Author's Notes:

You may experience some narrative turbulence as I attempt to wrestle this thing out of a directionless tailspin and into something closer resembling, you know, plot?

Then we hit a mountain.

It wasn’t long before we arrived, and once we did we stood and stared for a bit.

They were squatting, as it turned out. Some unoccupied house out towards the rather more rundown side of town. The place didn’t look great, but that’s kind of a given with house that aren’t supposed to have anyone living in them.

Normally in situations like this you would ask ‘You sure this is the place?’ in a disbelieving kind of a way, but Adagio had handed the bloody address to me. And this was it. This was the place. No getting around it.

And speaking - or rather thinking - of Adagio, her being quiet since me making the offer to carry her had been welcome in ‘I have nothing really to say at this point’ sort of a way, but was now starting to unsettle me. The pensive look on her face didn’t help.

“You alright?” I asked, which snapped her back to the then-and-there.

“Just thinking,” she said.

This did very little to settle me, but everyone thinks from time to time and seeing that your sisters-cum-very-close-friends-from-another-world had been reduced to squatting was probably the sort of thing anyone would think about.

“You going in?” I asked, prompting. It took her a moment but she nodded, resolve stiffening before striding up the path.

The front door was unlocked and we entered cautiously, Adagio leading the way as seemed appropriate. The place was very quiet and very empty. Marks on the wallpaper where furniture had been, bare floorboards etcetera. All very abandoned. No signs of life.

“Aria…?” Came a voice from deeper within. Adagio, finger to her lips, pressed on with me tagging along behind, feeling that this wasn’t quite the triumphant reunion I’d hoped for. Still, some measure of success, right?

We moved down the hallway and into a room at the back of the house which could have been anything before all the furniture had been removed. Tucked up in a sleeping bag against a wall with a damp flannel laid across her forehead, the girl who I assumed was Sonata stirred weakly, groaning.

She was probably hamming it up just a touch, but she looked so plaintive and adorable and plaintively adorable that I couldn’t really hold it against her.

“I think I’m dying…” She moaned, cracking an eye in our direction and then freezing.

“Adagio?”

Adagio said nothing but just stood smirking with her hands on her hips as Sonata stirred, shifting up into halfway sitting and out of her sleeping bag. Her eyes widened.

“Adagio!” She squealed, launching forth like some sort of blue missile and colliding with Adagio in the blink of an eye, wrapping around her waist and latching on like a limpet.

What followed was an ear-piercing stream of what I assumed were words but which were delivered with such speed and enthusiasm I missed most of it. I was able to pick out some fragments here and there ‘Aria said you’d run away’ ‘I’m so glad to see you’ ‘Does this mean everything’s better now’ and maybe a couple of single words here and there, but nothing I could do anything with.

Adagio weathered all of this with what looked like practised detachment, a hand on Sonata’s head ineffectually attempting to prise the girl off. It was only Sonata’s taco-induced illness reasserting itself that put a stop to the stream.

“Ugh...still dying…” she groaned, stepping back and flopping onto the sleeping bag again, clutching her belly.

“You…” Adagio said with what sounded quite close to a snarl before looking to me and softening, crouching down beside the other girl. “How many tacos was that, exactly, Sonata?”

“I didn’t coouunnntt…”

I figured this was probably my time to leave. It looked like Adagio had enough on her plate now with a taco-filled sister and a house of questionable ownership, and I’d done what I’d said I’d do - which was more than I’d expected! I’d expected the day to have ended in ignominious disappointment! This was better than anything.

So what better time to slope off?

Putting a hand delicately onto Adagio’s shoulder just to get her attention a moment I mouthed ‘I’ll be off then’ and made to do just that, only to find her hand whipping up to snap down on top of mine. This stopped me.

“Thank you. For this, for helping me,” she said, quietly, but not so quietly it wasn’t obvious Sonata would be able to overhear. “Could - would you mind staying a little? At least until Aria comes back?”

I had work in the morning but what else did I have to do than hang around in an empty house illegally with some people I’d met in the last week? What could be a better use of my time?

And I couldn’t have said no to that face anyway. This was, after all, probably going to be the last time she and I would be hanging around one another. So why not?

“Sure thing,” I said.

“Who’s he?” Sonata hissed, pointing at me while trying to hide her mouth with her hand but putting it the wrong side so it hid nothing. Endearing.

Adagio looked up at me while she considered her response, favouring me with a most radiant smile. Immediately I felt better about electing to stay around for a little longer.

“He’s my friend,” she said, emphatically.

Adagio’s appreciation of me had really kicked up a gear over the last few hours, or was that just my imagination? Not that I minded either way, obviously, it just seemed a little out of left-field. Maybe it was just me. Probably only imagining things.

The three of us hung around in that slightly chilly, furniture-less room. It became pretty clear to me pretty quickly that Sonata did not fully grasp the gravity of the situation she was in and seemed pretty chipper and upbeat about life in general, all things considered, and barring her occasional bouts of groaning and self-pity for having eaten quite so much.

“She’s usually worse than this,” Adagio said to me at one point. I didn’t know what she was talking about, I thought Sonata was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen. Just wanted to pat her on the head. Didn’t though. That kind of thing never looks good.

It was a few hours before Aria came back, at which point the was firmly settling into the evening. When she did we all heard her coming to a stop on that scooter and Adagio was the one who got up to go say hello. That left me with Sonata, who promptly went to sleep.

Probably for the best.

Aria appeared in the doorway, clearing her throat to catch my attention. She looked to be no happier than the last time I’d seen her, which was to say she looked unhappy. The possibility existed that she only looked this way anytime I was there and I was the problem, but wouldn’t help things.

“I want to talk to you,” she said, crooking a finger at me.

This could only bode well.

“Sure?”

“Outside,” she said, pointing far too aggressively off towards the back of the house, where the garden was.

This could only bode better still. She disappeared from sight and I followed, out through the door and into the garden where she pointed me further out onto the lawn. I did as I was told while she shut the door behind us. Lord knew where Adagio had ended up.

Once the door was closed Aria tramped across the grass to where I’d been standing in the dark. Or twilight, rather. It wasn’t light is what I’m saying.

“What do you want?” She asked. Bit direct.

“What? Right now? Or generally?” I asked right back.

Not the right answer, from the look on her face. Even in the mounting darkness I could tell this much.

“I mean from Adagio. Why did you help her? What do you want from her?”

“Nothing, why would I want anything?”

“You don’t help people for nothing.”

‘You’ in the grander sense of humanity at large and not me specifically, I imagined, given she didn’t know me from Adam.

“I’ll admit it’s a little unusual but honestly, I don’t want anything. See a nice looking girl outside in the rain all on her own, what else was I meant to do?”

Again, plainly not the right answer as Aria’s expression darkened further.

“Oh. That’s what you want,” she said.

“What?” I asked, before fully realising what it was she was implying. When I did, I nearly fell over backwards. “No no no Jesus no, not like that nothing like that. I just wanted to help is all, really.”

“Sure you did.”

Why was I putting up with this, exactly? I’m a reasonable man but I’ve just experienced some very unreasonable things, and even I have limits. Rather short ones in this instance, as it turned out, but it had been an odd couple of days so perhaps I was a little closer to the edges of my patience than usual.

“Well you can believe whatever you want to believe. I’m out of your enormous hair, now. I’ve done my bit you’ll no-doubt be pleased to hear so I’m not your problem. Can I go? Did you have anything else?”

My sudden turn towards the abrasive put Aria on the back-foot, which let me off the hook and I stalked back inside feeling under-appreciated and salty. Inside was a lot darker than I remembered, likely because I’d just been outside and I squinted, heading towards the light of lamps that had been set up.

I found only Sonata, back to being tucked up and still asleep. Being asleep she didn’t notice me and I crept back out into the corridor only to bump into Adagio, who had managed to sneak up on me. This made me jump and made her laugh, so good for her.

She was back to wearing the same thing she’d had on when I’d spotted her the first time, I saw in the gloom. No idea when she’d found the time to change or thought it was a good idea, but there you go.

After having hung around with her all day in her incognito, inconspicuous outfit it came as something of a surprise, for whatever reason. I’d rather forgotten what an arresting look it was on her.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit Adagio was a pretty girl. Not that this mattered, obviously. It was just there. And right then it was rather hard to ignore.

There was something new though, I noticed, or something that I hadn’t noticed before. Some sort of odd choker-cum-necklace thingy. Kind of an odd choice, really, given that whatever was hanging from it was barely there. Some broken red fleck of something that did a surprisingly good job of catching the tiny bit of light spilling from the room behind me.

Whatever, her choice.

Seeing me she smiled and I stopped worrying so much.

“Did Sonata die?” I asked and Adagio rolled her eyes.

“She’s an idiot but she’ll be fine. It’s like you said, this is what happens when I’m not here. What did Aria talk to you about?” She asked. I wasn’t even sure how she’d known we’d talked at all, but there you go.

“My intentions. Everyone has to have a go questioning them these days. Her, you, Sunset and her friends. Sonata’ll probably be next, once she’s recovered,” I said, trying not to sound too sour.

Seriously, try to do a nice thing and everyone’s crawling down my throat. Sure it turned out the person I was doing a nice thing for had tried to orchestrate a take over the school - or was it the whole town? Unclear - with her magical sisters and their innate mind-ensnaring abilities but still, I didn’t know that at the time and she’d lost, hadn’t she? Rendered powerless and all that?

Why kick a girl when she was down?

Adagio sauntered a little closer with a sympathetic smile. She was smiling a lot since having got here. Understandable, and a good thing I reckoned. Certainly made me feel better seeing her feel better.

“Don’t mind her. She doesn’t know you like I do. I’ll talk her round, don’t worry.”

“You don’t really need to. I said I’d be out of all you guys hair now. So I guess that this’d probably be goodbye. Not the greatest setup for it, sorry.”

A darkened corridor in an abandoned house wasn’t the best place to wish someone farewell.

“About that…” Adagio said, biting her lip. “You’ve really helped me, like I’ve said, and I can’t thank you enough. Right from the very start you helped me and you never needed to. I - I won’t forget it.”

She paused and took a breath, rocking on her heels.

I sensed a ‘but’ coming.

“But…”

There it was!

“I could still - I still need your help. You know your way around here better than I do. It won’t take much for us to get back on our feet but it’d be much easier with you. Please.”

This wasn’t part of the plan. Not at all! I took a step back to put some distance between the two of us but she stepped forward, so it didn’t matter at all.

“I’m really not supposed to. I did say it was just today, didn’t I? One last spurt of help to get you here? And that’s happened. Don’t get me wrong! It’s not a great situation and I’d like to help you out I just - I did promise Sunset.”

This was awkward!

“All you really said was that she wouldn’t like it if you let me stay at yours again, and I won’t do that since we have this place, so what’s there to worry about?” Adagio asked, cocking her head and maybe even pouting a little, though the light made this difficult to pick out. I just shuffled uncomfortably.

“Uh, I don’t know. Can’t see her being too keen on, uh, well, me hanging around with you too much. All things considered.”

This sounded really, really bad to my ears. Like it being decided who I was allowed to associate with, and me explaining this to the person who it had been decided I should not associate with. I could see the sides of the argument involved, sure, and the situation was unusual, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

Adagio seemed to get it, though, and didn’t even seem especially put out.

“It’s okay, we can keep it a secret. Sunset doesn’t have to know,” She said, voice lowering, eyes fixed on mine, catching the light from the room more fully now that after her step forward.

Okay, now I’m not so much of an idiot to not realise I was being played here, but that didn’t make it any less effective. She had me figured out!

I wanted to help, damnit. I just wanted everyone happy! Why was that a bad thing?

I shuffled harder, wringing my hands.

“If - if we kept it on the down low I guess it wouldn’t be too bad, would it? Not like I’d be moving in or anything. Just helping you out if you needed something, right?”

“Right,” she said.

That didn’t sound so bad. Still I shuffled. Nervous habit.

“And Sunset won’t find out?” I asked.

Adagio smiled again, widely, warmly.

“I’m not going to tell her if you’re not, and what Sunset doesn’t know won’t hurt her, will it?”

When has that ever sounded like a good thing to anyone? When has that ever not sounded incredibly shady and shifty?

Still, she wasn’t wrong. And it wasn’t lying, technically. It was mainly Adagio staying at mine that Sunset had seemed upset about, me helping more had mostly been me just inferring it. I hadn’t been told not to, had I? So it was fine, right? And it wouldn’t be that much help, would it? Just a little bit? When Adagio needed it?

That wasn’t so bad. Right?

“Okay…” I said and Adagio hugged me, wrapping around my torso and snuggling in close. This was pretty cute, present circumstances notwithstanding, and I couldn’t really help but hug her back. Nice girl once you got down to it. Just wanted a chance.

And there I was, helping her to get it. Possibly against my better judgement but in line with my bastard-persistent and not entirely reliable conscience.

To think, if I’d never looked out of that kitchen window none of this would have happened. Ah, there but for the Grace of God and all that. All been my fault after that! No-one had forced me to do anything! Could have stopped anytime I’d felt like or anytime it was pointed out I probably should have.

But no, this was fine. Just a little bit more.

Besides, the way she’d asked me?

Well I was hardly going to say no...