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Ilia wakes up to warm sheets, sunlight, and the smell of breakfast, and for a moment, she wonders if she's dead. She's lived in tents and trees and the back of vans for so long -- over half her life, she realizes -- that it feels strange to wake up comfortable and safe.
And then she remembers. Scouting out around Menagerie like she always did, curled in a tree in the middle of the afternoon, and then seeing familiar black ears and wondering why Kali would take her earrings off, before realizing. That wasn't Kali.
Before the weight of what she'd done in those long months can properly hit, though, a head pops in through the doorway.
"Pancakes?"
Ghira's frame barely fits in the door, and Ilia practically throws herself out of bed when she registers the brightness of the sun, and how late it must be.
"Yeah! I'll be right down, sorry!" She calls, shooting into the washroom to check what she's wearing and try to brush her teeth to look more presentable than she knows how she looks just after waking up.
Outside, Ghira chuckles, and she almost freezes up out of instinct before he rumbles out, "Take your time. The food's waiting for you, and it has endless patience."
He's still laughing, quietly, as he walks away, and Ilia lets herself drop onto the toilet seat. She's safe here. It's weird to really absorb that fact, and she repeats it for a bit. Safe. Free.
So much time has passed, she muses, since she's been allowed to feel like this. And now here she is, in just about the biggest house in Menagerie, with the two parents that she had loved almost as much as her own, free from the Fang and welcomed in to start again.
It's almost too much to process at once, so she doesn't. She makes sure her clothes are as presentable as she can make them, and heads downstairs.
She's 10 years old and just met the Belladonna's, and they're so similar to her parents that she almost cries. One morning, she's sleeping up in her tree outside Blake's room like she has ever since realizing how safe it feels there, and she blinks awake to a hand shaking her gently.
"Mama?" She mumbles, and a familiar, comforting voice responds.
"No, Ilia. Not your mama. Let's go inside and get you some breakfast, how about that?"
"Mm'kay," She whispers, but she's tired and the voice is soft and the hands on her shoulders are warm, so when Kali climbs up to lift her up, she curls into herself and nestles in.
"Mama."
A warm breath sighs next to her ear, and Kali holds her a little closer.
"Alright, kiddo. Mama."
It doesn't take long for Ilia to drift off back to sleep, but not before the scent of warmth and pancakes washes over her. It smells like what home could become.
The smell of pancakes draws her down faster and faster, and Ilia will deny it to the day she dies but by the time she gets to the bottom of the staircase she's leaping down the stairs from nearly 9 stairs up.
When she makes it into the kitchen, though, she slides in and sees Kali standing there. The second that she notices Ilia standing in the doorway, she walks over and wraps her up in a hug.
"How are you feeling, sweetie?" She asks, and Ilia damn near tears up again.
"I'm good," she tries not to croak out, and Kali pulls back to look at her closer.
"Are you sure?" Ilia smiles at her and nods, hoping she looks as reassuring as she's trying to.
"Better than I have been in a long couple of years, Mrs. Belladonna."
She studies Ilia's face for a moment, before a smile breaks out across her face and she strokes her cheek with a thumb. "Good. It's good to hear. Come on, now, it's time to reintroduce you to Ghira's pancakes."
As if on cue, Ilia's stomach growls, and Ghira sticks his head in much like he had earlier that morning. "Stop holding her back," he jokes. "Listen to that, let me get some pancakes in her. Ilia, you better not have forgotten what they taste like. If you did, though, I'm looking forward to watching you try them for the first time again."
She laughs, almost surprising herself with how easily it comes, and lets Kali pull her to the table. When a small stack of pancakes is put on her plate and the two sit down with their own, she digs in as slowly as she can make herself and nearly moans at the old, familiar taste.
"This is so good!" She breathes out, and Blake nods furiously, deep in her own plate of pancakes with crumbs on the sides of both their mouths, the pancake too good and the two of them too young for either of them to care.
"Dad makes the best pancakes," she proclaims, and Ilia really can't disagree. "I've been eating it all my life, and it never gets old."
Ilia sighs. "Mom didn't know how to make pancakes like your dad does," she says. "She always made it with the instant mix, and then she'd put bananas or something in it and tell me it was homemade. One time, she ran out of squishy fruits, and she tried to put tuna in it." She makes a face, sticking her tongue out at the memory. "Fish pancakes aren't very good."
Blake swings her legs in her seat in thought, before hopping out of her seat and heads towards where they both know Ghira is. Blake never got up before finishing her pancakes. Neither of them did. So Ilia stands up with her, follows her into the kitchen, and watches as she stops in front of her dad.
She tugs on his apron, and when he glances down, she looks over to Ilia with that familiar gleam in her eyes.
"Where's the fish?"
He made what the two of them had called the "best pancakes in the world," and they haven't gotten any worse. If anything, they're even better than she remembers, and Ilia's not ashamed of admitting that. Even when it comes at the cost of scarfing down pancakes in front of the Belladonna's (as if she hasn't done worse when she was younger).
When she's done, she goes around the table to bring their plates to the sink, and shakes her head furiously when they try to push her away.
"I'm trying to be polite!" She protests, and Ghira bumps her away.
"Look at this," he jokes to Kali. "If only that Sun kid had half the manners she does."
Kali laughs. "And you would have approved more if she'd brought Ilia home instead as well?"
"Of course!" He insists, "She already has, anyway," and Ilia's already bright pink at the implications.
Brought her home. Home, to meet her parents when they're both older, knocking at the big heavy door with Ilia at her side, meeting the Belladonna's again but this time as her-
She shakes the thought away on instinct. Blake's gone, she tells herself, automatic. She left you behind, with the rest of the Fang.
This time, though, she scolds herself. It was good that Blake had managed to escape. It was good that she hadn't been left in the Fang, alone and stuck behind Adam for any longer than the years that she had been.
It was Ilia's decision to stay, and it didn't matter because it worked out for the both of them.
She's broken out of her thoughts when Ghira pats her shoulder affectionately. "She's every parents' dream!" He claims.
She can't sleep that night. It's strange, because nearly a decade of sleeping in some of the most uncomfortable spots she can think of should probably have made it easier for her to drop dead asleep, but she turns to stare at her scroll and it's nearly 2 in the morning.
She remembers the nights, then, when she was younger, curled up in the branches thinking about her parents. When she'd sneak inside for that feeling, and without giving herself time for doubt, she slides out of bed and peers out into the hallway.
Ghira and Kali's door is open, and she pads towards it as quietly as she can. When she gets inside, it's silent, and she instinctively melts into the darkness before remembering. Safe. It's safe here.
Still running just a few steps in front of hesitation, she leans over and shakes Ghira's shoulder. He blinks at her sleepily, and then to her horror, leans over to shake Kali awake.
"Our kid's here again," he mumbles, and Kali rolls back without a word as he lifts Ilia up like a puppy into the space between them.
She falls asleep there, warm and content, and wakes up the next day, refreshed and ready to let herself be happy.