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Pomni couldn't stop thinking about the fort. Or more importantly, the inhabitant of the fort.
Every night she stood outside it.
Listening.
Waiting.
The creature continued to lie there.
"Jax?" She called into the void.
One huge eye focuses on her.
For a second she swears she sees recognition.
Then it disappears.
The creature lets out a low growl.
"I know you're still in there," she accuses it.
The creature shakes.
Like the words physically hurt it.
Over time, Pomni keeps returning. Without fail every night.
She sits right at the entrance and she talks to him. Recounting her days. Telling him about the new adventures.
She laughs about things he would probably hate. She silently sheds a few tears at things that she knows he would’ve enjoyed.
She knows she shouldn't but sometimes she even ends up arguing with him.
“You’re such a jerk, you know that?” Pomni snaps one night, voice echoing into the dark.
The creature doesn’t move.
“You left me here.”
Her hands ball into fists at her sides.
“You promised me you wouldn’t end up like this.”
The eye narrows slightly.
“And don’t act like you don’t remember that conversation because you do.” Her voice cracks. “You always acted like you were better at surviving this place than the rest of us.”
The creature shuddered violently.
Pomni immediately regretted it.
“No, no. I didn’t mean—”
A low, distorted growl fills the fort. Not angry.
Hurt.
Pomni’s expression crumples.
“I just…” she whispers. “I miss you so much.”
The creature slowly lowers its head onto the pillows again.
And Pomni sits beside it until morning.
She knows the others know she visits him every night. Yet no one brings it up. At least not to her.
And no one stops her. Though they know they couldn’t even if they tried.
“Kinger taught me how to play piano.”
The eye shifts toward her.
Pomni smiles faintly.
“I still suck at it. But I learned Daisy Bell.”
“I already know what you would say ‘Even a monkey could be taught how to do that.’”
She nudges one of the pillows with her foot.
“Kinger cried when I played it.”
The creature lets out a strange clicking sound.
Pomni blinks.
“Was that a laugh?”
Silence.
“Wow. Tough crowd.”
“Gangle made me participate in game night.”
A pause.
“I know. Horrifying.”
Another pause.
“You would've cheated immediately.”
“I finally beat your high score.”
The creature’s claws twitch against the floor.
Pomni smiles despite herself.
“Yeah, that got your attention.”
One night she walks into the fort. She assumes it’ll be like any night.
But she reaches the top of the pillows and looks into the void and doesn’t find him.
Her heart drops and she runs into the tent without thinking it through.
She lands on the floor but she immediately stands up and whirls around. Her eyes adjusted to the dark. Still he is nowhere to be found.
Did he get out? Was he finally gone?
She is a second away from calling out to Caine but finds him laying on the ground.
The hammering of her heart dies down before picking back up again.
She expects to see his usual self; or the one she has grown accustomed to.
But instead he’s himself.
Tall, slender, purple rabbit self.
And he looks absolutely exhausted.
Pomni nearly bursts into tears.
"Oh my god."
Jax pushes himself up on a shaky elbow while avoiding her eyes.
"You're back."
"Debatable."
But his voice cracks.
She kneels beside him carefully.
But it lasts a second before she throws her arms around him.
She feels him tense up against her before a tentative hand lands on the small of her back.
“Hey, Pomni,” he whispers into the side of her head.
New tears start to stream from her eyes.
“Hi, Jax,” she squeezes him tighter. “I really hope I’m not dreaming.”
“Me too,” he mutters, which causes her to laugh.
She sits back on her knees and places both hands on either side of his face. She analyzes his face closely; afraid if she looks away even for a second he’ll transform back into abstraction.
He feels his cheeks heat up and is tempted to push her away. Instead he lets her.
“You visited me every night.”
The admission causes her to blush in turn. She tentatively nods her head.
“I did.”
“You kept talking.”
“Thanks for the company, Pomni,” she says sarcastically.
His ears twitch faintly. “It was hard to ignore you.”
That gets a small laugh out of her.
Her hands tighten around his cheeks before she is pulling him back in for another hug.
“I’m really glad you’re back,” she mumbles into his shoulder.
His grip tightens on the ground like he has to physically anchor himself.
“You shouldn’t be,” he says after a moment.
Pomni frowns and releases him from her embrace. “What?”
“I was an ass before all this.” He shrugs without looking at her. “Probably would've continued being one.”
“That’s not—”
“And honestly? You probably had less problems without me around.”
Pomni stares at him in disbelief.
“Are you serious?”
Jax finally looks over.
There’s something genuinely uncertain in his expression now.
Pomni’s chest aches.
“Everyone missed you,” she says softly.
Jax looks away again immediately like he doesn’t believe a word of that.
But Pomni continues.
“Ragatha kept checking the fort even when she pretended she wasn’t. Gangle cried about you constantly. Kinger started leaving snacks outside for you even though abstracted people literally cannot eat. Even Zooble missed you!”
Against his will, Jax snorts quietly.
Pomni smiles faintly.
“You were missed.”
Jax swallows hard.
Nobody should’ve missed him. And they were all idiots for it. He was the definition of a lost cause. If he were any of them he wouldn’t have wasted a second sending him into the dark cellar and throwing away the key.
Then she says, even softer, “But I missed you the most.”
Jax’s whole expression falters for half a second.
Pomni reaches over carefully and takes his hand before she can overthink it.
His fingers twitch instinctively at the contact.
But he doesn’t pull away.
“You coming back mattered to me,” she whispers.
Jax stares at their joined hands for a long time.
Then quietly, “Being abstracted. It’s different than I thought it would be. It’s like you’re fighting to hold on. To your sanity. To your memories. To yourself.”
He remembers how easy it was to fall into the void of abstraction. How it felt like losing yourself entirely. And day by day parts of himself were slipping through his fingers like sand. You couldn’t even consciously fight it. It was all-consuming.
“I kept trying to remember your voice. Sometimes it was hard and I was sure I had forgotten you entirely. But every night you came and I just held onto your voice.”
Pomni feels tears sting her eyes immediately.
“Your nasally, kid-like voice,” he tried to joke but the tears kept falling regardless of his attempt.
“Ugh. Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Get all emotional.”
“That is the most devastating thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, well.”
He musters up all the strength and courage he has as he wipes the tears away from her round cheeks.
Pomni leans into his touch and closes her eyes.
“Can I show you something?”
Jax doesn’t answer right away.
“Depends,” he finally says. “Is it going to make me regret being conscious?”
Pomni huffs a shaky laugh through her nose, wiping at her face with her sleeve. “Probably not.”
She stands first, then offers her hand. He hesitates for a long second before taking it.
When they step out of the fort, the world outside feels quieter than it should. Like the circus itself is holding its breath.
Pomni leads him through familiar pathways; corridors that twist too neatly, rooms that pretend they make sense. Jax doesn’t comment, but she can feel him watching everything like he’s trying to piece together what changed while he wasn’t here.
Eventually, they reach it.
The stargazing room.
It wasn’t there before. Not really. Pomni asked Caine to make it. It’s where she would go sometimes if her grief felt too encompassing. If she missed him too much.
She spent many nights laying on the ground and sobbing into the night sky alone.
She could’ve brought someone with her; but this was her space to grieve.
Now she could share it with the one who made it special.
The ceiling opens into a painted sky. Soft stars suspended in a deep, endless blue. A green clearing sat encompassed by oak trees.
Jax stops at the entrance.
“Huh,” he says quietly. “So, Caine’s brought back the adventures?”
Pomni walks in first, then turns back to him like she’s not sure he’ll follow.
He does.
“Kind of. We actually get to control what we do. We get to pick the adventures and what goes on in them. So it isn’t boring, we've all kind of agreed to take turns choosing. Tomorrow is going to be Gangle’s turn, I think.”
“First day back and I’m going to have to relive the slice of life anime? Maybe Caine being in control wasn’t so bad,” he jokes half-heartedly.
She lightly hits him on the arm.
“We could do something together! I’m sure the others won’t mind. Or I’m sure I could convince them to make tomorrow your day! What would you want to do?” she asks him earnestly.
He mulls it over in his head before setting his eyes back on her.
“I’d probably just do this. And I’d probably just do it with you.”
Her cheeks grow flush again. She throws herself on her back so she can avoid his gaze. Instead she looks up at the night sky and feels a calmness settle over her.
He follows her to the ground and they just lay there together beneath the false stars.
“So what now?” Jax asks after a while.
Pomni leans her shoulder against his before she even realizes she’s doing it. He stiffens for a second, then he leans back against her.
“I don’t know,” she admits.
Jax lets out a quiet, humorless breath. “Yeah. Story of my life.”
She takes his hand again with more confidence.
And he doesn’t flinch.
The stars above them flicker gently, like they’re pretending they’ve always been there.
“I don’t know if I can stay normal,” Jax says quietly. “I don’t even know how I came back.”
Pomni squeezes his hand reassuringly.
"Well take it one day at a time. I lost you once. And I'll bring you back as many times as I have to."
Jax squeezes her hand back.
They lay there longer than they intend to. Neither of them wanted this to end.
They stare up at the sky holding hands and spilling everything.
“Caine, where’s Pomni?” Ragatha asks in the morning.
“She’s not in her room,” Gangle says.
“And she’s not at the fort,” Kinger adds.
“Hm, let’s find out!” With a snap of his fingers Caine transports them all to exactly where Pomni is.
Unfortunately for them, they were exactly where they’d fallen asleep: wrapped around each other, Pomni’s back pressed against Jax’s chest.
“Jax!” Ragatha exclaimed.
The sudden shrieking woke both of them up.
Jax’s eyes darted from the group staring at them awestruck and back to Pomni’s sleeping form then back to the group. He did that tango for a couple of seconds as his brain caught up with the rest of him and immediately jumped away.
“What happened?” Pomni groggily asked before sitting up on a leaning elbow.
“You’re back!” Ragatha says.
For a moment, nobody says anything.
Jax braces himself for the mood to shift.
Instead, Zooble steps forward and wraps her arms around him.
Until Zooble takes a step forward and wraps her arms around Jax. Kinger followed immediately after; then Ragatha. Gangle lingered for half a second before joining too.
His ears flattened briefly beneath the attention, though he didn’t push anyone away.
“You’re such a dick.” Zooble says engulfed by everyone.
“Nice to see you too, Zoobs.” Jax says muffled in the crowd.
“You owe everyone an apology.”
“I know. I know.”
“But I’m glad you're okay.”
Pomni watches it all unfold and smiles to herself.
They’d be okay. Jax would be okay. And together they’ll survive for as long as the Circus was there.