Picking Up the Pieces, Part 1

When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see
that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

VP and BP Standings
Erin - 79 VP - 800 BP - 1 Achiev
Claire - 57 VP - 7200 BP - 2 Achievs
Marissa - 56 VP - 4300 BP - 1 Achiev
Liesa - 54 VP - 2900 BP - 2 Achievs
Emi - 44 VP - 3750 BP - 1 Achiev
Dawn - 36 VP - 4500 BP - 1 Achiev
Sam - 29 VP - 4550 BP - 2 Achievs
Norah - 27 VP - 4050 BP - 2 Achievs
Chloe - 8 VP - 2975 BP - 1 Achiev
Riley - 6 VP - 4300 BP

Andy left the elevator with the slow, stiff steps of someone re-learning how to carry himself. The glass lobby was empty at first, except for the faint hiss of ocean wind pressing at the tall windows and the muted click of maintenance staff in the distance. The world felt filtered and oddly thin, as if even the light was afraid to touch him.

He should have noticed Claire first. Her new ears always caught the light, pale gold and alert, but this morning it was the notebook that caught his eye—she held it pressed against her chest, fingers drumming in a staccato that matched the rapid flick of her tail. She was waiting for him just beyond the elevator’s doors, as if she’d known precisely what minute he would arrive.

“Good morning,” he managed, voice sandpapered from lack of sleep.

Claire offered a nervous little bow, then flipped open her notebook and scribbled furiously. She thrust the page out at him:

It went badly, didn’t it?

Behind her, a ripple of motion: Dawn popping up from behind a planter, arms full of coffee cups and a pastry box; Emi hovering at a polite distance, six arms busy with tasks both real and invented; Liesa sprawled on a sofa, one bare leg swinging in the air, making a show of indifference as she watched everything from beneath her bangs. Chloe and Marissa stood off to one side, half-shielded by a pillar, their conversation cut short by Andy’s arrival.

It took no time at all for the women to coalesce into a circle around him, Claire at the center, the rest forming a soft perimeter, each offering care in their own way.

Dawn rushed in first, pressed a mug into his hands. “I made it extra-strong,” she said, then added, “Claire and I felt you needed it.” Her eyes, soft and brown, held him with an urgency that bordered on maternal.

Emi, silent as always, approached next. She didn’t speak, but two of her arms reached out, the lower right one hesitating at his shoulder before settling there in a gentle, feather-light touch. Another hand offered a napkin, which she used to dab at a non-existent spot on his shirt. It was soothing, not patronizing, as if she’d spent years practicing the art of unobtrusive comfort. Then, seeing that Andy welcomed her touch, she pulled herself in for a hug, all six arms wrapped around Andy tightly. He hugged her back gratefully, and she buried her face in his shoulder, holding him for a few moments. When she detached, he gave her a kiss. “Thank you.” She blushed.

Liesa tried for humor, even before she stood. “You walk like a zombie,” she said, accent thick as syrup. “If you want, we can give you a face mask. Hides all the dark circles.” She grinned, then quickly sobered when Andy’s face didn’t so much as twitch.

Chloe, alone among them, kept her distance. Her gaze tracked the floor, fingers knotted at the hem of her skirt, knuckles white. When she finally looked up, it was with a flinch—her eyes meeting his for the briefest of instants before darting away. “If you, um, want to talk,” she said, voice small, “I’m here. Or, if not, that’s okay too.”

Andy found himself surrounded, insulated by their concern, and for a moment the tightness in his chest loosened. He sipped the coffee, scalded his tongue, but **** down the bitterness and let the caffeine work.

Claire nudged closer, scribbled another note, held it up:

What happened?

He thought about lying, or at least deflecting, but the memory of Riley’s voice in the dark—the old anger, the rawness—made him want to tell the truth, if only in abbreviated form. He found a patch of sunlight by the windows and sat, the women gathering in a loose semicircle around him. Emi curled beside him on the low bench, knees tucked tight, all six hands folded in her lap like she was afraid to startle him with a stray gesture. The others found seats or stood, watching him as if he were a bird with a broken wing: not to smother him with pity, but to keep him from flying into a window.

He sipped the coffee again, slower this time. His hands barely shook, which felt like a minor miracle.

After a minute, Claire scooted closer, her ears tracking every flicker of his expression. She scribbled a new message and held it up, careful to block the others from seeing:

If you can talk about it, please do. If you can’t, that’s fine.

He almost laughed—she’d anticipated his **** that well.

“I can talk,” he said, voice catching at first, then smoothing out. “Just… be ready for it to be messy.”

The group nodded, some more obviously than others. Dawn, perched on the arm of a chair, leaned in like she wanted to wrap a towel around his shoulders and shoo everyone else away. Liesa had stopped pretending to read a magazine and was now twirling her braid, jaw set. Chloe, still at the edge of the circle, hugged her arms around her middle and stared at the ceiling, but her attention was laser-bright.

“It wasn’t good,” Andy began, and the understatement almost drew a smile from Liesa. “Riley’s carrying more anger than I thought. Sixteen years’ worth.” He stopped, thinking of how to explain the rest. “She blames me. For everything that happened to Laura, and after.”

No one spoke, but a charge went through the group, everyone glancing at one another, then back to him.

“She thinks I lied to Laura. That I strung her along and—” He stopped, unwilling to finish the thought, but Claire’s ears flattened and Dawn gasped softly. “She says I never took responsibility for what happened.”

He expected someone to leap in—maybe Chloe, maybe Marissa, who had always seemed like the group’s secret emotional medic. Instead, Emi’s lower left hand crept out and rested, feather-light, on his knee. The touch was so gentle, so unassuming, that he almost missed it. But it grounded him, and he managed to keep going.

“I tried to explain,” he said, “but it was like she couldn’t even hear me. She wanted a villain, and I fit the part. That’s basically it.”

He let the words die, uncertain what else there was to say.

For a few seconds, the only sound was the low, synchronized hum of the hotel’s HVAC, and the scratch of Claire’s pen as she wrote something new.

She turned the notebook, this time letting everyone see: That’s not fair to you.

Andy shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s what’s true for her.”

Liesa gave a low whistle, then shook her head. “Is like my aunt back home. Holds grudge until it ferments, then makes soup with it. Bad soup. No one likes it, but she still serves.”

It wasn’t the world’s best analogy, but it made Dawn snort, and the tension broke for a moment. Chloe even smiled, a small and private thing, but it was there.

Marissa, who had kept quiet until now, spoke up, careful to keep her tone as neutral as possible. “What you’re describing is classic survivor’s guilt. She needs to keep the story simple, so she’s not left with more questions than answers.” Her voice, as ever, glided through the room, and even with the new transformation’s arousal effect, she managed to keep the words clinical enough that no one squirmed.

Dawn, as if on cue, started fussing with the pastry box, pushing it toward Andy with an urgency that bordered on desperation. “You should eat,” she said, ears tipped forward, the worry in her eyes almost comic in its intensity. “You’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”

He took a croissant, more for her benefit than his, but the warmth and the carbs did help.

Chloe finally moved closer, sitting cross-legged on the floor by his feet. “I know I’m probably the last person who should say this,” she began, eyes fixed on a spot just past his shoulder, “but if you need someone to talk to—about any of it—I’m here. I owe you that much.”

The humility in her voice surprised him, but he just nodded. “Thanks.”

He meant it.

The conversation drifted, the women’s focus shifting from triage to maintenance. Emi started folding the paper napkin wrappers into tiny cranes, handing one to Claire, who lined them up in military precision on the glass table. Liesa, seeing that the mood had softened, started telling a story about a disastrous family reunion, and how she once hid in a linen closet for four hours to avoid a cousin’s chess match. Dawn and Chloe, meanwhile, teamed up to prod Andy into eating more, arguing over which pastry was best for post-trauma recovery.

Through it all, Claire’s presence hovered at his elbow—cat ears tilting with every mood shift, tail flicking in silent commentary. She didn’t ask more questions, but when he caught her watching him, he sensed a different kind of scrutiny: not invasive, but as if she was calibrating her own emotional response to better match his.

It was strangely comforting.

Eventually, the lobby’s natural light shifted from pale gold to harsh noon white, and the group began to peel off—Emi first, drifting away with a silent wave; then Liesa, who had apparently decided Andy was stable enough to be left unsupervised; Marissa and Chloe slipped out together, heads bent in low conversation. Only Claire lingered.

She waited until they were alone, then offered him the notebook again, this time with a different message:

I’m glad you told us.

She tapped the page, then added, You’re not alone here. We love you. We can help carry the burden.

Andy swallowed hard, fighting the urge to say something glib. Instead, he closed the notebook, handed it back, and met her gaze, those beautiful pale blue eyes that he had come to know and love.

“Thank you,” he said.

She smiled, a quick upward flicker of the lips, stole a quick kiss, then pressed the notebook to her chest and scampered off, tail high.

He sat for another minute, finishing the coffee and letting the residual warmth settle in his belly. The pain was still there, a stone in his gut, but it didn’t feel as heavy as before.

He stood, stretched, and—after a brief inventory of his energy reserves—headed toward the gym. As he reached the hallway, he caught a glimpse of the group in the main lounge.

The gym was a glassed-in cinderblock at the edge of the resort, the kind of place built less for inspiration and more for containment. Andy pushed through the doors expecting emptiness, but instead found Erin on the squat rack, glistening with sweat, and Sam perched on the bench beside her, counting reps in a slow, sardonic drawl.

Erin looked like she’d been at it for a while—her skin shone, legs quivering with effort, face set in a mask of focus that made her look almost unapproachable. The breasts had become their own gravitational field, but she seemed remarkably unselfconscious about her nudity now; if anything, she seemed to dare anyone to comment.

Sam spotted Andy and gave a two-fingered wave, then dropped down from the bench, towel slung over her shoulder. “Hey, stranger. You look like **** warmed over.”

He grunted, grabbed a towel from the rack, and made for the free weights. Erin racked her bar, then followed, sneakers squeaking on the rubber mats.

“You want a partner?” she asked with a warm smile, voice steady, like nothing about her situation was even a little out of the ordinary.

He nodded, and she started loading plates onto the barbell, not bothering to ask what weight he wanted. Andy noticed the amount of plates quickly crossed from 'reasonable' to 'staggering', but Erin seemed to know what she was doing. She probably had spotted Sam before, and Sam was as strong as he was, now. She knew.

Sam watched this with a half-smile, then drifted closer, arms crossed, leaning on a machine. “You okay?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Never mind, you’re not. Let’s get moving.”

Andy set up under the bench, letting Sam spot him. She didn’t hover, just stood behind with a hand ready in case he collapsed—though given her strength was close to his, she could probably lift the whole assembly if she wanted.

“Riley,” Sam said, low, so only he and Erin could hear. “How bad?”

Andy didn’t answer right away, focusing instead on the weight above his chest, the raw ache in his triceps and the burn that was so much easier to manage than anything else. He counted out his set, Erin’s fingers flicking under the bar for safety, then exhaled hard and racked it.

“She hates me,” he said, after a moment. “Pretty much wants to feed my heart to the local wildlife.”

Erin made a noncommittal noise, loading more weight for his next set. “She’ll get over it,” she said. “That’s how I felt too, at the beginning, and look at me now.”

Sam grinned at that. “That’s the spirit. Is she going to stay, you think?”

Andy considered. “If she can find a reason. Otherwise she’ll be gone by end of week.”

Sam’s hands were steady as she helped him line up for another rep. “You want to talk about it?” Erin asked, voice soft but clear.

He shook his head. “Not now.” He pressed through the set, each repetition more punishing than the last, until his arms gave out. He sat up, sweat stinging his eyes.

Sam handed him the towel, then bent to whisper: “You know, if you need a body double, you can always shift to Andi. Riley doesn’t know about that, does she? Less chance of someone shanking you in the showers.”

He almost smiled. “Noted.”

The gym was bright, the fluorescent hum almost oppressive. Outside, the ocean glared, an endless sheet of white. Inside, every clang of iron was a tiny exorcism.

They moved to the rower next. Sam took the seat beside Andy, setting a brisk pace, while Erin stood behind, arms folded across her bare chest in a gesture that seemed both defiant and self-protective. Her nipples pebbled in the air conditioning as she shifted her weight from one sneakered foot to the other, watching the digital meters climb.

After a while, Sam said, "So, there's something I've been meaning to tell you." She hesitated, eyes fixed on the numbers. "Liesa confessed about the ribbon."

Andy almost lost his rhythm. He recovered, then looked at her, sweat running into his mouth. "Good. About time someone else knew."

Sam slowed her pace, dropped her voice. “You knew?”

Andy sighed and nodded. “I watched it on the screens, during the challenge. I spoke with Liesa immediately after, told her I knew, advised her to come clean. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I was hoping she would do so on her own.”

Sam nodded. “I understand. She did, so you were right. Said she took Dawn's ribbon because she didn't know about Claire's plan. Didn't want to lose. She thought she was playing the game, that we all were, but—" Sam let the sentence trail off.

Erin gasped, momentarily forgetting her nakedness as her arms dropped to her sides. "Wait, Liesa? I thought—" Her eyes widened, and she stepped forward, hands gripping the back of Andy’s seat. “You serious?”

Sam nodded. "Liesa confessed yesterday afternoon. Tried to play it off like it wasn't a big deal when I told her she needed to tell Dawn and Norah." She lowered her voice. "Had to make her promise she would. I'll probably end up dragging her by the ear to do it."

Andy stopped rowing, panting hard. He stared at the machine's little monitor, watching the numbers scroll, then turned to Erin. "What do you think?"

Erin wiped her brow, then leaned against the next rower. "I think it tracks. She's weird, but not mean."

Sam twisted her mouth to one side. "She's freaking out, thinks Dawn and Norah will hate her."

Andy shook his head. "I doubt they will. She's a good person."

"Just hates conflict," Sam finished for him, with a knowing look.

He sat back, breathing hard, then looked at both women. "She’s always been like that. I’m pretty sure that when she left me, back in college, she did it the way she did so she wouldn’t have to face me and risk me getting upset. Still, it has to come from her," he said, his voice firm but quiet. "I can't do it for her. Sam, same for you. She needs to own this. However… she needs to come clean soon, Sam. If this drags on for too long, if she only admits it too close to the next challenge, the others may not have enough time to digest this. It will impact her, during the challenge. If it’s another competition, some of the others may not look at her favorably, then."

Erin nodded, then patted his shoulder, her hand softer than he remembered, and kind. "You're getting good at this," she said. "The group stuff. I'm impressed."

He gave her a look. "Is that a compliment?"

She grinned. “Maybe. Depends how many more sets you’ve got in you.”

They finished with the rowers, then cooled down on the mats. Erin stretched, loose and limber, her body making peace with its new nudity. Sam splayed out on her back, eyes closed, humming softly.

After a long silence, Andy said, “I can’t make Pathfinder later. I have to talk with Marissa.”

Sam opened one eye. “You good?”

He nodded. “Just want to make sure she’s okay.”

Erin looked at him, then at Sam, and exchanged a brief, silent assessment. “Go shower,” she said, tossing him the towel. “You look like you’re about to collapse.”

He got up, and the fluorescent lights caught the lines of his exhaustion, the blue half-moons under his eyes. He waved once, then headed for the locker room.

Erin and Sam watched him go, then looked at each other, a hundred conversations passing in the space between heartbeats.

"He's not okay," Erin said, voice low, crossing her arms over her chest again.

Sam's eyes flickered briefly over Erin's naked form. "Neither are my concentration levels with you looking like that," she teased, lips quirking. "How am I supposed to count reps?"

Erin laughed, her shoulders relaxing. "Thanks for making this easier. Andy helped a lot, actually. Claire too—she helped me pick the upgrade."

"You seem weirdly okay with…" Sam gestured vaguely at Erin's nudity.

"Work in progress," Erin admitted, dropping her arms to her sides. "Andy’s hugs helped. And, uh, a plushie. But I can't change it, so I might as well own it. For me. And for him."

Sam grinned. "Another round then, exhibitionist?"

Erin smiled back, and together, they got back to work.