forthsofar | anything worth anything takes more than a few days, and a long, long night

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sabrina

anything worth anything takes more than a few days, and a long, long night

After everything, after she comes home bloodied and terrified and exhausted, she does what little she can. Showers, changes, reassures Neil again (and again and again) that she's fine--that they all are, that the unbelievable danger that had come so close to happening was over almost before it had begun. Keeps her phone near her, one ear always listening for the buzz of a text coming through or the chime of her ringtone. When he's discharged and brought home, she goes to Nick's apartment to stay with him, taking turns with Charlie.

It's not a lot, any of it; maybe even less in combination, but it's all she has.

As worn out as she had been--as worn out as she is, still--it's all the worse for Sabrina, she knows. Rosie keeps her distance for a time, letting the other girl recover within the safety and quiet of her own house, but when she hears that she's awake again and more than ready for visitors, she doesn't hesitate. The trip up to the house near the woods takes as long as it always does, and when Salem meets her at the front door, Rosie bends to scratch him behind the ears before following him inside and down the hall.

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Salem announces Rosie's arrival with a cheerful mewl, and then goes to find a sunny spot in the window. Sabrina herself is once again in her bed, though she's been convinced through some force of parenting, exhaustion, and other arcane means to actually be using it for rest. She'd managed to shower before sleeping and her pale curls, no longer specked with blood, stick out everywhere. Opting for a sleep crop top and shorts, she's half under a blanket, something on TV that features zombies.

"Hi Rosie," she says, her smile bright and warm, even if she still looks a bit worn and wan. "Come here, get in, I'm starting to get bored."

Which is a problem.

"Hi yourself," she says, what lingering tension there'd still been within her unwinding itself at the easy brightness in Sabrina's face. Even if none of them are quite back to their regular selves, they're getting there--all of them, Nick included, something that hadn't always been guaranteed.

The rest of what Sabrina has to say, Rosie takes as the warning she's learned (quite well) that it is. Kicking off her flats, she goes the few steps to the bed and crawls happily under the covers beside the other girl. Though she's not quite dressed as comfortably--a loose blouse and soft pair of slim trousers, rather than the sleepwear Sabrina's got on--it hardly matters in the moment. "Can't see how you could be bored at all, watching..." She trails off, glancing up for the first time at the program on the television.

"Oh, good grief, Sabrina, they're eating people."

"Zombies need to eat," Sabrina says, ever pragmatic about these things. "And they eat people." She wriggles closer to Rosie, having felt an increased need for the reassurance of touch since that night. Part of her knows that there's some of it she needs to deal with more-- she keeps imagining her family's faces once they know what she'd done.

By the end, none of them had believed in him the same way, but in actually killing the Dark Lord, Sabrina has dealt the final blow to centuries of covens. Some of it had been wrong and evil, but it had still been the backbone of their lives. She's brought a different kind of apocalypse those on the Path of Night.

She'd rather not think about it, and she wraps herself around Rosie in a way that would easily suggest she's not quite as light-hearted as all that. "I'm glad you're here. I got to go see Nick, but I couldn't stay as long as I liked."

"While that may be true," she says, a little primly, "that doesn't mean I'm obligated to approve of it." Rosie looks at the screen again and rolls her eyes.

Sabrina presses close then, and it's easy for her to shift her attention to altogether more important things than the gore on the television. "I'm glad I'm here, too," she says more seriously, turning as she lays back against the pillows propped up at the head of the bed, pulling Sabrina in as they both settle with their arms around each other and legs gently tangled beneath the blankets. "And that you're awake, and been to see Nick. Charlie and I, we kept him company as much as we could, but we weren't you. I know he wanted to see you."

"That's my Rosie," Sabrina says, settling at the easy embrace. "Disapproving of undead cannibals."

She listens to the rest with a soft, contemplative hum. "I didn't know just how much it would take out of me, but whether you call it bloodline or genetics, I was working against... a part of myself, too." Her bandaged hand, the burn taking its time to heal, is a sign of that. "I'm so grateful for you both, that you could take care of him. Knowing I had to hurt him like that and just-- I don't know if I could have, without you. And Nick-- maybe not the same as me, but he needs you, too."

"That makes a certain kind of sense," Rosie says. She takes Sabrina's bandaged hand in hers, keeping her touch gentle and careful, not wanting to cause her any pain. "He played a part in your creation, and that's...there's a connection. Awful as it is to think about."

She nods at everything else, watching Sabrina's face as she speaks. "You knew we'd take care of him," she says. "As much as we could, until we were able to get him to hospital. I'm grateful we were able to do it." She goes quiet, just for a moment. "Sometimes I think we've all needed each other ever since June, since..." Rosie lets out a dramatic, exasperated groan as the realization strikes her. "Since the last time there was a Dark Lord in Darrow, which says something I don't think I like about the way this summer has gone."

"It's more than just my creation. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years of witches and warlocks, and-- to think that I could, that I would, and I did-- just send it tumbling. If I have the chance, I know I'll do it in Greendale, too." Her expression grows distant. "Maybe it's because I was born to bring destruction, one way or another. I'm meant to be a sword, even if I keep myself from being his sword."

She closes her eyes. "I can't forget what it felt like, to do that to Nick and know it was Nick. I chose that moment for the best tactical advantage. And I couldn't go to him, I had to finish it. I'm lucky to have you all." Her eyes sting a little, and she keeps them shut.

"You're not a sword, you're my friend," Rosie protests, and though her voice is just as soft as it had been already, there's a slight steely resolve to the words. "Or if you have to be both, if you have to...destroy, at least you do that for the sake of keeping people safe. The person you love, most of all, along with the rest of us."

Catching the slight hitch in Sabrina's voice and the way she keeps her eyes scrunched slightly--recognizing it all for the valiant attempt at control that it is--Rosie shifts, allowing her the space to curl in against her if she wants. "We're lucky to have you," she says. Impulsively, she leans in a bit, smudging a brief and hesitant kiss against Sabrina's forehead. "Luckier, maybe, than I'd imagine you are to have us sometimes. But only sometimes, and only by a little."

"The people I love, most of all," Sabrina says, somewhat tearfully, and she takes the opportunity presented to curl up around Rosie, face in the curve of her neck, an arm tucked around her middle, and a knee resting atop Rosie's. "If it's what I'm meant to do, I can at least do it for the right reasons. I'm not sure it feels any better right now, but at least I have you all. That part feels better."

She thinks, a bit off-kilter, how nice it is that Rosie will hold her like this, how good it feels, how glad she is to have Rosie.

The tension is already draining from her, and she peeks up at Rosie. "Aren't you ever frightened? Of us witches and warlocks? Of me?"

"Always the right reasons," she says, still with that edge of something firm. "And if you ever forget, not that you will, at least one of us will remind you what they are. All of us, more than likely." Sabrina's breath is hot and close against her neck, given how near to one another they're lying; with only a small amount of surprise (and a brief, gentle flip of her stomach) Rosie realizes how little she minds it. How much, it seems, they both need the closeness, especially now.

She feels the tilt of Sabrina's head, then adjusts their position slightly to look her in the eye once more. "It's nothing I was familiar with back home, outside of fairy tales," she says. It's not quite the answer to the question Sabrina had asked, and she knows it, but it's a start nevertheless. "When I was in Anterwold, I made a joke at one point about witches, some silly reference to Hansel and Gretel, honestly, and if they had witches there, though I'm still not sure if they did or not, it seemed that they were more like...old women who knew things about plants and medicines and science, rather than anyone with the sort of magic you can do."

A corner of Rosie's mouth quirks up in a smile, one that's slightly rueful--but only at the thought of her own foolishness. "I'm more curious than afraid," she says. "Like I've always been, with things I know nothing about. Even if you or Nick do things, or have done things, that are...dangerous, or scary, or...I want to know as much as I can about them, if they're important to you."

She laughs, soft and teasing. "Though I will admit, there's a small part of me that still has a healthy fear of being turned into something small and unpleasant if I ever really make you mad."

Sabrina gives her a little smile that seems to be an admission of how important this is to her, that Rosie promises they'll keep her tied to the spirit of the person she chooses to be, rather than who she was meant to be.

She's quiet and still as she listens to Rosie talk, but with that same small smile, tired and content. "It's hard to say what's... important to me anymore. I wasn't raised like any other witch, and I guess I know why, now. But it's still a part of me, even if it's different."

Her eyes get wide and sorrowful, though, as she's perhaps a little sensitive right now for that kind of teasing. "Rosie, if you really think that about me, then I've done something terribly wrong. Don't you know what you mean to me? You're my best friend. I couldn't hurt you. Not like that, though I guess after seeing me do that to Nick, I wouldn't blame you for thinking like that." She pulls away a little bit, trying to figure out just how much of it is teasing.

Rosie can feel Sabrina stiffen and pull back almost as soon as her--ill-considered, she realizes far too late--bit of teasing is out, and she winces. "Oh god, I haven't put my foot in it like that in ages, Sabrina," she says, instantly regretful. She looks down into her friend's dark eyes, something twisting low in the pit of her stomach at the surprise and hurt she sees there. "It was a joke, honest," she promises. "A terrible one I shouldn't have said at all. And didn't mean. I know you'd never do anything like that."

One of her hands is still at the small of Sabrina's back; she starts moving it in slow, gentle circles, reassuring. "I'm so sorry. I know how much you care about me." She manages a small smile. "I'm your Rosie, yours and Charlie's and Nick's, in a way I'd never been anyone's at all back home."

Sabrina relaxes soon enough, exhaling softly-- though she remains somewhat propped up on one hand, keeping their faces level. "It's okay," she says, breathing another slow breath at the gentle touch on her back. "I believe you. I should have been better about making sure my friends at home knew it, but truthfully... that feels like years ago, nothing like this. I mean, I'm not sure I'm making any sense."

She glances up again, dark-eyed with flushed cheeks, at the words your Rosie, and her inhale is audible. "You are," she agrees after a long moment. "My Rosie. Our Rosie." With a slow, deliberate sense to her movements, she settles herself back down, curled up against Rosie.

"Not a lot of sense," Rosie admits with a soft smile; one that goes briefly distracted, her focus catching on the way Sabrina says nothing like this and the sense of emphasis there, some meaning she can't quite parse but she knows almost by instinct that she likes. "But it doesn't...I think I know what you mean anyway."

She might have said more, given her additional reassurances that her Greendale friends knew as well as Rosie did how meaningful they were to her. But then Sabrina gasps like that--a soft, quick noise that manages to send all the words flying out of her head--and Rosie simply looks back at her, at the flush pink of her cheeks and the bright spark in her eyes. She feels another twist in her stomach, not at all as unpleasant as the last; if she thinks at all about another charged moment from the other day, her hands held tight in Nick's, it's almost subconscious.

Like that moment, like the faint dip of her head in a nod as Sabrina says our Rosie--again, that sense of emphasis--whatever passes between them is there and gone by the time Sabrina presses close once more. Or if not gone completely, just...altered. Rosie doesn't say anything, just adjusts the loop of her arms around the other girl, keeping her close.

Whatever had just transpired, and Sabrina knows all too well that something had, it's not the time to pull it forward for recognition. Intuition speaks to her, whispering wordlessly at the back of her mind, and Sabrina lets herself seek comfort instead.

The comfort feels a bit different, but she lets herself cuddle up against her friend, her Rosie, and close her eyes for a moment.

"I don't want to fall asleep om you," she murmurs, "but it's easier to sleep with someone here, and I'm so comfortable."

"I wouldn't dream of telling you to move," she says, tilting her head just enough to look down at her. "Not after everything."

She takes an arm off of Sabrina just long enough to readjust the pillow behind her head to a more comfortable angle, then settles back into the tangle they'd made of themselves. Despite the slightly rapid thud of her heartbeat, Rosie, too, has grown relaxed in a way she hadn't quite expected when she first arrived at the house.

"I'll stay as long as you like."

"After everything?" Sabrina murmurs, and it's a sleepy question, a bit, because she's serious about how good it feels to have someone with her, to have Rosie here with her. "It's been a lot, hasn't it. I hope you don't regret it."

Her head tucks into the curve of Rosie's neck, nose nudging Rosie's collarbone briefly. She smells nice, Sabrina reflects, still vaguely aware that something has shifted here. She promises herself she'll figure it out later.

"Between Nick and I, I suppose we'd keep you out of your actual apartment all the time if we could," she adds, almost a hum.

"No, I don't," she says, the closeness and security letting her speak without thought. "I wish it hadn't been so much, or so bad. Wish it hadn't hurt any of us, you and Nick most of all. But that's different than regretting it."

With the light run of Sabrina's nose against her collarbone and the warmth of her breath on her skin, there's a question, a wish, a half-registered want that flickers at the back of Rosie's mind for a moment, then is gone again. Whatever else Sabrina says is low and slightly mumbled, hard to make out at first; once she does, or thinks she has, Rosie smiles, lazy and fond.

"Suppose you would. Charlie, too, in his way. Movie nights, group dinners...all good things."

"I think there's always going to be a very real possibility of that kind of thing, with me. What I was born for, even if I deny it, even if I fight it, the darkness will still always come for me." There's no self-pity there, only truth. "I don't believe that you'd leave me, leave us, but it's fair to say that."

She lets her eyes close, the predestined Queen of Hell almost dozing, open and vulnerable, against Rosie.

"It fits together," she agrees. "I think the three of us have known at least some types of family, but Nick-- he's been alone too long."

Rosie wants to protest, to deny that the darkness they'd just fought would ever return--in the same form or another--to claim Sabrina or any of the rest of them, but knows she can't. There's a truth to it, even as the thought of more, of worse, sends a chill down Rosie's back despite the coziness of the way they're entwined. But when she speaks, her voice is steady, if a little quiet.

"I wouldn't leave you. I'll be scared, of course, none of this is anything like...even taking into account whatever was in the Professor's cellar back home, that doorway that led me to Anterwold, there was nothing all that magical, good or bad, about my life before then." Gently, she brushes a hand through Sabrina's hair, twining the pale strands around her fingers for a moment. "If it comes for you, if anything does, you won't be fighting it without me."

Rosie goes quiet again as she listens to the rest of what her friend has to say, fingers still lingering in Sabrina's hair. "We do fit together, don't we?" she says at last, smiling at the thought. Unlike what they'd been talking about just a few minutes prior, this idea is a bright one, something warm and full of a possibility she can't see the full shape of yet--but somehow can't wait to discover. "And Nick doesn't have to be alone here, not...none of us do." She swallows hard, her throat gone briefly tight. "Even if we're away from our families, or where we called home."

Sabrina's more sure of herself these days, more assured that she can plunge into the darkness that is partially her birthright and still come out of it. But she's not sure when it will stop crouching on the horizon, threatening everything. Not even everything she loves, but everything.

It's easier to forget it now, to let the light that's in Rosie wash over her, chase any looming things back off into the distance. She loves having Charlie and Nick run their fingers through her hair, and like a cat, she nudges slightly at Rosie's. "All of us do," she says quietly. "You know... you know that I love you, Rosie, right?"

There's almost a weight to the question, something deeper behind it than the easy, friendly affection the two of them have shared. Though of course, there would be now--after Kagura, after David, after facing down the Devil himself. It's not so odd, this greater meaning Rosie thinks she hears in Sabrina's voice, not after the long and difficult summer that's only just passed.

That it makes her breath catch and her face grow slightly warm is maybe a little strange, but not enough to give Rosie pause before she answers.

"Of course I know that," she says, smiling at the easy bump of Sabrina's head against her hand, almost a request for the continued presence of her fingers in her hair. She's more than happy to comply, carding her hand gently through her friend's white-blond curls. "And I hope you know...I love you too. An awful lot."

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anything worth anything takes more than a few days, and a long, long night

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