the technical know-how that Kit and Laurie brought... She didn’t need someone else telling her she was useless.
“No! Or yes, but I meant you should go somewhere you can be more useful,” Galilia said, frowning.
“Yeah? And where’s that?” Now the bitterness did come through. “Because I already volunteered to go out on the search teams, and AJ shot that idea down. And going back to my life like nothing ever happened? Not so much.”
The memory of AJ trying to dismiss her still burned: Go home, he had said when they’d come back from the preternatural realm, staggered and stunned by what they’d seen. Reassure your friends and family, your employer, that everything’s under control, let them know that you’re okay. The world isn’t going to end tomorrow—not even next week. You need to pick up the pieces and go on.
She had fought that, fought the idea that she could just go home, pretend none of it had ever happened. Martin had tried to send her away, too, his voice filled with sorrow and worry. You’ll never be able to go back if you don’t go now. I don’t know a lot, but I know that much. Nobody who chooses this, who chooses to walk among us...ever goes back. Not really.
I know, she had told him. She had understood that she would be changed, had already been changed. Had known that she couldn’t go back to what had been, even if Tyler suddenly completely recovered. But she hadn’t thought that every way she tried to help, someone was already doing it better.
And never mind that she had brought those better people in because she knew they’d be better at it....
“Jan...” Gali’s frown had turned into something else, something almost painful to look at. She’d thought at first that supernaturals were crap at the emotion thing—the human emotion thing, she’d thought. But that wasn’t fair; they did care, and they did hurt, and they did...all the human things. They just did it differently. You had to learn the body language, listen for it differently for each species, and she was so tired of having to work so hard every day and—
And Galilia was right. Hadn’t that been exactly what she had been saying to Martin earlier? They weren’t needed here.
“No, it’s all right. I get it. You’re right.” Jan was, first and foremost, a problem solver. She’d been trying to do that within the parameters of this gig, trying to think, work, like a supernatural. But she wasn’t. She was a human. It might not be an advantage, as such, but it meant she had other options.
She needed to talk to Martin again.
“You’re right,” she repeated. “I need to...utilize my skill set better.” It was straight out of an HR handbook and made the jiniri laugh, if ruefully. “If you do need me, though?” she said, even as she was standing up, grabbing a handful of M&M’s to go. “To interpret, or break up a fight, or...”
“We’ll howl your name loud enough to be heard over in Boston,” Galilia promised.
* * *
Jan had spoken casually, as though she only had to think about what to do and a solution would appear. Figuring out what she was doing wrong was one thing. Finding the right thing to do? Harder.
Be clever, her brain whispered. Be human, be stubborn, be clever. They brought you in because you had Tyler’s heart, because only the heart could save him. So be the clever heart, damn it.
What did a clever heart do?
Martin was still in the meeting with AJ, so Jan wandered through the farmhouse, acutely aware that everyone else had a place to be, a thing to do, either working on assignments or taking part in the chores that kept the farmhouse humming along, despite so many beings living there. Cleaning, cooking, managing the garden nestled under makeshift greenhouse walls, digging latrine trenches and covering them up again...
Jan had never thought about what it might be like to live in a military encampment until, suddenly, she was.
Trying to escape the buzz of people who had a clue and a purpose, Jan wandered outside, shivering a little in the afternoon air. Her feet kept her moving, until she found herself standing outside the shed, her toes practically touching the lower riser of the stairs. Suddenly, her throat was tight and her heart pounding, as though she was about to have another asthma attack.
She reached down to touch the inhaler in her jeans pocket, like a magical talisman. She had braved Under the Hill, had faced down the preter court. She could do this.
Jan took the steps before she could talk herself out of it, and with her free hand she knocked once on the wooden door.
It swung open immediately, almost as though they’d been expecting her. “Jan.” Zan had been working with Tyler, pretty much 24/7 since they’d returned. A healer—combination medic and therapist—Zan looked almost human, with a narrow face and sharp features, but a birthmark the size and shape of a sooty quarter on the pale-skinned forehead drew the eye before anything else. “We haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Yeah.” And now Jan felt like even more useless shit. “I’m sorry, I just...” Excuses weren’t going to cut it; they both knew why she had been avoiding the shed. “How is he doing?”
“Come in.”
That wasn’t an answer, and they both knew it. Jan stepped into the shed, her hand still touching the inhaler, and saw her lover seated at the desk at the far end of the common space.
The supernaturals were taking good care of Tyler; she knew that. Seeing the space he was kept in reminded her of that fact. Shed was a misnomer; it was more of a cottage on the inside, with a kitchenette and enough room for the work area, and a living room space with a sofa and armchair, and there was a door off to the side, to a small bedroom addition. Tyler slept there, while Zan had the pullout sofa, able to respond at a moment’s notice if the human needed care.
“Hi,” she said when Ty turned to look at her. That so-familiar face, the dark skin and elegant fingers that were wrapped around a paintbrush now... She supposed it was therapy of a sort, the kind they had veterans and stroke victims do. She would have had him singing, not painting; Tyler didn’t have the best voice, but he’d always loved to sing. There was a stereo in the shed, but she’d never actually heard music coming... Maybe she should suggest that.
“Hi,” he said, and Jan’s chest hurt. That wasn’t Ty, not the tone he used with her, not the sharp, funny one or the sweeter, softer one when he was feeling playful or romantic. But it wasn’t the cold “I don’t know you” voice he’d used in the preter’s world, either, so that was something, right? He wasn’t as lost, as confused as he’d been when they’d come back.
She had visited enough before to know that there were good days and bad ones. And sometimes there were worse ones.
“I know you,” he said now. “You...”
“This is Jan,” the healer said. “You remember Jan.”
Something familiar moved in his face, a tilt of his head, the way his gaze slid over her, face to body, and then back up to her face, and for a moment Jan thought that this would be the day he broke the last of the preter’s bonds, came back to the man she loved.
“She’s human. Like me.”
“Yes,” Zan said encouragingly, even as Jan tried not to feel too much disappointment.
“She was from my before.” He’d split his awareness into before, there, and now, compartmentalizing to deal with the damage. “She took me away from there.”
They’d been through this exchange before. Sometimes it was a good thing; sometimes it sent him into a muted fury. Jan couldn’t tell from his voice if today it was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Yes,” Zan said again, and Jan tried to keep her face neutral but positive, the way they’d showed her.
“Oh. I guess I should thank you, then.” Tyler tilted his head the other way and stared at her, as though waiting for his next cue. That was the hardest thing