(no subject)

[aribustenolupum]

The first thing Kate feels for Kyle is pride. The edges of Redemption One aren’t far from the barracks he’s taken over. The second thing she feels is fear. She saw him after he came out, after the rebirth, it would be enough to shatter any well man, and Kyle...Kyle was Kyle. She had other people to think about and his mental health had to be put in check.They had to speak, they had to be united. The moon shone through the dome’s clear sphere and she saw him, a great mounded shape waiting where she’d asked him to just before Rose Light had thrown him into a wall.

Oh. That had hurt. It had been like seeing Commando slam him in the face again. She’d kept her gaze passive, her expression cool and calm even while trying desperately not to destroy every mind that crept close to hers because that was her husband, her stupid silly dog-husband. Thank god for his armored plates. Thank god for his claws and teeth and fangs and...and…

They had met as enemies exchanging a few telepathic lines but this is the first time in what feels like a year (had it almost been a year? How quickly things had changed) that she could really take in the damage the virus had done to him. He was impressive in the same way a dog was impressive, powerful haunches and hind quarters, the exoskeleton grown over his form made little noise as he approached her. HIs eyes glow in the dark. Just like a dog’s. No wonder the organization had named him “Cerberus.” he was a hellish creature.

Still, in the light of the full moon, the thing her husband had become didn’t frighten her. Her mouth opened and closed before she moved toward him.

“...Kyle.”

He covered his head with a massive paw, “...You don’t-” his frame shifted, “You don’t have to touch me if you don’t want to. You shouldn’t have to look at me.”

Had it only been a year? Had he lived like this for a year? Without her? Without losing his mind? The pride in her soul intensified. She moved toward him and reached for him, “You don’t stop being my husband because of this.” She stepped forward, “You have never stopped being the man I love.”

She wanted to take his mutated hands, to hold him and be held. She had promised herself she wouldn’t creep into his mind without permission but she detected a deep sense of relief at the corner of her vision that made her smile.

Her hand came up to his features and she traced the hard lines of the stone in his face, his snout. The moonlight illuminated a canine featured face with an ape-like snout and her eyes filled with tears as she remembered his smile, his kisses, his joy, “....Can you feel that?”

The shake of his large head was slow. No.
“On the nose. The snout.”
Another headshake.
The only response she could offer was pure humanity. She wrapped her arms around him and poured as much support and strength as she could into his mind. His chest rumbled.

“Stop. Stop. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. You need to save that for you.” His voice was several octaves deeper then she remembered, “I’m okay. Really. I’m okay. My concern is you. The last I saw you people were trying to throw you into buildings.”

“Your friends.”
She’d meant to be joking.
He snorted, a deep growling wuff, “They’re not my friends. There are divisions that fucking Commando has put in place. I keep to myself.”

She inhaled his smell and did her best to ignore it, shutting down her own senses, “...Spoils of war. We’re in a war zone.”

“What we’re in is a camp.” A growl rumbled in his chest, “They locked us in a camp and this Commando…”

“I’m doing what I can to find out more.” She swallowed, “I trust no one, it’s a camp set up by a deranged comic book fan if anything, if anything and if we were to leave Commando is slowly turning the population against us.”

That had been the hardest part to take. In her “room”, a personal suite as opposed to a hospital room for someone sick, someone who wanted to get better, there was a massive television built into the wall. She watched in horror as pundits across the country displayed images of people across the states who had emerged from their wombs. Kyle’s image, flopped uselessly beneath Commando’s feet. They don’t give us names.

He wasn’t Kyle Shaw. He was Cerberus, sworn enemy of Commando.

“There are children here.” Kyle bared his teeth and she saw they were long and white in the dark, all sharp. “There are children who don’t need to be here. Who shouldn’t be here. Who shouldn’t have been at the…” his mouth twitched, “...hospital. What the hell is he doing?”

“Commando?” she shook her head, hair falling over her shoulders, “I don’t know. I’m trying to find out as much as I can. Are they all right?” she hadn’t known there were children. He lied to me. He lied. Unless...no. No Kyle wouldn’t have taken them.

“They’re fine. They’re stage 3.” like me. To his credit he ignored her sense of surprise and confusion, “they put us in different cells. Away from the wombs. You could hear them crying through the walls.”

She tried to drown out the image in his head, the briefest of flashes. Stone white walls, small people screaming…

And came back to his voice, “ I grabbed as many as I could and others grabbed the rest. We reunited them with their families. They were snatched, dragged in here and then tortured-” he leaned close and sniffed her. She twitched under his hot and heavy breath.

She felt him dig his claws into the dirt at her feet before he looked at her, “...Did he torture you? Did they torture you? Tell me they didn’t.” He bared his teeth at the thought, “Killing’s getting easier and easier. I don’t want to but I will if they did.” Commando’s words about his so-called “villain” class echoed in her head. It is a pity but it’s a mercy. If they were to go out into the populace they would commit crimes. The disease has driven them mad.You have no idea how much it hurts to see them suffer like that. I can’t inflict them on people. I can’t harm them in that way.

She wondered what he would do if the answer had been yes and realized that the horror had been replaced with a perverse sort of pride. He saved the children. He wanted to defend her. He had never preached passive behavior but he’d never been ...physical.
This place is making us into monsters.

“No. They tried. I can…” she held out a hand and made a bird appear in Kyle’s mind. The creature fluttered in her hands, feathers covered in moonglow “I’ve had a lot of time to practice and when there’s snakes actually in your boots…”

They wore mirrored smiles, “No wonder commando wanted to ally with you.” he murmured, “I was worried after the ...the womb.”
People eat and they go into the wombs. Their bodies dissolve. They sit, hibernating in the dark, changing sometimes, sometimes the wombs are in their heads, their brains, their hands, and when they are reborn…

He was Howling. A stinking creature crawling out onto the street calling her name, roaring to the heavens, how ungangly, how large and monsterous he must have felt, dripping and covered in slime trying to adjust to too bright lights and too sharp smells…

She swallowed, “... You screamed my name...I haven’t forgotten it.”

“I thought you’d make me better.”

Her smile fell, “...can we...walk? Talk?”

“You can come and look at what we’re doing.” Kyle gestured for her to follow and she tried not to think about how the earth shook slightly when he moved. The dome shivered above them as he paced beside her. Ahead of them was a low warehouse. Several huts lay scattered in between it and the next building, people already trying to build a town out of nothing. She eyed the building apprehensively. Something for the medical personnel to use? To sleep in? The layout of this place didn’t make sense. She saw a collection of plants gathered close to the front of the building, marked off in planters, “...A garden?”

“One of the kids makes plants grow.” his deep rasping voice was soft, “She could solve world hunger, but because she’s got green skin and looks like she grew out of the ground herself she’s …”
“...I’ve known a few people like that.” She paused and remembered the group she’d been with “Don’t take your complaints to me. It’s bad outside Kyle.”
“It’s bad everywhere.”

Kate pressed a hand to his side and tried to find some little gesture to make this more bearable, to process what he had become. Raising her hand higher she tangled her hand in the thin strip of fur at the nape of his neck. He rumbled at that.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No.” He shook his head, “Actually felt that.” He sat back in front of a metal door and pulled it open with his teeth. She steeled herself as she found a collection of kids - some in hammocks, some sleeping 2 to a cot. They had hastily erected walls to create a sleeping area she saw. To the other side of the warehouse she saw what looked like a school. Desks in rows, a few blank spaces. When her gaze drifted to the sleeping area she saw boys and girls slept next to each other. It was hard to miss how each one of them had been hit hard by the disease that had mutated her husband. The kids slept in little rows, huddled together. Her heart melted as she saw small chests rising and falling, bigger kids holding smaller ones.

She saw one boy with pale goat horns rising out of his thick black hair peer out of his blanket, unroll himself off the floor and stare at her-wary. Regret filled her as he grew to 6 feet tall before her eyes. She saw it was a mirage, really saw it and raised her own hands. I’m not a threat.

“Carlos.” Kyle rumbled from beside her, “This is my wife. Kate. Stop it.” He was multiplying into multiple copies of the same man, large and imposing and ready to fight, “She’s here for me.”

“She’s with Commando.” he frowned, “Why is she here for you? Is she going to hurt you?” the shrunken shadow turned back into a boy who balled his hands into fists. A few other children were beginning to stir, “We’ll all fight you. He saved us. You can’t take him away.”

Kate swallowed hard, “I would never hurt him. What you saw in the courtyard was...was…” she sighed, “I’m still new at all this. The same as all of you. I just got here. I was afraid.”

The boy shrank down and the men disappeared. The moon filtered in and she saw goat hooves and mild tufts of fur. Something else tickled at the back of her mind but he bared his teeth, “...I’m not going to let you hurt him. He’s our friend.”

“If she tried to hurt me I’d stop her. I’m not going to let you hurt yourself.” he pointed, “You’ll wake the others.”

‘I’ll be gone in the morning.” Kate’s voice was soft. She managed a sad distant little smile, looking back at Kyle, “I’m proud to see my husband’s got such a fierce protector.”

The boy frowned and bared his goat teeth, “He took us out. When commando didn’t want us, he took us out.” she could almost hear the thought through his head, If you take him away we’ll die.

The goat boy glared at her and looked to Kyle, “If she hurts you-”

“I’ll deal with it. But she won’t.” Her husband’s teeth were massive and frightening, “Go back to sleep. If we fight, you’ll know.”

The boy glared at her before nodding to Kyle. A smaller girl was waking up, whimpering and he moved to comfort her. Kate watched them, a smile on her face. He’s a good protector. I always knew he’d make a good father.

...This might make it harder.

Kyle led her to the back, to an office that had crude fabric tacked up over the walls to make a private space. A rug was placed carefully on the floor and she saw a small, a very small stacked collection of books that made her smile. Instinct guided her to the rug and rather than let her heartbreak she reached for him, “I guess I’m staying the night.”

“Kate…” he was curling up like an animal, “You don’t have to…”

“It’s all right.” He paced beside her as she stepped out of the way and curled on the rug like a creature.

Fearless. Fearless.

“Do you remember when you were in the hospital and I told you I loved you?” she stepped into the space between his front and back legs before she leaned against him, “...I still love you more than anything.”

“How? I don’t understand and you can’t stay here, I…” she stroked the fur on top of his body. He leaned into it like an animal, “...Honey…”

“Hush.”

“Kate-”

She whispered soothing words and closed her eyes. How was this different from what she had done for their baby? And this was what he needed when she told him, a comfortable safe space, a place where it was just the two of them. She began to hum, a low sound as she stroked her husband’s fur-banishing all fear from her mind.

“Sleep.”

“Katie I don’t-” it would have been funny as he flopped over, hot acrid breath hitting her. She lay against him, tracing her hand down his stone sides and dove into her mind. She felt the carpet fall away, the stone floor, the children, their bodies, and…

It was snowing in New York. In Kyle’s apartment. The gold mask of veins was gone around her eyes and she paced to the couch to see him sleeping there, peaceful, same dark hair, same demeanor, calm, ever so calm…She sat beside him to study his features, tracing his cheek and leaning down to kiss his lips. The face she loved. He’s still himself. He’ll always be himself. Whatever supes had done to her let her see the truth of things and the truth was, no matter what he looked like...he was her husband. Her first real love. Her only love.

She took his hands, “Kyle.”

He jerked awake with a snort, “K-” he blinked, “...Wow. I had...the weirdest most godawful dream...I…” he stared at his hands and counted his fingers with a desperate laugh, “...That’s - Fingers. I have fingers...” he blinked at her, “...It’s not a dream.”

Relief was slowly replaced with horror that he shoved away. He stared, awed by his apartment, “How are you doing this?”

She held out her hands and concentrated before a familiar large and furry orange cat appeared in her arms. He leapt to Kyle who cradled the creature close, “...Pawford Purrfect.” he clutched the cat who let out a plaintive yowl before he let him down, “...Pawford’s - he’s dead. Our things…”

“He’s a fighter.” she stroked his cheek again, heedless. She wanted to look at his warm brown eyes and to touch him as much as she could. She was surprised at how it felt to lean into him, how she could almost feel the warmth of his body, “...I can’t believe it worked.”

“...Does it matter?” he hesitated, “Outside of this...I-I’m still-” he stared at his hands again and looked to be on the verge of tears, “I’m still a freak-”

“You’re still you.” She needed him focused. Outside the snow fell harder, “Don’t make me mad or scared. I don’t want this to be a bad place, it’s in my mind, but that means it’s affected by my emotions okay? And I want a place for you to be safe.” She touched him, “We’ll have this. We’ll have this together always but you’re still you on the -on the outside. And that’s okay. It doesn’t change who you are. And I’m proud-” I’m proud you endured.

“I’m proud of you.”

He hesitated before wrapping his arms around her, “You feel so good to hold.” he held her tightly, “I don’t want to let you go. I should have done that. I should have done that more before I got sick…”

“Kyle.” She swallowed, “I’m here and doing this because I need to tell you something. Something I need you to hold in your heart and keep calm about. Something I need you to be strong for.”

“You’re dying.” he paused, “I’m dying. What happened to us is going to kill us.” he swallowed, “The kids, if I’m dying-”

“No! No. It’s-It’s good news. It...I-” she clenched her hands, “...Please. Please don’t make this hard. Be silent, Listen. I- I learned how to do this a very specific way okay? I had to practice because I was taking -I was taking care of someone.”

She let that hang in the air.

Kyle turned slowly to her, features confused, then horror dipped across his features, “...Charlie. Oh god. How? When? Was it-It wasn’t me was it?” he stared at his hands and shook his head,” No...He’s...I’d remember…”

“Not someone sick!” She hesitated, “Someone well. I’m fucking this up. It’s all backwards. The best person. I was taking care of the best person.”

“You’re not making any sense babe.”

She frowned and the colors around them blended together. The orange cat vanished and Kyle was back in Charlie’s basement, with his stolen hospital equipment, Sitting on a chair and monitoring her broad stomach. Her hands went to her middle, now flat, and she watched her husband stare, looking back to her and then back to the image of her she’d made with her mind before he stood up, moving toward her, the ghost of charlie moving over the ghost of her before he looked back to her.

“...Baby?”

“Yeah.” she smiled, “A baby. Our baby. I made a-” she blinked and the room erupted in bright orange and yellow and pink, a sunrise. The wall was painted with a field of sunflowers and she stood up to stare at him, “I made a space for her. Oh Kyle it was wonderful. She’s so smart, it was…”

She drew in a deep breath, “I’ve never believed in God or a higher power but seeing her, knowing her before she knew herself...Oh Kyle we have the smartest most wonderful daughter. She’s going to do incredible things.”

He was staring at her incredulous, looking her up and down before a hand went to her middle and she laughed, but sensed the tension, the horror, the despair hovering at the corner of her husband’s mind. The orange room that Lily Grace had played in faded slowly away to reveal their New York apartment.

“Kyle be calm.”

He frowned, “...What you were trying to tell me...The day I b-” he frowned, “You came out of nowhere, and Commando knocked me down but you were shouting something...was it...was it this?”

Tears pricked her eyes. They had both been staring, incredulous before Charlie dragged her back shouting his name,“I was shouting your name.”

He swallowed, “and you...you were pregnant?”

“Well you had just turned into a giant dog but-” sure. No reason not to, “Yes. Yes baby. Yes. I was. With a baby. Our baby. I wanted you to be calm, I didn’t know Commando was going to come out of the sky like superman and try and hurt you! I wanted you to be safe because I thought he was going to take you some place so you could get better and I needed you strong because I was going to have a baby…”

The weight of the world lifted off her shoulders, “Please. Please be calm. I need you. Kyle-”

“A baby.” the despair waned, “And it-”

“She.”

“She!” he dragged a hand through his hair, staring at his fingers before back at her, “She! A daughter! I have a daughter! She’s healthy? She’s…” his features faded, he looked at her,“They didn’t hurt her did they?”

“She’s with Charlie.” his joy was infecteous, “He’s going to take good care of her.”

“Charlie!” he hesitated before he threw his arms around her and hugged her tight. She laughed in surprise as he leaned in and kissed her, “A baby! We have a baby! What’d-What’s her name? I-can-Did he give you a picture? What’d you name her?”

“Lily.” she paused, “After your grandmother. And Grace, after my mother.”

“Lily Grace.” he frowned, “can you make her appear? I-I want to see.” he sounded ttentative, like a child who might be denied a treat, “Please? I could...I could hold her.”

She took his hands, “I think...I think we need to talk about what this means. If they find out that two people who are sick had a child...baby...They might take her away. If there are other psychic beings like me…”

“I just want to hold her.” he got up and paced, looking for his child in mental form, “I should…” he turned and saw her terrible expression before racing back to the couch to sit down.

His hand gripped hers, “You didn’t either. You didn’t get to spend any time with her.”

Truth be told she had spent time with her. She’d spent 9 months with her, showing her flowers and cats and toys and all the things that made life worth living. Looking at Kyle she buried those memories. They were for her and Lily.

She cupped his cheek.

She had been worried about him, but the moment the fact she hadn’t held their baby in the real world hit her she crumbled, tears filling her features. She let out a keening sob and then another. The walls around them trembled and Kyle was there, pulling her into his arms.

The ache in her would never leave her. She saw that now. “I want her back Kyle. I want to see her grow. I want her. I want her…”

He looked at her, baleful and sad before he scooted closer and wrapped his arms around her, “...I’m sorry I yelled.”

Kate looked at him and began to sob, real heart wrenching sobs. The weight of everything that had happened bore down on her again and she clung to his shirt and remembered she couldn’t do that in the real world anymore because he was a massive stone dog creature.

They lost track of time for a few moments, he held her and stroked her hair, “We’ll see her again.”

“No we can’t…”

“Yes. we can. If you can do this, then we can do anything. Weren’t you the one who told me that? Besides we have superpowers. You have superpowers. You always did. You made me better. Now…” she settled against him, “Now. We fight to get her back.”

“I wanted you there.” Kate whispered, “You have to believe me. I wanted you there more than anything. You and I made a baby, the most beautiful baby in the world. Normal, ten fingers, ten toes, a smile, your eyes. I don’t...I don’t have a good image but honey, if I did…”

“...I know.” He squeezed her,

“It’s so hard…” she sobbed, “It’s so hard…”

All he could manage was a nod. Drawing in a shaking breath she realized he was trying not to cry and she felt that familiar desperate ache in her chest, “Kyle I could take it away, what they did. You said they tortured you and maybe if I...maybe if I looked-”

“No. No.” His voice was firm and cold, “No. I don’t want you to do that to yourself if you can help it. Maybe...maybe someday but it helped me. It helped me...accept what happened to me. Make the decision not to...fall in line with other people.”

Her voice filled with unease and the cat returned, curling up under her hand this time, “You said killing was getting easier…”

“That’s why I got the kids out.” He swallowed, “That’s why I’m taking care of them. So I don’t have to think about it.”

“...Thanks for breaking the tired cliche of a tortured guy grimly going about his life.” She kissed him, “I like the thought of you teaching. Taking care of people.”
He laughed at that, then his features grew grim, “Kate no child should be in here.”

“I know. As soon as I have an idea of what Commando is planning we can stop him. Show people that we’re sick…”

She paused, “This is a nightmare.”

“We adapt. That’s what life is. Doesn’t matter how strange it gets. Life is about adaptation.” He adjusted his sitting position, “I think I understand that now. I can’t go back to my job but I had to adapt.”

“Those kids like you.” she smiled, “They like you a lot.”

Her chest ached when she saw how distant he looked, “...They kept me going. Carlos kept me going. He used to make himself look like the guards so they’d keep letting him out. He came to visit me.”

She touched his cheek and realized the sun was rising through their apartment windows.

“...I have to go.”

His hands tightened and she closed her eyes. He nodded once, grim, resolute, before he moved to sit on the couch and stare out the windows, “What happens to these places?”

“They exist. I file them away and they just...keep existing.” She smiled, “I have to be here to make them but it doesn’t go away. All of it.

Pawford reappeared beside him and he tangled his hand through his fur, “...When we leave here we have to go back to being enemies.”

She nodded, “You know what the worst thing about being an enemy is? At one point all the worst ones were your friends.” she was starting to stand up, to pull away, before he grabbed for her hands.

“We will find her. We will be together again. We will survive this.”

She did her best to ignore the desperation on his voice as the sunlight grew brighter and brighter and they were gone.
---

It’s a real shock to see him in the sunlight. Plates and fur, but he’s smaller than he looked in the gloomy moonlight and much more man-shaped then she expected.

Had she built up the changes into something much more terrifying? Her husband still looked like something out of a Disney movie but the likelyhood of a transformation back into something normal was…

She stroked his paw, “...We always say I love you at the most inappropriate times.”

One eye opened, black and insect like, before he braced himself to stand up and realized he couldn’t. She felt the pain radiating from him and shut off her mind.

“...It’s kind of our thing.” His voice rumbled, “...Kate?”

She stood and looked back at him.

“Don’t come back for awhile.” he was staring at his paws before looking back at her with something like hurt. He rose, sitting up like a dog on it’s back legs before he shook his head. She opened her mouth and closed it.

“It’s -”

“I could get addicted to that.” He tapped a hand over his head, “...I don’t want you to have to suffer like that. We can’t live our lives in dreams.”

“Kyle…”

“Go.”

“I love you Kyle-”

“go!”

He’s right. She waited until she was outside past the rows of sleeping children until she stood under the sun and began to sob. Then she began to scream. It wasn’t until she picked herself up out of the dirt, brushing stones from her hair and feet that she looked back to the barracks, to the people waking up, and took flight back to the city.
----

It was the screams that woke Carlos.

Cerberus (Kyle, his name is Kyle) wasn’t difficult. He looked like something from a Disney movie or a cartoon. Carlos had never been afraid of big things. He liked the dinosaurs in the museums with all their sharp teeth and imposing size, the bears in the woods, the bigger the better.

Later, much later into his adulthood, he would wonder if it was born of some unconscious desire to dominate, to control other human beings. To master some powerful element.

But Kyle, not Cerberus, never cerberus the same way he was not Mirage and never Mirage, wasn’t just a Disney monster, he was the same man who had taken care of them. He had said they were going free. They did the worst to him. He would never tell him that he’d seen. The big machines, the tests, how ROOF wanted to test all your abilities so they put you through the worst of it and never asked…

When the lady had come he had assumed she was there to kill him and then, much worse, assumed that she would take him away, back, or worse, away from them forever.

He bit his lip.

Boldly untangling himself from Bridget, he moved to the door frame and pulled it back to the sounds of muffled wumphs.

“...Did she hurt you?” Carlos clenched his hands and squeezed them so hard they hurt. If they had hurt him nothing would save her. He’d find her, make himself into his father, sneak through the city and when he did he’d beat her senseless. The bitch, the big mean awful...

Cerberus was crying (Kyle. Kyle...his name is Kyle) - maybe that’s what it was supposed to be but instead he was making those terrible whumph noises.

“...No.” Kyle’s voice rumbled, “No. I was just...I was sad. I miss her. I love her very much but it’s not good for us to be around each other right now.”

“...Why?”

When Cerberus frowned (Kyle! Carlos cursed himself inside his head. His name was Kyle!) He looked like his abuela’s dog Rufio when he didn’t get treats. A terrible thought echoed in his head, if his burly protector was some sort of substitute for the only member of his family who he had loved and trusted, but Carlos shoved it down.

Kyle for his part seemed to struggle, then he sighed, “She can make things happen the same way you can. Only instead of just one person she can...she can build whole worlds inside people. It’s…” for a moment his voice lightened and he sounded like the man he once was, “...It’s incredible. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve seen.”

“...So why couldn’t she stay? Does that mean I have to go? I didn’t ask-”

Kyle held up his paw, “It’s…”

He is pinned down to a table, howling, raging against metal bonds, pulling at screws and nails and screaming very human screams as they try and pry one of the exoskeleton plates across his chest off. The words of the doctor are drowned out by his howls but in one moment, one blissful moment when he was free from the pain he heard something else.

The screams of a child.

High pitched and terrified “Make it go away! Go away! Please! Make it stop! Make it stop!-Don’t! don’t! Don’t!- Abuela! Abuela help! ”

“What are you doing to him?” he pulled at his bonds again, trying to make a grab for the doctor, “That’s a boy! What are you doing to him?! What are you doing to him?!?”

“...It’s because if I was with her forever, I would open my eyes every day and see…” He stared at his paws, “I would see this. I would want to be there all the time. I would sleep forever. I can’t sleep forever.”

He put the heavy paw on the boy’s shoulders, meeting his gaze as best as he could, “We are shaped this way because of unspeakable trauma.” he realized he was talking to a boy halfway through his monologue and he stopped,”... Do you know what that is?”

Carlos stared at him, “...is that what they did to us at the hospital? Did they do trauma to us?”

“...Yes.” No need to correct him, “They did trauma to us. They caused trauma. Caused. That’s the word.”

“Caused. My dad did a lot of that. He caused a lot of trauma.” Carlos swallowed, “They did that at the hospital to you. To all the kids. To all the grown ups. Why do they hate us? We’re sick. You shouldn’t treat people like that who are sick!”

“I don’t know but I can’t leave and sleep forever. When something bad happens to you Carlos, something that changes you, you’re still you. That’s what this showed me. I’m still me. You’re still you right?”

“...So you’re not going to leave with her?” His giant dog friend. His protector. Kyle looked surprised and he shook his head, “No. Not while all of you need me.”

“I need you.” Carlos whimpered, “I need you. I don’t care. We all need you. Please don’t sleep forever.” He threw his arms around his middle and Kyle wrapped an arm around him, holding him close.

“...Breakfast. Breakfast for all of you.” He gestured, “C’mon. Let’s go.”