Van

Van leaned into Luca as he guided her down the hallway to the nearest bathroom. He did not fill the silence with unnecessary chatter, though she was certain he was brimming with questions, and later she would tell him how much she appreciated his restraint. After spending what felt like an eternity with nothing but the sound of her voice, every creak of the floorboards and whisper in the air overloaded her senses. She caught herself flinching and snapping her eyes shut in response, and it frightened her how comforting it felt to return to the darkness. Almost as if it was part of her.

"Sit here," Luca said, offering his arm for support as she lowered herself to the closed toilet seat. "I'll run your water."

She studied him while he fiddled with the knobs, making the pipes in the old house hiss and groan with the effort. His dark hair was longer, falling into his eyes as he lowered his hand into the frothy stream of water to test the temperature. Black stubble grew on his square jaw and over his full top lip. It lacked the patchiness most boys had when they grew their first beards- no doubt a benefit of his animal nature.

Van normally liked beards. Hailey once told her they were the male equivalent of contouring, and there was no denying she found the look attractive on the shifter. But she found herself wishing for the smooth lines of his clean face. The boyish tilt to his lips, and the round apples of his cheeks when he grinned.

They were all gone.

The boy she'd been falling for before drinking the potion had somehow disappeared and been replaced with a man. One whose almost naïve optimism had been replaced by a hardened cynicism that he couldn't hide with a kind smile as he turned to help her stand.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Just really excited about that bath," she replied. It wasn't a lie, but it also wasn't the answer to his question.

"Okay, well... I'll be, um, just outside the door," he spluttered, turning pink.

Van bit her bottom lip to suppress a laugh. Perhaps the boy wasn't gone completely. The door frame rattled as the door shut behind Luca, and she worked bony fingers into the waistband of the sweatpants she was wearing. They slid off her with little effort, and she caught herself staring at the protruding bones of her ankles and knees in dismay.

She'd never been a small girl. Bordering on petite- yes, but always in possession of generous curves, even as she built muscle during her training sessions with Trixie. Now, she was almost emaciated, and when she twisted to get a better look at herself in the mirror, she gasped.

Half healed sores and patches of red covered her backside. As she stared, some lightened to pink while the others shrank in size, her mixed-heritage as a Slayer and Protean doing its best to heal her. She couldn't imagine what she would have looked like if she'd been completely human.

She curled her fingers under her t-shirt and lifted, but getting out of her top proved a challenge. Panting and red-faced, she struggled to get it above her breasts, each time her arms screaming at her in protest. Determined, she jerked upward and cried out as a burning pain whisked down her spine and drove her to her knees.

"Van," Luca shouted, his fist banging on the door. "Should I come in there?"

"Just a second," she responded, hauling herself over the side of the tub and lowering herself into the blissfully hot water.

Her t-shirt billowed around her, and it was long enough to maintain a modicum of modesty as long as she didn't submerge herself completely. Still, it mattered little to her at this point. After weeks in a sickbed, she doubted she had much modesty left, and she really, really wanted her hair washed, which meant she had to ask for help.

"You can come in."

The door swung open and Luca stepped inside, his eyes glued to the floor. She leaned back against the high slope of the tub and slid deeper into the water. Luca stiffened at the sound of sloshing, an expression of uncertainty crossing his features.

"You doing okay?"

"I'm going to need help washing my hair," Van explained, using her toe to turn on the tap while squeezing soap into the water. A bubble bath might make him more comfortable with the task, and honestly, she thought she could use the entire bottle and not feel clean.

"Should I go get your mom? Or Hailey?"

"No," she half shouted, sitting up and grabbing the icy edges of the tub. "Please don't go."

"I'm here, Van. I didn't go anywhere before, and I'm not leaving now."

"You haven't said anything about my eyes or asked me questions."

"You'll tell me when you're ready."

His hands came down gently on her shoulders, pressing her back into the water. When she sighed in contentment, he started working on her hair. The citrus and vanilla fragrance of the shampoo perfumed the air and slowly her erratic heartbeat calmed.

"I should want my mother here," Van whispered. She moved her hands over the foam, twirling a finger into the bubbles and fighting back tears. "But... everything happened so fast after I found out she was alive. I'm still upset, but then there's also the way she looked at me when I woke up."

His fingers kneaded into her scalp and moved down her neck. She dropped her head forward to give him better access. Every touch pushed away some of her aches and brought her out of the void, but she was terrified it would come rushing back to her the moment she was alone.

"She was surprised, that's all." His touch faltered. "We were losing hope. It's been weeks, Van, and no one could do anything but watch you waste away."

She dropped her head back so she could look up at him. His eyes were squeezed shut and tears tracked down his cheeks. More evidence that Luca wasn't the same. He'd always been stoic in the face of loss and hardship, but now, he was unraveling. And it was her fault.

"I'm sorry."

His eyes flew open. Disbelief flooded the warm brown irises as he shook his head, gripping her face with his damp hands.

"What you did, you did to save your mother," he growled. "Never be sorry for sacrificing yourself for family."

Swallowing hard, she looked away and remained silent as he rinsed the shampoo from her hair and added conditioner. Everything always came to family for the two of them. It drew them together and separated them. Made them allies and enemies and all the things in between until she didn't know what path they could take to move forward. That last day together... he'd kissed her, and the girl she'd been thought that was enough.

That girl didn't exist anymore.

"What about Brantley?" she asked, thoughts of family reminding her of her promise to Luca.

"We haven't found him yet." His tone was bitter. Calculated. "Now that I know you're okay, I can take part in the searches more often."

Guilt slammed into her, and immediately, Luca cursed.

"Van, I know what you're thinking."

"Am I wrong in thinking if it wasn't for me you might have found your little brother? That if I had died instead, you would have at least been free of your sense of obligation toward me?"

She screamed the last part, and for the first time since waking, she felt a spark of light in her chest. A piece of her old self waking from slumber.

Luca dumped two cupfuls of water over her head, causing her to splutter before he stormed away from her. She gaped at him through water streaming down her face. His light blue henley was soaked as a result of his out of character outburst, and she might have laughed if not for the rage emanating off of him.

"I won't do this again," he warned.

Shivering, Van hunkered into the warmth of the bath water. "Do what, exactly?"

"Just sit back and let you push me away- push everyone away because things are hard. I chose to stay here because my family was involved with the search. I wasn't choosing you over Brantley. We worked together so we could each be where we were needed most, and if they had so much as a whisper of his location, I would've been there to help. Because that- Van- is what families do for each other. It's not a sign of weakness to let other people help you."

"I know that," she insisted, the lie sticking in her throat. Letting people close enough to help you meant letting them close enough to hurt you. Look at what happened when she trusted her father. But she knew Luca was different, and she couldn't lose him.

He pushed his hair out of his eyes and exhaled, his shoulders sagging as if defeated. "I hope you do. Because everything is different now. You're going to see when you step out of these rooms. It's not just you and me anymore. There's a lot of people counting on each other, and if we don't work together, all of this will be for nothing. Call for me when you need help to get out."

Van stared at the door long after it snicked shut behind him. Her head spun from the sudden change between them. When the water grew too cold to bear, she slowly hauled herself out and wrapped a fluffy towel around her trembling body. Already, the void crept back in Luca's absence, erasing the bits of herself she'd reclaimed, and when she looked at herself in the mirror, the white glow burned brighter. Almost erasing the black limbal ring around her iris.

Looking down, she whispered, "He's just outside the door. Your mom is here. Your brother is here. You're not alone. You're not alone."

"Van? You finished?" Luca called out, his tone kinder- closer to the boy she met at the Academy.

"Yeah, do you mind helping me get back to the room?" she asked, relieved to find the shine had faded when she raised her gaze. She didn't know if it meant anything, but for now, it was something. And she would take what she could get.