Archive of Our Own

Every time I look at my face
I feel everything, it’s the same growing pains
‘Cause no one ever truly knows just who they are
And I feel closer knowing I don’t have to hide my scars

☆

The first end-of-term dance is a grave matter. Or, rather, this dance has the potential to be of crucial use in extending progress on Strix’s Plan B, and thus Twilight intends to give—and really, is already giving—his all to set Anya up for success in improving her friendship with Damian. From teaching (and reteaching) Anya how to dance to preparing a waiter’s disguise to keep an eye on the event himself to now, sitting on the couch while Anya sits on the floor in front of him, carefully parting her pink hair with a black styling comb into two even sections.

“Ouch, Papa!” Anya winces as Loid pulls a little too tightly while he smoothes the first half of her hair into a ponytail. “Owie!”

“Sorry,” Loid says, mostly genuine. He hesitates. “You know, I can still ask Yor if you’d prefer her to be the one to—”

Anya shudders, and Loid’s hard work promptly slips from his hands as her head shakes with the rattled motion. “No. I don’t trust Mama with this.”

And, Twilight supposes, Yor had indeed admitted to knowing little in the realm of hairstyles, as she kept her own hair in one single, particular, precise way and rarely ventured into other visages. Growing up, she’d added with a laugh, Yuri would indulge her in many things, but never styling his hair, which was a boundary she respected. Overall, though, it meant she had little practice in the art of updos.

So it falls to Loid. “Sit still,” he warns Anya, firmly but not unkindly, and places down the comb and ponytail holder to again grab the brown paddle brush. “I have to start over. You don’t want to be late to the dance, do you?”

Anya freezes. “No! Becky might kill me.”

Loid chuckles, despite himself. “Then let’s avoid that.”

It’s not as if Twilight has no experience taking care of hair. What with the number of disguises he’s donned throughout his career…? Not every wig can have WISE’s entire budget thrown at it for customization, and even those that do often still require fine-tuning on his end. Twilight knows the most popular hairstyles from the past six decades—men’s and women’s and all looks in-between—like the back of his hand.

What’s different in this situation is that he’s working with thick, wavy hair on a small, squirming six-year-old whom he has no Spy Wars available to put on the TV as a distraction.

“Sorry, Papa,” Anya says, straightening her back and fiddling with the skirt of her black dress. “Anya will sit very still.”

A smile twitches at Loid’s lips. “Thank you.” He runs the brush through her hair, starting with the ends, and notices how tense Anya’s shoulders are. He bites back an amused sigh. “While I appreciate your concentration, you are allowed to relax, Anya.”

Anya’s shoulders slump. “Phew.”

Moving on from the ends, Loid gradually works the brush through the roots of Anya’s hair. Once he’s satisfied that any final knots have been detangled, he picks up the comb once more to re-part her hair. Though precise, he’s careful to avoid pricking or pressing against her skin, all too conscious of how that might cause Anya to jump again.

Until the comb catches on something. Well, not catches. More like… hits a bump on the figurative road that is Anya’s scalp. Loid assumes it’s a tangle, at first, but a glance alone reveals that’s not the case.

He frowns.

With his free hand, Loid gently runs his fingers over the area where the comb bumped.

Twilight’s eyes narrow.

Anya has… a scar here, just beyond the middle part of her hair. Thin, narrow, a shallow parabolic curve from which the center of her scalp is the lowest point. And there’s another, identical in its size and curvature, on the opposite side—as if flipped over a vertical axis.

How strange.

Most strange of all that Twilight is able to discern—purely from touch, as he cannot see the marks themselves through Anya’s thick hair—is that these echoed scars, though rough in texture, were clearly made with surgical precision, likely some form of surgery itself, suggesting great care was taken in the making of the original wounds.

But not in the recovery.

Assuming post-operative care was provided at all.

Twilight’s mind races through potential explanations. There was no history of child abuse mentioned in the file he had Franky compile on Anya and her previous adoptions. Of course, as Twilight well knows, the abuse of orphaned children in the postwar era is widespread and rarely receives social acknowledgement, much less formal documentation. And yet domestic abuse itself—with its rageful, chaotic connotation—appears dissonant with the eerie symmetry of these scars.

Twilight can only arrive at one uneasy conclusion: it would seem someone performed incisions on Anya’s head. Intentionally. Perhaps three years ago, assuming a standard rate of recovery.

Twilight glances down and realizes that Anya has stiffened beneath his touch. She stares at her lap, motionless, hands gripping the tulle of her skirt so fiercely he almost fears she’ll tear through it.

“Anya…” Loid says after a pause. “You have a few… scars. On your scalp.” Twilight hesitates, but finally asks, “Do you recall how you got them?”

A sniffling sound emerges from the child who still sits at his feet, and Loid winces. “Anya—”

“Anya only remembers how much they hurt.” A small fist rises as Anya reaches to rub her eyes, still sniffling. “Anya doesn’t—Anya can’t remember anything else.”

A pause.

Twilight contemplates the absence of memory itself. A consequence—deliberate?—of the operation, perhaps, but equally attributable to Anya’s age. Few children recall much of their early years, and should that youth involve something particularly traumatic, such as a painful surgery…

Children tend to block such events out.

Twilight closes his eyes, exhaling slowly. Then Loid begins to gently run the brush through Anya’s hair once more. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re most excited for at the dance tonight?”

The brightness that illuminates Anya is immediate, overshadowing—destroying the shadow, even—of the conversation’s thread that haunted her seconds before.

“Well, Becky said I should ask Sy-on Boy to dance with me again tonight, so I’m gonna do that!” Anya smirks. “And this time he’ll definitely say yes. Heh.”

Loid chuckles. “And we’ll make sure your hair looks perfect when you ask him. I promise.”

Even though this time Anya obediently doesn’t move from her seated position, he can see the reflection of her beaming smile in the blank television screen before them. “Thank you, Papa!”

“Mm.” He splits her hair into two parts once more, perfectly even down the middle. “Don’t thank me until I’m finished.”

But Loid won’t let her down. He won’t.

This time, he’ll get it right.

☆

They agreed not to take her to the hospital. They agreed on this (risky) decision because Anya’s fever has at least been consistently responding to fever reducers—though it still refuses to stay down—and hasn’t yet reached brain-melting stages. They also agreed because Anya reacts negatively to television shows and movies that feature hospitalization for reasons Yor does not understand but equally does not wish to subject Anya to unless dire, dire circumstances arose.

And yet part of Yor fears now is such a circumstance.

Anya has never fallen so ill before. At least not while Yor has been part of the Forger family. Anya’s fever approaches 40℃, Yor gives her liquid ibuprofen to break the fever, and the vicious loop repeats itself. There’s clearly some form of respiratory ailment at work, too, as whenever Anya’s fever breaks and she’s no longer trapped in distant delirium, she struggles with shortness of breath and coughing fits.

Yor is no stranger to taking care of unwell children, much less is she a stranger to severe sickness. She raised Yuri all on her own, after all, and she did so in the midst of war, when it felt like the Bubonic Plague itself was—after slumbering for millennia—once again running rampant through Ostania. She and her brother often made do with limited access to over-the-counter medicine and frequently no access whatsoever to prescription medicine, which should (ostensibly) make Yor even more prepared to guarantee Anya’s wellness and the end of this stressful infection.

And still.

Yor has never felt so helpless.

Anya lies in her bed, now, pink sheets kicked off and pale arms splayed out. Her face is contorted, her forehead sheens with sweat, and weak whimpers fall from her lips as the fever slowly breaks for the umpteenth time. Bond lies beyond the foot of her bed, worried hrmfs escaping his snout every time he looks up to glance between the physically sick Anya and the worried sick Yor. Yor herself sits beside the bed, having taken the wooden chair from Anya’s desk, a post she never leaves but to acquire more food or water or medicine or blankets or stuffed animals—or—or—whatever Anya needs. Currently, she wipes the glistening sweat from Anya’s face with a cool, damp cloth.

“You’re alright, Anya,” she says, somewhere between a croon and a murmur. “You’ll be alright. I promise.”

Anya doesn’t respond but for a small moan, squirming fitfully in her bed. Yor doesn’t know for certain how the following half hour will proceed, of course, but all signs point to another fit of delirium as Anya’s fever again (again, again, again) makes the steep drop from its peak.

Anya’s eyes flicker open, glassy, before fluttering shut once more. Yor swallows the lump that hasn’t left her throat since Anya first came to her bedroom in the middle of the night, exactly four days ago now, shaking and shivering and starting to sob. It isn’t fair. Not for the brightest girl in the world to be so limp and pale, not for Loid to be denied his PTO to stay home with Anya alongside Yor, not for Yor to be unable to provide hardly anything more than the comfort—if it can even be called such—of her presence.

Anya shudders again. Yor wipes away more sweat. Then, falling back on the only ritual she knows, the only method that would help soothe Yuri during his worst illnesses, Yor begins to gently run a hand through Anya’s tangled, sticky hair, and she sings.

“How the moon does glow…” And now tears already well in her eyes, nostalgia and worry and affection colliding and colluding all at once. Yor drops the damp cloth on her lap to free her other hand and wipe the escaped tears away. “The stars rest in the sky. Their pale light you know… Time to close your eyes.”

Yor’s hand drifts down to trace Anya’s pale eyelids, the other continuing to softly run through her hair. “So drift to sleep… Beneath their silver shine. And drift to sleep…” The next line changes perfectly, easily, rightly, to accommodate the little girl that now holds so much love in Yor’s heart. “O princess of mine. Drift to sleep…”

Yor doesn’t know the rest of the lullaby, but before she can begin the song again, her fingertips work through a tight tangle in Anya’s hair and glance over what feels like a raised area on Anya’s scalp.

What…?

She inhales sharply.

It’s a scar. Yor has enough of those on her own body to recognize the sensation immediately. What is unusual about Anya’s scar to Yor, however, is threefold: one, it has an identical match on the opposite side of Anya’s scalp. Two, it was made with the precision of a carbon steel scalpel. And three, around this scar and its twin is the immediately recognizable fleshy roughness—faint though the texture is—of electrical burns.

Were these scars made simultaneously? But what type of cranial surgery would—would require electrocution of some sort?

Yor’s imagination concocts graphic scenarios, visions of Anya strapped into a terrible iron machine, screaming and struggling against bloodied rope bindings that strangle her tiny torso as blue lightning shoots through her skull, masked doctors lording over her unconscious body, their red eyes gleaming in the white light reflected from butcher’s knives they grip in each hand—

Yor shakes her head, dismissing the horrific images before she spirals further. Though scars rarely have perfectly innocuous explanations, she mustn’t let herself catastrophize explanations that are worse than the worst possible versions of the truth.

Still, what on Earth could have…

She tenses.

Does Loid know?

Of course he knows, Yor immediately chastises herself. He’s Anya’s father. He has to know. Why wouldn’t he know?

But…

Why didn’t he tell her?

Oh. Right.

Of course.

Because she isn’t Anya’s mother. Not her real mother. Yor is a fake, a substitute, merely filling in for an indeterminate duration. She has no reason to know.

But now she does know.

She can’t ever bring it up, Yor is all but certain of this. Surely it’s a private matter, surely it must be something Anya doesn’t want to dwell on or even remember, and as nothing but a temporary mother Yor has absolutely no right to—

“Mama…?”

Yor’s eyes snap downward. Anya blinks at her, blear-eyed, a look Yor recognizes as born from exhaustion instead of fever, before she bursts into sobs.

“Mama…!”

In a heartbeat, in less than, Yor wraps her arms around Anya, carefully sitting her upward and securing her in a tight hug. “There, there,” Yor shushes as Anya clutches her sweater-dress and cries—weak but overwhelmed—into her shoulder. “I’m right here.”

“I—I hate being sick,” Anya chokes through sobs. “I hate it, Mama, I hate it!”

Yor presses Anya’s chin beneath her head. “I know.” She blinks back her own tears. “I’m not going anywhere, Anya. I promise.”

Fake marriage or not. Real mother or not. She won’t leave Anya. Whatever was done to her, whatever caused her to end up with those scars…

Yor will protect her. No one will hurt her little girl.

No one will hurt her daughter.

Never again.

☆

Becky keeps Anya’s hand firmly clutched in her own as she navigates them both through the burgeoning crowd as all of Eden evacuates into the nearest courtyards from the unexpected fire alarm. Having been her best friend for seven years now, Becky is of course an expert in all things Anya, which means she knows that she needs to get Anya as far away from the bulk of this crowd as soon as possible before her friend can get too overwhelmed. And even though this alarm is not a drill—though of course it could still be a false alarm—Becky has practiced this exact journey enough times to lead Anya to their chosen spot in a matter of minutes.

“Almost there,” she says, a relieved smile breaking across her lips as the crowd of students finally thins and their usual bench is in sight. “How are you holding up?”

Anya grimaces, rubbing her forehead with her free hand. “Could be better, could be worse.”

Becky nods. Anya has always been sensitive to crowds, particularly large, loud, uncoordinated ones. The glossy, white-painted wooden bench that Becky takes them both to is distant enough where students’ chatter is muffled—but not so far that they’re out of Mr. Henderson’s or any other teacher’s line of sight—as well as delightfully tucked away beneath the shade of a massive maple tree.

“We’re here!” Becky surveys their surroundings as Anya releases her hand to sit down on the familiar bench. “And it doesn’t look like we’ve been pitifully followed by any strays, either.”

Becky doesn’t exactly understand how Anya “befriended” Damian Desmond—and “friend” is itself still a tentative term—and his two flunkies, but she’s grown to… tolerate their presence over the past couple years. That said, sometimes they lurk like lost ducklings, and at the moment a bunch of noisy boys is the last thing Anya needs.

A quiet exhale through gritted teeth snaps Becky’s attention back to Anya. “Are you okay?”

Anya sighs and presses at her temples, still wincing. “Probably. I might still get a… what’s the bad headache called?”

“Migraine,” Becky supplies, and Anya nods.

“Yeah. That.”

Becky purses her lips, then takes a seat next to her friend. “I can try giving you a scalp massage, if you want?”

Anya stares at her blankly. “A what?”

“A scalp massage. You know.” Becky motions rubbing her own head. “It’s something Martha will sometimes do for me when I get tension headaches from stress. It might help?”

Anya hesitates, then shrugs. “Okay. I trust you.”

A blush dusts Becky’s cheeks. Even at 13 years old, she knows from her proximity to her parents’ world that trust is a weighty thing to throw around—which makes it all the more meaningful that Anya extends it to her over the simplest of tasks.

“Then turn around,” she instructs, which Anya obediently does. “Also, is it okay if I take your buns down? I’ll redo them before we go back inside so you don’t get in trouble for ‘unkemptness.’”

“Sure,” Anya says, her back still to Becky, and Becky stands up to carefully remove her friend’s iconic black and gold hair caps before untwisting the buns and dutifully beginning a scalp massage.

Though Becky doubts she’s as skillful as Martha, her touch does appear to have an immediate effect, as Anya hums in quiet relief when tension starts to ease from her shoulders. Becky also can’t help but take a moment to appreciate Anya’s beautiful hair—her friend has never cut it, not once in the whole time Becky has known her, and though it reached its “terminal length” a few years ago at about Anya’s mid-back, her waves are still soft and thick.

“Thank you, Becky,” Anya mumbles as Becky continues the massages, her eyelids fluttering shut. “This feels… really nice. ‘s definitely helping.”

Pride blossoms in Becky’s chest like a rose in spring. “Well, I’m glad,” she says, preening. “I’ll have to tell Martha—”

Becky cuts herself off when her massaging fingers come across a small bump on Anya’s head. She frowns, puzzled. Weird. It doesn’t feel like a knot of hair. More like… rough skin?

“Hey, Anya?” Becky shifts the pressure of her fingers to knead at the bump. “You’ve got a—”

In a flash, Anya jerks away and jumps to her feet, positioning herself on the opposite side of the bench from Becky. Her green eyes are wide, and she would almost appear paralyzed if it weren’t for how her hands faintly quiver.

“There’s nothing,” Anya says, quick. Too quick. “It’s nothing, I mean. Don’t worry about it.”

“Anya—” Becky tries to take a step forward, hand instinctively outstretched to comfort her friend, but Anya flinches. Becky’s hand pulls back to curl into her chest, hurt. “Anya…”

“Please, Becky.” Anya’s eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Please. It’s nothing.”

It’s clearly not nothing, you’re two seconds away from crying! Becky wants to snap, but somehow she holds her tongue. She isn’t sure exactly what she felt atop her friend’s head. A cut? A scar? Extra bone growth?

Whatever it was—whatever it means to Anya—the sheer terror in her best friend’s eyes is unmistakable. And it breaks Becky’s heart that Anya doesn’t feel safe talking about it, whatever it is, to her. Don’t they tell each other everything? Didn’t Anya just say she trusted her? What did she do that would make Anya shut her out like this?

Because she must have done something. Becky knows she’s a pushy person, too pushy, sticking her nose where it definitely doesn’t belong for the sake of satiating her own boundless curiosity. She must have pushed Anya too hard, too far at some point.

Which means Becky can’t push her further away now.

“I’m sorry,” Anya starts to croak, blinking furiously as her hands reach diagonally across her chest to grab her own upper arms in a pale imitation of an embrace, and Becky leaps forward.

“Please don’t apologize,” she whispers, hugging Anya fiercely. “You don’t have to tell me now. Or ever. Okay?”

Tears drip from Anya’s face and dampen Becky’s shirt, but she couldn’t care less. Soon she feels Anya nod into her shoulder, wrapping her arms around Becky in return.

“Good.” Becky squeezes Anya again for good measure, then pulls back to take her handkerchief out of her skirt pocket, using the soft white cloth to wipe Anya’s face. “There. Now, if you want, I can keep giving you a scalp massage and we can talk about the latest episode of Spy Wars, or we can just sit on the bench and still talk about the latest episode of Spy Wars. I know you’ve been holding back all day.”

Anya giggles, her sniffles lessening as she lets go of Becky to rub her eyes. “Not my fault it ended on such a cliffhanger.” She hesitates, then asks, “Can we just… sit?”

With her free hand, Becky laces her fingers through Anya’s. “Of course.” She moves to sit on the bench, and when Anya lowers herself next to her, Becky drops her head on Anya’s shoulder. “So, here’s my theory: Princess Honey has actually been a spy working for the enemy the entire time.”

Anya gasps, and Becky smiles as she feels Anya’s head lean over to rest atop hers. “How dare you! Princess Honey would never!”

“I’m just saying—”

“No more saying. You’re not allowed to speak. Ever. Not about Spy Wars!”

Becky snickers. “Your demand is my command, oh great Spy Wars expert.”

She squeezes Anya’s hand, and Anya laughs, the first note of a stained glass wind chime born in a spring breeze, and Becky knows that whatever Anya does or does not choose to confide in her one day…

They’ll always be best friends.

Which means everything will be alright.

☆

Damian has died and gone to heaven. He must have. There’s no other explanation for what’s happening right now: Anya Forger straddling him, his back pressed against the silver and teal frame of her childhood bed, while the very same Anya Forger kisses him senseless.

The invitation to come over had been innocuous enough. They needed to work on their joint history report, the penultimate project for Year 12 students, not to mention that Damian—though he’d never admit it aloud—deeply enjoyed spending time with Anya’s parents, who upon his arrival immediately requested that he also stay for dinner. Once he agreed, the two adults went off to shop for what they’d need to prepare a warm meal that autumn evening, and though Damian tried for the life of him (sincerely, he had) to keep his girlfriend on track while they each began drafting sections of the report, Anya was famously—infamously, really—impossible to control. Stealing his pens, playing footsie beneath the table, getting up and whispering so closely to the shell of his ear she might as well have been kissing it—

The girl is a devil, and Damian has long since sold his soul.

Or, as Becky calls it, the “honeymoon phase.”

Anya’s hands drop from where they were cradling the back of Damian’s head to run down his shoulders and his chest, slipping beneath his unbuttoned collar to dance over his collarbone.

Damian swallows a groan. “Anya,” he mumbles into her mouth, but any further protest is cut off as Anya proceeds to intensify the kiss, wrapping her arms around Damian’s shoulders and pressing her chest into his. She bites Damian’s bottom lip before sweetly kissing the indent her teeth leave behind, and Damian swears he’s seeing stars. His hands travel upward, first squeezing her hips, then relishing the softness of her waist against his palms, tangible even through the pleated fabric of her shirt, and his hands continue their climb to brush the back of her neck before he tangles his fingers in her pink hair that cascades down to stop just above her shoulders.

Anya pulls away, both of their chests heaving as they remember to breathe. Then she smirks at him. “Is that all you’ve got for me, Sy-on Boy?” she whispers, pressing a feather-light kiss to his jaw, and Damian knows this girl is going to kill him—again, assuming he has not died and gone to heaven already.

“Forger…” His tone holds both warning and want.

Anya’s smirk widens. “That’s my name, Desmond. Don’t wear it out.”

Damian’s eyes narrow. “You are—”

“Charming? Incredible? Beautiful? The best kisser in the whole world?”

“Infuriating.”

“Hmm.” Anya’s eyes glitter, mischievous. “You can’t lie to me, Sy-on Boy. I know what’s going on inside your head.”

“Shut up.”

As if it was possible for her smirk to get any wider. “Make me.”

Damian’s fingers tighten in her hair, and he pulls her down into another kiss. Their teeth clack awkwardly before he tilts his head into a better angle, swallowing a sigh of pure ecstasy at the warmth of her mouth on his. Anya’s hair grows more tangled when his fingers find further play, uncaring of how he ruins her two perfect buns as Damian focuses on the softness of her pink waves, focuses on keeping her perfect lips captured by his own—

His fingertips brush something. A slight… discrepancy. On her head.

Anya notices it before he does, or so Damian assumes from how she freezes mid-kiss, her arms jerkily retreating from where they were previously locked around his neck. Damian immediately pulls back.

“Anya?” He extracts his hands from her hair, letting both palms fall to gently rest on her hips. “You okay?”

Anya winces, embarrassment or anxiety or maybe both and more. “I…” She buries her face in her hands. “Sorry. I just…” She shakes her head, a muttered curse slipping out. “I’m so stupid.”

Carefully, Damian adjusts their position so Anya is no longer straddled atop his lap but instead seated on the pink covers of her bed in front of him. Because he’s not an idiot—he knows that was a scar on Anya’s head. He knows Anya is a telepath, and he knows it wasn’t a power she was born with, though Anya has never done more than vaguely hint at the circumstances in which she acquired this ability.

Or rather, how the ability was “given” to her.

“Are you okay?” Damian asks again, a low whisper, as he reaches forward to brush her bangs out of her forehead.

Anya sighs, shoulders shaking. “Yes. No. Yes-and-no. Maybe and always and never.”

Damian chuckles. “Indecisive. Typical.”

A pause. Anya lifts her face from her hands, and the look she gives Damian is filled with a gravity he rarely sees in her green eyes. “I was a lab rat.”

Damian’s own eyes widen, as he immediately understands where this recounting will head. “Whoa, Anya, you don’t have to—if you don’t want to—”

“No!” Her hands curl into fists on her lap. “I want you to know, too. It—It wouldn’t be fair if you’re the only one who doesn’t.” Her cheeks pinken, and for a moment her eyes drop from his. “Especially since we’re… you know. Together.”

Damian pretends his face isn’t ablaze, too. “Okay,” he finally says. “If you’re sure. And as long as you know you can stop talking about… it… whenever you need.”

“I know.” Anya reaches over to take his hand, and Damian twines his fingers through hers. “Thank you, Sy-on Boy.”

She closes her eyes and takes a slow, shuddering breath, and Damian gives her hand a soft squeeze.

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

A pause. Anya opens her eyes, and the determined look is back. “I was a lab rat. Subject 007. I don’t remember how I got to the lab, or—probably—how I was taken to the lab. I don’t remember—” Her voice falters, but she continues. “I don’t remember much of what the scientists did to me, either. Just that the pain was usually enough to knock me out, and that they…” Her voice cracks.

Damian’s brow furrows in unmasked concern. “Anya—”

“Please.” She wipes tears from her eyes with her free hand. “I need to finish. I need to tell you, too.”

He hesitates, but nods, shifting himself closer to her on the bed. “I’m listening.”

“There was a machine. Electric, or whatever. They attached this metal thing covered in wires to my head, and it didn’t hurt until it did. One day, the doctors, they—” Anya inhales a sharp breath, her hand reaching up to clutch a lock of her hair. “They shaved my head, and they cut into me. They always wore masks. And every time, every time before I finally passed out, all I could see were stars—a nebula ripping apart before my eyes. A dying rainbow. Dissolving into nothingness. A void.”

Another pause. Anya laughs, the sound wet, and shakes her head. “And so Doctors Frankenstein made me. Out of lightning and blood and stars, I was made.”

Damian stares at her. What is… What is he supposed to do? To say? Anya’s words are somehow all explanation (because surely this is why she didn’t cut her hair for years) and no explanation (because why her? why did they choose her to torture and transform and—) at the same time. How could he, Damian Desmond, born with a silver spoon in his mouth even if his parents never did use it to feed him, possibly offer her any comfort for this—

Anya’s eyes fall to her lap. “So… Yeah. I have a few scars.” She manages an awkward chuckle. “Guess those doctors were about as patchwork-y in their efforts as Frankenstein, too!”

Before Damian can stop himself, he rises to his knees, leans over, and presses a kiss to the top of Anya’s head. Then another.

One on each scar.

As he lowers himself back into a sitting position, Anya stares at him with wide—still shimmering, still tearful—eyes. “Damian…”

He reaches over to brush away the tears that start to fall. “Call the doctors Frankenstein if you want. But you’re not a monster, Anya.”

Anya’s nose scrunches up as her eyes well with more tears. Her shoulders heave with a thinly suppressed sob, and her hand flies up to cover her mouth.

“You’re not a monster,” Damian repeats, and he wraps his arms around Anya as she tumbles forward to cry into his chest. He kisses the top of her head again. “You’re Anya Forger. You’re charming, incredible, beautiful, infuriating, the best kisser in the world, and—and loved by so many people.”

Damian holds her. He holds her while she cries, holds her when her sobs fade into sniffles, holds her as she slowly drifts to sleep in his arms.

He holds her, and he doesn’t let go.

☆

Every time I look at my face
I can’t help but feel like I’ve lost my way
‘Cause no one ever truly knows just who they are
And I feel closer when I’m laying, looking at the stars

☆

The world sleeps. Anya Forger wakes.

Careful not to disturb a lightly snoring Becky, Anya slowly creeps out of their (ridiculously) spacious tent and exits out onto the nearby shore of Stella Lake. To celebrate their graduation from Eden—after twelve long years!—Damian suggested an overnight camping trip at Stella Lake, an idea that Ewen and Emile wasted no time seconding and an idea that Anya could admit she, too, eagerly endorsed. Becky agreed on the condition that she could arrange a second, non-camping celebration, which everyone consented to. Best of all—at least in Anya’s opinion—her parents were also invited to come along, ostensibly as chaperones but mostly because Anya couldn’t imagine celebrating this achievement without them. (And her friends all adore her parents, of course. How could they not?)

Bare-footed, Anya’s toes sink into the gritty sand and tiny pebbles that surround the lake as she approaches the glittering waterline. As above, so below: infinite stars glister and gleam in the inky sky and in the midnight blue waters before her, and soon Anya has walked close enough that she sees her own face reflected in the lake, too.

One hand self-consciously rises to touch the back of her head, fingers brushing through her newly short hair—an (extremely) impulsive pixie cut Anya decided to get the day before graduation, timed in the hopes that no one would feel it was worth giving her a Tonitrus for defying dress code so close to the finish line. (Schlag almost had, but affection—or, more realistically, Mr. Henderson—held her back.) Best of all, she and Becky managed to keep her last-minute plan a secret from everyone, which meant she got to witness Damian turn into a candy apple when he saw her new haircut for the first time at graduation itself.

Even so…

Anya stares at her reflection in the lake’s still water, face freckled with dozens of colorful stars. It’s her. It’s not her. It’s still her.

And she doesn’t quite know herself.

The stars that now decorate her hair, her face, her eyes, born in and above these dark waters, are so different than the stars that made her. These stars do not burst, do not scream, do not sting with shock and pain. These stars did not create her but are her—a light that emanates from within, shining and shimmering and dancing across the bridge of her nose and echoing the sparkle of her smile.

Anya lowers herself onto the pebbled shore. She reaches out, flicks the surface of the lake, and watches a thin ripple spread across her starry reflection and into the galaxy that extends eons beyond.

It’s her.

Despite everything, it’s still her.

“Anya?”

Anya’s head snaps around to see her parents walking over, both dressed in their (so silly but so cute) matching blue and red pajama sets. Rarely does Anya get so lost in her own head that she doesn’t hear the approaching thoughts of others, but she supposes if there’s anyone who can sneak up on her, it would be her mama and papa.

“Hi, Mama,” Anya replies, soft, aware that her friends remain asleep. “Did I wake you up?”

Her parents take a seat on either side of her, and one starstruck reflection becomes three.

“Consider it a parent’s sixth sense to know when their child isn’t able to rest,” her father says, and Anya laughs, quiet but genuine, as she leans her head on his shoulder.

“You say that like I haven’t always been a restless child.”

Loid snorts in tacit agreement. Yor giggles her assent.

A pause. The night is quiet, mostly, but for the chirping of crickets and the occasional uncertain cry of a faraway owl. Anya inhales, slowly, deeply, then exhales, a rush like a cascading waterfall. Her father tilts his head to kiss her hair, her mother reaches out to squeeze her hand, and Anya’s heart fills and fills and fills with love until there’s nothing left but to explode like a star.

“Thank you,” Anya whispers, tearful yet smiling wide. “For doing this. Being here.” Her gaze drifts back to the imbalanced but perfect triptych that newly adorns the starry lake, and she meets her own eyes. “For loving me.”

“Oh, Anya…!” Her mother’s eyes well with tears, too, and she presses a fierce kiss to Anya’s cheek.

Her father’s attention also turns to their triadic reflections, a soft—vulnerable—smile on his lips. “You say that like loving you wasn’t the easiest part.”

A choked sob escapes Anya, even as she’s smiling, laughing, and now crying, but she’s smiling, still smiling, because she’s so, so loved—

Both of her parents turn and wrap their arms around her, murmuring soothing words and failing to hide tears of their own, and three reflections become one once more. A single family. A whole family. Enveloped in sparkling stars, held in warm arms, safe and sound and—

Known.

Anya doesn’t need to know herself. Who she was. Who she is. Who she could be.

Here, with her family, with her friends, with the sky and the lake and the stars, she is already known. She makes herself, unmakes herself, is made and unmade again.

“I love you,” Anya whispers, and it’s a promise. To her parents. To the world. To the stars within and without her.

To every version of herself.

I love you. I love, I love, I love.