Above the Most Broken Clouds

Above the Most Broken Clouds is the sequel to Under a Very Black Sky and On the Dying Horizon, and is the third installment of the Within the Suffering Aether Trilogy.

Chapter One
When I think back to that time, the only word that really comes to mind is pain. That is the only way I can really describe what it was like, being trapped in the wilds, being hunted by the condemned ones, the monsters, and the purple-eyed living that worked with them. They controlled the animals of the forest, I had no chance to hunt for anything. Every day was spent running away from something, fighting back the jaws of death that so eagerly snapped at me, wanting to consume what little life I had left in me. I escaped the cabin by diving out a window after the doors of the house gave way and the condemned flooded in. I locked myself inside the bathroom, kicked the door open and climbed out, leaving some greek fire charges behind. They blew up when the bathroom door gave way, sending me flying who knows how far and turning the cabin to a pile of ash.

After that I just ran, trying to kill my way past anything that moved. Hours turned to days. Days turned into weeks. Pretty soon I lost track of time completely, hiding in caves and in hollowed out trees in the area. I lost the cowl of darkness after two weeks, using it to blind a condemned and push it into a bear cave. That proved to be a really terrible mistake. When the winter came, I had nothing warm to wear. Winter was the hardest part. I stayed warm mostly through killing condemned and stealing whatever jacket looked warmest and burning the bodies. Every day for...Hades knows how long, I just moved, killed, and burned the bodies for warmth.

But that was the easy part. Food was the most scarce thing in the winter. On the rare chance I could snag a rabbit or a squirrel, it would only last me so long, considering most animals were in hibernation. And when the spring came, all I could do for the most part was try to avoid the bears and the wolves, the latter of which hunted me incessantly for days on end before, during a chase, I fell off a cliff and into the newly melted river. I think I was closest to death that day. I don't know how long I was thrown through the rapids and repeatedly dashed against the stones, or how far the river carried me, but it was when I ran out of air that my vision went black and the next thing I remember is being dragged through the forests by the ones with the purple eyes.

In my starved, dehydrated, exhausted state, trying to fight them off was the hardest fight of my life. All my usual strength had left me, and I did everything smacking them with stones to stabbing them with my weapons to the best of my ability. The two of them were enhanced by Chaos, making it doubly hard. It wasn't until I physically tore out one of their jugulars with my teeth that I gained the upper hand. For the life of me, I'm never going to get that moment out of my memory. That awful, copper taste, the cry of shock from his companion, the gurgle he made in a vain attempt to breathe, and the stains his blood left on my face and teeth, before I began fighting off and eventually cutting the head off the other. They had friends, who chased me for no less than two days with no rest, it seems the soldiers of Chaos don't need sleep. I wound up taking cover inside a thin log that most people wouldn't have been able to fit in. I did it though. I'd lost a lot of weight from starvation and loss of water weight, but even then I had needed to dislocate one of my shoulders to fit inside.

I stayed in that log, surviving off of a stolen bottle of water, for...I lost track of the days after five. Then, when the sounds of the searchers vanished, I squeezed out and started looking for food and water. All there was was a small puddle of rainwater and a single berry bush. I cut the bush from the ground and started walking with it, filling the stolen water bottle in the puddle and taking it with me as well. I don't know how many moons it was that I made it just off of berries and water, but both were few and far between, and I sometimes went days without.

Eventually I became too weak to carry my crossbow, and had to leave it behind, burying it under a rock. I'll find you again someday. I think as I keep walking. A couple weeks after that, I had to turn my sword back into its necklace form, my arms not strong enough to carry even that. In spite of this, I kept moving, and it wasn't until the summer passed that anything worthy of note happened. I had long since lost track of where the hell I was, but then, I found a road and followed it for a few hours, eventually coming upon a sign.

"Welcome to..." I hesitated, not sure how to pronounce the next word. "Ee-oh-wah." I shrugged and kept moving, eventually coming upon a long, seemingly endless field. I kept walking, a walk that turned into a stumble, eventually. If I wasn't mildly delirious and dying, I probably would have appreciated the scenic sunrises and sunsets as I stumbled through the fields. Then, as I hobbled along, trying desperately to stay awake, I saw something. People, fighting what looked like a Chaos-Hyperborean. A group of demigods, maybe?

I stumbled over as they succeeded in bringing the monster down with a volley of crossbow shots. Then, they turned and saw me, aiming their weapons for a long moment. I think one of them said something, but before I could reply, my vision blackened and I collapsed, unconscious.

I woke up in a soft bed, my body aching in places I didn't know it could ache, with a large tray of food sitting in front of me. I tore into it and wolfed the meal down in ten minutes tops. I looked around, not recognizing the relatively ordinariness of the room. It was a relatively basic bedroom, overall, with my knife and boots sitting next to the door, and a change of clothes sitting on the foot of the bed. I slowly, quietly, made my way over, changed into the new clothes and started walking. You wouldn't believe how strangely satisfying it is having a new long sleeved shirt that wasn't stolen from a dead person.

I slipped my boots back on and picked up my dagger. I slipped into the house and listened. There were people talking down a flight of stairs, and I realized I was on the second floor of a building. I slipped over to the corner by the stairway and listened. "You think she's the one?"

"Without a doubt. They've been looking for her for a while."

"Should we take her?" After I heard the second voice say that I looked over and saw a window that led outside, left open just enough for me to slip through. I quietly made my way over and climbed out. They must be looking to hand me over to purple-eyes. I think and squeeze through the open window and climbing down to the ground. Navigating the city wasn't easy, but I eventually just picked a direction and started going that way, not really knowing where I was headed. The neighborhood of whatever city I was in was quiet, and I stuck to mostly back lanes and side streets.

Then, as I stepped out onto a more main road, I froze, looking across the street and recognizing something. Pale blonde hair down to her shoulders, my height, rather slender, the only difference was that she had those piercing purple eyes, and she seemed to be scanning the city for something.

Something grabbed me and pulled me back into the back lane. Whoever it was was a lot stronger than me, and had me in a quick, perfectly executed headlock. "Shhh, shhh, shhh." A young woman's voice says. I ignore her and start trying to slam elbows into her ribs. She doesn't even flinch, but I hear her sigh sadly, and I realize I must have been weaker than I thought. "Zoe, please stop." She says. I freeze and she lets me go. I turn and look at her and my eyes widened.

"Aren't you...aren't you Zack's girl?" I ask.

"Ex." Ava replies. "They're looking for you, you didn't need to run away from the safe house, thought Nat was going to lose her mind completely."

"So that's what that place was."

"Yeah, c'mon, we'll head back there and we can take you back to camp."

"Wait." I say. "If you know who I am why'd I hear people debating who I am?" I ask. She sighs.

"Well they didn't know you and frankly, you look like shit." Ava says.

"Course." I mutter. "Well...I could walk home."

"Yeah, no you couldn't, come on." Ava says and points back in the direction I came. I half-nod, half-shrug, and start walking with her back to the safe house. About halfway back I realize just what a mistake I made by eating that meal as quickly as I did. It ends up on the side of someone's fence as Ava watches looking both annoyed and disgusted. Once I've finished vomiting I look over at her and wipe my mouth.

"Can we stop for food?" I ask, and I start laughing uncontrollably. All the hell and chaos I've been through the past several months, it all just comes pouring out in, strangely, a laugh. I laugh so hard that Ava has to actually grab my arm and pull me back to the safe house, where we find that other questy girl Natalie inside with the people who ran the house in the first place.

"Thanks gods, you found her." Natalie says.

"Yeah, but we're gonna need to leave soon." Ava says. "The leader's in town, probably looking for Zoe." Natalie's eyes widen and she nods.

"You all should evacuate the safe house." Natalie says to one of the other demigods. "Find a different shelter, they may come looking for you if they know you found her."

"We'll start packing." One of them says and they start rushing about the house, collecting supplies.

"Keep the shirt, Zoe." One of the girls tells me. "It'll fit you soon." I cock my head to the side, confused. I'd thought that I had been left a shirt that was several sizes too big just because it was what they had to spare. I watch the girl for a moment, trying to gauge her size, and I see she's about the same as what I thought I was. Hades below, I must have lost a lot of weight out there... I think.

"Zoe, we'll grab you some food and head out, will you be alright for the drive?" Natalie asks as Ava heads into the garage, starting their car up.

"How long of a drive is it?" I ask.

"It'll be about seventeen hours." Natalie says.

"Well, I did just fine in the woods for the last...what's the date?"

"October sixteenth, two-thousand fifteen. You've been missing for fourteen months." She says, and I feel the color drain from my face for a moment. I had never expected it to be that long.

"Well...If I made it that long wandering the nowhere, I think I can make it a couple days in a car with you ladies." I say, but I'm pretty sure my face betrayed how I really felt. What had I missed? What had happened? What had happened with my friends? How were they doing? Were they still alive? Had they forgotten me completely? And who was this leader Ava spoke of, the one that made Natalie look so worried?

"Alright." Natalie says, but I could tell she saw right through me. "Head into the car, I'll grab you breakfast, please eat it slowly this time."

"Yup, will do." I say and head over to the car and climb in the back seat. Ava's sitting in the driver's seat, staring out her window. "You driving the whole way?" I ask.

"Nah, Nat'll take over halfway there." She replies.

"So why're you two out here?" I ask. "Don't you guys live up at Camp or something?"

"Not all of us." She sighs. "Not anymore." My heart drops and immediately worry if someone has died.

"What happened?"

"School happened." Ava says with a shrug. I blink twice and raise an eyebrow. "I moved away for college."

"...What's a college?"

"An institution that sucks the soul from you as well as your entire financial security in order to give you a better understanding of something you either hate and can do or love and cannot."

"Umm." I truly had no idea what to say. "I'm sorry?"

"Don't be, I wanted to do it."

"So if you're...institutionalized...why're you here?"

"Reading week. They let us free for a short while." Ava replies with a shrug. "Was visiting with everyone and Zack told me about everything that's going on. We got word you'd been found so I said I could help by shadowing me and Nat here to come get you."

"Well, thanks." I say. It occurs to me that I've never really talked to this one very much before. She's kinda funny. I think and smirk slightly. I like her. "So what did everyone from your crew end up doing?"

"Me, Nat, and Kyra are all going to school." Ava says. "Michael moved away, we're not sure where he ran off to, really." She sighs sadly and closes her eyes for a moment. "And Zack is still at Camp, helping coordinate the efforts against the chaos people your story described."

"How are things going with that?" I ask. "People are actively trying to fight them?"

"Yeah, but it's a bit more complicated than that. Honestly it might be easier if Zack explains everything once you've recovered a bit."

"Hey I can hear it now."

"Yeah but if I tell you now you're gonna try to join the fight the second we arrive." Ava says, looking back at me. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"...Point." I mutter. Natalie climbs in the back seat with me, holding a bag of food.

"For the love of Zeus, please, slowly." She says. "This isn't exactly our car."

"Yes, dear." I joke, taking a form of breakfast sandwich and slowly munching on it as Ava starts the car and drives off. After we've left the city's limits, I turn to Nat. "So, will you tell me what's going on?"

"Depends on what you want to know." Natalie says after a long moment.

"What happened to my friends?"

"They're all ok." Natalie tells me. "They were all really shaken after you vanished, but for the most part they're alright. They kinda went their own ways in some senses."

"Alright for the most part?"

"Some of them took you going missing harder than the others." Nat says after a moment. "I don't really want to speak for them, but they're all alive."

"Ok, thank you." I nod. I decide to give them a while before I ask my next question, and participate in the road trip small talk for almost four hours before I spring it on them. "So, why did I see my universe's Stella walking around that city?" Silence reigns in the car for a good three minutes.

"What do you mean?" Natalie asks after a long moment.

"Just before Ava grabbed me, I saw her. Purple eyes and everything, not something this universe's Stella has. Why is she here? She should be dead." Ava noticeably deflates a bit in the driver's seat. "You hoped I wouldn't have noticed."

"Yeah." Ava shakes her head and keeps her eyes focused on the road.

"Why?"

"We were worried if you saw her you'd run to her. You almost did."

"I wanted to know what was going on." I say, getting a bit defensive. "Maybe you should explain it to me now so I don't go running to her again." There is a measure of silence again.

"You remember what Robin said, people like them were coming through, living and dead, agents of Chaos?" Natalie starts off, looking at her shoes.

"Stella's one of them and she's looking for me?" I guess.

"We think she's the leader. The head of Chaos' army, the one the agents answer to." Nat says, unable to make eye contact all of a sudden.

"Ok." I say and look out the window for a moment. "Thanks for telling me." Ava looks behind her at Nat, and they share a look of what I guess was surprise. Probably at how even my voice was. I was honestly really surprised and how...calm I was. It was as if I wasn't even surprised, wasn't even hurt by what I had just learned. I just accepted it and moved on. Stella was dead. She'd been dead for a long time. Nothing chaos could do would convince me otherwise.

"Are you ok?" Nat asks after a few minutes.

"Yeah." I say, looking back. "I'm good. She died a while ago. Years ago. A reanimated corpse is something I'm used to." I shrug. That and...well...you found someone else here, didn't you, Zoe? I ask myself. My gut does a somersault as I realize I'm going to see everyone again soon. Scott, Maya, Caden, my half sister Ziva, Carly...Kylie...

I shake my head, but can't shake the stupid grin from my face. A couple hours pass, mostly filled with a bit of small talk here and there and Nat making sure I didn't pass out or something. When we stop so Ava and Nat can switch between driving and not driving, I notice something in the rear view mirror. "Hey, what's that coming up behind us?" I ask, pointing.

"Zeus above." Nat says, looking in the mirror and taking off. Ava takes out a couple of throwing knives and opens up the sun roof. "Chaos-Nemean Lion." My eyes widen and I look out the back window, seeing the purple eyed monster charging us from behind, a massive gash in its throat.

"Hades below what the hell?" I mutter as Ava pokes her head out, knife in hand. She waits to throw it, then, as it draws within a hundred meters of us, she lets it fly. It strikes the beast square in the face and, to my alarm, it explodes. The monster stops running after us and starts thrashing its head around, confused and completely discombobulated. Ava comes back into the car.

"Gonna have to do it, Nat."

"You sure Zoe can take it?"

"Stop playing the pronoun game and explain!" I say, looking between the two of them.

"I'm gonna need a nap when this is over." Ava grumbles. Then, everything was dark, and we were moving so fast I felt the urge to throw up rising again. Then, it was all over, and light returned, and we were still moving way too fast, right through the gates of Camp Half-Blood. Nat slams on the breaks and Ava soars from the back seat into the front, landing on Nat's lap and causing the horn to go off. Ava scrambles off of Nat and falls out the door as Nat opens it and steps out. She comes around and opens the door for me, holding a hand out and helping me out.

"Welcome home." She says. I can't help but let that big dumb grin back on my face.

Chapter Two
I'm whisked off to the Apollo Cabin, which has a medical center in it for some reason. I'm taken inside and put on a bed fairly quickly. Soft bed...so weird... I think to myself. A few children of Apollo that I don't recognize approach me, looking concerned, and one crouches next to my head. "Hey, Zoe." He says. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm alive." I say, not really sure how to answer.

"Well that's good." He says, laughing a really fake laugh. "We're going to put you under for a little while so we can treat you, ok?"

"Put me under? What, the lake?" I ask, unable to keep the joke inside for some reason. I start laughing at my own joke, so I guess I was in pretty bad shape at the time.

"It'll be a bit like having a nap, ok?" He says as the other one starts preparing a bag full of some kind of liquid. "You're safe here, I promise."

"Ok..." I say. All of a sudden, the exhaustion really hits me. Everything becomes so sore, my entire body aches in places I didn't know existed. Then, they stick a needle in my arm and I fall asleep. It is a glorious, dreamless sleep, and easily the most restful I've had in a long, long time.

I awaken to the sound of shouting.

"I don't give a damn about what you think, I want to see her!" Someone is screaming outside the cabin. My eyes flutter open and I look around. "Get the hell out of my way!"

"She's still asleep, let her rest, for the gods' sake!" Someone yells back.

"No I'm not!" I shout, feeling a twinge of familiarity in that voice. There is silence outside.

"Out of my way, choir boy." The voice says, angrily.

"Please just let her in, man..." A second voice says. There's silence again, followed by the door being thrown open, and a raven haired girl my age comes sprinting in. I sit up a bit, and realize I feel a bit heavier.

"Zoe." Ziva says, locking eyes with me and she rushes to my bedside. She flings an arm around me, and I realize with a jolt she doesn't have a prosthetic where I had cut her arm off beforehand. "You're ok." She says, pulling away a bit, her eyes shining and a grin crossing her face.

"Hey, sis." I say, grinning as well. "Sorry I'm late." We both burst out laughing and she hugs me again, this time I return it, my arms still weak, but they were strong enough for me to hold onto her for a moment. "So why am I still on this bed?"

"Zoe, do you have any idea the shape you were in?" Ziva asks, pulling away again.

"Not really, no."

"When you left you were walking around at like, a hundred thirty pounds or so, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"When they brought you here you were eighty-five." Ziva says, and my eyes widen.

"Well...that isn't good."

"No, it isn't. That's why they put you under, so they could IV you and start treating other ailments." She sits down on the bed next to me and grips my hand. "They have you back up to a hundred pounds right now, but you'll have to start eating again soon. Slowly, Nat told me."

"Slowly, yeah." I agree. "How long was I out?"

"About thirteen hours. I only found out an hour ago." Ziva tells me. "They're trying to get you to bounce back slowly, ease you into it."

"Where's everyone else?"

"Caden, Scott, and Maya are all off on assignment." She says. "Kylie...Kylie doesn't come to camp full time anymore. She decided she wanted to finish high school, so she's going to a school in New York now."

"Ok." I immediately start thinking about them. Caden Scott and Maya all off on a mission must mean they're all ok. They must have all recovered from the mission I went on with them, at least. And Kylie... ''Oh gods. She must have been terrible, thinking I was gone.'' I think. She must have left here to avoid thinking of me...oh gods Kylie, I'm sorry... Then, an even scarier thought comes to mind, considering who Ziva hasn't mentioned. "Carly?" Ziva winces, and my heart and stomach plummet. "Please, tell me she's ok."

"We haven't seen Carly in a long time." Ziva says. "We all thought you were dead, except her. Carly never gave up hope in you surviving. She became...almost obsessed with it. I've never seen her like that. She kept leaving for weeks at a time, trying to find you." She lets out a long, tired sigh. "I tried to calm her down one day. She just...lost it. Started crying like crazy for a long time, hiding in your old cabin. Eventually she just stood up and said 'She isn't dead. I won't, I can't believe it' and she ran off. We haven't seen her since. It's been two months."

"I see." I say, and my eyes start welling up. Oh Hades...Carly, I'm so sorry... Ziva leans in and wipes a tear from my cheek.

"We'll get her back, don't worry." Ziva says, giving me a small smile.

"Yeah...we will. I made it home, so can she." I say. I hear the door to the cabin open and I realize they may want Ziva to leave. I wait until the same Apollo kid shows up, and I give him probably the most threatening look I've ever given someone. "She stays." He opens his mouth to speak, but I wasn't having it. "No. Shut up. She stays, it would help me."

"...Alright." he says after a moment and produces a bag of food.

"I'll help her, go treat the others." Ziva says. He looks like he's about to argue, then shrugs and leaves.

"Others?" I ask as Ziva, quite skillfully, given she only has one arm now, prepares a sandwich for me. I grab it from her and start eating, suddenly feeling somewhat ravenous.

"Summer was...interesting. There was a lot of crazy shit happening that I don't quite understand, pretty similar to what happened with you, actually, just on a much bigger scale. Chaos' army took the opportunity to use it as a distraction while their power grew. Ever since that crisis was ended a bunch of us have been leading the charge against Chaos. Since The Questers aren't exactly a thing anymore, our group has been taking command, I guess. Zack is still around and helping out, as is Kyra, but it's mostly been us, since we were closest to you and learned more from you. It's all been on a volunteer basis, so mostly the older campers have been working with us to go cross-country to take on Chaos monsters wherever they appear."

"Are the portals still open?"

"Yeah. We've been unable to get anywhere near them, they're too heavily guarded."

"Once I've recovered, I can help."

"I know you can." Ziva pats my leg. "You don't have to convince me, convince Chiron and Dionysus."

"Oh I will." I say, moodily tearing a chunk from my sandwich. "So...Ziva, I'm sorry about-" I gesture to the stump just below her right elbow. "-this."

"Don't be." She says, giving me a small smile. "If you hadn't cut it off then that Drakon would have gobbled me up like I was a piece of popcorn chicken."

"I don't know what that is..."

"Tiny chunks of chicken people eat." Ziva laughs. "But yeah, don't feel bad, and don't be sorry. You saved my life, so thank you."

"Why don't you have a prosthetic or something put on? Wouldn't it make a lot of things easier?"

"Yeah, probably." Ziva stares into space for a moment, looking like she's trying to figure out what exactly she wants to say. "But at the same time, taking a prosthetic would just mean that I took the easy way out, y'know? You struggled through a lot worse in your life, and I guess a part of me wanted to honor you by taking the struggle to learn how to use my left hand." She holds her left hand up and shrugs. "I don't really know, honestly. I just rejected the idea when it was offered to me. Maybe it's the hubris, which you seemed to not get, lucky you. We got more drachmas out of it, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"Zeus decided to pay us in compensation for the job, losing you, and the arm." Ziva explains.

"How much did you get?" I ask, bemused.

"Twenty-thousand drachmas." She says.

"Hades." I say and whistle. "What'd you spend it on?"

"Renovation on the cabin, we added a basement." She says. "And the rest has been used trying to make fighting Chaos a bit easier."

"Nice." I say. "So, uh..." I start, looking up at the IV bag hooked up to my arm. "When do they pull this thing out of me?"

"When the medics basically clear you." She says. "Not sure when that'll be, not really my area of expertise."

"Fun." I finish the sandwich off and move on to eating some kind of jiggly green substance that is labeled Jell-O. Ziva keeps me company for the next couple of hours, answering questions and keeping me entertained with stories of how she learned to use her left hand for everything.

"That was around the time that-" She is interrupted mid story by the sound of a car pulling into Camp. She stands up and looks out the door. "I'll be right back, Zoe." She says and runs off. I shift myself so I can see out the window, sitting up as straight as possible. I see Ziva running over to a very familiar looking van, and I can't help but feel my heart shoot upwards as the van comes to a stop. The side door opens, and out steps that familiar redhead Maya Arslan. She's got a cut above her left eye that's trailing blood down her face, and her sleeveless shirt shows her arms are covered in scratches and bruises, with a bite mark of some kind on her right shoulder. That aside, she looks the same as ever, still as intense as ever.

Out of the passenger seat hops Scott Sigurdson, whose arm is in a sling and is limping slightly. He looks different. Not necessarily physically, but he seems less tense, less like he's a coiled snake waiting to lash out and bite someone. He seems genuinely relaxed, strangely enough. Almost as though he's been freed of some burden that had been weighing him down since we last saw one another. Maybe he's been able to kick the habits. I think hopefully.

And then Caden Grimes steps around the car from the drivers seat. He looks fine physically, but if someone took a burden from Scott, it looks like they dropped it on Caden's shoulders instead. He looks exhausted, sad, and hurt in ways that don't really show on the surface. Ziva runs up to him and they embrace in a way that I can only describe as being intimate, and I felt like I should look away for a moment until she pulled back from him. She hugs the other two and the group shares a brief exchange of words. Maya's jaw drops and Scott stiffens. A look of an entire bag of emotions flashes across Caden's face as Ziva, I"m guessing, explains that I'm alive.

Then they started running towards the cabin I was in.

I sit back down and wait, listening for the door to open. It does and they storm in. Caden's the first one in the door and the first one to see me. I sit up again and prepare for the swarm of hugs that soon approach. He's at my side in a second and has me locked in a tight, but very gentle, warm embrace. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. I can feel the tension I saw leaving him, and I know already what was wrong. I sent him back with the others when I charged after Robin. He thought he could have saved me if he came with. "You give good hugs." I whisper to him, and he lets out a quiet laugh. He pulls back and we lock eyes for a brief moment, and I just nod at him, trying to convey the fact that he doesn't need to feel that way. He nods and sits down on a chair next to my bed, trying to keep his eyes from welling up.

Then Maya was upon me and she almost tackles me down onto the bed, she hugged me so hard. "You're alive." She says, pulling back after a moment. She has a huge grin across her face, the level of joy she was showing overpowered the fact that the cut above her eye was covering the left side of her face.

"Yeah, yeah I am." I say, smiling back at her, and she puts her forehead on my shoulder for a moment and I feel her shake briefly. I put a hand on her back, squarely between her shoulder blades and rub back and forth. "I'm back, hun." I whisper to her. She pulls back, crying visibly now, but still smiling, as Scott approaches. Never really one for hugs, he just crouches down next to me and takes my hand in both of his, giving me a small smile. From him, that alone spoke far more than any embrace could. I squeeze his hands and nod. "You look good, big guy." I say, and he shakes his head, trying to hide the amusement I know is there. Ziva comes in and stands behind Caden, putting her hand on his shoulder and watching us reunite. We're all really quiet for a long moment, me just staring at each of them in turn, absorbing every little detail about their faces, posture, the sounds of their voices, everything. I never want to forget that ever again.

"This feels way too much like the end of lord of the rings." Maya says eventually. "Let's get this girl some real food instead the hospital crap they gave her. Everyone laughs but me.

"What's Lord of the Rings?" I ask, and they laugh again.