It was eight days after their confrontation with Asteroth when Tanya finished fabricating Winterwing’s armor. Emily’s had been made on the spot in a matter of minutes, but he did not ask what the extra time had been. The team was technically in mourning, and Tanya’s tasks outside of that were probably the most critical to their immediate survival. Best not to nag her. She waved him over to the pile of gear, and then turned back to whatever she was doing without further acknowledgment, and may not have even noticed when he murmured thanks and took his leave.

Winterwing decided to deal with fitting in the privacy of his own room, and as he sorted through the pieces, the first thing he realized was that Tanya had gone to great pains to differentiate it from Wildwing’s, specifically. Whereas Wildwing’s was large, bulky, and white, this chest piece was more subtle and black. When questioned later she would assure him the material would catch most projectiles and energy blasts, and ignored the inquiry about its appearance, or maybe just forgot he had asked. He had a hard time ascribing malice to Tanya. It seemed far more likely she simply did not find the question relevant enough to answer. Of course it was not Wildwing’s armor, Winterwing would not have wanted to wear it anyway.

He worked his way through the snaps and plates on his own, and once he had assembled it, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. He did not suddenly feel safer, or more heroic, or anything else helpful. It just felt like he was wearing a restrictive costume.

He wandered to the bathroom mirror of his room, and there the effect was somewhat more convincing. For a strange moment, he stood and stared at the reflection, bewildered that he did not recognize himself. It was not that he looked like Wildwing, Tanya had done exactly the job she had set out to do, consciously or not, and differentiated them perfectly. But he didn't look like himself, either, or at least not the self that he had held in his mind until this moment.

Winterwing rummaged through the things Emily had left in his room and found an elastic band, and attempted to tie his hair back. As he fidgeted with it in the mirror, annoyed at stray pieces, he heard the door of his room open and shut. He leaned backwards out of the bathroom doorway. Emily had ceased bothering to knock or hit the chime some days before.

It wasn’t that he had an illusion that he could lie his way around it, or that he intended to lie about it at all, rather that this was the exact moment he had hoped avoid, even though that was an impossibility. Here was the reveal, where he had to be honest that he was going to do the exact thing Emily didn’t want him to. It was a bit of personal cowardice, the same avoidance that had signaled the end of his last romantic relationship, and it was embarrassing to realize that he had learned nothing from the previous experience.

But Emily wasn’t Teal, because whereas Teal would have taken the opening salvo of profanity, Emily elected to say nothing at all. She turned away from him entirely, and made a noise, like a frustrated scream that was held inside the body instead of exhaled. He had never seen anything quite like it before. He approached her, and found that as he did, she continued to turn away, putting a shoulder between them.

“You’re that angry at me?” he said, giving up, standing still beside her.

She didn’t whirl at him or scream, or anything that he expected, only kept her eyes firmly locked on something else, maybe the join of the wall and the floor. “You’re not even supposed to be here.”

“What?”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Of course I’m supposed to be here. I’m so embroiled in this nonsense that I’m here twice.”

This did not amuse her, if anything it made the expression on her face all the more sour. “You told me I was going to get myself killed. You said that.”

“I did.”

“So, what are you doing?” she demanded, turning ever so slightly to him, finally making eye contact. “You think you’re impervious now?”

He blinked. “Why do you think I’d let you fight everything on your own? Why would you even want to?”

“Because that’s my problem, not yours!” she had finally found that fury that she had been pushing down. She pushed accusingly on the breastplate of his armor, and the stinging raw skin of the scar underneath complained at the pressure. “Because it’s my fault you’re even here!”

He stared at her for a long moment, and she shrank under that gaze. Her face contorted with every ugly thought she didn’t voice, until eventually she doubled over as if ill, and grasped at her own collar, coughing.

Winterwing’s stupid brain didn’t understand until Emily was already halfway to the floor, her knees crumbling from underneath her, and the coughing fit worsening. She was gasping for air between eat fit, pink spittle hitting the plating before her.

The parasite, the parasite.

He didn’t catch her, but he did kneel down with her, holding her through the fit, aware that he did not know what do to.

She eventually ceased coughing and caught air again, and then sat up, pushing his hands away.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She wiped her bill with the back of her hand, leaving a red streak on both, and glared at the floor. “Stupid,” she said.

“What?”

“It gets angry when I’m angry.”

He frowned, not comprehending. “It… does?”

She glared up at him. “It knows.”

“Yeah, but that,” he wracked his brain, and once again came up short of any useful knowledge. “That doesn’t seem right. An infection shouldn’t care if you’re angry.”

“I don’t know. It just does.”

Winterwing leaned back, easing the strain on the still sore muscle of his chest. “That thing is in there deeper than anyone knows, isn’t it?”

Emily did not respond, still glaring up at him.

“Have you told Tanya about that?” he asked.

“Why, what do you think she’d do about it?” Emily said. “There’s not a pill I can take or a surgery they can do so what difference does it make?”

A question that was both fair and not. Tanya would not be able to do anything, but it seemed important. The past couple weeks had been invasive when it came to the question of Emily’s health, and yet it was impossible to avoid: Emily’s health was everyone’s concern until such a time that it could be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t.

She must have seen that hesitation on his face, because she made a frustrated sigh.

Lacking anything more eloquent or useful to say, Winterwing simply said “Okay.”

“Okay?” she said, clearly perplexed.

No one else was going to be one her side. If he wanted her trust, he was going to have to let go of the assumption that everyone else knew what was right for her. They had no idea what was right for her. They had never seen the parasite before, they did not know where it came from, and they did not know its purpose. All the tests and quarantine and study and the only one who had even a glimmer of understanding what the creature was was Emily herself.

“I think, I think it’s going to have to work like this,” he said. “You are going to have to be okay with my help, and I’m going to have to be okay with how you choose to live with this thing.”

“What, we’re negotiating now?”

“No, I have been told that this is called a ‘compromise’. Do you want to stop?”

“Stop?” she asked.

He gave a pointed look to the unmade bed. She followed his gaze, and then said quietly, “No.”

“I don’t want to have a stupid argument that puts us right back where we were, either. So, listen,” he said. “I will be here, even if I don’t agree with your choices, but you have to let me.”

Emily stared at him, the suspicion fading away, and he wasn’t quite sure what replaced it. She was searching for something, he thought.

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, much more quietly. “I don’t…. I don’t think anyone’s ever said something like that to me before.”

“I told you,” he said, and this time, tried to lean closer in, offering cautious physical support to supplement the words. “I want this to work.”

She didn’t lean into him in reciprocation, like he was expecting her to. Instead one of her hands disappeared behind his head, and then returned back into his vision with the index finger and thumb a bare inch apart, having measured the tiny tail of hair protruding from the elastic band. Her eyebrows suggested she had found it lacking.

“It is a work in progress,” he informed her.