Archive of Our Own

Technoblade, of all people, is the one who breaks the news to her.

The snow crunches beneath Niki’s feet as she shuffles around outside his house, fiddling with the latches on a tall wooden fence. Beside her, Wobbuffet noses around at the edge of the bullpen, trying (and failing) to catch Carl’s attention - the mare is wonderfully well-behaved most of the time, but she has a mischievous streak when she’s bored. Niki will take her out in the forest later, she promises.

Wobbuffet had been Phil’s idea, although the pen she’d spent the better part of the morning building was Technoblade’s. He has Carl, as always, and Phil had taken to horseriding after the destruction of L’Manberg left his wings too damaged to fly, but Niki has always been happy to wander the distance from her city to the Syndicate on foot. She’d taken to walking back when she slipped away from L’Manberg every other week to visit Eret’s castle - she likes the forest air on her face, the smell of redwood and of flowers to put on her windowsill. But the Syndicate is further from her city than the castle to L’Manberg ever was, and the server becomes more dangerous as the months go by, so Phil had fussed about it until she’d given in.

Technoblade hadn’t directly suggested building the pen, but he hadn’t suggested her building a small cabin close to the house either - he’d dropped off some stacks of wood, gruffly mentioned that she spends half her time sleeping in the spare room anyway, and left Phil to translate.

It’s only a room, really, with a bed in the corner and a line of furnaces against the back wall, but it’s hers. Phil and Techno want her here, and Niki likes to stick around. She adores her city, and she knows Techno and Phil don’t mean to take her from it, but they like having her around. She likes them, likes their company. Her city of beautiful, built of her own two stone-dusted hands, but it’s lonely and the remnants of iron bars set into the walls are more than a little unnerving when she sleeps on her own.

She refuses to admit that she’s missed feeling like this.

Wobbuffet nickers woefully at Carl’s turned back, looking over to Niki with doe eyes. Niki laughs and places a hand on her silvery muzzle.

“Soon, girl,” she says, and the communicator on her wrist beeps. That’s no surprise - what is surprising is the name Technoblade flashing up at her, requesting a call. Techno’s never been the type to chat over comm, not unless it was urgent. Nerves curl up in her stomach as she answers.

“Techno, is everything alright?”

“Oh good, you’re here,” he replies. He doesn’t sound like he’s in mortal peril - although, it’s Technoblade, and Niki wouldn’t be surprised if he could take an axe to the chest without breaking a sweat. “Niki, where are you right now?”

“The Syndicate,” she says, already reaching for the discarded tack draped over the fence. Wobbuffet presses her muzzle into her shoulder encouragingly, anticipating a trip out into the snowdrifts. Her axe, glimmering violet in the sunlight, leans against a fencepost - she grabs it with her free hand. Can she hear someone approaching? Techno might not be concerned, but she’s already casting wary eyes towards the treeline. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” She hopes not, because any injury that could down Technoblade is not one she feels qualified to mend.

“No, no,” he sounds distracted, and there’s a muffled shout that she can’t make out through the staticky voice of the communicator. He’s hard to read, as always, but he doesn’t sound afraid. Just...flatly concerned. “We’re fine. We’re, uh - look, Niki,” and his voice drops to a whisper that, honestly, is still pretty loud, “are you in a state of mind to receive information that may upset you?”

Niki blinks. “I...huh?”

“Are you - Phil’s always been so much better at this - ” there’s a huff of a sigh over the comm. “I have news. That you might not be happiest with. Are you good with that?”

“Um,” Niki says.

“I don’t want to rush you, but this is a little time sensitive - ”

Hearing Techno worry is disconcerting, worse when it’s about her. Anxiety settles in her stomach - not the kind that raises the air on her arms and arches her back when she fears she’s been followed from country to ravine to anarchist compound, but something smaller. Denser. “Go ahead, Techno.”

“Okay,” she hears him take a deep breath. “Okay. We’re almost at the Syndicate, Phil and I, but - Niki, listen. Wilbur came back.”

The axe slips from Niki’s hand.

Distantly, it thuds against the snow at her feet.

“Back?”

“Well, about to be - ”

“How.”

Techno, for his part, doesn’t bristle at the command. “Dream, apparently. Turns out Ranboo wasn’t lyin’ about Tommy. The kid went to give Dream a little visit in prison and... well.”

“Oh,” she says.

Oh.

It hasn’t sunk in yet. She nudges the axe with her foot, and rolls the words around in her mind.

Wilbur came back.

Wilbur is back.

Wilbur is alive, breathing, walking. Tommy brought him back. (That’s the least surprising thing to come of this.)

“...Niki? You still there?”

“And you called me.” It’s not meant to be an accusation, but Niki can hear how flat her own voice is.

“Tommy ‘n Tubbo were the ones who found him,” Techno explains, “although I’m pretty sure Ranboo was there with them. And then Phil ran into him, who tells me, and then Wilbur’s runnin’ off to figure out where the Syndicate is and I figured if you were there you might want a little warning - ”

There’s a staticky crackle over the comm, and the sound of muffled words exchanged.

“Is that Niki?” a voice asks. Nigh-unintelligable with static, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who’s asking. There’s more scuffling sounds through the tinny speakers, the comm snatched back and forth, before it’s wrenched back to its owner with a high-pitched whine.

“...is that Wil?” she repeats, and Techno groans.

“He’s going to trip himself if he keeps trying to run through the snow like that,” Techno says, although she doesn’t think he’s saying it to her. “He’s - Phil, get back here - he’s happy to see you, apparently, because he keeps just taking off into the snow, but, he’s…”

The comm goes quiet, and despite everything, Niki’s heart tightens anxiously.

“Techno?”

“...he’s a bit intense right now,” Techno finishes,” in that I don’t know what exactly’s come over him but it sure is something because he just keeps staring at random junk and going on about the meaning of life or whatever, and he won’t stop clinging to Phil unless he’s clinging to me. So I just wanna warn ya, because he is kind of sprinting - ”

“Niki!”

The cry comes from behind her, pulling needles to the back of her neck. Wobbuffet lifts her head, dark eyes trained intensely on something behind Niki, on something approaching.

Hands shaking, laced with a thin sheen of sweat despite the cold, Niki turns.

“Niki!” Wilbur cries, barrelling towards her through the snow - if it weren’t for his heavy footfalls and the snow kicking up around his heels she’d assume it was another mirage, because he’s wearing his old glasses and yellow sweater and there’s a snow-white streak in his hair and he looks so alive. He stops short steps away from the fencepost, staring at her and the house and Wobbuffet staring back curiously behind her, and his hands hover tentatively at his waist.

She could reach out and touch him, if she wanted.

This is what she wanted, isn’t it?

Her hands are shaking. It must be the frost - she can feel something cold burrowing its way into her chest. It sits heavy there, and she struggles to swallow.

“Niki?” he asks, staring, grin slipping off his face into something quiet and hollow.

In a split second, frozen with indecision, she thinks of:

Phil, trailing behind Wilbur with a smile on his face that she hasn’t seen since - that she hasn’t seen ever , still drawn by dark circles under his eyes but easy and carefree in a way that it hadn’t been. Phil is kind and welcoming, even to the only member of the Syndicate who doubled as an ex-member of the old L’Manberg. He’d whooped encouragingly when she told him and Techno how she burnt down the L’Mantree, even though he wouldn’t have a clue what that meant, and he helped her plant pearlwort around her cabin when she grumbled about her flowers not taking to tundra soil. Phil, following Wilbur with ravaged wings drawn around him like a funeral shroud, eyes bright and happy.

And Techno, just cresting the hill behind them, who tried calling her ahead of time to warn her about this despite the fact that they’d never even gotten along that well back when Wilbur was alive, and the fact that he of all people would hate starting that conversation the most but knew that no one else would tell her, apparently. She’d never so much as spoken to Technoblade in Pogtopia, but he welcomed her into his home and genuinely cared about her feelings and mourned Wilbur in his own quiet way, even if no one else seemed to notice it.

(For a fleeting moment, she might think of herself - dark-haired and decked out in netherite, unearthing dull red stacks of TNT below the presidential podium and realising with slow-dawning horror that she doesn’t know where Wilbur has gone. She doesn’t think of the fury that had burrowed its way into the back of her mind and spent the last six months blossoming under watchful eye, first towards herself, then towards Tommy, and then herself again. It had thawed. It will thaw, she tells herself, and the happiness of Phil and Techno and Jack and Fundy and hell, even Tommy, was worth ten times that.)

She paints a gasp across her face - delicate, practiced, amazed. 

(Well, at least shock isn’t too difficult for her to imitate now.)

“Wil?”

His mouth pulls up into a wild smile again, and before she can brace for it he’s vaulted over the bullpen fence and swept her up into a half-spin, half-hug, twirling around in the snow like it’s summer and they’re in the hills of L’Manberg again, instead of the tundra’s frosty spring. He doesn’t seem to feel it, heat rolling off of him like a furnace - he’d be giving Jack a run for his money, and as far as Niki knows, Dream wasn’t the one to pull him from the depths of the Nether.

Niki dimly remembers Techno’s lectures on frostbite when she first started trekking to and from the Syndicate. To sit a frozen person in front of a fire is dangerous - the bitter cold wears away the feeling in their tissue and leaves them to burn themselves mindlessly by the flames, unable to tell where numbness ends and cracked blisters begin. You’re left burnt and in pain and altogether worse than if you’d just stayed out in the damn cold.

Although he’d also told her that contact was the safest way to drag somebody back from the freezing edge, so.

Her arms are still shaking around his shoulders, hands clenched into fists at his back. It’s hard. It’s hard, like they can’t decide whether to hug him back or to grab him by the lapels and start yelling at him despite how sternly she tells herself to play it cool and collected. She holds her tongue, like always. It tastes like bitter ash.

“I missed you,” he murmurs, chin jutting against her temple, quiet enough that she can barely hear it over the whistling of the arctic wind. But oh, she hears it.

I missed you too, she doesn’t say. I wanted to see you again, she doesn’t say. Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving, she doesn’t ask.

“You came back,” she manages. It’s been sitting on her tongue for too long, since Manberg, and it’s gone thick and acrid like smoke in the back of her throat.

He pulls away before she can figure out exactly what her hands are doing, taking two bouncing steps back against the fence. There are still smudgy bags under his eyes - he still looks like he hasn’t slept in years - but there’s a tight smile pulled against his face. Is that a good sign? She thinks it’s a good sign. She smiles back.

This is what you wanted, isn’t it?

She wants to yell. She wants to punch him in his stupid, smug jaw. She wants to demand an explanation as to why he left - left L’Manberg, left this plane of existence. She wants to hug him again, and then wants to kick herself for thinking of it. 

Her smile feels cloyingly fake on her face, sticky like a honeyed lolly. If Wilbur notices he doesn’t say anything, hovering carefree a safe few metres away from her.

“You’re pink!” he exclaims, gaping with wonder despite the fact that she hasn’t dyed her hair in months and the roots are almost two inches long. He crosses his arms tight across his chest, grinning conspiratorially. “We’re gonna start confusing you with Techno, if you’re not careful.”

“Ha!” It’s a little strangled, and Wilbur does kind of tilt an eyebrow a bit, but it’s fine. It’s fine. “I - he’s given me. Uh. Fashion advice! I learn so much from him, you know.”

The joke falls flat on its face, and an unsteady silence settles over the bullpen.

The awkwardness that hangs between them is just unnatural . Conversation had always had the chance to be odd, or teasing, or affectionately one-sided - Niki quietly rambling about her plans to expand the bakery as Wilbur nodded enthusiastically, waiting for bread to cool, or Wilbur wording and rewording his speeches for hours as Niki plucked out a fanfare on the guitar - but never stilted.

But that saccharine feeling is crawling into her throat, mingling with the ash and smoke that sits there. It burns, like the smell of the cigarettes Wilbur would only half-bother to pretend he didn’t smoke deep in the ravine, but for all it warms her she just ends up with a wobbly feeling in her chest.

“Niki,” he’s saying, and his hand twitches for a before before jerking back and resting atop the fencepost behind him, “Niki, I’m sorry.”

Niki’s head snaps upwards.

Oh, this is new. Niki had imagined this moment, played it over and over and over in her head, but - his eyes are intense, sincere, and there’s a familiarly concerned furrow at his brow.

It’s not supposed to be this easy.

“I blew up your home,” Wilbur continues. “I destroyed - I destroyed our country, and - well, I can’t fully say that I regret that.”

(Not surprising, she reminds the part of herself that withers.)

“I don’t regret that, but I regret the fact that...that it was your home. And I didn’t think - much, frankly - I didn’t think about what that - what it would have meant. For you. And everyone. And I should have, I should have planned - I should have done something to keep you all safer. I did you wrong, Niki, and I’m sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, but - I am sorry.”

He still doesn’t know, she realises.

(He still doesn’t care.)

The cold is crawling up her chest, tendrils wrapped around her windpipe, but she swallows it down. It’s in the past, isn’t it? (She just got over him leaving, did she?) She doesn’t need - Well. She got her apology. She doesn’t need anything more than that. She doesn’t want anything more than that. An apology and a goodbye suit her fine.

She shrugs. “It’s… it’s been a long time since then. And I have other friends now.”

“The Syndicate, right?” Wilbur lights up. “Phil was telling me all about it - I’m glad, Niki, I really am, that you have like - like this support system, right? And that you found people to go live with. I’m - yeah. I’m glad you have the Syndicate, I really am.”

(He also doesn’t seem to know why she moved into the Syndicate, and not with her fellow countrymen. Hopefully, he doesn’t care.)

“I never did peg you for an anarchist,” Wilbur hums. “That’s interesting.”

“Really?”

“I mean, you were always really into the whole,” he flinches, waving a hand around. “L’Manberg thing.” L’Manberg thing? The coat he wears is similar to the one he wore in exile, with its high collar and long train, but it’s loose at the sleeves and she can see thick burn scars up his arms as it shifts. She swallows thickly. More ash. Gross . “Under Schlatt, and all. Did something happen with that, or…?”

Did something happen?

Yes , says the quiet, angry chorus at the back of her head, spitting and roiling like a feral animal. Yes , is the easy answer. Yes is Tommy standing in the ruins of the community house, lecturing them about the importance of the rotten pit they stood on, it’s Fundy cackling while throwing armour and swords and the red-white-gold-blue flag into a fire pit, it’s the thrum of TNT beneath her feet whenever she walked through her home.

It’s not the truthful answer.

It’s not Wilbur, glasses cracked from the war and proudly donning a presidential suit, writing to her with stories of victory and freedom and a new land to call home. It’s not her friends welcoming her to a country she barely knows the name of yet with open arms, skipping through saplings growing tall and green among the ashy remains of the forest. It’s not sitting atop obsidian walls, heels kicking back and forth twenty metres in the air, laughing with Eret as the others grumble below them.

"I’m loyal to you, Wil. You know I’m loyal to you."

He’s still staring at the castle on the horizon, brow furrowed. "I don’t - I want you to be loyal to L’Manberg."

" - and to L’Manberg!" she adds. His expression doesn’t shift, still cast with worry. "And to L’Manberg."

“It just wasn’t meant to be,” she murmurs, fixing her gaze somewhere safely beyond Wilbur’s shoulder. His eyes widen a fraction before smiling, wide and bright.

“You’re right,” he grins, and gets up off the fence - he leans towards her for a moment, but something in his expression closes off again and he rocks backwards on his heels. “I’ll head in. Better not keep the old man waiting, right?”

“Right,” she repeats, still hazy. Wilbur nods, and with a two-fingered salute he turns on his heel and retreats towards the house.

Wobbuffet stands stiffly in the corner of the pen, ears pointed towards Wilbur’s back like the radar dishes atop Phil’s house. Niki sighs, watching him follow Phil into the cozy cottage, and wraps her arms around Wobbuffet’s sturdy neck. Her fluffy winter coat has grown it, and Niki resists the urge to smoosh her face into it - it’s warm and soft against her cheek, and she feels a heavy warmth hover over her back as Wobbuffet anxiously noses her hair.

“Good girl,” she mumbles, wrapping strands of the mare’s mane around her fingers. “You were very kind. Thank you.”

Wobbuffet doesn’t say anything, because of course she doesn’t, but she snuffles quietly as Niki clings to her coat.

Fuck.

It could have gone worse, she tells herself. She kept her cool, she didn’t raise her voice or cry or mention Manberg, and for that she allows herself another five minutes of standing in the snow and winding thin braids into Wobbuffet’s mane until feeling creeps its way back into her fingers. They’re stiff and cold, and the braids look more like tangles. She inhales, but the air chokes her - it’s laced with smoke, thick and heavy with no ventilation in the ravine and certainly not the crisp winter air of the tundra. After a few startling moments, Niki becomes dimly aware of how fast her chest is contracting and expanding and, more concerningly, the fact that she can’t breathe.

Shit. It’s - it’s alright, Puffy talked her through this months ago, how she’s supposed to stop and count what she sees and feels. She can see her feet below her, Wobbuffet’s shoulder and her fingers wound up in her mane, and when she looks up she can see the forest against the horizon and thick snowflakes starting to fall from the sky. The wind is sharp against her cheeks, whistling by her ears, and the snow at her feet is even colder. The smell of smoke is still caught up in the back of her throat, but when she closes her eyes and concentrates she can smell the scent of baked potatoes wafting from the house.

She goes to take a deep breath. It rattles loudly in her chest, but she can feel the air in her lungs nonetheless - the searing cold is, for once, a welcome feeling. She smears the tears away from her eyes and slumps back against Wobbuffet’s shoulder, feeling a bit like marching back to her flat (regardless of its proximity to Techno’s cabin, because she’s simply too tired to walk as far as the city) and collapsing into bed until nightfall.

For half a moment, there’s peaceful silence.

This is Tommy’s fault, the chorus in the back of her head concludes, and she feels like slamming her head into a tree trunk.

It’s always Tommy’s fault, that absolute brat - first he drags Dream back to L’Manberg, and now he drags Wilbur back from the dead. Doesn’t he ever learn?

Niki groans, and although it's childish she’s tempted to press her hands over her ears and hope her mind shuts up long enough for her to pack up her things and go home. She’s tried to coax the thing into silence recently - and it’s better, it’s easier with Phil and Techno around to fill the quiet air, but it’s made her soft. Hearing that vitriol spat in her own voice has drifted from normal to downright unsettling.

Puffy would be disappointed in her. And upset - her big brown eyes would go all shiny with tears the way they always do, because she’s always had such a big heart. Almost too big for her own good. Puffy is driven by her gut, pulled to march in a straight line, sword or flowers in hand, to whatever needs her help. Searching for whatever charity case she can pull out of the rubble next.

(Except, no, Puffy might be distraught, but she would never be disappointed in Niki. And she would never call Niki a charity case, either. Which makes her feel even more miserable. She didn’t even leave. Niki did.)

Gods, she needs to talk to Jack. He was still angry the last time they spoke, still caught up in it, but that was a while ago and it was before Wilbur - 

“Niki?” Wilbur’s voice is clear as a bell through the snow flurry, and Niki half-jumps out of her skin. Her internal monologue promptly shuts itself down in favour of seething in his general direction - hanging several feet away from the fence, hands shoved into his pockets. “I was going to go check out this egg thing Techno was telling me about, I was wondering if - when you’re done hugging your horse, anyway - I was wondering if you wanted to come with?”

“Wil!” That wasn’t too cheery, was it? Niki rubs the back of her sleeve over her eyes again, reluctantly stepping away from Wobbuffet. “...How long have you been out here?”

Subtle. He stares for a moment, silhouetted by snowfall, and shrugs. “Oh, not long. Are you alright?”

“Me?” She laughs, and it only sounds a little bit strangled. “All good! Just…” her gaze trails out to the treeline, “need to go get some wood! I have to go chop some wood. Now. Over in that direction.”

(What can she say? It’s a classic excuse. Never fails.)

She’s expecting Wilbur to press her on that, given that he tends to wield rhetorical arguments with the same grace that Technoblade does a battleaxe, but he just shrugs again with a thin smile. “Don’t be a stranger!” he calls over his shoulder as he departs, leaving behind nothing but rapidly-covered footprints in the snow.

Don’t waste your breath, Niki thinks venomously, and turns back to her horse with a cold sigh.

Deep in a well-lit ravine, Niki’s comm crackles to life.

“ Please come, Niki. I’m beggin’ you. I - I’m on my knees here. I’ll walk over to the city, I will literally kneel down and beg you to come. Humiliating, Niki, but I’ll do it.”

“Techno, I don’t think - ”

“I can give you netherite! A stack. Two stacks!”

“I don’t want netherite, Techno.”

“What else could you want? Enchantments? Totems? Phil’s like, the richest guy on the server, he can get it for you. Do you want - do you want baking things? Is there a baking furnace Phil can put together for you?”

“I don’t want anything from you, Techno, I just… I don’t think it’s a very good idea for me to be there. That’s all.”

“It’s not a good idea for Tommy and Tubbo to be here either but Wilbur told them before he told me, alright? I don’t want them just - waltzin’ into my home, and gettin’ their grubby hands all over my stuff. Regardless of whether that does or does not end with the rest of us landing a sword in the back. That’s not crazy, right? That’s not too much to ask?”

“Maybe just tell Wilbur that?”

“He doesn’t get it. He just starts getting all sappy, talking about a train station ‘n Ghostbur and how we need to be some big, happy family. And the worst part is that Phil just agrees with him.”

“...I’m not part of your family, Techno.”

“As far as I’m concerned, neither is Tommy - and don’t get me started on Tubbo - just because Wilbur happened to pick up some people-stealin’ despots off the streets - ”

“People-stealing what ?”

“Look. There’s three of them, and there’s only two of us. Assumin’ that Phil doesn’t turn tail and just agree with whatever Wilbur says again. We need a third. We need a third real bad."

“You said Wilbur invited them to yours, didn’t you? You have advantage of territory, Techno. You’ll be alright.”

“That’s for combat, Niki, not dinner parties. I’ll have to make small talk with them. Small talk, Niki. That is exponentially worse than fightin’.”

A short silence.

“ Please, Niki.”

“...I’m not staying past nine.”

“Oh, if they’re not out by nine I will start getting violent.”

When Techno calls her for the second time in both the last week and the last ever, Niki half-expects him to tell her that Dream has now resurrected Schlatt and they’re off to pick up a few netherite axes and send his sorry tyrant self back to kingdom come.

She would have preferred that to whatever this is.

Technoblade makes an imposing figure at the head of the table, with Tommy and Tubbo crammed shoulder-to-shoulder at its foot, all parties involved glaring up a storm. Ranboo sits on Tubbo’s left and has been shuffling his seat closer and closer to their end of the table in a way that she supposes he must think is subtle - fortunately, Techno is too busy staring down the other two to notice. Phil sits at Techno’s right hand, next to Ranboo, and Wilbur at Techno’s left. This leaves Niki stuck between Wilbur on her right and Tommy on her left, somehow caught between the two people she least wanted to spend a dinner party with, and she couldn’t let either of them know a damn thing about it.

Why couldn’t she be sat next to Ranboo, some part of her complains. She hasn’t spoken to him in months, not since the destruction of L’Manberg, and she misses their easy conversations. Phil, even, or, hell - she’d be more than willing to make conversation with Tubbo, regardless of the way Techno keeps suspiciously eyeing him as if he may have smuggled a nuclear warhead to the table in his fluffy jacket.

“On Techno’s and my behalf, I’d like to thank you lot for all showing up tonight,” Phil says, far too serene. Techno grumbles, and there’s a dull thud under the table. His glare shifts just long enough to shoot Phil a dirty look. A grin tugs at the corner of Phil’s mouth. “And thank you for hosting, Techno.”

“Not a problem, Phil,” Techno spits through gritted teeth, eyes still locked on the two boys on the other end of the dinner table. “It’s so nice to get everyone back together, specifically this group of people, in the same place, specifically under my roof.”

“That’s the spirit,” Phil mutters.

“Yep!” Ranboo jumps in, bringing his hands together in an unsteady clap. He nods jerkily when he meets Niki’s eyes. Niki nods in response. Something’s off with him - he’s always been jittery, spending every Syndicate meeting silently fiddling with the golden locket that hangs around his neck and making excuses to leave early, but this is something unprecedented. His eyes shift warily between Technoblade, Tommy and Tubbo, and she’s fairly certain an ender-hybrid shouldn’t be able to sweat with nervousness but Ranboo seems close to managing it anyway. “Super nice. Everyone getting along. Would love to - would love to keep it that way, actually.”

“It’s - it’s nice, right?” Wilbur leans forward on clasped hands. “You, Techno - me, Tommy, Tubbo, Niki, it’s… it’s just like Pogtopia again. But - better! Better. And Phil is here, of course, and Ranboo - well, he’s basically the most popular man on the server, right? Can’t throw a party without Ranboo.”

Tommy scowls at that, but Tubbo cuts him off with a clear, “we’re glad you invited us.” Tommy shuts his mouth with an angry but compliant click.

So, they nominated a speaker. Clever. Niki tosses a desperate look to Techno, whose intimidating veneer is already threatening to melt into prickling anxiety (they may look the same to an outsider, but she’s well aware of the difference by now), and kind of wishes they’d planned something similar beforehand.

If Phil shares their nerves, he doesn’t care to show it - with a warm smile he busies himself setting out stew in prettily-glazed ceramic. The bowls look precious, and Niki can only imagine that the argument about whether to put them out or not would have been absolutely deadly. Idly, she wonders whose idea it was to dress the place up so nicely, with small gold pieces circling the napkins (napkins!) and an array of wildflowers Techno asked her to bring from the warmer side of the server sitting awkwardly at the table’s centre. Its petals droop miserably, as if it can sense the tension in the room.

It’s no banquet hall (with no crimson egg illuminating the room either), but it’s probably one of the nicer dinner parties Niki has attended… ever, really. L’Manberg had charm, but always in that dirt-stained, homey way. As First Lady she’d been privileged with a little more elegance than most, but that was never a lot. They wouldn’t have had time to make little napkin rings, unless someone volunteered to make them while they were on guard duty sitting atop the walls, and even then they’d have to scrounge up the gold from the few brewing supplies they had. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because Fundy and Tommy and Tubbo would have just used them as projectiles until one of them ricocheted off Wilbur’s temple, and then the trio would start stammering half-kidding apologies as Jack howled with laughter and Wilbur started firing them back - 

Niki blinks herself back into reality, and the imaginary ruckus sinks back into the heavy quiet of the cabin.

“I’d like to start us off with a toast,” Phil is saying, raising his crystal glass.

Oh, brilliant. If they start calling for speeches, Niki is putting in her resignation from the Syndicate.

“Everyone in this room missed you dearly, Wil,” Phil turns to the man in man in question, as if that wasn’t the understatement of the century, “and many of us worked real fuckin’ hard to try and get you back.”

Since when, Niki thinks.

“Basically everyone except Techno,” Tommy mumbles out of the corner of her eye. Tubbo places a hand on his forearm underneath the table, and Tommy jumps before settling into a deeper scowl.

Well. They already know whatever Phil was talking about. When she flicks a look over the table, Ranboo doesn’t look surprised either. Techno doesn’t hear their mumbling, given that Tommy has apparently learned volume control at some point in the last couple months, but he looks just as lost as she does. He tips his head slightly towards Wilbur - let it go, while he’s here - and looks back to Phil, who holds his glass high.

“A toast, to Wilbur coming home.”

He’s gone mad, Niki thinks, but before her look of incredulity can travel far Phil levels her with a slanted brow and tight smile - there’s a hint of sympathy behind sapphire blue eyes, before they harden and turn onto the two buzzing unhappily by her left. It’s an invitation, not an olive branch. They exchange wary looks with Ranboo before Tubbo heaves out a sigh, raising his glass. An elbow to Tommy’s side later, and his glass is lifted next to hers.

“To Wilbur,” Phil repeats, and there’s a mumbling around the table. Everyone settles back into their chairs, but when she lowers her glass - the water ice-cold against her throat - Wilbur refrains from drinking himself.

“If you don’t mind, Phil, I’d like to say a little something of my own,” he says, still seated but with that ramrod, presidential posture that makes him seem a couple feet taller than everyone else at the table. Oh, gods, if they really do start going around the table to make toasts she’s going to leave. Fortunately Phil had the foresight to pour the adults water instead of wine.

Phil nods, smiling behind the glass. Wilbur clears his throat.

“I… am thankful to all of you, for welcoming me back to the land of the living,” Wilbur says, eyes on the water that swishes around his glass. Niki fights the urge to raise a brow. “It was - it was a long thirteen years, down in limbo. Sometimes you forget how nice it is to be alive. So. I’d like to extend my appreciation to everyone who tried to bring me back. Tommy, Tubbo, Phil, I appreciate the work you put into it.” He pauses. and stares into his drink. “And, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Dream, either.”

“Seriously, Wilbur?” Tommy snaps. Tubbo hisses something under his breath, but Tommy shakes off the hand resting on his arm.

“He’s a friend, Toms,” Wilbur leans on the table, glass pressed just about against his cheek. “I’m allowed to have friends. Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean - ”

“It’s not just that I don’t like him,” Tommy seethes. “He’s - he’s terrible. He’s a wrong’un. He’s - you know that, you don’t me that you knew what he did and you’re just - just sitting there, like it doesn't matter! Like it’s okay!”

Wilbur’s brow furrows. “Tommy - ”

“It wasn’t okay!” Tommy retorts, slamming his palms onto the table. The glasses rattle. “Stop acting like it was, just because you’re suddenly best friends or whatever the fuck!”

“Hands off the table, Tommy,” Techno drawls.

“This doesn’t concern you, don’t even get me started - ”

“It’s literally my table.”

Tommy makes a half-strangled growling sound, but raises his hands in surrender anyway.

“Let’s just get back to the toasts,” Phil says, hands tight around his glass.

“No!” Tommy waves a stray arm around, and Niki barely ducks to dodge it. Why, again, did Phil sit her here? Did she offend him at some point? Did she offend the End at some point, to be cursed with luck like this? “Sorry Niki - sorry, I’m not just gonna sit here and go oooh, Dream, he’s so cool, mimimimimi - seriously, none of you are gonna back me up on this?”

“Sit down,” Tubbo hisses.

“Tommy, I’m not trying to upset you,” Wilbur says placatingly. “If you don’t want to make a toast, then that’s okay. You don’t have to.”

“You’re just waving a glass around,” Techno says. “Why do you even care this much?”

Tommy slides back into his chair. “It’s principle, Techno. Something you’re not familiar with?”

“Something I’m not - do you even know how to spell that, Iago?”

“Don’t call me a fuckin’ ee-yah-goh - ”

“Both of you, fucking settle,” Phil complains, the edge of a general settling quietly behind his words. “Whoever wants to do the toast can do it. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Are you both done ruining dinner?”

“Phil,” Techno grumbles.

“Just,” for a moment, Phil looks just as cold as the centuries he’s tucked under his belt. “Can we get along, for one night. For Wil’s sake.”

Right. For Wil’s sake, who’s kicked back his chair and is leaning back, glass pressed against his lips. His eyes narrow contemplatively behind cracked glasses, surveying.

That’s a look Niki has seen before. On the debate stand, and on the edge of a pit.

“You don’t have to, Tommy,” he says. He’s wearing the same mask he did in the final weeks of L’Manberg, half-sympathy and half-sternness but chipped and cracked at the edges. Exhausted. It’s almost embarrassing, how obviously fake-complacent it is. It’s almost more embarrassing that she still recognises it so easily. What an idiot she was to fall for that. “It’s okay. If you want, it can just be for me, and the others.”

Tommy slouches back, arms crossed tight over his chest like armour. “Fine.”

A line of ice cold water runs down Niki’s wrist. Her fingers are about to go numb, the way she’s just been stuck here holding onto her glass like an idiot for the last ten minutes.

Wilbur raises his glass. “To good friends,” he says. Simple.

That heavy feeling has settled into her chest again, dark and cold. It’s because of Wilbur, because it always is, but there’s remarkably little she can do about it under candlelight and the watchful eye of her so-called friends so she just sucks in a breath against her teeth and pretends it doesn’t sear her lungs as she mumbles her acknowledgement. Phil and Techno have hearty thanks covered, thank you, and Ranboo - 

Is fiddling with his necklace again. His glass sits by his plate.

“Phil said we didn’t have to,” Ranboo defensively says the moment she lays eyes on him.

Techno raises a brow, shooting a look at the two at the end of the table. Gods, he’s on edge tonight. He’s chewing on the edge of his lip, worrying at the edge right where his left tusk emerges, and there’s a line stressing itself above his eye. It’s almost imperceptible, but something Niki has come to recognise as a red flag. “Not very sociable of you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“It might be something I can talk to you about later,” Ranboo whispers unsubtly.

“I think we can talk now,” Techno declares, dropping his glass back onto the table with a thud. Phil shoots him a suspicious look from over his fork, already digging into the stew. “Unless you’ve got something to hide?”

“Why would I have anything to hide?” Ranboo asks - he sounds annoyed, but the half-strangled laugh going up an octave he follows it with gives him away, if the twisting of his necklace around his long fingers didn’t.

Niki shifts in her seat. Tommy and Tubbo’s eyes haven’t left him since he spoke up - it’s small, but it’s not nothing. She’s been a First Lady, and run for office herself - and as much as she hates the sound of Miss Vice President now, she’s not immune to politics. There’s something shifting beneath the surface here, evident in the way the three group together almost unconsciously around the table’s corner and Tommy lets Tubbo grab his hand in a tight grip that must surely be firmer than the light touch that sent him skittering and scowling earlier.

Phil’s seen more years than any of them put together, Wilbur is a top-notch manipulative bastard of a politician, and Techno is staring the three down like a bloodhound that’s caught the sense. He cares for politics the least of all of them, but he’s clearly caught onto something here.

The question is, what?

She feels almost excluded by the glances exchanged across the table, communicating in a language that she doesn’t understand. It’s uncomfortable. She’s unarmed. Her hands are still numb from the cold.

“I’m not sayin’ you do, I’m just saying, you’re not really being a team player.”

“I can be,” Ranboo says quickly, “If you need me to?”

“I don’t know,” Techno drawls, staring hard at the way they’ve packed in shoulder-to-shoulder around the table’s edge. “I’m pretty sure you’re just straight-up playing for the other team, here.” Tommy bristles with anger, but he doesn’t say a word. Tubbo frowns.

“What team? What other team?” Ranboo asks. “Techno, you - I thought the point of tonight was for everyone to spend some time together, and for everyone to maybe get along a little better. That’s why I’m here. That’s what Phil told me.”

“It’s what Wil said,'' Phil shrugs.

“I meant it,” Wilbur adds definitively, swirling the water around in his glass. “Techno, stop hassling him. Ranboo is allowed to be friends with whoever he wants. And if he wants to play the field, I can’t completely blame him. It’s strategy. Not one I’d take, but, well - if you don’t like to choose sides, it’s the smart thing to do, Ranboo.”

Ranboo looks vaguely affronted. “They’re - they’re my friends? It’s not strategy, I just like spending time with them. Like I like spending time with you, too, Techno! Right?”

Techno, still frowning, looks pointedly away.

“...we are friends, right, Techno?”

“Well,” Techno starts, and Niki can already anticipate what a shitshow this is going to be from the nervous way he fiddles with his glass as he says it, “friends have each other’s backs, usually. Don’t run ‘round behind them, and all that.”

“I do have your back!” Ranboo exclaims, a little desperately. “I come to meetings, I live here half the time - I don’t understand why you’re upset! This isn’t new, this hasn’t ever been a problem before, you know I don’t like to choose sides and you’ve always just been okay with that! I’m here because I care, Techno, and because I don’t want to choose, and I thought - I thought you might as well, but - ”

“Would anyone like some more water,” Phil mutters, and Niki hands him her glass.

Wilbur hums. “No one’s - well, I won’t ask you to pick sides or anything, I know that’s not your thing.” Tommy growls under his breath, and Wilbur mutters something about honesty with a shrug.

“You know I’m friends with Tommy and Tubbo,” Ranboo says, voice hardening, turning back to Techno. “You had to have known that. It’s almost like - I was the one who told you about Tommy being alive again!” Tommy flinches to her left, staring down at his stew like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “It’s almost like I hang out with them all the time, or something - ”

“I don’t care who you’re friends with, Ranboo,” Techno snaps, although he very clearly does , “I just didn’t think you were running off to marry one of them!”

There’s a split second of regret across his face before the table explodes in a flurry of shouts.

Niki’s head immediately whips to her left. “Why are you looking at me?” Tommy exclaims, Tubbo resting his forehead in one hand. Phil puts down the water pitcher with a thunk as Wilbur almost jumps to his feet, vibrating out of his chair.

“You’re married?” he crows. “Congratulations, Tubster, Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He doesn’t have to tell you shit, Wilbur.”

“It’s not like you tell me anything anyway, Tommy. I just want to know - ”

“Shut up.”

“No, I want to talk to Tubbo. Tubbo, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Ranboo?” Niki asks the hybrid, already sinking down in his chair. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Ranboo doesn’t respond, staring blankly somewhere over her shoulder. Tubbo jerks his head towards a fuming Technoblade - he looks bored, but his left hand, the one marred with thick burn scars, is clenching his forearm in a vicelike grip. “Because of that, mostly.”

“How am I the bad guy here?” Techno demands. “You guys are the ones who were lying! To my face!”

“Technically,” Tubbo cuts in, “I kinda doubt you every just point-blank asked Ranboo if he was married.”

“Could not be less the point - ”

“ - lying by omission is still technically lying,” Wilbur hums in agreement. There’s a barely restrained anger radiating from Niki’s left - when she looks over Tommy’s gripping the edge of the table like a lifeline keeping himself from lunging over it.

“The point is,” Techno continues, “you lied. You misled us about Snowchester, about where your loyalties lie, about everything. You’re part of a nuclear military force, Ranboo, and you’re married, and you just decided to not tell anyone!”

“Snowchester doesn’t quarrel with anyone who doesn’t bother us,” Tubbo huffs. “We’re not roving around the server looking for people to blow up. We just want to protect ourselves and for people to leave us alone. That’s it.”

“You literally called it a military commune when asked, Tubbo.”

“I’m sorry that I don’t know exactly what a commune is when someone busts down my door and starts demanding answers from me!”

“We walked up, slowly,” Techno seethes, “while you sat there on your pile of nuclear weapons. What do you have to be scared of?”

“...I didn’t,” Ranboo mumbles, and his eyes slide over to Phil. Phil, for his part, has the decency to go a little pink around the ears. “I didn’t not tell anyone.”

Techno rounds on Phil. “Phil, you knew about all this?”

“...kind of,” Phil supplies weakly, and Techno presses his head into his hands. “I… I don’t know anything more than you do about the nukes, any of that shit, but I knew about the whole… marriage thing. ‘N Michael.”

“Phil,” Ranboo snaps, as Techno exclaims “and who is Michael?”

“It’s not important, Techno,” Phil tries.

“I don’t know, Phil, is that true or are you just lying to my face, apparently not for the first time? How am I supposed to believe you?”

“Techno, I promise, it’s not like the nukes. It’s not important.”

“Important enough for you to lie about, apparently!”

“Please, just - Technoblade, it’s not Phil’s fault, please trust me, I promise - ”

“Technoblade,” Tubbo cuts them both off, voice cold, and stands with a suddenness that seems to surprise both the boys clinging to his side. “Thank you for inviting us. We’ll be taking our leave now.”

“You think I’m just gonna let you walk on out after all that? Seriously?”

“Are you going to stop us from leaving?” Tubbo asks. Even standing, he’s barely as tall as Technoblade seated metres away. Niki can’t imagine herself taking up arms against Tubbo, or Ranboo, or - well. She doesn’t want to hurt any of them, no matter how badly Techno worries. He needs someone to back him up right now, but she doesn’t think she can. Not - not against those two. Three.

“What, and let you go runnin’ off straight to your fallout bunker? I’m not interested in having a nuke fall on top of my house just because you’re throwing a tantrum.”

“They’re preventative, Technoblade. For show.”

“A nuke’s a bit bigger than a firework.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Tommy snaps, shooting up next to Tubbo. “You’re the one with the stupid fuckin’ firework launcher, like - oh, I’m Technoblade, I think I’m hot shit, watch me blow up my friends on a festival stage and start ringin’ my channel bell about it like a massive fuckin’ prick. You started it.”

Techno folds his arms. “Yeah, and I’m finishing it, Theseus.”

“What are you talking about?” Ranboo cuts in. He’s still seated, not like the other two, but they shuffle back to give him space - or, Tubbo does, and he elbows Tommy behind him to move.

“At the festival,” Ranboo continues. “We planned to execute Dream, right? And then we found you, Tommy, and Techno…” he shoots a confused look towards Tommy and Tubbo’s end of the table. “...is there something else I should know about?”

Oh, shit, Niki thinks.

“Nope,” Tubbo interjects. “Nothing at all. End of conversation. Tommy, pack your shit, we’re leaving.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Ranboo asks. “Techno?” The man squirms under his offbalanced gaze, despite his tall stature and the shimmering chestplate Niki knows sits beneath his cloak.

“Ranboo,” she says softly, “do you not know about the festival?”

“I thought - I thought I did? I was there, unless…” he shakes his head, and the glowing freckles on his face flicker uncertainly. “You mean the one before I came, which I know - I know it happened, but - ”

“There was another festival?” Phil asks.

“Not important,” Techno says quickly.

“You never mentioned that.”

“Because it’s not important.”

“Wil,” Phil continues, turning to the man in question. He’s paled under the firelight, still clutching onto his glass tightly enough to leave white marks on his fingers. “You never wrote me about it either. What festival?”

“Oh, that?” Wilbur asks, clutching his glass to his chest. His attempt to sound casual is oddly stilted, something anxious clinging to the edge of his words - judging by Phil’s raised brow, he hasn’t missed it either. “Yeah. It was… well. Things were a little difficult at the time. It’s all in the past though, isn’t it? Lives and lives ago.”

Lives and lives ago.

Niki blinks, and when her eyes open again she’s standing in the middle of that festival courtyard - the sun is hot on her face, and dozens of eyes drill holes into her back. She still has three lives, even after all this time.

(Come spring, Niki is one of the only two members of L’Manberg with three lives left. Staring up at the stage, unreachable, metres above her head, she’s very abruptly coming to terms with the fact that that might not be true for much longer.)

“How could you?” she screams, tears smearing across her face. She doesn’t care. She couldn’t, not after, not after watching - “you killed him! You killed him!”

“Yeah, I did!” Schlatt, still wiping ash off of his disgusting suit, whips around from where he addresses Fundy at his left to hunch over the podium, to scream back down at her. There’s a smear of blood across his jaw, staining the collar of his shirt. Niki is certain it isn’t his. “I did fuckin’ kill him, Niki!”

“You are so cruel! How could you do that?” Niki swallows a sob in her throat. “After everything he’s done for you?”

The sun is hot, too hot, with sweat and dirt gathering at her wrists where they’d made a shitty effort at cuffing her hands together. They’re brittle, but too tight. Even if she cracked them open against her stomach, she’s unarmed in a sea of netherite and diamond - and Schlatt circles above, Quackity and Fundy at his side, surveying any possible escape route. She’s fast, but not that fast. She can fight, but not well enough.

“No, you know what,” Schlatt turns to his aides, not even bothering to give his attention to the crowd. “Fuck her. I’m done with her. You can leave if you want. You want out of this country, you can fucking have it.”

It’s like a punch to the gut, and Niki struggles to take in a breath as the crowd whispers to one another. This isn't right. It isn’t supposed to go like this. It’s not supposed to be this easy.

Where is -

“Wilbur?”

“I mean,” Wilbur says slowly. He’s standing at the back of the courtyard, silhouetted against the setting sun, but there’s a white streak through his curls and he’s wearing his glasses again. Huh. Niki’s certain he lost those back in L’Manberg. “If - if we’re being honest, then I can tell you, if you’d like. It’s the friendly thing to do, right?”

“Don’t,” she hears Tommy snap.

“I think you should,” Phil says sternly. Niki squints. His face doesn’t appear in the crowd.

“Schlatt was president,” Wilbur says slowly, as if waiting to be interrupted. He isn’t - a hush has fallen over the courtyard, although whether it’s out of fear, shock, or respect, Niki can’t tell. “And he ordered this festival to celebrate how successful Manberg was, and how happy its people were.”

The people surrounding Niki don’t look happy. Their faces blur together, scowls and frowns.

“Were they?”

“Well,” Wilbur says, wringing his hands together.

“Evidently not,” Tubbo hisses. Niki turns - there is he, standing high atop the podium, dressed in his little suit and green tie. He doesn’t look happy either. “Because the whole thing was a ruse.”

He stumbles backwards, away from the microphone, into a pillar of concrete.

“He trapped Tubbo on the stage,” Wilbur says softly. There’s movement at the front of the crowd, a large body pushing through the rest - they part like the ocean around it. “Called him a traitor, exposed that he’d been helping us since we were exiled. And - Schlatt called Techno up to the stand…”

It is Techno, Niki realises. There’s something thick and mechanical at his waist. He hefts it over his shoulder, half-concealed by his braid shifting in the wind, and aims it square at Tubbo.

“...and tells him to execute Tubbo.”

This part - it’s as if a record scratches, playing back to front. There’s ash in the sky when she looks up, Wilbur at her back, and then he’s gone. Then, only then, is there an explosion at the front of the courtyard, before she can even turn to watch it, bright lights catching the corner of her eye. She turns, and the smoke dissipates - Techno is stepping backwards, wary, watching Schlatt (who stands unharmed, unbloodied) at the podium, but - there is something on the stage, bloody and burnt, and there is no Tubbo.

And then the pieces fall back into their familiar places, and her ears start buzzing, and it’s so hot, and her throat is raw as if she’s been yelling, screaming, but she can’t force herself to make a sound - 

The cold comes rushing back in, too slowly and then all at once - like being thrown into ice water. She’s not - she’s nowhere near the festival, she’s spaced out, again, at Techno’s dinner table - where Phil sits, concerned and horrified with every shaking word that falls out of Wilbur’s mouth, where the three teenagers across from her talk over one another and push and threaten to leave, where Techno sits, despondent, at the head of the table.

She can’t stay. She’s going to suffocate if she does.

She stands, almost knocking over the chair in her haste to go - there are eyes on her, a shaking voice calls out her name, but she ignores it.

Niki’s flat is just about a stone’s throw from Techno’s cabin, and it only takes a few minutes to storm next door - Wobbuffet nickers to her from the stables, and Meowth churrs quietly in his sleep, but she barrels past them and shuts everyone out behind her with a neat click.

It’s cold in the small cabin, and dark - she hasn’t returned for days, not since Wilbur came back and made a home here in Phil’s spare room, and there’s a thin sheet of dust over her things. Some specks float in the moonlight, lit up like tiny snowflakes. It’s cold enough to snow, anyway, and Niki clasps her freezing fingers tight at her chest.

She missed this place. The candles she lights set a warm glow over her little room, sending flickering firelight over her bed, her flowerpots, the icebox sitting in the corner. It might be morbid, but she finds the tiny flames calming. They’re contained, sitting in the engraved candleholders Techno had recommended she track down from a nearby village. They’re safe. They provide warmth, not the scorching heat that crawled up her palms as she set the L’Mantree alight.

Candles just don’t have the same effect in her city. It’s gorgeous, massive, and she’s spent hours of the early morning setting up heavy duty torches on the walls to cut through the darkness - they’re longer than her forearm, and stuffed to the brim with kindling, but they finally do the job. It gives her something to do, because for as much as her city is supposed to be a safe haven, she hasn’t been able to sleep properly since she left the flat.

She fluffs up the pillow sitting on her bed, brushing dust off of the pillowcase. It’s tempting, thinking of how well-rested she could be tomorrow morning if she stayed, until she hears the muffled shouts coming from the cabin. If anxiety didn’t keep her awake all night, they would.

Niki isn’t entirely sure how Wilbur managed to find her only safe haven on the server and smash it to smithereens before he’d spent so much as twenty-four hours alive again. But if anyone could manage that, it would be him, wouldn’t it?

She’s never been the type to wallow, but she allows herself a heavy sigh as she surveys the little home she misses so much. Her hands itch for something to keep them busy. There’s a tin of yeast sitting temptingly in one of her chests, and milk and butter in the icebox - she was planning on baking something nice for them all soon, but…

Niki sighs. She’s earned it, she decides, and pulls her mixing bowl out with a quiet thunk onto the kitchen bench. Next follows an armful of ingredients, an old kitchen knife, and a tin of berry jam from the groves east of former L’Manberg. She warms water over the furnace, and watches as the yeast crumbles away and dissolves. Despite everything, the routine is weirdly calming. The furnace sends waves of heat through the room, warming the chill that had started settling deep in her bones. It makes it easier to grip the beater, and soon the only sound in the flat is the tapping and scraping of metal against the bowl’s edge.

Niki has almost, almost relaxed when the door slams open and shut with a clatter, the intruder grumpily shaking the last bits of snow off his boots and onto the welcome mat. Without the bright reflection of snowfall behind him, Niki can pick out the cherry red winter coat, and moonlight glinting off of unruly blonde curls.

“Tommy?”

He jumps a mile out of his skin, head jerking upwards.

“Niki, what the fuck?” he stumbles about in the doorway, as if unsure whether to stand his ground or leave right back out the doorway from whence he came. “Sneaking up on me, ‘n shit…”

“Tommy, this is my flat,” she says.

“Oh,” he says, casting a wary eye over the crafting table and furnaces pushed up against the back wall, the bed in the corner, the flowers hanging in pots from the rafters. “A bit tiny, isn’t it?”

“It does the job,” Niki says defensively. She likes her flat.

“Sure it does, sure it does,” he shoves his hands back into his pockets, rocking back on his heels as his eyes flit to the back corner of the room (her so-called armoury, where half a dozen unpolished daggers sit on a wallrack Phil helped her put in), the window to his right (a soft glow emanates from it, illuminating Techno’s cabin in the near distance) and finally back to her.

With the way he looks at her she’s almost tempted to look down and see if she absent-mindedly re-attached her axe to her belt after throwing on her fluffy pink sweater, instead of leaving it by the stables when she arrived.

His eyes flit down to her hands.

“...what are you doing?”

She looks down, and the doughy bowl smiles back up at her.

“Baking.”

“Oh.” He’s still eyeing the bowl suspiciously, as if it might jump up and attack him. “I mean, makes sense, given that it’s not like we got to fuckin’ eat anything back there, courtesy of - ” he stiffens suddenly “ - well, I won’t say it, because he’s just being a bitch, but - good time of night to be baking. Yep.”

It sucks, because it’s Tommy, but she’s glad she’s not the only one pissed off.

“Would you like some, when it’s made?” she ventures.

She’s almost hoping he’ll say no. The offer is more out of long-forgotten habit than anything else. But he shoots a wary look back towards the cabin, and then cautiously steps over to the bench instead.

“...can I help?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically small.

No, the voice in the back of her head snaps. It’s the push she needs to nod jerkily and portion off half the dough, sprinkling powder onto the bench beside her. Tommy walks up cautiously - maybe he does think she’s armed, although she can’t imagine why he’d think she was - and picks up the dough with gentle hands.

“I’ve never actually done this before,” he says, staring at the dough as if it might bite him.

“You just - ” she pushes the dough around, smoothing out the bubbles. It’s fairly simple. Tommy watches her hands, as close as if she were brewing dragon’s breath, before tentatively imitating it.

A lukewarm kind of silence falls over the flat. It’s strange, because Niki likes the quiet, but Tommy has always been a hurricane of noise, even when he tried to be quiet. But this is comfortable, while it lasts.

“Tubbo and Ranboo are off doing husbandly things,” Tommy says solemnly, breaking the silence.

“Like what?”

“Getting a divorce.”

“Oh.” Well, that seems a bit fast. She feels a little bad for them.

“Can’t believe I spent all this time hoping they’d split up,” Tommy continues, grumbling at the pit of dough rolled flat against the table, “and when they finally do, it’s because of Wilbur. Fucking unfair.”

“When did they get married?” Niki asks. He shrugs.

“I dunno. Some time after I died.” The snowy white streak in his fringe falls over his eyes, as if eavesdropping on their conversation, and he blows it out of the way with an impatient huff. It matches the one Wilbur has now, drifting in front of his glasses. And… Wilbur really was dead. She knows that. So Tommy…

“You didn’t miss anything, if that’s what you’re asking,” he continues. “Pretty sure they just up and decided to get married, which, whatever - don’t reckon that’s how you’re supposed to do it, but hey, what the fuck would I know about it. I was too fuckin’ busy playing ultimate solitaire in hell with fuckin’ Wilbur of all people. Fuckssakes.”

His rambling dissolves into grumbled curses before eyeing her carefully and falling silent. If she starts basically choking out her handful dough when Wilbur is mentioned, well, that’s her business.

“We’re going to move to Las Nevadas anyway,” he declares, and her shoulders slump in relief before she can really process what he’s saying. Wilbur’s leaving, the voice proclaims in fanfare, and better yet, he’s taking Tommy with him! “He wants to make his own little place out there, right in Quackity’s fuckin’ backyard.” Tommy takes a deep sigh. “Think I’ll be out there with him again, so.”

“Las Nevadas?” Niki hasn’t heard much of the place, besides it being a slow-forming den of corruption. Fitting, for someone who corrupts everything he touches.

“It’s pretty fucking cool,” Tommy brightens up for a moment, waving around dough-sticky hands (come on, she definitely put enough flour on the bench). “You walk in and there’s this massive sign hangin’ in the middle of the sky, all Welcome to Las Nevadas and shit, and there’s a casino and a strip club and a drive-through wedding place, which, I don’t even know who the fuck here would even use one of those but it’s there? And it’s all in bright lights and these massive buildings - they’re so tall, you stand at the top of them and you feel like you’re on top of the world. And they’re proper buildings, not shitty towers.”

He couldn’t make the place sound tackier if he tried. And besides, Niki’s stood atop too many tall structures and spent far too much time thinking in the last few months to feel the same way. The whistle of wind past your ears shifts from unnerving to boring pretty quickly, when you’re so far gone.

“Heights aren’t as impressive once you’re at the bottom,” she mumbles without thinking.

Before she can catch herself, say something light and laugh it off - I don’t want to, I don’t want to make the effort - something dark and sad crosses Tommy’s face, and he turns back to his dough. “Yeah.”

Silence settles back over the flat.

“Niki,” Tommy says abruptly. “You know you’re really cool, right?”

...Of all the things she’d expect Tommy to burst out with, that isn’t one of them.

“Thank… you?” she replies, tilting her head.

“No, seriously,” Tommy says, turning towards her like it’s urgent. “You’re a real badass, even though you’re also really nice, and it’s like it makes you even more of a badass because you’re like both at once, like some kind of two-face superhero thing. Not in a bad way! Does that sound bad? I don’t know, I - look, you’re really poggers. Pogchamp, if you will. And,” he settles his hands on the bench, while Niki wonders if she is in fact hallucinating this entire conversation, “I know you might not want to hear it from me, because of… with the, uh, the whole nuclear - look, you just might not want to hear me sayin’ it, out of everyone, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”

Blood rushes past her ears.

Oh… he couldn’t. He couldn’t know.

“You’re a good person, Niki,” he says quietly. “You’re one of the best people I know, and, fuck, you tried - oh, fuck’s sake - I, I get that you’ve been… that things have been hard, since, uh, for a little while. For a long while. But you’re still really smart, and you’re probably right most of the time, even when you…” he clears his throat with an abrupt cough, hand shaking as it curls into a fist at his chest. “You make really good bread! Yep. Bread that is… poggers, and loved by many people for many reasons.” He looks down at his own dough, ripped in the middle between the bench and his fingers, and frowns. “I think I broke mine.”

“You need more flour,” Niki says automatically, and the brief respite she takes digging out the sack of it barely gives her enough time to process the words that have just come out of his mouth.

He knows. Oh, he absolutely knows. He knows about the bomb, and - 

He doesn’t care.

That’s not true. He’s still jumpy, watching her carefully as he tries to flick globs of dough off his fingers. The tension hasn’t left his shoulders since he stormed into the flat, and his shakiness around her makes an awful amount of sense, the kind that makes her stomach drop.

But he’s still here. Here, offering to help her bake instead of just snatching spare pastries off of her shelf back in L’Manberg, and telling her she’s a good person.

She was the one who offered him bread, sprinkling flour over his hands. Isn’t there something Techno says about breaking bread with people? An apology - as half-assed as it might sound, sorry I tried to drop a nuke on you that one time - hovers at the back of her mind, but it splinters off and dies before it can reach her throat. How awful is that? A good person, he says, one of the best, and what does that say about her? (What does that say about him? ). She swallows thickly, and her hands start to shake.

“I…” she murmurs, and he flinches.

Frost still clings to the inside of her chest, putting the snowbanks outside to shame, cold and angry . It’s misplaced, and she knows that, but it’s a delicate tower and if the wrong part shatters, the whole thing will come tumbling down. And Niki can’t afford to fall apart so quickly. Not now. Not now that -

“...I’ll bring you one of the loaves,” Niki says, and the urge to facepalm at her own fucking stupidity is dampened by the very real way Tommy perks up immediately.

“Wait, really?” he asks, before schooling his expression into something more neutral. “Y-you don’t have to. It’s alright.”

“You helped me, didn’t you?” This is for you comes easier to her than I’m sorry. “And… and, you did a good job. Thank you.” Niki isn’t fluent in metaphor, but she’ll give it her best shot. Just this once. “Because... Tommy, I know that you put time and care into... the bread. And even if the bread might be shaped a little weirdly, sometimes - that’s okay, because the important thing is making something good to share with your friends. Sometimes people will lose sight of that,” and here’s the hardest part, hands shaking, breath caught stubbornly in her throat, “sometimes I lose sight of that. But that is the most important part of baking.”

To her horror, Tommy’s bottom lip starts trembling.

Oh, no. No, no, no. Niki can barely deal with Tommy as it is. She’s pretty sure she could’ve earned her own elytra through the struggle of keeping the din in her head quiet enough to talk to him. She cannot deal with tears. Quick, say something!

“You have dough on your face,” she says quickly, and his face flashes from dangerously wobbly to confused to exasperated in the space of mere seconds.

“I what? ” he whines, dashing over to the emptied metal bowl beside her and inspecting his reflection. He frowns, grumbling to himself loudly as he pulls at the dough stuck in his fringe (however he got it there - she could swear her bag of flour is half-emptied by this point).

It’s so entirely unconscious, so entirely domestic. The world slips sideways again, and for the briefest moment she can smell the dewy autumn grass that grew in thick fistfuls outside her bakery, feel the early morning sun on her back. She’s seeing double - there are two Tommys standing before her, one swathed in L’Manberg blue and the other in a thick winter coat, and when she looks down at her hands the burns adorning them flicker in and out of existence as she blinks. It all blurs together, her cabin and her bakery and her country and her friends, and she presses her eyes shut with a shake of her head. When she opens them again the world has settled back upon its axis, dark and cold, Tommy staring at her with open concern through the dough clinging to his hair.

The pressure in her chest pops with a half-hysterical giggle.

Tommy flinches sharply, but his face settles into the same faux-grumpy frown he’d pull whenever Tubbo teased him for being clingy back in L’Manberg.

“It’s not funny!” He growls, full of noisy bravado. “I look rid-i-cu-lous! You’ve gone and poisoned me, or some shit!”

Niki wipes a stray tear from her eye. “I’m laughing with you, Tommy, not at you.”

“I’m not laughing,” he grouses, and that sets off another fit of giggles that sends her doubled right over. She’s light-headed when she straightens up again, and the grin he’s pretending to hide explodes into a squawk of a laugh.

“Your face - ”

Niki peers into the empty bowl, abandoned on the bench, and her fish-eyed reflection has flour smeared onto its cheeks where she tried to wipe her tears away.

“Alright, time to clean up,” she says, rubbing what she hopes is the last of it off of her face with her thumb. Tommy keeps on chuckling to himself as he runs the bowls under cold water. “I’ll cold proof the dough for tonight in the icebox, and bring it to Snowchester when it’s ready.”

“Sounds good, my friend,” Tommy remarks, stretching his hands above him in an exaggerated arc. He’s either unaware of or doesn’t care about the flour falling like snow into his hair. “I’m not always around the place, off on my own business, you know ‘ow it is - Tubbo’s usually around. Building, ‘n shit. Ranboo’ll be around if the divorce doesn’t go through but he’s a bitch, just hide it in the letterbox if he’s there. He doesn’t - they don’t need to know about our little chat, alright?”

“Remember to share,” Niki says sternly, but a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “If it’s too much trouble, I can take it to you in Las Nev - ”

“Don’t,” he blurts out, shoulders stiffening immediately, and his hand freezes halfway to his mouth. 

A horrible moment passes, and Niki realises he’s watching her frightenedly again, grey-blue eyes flickering anxiously between the windows and doors. The pit it leaves in her stomach is cold, spreading a chill through her core.

“Tommy?" she tries.

He blinks himself out of it, tossing his head back in an unsteady laugh. “Don’t bother with Las Ne-vah-das,” he declares, sounding out each syllable. “Bo-ring. It’s just - it’s just a shed at the moment, nothing special, and - you know, there is gambling there, can I tell you, next door Quackity is running a gambling ring, and he has cost me several diamonds and a beloved shovel. Rigged. Would not recommend. Snowchester… Snowchester is fine.”

It’s not convincing, but Niki won’t push. She nods. “Snowchester, then.”

Tommy nods his own goodbye, but still hovers by the door.

“Niki… you’re not going to speak to Wilbur, are you?”

Niki blinks.

Oh, they’re just dropping the metaphor entirely now, are they?

“...no. I wasn’t planning to.”

“Oh. Good.” He heaves out a heavy sigh, but the tension doesn’t leave his shoulders. “Don’t.”

His voice is cold, colder than she’s heard it - maybe ever, really. It sounds wrong on him. Tommy is a lot of things - frustrating, difficult, a firecracker of heat, but never cold. She raises a brow.

“You talk to him.” Not kindly, but he does.

“I’m used to him,” he shoots back. “I’m the only person who is.”

That makes Niki feel something, some uncomfortable tug in her chest. She mentally kicks herself. It’s not jealousy, she reminds herself, because despite the near-cliff jumping and the long nights without food and the nuclear fallout that has punctuated her last few months, being jealous of Tommy would be the least reasonable thing she’s allowed herself to be, maybe ever.

“You don’t believe me,” Tommy says flatly. “You never - eugh.” He cuts himself off with another ragged sigh, running a hand down his face. “Look, Niki, it’s - we were all together in Pogtopia, right? But I was there first. With him. And you didn’t see the start of it, it was horrible, and I’m glad no one else saw the beginning of it either but it was still just so shit and he kept saying all these terrible things about Tubbo and Fundy and you and,” he takes a shaky breath, “then, when I died, I saw him.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

Well, the voice in the back of her head whistles. If you were still wondering about all this afterlife bullshit, if you want to know where you’re going after your third life, here you go.

“That’s not possible,” she stammers anyway.

“I’ve been there,” Tommy pleads, grey eyes blown wide. “In limbo. Niki, it was worse. Because he kept acting like he was so glad to see me, he was so glad I was dead, and then he comes back and he keeps saying all this shit about how much he cares but he wants to team up with - ”

He snaps his mouth shut with a click.

“...Tommy?”

“Rambled too much,” he says, huffing out possibly the fakest laugh she’s ever heard. “Not, not very big man of me, not very pog champ, but - Niki, he’s awful. Terrible. He’s, he’s the villain, of this whole server, and he doesn’t even care that he’s hurting people. He just says all this terrible shit, and I think he’s going to do terrible shit, and no one cares and he especially doesn’t care, he just wants - I don’t even fuckin’ know, destruction? Chaos? And I can fix it this time. But everyone that hangs around him is just gonna get hurt. Again. I fuckin’ promise you that. Just like L’Manberg, Manberg, whatever - just, please. Stay away from him.”

His eyes glimmer grey and hopeful in the dark, and he doesn’t have to tell her twice. “I will.”

The tension finally releases him, and he slumps against the door. “Thanks,” he mumbles. Underneath it all, he just looks... tired. “For everything. The - the bread, and the…”

She waves his trailing words away. “Not a problem,” and, thinking of stay away from him, remembering how he and Wilbur have never been able to split apart for long, “take care, Tommy.”

He tips his head, and slips out the door. It clicks shut, and Niki stands in silence.

Fuck. That - that could have gone better. But it could have gone much, much worse. Her daggers sit untouched behind her, still neatly arranged on their rack, a thin layer of dust still settled peacefully upon them. She is unhurt, Tommy is unhurt, and there are two freshly-kneaded pits of dough awaiting the icebox on her kitchen counter. She watches idly as her hands scoop them up and wrap them in cloth, working entirely on autopilot. With the way that the night air chills them into numbness she can almost pretend she’s watching someone else entirely, some spectator hovering ghostly over her own shoulder.

Niki isn’t fluent in metaphor, not at all, but even she can appreciate the gentle shield it provided. She sucks a breath in against her teeth. She didn’t want to talk about Wilbur. She didn’t want to talk about Wilbur with Tommy of all people, the vice-president, the right hand man, the person she has enough of a crevasse to traverse with without Wilbur’s interference. Judging by the haunted look in his eyes when he said his name, Tommy didn’t either.

But it was important, it was a warning, so he did.

Wilbur hasn’t changed. The confirmation isn’t a surprise, not after sitting at his left again, watching him stir the pot and observe with an odd detachedness as the chaos unfolded. It’s not disappointing, either, because that would assume she had good expectations to begin with. She stopped being that naïve a long time ago. Playing the villain yet again, apparently - Wilbur had always been the one with quill and parchment in hand, the one carving out the story they were all woven into. He’d written his role himself, built the stage, returned for an encore. Funny, because she can’t remember anyone calling for one.

Dimly, Niki wonders what role she was supposed to play. A forgotten companion? A former First Lady? The one who is left behind to pick up the pieces? It’s poorly cast, if that’s the case. 

The worst conclusion would be nothing at all - just an extra, a background player in a revolution she arrived late to, in a war that Wilbur had already written off with the dynamite planted beneath the winner’s podium. He hadn’t even bothered to keep it a secret after the festival, leading her bruised and bleeding to the ravine with promises of ravaging their so-called home. The festival he’d intended to blow up, if he hadn’t misplaced the detonator himself. The festival she stood at centre point of, yelling down Schlatt as if it mattered.

What would her last words have been?

Niki shakes her head, eyes squeezing shut, water and flour gathering at the edges. She’s being ridiculous - she’s still managed to cling to her three lives, even now. She would have respawned. Maybe scarred and unhappy, but definitely alive.

Well. 

She didn’t need a warning from Tommy, because she’s happy to stay well out of Wilbur’s orbit, but she appreciates it anyway. She tries not to think about how terrible Tommy is at following his own advice. If they want to go re-enact L’Manberg out in the desert, fine. She’s not stupid enough to tag along again. It’s not her fault Tommy is.

...her stomach still hurts. It does that a lot these days, which is absolutely unfair given that she’s worked her way back up to eating square meals again. It could be the cold, which would explain the numbness still creeping up her elbows. She’d left her cloak by the dinner table as she stormed out, and the chill is starting to get to her. Over in the corner, her bed is untouched but welcoming - the quilts and pillows are still stacked high where she had left them mornings ago. Gods, it’s tempting. She just wants to sleep.

She casts a glance at the window. She should get going, but light still shines through Techno’s windows. They’re still awake, then, and could be on the move. She doesn’t want her escape to be cut off by more conversations she really doesn’t feel like having. Not with Phil, not even with Technoblade, definitely not with Wilbur.

Her eyes drift back to the bed.

...she’ll just rest her legs for a little while, and once she sees the lights flicker out, she’ll leave. Simple as that.

Niki wakes up to a chill settling deep into her bones.

Oh shit, the fire is the first thing she thinks - fortunately, the flat is still standing and the furnace burned itself out a while ago, if the ash gathered in the ashtray is any indication. The night air hangs cold in the cabin, and when she peers outside the cracked-open window she notes that the lights inside Techno’s house have gone off. She checks her comm, and a bright two-twenty-four flashes up at her in the darkness.

She needs to get up.

Her hands shake violently as she empties the ashtray, spilling ashes over her hands. Cursing, she resists the urge to shove them against her sides as she wipes the ash away - anything to warm them. There’s nothing in the chests, stacked neatly with resources and spare weaponry. As for the ender chest, sparkling purple in the corner, she knows shows what it contains like the back of her hand - she cracks it open anyway, and is still somehow disappointed when there’s no miraculous winter coat inside.

Her hand brushes worn leather, and she freezes.

The cloak has lain abandoned in her ender chest since Wilbur came back. The fact of the matter is, she has no need for it - it’s a summer cloak, sewn for warmer temperatures. The smell of cigarettes clings to the thing, even now. It’s worn, it’s burnt, and worst of all, there are two jagged tears that hang at the back when she wraps it around herself. She doesn’t need the reminder of Wilbur hanging around her shoulders, not when he’s right there.

But. It keeps the wind out.

She slips it over her sweater, and her skin crawls. Thunderclouds gather in the night sky, blurring the moonlight above - the tundra glows, soft and grey, shadowless. Wind whips the freshly-fallen snow into flurries at her feet, and she’s only barely thankful that the cloak keeps the snow from soaking her sweater. She fixes her axe to her waist, and trudges out into the snow.

The forest shakes and wails with mob cries, following her misshapen footsteps. Careful swings of the axe send them on their way, and by the time Niki has reached the edge of the treeline, she is alone. The forest thins into the planes of old L’Manberg, the black frame above barely visible against the night sky.

The cold still bites at her, urges her to keep moving, but her feet slow to a stop at the edge of the ruins. L’Manberg is still an open wound, despite its glass coffin. Looking at it for more than a moment makes her head light, her stomach nauseous. Niki stops, toes barely touching the edge of the glass surface.

It hurts to look at, in the same way it hurts to look at an axe to the shoulder or a forest fire. It hurts like a war three-quarters over, where everyone on the field is tired enough to catch their breath, where Niki lowers her shield and properly takes in the firework ashes strewn in the grass, the blood of her friends staining the dirt packed hard beneath her feet. It’s horrible, and she’s just so done with it, but she can’t tear her eyes away. She hates coming back here. Her city is safe, metres beneath the ground, untouchable - and the Syndicate is miles away, across ocean and tundra. It’s the crossing between the two that’s the problem.

She breathes deep, searing her lungs, and takes a careful step onto the glass. It’s twice the width of her hands splayed. Despite this, she still feels like the ground will fall out beneath her, send her careening down, down.

But it doesn’t.

Another careful step. The glass is impassive, unfeeling. Cracks don’t splinter out from beneath her feet. It doesn’t lurch or shake under her weight. When she looks down, the only thing that peers back at her is the reflection of her own face. It looks tired.

One more. Third time lucky - it might be superstitious, but destruction on this server tends to come in threes. Her footsteps echo across the glass, cutting through the silence, and the crater blurs together beneath her feet. It’s all loose dirt and stone, but her gut is still drawn towards every familiar corner. The mound she steps over now, that was the White House - this crater, that was the gate in L’Manberg’s tall, blackstone walls. She averts her eyes as the bakery passes on her right.

When she passes the grandstand, emerging from the glass like a hand curled towards the sky, she clenches her own hands into fists. They shake anyway.

“Niki?”

The voice is quiet, baritone, and ripples across the glass like water.

Niki freezes.

A tall figure shuffles out from the shadows of the grandstand, carefully picking his way around the scorched debris that litters the ground. Wilbur, impossibly, somehow , far from the Syndicate and instead taking careful steps across the glass, stopping a good fifteen feet away. He frowns across the glass, brows furrowed behind his glasses. The smudges under his eyes are dark. He hasn’t slept either.

You are kidding me, aren’t you?

“It’s a bit late for a walk, isn’t it?”

Niki crosses her arms tight across her chest. “I’m walking home,” she says, bristling as Wilbur raises an eyebrow.

“Phil said you lived with the Syndicate?”

Gods above, Phil. She’s going to feel terrible when she has to break the news to him later - she can already anticipate Phil’s sad eyes, and the half-hearted apologies at the tip of her tongue. “Not at the moment. Isn’t it a little late for you to be out, anyway?”

Wilbur shrugs. “Stargazing. Settles the mind.” He tips his face upwards, and sighs. “Haven’t seen the stars in a while.”

Niki briefly follows his gaze up, upwards. The sky stretches dark and imposing, starless, a plain black sheet dappled only by stormclouds gathering above them.

“There aren’t any stars out tonight.”

“Tonight, maybe. Besides, I’m visiting an old friend.” And with that he taps his foot down onto the glass, and she flinches despite herself - she watches, and the glass does not crack, only reverberates with a soft thud. She can feel her brow quirk downward even as she tries to keep a steady, glass-surface expression. The maw beneath her still glares upwards, daring her to talk. Tommy had warned her, but, let’s be honest - she’s done worse to him than break a promise.

“The price of a tyrant,” she murmurs. Wilbur snorts.

“And who would that be?” When she looks up, his stare upwards looks - well, unless she’s getting tricked again - curious. Anticipatory.

“...Dream?”

He looks genuinely confused. “Dream did this?”

“...yes?” she confirms. Dream had called the order, but - well. Wilbur has been staying with Phil and Techno, of all people. Unless Ranboo’s memory issues have suddenly become contagious, he had to know the truth, didn’t he? Her eyes narrow. It’s another ploy, another trap. She’s not stupid enough to fall for that.

Something akin to amazement flits over Wilbur’s face anyway, and laughter bubbles its way out of his chest. “Oh, what a man!” he faux-swoons, a hand coming to rest on his chest. “I should have guessed! Oh, that’s brilliant. Wonderful. I thought - I thought I’d razed this place to the ground, but - there’s no one else I’d trust more to finish the job!”

This time she really does feel the way her face quirks downward, and when Wilbur looks over he laughs again.

“He’s not that bad, Niki. Honest. He’s a good friend.”

“Since when were you friends with Dream?” There’s that thick, icy feeling in the bottom of her stomach again, and it feels like it’s tying itself in knots.

“I don’t know. Pogtopia,” he shrugs. “Although I suppose he was more of a patron… I’d like to think we were friends. It’s nice to think there was someone waiting for me when I came back.”

Someone waiting for me.

His words sit uncomfortably on her chest. It’s stupid, it’s - it’s so fucking stupid, because she hates him. She fucking hates him. But that gross, cold feeling is wrapping its way around her guts again, and this time she’s almost brave enough it call it out as jealousy.

What had Dream done to deserve that? To deserve his friendship. He wasn’t there. Dream didn’t sit in quiet bakeries, quiet cells, quiet ravines, beside his friends. Dream didn’t do jack shit. Dream shows up when the fireworks go off and the land tears itself apart, and that’s it. The war, the first war, that might have been months and months ago, and she might have sworn off L’Manberg forever, but a tiny part of her still hates Dream. Maybe she always will. The frame above them might have been his little January hobby, but even he doesn’t hate L’Manberg like she does. He’s a tool, and he’d always treated Wilbur like a tool, and that was it.

“...aren’t we friends, Wilbur?”

Wilbur’s eyes finally drop back down to hers, and he shoots her a look that would be so heart-rendingly familiar, so sweet, if it wasn’t so saccharinely patronising.

“Come on, Niki. It’s very admirable of you to put on a brave face, but it’s just the two of us now. I can tell you don’t want me around.”

The ticker in her chest stutters to a stop.

“I’m sorry?"

The cold feeling in her stomach is growing, spreading through her chest in a way that makes her shiver despite the sweater and the cloak around her shoulders. Oh, she recognises dully. It’s anger.

“Well it’s true, isn’t it?”

“And how would you know?”

“Niki, you’re a terrible liar!” he laughs. “You can’t fucking stand me! I don’t blame you - it’s, it’s fine, you don’t have to lie about it. I have thick skin. I know what I am.”

“I don’t lie, Wilbur.” Niki thinks of stay away from him, and I will, and swallows the - well, the lie, crawling up her throat.

That didn’t count, she decides. Whatever. She’s done worse than lie to Tommy. One more thing to fail to apologise for.

“Come on , Niki, you’re not naïve. Everyone has something to lie for,” he says, striding in a broad circle across the glass - back straight, shoulders back, slipping back into that showman’s posture she’s painfully familiar with by now. He keeps his distance, and she keeps hers. “Whether it be matters of country, or of heart… I mean, Techno, right? He lies about how much his little Syndicate means to him. Because it’s not just about anarchy, no matter what he tells himself. Or the rest of us.”

Niki’s mind immediately flits to her flat, to the flowerpots and carvings that decorate it, to the extra stall in the stables for her horse. And he’s not wrong, because Techno doesn’t exactly cry out to the world how much he cares.

“You’re one to talk about lying,” Niki snaps. “You - you,” left me, hovers on her tongue, and she immediately clamps down on the urge to spit it out. Wilbur raises an eyebrow, challenging.

“I, what?”

The cold that creeps through her chest, as terrible as it is, forces her to pack her thoughts densely together. She keeps her mouth shut, and glares.

Wilbur laughs, smug and horrible.

“I never said I was an exception, did I? Niki, that’s the point - I entirely understand why you don’t want me around! No one does! You’re entitled to it, Niki. People don’t try to keep me around. People don’t want me around.” He pauses. “You don’t want me hanging around the Syndicate, do you?”

Niki stiffens. “Techno and Phil can spend time with whoever they like,” she says airily.

“But that’s not what you want, is it?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want - ”

“It should, if they’re your friends - ”

“ - and I’m not their babysitter. They can fight for themselves.”

“You’re justified, I get it - ” Wilbur stops, frozen mid-sentence. “Niki, do you seriously think I’d hurt them?”

Does she?

Because when he says it like that, it sounds a little silly. Wilbur is unarmed, coat hanging loose and almost too-big off of his body. He’s never been the type to carry weapons, not even hidden away under his coat or strapped untouched to his belt. The axe at her side feels heavier, when she thinks about it that way. The others - well, they all arm themselves to the teeth. Wilbur goes empty-handed.

But, the voice in the back of her head whispers, but, but, but, Wilbur hasn’t ever needed an axe or bow by his side to cause damage. He just needs his silver tongue, and the empty, empty promises he spews.

Phil worships the ground he walks on, Techno is hopelessly partial to anyone who lends him a listening ear, and Ranboo is… Ranboo.

And none of them, not a single one of them, know Wilbur the way she does.

Wilbur goes quiet for a moment, simply watching. “You really don’t believe me, do you?”

“You said it yourself, Wilbur,” Niki says quietly. The words don’t sound right in her mouth. “You’re the villain, aren’t you?”

Wilbur’s dark eyes widen for a fraction of a second, something incomprehensible flickering across his face, before the mask slips back into place - this one, bitterly disappointed, almost upset. He takes a ragged breath, breath catching on - on something, Niki wouldn’t know what - before huffing out a hollow laugh, grin tugging at his lips.

“You’re right! You’re - you’re right.” He sighs, looking up at the sky. “Fuck. I did a number on this place, didn’t I?”

“You said you didn’t regret it.”

“I don’t regret some of it,” Wilbur says.

“And yet, here we are,” Niki scowls. The ruins stare up at her. It hasn’t gotten any less unsettling. “L’Manberg died a long time ago, anyway.”

Wilbur exhales with a shuddered huff of cool breath, wisping through the air like smoke. Niki pulls her coat tighter around her shoulders. She’s still cold. It feels like needles underneath her skin. It makes the weight on her chest feel heavier, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. Stupid. She swallows them down.

“It’s easier, isn’t it,” Wilbur says softly. “Not to pretend.”

“Can you,” Niki sucks a breath past her teeth. “Can you stop doing that."

Wilbur has the audacity to look almost concerned, brows furrowed. “Stop doing what?”

“Pretending that you give a shit!” Niki exclaims before she stop herself. Wilbur steps back, shock colouring his features for a moment, before settling into a scowl.”You just - every time, Wilbur. You say these things, and you do these things, and you act like you care but it’s all just - it’s all some fucked up mind game to you, isn’t it?”

“If that’s what you want to call it, sure,” he snaps, full of utter bravado. “Niki, this place - L’Manberg - call it a pet project, right? Well, it failed. So I threw it out.”

“And that’s what we were to you, then?” Niki shoots back. “Just toys to play with, just - just these stupid dogs that follow at your heel no matter what, right?”

Something unidentifiable flickers across Wilbur’s face. “Niki, wait - ”

“Well I’m sick of it! I’m sick of - I’m sick and fucking tired, Wilbur, of being tricked and lied to and manipulated! You treat everyone around you like - like things for you to use , for your own selfish ends, to spread destruction and chaos. Because you’re so much better than the rest of us, right? So much smarter ? I’m not stupid enough to trick anymore, Wilbur. So don’t stand there, and act like you care, because I’m not falling for your lies and your bullshit ever again. You’re wasting your fucking time.”

“I don’t - ” Wilbur clamps his mouth shut, expression freezing over. He draws himself back up to his full height, shoulders back and head held high, brushing imaginary snow off of his coat. “If that’s how you see it, sure. Fine. I can’t - I know what I am. I won’t change your mind.”

He turns on his heel to leave.

“So, what?” Niki almost doesn’t want to know, but she’s angry enough that she’s gone numb to it. “What are you going to do, run back to Dream?”

When he turns back to her, eyes wild, he looks - he looks the same as he did in Pogtopia, standing over a bloody pit with gunpowder staining his hands, and it sends white-hot fear down her spine. The residue it leaves burns against the icy anger she feels, freezing her feet to the ground.

“What are you going to do, stop me?”

The question hangs in the silent air like an echo, and Niki is keenly aware of the fact that they are the only two awake for miles.

Without thinking, her fingers close over the axe secured at her waist. It’s - it’s instinctual by now, sworn into the Syndicate to do unto tyrants what they call upon others, but Techno would rather lose his own head than take Wilbur’s and she knows that for all that’s changed since the war, for as much as she hates him (because she does), she’s still somehow the same way.

Wilbur’s widening eyes flit down to the blade regardless. He barks out a laugh, propelling himself backwards with uneasy steps.

“Ohh, no. No way. I’ll be your villain, Niki, but you’re not sending me back to that place.”

She follows. One step, settling into an open stance.

“Are you really working with Dream?”

Wilbur raises an eyebrow, but swallows thickly as he looks down at the blade by her side. “Techno told me that the Syndicate doesn’t care about him.”

“Do I look like Techno to you?” she challenges. Wilbur tilts his head and squints.

“With or without the pink hair?”

“Wilbur.”

“He’s not as bad as everyone acts like he is,” Wilbur says quickly. “His crime - it was destroying L’Manberg, right? That’s what everyone hated him for? What everyone still hates him for? I did that, and I’m not rotting away in a cell, am I? He still brought me back.”

“Dream is in jail for threatening to lock everyone’s belongings, their friends, in a vault.” Niki snaps. “You’re not in jail because we give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Wilbur rolls his eyes. “You want us to compare rap sheets then, Niki? Let me challenge that record. I’m sure you can figure out who actually deserves to be locked up. I tried to run a fraudulent election, because I couldn’t stand the thought of losing something I’d already decided was mine.”

Tommy stands atop the scattered debris of the community house, wrapped up in a fur coat that dwarves him despite his height. His hair has grown out past his ears, and there are new scars - scars she doesn’t recognise - across his forehead, his jaw. His voice cracks where it never has before, as he calls out to the crowd like a general to his men. She hasn’t seen him in months. She should be worried. She’s enraged.

“I never listened to anyone - Fundy, Jack, Quackity, I ignored all of them, their concerns, their fears. The only thing that mattered to me was what was going on inside my own head.”

The tree has somehow survived the bombings, until now. It still stands tall, leaves dark against the explosives that illuminate the sky. She readjusts her grip on the flint, and strikes it against the steel held up to the base of the tree - sparks fly, and it catches immediately, flames crawling up the trunk like vines. She stands, transfixed, frozen in place, until she becomes aware of the fiery pain tearing through her hands, her wrists - 

“I hurt Tommy - I see the way he looks at me, Niki, I see it. He’s afraid of me, and he has every fucking right to be - ”

Niki smears more flour onto the bench beside her, and Tommy flinches away like he’s been struck. She looks up, and behind the flour stuck in his hair, terror lights up his grey-blue eyes. It subsides as he blinks the fear away, returning to his dough, but it doesn’t ever leave.

“I let Tubbo die - and I just stood there and let Techno do it, that’s two at once - ”

Smoke curls unnaturally over the crater, thick and acrid, heavy and toxic at the back of her throat - 

“Fuck, I destroyed L’Manberg! I destroyed our home, Niki, razed it to fucking bedrock, just because - because I’d rather kill it myself, I’d rather kill myself than see it go on without me. Isn’t that selfish? Isn’t that terrible?”

“You didn’t even - this isn’t about L’Manberg, Wilbur!” Niki shouts.

And then he stops, breathing hard, and he looks at Niki the same way he does whenever her voice is being drowned out in a crowd - the way he does when he wants to hear her, when he wants to know what she has to say.

“What else is there?” he asks.

Niki freezes. Stock still, unable to move, unable to breathe, ice threading its way through her gut, her chest, her shoulders, chilled down to the bone. With slow-dawning horror, she can feel hot tears welling up behind her eyes, sitting in her throat, threatening to spill over into a sob. She swallows - to keep her cool, to stay calm, to keep it together -

And then, something in her chest just snaps.

“You said you’d come back for me!” she cries, and her voice hitches on the lump of tears at the back of her throat and god, she sounds absolutely pathetic. Wilbur’s face softens immediately, which somehow just makes her feel even worse. “In Manberg. When Schlatt put me in prison, and you and Tommy were in Pogtopia, you said you’d break me out when it was safe. I waited for weeks , Wilbur. It was… it was horrible.”

“Niki…” a kaleidoscope of emotions flicker across his face, and he seems unsure which to settle on. “We got you out though, right? After the festival.”

“You looked for the button first,” she says quietly, and he stills.

Her sniffling sounds embarrassingly loud against the quiet background of night.

“I don’t know what happened,” she whines, pressing her fists against her eyes. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. “And then, when you did come back for you, you - with the execution, and the pit, and everything had changed, and - fuck.”

Wilbur still hovers steps away, an anxious kind of horror spreading across his face, hands half-hovering at his waist. He looks - 

He looks utterly lost.

Fuck.

“What happened, Wil?”

There’s no response. Niki takes a breath, and then another, and then another, collapsing in on each other too fast and suddenly she can’t feel her fingers, but she’s sure that this time it isn’t because of the cold. She tries to count what she sees, what she feels, but it’s all gone blank - her vision is blurred over with tears, and L’Manberg below her has become nothing more than a smear against bedrock. Distantly, she hears her name - but it’s muffled, like she’s been dunked underwater, rushing distorted past her ears. She’s gone numb and deaf to it.

Gently, like handling fine china, a hand covers the one of hers pressing crescent-shaped scars into her upper arm, prising the fingers away softly.

“Can you hear me?” a voice asks. Far, but familiar. She nods.

The hand that still holds hers is shaking. It tries to pull out of her grip, to step away, but she tugs it back. There are scars across the knuckles, slashes of knives that erupt into thick burns above his wrists. She counts five. She can feel the warmth of his hand against hers, her cloak fluttering in the wind, tears drying sticky and cold against her cheeks. There’s a voice, mumbling softly until she looks up again, breathing - well, not evenly, but not hyperventilating either.

“Niki,” Wilbur swallows thickly. His eyes are searching her face (no doubt observing the bags underneath her eyes, the tear tracks smeared across her cheeks), looking for - god knows what, really. “Niki, I - I’m sorry that I didn’t come get you earlier. It - I didn’t want you to see… I should have gotten you out of there. I should have thought more about what Schlatt could have been doing to you. I didn’t - I should have accounted for that. I didn’t.”

“I could deal with Schlatt,” she says, scrubbing tears off of her face with her free hand. “Schlatt was never the issue, he didn’t matter. I just - I wanted to be with you, Wilbur. No matter the danger, if you are exiled, if there is a war, I only wanted to be with you again.”

He still looks so lost. “Why?”

“Because you’re my best friend,” Niki says softly. “You know that, right?”

“You deserve better friends,” he laughs quietly.

“It’s not about deserving. It was never about that, ever. Not in L’Manberg, not in exile.” Wilbur looks down, chin tucked close to his chest, and Niki slowly - carefully - raises a hand to his cheek, tilts his head upwards.

“You don’t have to lie anymore,” Wilbur says.

“I know,” Niki says.

Wilbur takes another ragged breath, squeezing his eyes shut. It’s not until she feels a tear catch itself in the space between her thumb and her index finger, sliding down his cheek, that he pulls her hand away. She rests it on his shoulder, and as his knees buckle she follows him, chasing the warmth, to sit on the glass. It’s cold to the touch, and she shifts closer. She flexes her hands, feeling having wormed its way back into her fingers - one hand resting lightly on his back, as if he might disappear again if she presses too much, the other still loosely intertwined with his.

“I - Niki, you said it yourself,” Wilbur says. His breath still catches as he talks. “Everything I touch on this server, it up and fucking dies. I’m not - I’m not a good person, I know that now, and that’s - fine. It’s fine. Someone, someone has to be the villain, and it might as well be me.”

“None of that shit matters,” Niki says. “I don’t - I don’t want a villain, or a president, or whatever you think you are. I just… I just want Wilbur back.”

“I am back,” he says, with a laugh that sounds almost like a sob, crashing his forehead into her shoulder. Niki wraps her arms around his shoulders. He’s still running too hot, almost feverish. She sighs, resting her head against his temple. “Niki, I can’t be - everything I’ve done, all of it? Every single moment of every fucked-up thing I’ve done, that was all me , Niki. I ruined L’Manberg, and then I blew it to pieces.”

“This wasn’t even you!” Niki retorts, loud enough for Wilbur to flinch by her side. “This? This - Wilbur, the TNT was nothing like this. It was Dream, and Phil, and Techno, and - ” she takes an unsteady breath in, wobbly with another round of tears beating their way up her chest “ - I burnt down the L’Mantree because I was just so angry and I - I did so much awful shit after that and I want to be better, I know what it’s like to want to be better but that doesn’t mean I didn’t do it.”

Wilbur is silent.

“How can you be the villain, if I’ve done just as much wrong as you?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he says in a small voice.

Desecrated craters of the arctic flicker across Niki’s vision. She squeezes her eyes shut, fights the urge to hide her face in his shoulder. “It is, Wil.”

“No, you don’t get it,” he says. “Dream was the only person to pull me out of limbo. He was the only person to get me out, who could get me out of that place - I have to stand next to him. I have to.”

Oh.

“I don’t want to go,” he murmurs into her shoulder. “It’s horrible, Niki, and it doesn’t stop. It never stops. Dream’s the only one who can bring me back, if I go - ”

“You won’t,” she whispers fiercely, hands closing into fists across his back. “I won’t let you go.”

“Niki - ”

“I won’t.” She pulls Wilbur half-upright, cupping his face in her hands. His eyes are dark, red-rimmed and scared, tiny reflections of herself staring grimly back at her. “Not again.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“You overcomplicate things.”

Wilbur takes a breath, frowning, but lets it go with a sigh and slumps back against her shoulder.

“I know that people don’t trust me. I just… I don’t want to fuck it up again. I don’t.”

It’s scary, to think that he could.

But Niki is walking into it eyes wide open, this time. The stars could fall from the sky, the tides could stop turning, the world could stop spinning. They take it in stride.

“All you can do,” she murmurs, “is move forward. And try to apologise, when things go wrong.”

(It’s a lesson she’s still trying to learn herself. Maybe they can work it out together.)

“I’m sorry I left you,” he says immediately.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you more, in Pogtopia.”

“I’m sorry I blew up our home.”

“I’m sorry I burnt down the L’Mantree.”

“Niki, I do not give a flying fuck about the L’Mantree.”

A giggle bubbles its way out of Niki’s chest, echoed by Wilbur’s laughter.

“...I am sorry, though. About Pogtopia. I - I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I should have done more, but - ”

“Niki, it’s fine,” she can feel Wilbur wince. “Well, it - it wasn’t, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t your fault. I wasn’t well, and anyone in your position - everyone in your position - they did the same thing. I can’t - I can’t hold that against you.”

She hums.

“And besides, you were busy kicking Schlatt’s ass. You had enough on your plate.”

That should make her laugh, but regret still stings at her.

“Really, though.” She sighs, resting her cheek against his shoulder. Wilbur shifts to accommodate, a warm arm wrapping around her shoulders to keep her stable. “You needed help, Wil, and I know - I know what that’s like, and I’m sorry you had no one to help you. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

There’s another moment of quiet, of Wilbur stroking a thumb across her shoulderblade. Back and forth, back and forth - it’s repetitive, soothing. It’s - shit, it’s been almost a year since they hugged like this. She’d almost forgotten it.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you either,” he says.

Silence settles over the two of them. It’s not uncomfortable, after everything that’s been said. It hangs over them like a thick blanket, warm but not smothering, like a layer of warmth between Niki and the cool night air.

“...we’re pretty fucked up, aren’t we?”

That makes her laugh properly, the full-bellied kind that cuts abruptly through the dark and leaves her detangling from their sprawled-out hug to catch her breath. Wilbur catches her eye, and chuckles - she just laughs harder.

“We need Puffy back,” she says. “She’s - Tommy might have told you, she’s a therapist. We need more of those, I think.”

“So I’ve heard,” he muses. “All good things, of course.”

“She’s wonderful,” Niki smiles to herself, and Wilbur raises an eyebrow.

“Someone special, then?”

Niki flushes bright red, and flicks her fingers at him. He just waggles his eyebrows at her until she gives up - in record time, because she is not indulging this teasing, and not because she’s started laughing so hard that she thinks she might actually cry again, and she’s done more than enough crying because of Wilbur.

The man in question stretches out, and clambers to his feet.

“As lovely as the weather is at four in the morning, in the middle of winter,” he declares, “I’m going home. Coming with?”

And he leans down, reaching out a hand.

Niki takes it, palm warm and calloused against her burned one, and pulls herself to her feet.