Zofiaenrique Oneshot Book

One Step at a Time

A/N I put in some noncanon parts: this is a couple years after The Bronzed Beasts. Hela has married Isaac (mentioned in the Silvered Serpents) and has recently had a baby.

Dear Zofia,

I fear for Hela's health. She says she is fine, but she is too stubborn to admit it. The delivery of Estera was hard on her; too hard, sometimes, I think. She is prone to fits of dizziness and some great despair that nothing can seem to penetrate. I suggested that you and your partner visit, but she insisted that you not see her like this. I must admit that she may have a point--she seems fragile already, with only a few people in the house. More may make her condition worse.

At least Estera is such a sweet baby. She is barely a month old, but I can already see that she will be blonde, much like her aunt. I wish you could visit sooner, but Hela needs to recover first. She tells you that you shouldn't worry, but I think we both know that we will anyway.

I hope I can write to you of better times soon.

Sending all my love,
Isaac

Zofia smoothed out the recent letter as she walked the streets of Paris, worry blurring her eyes. She blinked hard and tucked the paper away.

"Your sister will be fine. She has survived worse." Enrique touched her shoulder lightly. He always knew what she was thinking, rather like Laila. And more than that, he understood.

"I should be there for her."

"Her husband is capable of providing for her."

"I know he is. But--I have not seen my sister in so long. She needs me."

"We could leave France for a while," Enrique offered. "We could stay at your sister's place."

Zofia appreciated his stubborn optimism. But... "We might only overwhelm her more."

They both fell into a somber silence. Zofia's thoughts spun like falling shards of glass. Her sister was in despair. Her sister was in danger. Her sister needed her, and yet Zofia couldn't go. The paradox stretched her in two directions. She was so distracted, she didn't notice the marble barrier that suddenly sprang up in front of her.

She reacted quickly, jumping backwards in time to avoid hitting her nose. Beside her, Enrique yelped and stumbled backwards.

"What was--" Enrique broke off his sentence as realization dawned in his eyes.

A sense of dread pooled in Zofia's stomach as she stared at the remnant of a past she'd tried and failed to forget.

The entrance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts stood in front of her, tall and taunting.

If the letter had sent her to the edge of a precipice, now she was falling. She had forgotten...but today was the anniversary of her expulsion.

Her throat closed up as she remembered the day of the explosion.

Brightness. First, it was the brightness, pouring through the windows. Then it was the sounds. Voices jeering, laughing, hurling insults like stones. Crazy Jew. I knew she would go bad. She's like a spoiled apple, rotten at the core.

Skin brushing hers, bile rising in her throat. The cold of the laboratory tiles settling into her body as someone kicked her to the floor. The edges of the flint in her hand, the fury that had sparked in her mind.

And flames, erupting from her fingers, furling across the laboratory--

Vaguely, Zofia registered Enrique's hand brush her shoulder. She flinched away, sourness coating her tongue. "Don't touch me," she said, her words half-sob, half-whisper.

Enrique pulled away, and he was saying something. At first she didn't register his words, but then a spark of recognition ignited in her mind as she listened.

Numbers. Her panic subsided as she reached for their solace.

"Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one..."

"Thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred-forty-four," Zofia finished, recognizing the pattern. The Fibonacci sequence, which they'd once used together, working in harmony.

Slowly, her eyes readjusted to the world around them. The ground stabilized under her feet.

"They didn't want me," she whispered, still staring at the door. "They hated me."

"Zofia, that doesn't matter. Not anymore."

She turned to face Enrique. His hand drifted out as if he wanted to touch hers, but he let it fall, leaving a tiny distance between them that Zofia was grateful for. It gave her room to breathe.

"They wanted to use you. They didn't want you. "

"Severin recruited me because of my skill. He wanted to use me too."

"That's not all there is, Zofia. I think you know that."

She opened her mouth to argue, but stopped short as a tide of memories flooded her head. Severin, knowing how she felt as a stranger in a strange city. Severin, giving her a catalog to buy her own possessions, recognizing her nameless fear. Severin, supplying her a job so that she could pay for her Hela's education and health.

"He's not the only one, Zofia," Enrique said, his face pleading, impassioned. "Think about it. If you hadn't been expelled, you never would have had a place with us. With me. And I want you, phoenix, more than anyone else."

The ache in Zofia's chest alleviated as she stared at him, his words burning in her brain like a fire on high. Without even thinking about it, she reached for his hand and clasped it.

There they stood, saying nothing. They didn't need to: the look in Enrique's eyes said he understood what she didn't speak.

"They must be getting worried," Zofia said finally. "It is rather late."

"We should go back now," Enrique agreed. His shoulder brushed hers, and she found herself leaning into him more and more as their walk took them away from the marble door.

Zofia squared her shoulders as they passed a row of glowing streetlamps. The past caused the present, and the present caused the future. She would not spend more time fixating on the objects of her past. She would take life one step, one day at a time.

Perhaps Hela would recover. Perhaps she would not. But she could not waste her time worrying about the things she couldn't fix. It would lead her nowhere.