Chester knows firsthand just how hard Bryant took it when her two strike team partners left her behind, like their years of fighting side by side meant nothing. The sting of that abandonment will probably take a while to heal, but at least they have the chance now.
It may have taken over half a year, but they’re finally back together. And it’s like?—
Well. It’s not like nothing has even changed. Actually, it’s more likeeverythinghas changed.
But maybe that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Chester’s eyes widen when he finally sees the rift back to Earth looming ahead of them. “There it is!” he says excitedly, craning his neck to look through it. The silhouettes on the other side are indistinct, but is that Gregorio and Ez trying to squint into Tamaros? And Sawyer and Maggie pacing in the background? And?—
“Yes, Locke, it’s been there the whole time,” Bryant drawls, and three steps later, they walk through the rift and land straight back in the bedroom of Obie’s safe house.
Chester stumbles through the rift with Bryant mostly supporting his weight and immediately collapses. Obie’s heart drops. “Chester?” he croaks, feebly trying to reach towards him. “Chester?—”
“Oh, I amsodizzy,” Chester moans, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Is this, like, the interdimensional version of seasickness?”
He sounds annoyed, not hurt. The relief is just enough to make a dent in Obie’s pain-addled brain, and he slumps back onto the mattress, trying to concentrate on breathing. Chester is okay,Chester is okay,and that’s all that matters, that’s?—
That’s all he needed to know.
If he’s about to die, then at least he knows that Chester is safe.
Cass bolts to his feet. “Did you get them?” he demands, his voice shaking. “Chester, Bryant, did you?—?”
At that moment, JJ drags Roma back through the rift, and Roma’s knees buckle just as quickly as Chester’s did. Ez hastily catches her before she hits the floor, finally letting the rift evaporate behind them. “Roma? Roma, talk to me?—”
“I am writingsucha bad review of that place,” Roma groans, burying her face in Ez’s shoulder. “Zero out of ten, wouldnotrecommend.”
Bryant squints down at Chester languishing on the floor, apparently decides that he’s not getting up for a while, and looks back at Cass. “Yeah, of course we got them,” she says, holding up Roma’s bulging backpack as evidence. Obie’s heart stutters when he sees the Blessings—the Blessings thatheput there so many millennia ago—drifting dreamily out of the opening. “JJ got a few handfuls, too. What do we do with them?”
Just give them to me.Obie tries to make his mouth work around the words, but his body refuses to cooperate with his brain.Just let me touch them.
“Obie.” Chester clambers to his feet, falls gracelessly back to the floor, and curses under his breath, crawling towards the bed. “Obie, tell us what you need.”
Cass rakes Obie’s hair back from his forehead, his face bloodless. “Back in Tamaros, we just wentthroughthe Fount to access the Blessings, but with how different Earth is and how different our physical bodies are—” His eyes cut to Ez. “Any ideas?”
“I don’t—” Ez swallows visibly. “I don’t know. And we might not have enough time to find more Blessings if we get it wrong, so?—”
“Baby.” Chester uses the bedframe to drag himself up to kneeling, reaching for Obie. “Obie, baby?—”
His fingertips don’t quite reach Obie’s palm. Hastily, Cass grabs Obie’s limp hand to put into Chester’s, and immediately, Chester’s warm, soothing voice cuts through the screaming agony in Obie’s head.Obie, what do you need? Tell me what you need, tell me?—
I just—Obie tries to hold Chester’s hand, but a weak twitch of his fingers is all he can manage.I just need to touch them. I just need?—
Chester squeezes Obie’s hand, turning to Bryant and JJ. “He said that he just needs to touch them. So—so just dump them on him, I guess?”
“Good enough for me,” Bryant says, and she takes two steps forward, holds Roma’s backpack over Obie’s shaking form, and unceremoniously flips it upside down.
Obie gasps at the sudden cool rush of the Blessings, flowing over him and through him andintohim as they fix his body and wash the curse off his skin. Power dances just underneath his veins, so familiar and yet so different in this dimension, healing him and strengthening him and making him whole again.
Not Nostringvadha. Just Obie.
Exactly who he wants to be.
Slowly, Obie opens his eyes. His vision is clear this time, clear enough to see the scared faces around him, all of them holding their breath to make sure he’s all right.
His friends. The ones who moved heaven and Earth—movedTamarosand Earth—to save him. He shoots them a small smile. “Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?”
Ez lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob, sitting heavily on the bed next to him and dragging Roma along with her. Cass sags forward to rest his forehead on JJ’s shoulder, like all the energy and adrenaline andfearof the past few hours just evaporated at once.
Chester’s voice winds through Obie’s head.How do you feel?
