Chapter 46: The Morning After the Nightmare
Grey light crept through the gap between the boarded window and its frame, a thin blade of it slicing across the room until it met the edge of the cotton strip draped over Rosa's eyes. She lay very still, suspended in that strange place between sleep and waking, the nightmare still clinging to the inside of her skull like cobwebs. The sewer. The water. Roy's tiny form being swept away, his voice swallowed by the dark.
But there was a weight against her nose. A small, warm, breathing weight.
She didn't move. She let the panic drain out of her, let the dream fade into something distant and harmless, because Roy was here. He was curled against the bridge of her nose, wrapped in the piece of cotton she'd given him, and she could feel the faint rhythm of his breathing through the thin fabric, the occasional twitch of a limb, the absolute quiet trust of his sleep.
The cotton did more than keep the light out. It kept the world at bay, just for a moment. The yellowing fabric smelled faintly of the laundry detergent they'd scavenged from the dorm's supply closet, something floral and artificial and almost painfully normal.
Rosa didn't want to move.
It was selfish, maybe. There was work to do. Walkers to track, Silas to hunt, a device to understand, a brother to save. But the mattress was warm beneath her, the pillow soft under her head, and Roy's tiny weight on her face was the most real thing she'd felt in days.
She let her eyes close fully again, the cotton pressing gently against her lids.
The room settled around her. The hydroponic shelf hummed its low, steady song. Somewhere down the hall, a door creaked, followed by the quiet murmur of voices, Lee and Sandy probably, starting their morning rounds. The solar panels on the window caught the first light, and the LED strip along the wall flickered once before steadying, its dying constellation of blues and greens casting a faint glow across the clutter.
Rosa breathed. In. Out.
Roy shifted on her nose, a tiny adjustment, and she felt the fabric of his blanket brush against her skin. He made a small sound, something between a sigh and a murmur, and then settled again.
She loved him. It was such a simple thing to know, and yet it still ached when she thought about it. He was her brother. Not by blood, but by choice. By every meal shared, every watch kept, every near-death escape from the shambling dead. He was the one who'd shoved her out of the way when Silas pulled the trigger. He was the one who'd paid the price.
And he'd told her, in the dark of this room, that he'd do it again.
She felt the heat behind her eyes, the prickle of tears she refused to shed. Not now. Not yet. She needed to be steady. She would find Silas. She would find a way.
But first, just for a moment, she let herself have this.
She let herself doze, not quite asleep but not quite awake, suspended in the grey warmth of early morning. Roy's breathing was a metronome against her skin, steady and alive. The nightmare faded further, its claws loosening.
A knock on the door.
Rosa's eyes snapped open behind the cotton, but she didn't move. Distant enough. Not the urgent knock of an alarm, not the pounding that meant walkers or fires. Just a casual, everyday knock. Jason, probably, coming to check on them.
Roy stirred against her nose, a tiny hand pressing into the skin near her brow.
"Mm," he mumbled, his voice a thread of sound. "Someone's at the door."
"I know." Rosa kept her voice low, barely a whisper. "Go back to sleep."
"Weren't sleeping. Not really." A pause. "You were thinking too loud."
A huff of breath escaped her, almost a laugh. "I wasn't thinking at all."
"You were." Small fingers patted her nose, a miniature gesture of comfort. "I could feel it. This close to your face, I can basically read your mind."
"Then you know I was thinking about breakfast."
"You were thinking about Silas," Roy said, his tone gentle, not accusatory. "And you were thinking about the sewer. And you were thinking that you don't want to get up, which I support, by the way. This is the most comfortable perch I've had in weeks."
Rosa smiled, the expression hidden beneath the cotton. "Flattering."
"I try."
The knock came again, a little more insistent. A voice followed it, muffled through the wood. "Rosa? Roy? You two up?"
Jason. His voice was soft, careful, the way he always sounded when he wasn't sure if someone was asleep.
"Tell him we're dead to the world," Roy murmured.
"He'd understand the joke."
"He would." Roy shifted, and she felt him sit up, his weight changing. "But he's also worried. He has that tone."
Rosa sighed. He was right. Jason's worry was a specific, recognizable thing, a note in his voice that she'd learned to read over the months they'd spent together. It was the same tone he'd used when she'd come back from the supply run, when the harness had gone quiet, when he'd first seen Roy's size.
"It’s open," she called, her voice still rough with sleep.
The door swung open slowly, and Jason stepped in. He took two strides before stopping dead, his head tilting in that particular way he had when something puzzled him.
"Uh," he said. Then, after a beat: "Am I interrupting something?"
Rosa lay still, the cotton still over her eyes. She could feel Roy's tiny weight shift on her nose, and she knew exactly what Jason was seeing: a grown woman flat on her back with a cloth over her face and a three-inch-tall man curled against the bridge of her nose, wrapped in what looked like a scrap of fabric.
"It's called sleeping, Jason. I've heard you talk about it."
"I know what sleeping is. I don't know what this is." She heard his footsteps approach, slow and careful. "Is that Roy?"
"Hi," Roy's voice came, small and slightly muffled against her skin.
"Hey, buddy." Jason's voice softened, the edge of worry she'd heard through the door easing into something gentler. "You two look comfortable."
"We are," Rosa said. "We were. Until someone knocked."
"I made coffee."
The words hung in the air. Roast dandelion root, she knew, harvested from the courtyard garden and ground in Joan's improvised mill. It wasn't real coffee, hadn't been for years now, but the ritual of it had become something precious. The smell alone could pull half the group out of their bunks.
Rosa felt the pull of it. But she also felt Roy's warmth, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the way the room had settled around them into a bubble of quiet that felt increasingly fragile.
"I'll bring you a cup," Jason offered, reading her hesitation. "If you want to stay, I mean. You don't have to get up yet."
"That's not a bad deal," Roy murmured.
Rosa considered it. The nightmare had faded almost entirely now. Jason's presence had pushed it back, grounding her in the real, solid world of mornings and coffee and people who cared about her. The weight of Roy on her face was still there, still real.
"Okay," she said. "One cup. Then I'm getting up."
Jason laughed quietly. It was a good sound, warm and easy. She heard his footsteps cross the room, heard him stop beside the bed. His fingers brushed against her hair, gentle, the ghost of a touch.
"One cup, then," he repeated. "I'll be right back."
The door clicked shut behind him.
Roy shifted on her nose, turning onto his side. "He's got it bad."
"He does not."
"He does. He brought you coffee. In your bedroom. At dawn."
"That's called being a friend."
"That's called courtship behavior in several known species," Roy said. "I studied biology too, remember."
"You studied mechanical engineering."
"General education requirements. Pre-civilization, I had to take a bio class. We learned about peacocks. And certain breeds of birds that bring their mates shiny objects, like coffee mugs."
Rosa huffed out a laugh, careful to keep her face still. "You're an idiot."
"Your idiot."
"Unfortunately."
The silence that followed was comfortable, easy. Rosa lay there with her eyes closed behind the cotton, feeling the warmth of the room, the hum of the hydroponic shelf, the faint stirring of morning air through the boarded window. She could hear birds outside, or at least what she'd learned to recognize as birds. They sounded normal, unworried. No walkers crashing through the treeline, no herded moans in the distance.
Just a morning. A rare, precious, ordinary morning.
"When we fix this," Roy said, his voice quiet, "when I'm back to normal again, I'm going to thank him. Properly."
"Thank who?"
"Silas."
Rosa tensed. The name sat in the air like a stone dropped into still water.
Roy kept going. "Not for this. Not for what he did. But for the time, maybe." His hand pattered against her skin, a tiny touch. "I never would have spent this long this close to you. I never would have noticed the way you breathe when you sleep, or the way your heartbeat sounds from here. I never would have known what it's like to be wrapped in a piece of your shirt and feel like it's the safest place in the world."
Rosa's throat tightened. The tears she'd refused to shed earlier pressed at the back of her eyes again.
"That's a weird way to thank someone," she managed.
"I know." Roy's voice was gentle. "But it's true. This time with you, Rosa, it's been a gift. Even with everything else."
She didn't trust her voice for a moment. She swallowed, once, hard.
"If I ever get my hands on him," she said, "I'm going to make sure he knows exactly what he did to you. To us. And I'm going to make him fix it, or I'll make him wish he'd never been born."
"I know you will." Roy's voice held steady. "That's why I'm not scared. Because I know you're coming for me. Whatever it takes."
The door opened again. Jason returned, the smell of dandelion root coffee preceding him, warm and earthy and slightly bitter.
"One cup, as promised," he said. "Black. No sugar. We're out anyway."
Rosa finally moved, reaching up to lift the cotton from her eyes. The light was grey and soft, the room resolving around her in shades of dawn. Jason stood beside the bed, holding a chipped ceramic mug, steam curling from its surface. His expression was soft, his dark hair mussed from sleep, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
And Roy was on her nose still, a tiny figure wrapped in cotton, his head turned up to look at her with those familiar eyes.
She smiled at them both.
"Alright," she said. "Let's see what today brings."
With practiced ease, Rosa sat up enough to drink her coffee while Roy remained perched on her nose. Jason settled onto the other side of the bed, next to her. He cradled his own mug in both hands, letting the steam curl around his face, and his eyes kept darting between her and the tiny figure on her nose.
"You know," he said, "I keep thinking I've gotten used to it. Seeing him like that. And then I walk in and you're just lying there with a man on your face, and I realize I haven't."
"It's practical," Rosa said. "He's warm."
"I'm very warm," Roy confirmed. "I regulate heat well. It's an engineering thing."
"An engineering thing," Jason repeated, a smile breaking across his face. "Right."
Rosa took a careful sip of her coffee. The liquid was hot, earthy, the bitterness grounding in a way she hadn't realized she needed. She tilted her head back slightly as she drank, keeping the mug angled away from Roy, mindful of the tiny body curled against the bridge of her nose.
"Careful," Roy said. "You slosh, I drown."
"You won't drown. I've got good aim."
"Famous last words."
Jason laughed, the sound low and easy. He shifted on the bed, turning to face them more fully, resting his mug on his knee. His free hand came up, hovered near Rosa's face for a moment, then settled against the pillow instead, fingers brushing the loose strands of her hair.
"Your braid survived the night," he observed. "Surprising, given how much you toss."
"I don't toss."
"You do. You were a menace last night. Rolled over three times, stole the blanket once, and at one point you were trying to climb me like a tree."
Rosa felt her cheeks warm. "I don't remember that."
"Just because you don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen." Jason's eyes were warm, teasing. "Roy was your witness."
"I was trying to sleep," Roy said. "I don't testify on events I didn't witness."
"Convenient."
"Very."
Another sip of coffee. The liquid traced a warm path down her throat, settling in her stomach like a small coal. She let herself sink back against the pillow, careful not to dislodge Roy, and considered the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster spelled out patterns she'd memorized months ago, constellations only she could see.
"How long have you been up?" she asked.
Jason shrugged. "Hour, maybe. Couldn't sleep. Checked the perimeter with Lee before the sun was fully up. East boundary's quiet. No walker formations, no movement in the treeline. Silas is laying low, I think."
"Or regrouping."
"Or regrouping," Jason agreed. "But we've got a few clear hours, at least. The watch rotation's set. I wanted to bring you two this and see if you're ready to talk about next steps."
Rosa lowered her mug, resting it on her stomach. The warmth seeped through her sleep shirt. She felt Roy shift on her nose, turning his head toward Jason.
"Next steps," she repeated.
"Forgive me for saying this, Rosa, but waiting isn't going to fix him."
"I know that." The words came out sharper than she intended. She took a breath, softened her tone. "We have the knowledge we need to fix him. We have the original device. What we don’t have is the power to do it. We’ve got at least another two months before we can even think about diverting power from our heating system to power the device. Unless we can get a hold of that other device that this guy has, waiting is all we can do.”
Jason was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing the rim of his mug. "Two months is a long time to wait."
"It is," Rosa agreed. "But it's not forever.” Her eyes drifted close with a sigh, “I you back as soon as possible. I don’t want to continue going on runs without my 6-spotter.”
Roy made a small sound of protest. "I'm not helpless."
"I’m not saying you are, but we gotta look at the facts, Roy. You're three inches tall. You're my brother and I love you, but you're three inches tall and you could fit in my pocket."
"I've made my peace with it. I'm telling you, it's fine. I am still your spotter no matter what size.”
"It's not fine. It's not fine, and it won't be fine until you're back to normal size. So if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. We’ll do whatever needs doing so you can have your complete autonomy back."
The words hung in the air. Jason was watching her, his eyes steady, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"What?" she asked, her tone haughty and breathless.
"Nothing. Just... you're beautiful when you're determined."
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything. I'm observing a fact."
"Let me put it in terms you'll understand," Jason said, setting his mug down on the floor beside the bed. He turned to face her fully, one knee drawn up, his arm resting across it. "You've got my boyfriend on your face, and you're still the most beautiful person in this room. That's not a commentary on Roy. That's a commentary on you."
"That doesn't make it better," Rosa said.
"It's not meant to be better. It's meant to be true."
Roy made a small sound, something between a cough and a laugh. "I'm right here. I can hear you. I'm literally between you two right now."
"Then you have the best seat in the house," Jason said, grinning.
Rosa felt the heat crawl up her neck. She took another sip of coffee, using the mug as a shield, letting the earthy bitterness give her a moment to collect herself. The room felt suddenly smaller, more intimate. The hum of the hydroponic shelf seemed louder in the silence.
"You're impossible," she said finally.
"I've been told."
"By whom?"
"You. Multiple times. Usually when I'm right."
Roy shifted on her nose, adjusting his cotton blanket. "I should probably recuse myself from this conversation. I'm getting secondhand embarrassment."
"Don't you dare move," Rosa said. "You're my shield."
"Your shield is three inches tall."
"Best shield I've ever had."
The smile that broke across Roy's face was small but unmistakable, visible even at this scale. He settled back down, tucking the cotton around himself with a practiced motion that spoke to weeks of navigating a world built for people sixty times his size.
Jason watched them both, his expression soft. "I meant it, Rosa. Not as a line, not as a distraction. Just as a thing I noticed and wanted to say out loud." He paused. "We don't get enough chances to say things out loud these days. Everything's about survival, about the next run, the next threat. When was the last time any of us just told someone something nice because we felt it?"
Rosa considered the question. She couldn't remember. Maybe before the outbreak, back in lecture halls and cramped dorm rooms where the biggest concern was an exam or a roommate who snored. Maybe not even then.
"I don't know," she admitted.
"Exactly." Jason reached out, and this time his fingers did touch her hair, brushing a stray strand from her temple. His touch was light, almost reverent. "So I'm saying it. You're beautiful. And I'm not sorry for saying it. Even with Roy on your face."
"'Even with' feels like a qualifier."
"It's not. I'm saying the bar is high, and you clear it."
Roy snorted. "That was smooth. I'm impressed."
"Thank you. I've been practicing."
"In front of a mirror?"
"In my head. I get a lot of thinking time on watch."
Rosa shook her head, but she couldn't suppress the smile tugging at her lips. The tension she'd been carrying since Jason walked in had loosened, replaced by something warmer. She took another sip of coffee, and this time it tasted less bitter.
"Okay," she said. "Fine. You win."
"Win what?"
"This... whatever this is. You win it."
"I didn't know I was competing."
"Everything with you is a competition, Jason. You just don't know you're in it until I've already beaten you."
The words landed somewhere she wasn't prepared for, a stone dropped into still water. She felt the flush creep up her neck, past her collarbone, settling into her cheeks like a stain she couldn't scrub away. Jason was looking at her with that steady, patient expression, and Roy was warm against her nose, and the room felt suddenly too small for all the things sitting unspoken between them.
She'd never thought about her face much. Not in the way people meant when they talked about beauty. She'd looked in mirrors plenty of times, brushed her teeth, braided her hair, checked for wounds and dirt and the hollow look of exhaustion that everyone wore these days. The reflection that looked back at her was just her. Cheekbones she'd inherited from someone whose face she barely remembered. Eyes that had seen too much to be soft. A jaw that had grown sharper over the years as food got scarcer and muscles got leaner.
Average. That's what she'd always thought. Not ugly, not striking, just... her. A face that belonged to a person who got things done.
No one had ever called her beautiful. Not once. Not before the world ended, not after. She'd never minded, because it had never occurred to her to want it. Zeke had looked at her like she was interesting for a few weeks, maybe even compelling, but he'd never said the word. And after he'd ghosted her, she'd stopped wondering what anyone saw when they looked at her. It didn't matter. It wasn't a tool she needed for survival.
But here was Jason, saying it like it was simple fact. Like it required no qualification, no explanation, no justification. Just something he noticed and wanted to say out loud.
Her throat felt tight.
"You're doing it again," Roy said quietly. "The loud thinking."
"You need to stop reading my mind," she managed.
"I'm not reading anything. You went very still, and your heart rate jumped." A tiny hand pressed against her skin, just below her eye. "It's okay, you know. To not know what to do with a compliment."
"I know how to take a compliment."
"Do you?"
She didn't, actually. She took them like she took everything else: with suspicion, with a deflection, with a joke to change the subject. Compliments were currency in the old world, and she'd never had much use for currency. But Roy was looking up at her with those patient eyes, and Jason was still watching her with that gentle, unassuming smile, and the coffee was warm in her hands, and she felt raw in a way she couldn't name.
"It's just not something I think about," she said finally. "My face. What it looks like. It's not a tool I need."
"Doesn't mean it's not true," Jason said. "The thing you don't think about doesn't stop being real."
She looked at him. Really looked. He was still mussed from sleep, dark hair sticking up at odd angles, the collar of his shirt askew. He looked like he'd been dragged out of bed and into the pre-dawn world without ceremony, and yet there was something steady about him, something that made the room feel safer.
"When did you get so good at this?" she asked.
"At what?"
"Saying things that make it hard to argue with you."
"Practice." His smile widened. "I've had a lot of time to think about what I'd say if I ever got to say it."
The heat in her cheeks deepened. She took another sip of coffee to hide it, the earthy bitterness grounding her. The steam curled around her face, and for a moment she let herself sit in the discomfort of being seen, of being told something nice without an agenda attached.
"I don't know how to do this," she admitted. "The... being nice to me thing. I'm not programmed for it."
"Programmed?"
"I'm a function, Jason. I execute tasks. I keep people alive. I don't... I don't get called beautiful, and when I do, I don't know what to do with it."
Roy shifted, and she felt him sit up, his tiny weight pressing more firmly against the bridge of her nose. "You could try saying thank you."
"I did say thank you."
"You said 'you're impossible.' That's not the same."
"Close enough."
"Not even a little bit."
Jason laughed, the sound low and warm. "He's got a point."
"You're both ganging up on me."
"We're both right," Roy corrected. "There's a difference."
She exhaled, long and slow. The fight drained out of her, replaced by something softer, more vulnerable. She looked at Jason, really looked, and let herself say the words without armor.
"Thank you," she said. "For saying it. Even if I don't know how to hold it."
Jason's expression softened. "You don't have to hold it. You just have to let it be true."
The room settled around them. The hydroponic shelf hummed. Somewhere in the building, she heard the faint clatter of pots in the kitchen, someone starting breakfast. The grey light through the boarded window had warmed slightly, shifted toward yellow as the sun climbed higher.
Roy made a small sound of contentment, settling back down against her skin. "That was nice. You did good."
"Don't patronize me."
"I'm not patronizing you. I'm proud of you. There's a difference."
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn't suppress the smile. "You two are going to be the death of me."
"We're the least lethal thing in your life lately," Jason pointed out. "We're doing pretty good."
She took another sip of coffee, letting the bitterness ground her, and focused on the mug in her hands instead of the two people watching her. The grumble had been a reflex, a shield, but it had also been real. She didn't know how to sit in the middle of a moment like this one, where she was seen and cherished and told something true without any demand attached.
"It's loud in here," Roy said, his voice light. "The thinking. It's very loud."
"I'm not thinking about anything."
"You're thinking about how you're going to change the subject."
She huffed, but it was the same almost-laugh from before, the one that escaped her when she was caught. "And what if I am?"
"Then we'll let you," Roy said. "You earned it."
Rosa reached for the desktop without looking, her fingers finding the edge of the chipped ceramic mug. She set it down with a soft clink, the dandelion root coffee still steaming in the cool morning air. The desk started at the opposite wall and ran the length of the room, ending beside the head of her bed, and its surface was scattered with the detritus of survival: a half-disassembled radio, coils of wire, a rusted multi-tool, a stack of notebooks with water-stained covers.
Her other hand found the grey cotton. She lifted it off her face, the fabric catching the pale light, and for a moment she just looked at it. It was the same strip she'd draped over Roy hours ago, soft from washing, the edges frayed from repeated use. It had covered her eyes and kept him anchored through the night, and she'd thought of it as a temporary thing, a stopgap until she could sew something proper.
But as she held it up, an idea took shape.
The slope of her nose, the curve of it, the way Roy had lain there all night. The way the fabric had slipped over her eyes just enough to block the grey light, but not enough to fall off entirely. She'd woken more than once in the dark hours, adjusting it, tugging it back into place, careful not to jostle him.
What if she made it fit?
Not a blanket. Not a simple strip. A mask. A sleep mask with a pocket, or a ridge, or something that would cup Roy against her face and hold him there through the night without shifting. She'd been a pre-med student before the world ended, and she'd spent hours in anatomy labs studying the planes of the human skull. She knew the topography of her own face well enough. The bridge of her nose, the slope of her brow, the shelf of her cheekbones.
She could build something that held him.
"Rosa?" Roy's voice filtered up from the fabric in her hands. "You've gone very still again. Jason, she's gone still."
"I see her," Jason said, his voice warm with amusement. "Let her cook."
She held the cloth up to her face, pressing it against her nose, feeling the impossible smoothness of it. The fabric was thin enough to breathe through, dense enough to hold a small shape. She'd need to cut it into a wider oval, long enough to cover her eyes in comfort, wide enough to span her face without digging into her temples. Then she'd need the pocket. A fold, maybe a dart, something that would create the right depth to hold him without pressing down.
"You're thinking very loud," Roy said again.
"I'm thinking about a mask," Rosa said, her voice muffled by the fabric. "A sleep mask. With a pocket."
"A pocket," Jason repeated.
"For him." She lowered the cloth, meeting Roy's tiny form perched on the bridge of her nose. In the grey light, he was a dark speck wrapped in cotton, barely visible. "Right here. Like this. A little hammock, so the fabric won't slip off while I sleep. I won't have to worry about knocking him off during the night, and he'll be warm, and I'll be comfortable, and neither of us has to lose sleep over it."
Roy was quiet for a moment. She could feel his weight shift as he considered the idea.
"A pocket on your nose for me," he said slowly. "Like a marsupial pouch, but for your face."
"Exactly."
"That's..."
"Strange. I know."
"Brilliant," he finished. "That's brilliant. I was going to lay awake every night worrying about rolling off you in my sleep. This solves that."
"You could just sleep in the tank," Rosa pointed out. "You have a perfectly good sleeping arrangement."
"The tank is cold. The tank is lonely. The tank doesn't smell like you." Roy settled back down, a small, decisive motion. "I'm on board with the pocket."
A laugh escaped her, surprised out of her. "You haven't even seen the design yet."
"I don't need to. It's you. It'll work."
Jason shifted on the bed beside her, craning to look at her face. "So you're going to build a sleeping pouch around your nose. Like a harness for your face."
"A mask," she corrected. "With a pocket built in. It'll be crude, but it'll work."
"Crude and weird-looking," Roy agreed cheerfully.
"I was going to say functional and practical."
"That's what I said. Crude and weird."
She made an exaggerated gesture of gathering up the mask and placing it aside, and Roy made a sound like a laugh, a small vibrating tickle against her skin. She couldn't help grinning, even with the flutter of awkwardness still settling in her chest from the compliments.
"Let me see the cloth again," Roy said.
She lifted it, laying it flat on her palm. Roy climbed off her nose with careful, deliberate steps, moving with the practiced ease of someone who'd learned to navigate skin and fabric and the unforgiving terrain of a world grown enormous around him. He landed on the cloth, standing in the center of it, his tiny hands on his hips.
"Okay," he said, turning in a slow circle. "Okay. I can work with this."
"You're not going to work with it. I'm going to work with it."
"You're going to need my measurements."
"I know your measurements. I've been carrying you around for months."
"You know my weight. You don't know my width, my height, my sprawl." Roy stood up straight, exaggerating his posture. "I'm a growing boy. I need room to stretch out."
"You're twenty-five years old, and you're three inches tall. You're not growing."
"Maybe I'm growing sideways. You don't know."
She shook her head, the smile pulling at her mouth. "I'll make the pocket big enough for a four-inch man, just in case you hit a late growth spurt."
"That's very thoughtful of you."
"I'm a very thoughtful sister."
The words landed between them, warm and easy. She felt something in her chest loosen, the tension of the nightmare and the morning and the compliments underneath it all unwinding into something simpler. She held the cloth flat, studying its shape, turning over the logistics in her mind. She'd need thread. She had some, fishing line mostly, but there was probably something finer in the sewing kit Joan kept in the common room. A needle thin enough to work with this weight of fabric.
"I'm going to need a few days," she said, more to herself than to them. "And I'll need to draft a pattern. But it's doable. It's just a matter of getting the pocket right."
"Can I help?" Jason asked. "I'm not bad with a needle. I patched my own coat last winter."
She looked at him, surprised. "You did?"
"I did. Had to. You were all busy, and my favorite coat was falling apart." He shrugged, a small, self-conscious motion. "There was a snowstorm, and I couldn't sleep, so I sat by the fire and stitched."
"What did you patch it with?"
"Thread from an old sock. It worked."
She considered him, this quiet, surprising man who could swing a hatchet and braid hair and patch his own coat. "Alright," she said. "You can help."
Jason's smile was small, pleased. "I'd be honored."
Roy made a sound from the cloth on her palm. "Are we going to do this now? Or are we going to spend the morning planning a face-hammock?"
"Now," Rosa said, surprising herself with the certainty in her voice. She swung her legs off the bed, setting Roy on the desk beside the cooling coffee. The grey light spilled through the boarded window, illuminating the workspace. "I've got the idea; I should act on it."
---
After finding a piece of chalk —which had seen better days— Rosa got to work.
Her idea was fairly simple: she was going to put the fabric back over her eyes, low enough that the bottom edge was over the tip of her nose—with extra to accommodate seam allowance—then she would, essentially, mold the fabric over her nose so it fit snug around it.
She would mark the fabric so she had an outline of her nose, and then make temporary stitching along it. From that, she would mark another piece of fabric—one that was a little stretchy, but still thermally insulating: likely flannel—that was roughly the same shape but larger, and slightly wider at the top.
She would stitch the flannel edges along the outer edge of the temporary stitches on the main body, making a pocket that would allow Roy to lay down over her nose; straddling it.
With the rest of the mask, she would just have a simple seam to prevent the edges from fraying with use.
She smoothed the test square of fabric across the desk, the cotton soft and slightly worn from years of use before it had been repurposed. A smaller scrap, roughly the size of her palm, cut from the same bedsheet she'd torn the grey strip from. It was the right weight, the right give, and she didn't want to waste the good flannel on a first attempt.
Roy had stationed himself at the edge of the desk, cross-legged on a folded corner of the fabric, his cotton blanket draped over his shoulders like a cape. He watched her with the same intensity he'd once given to engine schematics and load-bearing calculations, his head tilted, his eyes tracking her hands.
"First step," Rosa said, mostly to herself. "I need to see where the nose sits."
She folded the square once, then again, creating a rough oval. It wouldn't be the final shape, just enough to work with. She pressed it against her face, centering it over her eyes, and held it there with one hand while her other hand searched the desk for the chalk.
The fabric blocked her vision, but she didn't need to see. She could feel the bridge of her nose against the cotton, the faint ridge of bone, the slight flare at the base. She pressed harder, molding the fabric to her face, and used her free hand to trace along the sides of her nose with her fingertips, feeling the shape through the cloth.
"Hold that," she said.
"Me?" Jason's voice came from somewhere to her left.
"You're closer to the chalk than I am. Just mark where my nose is. I'll tell you."
A pause, then the soft scrape of his hand finding the chalk. His fingers brushed the fabric near her temple, gentle, checking his grip. "Okay. Where?"
"The sides of my nose. The crease where it meets my cheeks. Just a light line."
His touch was careful, the chalk gliding along the fabric in slow, deliberate strokes. She felt the pressure of it through the cloth, feather-light, and then the cool drag of the chalk against the edges of her nose. Jason's concentration was palpable, his breath steady as he worked, his hand barely trembling.
"Got it," he said.
She pulled the fabric away, blinking in the grey light. The chalk marks were there, two faint lines curving along the shape of her nose, slightly lopsided on one side where Jason had readjusted his grip. It was a starting point.
Roy leaned forward, squinting at the marks. "That's not bad."
"It's a test piece. It just needs to be close."
She laid the fabric flat on the desk, smoothing the wrinkles with her palm. The marks were visible in the pale light, the outline of her nose like a map to somewhere small and specific. She picked up the chalk again, refining the lines, widening the curve at the bottom where the pocket would need to cradle Roy's body without pressing him against the bone.
"You'll be lying here," she murmured, tracing the shape. "Straddling the bridge. So the pocket needs to be a little wider than my nose, to give you room to get in and out."
"How much wider?" Roy asked.
She considered. She'd measured his body against her thumb more times than she could count, knew the length of him by heart. "About a thumb's width on each side. You need clearance to turn over."
Roy held up his own thumb, the gesture absurd at his scale, and grinned. "I'll trust your thumb."
She finished the outline with a series of small chalk marks, then set the piece aside. The next step was the flannel. She found it in her dresser, a swatch of deep red fabric taken from an old shirt she'd never worn much, soft from washing and dense enough to hold warmth without adding bulk. She laid it flat, using the test piece as a template, and traced the same shape with a small allowance for seams, the flannel slightly wider at the top.
"You're doing the seam allowance?" Jason asked, leaning in.
"Just a little. The pocket needs to be snug or he'll slide around."
"Snug is good," Roy said. "Snug is the whole point."
She worked in silence for a while, cutting the flannel with a pair of scissors she'd found in the hardware store months ago, the blades still sharp despite their age. The fabric parted cleanly, leaving a shape that mirrored the cotton test piece but larger, curved slightly at the edges. She laid the two pieces together, flannel on the outside, cotton on the inside; representing the cotton of the mask, and pinned them with a pair of safety pins she'd scavenged from a sewing kit.
The thread she had was thick, fishing line mostly, but there was a spool of regular cotton thread in the kitchen drawer that Joan kept for repairs. Rosa had snagged it earlier, a pale cream color that would be nearly invisible against the grey.
She threaded the needle with the wary patience of someone who hadn't done this in years, squinting against the grey light. Roy watched from his perch, his small hands folded, his expression full of an attention that felt almost reverent.
"You're doing it," he said.
"Almost. First the temporary stitch, so I can test the fit."
She worked the needle through the fabric, a loose running stitch along the bottom edge, joining the flannel and cotton into a single curved seam. The motion was halting at first, her fingers clumsy with disuse, but she found a rhythm within a few stitches. The fabric shifted under her hands, the shapes coming together, and with each stitch the project became more real.
Roy climbed down from the desk edge, using the fabric's fold as a handrail, and made his way to the corner where the pocket was taking shape. He pressed his hand against the flannel, feeling the thickness of it, the give of the cotton backing. "This is going to be comfortable," he said. "I can already tell."
"Don't get too excited. It's still a test piece."
"Test pieces deserve excitement too."
She finished the temporary seam, tied it off, and held the mask up to her face. The shape was rough, the lines lopsided in places, but when she pressed it over her eyes, the pocket settled against the bridge of her nose like it had been waiting for this exact shape. The flannel cradled the ridge of bone, soft and warm, and the cotton edges fell just short of her temples.
"It fits," she said, her voice muffled. "It actually fits."
Jason leaned in, tilting his head to see. "Can Roy get in?"
She pulled the mask off and held it flat on her palm, the pocket open and waiting. Roy approached it with the careful deliberation of a man testing a bridge, stepping onto the edge of the mask and walking into the pocket. He turned, settled himself against the flannel, and lay back with his arms folded behind his head.
"Like a hammock," he announced. "A face hammock. For a face."
"Try turning over."
He rolled onto his side, then his other side, the fabric accommodating his movements without shifting. He sat up, tested the depth of the pocket, then settled back down with a satisfied sigh.
"It's perfect," he said. "It's ridiculous, but it's perfect."
Rosa looked at him, small and content in the pocket she'd built, and felt the warmth spread through her chest. The project was silly, a strip of cloth and a scrap of flannel, but it held him. It held him close to her where the dark couldn't reach him, where the nightmares couldn't take him, where the water couldn't pull him under.
"Good," she said softly. "Then I'll make the real one."
She set the test piece aside and reached for the grey cotton, the one she'd draped over her face through the night. It was worn soft along the edges from hours against her skin, the weave relaxed and giving. This was the real material, the one that mattered.
The chalk marks from the test piece were still fresh in her mind, but she didn't copy them. She'd learned something from the crude version, from the way the pocket had shifted when she moved her head, from the places where the seam pressed too tight against her brow. The real one needed to be better.
She laid the cotton flat on the desk, smoothing it with her palm until the wrinkles fell away. The grey light through the boarded window caught the fabric, showing the faint shadow of her chalk lines from before, ghost marks that spoke to the shape she'd traced.
"Starting over?" Roy asked from his perch on the coffee mug's handle.
"Starting properly." She picked up the chalk, but didn't touch it to the fabric yet. "The test piece taught me what I don't want. Now I figure out what I do."
Roy settled in to watch, his cotton cape still draped over his shoulders, his eyes tracking her hands with the same intensity he'd once given to circuit diagrams and engine mounts.
She worked slowly, deliberately. The first thing was the nose itself, the shape of the bone beneath her skin. She'd known it her whole life, but she'd never studied it like this, never thought about the exact width of the bridge, the slope toward the tip, the way the bone flared slightly just before the cartilage began. She pressed two fingers to the bridge of her own nose, feeling the ridge beneath the skin, then transferred that measurement to the fabric with a series of precise chalk marks.
"It's like mapping terrain," Jason said quietly from the bed.
"Bodies are terrain," she agreed. "I spent years learning how the bones sit under the skin. Different organs, but the same principal applies."
The shape she traced this time was narrower than the test piece, more precise. The pocket would follow the exact line of her nose, bowing out only slightly at the edges to give Roy clearance. She added a second set of marks, a seam allowance that was tighter, more exact. The temporary stitches would need to hold precisely, no room for shifting.
"The extra layer of cotton," she murmured, almost to herself. "It'll cushion the flannel from my skin, keep the seam from pressing against the bone."
Roy leaned forward. "A liner?"
"Essentially." She found the sheet's edge and cut a thin strip, just wide enough to cover the pocket's interior, "It'll be between my skin and Roy. An extra barrier to keep him warm."
"Like a pocket within a pocket," Jason said.
"Like a pocket with a liner."
She worked the cotton strip into place, pinning it with small, careful stitches. The needle moved through the fabric in a rhythm now, no longer halting, the motion becoming familiar as her hand remembered the muscle memory of work done well. She couldn't remember the last time she'd stitched anything; probably before the outbreak, maybe even years before that, mending a torn hem in a dormitory bathroom. But her fingers remembered. They moved with a certainty that surprised her.
When the liner was set, she reached for the flannel. The deep red piece she'd selected earlier, soft from washing, dense enough to hold warmth. She laid it against the cotton, comparing shapes, and began to adjust the edges.
"The flannel needs to stretch between your inner corners," she said, touching the inside corners of her eyes, "following the line of the nose. But wider at the bottom, to cradle the full body, not just the top of him."
Roy crossed his arms. "I'm broad-shouldered, you know."
"You're three inches tall. You have the shoulder span of a matchstick."
"Broad-shouldered is a state of mind."
She smiled but didn't answer, her attention on the flannel. She traced the new shape onto it, wider at the top sweep between her eye corners, then flaring outward as it descended, following the contour of her nose but easing into a gentle floor where Roy would lie. She was creating a trough, a channel that would hold him in place no matter what position he chose.
"One leg down either side," she said, drawing the shape with her finger. "Or lying flat, face down. Or on your side, tucked against the cotton. It needs to work for all of them."
"Show me," Roy said.
She held the two pieces together, flannel over cotton, the shapes aligned. "I'll stitch temporary seams first. Then we test."
The needle moved again, the running stitch quick but sure, holding the flannel to the cotton along the curve of the shape. She didn't rush. Each stitch had to be tight enough to hold, loose enough to adjust if the fit was wrong. It was a balance, a negotiation between fabric and need.
Roy watched in silence, his small hands folded, his eyes steady. Jason shifted on the bed, lying on his side, propped on one elbow, the angles of his face catching the grey light. The room was quiet except for the hum of the hydroponic shelf and the soft sound of the needle as it passed through the fabric.
When the temporary stitches were done, Rosa lifted the mask and held it up to the light. The shape was clean, the curve of the pocket following the line of her tracing. The flannel stretched between the inner corners of her eyes, and the same flannel formed the trough that would cradle Roy.
"Alright," she said. "Test time."
She lay back on the bed, the scavenged foam mattresses shifting beneath her. The mask was in her hands, but she didn't put it on immediately. Instead, she looked at Roy.
"You ready?" she asked.
He was already moving, climbing off the mug handle and crossing the desk with that careful, deliberate walk of his. He reached the edge and looked down at her, the drop to the bed a small cliff from his perspective.
"Big step," he said.
Jason's hand appeared, palm up, an elevator. Roy stepped onto it without hesitation, and Jason carried him the few inches to Rosa's face.
She held the mask up. "Let me put it on first. Then we'll see how the pocket sits with you in it."
Roy stepped off Jason's palm onto the bed beside her head while she positioned the mask, easing the flannel trough up and over her eyes. The cotton liner pressed against the bridge of her nose, the flannel settled into the lines of her face. The fit was snug, close, the shape holding against her skin without shifting.
"How is it?" Jason asked.
"Good. Firm, but not tight." She settled deeper into the pillow. "The pocket seems to be sitting right where I wanted it. Roy? Ready?"
He stepped onto her face, using the edge of the mask as a foothold, climbing up until he reached the lip of the pocket. He paused there, looking down into the small space she'd built for him.
"It's like a canyon," he said.
"Test it."
He stepped in. The flannel gave beneath his weight, soft and warm, conforming to the shape of him. She felt him settle, the tiny weight of him pressing against the bridge of her nose through the mask.
"How is it?"
"Good," he said. "The walls are the right height. I can turn over without hitting them."
"Try each position."
He moved. She felt him shift, a small rearrangement of weight as he lay face down, one leg down either side of her nose. The flannel held him, the pocket deep enough to keep him from rolling.
"Face down works," he announced.
"Next."
He shifted again, rolling over, and now she felt him lying face up, the back of his head against the liner, his body stretched out along the ridge of her nose. The sensation was strange, the delicate pressure of him distributed across several points.
"Reclined," he said. "The angle works. I can see out, almost, if I look over the edge."
"Side?"
A third adjustment, moving off of her nose directly to lay along its side. She felt the pressure shift to one edge of the pocket. She could tell that his back was against the ridge, his, the flannel cradling him, keeping him from sliding.
"This one's the best," he said. "The sides are deep enough that I can lay against the side of your nose. And it feels roomy enough that I can sprawl out if I want."
Rosa let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "It works."
"It works." Roy settled deeper into the pocket, a small contented sound escaping him. "This is like a bed. A very weird, shaped bed on my sister's nose."
"A face hammock," Jason said.
"A nose nest."
"That's not a name."
"It is now."
"Still not a name," Rosa said, but she was smiling.
She lay there for a long moment, feeling the small weight of him against the bridge of her nose, the warmth of the fabric and a tiny body against her skin. The room hummed around them, the hydroponic shelf whispering its steady green song, the grey light through the boarded window painting the walls in soft charcoal tones. She could have stayed like this, suspended in the pocket she'd built, her brother cradled against her face.
But the temporary stitches were just that. Temporary.
"Alright," she said, and her voice was gentle, almost apologetic. "Time to get out."
She reached up with both hands, her fingers finding the edges of the mask. She lifted it away from her face slowly, careful not to jostle him, and the cool air of the room touched the skin where the mask had been. Roy shifted as the fabric moved, and she felt him grip the edge of the pocket, steadying himself.
"Easy," she said.
"I've got it."
She brought the mask down and tipped it slightly, letting gravity guide him toward the opening. Roy stepped out onto the back of her hand, his small feet finding purchase on her knuckles, and she brought him up to her shoulder. He settled there, cross-legged, his cotton cape still draped over his shoulders, and patted her collarbone twice.
"Safe harbor," he said.
"Good. Now let me finish this properly."
She sat up, the foam mattresses shifting beneath her as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Jason watched from his spot on the pillows, propped on one elbow, his hair loose and falling across his face. There was something soft in his expression, something that made the corner of her mouth twitch despite herself.
"Show off," he said.
"I'm not showing off. I'm hemming."
"Same thing, in your case."
She ignored him and carried the mask to the desk, sitting down in the chair that had become something of a command post. The grey light through the boarded window was brighter now, the day fully waking, and it caught the flannel and cotton in a way that made the seams visible, every imperfection of the temporary work laid bare.
She threaded the needle again, this time with a steadier hand. The first thing was the pocket itself. She unpicked the temporary stitches with careful precision, working the thread loose with her fingernail and pulling it free in one clean motion. The flannel and cotton separated, and she laid them out flat, studying the chalk marks, the curve of the shape.
"Starting over?" Roy asked from her shoulder.
Chapter excerpt truncated at the edge.