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Here’s the thing about Tally Craven: she’s a giver.
Pretty much in all senses of the word except for sex, actually. She’ll never deny the pillow princess allegations. Especially when Sarah does…that thing with her tongue Abigail told her to never mention again, under pain of a Liver Torsion Seed (banned by the Hague in 1922, after the Great Northern War).
Not that she doesn’t enjoy making Sarah feel loved and adored in bed; Goddess, that’s pretty much her favorite thing ever, now. She wants Sarah to feel loved and adored all the time, even when she leaves the house without leaving a note on the fridge to fret in some faraway dive bar about her past mistakes or punish herself for not feeding the cat on time last night—or whatever horrible idea her brain latches onto like a louse—and Tally has to call every dive in Massachusetts and Maine and one time in Vienna, Poland, to figure out where the hell her girlfriend is.
She especially wants Sarah to feel loved and adored, then. Obviously. Even if she wants to throttle her, too, for all the worry and fear that won’t fade away until she’s tenderly holding Sarah’s face and calling her a complete bonehead for doing that.
So: yes. A giver. Tally is always giving things to her friends and family, whether that’s a trinket, a piece of advice, or a piece of her mind. She likes to know her people have what they need, and sometimes that includes shouting.
She prefers giving fun, silly things to make people smile, though. Especially when they’re sad or frustrated or…the complex combination of the two she read in Sarah’s voice when they last spoke on the phone. However…it’s kinda hard to buy anything fun or silly for Sarah. On account of “fun” and “silly” being two of her allergies.
“But it’s cute, isn’t it?”
“You’re scrying me from a civvy airport in Prague to ask me, a wanted terrorist, this.”
Tally rolls her eyes. “Yeah, in one state now.”
“In New fucking York! What if I wanted to see Hamilton, huh? They’re letting an actual witch play Sarah now, instead of fucking what’s her name—Irina Gazelle, or whatever.”
“Kinda gay that you care who plays your ex, Batan!” calls Scylla from over Tally’s shoulder.
(Then again…sometime after the Mother restored Alder’s mortal form, Tally cajoled her into seeing a regular human doctor for a checkup. After she suggested the outing might be fun, Alder listed “fun” as an allergy on the intake forms. Tally had laughed so hard she forgot to be annoyed and coughed up a boba pearl through her nose.)
“Go fingerbang your mushroom, Ramshorn, I’m talking to Red about this one.”
She points in the general direction of a large stuffed mushroom, currently tucked onto Tally’s hip like a toddler. Scylla rolls her eyes and sashays away to the other end of the bookstore, where Raelle is still hunched over a motorcycle magazine.
Tally tucks further into a corner for more privacy, pulling the compact mirror close to her face. “So? Do you think it’s stupid?”
“Like objectively, yes. I want to squeeze that thing until all its cute stuffing comes out.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s called ‘cute aggression’.”
“Must be why I wanted to squeeze you at first sight, Red.” Nicte waggles a brow.
“Nicte.” Tally gives her a stern, wide-eyed expression that worked wonders during their time on the run if they needed Nicte to stop considering indiscriminate murder a viable option. Or buy Tally a gas station hot chocolate.
It works now, too. She drops the flirty face and looks at the stuffed animal closely, like she’s examining a pipe bomb full of deadly Work. “Okay. Look. I just can’t picture Sarah and this thing sharing the same physical space.”
Tally sighs. “Neither can I.”
“Why are you even fretting? She’d love a rock if you personally gifted it. Hell, she might love a rock even more. She’s always been secretly hippy-dippy about nature shit.”
“I’m not fretting. I just…ugh. I don’t know.” Tally thinks about Sarah’s dark eyes in the cool morning she deployed, the way she clung to Tally’s back for that extra second with trembling hands, the prayer in Mothertongue she dropped into her ear, sealed with a firm kiss. The guilt has stayed hardwired into her bones ever since, even though General Alder knows more than most the dangers of any deployment.
That’s likely the problem.
“Tally.”
“Hmm?”
“I know Sarah’s tits are fantastic, but get your brain back on the subject.”
Tally’s face reddens, as she is now thinking about Sarah’s tits. And how fantastic they are. “Okay, I am not that obvious.” She thinks about Sarah Alder’s tits in that corset last Beltane, and how everyone (Nicte and Raelle) teased her when a chocolate-covered strawberry fell from her mouth. “Anymore,” she concedes.
“Uh huh.” Nicte leans against the wall, wherever in the classified information she currently is. “What’s going on, Red? I always get nervous when you can’t explain something. The last time that happened, people literally died.”
Tally squeezes the mushroom against her side—an involuntary action. “Nothing’s…on.”
She looks at Abigail sitting across from the book stand at their gate, where she’s still scrying Adil and their three-year-old. Her teary-eyed, joyful expression suddenly punches into Tally’s gut and leaves something grasping and yearning there. Her next words exit her lips without any forethought. “It’s just…Raelle and Scylla stay together whenever they come on missions and Adil loves being a stay-at-home dad and—“ She sucks in a breath. “I don’t know. None of these words make sense together.”
Nicte takes a patient breath. Which is a lot, coming from her; Tally feels tears blur her eyes. “Yeah, you’re saying a lot of fucking nothing.”
Those tears dissolve into a very heavy, wet laugh.
“You really suck at this.”
“I may be ‘incapable of understanding basic human emotions and interactions,’ according to your girlfriend—which is rich by the way—but it sounds like you’re homesick.” Nicte shrugs and takes out a cigar. “Homesickness makes your head real funny sometimes.”
Tally sort of wants to ask about the faraway look in Nicte’s eyes, but also doesn’t want to endure more teasing. Or a subject change. She needs to—talk about this. Whatever this is. Three cadets in her platoon duck into her corner to compare snack options, so Tally twists away down the cultural tchotchke aisle. “I just don’t like leaving her. And she hates being left behind. You know?”
“Well. General Alder’s gotta have some righteous FOMO.” She coughs—not in time for Tally to miss the smirk curling on her lips. “Now that you technically outrank her, Sergeant Craven.”
Tally rolls her eyes. She could defend Sarah’s honor or something, but decides to just let it go. Nicte’s full of shit anyway; she got Alder a new mahjong set for her birthday.
“I don’t actually outrank—Whatever!” She pulls the mushroom up to her face and stares at its button eyes, the little placid smile. Tally only went into this book stand for a Witch Weekly, but then Scylla pointed it out to Raelle and said “Haha, this is you!” to which Raelle said “No way, my smile is much cuter,” sending them both into a fit of lovesick giggles. Afterwards, Scylla pressed the thing into Tally’s hands and suggested she buy it for Sarah, and suddenly Tally couldn’t pretend the mushroom didn’t make her think of Sarah immediately.
Not that she didn’t want to think of Sarah immediately.
“I ducked her call yesterday,” Tally murmurs miserably. “I think. After we talked about me coming home a few days late to do some sight-seeing.”
“Ugh. What did Sarah do now?”
“Nothing!” The three cadets look at Tally with wide eyes. Tally walks toward the cold drinks case. “I just—I feel like crying after every call because she sounds so miserable and I can’t make it better.” Tally takes a deep breath. “Because I can make it better, but only when I’m there. The others know about her whole deal, but they can’t…they don’t—“
“Have a three hundred year old asshole for a partner who still doesn’t know what a deductible is?”
Tally sniffles. “I don’t know what a deductible is.”
“Well, who does?”
“I should! It’s outlined in my health benefits packet really fucking clearly!”
And suddenly, Tally is sobbing, hard. She has to do a breathing exercise to average back down to just regular crying again. Standing by the cold drinks case, where M is deciding between Starbucks Frappuccino flavors. She ducks their questions with a watery smile and even laughs when they poke one of her dimples, then make a punching motion towards the mirror. (She’d pay to see that fight, actually.)
Nicte shifts onto her other shoulder, rolling out her neck. “Okay, Red. First of all: do you have the Calm app downloaded on your civvy phone?”
Tally is so perplexed by this question that she immediately stops crying. “What?”
“There we go! You did step two.” She grins widely for a moment, then turns abruptly serious again in the eyebrows. “Step three incoming. Get that horrid thing for your girlfriend. You miss her and it’s…sweet.”
Tally knows her eyes are bugging out because Nicte then follows up with: “If you tell anyone I said that, you’re toast. Tomato toast with beans, innit.”
Oh. Tally misses Sarah.
Well, of course! Of course, but—
“It can’t be that simple,” she insists, wiping snot from her face. “We just have a lot to talk about, clearly. This is so codependent. And why would I leave her on read if I miss her?”
“You’re a soldier.” Nicte bites on the edge of her cigar. “Can’t be a good soldier if you’re crying about your girl on the field.”
Tally lifts her chin. “Sarah makes me a better soldier.”
“Sure, sure.” Nicte points, waggling the cigar. “By the Mother’s umami-flavored ass, if I could show baby Red this picture now. Her cute little face would explode! Tomato-tomahto.”
“What?”
“Get the fucking mushroom, Tally. Then talk like grown-ups and—hang on.” She looks beside the frame and blinks. There are footsteps, followed by a frantic voice swearing in Dutch. “Ah fuck, that’s my ride.”
Nicte turns back to Tally with another grin and rubs the cigar butt on the brick wall behind her. “Well! Toodles. Don't die.” She shrugs. “Or do! None of my damn business anyway.”
She hangs up.
Tally finds that she’s smiling now, even though the crying urge hasn’t entirely faded. This urge only increases when her civvy phone vibrates ten minutes later and it’s Sarah, typing and re-typing the same sentence four times. It reads:
Have a safe flight home.. -S :)
Sarah misses her.
She misses Sarah.
Maybe it would be that simple. If she still had her Sight, she could know it was simple, but she doesn’t, so that’s that. She can have hard conversations with Sarah. Duh! That’s the foundation of their entire relationship, before they got together. Maybe—
“Wait. You’re getting that for Alder? I have so many questions.” Abigail reaches out and tweaks one of the button eyes. Her expression melts a little. “Oh, Alistair would love this. He’s going through a huge stuffy phase. Where did you find it?”
Tally points vaguely to the right aisle with a thumb. “Do you really think it’s a bad gift?”
Abigail shrugs. “No real opinion, as long as it’s not another Scandinavian thriller series. Remember when Alder didn’t FarSpeech my mom for an entire summer, and we thought she literally died?”
Tally decides not to mention she got Sarah the next book in that series in Prague, since it was already translated into Czech. Because Tally is an amazing girlfriend.
Scylla turns her head from Raelle’s back, which she’s glommed onto like a Koala bear. “It’s also not another sex toy. Be grateful, Abigail.”
Abi grimaces. “Did you have to remind me again?”
“That was one time!” Tally sputters. “It was on sale for 20% less than the online retailers!”
“To be honest, I thought Sarah would have the savings to splurge on one of those fancy double-ended vibrators,” Raelle says with a wink.
“It was a gift!”
Abigail sticks her fingers in her ears. “Nope. No! La la la la la—someone take me to the mushroom now—La la la la—Goodbye and good riddance!”
Cackling, Scylla grabs her hand and pulls her towards the stuffed animals, still professing her desire to never hear the others speak words ever again. Tally can’t help but giggle, even when the damn mushroom totals over $40.
“Damn,” Raelle whistles.
“She’s worth it,” Tally says determinedly as she hands over her debit card. She lets out a deep exhale, and a whole lot more spills out, too.
When Tally finally gets home from Prague, she finds Sarah in her garden.
It was the first project Sarah took on, after retiring from the military and accepting her long overdue pension. She tried to stay for a month, after the Mother unceremoniously pushed her out of the mycelium with the final and mercurial task to Live, and live well, Daughter.
Several draining meetings as a consulting agent later, however, it was clear the Mother did not mean Return to the military, posthaste. Tally could have told Alder that, but they didn’t talk a lot that first year. She still doesn’t know whose fault it was. She wanted to talk to Sarah more than anything in the world that whole year. Gregorio broke up with her because she kept mentioning Sarah during every single pillow talk.
I just hope Alder is adjusting to everything okay. Anacostia is really busy and she just doesn’t have anyone else, you know?
I want to call her, but it’s not like we talked casually. What would I even say?
Do you think she’d like a housewarming gift? New dish towels? A throw blanket?
When Tally showed up on Raelle and Scylla’s doorstep in the Cession crying over her break-up with Gregorio—and not actually over her break-up with Gregorio—her sisters just sighed, got her drunk, and took her out to a lesbian bar-slash-tattoo parlor in town called Tit for Tat.
Tally learned a lot about herself there.
(She also did not get a tattoo of an alder tree on her thigh, thanks to Raelle’s swift and brutal intervention. Scylla was the one who picked the tattoo out in the first place.)
Anyway: the garden. Alder missed the Mother desperately at first, even though she technically chose to stay. The Mother was less than forthcoming about what staying would entail, and losing the mycelium network in one fell swoop left Alder suddenly alone with her own mind for the first time in more than three centuries. “Adjusting to everything okay” was a giant process. And an understatement. No one really talks about those first months, but Tally still sees the vestiges when Sarah’s hands shake and her breath stutters in her chest.
The biddies really held a lot.
Petra suggested she see a therapist. Anacostia suggested she see a therapist. Izadora wanted to run many dubious experiments, but also suggested she see a therapist. Alder simply requested gardening tools and some privacy in the near future instead.
It would be months before Sarah told Tally about the first gardens in Fort Salem. How her coven sang their Work into the soil—not only mark it as a witch’s place, but their home. It would be years before Sarah mentioned the lavender garden she once shared with her sister. It would be even longer before Sarah grew any lavender at all.
Vegetables were first—neat rows of oblong gourds nestled beside beets and carrots and cauliflower. Then fruits: blueberries, strawberries, and so, so many grapes. (One summer Sarah wanted to try these Portuguese wine-making techniques she learned a century ago, and Tally spent months with purple stains on her heels).
Then came flowers. By the time Tally hauled ass from the Cession to a tiny cabin in Salem, Alder was planting lilacs in two neat rows underneath a yellow Spring sun. Tally saw her Work first, weaving blue and gold through leaves and root systems. Alder wore a wide-brimmed hat with a strap tucked tight underneath her chin; when she looked up from the flower beds, she flicked sweat off her forehead and left behind a fingerprint of soil.
So obviously Tally fell in love with her all over again.
It was sort of impossible not to. Especially when, upon seeing Tally trespass on her property, Alder just handed her a spade, pointed at an empty patch of soil, and Sang the seed for Tally to match pitch. They worked for hours side-by-side, only talking about the properties of plants.
Afterwards, they talked about other things.
That memory feels particularly vivid now as Tally drops her duffel in the kitchen and looks through the screen door to the back porch. A similar cool breeze prickled along her scalp while she sat on Alder’s back porch steps and cried stupidly into her hands. The sunset cast the same pink shadows on the vegetable beds when the screen door had banged shut and Alder appeared beside Tally on the steps, holding a large blanket. She had draped it around Tally’s shoulders, carefully adjusting the edges until her neck was completely covered. As she asked Tally, not unkindly at all, what she wanted.
“Hey,” calls Tally now through the screen door. It’s still prone to sticking; she has to kick the frame twice with her combat boots before it’ll budge. “Shit. We really need to fix that thing before Alistair stays over next weekend.”
“Hmm?”
Tally spends another thirty seconds struggling to latch the door behind her before she can finally step onto the rickety porch. She takes in Sarah’s sprawling garden, all vegetable plots and flower beds covered with tarps for the evening. It’s always bigger than she remembers.
Sarah herself is sitting on the porch swing they installed three years ago, nose buried in a book. It’s very old and definitely written in Mothertongue. Or Latin. For a moment, Tally just watches every inch of her. Her broad shoulders, her strong jaw, how the waning light turns her eyes purple. The way she’s definitely wearing Tally’s old pink slippers right now.
Photos will simply never compare.
She also fully appreciates Sarah’s relaxed posture—it had been a good day, most likely. Her jaw clenches and unclenches in thought, though, meaning she’s deeply in some kind of zone. “Alistair’s staying with us while Abigail and Adil go to the Witch’s Summit in Australia,” she says softly. “Remember?”
“Hmm,” repeats Sarah.
Well. There are multiple ways to skin a cat. Or a way less horrible mental image, actually. No skinning cats here. She lowers her voice to a comical decibel and juts out a hip. “Hey honey, I’m home! What’s for dinner tonight?”
“Pizza,” Sarah murmurs. She turns a page with one careful finger, frowning. “Olives, please. No pineapple, no matter what Craven says.”
Her hair is loose around her shoulders, frizzy at the ends from a long day in the sun. Tally hopes she wore sunscreen. She covers a fond laugh with a cough. “Coming right up, General.”
Sarah nods stiffly, spine briefly straightening in response to her rank, and that does make Tally break up into giggles. The sound startles Sarah from her focus. Her wide eyes find Tally’s across the porch and everything about her gets softer. A little gooey at the edges. “You’re home,” she says, voice thick. She closes her book. “Anacostia said you’d be back later tonight.”
“Hi,” Tally says. For a moment she can’t exactly speak, because Sarah is now watching her like she’s precious. “Oh, yeah. Abigail’s hosting a dinner thing, but I bailed.” Tally waggles her brows. “She sent me home with some cannolis, though.”
Sarah tries to pretend she isn’t very excited about the cannolis. “Should I be concerned that you skipped the…dinner thing? I know you cherish more time with your sisters.”
Tally squeezes behind the porch swing and drapes her arms around Sarah’s shoulders, tucking her chin next to Sarah’s long neck. When Tally hears a relieved sigh, she presses a long kiss to her chin. “Believe me, enough time has been cherished to last a lifetime.”
A laugh rumbles next to Tally’s ear, settling low in her stomach. “I give it a week before a Bellweather or a Collar shows up unannounced at my home.”
“You gave Khalida a key.”
“Khalida always knocks before entering.” Sarah reaches up to hold Tally’s forearm, stroking it with a thumb. They watch the sun start to disappear in silence for a moment, Tally humming her portion of the First Song softly underneath her breath until she’s a little drowsy. It never feels right to sing it away from Salem.
She doesn’t want to ask about Sarah’s panic disorder symptoms yet. Or fall asleep. So she asks about the garden.
“How are the rhododendrons?”
“Fine.”
“And the carrots? I know they were kinda stubby when I left. Did you try out that method I found on r/witchesatwork?”
“Yes.” Sarah clears her throat. “Acawiccia67 was correct about the Subatomic D scale. Even though she never uses real words.”
“Okay, boomer.”
Sarah snorts. “I remember the baby boom, you know. A tremendous time of growth for witching communities everywhere.”
Tally runs her lips along Sarah’s neck, up to the shell of her ear. She hears a shuddering breath. “Yep. I bet it was a tremendous time.”
“Wicked girl,” she admonishes without admonishing, leaning back for a moment to give Tally better access, another hand coming up to run through Tally’s short red hair—wow, she misses her long hair right now, specifically—before very suddenly sitting upright again. “Hold on.”
“Hmm?”
“You…wanted to talk about something when you got home.” She indicates with her head to Tally’s civvy phone, now clipped to her belt. “Something important but not too serious?”
Regardless of how blissed out Tally is right now, she still freezes at her own words in Sarah’s mouth. Remembers her painstakingly crafted text message in the transport vehicle, then her epic freakout in that airport book stand. It feels like someone just ran into the garden and announced that every plant was actually a weed and also on fire.
Except—Sarah popping the horny bubble, instead of dropping the subject. Sarah Alder, famous for heroic victories, war atrocities, and ducking important conversations with Tally Craven.
Goddess.
“Oh, yes. I did.” She swallows. “Thank you for remembering.”
She stands up just as Sarah turns around in her chair, meaning she has to look up to meet Tally’s eyes. Her shoulders tense up and curve inward, badly guarding a sudden melancholy. She nods and waits quietly for Tally to start.
But Tally hates starting like this, actually. They’ve done some kinky power differential stuff in the bedroom, but that’s for fun, and watching Sarah at anyone’s mercy, even hers (outside of sex) with her big, sad eyes is just not fun. It makes her want to beat someone up on instinct, and right now that someone is her.
Hang on. She forgot.
“Wait, just a—just a second. Don’t move.”
Sarah salutes wryly. Tally cringes hard.
“Obviously, you can move. You don’t need me to say—never mind! Be right back.”
One of these days, she should just turn herself into a bucket of mulch.
Once again arguing with the screen door, Tally misses when Sarah says her name. She doesn’t miss her hesitant smile and concerned eyes, though, still so very alien on General Alder’s face, yet more familiar to Tally than any propaganda video she watched on loop as a teenager. She also doesn’t miss Sarah saying, “I think you’ll find that information is outdated, Sergeant.”
Tally salutes again, stupidly, and runs for a very important something in her duffel bag.
“Ta-da!”
Sarah looks at the mushroom, holding it with both hands like an infant with a blown-out diaper. The mushroom looks at Sarah with its button eyes. Bewildered doesn’t quite cover the expression on her face. “This…is what you wanted to talk about?”
Tally cringes. “Her name is Cordelia, according to the tag. You know, like, cordyceps?”
“It looks nothing like cordyceps.” She frowns. “More similar to chlorophyllum molybdites.”
“Right. Duh! Silly me, Professor Alder.”
She receives a very fond eye roll.
Goddess. Sarah is the hottest nerd ever and usually she’d be telling her that right now. But she asked to talk and Sarah wants to fucking talk, and now they’re talking. Even though Tally’s anxiety attack makes less and less sense the longer she watches Sarah inspect the mushroom stuffy like it’s a real specimen.
But when she closes her eyes, she can still see Sarah clutching her tightly before deployment. She can still see the disappointment in Sarah’s eyes when she decided to stay in Prague a few extra days with her sisters. That's real. “I’m sorry for kicking you off the phone,” she blurts.
Sarah furrows her brow. “When did you kick me off the phone?”
“Back in Prague.”
“Oh. It’s alright. I assumed you were busy sightseeing.”
“Yeah, but…“ Tally looks at the mushroom for strength. She takes a deep breath. “…I wasn’t busy. That’s what I mean.”
It takes a moment for the words to register on Sarah’s face, but when they do, Tally feels like she broke a Geneva Convention right then and there. (Which is hysterical, because Sarah has broken at least three and Tally literally got her fired for one of them.) Panicking, she reaches out for Sarah’s hands still holding the mushroom, then panics again when Sarah jerks away from her touch.
“It was immature of me,” Tally barrels ahead. “And super hypocritical, actually. How many times have I criticized you for—“
“Tally,” Sarah murmurs. She sticks the mushroom on the coffee table and looks at her a bit coolly. She places a hand behind Tally’s neck, resting her fingertips on her jawline. “Tell me what happened.”
When General Alder makes an appearance to her loved ones, it’s usually when they need someone to make a decision—whether that’s settling an argument over restaurant options or helping Tally decide whether she should reach out to Penelope, several years ago. In those moments, it’s comforting to see Alder rekindle that cool mask of confidence. Or unleash her storm and fury, more lethal than any other battlefield weapon.
Today, however, her appearance just makes Tally feel sad. And a little nauseous. “Nothing happened. I was just…overwhelmed and needed a second and handled it really weirdly.”
She looks at the mushroom smiling at them from the coffee table. Sarah also looks at the mushroom again.
“I see,” she says, removing her hand from Tally’s neck. Her face is entirely passive now, back straight in her seat. She might as well be wearing the uniform again. “I’m afraid I don’t understand how I can help.”
Tally fights an urge to squirm. She wants—she wants to plant more tomatoes with Sarah in the garden. They were planting tomatoes before she left, on that gorgeous, gorgeous day. She wants to be a good soldier. She wants to come home alive from every mission and know they’re okay, they’re going to be—
Okay, honesty. The best policy. She knows this.
Okay.
“I worry about you.” She takes a deep breath and faces Sarah, still looking at the damn mushroom. “If I don’t know you’re alright, I can’t—focus? I can barely breathe, honestly. It’s not the biddy bond—but it’s not not the biddy bond, exactly. It’s…I was hiding what happened from you and I…don’t like hiding things from you.”
For a moment, Sarah sags on the sofa, staring at nothing. Then General Alder nods like Tally is still a cadet, awaiting orders. (Ugh). She clears her throat before speaking in even, low tones. “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll ask Izadora to make you another antidote tomorrow. You shouldn’t be burdened with my—“
“—Burdened?” Tally stammers. Oh no no no. This is going so completely incorrectly and she is going to kill Nicte, then Scylla, then Nicte again. “Sarah, that’s not what I’m saying at all!”
General Alder stares at her. Then she dissolves like baking soda on a gas flame, leaving only Sarah in Tally’s old pink slippers again. She offers Tally a sad, confused smile, hands falling awkwardly in her lap. “I’ll give you anything you want, Tally. Just tell me what that is and I will make it happen.”
Tally laughs a little desperately, because wow. All that power Sarah Alder just placed in Tally’s lap, entrusted to her, even after she just said all the wrong things in a row. It’s literally too much. Tally wants to marry her so badly. She needs to become one with the mulch. “You know, I usually do know what I want. Maybe that’s why I’m…freaking out a little.”
She suddenly feels so embarrassed there’s nothing left to do but grab Cordelia and bury her face in the stuffie’s microfiber green fabric.
There’s a pause. She feels Sarah move closer to her on the couch.
“No one knows everything. Not even you, Tally Craven,” Sarah says, in the same voice she uses when she says I love you. She runs a very light hand through Tally’s hair. She strokes her face. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
“Don’t apologize for that.”
“Hmm, I think Miss Cordelia here stole your words. Say it again, please.” Amusement colors Sarah’s tone. It cools Tally’s fried brain like a bath of aloe vera.
Tally looks at her again. Finds Sarah still there, not the General. Her Sarah. Wow, insane. “I want to worry about you. I never thought—I lost you twice, you know? Worrying about how you’re feeling is literally a gift to me. Please understand that.”
Sarah laughs freely, a low, rich sound that always makes Tally squirm for other reasons. She holds Tally’s face tenderly, leans forward close enough that Tally can see the shiny tears gathered in her eyes. “Oh Tally. I’ve known many people over the years, and none have quite been anything like you.”
“I feel like that could be an insult in another context,” Tally murmurs.
Sarah kisses her forehead, then her nose. She hovers near her lips, then leans back, humming impishly when Tally chases her mouth. As Tally tugs her closer by the waist, Sarah’s humming settles low in her throat. They kiss like this for several minutes, hurried and languid all at once. Tally’s brain turns into slush, incapable of processing anything but Sarah’s tangled hair and warm hands and warmer, soft lips, and wow, wait, her tits. Her tits are right there now.
Being home is amazing. Sarah’s tits are amazing.
“Are they, now?” Sarah says, just as Tally toys with the bottom of her thick plaid shirt.
Oh no. She said that out loud.
Oh well.
“I may not have meant to say that,” she murmurs, fingertips grazing Sarah’s bare stomach and straying farther up. Goosebumps rise everywhere she touches. “But I will not apologize for speaking the truth.”
“Yes, you rarely do.”
“Hey. You love it.”
Sarah laughs until Tally’s teeth run up the side of her neck. Her breath hitches, laughter breaking into smaller, very indecent sounds. Especially when Tally takes a moment to suck on one specific spot, all the while sliding up Sarah’s back to unclasp her sports bra. She digs her nails into Tally’s shoulders, grasping her shirt for dear life.
“Tally, wait—“ she murmurs. She pushes on her collarbone gently and touches Tally’s chin. “Are we done talking?”
“Yep!” Tally finishes unclasping the sports bra with a grin. She leans forward to whisper in Sarah’s ear. “Please forget about Prague and the stupid mushroom. I’m ready to watch a movie and kiss for a really long time.”
“You mean fuck,” Sarah says, so matter-of-fact that Tally can only gape at her. Sarah is a sixteenth-century gentleman at heart, so when she actually gets crass, it’s uh. New mission parameters in Tally’s pants. As it were. Sarah watches her face flush with an obnoxious amount of amusement, all tiny smiles.
Tally surges forward into an open-mouthed kiss, wrapping her arms around Sarah’s neck and straddling her thigh; Sarah grabs her ass to pull her even closer, breathing heavily. “Redact my last statement, General.”
“Bed,” Sarah murmurs against her lips. “Now.”
“I’m carrying you this time.”
“You’re dead on your feet, Tally.”
“If you used the paraffin machine on your hands today, I won’t mention the age thing again.”
Sarah slides a hand down Tally’s fatigues to cup her firmly over her military-issue briefs. After that, Tally doesn’t think of anything much at all.
A few hours later, Sarah brings up the mushroom again while Tally is still dozing. Not sleeping—she meant what she said about the next round. But she’s naked and warm and lying on her stomach, halfway to dreaming with Sarah’s fingers tracing patterns on her back.
In fact, she thinks Sarah’s voice is part of the dream. The storm rumbling in the distance, guiding Tally’s platoon back home. She doesn’t question why the other soldiers are Nicte’s bats, each holding a tiny scourge in its talons until—
“Tally.”
“Hmm?”
“If you’re asleep, it can wait.”
“What can wait?”
Tally opens her eyes, expecting to see only blue skies in Sarah’s own. Instead, she finds Sarah’s shoulder; she’d rolled onto her back sometime in the last…however many minutes. Tally props herself on her elbow to look at her. “Sarah?”
“Go back to sleep,” Sarah murmurs. Her brows are furrowed in concentration. It’s not alarming as Sarah’s limbs are still loosey-goosey, but Tally is now definitely compelled enough to stop dozing. She rolls onto her side, sheet tucked under her arms, and kisses Sarah’s shoulder.
“What’s up, pretty lady?”
Sarah continues her staring contest with the ceiling. “Cordelia.”
Tally frowns. Her mind tries to forcibly clear. This is very difficult while looking at the hickeys rapidly forming on Sarah’s neck and collarbones. “The…mushroom?”
Without responding, Sarah slips out of bed and walks out the door into the living room. Being human, Tally is too briefly transfixed by her bare ass and back to be concerned until Sarah returns, Cordelia the Mushroom in her arms.
Then she’s just kind of confused.
“You know, I don’t think she quite matches the vibe in here.” Embarrassment creeps up her neck again. “You can, uh, regift it to the fosterlings for Yule or something. Don’t worry about it.”
Sarah gives Tally a curious look as she reclines on the bed, placing Cordelia between them. “I’ve gathered she was purchased as an apology…of sorts. Not that I believe an apology is necessary at all.”
Tally sighs. “I guess she was. Blame Nicte.”
“I am happy to blame Nicte,” Sarah says, happily. Tally doesn’t want another dozen trees on fire this Yule, so doesn’t elaborate. Luckily, Sarah just continues with, “In any case, I had an idea.”
Sarah has many ideas these days. Brilliant ideas, like the new wing for the fosterlings or a dedicated War College curriculum about the mycelium. Or more interesting ideas, like climbing up a stepladder without a spotter to hang the painting she gifted to the aforementioned new fosterlings wing, resulting in a very broken leg. Fixers couldn’t reset the bones, so she was sent to a civvy hospital for emergency surgery and Tally had never been more angry with Sarah in her life, actually, and yes, that absolutely includes Liberia.
Basically. Sarah’s ideas are unpredictable.
Still, she smiles her best supportive smile and asks, “What’s your idea?”
Tally doesn’t receive a response for a few seconds. Sarah watches her again, reaching forward to touch her cheek. “Can I…ask you a question about Prague?”
Oh. Switching gears, for real. Okay! She can totally do this.
She nods slowly. “Of course.”
Sarah pauses her ministrations. “Why were you worried about me?”
Goddess. Tally doesn’t want to think about Prague anymore. She’s not upset anymore—or like, she’s naked in bed with Sarah and whatever she was upset about just seems trivial because Sarah is so vibrantly here, right now. Her chest is still flushed and the moonlight outside catches the shine of her witchmark on her hip. She’s not panicking, Tally’s not panicking, and…they do need to talk about this. She knows.
“When I let you know I was staying in Prague with the others. You looked…so sad. And I knew you’d be lonely this week, what with everyone deployed right now.”
Sarah looks at her wryly. “Am I so easy to read?”
“Yes.” Tally flashes a weak grin; Sarah rolls her eyes, but her cheeks flush red again. “You’re not selfish—anymore. Not like that, ever, and not with me, anyway. Sometimes I wish you were more selfish with me, honestly.”
Sarah squeezes her hand. She doesn’t speak for a few seconds. “Your happiness is very, very important to me, Tally. I don’t want…”
She closes her mouth, opens it again. Huffs out a frustrated breath, shakes her head at Tally with a self-deprecating smile.
“I know.” Tally squeezes back. She sits up to recline next to Sarah, fingers landing on her collarbones. “I just hate when you’re sad, Sarah. Like so much, and I can’t See how to help, you know?”
There’s a pause.
“You’re still missing your Sight, then.”
“Sometimes.” Tally chews on the inside of her cheek. Ugh. She really, really thought she was over this. Basically over this, anyway. She should have known better.
She throws up her hands. “I don’t regret making that choice, but I wish I could…Know stuff again. Tell you that I’m coming home safe and sound and we're going to fuck on the couch while a Sandra Bullock rom-com plays in the background.”
Sarah looks at her for a long moment, something harrowing in her expression. This eventually gives way to affection, complicated enough that her brows stay furrowed and her jaw stays tense. She presses their foreheads together. Like she could reform a telepathic bond just to send Tally the exact emotions she’s feeling, without saying a word.
Tally thinks she gets it anyway. “I just love you a lot. I’ll never apologize for doing that.”
“I know.” Sarah kisses her. She takes a deep breath and scoots back, still holding Tally’s face, thumb pressing gently into a dimple. She picks up Cordelia with the other, squishing the mushroom’s head against her chest. She thinks for a moment just like that, holding both of them.
When she next speaks, her voice turns tentative.
“Anacostia had this…little stuffed moose, when she first arrived at Fort Salem. A recent gift from her father.” She swallows. “She wouldn’t part with it for months. I believe the moose makes an appearance in her first class photo.”
Tally smiles. “In her first photo with you too, if I’m thinking of the same moose. The one over there?” She points at the fireplace, where several family photos fight for space on the mantel. If she looked closely, she’d find a twenty-year-old photo of General Alder holding the hand of a tiny Anacostia, braids wrapped in blue baubles, clutching the hand of a bedraggled stuffed animal.
Sarah nods, fondness softening the lines in her forehead. “I was concerned, at the time. I thought she wouldn’t adjust to the base properly. Or worse, take the moose on her first mission.”
“Perish the thought.”
“I asked the caretaker to remove the moose, eventually.” Sarah sighs, pressing her fingertips into Cordelia’s face. “Anacostia wouldn’t talk to me for two weeks.”
“Serves you right, you moose thief.”
“Yes,” Sarah says very seriously. “I didn’t understand. Her voice turns hoarse and her hand trembles against Tally’s cheek. “Not until her first deployment, when she left the moose with me and I couldn’t part with the thing either.”
On another day, Tally might have giggled at the image of General Alder writing mission reports with a stuffed moose on her desk. Instead, she reaches up to cover Sarah’s hand with her own. She breathes deeply. She listens until their heartbeats sync, then listens more. “I think I understand your idea. Tell me more?”
Sarah smiles at her, small and bright.
Four months and a deployment later, Tally chucks her duffel bag onto her new bunk, followed by her own extremely tired body. The flight to Siberia was gnarly; they took two Bats, a civvy helicopter, and finally a semi-decommissioned warship now populated by necromancers. Scylla isn’t even here to make friends and build bridges, so Tally’s seriously concerned about finding corpses where she just doesn’t want to find them.
In five minutes, she’ll have to leave her bunk again and debrief the cadets under her command. They’re all skittish around her because of the whole Steward situation, and it’s—well, it’s nice that they follow her orders, but she also hopes they’ll voice any concerns, if they have any. Sarah gave her great advice about the burdens of leadership last week. Her hand was literally wandering down Tally’s stomach at that moment, however, so she didn’t exactly absorb that information correctly.
Still, it’s wild to really understand Sarah in such a specific context, even if she’ll never understand some of her choices. Leadership is the hardest thing she’s ever done. She hopes she’ll never encounter another Penelope situation again, but she can’t guarantee a thing. She can’t guarantee a lot, actually, without her Sight. It’s terrifying.
But there is something that may stop Tally’s own onslaught of panic now.
After checking the barracks for any stragglers, Tally opens her duffel and pulls out her very own Cordelia—a miniature version with a keychain attachment she found online, after agreeing to Sarah’s plan. She takes a deep breath and runs a finger across Cordy Two’s eyes and mouth in the shape of a sigil.
When the link forms, Tally feels a familiar presence in the room. The scent of storms and soil and fresh lavender. She can’t send very many coherent thoughts through this link, but she can manage a few crucial ones. She takes a deep breath and squeezes the stuffie.
Hard day today. I want to sleep for like, a thousand hours. But I’m okay. And safe. Are you okay?
There’s no answer yet, but that’s not a cause for alarm. They worked this part out.
Two hours later, after Tally eats dinner in the mess and explains mission parameters to exhausted cadets, she reaches for Cordy Two. To her absolute delight, the mushroom is warm in her hands. She feels a flutter of affection brush against her consciousness, a spike of worry, a fascinating amount of frustration.
I’m okay. I believe tomorrow could be much better. Seeing Anacostia. Goodnight, Tally Craven.
She grins widely, giddy with the success of their experiment—long nights sketching sigil ideas and layering their Work together—and places Cordy Two on her pillow. When Tally finally does close her eyes for much-needed rack time, she swears she can see Sarah on the other end, curled around Cordelia One with her legs tucked up. The way she always curls around Tally, when she’s home.