— • —
The next few weeks were a changing period for everybody.
They never thought Clover brought so much change to their lives in such a short time, and yet a life without her in it seemed completely different.
Orion no longer had to keep a close eye on her phone in case she was summoned, which also meant no longer having to abandon her boyfriend in all hours of the night because Clover wanted to know what the best snack was from the local grocery store. In fact, she didn't have to worry about being summoned by anyone. Baxter was right when he insisted on Orion taking a break, because boy did she need it. It's been years of back to back clients for her, and now that she actually had somebody she wanted to spend time with more often than others, the clients were seen as a burden rather than a job.
In the past weeks, Orion and Tom spent time doing what they've been wanting to do for ages now.
Be a real couple.
No more sneaking around at night in fear that someone influential will see them. No more calling off date nights because Clover demanded something at 1am. No more lying to friends about the status of their relationship.
They were Tom and Orion now, a happy couple.
And they loved it.
Orion didn't realize what she was missing out on when her relationship was kept a secret. She didn't know she'd be getting random, unprompted forehead kisses from Tom while examining the bread aisle at the grocery store. She didn't know she'd get to see Tom's proud smile when he introduced her to a group of his friends. And she most certainly didn't know she'd get so nervous over a simple dinner with Baxter, yet, here she was.
She heaved out a sigh for the thousandth time that night, a dress draped over her front as she sampled it in front of the mirror. "What if he hates you?"
Tom looked up from his spot on her bed, meeting her worry-filled gaze in the mirror. "Shouldn't I be the one worrying about that, not you?" Orion shot him an exasperated look before lowering the dress and turning to him. Tom sat up as she approached the bed, eventually sinking down into the spot beside him, a deep frown tugging at her lips. "Why are you so stressed? Is there something else to this dinner that you're not telling me?"
"No! Not at all. It's just..." She trailed off, diverting her gaze to her fingers, where she twirled the ring around her middle finger.
Tom followed her gaze, glancing at the ring before looking back up to her face. Slowly, he took the hand that the ring rested on, trailing his thumb over the engraved metal. "Tell me about this." Orion met his eyes at that, brows pinched together in question. "This ring. It holds meaning to you, right?" She nodded. "Tell me about it, if you're comfortable."
Silence fell upon the room as Orion focused on her hand that was being held by Tom's, the ring shining under the light of her bedroom. "Baxter gave it to me," she breathed out, eyes far as she relived the memory, "when I was officially instated as an angel."
A grin rested on Orion's lips as she was presented to the audience, an especially loud cheer sounding from them at the mention of her age. The youngest in the history of her sector, she was bound to be successful. At least that's what Baxter believed.
Orion bounded up to Mr.Baxter with that same smile, to which the older man swept her up in a hug. "I'm so proud of you," he whispered in her ear, squeezing her a little tighter. "I knew from the moment I saw you that you were destined for greatness."
Orion pulled back, smiling up at him. "Really?"
Baxter matched her smile. "Really. I've never doubted for a minute that you would accomplish unimaginable things, Orion." She watched as he pulled back, before taking a box out of his pocket. For a moment, his facade came apart, allowing a bashful smile to spread across the man's lips. "I... got you a gift." He slowly opened the box to reveal a ring, three letters engraved in it
"OLL. Orion Laila Lopez," she recited as she took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto her middle finger. She looked up to the man with a grin. "I love it. Thank you." She stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his torso as her head fell to his chest. "Thank you for everything."
Tom's eyes bored into her as she retold the memory of the day she became an angel, his chest swelling with admiration for the girl. It was obvious that despite his questionable approach to raising her, Mr.Baxter was a big influence on who Orion was today. And he couldn't deny he really liked Orion today.
He squeezed her hand gently, snapping her out of her daze, her features softening as she met his gaze. "Today will be okay, I promise," Tom whispered to her, to which Orion nodded. He leaned forward to leave a chaste kiss on her lips before sitting up completely. "Now, I liked dress three, what about you?"
A smile tugged at her lips as she stood from the bed, picking up the dress as she did so. "I liked that one too."
Three dresses and an interruption from Mateo later, and Orion and Tom were finally at Baxter's house.
Turns out, Mateo also had a date tonight and needed advice on which dress shirt gave off the "I'm down to sleep with you but not that down" vibe. Those were his exact words. Orion looked to Tom hopelessly when he said them, while Tom immediately told him which shirt better fit that description, much to Orion's surprise.
Unlike her twin counterpart, Kelsey didn't have a date that night. In fact, she hasn't had any dates as of lately. Orion didn't realize it then, but Kelsey and Clover had been getting pretty serious before all hell broke loose. Or at least as close to Kelsey can get to serious. That being said, Kelsey found it a little harder to date when she'd gotten so close to something real. Instead, she decided to try to turn over a new leaf completely.
Her resignation from the Do Gooders came as a surprise to her friends, and especially to the club themselves, but she finally came to realize she had to do things for herself rather than for others. She reached out to Orion at one point about getting a job in the office, but ultimately decided against it as it brought back too many memories, finding herself a job elsewhere. Mateo insisted that she was doing good all on her own, his sister always being the more independent of the two, but Orion couldn't help but worry about her.
A nudge from Tom brought Orion out of her thoughts of Kelsey, the boy wearing his usual boyish grin as he gestured to a photo on the wall. Orion flushed as she realized it was a photo of her sitting on Baxter's desk as a toddler, a wide grin on the baby's face as she marveled at her own reflection in a shiny ornament. "Baby Orion is so cute," Tom teased, Orion's face getting redder by the second. "You even have the same chubby cheeks."
Orion quickly swatted Tom's hand away as he reached to pinch her cheeks, prompting a chuckle from the boy. He moved on to the next photo, this one being of Baxter and a few collegues. He was prepared to move on to find the next photo of Orion to tease her about, but he paused as he noticed another person in the photo. In the background, with her nose stuck in a book was Orion, her brows pinched together in concentraion. His eyes scanned the rest of the photo, noticing the bright decorations hanging, a cake in the distance.
"Who's birthday was this?" Tom mumbled.
She moved back to his side, brows furrowed as she looked over the picture. "Uh, I believe that was Baxter's birthday? Not sure which one though..."
Tom frowned, looking away from the photo to Orion. "You were studying at his birthday?" She shot him a look of confusion, to which he responded by pointing her out in the background of the photo. He watched as her face fell slightly, a tinge of sadness in her eyes before it quickly vanished. "Your entire childhood really was spent studying."
She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant as she met his eyes again. "It's fine. I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't spend all that time studying."
"Yeah, but-"
Tom was cut off as Baxter reentered the room, a bottle of wine in his hand as he smiled at the two. "I brought out the fancy wine," he boasted, prompting a chuckle from Orion. "It felt like the right occasion, don't you think?"
It would have been.
Had Orion's phone not begin ringing.
Orion quickly dismissed herself from the two to answer the phone call, stepping into another room to hear better.
Baxter sidled up to Tom as he looked over another photo, his presence causing Tom to look over to him. The frowning man he always saw in the office wasn't there, instead, he was replaced by what Tom would only describe as a boastful looking father. "She was fifteen here," he began, gesturing to a photo of Orion wearing feathered angel wings. "She had no idea that the next year she wouldn't need those silly little things."
"You sound very proud," Tom noticed, his eyes remaining locked on the eyes of the fifteen-year-old girl. He could only imagine how the girl was feeling based off of what he heard from that time in her life. Skipping school events to go study for something that wasn't guaranteed. Unable to hang out with friends with them being deemed a "distraction." Crying throughout the night because it was the only time she had to actually care about herself.
Tom could see Baxter nod in his peripheral. "She was always a very hardworking girl, always put others before herself, caring, compassionate, all the things an angel should be. What's not to be proud of?"
Tom instantly turned to him at that sentence, his brows pinched together as he held back the urge to snap at the man. What's not to be proud of? Orion deserved all her accomplishments, there's no doubting that, but at the same time she deserved to be happy. Nobody deserved to grow up thinking they didn't have type to be happy because they had to make someone proud.
The two didn't have much more time to speak to one another, as Orion stumbled into the room, quickly moving across the room to her belongings. Tom watched in confusion as she quickly put on her jacket, stuffing things into her purse as she did so. "Orion, what happened?" Tom asked quickly, to which Orion shot him a wide-eyed look. "Orion-"
"We need to go, Tom," she rushed out, throwing Tom's jacket at him as she worked on getting her shoes on. "I'm so sorry to cut this short, Baxter. Mateo called with an emergency, and he asked for both of us."
Baxter nodded quickly. "I understand. Anything I can do?"
Orion's head snapped up. "No!" He flinched at her tone of voice, making her inhale sharply. "S-Sorry. I mean, it's just a personal thing, and I don't want Mateo to get embarrassed."
"Okay..."
She turned to Tom. "Ready?" Tom nodded wordlessly, following after the girl as they left the home, barely giving Baxter a chance to bid them farewell. Once they were outside, Orion gripped Tom's hand, fear present in her eyes. "This is going to be bad."
Tom didn't have the time to question her before she was snapping her fingers, the two appearing in a new location. It was relatively dark, but Orion seemed to know where she was going, leading Tom by his hand.
The next thing they saw was unexpected.
Tom's breathe hitched at the sight of Kelsey, her chest visibly rising and falling as she breathed heavily. Mateo stood beside her, tears streaming down his cheeks as he stood a few feet away from his sister. Their footsteps caused the siblings to turn to them, Orion squeezing Tom's hand tightly as she lead them closer. The closer they got, the more was revealed. Like the spots of blood on the concrete floor. All of them leading to the body of a man.
He was beaten to the point where he was almost unrecognizable. Blood stained his clothing in all parts of his body, his body covered in dark bruises all over as he laid unconscious.
"What did you do?" Orion cried out, immediately kneeling down beside the unknown man, uncaring of the blood seeping into her clothing. Her head shot up when neither of them answered her, her eyes filled with tears as she shouted, "What did you do!"
"I did it," Kelsey choked out, raising her hands to show the red-tint to them. "I did that to him."
"Kels, w-why did you do that?" Tom stuttered out, a shiver running down his spine as he looked from the body to his friend.
Kelsey shook her head. "I need to get out of here." She looked around at her three friends. "Can't you see? I don't belong here, guys. I never belonged here. Look at what I just did! I'm not good enough for this place, I need to be sent down."
"So you beat a man?" Orion cried out, stumbling to her feet and bounding towards Kelsey. "You beat him to the point that he's unrecognizable? Are you crazy, Kelsey?" She then whirled to face Mateo. "Why did you call me for this? Do you know the trouble I can get into for just being here?"
Mateo's lip trembled. "I-I was hoping you could talk her out of this."
"Talk her out of what? Look at what she did, Mateo!" Mateo flinched at the volume of her voice. "If we were in a different place, he would be dead right now! Kelsey would have committed murder, do you not understand that? She can't be saved!"
"Orion-"
She pushed away Tom's hands as he reached out for her, tears wildly streaming down her cheeks. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me, please." Her hands went to her face, palms pressing to her eyes as she let out a shaky sigh. "I-I don't know what to do. I don't know... Somebody, please tell me what I can possibly do."
"You can start by explaining to me what's going on." Orion's blood ran cold at the voice, and she slowly turned around to meet the cold eyes of the man. "Quite the emergency, isn't it, Orion?"
— • —
soooo... happy times are over!