forthsofar | 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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"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."

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

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