Napalm woke into almost-darkness, the strange blue light of three in the morning. In the other bed, Johnathan snored quietly, and Napalm shook his head. He really needed to record that someday. Johnathan swore he didn’t snore.

He stretched and looked around. Yep. Fully awake. Crap. Resigned, he slid out from under the covers and padded out to get a can of Coke from the kitchenette. Tessa had splurged this time, getting a two-bedroom suite so as not to crowd the new kid. Too bad they weren’t going to stay long -pretty posh compared to the cramped van and interstate motels. He chugged the Coke, cold and sweet, and checked the time. Yep. 3:17. Sighing, he turned to return to his room to try to get back to sleep - only to see her. The new kid. Lyric.

She was sitting right in the middle of the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, clad in oversized pajamas - probably Tessa’s. Wide awake, wide-eyed. Scared. He approached her slowly, not wanting to startle her. Think of her as a feral kitten. “Hey.” She looked up at him mutely. “Hey,” he said again. “You can’t sleep?”

She stared at him, still all curled up, hands under chin, balanced on her knees. “I’m finding it hard to do anything.”

He settled down in front of her, sitting cross-legged. ”Want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “No more words.”

“Hey, I know that one! But okay, yeah, no more words. That mean you don’t want to talk, or you can’t?”

She just stared, big eyes catching the moonlight.

“Okay. No more words. Gotcha.”

So he sat with her. Not watching the clock- not watching anything but the changing light on her hair, on her face. Lights of the street and the moon. She looked so young. Tessa had told them to remember that she was a kid, no matter that her body was sixteen. He didn’t find that hard to remember at all. She was so small, and so broken. He remembered his sister singing him to sleep when he was little, and began to hum. Lyric perked up, clearly fascinated. Oh, we’ve got something here. Quietly, he began to sing.”When I see you smile…I can face the world… ohhh… y’know I can do anything…”

She emitted a squeak that sounded straight from some anime creature, and he laughed. ”Sorry, I - wait. You liked that?” She nodded excitedly, and he grinned. “You need more words.” She nodded again, almost bouncing. “Okay,” he said softly. “More words.”

So he sang to her. He ran through song after song… the songs from his childhood, the ‘80s stuff he’d absorbed from Ellie and her friends, everything he could think of. Quietly - Johnathan slept like the dead,but he didn’t want to wake Tessa and Adam. Lyric uncoiled slowly as he sang, like a morning-blooming flower. Her focus on him was complete, her attention rapt, and he went from blushing at that to taking it as the trust it was. The sun rose as he sang, and Lyric finally smiled, a grin that lit up her whole face. He watched her as he sang, now hoarse, ”As long as I’m the hero of this little girl…”