Milo was having a late lunch as himself today. Ann didn’t have a show, shopping did not appear necessary, and he had been doing some more work on the headphones. It was actually a good idea (and workable, unlike some he had come up with) and he had felt the need to have the music up loud on more than one occasion since Calliope fixed his hair.

(He had gone back to braiding it when he went back to work, there were conveyor belts at work. But Ann had magicked her hair straight and shiny for her triumphant return to the stage and it had gone over well.)

He hadn’t cranked up the radio like that again, after the first time he had calmed down enough to realize that was rude, but he would’ve liked to have the option. Headphones were an obvious solution. Cheap radios came with a teeny tiny one so you didn’t need a speaker. He wanted two, and he wanted to see if he could make them go without a cord. Otherwise, he’d be walking around the basement with a leash on.

He was sketching absently and eating canned spaghetti because it was easy. He had not bothered to warm it up or take it out of the can. He was aware that he was supposed to eat lunch, even if he was doing something interesting, and it satisfied the requirement.

If I make them bigger, I’ll have room for more magic. Maybe something that covers the whole ear?

He was going to need coffee.

Lunch first, though, because if Cin found out he hadn’t been eating she’d get loud, and she was not pleasant like the radio. It was a good thing he had a can. He could pick it up and show it to her as proof.

Calliope wandered into the kitchen. She tended to wander places. She was wearing her art clothes — which still looked appreciably like his clothes, although she had abandoned suspenders after Lucy was born —  a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black pants. He was noticing her clothes a little bit more now, but he still thought she had nice eyes.

He was saying daily Hosannas to the effect that Lucy should grow up to love pretty dresses and let him put her in them. Calliope was never going to be bothered about clothes.

He tried smiling at her. It seemed to look all right, or at least she didn’t seem to notice if it was wrong.

“Hey, Milo. Lunch?”

He nodded.

“Finish,” she told him. She dipped a glass of water and drank it without further engaging him.

He felt rather obligated to finish, although he would’ve preferred to do whatever Calliope wanted him for right now. Maybe she wanted to pose him! He ate fast.

“Hey,” she reiterated, coming around to the front of the table. “So, do you mind if I do you a favour?”

Do I mind if you do me…? What?

But he was already nodding. Then he put both hands up and shook his head. No! I mean, no! I do not mind!

“Huh,” she said. “Well, all right. Come on.” She picked up his hand and led him. He let her, feeling slightly bemused.

She paused in the kitchen doorway and frowned. “Wait. You can do charms, right?”

He nodded.

“Okay. Cool.”

◈◈◈

He had clothes on and he was leaving and he did not want to be!

No, no, no, Ann. Please. Let’s go back. Let’s just go back, okay? Please.

No, Milo.

No, but I really, really want to! Please, let’s just hold her a little while longer. Please, she’s so soft. She feels so good. Please, let’s go back!

He was smiling. He knew he was doing it exactly right and he couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to stop. It was so wonderful!

Ann was not smiling. She wouldn’t.

Milo, you don’t need to hold her. You need to talk to her. I’m the only one of us who can do that. You need to change.

He stopped dead in the middle of the staircase with his stocking feet on the cold tile and he put both his hands down, and he frowned. He frowned at Ann. I do need to hold her. I need to hold someone and have it feel good. I need that more than anything. Why can’t you just let me have that? Oh, if he could talk, he would’ve been screaming it. He wanted to go back!

Because you need to be safe too.

I was safe. I was so safe. The smile returned and he covered it with both hands. She said draw a flower. I was scared when she said what charm she wanted to do and she held me. She went around behind me so I didn’t have to look at her and she was so careful when she held me and she gave me a pencil and she said draw a flower.

He drew a rose. Because he did want what she asked, even if he was afraid, and he could only think roses. Roses and Rosemary. It was a red rose, all red, even the stem, because it was a red pencil. And he was afraid, but he got sort of lost shading in between the petals, because roses were complicated, and she had…

Oh, Ann! Please! Let’s go back!

He was leaning on the dresser and Ann was looking back at him from the mirror. She still wouldn’t smile.

Milo, please listen to me. I know you’re excited. I know this is hard. You need to get changed.

He hugged his own shoulders and rocked back and forth. He was smiling. He was smiling so well!

I want to draw another rose! I want to go back and draw roses with Calliope! I want to draw roses with Calliope forever!

Although maybe not with a pencil…

His hands had gone down and he was undoing his shirt. Calliope had already taken down his hair. She liked it. She said it was pretty. Oh, and she said he was too…

Oh, please, Ann. Please don’t. Why do we have to?

Because I don’t know why she did that, Milo. We need to know why.

Because she loves me! Because she wanted me to be happy! Because I love her, and she knows I do!

Milo… Ann looked sad at him. She shook her head. I would be so happy if that’s what it was, but I don’t think it is.

What else could it be?

Because she likes you and she likes sex.

He selected the yellow dress from the closet. Yellow was Woden’s Day.

That’s the same!

He checked the mirror, Ann was shaking her head again. No, honey. It’s really not. You have got to put some more time into that whole I love you/I like you thing. Maybe draw some diagrams? Erik didn’t say he liked you when you were under the kitchen table and he helped you feel better. You remember that, right?

He’d understood it better then, an ocean of meaning, but she ascribed that to the concussion — he wasn’t processing fear normally. What he had now was a coffee cup. She had been trying to leverage the memory and expand that a little. It was doubly important now.

Milo didn’t want to talk about Erik hugging him under the kitchen table. (That was the best way he could process it, a hug, even if it wasn’t really.) Calliope did way better than hug!

He considered the dress. It needed shoes. He thought the mauve high-heeled boots with the buttons. He didn’t want to be doing this, but if he had to, he thought Ann should have the mauve high-heeled boots with the buttons. It made a nice contrast. Bright and happy and not subtle!

He was still smiling as he slipped out of his suspenders and undid his pants. Ann, will you ask her to marry me again? Marry us? She only got mad because I said I didn’t want to be you anymore. She likes you. She likes both of us. We could both be married to Calliope! Or, I could be married to her and you could visit, if you want to. Like you’re my sister!

Ann’s heart turned over in her chest. She tried urgently to draw him back to the mirror. Back up, Milo. That isn’t why she got mad at you. I have told you and told you about that. Please try to listen.

Do you think we should ask her right now? Or wait until later? Maybe Cin would make us a ring!

MILO!

He snatched his own shoulders and shook himself. He crouched down next to the mirror and stared. She made him.

Her eyes were mad. Ann shouldn’t ever have mad eyes like that, not at him. Annoyed, yeah. Frustrated, okay. But not mad like he was a bad thing she needed to stop.

Milo, she got mad at you because you said you wanted to throw away everything that made you happy, and everything that might’ve made her happy, so you could be normal and have money. You told her you thought she was the kind of person who would like that. She thought you liked her, and you told her you didn’t even know her. And she has no idea why you said any of that because you wouldn’t let me tell her! That’s why she got mad. You got the words wrong. You screwed up! Now do you have that? Can we move on?

Why are you hurting me? He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He had tears but he wasn’t crying. He had to look.

Because if I don’t hurt you, she will, and it’s better to have it coming from me. I will not ask that girl to marry you again, Milo. I will not stand you up so you can fall down. I don’t want you to hurt her again, the gods know I don’t — she’s my friend. But you’re my friend too, and the last time she hurt you, I almost lost you.

If you don’t want that to happen again, you need to stop being stupid about this. You need to know why she did that. If you ever want her to love you — not just like you, love you, trust you — you need to find out how she really feels right now, and you have to be willing to accept it.

If you want to be with Calliope… Ann sighed and dropped her head, then she made him look up again. I think it’s possible you are both going to get very badly hurt trying, and I am afraid for you, but I can’t stop you. It seems like I can’t even slow you down, not without coming between you, and I won’t do that. I love you both too much. All I can do is try to help you. So please, please, let me. If you’re going to do this, you need to understand what you’re doing. You need to talk to her.

Now dry your eyes and put on the damn dress.

He put on the dress.

Ann brushed her hair and did the best she could to fix herself with makeup. Milo wouldn’t like Calliope to know he’d been crying, she wouldn’t know why, and he wouldn’t like Ann to tell her.

◈◈◈

“Calliope Marshmallow Otis! We need to talk!”

Calliope answered the door completely naked, and pawing at one eye with one hand. “Oh. Hey, Ann. What’s up?”

Lucy spoke up from the bassinet and began to complain about being disturbed.

Ann covered her mouth with a hand. “I-I’m sorry about that.”

“S’all right.” She turned and collected her daughter, stepped gently on the Lu-ambulator to wake it up, and then wandered back to the door with her daughter against her shoulder and the auxiliary baby-rocker following solicitously behind her. She showed neither embarrassment nor any inclination to get dressed. Calliope really wasn’t bothered about clothes. “I had a solid couple hours there. So what’s up?”

Calliope, are you honestly unaware of any recent circumstances that might require discussion?

She didn’t say that. Milo wouldn’t like her to say that.

“Why did you do that to Milo?” she asked instead. She hoped very much that Calliope knew what she meant. Not for any reasons of delicacy, just for reasons of sanity.

Calliope shrugged. “I like him. You know that.”

Ann sighed. Yes, that’s about what I thought…

“And Lucy was sleeping and I knew he’d be quiet about it. I haven’t for a long time.”

Ann narrowed her eyes. And that is even less than I thought.

Calliope smiled faintly. “And I really liked brushing his hair. He liked it too. He sang.” She bounced with Lucy and hummed.

“He did like it,” Ann said. “He likes you, Calliope. Do you have any idea how much?”

“I guess a lot,” she replied. “At least he thinks he does.”

“He’s pretty certain of it.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t really know me very well. It’s super hard for him to talk to me… I mean, words, you know? He’s around me, and we draw sometimes, but it’s not the same. And he’s kinda dumb.” She said it mildly, not unkindly, just as a statement of fact. As in: The water is cold.

Milo is dumb? thought Ann. Milo? It was like being called “damp” by a sponge. She considered and instantly discarded the idea that Calliope was making a terrible pun.

“About people, I mean,” Calliope said. “He can’t take them apart, so he doesn’t get how they work. They’re like boxes with things inside.” She tapped the Lu-ambulator’s metal carapace with a fingertip, it made a hollow sound. “He doesn’t know how to open the box so he’s always guessing about what’s in there. He thinks I’m really nice but he doesn’t know about it.” She patted the machine, and it purred. He liked attention, not unlike his designer. “If he knew I was really nice, he wouldn’t have thought I wanted him to stop being you.”

Ann softened. Calliope did understand him. She was so good at understanding him. She wasn’t dumb. And she didn’t want to hurt him, Ann knew that deeply. Neither one of them had wanted to hurt each other.

But none of that mattered. It had all gone wrong anyway. She had almost lost Milo… and Calliope too. That lovely girl who always wanted a sister her own age, and who taught Milo’s ridiculous machine to dance.

I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t think… If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think it was really my fault, either, I don’t think I could have stopped him, but I wasn’t paying attention. And I can’t let that happen again.

She couldn’t afford to be soft, not now. The answers she needed were hard.

“Milo does seem to have grasped the idea that you don’t want him to get rid of me,” Ann said. She shook her head. “But he thinks it’s just because you like me, and I haven’t been able to get him past that.”

Calliope smiled at her. “I do like you, Ann. Lots.”

“I know, Calliope, and thank you, but I think we both know it’s a little more complicated than that.” At least, she hoped to the gods they both did.

“He needs you and stuff.”

Ann pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, right where Milo’s glasses usually sat. Yes. “And stuff.” That fills me with confidence you’re taking this seriously, Calliope.

“And stuff” like being the part of Milo that was brave and strong enough to actually go out and get things that made him happy. “And stuff” like being the only one who could communicate what was going on in that weird brain of his, at least in words. “And stuff” like apparently being the only sensible person in this relationship.

I’m not supposed to be sensible, Ann thought with offended pride. I’m a great big soft toy knitted out of pretty dresses and fun! I’m not constituted for all this… this work! Excuse me, Calliope, why aren’t you patting me on the head? Milo made me to love!

And suddenly that was so much more complicated and important than three shows a week at the Black Orchid for a spotlight and applause. She was paying attention this time. She was and she wasn’t going to stop. But she’d been so focused on how fast Milo’s feelings were changing that she got blindsided by Calliope. And Calliope didn’t have a helpful voice in her head telling her to slow down so she wouldn’t get hurt.

It’s because he hit his head and got lost all night, Ann decided. She never had to think about losing him before. Maybe going away because of something she did, but not losing him.

Oh, gods, it was like when Milo had to leave her at the hospital with the baby, except from the other side. Instead of a poorly conceived marriage proposal, Calliope did this.

“Calliope,” Ann said, “if you think he doesn’t know you very well or understand you as a person, why did you think it was a good idea to have sex with him?”

Please don’t say you did it because you were afraid of losing him, please don’t say that… She hid the thought as well as she could. Milo wouldn’t understand why that was bad. And if Calliope said it, he would think it was so wonderful she’d never be able to explain to him how wrong it was.

All three of them had seen what happened when you tried to build a relationship on fear, but Ann was the only one who knew that was why it fell down the first time. Milo still didn’t realize the foundation was wrong from the start, and Calliope only got caught in the wreckage, the poor girl had no warning at all…

Calliope shrugged. “Well, at least he knows about that now. And it’s easier for him than talking.”

Ann blinked and straightened. What?

Getting-to-know-you sex?

…Is that a real thing that can happen?

It wasn’t what she’d been afraid of, but now that she had it, she didn’t know what the hell it was. She’d been expecting a gun and Calliope shot her with a ham sandwich.

Oh. Thank you. What do I do with this?

She was standing there with a ham sandwich wound and nowhere to go for help with it.

The trouble was, despite being the designated adult here and a bona fide reformed prostitute, Ann didn’t know all that much about sex. All she had were the mechanical functions and their approximate monetary value.

The relationship value had only been observed in passing. Milo had never been particularly attentive to the subject — dresses and shoes? Yes, very much. But not people, because people were scary. Ann didn’t mind about people, but neither one of them had wanted her to go around picking up women in a dress, so there was no practical experience.

She was better at understanding these kinds of things than him, but she needed more things to understand. It was like trying to put together a working steam engine using only the contents of Hyacinth’s junk drawer.

Except Milo might actually be able to do that. He couldn’t do this.

Which meant she had to. He made her to love.

Well… She had never known Calliope to be untruthful, and it seemed like a nice reason, if a strange one: Hey, Milo, how about if we build that foundation out of drawing flowers and casual sex and see where we go from there?

At least they were both responsible enough to use a charm. This building, whatever it was, was going to be weird enough without adding a second accidental nursery.

“Calliope, are you intending to make this a regular thing?”

“I guess if he didn’t mind it.” She smiled.

She was teasing, but she didn’t expect Ann to notice. If Ann came running down to talk to her about it right away, Milo had to have some pretty definite opinions. And he hadn’t seemed too unhappy about it at the time.

Maybe Milo would notice she was teasing and mention it later… unless he was thinking about dresses or toasters right now. He must really like toast. Those decoy-things Cin wanted sounded like a lot more fun to her…

“Calliope…” Ann was not going to say one word about Milo wanting to propose marriage again, but there had to be some way to impart how much the experience meant to him. How dangerous it was for him. “You don’t have to love Milo. It seems like you’re trying to figure out if you can, and I won’t get in the way of that, but you have to realize, he already loves you. At least he thinks he does. If you don’t love him back, that is going to hurt him a very great deal. Do you know that?”

Calliope’s smile faded. “Yeah, I guess I do. But there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. I mean, if he does get hurt, I guess he needs to know about that too.”

Ann stiffened. “Milo knows quite enough about being hurt, thank you.”

“Does he know it’s not the end of the world?”

“I don’t think he does know that,” Ann said, frowning. “I don’t think I know that, either, Calliope.”

“Well, I dunno,” Calliope said. She shrugged. “We’re all still here, aren’t we? I think Lucy wants a bottle.” She set the baby gently in the waiting Lu-ambulator and led him out of the door.

Ann staggered back on the heels of her mauve boots with the buttons. “Calliope, darling, come back here and put on some clothes!”

◈◈◈

Milo was grinning at her from the mirror. He had scarcely been able to contain himself. Ann, she liked brushing our hair! She knows I liked it too! He clutched their hair in both hands and pulled joyfully.

Ann groaned and felt the bridge of her nose again. “Milo, please tell me you got a little more out of the conversation than that.”

She likes me! And she likes you too! She said so!

“Yes, but she didn’t say she loved you.”

But she’s going to try, right? She wants to draw a lot more roses and try, right?

“Draw roses?” Ann sighed. “Yes, it seems like she does. But are you going to be all right if that’s all it ever is?” He couldn’t know that. She didn’t know that, and she knew a lot more about this than Milo was able to understand.

Milo made serious and straightened to address her, I like drawing roses very much, Ann. He grinned and hunched his shoulders like a shy child. Is that okay?

Ann sighed and bowed her head and could not help smiling. “Yes, Milo, it’s okay. It was probably about time.”

At least Calliope had given him that. And she had been kind, and she had been careful, and she had been able to keep him from being afraid. Even if she hurt him later, he was never going to lose that.