Archive of Our Own

The first snow of the year had just begun to fall as Hal strolled up to the receptionist’s desk, leaning against it on one elbow with a grin. She looked up and did a double take, blinking up at him owlishly as he said, “Hey! Here to pick up Keli Quintela? Heard she’s sick.”

“I—” Her eyebrows furrowed as her fingers flew over the keyboard. “Um. Sorry, sorry—Mister Quintela?” Her voice was a squeak that Hal determinedly ignored while he shook his head.

“Jordan, actually. Hal Jordan.”

More clacking, and then a, “Oh! Yes, you’re—sorry, I assumed you were the father?”

“Uncle,” Hal responded easily. “She alright?”

The receptionist—Emily, Hal saw from the name tag—stood hurriedly and backed away. “She’s with the nurse right now. I’ll—I’ll go get her.”

And that left Hal standing in front of the desk, waiting awkwardly while trying not to make eye contact with the various drawings that covered the walls. They were cute and uncanny and Hal swore children’s artwork didn’t use to be this creepy when he used to actively babysit. He stayed though, rapping his fingers against the smooth wood and half aware of the quiet voices from inside.

The call had gone to John but John was away on business somewhere in 1365 cleaning up a natural disaster with Kyle and Jo, and so he’d forwarded that message to Hal who came to the school himself. He’d forgotten how much it sucked to be a kid and not just be allowed to leave without adult supervision, though he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved that Keli had stayed put and waited for one of them.

Hal realised that she probably wouldn’t have made it very far on her own the moment Keli walked out, however.

His first instinct was to say, yikes. That was shut down before his brain processed it as a proper option. His second instinct, the safest one, had him reach out and press the back of his hand to her forehead. She flinched, though it was more annoyed than fearful. “You’re burning up,” he remarked uselessly. The snow was falling faster outside, now powdering the ground in a thin layer of ice. He shrugged off his jacket and slipped it around her shoulders. “You ready to go?”

Keli nodded miserably. Her eyes, large and still as they were, looked hazy with exhaustion and she swayed the slightest amount, her arms coming up to cling tighter onto his jacket. On occasion, it struck Hal how small she looked, even now. He shook it off and turned to Emily who had been eyeing him the entire time very eagerly. She slid over the form and her hands lingered on it just long enough for Hal to raise an eyebrow to her. She cleared her throat. “A pen?”

“Please.”

Hal pretended to not notice and reached for the pen, his ring shimmering on his finger. It was disguised for once, a simple, evergreen band and Hal watched Emily falter when he signed what he needed to and flash her a smile. “See you around,” he chirped as he plucked Keli’s bag from the floor and braced his hand on her back gently to walk out.

The moment they hit the crisp air outside, Keli groaned which made Hal snicker. “She was looking at you,” she muttered. “Now she’s gonna ask about you next time I’m here.”

“No, c’mon, I didn’t look back at her,” Hal insisted. “And you weren’t meant to notice that anyway. Also, the more pressing issue here is why you decided to head to school if you weren’t feeling so hot.”

She glared and Hal fought to keep a straight face. His jacket swallowed Keli whole and with the flush in her cheeks and how much she was clearly fighting to stay awake so he wouldn’t have to carry her, he couldn’t take her seriously. “I do feel hot,” she said viciously. “And it wasn’t that bad this morning.”

“You fainted in class,” Hal pointed out. “Usually, things have to be pretty bad even before people pass out mid presentation.”

She wiped her eyes and stumbled straight into his legs while doing so. Hal stood still as she pulled herself back together. “I drank the medicine. I finished it.”

“You finished it?”

“Yeah,” she sighed and really, Hal did not know enough about children’s flu medication to understand if this was a good thing or not. “I read the box,” she added. “And did it myself.”

That was the other thing. Getting Keli to start accepting their help. Hal only exhaled and gave her a short nod. “Then we’re heading to the pharmacy and picking up some more.” At her crestfallen expression, because surely, she must be exhausted, he added, “I’ll let you pick out some vitamin gummies.”

Keli blinked at him. “What are those?”

“The little nuggets of joy John insists on keeping from you. Come on, kid.”

The pharmacy nearby was big, sterile and smelt so clean, Hal swore it burnt off a few of his nostril hairs. For the time being, he stood in the medicine aisle and stared at the various bottles mostly listlessly with a growing frustration in his gut.

Children couldn’t have aspirin. Great. None of these had aspirin but the stuff Keli took before was completely sold out.

Keli, in the meantime, was standing and wobbling slightly in place. She rocked gently from side to side like she really wanted that nap and if Hal was allowed to, he’d just scoop her up and let her sleep on him. It wouldn’t even be that hard for him. However, Keli only continued to evade his attempts with increasing drowsiness.

Hal landed on two options between two brands that John had already pre-approved. How John made that decision was beyond him, though Hal was only happy to oblige. “Okay, kid,” he said suddenly, “you get to pick between—” Hal squinted at the labelling— “Bubblegum and grape. You have a preference?”

Keli blinked at him, big and owlish and glassy. Then, she shrugged. “The last one was nice. Um. Durazno.”

Already kicking himself for not even trying in Spanish classes as a kid, Hal pretended he understood and went with grape which got tossed into the basket along with orange electrolytes, vitamin gummies and fuzzy socks that were A: on sale and B: had little birds on them. How the hell was he supposed to resist?

The kid trudged along but stuck by Hal, practically leaning against his hip as he talked to the cashier and paid. It niggled him there as well how she was practically no weight on him at all. It was like she wasn’t even there and that was something grew steadily harder to compartmentalise.

The moment they were free of the sterile walls and the sterile smell of the pharmacy, Hal dumped the bag down on a bench, which Keli practically collapsed onto, and drew out the gummies to immediately crack them open. “You feeling alright?” he asked, holding the bottle out to her. “Here.”

Keli hesitated before dipping her hand in and drawing one out. They were pineapple flavoured and for Keli’s raging vitamin D deficiency, even if the pills at home were probably fine and more effective, and while the synthetic flavouring wasn’t exactly accurate to the actual fruit, that did not matter. She seemed to like it anyway, so who the hell was Hal to judge? Her eyes brightened the slightest bit and she reached to take another one, which Hal allowed against his better judgement, because what John didn’t see, John didn’t know, before he twisted the cap shut and popped two in his own mouth.

“They’re good,” she said eventually, and it sounded like even that exhausted her. “Why can’t I have these ones?”

“Because,” Hal said as he tucked everything back into the shopping bag as neatly as he could be bothered to, “John knows more about nutrition than I do and he’s generally got more common sense than most of us combined. You’re not supposed to listen to me unless there’s a plane involved.”

Keli stared at him. “Guy told me you crashed one once.”

“Well Guy is a lying scumbag, and you should remind him of that every chance you get.”

That coaxed a giggle out of her. Hal would’ve been content to sit on the bench a little while longer but Jess was starting to text him already. Keli being sick enough to get pilled out of class was something new and unprecedented and they didn’t exactly have a protocol for this either.

Besides. The snow was falling still, and he didn’t want her in the cold much longer.

“Up,” he murmured, getting to his own feet and stretching. “You can go straight to sleep when we get home.”

“I’m not sleepy,” Keli claimed as she rubbed her eyes. “Just…”

“Mhm. Convincing.”

He walked slowly with her slightly in front, his hand hovering at her back just in case she tipped right over dragging that jacket around on her slight frame. The sky was darkening already, despite it only being midday, with the clouds on the horizon only harkening towards darker days to come. Literally, not metaphorically. The house would be warmer, the fireplace lit which Hal could look forward to.

“You sure you don’t want me to carry you?” Hal asked to pull himself free of his thoughts. “It’s a long walk home.”

“Can’t we fly?”

“Not unless you want John to fry my ass.”

Her lips quirked a little at the thought which should be offensive but Hal figured it was better him than her. She took those little spats of theirs as seriously as some people did with the WWE, and acted like they were twice as entertaining too. “I can walk,” she said eventually, and that was that although Hal still hovered mostly uselessly because letting the kid fall would look and feel terrible.

“Alright.” He cleared his throat and shifted the bag in his hand while he loomed over Keli to shield her from the worst of the biting wind. “You know, you don’t have to pretend you’re not okay just because I’m here. And we carry each other all the damn time. Just last week, I was towing Guy around because the idiot forgot to charge his ring and it was out by the time we landed on Venus. You being sick is nowhere near as weird or embarrassing as that.”

Keli wasn’t paying attention, obviously. Her eyes were fixed elsewhere, to a row of stores that made up one arm of this shopping plaza. They were all clustered together, warm looking on the inside. A butcher, a news agency, a post office. “Keli?” Hal tried again, his hand lifting from where it sat on her spine to hover above her hair. “Kid? You okay.”

“Mhm.” Her expression was quiet, softened. She’d always had that spark the rest of them carried, that manic energy in her eyes that had made Hal certain of her position with them the moment they laid eyes on her. Today, it was muted under fever-fog and the cold. She still shivered under his jacket.

When Hal followed her gaze outwards, stopping in his tracks and dropping to a crouch to do so, he found her staring at the bakery which was wedged between a brick wall and the post office. There was a whole display of cakes at the front, which were individually packed with enough sugar to put even Hal off.

Carefully, tentatively, Hal asked, “You hungry? Baked goods are great in this weather but your stomach might not be able to handle it.”

Keli shrugged and turned her gaze away. “I just like to look.”

That queasy feeling which attacked Hal ruthlessly and indefensibly bubbled up in his gut before he could get any words out. “We can go inside if you want.” he said in a tone that just barely erred on the side of desperation if only to settle with the guilt. “You’re allowed.”

When Keli responded with, “Why? I can’t get anything,” Hal physically clenched his teeth and forced a smile. It was too much for him, in an awful, selfish way, to imagine a much smaller, much scrawnier Keli outside of bakeries and looking into a world she wasn’t privy to. His teeth were starting to hurt from how tightly he held them together and the smile he wore made his cheeks twitch uncontrollably. Hal was sure he looked like a crazy person.

“We’re going in,” he said with a note of strain in his voice as he stood and started to herd her pliant body towards the bakery, “and you’re picking out whatever you want.”

Keli only looked at him, dark eyes wary. It didn’t matter in the end though, because Hal ended up buying her two pastries, damn the consequences.

“Honey!” Hal called, opening the door to the house, “We’re home.”

Keli clutched the paper bag with her pastries to her chest, Hal’s jacket still heavy around her shoulders while she made a beeline for the couch. Guy sauntered out from the kitchen wearing his stupid apron and a smirk. “Heya darlin’,” he drawled before stopping short at the sight of the kid, sprawled out over the couch cushions, breathing with a rattle in her lungs that Hal absolutely hated the sound of. “What’s up with you?”

“Sick,” is all Hal offered as he dumped the bag on the table and started to unload it. “You have any soup recipes in that head of yours?”

“She’s sick?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” Hal stared at him, a little more than incredulous. “Didn’t John call you?”

Guy frowned at him and then at the lump on the couch, currently curled up under a jacket far too big for her, before walking briskly over and laying the back of his palm into the crook of her neck. Keli squirmed and lashed out with one weak hand which barely seemed to affect Guy, though he drew back with a quiet, “Sorry, kid,” and retreated. “Needta take her temp properly. Remind me,” he muttered, marching back to the kitchen, though not before he grabbed Hal’s arm to drag him along too.

Hal, much too used to this, only raised an eyebrow and didn’t bother to speak until they were both leaning on the counter side by side, the faint aroma of whatever Guy was cooking before they arrived hanging in the air. “So?” Hal prodded. “What’s gotten into you?”

He was paused here, green eyes crinkled around the corners in the expression he wore when he was searching for the right words in the right order. Hal was patient here too, occasionally stealing glances towards the living room to make sure the kid didn’t move on them just yet. She seemed asleep peacefully enough, her eyes closed and face lax. That was good. Sleep was good.

“Guy? You wanna tell me what’s the big deal here?”

He didn’t say anything at first. And then, “Keli’s sick,” as if that was all the explanation Hal needed.

So he responded with probably the right amount of suspicion and caution when Guy got like this. “Yeah. We’ll be on soup duty for a while.”

“No,” and there was that frustration, as old as time, when Hal wasn’t getting something that was apparently obvious. “She’s sick, Jordan. Kid’s sick with—shit, what bug is that? Pneumonia?”

He almost laughed. “It’s just the flu. C’mon, you’re acting like this is a death sentence. She’ll bounce back in no time.”

Guy went quiet again, two fingers reaching up to press them against his temple in a motion so familiar, Hal almost opened his mouth to ask where the migraine meds were. He didn’t, because Guy shook his head, apparently anticipating his words. Only then did those eyes turn to Hal with an intensity that didn’t come from the ring. “You remember if Keli got her shots?”

Hal blinked. “Her vaccinations? Uh—yeah, she’d have to have them. Couldn’t go to school otherwise.”

“You’re sure? You know she has ‘em?” Guy pressed.

“Yes,” Hal shot back, just shy of a snap. “Of course she has them. Don’t fuck with me about it either. We’ve got the certificate somewhere. I’ve seen it.”

“Uh huh.” Amusement lit up Guy’s lips the slightest bit. “You’ve seen it. ‘Course you have. An’ what about breakfast? You saw her eat too?”

“I couldn’t have,” Hal shot back hotly, “because I wasn’t here during breakfast. You were. What goddamn point are you trying to make here?”

“Jus’ asking. Didja see her eat?”

Hal’s glare was withering. “Did I need to? You probably made sure she ate for me.”

“You’re right. I did.”

He was going to scream. “Okay, cool, so what was the point of that little interrogation then? You just have it out for me or something? And I swear to God, if you say—”

“Hal,” Guy began, quieter than usual which had him immediately on guard, “who d’you think made sure she was okay before us?”

And oh, there was that pit again, swallowing his guts whole. The roiling feeling, like the seasickness Hal’s never felt a day in his life, which prompted him to do stupid things like buy a sick kid pastries she couldn’t stomach. “No one,” he muttered through the venom in his throat. “Quit bringing up the past, Gardner. She’s got us now.”

“She does.” Ugh, Hal hated it when he got like this. “She’s got us now but she didn’t use to. She didn’t have an easy life before, Hal, and that—”

“Okay,” Hal said tightly, “yeah, she didn’t have an easy life. What’s the problem here?”

Guy stared at him like he was an idiot. He probably was, in all honesty. “The problem,” he went on with a growl in his tone that spoke of his frustration, “is that the starvin’ and the sickness and all that shit she went through before even hittin’ puberty is catching up fast. The problem, Jordan, is that Keli’s been runnin’ on fumes as long as we’ve known her.”

Hal grasped for something to say. “She’s tough,” is all he could come up with.

“Sure, but tough don’t mean indestructible. Her growth’s stunted. Her immune system sucks ass. She’s barely eatin’ enough and that’s after all those goddamn doctors saw her. She’s on a diet plan but she still ain’t where she needs to be and she won’t be for a long time.” Guy stared him full in the face, eyes blazing with ring energy and something more. “You understand what I’m gettin’ at? This won’t be just the flu. If we ain’t careful, it could get much worse for her.”

For some reason, denial was all Hal could cling to. “She’s got all of us.” The protest sounded weak to his own ears. They were capable, but hardly trained doctors. “It’s not like we’ll let her go down even if this gets as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

Guy looked Hal dead in the eye and said with no intonation or mirth, “The Spanish flu killed fifty million people in 1918. Lot of ‘em were healthy people. Not immunocompromised pre-teens.”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll lock you outside,” Hal growled. “Kid’s in the other room and you’re talking about death tolls in 1918. Are you stupid?”

“Are you?”

“Maybe,” he ground out, “but I’ve got enough in me to not jump to the worst possible conclusion. You’re gonna scare the kid.”

“I’m tryna scare you,” Guy hissed, leaning forward to crowd Hal’s space. “Someone’s gotta.”

“Oh fuck off, Gardner. Shove that shit up your—”

The door opened. They both fell silent like children hiding something illicit. Hal even held his breath until his brain kicked in enough to recognise Jess’s light footfalls start and stop. “Guy?” she called uncertainly, “why’s Keli home from school? Don’t tell me she snuck out.”

The kid mumbled something too quiet for either of them to hear. Simon, who must’ve come in too, huffed incredulously. “You’re sick? And there weren’t any adults in this house watching you?” The last part was pointed enough to send a flush up Guy’s neck and make Hal shuffle on the spot.

“We just got back!” Hal said to preserve some of his dignity. “Guy and I were talking.”

“Uh huh.” Jess sounded supremely unimpressed enough to make Guy blush scarlet. “Yeah, alright.” A beat, and then a sigh. “Who bought her baked goods? Do either of you think before acting?”

“Least he got the right medicine,” Simon snorted.

The sickness, Hal thought, was only half of the problem. The other half was actually trying to take care of a kid who very much did not want to be coddled. And sure, Hal wasn’t exactly the coddling type, but the others were.

Simon, already so world-weary despite how young he was, held up the little medicine cup filled with a pre-measured dosage of the neon purple syrup Hal bought earlier and tried to approach Keli like she was a feral cat. In some respects, she almost was. “Just a little bit,” he said quietly. “It’s—” He checked the label, “—grape! You love grape!”

Keli glared and it was a mighty glare for one so small and fevered. There was a fog that had settled over her eyes, a slight glaze to them whenever she was left alone long enough to go quiet. She had been very quiet for a while and that unsettled Hal more than he cared to admit. “It’s bad,” she insisted. “It tastes like-like—"

“Like evil, yeah, you’ve said,” Jess muttered. “Mija, how can you get better if you don’t drink the medicine?”

The glare intensified. “I got better before without medicine.”

It was probably meant to be her great trump card, the absolute best comeback she could formulate. All it really did was make an unpleasant expression pass over Jess’s face and make Guy huff sharply. Hal found it in himself to not say a word or make a face and thanked God that Keli didn’t seem to notice their discomfort.

“Just because you didn’t need it before doesn’t mean you don’t need it now,” Simon murmured. “You have people to help even if you don’t think you need us. And we want to help.”

“Why?” she asked, throwing her hands up which unseated the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Hal finally got his jacket back and had draped it over the armchair instead of wearing it. House was too damn warm. “I can—”

“Take care of yourself, we know,” Hal finished. “Kiddo, we all need help from time to time.”

“Some of us more than others,” Guy muttered from behind him, prompting Hal to flip him off with a construct hand without looking. “Hey!”

“The point is,” Jess said while glaring at both of them and snatching the little cup from Simon, “that we’re all supposed to lean on each other. We’re not trying to overwrite you because you’re a kid. We’re trying to help you because you’re sick. So, down the hatch, Quintela.”

Still, she hesitated, her trembling fingers wrapping around the cup as best she could. Jess didn’t let go either, guiding it to her mouth. “It tastes bad,” Keli said again, leaning back with something like fear on her face. “I don’t like it.”

“No one does,” Jess said softly. “But sometimes, getting better isn’t meant to feel good. It takes a lot of work from all of us.”

It worked, though. To Hal’s relief, Keli swallowed the medicine with a comical little grimace and Jess took the cup back, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “Hm. Simon, where’s the thermometer?”

“On it.”

Guy piped up with, “I’ll get the compresses. And contact the school.”

And I’ll stay right here, Hal thought, collapsing into the armchair as his ring lit up with an incoming call. Kyle, who was flying back now, according to his GPS.

“Afternoon,” Hal greeted, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Keli shift on the couch, flopping onto her back to rub her eyes. “How’d it go?”

“Not terribly,” Kyle said, which was code for could’ve been so much worse. “John and Jo are wrapping up but I’ve been cleared to come home early.” A pause. “We’re all coming back soon, actually. There’s a storm brewing.”

“Is there?” Hal asked, only half-interested in the weather report. “How come you know and I don’t?”

“How interested are you in meteorology when you aren’t about to go flying, Hal?”

He huffed. “Fair enough. So what? We’re getting snowed in?”

“Looks like it. At least we’re well stocked. Probably.”

“Definitely,” Hal corrected. “Jess would rather die than be unprepared for this exact scenario. Just as well, too. Keli’s sick.”

Kyle paused. “She’s sick?” he asked carefully, in the exact same way Guy said it earlier. The way that made Hal’s gut curdle uncomfortably. “Oh. How’s she doing?”

“She’s still alive.”

“She can hear you,” came the quiet, vaguely annoyed voice from the bundle of blankets opposite Hal. “Is that Kyle?”

“Uh huh. He’s on his way back.”

Keli sat up with a little struggle, her legs moderately tangled while she shoved the blankets off. “Did he get me something?”

“Did you get Keli something, Rayner?”

Hal could practically see Kyle’s grin and thumbs up when he responded with, “Yeah, a real pretty rock. Volcanic glass of some sort on the inside. Super sharp shards. I kept nicking myself when I grabbed it.”

Keli looked at Hal expectantly. “Rock,” is all he said. “Apparently, it’s sharp. Don’t show Jess.”

“She’ll freak,” Kyle agreed. “Okay, I’m hitting the Oort Cloud now. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Huh. Closer than he thought. Kyle must’ve been dismissed a while ago, meaning John and Jo weren’t far behind. “Bye,” Hal said as Kyle’s transmission cut out.

Keli’s struggle with the blanket bore fruit as her bare feet touched the weird, white rug John insisted on, and she stood. Her body was unsteady. How she managed to walk alongside Hal on the way home was beyond him. Maybe he should’ve flown them. “Water,” she said at Hal when he made a motion to stand. “I can do it.”

He raised an eyebrow, half off the chair. “You sure? You’re meant to be on bedrest, miss ma’am.”

Her stare was impressively dry. “I can get water.”

Hal slumped back into the chair. “So you can. Yell if you need anything.”

Watching keenly while she shuffled into the kitchen, Hal’s attention turned back to his ring. He should probably update John, although he couldn’t help but glance towards the window. The snow was falling thicker now, the storm finally setting in. He’d been in a blizzard a handful of times in his life, though never growing up. Most of Hal’s experience with killer snow was during rescue ops or evacuations. Never inside a well-stocked house with a fireplace. With the others on their way, he could at least say with certainty that there wouldn’t be any boredom. He only hoped no one would go stir-crazy in the meantime.

Hal called John anyway.

“Stewart,” he said when he picked up.

“Shouldn’t someone stay in orbit during the blizzard so we’re not all stuck inside?” Hal asked.

“Do you volunteer yourself?” John shot back with humour in his tone. “I can pencil you in.”

Hal mulled it over for a second. “I’ll pass,” he said eventually. “But we’ll be leaving the sector undefended just because.”

“It’s a blizzard, Hal,” John huffed. “We have all-powerful rings that work on our imaginations. I’m sure that, if push comes to shove, we can find a way out of the house. Also, I’m sure most of us would rather stick close if Keli’s sick.”

That…was also probably true. “Kyle’s hit the Oort Cloud,” Hal said with nothing else to inform John of. “Have you wrapped up?”

“Already on our way back. How is she?”

“She hates the medicine I bought her but she got it down. And she definitely isn’t happy about us hovering.”

“So, pretty par for the course then.”

“We’re all waiting in anticipation for your presences,” Hal muttered through a snort. “She listens to you two.”

“Because we don’t screw around.”

“Well, someone has to be fun and I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”

“Let me know how that goes for you.” And then, “Jo says hi and that you need to grow a backbone with that kid.”

“I have plenty of backbone,” Hal said indignantly. “Tell Jo I’ll have a full list of my achievements ready for her when she gets home.”

“Jo said to tell you to shove it.”

“Well then tell Jo—”

John sounded like he was just barely holding back laughter when he cut in with, “We have to go, Hal. See you soon.”

“Yeah,” Hal muttered, thumb sliding over the face of his ring, “see you.”

The transmission cut out and Hal stared at the empty couch opposite, something about it niggling in the back of his mind. Then, he stood brusquely and marched towards the kitchen. Getting water should not take this long. “Keli!” he called. “Are you—”

The question died on his tongue when he walked in and saw the kid settled against the cabinets, spine curve into a neat little C while she lay on the floor. One cheek was pressed into the tile, half of her face obscured in this position. Hal blinked and felt his blood pressure rise of its own volition as he started forward and knelt by her, hand pressing against her forehead.

“I fell,” she mumbled by way of explanation. “It’s cold here.”

“You fainted? Again?” Hal pulled a hand through his hair hard enough for it to hurt. “Kid, I told you to call if you needed help.”

“It’s cold,” she said again, pressing her palm to the tile this time with a soft sigh. “It’s nice.”

Hal sat back on his haunches and groaned. “That’s what a cold compress is for, Keli. Not the floor. Come on, that can’t be comfortable.”

“It is,” she said and he supposed that made sense, not that Hal wanted to dwell. “Can you get me some water?”

“Okay.” Hal leaned down, sliding his hands under her armpits to sit her up against the cabinet. “Here’s the deal. I’m gonna take you back to the couch, where you will continue to rest and not get up from, and I will stand over you while you drink your water so you don’t faint halfway through the glass and drown. Guy’s gonna come with a compress for you to keep you cool and you aren’t gonna fight us on this.”

Keli stared at him like he was the one being unreasonable here, making a half-hearted effort to tip sideways back onto the floor which Hal caught and thwarted easily. “I don’t get to choose?”

“You get to choose when your brain isn’t actively melting through your ears and impairing your judgment.”

“That’s not fair,” she got out, staring at Hal blearily when he carefully hoisted her up in his arms and stood. She was stupidly light, practically nothing at all in his hold, and Guy’s earlier warnings blared in his ears twice as loudly as they did before. He ignored that coil of dread in favour of filling a glass one handed while Keli hooked her chin over his shoulder. Her breath hit his neck in small puffs of hot air. He could feel the heat radiating off of her through his shirt. “I don’t need to be carried.”

“You fainted just now so I don’t think you get an opinion on this, kid.”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” she asked and sounded small enough to wrench Hal’s heart half out of his chest. He breathed through it, in and out and totally measured.

“Because,” he said calmly and steadily and measuredly, “we want to help you get better. Getting better doesn’t usually mean collapsing in the kitchen and then not calling for help, kiddo.”

In some respects, Keli reminded him of other kids he knew. Children who’d been beaten down so thoroughly that any kindness was foreign enough to be a threat. Children who should have never been put into survival situations to begin with. And there he was, the great Hal Jordan, trying and failing to pick up those pieces and blunt the sharpened edges of fear.

He carried her back to the couch and Jess, who had been talking lowly to Guy, stopped short at the sight of him. “Minor incident,” Hal said. “It’s been dealt with.”

Keli made no comeback to this, one hand fisted so tight in Hal’s collar that she nearly tore a chunk of the shirt off when he set her back down. She let go before Hal could try to extricate her manually, surprisingly pliant when Jess laid a cool cloth over her head. “Minor incident?” Guy asked with no small amount of curiosity.

“She fainted.”

A sharp inhale of breath through gritted teeth. “Didja hit anything kid? Anything hurt?”

Hal kicked himself for forgetting to check but Guy was already there, carefully and methodically running his fingers against her scalp before stepping away with a satisfied nod and a glance to Hal. Keli didn’t even try to bat him away this time, pulling her knees to her chest and closing her eyes as Simon draped a blanket over her body.

They stepped back then, the four of them, and breathed the same air. It was fine, as Hal told himself. Fine. Keli was a spunky little kid, with a heart as big as her mouth and scrappy enough to square up to anything if she needed to.

It would be fine. Never mind how she fainted twice in one day, her bones so wispy that Hal hadn’t heard her fall.

The TV was on and playing some probably educational programme at a low volume when the front door opened again. Instinct had Hal half-lit in anticipation but it was Kyle who walked in, his ring signature washing over Hal, tracking snow everywhere which was going to piss Guy right off.

In the dim light, because Jess insisted on turning the overhead lights off in favour of keeping the big corner lamp burning, the room took on a weird, cosy feeling. Hal felt sleepy just standing there, and so he moved to the kitchen counter to work through the ever-growing stack of reports that Salaak kept sending him. Reports he’d filled out in previous years that had been either misfiled or contained information that was just plain wrong. If Hal could go back and strangle his younger self, he would, but that had been thoroughly taken care of already.

“You take the scenic route or something?” Hal asked, not really paying attention or even looking up when Kyle ambled over.

“I logged my re-entry and gave a mission report on arrival,” Kyle countered. “Y’know. The things you’re supposed to do.”

“If I wanted to kiss Bruce’s ass, I’d go do it right now. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Kyle made a face. “You say things like that, and you never elaborate. What other sordid details are you hiding from us?”

Chuckling, Hal waved him off with a, “Can’t a man have his privacy? Also, you don’t have to log anything unless you’ve got a kaiju actively following you with intentions to eat Earth.”

“That’s…that’s just not true.”

“Rules are whatever you make of them.” Hal stretched and several points in his spine cracked traitorously. “Rules are currently going to be the death of me.”

“Your old age is going to be the death of you, moron.” Kyle’s eyes were bright when he surveyed what exactly Hal was slaving over. “Holy crap, is this everything Salaak dug up? How the hell’d you get away with doing shoddy paperwork for decades?”

“If John was a better person, he’d do it all for me,” Hal grumbled. “Go paint a picture or something if you’re not gonna help.”

Kyle shoved Hal’s shoulder, grinning while he said, “John’s a great person. That’s why he doesn’t help you out of these situations you get yourself in.”

“Rayner, I swear to God.”

He backed away, both hands up with that smile firmly affixed on his face, walking away with a, “Easy, old man. Just gonna check on the kid. You wouldn’t kill me in front of her, would you?”

Hal grumbled again and turned back to his work, hands still and one ear cocked as he listened into the quiet tones of conversation in the other room.

Keli was too quiet to be heard but Kyle was bad at keeping himself quiet when he was excited. “Here,” he murmured, “fresh rock for you. I’m gonna put it upstairs for when you’re better so you don’t accidentally hurt yourself with it…oh, I was thinking a spearhead or something. We’ll Google it…”

A soft laugh and then something whispered back in Spanish which was Hal’s cue to turn back to his words. Whatever that was probably wasn’t for his ears and it wasn’t like he could translate anyway. Ugh, he couldn’t keep relying on the ring for this.

Hal pulled up his interface with a quiet mutter of, “Ring, where are 2814.3 and 2814.7?”

They’d were within bounds of the Virgo Supercluster and were whizzing past the Andromeda Galaxy. A fair way away but the rings were stupid fast. He just hoped this storm wasn’t faster. Hal drummed his fingers against the table and stood, reports abandoned, to make tea.

It wasn’t for him. He carried the cup to the living room, careful to make sure it wasn’t too hot, and set it down on the coffee table. Keli seemed perfectly content to lay there and watch the TV screen with glazed over eyes. Kyle sat on the floor and leaned against the couch, keeping up a stream of steady commentary.

“Did you know that because deer don’t see orange, tigers actually blend into the jungle pretty well for them? It’s what makes them so dange—hey, why’s this tiger kinda a jerk?”

He frowned then at the TV and Keli giggled, eyeing the mug Hal just put down. She pushed herself up with two, trembling arms, but nearly overbalanced and fell when she leaned forward to reach for her tea.

Kyle shot up before Hal could, ring flaring with a mist of hard light that caught her and pushed her back. “Careful!” he hissed in the same breath. “Okay. I’ll pass it to you.”

He did, and Keli sipped and made a face but kept drinking. “It’s bad,” she informed Hal, ever devastating in her critiques. “This isn’t like Simon’s tea.”

“Tea’s tea, Keli,” Hal said with both arms crossed over his chest like that would shield him from twelve-year-old disapproval. “You just need to stay hydrated.”

She sighed in resignation. “So I have to finish it.”

“Precisely. Hey, it’s better than just water, right?”

Kyle piped up with, “Do we have any Gatorade around here?”

“Probably? I feel like tea’s the safer option, kid.”

“Joy and whimsy, Hal,” which was all Hal needed to officially stop listening to Kyle and watch the kid take tiny, careful sips. She was shivering still, but warm. The last time they checked her temperature, it was hovering around a hundred degrees which wasn’t great but they’d given her the fever reducers and hoped it would be enough to curb the worst of it and buy Keli’s body time to fight it herself.

If that didn’t work, Hal wondered if Leezle Pon would be able to make a dent in a human virus. Did it do house calls?

Keli laid back down the moment she was done drinking and her eyes landed on the TV as Kyle aired out the compress and laid it back on her forehead. His ring chimed softly with an alert and he frowned at it, the backs of his knuckles brushing against Keli’s cheek, something that made her expression twist into a displeased little scrunch. “Sorry. This is normal, right? She only started school recently and apparently kids just get sick off each other all the time.”

I don’t know, Hal nearly announced. For Kyle’s sake, he shrugged. “My brother’s better at this but sure. There was definitely a point where all my nieces and nephews kept getting each other and their friends sick like some twisted game of ping pong.”

Kyle laughed. Hal considered his job done then and retreated to his reports.

John and Jo had passed the Kuiper Belt when Simon clucked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

A pause. “Bed,” came the raspy answer.

That didn’t sound good. A quick glance at the clock confirmed it was well past what was probably the acceptable bedtime for sick pre-teens so he was surprised to see Keli standing, even if she was wobbling rather dangerously, with her feet pointed towards the stairs she absolutely would not be able to climb on her lonesome.

Simon had both hands on his hips. Kyle looked like he was struggling not to laugh at him. “Do you seriously want to sleep in your own bed?”

Keli shot him a look, both indignant and confused. “Yes?”

“Okay. Then I’ll carry you.”

“No.” Ah, there it was.

Simon sighed. “Keli, I don’t think you’re gonna make it up the stairs. You’re literally shaking just standing up.”

“I’ve done it before,” Keli said stubbornly. “I don’t want to be carried.”

“Then stay on the couch. Please.”

Hal crossed his arms and grinned at her. “I say let her try to climb the stairs.”

This earned him both Jess and Guy rounding on him with matching glares, equally chilling in their rage. “Seriously, Jordan?”

“I’m just saying! If she can make it up the whole way without passing out, she’s earned her stripes and the right to sleep in her own bed. If not, couch it is.”

The stares increased in their severity. It didn’t matter, of course. Keli was a force unto herself, even when she was in danger of tipping over, and she was already hustling her trembling limbs towards the staircase with the determination of a girl much older. Hal certainly wasn’t going to stop her. He even stepped aside to allow her easier access, but followed a half-step behind, hands raised once again to catch her should she fall.

Keli got up the first three easy considering the earlier kitchen mishaps. Hal could feel Jess’s anxiety from here, the faintest shimmer of yellow in the air, the smell of tart fear. He didn’t move to comfort her, too focused on his own charge which he felt would be more useful for her anyway. “Hal,” she began, “this isn’t—”

“I’m fine,” Keli ground out, wavering on the fifth step. Her arms clung to the banister, both of them because she needed the leverage to stop her knees from buckling. “You don’t have to—to—”

“Hover?” Hal asked, one eyebrow raised even if the kid wasn’t looking back to see it. “I’m not hovering. I’m going up this way too.”

He got a scowl for that, tossed backwards before she tried another step, and another and another. The ninth was in view and Keli had made it a good portion of the way up all by herself. Hal wondered if she had considered the next hurdle, her bunk bed, already. He waged that she hadn’t.

When the kid did finally give out, it was a quiet collapse like the kitchen one had been. She stopped, chest heaving like she’d run a marathon, and her knees silently buckled from underneath her while her hands slipped free of the banister and floated to her sides. Hal caught her before she could roll and Keli only gasped, surprise probably, as he hefted her up on one shoulder and walked down. The elimination of her progress must have smarted, but Hal kept his promises. Mostly.

“I was almost there,” she mumbled into his ear, already half asleep despite her claims. “I could’ve…I…”

“Couch is all made up and comfortable for you,” Hal replied, easing her back down and pulling the blanket over her shoulders. “You’ll see the upstairs when you’re a little more stable.”

The challenge in her eyes didn’t die out even when she eventually closed them. Guy breathed a long sigh of relief and slumped into the armchair. “I’ll take first watch,” he grunted before anyone else could. “Shoo. Go t’ bed. Lord knows you all need it. Yeah, I’m talkin’ about you, Picasso. You look like shit.”

“Language,” Kyle muttered, already trudging up the stairs while stretching out his arms. Jess drifted up herself, Simon following in tow with a sheepish look on his face. “Goodnight. Wake us up if anything changes.”

“Will do.”

Hal lingered just enough to flick his eyes between Guy and Keli, one sound asleep and the other steadfastly staring straight into Hal’s soul. “I’ll take the next watch,” he said eventually.

“Sure.” Guy waved a hand, something like exhaustion on his face. “Up you go.” It might’ve sounded like being chided to anyone else, but Hal knew better. He only sighed and nodded and disappeared up the stairs himself.

The thought spun into the green, a grass as thick as time underneath his hands, digging sharply under the beds of his nails and he winced with it, levering himself upwards to hunch over the form he wore now, a cape of glimmering black streaked down his back and shoulders. So he stood and wandered in this place, a glade of emerald forever, a beauty of nature and a sky he could lose himself in forever.

There was no time for that, however. He had places to be.

The trees were long, deeply brown and made of shadows, he though, these twisted things that writhed with every breath the sky took, but atop them hung fruit in glorious jewel tones, red and blue and purple and yellow. Impossible things too, an apple as big as a melon, a coconut that hit the ground and spurted orange milk when it cleaved open. But when he reached, hands short and stiff, he found ash instead.

He straightened and moved on.

The sun beat, though there was no sun there, nothing to hold up the sky in the air. For a moment, he feared it would come crashing down and the idea of being pinned under the blue, as extravagant, as delicious as it looked, was frightful. The trees ushered him away with lipless smiles and he could not tell if the intention was there. Only that they did not want him here, did not want him to eat their fruits, did not want him to shelter under their arms. The fear was gnawing and the hunger came shortly, a false thing that disappeared when he stood still, but he kept going because there was someplace he meant to be.

The food was there by his feet when he blinked next and so, dutifully, he bent and picked it up. Bread, maybe, a steam bun that, once he tore open, revealed the soft fuzz of mould.

His eyes grew hot and he continued with empty hands and searched more fervently, the tongue in his mouth good for nothing except to cry, to call out, though nothing was around and nothing could hear. The sun beat down and the sky was blue and the grass was green and he was afraid.

It was a beautiful day and he was nothing.

He woke up to someone new in the house. How Hal knew that, he wasn’t sure, but his ring pulsed softly with every exaggerated thud of his heart, the near-silent footsteps he made as he slipped out of bed and down the hall.

The stairs didn’t creak even if Hal was half-convinced they did, but there was someone in the living room. Multiple someones, more than there had been before. He was wide awake now, ring out at chest height, rounding the corner, when—

“Hal, you need to work on stealthing before you try that out in the field.”

The tension drained from his shoulders. “John,” he muttered, hand falling to his side as he stepped into the meagre light of the living room.

Guy was nowhere in sight, despite having been supposed to wake Hal up ages ago. In his stead were John, currently with a thermometer in between two fingers, and Jo, kneeling beside the couch and humming lowly. She hadn’t stopped when Hal walked in. Only looked up to acknowledge him with a half-smile. Keli was asleep but she drifted in starts and stops. She wasn’t peaceful. Not really.

“Morning,” Hal rasped. “Did you just get back now?”

“An hour ago,” Jo said lowly. “Storm hit just as we arrived. It’s hell out there.”

“Total whiteout,” John agreed. “You’ve been okay?”

“Fine.” A pause, long enough for Hal to finally close his eyes and listen to the sound the wind made as it howled and battered against the windows. Then, “Why did you choose to live here again, John?”

“Because I know better and you all know that I know better,” John said immediately, both eyebrows raised in amusement. “Get used to it, Hal. Snow won’t kill you.”

“Well that’s just not true.”

“Gentlemen,” Jo cut in, mock stern and failing to keep it up judging by the laughter wobbling her tone, “if you could keep the bickering down, that’d be great. Keli and I can’t stand to hear you two be stupid at each other.”

To Hal’s surprise, Keli even gave a weak huff of agreement. He felt himself soften then, exchanging a glance with John whose mouth twitched. “Well damn, we’ll get out of your hair in a bit kid. How’re you holding up?”

She didn’t turn to face him, didn’t lift her head or hand or anything. She stayed partially hidden behind the armrest and the mound of blankets which had somehow multiplied in the few hours Hal was asleep for. Keli eventually said, “Hurts.”

“That’s the fever,” Jo said, not quite soft but with a reassuring edge. “Your body’s killing the sickness in you. It’ll hurt and be uncomfortable but it’s just how our immune systems fight this.”

Keli seemed to mull this over for a while as John peeled off one layer of her blankets to fold and stack on the armchair. “Does…does Kilowog get sick?”

Everyone looked to Hal, which was fair but now he’d been put on the spot. He picked his way over to stand in front of her as he spoke. “Uh. Well. Kilowog…okay, I dunno if he gets sick like humans do but I’m sure there are some bugs out there that can take him down. He’s tough but he’s not immune to everything.”

Keli’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Have you seen him sick?”

“No, but that’s because I’m not always around.” Hal froze. “Okay, no, that sounds bad, but—”

“It is,” Keli said sagely.

“—but Kilowog burns through bugs like a speedster burns through a buffet. He’s real hard to keep down, kid. And so are you,” Hal tacked on. It seemed to satisfy Keli who hummed and shifted slightly, fingers curling under her cheek as she drifted back off.

“Smooth,” Jo snorted, standing and stretching so hard her shoulders popped. “I’m going to bed before I crash on the floor.”

“You go too, John,” Hal said quickly. “I promised Guy I’d take over watch anyway. You need the rest.”

The you sure John gave him was silent; barely a look at all that Hal decoded through something more like instinct than recognition. “Call if y—”

“John, go.” Hal even shoved his shoulder, not hard but enough to make a point. “No one’s gonna die if you aren’t around every waking second.”

Jo tugged him along but he went willingly with a final, grateful smile thrown at Hal, who only returned it and settled on the floor next to the couch, close enough that if he turned his head, he’d be face to face with Keli. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kid,” he whispered. “We’re gonna crush this bug, alright?”

Her nose wrinkled in her sleep. Hal smiled.

The next morning was dark. Hal would have been more worried about the storm if it weren’t for the fact that Keli’s temperature had only risen in the night. But they were all together now, the seven of them huddled in clusters in the living room and the kitchen. Hal nursed a black coffee that Kyle had mistakenly taken exactly one sip of, before gagging theatrically and slamming the mug down so hard it nearly cracked then and there. He stood above the couch, the mug clasped between his hands even though it had lost a lot of its warmth and frowned at the kid.

“Keli,” he called, crouching to be eye level. The smell of his coffee seemed to rouse her. She liked it, Hal thought, even if she wasn’t a big fan of the taste. “You ready to eat something?”

He got a mumbled protest, something half-coherent and mostly in Spanish that Hal couldn’t decipher for the life of him. Jess was still half asleep and Kyle was glued to his phone so there went any chance of a translation.

Hal tried again, shuffling closer and setting his mug down on the floor. “Keli, you should eat something. Or at least have something to drink.”

“Hurts,” she whispered, barely audible.

“I know, but your body needs fuel to help fight this bug. How about some banana?”

In response to that, she promptly shoved her face into the pillow, which was as clear a sign as ever for Hal to back off. He sighed and sat back on his haunches. “Nothing?” Guy asked, materialising behind Hal.

“Nothing. She’s in pain and I bet the nausea isn’t helping either.”

“Yeah. ‘S pretty brutal for kids.” Hal moved out of the way for Guy to squat and try to coax Keli into sitting upright at the very least. He didn’t comment on the tight set of Guy’s shoulders, the tension in his expression when he spoke, low and soft to the kid with a desperate edge he hid well. Instead, he watched with no small amount of amazement as Guy slowly, carefully, pulled Keli upright.

The kid slumped immediately, hunching over with a quiet groan as her spindly arms wrapped themselves around her stomach. “I know,” Guy was saying, “I know, kid. You hungry?”

A shake of her head. She looked miserable. Fever-hot and dishevelled, eyes bright and glassy. She shook with the effort of staying up and willingly clung onto Guy’s forearms when he offered them to steady herself. “Banana?” Hal offered again.

“Okay,” Keli whispered and he was off.

“Mash it!” Guy called after him, like Hal was going to offer the whole thing to her because he totally wouldn’t have. Either way, it was something of actual substance which was a relief. John and Jo weren’t down yet, still in their post-mission coma and the others were more or less useless in this lightless morning. For once, there was nowhere to go, nothing to do. He wasn’t sure who exactly organised it or got the time off for them but Hal wasn’t about to question it.

“How’s the little lady?” Simon asked, vaguely more alert than Jess who was still face down on the kitchen counter and trying not to snore too loudly. He wandered over amidst Keli getting down slow, small spoonfuls of banana. “It’s a good sign if you’re eating by yourself.”

“I wanna be done,” she moaned, every bit as melodramatic as a Lantern should be. “I’m dying.”

“You ain’t dyin’,” Guy countered, “you’re just a little feverish. Keep up the healin’ and you’ll be back to terrorisin’ us in no time.” His lips twitched as he added, “You’re puttin’ Jordan to shame with all that complainin’.”

Hal stomped down on Guy’s foot and weathered the resulting bat to the back of his head like a champ, grin still intact. “Rest up, kid. You’ll be fine.”

“Big storm,” Hal said on the hour, like clockwork.

“Huge,” Jo grunted without even a wayward glance towards the window. “Pacing isn’t gonna make it stop, Jordan.”

“I know that.”

“And going out is a surefire way to get frostbite.”

“I know that.”

John, amused already, glanced up from his datapad. “Hal, it’s not gonna die anytime soon. We’ve still got at least a couple days left inside.”

With a blank look towards him, Hal took five steps forward and sank onto the ground next to the couch. “That sucks. This sucks. I’m blaming you.”

“I can’t control the weather, Hal.”

“So you say.”

“Go entertain yourself if you’re not gonna stop whining,” Jo said, glancing up from her novel with a raised eyebrow. “I’ve got books if you want. Do you read, Jordan?”

He stared at her, stunned. “I—yes, I read, Jo! What kinda question is that?”

“A good one. Book?”

Hal glanced towards the cover of the one she had open now. Looked like a rose engulfed in flame, although the title was hard to make out. Something about passion, something about embers, something about a crown? Definitely didn’t look like anything up Hal’s alley, even if Hal’s alley was mostly unknown to him too. He read. Just not often, not that he’ll admit it to Jo. “I’ll pass.”

“Then be quiet,” Jo muttered, though there wasn’t any snap in her voice, no tension. Just exasperation, something fond and an exhaustion she carried even though she was out of her post-mission coma. She nursed a steaming cup and was seated right by the big lamp for optimal light, considering it was the only light source that they had on in the room for Keli’s comfort. At some point in the last few hours, she’d developed a headache.

The kid was awake, eyes half-lidded and soft as she absorbed the quiet chatter around her. There were only three others in this room, watching over her to make sure she didn’t, like, throw up or something. Even so, she was nice company as quiet as she had become. The silence alone was unsettling but Hal wasn’t in the business of asking for much more. Instead, he leaned back so the back of his skull was nestled against the couch cushions, cocking his head just barely to watch her closely. She followed his movements with some muted interest, her chicken limbs scrunched close to her body under the blanket. The smallness is what got to Hal the most.

“Comfy?” Hal asked, voice scraped so low it sounded like gravel. Keli’s eyes widened just a little, just enough for Hal to see a sliver of her whites as she gave a jerk that might’ve been a shrug, awkward because she was tired and laying down. Her body trembled finely and he only noticed because he sat close enough to see and she had to be a little bored because watching the TV screen had proven too much, made her too nauseous, so they had to switch it off.

The idea wasn’t an idea at all but more of an instinct taken form, and Hal only partially gave a shit if the Guardians got pissed at him for it. Technically, it wouldn’t be a selfish use of the ring. He flicked his hand, conjuring up a construct ball, barely the size of a tennis ball which he set on the couch and rolled over to Keli.

The glow lit up her eyes with a gentle, emerald light, igniting the brown as she reached out, hand trembling, to touch it just barely. The tennis ball, at Hal’s thoughts, grew. It was plump then and sprouted fur which made Keli snatch her hand back but she kept watching, intrigued, as two stubby legs sprouted and then two stubby arms and then a head with a triangle snout and rounded ears.

The bear, gently warm and very soft, stood on its two legs that should not have supported it but did through Hal’s puppeteering, toddled over to Keli and dropped down into a sit, tilting its head. It didn’t smile because that would’ve been really fucking creepy, but Hal pushed enough to start something deep in its chest: a heartbeat that synced with his own.

Keli, bewildered and a little awed, reached out again with both arms so the bear obliged and nosed its way into her embraced. She wrapped her spindly limbs around it, buried her face in its neck because it was half her size which wasn’t really that much of an achievement anyway, and mumbled, barely audible, “It’s alive.” Not disturbed, thankfully. Kids really didn’t question anything.

“Nah,” Hal said. “That’s just me.”

He could feel her heart too through the bear in his right cheek, behind his teeth, though it was less a beat and more of a flutter, like a hummingbird. It didn’t feel healthy and the only reason Hal left it alone was because everyone had already assured each other that Keli’s vitals looked normal for a sick kid and Hal certainly wasn’t a doctor by any stretch of the imagination. Well. None of them were but Kyle dated a doctor once, John was good at battlefield triage in a pinch and Simon could heal which was weird and something Hal chose not to question.

So he sat and hummed lowly until he felt the fluttering of Keli’s heart slow the smallest bit, enough for him to know that she’d drifted off into some kind of sleep. The bear stayed and it was hardly a task for Hal to keep that part of his concentration up, to dedicate a corner of his brain to uphold it. But his physical presence wasn’t needed here anymore so he got up and pretended his knees didn’t crack traitorously, to wander upstairs and see who else he could bother.

Kyle did a funny thing with his body when he went to check on Keli where he reached down, paused, and then spasmed in a full body flinch as his entire being did a little, contortive dance to get the hell away from whatever he thought the threat was.

“What the hell!” he gasped, backpedalling like a madman to get away. “What the—what is that?”

Hal, seated with his half-finished reports on the dining table, his cheek cupped in one hand, watched on with a half smile. The bear, Hal’s bear, had twisted its face a full one-eighty despite still being comfortably cuddled up with Keli because it had started to get boring around here.

Jo, thoroughly disgruntled, pulled her legs free and tucked them underneath herself to curl back up and close her eyes. “Shut up,” she groaned. “Wake me up when it starts breathing fire.”

“The bear is alive,” Kyle hissed, his panic growing louder, “what the fuck.”

“Is Keli scared?” Jo asked. “No. Is she hurt? No. Is the bear currently trying to kill her? No. Therefore, I don’t care.”

“She’s unconscious!”

“She’s napping you idiot. And the bear is a construct.”

“Maybe you need a nap, Kyle,” Hal said without looking up. The bear’s arm twitched, like a wave. Kyle flinched with it. “You’ve got plenty of time to catch up on rest.”

Kyle looked at Hal like he was insane. It was a look Hal got more often than he’d like to admit. He opened his mouth to say something scathing, no doubt, and closed it when Keli muttered in her sleep. Or…no, maybe not her sleep. Her heartrate had picked up some so Hal figured wakefulness, or maybe a dream even. Her eyes were open the faintest touch, staring at Kyle, and the light shining faintly into her eyes only reflected their glassiness.

She spoke again, the bones of a whisper none of them could pick up. Slightly garbled too, something Hal had no hope of translating. Kyle bent low to listen with a, “Can you speak up for me, Keli?” There was a pause, and Keli’s lips moved with her eyes locked on Kyle who caught the word and pressed his lips together until they were thin. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said as he crouched. “She’s not here. Do you remember where you are?”

A shake of her head. Hal felt the beginnings of something sour curdle in his gut and asked, “Is she lucid?”

No response and he didn’t need one because Kyle’s face was doing that thing it did when he was trying very hard not to give away his misery. “You’re a Lantern, remember? And you’re home with us. I’m Kyle,” he added, a pained afterthought.

Keli blinked very slow, slow enough to convince Hal that she’d fallen back asleep and then mumbled, finally a little audible, “It’s cold.”

Kyle had already flicked up the soft, jade interface, something that hovered just barely above Keli’s chest. “Fever’s spiked,” he muttered. “She’s not stabilising.”

“It’s the flu, Rayner,” Jo said, though it was soft as she stretched her legs and got up. “We need to keep cooling her down.”

Hal felt that little heartbeat in his cheek shiver in displeasure and Keli twitched into a movement that almost seemed like she made to get up, but that strength faded the moment Jo came back with the compressed and laid it over her forehead. Keli slumped in defeat with a quiet groan, her hand coming up to lay across the cloth. “Nope,” Kyle said and caught her wrists before she could push it off, “that’s to keep you cold.” She muttered something else and he replied with, “I know it’s uncomfortable but it’s important that we keep your brain from cooking. We’re keeping things chill.”

The next word out of Keli’s mouth sounded suspiciously close to ‘loser’ and that felt reassuring enough to have Hal relax the slightest bit.

For the probably third time that hour, Hal rubbed sanitiser onto his skin, long accustomed to its sharp smell. He was pretty sure he’d burnt all off all his nose hairs anyway, so it wasn’t any problem to him. Either way, this was newer policy along with total lockdown. No one in or out because Keli had gotten worse, a wisp of emerald flame that flickered on occasion and outside pathogens were a big no-no.

“Light is photons, right?” Jess had said while they scrubbed down the counters with eye-blistering amounts of bleach. “It’s—it’s radioactive?”

Simon had blinked and stared at her like she’d grown three heads. “Uh, yeah sure. Sometimes,” he hedged. “Why?”

Jess shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “I—this might be dumb, but do you think we can use the green light to disinfect too?”

A quiet. John looked thoughtful. “Maybe. If we—maybe.”

“It’d definitely be faster,” Kyle muttered, leaning back and going to wipe at his brow with his gloved hands before thinking otherwise. “You think we got every germ in the house?”

“I think Keli’s gonna be breathin’ in more cleaning products than little bastard critters,” Guy huffed, pushing past them with some rice porridge he swore on. “Go wipe the sink down, Jordan,” he called over his shoulder. “You don’t got time to sit and look pretty.”

“You think I’m pretty?” Hal said automatically as he moved to the sink.

“Yeah. Pretty as one of ‘em fucked up fish.”

“Which…” Kyle started but trailed off because Guy was already marching like a man on a mission to get some of his porridge into Keli. Hal could only bid him good luck and turn back to the already-pristine sink. The cleaning was really all for naught, but it gave him something to do with his hands that wasn’t just fidget or procrastinate on his reports for any longer. He had half a mind to make Kyle finish them. Salaak said his report structure was moderately effective the other month. That was practically a confession of love and eternal friendship for the guy.

The sink gleamed by the time Hal finished. He avoided the windows when he went to throw away his gloves. Nothing to see out there anyway given how much snow had fallen already. John already went out, just before he decided to seal the house, if only to shove snow away from the windows and doors. It looked like those efforts had been for nothing.

With a sigh, Hal picked up an apple and leaned against the table to eat it, brushing elbows with Jess who was trying to push the wisps of hair that had escaped her bun out of her eyes with nothing but the backs of her wrists. She wasn’t doing a very good job, either. “I think I could go my whole life without smelling bleach again,” she said wistfully.

“I think most people feel that way, Jessie,” Simon responded.

“Don’t be a smartass.”

There was a weariness that clung to all of them. Despite the break they’d been afforded, apparently no one was really sleeping. Not properly. Hal got it, he really did. Without anything to do except wait out the storm and the sickness, he was going stir crazy too and it hummed under his skin despite how much he kinda wanted to sit down and not move for a while.

“Movie?” he suggested to no one in particular.

“Not Top Gun,” three people chimed in unison, which, okay.

“Something kid friendly,” Simon said. “What’s new in animation?”

Kyle’s head snapped up, already indignant as he said, “Just because it’s animated doesn’t m—”

“Mean it’s just for kids,” Jess shot back. “Yeah, we get it. What’s new in animation?”

That floundered him, made him shut up before he shrugged. “There’s a few things she might like. Not sure if she’ll stay awake for them though.”

Simon hummed in agreement. “Never seen her so…”

“Quiet,” Hal finished. “It’s weird.” With his hands empty, he wandered off to the living room. “I’ll consult Guy then. Not Top Gun,” he promised as he went. “Also, that’s not the only movie I’ve watched and enjoyed, you know.”

“Yeah, well, you sure goddamn act like it is.”

It was numb when his eyes opened.

Unfeelingly, he sought with his fingers and hands and found nothing but more of the same, a sleet of numbness that ached and burned and killed the nerves in both hands dead. Flat on his belly, he crawled a length forward and still sought to find nothing in the white. God, his eyes burned and his skin and clothes and face.

The tears froze on his face as he lifted himself, two trembling arms to keep his whole body upright in the white and found nothing more around but the pale that went on and on and on. For a moment, the fright returned because the ice was everywhere, in his bones and skin and even his teeth. He chattered with it, shook and jerked and could not cry but wanted to, with a kind of desperation he so rarely felt.

He could only move a little ways at a time and the divots of the ground sunk into his knees and palms. Towards the warmth he went, wherever it appeared, though that glow pressed in like a phantom that did not exist. He didn’t know where to find it, didn’t know where he was going and yet he went on regardless. Before the hunger was the cold and the cold would kill him if he couldn’t get out.

There was nowhere to go. Not for him. Still, he crawled onwards.

With a start, Hal woke.

He was hunched over the table, one cheek pressed against the back of his hand hard enough to know that his ring would surely make a deep indent into his skin. That was annoying. He must have fallen asleep while he was getting through his work. However, Hal was arrested with a quiet that felt discerning for whatever reason, a stillness he wasn’t used to. It took a little while to realise that he could not feel that flutter in his cheek, the second heartbeat he carried with him like a badge.

The absence felt cold, though it still took Hal a full minute to realise and get up, happily separating himself from the work he had yet to finish.

The couch was empty, which answered Hal’s question immediately. The bear had fallen to the floor so he stooped to pick it up and put it back for no reason aside from sentiment. “Guy,” he called hoarsely, “did you take her to her room?”

“Huh? Take who?”

Hal frowned. “Keli. You took her upstairs, right?”

“The fuck would I take her up for? We agreed to keep her down here ‘til she ain’t in danger of fainting off’a her bed.”

Staring harder at the empty lump of blankets, a cluster of them bunched up on one end like someone had pushed them away with no care rather than lifted them. “She’s not here,” he said carefully. “Did John?”

“John’s asleep,” Guy said a note of alarm running through his tone. He poked his head in finally, eyes zeroing in on the crime scene and Hal standing beside it, hands hovering, useless, and said, “You—you didn’t see her when you got here?”

His answer was slow, a soft, “No.” Then, “Windows are sealed. No sign of a break-in.”

“She ain’t been kidnapped!” Guy barked. “Get your head on straight, Jordan, or I swear to—”

“Kidnapped?” Jo was there, right behind Guy with that unholy, green glint in her eyes and a sort of sharpness to her face that never boded well for anyone. “Where’s Keli? Who left her alone?”

“Idiots, fuckin’ idiots, we’re all goddamn—” Guy hissed, his rant cutting off sharply as he turned heel and disappeared down the hallway. “Start searchin’! Good chance she’s still in here and close.”

The very thought of Keli being outside in the snow in her current state made Hal sick to his stomach. He forced his feet to move, automatically drifting to the kitchen as Jo sprinted upstairs with a shouting warning to the others, rousing the entire house sharply from the hazy slumber it had fallen into.

With a kind of purpose Hal lacked in his day-to-day life, he ripped open the cabinets. They were empty, save for the cutlery, the pots and the pans and when he reached an arm in to rummage around, creating enough of a clatter to at least try to spook a sound of out any wayward children, he got nothing.

Hal pried the fridge from the wall and then opened the fridge when a wave of horror crested over him at the sight of the appliance, though the empty inside sent him into a dizzying spiral of relief as he ran both hands over the counter, his ring sparking as it tried to pick up on a too-fast heartbeat. The upper cabinets were out because if Keli had barely the strength to walk without fainting, she certainly shouldn’t be able to climb and—

The dishwasher hummed behind him, barely warm but with all the little buttons lit up as it cycled through its wash cycle and Hal felt himself gripped with a momentary bout of fear so strong it nearly knocked him clean off his feet because holy fucking shit if she was in the dishwasher—

He ripped it open and it beeped unhappily at him as the cycle stopped. Hal peered inside as steam stung his eyes and tickled both hands but it was, thankfully, blissfully, empty.

Reason struck him a moment later. He had it in himself to be a little ashamed at the fear because it probably wasn’t reasonable to freak out this much, to jump to this conclusion so easily. And John would be pissed at him for making the dishwasher mad.

Holy fuck, Hal needed a goddamn nap.

“Keli?” he tried, amazed he hadn’t called for her earlier. He didn’t get an answer but there was a rustle somewhere below him, somewhere to his right. His fingers ran over the sink, warm still, and drummed at the pristine bottom of it, eyes closed. Slowly, he sank to his knees and pulled open the cabinet doors right underneath it.

There, crammed between the pipes and the wastebin, was their scrawny kid, staring at him like he had personally kicked her puppy right in front of her eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” Hal said because he was sane enough not to swear. He raised his ring to his mouth long enough to say, “Found her,” before he reached out, carefully bending his arms under and around the pipes to haul her out.

“Found her?” Guy’s voice made him jolt, loud enough to rattle through his skull. “Where?”

“Kitchen,” Hal grunted. “Under the sink. Shut up, I’m concentrating.”

Keli, determined to give him grey hairs, shied further away and said something unintelligible, her voice like a weak snap. She bared her teeth at him which would have been much more intimidating if she wasn’t shaking so hard he could practically hear all of her bones rattle. “Kiddo,” he said, suddenly very tired, “you can’t nap here. It’s not safe. Or comfortable.”

Words again, which he was pretty sure was garbled Spanish, and by now Hal would love to waterboard himself for the language barrier his dumb ass created. The ring only caught the tail end of it and buzzed out a negative because it hated him, though Hal worked to keep the frustration quiet on his face. “God, kid, I dunno what you think is happening, but I just need you to stop raising my blood pressure.”

“You found her?” Simon said as he strode in, ring alight and casting frightful shadows across his face.

“Yup. She’s not coming out, though.”

“Under the sink?”

“Yup,” Hal said again.

“Why there, though?” Kyle had appeared, Jess peeking over his shoulder, both with dark rings under their eyes. “Should we invest in cubbies or something if she likes small places? Wait, Hal, did you turn the dishwasher off?”

“Don’t tell John,” was all he grumbled, scooting back to give Simon a shot. Hal sat back, leaning on his hands and was content to watch Jess join in to work their collective magic. They always were better together and the exchange happened too fast for him to keep track of but something gave, as it always did, and Jess lit up in triumph when Simon leaned forward and pulled the kid out.

She was talking and Hal could see her properly now. Someone had braided her hair and changed her pyjamas but her eyes were glazed and confused, staring through him with a constant stream of muttering, both English and Spanish. The bits he caught made no sense either, a gibberish made up of, “…said the—the bird wasn’t here, ‘n’ he wanted…” A handful of blinks as Simon got to his feet and she adjusted to the altitude. “Blue food,” Keli said like an epiphany.

“Sounds good,” Simon agreed. “Blue food. We’ll feast forever.”

She nodded fervently, her shaky little hands clenching and relaxing around the fabric of Simon’s sleep shirt. She had her cheek squished against his shoulder, blinking slowly as she said, insistently, “Food’s there, in…under.”

“Under isn’t allowed,” Jess said smoothly. “We’ll get you food from on top.”

It occurred to Hal quietly that Keli was trying to break out of Simon’s hold when she raised one fist and thumped it against his chest. It barely even made a sound. Simon acted like he didn’t feel it. “I know,” he said instead. “I know you don’t like this, but you can’t go back under.”

“It’s under,” Keli persisted in the tone of someone too tired to be angry and settling for the next best thing, lukewarm as it was. “It’s…down?”

“Down is under-adjacent. Still not allowed.”

She blinked again, rapidly this time, and Hal started forward before his brain caught up to his body because the kid was crying and he did not know what the hell he was doing. “Hey,” he whispered, “hey, hey, c’mon, what’s wrong?”

“Food’s under,” she rambled as he thumbed away the tears on her hot cheeks. The words meant nothing to him but the desperation was enough to claw at his chest as Keli continued, “It’s there, it’s there, it’s…”

“Oh.” Kyle’s little eureka moment sounded pained, and he didn’t deign to share with the class. “Oh no. Oh, kid,” he mumbled, reaching around until he found a banana to ease into her hand. “Here.” It calmed her, though the grip was weak and Kyle hovered with both hands cupped under the fruit should it fall as Simon, silent, made his way back to the living room, the couch.

Jess hovered, expression tight though she tried to smile at him, opening her mouth before he waved her away. “Go. I’ll clean up here,” Hal said and stayed behind. He slowly closed the dishwasher, slowly pushed the fridge back into position, slowly shut the cabinets, the beginnings of something wretched gnawing on his gut.

Hal watched as a mountain of stuffed toys materialised on and around the couch. He certainly hadn’t realised that they had this many in the house.

He pointed at one, some kind of fucked up little dinosaur. “That one’s Pikachu?”

“Nope,” Kyle said without even looking up. “Bulbasaur.”

“Not every damn Pokémon is Pikachu.”

Hal frowned. “They—”

“No, Hal,” Jo cut in, “they don’t all look the same. You’re just being annoying.”

He harrumphed with that, eyeing the Bulba-whatever. The flower on its back acted like the kid’s pillow for the time being. She had no issues curling up on it, both arms looped around it with half of her face buried in the fabric. The haze hadn’t lifted from her eyes, but she had stopped crying. Or maybe she was too dehydrated for tears because the last time Guy had tried to get her to drink something, he came away practically livid with helplessness.

Forcibly, Hal turned his mind away from that and knelt by her, staring at the other stuffie that Keli liked enough to keep close, aside from Hal’s bear, which was starting to look a little raggedy around the edges.

“That one’s,” he said, pointing at the brown creature with the pink hat, “Eevee?”

“That one’s not even a Pokémon,” Simon deadpanned.

 Hal stopped short and squinted. “It looks like a Pokémon.”

“It’s not. It’s Chopper.”

Somehow even more bewildered, he shook his head and muttered, “It’s not a helicopter either.”

“No,” Kyle sighed as Jess began giggling behind him, slightly hysteric sounding, “his name is Chopper. He’s from an anime.”

“Okay, sure, but what exactly is Chopper.”

“Raccoon,” Kyle intoned.

“That…can’t be right.”

Jo shook her head. “It’s a raccoon, Hal,” she said and apparently that was the end of that. Hal sank to the floor beside the couch, close enough to Keli to be able to hear any changes. She snuffled in her sleep sometimes, little noises that he caught from time to time. Sometimes, she sounded as if she was in pain.

Hal dropped the raccoon discussion, because he was pretty sure this Chopper thing was a moose anyway, and continued his watch. It was kinda ridiculous that, despite there being a full seven of them, they kept accidentally leaving Keli alone long enough for something weird to happen. She was much too feeble to walk now, though, with John theorising she’d used the last of her energy to get to the kitchen earlier, but Hal wasn’t taking any more chances.

He tipped his head back and tilted his head just barely, enough to look at the sliver of her face still visible and in the dim light, she looked diminished. There was a tinge to her skin he didn’t like, a limpness to her that seemed to shrink her more. He had honey and fluids within arm’s reach, and enough stubbornness to at least try when she woke up a little more. All she seemed to do now was sleep.

John sat at the far end of the room, in the armchair as he reviewed Keli’s vitals for the fifteenth time that hour. The others stayed scattered. Someone dragged in blankets and pillows to litter on the ground and Jess lay curled up on one pile close by, Kyle sitting next to her with his legs slung over hers. Simon hovered in a steady pace around and around while Jo puttered about in the kitchen. Guy was nowhere to be found.

“Keli,” Hal called softly, because the silence was what unsettled him the most, “you up to eat something?”

She barely stirred then, both hands flexing against the stuffie she clung to, and the sleep clung to her even when her eyes followed the sound of Hal’s voice to land on his face. Keli didn’t recognise him and Hal only kept his smile steady, kept his hands strong as he picked up the little bowl of honey. “You want me to help sit you up?”

Keli’s eyes had already started to slip shut, startling open when he spoke again. “It’s honey,” he added hopefully.

Quietly, she turned her head away. Hal tried not to let his disappointment show, nor did he let himself look at anyone else as he got to his feet anyway, setting the bowl aside to sit on the couch next to Keli. His hands slid under her shoulders and he pulled her up unresistingly, but her face showed her displeasure even though it was hung low on a neck that absolutely did not want to support her head.

“Eyes up,” Hal said gently, scooting close enough to let her fall against his side. She practically melted into him, hands still in her lap, head tilted forward. Hal held the spoon to her lips and she opened them just barely, enough to eat a little of it. Keli liked honey. Ordinarily, they’d be trying to stop her from finishing the whole damn jar in one sitting.

A second spoonful was too much. She turned away and slumped further into Hal, shivering all over. “Cold,” she mumbled. “It’s cold.”

Her raging fever said otherwise. Part of Hal wanted to panic over why it still hadn’t broken. Everything else violently tamped that panic down and crushed it into nothing as he ran a hand over her scalp, smoothing down the flyaway hairs. “We still need to cool you down,” he murmured. “You sure you don’t want anymore? You’ve gotta be hungry.”

Keli didn’t react to that much, didn’t scoff or yawn or even hum. She only shook, her face pressed against Hal’s jacket and he wanted to give it to her if only to stop her trembling but her skin burned far too hot. Even the blankets she slept with now were lightest in the house and they’d kept up use of the cold compresses but Keli had a penchant for simply tossing them off.

The next best thing was the light.

“Here.” Hal laid the kid down on Simon’s lap when he settled onto the other side of the couch. She eased a little, her head cushioned on his thigh. He settled his palm on the side of her head and his ring sparked and then glowed a gentle jade, something muted, which made Keli sigh and sleep again.

There were parts of the ring Hal could never understand. He wasn’t in the business of questioning it, however, and stood because his presence was no longer needed to cart the uneaten honey back to the kitchen and wash his hands.

Staunchly, stubbornly, he did not acknowledge the thing that looked like despair on John’s face as he went.

Kyle hummed lowly as he flitted around, his ring providing one of the few, steady light sources anymore in the living room. The big lamp hurt Keli’s eyes now. No one was sure what changed.

Hal’s perch on the armchair hadn’t changed in the last however long he’d been sitting there. He was waiting for something, though he wasn’t sure what. The break, probably. The moment the tension released and they could all breathe. But his ring ran quietly, kept charged and monitoring so he’d be alerted immediately anything changed.

He had half a mind to tell Kyle to go get some sleep, though that would be ignored. No one had slept. Not well, at least, like there was some force keeping them pulled tightly around each other and unable to rest. He couldn’t name that feeling but he could feel its effects.

And then, the kid on the couch, the Sol of this system. A handful of limbs and blankets that scarcely moved. Hal found himself clenching his jaw so often that it somehow hurt more to relax.

“No change,” Kyle said to no one. Hal had been expecting that. He was more miffed that Kyle had stopped humming.

“Okay.”

“She’s not…” He didn’t finish that thought, his hands nervously running through his hair. “Simon’s calling his sister,” he informed Hal.

Hal nodded, his face fixed to the ceiling. “Cool.”

“She’s a mom. She’ll know better than us. Mom instincts are a thing, right? She’d know better than me.”

“Kyle,” Hal mumbled, “you need to breathe. Working yourself into a panic attack won’t help anyone.”

He felt, rather than saw, Kyle nodding, just shy of frantic, and listened to him sit down to get on top of his anxiety before it caught him. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Neither do I, Hal almost said. He refrained. “It’s alright. Keli’ll be fine. You should get some sleep.”

“Okay.”

They both knew he wouldn’t be able to.

Still, Kyle dutifully got to both feet and went upstairs and Hal was alone with Keli. He said nothing but his ring pulsed long enough to ensure she knew of his presence, even subconsciously. It was a weird instinct between Lanterns, to recognise a ring signature based on feel alone, and he wondered often if she shared it.

Hal’s ring flared for another reason then, without any warning. A call, which took him aback because he had partly forgotten that people existed outside of the house and the storm. God, he’d forgotten all about the League. They would be undoubtedly pissed at his radio silence.

It was Ollie who called so persistently that Hal eventually gave in and picked up. “Hey,” he rasped, kinda relieved to shut up when Ollie waited exactly two seconds to start yelling.

“Jordan you flaky bastard! Where the hell have you been? No! No, screw you! I give you a time, I give you a place and I even let you bring a bunch of plus ones and then no one shows up?”

“Sorry,” Hal said reflexively, still not sure about what he was apologising for.

“Sorry?” Ollie hissed, absolutely incensed. “Sorry? Not a goddamn word from you for a week and that’s what you say to me? Sorry? You—you’re still on Earth! Don’t think I can’t see where I’m calling you from! What the hell’s gotten into you? You never miss chili night!”

“Oh.” Oh, that made sense. Ollie was right about that. If Hal ever had to miss chili night, he’d give plenty of forewarning. And this one was meant to be special, meant to act as a means to introduce Keli to other League members in vaguely unthreatening scenarios. There was practically nothing less threatening than Ollie in a dumb apron.

“Oh, he says,” Ollie seethed. That was fine. Hal wouldn’t have been able to speak anyway. “Where the hell’ve you been? And don’t give me any bullshit about the storm. I’ve seen you walk through a wildfire on a dare so you were either an asshole and forgot or you’re an even bigger asshole and decided not to come.”

What had Hal said to Keli to convince her to meet his best friend? Ollie was eager from the get-go. He was good like that. Keli needed more convincing but the promise of chili that would make Guy and Kyle cry had been enough. She’d been excited in her tentative way, the way she got when she wanted so badly to trust something new and unknown.

Hal’s mouth was trembling and he realised he hadn’t said anything when he tuned back into the conversation, as Ollie’s voice crested again in concern this time. “Hal? Hal! Earth to Hal. C’mon dude, don’t be weird. I’m not even that mad anymore. I just need you to—”

“She’s not getting better,” Hal admitted out loud. It was more to himself and it was an awful thing to say. It got him on two legs again, got him to stride over and check Keli’s temperature with the back of his hand. It might have gotten worse and the lump in Hal’s throat grew in size. “She’s—she’s really not getting better.”

“Wh—Hal?” Alarm in Ollie’s voice now and God, Hal had forgotten to give him any context. Didn’t say Keli’s sick, didn’t say I don’t know what day it is, didn’t say I don’t know what I’m doing. “What are you talking about? Do you need extraction? Hey, talk. What’s going on.”

How could he explain? To Ollie, it might make some sense but Hal could hardly breathe anymore, let alone talk. “Huh?” he said stupidly.

“Hal,” Ollie said, sounding very patient in the way he got when he was just barely refraining from yelling, “is someone hurt? Are you sleeping? You sound rough, man. Do you need me to come over?”

He only had the mental capacity to snap, “You can’t come here,” because you could get Keli even sicker by accident, though only that first part left his lips. Hal’s brain only half worked and it wasn’t a blessing this time as he sank to the ground and picked up a small, hot hand to hold in his own. “You can’t…” Hal trailed off, distracted by the fire in the fever. This couldn’t be good. This couldn’t be helping. He knew enough about brain damage to want to punch a wall.

“Hal,” Ollie said carefully, “why can’t I come over? Are you…are you all safe?”

Oh man, he thought it was a hostage situation. Hal would rather it be a hostage situation. At least then, he could hit something. He wasn’t able to punch a virus.

“Do you think Leezle would be able to help?” Hal asked Ollie, only realising his mistake a second later. Ollie probably didn’t know Leezle Pon. And Leezle was far away, God knows where, and Hal wanted to do something stupid and terrible and useless. “Sorry. Ignore that.”

There was a buzz in his ring as the signal crackled. “Hal—"

“I gotta go,” he blurted out.

“No—Jordan, I swear if you hang up on m—”

Too late.

Ollie called again and again and again and Hal dutifully ignored every single pulse, too focused on the hand he held and the pulse slung delicately within his fingers. Too fast, hummingbird fast, God, children were fucking terrifying. How could he have not known? How the hell had Keli survived this long?

“It’s okay,” he whispered, for his sake more than hers. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.” The green pulsed louder and Keli did not stir.

The compress shifted again, sliding down Keli’s cheek before it fell. It was her one move left, the one way they knew she had the strength to keep fighting. Unfortunately, it was also generally very unhelpful and self-sabotaging, not that she could understand.

“It’s to keep you cool,” Jo said exhaustedly, like clockwork as she readjusted it. “You’re burning up, kid. Your brain’s practically melting.”

Cold, Keli’s lips said without sound. Cold, cold, cold. Her body was so beyond fucked that she was convinced, convinced she was freezing to death. She didn’t want to let go of the blanket, nor did she want to be cooled down. She was cold and she wanted to be warm and the only reason Hal hadn’t slammed his own head into the wall in frustration was because the plaster would crack and John would make him fix it.

A new fear bubbled under their skins. Something unimaginable, unforgivable. Hal refused to let his mind wander too far in that direction. He scrubbed the counters again, Guy right beside him with his dark shirt now covered in pale blotches from where bleach had landed on it. Hal kept his hands busy and listened to the rise and fall of voices, though no one had much to say anymore.

“You missed a spot,” Guy muttered with his back to Hal, who only scrubbed harder in response. There wasn’t any point to this. Hal was pretty sure they were damaging the counters more with how often Guy cleaned but it was all he could do.

“Any change?” Hal made himself ask John.

A shake of his head. “Nothing.” The nervous dance of his fingers against his thigh spoke volumes more than any words would. “We’ve been trying again with fluids. We’d be better off with an IV at this point.”

“Which we don’t got,” Guy cut in, his tone a snarl. “So, we make it fucking work, Johnny.”

John didn’t even snap back. He slumped sideways onto the barstool and inclined his head towards the living room. “You’re welcome to try. Our success rate hasn’t been anything to call home about.”

“Don’t fight,” Hal said. “Please. Don’t start any shit now, Guy.”

Guy scrubbed harder, his fury practically emanating off of his skin. “Fuck off, Jordan,” he growled. It wavered towards the end and it was a shift Hal only picked up on because he was waiting for it. “God, we shoulda—we shoulda gotten help sooner. The hell were we thinkin’?”

The tense line of John’s jaw tightened further. “We don’t have time to regret anything. We made our decision so we’ll stick with it.”

“We can’t move her now?” Hal asked lowly.

He knew the answer before it came out of John’s mouth, of course. “She wouldn’t survive the trip in this state, no matter how gentle we try to make it. Not even to the Tower. There are too many things that could go wrong.” Common sense. Hal blinked hard with a nod.

“We can control things better here,” Guy finished quietly. “She’s home. Not bein’ prodded and poked. She don’t like that.”

“Does it matter what she likes when her life’s on the line?”

No one had anything to say to that. Guy only pulled the rag out of Hal’s hands silently and passed it to John. Hal took that as his cue to leave after he washed his hands.

Jess had started to sing. She sang so rarely, but Hal knew from the few other times he’d heard her that she could hold a tune. Maybe she wasn’t a popstar but her voice was a welcome reprieve to the grave-like silence hanging over them all. Jess sang something like a lullaby as Simon did his thing. Keli was still, so still on Simon’s lap, but she hadn’t pushed the compress off so maybe the singing was working.

If Hal looked into their faces, he would see his weariness reflected back. For a moment, he allowed himself to indulge in the unfairness of it all but said nothing when he crouched to take in Keli’s features while she slumbered fitfully, before he made his retreat to the armchair. Guy sent him away to rest and shut up, so he did.

It was Jess’s singing that pulled him into sleep. Nothing so heavy to overcome him, but enough to ease Hal from reality to the tune of a lullaby he had never heard before.

He lay quiet on the ground, surer of his hands and feet than he’d ever been. Those were his, though bunched painfully beneath his body, they were useless. He lay in a room, a familiar room, the one he had buzzed around anxiously for the last forever, a planet around a fading star.

Above him, the couch, though he lay so he could only see the towering armrest and nothing beyond. Yet, the blankets told him the girl was still there, still asleep, but very still despite the door gaping open. Snow billowed in, thick enough to coat the welcome mat and that wouldn’t do at all. She would be cold. She hated the cold.

He didn’t move, couldn’t move just yet so he called her name and hoped for a response, even though his mouth would not move and neither did she.

The fear rose, ugly gold, when the woman came.

The woman came from the snow, or perhaps she was the snow in some way, all in white with only her tanned, scarred hands poking out from beneath her robes. She shook snow from her clothes and glanced at him apologetically, as if she was remorseful about getting it all over the floor.

He could not give less of a fuck about the floor.

I’m sorry I’m late, she said, the storm held me back. And then, to the girl, she said, Oh, what a sweet thing! Hello, darling.

The girl said nothing. His heart pounded faster.

Wait, he said, wait, what are you doing?

The woman looked surprised. She pulled off her hood and he saw her face, pretty if plain, scrunch in confusion. My job, she said, which you may watch. I don’t enjoy others watching me work but if you would be quiet, you may stay.

Stay for what, he asked loudly through the mouth he didn’t have. What are you doing? Who are you?

The woman laughed, a rough laugh. You know who I am, she said patiently. You and I have met before. Perhaps I looked different then. I do so love to change faces.

The woman walked to the girl and knelt by her side, one hand out as her expression twisted into gentle kindness. Oh, she’s perfect, said the woman.

He struggled harder against the limbs that refused to obey no matter how much he moved and writhed, and cried out. What are you doing? What will you do to her? Who are you?

It was sadness the woman regarded him with. Sadness and pity and disappointment. You know, she said quietly. You know very well what I am here for.

No, he breathed. No, no, no. No, you can’t. You can’t.

I have to, the woman murmured, and stood to pull her the folds of her robe from her body. I have to. It’s my job. With the extra loops of fabric, the woman leaned forward and used it to wrap the girl up. He could not see it, wasn’t allowed to, but he could envision the girl swaddled in white from top to toe and screamed louder.

No, no, no! No, stop! You put her down! You—

I have to, repeated the woman, stern now as she plucked the girl from her rest and cradled her close. Oh, pretty babe, she whispered, oh look at her. She’s fought so long and hard. She’s exhausted.

Please don’t, he blubbered, please, she’s just—she doesn’t—

It happens, the woman said. It’s not a rare thing and tragedy is not lost on me, but I’ve no time to dwell. This failure of yours is commonplace. Hardly a failure at all in that regard, I suppose. Just…nature.

Take me, he begged. Take me and leave her alone! Please, you can’t—

It is not your time, the woman said curtly. Your time will come to pass but I am not here for you. She glanced down at the child she held close to her breast and pulled the fabric over her face with a gentle smile, love deep in the gesture. Sleep, darling, she crooned and stepped further away from him.

The woman turned so he could see only her back as she retreated and if he had the mouth or the tongue, he would be screaming but lay paralysed instead, hands and legs twitching as they crossed the threshold of the front door.

You can’t, he said plaintively, please, you can’t.

For a moment, the woman paused and turned her face towards him to say, That is simply not something you get to decide.

Then, she pulled her hood up over her face and she and the girl disappeared into the blazing white.

Hal jolted awake so violently that something in his back popped. He lurched off the armchair hard enough to make himself stumble, turning towards the front door and half expecting it to still be wide open and letting the snow spill in. It wasn’t and somehow, that made the crushing pressure around his ribcage so much worse.

The kid on the couch had barely moved and Hal tore himself forward enough to settle two fingers, trembling uncontrollably, against her pulse point while he made himself listen. The flutter of her heart was the only thing that got him to back off, chest heaving, hands shaking, in a room too big and warm for him to lose his shit in properly.

Hal walked, or staggered, really, half blind with tears until he hit a space, a closet maybe, which he could close and lock with a stray broom wedged under the door handle. Then, Hal slid down the wall and choked on his own spit trying to breathe.

He coughed, somewhat uncontrollably, with the faint, hysterical thought that maybe this was how he would die before his ring bleeped at him sadly and pulled up a green interface of his own vitals, as well as every blaring issue he’d been avoiding until now.

So Hal did the smartest thing he’d done in a while and called someone.

“Hello?” said the receiver, faintly familiar though he wasn’t sure who yet. “Hal? It’s—it’s like, three in the morning. Is everything good?”

“Bar,” he choked out through a throat full of glass and tears. “I—I can’t—”

“Hal?” Barry sounded more alert now. “Waitwaitwait, hey, can you breathe for me?”

No, he wanted to say, bowing until his forehead scraped against the floor with his ring hand clenched in a fist beside his cheek. “Sorry,” he got out, stupidly inarticulate and drowned out by Barry getting slightly more frantic.

“No, don’t be sorry, just—God, Hal where are you? Hal? Hal, are you in—”

“Don’t come here,” he mumbled as dark spots dotted his vision. “You—you can’t—”

“Okay. Okay, I won’t,” Barry said firmly. “What do you need?”

Thankfully, he didn’t have to think about this. “Talk. Please.”

Barry wasn’t the talker in their friendship but he was good at improvising and even better at being interesting about it. “Did I ever tell you about mine and Iris’s seventh date? The one at the zoo?” And Hal could have said yes, multiple times, but didn’t because he barely had enough breath to stay conscious and also because maybe he liked this story. “God, okay, it was like a petting zoo and I went in hopeful like a total moron, because since when have I ever had anything less than terrible luck, right? My first mistake was wearing that white shirt. My second was wearing a hat.”

“Dork,” Hal coughed, which made Barry huff out a laugh.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t be saying that if you burned as easily as I did. I just wanted to impress Iris who, mind you, wanted to have a picnic. We only went to the zoo because I thought Wally was coming. He didn’t because he had school but I was in too deep to cancel. Anyway, I think I took exactly five steps into the zoo before this little kid holding some kind of raspberry drink ran straight into me.” Barry sighed, overblown and exasperated like he hadn’t been a jittery mess after the whole zoo debacle. “I got splashed down the front and then I fell and bruised my tailbone and we hadn’t even seen anything except, like, one pigeon.”

“Anyway, Iris was nice enough to not pretend like she didn’t know me. She also didn’t laugh at me that much which was great because Wally totally would’ve.” So would I, Hal thought, one palm pressed against his chest as he took breaths that still weren’t deep enough but less painful. “The birds? Hated me. All of them. I’m pretty sure they could sense there was something fundamentally off with me so they made it their life’s mission to swoop me. I’m pretty sure the cockatoo was plotting my murder. They’re smart enough to do that, you know. The reptiles didn’t hate me but one of them thought my finger was an insect and it tried to tear it right off. Not fun. And then that camel—”

“Ate your hat,” Hal finished roughly.

Barry laughed in surprise. “And a good chunk of my hair too. I went home sunburnt. Wally called me extra crispy on patrol that afternoon.”

Finally, Hal chuckled too, sounding like he’d swallowed glass in the recent past. “Thanks,” he whispered. “Sorry. I didn’t—did I wake you?”

“Forget about me.” There was that gentleness Barry used so often. Every time he directed it at Hal, he wanted to cry on principle. “What’s up with you?”

“What do you mean?” Hal mumbled.

“Well, Ollie sent a message the other day to tell the rest of us that he had a weird conversation with you and was worried and that you didn’t want us to show up to help either. We haven’t heard from any of you in a while, Hal. Some of us might be concerned.”

Hauling himself up so he could sit leaning against the wall, Hal tipped his head back until it thunked dully against the plaster and sighed shakily. “It’s…it’s a lot.”

“Are you in any immediate danger?” Barry asked carefully.

“No.”

“Is anyone dying?”

Hal winced and pressed the heel of his palm against one eye. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t know. None of us do. We’ve-we’ve never—”

“Hal,” Barry said loudly enough to kickstart his breathing again. “Stop. Start from the start. Who might be dying?”

His jaw clenched like it didn’t want to speak, clamming him up against his will while he worked to speak again, to find his voice. “Keli,” he finally said, faint and garbled under the revolt his body made.

“Okay.” Barry was so calm. How was he so calm? “Why do you think she’s dying?”

“She—she’s sick. Real sick. She’s not getting better, Bar.”

“Do you know what she’s sick with?”

Hal shook his head, uncaring of how Barry certainly could not see him. “The flu. The fucking flu. It’s killing her. It’s boiling her alive. She’s not getting better. God—God, Barry, what do we do?”

Barry was quiet long enough to give Hal a chance to scrub his face clean. “Jesus, Hal,” he said eventually. “Do you know if it’s a new strain or something? Is she vulnerable somehow?”

“Compromised,” Hal ground out. “She’s smaller than she should be. Keli’s just—God—I dunno. Guy knows more. I never-never—”

“Focus,” Barry said, and Hal nodded fervently at the empty wall. “You don’t want anyone over at all?”

“Can’t. She’s too fragile right now.”

“Right,” he said softly. “Outside pathogens. Makes sense. How long has she been like this?”

Shame welled up in Hal’s stomach and the tears sprang to his eyes once more, this time more frustration. “I don’t know.”

Barry, thank God, took it in stride. “Right. Okay. Are you okay on supplies? Do you need anything urgently.”

“Uh, no.” Sniffing, he added, “I live with a couple people who act like doomsday preppers. We’re fine on supplies. Storm’ll let up soon. And—and the house is powered by a battery. One of ours. Power isn’t an issue either.”

“Good. That’s good. I’ll let the League know before someone tries to show up, then.”

“Thanks.” And then, because when else would he get the chance to ask, he said, “How do you do this, Bar?”

“Do what?” Barry asked in the tone he reserved for whenever someone wasn’t making sense.

“The…” Hal waved one hand, pressing his elbow against his traitorously leaky eyes. “None of us are parents. We don’t…none of us know what we’re doing. It—” He cut himself off with a laugh that veered too close to a sob. “It’s only been a few months. How do we do this for a lifetime?”

Barry didn’t answer immediately which was strangely relieving. “Everyone has their own way,” he said slowly. “You figure it out. You didn’t learn to use that ring in a day, did you?”

“A child is not a ring.”

“It’s not. I agree. But the sentiment still stands. Each kid is different and needs different things. What worked with Wally probably won’t work with Keli. And I wasn’t perfect either, Hal.”

Hal felt something in his chest tighten and crumple as he muttered, “If you weren’t perfect…”

“No one is perfect,” Barry said firmly. “Accept that now or you never will.”

“I can’t do this,” Hal sobbed. His ring had dimmed significantly, plunging the closet into near darkness and it was a stifling black that made the panic claw up his throat once more.

“You will.”

“We weren’t prepared, Bar.”

“Well neither was I,” he shot back evenly. “I got a girlfriend and she came with a nephew and I loved him like a son before I was ever prepared. I didn’t get that choice and I don’t regret it for a second. It was the one decision I jumped into without thinking it through and I’ve been terrified ever since.”

Hal asked, “How do you live like that?”

There was a tired sort of smile in Barry’s voice when he responded, “I don’t really know. Guess the joy outweighed the fear by enough.”

To himself, Hal thought that maybe red wasn’t a good colour on Barry at all.

The tears had finally slowed. Hal was too exhausted to keep crying but the numbness had settled and split open into raw feeling, like an open wound. It was better, in some small way. At least, his head felt clearer. “How do I know I’m not fucking up?” Hal asked, his voice a bare whisper. “How do I know I’m doing something right?”

“You won’t,” Barry said simply, like it wasn’t an answer that cleaved Hal right open again. “And whether or not you did a good job isn’t something you get to decide. Your job is to make push her in the right direction and keep her safe from whatever’s under the bed. Keli will decide the rest later.”

He had nothing to add to that, nothing to say. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Barry echoed like a sigh. “Hang up. Go be with her so she knows you stayed when she wakes up.”

“And—” Hal’s voice cut out midway but he forced it back. “And if she doesn’t?”

“Then you stay through that as well.”

Hal didn’t remember cutting the call or getting up or walking back downstairs from the storage closet to the couch. He didn’t remember because it wasn’t important and he was too busy wiping the last signs of his breakdown from his face.

Keli cracked one eye open the tiniest bit at Hal’s approach. She didn’t even twitch when he raised his hand to dissipate the bear which had sat staunchly for the last however long it had existed for. The part of Hal’s mind holding it up crumbled into dust alongside it but Hal hadn’t finished. Instead, he leaned forward and, with careful hands, plucked Keli from Simon’s lap as he slept to cradle against his own chest. Then, he backed up into the armchair and settled into the cushions, pulling a throw blanket over her shoulders.

His heart still bled like a wound gone untreated. He could feel it blacken with time, and it was agony like no other. Yet, despite it all, Hal found it in himself to rock and hum until Keli’s eyes slipped shut and she fell into sleep once more.

“We need to talk,” John said which never boded well.

They were all there for once. Hal had passed Keli off to Simon again, who had assumed his duty in trying to heal her. He wasn’t sure how effective it was but Hal wasn’t questioning anything that could help.

“About?” Jess asked dully from the floor where she hugged her knees, even though they all knew where this conversation was going. Kyle’s eyes were already flicking to the stairs desperately, like he was considering leaving before it could begin.

Jo slumped forward like a puppet cut from her strings and said tonelessly, “She’s not getting better.”

“We need to plan for the worst case,” John finished.

The words were akin to pouring a bucket of ice water over Hal. He flinched bodily, jaw clenching as he tensed all over like he was waiting for a physical blow. “John,” he whispered, which went ignored.

“We have to prepare,” John said through a voice that brooked no argument, that was quiet and thoughtless and cold with resignation. “We can’t…if it happens, we can’t flounder. We owe that much to her.”

The buzz began at the base of Hal’s spine and travelled up to rest inside his skull. He could hardly hear outside of it. “What do we need t’ do?” Guy asked.

“There’s a whole chain of paperwork. Even if…if it isn’t mission related, she’s still League. She still needs to be properly documented.” John was pacing up and down now and each step scraped along the inside of Hal’s skull. “The morgue, a funeral. A memorial. We have so much work to do. We have—”

“Stop,” Hal rasped. “John, stop.”

He wasn’t ignored this time. John looked him full in the face, his expression carved from stone. “Hal, we—”

“Stop,” he repeated, louder. “Just stop talking. Stop going on like she’s already fucking dead.”

Both hands up, John said, “She’s not but we need to—”

“Shut up,” Hal said and surged to his feet like he meant to walk away, which he probably should’ve done, but something kept him rooted there. “You—you coming in here and acting like it’s over—God, John, what is wrong with you?”

He reeled back then, hurt, and Hal almost faltered then and there before that expression hardened. “I’m doing this for us. So we’re prepared. If you don’t want to contribute, then you’re free to walk away.”

“Don’t put this on me,” Hal hissed. He grabbed onto the anger and held it close to his chest, pulled it over the hurt like it was a balm even though it burned relentlessly. “Don’t you dare—”

“I don’t have time for this,” John said, clipped. “None of us do.”

“You—” Hal stumbled forward, not close enough to brawl but he was getting there, and spat out, “She’s not a fucking mission John! She—she’s not a-a document to file. It’s like you-you—”

“Like what, Hal?” John asked, deadly quiet.

He bared his teeth against his better judgement because he was the rage and the rage was him. “If you don’t give a fuck, then come out and say it.”

For a fraction of a second, Hal saw the anguish flicker across John’s eyes in its purest form as he staggered with the force of it, as it bowed his spine, and the regret was at his fingertips, along with the urge to fly far, far away. And then—

“Acting like you weren’t looking for a reason to run the moment this got hard for you,” John sneered.

“Son of a bitch,” Hal growled. “Son of a bitch!”

“Save it. You’ll swoop in and play the hero when it looks easy but the moment, the moment, it gets even a little taxing on your emotions, you wanna leave and let us do the hard parts.” Each word was punctuated with a finger jabbed into Hal’s chest. Each word tucked itself into his ribcage and choked him further.

“At least I can care,” Hal threw out. “At least I can pretend to give a fraction of a fuck while you’re off typing up a death certificate before she’s even—mpphfff!”

Something snapped and locked shut around Hal’s jaw, forcing his mouth closed. Instinctively, he tried to tear it off with his fingernails but it was pressed tight to his skin and lips and when he looked up from the hunch his body took on, he found John in a similar predicament, eyes blown wide.

Jess, ring glowing and mouth set in simmering fury, said, “Either shut up or get out. Both of you.”

She didn’t let the muzzle go. No one stepped in, though Jo turned to look at them, her features carved from emptiness. “If you chucklefucks want to keep arguing, be my guest. Just go do it outside. And do us all a favour and freeze to death while you’re at it.” The words were harsh and froze wherever they landed. “Keli’s dying,” she went on, reaching out only to lay her hand on Kyle’s shoulder when he buried his face in his hands. “She’s dying. We don’t know how much time she has left with us and if I have to spend any more of it listening to you two—” She dragged in a breath and started again. “Fuck you,” Jo said calmly. “When you’re done having your pissing contest, come find the rest of us. We’ll be making our kid comfortable.”

Hal avoided eye contact with everyone when he turned on his heel and silently fled upstairs. No one followed him. No one yelled. The muzzle was gone by the time he hit the second floor and Hal still did not say a single word.

It took a long time spent in the quiet of solitude before Hal braved the others once more. The buildup of snow was thick outside, a veritable wall between them and anything outside. They’d have their work cut out for them when the storm finally cleared but that wasn’t an issue now. Hal navigated the dark corridors like it was second nature and picked his way over everything strewn about on the floor without tripping once. They practically lived in the dark now and he would be a liar if he said it was a foreign feeling.

They were still here in the bubble of grief and soft lullabies they’d made for themselves, this feeling they ate, slept and breathed these days. It was like walking through molasses, like he’d been cut off from whatever made him himself previously. Parts of him he took for granted had all but withered away and Hal moved like a ghost now. No one paid him any heed.

It was Simon who caught his eye first, though he did mean to make his way to the dark shadow of Kyle slumped over his notebook. But Simon was propped up on the kitchen counter with the first aid kit and a mountain of little bandaids and that looked important enough to deal with so Hal meandered over.

“Hey,” he whispered, glad Simon didn’t startle and only shifted his barstool over some so he could sit.

“Hey.” His hands were half curled, tucked close to his lap in a manner that looked too intentional to come across as normal. “You—”

“Don’t worry about me,” Hal murmured before he could finish. “I was out of line and we all know it. What’s up with you?”

Simon looked Hal full in the face and sighed, half lidded eyes blinking blearily as he extended his hands out to let Hal see. He winced immediately. The blood wasn’t overwhelming, wasn’t life threatening. It was barely enough to half fill a thimble but it oozed out leisurely from the cracks that lined the juncture points where knuckles connected. His hands were raw, slightly red, and they trembled minutely and Hal bit off a curse staring at them.

“It’s not that bad,” Simon insisted, though it was half hearted. “My hands get dry in cold weather, and the sanitiser isn’t exactly helping.”

“Your ring isn’t helping?” Hal asked, grabbing the cream Simon had been gingerly daubing to his joints.

Obligingly, the kid held out his hands for Hal to take over and muttered, “Is it supposed to?”

“Usually.” He tried to be careful about it, tried not to apply unnecessary pressure before wounding a bandaid around the worst of it. “It can help stabilise your injuries. It’s not really healing anything like you do. It’s just buying time so you can get help.”

“I don’t know.” Simon gave a shrug, head tilting sideways as he glared at the kitchen tiles. “Nothing’s working like it’s supposed to. If it was, Keli would be fine by now.”

“That means you’re burning out.” Hal turned his hands over twice to make sure he didn’t miss anything else. “You need rest. You’ve been at her side practically since it started and it’s doing you more harm than you think it is.”

“It’s all I can do,” came the whisper, split jaggedly down the middle.

They locked eyes and Hal tried a on a wry smile. “You’ve done a helluva lot more than I have then. I think she knows too.”

He packed the supplies back in the box to store in the kitchen cabinet once more while Simon made them both tea. Hal drifted with his mug, setting it in front of Jo who pored over some kind of document, her pen out and eyes misty with sleep deprivation while she wrote in her neat print. Jo glanced up to acknowledge him but Hal was already moving, pulling Kyle upright despite his sleepy protests.

“Yeah, alright,” he muttered, hefting him up with a groan that betrayed his age, “table’s not for sleeping. To bed you go.”

The last part was a lie. Kyle wouldn’t want to go upstairs. Not now, at least, but there were enough pillows and blankets and stuffed toys for Hal to pull together something resembling a mattress to lie him down on. Kyle curled up on his side, one eye slipping open enough to reveal an iris wreathed in gold if Hal looked close enough. It was unsettling on him.

All he could do, though, was pull a blanket over his shoulders and kneel until that eye slipped shut with a faint mutter and the tension eased off his face. Then, Hal stood and took up Kyle’s vacated seat beside Jo.

He’d been working on something, a sketch that was already beautiful despite the rough lines. The subject grinned back at him, teeth agleam and eyes filled with a mischief that made Hal’s chest seize. Quietly, he shut the book and pushed it away.

“You want me to take over?” he asked Jo.

“Depends,” she responded without looking up. “Do you know Keli’s SSN?”

“Fair enough.”

She took the mug, though, and put her pen down to lean back and drink. For a while, they lived in this bubble again, with Jess’s faint humming standing as the only thing left to colour their world.

“This is so fucked,” Jo said eventually.

“I know.”

“I can’t believe—” Her voice choked off.

Hal nodded, twisting his neck to look again. It was the same sight that greeted him each time, but he couldn’t help himself. “I know.”

“She’s got her whole life ahead of her.”

“She’s not dead yet.” The words rang hollow. Jo didn’t acknowledge it and only finished her tea. She went back to her world. Hal migrated.

Jess sang, voice hoarse, knelt by Keli’s body with one finger tracing the girl’s open palm, around and around, like she was afraid to touch her further in case she broke. Hal settled next to Jess if only to listen to the broken thrums of music coming from her throat. The lyrics were beyond Hal and he didn’t care enough to try to discern them. He only listened and kept his mouth shut, staying perfectly still as Jess slowly, silently, folded over to lean against him.

Hal encircled her shoulders with one arm as the humming died with a final exhale. There wasn’t anything to say between them. Maybe it was for the best. Hal wasn’t good at gentle words but he could do this. Could lend his body for the comfort of another person and listen to her breathing hitch, listen to it rise and then deepen and finally stabilise.

Jess needed no words. She was still in his arms and eventually, with great reluctance it seemed, pulled away to clamber up to join Keli. She lifted her eyes, her dead, soft eyes, and said, “Guy’s in the bathroom,” before pulling Keli up to her chest and continuing her humming.

Hal acquiesced.

Guy was indeed in the bathroom, scrubbing the tub like a man possessed. He wasn’t sure why the cleaning was what got through to him, thought that maybe the repetitive motions soothed some part of him. Hal could sympathise but this was borderline manic.

 “Gardner,” he called, and then, “Guy,” when he got ignored.

“Fuck off, Jordan.”

Guy was fooling no one, least of all Hal. “No,” Hal said. “C’mon, put that down. You clean it anymore and you’ll take off the paint job.”

That earned him a glare which fell a little flat from the tears in Guy’s eyes. Whether it was the cleaning supplies or something more didn’t matter much anymore. “Piss off,” he choked out. “God, can’t you jus’—”

“Leave you alone? You know I won’t.”

He took several steps in, hands raised not in surrender, but in an offering that Guy eyed with equal parts searing anger and desperation. “I ain’t got time for this,” he growled, though it fell totally flat with how he turned his face away immediately, jaw clenched tight and wobbling.

Hal stood there and chanced a few more steps forward. “All we have is time. You seriously gonna hole yourself up in here for the rest of this?”

“I live here too,” Guy shot back viciously. “I can do whatever the fuck I want with my goddamn time.”

“Guy—”

“Jordan.”

“Yelling at me won’t change anything. Neither will cleaning the bathroom.”

“Well shit, when didja become the fuckin’ all-knowing, all-seeing wise guy, Hal?” he snarled. “Do I gotta spell it out for you? Fuck off.”

When Hal’s voice finally broke on, “Guy, please,” he dropped it. The façade part, at least, came crumbling down and those broad shoulders drooped low enough to signal his defeat. Quietly, he unsheathed his gloves and set the chemicals down, using the hem of his shirt to wipe at his face before he could finally look at Hal.

Silently, because they had never really needed words between them, Hal opened his arms. Guy walked right in and they stood there, breathing in each other and bleach, for a long time.

Up and down he went. To the window to glance briefly at the dark outside and then back towards the solitary light still on in the kitchen. Up and down in a muted purgatory he went, up and down and up and down.

In his arms lay something precious, stick limbs bunched close and folded carefully so he didn’t cause any damage to the knobbles of the joints, head rested against his collarbone. It was too easy to carry her, too easy to hold the weight of a life like this in his arms and forget she was even there for how small she was, how light.

The heat was everything now and it tore through the shirt he wore, even though she still trembled periodically. Up and down they both went, because sitting still and simply rocking for hours on end was going to make his mind fracture much faster than movement. Up and down it was until his legs gave out and he had to set her down. Up and down until the world made sense once more.

“We can get you help,” he mumbled into her hair, a plea that fell on largely deaf ears, “but you need to hold on a little longer. Can you do that for us?”

He must have been mad by now, to talk to her like she could respond. She’d been still for so long, not even responsive anymore as her body flickered and withered and died in front of them. Everything about her was diminished. It made him want to scream. Maybe even put his head through the wall.

“You’ve got so many more people to meet,” he went on. “And all the people who already like you. You know, Kilowog’s been looking forward to sparring with you properly. He’s not allowed to yet, because you needed to put on a bit more muscle but…” He waved his hands around, the most animated he’d been in hours despite his less than captive audience. “He’s really been looking forward to knowing you. And Salaak’s been annoying from the moment you arrived but I’ve never heard the guy ask so many questions about humans before. I think he cares, kid,” he said like it was a secret shared between just the two of them.

Up and down. The circuit continued and the ghosts around the two of them stirred enough to watch, though they couldn’t quite make out his words. “Trilla wanted to introduce you to Somar-Le soon. She’s still on Xudar but she’s been wanting so badly for a friend her age. You’ll love her but you need to hold on first, alright?” he whispered with his heart already sank to the bottom of his stomach, his voice dropped deep in resignation.

When they reached the big clock, he turned his face away like it was muscle memory and continued without looking. There was no time in this purgatory of theirs. The only seconds that mattered were the ones between breaths, the gentle rise and fall of a tiny chest that signified the life she clung onto despite everything.

He couldn’t bear anything else. Time was a knife to his throat. Time held him hostage and laughed in he his face when he begged it to slow, just a little, just to give them more.

His voice reached an end and spluttered out by the time he reached the window again. He stared out of it for longer than normal, resigned to the cleanup job they’d have inevitably and then he turned and he went again, up and down.

“It’s okay,” he said to no one. “It’s okay. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Again, he passed the clock blindly. The bony little fingers nestled under his jaw flexed the tiniest bit, like they meant to scrape against his stubble. He kept moving with an aborted hush because she had said nothing, had barely moved at all. She was still somewhere so far away, burning hotter than a star. They weren’t reaching her, but they hoped she knew they were trying.

Up and down until his mind went in circles too, frayed from the darkness and stillness and the green light his ring still offered. Up and down until the world bent and gave him what he wanted more than anything else in the world.

“Oh, kid,” he breathed, “you’re breaking my heart here.”

He had a feeling she couldn’t know. He hoped, desperately and a little hysterically, that she wouldn’t remember this part no matter what happened.

“Tea,” Hal said when he finally had the guts to corner John, almost slamming the mug and plate down in front of him from where he sat at the counter. “And toast. Eat. You look terrible.”

John barely lifted his head to acknowledge him. Him not talking was somehow worse than the yelling, which Hal refused to dwell on. So he sat in the stool next to him and said, “I’m not here to fight. I’m here to make sure you don’t keel over before your time.”

“It’s—” John started, but cut off when Hal made a sharp noise of disagreement in the back of his throat.

“It’s not fine. Nothing’s fine. Eat.”

He picked up the toast, buttered with jam, and nibbled at the crust half-heartedly. “Thanks.”

God, he was awful at this. “I just wanted—” Hal ripped a hand through his hair. “I…” John glanced to him through the corner of his eye, mouth quirked up in a mirthless little smile. “You were right,” he finished.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t feel as good as every other time I’ve been right.”

“Well, something’s gotta humble you,” Hal said gruffly.

The smile grew, became a little more real. “I think you were right too. Just a little.”

“Well,” Hal huffed, leaning forward on his elbows to cup his face in both hands, “that means we’re both wrong so we’ve come full circle.”

John took a gulp of tea that probably scalded his entire mouth and throat, not that he let it show. He gripped the mug tighter and said, “I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”

“I probably deserved it, John,” Hal murmured. Even if he was angry, he barely had the energy to conjure it. “It’s fine. We’re all stressed.”

“It’s not,” he insisted. “It’s not, Hal.”

“We’re not arguing over this,” and that was that.

John finished his toast in silence and drained the rest of his tea. They sat close, shoulder to shoulder, close enough to feel each other’s heat. “I talked to Barry earlier,” Hal piped up suddenly, startling himself even. “He said he’d deal with the League. If—if it happens and we can’t.”

“Tell him thanks,” John replied quietly. “I’ve spoken to Salaak already.” Wryly, he said, “It’s been a long time since we’ve lost one of our own to natural causes.”

Hal sank onto his arms and didn’t say anything in response to that. “John?”

“Hm?”

“What now?”

The answer came easily. “We wait and see. Hey, Hal?”

“Yeah?”

John smiled at him thinly, dark eyes twinkling in something close to laughter. “Maybe let me make the tea next time?”

“That bad, huh?” he snorted.

“You over-steeped it.”

“Over what?” Hal started but then John laughed and it was a shot of something colourful in the murk and for a moment, Hal felt like he could breathe again.

Barry’s voice crackled over the speaker of Hal’s ring, not as clear as it should have been, though there was little Hal could and would do about it. The company was good though, and a welcome reprieve to the slow unravelling of reality.

“Hey,” he greeted, a little breathless like he’d been running. He probably had been, if he was calling after patrol. “Anything?”

Anything good? Anything bad? Anything different?

“No,” Hal said. “The same.”

Worse, maybe. He wasn’t sure. Keli moved just enough to tell him that she was alive and nothing more. He had been walking for a while now with the ambient buzz of radio chatter in his ear, a small skirmish that had picked up on the edge of their sector he was half paying attention to. Nothing important enough to properly tune into.

“Everything’s ready,” Barry said softly. He sounded as tired as Hal felt. He wondered how long it had been since Hal inadvertently roped him into this mess too. “It’s just waiting now.”

“Yeah.” Neither of them acknowledged how excruciating this wait had been from start to finish. “How’s…how’s everything?”

Barry paused before he answered, and when he did it was slow and measured. “Same old. Haven’t been able to see everyone like normal. We’re all busy.”

“Iris?”

“Right here.” Iris’s voice was a starburst that stunned Hal enough to make his heartrate spike a little. “Hi Hal. I hope you don’t mind me listening in.”

He smiled and then remembered no one could see it. “It’s fine. I’m just…hanging out. With Keli.”

It was a weird way to describe his constant pacing. Hal wasn’t even sure if it was helping her at all, or if it was helping him either. Maybe it was the security of it all, knowing she was right there should anything happen. And yet, Hal’s fears remained the same and the concept of Keli fading in his arms was something too abstract, too horrifying, to properly appreciate.

“Yeah?” Iris was kind about it though, his funny wording and all. “That’s good. It’s good to bond.”

“Have you slept recently?” That was Barry, always with the sharp observations, though it wasn’t really much of a stretch at all. None of them had slept. Not properly. Sleep felt like a gamble, like putting your fate in the hands of an invisible something so you didn’t wake up to a changed world.

Hal was truthful though. “I’ve kept my ring on. I don’t feel tired.”

That would change the moment he took the ring off. Barry knew that very well but, mercifully, didn’t comment. “I’ve been keeping on top of the weather reports in your area,” Iris said, which was nice of her, “and everything points to the storm dying down soon.”

“Cool.”

Jesus. Not his best, but Hal was running on about forty percent capacity and diminishing quickly.

He walked, catalogued every shift in his arms, every time a bony elbow or knee caught his rings and arms, every time the head tucked into his shoulder shifted the smallest bit. He walked until his feet refused to go further and then backed up into the wall. Silently, he slid down it and paid no heed to the way his back protested as he came to a stop on the ground.

Hal hunched over, resting his chin on top of Keli’s head and readjusting his grip so they were both a little more comfortable. Barry was talking probably. The radio chatter had garbled to the point of incoherency. Hal felt something vaguely like peace settle over his body like a fine glazing of oil, clingy, slick and impossible to shake.

“I think I fucked this whole thing up,” he announced to Barry. The line went dead silent. “You told me I don’t get to decide if I did a good job. I’ll probably never know anyway but I don’t think I did.”

“I think this is an impossible situation,” Iris said. “You’re not living through anything normal. Not even for your community.”

A small palm poked him in the side. Hal shifted again, thoughtful. “We’ll come over soon,” Barry said. “League’s been asking for updates. I’m pretty sure Clark’s been stress baking.”

Hal smiled into the dark. “Pie?”

“Muffins. There were three trays worth last meeting. Bart ended up finishing them.”

“His are always good,” Hal sighed. “He adds weird shit to them, though. You ever accidentally bite into something he baked for himself? I chipped my tooth on a metal screw.”

“Yeah well, I guess it’s the best way to get more iron into your diet as a Kryptonian.”

His eyes slipped shut, not in sleep but to give himself a reprieve from the green light. He’d never been so sick of seeing it. Hal was pretty sure his bones glowed radioactive green now even without the presence of radium. It leaked from their eyes and mouths and hands and made every tooth take on an unnaturally white gleam. It was everything in this house, more than the people and the things.

They might have been drowning in it for all the good it’s done them.

Hal adjusted Keli again, frowning this time at the foot that caught him between his ribs, the motion clumsy and vaguely unhappy. He pressed his cheek to her hair and said, “Thanks for everything, Bar.”

“Anytime,” he replied, like he hadn’t been catching Hal since the early days. “You’re a friend, Hal. You don’t need to thank me for anything.”

No, he thought, because one measly thanks would never be enough.

Exhaustion pulled him into silence. As naturally as breathing, Barry spoke to fill it. Something about a mission gone haywire, a handful of pissed off Titans, an explosion involving a candy factory. Something stupid that lulled Hal into the zombie-like state of rest he’d been frequenting more and more.

Keli huffed into his shirt like she couldn’t get comfortable. Unthinkingly, he moved her again, his hand brushing up against the side of her throat.

Hal froze.

“Wait,” he said breathlessly and Barry stopped, the call going quiet again while the green interface popped up in his face once more, blurting out a list of readings over the kid’s head while he checked again and again, with the back of his head pressed against her neck, her forehead, her cheek.

“Hal?”

He wasn’t listening. He was beyond listening. “Wait. Wait, holy shit.”

“Hal? Hal, what happened? Did something change?”

She was staring at him. At him.

“Oh my fucking God,” Hal hissed and checked her forehead one more time. Barry’s anxiety had reached a peak, which he heard clearly now that the buzz around his ears had lifted just long enough for reality, for feeling, for everything, to come crashing in all at once. “She’s cooler.”

“Huh? She— Wait, do you mean—”

“Her—” He laughed uncontrollably and then clamped his jaws shut when the sound sent a full body flinch through her, displeasure twisting the corners of Keli’s mouth while he scrambled to both feet in a graceless little dance as he got out, through near silent, senseless cackles, “Her fever broke. Her fever broke and I didn’t even realise. What the fuck. What the fuck!”

Someone on the line swore but Hal was beyond reason or sense or anything, stumbling his way through the house loudly enough to draw the others away from their stupor. But it was John who his eyes landed on. John, whose voice was the only thing that broke through Hal’s skull. “Wait!” he said, alarmed because he was swaying slightly with the kid in his arms. “Hal! What happened? What—”

“Look!” Hal thrust Keli out to him, pushed her against his chest and his arms came up automatically to cling onto her. He opened his mouth, both bewildered and stunned but Hal was too far gone, gesticulating wildly enough to clip Simon in the jaw. “I—I was just sitting there! I was talking to Barry and—God, how did I not notice—feel her. She’s cooler!”

“What?” someone behind him snapped as John checked for himself. “Oh God, has he lost it?”

“Holy shit,” John hissed and Hal laughed again at the naked shock in his voice. “Keli? Hey—hey, can you hear me?”

Her eyes flitted from Hal up to John, silent but loud in the way she lifted one hand just enough to rub at her cheek and cover her eyes, a plaintive, pointed signal to the rest of them that she was trying to sleep.

They all met John’s eyes, slightly dazed and very delirious. Something major had shifted within Hal, something that had changed him fundamentally but for now, the joy that hope brought glued the broken bits back together and gave them what they needed to get to work.

Time passed again, though Hal tried to keep track this time, but every waking moment was spent moving. He cleaned, he tried to cook and he spent inordinate amounts of time coaxing food and fluids into Keli, who, by some miracle, was finally eating again, bit by bit. She was frail and weak and barely had the energy to hold her head up much anymore, with plenty to tell them about the fever dreams she’d been wracked with, but it was something.

“—and then, Batman pull out a gun and I thought he broke the rule but it only sprayed out poison frogs which aren’t technically bullets, even though they hurt bad but—ugh, Hal!” She turned her face away but the refusal wasn’t rooted in an incapacity to eat, but rather annoyance because Hal had loaded the spoon too high again.

He grinned, sheepish, and retreated. “Okay, okay. Tell me what Bruce was planning to do with a gun full of poison frogs.”

She glared and twelve-year-old indignation had never been more relieving. “He was going to use them to scare the Joker,” she said primely.

“And did he win?”

Keli stared at him like he was stupid. “Obviously not. The frogs didn’t like him, ‘cos he’s a bat.”

“Right.” Hal’s mouth twitched like it wanted to smile bigger and wrestling control over himself would’ve been much easier if he hadn’t felt like he’d just escaped a blender. “Yes, how could I forget about the historic feud between frogs and bats?”

She took the spoonful of porridge, seasoned with enough honey to make Hal’s teeth ache just looking at it, and chewed thoughtfully. “We’re the frogs,” she declared and Hal laughed outright.

Keli only lasted a few more spoonfuls but it was a few more spoonfuls than the last time and when Hal placed the bowl in the sink, he went to the corner of the kitchen not easily visible from anywhere outside and laid his forehead against the squeaky clean just to breathe.

He wasn’t allowed rest. Not really. There was far too much to do.

The first rays of light hit him while he was vacuuming the carpets and Jess decided to throw open the curtains they’d kept tightly shut this entire ordeal. The light was complex, a billion colours layered over each other, a goddamn kaleidoscope in comparison to the single-note green light they’d been living off forever.

It took far too long for Hal to realise that it was sunlight searing his eyes. Jess turned, the rays catching the edges of her hair and engulfing her head in a fiery halo, and grinned. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Hal stopped short. “I do?”

He did.

An hour later, he was dressed in five separate jackets and the warmest thermal gear John could find him, shoulder to shoulder with Guy as they shovelled the wall of snow around the house to create a path someone could actually walk.

“It’s so cold,” Hal gasped, pulling his scarf up tighter around his neck and mouth and cutting off more of his oxygen supply. “It’s—no, Guy, don’t you dare—”

Guy, holding a lumpy ball of snow and an expression that was equal parts exhausted and mischievous, tilted his head. “Don’t what? Aw, I ain’t gonna hurt’cha if you stop whining and shut the fuck up.”

“Point made,” Hal ground out, squinting through his sunglasses. The snow glare was fierce and his eyes still weren’t adjusted from near constant darkness. “Drop the snowball and we can move on.”

“Pick up the damn pace, Jordan,” he called over his shoulder, utterly unaffected as he continued his work. “You shovel snow like a middle-aged man. Oh wait.”

Hal’s aim had never been perfect but Guy was a big target and he had little to no impulse control on a good day. The snowball hit him in the ear with enough force to snap his head forward and a little to the side. Regret didn’t slam into him until a second later, when Guy slowly turned around with murder in his eyes. “Wait—wait, I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh,” he said darkly. “you’ve done it now, Jordo.”

No one glanced twice at the two of them when they walked back in, soaked and shivering and miserable. They only received a handful of sighs and a wide berth until they were properly warm and dry. Simon cared enough to tell them that if they got sick, he’d be killing them personally, which Hal thought was fair.

The sun and the outside did wonders. Mostly because now Hal could walk his laps around in the snow and feel less insane doing so. John joined him more times than not, and the only reason their walks stayed civil was because Hal knew he would only be able to cast one snowball before John recovered enough to pelt him into oblivion.

Their breath misted in the air and each inhale felt like a knife sliding down his throat. Hal had never felt more grateful for the winter. It flushed the evil from his body, it felt like. All of that poison escaping into the air and for a while, he relaxed despite how much he shivered even with all of his layers.

Silently, the Lanterns flitted and fussed and watched Keli unfurl.

The fever stole the baby fat from her cheeks that she’d finally built up. It took her strength, her ability to walk and climb and left her short of breath far quicker than she ever wanted to admit. It had plagued her with a chill that didn’t leave her alone.

None of this stopped her. Keli would rather eat glass than lay down a moment longer, as she had made abundantly clear from the get-go.

“Bed,” Jo said, an unmoving pillar standing at the foot of the stairs.

Keli smiled, all sharp edges. “I’m going there,” she said.

Jo raised an eyebrow. “Couch,” she amended.

“I haven’t seen my bed in forever!”

“Meaning you can go another couple days without it,” Jo countered calmly. “Couch.”

Kyle leaned over, shamelessly eating an apple right in Hal’s ear. “Who do you think’ll win?”

Hal leaned away enough to escape the crunch-crunch and muttered, “Looks close. I’m gonna say Jo because Keli looks like she’s about to topple right over.”

“Jo,” Keli whined. “You won’t even tell me where my gauntlet is!”

“Because I don’t know. Hal was the one who put it away.”

The kid turned to him. Hal froze and Kyle finally slunk back, ducking behind the counter like a coward. “Oh. Oh, no. No. Keli, I—no it wasn’t me that put it away. Might’ve been John. I haven’t seen it since… Uh, I’m not sure, actually.”

One finger raised to point at him, albeit shakily. “You better not be lying,” she whispered.

“When have I ever lied to you, huh?” Hal said with a weak smile.

Jo looked between them, suppressing a smile as she said, “Alright, enough. Couch,” and then grasped Keli’s upper arm to pull her back to the couch. The kid went willingly, though barely, and she was eyeing Hal the whole time.

Kyle popped up to ask, still chewing, “You didn’t take her gauntlet, did you?”

“I have no idea,” Hal responded. “I don’t remember anything.”

“Hm.” Kyle looked thoughtful. “Maybe it’s the old age.” He yelped and bolted for the stairs when Hal started pelting him with construct apples, not hard enough to bruise but enough to instil a healthy amount of fear.

It was like someone had scraped the dark away and they could finally see clearly through it. There was a future now, emboldened by sunlight and all it had taken to see it was the storm finally breaking.

Still, it was a great shock to see John and Simon in uniform. After so long in sweats and pyjamas, the contrast was almost painful. Hal stared and then realised it was really obvious that he was staring, so he stopped. “Uh,” he said intelligently, “where are you two off to?”

“Patrol.” Simon seemed distracted as he fiddled with the length of his gloves before giving up. “We’ll be back soon.”

John nodded in affirmation, already headed to the door. “Just need to check in with Oa about all of this and sweep the sector. Nothing major’s happened, thank God, but we might have a few cleanups in our horizon.”

“Oh. Have fun,” is all Hal could say to that. “You don’t want me to—”

“You look like you’re barely standing, man. No offence,” Simon added dryly. “Go sit down or something.”

When John opened his mouth, likely to agree, Hal shut him up with a glare. “Don’t you start telling me to sleep, John. Go. Stay safe. Don’t forget to check in.”

“We don’t need mother-henning, Hal,” John clucked. Nevertheless, he reached out and squeezed Hal’s shoulder. “See you soon.”

Hal watched them go, watched them push off the icy ground and streak into the pale sky with a burst of emerald light. He watched until he couldn’t see them anymore, and stayed there until he could hear Guy start one of his fake arguments with the kid again and went back inside.

When Hal opened the door to the incessant knocking, he was first hit with the snow glare, which turned his vision blurry, spotty and useless basically immediately.

“Jesus, Hal. You look like shit,” said a voice that was extremely familiar and filled him with both intense joy and intense relief.

Hal squinted, a hand shielding his eyes as he ducked back into the shade of the doorway. His brain struggled to connect the dots, the face to a voice, and it was only when a calloused hand reached out to grab Hal by the arm did he realise. “Ollie?” he croaked.

“He speaks!”

“You weren’t answering anything,” said another voice, which sounded far more apologetic, “so I asked Guy and he said it was okay to come over if we were careful.”

Hal blinked rapidly as his sight returned to him. “What the hell.”

“Is that all you have to say to me?” Oh, Ollie sounded pissed for a reason Hal couldn’t place yet. “Seriously, Jordan?”

“Lay off of him, Oliver,” said the second voice, far more resigned sounding. “He’s exhausted.”

Hal’s shock doubled and so did his vision. “Barry?”

“Oh, he’s really out of it.”

Ollie’s hand pushed him inside and the door closed and Hal could finally see his best friends, Barry’s arms laden in baskets filled with food, most likely, and Ollie somehow looking madder than he sounded. “Hey,” Hal blurted. “What are you doing here?”

They exchanged a glance. It was uncanny of them, given their track record with each other. Did they plan this? Did they talk to each other civilly enough to plan this? “Well, we wanted to know if you were alive,” Ollie drawled. “We also brought food and now, I have a feeling we’ll be staying to babysit.”

“Babysit?”

“Hal,” Barry asked, shifting the baskets he was holding, “how long exactly has it been since you’ve gotten any sleep?”

He blinked dumbly. “I had my ring so—”

“I know you had your ring.” Oh, he sounded patient too. “How long has it been since you took it off?”

“Well—”

“Bed,” Ollie said stoutly. “Then, I’m gonna make you sit there and listen while I tell you exactly what you put me through. Next time you’re living through something like this, you don’t hang up on your best friend without a single goddamn explanation, yeah? Next time, you take the time to explain or said best friend is going to break into that nice little bedroom of yours and kill you.” The last few words twisted themselves into a snarl and Hal valued his life enough to nod along and agree.

“Cool,” he rasped. “Got it. Capiche. Yup.”

 “Don’t threaten him, Oliver. He’s barely awake enough to process it.”

“Shut up, Allen. Where did you put the goddamn—” Ollie dug around in one of the baskets, jostling Barry’s arm until he pulled out a packet that he tore open. He fished a face mask from it and pulled it over his mouth and nose before squirting a truly obnoxious amount of sanitiser into his hands as he stalked down the hallway. “Screw both of you. Now where’s my little Lantern?” he called jovially, all venom mysteriously dried up.

“Interesting guy,” Barry mused, readjusting and nudging Hal to follow. “Anyway, you and the others head to bed. Ollie and I’ll keep watch if anything happens.”

Hal stared at him blankly, his head truly and thoroughly empty of things to say or do. “You don’t have to,” he hedged.

“Sure I don’t. I want to. I’ll ask Wally to come over as well. You think Keli’d be up for visitors anytime soon?”

He really had to think this one over, eyebrows furrowing as he did the math. “I don’t think Wally shares that many interests with Keli,” he said hesitantly, though that felt wrong in some way he couldn’t quite place. “I mean, we could try introducing them but—”

“Hal.” Barry sounded exhausted. “I was thinking about Irey and Jai.” At Hal’s silence, he went on with, “The twins? Wally’s twins?”

Realisation struck him like a bullet to the chest a moment later. “Oh. Oh! Oh my God, he’s not fifteen anymore, is he?”

“Bed, Hal,” Barry said and was pushing him forcefully enough to make him stumble.

Hal, trying not to laugh, eyes already slipping shut despite his best efforts, still got out a, “Damn, Bar, you know how much I like it when you take charge,” and was rewarded with a loud, flustered, “Hal,” that made him laugh until his sides hurt.

The sun shone directly onto Hal’s face when he woke. Someone had nudged his curtains aside and he rolled off his bed to a room fully illuminated with sunlight. Everything hurt significantly less now. His brain felt clearer of the fog that he’d lived in for so long. Even his limbs felt lighter somehow as he ventured down the stairs.

Kyle was snoring on the couch, one arm dangling off. Jess had curled up around Simon in the armchair and Barry was dusting the bookshelf for some reason. No one had asked him to, probably.

“Morning,” he said quietly without looking away from his work. “Keli’s getting water. She said she could do it herself.”

“She’s a liar and a fraud,” Hal grumbled, turning sharply into the kitchen with the sound of Barry’s chuckling following him in.

Hal was proven right immediately, as he was faced with a display that shot his blood pressure to levels that he would never recover from again. Keli was there, getting her glass of water by having clambered up onto the counter which she was now balancing precariously on top of. She swayed, clinging onto the cabinet doors as she edged closer towards the one cupboard where they kept the glasses and Hal’s next breath came out as a wheeze as he took an aborted step forward.

She glanced at him and made a sharp noise in the back of his throat as she froze, which unstuck Hal just enough for him to bellow, “Keli Quintela, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Keli jolted and let go of the cabinet, beginning to fall. Hal, nerves already frayed and veering dangerously close to an actual heart attack, leapt forward. His hip struck the counter edge hard enough to send him stumbling, off balance, but his feet refused to stop moving forward and forward he went.

Hal caught her with one arm wrapped around her chest and the other coming up to cup her head as his shin hit the cabinet handle and he fell, knees slamming into the ground as all of his momentum pushed him flat onto his back.

Somehow, this little interaction left Hal too winded to speak. Keli squirmed on top of him, reaching up to grab his wrist for the hand that held her head. “I’m okay,” she squeaked. “I’m okay! Are you okay?”

“Step stools…exist,” he gasped. “You—what were you doing?”

“That’s how I always get a glass!”

“That—why?”

She sat up, arms crossed defensively over her chest with her cheeks puffed out. “It’s easier.”

Hal let his head drop back onto the tile as the others flooded the kitchen to surround them, worried voices overlapping and then died when they realised no one was dead. Someone shone a flashlight in his eyes and determined the only thing he had bruised was his pride. Not true. His hip and shin were going to be black and blue the next day.

“What the hell didja do?” Guy asked, sounding genuinely amazed. “You okay, kiddo?”

“She’s fine,” Hal rasped. “I need a cardiologist.”

“Heartrate looks normal,” said John, who was enough of an asshole to look at his vitals to prove his point. “A little elevated, though.”

Hal pointed at John. “Shut up.”

“Get up you big baby,” Ollie called from the door. Hal flipped him off too.

Keli, apparently done with her near death experience, pulled herself free of Hal’s grip and stood, accepting Jess’s proffered hand to steady herself. Hal still marvelled, though, at how easily she seemed to stand. She shook from exertion but she stood, all on her own. “I was just getting a glass,” she explained to Jess, sneaking periodic glances at Hal. At least she looked a little guilty. “He freaked out.”

“You were standing on the counter,” Hal muttered as Barry finally pulled him up into a sitting position with a grunt. “That’s not a safe or sane way to do anything, kid. You could’ve gotten hurt.”

“You caught me,” she said with a shrug.

Hal ignored the flare of warmth in his chest in favour of saying, “Step stool, Keli. Or else.”

“All that,” Jess said through her poorly concealed mirth as she drifted past Hal to the sink, “and the poor girl never got her water.”

“Well sorry for saving her life,” Hal grumbled, getting to his feet with a hiss.

“I think that’s dramatic,” Keli said with a roll of her eyes. Hal deigned not to respond to that one with what he wanted to and instead he sighed and rolled out his shoulders. He reached out to ruffle the kid’s hair, smiling when she tried to duck and avoid his hand. “Hal!”

“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” The kid zipped off with her glass the moment Jess handed it to her. Barry turned to Hal with an apologetic look in his eyes, something he waved off pre-emptively.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “She’s fine. She’ll be okay.”

“Can’t say the same for you,” Jess snorted. “Let’s get you to bed, grandpa.”

To prove a point, Hal lunged at her which made her shriek and twist away, laughing all the while. It was a sound that burrowed deep into Hal’s mind. It settled him and the mad beat of his chest, as Jess wound her way under his arm to avoid him, nearly slamming into Guy to get away. He stopped when she darted out of the kitchen and breathed in and out carefully, testing his ribs for any stray aches and pains.

The parts of him that had rotted were long gone. New things sprouted in their absence, which was a relief. Hal wasn’t so much a collection of faulty parts as much as he was something cohesive, albeit with help. It was the pieces of his heart that lived outside his body that sealed the cracks and scraped away the rot. The living, breathing reasons he had to get up and keep going.

So Hal breathed and put on a grin that wasn’t forced, his feet leading him back into the life that refused to let him go.

It's like being home again, when they bring in the hopelessly mangled person from the mine explosion, or the woman in her third day of labour, or the famished child struggling against pneumonia, and my mother and Prim, they wear that same look on their faces. Now is the time to run away to the woods, to hide in the trees until the patient is long gone and in another part of the Seam the hammers make the coffin. But I'm held here both by the hovercraft walls and the same force that holds the loved ones of the dying. How often I've seen them, ringed around our kitchen table and I thought, Why don't they leave? Why do they stay to watch?

And now I know. It's because you have no choice.

- The Hunger Games, Chapter 26