hell and back :: [ lex + denali ]

We can't make
Any promises now, can we, babe?

Wrapped up in the arms of the first person to stand with her in a fight instead of against her, Denali becomes the one who doesn't know what to do with herself. It isn't as if she has much in the way of options right now. Her hands are legitimately useless and her arms are vaguely numb to the elbow, dead weight stitched to a body wishing it knew another way to reach out. "Yeah, I know what you mean." There's something particularly horrible about feeling this inadequate during such a significant moment, but the reply to Denali's shameless plea doesn't have words to waste on what can't be done right now. "Denali, I —"

Lex's voice cuts itself off the same way as their time together. Sudden. Awkward. Reluctantly unfinished, but unable to sort out why because at this point there is too much good mixed with too much bad and no one cares about sorting it out except for the two of them... and they can't do anything about it now. Denali squeezes her eyes closed and mashes her cheek against Lex's, unable to do anything else but stand there. There probably isn't much either of them could say right now that could change anything, even if they knew what they wanted to change, but Lex clears her throat and gives words another go anyhow. "You take care of yourself, okay?" The countless small scars Denali gave herself long before the Games upped the ante itch faintly in response, curious about the details of such an ambiguous question. "Don't think you can go breaking our pinkie promise just because I won't be around to enforce it. I'll know." The threat doesn't pack nearly the same punch on their last day together as her fists did that first day.

"Guess I probably shouldn't try to keep you for a hostage again, huh?" Tightening the hug, Lex pulls Denali in a little closer, holding her mouth to her ear. "Not with your teeth that close to my throat." There's a beat of laughter as the corner of Denali's smile presses itself into Lex's cheek, her forehead playfully nudging the blonde's temple like the threat of a headbutt. There's a joke in there somewhere about Lex trying to make one last grab for her heart, but if she tries to fumble through the words right now she knows she'll burst into incoherent tears and then —

Lex lets go. Suddenly it's so cold and Denali wants to burrow into her jacket, but her arms continue to hang at her sides. "I'll miss you too, Freckles. I hope we'll get to see each other again." Yeah. Hope... That. "Ideally," as if she knows, Lex reaches out to adjust the collar of the battle jacket, running her thumbs over the embroidery, "under better circumstances. But I'll take what I can get." She looks... Ripred, she looks so fucking sad and Denali sucks her lips backwards into her mouth, trying to hold in the pained hiccup that shakes at her shoulders. "And if we don't —" Still, Denali holds her breath and stops herself from crying, flinching against the unspoken truth that neither of them want to admit. It shouldn't feel like this. They're going home; it shouldn't feel like an unhappy ending. "I hope you have a good life." Lex's hand drops back to her side and the moment stretches between them like tomorrow's inevitable miles. "And think about me sometimes, would you?"

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. Denali takes a deep, shaky breath and a step backwards. Then another. The sun pouring in from the open doorway is warm on her back. Maybe it's good that she's incapable of using her hands because otherwise she might be tempted to pull Lex off the train and onto the platform with her. It takes more than one try to get the words she wants to say out of her mouth, the initial attempt little more than a silent mouthing. "Thank you," she blurts out twice as loud as is necessary, accidentally overcompensating for being inaudible the first go around. Thank you for being —

Trying to smile, Denali's face bends and warps and melts and throws its hands up in frustration over not being able to pick a coherent expression at all... and also to tease her actual hands about how it's still better at doing things than they are. Thank you, she looks at Lex, for being... what? Her closest friend. Her best enemy. Her worst moments. Her wildest experiences. Her farfetched hopes. Her shame, her happiness, her hero, her dread, her relief for these days that felt so much like being born into a new lifetime every morning and dying beneath dancing, twin moon spotlights come night. The answer comes, but only for herself. For being.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry, she continues telling herself despite actively crying. The tears wander hushed, restrained trails across the labyrinth of her freckles, as if doing their best to carefully obey the demand circling on repeat through Denali's mind. Now is not the time to lose herself in blubbering incoherency. At least, they're restrained until a small pack of wolf dogs on the train platform begin over-enthusiastically howling as if they are lungs and throats and senseless joy and the rest of their bodies have been given up in favor of being only these three things. Denali bursts out into a sputtering sob, just as unable to hook Lex's pinkie finger in her own one last time as she is incapable of stopping herself from turning toward the sound automatically, the commotion of her Grimgram's idiot dogs shredding her heart to useless bits. Like confetti. Like glitter. So tiny and light and effortlessly carried away by the smallest shift in the air.

It's as if she leapt from the train, the way her father scoops her up before her toes touch the platform. All she can do is throw her arms into the air, holding them out of harms way as her siblings, parents, cousins, aunts, great aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and the pack of frenzied wolf dogs all compete for a position in the inner circle of the Lyons family group hug. There's a muffled yell from the epicenter of the chaos as Peregrine gives a shout of indignation — "Hey! She's my sister! Cousins to the back of the line!" — and stomps on someone's foot, ready to brawl if one more person tries to come between her and a moment of tangible proof that Denali is actually home. Not in a box. Not this time. Tallulah begins reprimanding her about manners, only to abruptly forget what she was trying to say, cutting herself off mid-sentence as Ginny forces a path through the crowd for them and finds an opening to pile onto the hug. Aggressively. Ginny looks most like her eldest sister when they're ugly crying, faces contorting in grotesque displays of emotions too big for their bodies. Happiness looks a lot like torture as it bursts from the creases between their eyebrows, the exposed spaces between their teeth as their lips pull back in twin open-mouthed wails, the way the wind tangles their hair together like trying to tie the knot in a safety rope.

Tallulah can't figure out where to put her arms in all of the madness and settles for pressing her cheek to Denali's back as one hand pets her hair and the other hand pets Ginny's hair. Rio half-hugs their father and half-hugs Denali's leg like a child thinking maybe she can become a living weight that keeps a person she loves from leaving, then realizes too late that she is hugging a heavily bandaged wound, but no longer has the space to let go because someone else is already crowded up behind her. Seville is somewhere on their father's other side, being squeezed much too tightly from the left by her mother and also her mother on the right — her eyes flicking back and forth between them, wondering if she looks sad enough... if she looks happy enough... feeling genuine relief inside that there is no shipping crate to stare down this time, wondering if that's enough. Beyond them is Grimgram, pretending not to be able to hear someone's complaint over being accidentally thwacked with her cane as she shamelessly moved past them. They seem to think she should be a little more careful with it, while she thinks they should be a little more careful about where they put their feet, particularly when that place is between her and her granddaughter. The wolf dogs take a vote on the matter, ruling unanimously in Grimgram's favor. (Well, almost. One of them is fully distracted by the baby goat one of the cousins "hid" in a backpack and couldn't care less about anything that isn't — WOOF! WOOF! WOOFWOOFWOOF! WOOOOOOOF! — a baby goat in a backpack. Obviously. It's such a reasonable thing to yell about, especially considering how it's wearing pajamas, that no one can be upset about the ruckus.) The dogs begin playing a game that's sort-of like tag in that anyone who crosses Grimgram is definitely it.

The dogs howl as if the morning sun is a full moon; the baby goat stuns several people to silence with its shockingly vociferous bleating, all of them wondering how they didn't notice it there sooner; tough old great-aunt Grizzie with a love of switchblades and bar fights immediately begins uncharacteristically squealing over its teeny tiny pajamas, causing even more people to turn and stare at the surreal scene in utter bewilderment; the train itself gives a sharp-edged screech as its wheels complain about having to move on so soon. From the heart of havoc, Denali is seized by sudden panic. "I didn't say goodbye," she mumbles to no one in particular before looking at her father, at her mother, at one sister and another and another. "I didn't say goodbye!" The mumble becomes a distressed yell, fractured with borderline hysteria. "Put me down!" No one moves, transfixed with confusion, as if Denali is suddenly shouting in a language they've never heard before. "Put me down! Put me down! Put me down!" After a stuttered moment, her father grasps her meaning all at once and her feet touch the ground of District Five for the first time in this new, resurrected life. "Move!" She impatiently pleads to her sisters, bouncing on her toes, her wounded hands unable to muscle past the people surrounding her the way Peregrine passed through the crowd before. It takes a few more shouts, her voice crossing over into deeply distressed anxiety before enough people step aside for her to run across the platform in search of the train door she stepped out of.

The train doesn't stop, so neither does she, even when she catches up to Lex's face peering out from a window. "I have a phone!" She yells out at the top of her lungs, awkwardly waving farewell with both of her bandaged, flailing hands. "A phone!" She repeats, unable to tell if Lex can't understand what she's trying to communicate or if her expression is just a deeply ingrained Lionel reaction to the idea of communication. It's impossible to tell. "I have a phone! Mackenzie has a phone! This doesn't have to be —" Spikes of blinding pain jolt up her badly wounded leg as she stubbornly sprints, even as the train quickly begins to outpace her and pulls away. Still, she only stops when the platform does, a tall metal fence preventing her from continuing a futile chase. If you think about me sometimes, then call me. Tell me about your good life and I'll tell you about mine. Maybe we'll never get to see each other again, but we could still talk. I can be here and here for you, if you can be there and there for me too. One of the wolf dogs licks her ankle, shoving its damp nose into the back of her knee — nearly causing her leg to buckle — desperate for her to realize it's here too. Love me, it whines. Denali sits down on the ground at the edge of the platform, where the train tracks are shiny and bright and empty in the sun, and the dog plops down beside her, laying its head in her lap the same way they've sat together so many times before. It's impossibly strange, the way the dog acts as if nothing is any different than how life was before Denali left. It feels so obvious. "— goodbye."