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The first thing Miorine does after being examined is rush to Suletta’s room.

Just like with her father, there’s a flurry of activity within the hospital room. There’s no space for her to go in. All she can do is watch from outside the glass as they hook her up to machines— endless machines— and hang bags of fluid from IV pumps. Suletta is unresponsive the entire time.

She might list sideways at this, but she quickly marshals her strength. Suletta had spoken to her. She’ll come back. She just has to rest for now, rebuild her strength. Her fingers grip the ledge of the window in front of her.

She must be so exhausted.

The door opens, and somebody comes out carrying tubes of blood in a biohazard bag. They cast Miorine a harried glance before practically sprinting down the hallway. Not too long after, the door opens once more, and a doctor steps out. Miorine moves toward her automatically.

“How is she?”

The doctor looks up from the tablet in her hand. “She’ll live. Her body’s in bad shape, though. It will take quite some time for her to recover.”

Miorine blinks back tears. “When will she come to?”

The doctor’s eyes are compassionate. She’s one of the ones who’s been taking care of her father; they’ve had this conversation before. “It’s hard to say. I don’t fully understand how the data storm affects the human body… I went to school after Gundam technology had already been outlawed. All the data the Vanadis Institute gathered on it was expunged.” Miorine’s stomach roils. This isn’t exactly news to her, but the full force of what her legacy has done hits her regardless. They’re operating blindly now. 

“Have faith,” she says gently before leaving the hallway.

The rest of the medical team slowly trickles out, and Miorine moves to enter the room, but a passing nurse stops her. “Not now,” he says softly. “She’s… we may need to go back in there soon.”

Miorine understands what he’s saying. Suletta is in a precarious situation. She’ll just be in the way if she codes, if the whole team has to be back in there again.

She draws a chair up to the window and presses her forehead against it. She might pray; her mind is in a bit of a haze right now. All she can see is the body of the girl she loves lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of monitors. Tears begin trailing down her cheeks.

Suletta had promised to come back. Miorine told her they would plant more tomatoes together. She has to come back.

-

A step on the floor behind her draws Miorine away from her silent vigil.

Prospera Mercury is approaching her, mask off once more. She must have only ever worn it to hide the symptoms of her Permet poisoning from everybody else. It would have been a dead giveaway that she had once piloted a Gundam. Right now, her face appears to be fine. Miorine wonders if Suletta will suffer from the same symptoms, even years from now.

She has the keychains in her hands. The red one, Suletta’s, is still sparking slightly. It had drawn Miorine to her location immediately, as if a magnetic force were acting on the pair.

As if a tiny voice inside were crying out for help.

She rubs her thumb along the carabiner. She can’t hear that voice right now, but she knows it’s there. 

Prospera draws level with her. Miorine gives her another cursory glance. Is she limping? Is she just imagining it, after what she’d said within Quiet Zero? Or is Prospera finally allowing herself to be seen for what she really is?

The two stare in at Suletta without speaking.

“Do you need a chair?” Miorine finally asks. Prospera turns to her with an inscrutable look in her eyes. It’s the same one she’d given her earlier, within Quiet Zero.

“No,” she says. “I’ll be leaving.”

Miorine thinks of giving her the keychain, but Suletta hadn’t wanted that. She doesn’t know what good it will do, anyway. She might be crazy, but she’s sure she’s in there. Eri. She just doesn’t know how to communicate with her right now. She needs to figure that out, before Suletta wakes up. She doesn’t want it to be another situation like it was with Aerial— a girl trapped in an inorganic body, unable to speak to those around her. Suletta had done all that so that would no longer be the case.

Eri might want to go with her mother… but Miorine doesn’t know. For now, until she can find out, she’ll keep her near Suletta. She knows that’s what they both had wanted.

Her back is to Prospera when she hears her speak again.

“Miorine Rembran. Did you mean what you said?”

She can make out Prospera’s reflection in the glass of the window. She’s angled just right so that she can see both her and Suletta, side by side. Miorine swallows and turns around.

“Yes.”

Prospera observes her for a second longer before leaving.

-

She’s finally allowed in after three agonizing days of waiting. The doctors have declared Suletta stable enough that their presence doesn’t have to be quite so constant. Chuchu and Nika come inside with her.

“What are you going to do?”

Nika smiles. She looks older than Miorine remembers. They probably all do. 

“I’m going to turn myself in. It’s the right thing to do.”

Miorine plays with Suletta’s fingers. They’re slightly swollen from the steady drip of fluids going into her veins. At one point she would have been nervous for Chuchu and Nika to see her holding Suletta’s hand, but she’d tamped down hard the urge to release it when they came in. They’re her friends. It’s okay if they see this. Her love for Suletta is not a liability.

Besides, they’d heard her sobs when she’d found Suletta, adrift in space. There are no secrets between the three of them now.

She thinks of telling Nika that she’ll ask for clemency for her, with the pull she knows her family still carries, Group dissolved or not. She knows Nika doesn’t want that, though.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “For everything.”

She ought to turn herself in. She’d provided the means for the Quinharbor massacre to occur; it’s only right. But she knows she’s one of very few Spacians who cares about this, that the Space Assembly League will not try her. Prospera hadn’t actually directly harmed anybody. She’d only destroyed their Gundams. She played no role in what happened after that. But still…

Her free hand clenches into a fist. The lives of the people of Earth are not disposable to her. She doesn’t want anybody to think that.

Chuchu’s mouth twists, but she doesn’t yell at Miorine. “Don’t do something stupid,” she mutters.

Miorine blinks in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Your being in jail won’t help anything. Suletta will be unhappy. I… wouldn’t be happy.” Her face is hard, but her voice is soft. “I’m not happy about her plan, either,” she adds, motioning to Nika with her head. “But it’s what she wants. But you… you can do more outside of a prison cell than you can do inside one. If you’re serious about trying to make it right.”

Miorine bows her head. “You’re right.” I am. Being with Suletta has made her more sincere than she’s ever been.

Nika’s face is a little perplexed as she looks at the two of them, but her mouth falls into a tentative smile. “I missed a lot,” she says.

“Yeah.”

The group lapses into silence once more. Everybody is tired. There’s still more going on, more things to put right, but Miorine has difficulty leaving the hospital room for very long. Guel helps her by bringing paperwork to sign, press releases to acknowledge. Everybody wants to interview her. She declines. She hadn’t done it for the publicity.

Nika and Chuchu stand to go. Nika gently touches Suletta’s cheek as she passes by. “She’ll wake up,” she says to Miorine, smiling kindly. Chuchu braces Miorine’s shoulder.

Miorine watches Suletta’s sleeping face. She seems very small, in the hospital bed. She’s been intubated; Miorine listens to the susurrous sound of air moving in and out of the tube in her mouth. The monitors give little beeps at the same time that the IV pumps whir while pushing more fluids into her body.

She can feel the black hole of grief looming, threatening to suck her in again. She can’t let that happen this time, though. She’d decided to keep moving forward. Chuchu’s right. Her locking herself away again won’t help anybody. It will only serve to make her feel properly punished for what she’s done. She’s already made the first step in dissolving the Benerit Group, in returning its assets to the people of Earth. Now she needs to continue along the path she’s begun constructing for herself.

She rubs Suletta’s hand again. It feels so cold. She covers it in both of her own, pressing her face to the tangle of their hands. Suletta’s doesn’t move within her own. Miorine tries to infuse a little steel into her heart so it doesn’t break.

She’ll wake up. She has to.

-

Miorine comes back from the dining hall one day to find Prospera sitting in Suletta’s room.

Her back tenses without her intending it to. Prospera looks up from Suletta’s bed to catch Miorine slowly loosening her shoulders, unclenching her jaw.

“Hello,” she says mildly. Pleasantries between the two of them feel bizarrely out of place. Miorine doesn’t know how to proceed around her. She’d managed to get along with Prospera when they were business partners, when they each wanted something from the other, but that’s long since past. Their relationship is even more tenuous now. She comes to Suletta’s bedside, across from Prospera’s chair. She’s not going to sit beside her. 

Where are all her bravery and grace from Quiet Zero?

Miorine takes her seat beside Suletta. A thick curtain of silence falls between them.

Prospera is the first to break it. “You didn’t really mean it,” she says, and there’s no glee or subtle amusement in her voice, the way there had been when she’d called Miorine out on decrying her father while still living off his privilege. She doesn’t sound angry, either. Simply tired. Miorine wonders how long she’s been living in pain.

“You’re wrong,” Miorine responds, and there’s no heat in her own tone. Prospera’s expression shifts. Miorine deliberately reaches for Suletta’s hand, willing her own not to shake. Expressing affection around her had terrified Miorine, more so than it ever did around anyone else. She’d felt both like she was playing into Prospera’s hands and that, at the same time, Prospera hadn’t liked her relationship with Suletta. Probably she didn’t care for Miorine herself, though.

Miorine hadn’t liked her either. Not just for how she treated her daughter, but for how much of herself she recognized in the other woman, as time wore on. And hadn’t Prospera been eager to point that out, as well? Even now, her expression is incredibly subtle as she looks at Miorine. Hasn’t Miorine been doing the same thing, her whole life?

“Suletta wants you around. I’m not going to keep the two of you apart any longer. It wasn’t right of me to do it in the first place.”

Prospera’s lips press together, but she doesn’t say anything. Miorine’s eyes leave her face, wandering to Suletta’s. If she’s heard any of their conversation in her coma, her face doesn’t betray it. It looks just as smooth and blank as it always does.

It’s been over a week since she did… whatever she did. Miorine doesn’t understand any of it at all. For the first time, she thinks Suletta might actually be a witch— but not a malevolent one. Just that there’s something magical about her. She’s always been able to pull off extraordinary feats, and while part of that might have initially been due to Ericht’s situation, she knows it’s something to do with Suletta as well.

She’s gotten what she wanted for her. A world with no more Gundams. Guel has seen to it that the plans for the Schwarzette were destroyed; hopefully Peil won’t rise from the ashes of their defeat to produce their own line. They have no resources now. Her thumb rubs at the back of Suletta’s hand. Maybe now somebody can finally step in and use Permet for medical technology. Miorine doesn’t know that she can be the person to do that; she doesn’t know what her and Suletta’s future looks like yet.

“I don’t understand your sudden about-face.”

Miorine looks to Prospera. “Didn’t I tell you? It wasn’t my place—”

“That didn’t stop you before. You seemed quite content to decide the direction her life went when you took Aerial from her.”

She knows Prospera is just picking at her. She keeps her face and voice very calm. “And that was the wrong thing to do, too.” She categorically does not want to have a heart to heart with this woman, but— she’d made her decision. If Suletta wants her mother in her life, Miorine can accept that. She can even try to make her feel welcome.

It’s her family’s fault that she’s in the position she’s in, after all.

“You and I have both done a lot of wrong,” Miorine says quietly. She’s not looking at Prospera anymore; her eyes are on her daughter. “But she still wants to know us. I— didn’t understand her, before. All she’s ever wanted was to be with the people she loves.”

She hadn’t understood Prospera before, either, but then Suletta had told her what happened to her mother, and how she’d come to be, produced from the genetic code of her sister. Hadn’t Miorine tried to do the same thing for Suletta? She’d seized upon the idea of Quiet Zero to create her ideal world for her— free of war between Earthians and Spacians— and she could protect her from her mother all in one act. But she’d never asked her what she actually wanted. 

It had discomfited her, to realize just how much she has in common with Prospera. She had spent so long viewing her as an enemy, a manipulative mother forcing Suletta to do things against her will. She’d never really looked at her as another human being.

Prospera doesn’t speak. When Miorine looks up again, her head is turned away from Miorine’s. She gazes at her future mother-in-law for a moment before reaching into her pocket for the keychains.

This makes her nervous as well. It’s something so personal to her and Suletta, but now, if she’s right, it’s beyond them. If Ericht’s in Suletta’s keychain, then it can no longer be kept just between the two of them. Eventually, she’ll have to let Prospera know where her daughter is, but for now, she places the red keychain against Suletta’s hand, on the mattress. Maybe being near her sister will cause Suletta’s hand to twitch, her eyes to open…

“What is that?”

Miorine’s hand briefly clenches on the bed, out of Prospera’s sight. She breathes in deeply through her nose, willing her racing heart to calm. “It’s something Suletta gave me.” She doesn’t elaborate. Prospera doesn’t need to know anything beyond that.

The older woman’s eyes are narrowed when Miorine makes eye contact with her again, but she remains silent. The tension in the room seems to have abated somewhat. Miorine’s fingers touch Suletta’s wrist lightly. She can feel her pulse. She can also hear it on the electrocardiogram monitor, but having tangible proof gives her a staggering amount of relief.

They sit in silence for some time before Prospera rises to her feet. Miorine watches her out of the corners of her eyes. There’s no mistake; she’s definitely moving stiffly, as if trying to play off the extent of her pain. She doesn’t know what to do for her.

“Until next time,” Prospera says softly, leaving the room.

-

She doesn’t see Prospera again until she comes across her bent double in the hallway outside of Suletta’s room a couple days later. She doesn’t think she can see her— Miorine is too far away, and it looks like Prospera’s eyes are closed, anyway. She hesitates briefly before turning around and going in the direction of the nurses’ station.

Minutes later, Miorine is wheeling a transport chair to Prospera. She’s leaning against the wall now, a deep grimace on her face. She doesn’t even react when Miorine comes to her side.

“Sit down,” Miorine says without preamble.

Prospera smiles; it’s not her usual smirk, but it’s still not very kind. “Do you enjoy playing savior so much that you would wheel me around all over the station, Miorine Rembran?” She seems incapable of calling her anything but her full name.

Miorine grits her teeth. “Get in the chair.”

Prospera lowers herself into the chair, and the look of stark relief on her face is enough for Miorine to know she’s made the right decision in doing this. Much as she dislikes Prospera as a person, she can’t allow her to suffer. Suletta wouldn’t want that. She herself finds no joy in seeing it. She begins wheeling Prospera toward Suletta’s room.

“You are a very rude girl,” Prospera comments drily. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you to speak respectfully to your elders?”

“None of my elders has ever done anything to earn my respect,” Miorine retorts. Well, except for maybe Rajan. She’s always had a soft spot for him, probably due to his own for her. Prospera makes a noise that might be a laugh, but just as easily could be a humph. It is difficult to tell.

Miorine is waving her hand in front of the access pad for Suletta’s room when Prospera says, “I was just leaving, actually.”

“Where were you wanting to go?”

Prospera doesn’t immediately respond, but Miorine waits patiently. She’s not going to leave her stranded in the middle of the hall. She doesn’t want to leave Suletta, though— every time she leaves the room she’s afraid she’s going to finally wake up and find herself all alone— but… this is the right thing to do. Prospera is alone in a way that Suletta isn’t, in a way that Miorine finds gut-churningly familiar.

“Back to my office,” Prospera says at last. Miorine heads in that direction. She’d gone there with Suletta, forever ago, when Gund-arm was just forming into a company. She thinks she remembers the way.

Much as they usually do, the two proceed in silence. Miorine has no idea what to say to Prospera, and her thoughts are on her daughter, anyway. She wonders which of her daughters Prospera is thinking of. Her hand twitches on the handle of the transport chair. She should probably tell Prospera where Eri is. If she’s anything like Suletta, she’ll want to be near her mother. But she doesn’t know if that’s what Ericht truly wants. 

She wars with herself on the long walk back to the office. She doesn’t want to come in between any members of the Mercury family again. Even if she does want to form a family with Suletta, and by extension, her mother and sister— it’s not right for her to do so. But part of her is afraid Prospera really will leave Suletta if she gives her Ericht, and Ericht had seemed so happy with her sister…

They arrive at her office, and Prospera badges them in. It’s dark. Miorine moves to turn on the lights, but Prospera shakes her head.

“There’s no need. Just leave me here.”

Miorine looks at her warily. Her eyes are adjusting. She doesn’t see a bed, or anywhere for Prospera to lie down, and besides, she can’t maneuver the transport chair on her own. Prospera can still walk, but she shouldn’t put herself through any unnecessary discomfort.

“I can’t leave you here,” she says at last. “Not by yourself. It’s not good for you.” Not all alone, in the dark. Her own bedroom comes to mind, herself sitting on the floor, enveloped in a blanket, refusing all visitors and stewing in her own misery. 

Prospera smiles sardonically. “What do you care what is good for me? You should be happy that I’m out of your and Suletta’s hair at last.”

Miorine’s jaw clenches. Then she spins on her heel and turns on Prospera’s lights with a snap. The older woman blinks in the sudden glare before adopting a taunting smile. 

“I would have thought you’d have grown tired of forcing what you believe is best on other people.”

Miorine wheels her more fully inside the room, to the armchair. “Being alone isn’t good for anybody,” she says. “Human beings aren’t meant to lock themselves away from others for long periods of time.” And that’s what she’s doing, isn’t it? Just like Miorine herself had done. Does Prospera have any human connections, outside of Eri and Suletta, both of whom are far out of her reach now?

Prospera is quiet. She stands from the chair and drops into the armchair, shoulders slumped. Miorine had never thought she would see her like this. For so long, Prospera has been an imposing figure on her horizon, almost as large as her father. But then her father had lain comatose for weeks, and Prospera had removed her mask, finally allowing Miorine to see the woman beneath.

“You’re a very disagreeable woman,” she mutters before beginning to sit in the chair opposite her. Prospera shakes her head.

“I told you to leave me. I really am going to sleep.”

Miorine purses her lips. She still can’t tell when Prospera is lying and when she isn’t. “Suletta wouldn’t want you to be alone,” she says.

“And so you martyr yourself in her stead?”

It’s true that Miorine doesn’t want to be here, but she doesn’t like the aspersion cast against Suletta’s character. “She loves you,” she reminds her. “All she wanted was to stay with you.” And you, Miorine thinks to herself. She swallows. She’s doing her best. She’s trying to keep this family together in Suletta’s absence.

Prospera’s face is dissatisfied, and… potentially guilty. Maybe Miorine is projecting. Is this what Suletta has had to put up with, when it comes to her? It’s amazing she hadn’t given up entirely. Miorine would be just fine walking out on Prospera right now, but she’d told her they could be a family, and she’d meant it. She’s not going to go back on her word.

“Where’s your living space? I’ll take you there.”

Prospera scowls. “I’m not going to give you access to my quarters.”

“I don’t want access, I just want to know where—”

“Leave me, Miorine Rembran. Go back to Suletta. She’ll be happy with you there.”

Prospera’s tone when she says her daughter’s name is more tender than Miorine has ever heard it. She stands from the chair reluctantly. Prospera doesn’t react. She seems to be far away now. Miorine hesitates by the door before opening it.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she says, making her voice firm. It’s not a question.

Prospera’s returned to her usual lilt when she replies, “Of course.”

Later, Miorine sits beside Suletta’s bed, Ericht’s keychain resting between their hands. She pokes it gently. Both it and Suletta are as immobile as ever.

“I’m trying,” she tells them both.

-

“She’s holding relatively stable,” the doctor notes to Miorine.

She can’t remember the progression of her father’s coma. Her thoughts had been too scattered, between what happened with her and Suletta at Plant Quetta, to Prospera continuously seeking her out, to her father’s condition itself. It seemed like he had just remained endlessly in stasis, until one day he wasn’t. 

“Do you think she’ll wake soon?”

“It’s difficult to say.” This is a non-answer, but Miorine has grown used to these. They don’t want to get her hopes up, regardless of what they actually think. Stability is good, though. She’ll take it as a good sign.

The doctor leaves the room. Chuchu and Nika are here again, this time with Till. Martin had come by before being drawn away by a call from his own mother.

“You’re talking to Prospera?”

Miorine nods. She can see their misgivings on their faces, but then Chuchu shakes her head. “That’s your own business,” she says.

“We don’t know her,” Nika says. “It’s up to you all to sort out.”

Miorine wonders what Prospera is doing now. She hasn’t seen her since dropping her off in her office two days ago; if she comes to visit Suletta, it must be strategically timed to avoid Miorine— and she’s nearly always here. Part of her fears, irrationally, that the woman has dropped dead in her office, all alone. Is anybody checking on her?

Nika and Chuchu depart after a little while, but Till remains behind. Much like always, he doesn’t say much to Miorine. This is fine by her. Their silence has always been comfortable. He had been the first member of Earth House that she had grown to truly like, outside of Nika, especially after spending time with him at Plant Quetta. Before he leaves, he stops by Suletta’s head and rests his hand on her hair. Something about the gesture causes Miorine’s eyes to fill with tears. Till gives her a small smile before going as well.

“Everybody loves you so much,” she whispers to Suletta, leaning her head against the bedrail. Suletta doesn’t move; her eyes don’t open. “We’ll be waiting for you.”

-

On the fourth day, Miorine leaves the red keychain by Suletta’s hand. 

“I’ll be right back,” she tells them both. Neither stirs.

She’s able to glean where Prospera’s room is from one of the assistants working in the business sector of the station. She’s being meddlesome. She knows. But she can’t leave Prospera alone while one of her daughters lies comatose and the other is trapped, mute, within a keychain. If Prospera genuinely doesn’t want her there, she’ll respect her wishes. She has to figure out if that’s the case, first.

She knocks on the door. It’s firm enough to show she means it, but not so hard that Prospera might feel attacked. “Prospera. It’s Miorine Rembran. I’ve come to take you to Suletta.”

There’s no response.

She swallows, forcing her next words to be as honest as possible. She’s doing this for Suletta— really and truly, this time. She knows how important her mother is to her. She’s not going to keep them apart from now on. If she can, she wants to bring them together again. 

“She still wants you in her life. It’s why she went to Quiet Zero. Don’t abandon her now.” There are still no signs of life from within.

She wishes she’d brought Ericht. Holding the keychain in her hands might give her some small strength. She reaches into her pocket and clutches its twin. She doesn’t want to beg, but—

“Please come,” she whispers, leaning against the door, face angled toward the seam where it goes into the wall. It’s so heavy, Prospera probably can’t hear her. She has no other way to reach her. “She wants to be with you. Why can’t you just let her love you?” Her throat closes up around these last words.

Miorine can’t hear any movement from within. She rests her head against the cool metal surface in defeat. She’s still unsure of what to do; too much interference, and she’s making Suletta’s decisions for her all over again. None, and she’s not carrying out her wishes while she’s unable to do so herself. She can’t force Prospera to come with her, either. But she had hoped…

The door suddenly zips open beneath her hands, and she jumps back quickly. Prospera is standing before her, face very pale. For the first time, Miorine thinks she looks old. Her own father is in his sixties and looks his age, but Prospera has always had a youthful energy about her that makes it hard to place her own. 

“What are you doing?” Suletta’s mother asks. “You wanted me out of her life.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I shouldn’t have. This is what she wants.”

Prospera’s lip curls, but there’s no real malice behind the expression. It’s more like she’s playing a part, and poorly at that. Fatigue hangs from her body like a shroud. “Do you really care about what she desires?”

Humbling herself before Prospera is humiliating, but she’s serious about this. “Yes. But I can’t make you do anything without your consent; I only came to pass along the message. Your daughter needs you.” Both your daughters need you.

Prospera’s eyes bore into her own, and Miorine squares her shoulders, lifting her chin and returning her intense gaze. Something seems to shift within her, and she says, “Are you and Suletta truly going to marry?”

This throws her, but she responds, “Yes.”

Now Prospera looks disgusted. “Because of the system your father set up? Because she won you in a duel?”

Miorine doesn’t know why this bothers her— Prospera hadn’t seemed to think anything of it when they met at the incubation party. But her mask has finally come off; perhaps this is the way she’s always felt about it.

Suletta had been trapped by the system, too, at Miorine’s behest. She’d bound her just as tightly to herself as the previous Holders had bound Miorine to them. She’d told her she could date other people if she chose to, that it didn’t have to mean anything to her because it didn’t mean anything to Miorine herself, but Suletta hadn’t been comfortable with that. Restrictions had been placed upon her the moment she agreed to Miorine’s plan.

It’s okay. They’ve come out on the other side of all that mess. Suletta will never wear the Holder uniform again; she can just be Miorine’s fiancée, plain and simple. She’d only donned it once more to show Miorine what she means to her.

“No. Because I love her.” Her heart is pounding fitfully in her chest. Ever since she met Prospera, she’d known it was dangerous to show her how much she cares for Suletta. Prospera had seen it anyway, with all her cunning. Miorine had despised her for it, and she’d been furious with herself for not being able to protect Suletta from her mother. She’s still afraid, but Prospera needs to know that her intentions, and their relationship, are genuine.

The hard line of Prospera’s mouth slackens. Miorine bears the silence patiently. It feels like she’s finally getting through to her, the chinks in her armor more apparent. She’ll leave when she tells her to.

“I never understood why a girl such as you would so willingly submit to her father’s will,” Prospera says at last. “In marrying Suletta, I mean,” she adds when Miorine gives her a confused look.

This is too personal. She can’t explain to Prospera that she had already resigned herself to marrying whomever the Holder would be when she turned seventeen, that her escape attempts had grown more desperate and perhaps less well-prepared in her haste to break free of her own mental chains. Suletta had been a breath of fresh air; Miorine had finally chosen her Holder herself, in a roundabout way. Could they force Suletta to marry her if she didn’t want it? Besides, she hadn’t intended to marry Suletta at all. She was going to run away, finally, while Suletta covered for her.

But that didn’t happen. She’d disregarded each idea for leaving as it came to her, as she was slowly drawn to Suletta, as she put down roots at Asticassia. It needed to be perfect, she’d reasoned to herself. She’d probably only ever get one more shot, before her father tried to actually marry her to somebody he personally handpicked.

She knows now those were all lies.

Miorine doesn’t respond, but Prospera doesn’t push her. Instead, she says, “I don’t think I can walk there. My legs… are beginning to fail me.” 

“I can bring you a wheelchair. If you want to go, there will be no obstacles.”

Prospera’s face softens further. She turns around; Miorine doesn’t follow. The door remains open, and she gets a peek into Prospera’s bedroom. It’s just as sparse as her own is on this station. Prospera sits in an armchair and gazes at Miorine silently.

She understands. With a terse nod, she leaves to find the wheelchair.

-

This time she finds a wheelchair Prospera can propel herself. The older woman clumsily rolls forward a meter or two, hands hesitant on the wheels, and Miorine worries that she’s gotten too big a wheelchair, that maybe she should have tried to find an electric one. But then Prospera seems to hit her stride, and they’re moving smoothly down the hall. 

They’re about a third of the way there when Prospera begins to slow. Despite her strength, she’s not used to having to use her upper body to move herself around. Miorine’s own pace lessens, and soon she’s hovering behind Prospera’s chair, hands outstretched. Prospera comes to a complete stop, and they’re both silent.

“Do you want me to push you?” Miorine finally asks.

“I liked you better when you were doing things without asking.” Miorine flushes. “Yes, push me.”

She complies, pushing Prospera along at a steady clip. She thinks of Prospera’s words again. She’d decided she doesn’t want to take anybody’s autonomy away from them again, but is she being too hesitant? She has to find a happy medium.

“You haven’t been around too many disabled people before, have you?”

Miorine blinks. Prospera’s voice is not mocking; she’s simply asking. “No,” she replies, and the older woman nods her head.

“Suletta may never be able to move again,” she says, and Miorine’s knuckles go white around the handles of the chair. “Her legs or her arms. What will you do then?”

“I’ll still stay with her,” Miorine says quietly. “I’ll help her with whatever she needs.”

“Even if she needs you to feed her? To bathe her? Can you stand being her caretaker?”

Miorine pauses to consider this. Her first thought is yes, of course, but she doesn’t want to blurt it out without properly thinking it over. It’s not what she had envisioned for the future; she’ll be the first to admit it. But she hadn’t really planned anything past the immediate next few years, possibly into their mid-twenties. There are health problems that come with old age, or merely by chance. It’s not something that can be counted on forever. That’s all part of marriage, too. In sickness and in health, as the old vows go.

Besides, she’s more concerned with how Suletta herself will feel about being unable to move. She’s so active, never sitting still. More than once, Miorine had reached out to touch her hands, just to quiet them. Really, it had been an excuse to touch her. 

She wishes she hadn’t done that now. She should have just let Suletta fidget as much as she wanted to. 

“Yes. If it comes to that. If she really needs that from me, I’ll do it for her.”

“Being a caretaker is difficult work—”

“I know that,” Miorine interrupts. “Are you trying to scare me off? It’s not going to work. I know what I’m doing.” She hopes she doesn’t sound as young-hearted and inexperienced as she feels.  

“I wonder if you do,” says Prospera meditatively. “Will you just do things for Suletta without asking her what she wants? Just push her wheelchair for her without asking? What if she grows to resent you?”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” Miorine admits, frustration leaking into her tone. “Didn’t you just get on my case for not pushing your chair?”

“Suletta and I are two different people. What I may want, she might not.”

“I know that—” And then she understands what Prospera is saying. Stop treating her with kid gloves just because Miorine feels guilty about what happened. Ask, but be intentional about it.  She doesn’t have to treat her more gently just because of her being unable to walk, either. Miorine bows her head.

“For the record,” Prospera says, and her voice is now soft, “you may push my chair for me whenever I grow tired.”

“Okay.”

After a while, Prospera says, “You’re going to twist yourself into knots, trying to make amends. I respected you more when you forced yourself into my office the other day, when you came to me this morning. That was the real you. Not… this.”

“I don’t ever want to take somebody’s decision away from them again,” Miorine tells her unwillingly. She doesn’t want to be having this conversation with Prospera. She’d rather be having it with Suletta. “And I don’t want… Suletta to find me overbearing.” These words leave her mouth like pulled teeth.

“So then don’t be.” Prospera’s voice is as breezy as if they were talking about the weather. “You should know by now that Suletta…” Miorine tenses. “…was a special case. She didn’t listen to you the way she did me; you had to force her to give up Aerial. You do her a disservice by thinking she has no will of her own.”

“I know she has a will of her own,” Miorine interrupts. She needs to make this very clear. “I want to help her achieve her goals.”

“Then don’t be so timid. It’s unbecoming, not to mention unlike you. And I can assure you, Miorine Rembran, you will never make me do anything that I wouldn’t already be doing.”

The two move in silence. Then, Miorine asks, “Are you trying to comfort me?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Prospera says. “I meant only that you don’t need to spend the rest of your life together repenting. That’s not a relationship.”

Miorine swallows. She thinks this is why Suletta has never held a grudge against her, or others who have hurt her, like Prospera. It’s hard to continue having a relationship with somebody when you’re constantly keeping score, letting resentment against them fester for something they did in the past. She appreciates this about Suletta, but it still feels like she’s been let off the hook too easily. She thinks of Chuchu again. She needs to stop obsessing over being punished for what she’s done. She thinks of Earth. If she goes back there with this attitude, nobody will believe her sincerity. She wants to actually help, not just assuage her own guilt.

Suletta had finally told Prospera no. She shouldn’t forget that. And she’d come to find Miorine after everything that happened, instead of allowing her to walk away from her and not questioning it. She can stand up for herself now. Miorine shouldn’t backslide again. She’s going too far in the opposite direction trying to make things right.

“That was shockingly good advice.” She’s being a bit of a brat. She feels more surefooted with Prospera when one of them is being sarcastic.

Prospera doesn’t respond. Miorine thinks the conversation is done, but then, she just makes out the quiet words, spoken under her breath as they are; she’s not sure Prospera actually intends for her to hear them.

“I was married once, myself.”

-

Miorine spends the next week walking to Prospera’s room in the morning and back to Suletta’s with her mother in tow. Prospera is learning to work the wheelchair quickly, although she prefers to walk if at all possible. Miorine just thinks she should have the option available to her, should she need it. 

Their silence is becoming more companionable. Much as she hates to admit it, Prospera is one of the only people she can talk to about what’s happened between her and Suletta; she doesn’t think Earth House would understand, although they would listen to her, she knows. As uncomfortable as she had been letting Prospera know her like that, she’d had good insight. And she and Prospera had been coconspirators, partners in crime, in breaking Suletta’s heart. Her even more so than Guel.

Sometimes she’ll catch Prospera eyeing the keychains. This doesn’t make her as apprehensive as it had the first day, but she still feels a surge of guilt when she thinks of Ericht, trapped within. She doesn’t know when to tell Prospera about her eldest daughter. The longer she waits, the guiltier she grows. She doesn’t want her to think she’s trying to keep another child of hers away from her again.

“So where will you two live?”

Miorine doesn’t answer immediately. It’s something she’s wondered before. Will Suletta want to return to Mercury? She hadn’t seemed to love the place, although she has a strong affection for its people. Her wanting to open a school there is proof enough. Miorine has always pictured them living together on Earth, but after Quinharbor, she’s afraid to return there for an extended period. Is she allowed to live there happily, after what she’s done? She’s imagined going back to atone for her crimes, but never staying there.

“I don’t know,” Miorine says. “It’s something we’ll have to figure out.” They’ll probably have to remain here for some time after Suletta wakes, anyway. She already knows that the recovery process for a neurological injury is long and arduous, and Suletta is so much worse off than her father had ever been.

She hasn’t seen him since she retrieved Suletta. She’s been spending all her time in here. Her backside hurts from sitting in the bedside chair so many hours in a row, her lower back and neck aching from sleeping in it. In a way, her walks to Prospera’s room are as good for her as they are for Suletta’s mother.

“What about you? What will you do now?”

“I suppose I will have to stand trial for my role in Quiet Zero. I killed many people, you know.” Prospera’s tone is matter of fact. Miorine doesn’t detect a hint of remorse.

“That won’t happen.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Shaddiq Zenelli is taking full responsibility for both the development and the discharge of Quiet Zero.”

The last time she saw him was when she told him of her plan to dissolve the Benerit Group and liquidate all its resources to Earth. He had told her goodbye, then, and she hadn’t understood it for the final farewell he’d meant it as. He’s been extradited to Earth in the interim, while she’s sat at Suletta’s bedside or gone to Prospera’s room. 

She doesn’t know how she feels about Shaddiq now. At one point he’d been… not a friend, but as close to it as she had come before meeting Suletta and the others in Earth House. His affections became more overt, and she pushed him away. She wasn’t interested. Then he had tried to force her hand into a marriage she hadn’t wanted, had refused multiple times, and she’d felt nothing but disdain for him. He really was just like all the others.

“What a fool,” Prospera murmurs. She’s looking at Miorine’s hand, where it rests atop Suletta’s.

“So what will you do?”

Prospera’s quiet. “I never made many plans for what came afterward,” she says in a low voice. Miorine’s stomach clenches. Neither had she. All she had seen was Suletta’s happiness— she hadn’t wanted to face the fact that she and Guel would have to marry, that she would live the rest of her life miserable, president of the Group. It didn’t matter. Knowing she would be happy and safe had made Miorine’s path forward easier.

But all it had done was hurt Suletta.

“Come live with us. Suletta would like that.”

Prospera gives her the type of smile Miorine has come to expect from her; a twist of the lips and nothing else. Her eyes remain remote.

“And you? Do you want your mother-in-law underfoot?”

“You won’t be underfoot unless you deliberately try to be.”

Their little tête-à-têtes are less vitriolic these days. Prospera has a wicked sense of humor; Miorine doesn’t often appreciate being picked at, but she can give back just as good as she gets. 

“You can take up some old lady hobbies to keep you busy. Do you know how to crochet?”

Genuine shock flits across Prospera’s features, and then it’s Miorine’s turn to be astounded when the lines of her face settle into the first genuine smile she’s ever seen from Prospera Mercury. It’s not cold and calculating, or reserved. For the first time, she thinks she’s seeing the woman who raised Suletta and had inspired her deep love and admiration. She had hoped to meet her at the incubation party. Now’s as good a time as any.

“That was a good one,” Prospera murmurs. She hasn’t put her mask back on. Her face is still open, in an expression that Miorine recognizes with a stab to the heart as being very Suletta. Her fingers tighten on her hand. Suletta remains unresponsive.

“But many young people enjoy fiber arts as well. It’s not limited to age.”

“I know.” She had been thinking of Suletta, actually. She would very much like a crocheted afghan to lay across the back of the couch. She just knows this about her. It’s something that would fit her ideal of the perfect home. Miorine smiles a little; their house is going to be so cluttered. “You and I can learn together.”

Prospera tilts her head. “I always expected Suletta to fall for somebody with a softer personality.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“No. No, I think it’s good she has you.”

She would have married her anyway, with or without Prospera’s approval. But somehow… it’s nice that they’re growing, if not close, more tolerant of one another. Prospera in Quiet Zero hadn’t been willing to accept her offer. Was that because it had clashed with her perfect future for Ericht?

Ericht. Her pinky separates from Suletta’s hand to touch her sister. Much like Suletta, she gives no response. Miorine swallows. She ought to tell Prospera now. She should have told her long ago, truthfully. 

“Prospera.” Suletta’s mother looks up. She, too, has been deep in contemplation, it seems. Miorine holds the keychain— Ericht— up for her to see. Then she walks over and gently places her in Prospera’s lap. “Your eldest daughter resides within this keychain.”

She’s about to go on, to tell her that she doesn’t understand how, that Ericht had spoken to her but she can no longer hear her, but Prospera replies calmly, “I know. I’ve known since I first came to you.”

All of the blood drains from Miorine’s face. Her stomach twists. She’s done it again. She should have just told Prospera that first day— it wasn’t right of her to keep Ericht from her mother just because she had feared Suletta would be left behind again, or that Prospera wouldn’t have Ericht’s best interests in mind. How could Miorine be sure that she herself did?

“I— I wasn’t trying to keep her from you—”

Prospera looks at her kindly. This alone is enough to marginally pull Miorine out of her swirling thoughts. “Calm yourself. I’ve been able to hear her speak this whole time. She wanted to stay with Suletta. You saw to that.”

This knocks the wind out of Miorine. “You… you can hear her?”

“Yes, although not as clearly as I could with my mask on. I don’t know how you could hear her—”

“I can’t,” Miorine interrupts. “Not now. I just assumed…” That’s her problem. She keeps making assumptions about what’s best for everyone else. She’d thought she’d known what Ericht wanted, had been carrying out her wishes faithfully, but how could she? She’s never even held a conversation with her.

“Don’t spiral,” Prospera says briskly. “I’ll use your favorite line: I already told you. She wishes to stay with Suletta. You ensured that. She is happy.”

“Surely she wanted to stay with you, too.”

Prospera is quiet. Miorine thinks she’s right. “You’ve drawn the three of us together again, although I know you can’t have wanted me here—”

“I wouldn’t have made that offer if I hadn’t meant it. Believe me.”

Prospera gives her another smile. “Eri told me you are surprisingly kind.” Miorine grimaces. Surprisingly? She shouldn’t be too shocked. Suletta appears to be the only member of her family not adept in dealing out backhanded compliments. And frankly, she has never been a gentle person. She’d never been allowed to be. “And for my part, I think you are a better woman than I previously believed, Miorine Rembran.” She places Ericht back in Miorine’s hand.

“What are you doing?”

“She wants to stay with you, too, now.” 

The tangle of their lives is growing even more convoluted. It feels as if she and Suletta were always destined to meet, to join their families together. Miorine inspects Ericht Samaya as she is now. Is this better for her? She’s no longer trapped within a metallic killing machine, but neither is she able to move her limbs. She’ll have to be carried around by somebody for the rest of her life. Her eyes stray to Suletta.

“Why?”

Prospera smiles. It’s not quite the open expression of emotion Miorine’s jab had elicited, but it rings more true than her previous ones had. “I suppose she likes the idea of getting to know her sister-in-law.” There’s something impish in her eyes now; Miorine feels a little leery at that.

“Is there a way for me to communicate with her? I'd like to speak to her.”

Prospera ponders this in silence. Or maybe she’s listening to Ericht. Miorine reevaluates her silences over the past couple of weeks. Were they truly because she had nothing to say, or because she was listening to her daughter? A thought occurs to her.

“This isn’t some sort of telepathic connection, is it—”

Prospera surprises her for the third time that day by letting out a sharp exhale through her nose. She’s pretty sure it’s an approximation of laughter. “No. Not exactly. Eri is not speaking into my mind. I suppose it’s on a different frequency from what you can perceive, though, having never piloted a Gundam. But she speaks aloud, now.”

She had piloted a Gundam once— incredibly ineptly. Ericht had no doubt been laughing at her the entire time. “Is that… what it feels like? To pilot a Gundam.”

Prospera considers this. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. It’s something you have to experience to truly understand.” Miorine’s fingers clench into a fist. Experiencing it only secondhand had been the stuff of nightmares. “We were still trying to iron out the finer details… but yes, I suppose so. The pilot’s nervous system is in close quarters with the Gundam. In some ways, it’s a heightened consciousness… In others, it’s even more limiting to your senses than what they already are. It’s a very delicate give and take, until there is nothing for either system to receive.”

“Because you become so deeply enmeshed.”

“Yes.”

It would have been nice if Prospera had told her this when she was starting Gund-arm. Then again, she had likely never intended for Miorine to get very far in her project. Prospera smiles at her now like she knows what Miorine’s thinking. It seems… almost repentant.

“I suppose Bel and I could work something out,” Prospera says. “If you truly want to be able to communicate with Eri.”

“I do.”

"My mask allowed me to tap into the data storm for many years. Perhaps…” Prospera trails off, evidently thinking out loud.

Miorine looks at Suletta’s face. As always, her eyes are closed. The sound of her practically hyperventilating in pain while piloting Calibarn fills her mind. She bows her head and wraps Suletta’s hand in both of hers. She’s done so much. Miorine wants her to rest easy from now on.

“When was the last time you slept in your own room?”

Miorine looks up. Prospera is watching her. “I… I’m not sure.” This is a lie. She hasn’t slept in a bed since they came back from Quiet Zero. She’ll go back to change her clothes or shower, but this is the most time she’ll spend away from Suletta. There’s nothing there for her in her room, anyway.

“Sleep there tonight. I will watch over Suletta.”

Miorine eyes her warily. Despite Prospera’s surprising openness of late, she’s still… distrustful. She swallows. She needs to let that go. They’re going to be a family. In a weird way, she feels like they’ve already become one, her and Prospera and even Ericht. They’re just waiting for Suletta, the glue, to awaken and join them.

Besides, Prospera has proven to be more trustworthy than she’d initially thought. She’d given her— and by extension, Suletta— Ericht back, after making her happiness her primary goal for over two decades. She looks at Suletta again. A fragile hope is beginning to blossom in her chest, for the future Suletta had wanted for herself.

“Will you have someone find me if she wakes?”

“I will come get you personally.”

“You don’t have to go to that trouble—”

“But I will. Do you still think me incapable of getting around by myself?”

“It’s not that. I just don’t want her to be alone when she finally does come to.”

Prospera gives her an approving look, which is so unlike their relationship that it makes Miorine feel as if she’s fallen into an alternate timeline. Even when she had agreed to her Quiet Zero scheme, Prospera had shown no real joy, only grim triumph. Maybe now… she can experience a gentler happiness.

“Eri will be with her,” she says. “I won’t let her be alone.”

-

Miorine is blowdrying her hair the next morning when she thinks of her father again.

This had probably been Prospera’s intent. She’s been letting other things fall to the wayside, never leaving Suletta’s sickbed. She should have gone to see him sooner— but then again, he could have come to see her. It’s a two-way street.

She doesn’t knock when she stops before his door. This has always been her way. At one point, it had been because this was her home, too. She lets herself in, and when she clears the foyer it’s to find her father sitting at a low table, drinking tea.

“Did you ask permission before coming in?”

“No,” Miorine says. Her voice is carefully neutral, free of the scorn with which she once would have greeted this question. Her father peers at her over his teacup.

“Sit. Have some tea.”

The only sound that can be heard for the next ten minutes or so is the clink of silverware on china. Miorine tastes the tea and immediately recoils. Her father must have made it himself. It’s something he’s always been bad at.

“I understand you’re spending time with your future mother-in-law.”

Her mouth is full of her father’s abysmal tea when he says this. Her cheeks puff out, lips pressing together so she doesn’t spit it out. She’s always hated the way he catches her off guard like this. She swallows, wincing at the taste and the temperature. “Yes.”

She doesn’t ask him how he knows this. There’s no point. He has eyes and ears everywhere, despite the Group’s dissolution. 

He doesn’t comment on Prospera as a person at all. Miorine wonders what he thinks of her. “I’ve never once seen you defend another person the way you defended her.”

Miorine scowls. “You could have backed me up. Protected your investment.” It’s a disgusting word to use to describe Suletta, but it’s terminology she knows he’ll understand. As the Holder, he did have an interest in her welfare, like Suletta or not. “I understand now why you were so against harnessing Gundam technology, but they entrapped her—”

“Not at the incubation party. Before that.”

Miorine rewinds her memory. Some of her early days with Suletta feel out of focus and fuzzy, as if they had been recorded using very old equipment. 

“When she first won the duel,” her father clarifies. 

Miorine falls silent. She’d thought about running away again, leaving it all behind. But abandoning Suletta after what she had done for her had disturbed her in a way she wasn’t accustomed to. What did she owe Suletta? She could have just left, but… she hadn’t liked the idea of another girl coming under fire for her own actions. She’d done it to stand up for her, after all.

It’d been the first time since she became the Bride that anybody expressed concern for her personally, not just as a prop. Her father had never cared how the Holders treated her. But Suletta had.

Her father watches her contemplations before saying, “Miorine. I never wanted any harm to come to you.”

She bristles at this. “So you harmed me yourself?”

“In what way did I ever harm you? I provided food and shelter for you—”

“The absolute bare minimum you could have done for me,” Miorine seethes. This is well-trodden ground for the two of them, but Miorine feels better equipped today. “You still made me a pawn, a thing to be collected and fought over.”

Her father’s face is as much of a blank mask as it ever is. “I did that to protect you. It doesn’t matter if you understand or not.”

Miorine’s fist trembles. Suletta is so eager to forgive her mother, but Miorine can’t find it in herself to do the same for her father, even after everything that he’s done for her. He’d risked his life for her, but was that out of any real love? He still won’t listen to her.

You were supposed to protect me yourself, she thinks, after Mom died. It should have been me and you. We’re supposed to be a family. Why did you push me away? 

She wishes she could say this out loud to him. She knows he won’t answer in a way that matters.

Miorine stands back from her chair. Her father’s eyes flicker, but his voice is as impassive as ever when he says, “Where are you going?”

“Back to the hospital wing. I didn’t come here to get into an argument with you. I’ll see myself out.” Her fingers slowly unclench. The burning anger is draining from her body, leaving her cold and sad in its wake. “…Thank you. For intervening with the Assembly League.” Her father doesn’t respond.

She’d wanted to ask him how his recovery is coming along. It had terrified her in a way she hadn’t expected, when he’d been injured and comatose. She’d come to realize just how much she depended on his presence, both good and bad, in her life. She’d wanted— to talk to him about her mother. He never does. It’s as if he’s sealed her memory off in a tomb as well, refusing to confront it. She’s never once seen him cry over her death.

Is this how their relationship is always going to be? She’d thought that she could finally open up to him, or at least have an honest conversation. She sees no point if he won’t do her the same courtesy.

“Miorine.”

She stops at the open door. Against her better judgment, she turns around to look at him. 

“Your mother would be proud of you.”

Miorine swallows thickly and leaves the room.

-

Suletta is extubated five weeks after being admitted to the neurological ward. 

“She’s progressing rather quickly,” the doctor comments, lifting Suletta’s eyelid gently. She shines a penlight into her eye, and whatever she sees there seems to satisfy her. She lets it drop, opening the other.

This does not surprise Miorine. Suletta should be dead, or sucked within Calibarn the way Ericht had been with Aerial. But she’s not, through her own sheer force of will.

Miorine is alone. Prospera doesn’t hang around Suletta’s bed the same way she does; she prefers to sleep in her own bed, except for the nights when she pointedly asks Miorine if she will be returning to her own room to sleep. Ericht is still with her, in Suletta’s hand where Miorine had placed her earlier.

Suletta’s opened her eyes once or twice in the last week, but she’s shown no other sign of moving or speaking. At one point she had looked directly at Miorine, but then her eyelids had fluttered shut and she hadn’t opened them the rest of the day.

She can wait. She’ll wait as long as it takes.

-

“What is your real name?”

Prospera is resting her head on her hand, scrolling through her phone. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in whatever is on her screen, though. She sets it aside and gazes at Miorine.

“I was once known as Elnora Samaya,” she says.

“What should I call you?”

Prospera’s mouth quirks. “I won’t ask you to call me ‘mother’—”

“I wouldn’t,” Miorine says bluntly. Prospera actually smiles fully at this. “You can be my mother-in-law, but I already have a mother. I’m not looking to replace her.”

“You can never truly replace another person,” Prospera says. Miorine’s eyes are on Suletta when she says this; she doesn’t turn to see if Prospera looks to her as well. She wants to ask her, but she’s afraid, for Suletta’s sake. She doesn’t want to hear that Prospera only had her to replace her sister. She wants to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“I have no real attachment to that name now,” Prospera says. “I don’t think I can ever be that person again.”

Miorine thinks of what Suletta would say. “If you want to be,” she says slowly, “I think you could be. Even if you choose to no longer go by that name.”

She wants to ask Prospera about her own mother, too. How had they known each other? She’d known about Quiet Zero; she must have worked on it with Notrette.

Miorine’s hands clench together. Her mother had contributed to that. She can tell herself it wasn’t meant to be a weapon of mass destruction, that Prospera had perverted it for her own purposes, but how can she ever know that? Her mother isn’t here to tell her herself, and she doesn’t know that her father or Rajan will tell her the truth. Prospera has always delighted in giving her brutal honesty, but— she doesn’t know if she actually wants to hear it. She still loves her mother, regardless of what she’d done. It’s the same way Suletta feels about Prospera.

She’s tired of assigning blame. It feels like all she’s been doing her whole life— first to her father and the Holder system, and then to herself once she’d started making moves of her own. She’d even been furious with Suletta for foiling her final escape attempt, out of the goodness of her heart. They’ve all done things they’re not proud of— constantly holding it against one another isn’t going to get them anywhere.

“You never did answer me,” Prospera says suddenly. “Regarding your change of heart.”

“I did.”

“Perhaps for Suletta’s sake,” Prospera agrees. “But you have always had an ax to grind with me. I don’t understand how you could let that go.”

She hadn’t either, at first. She’d known she would have to, but she hadn’t believed herself capable of it, until—

“You didn’t shoot me when you could have,” Miorine says simply. 

Prospera’s brow twitches, but her face remains smooth. “I fully intended to.”

Miorine looks her squarely in the face. “But you didn’t. Why?”

This time she does see Prospera’s eyes move to Suletta. This is just confirmation of what she’d already known.

“It’s not my grudge to hold,” Miorine says when Prospera doesn’t speak. “It would just make her unhappy. I bear no ill will toward you now. Let it go.”

Prospera is watching her. Miorine holds eye contact with her for a few seconds longer and then looks down at Suletta. When her eyes return to Prospera, she’s smiling. 

“I bear you no ill will either, Miorine. In truth, I never did. You make my daughter happy. Please continue to do so.”

“I won’t be doing it for you,” Miorine mutters. Prospera laughs quietly.

“I suppose you had a point,” Prospera muses. “It would have been best to leave children out of it altogether, but I— was shortsighted. I never wished any harm to come to Suletta.”

Miorine grips Suletta’s hand tighter. Sympathy for Prospera Mercury is a new and strange feeling for her. “You couldn’t help it though, could you? Ericht was involved from the very beginning.” She thinks of the children of Earth, of the two other girls who had piloted Gundams that Suletta had told her about. Adults using children, placing them in dangerous situations for their own benefit, or simply disregarding their safety entirely. Nika, acting as an informant for a terrorist group when all she had wanted was to bridge the gap between Earthian and Spacian. Shaddiq and all the other children of Grassley House.

She doesn’t want that to continue to happen. If she can, she’d like to help put a stop to it.

“Enough of this,” says Prospera. “You and I could talk around each other forever and still arrive at the same conclusion. For now, we’ll wait for Suletta to awaken."

-

Miorine is dozing against the bed when Suletta finally regains consciousness.

Prospera has gone for the night; several members of Earth House had come by and she’d taken her leave, declaring it “too rowdy” for her in passing to Miorine. Secretly, Miorine had agreed, but she also thought it would make Suletta happy, that she might be able to wake if she heard the voices of their friends. They’d set up a card game, and after several rounds, Miorine finally allowed herself to be dealt in. Nika had smiled at her when she accepted her hand.

Now she’s halfway asleep, face pressed against Suletta’s mattress, Ericht resting between their hands. Her back is aching. She should wake up, lie back in the chair. It’s a recliner. She has a pillow. She can’t bring herself to open her eyes and move.

A throat clears above her.

Miorine scrunches her eyes more tightly shut, grumbling internally to herself. She doesn’t want to get up. She’s tired. She hasn’t been sleeping as well as she could be, although she’ll allow herself to return to her room every three days or so to sleep overnight there. Prospera has described her as “haggard” in an overly-concerned tone of voice. Sometimes she thinks she liked it better when they were displaying only open animosity toward one another.

The throat clears again. Miorine drags her heavy eyelids back, sitting up. Probably it’s a nurse coming to check Suletta’s vital signs; she’s in the way where she’s at. She rubs her wrist across her eyes. When she opens them fully, it’s to find Suletta’s own eyes open, looking into hers.

“Miorine?” she mumbles. Her voice is a dry croak, a vague look in her eyes. Miorine’s burn.

“Suletta,” she whispers. Her voice is choked, her vision blurry. She wipes her eyes again. A moment passes, and panic flashes through Suletta’s eyes briefly before disappearing, dimmed by exhaustion and painkillers. 

“I can’t— move my arm,” she says quietly. Miorine’s heart drops like a stone. She stands quickly.

“I’ll go get the doctor—”

“Wait. Don’t go.” Miorine halts. “It’s okay.” She sounds groggy. “I could hear you,” Suletta says. Miorine reaches out to touch her arm. Suletta’s eyelids flutter, but she doesn’t react otherwise.

“Can you feel that?”

Suletta’s brow furrows. “…No.”

Her throat constricts. Unbidden, more tears come to her eyes, and she wipes them away. Prospera’s words come back to her. But—

“Are you okay?” Suletta whispers.

Miorine presses her face against Suletta’s shoulder. Her tears are soaking into her hospital gown, trailing down Miorine’s own neck. You’re back, she thinks, and then her arms are going around her. Her body gives absolutely no reaction. It’s awkward; she’s halfway on top of her and the bed, bedrail pressing into her stomach, and Suletta can’t return the hug, but it doesn’t matter. She can hear the thrum of her heart and the movement of her lungs within her chest. She hadn’t been able to, in the vacuum of space with their suits on; only the sound of her voice, weak but sure, had reassured Miorine that she wasn’t dead. She’d pried her helmet off her once they’d gotten inside, but at that point, she had been unconscious. Miorine held her until they were finally separated by the medical staff.

“Don’t be sad,” Suletta murmurs. She sounds like she’s sliding back into sleep. Miorine turns her face to the side, cheek resting against her chest— just enough to be heard— but she doesn’t release her.

“I’m not sad. I’m happy.”

“Oh,” Suletta mumbles. Miorine pulls back. Her eyes are closed; she tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and Suletta’s eyes reopen with a seemingly great effort. They’re clouded over and unfocused. She wonders how much of the conversation she’s actually following.

“Sleep,” Miorine tells her. The doctors don’t have to look at her right now. They can wait. Suletta frowns. 

“I don’t want to. I heard you,” she repeats. Miorine’s hand has lingered on her face, and Suletta leans into her touch.

“Thank you. For being kind to my mom.”

Miorine’s not sure how to respond. She could say of course, but in truth being kind to Prospera had taken a Herculean effort up until recently. But she wants to be able to know her, to accept her presence in Suletta’s life. She had decided this when Suletta told her of her mother’s past, when Miorine knew she was going to marry her after all. 

“I want you two to get along.” Suletta’s voice is a little stronger now. Miorine wraps her arms back around her, leaning her head against her shoulder again. She breathes in deeply.

“I know,” Miorine says. “And Ericht, too.” Calling her future sister-in-law by a diminutive is strangely off-putting, Miorine has decided. Isn’t she nearly a decade older than them?

Suletta makes a humming noise that reverberates through her chest but doesn’t say anything. Miorine leans back to get a look at her face. Her eyes are still open, her forehead wrinkled in thought. Miorine starts to ask what she’s thinking of, but Suletta interrupts her.

“She says she enjoys spending time with you.”

She’s not surprised to find out that Suletta can hear the little voice issuing from the keychain as well. Prospera had as good as confirmed it has something to do with the data storm. Miorine unwinds her arms from Suletta’s back, picking her hand up and placing it palm up in her lap. She puts the red keychain within it; her fingers make no move to close around it. Suletta smiles at her; it’s still a little weak, but her eyes are more aware now. Miorine’s heart warms. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. Miorine rubs her thumb across her wrist. She still looks so very tired.

“She says… that you and Mom are funny together, too.” Suletta frowns. “What does that mean?”

“She thought that was funny?”

“What?”

“We had… growing pains.”

To her surprise, Suletta cracks another smile at this. “I’m glad,” she whispers, and this seems so disconnected from their conversation that Miorine frowns, but then she says, “I always thought you two would get along. Or maybe I just hoped it.”

Get along feels like a strong descriptor for her current relationship with Prospera, but Miorine says, “It’ll be okay. I’m getting to know her.”

“Thank you,” Suletta says again, and Miorine takes both her hands in hers, thumb brushing against Ericht. It’s like she can’t stop touching her. She had had an inkling, the first time she’d held Suletta, that she would be the clingier of the two in their relationship. Both this and the preceding conversation had felt like placing her whole life in Suletta’s hands. Strong and capable as they are, it had still made her nervous. Now, she feels safer. 

Suletta is gazing at her face, a subdued smile on her lips. Her eyes are bright and elated, though. “You’re okay,” she whispers. “I was worried— that you weren’t.” Her thoughts seem to be zigzagging around.

Miorine’s laugh is bemused. “I was worried about you. Do you even remember anything?”

Suletta frowns slightly, but the expression passes over her face quickly, a blip on the radar. She’s thinking hard. “I guess not. Everything was dissolving… and then you… You found me.” She says this in a tone of awe.

And Suletta had been more concerned about Miorine’s wellbeing. Of course she had. “You’re so—” She can’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t know if she wants to call her amazing or stupid, but more likely she’ll just start sobbing, and she doesn’t want Suletta to worry about her further. They’re together now. Everything will be okay.

She’s so loving. Miorine wants to love her back in full now. She pushes the rail of the bed down. Suletta watches her quizzically, but then she’s holding her again, and she can’t see her face. Something presses against the top of her head.

She sits in silence with Suletta, until she says, “Miorine.”

The burning excitement at hearing her voice for the first time in over a month has dimmed to glowing embers; still there, but a gentle smolder, not the all-encompassing sensation it had been. It allows her to notice what she hadn’t, at first. “Did you just call me Miorine?”

Suletta’s face wrinkles in confusion. She still seems muddled. But then it clears, and she looks… not exactly remorseful, but something akin to it. “Is that okay? I thought—”

“It’s okay,” Miorine interrupts. “I… always wanted you to call me that, actually.” She’d never understood how Suletta could go one minute speaking to her so formally, and then the next requesting to call her the most ridiculous nickname she’d ever heard. After that, she’d thought Suletta would just drop it altogether, but she’d gone back to politeness instead. It had put a little distance between them, and as time went on, Miorine found herself wanting it to disappear.

She feels a strange happiness at the fact that Suletta has finally dropped the honorific, without her even having to ask. She’s grown a little more assertive. It’s nice.

Suletta’s eyes take on a mischievous sparkle. “Is it too late for Miomio?”

Maybe not that nice. “Absolutely not.” Suletta’s mouth quirks, but it has all the strength of her previous smiles. She wishes she would go back to sleep. She knows the doctors are going to come in here soon and start poking and prodding her; whatever pain or discomfort she’s already in is going to get a whole lot worse. But she also knows Suletta can handle it. She’ll just be here with her, as long as she wants her to be.

“Is… is my mom…”

“I’ll go get her,” says Miorine, standing up. She touches Suletta’s hair briefly, since she can evidently feel sensation on her head. She’s suddenly gripped by the urge to kiss her— not even on the lips, just on her cheek or forehead, but that can wait. They have a whole lifetime for that.

“I’ll be back,” she says to the two sisters before leaving the room.

-

Miorine pulls Prospera out of a dead sleep; she can tell. She’s a little overexcited. She hadn’t quite run down the halls, but she had moved with a speed not normally seen in her, and now she’s hammering on Prospera’s door. Her mother-in-law answers it with a distinctly unimpressed expression on her face. She’s in her wheelchair. 

The first time Miorine had sought her out like this, way back at Asticassia, she’d been trying to pick a fight with her over Suletta. Now she’s come to tell her that her daughter is awake. She does so without preamble.

Prospera blinks owlishly. Then, she wheels herself out into the hallway, coming to a stop beside Miorine. Miorine understands; she begins pushing Prospera in the direction of Suletta’s room.

When they reach the room, a nurse and the neurologist are within, examining Suletta. She still looks halfway asleep. The doctor looks around at Miorine and smiles.

“We won’t bother her too much. It being the middle of the night and all,” she says. “There’s a lot we’re going to have to do… But we’ll leave her with you all for now.”

Prospera’s eyes narrow. She stands from her wheelchair and sits in her usual seat to Suletta’s right, and Suletta’s head tilts in her direction. The doctor puts her tablet back in her pocket and motions to the nurse. The pair leave.

Prospera reaches out for Suletta’s hand and takes it. The expression that crosses her face makes Miorine’s chest and throat tighten. The tears flow down her face when Suletta’s eyes light up and she lets out a soft “Mom!”

“Welcome back,” Prospera murmurs.

Ericht is still resting in Suletta’s hand. The two turn to look at her— she must be saying something— and Prospera smiles.

“Don’t be a troublemaker.” Suletta giggles.

Miorine walks backward, in the direction of the door. She doesn’t think she should be here right now. It’s okay. She can come back later. Suletta and her mother and sister have a lot to talk about. She’s reaching her hand out, feeling along the wall for the switch, when Suletta’s eyes land on her. They widen in surprise, and then her eyebrows pull together. “Miorine—”

“Where are you going?”

Miorine and Suletta turn to Prospera. She’s resting her head on one hand, her other still holding on to Suletta’s. Her eyes are gentle. For once, Miorine doesn’t bristle at her attention.

“I’ll leave you all alone to catch up. I’ll be back,” she says softly to Suletta.

“I don’t want you to go,” Suletta protests, and Miorine bites her lip.

“Stay,” Prospera says. “Aren’t you part of this family?”

“Eri says you should stay, too,” Suletta offers, and a wry smile begins to tug at Miorine’s lips. She’ll have to put her foot down, or the three of them will try to gang up on her like this all the time, she thinks. 

She doesn’t make a show of acquiescing; she simply returns to Suletta’s other side, across from Prospera. She takes the hand that still contains Ericht, loosely wrapping her fingers around her. Suletta beams at her.

“I’m so happy everybody’s here,” she breathes, her eyes beginning to slide shut again. The expression on Prospera’s face is very tender. Miorine doesn’t think she’s ever seen her look at Suletta that way before. It’s the way a mother should look at her child.

Suletta falls into slumber again, but neither makes a move to leave. They sit in the silence Miorine has grown to expect with the two of them. It’s more comfortable than it’s ever been. 

After a while, she looks to Prospera. She’s fallen asleep herself. 

“Are you awake?” she murmurs to Ericht. There’s no response, not that she’d been expecting one. 

“I suppose you and I will be able to speak to each other soon,” she says.

She wonders what type of person Ericht is. It sounds like she’s as protective of Suletta as Miorine is— she’d tried to keep her happy in her own way, too. They’ll probably get along, although the way Suletta and Prospera talk, it seems she has a mischievous side of her own.

It might be nice to have a sister-in-law. She’d never looked forward to marrying into another person’s family, but if Suletta’s there, she’s sure it will be fine. She and Prospera have reached an understanding. Hopefully now they can all make Suletta happy in the way she wants to be.

She places her lips near Suletta’s ear. “Thank you for coming back,” she whispers.