hell and back :: [ lex + denali ]

[L△LIA]

[attr="class","Denali1Container"]

[attr="class","Denali1Title"]

My reputation's never been worse, so
You must like me for me

[attr="class","Denali1Content"]

"— and so that's really all I could do because Rio, you see, she just kept on putting bubblegum in her hair. I'd chop another matted lock out, hoping that maybe mom wouldn't notice when she got home, and boop! I'd turn around two seconds later and — that little shitkicker — she'd be giggling like the hobgoblin she is because sticking gum in her own hair had somehow become a prank on me. So a-chippy chopping we'd go again! Then just when I thought the gum was all confiscated and everything was finally done... giggle giggle! Snip snip! Giggle giggle! Snip snip! Over and over and over again. When mom finally did get home to find out just how badly my first time babysitting without Zion's help had gone... well, Ripred. We had to shave her head. There was no saving any of it. Luckily, I didn't end up getting in trouble because, like, my mom has obviously met Rio. Besides, the little munchkin still looked pretty cute with a buzzcut — all teeth and ears and freckles — and it was just hair, so it's not as if —"

The door swings open with an obvious note of panic, the District Five escort poking his head in with equal parts desperation and madness in his eyes. A dramatic gasp fills the air as he drops everything he's carrying to the ground, throwing his hands up in a manic fit of histrionics. "I found her!" He exclaims, as if there's a crowd of other panicked people behind him instead of an empty hallway — all of them searching for a bomb that's set to detonate at any moment. Clearly dissatisfied with how Denali's expression is made of confusion instead of deep regret and apologies, Salazar sighs like Atlas himself, single-handedly carrying the weight of the entire world upon his shoulders. "Someone," he cries out melodramatically, still gesticulating with abandon, "is about to miss their stop! Up! I am so over your shenanigans! Up! Up!"

Shitkicker! Salazar's scandalized expression accuses.

Shitkicker? Denali silently turns to ask Lex as the escort forcibly hoists her up.

Shitkicker. Lex blearily confirms, clearly unsurprised by any of this, having spent enough time with Denali to know exactly where Rio learned everything she knows.

"There's no time for breakfast, so don't even think about it! You'll just have to starve! That's on you. Choices!" Herding the Lyons girl toward the door, he tramples the battle jacket that was unceremoniously dropped when he entered the room and all Denali can do is shoot a pleading look at Lex, flailing her useless hands around. Help! I want that. Please, Lex. "There isn't any time to change your clothes either! That agonized screeching in the distance? Why, yes! That's the sound of your stylist dying because your homecoming is about to be broadcast on national television and you're wearing a wrinkled nightgown. Tragic! Nothing can be done about it now. Too late! It's happening! This is just something we're all collectively going to have to come to terms with." Shooting Denali's naked feet an open look of disgust, he clicks his tongue and turns his face away with a theatrical retch. "What kind of heathen goes around without any shoes? You are not mine. I disown you. Please never be in my presence again. Goodbye forever!" With a flourish of his hands, he releases Denali in front of an open door to the train platform and continues down the corridor without pausing, presumably off in search of a dark corner in which to follow her stylist's lead and die of never-ending shame over how their legacy is about to be irreparably marred.

"Uhhh..." Denali stands where she's been abruptly abandoned, still unclear as to exactly what's happening. "Ooooookay then, I guess. Sure." It's only when she feels the familiar weight of her jacket being draped over her shoulders that she turns to find Lex standing behind her, looking similarly uncertain about the sudden turn the morning has taken. Hair mussed from sleep and squinting one eye against the sunlight reaching for them, Lex rocks on her feet and stares at Denali with an expression that wants to be a handshake, but knows that there are no hands to shake and so instead the turn of her mouth is wrought with the pain of someone struggling to figure out what the heck to do with themselves. A sad smile hooks itself into the corner of Denali's lips. It's a little bit funny, but at the same time... "Hug me, you wooden-headed, pine for brains hellcat," she demands in a tone obviously implying that the old insult is supposed to be a term of endearment now, her voice hitching against itself halfway through, "I'm gonna, you know, miss you and stuff. Like... probably a lot. I mean, not probably. I meant, like, actually, but... urgh. You know what I mean? Right? Lex? Can you just hug me already? Please?"

delicate taylor swift

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[aya]

[attr="class","Lex1Container"]

[attr="class","Lex1Title"]

i had only one thing to do, and i
couldn't do it yet

[attr="class","Lex1Content"]

The sun is up, and for once Lex has stayed up with it, unwilling or unable to drift off again when every hitch of the wheels against the track seams brings them closer and closer to their parting. For real this time. If shaking Denali's hand before their duel to the death wore the heaviest weight of finality, Lex can't muster a word for how this feels. Like dying all over again. Only this time, her eyes are closed, her axes are useless, her hand is empty. And how long will it take this time? This isn't the boning knife buried in her thigh, isn't the sort of wound that proves fatal in an easy afternoon.

Still, every swapped story feels like an extravagance, an indulgence pilfered from time itself. Surely District Five approaches... and surely there's time for one more story about Denali's first attempt at babysitting her sisters without being supervised herself (Lex could have paid exactly zero attention to Mackenzie's Games or any other story about the other Lyonses and still know that Zion was the responsible one), or about that time Arthur burnt his mustache off lighting some bootleg fireworks (that he swore he knew how to put together, and swore he didn't need a face shield to light), or about when Denali got trapped in a secret wall compartment in her house and contemplated gnawing on her leather shoes for sustenance ("Weren't you gnawing on them anyway?" — she assumes Denali would've kicked at her shins if they weren't both mostly-asleep and situated more comfortably than they'd been in weeks).

And when the compartment door is at last thrown open, reality comes rushing in with it. The exasperated screeching of the District Five escort rakes fastidiously manicured nails over the chalkboard of their quilted, pillow-clad nest. This unceremonious invasion of privacy might very well top the list of things to utterly splinter any genuine feelings of comfort and contentment as well as things that cause other humans to be spontaneously punched in the mouth. As it is, only the urgency of the situation keeps the Lionel girl from turning fully rabid at the intrusion. If the over-groomed attendant had a shred of situational awareness, he might pay some mind to the burning contempt of the actual remorseless murderer whose room he just barged into. But he's as disinterested in Lex Lionel as every other Capitolite has been when confronted with the idea that she might be more than a prop or a character, and might mind strangers barging into what is — at least ostensibly — her private space.

Denali is hastily hauled to her feet to be deposited on the platform of District Five, and Lex is struck by a pang of envy, suddenly impatient to be dropped off some place where she's treated like a real person, too. They exchange a slow blink of equal parts indignation and mischievous pride at the hackles they've inadvertently been raising as Denali is paraded out of the room. Lex is left sitting on her floor, drowsy, disgruntled, and alone.

With a grunt, she picks herself up, stabbed leg protesting at the sudden change in position after spending the whole night still. Then she snatches the dropped battle jacket up off of the floor and examines it one last time. It's useless and weird to get sentimental about the last time she'll be seeing the earnest — awful, but earnest — attempts at embroidery up close and personal. Holding a tapestry of the time they've spent together, sewn into denim with threads meant to suture wounds, is surreal, like holding memories of memories between her thumbs and forefingers. In her head, she watches Denali aggressively outline the mountain from within her shopping cart basket: curled into herself in defense, eye freshly blackened, a thousand percent over Lex's bullshit even though it hadn't even been twelve hours since she'd tried to bite the District Seven's throat out; she dredges up the first skull — Faux's — filled and dyed with the blood of the barely-lucid girl who can't see anything but her brother's head bursting open; whales and birds, trees and hooked pinkies — for every scene recorded on the fabric, there are two etched into Lex's brain: the events as they unfolded, and Denali memorializing them in cotton. She shouldn't keep it — it isn't hers — but the temptation is strong.

Instead, she slings it over her right arm and tracks down the hallway behind the screeching escort as he frogmarches Denali down the train corridor and away from Lex. She pushes into the car whose door lets off onto the platform — in District Five, presumably, though it's not like Lex would know any better — just as the irate Capitolite storms out with a dismissive "Goodbye forever!" Goodbye forever. The words slug her in the gut, sink their teeth into her shoulder. Goodbye forever, Denali. What else is there to say? Lex swallows hard, all of the sudden positive that she doesn't know how to string even those words together. Goodbye forever. Instead she drapes the battle jacket over Denali's shoulders and lets her try to find the words instead.

The last time Lex gave a goodbye on this magnitude, she shook Denali's hand and declared their time a privilege and an honor. Before that, she shook her dad's hand in the District Seven justice building and told him she'd try to come back in one piece. Yet somehow, after being seen to her death — twice — the gesture seems trite. What else is there for a solemn occasion if a handshake won't cut it? "Hug me, you wooden-headed, pine for brains hellcat," Denali insists, and Lex's somber smile cracks into her trademark stupid half-grin. Wooden-headed, pine for brains hellcat. That's a good one.

"I'm gonna, you know," (she does), "miss you and stuff. Like..." Like dying all over again. "probably a lot. I mean, not probably. I meant, like, actually, but..." Freckles folding themselves together across the bridge of her nose, Denali's face scrunches up, a pained half-snarl as she goes to battle with her failed phrasing. As though contorting her face might help bend the words back into their intended meaning. Like it's just the shape of her mouth that's jumbling the delivery of the impossible goodbye. "...urgh. You know what I mean? Right?" I do. I really do. "Lex?" She blinks, snapping her meandering brain back into focus. "Can you just hug me already? Please?"

Lex nods, wrapping her arms around Denali and pulling her in close. "Yeah. I know what you mean." She sighs, still struggling to return the sentiment coherently. Goodbye forever. But what last words could she possibly say to someone who means something to her that doesn't make the parting harder? There's nothing. At least the crack in her voice feels honest when she starts to say "Denali, I —" I what? Half a dozen thoughts fight each other to be the first one out of her mouth:

— hope the rest of your life is so much better than all of this bullshit.

— 'm getting sick of having to say goodbye to you.

— don't suppose you were serious about going to make that hamburger pact, were you?

— can't stand that I'm not going to see you again.

— probably should've pulled your heart out and left it on the pavement, huh? Or maybe you should've torn my throat out. Then we could go on hating each other and call it good. Instead of, you know. This.

— think you were right about haunting the shit out of me, 'cause I know I'll never get you out of my head.

— might really, actually, honestly —

She clears her throat, swallows all of the words back down. "You take care of yourself, okay? Don't think you can go breaking our pinkie promise just because I won't be around to enforce it. I'll know." The obviously empty threats sound utterly toothless mumbled into the wild Lyons's red mane. "Guess I probably shouldn't try to keep you for a hostage again, huh?" Tightening her hug ever so slightly, she pulls Denali a little closer. Just for a moment. "Not with your teeth that close to my throat." Lex Lionel has repeatedly proven herself stubborn enough to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and this doesn't seem like the right moment to try ditching the willful stupidity. But this time it's her turn to let go.

"I'll miss you too, Freckles. I hope we'll get to see each other again. Ideally," she adjusts the collar of Denali's battle jacket, tracing the embroidery with her thumbs, "under better circumstances. But I'll take what I can get." Her lips press into a sad smile. "And if we don't —" A knot in her chest tries to keep the hypothetical — the probable — buried beneath her ribs. "I hope you have a good life." She drops her hold on Denali's jacket. "And think about me sometimes, would you?"

you had your soul with you the national
table template lalia

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[L△LIA]

[attr="class","Denali2Container"]

[attr="class","Denali2Title"]

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

[attr="class","Denali2Content"]

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."

delicate taylor swift

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[aya]

[attr="class","Lex2Container"]

[attr="class","Lex2Title"]

i have owed it to my heart, every word i've said
you have no idea how hard i died when you left

[attr="class","Lex2Content"]

After a week spent in lockstep with the other girl, Lex shuffles towards the compartment door after Denali like a reflex. Head stooped and shoulders bowing under the weight of this goodbye, it's almost as if she's readying herself to duck through the doorway, down the train's steps, and onto the platform. This is the slouch of someone who's only ever known how to be tall brought low at last by the first thing she truly doesn't know how to handle. She opens her mouth and closes it again, the gaping stutter of someone who's never known how to leave something important unfinished.

She opens her mouth again, but this time Denali's words come out, volume doubled as though they really are spoken by two different throats. "Thank you." Lex's expression folds inward, eyebrows knitting themselves together in response as she fully gives up on stringing any other coherent phrases together. Don't mention it, she thinks. The standard response to small gratitudes is fast to find its rightful place at the front of her brain. Pass the handplane — thanks. Hold this for a moment — thank you. Oh, you fixed that busted turbine blade? Appreciate it. But the way they scrawl themselves on her heart, shaking and looping like like letters scribbled on a postcard in fresh blood, the words feel warm and Lex can't bring herself to wave them away. Nothing about what she and Denali owe to each other is small.

When it's clear that neither of them can find anything else to say that feels sufficient, she draws her lips together. The right-hand side of her best-effort smile mirrors Denali's grimace as they stare at one another, mutual inadequacy palpable. But there's nothing to say. There's never been a word or phrase big enough to fill the distance that hangs between two people forced to say goodbye forever. There weren't any in the vineyard. There aren't any now. Lex can only stand there, frozen in place, unwilling to even blink the cumulating tears off the bottoms of her eyelids if that means losing a moment.

For a second, or maybe a minute, it's like her ruse worked: like staying perfectly still is enough to trick time into forgetting about them, like the train might have forgotten its schedule and the tracks forgot that Lex is owed to some other destination. But the people on the platform are just as oblivious to the fact that this is goodbye forever as she is to their hello again at last! and just as she starts wondering if it would be unfair and selfish of her to throw her arms around Denali for one last hug, the Lyons family welcoming party makes their presence known. The commotion kicks off with a howl, and then Denali whirls around and vanishes.

Lex blinks at long last, heavy tears dropping with gravity, absorbed by the ugly fleur-de-lis carpeting as soon as they land. With a deep breath, she sighs through the shakes of her lungs, stubbornly swallowing each subsequent sob until her chest stops heaving and does her bidding. There's a time and a place for breaking down, and it's certainly not now. Tenuous composure regained, she pokes her head out of the compartment door, squinting into the sun. The train platform is a full riot — the only reasonable thing to expect of a gathering of twenty-some-odd of Denali's kin, particularly with emotions running this high. It's a small wonder that no actual fights break out, but there are enough thrown elbows and trodden toes as the whole platform battles each other for the honor of first hugs. Yeah, that seems about right.

Leaning a little further out of the compartment door, it's still as though she's watching from behind a pane of glass: through the window, through a screen, a thousand miles and another lifetime away. Lex Lionel doesn't belong in District Five, but she can't stop herself from trying to memorize every last detail — errant thoughts about what Denali's doing will need a setting and it's too much to send her back into the Arena, even in daydreamed fictions. She can't tear herself away at all. It takes a peacekeeper, in fact, to herd Lex back onto the train with a gruff "Hey! You can't be here!" (Truth be told, the reprimand would feel too forceful even if the white uniform had whispered it.)

At least scowling keeps her face too busy to contort into less dignified expressions. Lex bites back a slew of barely-coherent insults as she complies, in no mood to spend the latter half of a bad day restrained, detained, and shipped to some shitty cell instead of back home. Instead, she sidles to the right, folding her arms and peering out the window. She can hardly even see Denali through the circle of Lyons gathered around — and it's not as if watching a big mob of complete strangers ugly cry in a group is Lex's idea of a good time, but what else is she supposed to do? Go back to her room? Hunt down some breakfast? Her stomach is too knotted to think about pork belly or black pudding or bacon, and the longer she can put off returning to her room, the more likely someone else will have taken it upon themselves to gather up the nest of pillows and quilts and sheets still crumpled from sleep and strewn across her floor. No. As the train starts moving under her feet, all Lex can do is stare at what's left behind.

An anxious hand furls into a fist; unclenches; clenches again. Don't be stupid, her brain complains and her knuckles comply in turn: she knocks on the glass, doubtful she'll be heard over the din. But she's Lex fucking Lionel, and she's faced worse odds with worse consequences unfazed. And whether or not the tapping had any effect — unlikely, but she can believe whatever she wants since it's not as if anyone will ever be able to tell her different — a ripple spreads over the crowd and by some miracle, the sea of Lyons parts. Quick and reflexive, a grin spreads across Lex's face as she catches sight of Denali meeting the train's pace as it crawls out of the station, heavily bandaged arms waving through the air like semaphores. She hollers something that Lex can't quite discern, expression doubling back on itself in two-part vexation as she tries to make sense out of whatever is being shouted at her (I am at home! — no, way too obvious — and alone! can't be right either, can it?) and tries to bury her concern for the strain that the full-on jog must be putting on the dueling injuries that stripe up Denali's leg.

At the last possible moment, she catches the main idea: "I have a phone!" Then Denali vanishes behind corrugated steel, the rest of District Five vanishing with her in time. Head swimming, treading, drowning, Lex slumps to the ground, fully unable to decide if that makes everything harder or easier.

you had your soul with you the national
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