Jason couldn't bring himself to look away, unwilling and unable to force even a flutter of concentration away from her.

Her--Olivia, who was as far in the corner as physically possible, sitting upright with her knees close to her face and gazing at the ground in front of her with a dead, hazy stare. Her hair was pulled back into a rough ponytail. Her starstone glasses were still on her face. She didn't look up at Ella, Jason, or even Adande. She didn't do anything except continue to clutch the blanket around her shoulders with a white-knuckled grip.

But she was there. Skypillar save him, it was her. Outside the City and beyond the domain of Luminaries and Serpents, it had to be her.

"Olivia?" murmured Adande in a voice so soft, so gentle that Jason almost couldn't believe it, but the entire floor within a few metres of Olivia was completely covered in a thick layer of blankets and cushions. There was a box of medical supplies against the wall opposite her, and a small bowl of soup, and a water bottle in his hand. "Olivia? If you can hear me, I brought Jason and Ella. Remember, you asked me to find them?"

Jason didn't think she was going to react, but a few seconds later, she gave the tiniest shake of her head.

"I did," she whispered. The dark smudges under her eyes almost looked like bruises. Her shoulders drooped, only to stiffen again every few seconds like she was fighting to keep herself awake. "But can't be them." She buried her head in the blanket on her arm. "It's not them. Not real."

"They're real, I promise," cooed Adande. "Just look up, just once?"

He attempted to slowly place his fingers on her blanket-covered arm, but as soon as they made contact, she flinched away, curling her head into the corner and breaking into violent shivers.

"What's wrong with her?" murmured Ella, matching her tone to Adande's.

Adande retreated a little from Olivia, shuffling over towards the medical box. He placed the water bottle to the side and rummaged through the box with his back to Ella and Jason.

"I said she wasn't doing well before," said Adande, voice flat and detached, even if the tension caught in his shoulders gave him away. "I've taken care of the worst of her injuries, but she's exhausted in every way you can think of. The Serpent hasn't let her sleep properly since he took her, and now it's like she's terrified of the idea. She's barely been conscious since--" Adande swallowed, making a clear effort to relax. "She--she was lucid before, when I found her in the City, I thought bringing her out here would help, but she's not getting better. She's not eating, not drinking. She's had more than one seizure, so I put down the blankets, but--"

"What did you do to her between finding her in the City and bringing her here?" said Ella.

Adande looked up for the box, his answer coming just a little too late for Jason to believe it. "I--I didn't do anything. The Serpent was probably using his own power to keep her lucid, but then after I brought her out here it stopped working."

"And as believable as that is," said Ella. "Why not take her to a hospital? She's clearly not okay, and--"

"Did you miss my entire explanation about the Serpent letting her escape before?" snapped Adande, whirling around to face her. "I figured out here, at least she had a chance to pull herself back together before she got thrown into the pit to be torn apart again, or do you not think she deserves that?"

Ella stiffened. "That isn't what I said at all, buddy. Something isn't adding up here. I don't know what it is, but there's something that you aren't telling us. Spit it out."

"I've told you more than enough," Adande said through his teeth. "I get it. This is entirely out of character for me, but you can clearly see she's there, so I'd like a little credit at least, yeah?"

"Credit?" Ella shot back. "Yes, congratulations, Adande, you've clearly done such a good job of taking care of her."

"At least I'm trying!" said Adande. "You seem more interested in being suspicious of me to even bother trying to help her!"

In the corner, Olivia's shivers turned into a full blown seizure.

She hit the blankets beneath her as Jason reached her, her entire body convulsing. The sight scared Jason enough that it took him a second to remember what he was supposed to do and resist the urge to hold her down. He tugged the blanket away from her and turned her on her side, tilting her head back and resting it on her hand. With Olivia still jerking and shaking and completely unconscious, Jason pulled her top leg forward to help keep her on her side.

Without the blanket, it became clear how bad her injuries were. Someone, presumably Adande, had cut back the majority of her clothes to get them, leaving just enough to keep her modest. Both her arms were covered from wrist to shoulder in bandages. What he could see of her chest and back was covered in dark bruises and cuts that could have only been made by the sharpest blade. There were too many to count, but some were far worse than others.

In the background, Ella and Adande's temporary verbal truce went up in smoke.

"Yeah, and you still think she doesn't need a hospital?" said Ella. "Look at her. It's a small miracle if she hasn't got an infection!"

"She hasn't got an infection, and she had seizures before the Serpent got to her," said Adande. "The injuries are probably just triggering them, especially without her medication--"

"And you don't think she needs more medication? Maybe some more treatment than sticking some salve and a band-aid on some of those cuts?"

Jason remained beside Olivia, trying to count how long her seizure lasted. Somewhere around the seventy second mark, her tremors lessened, and soon after, she blinked, the fingers of her right hand curling into her palm.

"Liv?" Jason murmured, unsure if his voice would even carry over Adande and Ella's argument behind him. He slipped his fingers into her right hand, and to his surprise, she didn't pull away. She squeezed his fingers, holding onto him like a lifeline as confusion slipped across her face. "Olivia, can you hear me?"

"It sounds like him," she murmured to herself, managing to sit herself up after a few failed attempts. Jason tried to help, but any contact he made with her that wasn't his hand in hers was met with a violent flinch. "Sounds like him, but it always did." She drew in a shuddering breath, squeezing her eyes closed as she let go of Jason's hand and curled herself back into the corner. "S'not a comfort if it's not real, Liv. Not real. Three. Four. Five."

Olivia continued to count, though Jason wasn't sure what. The blanket lay forgotten on the floor behind her, and despite Jason's best attempts to put it back on her shoulders, she only leaned further into the corner every time he tried.

"So what happened today then, hey?" Ella was saying in the background. "Tell us how you found Olivia, how you got her away from the Serpent. I'm all ears."

Jason looked behind him to find Adande still by the medical box but now standing and facing Ella.

"I told you, Banshee got Olivia out, not me," said Adande.

"How?"

"No idea, I wasn't there when she did it. I assume she shadow stepped out with her or something."

Jason had had enough of Adande's circle talk at this point. "Banshee didn't shadow step out with Olivia. She shadow stepped out with Wyvern, who didn't mention Olivia once in his explanation to the Luminaries earlier tonight."

Adande stiffened. "And how do you know that?"

"I had a short but informative conversation with Cryo before the auroras," said Jason. "And so far, nothing you've said tonight lines up with the details he gave me."

Adande took a short breath. "You can't trust Wyvern. Wyvern's been working with the Serpent since he found out Harpy had a husband. The Serpent didn't find him: Wyvern went to the Serpent. Wyvern was there the night that the Serpent took Banshee, he almost hit her over the head with a bat."

Jason's gut clenched as Ella just laughed.

"What?" she said. "You expect us to take the word of someone who took the trust of a Luminary and shot him with it, over an individual who, while admittedly a sad old jerk at times, served as a Luminary for almost twenty years, and decided that was worthless because he found out his partner was married for most of it?"

Adande clenched his jaw.

"Wyvern said that you were the Serpent's top hunter," said Jason, cutting off whatever insult Ella had opened her mouth for. "That you earn your target's trust, then lure them in."

"I don't hunt anyone!" said Adande, slamming his fist back into the wall. "And you're an idiot for listening to Wyvern in the first place! If there is nothing else that you take out of this conversation, it's that you cannot trust Wyvern."

"I'm fairly certain he said the same thing about you," said Jason mildly.

Adande's mouth set into a hard line as he folded his arms and his eyes roamed the wall beside him. "It figures. The one time I stick my neck out and they've already seen it coming. And you all wonder why I don't bother getting attached."

"You don't get to be all offended and moody when the 'one time' you stick your neck out, you're still lying to us," Ella said, planting her hands on her hips. "Cryo tried the blind trust thing once with you, didn't work out so well."

Adande put his back against the wall, arms still folded. "I didn't owe Cryo anything."

"But you owe Olivia something?" Ella demanded, jabbing a finger in the air towards her. "What's the difference between her and Cryo?"

"I've told you both enough."

"And we still need an explanation," said Jason, sparing a glance towards Olivia, who hadn't moved or stopped counting.

Adande just gave him a short, harsh bark of laughter. "Oh, you do, do you? Too bad. I don't have one for you."

Ella stepped forward. "You'd better start having one, buddy."

Adande didn't reply. Instead, he took off his sunglasses from the top of his head and stuffed them into the pocket of his jacket. After that, he began pulling his arms out of the sleeves, all without a word.

"What, we gonna find an explanation in your jacket?" said Ella as Adande threw it on the ground in the corner. Her eyes fell on his wrist, where a small corrupted fragment was bound to his skin with a black cord.

"No," said Adande. With his jacket discarded, he walked forward until he was just in front of Ella and spread his arms. "But whatever this is leading up to, let's get on with it. All your yelling is only going to upset Olivia again."

Ella stepped one foot back and looked him up and down slowly. "Get on with what, exactly?"

"Your little interrogation," said Adande, still holding his arms out. "You know, the whole, 'answer my questions or I'll hurt you' torture thing you're getting to? I don't think there's anything you two can manage that will even come close to what the Serpent manages, but hey, if it'll shut you up sooner, I'm willing to give it a try."

Ella and Jason both just looked at him.

"What, can't get on with it when your victim offers themselves up?" said Adande, lowering his arms as he rushed on. "I know Ella has a knife or something in her coat. It was easy enough for her to just shove me up against the wall earlier, and she don't exactly seem like she'd be opposed to hurting people because she feels like it, so get on with it."

A long moment passed, filled with only Olivia's murmurs.

With Adande waiting and Ella wordless, Jason picked up the conversation. "We aren't going to hurt you, Adande."

"You? No." Adande looked at Ella, and his words turned venomous. "But she would. She did when she was Manifested. Enjoyed it, too."

Ella pulled something silver out of her coat and laid it flat on her palm: an elegant switchblade with a Hydra design wrapped around the handle.

Jason could barely breathe.

"This was my dad's before he died," said Ella. Her voice was tight, and after a few moments, her fingers clenched around the hilt. "And I would never tarnish his memory using it to torture you of all people."

Adande stared at the blade for a moment before his quiet reply. "Funny. That's not the opinion you had as a Manifested, Spirit."

Adande's eyes flicked up to Ella's, waiting for a reaction.

With the sudden flood of emotion running across her face, it was a small wonder when Ella shoved the switchblade back into the hidden pocket without punching Adande in the face.

"No," she said, stepping away from him and turning her back for a second before she whirled back to face him, chin high and eyes proud. "No. If it's true, what you said about Manifested before, I would never have even considered it. Never in a million years would anything have been worth ruining his blade like that."

A second passed, two, three, marked only by the quiet, muttered words of Olivia from the corner, until Adande folded his arms and inclined his head towards Ella.

"You're right," he said. "You punched more than one person who annoyed you, but you never used that blade on anyone."

"Thank you," muttered Ella, looking away.

"It still doesn't make sense why you're lying to us, Adande," said Jason when the silence stretched on just a little too long. "Why haven't you mentioned helping Banshee earlier today at all?"

"Well, I was hoping Cryo didn't mention that detail."

"Well he did," said Jason. "Cryo saw you escape with Banshee. What happened to her afterwards?"

"No idea."

Jason frowned. "You do realise how this makes you look suspicious, correct?"

Adande reached up and adjusted a few pieces of stray fringe. "Fine. Let's say I tell you exactly where she is at this very moment. What would you even do?"

"We'd help her however we could," said Jason. "I couldn't tell you specifics until I knew more about her situation, and any plans she may have had."

"You'd help her, would you?" said Adande. "Help her like her own damn partner did today?"

Jason tensed. "He believed it to be Skinwalker. From my understanding, she impersonated Banshee painfully well."

"Then Cryo failed Skinwalker and Banshee today!" said Adande. "Skinwalker is still a person. She's exactly like Ella was before the festival: a human who Manifested. Regardless of who Cryo believed her to be, he was willing to attack someone with enough force to kill them. He was dangerous today, Jason, and Luminaries are supposed to be better than that. They aren't perfect, but they have responsibility."

Jason didn't have an answer ready for that. He had excuses--that Skinwalker had known exactly how to push him, that he'd thought letting the frost creep over would help him find Banshee, that he'd thought Skinwalker could have survived the frost--but they all felt flat, and some part of him knew that Adande had a point. He'd broken his own promise to never freeze again, and it'd taken Pegasus standing up for his partner for Cryo to realise he'd gone too far.

Adande went on, throwing an arm wide, casting it over the layered blankets that Olivia sat on. "Her own, damned, Skypillar-given partner failed her, and you think that there's anything you can do better? Olivia isn't ready to deal with any of this right now, and neither of you seem to realise that!"

Ella gave him a weird look. "What do you mean that Olivia isn't ready to deal with it? Does she know something about where Banshee is?"

Adande pulled his arm in quickly--too quickly--and brought it up to cover his eyes. "Look, it doesn't matter. It really just doesn't matter right now. She has no idea where Banshee is. Just let her rest."

"Then give me an answer that makes sense," said Ella, exasperated. "Why would Olivia not... be..."

Ella trailed off with a note of realisation, her gaze slowly turning towards Olivia like she didn't dare believe it.

Adande rushed forward, placing himself in the way of Ella's awestruck stare. "Whatever you're thinking right now, Spirit, it's wrong. Olivia has no idea where Banshee is, and Banshee is somewhere in Sylrael, but I don't know where. There, happy?"

"By the seven stars of Skypillar," whispered Ella. "Olivia is Banshee."

Those three words struck a strange note at Jason's core.

"Are you kidding?" said Adande with a laugh. "And here I was, worried you'd actually figured me out, but sure, Olivia is Banshee. Good detective work there, Spirit."

"It's the only thing that makes sense," said Ella. "Everything fits, all the lies you've been telling us. Right, Jason?"

"I..." The words died in Jason's throat, and new ones forced themselves up. "She can't be."

"Why not?" said Ella with a frown. "You ever seen the two of them in the same room before?"

He hadn't, actually. In fact, as his mind ran back over a variety of encounters and situations where Olivia had conveniently gone missing, it made a terrifying amount of sense. Olivia's badly explained disappearances early on during the Offerings, her well timed exits just before the bells announced a Manifested, even the night that his mother had caught her in the Starlight Hall.

There was absolutely no logical reason as to why Jason felt so utterly convinced that Olivia could not be Banshee.

Ella clucked her tongue, then set her glare on Adande. "If you knew, then is she Dark?" Adande opened his mouth, but Ella was already shaking her head. "No, she's not Dark. You were talking about Banshee as if she were still active, and you'd know how to tell if a Lumi was Dark or not, so how--where's her Ascended?"

"Ascended?" said Adande, raising an eyebrow. "Ella, I--"

She poked a finger into his chest. "If you don't tell me, I will search this entire place until I find it. You either help me save a few stone pots, or I start looking."

Olivia is Banshee.

The words struck Jason again, harder this time as they tried to make themselves fit in a space that just didn't exist, while around him, the reality of the stone walls and blankets shifted for something else.

A room--his room--alone with Sae and a burning realisation that he couldn't quite remember.

Jason clutched the side of his head with a hand as his temples began to throb.

It made sense, Jason's logical side was telling him. All of it made a perfect, precise kind of sense that he could find no fault or flaw in, but despite that, some part of him couldn't believe it. It gave no reason why, simply continuing to repeat it's not possible, over and over again.

As Ella stepped away from Adande to begin her search, he grabbed her by the arm.

"If I show you, you can't tell her that you know," said Adande, a desperate note in his voice as he glanced at Olivia, still oblivious in the corner. "You can't. She freaked out when she dimmed and she realised I knew."

Ella gave him a solemn nod. "I wasn't planning on it."

"Skypillar, I'm an idiot," said Adande with a breath. He moved over to the medical box and began removing a stone block from the wall, so perfectly carved that the seam line was hidden. "It's... it's what I couldn't tell you before. After I helped Banshee escape, she could barely stand up. Collapsed a few steps later. I knew something was going on for Cryo to have been after her. I wasn't sure what, so I just decided to take her the one place that the Serpent and Cryo couldn't get to her: here."

Ella's mouth was tight, the corners of her eyes pinched. "And after you left the City limit, she dimmed, didn't she?"

Adande just nodded. "Her condition just dropped after that. She had two seizures while I was carrying her back. Her transformation, powerless or not, must be physically stronger than her human body, and without it, her arm, all the cuts, not to mention the exhaustion and the lack of food and water--all of it is hitting her at once, and she's shutting down. She won't sleep or eat or drink and it's like I'm watching her die."

Adande finished removing the block from the wall and slid it aside. He reached into the neatly hidden area and pulled out Olivia's bag. He hesitated before opening it before he finally dipped his hand in and gently lifted something out.

Jason--or at least, the logical part of Jason that hadn't gone into complete denial--had expected some kind of crystal, similar to Nereid's. Instead, the thing in Adande's palm was a small, lifeless humanoid figure about the same size as his palm, dressed in similar red and black garments to Banshee's. Its skin was grey and textured like stagnant smoke, wisping and curling off the edges of its limp arms that didn't seem to be physically attached to its body, but remained close all the same. A mask covered the lower part of its face, and its eyes were closed.

Banshee's Ascended, Cevinari.

"It fell out of Olivia when she dimmed," said Adande. "I almost left it behind. And before you yell at me--the only reason I kept it separate from her is because I wasn't sure if her thrashing around would hurt it, and I wasn't planning on telling either of you about the Banshee thing so I hid it. I tried keeping it near Liv earlier, but it didn't change much. She barely even looked at it."

"Viri," whispered Ella, her hands covering her face as her stare remained on the unconscious Ascended. "Starlight, what have they done to you?"

*+*+*+*

Olivia had another seizure after the first one, of which none of them could do anything about except roll her on her side and keep anything that wasn't a blanket away from her.

All three of them made various attempts at getting her to eat, drink or sleep, but she had the same reaction to each one. If she didn't ignore them, she'd mutter numbers or words, sometimes unintelligible ones, under her breath, and if they touched her, even to change her bandages, she broke into silent, violet shivers.

Olivia is Banshee.

Jason still couldn't bring himself to believe it. Every time he dove back into the logic and facts, trying to work out exactly why he couldn't believe it, his head pounded with the intensity of a migraine, splitting his skull straight down the middle. It wasn't that he didn't want her to be Banshee. The two of them were so alike in a million ways. It would have been ideal, though he'd curse himself an idiot for not giving Olivia the amulet sooner.

Perhaps it was the sheer coincidence of it all. What were the chances that his civilian life would crash into his Luminary one so perfectly? That he hadn't simply passed her in the street, or shared a short conversation with her, but had been assigned as her guide for the entire festival period? With so many people living in the City, it seemed nearly impossible without some form of divine intervention.

He offered up the reasoning to that stubborn part of his brain, only to have it shoot back with 'it can't be her. Olivia cannot be Banshee.'.

Jason was still trying to find the reason when the three of them decided to bed down for the night. Ella and Adande had fallen into a practical truce, and together, they collected the spare blankets from the store room and laid them out in the same room Olivia was in. The only thing they agreed on without a grumbled argument was that none of them were leaving, and that one of them needed to stay awake and keep watch over Olivia.

Jason volunteered to watch over her first, and surprisingly, both Ella and Adande accepted it without argument.

Adande adjusted the lights enough for it to be dim, but still able to see once their eyes adjusted and was back on his bed, arm under his head for a pillow a few minutes later. Ella didn't exactly lay down, opting to prop her back against the corner opposite Olivia and facing Adande.

Once they'd settled down, Jason sat himself at the edge of the blanket spread under Olivia and began his vigil.

The minutes ticked away.

After a while, Ella and Adande's breathing even out on the other side of the room, but Olivia's remained the same. Short, sharp, pained breaths from where she was curled into the corner, still staring at the floor with an empty gaze, occasionally whispering a few words under her breath that Jason couldn't quite hear. Her head drooped every few minutes, only to jerk back up in a second-long panic that flashed across her face.

When she fell into another seizure, Jason repeated his actions. Turn her on her side, tilt her head back, bring her leg forward, and ensure the blanket wouldn't choke her. After she began to still once more, her right hand reached out--towards him, he was realising.

He took her hand in his own, letting her fingers curl around his. Her grip wasn't steady. It would weaken, only to come back with a crushing jerk of strength a few seconds later. The skin that peeked out through the bandages was cold and clammy. Even in the dim light, it was still too easy to remember the damage beneath.

"Olivia?" Jason murmured. "It's me, Jason. I'm just going to move over a little. Is that okay with you?"

She didn't reply, but she didn't respond in any negative way, either, so Jason inched closer, still holding onto her hand. Every motion he made was predictable and calm. He waited for her shivers to begin, her only sign that she didn't want him that close, but whether because she allowed it or she was too out of it to care, none came, and Jason found himself sitting beside her on the blankets, his back against the wall, an arms length away to give her space.

He didn't push her, allowing her to dictate the distance. After a few minutes, Olivia returned to her curled position in the corner, but unlike the other times, her hand remained squeezing his. She didn't look at it, didn't really do anything except hold on.

But she also didn't let it go.

"I'm not really sure if you remember me right now," said Jason quietly, finding the words waiting in his throat. "But I know you. You're Olivia."

He paused, not expecting a reply, but giving her the chance for one anyway. It was always something he'd been denied. A chance to speak. Now that he had it, he didn't really know what to do with it. The words didn't exactly have an order. He just kept talking, letting them tumble out.

"You managed to get caught in a thunderstorm," he said. "And you somehow broke your own glasses after you ran into me. You somehow manage to find the funny side of everything, even the most ridiculously formal of temple speech. I thought you were too good to be, well, good for a while, and I still go to sleep at night cringing from that tongue-lashing you gave me. 'Kiss my ass, Jason Frostsong'. I think you gave my strict temple upbringing a heart attack with that line."

Her hand twitched on his, not painfully like her bursts of strength before, but something that made him think that she was listening. It made him want nothing more than to reach out and hug her, to pull her into one of those embraces that she'd given him so many times, the ones that were warm and safe and wrapped him tight enough to squeeze the bad thoughts straight from his head, but he couldn't.

He could only talk, to try and give his words the same effect, to make something glow inside like her words had done so many times for him.

"It's funny," Jason murmured. "I don't quite know when you started meaning so much to me, Liv. I'm not sure if it was the first time you literally ran into me, or when I found you drenched in the rain. It could've been when I saw you singing to the auroras that first night at the temple, or when you danced to my violin. Maybe it was when you gave a moron like myself a second chance to be friends."

Jason fell silent, his eyes on the blankets as he pinched the fabric beside him, then released it a few seconds later.

"There's a million things it could've been, I think," he said after a moment. "But honestly, I think the truth is that it just kept growing each time I saw you smile at someone, because somehow, you meant each one. You're so stubbornly, genuinely friendly. Like... some kind of incoming natural disaster that no one can really do anything about except accept that it's going to happen eventually, but honestly, that's just a terrible metaphor, because everything you do seems to be to help someone else."

He sucked in a hasty breath, half aware he was rambling, but he had to get the words out more than he needed the air to breathe. "Do you know how absolutely incredible that is, Liv? I always considered caring a weakness, but you care so damned much and you're so strong because of it. You absolutely refused to be pushed out of the way when Ella needed you, or when I--"

Jason glanced up to find that Olivia was no longer staring at the floor.

She was looking at him.

His heart skipped a beat and got caught in his throat.

"I just..." he said, barely able to get the words out with those beautiful, hazel eyes so focused on him. "You've always been there for us, Shadowheart. For me. And we're all going to be here for you, too. Whatever you need, all you have to do is just say it, and we'll be there."

Olivia continued to watch him, her gaze flicking slowly, back and forth between his left eye, then his right eye. The tiniest spark of interest--

"Green and black," she said, her voice barely more than a breath past her lips. "Not the Serpent, have to protect..." She looked away, her eyes losing that tiny spark and falling back to the ground as the rest of her curled a little tighter around her knees and shifted closer against the wall. "Not... safe. Not safe."

And she pulled her hand away.

Jason pressed his lips together to try and stop the prickling feeling across his face from spreading to his eyes as she leaned away from him, her gaze fixated back on the floor again.

Instead of focusing on that, he told himself instead that he recognised that anxiety. He'd experienced enough sleep deprivation throughout his life to know the confusion, the borderline delirium, the paranoia, the urge to fight and stay awake. He'd known it long before Skypillar had chosen him to represent the Aspect of Frost. It didn't make sense, it wasn't logical, and the only cure for it was to win the fight against his own brain and sleep.

There'd always been one thing that had stayed in focus, though. One thing that had always been the key to helping him finally sleep.

Music.

Jason closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall. He let his mind wander, to run its fingers through the hundreds of thoughts of her, through every moment he'd described and the many that he hadn't, and among them, he found a tune he'd first found on his violin the day that Banshee--Olivia or not--had caught his mother disciplining him in the temple halls.

Jason began to hum.

He wasn't quite sure why it had come to mind, but the smoke-and-fire melody was as fresh in his mind as it had been the day he'd poured it out on the strings. He hummed it slowly, carefully, like the notes would break if he pushed them too hard. He coaxed them out, letting each memory he had of her draw the next one out of hiding.

It was strange, he realised, to remember that day. He'd been so caught up in the why of Banshee's actions, so caught up playing her melody, that he'd failed to realise it had been Olivia who had ended up in the doorway, enraptured by the melody he'd found to describe Banshee.

Olivia is Banshee.

The fire in his melody was nothing like the raging blaze that had fought its own suffocating smoke for a chance to live. This fire now was thin and sputtered out little more than a wisp of smoke, but it was there, and it was alive.

A few minutes later, with Jason still humming Banshee's lullaby, Olivia's head leaned on his shoulder.

Without words, he lifted his arm. She curled up closer, her head now against his chest, her fingers gripping his shirt, as Jason wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held onto her.

He was still humming when she finally fell asleep.

*+*+*+*

A/N - *softly screeching in background*

<3