I am more than these bones (I feel love I feel alone)

"And I am more than these bones
I feel love I feel alone
I just wish you would come home"
- Flesh and Bone by Keaton Henson

()()()()

There is nothing they can do now, is there?
Nowhere they can go.
They are all very much kids still, but the world is not letting them and growing up is not supposed to be like this.
Full of murder and fighting and hiding and learning horrible truths.
What does it mean, if your parents are not parents anymore, only hard choices to make.
When your family is scrapped together out of half formed friendships and broken pieces.
Hey, if anybody’s listening: We are still here, we are still fighting for this, we have not taken a break. We have only closed our eyes to rest. Just for a minute.

It’s the middle of the day in California, and in movies these things never happen in the middle of the day, but still: they run away.
There is really no other way this could go.

()()()()

Nico is, completely and utterly and secretly, terrified.
She grew up sheltered and spoiled, which she is only beginning to realize now, and it has made her as unprepared for this as one can be.
They spend their first nights freezing in the woods, cramped into one tent (bought at a hunting store far away from the city, Chase in an oversized University hoodie and sunglasses and tousled hair trying to be as inconspicuous as he can be) and eating canned food heated over a small fire.
The plan is this: right now, with their faces on every news show and on everyones minds, they need to stay away from the city and from any streets or stores with surveillance cameras. They don’t have a car, because even though Alex could hot-wire one (Nico hadn’t asked, hadn't really wanted to know.) they are too scared of attracting any attention.
Later (and no one had asked what “later“ meant, thank god, because even though she tries to sound confident in her decisions she has no idea what she's doing, really.), when things have calmed down, they’ll be able to catch a bus or train out of the city and out of the state and away from here.
They haven't gotten further than that and Nico is not sure any of them want to think about what comes after.
Things have gotten so out of control, it hurts her head to think about it: they have dropped out of school, left everything behind, have no way of getting money when they've used up all of Alex’s (and once again, Nico hadn't asked.) and now they are suspects in a murder that their parents committed, they've been accused of kidnapping Molly, this is not only about them and their families anymore, the whole world has gotten involved.
At least they don't have to worry about getting eaten by a mountain lion or something, after all, having a Dinosaur as bodyguard has its perks.

They don’t really talk a lot, with each other.
Molly is still in high spirits, she keeps telling them story after story, absurd things she must have made up and boring ones about classmates of hers, about tv shows she’d started watching before all this, about everything and everyone.
Sometimes Gert bickers with her, which Nico has started to find comforting, only because it’s so normal, but mostly Gert keeps to herself and Old Lace.
Nico knows that her anxiety is keeping her up at night, and she feels for Gert, she really does even though she sometimes comes off as uncaring and harsh.
Nico herself feels nauseous and worried and overwhelmed most of the time, so she can’t imagine what it must be like for Gert.
Chase is a shadow, holding Gert’s hand in quiet moments and helping her feed Old Lace and tinkering with branches and twigs while Gert is worrying next to him.
They have become a union, and Nico is happy for them. She thinks that maybe, if things like that come out of this it won’t have been a complete waste of their youth.
Alex is gone more than he is not, which Nico understands: he’s always been very good at being by himself, had always needed some alone time after they’d hung out for more than a few hours, and now he is forced to share all his space and all his time with them.
He always stays close enough to hear them if they call, he promised, and all he can really do is walk around their little camp in circles, being careful not to get to close to hiking trails.
The two of them have not talked, even though Nico knows they should, even though a part of her wants to.
Whatever was between them, it’s gone now, they both know. (Not just because of the betrayals that happened but also because of recent (or not so recent) … developments on Nico’s side.)
The thing is, that before the things that happened between them happened (the kissing and making out and getting closer) they were friends. Nico misses that. She doesn’t miss kissing him or having him touch her, she doesn’t think of him as anything romantic and she’s not sure she ever really did, but she does miss him, Alex Wilder, her nerd of a friend.
They have not exchanged a single sentence with each other ever since that first day when they got Karolina back, and Nico is trying harder and harder to get herself to take the first step.
And then there’s the whole thing with Karolina: the two of them have also not really talked, but Nico doesn’t feel like they need to most of the time.
Karolina and her have learned to live together without words and, Nico knows this, the others have noticed.
How could they have not: Nico is finding it difficult to let Karolina out of her reach and out of her sight and it seems like Karolina feels the same. They are always somehow touching, wether it be arms brushing together or knees knocking against each other when they sit by the fire or holding hands without a word when they can’t sleep.
When they do sleep, Nico buries her face into Karolina’s hair and slings her arm around her waist and Karolina twines their fingers together, and they breathe. It’s the best Nico has ever slept.
Karolina is always warm, which, yeah, makes sense, and her hair is soft and smells good even though they've been bathing in a lake using environmentally friendly shampoo.
Nico kind of hates herself a little bit for not realizing what the hot feeling in her belly and the way her skin tingled every time Karolina looked at her or touched her meant.
She spends a lot of time thinking about all the dates they could have had, all the moments they could have shared in the comfort of their own homes and without being hunted by their murderous parents.
Tonight it’s especially hard to not feel bad because of all the unused opportunities and she rolls onto her back and stares at the tent ceiling. (It’s a big tent, with two cabins and they share one with Molly while Chase and Gert share one with Alex, which is, to say the least, awkward but they all know the other way around would have been even worse. At least, once Molly is asleep, she’s truly dead to the world, which is the case now.)
Nico counts to ten in her head before Karolina turns around to watch her, like she always does whenever Nico can’t sleep, and she takes Nico’s hand from where it has been resting on her stomach and curls her fingers around it.
“What’s up?“ she mumbles, eyes still half lidded from sleep and hair mussed, which is, to keep it simple, far too adorable and making Nico’s heart do strange things.
She’s smiling slightly, which she kind of always is when she’s looking at Nico, as Gert has told her.
Nico can’t help but smile too, lifts her other hand and runs it slowly through Karolina’s hair, making the other girl hum quietly.
She loves this soft version of Karolina, the slight touches and hoarse voice and the way she won’t let herself go back to sleep before she knows Nico is alright.
The tender smiles and crunched up nose and those ocean eyes that are always on Nico.
It makes her feel very safe, here in the middle of the woods, hiding from the police and their parents and Jonah.
“Nothing. `s all good.“ Nico whispers back. She’s not really lying. She’s already half forgotten what she was upset about, because right now she’s just thankful she get’s any of these moments at all, doesn’t matter that they’re on the run and not at home in their own beds.
Karolina opens her eyes more, lifts one of her eyebrows, which, okay, hot, and nudges Nico’s shoulder with their entwined hands.
“Come on. You’ll feel better once you talk about it.“
“You don't talk about stuff.“ Which is true.
Not about what happened with Jonah or at the church or about how any of this makes her feel, if she’s as terrified as Nico or angry like Gert. Not about what it meant that she was willing to sacrifice herself for them, if she thought she was gonna die. If she thought her last words to Nico would be telling her to go, to leave her behind.
“But I’m also not the one laying awake at night.“ Karolina smirks at her but she’s still all soft.
Nico sighs. It is sometimes very hard not to kiss Karolina when all her smiles are so damn kissable.
She let’s her hand rest on the blondes cheek and feels her lean into it, like a cat.
“I was just thinking about missed opportunities.“
Karolina looks confused for a moment but Nico looks at her and then she seems to get it.
“Oh.“
“Yeah.“
They are both silent for a moment and Karolina continues brushing her thumb up and down the skin of Nico’s hand, which Nico thinks is a completely unconscious movement and it makes her smile.
She resumes brushing her fingers through blonde waves, and she can actually feel her eyes getting heavier, caught in this bubble with Karolina, where the light from the moon seems to be gentler and time seems to move slower or not at all, where she can imagine herself staying forever.
She once read something about liminal spaces, these thresholds where time does not seem real, where the old life is left behind and the new one has not yet begun, and she thinks maybe Karolina is her very own one, in these times where everything that’s about to happen and everything that has happened is only scaring her.
“Well,“ Karolina says, voice not louder than the wind outside, and Nico opens her eyes, which she hadn’t noticed had been closed, “For what it’s worth, I’m very grateful for all the opportunities you haven’t missed.“ Her eyes are the softest Nico has seen them, all bright and big and pretty, focused completely on her, and Nico understands what she is saying.
This time she can’t really help herself and she closes the gap between them slowly, her nose brushing Karolina’s before their lips meet.
Her heart races like it always does this close to the other girl and her hand comes to rest against the blondes neck, and she can feel Karolina smile against her lips, the corners of her mouth turning up, her hand on Nico’s back, their other ones still interlaced between their bodies.
Nico rests their foreheads together, moving closer to Karolina.
“Yeah, me too.“ she breathes, presses another kiss to the tip of Karolina’s nose, which makes her giggle and Nico’s chest explode.
They stay like that the night, legs entwined under the blanket, Nico’s head rolling down to rest between Karolina’s neck and shoulder, that perfect spot that feels like it was made for her, and she presses a kiss there too.
She can’t believe she ever missed out on this, on the way her blood tingles in her veins and the feeling she gets between her ribs whenever Karolinas lips brush the top of her head.
It is very hard to imagine now, and she thinks that even though she lost everything else she gained this, which is a pretty good thing to have, which almost makes this all worth it.
She sleeps the rest of the night through, doesn’t dream of anything but blonde hair and soft lips and ocean eyes.

(These are the only real conversations they have, here in the middle of the night, hidden by darkness, where they can tell themselves that all their problems are just figments of their imagination, and that in the morning, when they open their eyes again, everything will be okay.
It won’t be, but nights like this make Nico glad they survived.)

()()()()

Gert dyes her hair dark brown in a gas station bathroom.
Molly is sitting on the counter next to her, cracker in hand, and she keeps talking about how good Gert will look, no really, totally hot.
Nico can see the way Gert is trying not to react, her clenched jaw and furrowed brows, her eyes looking anywhere but at her reflection in the mirror.
Nico understands this: her own face feels much too empty without her foundation and eyeliner and lipstick and she feels more vulnerable, much too out in the open.
That first night Karolina had sat down in front of her with a pack of make up wipes, and Nico had taken them from her with shaking hands.
It felt a lot like losing, scrubbing her face clean and throwing her old clothes away and taking her earrings and piercings out. (Karolina had pouted when she had thrown her fake lip ring away and it had made Nico smile. It was a very kissable pout.)
These little, shallow things are the ones that make them realize how things have changed.
Gert uses contact lenses whenever they are in public and Molly wears her hair in a ponytail, under a baseball cap, hiding her beautiful locks.
Chase wears sweatpants and too big t-shirts and hoodies and glasses that had made Gert blush, and he hunches his shoulders more, trying to hide himself.
The first morning after they had run away Alex had cut off all of his hair, only leaving a few millimeters behind. It made something inside of Nico hurt, had made her want to grieve for what they all lost.
Karolina is wearing fake glasses too, and they look adorable and really hot at the same time and Nico completely gets Gert.
Her hair is up in a messy bun most of the time and at the last thrift store she’d bought a handful of too big flannels, which she wears over plain t shirts. Nico steals them from time to time, but they all do this.
They all share clothes and anything else they have and it reminds Nico of when Amy was still alive, in good and painful ways, of raiding each others closets without asking and buying things you knew the other would like as well.

“How long does this have to stay in?“ Gert asks, hair pulled back and leaning her head back over the sink. She’s wearing one of Chases sweatshirts today and a pair of dark jeans and used Nikes, looking very much like the 90’s skater girl she is not.
Karolina is sitting crosslegged on a small blanket on the floor, back leaning against the bathroom wall, packaging in hand and chewing on a piece of strawberry gum.
Nico is standing next to her, hand fallen down to play with the baby hairs in the nape of her neck.
Karolina knocks her head against Nico’s thigh, studying the instructions of Gert’s cheap hair dye like they are the most interesting thing ever.
“Says here about 20 to 40 minutes, depending on how dark you want it to be.“
Gert sighs.
“Half and hour should be enough, right? Being stuck here for so long makes me nervous, we should keep driving.“
Nico stretches her legs, thinks of Chase keeping Old Lace company in the van they’d gotten for cheap in a really creepy part of town, and of Alex, who is probably studying maps and the news and planning their next moves.
They’ll be fine, she tells herself. It is half past one at night, and the guy at the gas station hadn’t even looked up from his comic when they had gone in to buy some food.
They probably look like a bunch of badly dressed friends on a road trip, maybe on vacation from school, and they always try to keep Molly hidden when interacting with other people, so why should he suspect something?
Still, Nico bites her lip and tries not to think too much about all the things that could go wrong.
It doesn’t help that she is tired, eyes becoming more and more heavy, feeling cozy in the big hoodie that somehow smells like Karolina (maybe that’s just Nico’s wishful thinking though) and the black leggings she’s wearing.
She can hear Molly and Gert bickering about buying a collar for Old Lace but their voices sound far away, Nico’s head leaning more and more against the wall behind her, her hand laying heavy on the skin of Karolina’s neck.
She’d been the one to drive them the last three hours while the others had slept in the backseats.
(Except for Karolina, because Karolina would never leave Nico alone with her thoughts when she knows that her head is not a very safe space to be right now, probably none of their heads are. Because Karolina had stayed awake with her the whole time, changing channels on the radio until she found a song she could hum along to. Had rested her head against the window but her eyes had been on Nico for the most part, looking at her like she was the answer to all of her problems.
It was the only thing keeping Nico awake and focused, along with the soft snores of the others, and the headlights occasionally passing them.)
And now Nico can feel the exhaustion weighing her body down, settling deep in her bones.
They’d been on the road for the last five days, which meant that none of them were able to sleep for longer than a few hours in a row, and it’s catching up to them.
Nico would kill for a bed right now, but she doesn’t say that aloud, since it’s probably a little early still for those kind of jokes.
(Sometimes she forgets, but then, oh yeah, their parents are murderers.)
Karolina seems to notice Nico slipping away, the way she always notices, because her hand curls around Nico’s arm, the one resting on her back and neck now, and she slowly tugs, all the while listening to Gert and Molly, until Nico slides down the wall onto the blanket next to her, their whole sides touching.
Nico smiles at her in thanks, but it’s tired and her eyelids are dropping closed already, and Karolina just chuckles softly.
Nico twines their fingers together, the other girls hand warm but never clammy, and lets her head fall onto Karolina’s shoulder.
It is very hard not to fall asleep then and there, with the blondes breath caressing her hair and her body solid and safe next to hers, but Nico still tries to stay awake.
She can’t really afford to lose consciousness like this, all out in the open where they could have to leave at any second, where she doesn’t know how hidden they really are.
Karolina brushes her thumb against Nico’s hand, the way she always does, and against her own protests Nico can’t help but burrow her nose against the worn fabric of Karolina’s flannel.
Karolina leans down, mouth just above Nico’s ear, making her shiver a little.
“I’ll wake you when Gert’s hair is finished, if you want to.“
Nico shakes her head, hair falling out of it’s halfhearted bun at the nape of her neck.
“I’m good. We need to stay alert. Can’t let them catch us off guard.“
She doesn’t really know what she’s saying, her mouth is working without any help from her brain.
Karolina sighs, her cheek pressing down on Nicos head.
“Well, then it’s a good thing that you’ve got Molly here, and Gert, and me, and Chase and Alex outside, and that we are all alert and on guard.“
Nico tries to snort into Karolina’s shoulder but it comes out as more of a snuffle.
“Still.“
Karolina just shrugs a little. “Okay.“
Gert and Molly are still arguing but Nico tunes them out again, concentrates instead on the calm and deep breaths of the body she’s leaning on.
It doesn’t really help her stay awake, and by now she’s just barely hanging on by sheer stubbornness, but she just can’t quite let herself go yet.
Her mind is plagued by what could go wrong at all times of the day, and she knows the others feel the same, can see it in the way Chase stays close to Gert no matter what and in the way Alex studies escape routes everywhere they go, in Molly’s refusal to stay behind whenever they need to buy food or gas and by Gert’s fast and shallow breaths at night when she thinks no one is noticing.
Can feel it in the way Karolina holds her hand, fingers entwined, and kisses her, like she’s scared it will be the last time, and in the way she looks at Nico whenever they have to part ways for a while, full of a silent desperation, full of unsaid goodbyes, the same way she looked at her at the construction site, seconds before she was ready to sacrifice herself for them.
(That look scares Nico, in the way that she knows Karolina doesn’t value her own life as she does theirs.)
Nico is only hanging to consciousness by a thread, her head is a heavy weight on Karolinas shoulder and her eyes are fully closed by now, the others voices only a muffled mix of sounds.
Karolina’s breath tickles her ear again, a welcome distraction.
“You know I won’t let anything happen to you, right?“ Her voice is teasing, like it always is when Karolina is a little too nervous to be serious.
Nico nods, and there’s strength behind it because she knows this is important to Karolina.
But also: It’s exactly what Nico is afraid of. In her nightmares it is always Karolina dying to save one of them. The one variable Nico can not prevent.
“It’s only half an hour. I promise you I’ll wake you as soon as anything out of the ordinary happens.“
Karolina is almost pleading by now and her shoulder really is so comfortable and she is so warm, her clothes smell like her even after days on the road and Nico’s hand is sheltered in hers and Molly’s and Gert’s voices are soft and comforting and familiar.
Nico shouldn't let herself feel this safe and secure in a dingy old gas station rest room in the middle of the night. She shouldn’t trust anybody but herself to take care of her.
She shouldn't do a lot of things, for example close her eyes fully and let Karolina’s breath lull her to sleep, but she does it anyway.
The last thing she hears is Gert shrieking about something that Molly did and Karolina laughing, her shoulders shaking gently, her breath tickling the shell of Nico’s ear.
As far as sleeping places go, she thinks, there are probably worse.
When it comes to people to be stuck with when your parents are murderers and you are on the run from the police, she’s pretty sure she hit the jackpot.
Nico buries her nose in Karolina’s flannel and lets her body and mind rest.

()()()()

The van is in a constant state of noise.
The wheels are old and a little flat and the exterior rusty, the doors creak whenever they hit a pothole and the engine wheezes.
It makes for an endless soundtrack to their little road trip.
(Not so little actually, a few hours away from crossing state lines.)
Still, Gert has the radio on low volume, old rock classics playing in the background while Chase is snoring in the passenger seat next to her.
Nico is sharing the backseat with Molly, drooling onto her shoulder, and Karolina, holding her hand while her head softly bangs against the window whenever they catch a bump in the road, never enough to wake her up.
Alex is curled up in one of the middle row seats, always somehow disconnected from the rest of them, and even though his breathing is even Nico knows he is not sleeping.
His head turns a few centimeters in their direction every ten minutes, she counted, and then turns back to the front again and she is not sure what he is looking for.
She is not sure about a lot of things when it comes to Alex.
He is part of their misfit family now, she knows this and accepts this and is glad of this, but he is still so far away.
The look on his face, whenever he watches the others from the sidelines, laughing and sharing stories and living with each other, makes Nico want to stretch out a hand, tell him that he is the only one distancing himself.
But, she still thinks, she needs the first step to come from him.
It is still very hard for her to look at him without thinking about all the things he hasn’t told her, still isn’t telling them.
The van drives over an especially deep hole and Nico winces when she hears the loud noise Karolina’s temple makes against the window.
She looks to the left of her to see the blondes eyes slowly blink open.
“Ouch.“ Karolina mumbles, still half sleep drunken, lips forming an adorable pout and the whole thing is really a little too much for Nico.
She can’t help but smile softly, just like she can never help herself when it comes to the other girl, and entangles their fingers for a second, ignoring the mumbled protest coming from Karolina.
Bending down carefully, trying not to jostle Molly too much, she gets one of their big wool sweaters out of the bag at her feet.
Nico bunches the fabric up into a little roll, before carefully lifting Karolina’s head up and placing it between her and the window.
Karolina sighs softly in thanks, a small smile gracing her lips and her eyes already falling closed again before she opens them once more, quickly grasping for Nico’s hand back, and then contently falls back asleep.
Nico looks at her for another minute, at the way the passing street lights make her look almost ethereal, at the little frown between her eyebrows, the few freckles standing out against her skin.
All the details that Nico knows better than her own face by now, all the place she has kissed and wants to kiss.
It is very easy to forget that they are on the run like this, when her heart is beating wildly in her chest and her stomach is warm and fluttery, when there is a pretty pretty girl holding her hand, making her feel like just another teenager.
She is a little angry at the unfairness of this, of feeling these things while being scared and dirty and homeless, of not being able to experience this somewhere safe where it could be the most important thing, where half her mind wasn’t always thinking about the dangers they are in all the time.
But Nico isn’t complaining, not about this, stroking her thumb along Karolina’s hand, never about this. She is so thankful she gets this at all. (Whatever this is.)
When she turns away from Karolina, Gert sheepishly grins at her through the rearview mirror, hands safely on the steering wheel.
“Sorry!“ she whispers into the car, “These streets are shit.“
Nico just shrugs, mumbling an “It’s fine.“ back, because it really is. It’s not Gert’s fault that they decided not to use the highways whenever possible, that they make the poor old piece of shit van struggle through these unused backroads.
Gert focuses back on driving and it’s only now that Nico notices the other person that’s been watching her.
Alex isn’t shy about the way he’s looking at them now, turned almost completely in his chair, as far as the seatbelt allows him to.
His eyes are not hard or angry or hurt, they are soft in a way Nico can’t quite place.
He nods to where Karolina is comfortably resting now.
“She okay?“
Nico pauses for a second before she nods, trying not to let her eyes be drawn back to the blonde girl, tries to accept the question as what it is: Alex trying to reach out. Him taking the first step.
“Yah, she’s fine. Only woke up for a second.“ She can’t stop her voice from growing softer, and she’s not about to try for Alex.
He nods, his eyes momentarily straying to look out the window, and Nico thinks this is it.
It was more than she had expected.
But Alex surprises her.
“Nico.“ his voice is low, eyes flittering between Molly and Karolina, making sure they are both still asleep. “I’m really sorry.“
Nico finds it hard to look at him but she still does.
“You’ve already said that. Often.“
She can see how big his eyes are in the soft glow of the light from outside, and she remembers that she’s known this boy since they were all kids. He is still just Alex. And he has hurt her.
He gulps.
“Yeah. But still.“
The both of them are quiet for a moment because Nico has no answer to that.
After a minute Alex starts playing with the frayed edges of his seat, his eyes downcast.
“I never wanted for any of this to happen.“ he says the words so quietly Nico is not sure he meant for them to be heard.
But she thinks maybe now is not the time to ignore his shy attempts at reaching out.
“I don’t think any of us wanted it to, Alex.“ her voice is tired because she is too, of all of this.
Alex nods once, his eyes moving up to look out the window, the trees and lights and seldom passing cars all blending into a black mass.
“I bet,“ he says, still not looking at her, “that if Amy was here she’d know what to do. She’d come up with some crazy genius plan and we’d be out of this mess by tomorrow.“
Nico’s heart oh so painfully constricts the way it always does at the mention of her sister, and her first instinct is to lash out.
How dare he talk about her? How dare he mention her name?
But again, this is Alex, and if anyone ever understood what loosing Amy felt like for her it’s him. Him not coming to the funeral was always this big thing, and yes it hurt her, but she got it, she completely did, because she didn’t want to be there either.
It had felt so wrong, lowering her sister into the ground, older but still so young, hearing people who had no idea talk about how good Amy was, how smart, how beautiful, oh what a tragedy.
Nico had wanted to scream that day, the feeling building up in her throat and her chest until it exploded from her in painful sobs the second she got home.
She hadn’t tried calling Alex afterwards, not once, because it would have hurt so much to see him: he reminded her of Amy in too many unexplainable ways.
She thinks now, if it feels the same for him; if he sees her sister every time he looks at her.
She hopes not. She is not that cruel.
“Yeah probably.“ There is more she could say, stories about all the other times Amy saved the day, about the hole in Nico’s chest just big enough to hold her sisters heart, but she is not ready for that yet, maybe she’ll never be.
Instead:
“But, Alex, I think we’ll be okay on our own too. You’re not half bad at the whole making plans thing and we’ve got our self sacrificing superheroes and a dinosaur and if worst comes to worst I can still glare people into submission.“
The smile Alex gives her makes Nico realize how much she missed him as her friend, makes her remember once again how lucky she is to face destruction with this group of idiots by her side.
“Yeah I think you’re right. We’re not completely hopeless.“
They grin at each other for a second, both glad they are able to do this again.
Then Alex’s eyes stray down to where she’s still holding Karolina’s hand, to her thumb rubbing soothing circles into the other girls skin.
Nico wants so much for him to not be an asshole now.
But Alex only continues smiling, a little softer and a little sadder maybe, but he’s smiling, and when he looks up and Nico straight in the eye she only sees understanding there.
“I’m glad you let yourself have this. You deserve it. You both do. It’s good that you have something to make you this happy.“
Nico can’t object, and she doesn’t want to either. She is really glad too.
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it coming. The way you look at each other, it just makes sense.“
He turns back around, his head leaned back and his eyes closing and he misses Nico blushing in the dark of the night.
She thinks about the way Alex used to look at Amy, when they were playing video games or coding or discussing comics, and she remembers how she always thought that made sense too.

(The next morning, when they stop to get some food and Nico volunteers to go with Alex to walk to the store, the two quietly bickering while they leave, the others don’t say anything.
But when they get back Karolina smiles at her even brighter than she normally does, and Nico can’t really stop herself from kissing her breathless and Alex teasingly tells them to get a room, and Gert and Chase are laughing and Molly pretends to be disgusted and Nico is, even though she shouldn't be, really really happy to be here with them.
Right now, she’s only thinking about what’s for breakfast, and even though it’s only for a short time, she’s not worrying about all the things that could go wrong.
She’s simply glad about everything that went right.)

()()()()

A few hours later they cross state lines, and Nico can feel all their shoulders growing lighter.
Chase rolls down the window and yells into the wind, Gert trying to pull him back by his shirt, but they are all laughing too much.
Karolina next to her is warm but even if she wasn’t, Nico would still scoot closer to her, would still press their sides together and hold her hand and kiss her shoulder, and she knows Karolina would still squeeze back, and she would still look at Nico like she’s the answer to all her questions, because she always did, didn’t she?
They are not safe, they know this, and they are still only kids in way over their heads, their parents are still killers and the world still thinks they murdered Destiny and kidnapped Molly, but really…
Fuck it, Nico thinks. Let them think what they want. Let them call the cavalry and open a manhunt on them and let them just try to catch them.
She is much too scared to even think about stopping now.
To anybody listening: we are still here. we are still fighting. we will never give up. we will never let you catch us. we have too much to live for.
We are more than flesh and bones.