There’s blood dripping down from Zelda’s stomach. There’s a hole in Zelda’s stomach. There’s nothing in Zelda’s stomach. There’s nothing in Zelda’s stomach.
Bellona is buried under rubble. Bellona is screaming. Bellona is watching that dark and horrible nothing consume Zelda’s stomach. Laura is picking the rubble up and Bellona is running and there is nothing in Zelda’s stomach.
When Bellona reaches her, Zelda drops like a stone, sinks into her arms, shaking, shaking, and it hurts and Zelda is bleeding and Bellona is holding her and it’s them, as it has always been, it’s One and Two and even Four can’t get in the middle of them because it’s them, the twins, it’s them, and they are bleeding.
“One,” Two chokes out, and there’s blood on her teeth, “it hurts.”
One holds her up, buries one hand in Two’s hair and puts the other over the Nothing in her stomach, and One thinks she herself is screaming but can’t quite tell, and there is more red along her fingers.
Two reaches over and pulls Four in, kisses her on the forehead, and then Two cups both of her hands on One’s face, and her mouth is still bleeding.
She says something that sounds like I’m sorry. She says something that sounds like thank you, sounds like I love you, sounds like I don’t want to leave, and Two moves her hands to hold onto One’s wrists, and One is still screaming, and One is crying, and Twenty Three is shoving her way into their arms and picking Two up and saying Bellona she needs a doctor and it’s too late, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Two’s hands drop from One’s wrists, and they’re cold and dead and final, and One isn’t supposed to cry. One isn’t supposed to feel anything. Two is supposed to be here. Two has always been here, Two was there with One in the tank they were grown in and Two was there in the cell they were raised in and Two was here, now, Two is here, now, dead in Twenty Three’s arms. In Laura’s arms. Zelda is dead in Laura’s arms.
The Wasp has Gabby wrapped in a hug, and her baby sister is sobbing but Bellona can’t feel it; Bellona can’t feel anything, can she, can she? Half of her is dead. Half of her is gone.
Zelda’s still dead. Zelda’s still gone. Zelda isn’t breathing and Bellona isn’t breathing and neither of them are breathing because they are not supposed to be different. They were never supposed to be different.
Laura’s saying something and Bellona can’t really hear her (her ears aren’t working, her eyes aren’t working, they’re blurry and she can’t breath and she is breathing and Zelda is not and Zelda is dead). Laura is saying it again, Laura is cradling Zelda in one arm and shaking Bellona’s shoulder with the other. “Bellona. Bellona, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, we need to go, we can get help, we need to go.”
Bellona peels back her lip when Laura touches her but doesn’t move away, just reaches out and takes Zelda and Zelda is still dead and Bellona is still here and this is worse, This is worse, this is worse than anything that had ever happened to either of them Before.
This is worse, this is worse, this is worse.
Laura is talking again. Laura has a way to bring her back, does she, does she, fake sister, here and breathing while Zelda is gone. Bellona clutched Zelda’s body and she says okay, okay, okay, because it’s empty here without her twin; anything, anything, anything to lose this sheer Wrongness.
Laura is walking them all to The Wasp’s quinjet (quinjet?) and Bellona is putting Zelda’s body down and Gabby finally collapses onto Bellona, buries her head in her chest and sobs and sobs and sobs and Bellona puts her head down on top of Gabby’s and rocks them both and the Wasp wordlessly leaves to get in the driver’s seat and there’s still three sisters, but one of them is dead and one of them is shaking and one of them isn’t real anymore.
They drive in silence, and Bellona almost laughs at the morbidity of it all, the fact that they’re in the back of a plane and her twin sister’s dead body is laid across the seats and Gabby is crying and the laugh dies in her throat.
They land in a few minutes or a few hours and Bellona picks Gabby up on her back and carries Zelda bridal style and this is just- a house, isn’t it? A house, car parked haphazardly in the front, the word G.I.R.L strung across the door in bright red paint.
The Wasp is ushering them inside and there are children. There are children, younger than Bellona-and-Zelda and older than Gabby, surrounded by machines and notes and whiteboards.
The one in the middle of the chaos, bob haircut and freckles and a red jacket, looks up and grins at The Wasp and then notices the rest of them and Zelda still isn’t breathing and whatever they are here for has to happen soon, doesn’t it?
She cocks her head, says something quietly to the other girls- her friends, maybe- and walks up to Bellona-and-Zelda. “Hi,” she says, and it’s soft, and careful, “My name is Nadia.”
Bellona tenses and holds Zelda tighter and Laura puts a hand on her arm and Bellona wants to cut it off but she can’t (it’s her sister, still, it’s Laura, even though she’s not Real; even though nothing is real right now) and she untenses and Nadia carefully carefully lifts up Zelda’s body.
She puts her down on a table and takes out some tools and pulls up a file on her computer and Bellona’s thinking fight and then flight but Nadia is not a Doctor, apparently- apparently she’s the Wasp’s daughter, and these are her friends and welcome to GIRL labs, I suppose you’re Bellona Kinney?
Nadia says something strange and nonsensical about activating the latent X-Gene and takes a pair of tweezers and pulls something small and metal out of Zelda’s neck and says power-stopper and none of it is making sense. Why would they stop their powers? They wanted perfect, perfect soldiers, they got the twins instead, and Bellona’s head is spinning.
And then the hole in Zelda’s stomach and the hole in Zelda’s arm and the scrapes and the bruises on Zelda’s body are ever so softly-slowly knitting together and then Nadia screams pulse and Zelda is opening her eyes.
Zelda bolts up, backing away from Nadia and then Gabby is throwing herself on her and then she steps aside and Bellona is holding her so tightly they’re just one entity again; just One-and-Two; and Zelda’s sobbing on her shoulder and she’s holding Bellona so tight she doesn’t think either of them are properly breathing and that’s okay because it’s them and they’re together and Nadia is smiling and Gabby hugs Nadia around the middle and Laura’s muttering thanks under her breath to whatever God she believes in and Bellona-and-Zelda are holding each other.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” Bellona says, presses her forehead to Zelda’s and holds her hand. “Don’t you do that to me, Two, never again, promise me-“
“I promise,” Zelda says, and she’s laughing shakily and the two of them hug again and Zelda is mouthing a thank you to Laura over Bellona’s shoulder and Mooney is still alive and Kimura wants them both but that is a problem for later, isn’t it? It’s a problem for later because Zelda and Gabby and Bellona and even Laura are all alive and they are alright and Bellona is happy and they’re alive. All four of them are alive.