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Six months had passed since Silco had found a broken, terrified child sitting among the ruins of everything she had once known, calling herself a jinx for the first time.
She had been twelve for only two months now. Her birthday had come quietly, almost painfully so; the first she had spent without Vi, without Vander, without Mylo or Claggor, without the only family she had ever known for years.
There had been no familiar voices waiting for her, no one from the life that had been torn away from her; only the strange new world she had woken up in and the man who had, somehow, become a part of it.
It had been a quiet day, almost painfully so, but she had survived it.
She had survived a great many things since that night.
In the beginning, she had been all sharp edges and suspicion. Every kindness was met with caution, every gesture examined for some hidden price.
She expected betrayal because betrayal was what she understood. She had learned too young that people could promise one thing and do another, that affection could disappear without warning, and that anything she loved could be taken from her.
Silco understood that better than most.
Trust was not something that appeared simply because someone offered a hand. It had to be earned slowly, piece by fragile piece, especially in a child who had already learned that the world was more than willing to take everything from her.
So he had never pressed her. He had simply remained.
And, little by little, she had begun to change.
She started following him from room to room while he worked, usually pretending she had some entirely unrelated reason for being there. She began bringing him her inventions before showing them to anyone else, eagerly explaining some new contraption that was usually far more dangerous than she realized. She started sitting beside him during meals rather than keeping herself tucked away at the far end of the table.
And after nightmares, she began finding her way to him, even if she never admitted that was why she came. Sometimes she would simply appear in the doorway, hair disheveled and eyes still heavy with sleep, and linger there until he noticed her. Other times she would climb onto the chair nearby and insist she wasn't tired at all, despite barely being able to keep her eyes open.
Silco had learned not to question it.
Somewhere along the way, he had become a constant presence in her life, so gradually that neither of them had quite noticed it happening.
He was not a replacement for what she had lost; he would never pretend to be.
But he had become something new. Something unfamiliar and, perhaps because of that, something she had slowly begun to cling to.
Silco had never called himself her father; h didn’t think he could. The word carried too much weight too many ghosts. Too many expectations he wasn't certain he could – or should – live up to. Whatever existed between them did not need a name just yet simply because the rest of the world might demand one.
Still, he had found himself caring for her in ways he had never anticipated, and that felt really dangerous.
Because caring meant there was something to lose.
He had learned that lesson before.
He had also learned, over the past six months, that sleep became a fragile thing whenever Jinx was involved.
The child did not simply have nightmares; she fought them, terrified by night terrors that could seize her without warning and drag her screaming from sleep. Sometimes she woke screaming, her blood-curdling cries enough to jolt him instantly awake. Other nights, she would wake convinced she had heard voices that weren't there or seen faces that had long since disappeared. There were nights when she would stumble into his room without knocking, eyes wide and unfocused with terror, and he would have to remind her, slowly and patiently so, that she was there, that she was safe, that whatever she was seeing could not hurt her.
So yes, he had become familiar with those nights. Familiar with the panic and with the trembling of her small body beneath his hands and the way her breathing would gradually steady as she realized she was no longer trapped inside whatever nightmare had claimed her.
He had learned how long it sometimes took for her to settle. Learned when to speak and when silence was better. Learned that asking too many questions only made things worse, and that sometimes all she needed was for him to remain there until the fear passed.
He had even grown accustomed to the way she would eventually fall asleep against him, exhausted from fighting something only she could see.
So when his door burst open in the middle of the night, Silco barely stirred at first or at least not immediately. His mind, still heavy with sleep, registered only the familiar interruption; the sudden noise, hurried footsteps, the unmistakable sound of Jinx in distress.
Then he heard her scream, and his eyes opened at once.
“Silco–!”
His name tore from her in a broken cry, the sound carrying something far beyond ordinary fear.
She wasn't merely frightened.
She was utterly terrified.
Before he was even fully awake, Jinx had already crossed the room and thrown herself against him. She collapsed into his arms with enough force to jolt him upright, sobbing so violently that for several seconds he could barely make out a single word she was trying to say.
Silco's hands found her almost instinctively, steadying her as he tried to gather his thoughts.
Then his eyes opened fully, realizing that
this was somehow different.
He knew her nightmares. He knew the frightened whispers, the sudden cries, the way she sometimes woke disoriented and convinced that something from the past had followed her into the present. He had learned how to recognize those episodes before she could even explain what was wrong.
But this was something else entirely.
The usual nightmares came with fear, yes, but there was something deeper in the way she clung to him now; something raw and primal, as though she had been frightened awake by something she couldn't name and couldn't escape.
Silco tightened his hold around her.
Whatever had happened, he could see that she wasn't simply looking for comfort. She was convinced she was in danger.
She was shaking, hiccuping so hard she could barely breathe. Her fingers clutched desperately at his clothes like she thought he might disappear.
Silco sat up, arm still firmly wrapped around her.
“Jinx.”
She only cried harder.
“Child,” he said, more firmly this time, one hand moving to steady the back of her head. “What happened?”
She tried to answer, but nothing came out except another broken sob.
He frowned. “Look at me.”
She couldn’t. Not yet.
Whatever had happened had sent her into complete and utter panic. He could feel it in the way she clung to him, in the way her breathing refused to settle.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” he asked.
That seemed to reach her. She pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him through wet, terrified eyes.
“I’m bleeding,” she whispered, the words came out between broken sobs.
Silco’s expression tightened, every trace of sleep vanishing as worry took hold. “What?”
“I’m bleeding,” she repeated, as if that explained everything. “I’m– I’m gonna die–”
Another violent hiccup shook her entire body.
Silco was immediately on high alert now, his concern turning to fear. He pushed her back only enough to see her properly, careful not to frighten her further.
“What do you mean?”
He reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on, filling the room with a dim, yellow glow that pushed back the darkness.
His eyes immediately went to her, moving over her with a frantic attention he couldn’t quite control. He searched her face first, then her hands and arms, looking for anything that might explain the terror in her screams. His gaze traveled down to her legs, lingering there for a moment before returning to her face.
There was nothing.
No wounds, no cuts, no visible blood. No sign that she had been hurt at all.
And yet, she still wouldn’t stop trembling.
“Jinx,” he said slowly, trying to keep his voice calm. “Where are you hurt?”
She broke down into even louder sobs.
“You have to tell me where,” he continued. “So I can help you.”
She dragged in a shaky breath, and then another.
Whether she was trying to calm herself or simply trying to get enough air into her lungs, he could not tell.
“I woke up and there was blood,” she rushed out. “On the sheets and– and between my legs and my stomach hurts and I’m bleeding and I’m probably bleeding to death–”
She collapsed into another fit of sobs before she could finish her own rushed sentence.
Silco stared at her for a long moment, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. His gaze slowly dropped as he continued to search for any wound, following the trembling of her small body, but he stopped himself before looking any further. Then, something in his mind finally began to connect the pieces that, until now, had seemed completely unrelated.
The panic. The blood. Her age.
His expression shifted as the realization settled over him, sudden and almost jarring in its simplicity. He had been searching for an injury, convinced there had to be some physical explanation for the terror in her voice, but there was nothing.
No wound. No cut. No external reason for the blood he had been so afraid to find.
He exhaled slowly, the tension in his chest easing by degrees. His gaze returned to her face, and the truth finally became unmistakable.
This was her first menses.
For several seconds, he simply allowed himself to breathe.
She was not dying.
She was frightened, seized by sheer terror
even; but she was not dying.
He took her hands gently, holding her wrists carefully to keep her from moving around so much.
“You are not dying, child,” he told her at last, keeping his voice as steady as he could.
“Yes, I am,” she insisted immediately, tears still streaming down her face. She looked down at herself, then back at him, her breathing coming in frightened little gasps. “I’m bleeding!”
“You are not dying,” he repeated, more firmly this time, hoping the certainty in his voice would somehow reach her.
“…But it hurts.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“And I’m bleeding!”
“Yes.” He nodded, trying to reassure her despite the worry still lingering in his own chest. “I know you are.”
She stared at him, her expression twisting with confusion as she struggled to understand how something could hurt so badly and yet not mean that she was dying.
“Then why?” she whispered.
Silco hesitated, searching for words that refused to come easily.
He had faced enforcers, criminals, and threats from every corner of Zaun. He had negotiated with dangerous men, stared down people who wanted him dead, and walked calmly into situations where one wrong move could have cost him his life.
None of that had prepared him enough for this, though.
He looked at Jinx for a moment, taking in her tear-streaked face and the confusion written across it. She was still trembling, her breathing uneven as she waited for him to explain something he wasn't even sure how to explain.
Silco finally reached up and gently wiped a tear from her chin. The gesture was careful, almost hesitant, as though he wasn't entirely certain what to do with the vulnerability in front of him.
“Because this is normal,” he said at last, keeping his voice as calm as he could.
Jinx stared at him in disbelief, blinking through her tears. Her eyes widened, and for a moment she seemed almost offended by the suggestion.
“There’s nothing normal about bleeding!” she cried, her voice breaking as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.
Silco held her gaze; he could hardly blame her for thinking that. To a child who had woken in the middle of the night covered in blood and pain, he supposed there was nothing ordinary about it.
“Yes, there is,” he assured her gently. “You would be surprised.”
“How?” she demanded, still struggling to accept his answer.
“Because it happens,” he replied simply.
That answer did little to reassure her. If anything, she looked even more horrified, her eyes widening as she tried to make sense of it, as if she couldn't understand how something that had scared her so badly could possibly be ordinary.
Silco let out a quiet sigh. He could see that she was still frightened enough that every word he said seemed to raise another question.
“I will explain it to you,” he promised as he He softened his voice, watching her carefully. “But you need to calm down enough to listen first.”
She tried. She truly did.
She took a shaky breath and fought to steady herself, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. But the tears kept coming, slipping down her face faster than she could brush them away. Every time she thought she had managed to calm herself, another sob caught in her throat.
Silco watched her for a moment before realizing that insisting she calm down wasn't going to work.
He needed to reach her some other way.
“Do you trust me?”
The question made her pause. Her eyes lifted to his, still wet with tears, and for a moment she simply stared at him as though weighing the question carefully.
Slowly, she nodded.
Silco pulled her gently back against him, letting her settle against his chest. He kept one arm around her, steady and reassuring, while she tried to quiet her breathing.
“Then you will have to trust me when I say that you are alright,” he murmured, his voice low and certain, leaving no room for doubt. “I would not tell you that if you were not.”
She remained quiet against him, still trembling, but she no longer resisted his embrace. For the first time since she had woken screaming, there was a small measure of trust in the way she leaned into him, as though she was beginning to believe that, for the moment at least, she was safe.
For a while, neither of them spoke. She simply cried against his chest, her tears soaking into his clothes as the last of the panic slowly began to leave her. The sobs did not stop completely, but little by little they lost their desperate edge; they became quieter, softer, until they were little more than uneven breaths and occasional shudders.
Her grip on him loosened slightly.
Silco noticed but said nothing. He kept his arms around her, holding her steadily and letting her take whatever time she needed, not shifting or pulling away. He simply remained there, a quiet presence beside her while the room slowly settled back into silence.
Eventually, when her breathing had steadied enough, he spoke again.
“This is a natural process,” Silco explained carefully. “Every young girl goes through it.”
Jinx pulled back from him, staring up at him as though he had just said something completely absurd. “What?”
Her face was still flushed from crying, her eyes swollen and red, wet lashes clinging together. Silco reached up and gently wiped away the tears that still clung to them, giving her a moment to absorb what he had said.
“These are called menses,” he continued, choosing his words carefully. “Healthy girls begin experiencing them around your age. It means that you will bleed once a month.”
For two whole seconds, Jinx said nothing.
Then her expression crumpled into fresh disbelief.
“Every month?”
Silco briefly closed his eyes, already regretting how much more difficult this conversation was about to become.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him, visibly horrified. “Every single month?”
“Yes, Jinx.”
Her mouth fell open slightly, as though she was waiting for him to laugh and admit that he was joking.
He didn't.
Her face crumpled again, the fragile calm she had managed to find slipping away almost immediately.
“Why is this happening now?” she cried, her voice breaking with frustration and fear. “Everything was fine the way it was!”
Silco stared at her, momentarily at a loss for how to answer. It was three in the morning, and he was sitting there with a frightened twelve-year-old who had been jolted awake by something she couldn't possibly understand, trying to explain a conversation he had never once imagined himself having.
He drew in a slow breath, steadying himself before he spoke. He had faced countless difficult situations with her without hesitation before, but somehow this felt far more delicate than any of them.
“This is not something happening to you because something is wrong,” Silco said, keeping his voice calm and measured.
“But–”
“It is normal.”
Jinx sniffled, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. She looked at him for a moment, still struggling to reconcile his words with what she had just experienced.
“It’s horrible!” she argued, as though the sheer awfulness of it should have been proof enough that there was nothing normal about it.
Silco paused; he couldn't entirely argue with that.
He had no experience with it himself, of course, nor any real understanding of what it felt like, but he had heard enough to know it was hardly something anyone would look forward to.
He could also only imagine how frightening it must have been; waking in the middle of the night to find blood with no warning, feeling pain without knowing why, and having no idea whether something was terribly wrong – it would have frightened anyone, especially a child.
Especially Jinx.
His expression softened slightly as he looked at her.
“Yes,” he admitted quietly. “I have heard it’s not a particularly pleasant experience.”
Jinx's eyes widened. “‘Pleasant’?” She repeated the word, staring at him as though he had just lost his mind. “‘Pleasant’?! It feels like someone is twisting my insides into knots!” Her hands flew to her stomach as she spoke, her expression becoming increasingly horrified. “I wake up covered in blood and you tell me it’s a normal thing that happens every month?”
Silco watched her for a moment, unsure of what else to say at that moment.
Jinx threw her hands up in exasperation.
“That is not ‘pleasant’! That’s the opposite of pleasant! That’s–” She paused, searching for the right word. “That’s a whole new category of horrible!”
Silco let her finish without interrupting, even as her complaints became increasingly animated. When her voice finally began to falter again, he reached over and gently patted her back, slow and steady.
“I know,” he murmured. “I know. It is frightening, and it hurts, and none of it makes much sense right now.”
Jinx sniffled against him, still looking deeply offended by the entire situation.
“But you are going to be all right,” he continued. “You don't have to understand everything tonight. We can take it one thing at a time.”
His hand continued to move reassuringly over her back until some of the tension began to leave her shoulders.
“You will have to deal with it for a few days,” he explained. “The bleeding does not last forever.”
Jinx sniffled, staring down at herself. “Days?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at him, her expression falling in renewed disbelief. “Days?”
“…Yes, Jinx.”
Silco pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a brief moment. There was the faintest edge of frustration in the gesture; not at her, but at the conversation itself, which seemed determined to circle back on itself no matter how carefully he explained it.
“It shouldn’t last more than a week, though,” he added, searching the back of his memory for the scraps of information he had picked up over the years. He had never expected to need any of it, much less at three in the morning.
Jinx sniffled, considering this with a deeply unimpressed expression. She let out a small, miserable huff and leaned back against him, clearly deciding that she hated this new information almost as much as everything else.
Silco gave her back another gentle pat, letting her sit quietly against him as the last of her panic slowly ebbed away.
For a moment, she said nothing. She simply sniffled, wiping the last of the tears from her cheeks.
“Why all this?” she asked finally, her voice quieter now. “Why does my body have to do all this?”
Silco was quiet for a moment. His hand continued to move slowly over her back, reassuring her with the same steady rhythm.
“Because your body is changing,” he said. “You are growing up, Jinx.”
She immediately frowned. “I don't want to.”
The answer came so quickly that Silco almost smiled. “You don't want to grow up?”
“Not if this is what happens.” She gestured vaguely toward herself, her stomach, and the entire miserable situation as though the evidence was obvious. “This is bothersome.”
Silco let out a quiet breath through his nose. “Growing up can be difficult.”
“‘Difficult’?” Jinx repeated, sounding deeply unimpressed. “It’s appalling.”
“Sometimes,” he conceded. “But difficult does not mean bad.”
She looked up at him, still skeptical.
“There are things that come with growing older that you will not like,” he continued. “There will be changes you cannot stop and things you cannot understand at first. But there are good things too.”
“Like what?”
Silco studied her for a moment.
“You become stronger.”
Jinx blinked. “Stronger?”
“Yes.” His voice grew quieter, more certain. “Every year, you become a little harder to break. You learn more. You understand more. You become more capable than you were before.” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Look at you already. You are not the same little girl you were half a year ago. You are faster, sharper, stronger. And you will become more so with time.”
Jinx sniffled, listening despite herself.
“Growing up does not mean losing who you are,” Silco continued. “It means becoming more of yourself. More capable. More powerful. You will become someone who can face things that would frighten you now.”
She considered that quietly, her expression still doubtful.
“Even if it comes with all this?”
Silco's mouth twitched faintly. “Even then.”
Jinx sighed, leaning back against him. “I still think it’s bothersome.”
“I'm sure you do.”
For a moment, she was quiet again. Then her gaze drifted down toward the sheets, and her expression changed.
“I got blood on the bed,” she murmured.
The words came out so quietly that Silco almost missed them. There was a faint hesitation in her voice now, a shyness that hadn't been there before, as though she were confessing to something she had done wrong.
Silco followed her gaze.
His eyes fell upon the white linen sheets, where the small, fresh stains stood out starkly against the fabric. For the briefest moment, his mind immediately went to the practicalities of it; how difficult the stains might be to remove, how much trouble it would be to clean the sheets properly, and how much more inconvenient the situation would become if the blood had already soaked through.
He nearly sighed. Not because he was angry with her; he couldn't have been. She had done nothing wrong.
Still, the thought of dealing with ruined linens at three in the morning was enough to leave him quietly distressed.
He pushed the thought aside before she could notice.
“And it’s on my clothes too,” she added, even more quietly, glancing down at herself.
Silco looked back at her. The embarrassment in her expression was unmistakable now, and something in him softened.
“That can be cleaned,” he assured her immediately. “The sheets can be washed, and the clothes can be changed. It’s nothing to worry about.”
She watched him carefully, as though waiting for him to be upset.
He wasn't.
“You haven't done anything wrong,” he added, making sure she understood. “None of this is your fault. I will send someone to change your sheets into clean ones.”
Her shoulders eased slightly. “…Okay,” she whispered.
For a while, neither of them said anything. The room had finally gone quiet, save for Jinx's occasional sniffle and the soft, uneven rhythm of her breathing. Silco remained beside her, giving her time to settle, while she leaned against him and seemed content, for the moment, not to ask another question.
Eventually, he glanced toward the bloodstained sheets and then back at her.
“You need to change your clothes now, too,” Silco said gently.
He shifted carefully, easing himself to his feet without jostling her too much. The room was still quiet around them, the earlier panic having settled into an uneasy stillness. He glanced toward the door, already considering what needed to be done next.
“Until morning, you will need to use some folded cloth inside your undergarments,” he explained. “It will keep you from staining your clothes again.”
Jinx's expression remained uncertain. She looked down at herself, then back at him, clearly still trying to understand the unfamiliar rules her body had apparently decided to impose upon her without warning.
Silco caught the hesitation in her eyes.
“I’ll have Sevika bring proper supplies tomorrow,” he added.
Jinx's face immediately pulled into a small grimace at the mention of Sevika, and Silco noticed it; he couldn't say he was surprised.
Sevika was useful. Skilled, reliable, and more than capable of handling almost anything thrown her way. More importantly, she was a grown woman who had undoubtedly dealt with this before many times; she had the experience Silco himself lacked and would know far more about what Jinx needed than he did.
But comfort was not exactly Sevika's specialty.
Silco could already imagine the exchange: Sevika arriving with whatever supplies were needed, placing them down with her usual blunt efficiency, and expecting that to be the end of the matter.
Jinx would likely be mortified, and right now, mortification was the last thing she needed.
Silco looked back at her and softened his voice.
“I will take care of it,” he assured her. “You don't need to worry about any of that tonight.”
Jinx gave a small, uncertain nod, and some of the tension seemed to leave her shoulders.
“Come,” he said quietly. “We'll get you changed, and then you can go back to sleep.”
Jinx didn't move.
Silco noticed the hesitation almost immediately. Her eyes dropped toward the floor, and although she gave a small nod, she made no effort to get up. There was something in the way she lingered beside him that told him she wasn't quite ready to be alone again.
He considered it for a moment.
She had already been frightened enough tonight. Sending her back to her own room now, after everything that had happened, might leave her lying awake in the dark with every unfamiliar sensation sending her spiraling all over again.
Perhaps what she needed at that moment was simply company.
It was not the first time he had remained with her through the aftermath of one of her midnight crises. There had been other nights when a nightmare, a flashback, or some other bout of panic had shaken her badly enough that she couldn't settle on her own. On those occasions, Silco had learned to allow her to stay until she finally drifted off.
He also knew exactly what that meant for him.
Jinx kicked in her sleep. A lot.
She talked, too; sometimes nonsense, sometimes fragments of words he couldn't make sense of. There had been nights when he would barely sleep at all, sitting awake beside her while she tossed and turned, only to wake the following morning with a stiff neck and an impressive lack of patience.
But worrying about his sleep seemed rather pointless at that point. Tonight, the priority was making sure she felt safe enough to close her eyes again and rest.
He looked back at her.
“Do you want to sleep here tonight?”
For the first time since she had entered the room, something other than fear appeared on her face. Her eyes lifted to his, and a tiny, almost embarrassed smile tugged at the corner of her mouth; a bit hesitant, as though she wasn't quite sure she was allowed to be relieved by the offer.
Silco found himself returning it.
Small and brief, but genuine.
He reached out and gently ruffled her hair.
“Go on,” he said. “Get a clean pair of trousers and wait for me in the bathroom. I will gather what you need.”
Jinx nodded, a little more readily this time.
Then she hopped down from the bed and disappeared through the doorway, her footsteps fading down the hall.
Silco watched her leave until she was out of sight.
Only once the door had closed did he finally look down at the bed.
A couple small, dark stains marked the white linen.
He stared at it for a long moment before finally allowing himself to sigh. Of all the things he had imagined himself dealing with in life, this had never made the list.
Not negotiations.
Not violence.
Not enemies at the door.
Not even the countless complications that came with raising a child in Zaun.
A twelve-year-old's first menstrual crisis in the middle of the night.
Silco rubbed a hand over his face. Apparently, there were some battles no amount of preparation could have prepared him for.
He stripped the sheets from the bed and replaced them with clean ones, carefully setting the stained linen aside before searching for cloth and whatever supplies he could find to get her through the rest of the night.
It was inconvenient and exhausting, awkward in ways he had never anticipated.
And yet, as he moved quietly through the room gathering what she needed, none of it seemed particularly important anymore.
When he finally found Jinx waiting for him in the bathroom, she was still frightened, still uncertain, but the wild panic had gone from her eyes. She no longer looked convinced that she was dying. She simply looked tired.
Young.
His to take care of.
The thought came without warning, and Silco paused for the briefest moment.
Somewhere along the way, caring for her had stopped feeling like an obligation and become something far more instinctive. Every crisis, every sleepless night, every scraped knee and frightened question seemed to tighten some invisible thread between them. He found himself worrying about her before he even realized he was worried, protecting her without thinking, and quietly rearranging his life around the small, impossible presence she had become.
He had chosen this; he had chosen her.
And even now, with dawn beginning to threaten the edges of the night and exhaustion weighing heavily on his eyelids, Silco knew there was no moment of his life in which he would regret that choice. Not even in the middle of the night, with soiled sheets, a frightened child, and an entirely new problem he had never imagined he would have to solve.
He looked at Jinx and felt something in his chest settle.
Whatever came next, he would deal with it.
As he always did.