Chapter Text
When Myfanwy met Gestalt at a bar in London three months later, all their bodies were there.
“You found it!” Alex said, eyes alight.
“That meeting didn’t take very long at all. Did Grantchester listen to your whole proposal?” asked Robert.
“Did it feel all right? How did it go?” asked Eliza.
“Was anyone following you?” said Teddy. “I told Conrad he should have brought me on security, the vultures will still be a danger for you —”
“— at least until you have an official position on the Court again,” they finished in unison.
“Well, you sent me extremely specific directions, and also my phone has a map on it, so finding this bar was very not difficult,” Myfanwy began, ticking off their questions on her fingers; “Conrad did listen to my whole proposal, and it didn’t take long because I am a concise and persuasive public speaker, apparently, and I think he liked it; no one followed me; and I already told you, we don’t know for sure if I’m going back to the Court at all.”
“Don’t we?” said Robert.
“Well, not officially,” Myfanwy hedged. “Conrad hasn’t formally accepted my proposal yet.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Alex. “Tell that to Ingrid, she’s already getting you new stationary and designing a new filing system because the old one was systems-focused and she says it won’t work at all for your new position.”
“Unless you changed your mind,” Eliza said. “And decided you didn’t want to come back. There’s still time.”
Myfanwy rolled her eyes. Eliza was watching her with nothing more than detached interest, but Robert was looking at the floor, Teddy was repeatedly popping their bruised knuckles, and Alex was gnawing at a thumbnail. Honestly, it was like they thought she couldn’t see the rest of them as long as they were only talking to her with one body at a time.
“After all the work I’ve put in?” she said. “I’ve been building spreadsheets for the past three months until my eyes bleed, I’m not backing out now. And anyway,” she added, pulling Alex’s hand away from their mouth and winding their fingers together, “it’ll be nice to be able to see … people. More easily.”
“Yes, everyone at the office misses you,” said Robert in a voice that would have sounded bland, if Teddy hadn’t been sliding his foot between hers under the table at the same time.
“But Myf,” said Eliza, leaning forward, “I really am serious. If you think it’s not what you want, I can help you get out of here.”
“The whole point of this,” Myfanwy said, “is so I don’t have to run and hide for my whole life, and I don’t have to ruin anyone else’s life either. The Chequy does exist for a reason, I know that. And if Conrad agrees to my proposal —”
“ ‘If,’ ” Teddy muttered, sotto voce. “The amount of background intel he’s been having me dig up, if he doesn’t say yes at least I’ll have enough files to brain him with —”
“If he says yes,” Myfanwy continued, “then the Chequy can be what it was always meant to be. Somewhere that can help EVAs without exploiting them, where we can be our own people without being trapped into lives we don’t want —”
“Yeah, I heard the speech the first ten dozen times you practiced it on me,” Alex observed. “Ow!” they protested as Myfanwy pinched the web of flesh between index finger and thumb in retaliation.
“Say I’m concise and persuasive,” she demanded.
“Absolutely not,” said Eliza.
“You’re repetitive and you tend to go on,” Robert said gravely.
“You’re so mean to me,” Myfanwy complained. “I’ll set Bronwyn on you if you’re not careful.”
She saw Bronwyn most weeks now, had dinner with her at least once a month, and was trying to gently broker a peace deal between her and Gestalt. It had taken a while to get there: a month for Myfanwy to reach out to Bronwyn after that day in Istanbul when Gestalt had told her that Bronwyn had traded a little boy’s life for hers, since she’d seen how little time Bronwyn had given her to make such a terrible choice. A month for Myfanwy to decide she wanted to try to keep her sister in her life. And then another week for Bronwyn to forgive Myfanwy for running away and call her back.
“You were all I could have,” Bronwyn had said, through tears. “After Mum and Dad. And it might have been wrong but I just wanted you out of there so badly —”
“I wanted me out of there too,” Myfanwy had said, because by then she had learned a little about Glengrove and the fire there, and Dr. Andrew Bristol, and all the things she’d been running away from that day in her rain-soaked trench coat. “But I can’t keep running forever, you know, Bron.”
Now, in the bar, she was starting to think she might finally be able to stop running.
“Ha! Your sister likes me now,” Teddy said with triumph. “Ever since we were on the same team in Pictionary, she says I’m a community-minded soul who will help the larger EVA population heal from its centuries of trauma.”
“On a fundamental level, it’s cheating for you to have multiple bodies on the same Pictionary team because you will always know what you’re drawing,” Myfanwy began to argue, but she was cut off from her larger speech when the waiter came over with a drinks tray.
“Ordered already,” Eliza explained.
“Since we’re celebrating,” said Alex.
They’d gotten her a martini, like usual. She knew a little more about what she liked, now; knew that she didn’t care for rum and that she liked tequila fine; that she liked wine with dinner; that she liked vodka in mixed drinks but not straight. But martinis had turned into her regular, and after three months, Gestalt had stopped looking at her like they were waiting for her to order wine instead.
They still wanted her to remember more than she did, she could tell. They tensed up whenever she told them she’d gotten another memory back, and sometimes they’d mention something they’d used to do together before and give her this hopeful, expectant look while they waited for her to remember.
But they liked the ways that she was different now, too. The day they brought her to her flat, they’d been carefully not looking at her while she looked through her closets, and when she found that little box of razors and gauze she knew why.
She had thought about the scars she’d found on the insides of her thighs, and felt around inside herself to think about whether she needed more of them. “I don’t think I need this anymore,” she’d said, and put the box in the bin, and then her gaze had fallen on the little glass birds on her windowsill. “Those are a bit creepy, aren’t they?” she’d said, and Robert had whirled her around and kissed her until she went dizzy.
“Are we toasting?” Myfanwy asked now, lifting her martini glass.
“Yeah,” said Alex, “better should, shouldn’t we?”
“Since it’s an occasion,” said Eliza gravely.
“Conrad’s decision isn’t even final yet,” Myfanwy protested.
“You’re not fooling anyone with that,” Teddy told her.
“What about, to choices?” said Robert.
“To making a better choice,” said Myfanwy. “And to being happy.”