there's an IV taped to the back of it—and puts it over the new blanket.

Alouette steps closer. She's so relieved but still so scared that she doesn't know what to say.

"It's been a long night," Anthony tells her, "you should sleep too. He should be fine. Just let him get some rest and make sure he stays warm. There's another blanket in the wardrobe if you need it. And call me if you think something might be wrong. I'll be back to check on him in a couple of hours." He turns to look at her and frowns. "What happened to your hand?"

She looks at it, suddenly reminded of its pain. It's a little swollen now, and the redness is starting to fade into a bruise. "Someone stepped on it," she says, somewhat absentmindedly. It seems so irrelevant compared to everything else.

"Let me look at it." He takes it by her wrist and looks it over, frowning. He makes her move it, asks her where it hurts. "It doesn't seem broken," he says in the end, "but it's hard to tell. Let's do this. Hang on."

He leaves the room for a few minutes. When he comes back, he's holding some gauze and other objects. He splints her hand and secures it with tape.

"Let's leave it like this and see if it gets better in some days." He gives her an ice pack. "For the swelling and pain. Go to sleep, now."

"Thank you," she says, even though she knows it isn't her hand she's thanking him for. Judging from the look he sends her way, he knows it too.

He puts the key on the desk. "Consider locking the room while sleeping. I'm sure the news that the President is under our roof and hurt has travelled all over the headquarters by now. Ezra has informed them of the new truce, but you never know, someone might consider coming in here and finishing the job. It's best not to risk it. I have my own key, so you don't have to worry about me being locked out in case he needs help."

He leaves, and she locks the door. Then, slowly, she walks towards the bed, takes off her shoes and climbs up.

She presses a couple of her pillows against the headboard and lies against them, looking at Harry's sleeping form, trying to make sure that he truly isn't in danger anymore. She doesn't dare touching him, not wanting to risk waking him up, but she does move a little closer. His eyelashes flutter when she puts her arm on his pillows. They seem darker than usual, but she knows it's only because of the sickly shade of his skin. It's the kind of shade that says, I've treaded the threshold of death and I still don't know how I managed not to fall in. She can't stop worrying. But he's breathing and his heart is beating, and it's all she can ask for right now. In this moment, he isn't about to leave her—he's here, by her side, and he's sleeping. He has no intention of going anywhere, and she could cry of happiness—but she can't, because she's done nothing but cry for the past eight hours.

She starts to relax, slowly. She watches the way his chest rises and falls every few seconds, and she tries to match his breaths. Harry keeps sleeping. And she lets the tension out of her muscles.

He's alive. She breathes in.

He's alive. She breathes out.

He's alive. It's all that matters to her. She really wants to talk to him. She wants to look into his eyes, and find him staring back—actually watching her, with every sensation it brings. The ice is cold on her hand, but it's slowly starting to melt.

She doesn't know how long she stays beside him, but she must've fallen asleep at some point, because she blinks and when she opens her eyes again the ice has melted completely and her body feels stiff. Harry is still very much asleep, the fact that he hasn't even moved lets her know that he hasn't woken up while she was sleeping.

There's a knock on the door, and she hesitantly stands up and unlocks it. The light of the corridor is particularly bright, and she has to blink a few times. Her short sleep hasn't been nearly enough to recover from the stress of the night, and all her thoughts are hazed—now that the immediate danger has passed, she feels like there's a pillow between her and the rest of the world.

Elijah is standing on the other side of the door. "How is he?" he asks, and Alouette moves to the side to let him in the room.

"Resting."

He sends Harry a long look, furrowing his eyebrows. He must look different than the only other time he saw him in person. He was cleaned up and put into new clothes—a grey shirt that does absolutely nothing for his complexion and that's way too big for him—large enough not to be uncomfortable.

"I have to say he looks much younger in real life than when he's on TV."

Alouette looks at Harry as well. Elijah has a point—he does look quite young, and quite harmless, too. It's a little hard to try to correlate this image of him to the Harry she knows. "He looks scarier usually," she replies, and she can't quite tell if she's simply being honest or trying to protect Harry's pride. Maybe both.

Elijah nods, then sends her a long look. "Why don't you go see your sister?"

Alouette halts. Amina. She hasn't had time to think about it because of everything that has happened, but she's under her same roof. For the first time in months. Yet, she hesitates. "I don't know, I look like a mess, I don't want to scare her..." She doesn't even know what she's so scared of. But it's been months, and she promised her she would be back soon, and then she didn't come back and ran all over the country with Harry, and maybe she's terrified of finding out what she thinks about it.

"She won't care," Elijah replies. "She's having breakfast now. Soon she'll know you're back as well."

Alouette glances in Harry's direction. They're speaking lowly, but she's still worried he might wake up. Even though by now she's understood he's sleeping quite deeply—which is odd to think about. Harry, in a deep sleep. Maybe the world has started spinning in the wrong direction, after all. "I can't leave him alone. Anthony says it isn't safe when the truce is this new."

"I'll stay with him," Elijah offers.

She sends him a weird look. "Are you sure?"

He nods. "Be fast, though. I can only stay for thirty minutes, because I have to check out Dacran with Jesse."

"Thank you!" She gives him a hug, but steps back awkwardly when she remembers what happened when they met in Dacran. "Uh, I'll go."

She should give him her answer, but she can't do it now. She can't deal with this as well—until only a few hours ago, she thought she would lose Harry forever. Now, she's thrown back in the Revolution, and the last time she spoke to Ezra was an absolute disaster, and Harry is in the Revolution headquarters under the same metaphorical roof as her sister and Elijah is making sure the rest of her extended family doesn't murder him in his sleep, and the more she thinks about it, the more absurd everything becomes.

She gets out of the building. It's morning now—a sunless morning of October, and the air is cold and fresh, and she finally feels like she can breathe properly again. She has no jacket so she doesn't linger, and gets into her building. It's a little odd to think of it as her home, now. She isn't quite sure the title applies to it anymore.

The people she walks past recognise her instantly—she isn't surprised, most of them have been her neighbours since she first moved here. Some even try to talk to her, but she only gives them a little smile and a quick reply before walking away. She still feels like she's living in some kind of weird alternate reality, and nothing makes sense as much as it should. It feels like she's in a dream—she can grasp the overall concept, but the details keep slipping through her fingers the more she tries to focus on them.

She enters the dining room. It's full of people having breakfast at the tables, and it takes her a moment to spot Elodie and Amina sitting on the side.

The members of her organisation don't notice her immediately, but when they do, they mutter things to each other, voices low. She catches pieces of conversations while she walks towards her sister.

... Left for a month...

... Covered in blood...

... Brought the President...

She does her best to ignore them. They know nothing of what happened. They don't know the truth.

Elodie sees her first. "Allie?!"

Amina turns around instantly. "Al?!" She jumps to her feet and runs towards her. Alouette falls to her knees and hugs her tight. "Al!"

"I'm back, I'm back, I'm back," Alouette repeats like a mantra, and all of a sudden she's smiling and Amina is laughing and she starts crying again. She thought she couldn't cry anymore, but apparently the night has only emptied her reserves of sad tears and left the happy ones untouched. Until now.

"Al, are you okay?" Amina asks, because she's started sobbing now. She seems a little worried, but Alouette can only nod.

"I'm fine, I'm okay." It seems only a half-truth when she's crying this hard in the middle of the dining room and everyone can see she's letting out more than just her joy at seeing her sister again, but how could she explain it to her? She's too young to understand—and the object of her affection would confuse her even more. She doesn't know. Alouette clears her throat and stands up. "Let's go sit."

Amina takes her by the hand and brings her to the table. Alouette sits next to her and lets out an exhausted sigh.

Elodie sends her a look that makes her suddenly aware of the fact that she must look like hell right now. "Take my second sandwich," she says, shoving her dish in her direction. "The cheese is a little stale, but at least it's warm."

Alouette takes it gratefully and bites down on it. It's only been fourteen hours since the last time she ate—the pancakes she made at her mother's apartment—but it feels like it's been much longer than that. It's like entire days have been condensed in the span of a few hours. "This is so good," she mumbles. It isn't, not really, but she's hungry. Very hungry. Having something in her stomach is already making her feel better.

Amina can't stop looking at her. "When did you come back?" she asks, some wonder in her voice. It's been nearly five months since the last time she saw her—that means her sister is almost six, now. Alouette tries not to think about it, because if she does she'll start crying again.

"Late last night," she tells her as Elodie stands up and walks away in silence.

"Why didn't you come then?"

Guilt fills Alouette, because she's right. Seeing her sister is the first thing she should've done, but she was so scared and so heartbroken—not to say she seemed to have stepped right out of a nightmare concocted by a very dark mind—and all she did was crying her heart out on the floor of another building. "It was so late," she says, "and... and..." She can't hold it in anymore. "I was so scared."

Amina's dark eyes widen. "Why?"

"Because..." She doesn't know how to say it. "I made a friend, and he was hurt really badly. It was very scary. I thought... I thought he... he wouldn't..."

"Like dad?"

Alouette's breath hitches. Then, she nods. "I thought I'd lose him. Like dad."

Amina gives her a thoughtful nod. "Is your friend okay now?"

"I think so," she replies. "We're still a little worried, Anthony and Elijah and I, but we think he'll be okay." Saying it out loud makes her feel a little calmer, and makes it sink a little deeper. Harry has lived through the night, and he will be okay. She's starting to like the sound of it.

Elodie comes back and puts a steaming cup in front of Alouette. "Chamomile tea," she says when she sends it an puzzled look, "because no offence, but you look awful. Tell me you'll go to sleep after this."

Alouette takes a sip. It isn't too hot. "I'll go back," she says, because she doesn't feel like lying. She'll certain go back to Harry's room, but she doesn't know if she'll manage to sleep properly. She's tired, but she isn't relaxed enough to fall asleep. Part of her is still convinced that she'll only know for sure that Harry will be fine after he'll wake up, and she's quite certain her body won't let her sleep before then.

"I heard you were..." Elodie sends Amina a glance and lets the sentence drift away. "In Dacran."

"We were running from it," Alouette specifies. "It was... it was awful. The city..." She looks at Amina again.

"Don't do it," Amina says. "I hate it when people keep secrets from me because they think I'm too young to hear them."

Alouette wants to argue that she is, too young, to be listening to her narrating the awful things she's witnessed, but there's some truth in her words, too. What's the point in hiding the truth? In a way, she's lived with it since she was born, just like her, and Elijah, and everyone else as young as them that is part of the Revolution. "The city was falling apart around us. It was a disaster. It was very scary."

Amina's eyes widen. "The city of fairies?" she asks, sounding worried. Alouette has the feeling she thinks she's referring to Northfair. "Then is the evil prince gone too?"

Now, Alouette is certain she might start crying again.

Elodie must see it on her face, because she says, "The prince is safe, with us. She's talking about another city."

Alouette gulps down the tea to have something to do, so that she truly won't start crying again. She's oddly sensitive, today. It isn't like her to cry all the time. She isn't even sure she recognises the emotions of the body she's in, at this point. But every little reference brings her back to the nightmare of last night, and that fear is still too fresh, too real in her mind to be quickly dismissed.

It doesn't matter how she looks at it, the truth is that she's almost lost Harry. And that almost is an incredibly small one. If Elijah had found them only an hour later, he would've died in her arms, and she feels like she might never be able to recover from that. She doesn't know how to. Even now, being away from him makes her a little anxious, because she can't know for sure he's safe—even though she knows he is, because Elijah is with him. But she isn't with him, and that's enough to make her worry. She's a wreck. Her brain is all jumbled together.

She finishes drinking the tea. "I should go, now," she says, but she doesn't make a move to stand up. She doesn't want to leave, but there's a thread pulling her towards Harry, and it isn't only because Elijah has told her she only has a few minutes.

"Will you go back to our room tonight?" Amina asks hopefully, and Alouette has to shake her head.

"I won't, I'm sorry." She knows she has to give her an explanation even before she asks for one. "Remember that friend I told you about? The one that got hurt?"

Amina nods.

"He's still recovering, and he needs someone to watch over him to make sure he's alright," she tells her. And to make sure he won't be assassinated at night, she adds in her mind. But it would be a little hard to explain to her little sister that the man every member of the Revolution hates the most in the world is currently in the building, surrounded by people that would be very, very happy to kill him.

Amina nods. "I understand," she says, but Alouette can see she's disappointed.

"I'll see you again, okay? Every day," she promises. "More than once. And if you need me, you can tell Elodie and she knows where to find me. I'm not going to leave again. I'll be here from now on."

"Promise me," Amina tells her.

"I promise."

"Promise me that, if you leave again, you'll take me with you."

Alouette halts for a moment, suddenly concerned. But then she thinks of the situation, of how she'll never have to be on risky missions anymore, now that the Revolution and the Palace might work together. "I promise."

Amina beams, and Alouette stands up.

"I'll see you again soon." She steals another bite of the sandwich and walks out of the dining room.

There are more people around, now. Something tells her they've heard about her coming back and are now hoping to find out something more. But she doesn't stop for any of them—she doesn't have time, and she isn't in the right mental state for that. It's a miracle that she still hasn't curled up in a ball crying—probably, the only reason she hasn't done that is that she's already cried on the floor for hours. There's a mental space your mind reaches after you've cried for so long that makes everything feel a little weird, like the colours of the world are brighter than they should be and things are less defined, and yet you're oddly calm—a forced calm, your body's way of telling you it seriously fears you might lose your mind if you keep it up. Alouette thinks she's reached that place at least three times in the past eight hours.

She gets back to the room and knocks on the door. Elijah opens it, and the first thing she does as she walks inside is looking at Harry.

"Anthony came by," he tells her as she sits at the foot of the bed. "He checked him out, made sure he's not getting sick. He wasn't surprised he's still sleeping, and he said to let him rest. And to call him if something happens, too."

Alouette nods, playing with the corner of the blanket that's on the bedsheets.

"He seemed a little cold, so I put another blanket on him. I have to go, now."

"Thanks for watching over him," Alouette says.

Elijah gives her a shrug. "It's no big deal. I'll see you later."

She locks the door after he leaves, and then she lies on her side of the bed—she's tired enough to want to jump on it, but considering Harry's sleeping beside her, it sounds like a foolish idea.

She moves closer to him and, after a moment of hesitation, takes his free hand and intertwines their fingers. She puts her head on the corner of the stack of pillows behind his back and finally falls asleep as well.

Surprise! I couldn't leave you waiting for long, it just seemed cruel. I hope you enjoyed this chapter x
Miki