was sleeping quite contentedly when she was shaken awake.

"Daisy?" A tiny voice whispered, a hand on the girl's shoulder as she was gently shaken. "Daisy."

"Hmm." Daisy hummed, the sound of Calypso's voice making her eyes pry open.

The six-year-old was stood next to Daisy's bed, eyes wide. Calypso's hair stuck to her skin slightly, the light sweat making it evident to Daisy that her little sister had a nightmare.

Daisy said nothing as she peeled back her comforter, scooting over slightly to make room for the little girl.

Calypso climbed up in the bed beside Daisy, pulling the covers over her as the two girls laid in silence.

Daisy wasn't sure what time it was. There was a faint light streaming in from the windows. It was far too faint to be the rising sun, and Daisy decided the soft light was probably just the brightly lit city of Seattle. Daisy's bedroom was still dark, and she decided it must've been sometime in the middle of the night.

Calypso snuggled into Daisy's side, and Daisy reached her hand up to comb through the girl's sweat-matted curls.

"I can help you run a bath, if you want." Daisy offered, speaking quietly.

Calypso merely shook her head, a gesture Daisy could hardly make out in the dark. "I wanna stay here."

Daisy didn't care that her sister was so clammy, truthfully, she just didn't want the girl to be uncomfortable.

Something had clearly upset Calypso, and as much as Daisy wanted to know what her nightmare had been about, she knew that asking would only upset Calypso even more.

"I don't think Mark did a good job looking for the monsters in my closet tonight." Calypso whispered. "Because...because I woke up scared, and I tried to go back to sleep but I thought I heard noises."

"It's a drafty apartment, Cal." Daisy yawned, knowing there was an explanation for every little random creak and noise. "Or else Thomas is just being nosy again."

"Maybe." Calypso whispered, her eyes falling to the girl's double-doored closet. It was an ominous figure to make out in the dark, even more so with the faint light from outside casting shadows. "Does...does your closet..."

"No." Daisy confirmed to ease the girl. "Teenagers scare monsters. They don't hide in our closets."

"Good." Calypso spoke firmly, as if monsters in closets were a very serious issue. "Good, that's good."

It was quiet for a bit, silence radiating through the room. Daisy was tired, and she felt as if she was about to slip easily into another state of sleep when Calypso began talking again.

"Do you ever worry about things?"

"Mhm." Daisy confirmed, letting her eyes remain shut as she talked. "All the time."

Both girls talked in hushed tones, as if it were illegal to speak at a volume any louder in the middle of the night. Whispers were the only thing that circulated the room.

"Like what?" Daisy heard her sister ask her.

The teenager let her eyes flutter open, focusing on the dimly lit bedroom ceiling that displayed a vastness of empty space.

"I don't know. Everything, I guess. And us, and...and everything that involves us. I worry about what comes next, about what bad thing is waiting." Daisy exhaled as she spoke, the wheels in her head turning. "Do you worry about that stuff?"

"Not really." Calypso spoke in a light tone. "I mean...'cause if you think about it, we've already gotten all the bad things in life out of the way, and so much has happened, and...only good things are left. There isn't anymore bad for us to go through."

Daisy's heart ached, and she wanted to explain that that's not how it worked. There aren't a set amount of bad things in life that you just have to get through and then life is all sunshine. The bad things just keep coming, and they don't stop.

But Calypso was a glass half-full person while Daisy was a glass half-empty person. They balanced each other in that way, optimist and pessimist. Daisy thought maybe it was just her brain feeling all dark and twisty, and she didn't feel the need to pop Calypso's happy bubble.

"What do you worry about, then?"

"I worry about, um...dying before I meet a unicorn, and I always worry about getting those stupid blisters on the monkey bars." Calypso frowned as she spoke, swearing she could feel the pain radiating off her hands. "Closet monsters, not learning how to tie my shoes before next year. I worry that I'm never gonna be able to read. Sometimes I worry that I'll have an accident when Mark isn't here, and then I'll have to get Naomi to help me with my sheets and she'll laugh at me for being a baby."

"Naomi wouldn't laugh at you." Daisy pointed out the obvious about their incredibly kind nanny, but Calypso's brain was already on something else.

"I worry that Mr. Walter is gonna come back." Calypso spoke out, her voice smaller than ever. "And...and I don't know what we'll do."

"Mr. Walter isn't coming back." Daisy spoke firmly, a stark contrast to the point she had reiterated for weeks. "Mark won't let him come back."

"But I thought you said that Mark-"

"I was wrong. Mr. Walter isn't coming back." Daisy assured her little sister, combing her fingers through the girl's curls.

"So...did you and Mark talk then? You're friends?"

"Oh, yeah, for sure. Mark and I are best friends." Daisy spoke, Calypso failing to detect the slight sarcasm as she grinned slightly.

"Good." Calypso sighed happily. "Everything is...good. Except for the closet monsters. Those still scare me. But...everything else is good."

Daisy did have to admit that things felt like they were moving in a positive direction. Mark talked to her all the time now, and there were conversations about how school went and how Daisy's day was, and Daisy felt very much acknowledged.

The bedtime stories didn't happen, of course, but that was okay. Daisy was more than happy to let that part be reserved for Calypso.

Daisy felt comfortable, and Daisy felt...happy, which made her nervous. It was almost like things were going too well, like all of this was too good to be true and something horrible was about to happen.

Death was something Daisy had grown so familiar with, and that happened to be the always looming factor that crushed everything in Daisy's life.

Of course, options were dwindling down in regards to the people that death could grip onto and never let go of.

There was Daisy herself, naturally, but Daisy truthfully didn't care that much about if she died. She knew Calypso would be well taken care of if she left, and being reunited with her parents sounded overwhelmingly perfect.

Calypso, too, was somebody that death could drag down. Calypso was pretty well the last one standing besides Daisy, and it was heavy to think about Calypso being gone.

Daisy held onto her sister tighter at the thought, not possibly able to bear the thought of Calypso leaving her.

Even Mark was somebody that Daisy would mourn. The girl wondered what would happen to her and her sister if Mark happened to die. Would they be turned back over to the state?

Or...they technically did still happen to be wards of the state, they were still in foster care. It was easy to forget about, because things felt so comfortable and normal and homey. Foster care seemed like such a far away concept.

Daisy didn't know what to feel. Happiness happened to nearly always be followed up by something bad, Daisy refused to believe that life could just be good.

Nothing is ever just good.

Calypso shuffled a little as she readjusted herself to a comfier position, drawing Daisy back to reality. The faint groan of the bed frame seemed tenfold louder in the middle of the night.

"I think Mark has a girlfriend." Calypso whispered out into the darkness.

"No way." Daisy shook her head. "He's too old to have a girlfriend."

"He's ancient." Calypso nodded in agreement. "But I think he might. He was talking to somebody on the phone, kind of like how I talk to Ben."

Daisy raised her eyebrow at that. "How do you and Ben talk to each other?"

"Like husband and wife, duh." Calypso spoke like it was the most obvious thing before a new thought dawned on her. "Ooh! Maybe he has a wife! Or a husband! Maybe they're a super spy, and that's why he hasn't told us. It's a secret."

But Daisy found it very unlikely that Mark had gotten married without them knowing, especially not to some FBI agent.

Still though, the idea made Daisy feel funny. She had just gotten used to the idea of their family of three, she didn't know how she felt about trying to add another number to the mix.

"I think we'll stay here forever." Calypso whispered, drawing shapes into the soft sheets beneath her. "I hope we stay forever."

And yet as comfortable as Daisy had begun to grow with the idea, it still did make her nervous for some reason.

"I don't know about forever. We'll eventually think Seattle is way too boring to stay in, we'll get sick of seeing the Space Needle every day."

"That's not what I meant, silly." Calypso let out a quiet giggle.

Daisy knew what she meant, of course, but not acknowledging it seemed easier. The prospect of staying in one stable home environment instead of bouncing back and forth between placements was such a foreign concept that Daisy couldn't possibly imagine it.

"Maybe." Daisy shrugged, not taking her eyes off of the blank ceiling.

"I think we will." Calypso smiled. "We've already been here for forever."

It had been a long time, Daisy had to admit. Six months, and with the exception of the Walters, that was the farthest they'd ever made it with a placement.

"I don't want you to get upset if we do have to leave." Daisy spoke quietly. "Because it could still happen. Six months doesn't really mean anything."

"I know. I won't get upset." Calypso promised, which Daisy knew was a very false promise. Calypso was already way too attached, no way would she be able to leave should the situation call for it.

"I think I'll ask for a puppy for my birthday." Calypso thumbed off to a new topic. "Because Thomas needs a friend. I think I'll ask for a puppy. What do you think?"

"I think you're out of your mind if you think Mark's gonna let you get a puppy." Daisy mumbled. "He hates Thomas, no way are you getting anymore animals."

"Hate is a bad word." Calypso scolded her sister, the older of the two rolling her eyes.

It really was no secret that Mark hated their cat. Just last week, Thomas had gotten into the man's bedroom closet and torn his leather shoes into mere strips, and Daisy had never in her life seen somebody so angry, nor had she seen a cat so contented with himself. Thomas genuinely seemed to enjoy pissing off Mark, it was like a secret game they played.

"I don't know. I'm just saying, I think you'd have better luck convincing Mark to let you get a tattoo than you would convincing him to get a dog."

Calypso giggled at that statement, knowing her sister was probably right. Thomas had seriously ruined any chances of another animal ever entering the Sloan household again.

The quiet laughter died down after a little bit. Calypso felt genuinely relieved, a feeling she usually didn't experience after any of her nightmares. Calypso loved Daisy, and she was convinced that even though she didn't have a mom, Daisy was the next best thing.

Daisy felt good, too. Tired, of course, but good. The medicine she had started taking for her OCD and anxiety made her much more relaxed.

The concept did worry Daisy a bit, of course. She had to take a pill to mellow out? Did the composition of taking a pill change who Daisy was entirely? Was Daisy even Daisy anymore?

But Daisy knew the worry was normal, because Daisy wouldn't be Daisy if she didn't worry just a little bit.

The counting was still present, of course. That's something that would never change. Her tiny quirks remained pretty well the same too.

But she didn't automatically go into a tapping rampage over every tiny inconvenience. She felt okay, and if she took a deep breath, she found herself able to look around her room and ground herself, distracting her brain with intricate little details.

Things were seriously starting to look up for Daisy. She was happy, and she couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"I think we'll stay here forever." Calypso repeated herself, her voice as quiet as ever as the words were put out into the air.

Daisy sort of thought so too, though she would never willingly admit that out loud.

Daisy was happy, and she didn't know if this was finally her big break, or if this was just the calm before the storm.