all at once

[intheheart]

Title: all at once
Summary: Summer, Zack, and Felipe in all their different worlds.
Warnings: *deep breath* skip
murder, violent death, death by illness, infectious diseases, slavery, sexist language, mention of drowning, war, assault.

Notes: I have been working on this goddamn story for two years now. Y'all better like it.


1. Three Musketeers

It was just the three of them, right from the start.

That was really the oddest thing about all of it, that none of them had been married before. There had been dates, certainly. Felipe at least had very nearly been married once, but nothing had come of any of it until the three of them stood in a circle, hand-in-hand, and said their vows to each other. Summer had white flowers in her hair, and Zack wore a ridiculous purple tie, and Felipe had known this was it, they were it for him. There was no one else: there never had been, and there never would be.

Maybe that was odd too, that it was the three of them and no one else. Summer at least didn't even think of it as multiple marriages—people asked her how often she'd been married, and she said once, because yes, she had two husbands but it was all one marriage, one bed, one closed circle. She couldn't imagine marrying again, but why should she need to? Her boys were all she'd ever need, she felt, and she said so, often.

None of them ever dated either—well, apart from date nights with each other, which was only natural. You needed to spend time on each individual relationship before you could encounter the whole, or at least that was how Zack felt about it. But he never looked for another partner, and neither did his husband or wife. He'd been asked out, of course, but it... to be honest it felt superfluous, and uninteresting. He could go out with someone he didn't know, or he could take Felipe out to dinner, go dancing with Summer. He liked what he had, what they had. It felt complete in and of itself. Why bother adding anything else?

There would be children, someday. They all agreed on that. But for now, for the foreseeable future, it was just the three of them.

It was all they really needed.


4. Andes Mints

The world was blurry with pain, but he was alive.

Honestly, that was more than Felipe had expected, since the last thing he remembered was falling off his horse into a river in the middle of a damn thunderstorm. You didn't typically survive that.

Evidently he had survived, and now he was lying in someone's bed, staring up at the rafters of a house—rafters, not dirt, he wasn't in a dugout—and miracle of miracles, he was warm. Some hapless pioneer, no doubt, with enough Christian charity to take in a waterlogged vaquero who'd lost his horse and all his possessions with it. Not that he'd miss any of it, except the money, and he supposed the horse, ungrateful, cranky beast though it had been.

This was going to be an unfortunate time in his life, he could tell. Felipe sighed, and opened his eyes.

"He's awake," someone said, and the next moment there were two heads hovering above him, one blond, the other redheaded, and a remarkably pretty redhead at that—and a remarkably handsome blond, though he'd never say that out loud.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so unfortunate after all.

He managed to touch his forehead. "Ma'am."

The blond snorted and moved away, and the redhead looked at him critically. She was perched on the side of his bed, all freckles and blue eyes and soft, sweet curves. "You don't look like you're going to die."

That was... direct. "Thank you," he said. "I don't feel like I'm going to die either. May I ask where I am?"

"Bessinger," and that was definitely the blond talking, from the other end of whatever this raftered place was. "You probably haven't heard of it."

The redhead rolled her eyes and told him, rather more gently, "We're down the South Platte River from Denver. Is that where you came from, Denver?"

Felipe had actually fallen off his horse quite a bit north of Denver, but it didn't matter, it was all the same river. "Close enough," he said. "Steer ran off, and my horse tripped..." He trailed off. He didn't actually remember very much, just the rain and the lurch and the water closing over his head.

"Cowboys," the blond muttered—vaquero, actually, but Felipe didn't think he should correct anyone just yet—then came back into his field of vision, leaning pointedly over the redhead's shoulder. Possessively? It was something of a shame if so, though completely understandable. "You going to cause trouble while you're here?"

"Sheriff Ryan!" The redhead sounded scandalized.

The blond—the Sheriff, oh, that was just wonderful—didn't blink. "Well?" he demanded. "Are you?"

"I don't intend to," Felipe said, widening his eyes to look as innocent as he could.

"Good," he said, sounding dissatisfied, and moved away. A moment later, the bang of a door told Felipe he'd left the building.

"Is he always so..." He trailed off, unable to think of a word.

The redhead looked at him expectantly for a moment, then asked, "So what?"

Felipe gestured helplessly after the man. "Like... that."

She stared at him, then got up and walked away. He rolled onto his side to track her progress toward... was that a medical kit? "I have no idea what you're asking."

"Never mind." He hesitated, then decided to go for broke. "Pardon, ma'am, but when I asked where I was, I meant a little more... what building."

She didn't look up from what was definitely a medical kit. "My home. I'm the doctor. You'll be staying here until I say you can go, no matter what the sheriff says."

Felipe left that comment tactfully alone. "Well, thank you, Doctor. I'd be dead if not for you."

She did glance up at that, with a surprised expression. "And the Sheriff," she said, jerking her chin at the door. "He's the one who dove in to pull you out."

"Oh," he said, not quite sure what to do with that comment. "I suppose... give him my thanks too."

"You can thank him yourself," she said, "when you're better. Now go back to sleep, you need your rest."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and obediently closed his eyes.

Too bad he wouldn't be staying here. It seemed like a nice town.


14. milk chocolate

It took weeks before Dr. Kendall would so much as smile at him, and months before she would exchange more than a nonprofessional hello. Felipe would have given up long since if it weren't for the way she always seemed alone—and frightened, which worried him. There didn't seem to be anything for her to fear, not in the depths of the morgue, surrounded by cops, so if she was frightened...

Still. Months. That was a lot of work, even for him. He nearly did give up, but every time he thought about doing so, she would take just the slightest step forward: a nod, a smile, once a chocolate bar shoved into his hand after he mentioned being hungry. Just the slightest snippet of appreciation shown for all of his effort, and he was back at her feet again.

Zack laughed at him, but Zack could shut his stupid face. Zack loved her just as much, even if he wouldn't admit it; Felipe could see it in the way Zack smiled at her name, just a little soft around the edges.

Although love was... was it too strong a word?

He didn't want to think about that, so he didn't.

At the moment he was leaning against a table in Dr. Kendall's autopsy room, watching her work on some report and eating his chocolate bar. The body was still there, but it was neatly covered with a sheet, and anyway he had to get used to bodies if he was going to transfer to homicide. Dr. Kendall didn't seem to care that she was sharing her space with a corpse. He said as much, and was treated to a brief look at wide blue eyes before she ducked her head again.

"I don't mind them," she said, after a pause. "The dead, I mean. They're... nice?"

"That sounded like a question," Felipe said, as neutrally as he could. They were having such a nice quiet time, the last thing he needed was for Dr. Kendall to take sharp offense to something he couldn't figure out.

She stared into space for a moment, tapping her pencil on the desk, then said, "It was, a bit. I mean... I don't know what I mean." Another long pause—Felipe had more or less let the conversation go, and was casting around for another topic when she abruptly added, "My... brother, I suppose, he wasn't really my brother but that's close enough. Anyway, he was murdered when I was fourteen."

"My God," he said, because what did you say to that, and then, "I'm so sorry."

She shrugged one shoulder, bent over her report again. "It's why I don't talk to people much," she said. "After... after that. My sister, and her wife, my biological brother a little, my parents. And sometimes my niece and nephew, but not really anyone else." She glanced up again, and gave him a shy little smile. "Well, apart from you and Officer Ryan."

"I'm honored," Felipe said, and meant it.


7. Nestle

They had to watch Zack die.

It was potentially the worst thing that Felipe had ever experienced. Potentially, only because there could be worse things still to come—this disease respected nothing and no one, and he still had so much left to lose.

The worst thing, he thought, was that Zack had died before anything else had happened. He and Summer had talked, after, and she'd told him that there had been a conversation—nothing close to action, not yet, but the glimmerings of a beginning.

Then New York City was suddenly quarantined, and people began dying at a horrific rate. It had not seemed the time to speak of what they wanted, she said, not when she was nearly incoherent with terror for her family, not when Zack and Felipe were both working eighteen-hour days trying to keep order. When it's over, Zack and Summer had agreed, when it's over.

They all thought it was a cold, at first. Nothing serious, a cough and a sore throat, soon over. Then Zack took off his shirt and they all saw the patches, and it would never be over. Never.

They had stayed with him, been there when he died. He'd given them his blessing. They had those comforts at least.

They hadn't really talked about it since they buried him, but Felipe thought perhaps they didn't really need to. They both knew what regrets they had. They both knew what they'd lost. At least they had each other to cling to, in the middle of the night when it seemed dawn would never come.

He could not sleep now without her breathing beside him, huddled against him like a child seeking comfort. Every morning when he woke, he checked her breathing, inspected her skin for red patches, and relaxed only a little when he found nothing. This morning he drew her tighter against him, pressed his face into her hair, and tried not to imagine what he'd do if he ever found something. How he'd manage, if he had to lose her too.

He wasn't sure he could.


2. Mars Bar

Zack shook his head hard, and threw back his shot. "You have to ask her," he said. "No way I'll be able to get it out." He dialed in for another and sat back, still shaking his head.

"Coward," Felipe said, but only half-heartedly, because he understood.

It was hard, after all. Not many people were in committed relationships these days—they didn't really need them, after all. Large communities widely scattered and generally peaceable relations, FTL communication and only slightly slower travel, long life spans and small living quarters both on and off planet, it all contributed to a metaphorical-girl-in-every-port mentality. People had friends that they fucked and partners that they traveled with and ne'er the twain did meet.

So of course Felipe, being contrary, had had a succession of monogamous and more or less serious relationships, Zack the latest and most serious. Four years they'd been together, one of those years married, and people were starting to just accept it. They'd walked into this bar tonight and no one had even blinked at their wedding rings.

So of course, now there was Summer.

"You know," Zack said, in that uncanny way he had of matching Felipe's thoughts exactly, "if she... well, we might be seen as less weird."

He thought about that, batting his drink idly back and forth between his hands, then said, "No, I don't think so."

"Yeah," Zack said, and sighed. "I didn't think so either. Do you think she'll say yes?"

It was a good question. She was the very opposite of contrary, their Summer: she wanted so badly to be normal. But she also wanted very badly to be loved, and they did love her. Felipe hoped they'd made that clear in the months they'd been courting her—he hadn't yet found the line between subtle and too subtle, hadn't figured out the difference between the figuratives that Summer could and could not catch, and he wasn't sure if she knew.

But say that they had made it clear. Say that she knew they loved her, that they wanted to marry her. Would it be enough?

She did want children, but that did not necessarily require a long-term partner, or even another adult. She could simply go to a center, choose the genes she wanted, and give them an egg, and nine or ten months later she could go and collect the baby. On the other hand, commitments seemed to run in her family. Her parents, sister, and brother were all married, and another brother had a more informal arrangement, more usual but still monogamous.

Normality and monogamy, tradition and progress. It depended, really, on what she wanted, and what she could take.

"I don't know," Felipe said, at last. "We'll just have to ask."


12. bittersweet chocolate

"Did he kiss you?"

Summer's voice was soft, barely a whisper—she probably couldn't bring herself to speak any louder, and anyway it was kind. Zack could pretend he didn't hear her, if he wanted to, or he could pretend not to know what she was talking about. He could even say that he didn't want to talk about it, and Summer would respect that, he knew she would, but...

He sighed, and closed his book. They were going to talk about it. They needed to talk about it.

"Yes," he said. He didn't meet her eyes, but that was probably all right. Summer didn't particularly like to make the effort of eye contact when the conversation was going to be hard, and this would probably be among the hardest. "He kissed me. Did you... did he kiss you?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. Her voice was small, and unhappy.

They were silent for a moment, then Zack asked, quietly, "Are you angry?"

"Oh." Summer thought about it, her head cocked to one side. "No," she decided. "You didn't... you would never... I just wish..." But what she wished she didn't, or couldn't, say. "He didn't kiss me, that's all."

"He would have," Zack said. He was as certain of that as he was of his own mind. "If he had had the chance."

"I know," she said, and looked down at her hands.

Should they have given him the chance he didn't ask for? He was... it was becoming more and more obvious that neither one of them was fully happy without him. Just what that made Felipe to them, Zack didn't know.

But Summer was quite still, her eyes downcast; she had that little wrinkle between her eyebrows that she always got when she was overthinking something. He got up and went to her, wanted to cup her face in his hands and didn't quite dare. "Hey."

She looked up, and her eyelashes were damp. Zack frowned. "Are you all right, beautiful?"

Summer smiled a little trembling smile and held up both arms to him. "Yes," she said. "More or less."

Zack leaned down so she could put her arms over his shoulder, and slid his own arms around her waist, pressing a kiss to her temple as he did so. "I love you," he said, slightly muffled against her shoulder. She smelled like raspberries, gentle and pink. "No matter what. You know that, right?"

And he did, with all the heart he had. It was only—he felt like some of his heart had gone away with Felipe.

"I know." She said it against his neck, and rubbed her nose in the hollow just beneath his ear. "I love you. Always."

Zack knelt and pressed his face against her knees, a supplicant at the altar. She ran her fingers through his hair, closed her hands into fists at the nape of his neck, tugging tiny pricks of pain out of his skin. What had happened could not be changed. The past was the past, and their choices could not be unmade.

They had each other. There was always that.


10. Fannie May

If Zack was to be perfectly honest, he didn't know what was happening. Or perhaps he did know, and he simply didn't have the words to put to it, to explain it to himself. It put him in a sort of nervous anticipation every moment of the day, waiting for the brush of a touch across the back of his neck or a hand squeezing his, some sort of acknowledgement that he wasn't dreaming it all.

He had dreamed it once, or something very like it. He had been suspicious of Summer at first, and not just because she was possibly a pirate—Felipe had loved her more or less immediately and he'd been upset. Jealous, Zack recognized now, though he'd had no way of knowing it then. But she'd won him over, stealing softly beneath his breastbone and carrying away his heart before he'd even notice.

That love he could recognize and even to some extent acknowledge. She was lovely, clever, and gracious, and if she was to marry his best friend, well, plenty of men loved women they shouldn't. It was tragic but not particularly unusual. The way he felt about Felipe—took longer.

It wasn't unknown, not after the Scots king came to England and brought his favorites with him. And there was a sort of honesty to it, the acknowledgement that men loved men on occasion. If sodomy was a sin, so were many, many other things he'd done, murder high among them. It was only that he had never considered it in the context of himself. That he might. That Felipe might.

And if Summer's lips were the pink of early strawberries and Felipe's eyes the dark soft brown of fawn's fur, well, he could live with it. Even if he dreamt of them, of Summer's small hand in the crook of his arm and Felipe's head resting against his chest.

And then.

"Please," Felipe had said, his hands open, entreaty naked on his face. "Please." Summer hadn't said anything but she had looked at him, hope and fear tangling in her eyes. He hadn't understood, and still did not understand what they wanted with him, why they'd asked, but they had asked, they did want him, and so he'd gone.

Now he lay between them every night, with Summer asleep on his chest and Felipe draped across the both of them, limbs everywhere, octopus-like. Now Felipe invaded his personal space even more casually than before. Now Summer left little kisses on his face and neck whenever no one was watching.

Now they were his, and he was theirs, even if he didn't really understand how, or why.

He never could say no to them.


5. York Peppermint Patty

Her boys were so nervous it was obvious even to her, and completely adorable. Summer just wanted to pull them both down to her heart and cuddle them, but then she wouldn't get to see them in Ivy's enormous marble waiting room, and they did look remarkably good there. Felipe's black suit and Zack's dark blue one stood out against all that pure white stone—the eye couldn't help but be drawn to them, to the contrast, to the way the bright light caught sparks of gold in Zack's hair, and near-blue highlights in Felipe's.

Beautiful, and a little exhausting, since neither one would stop pacing.

"She isn't going to bite, you know," she said, for, by her count, the fifth time.

"Says you," Felipe muttered, checking his cuffs for probably the seventh time. She hadn't started counting until she realized he wasn't going to stop.

She gave him a blank look, though she understood what he meant perfectly well. "Of course I say it. She's my sister. I know her better than either of you."

"I think," Zack said, diplomatically, "that he's more worried about the evil overlord part than the part where she's your sister. As am I, I have to say."

"She's not really evil," Summer said, leaning back on the bench. It looked hideously uncomfortable, but was actually nothing of the sort. Ivy had invented some sort of material that conformed to one's body, and made this one bench, for people she loved. Everyone else got the marble. "She just likes to make things. And then blow them up. People get confused by the volcano."

"I can see where they would," Felipe said. "Also, the T-rex might be sending some evil signals."

"She's very nice," Summer said, obscurely offended.

Both her boys paused for a moment, and Felipe asked, "Your sister or the dinosaur?"

"I meant the dinosaur," Summer said, "and her name is Matilda, by the way, but my sister too. Just be polite. Anyway, I love you, so she wouldn't hurt you even if she was evil."

Zack and Felipe exchanged a look, but whatever they had planned to say next got lost in a high-pitched yelp as the floor dropped out from under them.

Ivy must have added more trapdoors since Summer had last been here. She sighed.

"Really, Ivy, must you?" she asked aloud, knowing that her sister could hear her. Whether she would respond—

"Yes." Ivy's voice had the slightly tinny quality that always came with speakers, the one even she hadn't been able to tinker away. "Yes, I absolutely must."

Summer sighed again, and stood up. There was an elevator somewhere that would take her down to where Ivy had dropped her boys; she could probably find it in a reasonable amount of time. "The last time I brought home a boyfriend, I said never again. I can't believe I forgot why."

Ivy's laughter bounced off the walls, a bright ping-pong sound. "It is my prerogative to torture the guys you bring home—figuratively, God, stop flinching."

That last was so clearly not directed at Summer that she only rolled her eyes. "Leave them alone. I love them, and I'd rather you not scare them off." Her sister hummed, the sound Ivy made when she wasn't terribly convinced, and Summer added, "I'll tell Gina on you."

The cough of static was probably Ivy huffing into the microphone. "Fine," she said, and the hidden elevator dinged over, just two panels down from where Summer had been looking. She'd been close. "Joykiller," Ivy added.

Summer ignored her, and stepped into the elevator. Her boys would need her for this part.


11. Godiva

Summer's hair fell loose over her shoulders, flaming bright against the pale dip of her collarbone and the rise of her breasts, curling past her bodice to brush the curve of her hips. Felipe liked the feel of it between his fingers, silk-soft. Sometimes in these long winter evenings she would ask him to comb it out for her while she sat drowsing in front of the fire, Zack more than half asleep in her lap.

They both hated to be cold, him and Summer. Zack didn't mind it so much, but Zack hadn't been frozen, hadn't lived through the winter that had nearly claimed them both. They sent him out into the snow when they needed wood or other little things—he complained, and made them warm his cold feet after, but he never refused.

Zack stirred then, turned over and pressed his face into Summer's belly, brought his knees up around her back. "All right, love?" he muttered into the laces of her bodice.

"All right," she said, gently, stroking his hair, and twisted back to look at Felipe, who sat just behind them, a little separate. "Are you going to stay back there all night?"

"No," he said, but didn't move yet. He wanted just to admire them for a moment. Summer all copper and flame and bright living heat—how had she ever been cold? And Zack, sunny-haired and sunny-tempered, cupping Summer's thin hands in his broad ones. He'd saved them both, so many times.

He wondered sometimes what he was doing there, with them, a slim shadow in their bright warmth. A foolish concern when he thought about it really, but it crept into his mind some nights, when he sat up and watched the moon and listened to them breathe. If they would turn away from him.

Zack uncurled himself a little, raised his head and said, "Come here," raising one hand, beckoning. Felipe slid obediently from his chair and settled behind Summer, nudging Zack's legs out of the way. Zack waited until Felipe had settled and then tucked his legs behind Felipe. The warm pressure of his knees in the small of Felipe's back nudged him against Summer's body, and she leaned back into him with a sigh, her hands still twined in Zack's hair. The fire crackled and danced, hypnotic.

He didn't know how long they sat like that, Summer comfortable in his arms, Zack nearly asleep on her lap. Felipe wasn't really feeling tired, but Summer was growing more and more relaxed, her body slumping into his, and he knew she'd be asleep soon. If he didn't get them both up and into bed, they'd wind up spending the night right where they were.

"And is that so bad?" Summer murmured, and Felipe realized he'd said the last bit aloud.

"Well," he said, and then, "I don't know. Zack will probably be fine, but you might be a little stiff."

"So will you," she said, laying her arm over his, stroking the back of his hand.

He shrugged. "I don't mind."

Summer made a dissatisfied noise, then gently shifted Zack's head down to the rug. "Will you bank the fire?"

"Of course," he said, and got up to poke at the ashes. When he'd buried the coals, he turned around and saw that Summer had curled up in front of Zack, her eyes sleepy. She'd unlaced her bodice and left it draped over the seat of the chair, and her hair fell loose and flaming over her chemise.

"Come here," she said, holding out a hand, and he went. Of course he went, how could he not? She pulled him down, arranged him to her satisfaction against the curve of Zack's body, then settled herself in his arms with a sigh. Zack mumbled something in his sleep, turned over, and threw an arm over them both, possessive.

"Better?" Summer asked, softly.

He smiled into her hair. "Yes."


3. Snickers

"I'm so sorry," Summer kept saying, like it was in any way her fault. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen."

"Of course you didn't." Felipe bent over and kissed her forehead. Or, well, he meant to kiss her forehead, but the angle was awkward and he got the corner of her eyebrow instead. "It's not your fault at all, sweetheart. I'd have done the same thing if it was Zack being insulted."

"Like I'd done anything to him," Summer muttered, fingers curling into her palms.

He didn't answer that one, only smoothed a hand over her hair.

Zack was in there right now, trying to calm everyone down, but he probably wouldn't be able to do much more than mitigate the damage. Which... wasn't good, but Felipe couldn't help wondering if it was necessarily all that bad. Work had been uncomfortable for him ever since the three of them stopped being coy about their relationship, and though neither Zack nor Summer had said anything, he was fairly sure that they'd been getting some of the harassment and cold shoulders too. It made absolutely no sense to him—who the hell cared what three consenting adults decided to do on their personal time?—but it was undeniably happening, and maybe it had played a part in today's mess.

"Do you think they'll fire you?" Summer asked, her voice small.

"Absolutely not." It was a remote possibility, but if it came up he planned to quit first. Better for the resume. "He had it coming."

She was twisting her hands in her lap; he reached over and laid a hand on them, gently. She gave him a little smile, but said, "You still hit him."

And what a glorious left hook it had been, too. The interference might have been uncalled for, since Summer had been handling herself just fine—he hadn't known she even had that kind of vocabulary—but then Calincourt had called her a whore and he just... saw red. "Yeah, but I guarantee that everyone in that room wanted to do the same thing."

He would have said more, but the door opened just then and Zack came out, looking exhausted. He scowled when he saw Felipe. "You couldn't have waited for me? Asshole."

"Fuck you," Felipe said, amiably, and swatted at his arm as he went by. "What's the verdict?"

Zack dropped down on the bench on Summer's other side, and patted the clutch of her hands absently. "Two weeks' suspension without pay and an official reprimand in your file."

"Oh," Summer said, and sat back with a thump.

Well, that sucked. Still, saying so wouldn't help. "Could've been worse."

"Yeah, it could have." Zack shook his head. "The captain at the 41st wanted you demoted."

"Oh," Summer said again, looking distressed. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this... I shouldn't have fought with him. It was rude."

Zack picked up her hand and dropped a kiss on the back. "If you hadn't said what you did, then Calincourt would still be working here. Rude or not, beautiful, you'll never have to buy a drink in a cop bar again."

She flushed. "I was rude, though." And she had been—there really wasn't any other way to call someone an ignorant asshole. Still, he didn't think anyone would blame her.

"But so eloquently rude," Zack said, innocent as an angel. Felipe laughed.


18. mocha

Summer had never seen Zack's words.

It wasn't exactly unusual, she supposed. Felipe was unusual, showing his to anyone who asked, laughing when they commented on the change in handwriting halfway through. Summer preferred to keep hers to herself until she felt rather seriously about someone—she'd shown Zack on their third date, and Felipe on the spring morning when she'd glanced at his wrist and abruptly recognized her own neat cursive. But Zack... the three of them had been lovers for months, were talking about marriage, and still he kept his hidden under leather bracelets and layers of makeup.

Habit, he said, when she asked, his mouth curling into a dry little half-smile. He'd seen words used against their bearers too many times to share his easily. And Summer understood that, she really did. But they were his—surely he knew that by now. He'd seen his own handwriting on Summer's wrist, and Felipe's. He must know it was real.

Felipe didn't seem to care. "He'll show us when he's ready," he told her, and pressed a kiss against the words on her wrist. And she tried to believe that, she really did, it was only...

"It worries me," she told Zack, one day in the kitchen while she swept the floor and he sat on the kitchen table, barefoot, tousle-haired and his morning mocha in hand.

He yawned, and said, "It's not fair bringing this up when I'm not awake yet."

"No one ever said love was fair," Summer pointed out.

He laughed, and tugged at the hem of the t-shirt he wore to bed. "I guess. Well."

Zack was quiet for a long time after that, the only sound in the kitchen the soft shuff of the broom against the floor. Summer didn't push. He would answer her, or not, in his own time, and she loved him enough not to drag that answer out of him, no matter how worried she was.

"I don't know why I'm so paranoid about them," he said, finally, cradling his mug against his chest. "I just... I think about showing them to anyone, even to you, even to Felipe, for God's sake, and we've been friends for years, and I just. My chest gets tight. Can't do it."

"I understand," Summer said, and she did, though not about that precisely. Sometimes you'd been hurt too much, and there were things you couldn't do.

Zack smiled at her, and then said, "But I think I might be able to... let me try something. Come here." He set the mocha down and held out his hands, taking hers when she drew near enough. He lifted her left wrist and kissed her words, lingering on the spot where the handwriting changed, and then said, "Mine are in your handwriting, and Felipe's. You knew that."

She nodded, gravely, and he kissed her words again, then drew in a breath, steadying. "They say, 'you'll never be alone.'"

Her breath caught, then she moved closer, kissed his trembling mouth. "You won't," she said, and he smiled.


6. Hershey’s

There was a wolf in the bed again. Summer sighed, and rolled over onto cooler sheets.

The bed to her right was empty, which was probably the only reason Zack had gotten away with it. He made a very large wolf, with a distressing tendency to sprawl—the last time he'd come to bed this way Felipe wound up on the floor. He also gave off more heat than a small furnace, a blessing in the winter but ridiculous now. Felipe, in contrast, tended to run cool now, and Summer... they teased her, calling her their baby bear, just right.

Never mind that there wasn't anything remotely baby about her.

Speaking of Felipe, he ought to have been in bed.

She opened her eyes, and found him sitting in a chair beside the bed, his knees pulled up to his chest, staring into space with an odd little half-smile on his face. Amusement? Affection? She wasn't sure, but she had just woken up, and anyway she couldn't be expected to properly guess emotions at this hour.

"Felipe?" she asked, and he started slightly, blinked, and caught her glance.

"Querida," he said, and let his feet drop to the floor. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

She shook her head, and looked eloquently at the furry Zack-rug on the other side of the bed. "I got too hot, I think."

Felipe chuckled, then oozed out of the chair—he'd gotten so much more graceful since his transition, inhumanly so—and knelt beside the bed, propping his chin on folded arms so he could be just a little higher than her eye level. She didn't like sustained eye contact, he knew that, he'd remembered it, and it made her smile. "Do you want me to wake him up and make him change back?"

"No, it's fine." Summer was perfectly capable of waking him up herself, as a stout kick in the ribs usually did it, but Felipe was also much faster after the transition and more capable of dodging cranky wolf snaps. "I only... why are you out of bed?"

His shoulders rose and fell, a shrug. "Why is Zack still in bed? I thought wolves were nocturnal."

"They are," Summer said, and yawned, then added, "sometimes, but that's preposterous. He isn't a wolf, he's a shifter, and they're diurnal."

"Mostly," Felipe said, and shrugged again. "I don't know. I couldn't sleep."

"Oh," she said, and hesitated. He was different, of course he was. So many things were different now. "Do you have a lot of trouble sleeping?"

He met her eyes for a moment. "Sometimes."

She knew that tone of voice—it meant the conversation was over, at least for now. And it was late anyway; they should both be asleep. "Come back to bed anyway? I miss you."

He leaned forward just enough to kiss the tip of her nose. "At your command, querida."

It should have been awkward, squashed up against the great hulking mound of fur and heat that was Zack, Felipe half on top of her just to stay on the bed with his too-cool face pressed against her neck.

It was the most comfortable she'd been all night.

Many things were different now, but the important things hadn't changed. Summer wriggled into the mattress with a happy sigh, and fell asleep.


9. See’s Candy

They learned how to know her piece by piece.

They knew each other, of course—they'd had eight years together, eight years to find every place to stroke and every spot to kiss. Summer, though, her body was uncharted, all sweet soft skin and freckles hidden in the creases of her curves. Months of marriage and they still had not found them all.

She liked to be touched, soft and slow, liked the stroke of a hand down her cheek, and how Zack cupped her breasts, reverent. She liked to be kissed, hot and open-mouthed in hidden corners, or the soft press of lips Felipe dropped on the nape of her neck when he unlaced her stays. She liked to be loved, leaning back in Zack's arms while he held her legs open, her thighs stretched around Felipe's hips. She liked to be held, safe between them, hip to hip and legs tangled.

She did not like to talk very much. It bothered them at first; they could talk for hours together and only later realize that Summer hadn't said a word in all that time. But she liked that, to listen to them, sitting perhaps on Zack's knee, or with her head leaning against Felipe's shoulder. She also did not like to leave the house very much—she felt safe there, she told them, in the spaces they'd made for her and the little rituals she'd made for herself.

She was shy of strangers, ill at ease in company. Her smile made her irresistible, especially when she only curled up one little corner of her mouth. She spoke so much with her eyes and her hands that she hardly needed to use her voice. She liked just to be near them, to do her mending or read a book while they occupied themselves in their own ways.

And sometimes in the evenings they would go to the music room, the three of them, and Felipe would play the pianoforte while Zack danced Summer giggling around the room. Zack didn't play himself but he hummed valiantly as she tried to teach Felipe the waltz, or maybe she would take her turn at the harp while her men shuffled about, hands on each other's hips, smiling.

Her men.

They knew she liked the sound of that.


13. dark chocolate

There was something missing, between them.

It wasn't as if Zack wasn't happy with Felipe; far from it. He'd never been more in love in his life. And he thought—he was pretty sure that Felipe felt the same, from the way he smiled when they walked arm-in-arm to work. Nothing was wrong with their life. There was just something... missing.

He never brought it up with Felipe. He knew instinctively it wasn't anything Felipe could fix.

There was a case, though, that kept sticking in his mind, popping up at unexpected moments and haunting his dreams. It wasn't his case—he hadn't even been a cop at the time. He was just a kid, ten years old, sent with his sister to visit his aunt and uncle in New York while his parents worked out some "issues" (read, got divorced). His uncle was Homicide, and working a bad one; he came home every night, weary-eyed, and pressed his face into Aunt Jenny's shoulder and just held on.

Paige had no interest in whatever was causing their uncle so much pain, but Zack went snooping through his files one day and found the picture.

The girl was maybe a year or two younger than him, lying on the sidewalk pavement. Red hair fanned out around her face, and one small hand curled limp by her head, the pale inside of her wrist with its blue tracery of veins so vulnerable. If Zack didn't look any lower in the picture it looked like she'd only chosen an odd place to nap, her lashes lying against the curve of her cheek, the hollows of her face gently shadowed in the late afternoon light. It was only when you looked lower to the mess of bullet holes and blood that you understood what was really going on.

They never caught her killer.

He wondered sometimes what would have happened to that girl, if she had lived. He wondered, and he never told Felipe.


19. white chocolate

It was the fairies that gave it away.

Not at first, of course. At first they just sort of hovered around her in greater numbers than they used to, dancing sparks of light like little stars. It was a gradual buildup, easy to ignore. It was so easy to ignore that Summer thought she was imagining it, at least until Zack frowned at her one morning and asked, "Are there more of them around than usual?"

After that they began to cluster. They wound spirals around her wrists, like living silver bracelets, and circled her hips in a flowing hoop. They trailed after her hands when she gestured, leaving trails of stardust. They even hovered over her food, turning white and pink and pale, pale blue, and every so often an irritated red. Summer learned quickly not to eat seafood.

They seemed... pleased, though, for all of that. Pleased, delighted almost, like small children with a secret. They'd never been this pleased with her before.

"I've seen this before," Felipe said one night, as the three of them cuddled close in bed.

Zack batted irritably at a swarm of fairies just over Summer's right breast. "You've seen a horde of fairies mobbing some poor lady before?"

"Yes," Felipe said, either oblivious to the tone or (more likely, since Summer had spotted it) ignoring it completely. "I wish I could remember where. I have a feeling it's important."

"Probably," Summer said, lifting a hand to the little cluster Zack had displaced. She wasn't nearly so bothered by the fairies as her boys were—they annoyed Zack and (she thought) worried Felipe, but she didn't think they were trying to warn her, more... protect her. And she'd never known the fairies to hurt anyone. "I’m sure we'll figure it out eventually."

"Yeah," Felipe said, but he still sounded distracted.

Zack snorted. "Behold the great detective."

Felipe focused abruptly and scowled. "Fuck you."

"Boys," Summer said, mildly.

That always made them laugh, and this time was no exception. She smiled herself, curled her lifted hand around Zack's neck, and hooked her other hand into the neck of Felipe's t-shirt. The fairies danced around her fingers, then fell away, settled like glitter dust over her chest and abdomen.

"Seriously," Zack said, "this is starting to freak me out."

Felipe frowned again. "Yeah... damn it, I wish I could remember! Something to do with Luiza. And Mama, probably."

His sister and his mother, Summer thought drowsily, watching the fairies dance in the lamplight. Family. The fairies probably watched over them just like they did over her. Her siblings too, and Gina, Clara—Gina and Clara had attracted positive hordes of fairies when they were pregnant, hovering like overprotective bees—

Her thought process came to an abrupt halt.

Pregnant?

But they'd only just started trying. She had timed things as carefully as she could, it was true, and her boys had made a concentrated effort to get her pregnant, but it had only been last weekend, how could she possibly...

Her boys had been muttering back and forth, but they quieted when she lifted her head. Her expression must have been very strange indeed to shut them up so quickly. "I think," she said slowly, and stopped.

"You think?" Zack prompted gently, after a minute or two had gone by.

"I think. I think maybe I'm pregnant."


17. chocolate milk

The baby was moving beneath Zack's hands, little bumps of pressure against his cheek and ear. He couldn't actually hear anything over Summer complaining about magic and Felipe defending the idea, but there had to be a heartbeat in there somewhere; he'd almost convinced himself that he felt it when Felipe tapped him on the head.

"Move," he said, but nicely. "I can't do the spell with your head in the way."

"I don't know why we can't just go get another sonogram," Summer said. It was the fourth or fifth time she'd repeated herself in this conversation alone. "It's perfectly safe."

Felipe rolled his eyes and knelt, without bothering to warn Zack. He scooted out of the way but kept his hand on Summer's belly, where the baby had settled a bit—it was no more than a soft fluttering now, where earlier he'd been punching and kicking so hard that Summer had gasped a little every time one landed.

"We don't know that for sure," Felipe was saying. "I read a paper the other day saying how too many ultrasounds might be hazardous to the fetus."

Summer rolled her eyes. "It's three studies, they've all been done on animals, and all of them needed really excessive amounts of exposure before damage occurred. Anyway, no one's done any studies on the effect of spells on a developing fetus. We haven't the slightest clue what it might do."

"Judging from centuries of practice," Felipe said, "nothing."

She reached out and flicked his nose.

Zack ignored them. The sun would rise in the east, the seasons would change on cue, his husband and wife would argue about science versus magic until the cows came home, and it was best if he just got out of the way and let it all happen. Besides, he knew neither Summer nor Felipe was really concerned—Felipe hadn't objected to sonograms until he found a spell that did something similar and wanted to try it, and Summer wouldn't allow him anywhere near her if she truly thought it might hurt the baby.

He laid his fingertips against her belly, tapping a delicate morse code. He didn't need to see their child. He already knew, or had a guess anyway—a little boy, with Summer's sweet and serious face, his eyes, Felipe's tangle of dark hair. The best parts of all of them, with all their love.

Felipe swore as the spell backfired in his face, and Zack couldn't help a laugh.


16. chocolate-covered almonds

Summer dreamed of drowning, Zack thought, although she never would speak of it. Drowning, and the crunch of ice, the shrieking of metal as it twisted and gave, bone-cracking cold and screams in the water. So much death, and she had been such a small girl. She twisted and wept, clung to him with clawlike fingers, begged for her mother in a small girl's voice, and never, ever woke until the dream was past.

Felipe dreamed of drowning too, but drowning of a different sort—bloody froth in the lungs, fevers and aches, the moaning of the sick and the silence of the dead, the soft thump of dirt as it landed atop a coffin lid. The war had been the distant sound of thunder but the flu was a lightning strike, and sometimes when he woke he would reach out, pat Summer's hair and Zack's face, feel their breath on his palms. He'd told Zack once that he'd gone to sleep next to his little brother and woken next to a corpse. Of course he dreamed it, again and again.

Zack, though. Zack dreamed of nothing.

There were horrors enough in his past, to be sure, but they did not visit him in his sleep. The memories rubbed sharp-edged against his peace, and sometimes, times like this, he did not sleep at all but sat all night in his study, smoking and watching the moon.

But it was not the past that kept him sleepless now. There was a war coming. Perhaps not this year, or the next, but he truly believed that before the decade was out there would be war in Europe, and perhaps in America too. He had been too young for the last war—as, thank God, their son was now—but now...

Would it be his duty to go, if America entered the war? He knew what his father would say. Men protected their families, and he had such a family to protect. Perhaps if he left, joined the army and went for soldiers, Felipe would stay to keep Summer and their children safe. He dreamed too: he knew what nightmares could seize you in the dark.

Summer cried out softly in their bedroom, and he turned, rose automatically from his chair and went to her. It was one of her bad nights, where the stars scattered in the sky like chips of ice and the moon stared down with a death's-head grin. Felipe's bad nights were warmer, plague-summer and humid stillness. They both did better with some noise, so he hummed softly, stroked her hair.

The war would come soon enough, creeping in like cyanide in the veins. Soon enough, he would have to decide.

He could at least be there for them now.


8. Ghiradelli

Zack registered movement, someone stroking his hair, and wondered if he should bother opening his eyes. He didn't feel like it at all. The Horrible Snotty Flu From Hell had begun somewhere in Dawn's kindergarten class, put Dawn down for a couple of days, travelled immediately to Thomas and Lily, from whom Summer had caught it, and since he and Felipe shared a bed with her, they'd inevitably got it as well. Simultaneously.

The trouble was, of course, they were neither under the age of ten nor... well, Summer, which meant they got to suffer through the coughing, sore throat, fever, and alternately stuffed-up and runny noses all on their own.

Nah, fuck it. Zack decided to keep his eyes closed.

The person stroking his hair paused a moment, then gripped his hair gently and shook. "Open your eyes, please," Summer said. "I know you're awake."

He considered swearing, but that took up too much energy. Instead, he opened one eye a slit and glared up at her.

Summer, bless her, ignored it completely. "The children are safely off to school," she told him, "and I've arranged for Dawn to go home with a friend. I'll pick her up and be back before Thomas and Lily get home." She scruffed her hands through his hair, and he closed his eye and relaxed into her.
Of course, she tugged on his hair a little. "Are you listening to me?"

"Mmmyes." He didn't bother opening his eyes again.

"Good." She bent down awkwardly and kissed the top of his head. "Stay in bed as much as you can, and try to keep Felipe in bed too. Whatever you do, do not let him go to work. Tie him up if you have to. Make sure you both drink lots of fluids. There's ibuprofen and cough drops on the bathroom counter, and more in the kitchen if you run out."

There was a sex joke in there somewhere—something about keeping Felipe in bed and consuming fluids—but he was too tired to find it. He grunted an acknowledgment and focused on her fingers in his hair.

"If you or Felipe have trouble breathing, if there's pain or pressure in your torso, if either of you gets dizzy or confused or vomits a lot, call me right away." He must not have responded promptly enough, because she tugged on his hair again, and made him roll over and look at her. "That's very important, Zack, do you understand? What symptoms should you call me for right away?"

He repeated the list back to her, then coughed, and asked, somewhat resentfully, "How come I'm getting this lecture and not Felipe?"

Summer smiled. "He got it last night. You fell asleep too soon." She bent down again and rested her mouth against his forehead for a moment, the warm pressure not quite a kiss. "Get some rest. I'll be home before the kids. If you're good all day, I'll bring you some chocolate from Ghiradelli's."

"For that we'll be perfect," he told her—though of course it had nothing to do with Ghiradelli's—then reluctantly rolled away and into Felipe's solid, warm body. He rested his nose in the crook of his husband's neck, let his breathing sync up with the rise and fall of Felipe's chest, and closed his eyes.

The door clicked quietly shut behind Summer, and Zack went back to sleep.


15. semisweet chocolate

The gods loved Summer. People told her that quite often.

She did not believe it. It was true that she had been spared much that another girl in her position might have suffered. Her first dominus had been a kind man, much inclined to look on her as a daughter, to pet and coddle her even as she learned to be a slave. When he died, she had been put into the hands of one who owned her men also; they had shielded her from the darkness in that house, and taken her to their hearts as she had taken them to hers. She had carried and borne her children easily, despite what all had said of the chances of that.

But none of this was kindness. None of it spoke of love.

If the gods loved her, they would not have scattered her family into slavery, taken her voice from fright and left her silent. They would not have taken her from Zack and Felipe's arms once she had found them. They would not have taken her children from her breast, for however brief a time it was, and let her think she would never see them again. They would not have suffered her to bleed and weep. No one who truly loved another could do that.

And she knew love. True love, honest love—the way her parents talked of each other, their words protective and warm. The way her sister snarled when someone threatened her lover. The pride in her brother's words, when he spoke of his wife. The fierce affection that welled within her when she suckled her children, or cupped their downy heads.

The arms of her men around her in the night, tight and reassuring. Hands on her body, gentle and insistent, mouths that nipped at her skin and pressed kisses everywhere they could reach, bodies that tangled around her or set themselves between her and any danger. She slept between them always, because they did not like her to be unprotected. They did not like to think that she might be hurt again.

The gods did not love her. The gods had never loved her.

Her men did. That was enough.


20. chocolate syrup

Summer was late from shopping and hurrying home when she rounded a corner and ran smack into Andrew Gravenor.

She didn't realize it was him at first. She'd dropped a bag and the groceries in it spilled out onto the sidewalk: all safely sealed, thank God, canned soup and chocolate syrup and the packets of dried gravy that Zack liked so much. So she hissed a curse and went to pick them up, bending awkwardly around her expanding pregnancy and the apologizing man trying to help, stuffing things back into her bag and wondering if she shouldn't just get a cab when his voice suddenly penetrated and she jerked her head up and exclaimed, "Andrew?"

He froze, almost comically, his hand mid-reach after chunky homestyle chicken noodle soup. "Summer?"

"Oh my goodness," Summer said, and nearly dropped the rest of her bags.

"Wow," he said, and grabbed the soup, handed it up to her and got to his feet. "Wow, hi, I'm sorry, I didn't expect... you look great."

"Thank you," she said, cautiously. He was looking at her in a way she couldn't interpret, his eyebrows pressed together and his mouth curling up at the edges. How did one handle this? Meeting an ex after such a long time apart... she wished suddenly and violently that Gina was with her. "You look well yourself."

"Thanks." Andrew looked at her another moment, then ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair. That, at least, she could follow. He'd always done that when he was nervous. "Are you... how are you doing?"

How was she doing? "I'm..." she started, and stopped, at a loss for words. How was she supposed to answer that question? Finally, she went with the truth. "I don't know what you're asking."

He looked rather taken aback at that—she recognized that expression on him, Lord knew she'd seen it often enough. "I... I guess I'm asking if you're happy."

"Oh," Summer said, and then, "Yes," because she was. Because she could go to the store and pick out groceries without a list, because her boys told her what they liked and she remembered. Because she was five months pregnant, and maybe strangers couldn't tell yet but she knew, had begun to feel the baby moving inside her and to wonder what he (or she, but she was sure it was a boy even if they didn't technically know yet) would look like. Because Zack and Felipe were waiting at home, her boys, arguing amiably about something or lying on the couch watching television or wondering worried where she was.

It was not that she never misunderstood them, the way she had misunderstood Andrew. It was that they would explain, without laughing or questions, simply explain, so she would understand next time. Her family did that without even thinking about it. She should have known Andrew wasn't right when he didn't.

"Oh," he echoed, and smiled—crinkling his eyes, which Zack had taught her meant it was sincere. "I'm glad."

She smiled back, a little relieved. He wasn't a bad man, they simply hadn't worked together, and there was nothing wrong with that. "Are you happy?" she asked, wanting to know, wanting to reciprocate.

"Yes," Andrew said.

"Good," Summer said, and nodded briskly. "I'm late, but..." Her cards were in her purse, easy to get to. She took one and held it out to him. "Maybe you could call sometime? Come and meet my boys."

"I'd love to," he said. She couldn't tell how sincere he was, but he took her card, and smiled again as he passed her.

Well, good. They'd loved each other once. It was good to know there was still some affection there.

Summer shifted her bags, and went home.