Chapter Text
Marmalade sets Tea down gently in her bed, and pulls the covers over her. Then, she pulls up a chair and sits, head in her hands but her gaze remaining steady on Tea’s unconscious body. Unconscious, not dead. She’d felt a heartbeat, slow and sluggish though it had been.
Marmalade keeps vigil by the side of the bed, and hopes Tea will be okay.
Night falls, and Tea does not wake. Dawn comes, and Tea does not wake. All the while, Marmalade keeps vigil with singular focus. It is only when the sun is high in the sky and her communicator vibrates with a message from someone that she remembers: Trog. Ruby.
Marm does not want to look away from Tea even for a moment, for fear she will vanish again, but she forces herself to send messages to Kitt and Vintage anyway. They deserve to know what has happened, where their island partners are. What Avid has done.
Marmalade doesn’t know what to think of Avid anymore. He’d so clearly thought he was doing the right thing, and yet… how could anybody think that this was right? Marm had been so worried, and all the while Tea had been trapped. Trapped by Avid. She wants to shake him, wants to look him in the eyes and ask how could you.
And to think, she’d been considering trying to be friends, not just… whatever they were.
Finally, some time later, Tea stirs.
“Tea!” Marm cries, helping her sit up as Tea coughs up a glob of mucus and slime.
Tea coughs again, weakly. “Marm,” she says, faint and breathless, her body no longer used to speaking.
“I’m here,” Marm answers anxiously.
“I’m… out?” Tea asks, looking around to see her own familiar walls.
“Yes,” Marm says firmly. “You’re out of that horrible place.”
Tea relaxes back into Marmalade’s arms. She’s out. She can breathe again, move again, speak again. She’s out. She’s so relieved she almost doesn’t register the too-bright sunshine coming in the window, the too-loud croaking of frogs and rustling of wind, the pressure of her blankets and of Marmalade’s arms supporting her. Then, she inhales, and it all comes rushing in at once.
It’s too much. It’s all far too much. The light. The sound. The pressure. The feeling of air rushing into her lungs. She can’t focus on all of it at once. She can’t.
“Marm,” she whispers.
“I’m here,” Marm says quietly, and Tea focuses on the sound of her voice. “I’m right here.”
“I’m tired,” Tea says.
“Sleep,” she replies, laying Tea back down onto her pillows.
Tea’s eyes slip closed.
“I’ll be here.”
Now that Tea has woken up, some of the tension inside Marmalade unwinds. She breathes deeply. Tea’s home. Safe. They’re both safe.
Marmalade checks her communicator. From Kittrix, a quick reply to her message: I’ll go check. Thanks. From Vintage, a confused response: Ruby’s right here with me, though? What are you talking about? And finally, the message that had reminded her to tell the others. A message from Avid: Hope you both are doing well. No hard feelings, right?
Marmalade grits her teeth and does not let her magic budge from beneath her skin. No hard feelings? Seriously, Avid?
(Maybe, in another world, if she had not seen the state he had put Tea in, she would be able to forgive him, or at least look past it. Maybe, in a world where Teaish was not one of those kept in tubes, she would not fully understand what Avid had done. But this is not that world.)
Marmalade puts away her communicator without dignifying that message with any response, and continues her vigil.