Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse

The first thing Felicity noticed when she opened her eyes that morning was that nothing hurt.

No exhaustion pulling at the edges of her, the kind that had lived in her bones since before the cubs had even come. Just morning light through gauzy curtains and the quiet sound of birds outside, and a body that felt, for the first time in longer than she could remember, entirely her own again.

She lay there for a moment just breathing it in.

Then she was up, throwing back the blankets before Ivan’s warm bulk beside her could even stir, already thinking about flour and sugar and the particular way Dimitri’s face lit up when something sweet came out of an oven.

Her personal space, the pocket dimension that had saved their lives more times than she could count, hummed to life at her call, and she stepped through into the familiar aisles of the little supermarket. The shelves stretched in impossible rows, stocked and waiting, and she moved through them with a lightness in her step that made her want to laugh out loud.

Flour. Sugar, brown and white. Butter, real butter, precious and cold from a fridge unit that never lost power. Chocolate dark and semi-sweet both, because Voss liked it bitter and Frost liked it sweet enough to make his little face scrunch up with the sugar rush. Cinnamon for Ivan, who’d once told her in that low rumbling voice of his that his mother used to make something with cinnamon, back before, and never finished the sentence. Vanilla. Eggs. She kept walking, kept grabbing, filling her arms until she had to conjure a cart, humming something tuneless under her breath.

This was what she’d done on the road. With the terrifying uncertainty of every single day, she would bake everyone snacks. Because it was a way of saying we’re still here, we’re still people; sit down and eat something good for once.

Now she had a full team, two full teams and a manor with a kitchen big enough to hold them all.

She stepped back through into the manor’s pantry with her arms full, and nearly walked straight into Dimitri.

"Whoa-" He caught the box of chocolate before it hit the floor, red eyes flicking over the haul in her arms with open delight.

"Bug. What is all this."

"Baking day," she said, and the words came out brighter than she expected, like sunlight finding a crack. "For everyone. Both teams."

Something shifted across his face, surprise and slight jealousy, then something warmer underneath it that he tried to smooth over with a grin. "Yeah? You sure you’re up for standing at an oven all day?"

"I’m sure." She meant it. She felt it in the strength of her own arms, in the way her legs held her without trembling. "I want to. I need to, actually."

He didn’t argue. He just took half her armload without being asked and followed her into the kitchen, and stayed there the whole morning measuring when she told him to measure, stirring when she told him to stir, stealing bites of raw cookie dough when he thought she wasn’t looking and getting his knuckles swatted with a wooden spoon when she was.

Voss appeared partway through, drawn by the smell probably, leaning one broad shoulder against the doorframe with his ears already angled toward her before she’d even looked up. He didn’t ask if she needed help. He simply rolled his sleeves and started hauling the folding tables out to the yard, the muscles of his back working under his shirt, efficient and wordless the way he did everything.

Ivan came not long after that, ducking his head slightly under the doorway out of habit, even though the manor’s ceilings were tall enough that he didn’t need to. He watched her for a moment from across the kitchen—just watched, gold eyes tracking the movement of her hands through the dough—before he crossed to her, careful as always, and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head like he was blessing something fragile.

"You look well," he said, quiet, the words rough in that low voice of his.

"I feel well." She smiled up at him, flour dusting her cheek. "Go help Voss with the tables. I’ve got this handled."

He didn’t move right away. He just stood there another second, big scarred hand coming up to brush a strand of hair from her face, gentle as anything, before he finally went.

By early afternoon the yard behind the manor was transformed. Voss and Ivan had dragged out enough blankets and cushions to cover the wide stretch of lawn between the hedges, the manor’s old formal gardens giving way to soft green grass and the last of the season’s jacaranda blossoms scattered purple across the ground like something out of a dream.

The trays came out one after another: shortbread and spiced cookies, little tarts, a fruit cake Dimitri had insisted on because Leaf Team apparently had opinions about fruit cake, banana bread that filled the whole yard with warmth even in the open air.

And then, one by one, they came.

Victor first, of course, because Victor always seemed to know the exact moment she needed him nearby, his sharp eyes finding her across the yard and holding there in a way that still made her stomach flip even now, even after everything. He didn’t say much. He never had to. He just crossed the grass and settled beside her on the rug, one hand finding the small of her back like it belonged there, and looked at the spread she’d made with something unreadable working behind his eyes.

"You did all this," he said. Not quite a question.

"I did all this."

"You should be resting."

"I am resting. This is my version of resting." She bumped her shoulder against his arm, and after a moment the tension in his jaw eased, just slightly, into something almost like a smile.

Then came the rest of them, drifting out from the manor in twos and threes—Leaf Team first, hesitant in that way they still sometimes were around Snow Team’s tighter orbit, and then relaxing as Dimitri waved them over with a cookie already in each hand. Tim came last, ducking through the hedge gap, looking like he wasn’t quite sure he was allowed to be there, and it was Felicity who caught his eye and patted the rug beside her.

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