Outcast Villiage

"I'm just trying to figure out how many trips that might take." Ranger scrubbed a tired hand over his face.

"Whenever you're low, try and get back here, I'll fix you up." Xander told him. "And then you can leave."

"Xander..." She sighed.

"I can't bring them all at once. I try and do that, someone might lose a limb or two. They'll got torn in the slipspace."

"Seen that," Clockwork muttered. "Not pretty. Good job Death can't die, because her intestines and lower organs were hanging out like clothes to dry."

Evelyn looke at her brother. "Reverse?"

"They work." Xander told her.

Evelyn looked back at him. "It's all done, Xander can fix them up."

"If still rather not hurt someone by splitting them mid jump. They might be at separate facilities - Clockwork and Death weren't allowed together. It might take me a while, half hour tops to get them all here."

Evelyn nodded. "Do what you can, if you can't get the rest, leave them to us." She looked at Ephraim. "I think it's time for you to meet someone."

"Citlali is first," Ranger muttered. "Then Disaster, he suffers the most." With a brief wince of pain he was gone.

Ephraim hesitated, wringing his hands almost nervously.

Evelyn held a hand out to him.

Ephraim took her hand nervously. She may have noticed earlier, but his hand was almost skeletal, since he, Ranger and Clockwork were all basically skin and bone anyway.

She noticed, but she didn't comment and she slid her fingers between his, guiding him down a corridor to a room, where there was sounds of childish laughter and a tv show coming through the door and she looked at him. "She deserves to know you, and you deserve to know her."

"I'm a frightening picture to see, I'm sure. I-I haven't even cleaned up and I look like a skeleton. I'm going to scare her."

---

Ranger suddenly reappeared. With him, he had Disaster and Chiquita, the latter of which immediately crashed to the floor, since her left leg was all but mangled, broken and then reset to heal in the wrong position. She didn't seem bothered she'd hit the floor though, her condition making her too dazed and exhausted.

Disaster just silently knelt down, head bowed. It was if he was patiently awaiting an order.

Ranger just looked disgruntled and almost worried, since he hadn't found Citlali where he expected her.

"Trust me, she might be five, but she's seen much worse." Evelyn told him. "She's seen more in her short life than me and you have in our lifetimes."

Ephraim laughed bitterly. "Not to doubt her, or you, but I think I might be close to matching her in the horrors seen in a lifetime."

"Let's not get into this." She told him, opening the door and she walked in ahead of him, finding her daughter sitting up in bed, wearing pjs, the blanket tucked up to her waist and she was holding a teddy bear that Ephraim had given her when she was a few weeks old and she was giggleing at a tv programme.

Ephraim stayed in the doorway, too scared to take a step forward but watching her intently, taking in every detail as if he would be taken away again in the next moment.

"Ariadne." Evelyn spoke and the girl looked at her, her face lighting up.

"Mummy!" She held her hands out excitedly and Evelyn walked to her, something didn't seem right though as Evelyn picked her daughter up out of the bed and sat her on her lap, the child's legs dangled in mid air like those of a ragdoll but neither of the two seemed to notice.

"I've got someone that you might want to meet." Evelyn told her daughter and the little girl looked at her with curious eyes, before Evelyn gestured for Ephraim to come in.

Ephraim looked on the brink of panic, gripping the doorframe, his breathing short and quick and he shook his head, unable to make the step into the room.

"Ephraim, come on." Evelyn told him. "Or I'll bring her over to you." She warned him.

"It's just a little much," Ephraim admitted quietly and suddenly, almost alarmingly, sat down in the doorway.

"Are you my daddy?" The question came from Ariadne who looked between the two as Evelyn stood up, still holding her daughter to her.

"Yes, I am, sweetheart," Ephraim hunched over, hands pressed to his face, and very quietly, so as to not alarm Ariadne too much, he started to cry. He'd never thought he'd be able to see her in person and it was a little too much for him.

"Why does daddy cry?" She asked Evelyn. "Is he not happy to be here?"

Evelyn looked at her daughter and she sighed. "Remember when I said that daddy was taken away to protect you, well that was partially if not all true, but your daddy never thought he would see you again, I think he's scared that this isn't real."

Ariadne looked back at her dad then at her mum. "Can I hug him to show him that it is real?"

Ephraim didn't seem to have heard anything, just staying tucked over and silently trembling. The way he was hunched showed off the individual bumps of his spine through his shirt.

Evelyn moved and gently put her daughter on the floor directly in front of Ephraim, before she knelt down a few inches away and she watched as Ariadne put her arms around him.

Ephraim slowly unfolded, hesitated for a moment, and then wrapped his arms around Ariadne, pulling her close and curling around her, face pressed to her hair.