THE WIND WAS SOFT AGAINST HER SKIN on her way back to Burlington.

Her leg softly thrummed, a distant echo as she walked in a haze, taken by the night sky above her. It was well into the night, almost three in the morning, and with the darkness of the lifeless surface, she could see stars peppering around the moon without the pollution of light.

She breathed in, bypassing the station and making her way to the top of the stairs, the funicular behind her serving as an easier way for her to get down. This was the place she used to come to whenever her old man would leave her for an extended number of days to hunt food for herself without having her limbs torn off, forcing her to steal, put her fighting skills to good use, sharpen her instincts.

Her eyes skipped from the lantern threads cobbed all the way down, to the thick elastic wire that stretched from the metal rails of the funicular to the first connected bridge. She had caught it the first time the three of them came; it had been quivering, evidence that it had been used.

Her finger ran smoothly across the elastic, pulling it down briefly before letting go, watching it jolt back into place. She recalled seeing Jeremy right before their arrival, and her mind wandered back to the many times they had used that wire when the funicular wasn't yet built.

She hummed to herself, maybe it was still usable after all.

Her eyes followed the path down; it could be three hundred feet - she wasn't sure. Her fingers furled around the wire, feet reaching the edge of the cliff. Just as she was about to look up to ready herself for the fall, her eyes caught a figure standing right at the center of Burlington. Her neck craned down, chest tight as she made out the features of Kaden, his posture straight, his chin tipped up to look at her.

Her heartbeat thrummed against her wound, and she took a step back. She couldn't be so reckless when she had just sewed it merely hours ago, she couldn't risk having it tear and spit blood - she already exerted it enough as it was.

Maybe another time.

She retreated to the station, bypassing the ticketing kiosk and pulling her body over the checkpoint, swinging her legs over the rail. She pressed a button and the doors slid open, exposing the compact space of the funicular. She stepped inside and pressed a button to close the doors, and the funicular launched its descent.

It was the first time she was using it, a little surprised that it was fairly well kept, and she wondered where they got the money to put it in place in the first place.

Her eyes caught Kaden as he made his way closer to where she would land, and she readied herself for their overdue talk.

The doors slid open, and she met his gaze as he stood several feet away from her, his posture straight and expression stoic. Robin noticed he was still wearing his outfit, cargo pants, and long-sleeved beige shirt, and she wondered if he had ever changed out of them to sleep. Or was he still awake?

The moment she slipped out the exit checkpoint, he asked, "You bought a ticket?"

Robin patted the pockets of the pants she wore. "Don't have money on me."

He heaved a sigh, turning around to head for the ticketing kiosk that was a foot away from her. He tapped on the screen to pick a ticket and inserted a few coins he fished from his pocket. "That money finances renovations here." She heard him explain, and she leaned back against the steel rail.

"What makes you so sure?" He didn't answer. Robin bit her tongue, and, feeling the slight guilt tug at her gut, she said, "I'll pay you back."

"It's nothing."

She hummed as he turned to face her. "What about people who need it but can't afford to buy tickets?" She inquired with an arched eyebrow, not finding it fair that the people had to pay for renovations the government was responsible for.

"They have a pass card. We pay for them."

"We?"

He shrugged. "Whoever can."

She nodded. So, he paid for them too. "How can you afford it?" She doubted that the bar paid well enough for five people already.

When she first saw him in the wake of her memories catching up to her, she was too overwhelmed with all of it to properly look at him, to properly process. Now that her mind cleared, she let her eyes wander and study him, associating all the memories she had of the kid she used to see in passing with the man before her. She had so many questions, so much on her mind that didn't make sense. They seemed to be doing well enough, and it stirred her curiosity, a part of her dreaded the methods they had to use to survive.

Kaden's answer didn't come, as his eyes studied her the same, hovering on her left leg.

"You should be resting," he said, meeting her eye.

Her mouth twitched in a small smile. It didn't seem to her that he was the kind of person to talk much, and she didn't mind - she would leave her questioning to either Joe or Ollie. Without much to add, she turned to walk back to the house. A moment later, she heard his approaching footsteps behind her.

"Robin."

She stopped and barely turned, looking at him from the corner of her eye. She waited for him to break the silence, and when he didn't, she said, "you take an awful lot of time to speak your mind." She turned fully to face him. "Stop thinking too much of it. Spit it out."

His lips parted. Her voice was even, not at all sharp, but the contrast between her words and her rigid posture were making it harder for him to tell how she was feeling. "Are you okay?"

She scoffed. "You can come up with something better than that."

He took brisk strides to reach her, looking down at her, eyes hard. "Well, are you?"

No. It felt like her world had altered. The sense of normalcy she had dipped into for years now shattered and was falling apart at the seams. She couldn't possibly understand how it happened, how it escaped her, how she could have gone so long without ever trying to reconnect with that part of her again. She felt sick to the bone, confused, and utterly helpless in dealing with the whole ordeal. She felt ashamed because while she was living a life completely full of privileges that she no longer denied to herself, they had still been orphans fighting for survival every single day-betrayed by her own memory that couldn't recall any of their faces, not even Kaden's, who she had spent time with the most out of all of them after Ollie, even if it was mostly in silence-angry at them because they hid him from her. Ollie. Why would they hide him from her? Was it for his sake or hers? -angry at herself because she would rather bask in the safety and comfort of what she now outrageously called familiar than drown back into the shadows of her past, one she had struggled to rid herself from for years and years and years but it clung to her, coiling around every inch of her body, its presence a heavy, suffocating entity that was beating and breathing.

She had needed a reason to go on with the investigation, she had been desperate for a solid enough reason that would be worth her going through the torturous monstrous feeling of guilt that would claw at her chest. She was coming to the realization that no reason or objective was ever worth it. And she felt even worse thinking about it, thinking she might have been better off not knowing.

The more she was left to her own thoughts, the angrier she got. Kaden could see the way her features contorted into a frown, readying himself for more venom to trickle out of her tongue-but her shoulders suddenly hunched, her eyes becoming distant, shadowed with defeat.

"Why ask when you already know?" Her voice was hoarse, grating against her tight throat.

Kaden watched her turn around and march ahead, and he studied her receding figure for a moment longer. A heavy sigh escaped his nose as he felt the ache in his chest swell further. He chose to remain quiet as he followed, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

Robin's eyes located the house, features relaxing once she caught sight of Joe sitting on the bench next to the stairs. The latter looked up, her tiredness made obvious by the dark circles rimming her eyes, yet the relief she expressed seemed to be washing away some of it. She stood up, hands stuffed inside of her pockets as she took in the state of the two.

"Didn't find you," she explained. "I got worried."

Robin nodded, shoulders unwinding to force her guards down. "We need to talk."

Joe's eyes flickered to Kaden for a second before she nodded. "Okay." She turned and tilted her head in the direction of the door for them to follow.

Once inside, they headed for her room, the first one on the right and across Kaden's where the door was kept ajar. Robin could catch Christina, Finn, and Ollie still sleeping inside just as she left them. Quietly, she padded her way after Joe and Kaden followed, shutting the door after them.

"Is your leg okay?" Joe asked and Robin nodded as she scanned her room, realizing it looked like Kaden's in its construction but completely different in everything else - while his was perfectly neat, hers was a little messier, with framed pictures and hair dye products scattered around the surfaces, thrown clothes and a messy bed. Her eyes caught Kaden's nose scrunch as he surveyed the state of the room as well. Joe rolled her eyes once she caught it too. "Get over it," she quipped, and he gave her a side-eye.

Robin's leg ached, and her eyes landed on a desk chair that had a pile of clothes sitting on it.

"Sit." Robin wanted to ask where. "You can throw 'em on the ground." She shrugged and Kaden clicked his tongue.

"Tomorrow," he grumbled in distaste. "You're cleaning it tomorrow."

"Your Sunday-is-cleaning-day bullcrap is really starting to sound like Christian Fairfordians and their holy mass," she fired back.

Robin held back a snort as she moved the clothes to the desk, ears straining at the sound of Kaden mumbling under his breath something about Joe living like a cave person. She pushed her body down gently, reveling in the numb feeling that glazed her muscles.

"When did you find me?" She asked, words cutting their arising argument short.

Joe's lips pulled shut, recalling what Lizzie had uttered while Robin sewed her injury; she didn't expect her to catch any of the words in her state. "Alright, straight to it..." she trailed, and a heavy sigh escaped her lips. "You were fourteen."

Robin's eyes narrowed, the rest of her features unmoving.

"Fourteen," she echoed, and Joe nodded. "You didn't think to talk to me then?"

Kaden's eyes shot to her at the sound of her defensive tone, lips sealed in a thin line.

"No." Joe shook her head. "I just wanted to know you were doing okay. That you found a good home." She shrugged. "That you're safe."

Robin frowned. She felt the twinge of pain twist her gut. "Why did you hide Ollie from me?" She felt the tightness in her throat, and she ground her jaw, fighting away the turmoil inside of her and forcing herself to regain her composure. "Why did you all hide from me?"

Joe hunched her shoulders, a grim look settling on her features. "We didn't hide from you, Robin," she eased, "we didn't want to drag you back to this-"

"You don't get to decide," she cut in, words coming out sharper than she intended, but all she could recall was the lengths she had gone to find them until she had eventually given up, drowning in guilt she learned to live with. A beat longer passed before she redirected the subject. "How did you do it?" She asked the question that had been gnawing at her insides, visualizing the life she would've had if she hadn't been caught that day because of that damned bread. "Financially. How?"

"There's no need for you to know," Kaden was the one to answer then. Robin shifted her attention to where he stood beside the bed, back leaning against the wall and arms crossed tight against his chest.

"Surely, bartending wouldn't cover it." She met his eye. There was a long moment, and he didn't answer still, his face remaining composed as he looked back at her blankly. A nauseating feeling crawled up her gut; him not telling her would only lead to her assuming the worst. She jutted her chin up, eyes watching his every move carefully, as if she could decipher him from just looking, as if the passing years didn't affect his lying tics. "Do you kill for money?"

"No."

"Do you traffic people-"

"No."

She tilted her head. "Prostitution?"

Joe's snort could've distracted her enough to shadow the slight twitch of his jaw, but Robin caught it. Her eyebrows inched up.

"No."

She stored the move at the back of her mind for later inspection. "Drug dealing?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Is it worse than what I mentioned?"

"Depends how you want to look at it."

Her eyes narrowed. "That's awfully vague."

"Is it?"

She heaved a sigh at the realization he wasn't going to give her an answer, that this man was no longer the thirteen-year-old boy she knew fourteen years ago. He had grown, he had changed, he had somehow figured out a way to live here at Darwin, a way to look after Ollie and Jeremy and Lizzie without tainting their hands.

But was he tainting his?

Robin knew he was doing something illegal; the entire ordeal reeked of criminal activity. But she didn't know what it was, and she needed information to ease her mind.

"Are Lizzie, Jeremy, and Ollie in on it too?" She asked, realizing she removed them out of the equation, assuming they had nothing to do with it, that the whole responsibility relied solely on Kaden and Joe.

"No." Joe was quick to shake her head. "They're studying at the university of Glenburgh."

Glenburgh; the district next to Crest Hill.

"It's still there?" Robin arched an eyebrow. With the gradual fallout of Fairford, she imagined people would be reluctant to invest their money into funding the university. But it shouldn't come as a shock, many people with Fairfordian residency had families in Darwin, and some of them were rich enough.

"Yeah." Joe nodded. "They still invest to fund the hospital by Welford district too. Since it's the only hospital remaining in Darwin after Crest Hill's burnt down."

Robin hummed, nodding. "And you're paying their tuition in full?" She didn't like the possibility of them drowning in debt.

"Yeah."

"What are they studying?" She asked, curiosity tickling her nerves.

"Lizzie's becoming a vet," Kaden answered. "She'd been adopting strays since she was ten, that career path didn't really come as a shock. Jeremy's in art school."

"Whose ass I'm kicking in the streets if he tries to draw me with charcoal again," Joe scoffed, although Robin could now understand the occasional presence of drawings scattered on her desk and hung on the walls.

Robin snorted. She nodded, wanting to feel the aching relief, but unable to. They were living the best life they possibly could, but at what cost? That was a lot of shit to handle for the two of them, a lot of responsibilities to take on at the earliest ages of their teenage years. "And Ollie?"

He paused. "He's in med school."

Her heart stopped. The memory of the way he was quick to analyze her cut flashed before her. The stitched banana on the table. That was him, then.

"We're doing okay," Joe assured. "There's nothing you could have done. There's nothing to do, really."

Robin nodded, slowly taking it all in. She felt there were so many questions left unanswered, needing to spend her time digesting everything that happened-

But her trail of thought was cut short by an abrupt shift outside the room.

She paused for a moment, before standing and heading for the door, yanking it open.

Ollie stood before her, eyes wide and mouth dropped open, cheeks turning red as he got caught eavesdropping. Robin's eyes softened, her heart squeezing at the sight.

"Sorry... I didn't find you... I heard, um, I mean-"

"It's alright," she was quick to reassure. "I need to talk to you too," she added, voice low and strained.

She swallowed and Ollie's eyes widened slowly, shining with emotions so heavy her heart swelled. He took a tentative step forward, breaching her space and sliding his hands around her waist. She held onto him without a second's hesitation, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him to her, breathing into his hair as he nuzzled his nose on her neck. It almost felt unreal; the way she felt grounded and anchored with him in her arms, the idea that he wasn't going to vanish in the blink of an eye because it had been a figment of her imagination. She breathed in, heart tight inside of her ribcage when he squeezed his arms around her.

Kaden's eyes cast down, and Joe's shoulders hunched. Suddenly the decision to keep her out of their lives became more of a burden than an act of goodwill as they had initially believed it to be.

Ollie led her to his room where they could lie on the bed and talk. And he talked for hours. He wasn't one to speak his mind much, because he would feel like a bother, but Robin asking him more and more questions led to words pouring out of his mouth without a second thought.

He talked about his studies, his practice, Nico and the bar, Ursula and her brothel, Zachary and his parrot, how he trained him to fetch a ball once, about Otto and his weird monkey who was more human than Otto, really. He talked about Lizzie, her gang of cats guarding the house and the first one she tried to rescue, about Jeremy and his drawings - he called his sketches nearly accurate, and how Jeremy was thinking of trying digital art the moment he'd know how to get the utensils from across the border. He talked about Joe's cooking, about Kaden's obsessive cleaning and insomnia. He talked about the renovation of this very house, how long it took for it to be completed as they worked on it for years, about the near clash that erupted when the first bed was built because all four of them had to squeeze themselves on the mattress, with Kaden preferring the floor over being coddled by Joe or elbowed by Jeremy or kicked by Lizzie. He would sometimes call Kaden 'Kade', Jeremy 'Jer', and Lizzie 'Liz'. Robin listened contently, wanting to hear it all, feeling somewhat at peace as his voice lulled her ears and silenced the war inside of her.

His voice, although low, bounced against the walls of the quiet house. It reached Joe, who purposely left her door ajar, and Kaden, who lounged on the couch of the living room, battling with sleep.

Christina had awoken at the sound of Ollie rustling beside her, and she had stayed awake for the rest of the night, listening to their hushed talk, losing herself to the words and tails, letting it all sink in inside of her mind so she could process it when it wouldn't be so blurry and riddled with holes.

She planted her elbows and pulled her body up when it got quiet again, eyes landing on Finn's head by her feet, and for an impulsive second, she debated kicking him awake so she wouldn't have to face it all on her own.

Pulling herself up, she made her way toward the bathroom, now smelling of harsh detergent and chemicals from Kaden's cleaning. He had collected the ruined towels and wet gauze and Robin's jeans in a black bag and had gone outside to throw them, he even cleaned Robin's supplies and placed them back in their duffle bag as if they hadn't been used, despite Christina's protest that she would do it. She frowned once her eyes landed on an unopened pack of three toothbrushes on the sink, not knowing how to feel about the hospitality.

With a heavy sigh, she tore one out at random, brushing her teeth and washing her face, her eyes stinging because of her lack of sleep. She dragged her body outside the bedroom, flicking her wrists to release the unease gripping her nerves.

Her eyes landed on Joe, lounging on a stool by the kitchen island, forearms resting against the surface and fingers lacing a mug. The latter tipped her chin in her direction at the sound of noise, and, as if Christina was invisible, she looked back down at her drink, unfazed.

Christina cursed her luck. Out of all the people in this house that could have been awake, it was the one who'd been the most hostile towards her.

Stepping outside the hallway, she noticed a body lying on the couch, and she held back a wince at the realization that it was Kaden as they had claimed his bed for the night. She tried to move at a quiet pace, suddenly feeling like every move she made was loud and ricocheting against walls.

She took notice of the coffee pot by the sink behind Joe, and she debated asking if she could serve herself. Seeing as Joe didn't acknowledge her presence at all, she decided she could, but because she felt like she was walking on thin ice, she thought against it.

"Can I?" She asked in a hushed whisper, somehow feeling slightly exposed.

Joe ground her jaw. She knew that the sooner she answered her, the sooner she'd be out of her hair, and so without moving much, she took a mug from the dish drying rack beside her and extended her arm to settle it as far as she could reach.

Christina mumbled a small 'thanks', moving quietly to pour coffee into the mug, reveling in the slight warmth it provided and the smell that wafted her nostrils. She looked back at the island, at the six stools that surrounded it. She could pick the far one to sit on, but it still was too close to Joe, whose irritation oozed out of her body to seep into hers and Christina wondered if it was now an instinctive reaction this woman would get around her.

She settled for leaning against the window, a safe distance away and outside her field of vision.

Moments passed and she idly fiddled with the patterns of the mug, orange paint coating it, a little worn out from age. She gnawed at the the insides of her cheek, eyes flickering to Joe's back to notice it wasn't as tight as it was mere minutes ago. Regardless, she felt anxious, fingernail restlessly jutting against the cool porcelain until Joe clicker her tongue, halting her movement altogether.

A beat passed before Christina spoke. "You usually wake up this earl-"

"You don't have to fill the silences."

She was quiet for a beat, then sealed her lips in a thin line.

She took leisure sips from her coffee, her mind whirring. She knew their relationship was shaky, the events of the first time they got to the bar still fresh in her mind, and she knew it was because of her questioning and blind accusation. However, things changed after yesterday's revelation. She had so many questions about it, ones she set aside for when she could get her hands on Robin. If she knew them, at least Ollie, then it made things easier for her. Getting to know them, having now a tie to them, could provide vital clues, it could get her a piece of the puzzle regardless of whether she suspected their involvement with Violet's murder or not.

She needed to extract information from them if she ever wanted to make progress in the case, and to do that, she had to build trust.

Christina inhaled a sharp breath, straightening. Joe heard it, and she wound her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose, a headache threatening her skull.

"Look," she began, thinking of the best way to go about it. "I know... I know we got off on the wrong foot-"

"You really don't give up, do you?" She hissed, massaging her temple.

Christina stepped forward, moving to stand by the edge of the counter, Joe's profile now visible to her.

"I'm not here for trouble," she said, slowly putting down her mug.

"You should think of that the next time you open your mouth."

"We can talk this out, like grown adults-"

"Listen here, Sniffy or whatever your name is." Christina's eyebrows shot up at the nickname, Joe twisted her body to face her, meeting her eye evenly. "I don't like you. I'd like to know I made that painfully obvious." Her words were sharp, but her voice was even like it was a fact she was merely stating rather than intending to inflict pain. "I don't appreciate your tone, I certainly don't agree with your views, and I would love to be able to breathe without having you try to shove your principles down our throats. I'm going to spell it out for you so you can understand. In this house, under this roof, you don't get to talk, you don't get to argue, and you don't get to make us feel like shit." Christina's frown deepened at the bite behind her words, realizing it might have been a mistake to even consider Joe would reason with her. "You're only here because Robin's here. And that boy toy of yours isn't at all bad. You talk about civilization? Start with being civil yourself."

"No."

She arched an eyebrow. "No?"

"You don't get to enforce rules," she replied evenly, shoulders square.

Joe scoffed. "This is our house. I enforce whatever the fuck I want."

"My intention isn't at all to make you feel like shit. I'm just trying to understand why you deem certain things bad when-"

"It's not our job to educate you," she snapped.

A click of tongue pulled them out of the arising heat of the argument. Both their heads angled to where Kaden now sat up on the couch, face contorted into mild annoyance.

"Too loud," he grumbled under his breath, wiping a hand on his face.

The two women fell quiet, Joe twisting her body back to its initial position, while Christina struggled to keep her calm. Her impatience wasn't going to get her anywhere, and reasoning with Joe should no longer be an option as demonstrated by this moment alone. She heaved a sigh, taking the mug and putting it under the sink, turning on the faucet to wash it with soap.

"You cleaned your room?" Kaden asked as he reached the counter and Joe rolled her eyes.

"It's seven in the morning." She heaved a sigh. "Let's wait for the rest to wake up and then we'll clean the house, don't start crying now."

"Clean?" Christina arched an eyebrow, dabbing her hand with a towel.

"Yes, we do clean here," she answered evenly, hiding all traces of venom from her tone. Christina couldn't see her from where she stood behind her, which could be for the better, as she didn't think her blood pressure could handle it. "You'll get to be a part of this, don't worry."

Kaden muttered something under his breath and padded his way to the last room at the end of the hallway so he could take a shower. It was right across from Ollie's, an extra room they had furnished, and Lizzie had joked that she felt like an aristocrat expecting guests over. He paused at the sight of Ollie's bedroom door left slightly open, where he could see that he was on the bed sleeping, head resting on Robin's shoulder. His heart tightened at the sight of her awake, head tilted to stare out the window, where the faint light washed her features with a soft glow.

He turned and went into the empty room to his left,debating shutting the door and locking himself in for the rest of the day.

________

Notes:

Alright!!! this chapter was honestly so hard to write for some reason, writer's block has no mercy lol

just a small thing about the wire Robin was going to use to jump, it's referenced in chapter ten, the second paragraph:

'Her gaze inspected the caged city. It expanded miles and miles ahead, floors of habitation connected through bridges on the middle floor to get from one side to the next, built every few kilometers. Her eyes skipped down to stare at the lantern threads cobbed in between. A particular one caught her eye, elastic and stretching from the metal rails of the funicular on her left, down to the first connected bridge ahead. She noticed the slight tremor; the aftermath of the rubber band being stretched.'

So yes they use it to get down (it is reckless yes)

So, next chapter is a 'bonding' (or an attempt at, really) chapter! I wanted to split it, but decided to cram into one and cut back on the word count (i swear it was 7K words)

I want to thank you all for reading!! love love to read each and every single one of your comments!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!