Falling like Leaves

Jo stopped walking, even though they had only just started up again. She held Heliodor Everett closely and carefully, hoping that the feeling of her weird carry embrace would be enough to ground hi.

"They're not here right now," Jo reminded him. "You're safe. We're leaving the person who was hurting you here, and we're far away from the people who would hurt you where you're from."

She wasn't sure why it took her so long to realize it, but the solution suddenly seemed all so easy to her: if going back to his Earth and his time would result in Heliodor Everett getting hurt, there was a convenient solution.

"You could come back with Kyle and me," Jo said, quickly and excitedly. "When we get out of this place. You can come back with us to Mutopia. No one would judge you there. You'd be safe."

He gasped, choking on the lack of breath and the tears. “But- but-… I possibly couldn’t. We don’t even know if we can go back. Or where we are. Or what’ll it take to go back.”

He wiped his eyes, but it was useless because the tears just kept coming. It was like all of the tears he had stopped in all of his years of living had chosen that moment to spring up. “Would you leave if that meant leaving Kyle behind? Would he leave if meant leaving you?”

She shook her head.

"No," she said, "but we don't need to leave anyone behind-"

They paused, a thought suddenly hitting them. They weren't sure why they hadn't considered it before. Maybe it was because Heliodor Everett didn't seem to have any true friends, or maybe it was because everyone he mentioned knowing in his life seemed to hurt him.

"...Do you have someone you care about, back on your Earth?" Jo asked.

Heliodor Everett opened his mouth and froze. He could feel the way he just… drooped. Every part of him just fell.

“I… I used to. My Hannah Grace.”

He turned away from Jo. “But that’s… it’s been… it’s been almost a year now.”

Jo was quiet when she spoke again.

"...Oh," she managed to get out. The way he said my Hannah Grace made it sound romantic. She wasn't sure she could ever see Kyle in that kind of way. But they got the comparison Heliodor Everett had been trying to make: Hannah Grace had been important to him, just like Kyle was important to them.

"Did she..." Jo's voice caught. "...is she still...you know..."

He sighed. “She was so… dainty. The lords called her the perfect wife. Small, thin. Shorter than me and lighter still. But alis women aren’t meant to be like that. She… she grew ill. And there was no doctor who knew how to help her.”

Jo's heart broke again.

"I'm sorry," Jo said, quietly. She wasn't sure if the words meant anything to him. "I...I couldn't imagine losing someone like that..."

“She wasn’t six feet tall. To humans that was basic. Women weren’t supposed to be anywhere near that tall. But to us alis…” He shrugged. “But it wasn’t my place. They wouldn’t listen, so I stopped trying. She paid the price.”

Jo suddenly remembered reading stories, as a kid, of women who were forced to have kids when their bodies were too weak to actually have them. They didn't want to assume that was what happened here, but where else was their mind supposed to go? She couldn't think of any other reason that would come up in this context.

"But would it have made a difference, if they had?" Jo asked, oh-so-quietly.

“What do you mean?”

Heliodor Everett frowned. “Doctors aren’t trained to handle alis. They don’t know how to set alis bones. If there’s something wrong with our wings…” He shrugs helplessly. “Is that what you mean?”

Jo shook her head.

"It wasn't," she said, "but I...uh..."

They felt awkward at the thought of admitting what they had actually thought, so they didn't.

"It doesn't matter," Jo said, trying to move on. "But I'm sorry that...that you lost her."

He shrugged. “I… I don’t think about it. It’s better that way.”

He didn’t like thinking about her. Or how she treated him kinder than anyone ever had before.

But even that was still nothing in compared to how Jo was treating him now. And that was something that was more terrifying than words could express.

Jo gave a tiny nod at that. She didn't know enough about grief to have strong feelings on what was the best way to deal with it. They had lost Kyle before, but he always came back. The grief she had felt the few times she thought he wouldn't had always been short-lived.

She walked a little farther.

"How do you..." they started. "How do you...do that? Just tuck away how you're feeling? You didn't react when you were cut before. I tried to not react to, but I just...couldn't."

Heliodor Everett sighed. “Practice. The first time I was stabbed I reacted. But after a while, you just… get used to it. My father taught me. It’s all in the alis tenants. Every human, no matter how poor, young, or sickly, is above you. Contentment is exploitable, anger is punishable, sadness is weakness, and happiness is impossible. Know who to please, who to scorn, and who to always listen to. Don’t react to insults, only scolding.”

He sighed and looked away, wiping his eyes. “Be an alis that isn’t worth killing, and you get to survive. You can see where that got me.”

Jo's face fell.

"That's so wrong," they said. "You shouldn't have to-You shouldn't have to put all your emotions away like that."

It was a survival mechanism. Jo got that. She also got that Heliodor Everett's world was even worse than her world was right now, and that hatred of alis was far more deeply ingrained in his world than hatred of mutants was in hers.