#like a convoluted puzzle i needed to attempt again and again to figure out

[twipsai]

is it an unpopular opinion to say that i like The End's fight in the base game rather than the dlc?

[lepusrufus]

To bargain for immortality pt.5

Another few good weeks passed before they heard from their so-called goddess, gone who knows where. Not that anyone would ever question her absences, even the lords knew better than to stick their noses in her business.

When Nicole found herself once again following Emma through blue-lit underground corridors, there was an odd determination in her strides. She wanted to figure out what the hell was going on with her and Miranda, if nothing else, was a scientist who above all loved solving an equation. And what else could her situation be described as if not an intricate equation with a bit fat X as her missing factor.

She was right in thinking that Miranda would find her issue of interest, as when she finally brought it up the woman furrowed her brows and turned to face her, a clipboard grabbed from a nearby table.

“And there was nobody else?”

“No. Just me, Cassandra, the pharmacist and some guy that came for his medicine,” Nicole answered with a barely contained huff.

“What for?” Miranda tapped her pen against the paper in anticipation, a clear sign that she may be onto something and was only putting together some puzzle pieces that nobody but her could see.

Nicole had to dig through her memories for a moment. “An infection. At least that’s what the pharmacist mentioned.”

Miranda hummed and scribbled something else. There was no point in trying to decipher what exactly, the woman had the handwriting of two drunk doctors put together. How very fitting for her.

Without another word, she was on her feet, unbuttoned lab coat flowing after her the same way her black robes did when in goddess mode. “Follow me. I want to test something.”

And what else was she supposed to do really?

Quick steps took them down the hallways, black stone walls surrounding them and taking on an odd shine under the unnatural neon lights above. At least Nicole didn’t have to jog for once, Miranda not being that much taller than her.

The journey was short and they reached their destination quickly, which seemed to be a door not unlike the one belonging to the lab they had just vacated, except this one had the number 24 engraved on a small plaque on it. Miranda pushed it open to reveal a small hospital looking room, four beds divided by grey curtains but only one seemed to be occupied, a sleeping woman hooked to a heart monitor whose rhythmic beeping caused some memories to resurface in Nicole's mind.

Those memories however were quickly pushed down by a sudden burst of nausea at the decaying smell that seemed to forcefully crawl its way down her throat. Nicole all but slapped a hand to her face and turned around in a pathetic attempt to block out the overwhelming sensation. Some blood also started to trickle down her face and past trembling fingers, although thankfully not an ungodly amount like before.

By some mercy of well… herself, Miranda didn't stop her when she decided to do a wobbly turn and hastily exit the room. She followed Nicole out and observed as she slumped against a wall, pulling a tissue from a pocket to wipe at her face.

"What… the fuck," Nicole breathed out.

"Was that the same as before?" Miranda's eyes were full of a weird kind of glee that could only belong to a mad scientist. Not that that would be an inaccurate description for the woman.

Nicole only nodded, trying to get her face on a more presentable level before speaking again. "Is she-..."

Miranda scoffed. "Are you deaf? I can assure you the woman is quite alive," she responded with an eye roll.

The soft beeping monitoring the heartbeat could be heard faintly from behind the closed door, so her words had to hold some truth to them. Though her intentions were still shrouded in mystery.

"Then why the hell does she smell like that?"

"She doesn't," came the nonchalant reply and it had Nicole almost seething.

Is your ego stuffed up your nose, is what she wished she could snap and say, but she knew better.

If Miranda noticed the daggers in her eyes, she paid them no mind. Instead she noted something down on the paper precariously attached to the clipboard she got a hold of before exiting the lab they had been in previously. When she finished, she simply motioned for Nicole to follow and continued further down the hallway, without a second glance.

She only stopped once to exchange a few words with an unfamiliar assistant on the whereabouts of certain patients. Patiens. Why would Miranda keep any sort of patients down there?

Before she had time to dwell on it, Miranda pushed another door open, this time leading to another corridor dimly lit by strategically placed torches. Apparently nobody bothered to get electricity to this particular part of the underground maze of tunnels, the warm light so pleasant on the eyes as opposed to the harsh neons of the previous area. The tunnel was also long, way too long for it to be an often used path, especially given how awfully humid the air was becoming. Nicole tried to take a mental note of where they were heading, squinting her eyes in an effort to imagine what was above them, but with how convoluted the tunnels down there were, it was fruitless.

After maybe fifteen minutes of walking, awkward silence -at least awkward on her part, Miranda didn't seem to care- only broken by the echo of steps and the soft sounds of crackling fire from the torches, the tunnel ended in what looked to be a far too modern stairwell. Nicole had to pause for a second, looking at the unnerving contrast where dark ancient stone gave way suddenly to gray concrete and steel, going up in sharp angles and blocking the view to whatever laid above. The overall architecture did look vaguely familiar though, but Miranda didn't seem to have the patience for sightseeing as she quickly started walking up the stairs.

At the top of the staircase stood a steel door that was quickly unlocked to finally reveal a place that Nicole recognized. She blinked rapidly in surprise, all but freezing in the doorway at the sight of the hospital corridor she had walked down on so many times before, complete with a handful of nurses discussing in a corner. She shook her head and slowly followed the woman, not wanting to remain behind. It didn't take long before they came across the one person Miranda was apparently searching for.

"M- Mother Miranda," Salvatore's voice came in an oddly high pitch, at least for him, when he almost crashed with her in his hurry to get somewhere.

"Moreau," Miranda greeted with a nod and unreadable expression. "I need the documents on each of your patients and where they're staying." Straight to business apparently.

He simply nodded and moved his attention to one of the nurses standing nearby, instructing him to finish whatever task he was supposed to before their arrival. The man moved rigidly, painfully aware of Miranda's presence. Then, Moreau led them to his office, starting to pull out a consistent number of files from a large bookcase.

His office was, unsurprisingly, a mess aside from the one place he held the documents keeping track of all his current patients, complete with a few books and office supplies haphazardly placed on the desk. A few spare white coats were hanging just by the door, together with a long and worn leather jacket that he often times wore when outside the building. A familiar string of bones was also peeking from one of its pockets, nowadays worn as a necklace since, after the effects of his mutation were lessened, he found the crown quite unsightly.

"Are you coming by anytime soon," his voice came from behind, snapping her out of her exploration. "We could use a hand sometimes."

Nicole turned to give him a polite smile. "I may, but I have some things to get out of the way for now."

A glance in Miranda's direction revealed the woman hunched over the documents on the desk, writing down a list with the aid of whatever she was reading. They could do some small talk for the time being.

"How have you been," Nicole asked, turning to him again.

She and Salvatore were on quite friendly terms ever since she started occasionally helping out in the hospital that he was in charge of. Not that they had much time to ever hang out, but the few times they did, it's always been a pleasant interaction among colleagues.

"Some days are better than others," he responded with half a shrug.

Judging by the deep purplish circles under his eyes, today wasn't particularly stellar. He was slightly hunched, whether it was out of habit from a time when sitting straight was quite impossible or from tiredness, she couldn't tell.

"Any news from the castle?" He asked with a chuckle. He was rarely welcomed in Alcina's home so the curiosity wasn't unwarranted.

Nicole shrugged. "Same old same old. Bleeding out prisoners, stopping Daniela from breaking vases and all that boring pseudo nobility stuff."

He let out a quiet laugh. "Nobility? Should I start calling you my lady?"

Nicole snorthed, giving his shoulder a small shove that didn't make him move in the slightest.

Their joking banter was interrupted by Miranda all but shoving her way in between them and out the door, calling for her to follow. With a small wave, Nicole was quickly after her, falling in step just slightly behind the other woman. Though it was a small building after all, so it didn't take long to reach the first door on Miranda's list.

"I want you to tell me exactly what you feel," she flatly told Nicole while pushing the door open.

She frowned, eyes slightly narrowed in confusion and glued to Miranda's back as she stepped inside the small room after the woman.

Any incredulous question died on her tongue when she seemed to be yanked back in time, to the yearly family trips her father insisted they all go on. It was to a relative, or family friend, Nicole couldn't quite recall, who owned an old cabin near a lake. Problem was, the lake was always murky and full of algae, the water gaining an unpleasant scent under the August sun. She and Alex never tried swimming.

"Well?" Mirada raised an eyebrow, impatient.

Nicole scrunched up her nose, both wanting and desperately trying not to take a deeper breath. "Pond water? The kind of water that's stagnant and muddy in summer, full of dead fish and weeds."

She tried not to fidget, her mind running a thousand miles an hour. The so-called goddess seeming completely uninterested in shedding light on what the hell they were doing was not of much help either. A frustrated sigh threatened to escape when another person spoke up.

"Doctor?" A meek voice came from the only bed in the room, from a young woman who seemed asleep when they had walked in. She looked between the two of them confused and with squinted eyes.

Miranda simply raised a hand, not even sparing the girl a glance. "Pay us no mind, we're only here to check on something. We'll be on our way in a moment."

Nicole couldn't help the confused look she threw the girl's way. Was she not recognizing the woman this whole town worshipped? An amused snort almost escaped her but she knew better. Besides, who could really blame her? Mirada was wearing an oversized lab coat, blonde hair held back in a ponytail and there was no trace of the makeup that usually accompanied her ceremonial robes and mask.

Not that Nicole had time to appreciate the odd humanity of Miranda's outfit, as the woman turned on her heels and exited the room as soon as she was done writing. She was starting to grow annoyed with the uncooperative and know-it-all attitude, but decided against voicing any opinions and settled for following along to the next door.

It kept on being a rinse and repeat of the first room, only variables being the patients inside and her answers. Sometimes the change wasn't too obvious, maybe just a more metallic undertone or a new faint smell latching onto her senses, like the sickly sweet aroma of honey. A handful of times though she had to all but slap a hand over her face to not be overwhelmed by the enveloping stench. One room in particular made her almost stumbled backwards and out the door, when a strong metallic smell contrasting the accompanying one of decomposition hit her like a slap in the face. The man inside, who was evidently not doing particularly well, didn't seem appreciative of the apparently crazy woman coming in and rudely interrupting his rest.

Nicole didn't look forward to lingering around by that point, but there was one more room to check.

They pushed open the door, and the familiar stinging scent of decay immediately overtook her senses, seeming to latch on to the very inside of her throat. A small rivulet of blood also started dripping down her face, and Nicole quickly pulled out a paper tissue from her pants pocket to press against her nostrils. It was both to stop the bleeding and to shield her senses from the smell.

Once outside, Nicole was trying to catch her breath while Miranda was simply writing something down. Another set of steps approached them, who turned out to be Moreau coming to check on their findings. Upon being given the clipboard to read -he could actually decipher her chicken scratch, really?- he let out a curious hum.

"I need to go over John Abbott's file and compare them," Miranda started, clicking her pen and putting it back into her pocket. "I'll send an assistant after it later." Then she looked her way and waved a hand dismissively. "You're free to go, I'll send Emma after you when you're needed."

Nicole blinked, dumbfounded, her voice coming out harsher than she probably should've allowed it to be. "That's all? What did you find?"

The exasperated edge in her voice did not go unnoticed nor was it appreciated. Miranda rolled her eyes slightly and gave her an answer. "You can distinguish illnesses by smell. We'll do a more comprehensive test and list, but for now we have enough to say that's how the Mold manifested with you," Miranda explained, half turned away and ready to leave.

And she did turn to leave as soon as she was finished. With a nod towards Salvatore, she made her way back down the hospital corridor and presumably towards the passageway that led back to her lab.

Nicole wasn't particularly keen on going down there again if she could help it, so she instead stuck by Salvatore's side as they walked back to his office.

That day wasn't the first time Nicole had entered that room, so the fact that it also served as some kind of archive did not go past her. The office itself was decently sized, and even had a storage room attached to it with the sole purpose of keeping old files that may be important but Miranda didn't need at hand. Although, in all honesty, Salvatore wasn't particularly skilled in keeping everything organized. That's what my secretary is for, he would say, ignoring the fact that Miranda would gut anyone who touched those documents if they weren't part of the small group of people she deemed worthy. Therefore, the files were a mess, the only saving grace being that he at least had the foresight of organizing them by decade.

With a sigh, he started looking through the binders all but stuffed on one of the many shelves. Nicole sat down at his desk, occupying herself with a crayon that she started twisting around her fingers absent mindedly. There was some semblance of relief in finally figuring out what had so cruelly changed in her body, and what an ironic twist of fate said change was. To have spent years pouring over books learning about the illnesses that now were recognizable by something as simple as an acidic smell of blood. On the other hand though, the knowledge that Miranda had a tendency to find some kind of use for all her experiments left a sensation of dread slowly making its way into the deepest crannies of her chest, where a certain parasite had burrowed and made a nest for itself.

"Mind if I call the castle, I don't really feel like walking all the way back," she asked, eyes settling on the phone pushed to the side by a couple books and scattered pens.

"Sure," he responded without moving from where he was pulling out papers, only to shove them back inside their folders when they weren't the correct ones.

Her hands hovered over the keys for a moment. She wasn't about to call Alcina's personal phone to ask for a ride, heavens no. The phone in Carolina's study, where the Constable would spend her time when not in the stables, would be the best choice if only she could remember the number from memory. Nicole decided that the one in the main hall was the best next thing, where one of the guards at the entrance would probably hear the ringing and answer.

She dialed the number and listened to the typical ringing sound once, twice, until she thought nobody was actually around, but at last, a voice came from the other end.

"Alo?"

Nicole took a moment to recognize the voice as Dalia's, the head chambermaid.

"Hey, it's Nicole," she started toying with the pencil again. "I'm at the hospital, can you send Carolina with a horse to pick me up?" She sensed the slight hesitation on the other woman's side and thought to clarify. "I'm not injured, just with Moreau."

She heard a slight exhale from the other end of the line and had to entertain the thought of whether the woman was relieved due to genuine concern for her wellbeing, or she was well aware of how irritable her wife could be. Her being injured definitely made its way on the list of things that would bring out the anger and cruelty carefully crafted over almost a century.

Before hanging up the phone, she sighed and thought better of her request. "Actually, tell Cassandra to come."

She could almost feel the slight grimace from Dalia at being asked to go talk to the most sadist of the sisters, and with a request no less. Oh well, there's to hoping that Cassandra wouldn't be too peeved at said request coming from her wife.

She hung up after hearing an of course, my lady.

With a way to get back home without having to do the trek on foot assured, she leaned back in the chair, watching Salvatore continue on his search. He was standing with his hands on his hips, eyebrows pulled into a frown that slightly wrinkled the already rough skin of his forehead. He looked almost as if he resorted to glaring at the piles of papers, hoping that enough intimidation would scare the right file into jumping into his hands.

It almost made Nicole snort, were it not for the curiosity that both acted as a distraction and pleaded to get some more answers. "So, who's this… Jack Abbott?"

"John Abbott," he corrected without tearing his eyes from the shelf in front of him. He grimaced then. "He was one of Mother Miranda's earlier experiments, and had a very similar mutation to yours."

At that Nicole's eyebrows shot up past the low line of her fringe, interest successfully piqued. She turned in her seat to fully face him, one arm thrown over the back of the chair. When he didn't continue talking, instead pulling out one of the last binders on the shelf labeled 1930's, she impatiently prodded for more information. "And?"

Moreau pulled a face, probably wondering if he was even supposed to talk about it. It didn't take long for him to let out a defeated sigh, the demand to play dumb were Miranda to ever ask about this going unspoken, but more than understood. "Same thing as you really. He could tell what illness someone had by a specific smell, down to the nasty nose bleeds whenever it got too much," he started, noticing a few drops of blood that had dried on her upper lip.

He turned back to pulling out the very last binder dedicated to that decade and relaxed his posture ever so slightly when he saw JOHN ABBOTT written in big letters and black ink on one file. Another frown tugged his cracked lips downward, the information written in such a clinical way only mudding the memory of the frail man he had briefly met so many decades ago. "His body took well to the Cadou until… well ,until it didn't. I don't know what went wrong, but his body just rejected it at one point and he died being slowly consumed by the infection."

At that Nicole's face fell, dread now overtaking her usual curiosity. He must've noticed, for his next words came the slightest bit rushed and with a strained kind of reassurance that wasn't convincing to either of them.

"It may very well not be connected."

Nicole almost scoffed, not at him but at the situation at hand. The hand holding the pencil was tense and, had she not been as weak as she was, the wood would've probably cracked by then. "Did you know him?"

With a slight shake of his head, he answered, not a negation but more a gesture of pity. "Barely. I was brought here only after he started," he narrowed his eyes at a wall somewhere behind Nicole trying to find the right word. He didn't. "...deteriorating."

That was about as much as her brain wanted to know at the moment, letting a heavy silence fill the space for endlessly too long. She was caught in her own thoughts that started to twist and turn into countless what ifs. Thoughts that crashed to a halt when a nurse knocked on the half open door to announce her presence.

"Lady Cassandra is waiting outside," she told Nicole, expression pulled in a poker face that could only belong to someone who had to deal with her wife and tried to seem unbothered. Tried and failed.

Nicole sprung to her feet, circling the desk and about to make her exit when he called out. "Take care of yourself," Moreau told her, looking up from the papers he was reading.

Her lips turned slightly upwards into a smile. "You too." And then she left, rapid pace taking her through off-white hallways and slight smells that she was now painfully aware of.

Stepping outside was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one, the orange hue of the setting sun welcoming her after the hours passed under the harsh lab lights. How ironic was her hatred for the damned neon lights, when not too long ago she would've gladly spent her life under their bluish glow.

Even better than the warm sun on her skin, was the sight of Cassandra, dressed in her usual riding attire and absent mindedly scratching the furry muzzle of one of the castle's Clydesdale horses. A big beast of a horse, black and white with its feathery legs that, Nicole realized with an eye roll, she wouldn't dream of getting on without help.

Her pace quickened until she found herself embraced by a pair of strong arms, the stable smell mixed with Cassandra's cologne filling her senses with something finally pleasant. She didn't let go until she felt a gentle kiss placed on top of her auburn hair.

"Darling," Cassandra greeted her once she pulled back, gloved hand coming to rest on a pale cheek. "How are you?"

Nicole sighed and pushed into the touch, the kind of tiredness that could only be felt after a day spent bending over backwards to every one of Miranda's whims settling into her bones. "Ready to go back home."

Cassandra simply nodded once and moved her hands on her hips, getting a good enough grip before picking Nicole up to where her foot could reach the stirrup so she could pull herself up. Her wife decided that climbing in the saddle was below her at the moment, choosing instead to turn into a swarm, only to retake her human form a mere second later, on the horse's back, her front comfortably against Nicole's back. With a few taps of her boot against the stirrup still occupied by Nicole's foot in a silent demand to let her guide the horse, she took a hold of the reins and they finally started moving down the stone paved road.

There was no complaint on Nicole's part, taking it as a good opportunity to sit back and enjoy the ride, pressed to her wife's chest.

A few eternally long minutes were spent absentmindedly scratching the horse's muscular neck, where short black fur met the mane held in a beautifully done french braid, that only their Constable could pull so seamlessly. A few long minutes spent mulling over what she had found out, thoughts twisting cruelly with every worst case scenario her mind could conjure. Had she made a mistake? Was the infection a mistake to begin with? How cruel could fate be sometimes. Back in New York she had come to terms with a meaningless life, the only truly important thing she had amounted to at that point being choosing a career path to spite her father. But now, after finding a place to call home where she ached to stay to the point of seeking eternity for it, the very thing that could allow her to remain there forever could also take her life away, miserably so.

"What's wrong?"

Cassandra's voice snapped her back to reality, so much so that she even shook her head a couple times to chase away the lingering thoughts. She gave an inquisitive hum in an attempt to play dumb. The attempt was met with an incredulous eye roll.

"You're quiet," she simply responded.

"I'd think spending decades with Daniela would make you appreciate quiet people," Nicole jokingly threw back.

"Not you," came the reply, one hand leaving the reins and coming to rest on her thigh. "I love hearing you talk, even when you're blabbering about proper medical technique."

At that Nicole let out a light gasp, turning around with mild offence written in her eyes. She couldn't find anything to retaliate with for once, setting instead for giving her wife a slight shove with her elbow, that only elicited a laugh.

She shook her head and let out a sigh. "We did figure out what's with the damned nosebleeds." At a curious hum and Cassandra's chin coming to rest on top of her head, she went on. "Apparently I can distinguish illnesses by smell. Now that would've been useful during med school," she finished with a bitter laugh.

Her wife responded with a snort. "If I were Daniela, I'd say you're joking to hide how you really feel." She shrugged. "However I'm not her, and I'm assuming you'll simply tell me without the need of an impromptu psychoanalysis," she said almost smugly, the hand that was until then lazily placed on her leg finding its place around her waist.

The times when Nicole wished to curse her wife's apparently impeccable observation skills were rare, but this was one such occasion.

She almost let out a groan, pushing further back into Cassandra's form. "There was this other man, John Abbott, with the same mutation. Except his body rejected the Cadou and he died slowly and painfully," she explained, her voice quieting halfway through, but almost flinched when the arm around her went stiff with an almost vice-like grip. The realization of how long Cassandra has really been in the Village for slowly crept its way from Nicole's memory, having been filed away and almost forgotten in a metaphorical drawer of obvious things that however were rarely brought up. "Did you know him-"

"You won't end up like that sorry bastard."

The conviction behind that one simple sentence almost had Nicole letting out another short bitter laugh. Not out of bemusement of course. Irony perhaps, at how determined her wife was to double down on cheating death, not only for herself but her too. Even when death could be brought by the very thing keeping them alive.

"Not much we could do about that," she said in a small voice, one hand toying with the black fabric of Cassandra's sleeve.

"Don't think for one moment that I'm joking," she started, an edge of a warning behind her tone. Her hand came to rest more gently on the bottom of Nicole's sternum, where the skin had healed in a dark scar that seemed to send jagged cracks all the way to her stomach. "I'll pull the wretched little thing out of your chest myself if I have to."

At that Nicole actually let out a laugh. "Way to go with something morbidly romantic."

Cassandra chuckled close to her ear, bending down slightly to leave a peck where her neck and shoulder met. "You're not going to die. I won't allow it."

A silent possessiveness accompanied her words. An implication that she now belonged there, in her arms, and frivolous things such as death had no place to come between them. She should flinch at such implications, were it not for the fact that it was mutual and Cassandra knew better than to recklessly throw herself on death's path, knowing well that soon her wife would follow in her steps.

The soft kiss was returned when Nicole bent back again, until the angle between their bodies allowed for their lips to meet tenderly, in a way that anyone would believe was so utterly uncharacteristic to the both of them, ruthless in their own ways but soft like velvet running on smooth skin with each other.

They rode in comfortable silence up until the gates to the stable, where they dismounted and handed the reins to one of the servants waiting there. The sun had set by then, purple and dark blues reigning the skies as they entered the castle through one of the secondary doors.

She parted ways with her wife, saying that she would soon join the rest of their family as she headed up the stairs. A change of clothes was due. That and a request to their seamstress.

Oh her way back down, she stopped by the open door to the woman’s studio, busy with readjusting some garments for one of the ladies. A curt knock on the wooden frame of the entrance got her attention and had her pulling a face upon realizing that she had probably lost count of whatever she was mentally keeping track of. Nonetheless, she offered a polite smile when greeting Nicole.

“My lady, what can I do for you?”

“I need a facemask,” Nicole started.

The woman’s eyebrows pulled in a confused frown. “I thought a new batch of surgical masks just arrived the other day.”

Nicole raised a hand when she went to check on the shipments list. “I meant something I can wear for longer and outside the lab, surgical masks have a tendency to clash with an elegant gown, you know,” she explained with a chuckle. “Preferably that can filter out any smells?”

“Oh. Of course, I’ll just need to take your measures to make sure it’s fitted for you.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” she proposed and, after the seamstress gave her an hour, she continued on her way down the hallway to where the rest of the Dimitrescus were gathered.

Being home brought some peace of mind, thoughts of dying and being forcefully ripped away from her life momentarily placated in favor of enjoying a few hours by the fireplace with her family. Leaning against Cassandra as she draped an arm around her shoulders and listening to Daniela and Bela have a hilariously heated debate over the latest book they've read felt downright blissful in its mundane aspect.

Although no matter what, the little parasite that now called the inside of her chest its home, was quietly gnawing at her worried mind.

[naralanis]

little bumps in the road (pt. 26)

Previously, on LBitR...

Lena has never given much thought to what happens after death.

She’s heard all about feeling cold—she’s felt that cold, more than once. She’s heard all about darkness—which she has seen, but not exactly in a near-death context. She’s also heard all about the light.

She does see that—not exactly a light she has to follow or whatever it is people see when they die, but a blinding expanse of white, as far as her eyes can see, though a little fuzzy, darker around the edges of her vision.

Considering the way she went out, Lena’s very surprised she doesn’t see any green.

Green. Kryptonite.

Kara.

Something that feels like a sob wrenches itself out of her chest by force. That dumb, stupid, idiotic Kryptonian—if Lena’s dead, then Kara is for sure—how dare she—

“Lena?”

The voice is familiar, and close; physically close, something that Lena didn’t think was possibly in this ethereal, post-death realm. Lena turns her head and realizes that, despite the brightness of the light she’s seeing, her eyes are most definitely closed.

Huh.

She opens them, then blinks, because the only difference seems to be… a lot of fuzzy shapes.

“Lena?” the voice calls to her again, closer still.

“Eugh…” is Lena’s less-than-eloquent reply. She could have done worse; her throat constricts painfully around something, and it’s like she’s pulling air the wrong way in, which causes a coughing fit that rattles her to the bone.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK, take your time,” the voice continues, and Lena knows that voice, but right now her brain feels like actual Jell-O sloshing around in her skull, and her entire body lights up with pain, so it’s understandably taking her a little while to get her bearings.

She blinks the crust out of her eyes; the speaking blob at her side begins to take shape and look like a person.

“Lena, don’t worry. You’re alright, you’re at the DEO. You’re hurt, but we could take the implant out—there will be an adjustment period, but you’re alright.” The voice explains, and Lena finally, finally places it.

“Agh… ah—ugh… L-lex?” she tries; her tongue feels like a wad of cotton in her mouth, and her throat is just burning.

The voice grows soothing. “We got him, Lena, don’t worry, we got—”

Lena shakes her head, which is a terrible decision—there is s sharp jolt of pain that shoots down her temple and settles all the way at the base of her spine; it makes her clench her teeth, which in turn just worsens the throbbing in her head.

She attempts to raise a hand; that fails when another painful shock travels from her shoulder across her collarbones. Lena groans in frustration, she needs to ger her words out, but it’s like her entire body has decided to call it quits.

Finally, she manages.

“Ah-Alex… Alex?”

The figure releases a breathless little laugh, and a reassuring hand comes to rest very gently at Lena’s shoulder.

“It’s me, Lena. I’m alright, you’re alright. Rest now, OK? Your meds will be kicking in again any time.”

Lena is equal parts relieved and panicked; there’s the obvious relief that comes with the knowledge that Alex is fine and right here next to her. But the agent doesn’t say a word about her sister, and that fills Lena with a dread she cannot express in her condition; especially now, as her lids grow heavier by the second, as her body sinks into an undoubtedly double-padded mattress.

“K—K..agh…” she tries, needing to know that Kara is alright, that she’s alive, because if Lena made it, Kara has to be alive. The alternative is unthinkable.

She manages another unintelligible gurgle before the meds do kick in, and then she’s out like a light.

Lena dreams.

This time, she does see green—a lot of it as the entire space of her LuthorCorp office is awash in the glow of the fully-armed Kryptonite cannons, and when Supergirl—Kara—lowers herself onto her balcony, Lena realizes this is not a dream at all.

It’s a memory.

She watches Kara raise her arms in surrender, sees the crinkle of confusion on her brow as the Kryptonian stares at her as if she’s seeing someone else entirely.

Lena watches her fall once she’s hit by what was meant to be a lethal dose of Kryptonite.

The memory shifts.

They’re in the Jeep, this time. It’s the dead of night and Kara’s in the driver’s seat, hair cropped short—Christ, Lena had forgotten just how short it was during those first couple of weeks. Kara’s driving, but she’s not looking at the road—no, in this snippet of reality, she’s staring straight at Lena, her gaunt, pale complexion fixated on her passenger. She looks perplexed, but also, inexplicably, relieved.

The memories keep shifting—they’re at the diner where they finally spoke to one another again, then they’re at a gas station, a phone booth, on and on and on—until everything seems to move and merge into a blur of colours, shapes, and sounds. It’s a convoluted, puzzling mental kaleidoscope, but surprisingly, Lena finds it remarkably easy to make sense of it all.

After all, how could she not? These are her memories. She’s lived through it all before.

Lena blinks into awareness slowly, this time. Her dream—or actual trip down memory lane—fades away softly, giving way to the soothing darkness of eyes gently closed for sleep.

There’s warmth at her side, and movement, too. It’s the up-and-down, in-and-out steady rhythm of deep breathing.

Lena instinctively tucks into the warmth and feels it in a solid, unmovable presence on her bed. She blinks once, twice, registers the lower lighting of her room, the tell-tale beeping of hospital equipment…and a very warm Kryptonian, glued to her side, squeezed so tight into the MedBay bed she cannot be comfortable.

Lena shifts—she needs to get a better look, needs to touch, to make sure she’s not dreaming, that her mind (which hasn’t been extremely reliable as of late) isn’t playing a cruel trick on her.

When she moves, blue eyes rimmed by dark circles snap open; they crinkle at the corners with a smile as they meet Lena’s gaze head on, and Lena releases a breath of pure relief.

“Hey,” Kara murmurs, her voice a soft breath ghosting over Lena’s cheeks since they’re only inches apart.

Lena can’t really help it; the tears are running down her cheeks before she realizes she’s crying, and she breathes in through sniffles as she reaches out to touch Kara’s face.

She’s there, inches away, warm and soft, and alive, and Lena lets the sobs rip through her chest. Her breaths are short little stuttering gasps, really, and she can’t stop smiling.

“Hey,” she whispers back, leaning into the warmth of Kara’s touch once the Kryptonian delicately wipes at her tears with her thumb. Her hand stays there, cradling Lena’s face as they smile like idiots after one-too-many near-death experiences.

“I have to admit,” Kara says after some time, smile unwavering and bright despite the pallor of her features, “that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”

Lena chuckles—she does so lightly, since her ribs (most likely broken) protest at the slightest movement. “What, crying?” she asks. She can’t really move her arms, or really anything at all, so she settles for slightly craning her neck, leaning further into the hand Kara has kept in place at her tear-stained cheek.

Kara just nods, laughing a little. There’s a warm yellow hue around them—Lena surmises someone probably moved a sunlamp to her bed once Kara invited herself in—and it makes Kara’s hair, growing at awkward, adorable angles, glow golden and beautiful.

Lena soaks it all in.

“Is this real?” she can’t help but ask. She doesn’t think she would survive another trick of the mind, especially one so cruel.

Kara shifts on the thin mattress, impossibly closer, body practically melding along Lena’s. She’s still smiling, and there’s such certainty in her gaze, Lena practically melts with relief before Kara can even reassure her.

“Yes,” Kara says. “I have to admit the details are a little bit fuzzy,” she raises her arm with some difficulty to poke playfully at her own head, “but it seems I uh, ripped the Lexosuit apart and tossed it just before it exploded.”

Lena furrows her brows, trying to remember. All she can recall was the countdown clock and the split-second feeling of weightlessness before she began falling to the earth once the suit powered down.

“And then?”

Kara shrugs—Lena notices how her movements are stilted, like moving pains her, and wonders just how close to dying Kara had been. Again. “As far as I know, J’onn got to you in the nick of time.”

Lena narrows her eyes. “And you?”

Kara looks sheepish. “I uh. Hit the pavement.”

It’s said so… matter-of-factly, so casual and off-hand. It wrenches another sob right out of Lena, and her ribs ache in protest, but all she can think is Kara falling again, crumpling limply onto the pavement again, being on the brink of death again, and she can’t—Lena can’t cope with the image at all.

“Hey, hey, no, it’s OK,” Kara moves in, ready to calm and soothe, wiping at Lena’s tears with both hands. Her lips find Lena’s forehead, and while the gesture is entirely unprecedented, it has the desired effect—Lena’s body instinctively relaxes, and her sobs begin to abate. “I’m here,” Kara says, lips still on Lena’s skin, “Good as new, I promise.”

Lena doesn’t believe that for one second—there’s an unhealthy pallor to Kara’s complexion that tells her she still has a lot of time to spend under the sunlamps, and Lena can tell just how much it hurts for the Kryptonian to move. She bets there are slow-healing bruises all over her skin under the DEO-issue henley and sweats.

Though—she considers as her own body twinges with pains she hasn’t yet had the mental fortitude or will to catalogue in their entirety—she supposes she also has a long way to go as well.

“How long have we been out?”

“A few days,” Kara replies, chin resting atop Lena’s head and showing no inclination of moving. Good. “I just woke up a few hours ago.”

Lena grins. “And then the first thing you did was come to crowd my space while I recovered?”

Kara laughs. “Of course not. I went to pee first.”

It’s worth the twinges in her ribcage to chuckle a little. Lena lets out as deep a sigh as her injuries will allow, and her breathing adjusts to follow the steady rise-and-fall of Kara’s chest, still melded to her side.

“So, what now?”

Kara’s sigh is deep, and when she speaks, her voice grows heavier with sleep by the word. She’s probably exhausted and just about ready to conk out.

Lena thinks she’s got the right idea.

“Well,” the Kryptonian murmurs, voice so soft Lena has to strain to hear over the faint hum of hospital machinery surrounding them. “Nia caught Lex—gave him a good ol’ trashing, from what I hear. Uh, your name’s been cleared. LuthorCorp is yours, or will be after Lex’s trial—again. Supergirl is alive and back, sort of. Kara Danvers, meanwhile, is due to return from a mysterious illness… or something, I’m not sure what lie Nia made up at CatCo. Oh, and…”

Lena nods, barely processing Kara’s words. She’s just sinking into warmth, and Kara’s rambling in earnest now, and it feels so familiar. Comfortable, even here, cramped in this tiny MedBay cot.

Especially here.

Lena tucks further into Kara’s neck, and that stops Kara’s talking just enough for her to get a word in edgewise. “OK,” she whispers against Kara’s skin. “But for now… we just rest?”

She feels Kara’s slight nod, and Lena’s smile stretches wider while her eyes grow heavier. “Together?”

Another nod. Another whisper. “Together.”

<<<Previous||

That’s it! It’s done! Oof! Thank you all for humouring me in this wild, bumpy ride. All chapters (plus an epilogue!) will be posted on my AO3 within the next few days.

[whiterosebrian]

Letter To Democrats

I felt the need to do something besides raising awareness of environmental, indigenous, and socio-economic issues. I’ve decided to compose and then mail multiple printed copies of a letter to multiple politicians across the USA. I did wonder if I should copy-and-paste the letter to social media profiles like I did for the one that I wrote to President Biden. Ultimately, I decided that posting the letter would serve two purposes. First, I wanted to let indigenous activists know that they have another willing accomplice. Second, this could provide a decent template for anyone who also feels a need to write to political leaders and put pressure on them to take much-needed action. Without any further ado…

Greetings,

I am writing a generic letter to send to assorted politicians across the United States. For reasons that I will articulate over the course of this letter, I felt a serious need to address as many members of the American political leadership as possible. I do not intend to call you out personally. If you do take it as a personal callout, please consider why you feel that way.

The reports of wildfires, heat waves, and floods have filled many, many observers with existential terror. Some have even expressed utter despair over whether the world will be inhabitable by any form of life. At times I have been tempted to join the despair, to give up hope of ever leaving a beautiful legacy for future generations. For the sake of all the people of the world, I must fight that temptation. I need to do my part to fight for the future.

There are a large number of activists trying to protect the environment. However, they need help from people who have the power to make really concrete changes. That is why I am writing to you and other Democratic politicians. That does sound very partisan, but the sad fact is that the Republican party is almost a lost cause at this point. I wish to be proven wrong about that. The fact is that it already engaged in brutal obstruction during the Obama administration. A sinister side to the base already started emerging during that time as well. With the rise of Donald Trump, the much of its leadership and nearly all of its electoral base have become increasingly unwilling to offer the kind of compromise needed for a functional democracy.

The Democratic party as a whole has been criticized as very weak in opposing the radicalizing Republican Party. The current President has spoken of a desire for restoring national unity. That desire is certainly laudable in itself when Trump blatantly stoked resentment and division. Again, however, the Republican party and its core supporters have shown a complete unwillingness to work with any opponents in any way. They view their opponents as subversive enemies that need to be crushed underfoot. The Republican party has inched towards neo-fascism at a time when neo-fascism is mainstreaming around the world. The Republican party has also already been beholden to the selfish interests of major corporations for decades. It even seeks to magnify the already dire influence of corporations chiefly responsible for pollution. Its propaganda outlets outright deny pollution and mislead millions of people.

Some Democratic politicians have also been criticized as going along with corporate interests and watering down legislation meant to oppose corporate influence. By now it has become clear that corporate elites do not have the safety of the world and its human and nonhuman denizens in mind. By now it has become clear that they must be reined in for the greater good. The only language that major corporations even comprehend is money. Here I arrive at the first main point of this letter: I urge you to work with other Democratic leaders to divest from major corporations and their executives, especially those most directly responsible for polluting the Earth. I’ve also seen proposals that corporations be forced to contribute to removing as much pollution as possible. Quickening the transition away from fossil fuels is crucial.

However, alternate energy sources are not enough. Switching from gas-powered cars to electric cars is not enough. Building solar or wind farms in place of coal-burning power plants is not enough. Extraction and consumption cause their own serious problems. The problem of environmental degradation has roots that are far too deep and complicated to address here, though I will touch upon one later. Going hand-in-hand with corporate influence are the bad social and urban infrastructures that do not encourage sustainable lifestyles. I barely even know where to begin in this regard. Cities are too often built for cars and not people. Most people have to drive carbon-spewing cars to work at jobs that are not well-suited to their needs in order to pay their bills and feed their families. Too many people are left in poverty or near-poverty, some people are more-or-less isolated in suburbs, and a tiny handful are virtually untouchable in their wealth and privilege. Healthy food is not always accessible, and even when it is, it often has to be shipped very far from the source.

My second main point is this: in addition to transitioning to cleaner energy, the very infrastructure of our society needs to reformed. Local communities need to be lifted up so that they can better care for themselves without the need for distant figures constantly having to provide for them through convoluted supply chains. It’s true that right-wingers speak of “small government” with the unspoken agenda of leaving corporate oligarchs and ultra-conservative clergy to rule over ordinary human beings. Nonetheless, I believe that, at this point, government needs to assist in rebuilding communities so that they can eventually leave denizens to stand on their feet and care for each other. The pandemic, along with the poor responses of many local officials, has shown the need for communities to engage in mutual care.

I will confess that this exhortation is the vaguest one in this letter. I lack in-depth education on such matters. I bring it up in order to further nudge you in a direction that would be far better for the Earth and its people. I can offer one example of what must be done that is slightly clearer: helping communities establish gardens and small-scale farms to better feed themselves.

On a very important side note, this nation needs to divest from the military as well. The largest and most powerful military in history is known to be among the largest polluters on earth. Too many politicians seem to ignore how massive the military already is an insist on subsidizing it at the cost of actually building a peaceful and prosperous society.

I further wish to discuss the need to center indigenous peoples in renewing our society. No, I am no indigenous myself. I simply wish to point to their wisdom. Yes, the sagely magical Indian who is one with Mother Earth is a crude stereotype, and I have no intention of reinforcing it. With that said, I follow a number of indigenous writers, activists, spiritualists, and influencers on social media. I learned about how many indigenous people are attempting to reconnect to previously outlawed and hidden heritages. The stereotype could be rooted in reality.

In most cases, those heritages include animistic spiritualities, in which aspects of the natural world, from plants to animals to waters to stones, are seen as having spirits. Furthermore, these aspects of the natural world are seen as relatives to humans. I should note how some well-meaning white people, wishing to bond with the earth instead of submitting to organized religion, appropriate these indigenous spiritualties and associated practices. Indigenous writers will encourage such people to instead delve into their own pre-Christian heritages, which have similar animistic philosophies, however obscured by time they may be. I have actually been doing just that—though I won’t elaborate because I don’t want to center myself.

You may be asking, what is the relevance said common thread of the spiritualities of indigenous peoples? That animism seems to go hand-in-hand with methods of land care that developed over generations of trial and error, along with the principles behind those methods. With the subjugation and expulsion (and worse) of the land’s original caretakers, though, these practices fell into obscurity. The most dramatic example, perhaps, is the suppression of controlled burnings on the western coastline leading to the wildfires that we have seen in recent years. Indeed, the different lands of different indigenous nations need their own subtly distinct approaches, based on ecosystems, geographies, local histories, and general senses of place. Indigenous activists and figureheads are calling upon governments to heed their words on not only conservation but also regeneration.

One of the main demands that indigenous activists make is for the return of their lands, full sovereignty over them, and the facilitation of cultural revival. Yes, that is a very simple manner of justice and righting a historic wrong. It has become evident that their wisdom is a crucial piece of the puzzle of solving environmental problems as well. Simple “colorblind” or “globalized” liberalism won’t suffice when working for social or environmental justice. Indigenous activists argue that colonialism is at the root of so many of our world’s problems. Many of them even outright state that the “colonial state” in itself is a problem. I can see how colonialism has promoted the rise of an all-devouring capitalism and perpetuated it. The grim historical fact of how the enslavement of Black people and the elimination of indigenous peoples contributed to building this nation remains a grim historical fact.

I myself am figuring out the world and learning many truths, but I am sympathetic to people who have borne the brunt of colonialism. I welcome the humanistic achievements of modernity and utterly oppose fundamentalism and fascism, I assure you, but I’ve come to accept that the modern world is broken. Simple progress won’t heal the world. “Big government” certainly has a role to play in mobilizing the needed social changes, such as what I’ve alluded to above, but the “colonial state” needs to ultimately divest its own power.

I’ll try to summarize my points now. Major corporations and economic elites need to be drastically reined in and disempowered (along with the military). The transition to renewable energies needs to be quickened—but also needs to be accompanied by drastic changes to infrastructures and supply chains so as to result in less extraction and consumption. Localized communities need to be empowered so they can better care for themselves without much out faraway aid. Indigenous peoples need to be given their lands back, be elevated to leadership roles in caring for and regenerating said lands, and be empowered so they can rebuild their cultures. Settlers should learn from them as well. In the end, the state and the socio-economic system that it has upheld need to recede—not for billionaires or grand inquisitors or dictators, but for ordinary people and the earth. In truth, humans are meant to be a part of nature, and the generational challenge is for humanity to reconcile with the rest of nature.

This all may sound idealistic or radical. This past summer has shown us that we shouldn’t settle for anything less than radical social change. This nation, which has been a major world power for over a century, needs to be radically reimagined. This all may sound vague as well. I have little education in politics and governance apart from what I’ve tried to learn for myself across the internet. That is all the more reason for people like you—people with more real-world power than I—to push along radical social change. This letter is meant to raise awareness of your duty as a leader. A leader is meant to be a guide, not a dominator. There’s a chance that you could be recorded in history as a leader who did what was necessary to make the world’s healing and renewal possible.

Thank you.

You may call me Brian Solomon Whiterose.

[magicalforcesau]

Dancing With Ghosts in Your Garden~ Chapter 22 - Year 2: June

(ao3 link)

Qui-Gon Jinn’s funeral had been a somber affair populated by an extraordinary assortment of people that hastily filled the simple wooden seats that decorated the field just beside Hogwarts. Most of whom, Obi-Wan Kenobi found he did not know, but each seemed set on honoring the man who lay peacefully at the hearth of the pyre that had yet to burn. It had been his wish to be buried at Hogwarts, where he dedicated himself entirely and touched so many lives in the process. Obi-Wan wasn’t surprised to realize this, but it made it harder to forgive himself as his other professors insisted he must. He couldn’t help but feel that he had failed all of these strangers, who did nothing to warrant losing such a renowned wizard before his time.

Of course, he was also surrounded by those he knew. His parents weren’t in attendance, but most affluent families of the pureblood community weren’t. He hadn’t even bothered to tell them he was going, though surely they’d learn soon enough since mortality was not enough to ward off the influence of the press. He found he did not care either way.

Anakin sat to his left and Satine to his right with Cody and his whole line of brothers on her other side. Her hand had never left his, serving the necessary purpose of grounding him during the ceremony. Otherwise, he wasn’t positive he’d stay lucid during the various speeches commemorating Qui-Gon and that only would have been another stab of guilt for him to resurrect later.

There was not a dry eye in sight for each professor’s traditional tribute to their fallen colleague and friend, save for Obi-Wan and the daze he found himself trapped in. Professor Ti went on about his caring and inquisitive nature through his rants about muggle objects, while Professor Sifo Dyas rambled about a time Qui-Gon had saved him from the Whomping Willow. Professor Plo reminisced about their shared love of tea and Professor Palpatine on his determination and wit to finish crossword puzzles. Professor Windu’s had been surprisingly warm and heartfelt despite his typical tendency to disagree with Qui-Gon on a daily basis. It seemed, in the end, that's why they got along so well. They accepted their misgivings and their differences.

It was a tranquil first day of June- neither too hot nor chilly with its wide display of clear sky that met somewhere in the middle with the black lake to create one expanse of blue in the center of the horizon. The emerald grass that stretched over the hills like a snug blanket coupled with the soft chirping of birds in the distance made for it to all be picturesque at face value. It all felt balanced.

Headmaster Yoda, who was welcomed back almost immediately by demand of the entire staff and student body, stood with a lit torch at hand that even from his row, Obi-Wan could see the deep sadness that reflected in his eyes as he stared at the flickering flames.

“Student, colleague, friend of mine… Qui-Gon Jinn was.” Yoda’s deep brogue seemed to rumble in his little green chest more than usual as his words seemed caught in his throat. His long ears dipped down as he cast his eyes across the sea of people who sat with bated breath over what the Headmaster would say in tribute of the man that still lay untouched by anything except the sun. “Miss him, I will.”

Everyone could resonate with that.

“But gone, he is not.” He said finally, “Lives, his spirit and message do. In all of us, we must find him. In class, at home, in our hearts. Never far do the dead go, not when they leave so many of us behind. Sad, we will be, for a space there is left.”

Everyone’s attention was directed to the ceremonial empty golden chair that was positioned at the front of the field next to Mace Windu, Shaak Ti, and Sheev Palpatine.

“Fight til the end, he did, and do the same we must, every day. In class, at home, in our hearts. Fight to maintain and sustain the light he cast, we must.” He raised the tip of the torch to the wood at the edge of the pyre and quickly, it was engulfed in flames, “Burn, the fire and spirit of his life will for all of eternity. Keep us warm, it will, as well as guide us in times of darkness that lie ahead.”

Without any choreography indicating otherwise, Mace Windu stood to his feet and raised his wand, casting a small white glow at the tip. As if sensing the need to highlight such a gesture, a singular cloud hovered over the bright sun that would otherwise drown out any other light. The other two Heads of House followed suit as well as Yoda in tow. The audience, with a domino effect, each individually raised their wands triumphantly.

Obi-Wan felt a tug on the sleeve of his other arm and looked down to meet the glassy eyes of Anakin Skywalker.

“What happens to me now?” He asked quietly, hardly above the wisp of wind that fluttered across the grassland.

“You will still become a wizard, I swear.” Obi-Wan said with more sincerity than he likely had any right giving, “I’ll look out for you.”

While it wasn’t an answer on where he would be at the official close of the school year, it seemed to placate him enough to silence any further questions for the time being. This was just as well to Obi-Wan, who was content with the agonizing silence that had come over the crowd and allowed him not to face anymore people that he’d failed.

He did his best to beat the crowd back to the castle, even slipping from Satine and Cody, who were talking to Cody’s older brothers. While he liked the presence of the Fett’s, Obi-Wan was not in the mood to entertain.

In his aimless grief, he’d wound up at Qui-Gon’s office, which was poignant to say the least. As he ran a hand across his desk and glanced up at the array of books that filled the shelf across from him, he absently wondered how often he’d come here when he felt he was drowning too deeply in his own thoughts. How often had the man, who now had his own commemorative portrait near the Great Hall, saved him from himself? And what would he say now?

No answer from Obi-Wan would be sufficient, so he left the internal thought untouched and opted to sift through the book that still sat open on his desk. He promised himself he’d leave it just as he found it in some convoluted attempt at preserving his final quiet moments, but was curious what he’d been reading.

It was a yearbook from while Qui-Gon was at school. The page had been opened to a bunch of class pictures, which true to form with anything in their community, the pictures were moving. Most concerning, was that Maul was on this page, bearing all of his teeth during his photograph in a way that a canine might exert dominance. It probably should have been jarring to see a picture of the man he’d murdered in defense of Obi-Wan’s de facto father figure, but all Obi-Wan could feel was an unsteady sadness.

Qui-Gon would not want him to feel hate or hold a grudge. Maul was gone and wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again and that was the point Qui-Gon would fixate on.

If everything was supposed to be balanced, why did Obi-Wan feel so unsteady?

“I should have known I’d find you here.” Satine’s voice instantly interrupted his thoughts.

He tried to manage a shrug, “Just catching up on some light reading.”

As she practically glided across the floor towards him, Obi-Wan admired her, even in his dismal state, and how put together she always managed to look. She, like him and most others, wore all black. In her case, a long sleeve black skater-dress with matching floral stockings and shiny flat shoes. Her hair was half-up and half-down in long blonde tresses that curled in sweet waves down the length of her back. He wasn’t sure if it was the contrast from the darkness of her outfit or the fact that she’d been crying earlier, but her eyes had never looked so piercingly blue before this moment.

She rested a hand on the back of the chair at which he sat and peered over his shoulder. He could feel her tense beside him, but could do nothing to offer any real condolence other than a shared look of sympathy.

“It was sitting open on his desk.” He answered her silent question, “Do you think they knew each other? Beyond what he’s said in the past, that is.”

“If he was searching for answers in a yearbook, I find it doubtful that it was a close bond.” She said and lifted the book to catch the year, “Qui-Gon was only a second year when Maul was in sixth.”

That was the same age gap between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Unsure why that thought floored him so, Obi-Wan forced himself to remain focused on the facts at hand.

“This is the year Maul killed that girl.”

“The only minor to ever be convicted of first-degree murder in the history of the Wizengamot.��� She said quietly and while he first thought he was just hearing things, he couldn’t help but notice how her voice caught on convicted as if there were others gone untouched by the trenches of history. Maybe there had been, but the sullen look on her face as she stared down at the young picture of Qui-Gon distracted him once again. He certainly didn’t see it fit to remind her that Maul hadn’t actually been caught and tossed away until years after he was convicted.

“We always used to come here for answers.” She said and she leaned on the edge of the desk, taking in the entirety of the classroom as though for the last time, “And often left with more questions. I suppose it’s only right this mystery not be completely put to bed.”

“And you’re alright with that?” He asked, unsure if he was asking for himself or for her.

She breathed out a sigh, “What choice do we have on the matter?”

She had a point. It wouldn’t change anything. The heaviness in Obi-Wan’s chest felt nearly unbearable for that moment, but he sucked in a breath and walked around the desk to join her. They sat so close they were nearly touching, but not quite. In a way, he never felt farther from her.

“Qui-Gon always said that a curious mind was a happy one.” He pointed out.

“But we must be careful which avenue we point our questions,” She countered without a trace of bite to her tone, “And decide when it’s wisest to ask them. Or if it’s wise at all.”

“If we do everything with the intent of being wise, then that negates all wisdom.” He debated and similar to her, lacked any momentum.

“But at some point,” Satine turned to look at him, “You need to ask yourself if you’re searching or deflecting.”

“That’s not something Qui-Gon ever said.” He whispered, simultaneously afraid to continue staring at her and to look away.

“No, but perhaps he needed to.” She said just as quietly and considered him under a scrutiny that instinctively made him shift, “You haven’t even cried since it happened.”

“I’m not much for crying.” And even as he said it, he knew he sounded like a cardboard cutout of a person rather than his true self.

“Well nobody likes crying, Ben.” She shook her head, “But mourning loss is a necessary part of life. It’s not healthy to bottle everything up inside.”

Obi-Wan could think of a floor-length list of emotions that have been welled up inside him for quite some time- some good and some bad, but all gone unexplored beyond what crept into his dreams at night.

“I know.” He said stiffly and diverted his attention to the floor, “But I’ve got bigger things to worry about than my feelings right now, Satine. Anakin is essentially homeless now since they’ve still yet to find his mother.”

“I heard the promise you made him.” She said.

“And I intend to keep it!” He asserted harshly, standing to his feet and putting some distance between them, “I promised Qui-Gon.”

“What?” She asked, sliding off the desk, but staying in place.

“After the Maul fight,” He breathed in, trying to ground himself from trembling at the thought of the memory, “His dying words were that I promise to look after Anakin. That he will save us all!”

Though his vision was becoming slightly blurry as he regarded Satine, the overwhelming sadness in her eyes as she stared at him openly without barring any of her feelings was what made him feel suddenly as though he’d been shoved underwater.

“I’m not sure who that puts more pressure on.” She said hoarsely, “You or Anakin.”

“You can’t tell Anakin this.” He said, “He’s got enough on his plate.”

“Yeah, he’s not the only one.” She admonished and stepped across the room to stand before him. Even if he wanted to back away from her, he knew he couldn’t.

“I’m fine.” He said softly, if only to appease the worry that worked its way between her brow.

“No you’re not.” She insisted as she drew closer, “And nobody expects you to be.”

“I have to.” He croaked, “Anakin-”

“-Needs you, I know.” She said, but although she admitted what he had previously insisted, he knew it never came without a caveat, “But you need people too, because you lost someone very dear to you.”

He opened his mouth and closed it, but found he didn’t really want to reject what she was saying, not when her tentative hands reached up and pulled him into a hug that felt like coming home. Or at least, what he imagined that was supposed to feel like.

He rested his chin on her shoulder as the embrace continued and released a sigh as he finally put to words what troubled him most, “I feel like I failed him.”

“I know.” It wasn’t dismissive in the slightest either, but as though she truly had known all along that this was what raked his mind at the late hours of the night since the moment his former mentor fell before him. It was because of how resolute she sounded that he started to believe her when she said, “You didn’t.”

After a long beat of just floating like that, he finally pulled back to look at her. Her arms were still hung over his shoulders and the gaze she fixed him with was still of concern, but it no longer felt like an intrusion. It just felt natural.

“Thank you.” He said a bit awkwardly, because what else did one say in this instance?

She smoothed out his suit whether he needed it or not and loosened his tie a bit, “That’s what friends are for.”

For a brief second, he remembered what he wanted to tell her before and the slight escape of emotional vulnerability was almost enough to send it soaring out of him. However, the remorse that still clung to them in this room felt like the wrong place and the wrong time for such a confession. Nothing like that should be tinged with sadness.

One way or another, they silently ended up sitting next to each other on Qui-Gon’s desk again, this time with legs touching. His remained still while hers swung forwards and backwards.

He took her hand gently, stirring her from her own heavy thoughts, “Headmaster Yoda asked that I help sort through some of Qui-Gon’s stuff. Closure and all that.”

She sniffed, but didn’t quite give way to any tears, “That’s a lot just for one person.”

“I’d be open to a little help.” He said, hoping she would take the bait.

She did, “Someone has to keep you from breaking everything.”

He scoffed, “That was one time.”

“And he never knew.” She said.

“Oh, he definitely knew.” He snorted, “Knowing him, he always knew.”

Qui-Gon Jinn knew a lot about many things and had passed on as much knowledge as time allotted to the very fortunate Obi-Wan Kenobi. Every silly and simple trinket seemed to evoke some piece of wisdom from the deceased wizard, but one that seemed louder than the rest came when Obi-Wan’s eyes drifted to a sprig of mistletoe that was held under a glass display- enchanted to never wither.

“You need to live your life.”

Satine leaned her head on his shoulder, “I’m going to miss quarreling with you in this office.”

He chuckled, “Something tells me the next professor in here won’t be quite as accepting of our constant intrusions.”

“We’ll have to find another space to rip each other apart,” She sighed wistfully, “The next professor has big shoes to fill.”

“Yeah,” He snorted, “Literally and metaphorically.”

“I’ll miss him.”

He nodded against her head, “Me too.”

“There you lot are!” Cody’s voice echoed abruptly through the corridor, startling both Obi-Wan and Satine away from each other in earnest. Off of this reaction, their friend grinned wryly. “I just came to tell you the food is out! I’ve never seen such a spread before in my life.”

“Thank you, Cody.” Obi-Wan chuckled and it actually felt legitimate for the first time in days, “What ever would we do without you?”

“Get into more trouble, I’m guessing.” He said, but his features softened a bit as he looked at the two of them, “Everything alright?”

Satine smiled lightly and tugged Obi-Wan by the hand out the door, which was for the best, seeing as he would never leave without her gentle prodding, and linked her other hand with Cody’s. “We will be.”

And that was an answer Obi-Wan could deal with. He only looked back once at Qui-Gon’s now vacant office, but settled his stare straight ahead and allowed himself to sink into the idle and comforting chatter that his friends naturally engaged in. He felt Satine squeeze his hand as they approached the Great Hall, as though silently asking if he was ready to face the masses and he returned the gesture in kind.

The rest of his life started today.

***

Anakin was told on numerous occasions by countless individuals that it would do him some good- being outside and enjoying the fresh air. Objectively, it was a gorgeous and quiet day, but any of its beauty was lost on Anakin as he pondered the growing uncertainty of his future. First, it had been his mom and his entire world had been shaken. The only pieces that had been slid into place was that he was to continue attending school at Hogwarts thanks to Qui-Gon. However, with no one to care for him and a strict policy against allowing students to stay for the summer, even that was laid to dust as well as someone who became important to Anakin in a short period of time.

He kicked a stray pebble as he walked the courtyard. It felt strange to linger around the grounds of the school without fear or risk. In a sense, it felt like the entire year was lost to Maul. And worst of all, he never did get the closure he desired on the whereabouts of his mother.

He tightened a fist and stared at the horizon. Repairs for the exterior to Hogwarts were still ongoing after Qui-Gon’s funeral. The bridge at which Maul fell was still sectioned off as it was deemed unstable and still being used for the purpose of investigations. No one tried to walk it anyway. The canyon beneath was already developing rumors of being haunted since a body had yet to be recovered.

Anakin was beginning to understand that no scary story could be worse than what he was living. Obi-Wan was, of course, hovering like he feared Anakin would go throw himself off the tip of the castle and dance around the topic that lingered above them. He’d made a promise to ensure Anakin would be a wizard and continue going to Hogwarts- a promise that Anakin knew he had no business making, but still held onto. What other hope did he have, after?

The kids who he believed were once his friends and then turned on him- Ferus Olin and Jax Pavan to name a couple- now looked at him with such pity that they didn’t even warrant him safe for teasing. Even Sebulba was laying off of him!

And it was more infuriating than anything else. He just wanted something to be mad at, to lash this growing fury that was rising in his throat like bile. He wanted someone to blame and he didn’t even have a clear answer to that. He’d seen Maul enter his house, but his mother had already been gone. Whatever disaster he caused had been after she left.

He shivered.

No, that wasn’t right. Taken. She would never leave Anakin willingly, even if someone wanted him to believe that.  Maul had no reason to lie about taking his mother, not when he so freely killed two of Anakin’s professors and wanted to do the same to him. That left Dooku, essentially, as people who wanted Anakin to suffer. The slimy former professor operated almost purely in deceit and would surely love for Maul to take a fall for his crimes. He’d been training Ventress on how to sneak attack Anakin all year and thankfully, she was terrible at her job or else it might have worked.

He’d let it get into his head that as the Chosen One, he was unstoppable and maybe that was true to a degree, but all it seemed to do was mow down the people he loved. But then, when he tried to go at it alone, people still suffered. Was this not escapable?

He toyed with the necklace still in the pockets of his robes. Did anything he did make a difference? Or was Qui-Gon right about being at will of the fates? It was an awful lot for a 12 year old to take, though he realized with disarming clarity that he was to be 13 in only two weeks’ time. It would be the first year he’d have no one to celebrate with.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting,” A pacifying voice disturbed his increasingly dark line of thoughts and he was relieved to turn and see Professor Palpatine’s kind eyes looking down at him.

“No, I was just thinking,” He shrugged, “I don’t mind a break.”

He knew under more pleasant circumstances, one of his friends would make a joke about how he usually was on vacation from thinking, but the unspoken jest fell flat. Palpatine gathered the front of his robes as he took a seat on the nearby ledge and patted the spot next to him for Anakin to follow suit.

“I wanted to apologize if it’s felt like I’ve distanced myself from you during such a difficult time. I wanted to offer you the time to properly mourn,” He said and then fixed him with a look that Anakin had grown familiar with over the past semester, “I understand you and Qui-Gon were quite close.”

“Yeah,” Anakin said.

“And it is to my understanding that you haven’t been very vocal with the mind healers that Headmaster Yoda has set you up with.”

No, he hadn’t been. He didn’t even know those people! How was he supposed to bear his heart and soul over losing two very important people in his life? How was he supposed to reconcile that with strangers? Moreover, they would surely judge him for the creeping eeriness that lingered at the perimeter of his heart.

“They wouldn’t understand.” He said, not caring for a moment how helpless that made him sound, “Obi-Wan can talk to them. He’s the one who got to do something about Qui-Gon’s death while I was locked inside the Room of Requirement.”

Palpatine’s eyes sparkled with curiosity, “I did hear that you managed to discover it…”

“Everyone’s been asking me where, but I don’t even know! It just popped up in front of me one moment.”

“You have every right to be quite angry,” Palpatine said, “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy around here for you. Losing not one, but two people in the span of a year would cause anyone, let alone someone as young as yourself, immeasurable grief.”

That wasn’t even factoring in Professor Fisto’s death, which felt a little callous to Anakin.

“And I could understand why you might be upset with everyone, including Qui-Gon Jinn, himself.”

Anakin’s head snapped to Palpatine at his words, mostly because of the gnawing clarity at which they resonated with Anakin’s deepest and darkest thoughts, “Why would I be mad at him?”

“Search your feelings, Anakin,” Palpatine said gently, “You know what I say is true. It’s not something many, even the healers, would understand, because while Qui-Gon did die fighting to protect this school and you, he still left a vacancy at his own misstep.”

Being mad at someone for dying also felt incredibly callous, but Anakin didn’t grow rash or angry at this explanation but somehow… Validated. He loved and cared for Qui-Gon and appreciated everything he did, but in the end, a promise was still broken and Anakin was alone.

“I’m not here to sugarcoat anything,” Palpatine continued, “I don’t believe friends should do that.”

Anakin didn’t think so either, which was part of what was so infuriating about these past couple of weeks. Everyone was trying to be nice, but he was only feeling the lack of authenticity at their smiles that didn’t reach their eyes and their empty promises of support. He’d heard it all before at this point. Now, honesty, regardless of if it hurt, sounded appealing.

“Obi-Wan hasn’t told me exactly how it happened.” Anakin revealed with a heavy sigh.

His professor quirked a white eyebrow, “Understandably, he might never tell anyone, but we can draw the conclusion that Maul got the best of Qui-Gon somehow.”

“I just don’t get it.” Anakin sighed heavily, “Qui-Gon was so invested in the future and the knowledge around it. It seemed like he knew everything.”

“Sometimes adults allow students to perceive their strengths in an amplified matter to give them hope,” He said, “I’ve never believed in doing such a thing.”

Anakin nodded, “It’s felt like everyone’s been doing that all year. At the end of it all, it was a kid who took out Maul.”

“Yes, but not on accident, Anakin,” Palpatine shrugged, “You of all people should understand that a person’s age and stature should have no bearing on how they’re estimated. In the end, young Obi-Wan had something that Qui-Gon did not.”

“What’s that?”

“Obi-Wan was willing to do it.” Palpatine said, “To take that step across the line of light and dark. It’s a careful one to walk, but he acted out of revenge and surely channeled some of his hate and anguish to do so.”

“And that makes you more powerful?”

“When properly used, yes.” Palpatine said, “Qui-Gon never believed in utilizing emotion in magic. He felt it deluded oneself. Dooku taught him that though…”

“And you taught Maul, who was only emotion, so which is right?” Anakin ran a hand through his hair. It was impossible to deny that the anger that Obi-Wan felt and the heartbreak of watching Qui-Gon die surely gave him a boost in power. What was described sounded like something he could never picture regular old Obi-Wan doing on his own.

“Maybe we can discover that together?” Palpatine asked tentatively, “You lost a guardian and I lost a student, regardless of the polarized intentions they had.”

Anakin nodded, “Just as long as I don’t turn out like Maul.”

“No, I don’t think you will, my boy,” Palpatine chuckled, “I don’t think you will be anything remotely like Maul.”

Anakin smiled as he looked up and over at Palpatine. It was a beautiful day and maybe, just maybe, he’d make something of it.

***

Although Obi-Wan couldn’t discount the somber atmosphere that still hovered over the school, it felt a little whiplashing how quickly everyone was to move past the attack on the school and the death of Qui-Gon Jinn. He supposed no one else had, had a front row seat to watch their favorite professor be stabbed right in front of them. Today however, it was almost like the whole thing hadn’t happened at all. It was the final Quidditch match of the year, the previous game, while incomplete, had been handed over to Slytherin per Hufflepuff’s surrender. The Great Hall was filled with excited chattering and enthusiastic yelling. The attention was off of him at least, many hadn’t stopped bothering him for all the gruesome details since the attack, but the excitement in the room made him feel like he was suffocating.

“Perhaps, I’ve ought to go get ready,” He bounced his fork between his fingers as he spared a glance at the doors, “It’s almost time to leave anyways.”

“Ben...” Satine frowned at him. He knew she was concerned, but she was polite enough not to bring it up.

“Right on, mate,” Cody came up behind them, a hand landing on each of their shoulders, “Early bird catches the worm and all that,” The Gryffindor captain wasn’t as eager as he normally would be. Between the attack and how far Gryffindor was down for the Quidditch cup, it was only his love of the sport that kept him optimistic at all.

“I’m not playing today,” Obi-Wan said as he straightened his silverware. Satine seemed to relax at the news while Cody's eyes widened.

“What? You sure?” He asked and Satine shot him a warning look, “Nothing gets my mind off things like being up in the air,” He shrugged, defending his point.

“I’m sure,” Obi-Wan just nodded, “I’d prefer my feet on the ground at the moment,” The last time they hadn’t been was when he’d been dangling off the side of the bridge.

“Well, alright,” Cody relented easily and offered instead, “Wanna walk down with us?”

His eyes caught sight of Anakin lingering in the doorway waiting for Cody, or maybe himself. So he rose from his spot at the table easily.

“You could always sit with me if you want too,” Satine let him know as she blew softly on her tea to cool it down.

“I’ll be expected to be on the benches,” Even if the thought was tempting, “I’ll see you afterwards? Studying?”

Satine nodded at the same time Cody mumbled, “When on earth are you doing anything else?”

He felt Satine’s eyes followed him all the way out the door.

Cody filled the silence with Quidditch tips as the three of them trailed after the Gryffindor team down to the pitches. Anakin had been a little quiet lately, so Obi-Wan was grateful that he had plenty of people surrounding him from his own house. He was sure that the Fett’s and even Padmé likely didn’t let Anakin wallow.

“I’ll try not to knock you out Obi-Wan,” Anakin announced after Cody had finished a rather long spiel of Quidditch related injuries from the past 10 years, “I’ve been told I hit pretty hard.”

He certainly wasn’t lying and as he continued to grow, Obi-Wan was quite sure he would only be stronger, “I think hitting a benched player is considered a foul.”

“It is,” Cody confirmed, but Anakin stopped walking just as they got to the edge of the pitch.

“They benched you?”

“I asked not to play,” Obi-Wan only paused in his stride when Cody did. Anakin’s gaze flicked between the two of them rapidly. Although Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what was going on in his head, he was clearly thinking through a few things.

“Should I- Maybe I shouldn’t play either,” Anakin said slowly, “I mean...” He trailed off, clearly thinking. Cody crossed his arms tightly, clearly not liking the idea of his star player being benched, but not willing to deny the request if he was asked.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan sighed grandly. It was so obvious to him that Anakin would enjoy the distraction. Much like Cody, Anakin clearly revered flying as it would likely allow him to clear his head and to work towards a simple goal, “You should play.”

“But I-” Anakin turned, just enough to look off towards where Qui-Gon’s funeral had been held and Obi-Wan tried not to flinch at the thought.

“I’ve never liked Quidditch,” He reminded his mentee, “And although I take pride in my position on the team, they do not need me today,” Nahdar Vebb would do fine just as he always did, “Your team, however, does need you if they have a chance of winning,” Anakin stood a little taller at the thought, looking towards Cody for confirmation.

“Well, it’s always going to be easier with you-” Obi-Wan cut his friend off before he could continue.

“If you really don’t feel like playing I’m sure Cody will find a substitute for you...”

Anakin hesitated, “It’s not that I don’t want to play-”

“If you want to then you should,” He stepped forward, putting his hands on Anakin’s shoulders. Qui-Gon’s final request seemed to echo around in his head, but he ignored it as best as he could, “You’re a fantastic Beater, Anakin. One of the best Hogwarts has seen in my time here,” Anakin’s eyes were watching him, wide, impressionable. Obi-Wan was reminded once again just how young he was, “Ravenclaw will be playing a clean game today. I’m not going to let you in on our strategy, obviously,” He shot a short, pointed look to Cody, “But Gryffindor is going to need all the help they can get.”

“Oh yeah? You’re going down! A lion would eat your bloody bird for breakfast!” Cody caught on to the energy and Anakin shook off Obi-Wan’s hands to go join him.

“Yeah your team has no chance against us!” He had perked up significantly.

“I’d think a raven could outsmart a lion,” Obi-Wan shrugged playfully, “Guess you’ll just have to prove it.”

“Oh we will!” Anakin called as he resumed a swift walk towards Gryffindor’s locker room, “You’ll see.”

“See ya after the game mate,” Cody threw one last wave at Obi-Wan before heading swiftly after the second year.

Obi-Wan shook his head. For now, Anakin was easy to motivate. He could only hope the boy would keep some of that enthusiasm in his later years. He moved to walk towards his team’s locker room when a shadow fell over him.

“How interesting,” Obi-Wan turned slowly to meet the narrowed eyes of his parents, “Lying to your friends in Gryffindor house,” She smiled down at him, but it never reached her eyes, “Unless you were planning on breaking your promises to us.”

“No, of course not,” He answered automatically, “I only thought...”

“You think too much,” His father took a step forward, blocking even more of the light from streaming into the space, “I don’t believe we came all the way down here just to watch you sit pathetically on the sidelines.”

“Of course not,” Obi-Wan swallowed the spark of frustration, “Had I known you were coming I-”

“-You should have anticipated it,” His mother told him.

‘You’ve never come before,’ Obi-Wan held his tongue and instead just dipped his head in apology, “I’ll play.”

His mother scoffed as if he’d said something so obvious. She turned to leave and his father gave him one more steely look.

“You’d do well to remember your place,” As if he could see straight through him he added, “Kenobi’s don’t show any weakness.”

He finally turned and followed her out, making their way to the stands. The Ravenclaw team who had arrived just at the tail end of the dispute moved out of their way.

“Alright Kenobi?” Eeth clapped a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, spinning him towards the direction of the locker room.

“Of course,” He responded easily enough, “Say Eeth, could I ask a favor of you?”

He would play, it was the simplest solution. His father was wrong about his reasonings though. Obi-Wan wouldn’t view having loved and lost as a weakness.

***

The atmosphere in the stands was charged with anticipation. Quidditch was always popular with the student body, but now it seemed they were latching onto the sense of normality with an iron fist. Many Ravenclaws had done up face paint and enchanted signs that flashed silver and blue letters cheering on the team. Gryffindor was leading chants from their end of the field and Hufflepuff and Slytherin houses split as the students picked a side. There still weren’t as many students as there should be, practically all those sent home had determined it would be a waste to come back to school for only a few weeks. Ravenclaw was down a few players because of it, and Gryffindor truly should count themselves lucky that their entire starting team was willing to play.

Even so, it seemed as if the stands were full just from the energy pouring out of them. Satine’s eyes were on Ben the moment he had been visible on the field. As if that was particularly out of the ordinary. She would deny such accusations if there were anyone brave enough to suggest anything. The familiarity of the whole thing was enough for her to not notice something was amiss until she realized that Ben was standing alongside his fellow starting players on the field rather than standing at the sidelines with the backups.

She sat up straighter, eyes darting around the field, looking to see if there was anything else out of place or perhaps for the reasoning behind the action. Satine had sat through her fair share of Quidditch matches in the past, but she knew she still didn’t know everything about the sport. Cody and Eeth Koth were sharing a word in the middle of the field. That was the only thing she could say was unusual, but not unheard of.

It wasn’t enough to make her suspicious of anything until Cody turned looking up at the Ravenclaw stands. She frowned, moving to turn around and get a clue as to what he could be so interested in.

“Nothing like the World Cup, is it,” A chilly voice that was unfortunately enough for Satine to recognize caused her to freeze in place and certainly not turn around any further. Obi-Wan’s parents were sitting only a few seats behind her.

“Box seating would be preferable,” Mr. Kenobi mused, “Hogwarts doesn’t show parents the respect they deserve.”

“Do you remember Beauxbaton?” Mrs. Kenobi asked, “They certainly had class.”

“We were there on ministry business,” He scoffed, “They hardly would have shown as much effort otherwise.”

“A pity.”

Satine hadn’t spent much time around the Kenobi’s when they weren’t berating her and her lack of status. Sitting nearly frozen and unnoticed just a few feet away, she could say for sure that they weren’t any more pleasant when left to their own devices. Blessedly, the players took to the air and both of the Kenobi’s lapsed into silence as the game began.

Of course that silence couldn’t have lasted longer than Satine’s patience. Ben hadn’t even done anything and they were quick to open their mouths and spew endless criticism from everything from his form to his choice of broom.

“None of your precision rubbed off on him,” Mrs. Kenobi muttered to her husband as Ben nearly dropped the Quaffle before chucking it hard and fast at the first free chaser, “He should be practicing more.”

Satine grit her teeth, sitting on her hands as they went on and on. Their voices were so abrasive to her own internal thoughts about Ben while he was playing. Where they saw a clumsy hit, she saw the way he considered each move carefully. Where they saw awkward form, she saw the way he was careful to stay on the damned broom. However, even with her own opinions about Ben’s performance, he certainly wasn’t at his best today. He’d let several quaffles through, enough that Eeth was hovering around the hoops nervously. Gryffindor wasn’t easy to beat on a good day and little slip ups weren’t helping.

“It’s like the boy’s never played a day in his life. How embarrassing,” His father scoffed and Satine bit back a stream of choice words and grimaced as Ben missed catching the Quaffle practically right in front of him and instead caught a bludger to the chest. He rolled a few times on his broom. It was enough for Eeth to finally call a timeout and Ravenclaw rushed towards their bench.

Satine, while grateful he was safe and firmly planted on the ground, didn’t like the way his parents made a disapproving noise.

“Ravenclaw’s a soft house,” Mrs. Kenobi spat, “I suppose it always has been.”

“6 years in the sport and he can’t take a hit,” Mr. Kenobi added, “Slytherin would have taught him better.”

“Oh look there,” His mother growled, “He’s got himself benched.”

Mr. Kenobi made an odd sound that Satine had to assume was some sort of laugh, “I can’t blame the captain. What a pitiful performance.”

Satine stewed quietly, unable to take her eyes off Ben or her ears off the Kenobi’s. She tried to reason with herself. Making such a fuss about it wouldn’t do anything to help Ben or her. No matter what she said they wouldn’t listen anyways. Still she found herself slowly turning around eyebrows twitching, mouth opening to give them a piece of her mind.

She only caught the tail end of Mrs. Kenobi’s long robe as she disappeared down the rickety stairs.

So they didn’t even deem the game worth watching if they didn’t have the opportunity to bad mouth their own son at every twist and turn. Satine growled, startling a few first years behind her before she turned back toward the match. Very well. She wouldn’t be able to prove anything to them in words so she would instead prove to them in her continued support.

***

Cody easily dodged a bludger as it rocketed its way back to Anakin. Despite Anakin’s earlier enthusiasm, he was fading ever faster. Cody was tempted to bench him just as Ravenclaw had done with Obi-Wan. Unfortunately Gryffindor needed the edge that Anakin could give them. Not to mention, Cody knew Anakin needed the distraction. He was only 12 and had faced death this year, not to mention he wasn’t yet sure what was going to happen to him when the year ended. It was an awful lot to put on a young boy’s shoulders.

Anakin managed to hit the bludger, but Eeth was able to dodge it just in time. Rush Clovis ended up being at the receiving end of the blow and he looked around wildly for where the thing had come from in the first place.

“Shake it off Rush,” Cody called with a wince. It was bad enough dealing with the other team’s beaters, without also worrying about your own.

“Sorry!” Anakin called, but Cody just waved him off as he moved to intercept the Quaffle. Taking it down the field and sinking it easily past Kenobi’s replacement. Vebb was a good Keeper, but he knew a lot less about Cody than Obi-Wan did.

Cody was nearly knocked off his broom as a flash of blue and silver streaked past him followed nearly immediately by his own team’s seeker, Moteé. They were both moving with speed and precision, trying to knock each other off their brooms in order to claim victory. He saw the glint in Moteé’s eye as she moved to put even more pressure on her broom when he also saw Skywalker raise his bat. Before he could call for Anakin to stop, the bludger was hit, rocketing towards them just as Moteé had pulled ahead.

There was a sickening smack as Moteé spun out, crashing towards the field below. The bludger still managed to clip Ropal sending him pitching forwards into the snitch. He flipped over, but managed to stay in the air with one hand. The other went to his snout where he coughed out the snitch.

“Damn it,” Cody cursed as he dropped to the ground while cheers and blue and silver sparks flooded the air.

“Moteé!” Anakin too had hit the ground, heels practically tearing up the grass as he screeched to a halt, “I’m so sorry! I-” Whether it was from Moteé’s glare or Cody’s warning look, he quickly cut himself off.

“Nasty hit,” Cody knelt down next to her, “I saw what you were doing, definitely a smart move.”

“Would have won us the game-” He hastily cut her off.

“I know,” She was swept away quickly by Madam Nema and a few other professors as Anakin approached Cody nervously.

“Is she okay? I didn’t mean to hit her...”

“She’ll be fine, probably just a concussion,” He clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulders, “We’re going to have to work on your intuition some, but everyone makes mistakes,” And when Anakin looked upset he sighed and added, “There’s always next year, kid.”

***

Satine didn’t waste any time rushing down to the field upon Ravenclaw’s win. She wanted to find Ben as soon as possible. He hadn’t wanted to play in the first place and having such a rough game, despite their overall win, wouldn’t do much to improve his mood. She was nearly to the field when she nearly got run over by Cody and the other Gryffindor’s filing noisily back to their locker room.

“Satine?” Cody moved aside, letting his team continue to file past. They were a little more subdued considering their loss, but the game had still been a much needed break, “If you’re looking for Kenobi, he’s not on the field.”

“How do you know I’m looking for him? Maybe I was looking for you,” She crossed her arms, but she glanced out towards the field giving herself away if she hadn’t already been so obvious.

“Oh please,” He grimaced, “I saw them in the stand you know. You aren’t here to sympathize with Gryffindor’s defeat.”

Satine frowned, “I am sorry you didn’t get your win this year-” But Cody waved her off.

“You know what they say, Satine, third time’s the charm. We’ll get you next year!”

“So,” Satine shifted on her feet, “If he’s not on the field...”

“I’m not sure where he went. One minute I’m giving my team a once over the next he’s nowhere to be seen.”

“Ravenclaw Locker room?” Satine suggested and Cody just turned easily in that direction, leading the two of them there.

“I figured he’d run towards the school, library maybe?”

“Well, his parents are hardly willing to enter Ravenclaw spaces, but I wouldn’t put it past them to enter the library if they’re looking for him,” Satine reasoned and Cody hummed in thought.

When they reached their destination, they peeked inside and her suspicions were found to be correct.

The room was empty besides Ben, sitting alone on a bench polishing his broom handle meticulously. Satine figured it was already well done enough to see your reflection in it, but he was always particular.

“Hey,” Cody called, entering first, before Satine could find the best way to break the silence herself, “Congrats on the win.”

“Oh, Cody,” He looked startled by the intrusion, looking past Cody to catch her eye, “Satine,” He smiled at her and she mirrored it with one of her own. He looked back towards Cody, “Thanks, I think I may have hindered us more than helped us. Sorry about the loss,” He offered his sympathy and Cody sat down across from him leaving Satine to drop down right next to Ben.

“Next year for sure,” Cody repeated with conviction.

“I don’t think you did bad at all,” Satine leaned towards Ben, the heat of anger that had been stoked by his parents nearly the whole game resurfaced. He leaned away surprised, “You did really well, you’re a great Keeper!”

“Thank you?” He answered. She was glad he had no idea what she was really getting at, that meant his parents hadn’t found him to complain yet, “I messed up quite a bit today, I definitely wasn’t on my game.”

“Well, you didn’t want to play in the first place,” Cody shrugged and the air between them grew cold as each member struggled to find a foothold in the conversation.

“We still won,” Satine reminded him firmly and he blinked at her before parroting.

“We still won.”

***

Anakin kicked a stone as hard as he could into the lake. He didn’t really want to go back to the common room and face a whole bunch of people he’d just let down. His team didn’t even seem that disappointed, but Anakin felt that maybe they should be. If it wasn’t for him, they may have won the game! Plus if it wasn’t for him a mass murderer wouldn’t have been disrupted the entire school year. He kicked another rock.

“Careful mate,” Rex appeared at the corner of his vision, picking up a smooth stone and flicking it so it skipped across the lake, leaving ripples in its wake, “There’s said to be creatures living in there. I don’t think they’d like to land a rock to the head.”

Anakin sighed deeply, dropping down to the ground, his shoes just brushing the edge of the water, “I can’t believe I lost us the game!”

“Yeah if you were going to take out our seeker, you should have done it earlier. Could’ve given me a chance to play,” Rex joked sitting next to him.

“I could have killed Moteé!” Anakin looked at Rex, guilt swirling around at the thought.

“You didn’t though,” Rex shrugged, “Moteé knew what she signed up for, so did Ropal, so did Cody, so do I. It’s Quidditch mate! It’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, but I never expected to be the one causing the danger,” Anakin grumbled and Rex laughed.

“Sorry to say, but I think danger might be in your bones,” When Anakin didn’t respond, Rex punched him in the arm, “Come on, you wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless it was a fly actively trying to hurt your friends. Sure, Moteé’s a little mad, but you would be too if you’d been knocked around twice in one year. She’ll get over it.”

“I should make her an apology card,” Anakin decided as he flicked a rock into the water, “I’ll leave it on her bedside table while she’s sleeping so she doesn’t try to strangle me.”

“That’s the spirit!”

***

Obi-Wan had been under the misguided impression that once the drama with Maul settled down that he and his fellow prefects would finally earn themselves a decent night’s sleep. Of course, once he’d drawn up those conclusions in his head, he hadn’t factored in the possibility of losing his favorite professor in the process. He never would have thought, even when things were at their worst, that the earth would allow itself to turn without the brilliance that was Qui-Gon Jinn. Even weeks later and for likely longer than he could imagine, he still struggled to sleep at the horrible visions that filled his eyes when he closed them. He wondered how long such a reaction would last and hoped it wouldn’t be for as long as he missed the man, because he would always miss Qui-Gon Jinn.

Satine tried to insist that it was okay to mourn and grieve and he knew she was right. He’d never judge someone else for feeling depressed over losing someone important, but it was harder for Obi-Wan to reconcile this about himself.

If there was one thing that helped take his mind off of the persistent ache that gnawed at his chest, it was the influx of schoolwork. If they were going to be remotely ready for finals, they needed to play a massive game of catch-up. Satine, in particular, still had work to catch up on from the month she’d been frozen in carbonite.

It’s what brought them to tirelessly working on outlines, notecards, study guides, and mock quizzes just about every night in the common room.

He nearly scowled just thinking about how easily Ventress had gotten off for her involvement in that fiasco. She could have permanently disfigured students or worse! She could have killed them and according to Satine, she didn’t seem to care all that much about if she did or not.

She should have been arrested or at the very least expelled, but no, it was simply a year of detention and her losing her prefect status to atone for her crimes. She hadn’t even lost any house points for Slytherin, though that might have been in fairness to the other students of Slytherin house. He had no doubts that her affluent family, or adopted family to be more correct now, had a say in striking up the plea deal.

Since his only source to any real information was gone, he didn’t know what she told them about Dooku. All he knew was that it was apparently enough to be useful.

“I think Yoda believes her more dangerous out there with a vendetta than in school,” Satine’s tired voice interrupted his thoughts and startled as he was, he really shouldn’t have been. He was practically staring a hole in the newly added section about countering carbonite curses. It was taught by Yoda himself and learned during his time away.

“Or he’s afraid what Dooku will do to her if he expels her,” He grumbled and held his quill a little tighter. If he was being honest, the words were starting to blur from the way his eyes glazed over in exhaustion. Maybe, he’d actually get to sleep tonight.

“I mean it’s reasonable,” Satine shrugged, “I don’t want Dooku to hurt anyone, even her.”

That was the admirable thing about Satine. Her consistency with her noble values was something to be revered. Ventress could truly benefit from taking notes. For instance, having morals at all would be a vast improvement.

“I don’t either,” He sighed, “That doesn’t mean I have to like what she did to you… And the others.”

He might have added that a bit too late. He’d been horrified when discovering Rabé in Hogsmeade, but he did guiltily admit that Satine’s freezing was different. So much so, that he wondered if he’d look at the place the same next time he ventured there. So much had been taken away from them this year. Experiences, laughs, people. He was sure this would be a year too heavy to bear had he lost Satine too.

She sighed, “It was truly abhorrent, but it was a bit like waking up when I came out of it. I’d expect the worst part was for all of you who had to sit around and stare at my stony face.”

His tongue grew a bit fat when he thought to comment that looking at her face had never been a problem for him and at his own reluctance to admit: anyone else. Still, all he could think to do was peer over to her forearm, which lay turned facing up on the couch. He could still see the faint little scars of nails that had dug into her arm.

Catching his eyes, she carefully unraveled her sleeve to cover them and he looked at her sheepishly, to which she only shrugged. She might have said it was like waking up, but he had a feeling that getting frozen hadn’t been like falling asleep.

“She still deserved far more than detention.” He said.

“Of course,” She scoffed, “Seems like she’s got quite the chip on her shoulder now, though. She’s been laying pretty low.”

“Even during the match.” He admitted and rubbed his eyes, “I can’t help but wonder if she’s planning anything.”

“Considering how she was dumped by Dooku and left to burn, I’d say it involves turning some of those witchy powers onto him if she can get within arm’s reach.”

“I’ve had enough talk on Sith lords this year,” He yawned, “Maybe next year.”

She snorted dryly, “Yes, I’m sure Dooku will take that into deep consideration.”

“We’ve only got a couple weeks left,” He reminded her and even as awful as this year had turned out being, he couldn’t help but be surprised that it was nearly over. “One more year left.”

“Don’t start,” She warned, “I’d like to at least pass my finals first.”

Now, it was his turn to snort, “Satine, I know we’re tired, but we’re not completely delusional.”

She closed her book and faced him. Her bright blue eyes were bloodshot and struggling with effort to stay awake, “That implies we’re delusional at all.”

“Maybe we are,” He said, “I know you aren’t ever one to hold back when you disagree with one of my less conventional plans. Not to mention your obvious opinions on my possible color blindness.”

“To be color blind, you’ve actually got to mix up or not see certain colors, Ben.” She groaned, leaning her head back at the armrest. “You’ve just got batty taste.”

“I don’t know about that.” He said, pulse quickening. Nothing about this moment quite seemed right, but he’d been delaying in telling her how he felt for far too long. Recently, he’d been shown numerous signs of realizing how short life was. And yes, Cody had been right, delivering the sentiment of telling her how he cared in the form of a card was cowardly and short-sighted.

Telling her at the funeral would have just been plain depressing and any time before that had been consumed with the very real fear that their lives were about to be taken away. He still kicked himself for how he’d parted with her before seeking out Anakin. A kiss on the hand? What was this? A Victorian period piece?

In his defense, that was where he’d gotten most of his exposure to the romance genre.

In between the deftly heady spaces of remorse that clouded his thoughts, he regretted not spewing exactly how he felt or at least properly kissing her to make it clear. Though the prospect of being so forward like that now reddened him to a palpable flame. Now, it felt like a moment had passed between them and though he suspected she had some level of understanding, it seemed she wouldn’t be bringing it up either.

Unless she’d gotten over it- nope! He was not talking himself out of it. They were alone, which was a triumph in and of itself. He’d never want something of this nature to be spoken in front of an audience. They were also considerably peaceful, so much so that he felt like he might actually fall asleep by the comfort of warmth that radiated off her profile. He looked at their hands and how they were only a quick movement from touching. What would she do if he just held her hand?

Maybe, just maybe, this year didn’t have to be so dreadful after all. Qui-Gon’s words about learning to live flowed through him and seemed to finally make sense as he looked over at Satine through lowered eyes. The very least he could do was honor his mentor’s wishes.

“Hear me when I say that you need to live your life.”

“I don’t think I have batty taste at all,” He reiterated after a long pause.

“Is that so?” Satine responded slowly, “I beg to differ.”

“If I had batty taste I wouldn’t be friends with Cody.” He reasoned, “Nor would I have chosen Anakin as my protege.”

“Mmm, perhaps,” She said quietly.

“I wouldn’t have such a preference in dessert or soft animals if my taste was foul and I wouldn’t like all the books you recommend.”

“Unless your tendency to appreciate ugliness is contagious,” She chuckled.

He kept his eyes fixated on the fire ahead, really struggling to look at her as he figured out his way around the sentence that swirled around his brain. It shouldn’t be hard and he knew the stress was him overthinking it. He didn’t dare to dream of the consequences, because he wasn’t sure dreaming was in the cards for him now. Really, all that mattered to him was that it was said and that she knew.

His first step in attempting to truly live was gently taking Satine’s hand in his, interweaving their fingers and admiring at how perfect of a fit it seemed and how soft her hands were. He took the way they immediately curled around his as a good sign as any to continue with what plagued his broken heart.

“Well, I should hope you don’t feel that way,” He winced, “Because… the truly defining reason that I couldn’t possibly have that much of a predilection towards the unseemly is you.”

She didn’t answer right away, but his nerves prevented her from really doing so, “That is to say, I think you’re quite lovely, or more accurately, I think you’re the loveliest person I’ve ever seen or met. Inside and out.”

Because he really didn’t need her thinking he was sitting around drooling over her looks all day, no matter how impressive he found them.

“Because you’re everything I or anyone could ever want. You’re beautiful, brilliant, compassionate, witty, creative… Really, I could go on for so long that I’d need a dictionary of proper words to articulate how in awe I am of you, even without romantic connotation.”

Ugh.

“But there are plenty of romantic connotations, of course,” He coughed, “I wanted to tell you sooner. And the reason that it’s been so hard for me to say that is not because I don’t feel strongly in this regard, but the opposite. It’s intimidating for someone like me, who’d been taught otherwise about passion, but my feelings for you go beyond and within logic, forming what I can only assume is… Love.”

Silence.

Oh, no, had he said something wrong?

He turned his head to brave the consequences of his words, hoping that she would at least be the good sort of speechless. She had kissed him at Christmas. It wasn’t like these conclusions weren’t coming from somewhere. That didn’t stop his head from racing at a mile a minute with other possibilities.

They stilled when he received the sight of Satine Kryze, passed out against over the side of the couch, leaning on the armrest with her full body weight, her hair tumbling over the edge in a blonde waterfall. She was captivating, even in slumber, of course, so he was left in the debilitating and confusing predicament of his heart inflating and deflating.

She hadn’t heard any of it?

He blew out a breath like a balloon releasing air and leaned back. It wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted this moment to go at all. His head was pounding with a headache and he massaged his temples. Okay, he was officially and regretfully scratching out “firelit study session” as a possible setting to express his romantic intentions towards her. He was beginning to feel like some higher power might genuinely have it out for him.

He looked back down at their still joined hands. Any residual disappointment fell away at the sight and he gently and tenderly raised her hand to his lips for a careful kiss. It was nothing like the firm and desperate one he’d parted her with before, but a true promise of hope.

“Another time.” He whispered and without releasing her hand, nestled into the comfortable couch, finding a blanket out of the parchments and books across their laps, and for the first time all month, Obi-Wan slept a fearless sleep.

***

With Quidditch having ended for the year and nothing else to look forward to beyond finals (a truly bleak thought for Anakin), he realized with sharp clarity that this might be the last week he spends at Hogwarts should he never be able to return. While he had previously been depressed, he was filled with a new sense of purpose. He wanted to make it count.

Starting with how he was finally going to get a few things off his chest.

He didn’t walk lightly or quietly past those who pitied him, instead pushing past them with a heavy force of nature propelled by his inner desires finally coming to fruition. Regardless of consequence, he was a Gryffindor fearless and true, and he would be owning up to that title one way or another this year.

He found her sitting surprisingly alone on the front lawn and nearly toppled over a loose root on his way. It was a beautiful day, because apparently Anakin was allowed some small favors by the universe, and would be a lovely setting to deliver the impression he’d truly wanted to.

“Oh, hi, Anakin!” Padmé was one of the few people in this school whose empathy and kindness seemed genuine. It was a tenderness he was unsure he deserved to be on the receiving end of, but welcomed it nonetheless.

“I know you’re studying, so I won’t keep you long,” He sat down on the picnic blanket without waiting for an invitation to join her. If he stopped or paused, he might lose his nerve and if there was anything this fleeting year taught him, it was that there was no glory without guts.

“Okay, what’s up?” She asked him warily, setting aside her History of Magic textbook and crossing her hands on her lap to give him her full attention.

With her staring so openly at him, he nearly got lost in the way the sun made her eyes look golden in their warmth depth. However, the very last thing he wanted was for her to think he was a creep, so he continued onwards with the last remaining gumption he had left.

“I made something for you,” He blurted out, hating that it didn’t sound as impressive out loud as it had in his head when he internally rehearsed this speech. Even without decorum, he dug in the pocket of his robe and pulled out the trinket he’d made from the mockups that Hondo sold as merchandise. It had a completely different paint job. It was tan and carved with a little square and squiggly lines at the center.

“Oh!” She clearly didn’t know what it was meant to signify, so Anakin had no problem filling her in.

“I saw it in a book when studying ancient runes with Obi-Wan, from a japor snippet,” Off her curious look, he shrugged, “It’s meant to give good fortune to the beloved of the maker.”

“To the beloved of- oh.” Her eyes bugged when she hastily met his gaze and dropped the little necklace in her lap. “You mean you… Like me?”

“Well… Yeah.” He said awkwardly, realizing this was not as romantic as he’d drawn it up to be in his head. Embarrassment was quickly coloring his features and he hoped it would play as sunburn.

Anakin felt like his breath stopped somewhere in his chest. She definitely didn’t look like she was about to go running into his arms and dance with him in the sunlight. He shied his gaze away, trying to figure out a way to play this off as a joke when she suddenly took his hand.

“Anakin, this is very sweet,” She said, “I just- I don’t, I’m not really in that kind of place right now.”

His blond fringe hung in his eyes, which was fortunate for him as he didn’t want to appear too depressed or forlorn. It was another blow to take, but a risk he understood. At least he knew.

“And honestly, I don’t feel like I really know you,” She admitted.

He looked up at her and frowned, “What do you mean? I feel like I know you.”

“I think…” She paused, gnawing on her bottom lip to find the words she wanted to say, “I think you might have conjured an idea of me in your head.”

“And that’s different?” He asked.

“Yeah, I mean, we don’t really talk that often.”

“That’s because I’m always too nervous to talk to you.” He answered.

“Why do I find it hard to believe that you get nervous?” She tilted her head to the side, flashing a smile that still warmed him up from the inside, “In any case, you’ve nothing to be nervous of.”

“Yeah, I guess the worst case scenario already just happened,” He leaned back on his legs, kneeling now in front of her with remnants of disappointment still tainting this day. He didn’t know why he would believe that someone as magnificent as Padmé Amidala would ever be interested in a scrub like him. The crushing weight of this rejection felt a bit like a wound being reopened before she squeezed his hand.

“I’d really like it if we could be friends.” She offered lightly, “I’m always in the market for more true friends.”

“If you’re just saying that because you feel sorry for me…” He trailed off, because he really didn’t want to be anyone’s charity case.

“Why would I lie?” She asked, “Anakin, you seem like an incredibly caring person and like a lot of fun, frankly. It would be my pleasure to get to know you and to be your friend… Just as long as you understand that that’s all I want to be.”

He thought about that and considered, not for the first time, that having more good people in his life to some capacity was better than less. He could trust Padmé and while she believed he didn’t really know her, he intended on getting to know the real her.

Then, he briefly thought back to something said to them earlier this year. “I just hope Miraj wasn’t right when she said misfortune will follow you for befriending me.”

She squeezed his hand again and his heart felt a little lighter, “I don’t let anyone tell me who I can and can’t be friends with. Friendship doesn’t come with terms and conditions.”

Anakin smiled at her, “Well, in that case, I ask that you still keep the necklace. We’ll call it… a friendship necklace.”

“Are you sure?” She asked, “There might be another lucky girl out there that you could give it to.”

“Nah,” He waved her off, “There isn’t. I’d rather it go… To a friend.”

***

“Poisonous plant that kills animal cells?” Satine was blocking her notes quite strategically from both Obi-Wan and Cody even if Cody was not participating in their little game. In his opinion, studying should not be done at the dinner table or really at any sort of event outside of maybe an hour or two in the library.

“Bloodroot,” Obi-Wan answered quickly, not even a moment's hesitation. He then looked down to his own notes without even waiting for confirmation, “What do the four golden statues in the MACUSA represent?”

“The victims of the Salem witch trials,” Satine frowned, “And may I just add how absolutely horrific that was,” She turned back to her notes, “How would one go about resisting the imperius curse-” She looked unsettled as she looked up at Obi-Wan, “What have you all been doing in DADA?”

“Utilizing strong mental fortitude,” He answered the first question before shrugging, “I may need it someday. Professor Fisto said those that can make the best aurors.”

The expression on Satine’s face was enough for Cody to cut in before they could start arguing, “Do you really need to be studying right now? It pays to take breaks you know,” The two looked at each other.

“I’m not tired, are you?” Obi-Wan asked and Satine shook her head, “Alright, how many known wand core components are there?”

“Three,” Cody answered dully, poking at his mashed potatoes.

“Nineteen!” Satine answered.

“Really?” Cody grimaced, “Glad I’m not in that class.”

“We could switch to something else if you’d like,” Satine offered and Obi-Wan nodded, “Charms?”

“Please no!” Cody shook his head quickly, “You might not be tired, but I’m tired just watching you go back and forth.”

“Suit yourself,” Obi-Wan shrugged, “We’re almost out for the summer anyways, you won’t have to think about classes for a whole two months.”

“Yeah, except every time I get an owl from you lot,” He rolled his eyes, “Last year, you sent me more book summaries than you did events from your real life, Kenobi.”

“The books were the interesting part!”

“Anyways,” Satine finally took a bite of her, surely cold, chips, “We’ve had a rather chaotic year. It serves to be prepared.”

“They should just cancel the lot of them if you ask me,” Cody said with a shrug, “We hardly had any real classes for half the year.”

“Oh stop! It hasn’t been that bad-”

Headmaster Yoda tapped the side of his glass, and a hush rolled across the Great Hall. He was slow to rise, but stood on his chair as to best see across the room at all the students.

“An announcement, I have to make,” He nodded, “Uncertain, our year has been. Unprecedented. The remaining professors and I, come to a conclusion, we have. NEWT exams and OWLs will be pushed back until the end of July.”

There was an audible sigh of relief from those students who had certainly been stressing it. Cody had to admit, had he been taking his NEWTs this year, he was almost sure he’d be in a full-fledged panic over it. Chatter rose in the Great Hall again and Yoda tapped on his glass once more. He wasn’t done yet.

“For the rest of you,” Anticipation hung in the air like electricity as they all turned as one to face the Headmaster, “Decided we have, to cancel your finals.” He barely got the words out before the whole hall broke into loud cheering.

Cogs in his brain turned quickly as he realized the universe had heard his pleas for once. He quickly shouted, “And I want onto a professional Quidditch team!” He turned to express his delight to his two best friends before glancing over to looks of utter horror and despair.

“But- I-” Satine was at a loss for words and Obi-Wan looked like he was still processing the information.

“Oh, cheer up!” Cody grinned, “This is a good thing.”

“I hardly think so,” Obi-Wan sounded quite like he’d been informed of his own expulsion, “How will we test our knowledge now?”

“You were doing pretty well on your own,” Cody rolled his eyes.

“Yes… We could just make our own tests,” Satine turned to him excitedly. Obi-Wan perked up at the thought.

“It’s certainly not against the rules,” He immediately scrambled for a quill, “We’d have to grade them together though-”

“Of course, I don’t want you doing it wrong!” Satine pulled out her own quill, pulling his parchment closer to her.

“You two are absolutely insufferable, you know that?” Cody crossed his arms, stewing, “Something good finally comes our way and you want to make it harder for yourselves.”

“Cody, would you like us to make you one too?” Obi-Wan asked, clearly not having heard him.

Cody stared at him long and hard, “Hell no! Leave me out of your insanity!”

***

Much to Ventress’ disdain, Headmaster Yoda’s list of announcements didn’t stop at the cancellation of finals, no matter how welcome that was. Once the outburst of mass celebration simmered down, the smiling little green Headmaster patiently began yet again.

“Finished, I am not. Announce the winner of the house cup, I will.” He said and Ventress felt her stomach turn inside out. All eyes at Slytherin’s table turned to her in immediate appraisal. They’d already won the Quidditch cup, but it was obvious they were concerned that her transgressions this year could result in slating them. She didn’t care about the competition, as there was no true value to winning. However, some under Slytherin’s banner took beating Gryffindor very seriously.

A pregnant pause filled the entire Great Hall as everyone held their breaths for the reveal. Ventress kept her eyes focused hard on Yoda and it seemed he caught her gaze. He remained tepid and relaxed, but never breaking contact as he spoke,

“Won, Slytherin house has,” He said and backed away as the entire Great Hall flew into even greater hysterics than before. The other three houses were understandably outraged while Slytherin was practically crawling on the table to celebrate their win. Ventress, a bit dumbfounded, did not join them in their hurrah.

“What, so they try to kill us all semester and they get rewarded for it?” Shouted one student that Ventress couldn’t see through the chaos.

“They’re monsters! Maul was one of them!” Yelled another.

“We lost how many points for Krell last year?” A Gryffindor, obviously, jumped in.

Her Slytherin counterparts didn’t resist chiming in, of course, since they were not the sort to be made victims of, “Hey! Maybe if you kept your head focused on your books instead of every little trollup’s arse, you might get somewhere!”

“That is enough! Take a seat, all of you!” Professor Windu boomed over the rest of the crowd. If he was good for something, it was projecting his voice even without an amplification charm. “First of all, Gryffindor House, you lost zero points for Krell’s actions last year, because as with this situation, it was agreed that his abhorrent actions were an anomaly and completely unfair to take the rest of you down.”

“Second,” Yoda continued for him, “Hard work, Slytherin has shown. The actions of one, they will not be crucified for.”

Once again, Ventress felt the burning stares of her peers. She was shunned by Dooku, who promised to reunite her with the Nightsisters of Dathomir, who would understand her, embrace her skills and her flaws as they were. They would be a true family, not the imposters that supposedly raised her under the affluent guise of success. Even these wannabes were rejecting her, save for those whose parents likely threatened them.

She clutched her fist. They didn’t deserve to win the house cup. None of them did. There should have been no rewards for any of their actions. Two professors were dead and a stack of aurors before them and here they were deliberating over a trivial contest. It was foolish and exactly why the Sith would easily be able to dominate them all. They could cast their disappointment at her all they wanted, but it was all just a distraction. It would be easy, in the end, and the commoners would clutch their pearls and act like it hadn’t been in front of their faces all along.

She’d told them what she knew not only to hopefully scorn Dooku, even if that would be an added bonus, but because it seemed they needed it spoon fed to them in order to begin tracking him down. She didn’t want to give Dooku or his master the satisfaction of seeing their future through. She never had any real loyalties to it, just what it could do for her.

Instead, she’d need to play the role of the dutiful pureblood witch and utilize whatever funds and resources to bring about real change: to bring back the sinister sisters of her bloodline, to take back everything and destroy the muggles that stood in their way. It would be better than the dogmatic Sith.

It would be revolution.

“So, if I hear any of you claiming that it was unjust, I’d like you to ask yourself, what more could you have done to better advance your house?” Windu said.

Quiet murmurs spread across the room and she still knew they were all indirectly about her. Someone pointed out that Obi-Wan Kenobi took out an entire Sith lord on his own, but another mentioned something about how he rejected any rewards for it.

Faro scowled from across the table at that, “Such a fool. Does he believe he’ll get anywhere in life with that sacrificing attitude?”

“I’d expect he doesn’t need to, with mommy and daddy’s money just waiting for him,” Miraj Scintel said coolly, “He’s not too bad on the eyes, too, which helps.”

She cast her eyes towards Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was chatting amongst some of his quidditch friends. She grimaced at his natural charisma that everyone seemed to fall for. It was sickening, really, that he could blend so well amongst everyone, even the muggle borns. That he wanted to. She didn’t get the appeal to his relentlessly charitable way of being. It was like he asked to be magnificently cursed.

It would be like swallowing a thick and heavy dose of the foulest medicines, but Ventress knew what she needed to do in order to accomplish her greatest desires. Next year was their final year at this putrid school, and she would do what she must to climb the ranks. He wouldn’t break easy from his band of misfits, but he would break. And really, Ventress would have very little to do with it. The way of the pureblood culture would be more than enough. Time was ticking and Ventress knew she had much to do.

She began scrawling in her notebook the terms of an unbreakable vow.

***

Now that finals had been cancelled the library was practically vacant, most students were spending their precious few hours left at school in the courtyard, on brooms or chatting by the lake. Obi-Wan could never think of anywhere else he’d rather be in his spare time than in the library and it was clear that Satine thought the same, taking up her usual spot beside him.

She was engrossed in her book, something on hidden secret wizarding communities across the globe. He hadn’t gotten around to reading that one yet, although he was sure he’d been to plenty of the places listed. He was sure she’d quite like Appleby if she ever got the chance to go. She turned a page and it seemed like enough to jar her from her focus and instead place her eyes on him.

“What?” Obi-Wan winced, he hadn’t realized he’d been staring, how rude.

“Oh nothing I was just-” He floundered for something to say, “Appreciating that we had time off.”

“It’s pretty nice,” She smiled, letting her book flutter closed and almost seemed to lean a little closer to him as she rested her arm on the table, “I do still have that evening patrol tonight.”

“You could trade for mine tomorrow morning,” He chuckled at the way her lips curled back into a snarl.

“Not on your life,” She huffed, “Perhaps, I’ll have fewer next year. Considering we’ll have the most seniority.”

“I’m sure as Head Girl you’ll have your pick of the litter,” Obi-Wan said without thinking and she looked at him a little surprised.

“I don’t think anything has been decided yet,” She answered coolly.

“They’d be a fool not to pick you,” Obi-Wan waved a hand at her, “Certainly there’s no competition, you’re the brightest witch of your age.”

“Well, I’d hardly say there’s no competition,” She smothered a smile, “But it would be a high honor to receive.”

“I was expected to get prefect,” Obi-Wan mused, “I didn’t realize how much I’d enjoy the position. I’m already honored just to have been considered for the role of Head Boy.”

Satine gazed at him for a beat, “Why do you talk like you’ve already lost out?”

“Well we don’t know-”

“-Don’t we?” Satine scoffed, drumming her fingers on the table in irritation, “If you think I have no competition, you’ve already won.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, “There’s always Bail-”

“-Ben please,” Satine rolled her eyes, “Bail’s incredibly smart and a good prefect, but even he, himself, knows that he’s not getting the position,” Satine continued before he could open his mouth, “Ben you’re the top student at the school-”

“Second,” He corrected automatically, “You beat me by half a point-”

“I haven’t forgotten!” She jabbed a finger at him, “I wasn’t counting me.”

“Well you should,” He grumbled, “You’re the brightest witch here.”

They looked at each other for a second, neither knowing how to break away, “That means I’m always right,” Satine pointed out, turning towards her book, face a little red. Obi-Wan looked away and found interest in reading the titles on the shelf across from him, “You’ll be Head Boy for sure.”

“Then you’ll be Head Girl,” He shot back without glancing over. They hung in an almost oppressive silence for another minute or two before Obi-Wan hesitantly glanced over. Unfortunately for him, she’d been looking his way and they were once again stuck, eyes locked together.

It was almost as if words were traveling unspoken, questions, maybe answers. It was enough for Obi-Wan to take a shaky breath and try to ask one of his own out loud. The one he’d been trying to get out for a while now.

“Satine-”

“There you are!” Anakin’s voice was quick to shatter whatever spell had come between them and Obi-Wan felt his face heat up and his heart race as he turned towards Anakin with a hint of irritation.

“What?” He groused and Anakin looked between him and Satine with a tilt to his head.

“I was just going to ask you to check over my essay...” Anakin faltered, “I can come back-”

“No, no. It’s fine,” Obi-Wan let out a long breath, “You only startled me. This is a library you know.”

“I know! You never spend any time outside of it...” Anakin complained under his breath, handing over his essay.

Obi-Wan took it and used it to hide his face as he glanced towards Satine. She’d gone back to her reading, but looked unfazed. She flipped a page and brushed a strand of hair out of her face.

“Whatcha looking at?” Anakin whispered in his ear and he glared at Anakin.

“Your poorly written essay,” He answered, rolling up said parchment to bap him in the head with it.

“Aw come on I tried extra hard this time!” Anakin sighed, draping himself across the table.

“You really need to reel in your tangents,” Obi-Wan pulled the red pen Anakin had given to him the previous year and scratched through a whole paragraph before handing it back, “Professor Yaddle doesn’t want to know how this relates to your favorite shows.”

Anakin spent a moment looking over his essay before pulling out a blank sheet of parchment and began to revise. Obi-Wan looked between Anakin and Satine and frowned. So much for a quiet moment or any sort of real talk.

“Perhaps, I’ll see you back in the common room then?” Satine placed a bookmark in her book and he gave her a sheepish smile.

“I suppose so-”

“Padmé?” Satine was looking over his head and so he turned to indeed see Padmé Amidala edge her way out from behind a bookshelf.

“Ah hello,” She greeted, “I was hoping you could look over my potions essay, Satine? If it’s not too much trouble.”

Satine sat back down and gestured to the seat across from her, “Alright, hand it over,” She leaned closer to Ben and whispered quietly, “Never a dull moment.”

“Never,” He grinned over at her.

***

“You summoned me, Headmaster?” Obi-Wan creaked open the door to Yoda’s office and was immediately comforted by the reminder that it was Yoda’s office yet again, no matter what qualms certain sectors of the Ministry of Magic had. It had been a unanimous vote, one even cast by Palpatine, to reinstate him and he was glad he had. It was nothing personal to Professor Palpatine, but his parties catering towards his favorite students didn’t exactly speak for a strong lack of bias.

“Indeed, in you come!” Yoda gestured for Obi-Wan to take a seat and he followed suit. “Important things, we have to discuss.”

Obi-Wan winced. He really didn’t want to relay what happened on the viaduct with Maul yet again to another person. He really didn’t understand why Windu couldn’t have just passed on what he received first hand immediately afterwards. There had been a lot of heavy sobbing and sniffling to get around, but he knew he told him everything in a flush of emotions uncharacteristic to him. That moment was foggy, likely at his mind’s own choice to further spare him from sadness, but he remembered being grateful that no one else was around.

Alternatively, the debate over who was to be the next Head Boy and Head Girl was buzzing louder than ever with just a few days left in the term. Traditionally, this announcement was made over the summer in the form of a personal letter that students usually hung over their mantles in pride. However, maybe they wanted to deliver some more good news in light of recent events.

Then again, Satine would probably be here too if that’s what they were discussing. Or at least, he really hoped she would.

“What is it, Headmaster?” He felt compelled to ask, because they sat in silence for a long time, neither looking relaxed that this troubling year was coming to a close. With Dooku still running free, it was very likely that a precedent was starting.

“Worried, for young Skywalker, you are,” He said calmly. It was not a question, but Yoda was never known for dancing around his point for very long. No, the lengthy and often riddled speeches were a trait of a professor who would no longer be bursting into this office without announcement nor would they live to relay another prophetic theory ever again. The weight of that absence sat between Obi-Wan and Yoda, though neither acknowledged it formally.

“Very much so,” He confirmed and tapped his fingers aimlessly on his knees, “I- Well, I made a promise to look after him.”

“To whom?” Yoda raised a brow on his wrinkly face, “Skywalker or your former mentor, did you promise?”

Qui-Gon always said that Anakin was the top priority and though he’d always known it, that really sunk in now that the boy had no one left but Obi-Wan.

“Both.” He said after a deep breath, “So, if you’ve brought me here to tell me that you’re just going to throw Anakin in some orphanage when Dooku is surely out there waiting for him to be vulnerable, I cannot allow that.”

“Sound like Qui-Gon, you do,” Yoda said, amused, but Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he knew how much that meant to him just then, “Cast Skywalker aside, we cannot.”

Obi-Wan relaxed his shoulders immediately. He hadn’t been sure what his course of action was going to be to follow up his assertion, but he was glad he didn’t have to come up with anything just then. He was just glad that Anakin wasn’t going to be left with strangers. It was incredibly cruel considering everything he’d been through.

He didn’t breathe completely easily yet, “But you’re also not going to lock him up in the castle all summer either, right? He needs normalcy.”

And a break from this place. They all did, as much as he preferred his years at Hogwarts to his summers at home. Obi-Wan knew he would be eager to return back in the fall, yearning for the bright memories this special place held for him. However, as it was at the moment, he could only feel the lingering sense of loss.

“Agree, I do, but find new normal for him, we must.”

“Until his mother is found.” Obi-Wan agreed.

“That might-” Yoda caught himself off as he regarded Obi-Wan with sad eyes and without the desire to complete the thought he started. Obi-Wan knew what he’d been thinking. It had been on his mind too whenever Anakin brought it up, even since it first happened. He also never said what came to mind.

Yoda shook his head and started again, “Yes, and find an alternative, we have. Or more accurately, found us, the alternative has.”

“That’s great.” Obi-Wan said, “A family is taking him in then.”

“Appear so, it would.”

“Well, that’s fantastic! And Anakin is on board?” There was something still odd about this meeting, a wariness to Yoda’s gaze that wasn’t quite meeting Obi-Wan’s eyes anymore. His body language was turned away, like he knew he was delivering bad news.

He nodded, long pointed ears wiggling a bit as he did, “Inform you first, I thought I should. Object to the arrangement, you can, but very few options, we have.”

“Inform me?” Obi-Wan repeated, “Headmaster, I’m not sure I have the faintest idea what you could be talking about. Who are they?”

***

“Anakin, darling, there you are!” Mrs. Kenobi came shuffling over hurriedly, or as much as she could with the trail of midnight green satin slithering behind her in long tresses. Mr. Kenobi took long strides behind her, leading with his infamous walking stick that always captured Anakin’s attention.

Anakin was indeed surprised when he was given the information that the Kenobi’s wanted to take him in for the summers and holidays and relieved that he would at least get to stick with Obi-Wan, but he certainly hadn’t expected they’d show up at the castle’s doorsteps.

Obi-Wan, it appeared, was also absolutely flabbergasted as he dropped whatever bags he’d been helping Satine with clean on the cobblestone walkway, much to his friend’s initial chagrin and gradual understanding as she rounded the bend.

“What the hell, Be- Oh.” Satine snapped her mouth shut and just focused on picking up her scattered things with Padmé and Breha at either side of her. None of the three girls dared to lift their heads.

“Mother, Father, you’re here… At Hogwarts.” His voice was tight and clipped while his eyes didn’t blink.

“We do need to work on your hosting mannerisms.” His mother didn’t look once at him and kept her eyes on Anakin, “Ah well, I suppose there will be plenty of room for practice this summer with our brand new house guest.”

“Thank you for taking me in.” Anakin said earnestly, because even while belonging on another plane of elitist culture, they still volunteered to take Anakin in the moment they’d heard he was without a place to stay.

“It is no trouble at all, my boy,” Mr. Kenobi ruffled his hair, “The servants have already taken the liberty of clearing out Obi-Wan’s room for you.”

“My room?” Obi-Wan questioned.

“Oh, no I can’t do that. I can just sleep on the couch or something-” But Anakin was instantly cut off by Mrs. Kenobi’s thin, but noticeably strong arms crushing him into a hug against her bony sternum.

“Nonsense!” She hissed, “His room is much warmer than the spares and only the best for growing heroes.”

Anakin wanted to turn around and shrug at Obi-Wan. He hoped he didn’t mind giving up his room for him. He knew he would be pretty upset if some little kid came into his childhood room and took over all of his stuff and space.

“And since we have raised Obi-Wan correctly, he will do the just and honorable thing and give his room for you in your time of need,” Mr. Kenobi’s voice was lethal, but Anakin still only had a view of Mrs. Kenobi’s laced neckline, so he didn’t see the look that matched it over Mrs. Kenobi’s shoulder.

After a pause, Obi-Wan cleared his throat, “Yes, well, I have been eyeing up the west wing.”

“Mmm, I think not.” Mr. Kenobi waved a large hand at him dismissively, “I’m refurbishing it as a second office.”

“The east wing, then.” Obi-Wan tried.

“The basement will do, you’ll have much more space down there to practice Quidditch.”

After a long pause, Obi-Wan only nodded and was giving Anakin a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes, “Sounds good.”

“Clearly, it’s needed,” Mrs. Kenobi added and gently pet Anakin’s hair to the side. It would have reminded him of his own mother, if her fingers weren’t so long and cold, “Unlike you, my little star. Gryffindor’s team truly does not deserve your efforts.”

He didn’t have the heart to remind her that it was technically Anakin’s fault that they threw the game and Ravenclaw won. Neither team had their hearts in it that day, though, and it had definitely been a shock to all of them when the Kenobi’s showed up to watch. At least they’d been impressed enough with him to still give him a place to stay. That had to count for something.

“The new broom must have helped.” He smiled.

“You know, I think it did. That’s what happens when you have the best of what money can buy, Anakin.” Mr. Kenobi sighed at Obi-Wan, “Usually.”

“Now, now, I believe our new guest warrants a special welcoming feast of his favorite foods!” Mrs. Kenobi said, “Why don’t we get your things and you can just simply come straight home with us?”

“Is that allowed?” He looked around at Obi-Wan as well as Satine for approval. He was pretty hungry and was starting to feel a bit cautiously optimistic at the promise of any foods he wanted. After all, they were filthy rich and if they were willing to share that money with Anakin, well, he might as well make something good of this whole mess. He bet Obi-Wan’s head would explode if afforded the opportunity to try a hot pocket.

“As long as you’ve got approval from a professor or prefect-” Satine started, but was promptly cut off as though she never spoke.

“Which Obi-Wan most certainly is that.” Mrs. Kenobi tutted.

“As am I.” Satine reminded them, but once again, they simply did not hear her. Obi-Wan’s mother’s lips twitched a bit, but she retained her bright glow as she reached out for Anakin’s hand. He accepted it, deciding he would get used to how cold they were.

“Well, I suppose I’ll see you in September.” Obi-Wan began to say to Satine.

“Right,” Satine nodded a lot, like she was flustered and Anakin squinted as he looked between the two of them. He wondered for a second if they were going to hug or something, but their arms remained at their side. It was weird, he knew for a fact that Cody had wrapped Obi-Wan in a headlock earlier and called it a hug, but it was still a hug. Anakin hugged Rex earlier. He didn’t see what the big deal was.

She cleared her throat after a moment of words unsaid, “Be sure to write when you can.”

“Of course, especially if you get- well, you know.” Obi-Wan shrugged and Anakin didn’t know and the Kenobi’s both stuck their noses up in suspicion. Mr. Kenobi’s long nose was flared as he looked down at his son that began to follow them. Had Obi-Wan’s eyes not been glued to Satine’s he might have noticed when his father’s large hand stuck out to catch him in the chest, preventing him from going on.

“-Uh uh uh, you’re not dodging your responsibilities, young man!” Mr. Kenobi wagged a long white finger at him. “You can apparate now and will do so from the station when you are finished assisting with loading and unloading. We’ve recommended you for bag duty again.”

Obi-Wan was clearly trying to stop himself from groaning at the thought.

“Get some muscles on those bones.” He poked his son with his stick.

“And don’t let us hear you were caught frolicking or lollygagging in any way.” Mrs. Kenobi added coolly, flicking her blue-grey eyes to Satine for the first time, “You’re practically an adult now that you’re 17. It’s time you acted like it.”

“Yes ma’am.” Obi-Wan said and nodded at Anakin, “I’ll see you later.”

“See you.” Anakin said with a sympathetic shrug. He did wish he could come with them, but Anakin supposed it was important that Obi-Wan keep things in order on the train. He knew from someone who usually caused chaos that the prefects were necessary to have on hand and that Obi-Wan was one of the best.

Mrs. Kenobi patted his hand as they walked down the hill with Anakin’s trunk and bags floating aimlessly behind them, “Oh, Anakin, I believe this is going to be a splendid arrangement. Someone of your caliber deserves the finer things in life. It’s about time you got to experience them.”

“Do you have a pool?” He blurted out, knowing it could sound rude, but was pleased when they only laughed.

“Try several.” Mr. Kenobi grinned beneath his beard, but it looked foreign on his lips, even if Anakin didn’t know much about the man, “It will indeed be refreshing to have someone around who can appreciate our way of life.”

With several pools, Anakin would at least try.

Maybe it was selfish, when his mother was missing and lost somewhere. However, he still vowed to find her and to see that she was safe and to unite their family. He knew in his bones that she would want him to be happy. She would always be his real home.

No matter how far she was.

***

Sometimes, a plan needed to be executed to the number in order to come out successful. It all depended on who the puppeteer was, of course. A true strategist knew when to bend the wills and patterns of the fates to adhere to the plan, of course, because not every variable could be accounted for with a third eye. No, it required flexibility at its finest. Even towards the end, he truly believed he might have been over. His position as Headmaster had been one he was ready to give up… For now.

No, there was much more he could do as a teacher.

And now, he accomplished two birds with one stone in a beautiful array of damage that Sidious couldn’t have planned more perfectly himself. Maul did as he did best and caused a chaos that disbanded trust between the Ministry and the school board as well as its students. While they would always try to slap a bandage on a gutted wound, they would find their results required much more than that when Sidious was hiding in the corner, putting poison to the casualties.

Letting them fester and bleed until the only thing that remained was an infected and unrecognizable gash that spread through the body, consuming and ultimately defeating its host from the inside out. That was the only way to get to someone, after all, but Maul was a physical being and would never understand the true power of the dark side.

Sidious had to see to that for a reason.

And all he wanted to do was destroy Sidious and his hard work and the work that had yet to come. It was brilliant, he had to admit, to turn the dementors against them. It was something he’d taught him long ago, of course, with the help of the night witch. But it had been executed brilliantly.

Instead, he proved himself the worthy apprentice for one last time where Tyranus had not, in destroying the very person that Sidious had his eyes on all year. Many knew now that the battle between Qui-Gon Jinn and Maul was a battle for Anakin’s very soul, but few understood just how terribly it had been lost. It was tragic, really. If Obi-Wan had died, they all would know. So for once, Sidious was glad for the boy’s survival.

There was still the matter of the girl, who would likely be a problem for Tyranus down the line, but that was something his apprentice reaped that he would need to sow. They could only delay the inevitable for so long. As it were, the girl could still provide some use in accomplishing Palpatine’s next feat.

He honed his sights on Obi-Wan Kenobi, who stood not quite touching but very close next to that muggle-born Satine Kryze. Like a damn vision, the sunlight cast a specific ray just to glow around him, symbolically highlighting why Sidious needed to get rid of him. Next to the holocron, he ran his finger around the rim of a chalice, a cup if you will, divine and extravagant though muddled with dust and a disguising charm to hide its true origin of where it had been won.

As it were, there was a fairly believable way of elimination arriving in his lap. Yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi would need to be removed from the story as he was in many ways, the final obstacle in his way.

“But first…” He drifted his yellow eyes across the room until he landed on the chest near the desk. He ran ghostly white fingers over the wooden finish.

He unlocked the latch and lifted the lid, drifting his eyes all the way down the hole that it hid until landing on its sole item: Shmi Skywalker, frozen in carbonite.

“What to do with you?”

[cateringisalie]

Village: Resident Evil ramblings

(Some spoilers)

Ethan Winters is a goddamn idiot.

I say this without a shred of nostalgia; I first encountered him in RE7 and feel less than nostalgic towards the guy. RE7 without the benefit of the former entrants was a FPS horror and pretty good. Though you couldn’t escape that the characters you remembered were the Baker family and Mia; Ethan was a walking camera with a gun and some very simplistic emotional responses (fear, rescue wife, escape, swear occasionally). Having now run through the whole sequence of games, Ethan stands out starkly as the blandest and least interesting protagonist the series ever produced. He is possibly worse than Piers. Village updates Ethan’s personality. A bit. Well. Not really. Still got that fear, still got the swearing. Still got a mind to escape. But rather than rescue his wife, it’s about rescuing his daughter. I mean; Mia was gunned down and shot a further 9000 times by infuriating series stalwart Chris Redfield a little under ten minutes into the game proper. Not that Ethan really comes to terms with the trauma. By minute fifteen of the game the van you’ve been shoved in by Chris (who doesn’t shoot you for no reason he feels like explaining) has crashed and Ethan’s daughter is missing. Mourning Mia doesn’t actually enter into Ethan’s thought process. Goddamn idiot. Not to say that life with Mia was exactly picturesque; a few years after RE7 the couple are now somewhere nebulous in Eastern Europe in a very lovely house with a distressing number of empty wine bottles in the kitchen. A happy marriage this does not seem to be given Mia doesn’t want to get into the events of RE7 anymore, but Ethan does – but also failing to understand that the cover-up of the incident might be why no one is talking much about the whole mess in Louisiana and that bringing it up both distresses and angers Mia. But; the inciting incident has occurred and we’re propelled into our new scenario. Ethan; once again fish out of water, and its not like we have a choice. This is not to say Village does not repeat the same narrative trick of changing POV character, but there is both less of that, and the Half-Life-style regimented first person view jarringly completely goes out the window in the last quarter. It was less than consistent at points, but sparingly when occasionally and jarringly camera angles shifted to depict an introduction. But the game is also perfectly happy to render whole FPS sequences with gun visible and everything as it plays out a story beat, so... I don’t know? Fortunately Ethan’s environment and the setting are much more interesting. The unnamed Village is a satisfying knot of tangled streets, locked doors and environmental obstacles. Enemies don’t respawn per se, but additional enemies are added on subsequent visits to the effective hub of the game. There’s livestock to kill and give the Duke – the merchant playing a similar role to the pirate-like guy from RE4. Duke’s an entertaining character (some have objected to his physical and hugely overweight depiction); chatty and far more knowing than he will let on. He has a dangling thread come the end so perhaps will reappear elsewhere. He’ll sort the gun upgrades, supplies, let you sell treasure and point you towards your next destinations. Which is just as well as the human population of the village dies out somewhere between the first and second hour. No one left and any futile attempts to save people end in almost hilariously disastrous tragedies (no Ethan, don’t go higher in a building that is on fire). Leaving you with Lycans, zombies and gargoyles to fend off. Occasionally there’s some bigger foes on the level of the Executioner from RE5 but nothing on the level of the Tyrants. That kind of thing is left to the Village Lords. The villagers – before they all die – have a curiously unfamiliar religion and praise a figure known as Mother Miranda. She reportedly kept the village safe, but something has changed and now the Lycans run amok and without restraint. Not hard to pin that the reason for the change is Rose’s arrival (or could it be Ethan? COULD IT? No. Man is a goddamn idiot). The only door out of the village you can open is to Castle Dimitrescu and... It feels unnecessary to even get into what awaits. Given fandom have been so noisy about the tall lady and her vampiric daughters since the first trailer. She is so very, very tall. The castle is the first mode of Village. Possibly closest to RE7; Dimitrescu’s daughters are vulnerable based on certain environmental details (read the notes!) but otherwise should be fled from. Dimitrescu herself is invulnerable to everything bar one weapon and you need to work at getting that, so she needs to be fled from. Otherwise, explore the castle, find treasure. Sneak. Solve puzzles. It all looks suitably gorgeous and you get multiple chances to see if as you loop through the rooms and unlock more doors. The Village macro mechanics wrought as micro here. There’s a canny hint at a late reveal in the blunt utility of in-game mechanics to be had too. But – really should have been obvious given their prominence in the trailer – given Castle Dimitrescu is the first level, it means we must say goodbye to the very Tall Lady with knife hands and move onto someone else. In between levels, we get the first reinforcement of a tease from the trailer; the symbol of the Umbrella corporation. Its engraved into a location called the Ceremony Site. Its daubed on a cave wall as high as the Tall Lady. Its on the strange structure you insert the yellow flasks each Village Lord guards. And it means... almost nothing. RE's meta-plot has always been a mess and everyone’s favorite pharmaceutical company hasn’t been so active for a while, so the idea that we might be getting into some interesting weirdness with them again is oh so appealing. And yet – I was disappointed. Despite the repeated glimpses of the familiar white and red logo, the connection ultimately comes down to one letter I found at about 7/8s of the way through. Oswell Spencer – founder of the company – visited the Village years ago and saw the cave painting and adopted it as his logo. Oh. That’s... underwhelming. The same letter does at least prod at wiring Village’s latter reveals into the formation of the company along with tying in some parts of RE5 but if you thought this would be the company or the family dynasty origins or anything like that, you are in for a disappointment. It’s a tease and one that goes nowhere and does little. Oh we might now see how Spencer got into the whole inadvertent zombie making mess but its not a factor in the plot of this game nor does it really change the stakes of the previous. Perhaps I should be glad it’s so frivolous given other retcons in certain other franchises, but it feels so suspect to have drawn the attention and then shuffle the implications out the side-door. At least the other village lords have their own appeals. The second level is RE once again stealing PT (the PS4 demo to announce Silent Hills) given Konami outright don’t care about it anymore. Stripped of your guns and inventory, it’s a claustrophobic puzzle level requiring you to hide with mechanics familiar to both Evil Within and Alien Isolation. That same loop of rooms as you seek out puzzle solutions and hide from a staggeringly distressing malevolent entity. The third is combat light until the final confrontation; the fight staged in a flooded village – oh and Chris who still doesn’t shoot you but refuses to explain anything. And the fourth cheats. Heisenberg is thoroughly entertaining and grabs two levels for his own; an assault on a stronghold and his horrible cyborg factory outside of town. He has Magneto metal powers. Heisenberg is the camp villain to outdo the other camp villains. He’s having fun, he kinda likes Ethan and is oddly on his side. He found time to put together massive signposts to direct Ethan onto the last two levels (a good thing too given his lack of sense). But both levels are lacking. The Stronghold is a relentless firefight against hoards of mook enemies; the factory is overly long and maze-like. I am as tired as Ethan when he exclaims “What more?” And after Heisenberg is dealt with; the long, convoluted lurches to the ending. First person goes out the window. The game dabbles in characters toying with your understanding of what was going on but in a strangely limited way and completely ignoring the other implications of the reveal. Suddenly you mow down more and more enemies than ever before, bullets scarcely a concern. The final reveals of who/what/where/how come through. Not exactly explicable for what’s on-screen, but the effort’s been made to tie Village’s overt supernatural tendencies back into a world setup in RE. Its not magic and those are not truly werewolves. And the villain’s motivation is! Hugely disappointing. Connected as it is to the Umbrella letter, you might hope for something completely out there, but its unsatisfying and feels pretty sexist too. Or at least lacking in imagination to an astonishing degree and yet here we are. The game feels sloppiest as the final boss fight arrives flitting between characters without the shaky but workable character hand-offs RE7 deployed. Back in first person mode to talk to Duke one last time before engaging in.... a relatively simple boss fight. All the boss fights have been pretty easy – there’s nothing on the level of RE6’s sometimes horrendous contextual fights, or the annoying two-player RE5, nor the demanded accuracy of hitting specific weak-points as in RE7. And I don’t mind that. Unload all your weapons and keep your health up. And victory. There are fix-it fics already, but really, I don’t see the point in trying to fix the issue these people have. There’s an obvious setup for a game past this one with a strange throw-away reveal in the end-sequence (whither RE9, Revelations 3 or something else there are no clues as yet). There’s a spoiler for the sting given the end-credits lists a character who didn’t appear in the main game. The sting itself might wind up drawing on the sting from Revelations 2. Village is not RE at its best, but is at least more in the spirit of goofy, campy nonsense than 7. It at least is more at home with playing with the trappings of horror while not actually trying to be outright scary. As with 7, the villains are more interesting and more memorable than the good guys. And – as I found out after completing the game – we were robbed of Ada Wong dressed up like a Bloodborne character somewhere in the game. And that I think is the biggest shame of all this.

[newnewyorker93]

Blueprints for a Rescue

read on ao3 here

Pepperony Week 2020 • Day 1: battle couple

Summary: Tony gives Pepper something special for their 1st wedding anniversary, and Pepper makes an important decision.

—

“Hey, Pep! Do you have a minute?”

Pepper looked up from where she was sitting, curled up on the living room floor with baby Morgan lying on her stomach next to her. Morgan was giggling and shrieking excitedly as she grabbed for the toy Pepper held out for her - a plush platypus, a gift from Uncle Rhodey and currently one of her favorite toys; its beak let out a very satisfying squeak! whenever she managed to squeeze it tight enough in her tiny fists. The two of them were so engrossed in their little game that Pepper hadn’t even noticed Tony entering the room but there he was now, standing next to the coffee table. He had something held behind his back, a thick roll of paper, and he was tapping it against the back of his leg while doing that shift-shuffling move with his feet that Pepper knew meant he was nervous about whatever it was he wanted to tell her.

Instead of answering his question directly, she instead addressed Morgan. “What do you think? Should we see what your silly father is up to this time?” The baby gurgled happily in response and tried to roll over, a move she hadn’t quite mastered yet, and Pepper gave her back a quick rub in acknowledgement of the attempt before looking back up at Tony with an inviting smile. “Sounds like a ‘yes’ to me.”

“Are you sure?” Tony asked, hesitating slightly. “I'd hate to interrupt tummy time.”

Pepper laughed. "Morgan's got a very full schedule today, but I think we can squeeze you in."

“Oh good. I've got something for you. A present, actually. For our anniversary.”

Pepper stopped rubbing Morgan’s back, a puzzled expression crossing her face. “It’s not our anniversary.”

“I know.”

“Our anniversary is next week.”

“I  know.”

"But you're giving me a present today?"

"A stunningly accurate summation of the situation, yes. Astute as always, pepper pot!" Tony was teasing her now, but Pepper could tell there was an undercurrent of real nervousness behind his words. His voice softened, then, as he explained, “It’s just, this is- well, is about to be- our first anniversary, and I want to get it right, and given my, shall we say, mixed track record on gifts…” He trailed off, giving Pepper a second to fill in the blank. She did a quick mental inventory of Tony’s various ‘surprises’ over the years - when he got it right, he got it really right, and when he didn’t...well when he didn’t a team of construction workers ended up getting hired to rip a hole in their wall so a 15-foot-tall stuffed bunny could be maneuvered through. So yeah, maybe his concern wasn’t entirely unwarranted, although whatever this was at least already had the advantage of fitting inside the house. Evidently enough of this thought process could be read on Pepper’s face because Tony nodded in agreement before continuing. “See, you get it. Hence, my brilliant solution! I give you your present a week early, and then I’ve got time to put together a plan B in case you don’t like this one!”

“And if I do like it?” Pepper asked, amused and touched by Tony’s mildly convoluted approach to problem solving.

“Oh, in that case I will…um, still have to find something special to give you on the day of…” Tony scratched the back of his head, a sheepish expression on his face. “I really didn’t think that part through, did I? Although In my defense, this is my first go at a wedding anniversary.”

“Hmm, fair. You’d better get used to it though,” Pepper teased. “You’re going to have a lot more of them to figure out.”

“Yeah…” A soft happy smile lit up Tony’s face, the kind that made the corners of his eyes crinkle up and he was lost for a moment, thinking about that.

“So,” Pepper eventually prompted, “do I get to actually see my pre-anniversary present?”

“Yes! Right. Of course.” Tony moved aside the few knick-knacks left out on the coffee table and unrolled the papers he’d been holding behind his back onto it, revealing a stack of technical drawings. He gestured for Pepper to scoot forward and take a look. "I made you a suit! Well, to be more precise, I designed you a suit."

Pepper examined the figure on the top page and frowned. Armor would be a generous description for whatever this was, as it looked more like a bikini that just happened to be made out of metal rather than anything meant to be in any way protective. It wasn’t until she looked up, ready to indignantly lay into Tony because what the fuck, that she caught the tell-tale mischievous twinkle in his eyes and realized what he was doing.

“Oh god, babe, you should see your face right now!” Tony crowed. “Just a little joke to break the tension,” he reassured Pepper, “I mean, come on, it’d be completely useless as armor like this, no defensive coverage at all. Although I'm sure we could find something else to use it for… Yes? No? You're smiling, Pep, I can see it!” She was smiling, biting back a laugh because it was just so Tony, getting his anxiety out by completely designing and drawing out by hand an entire prank suit of armor. “We'll file that one under maybe, then… But seriously, as much as I enjoy a bit of pin-up Pepper, this-” he pulled aside the top sheet with a dramatic flourish, unveiling a set of schematics for a suit that looked much more like his own Iron Man armor, if slightly more feminine, “-is your real present, should you choose to accept it." 

Tony sat himself down on the floor across the table from Pepper, giving her some space to study the blueprints more closely. After a few moments of forcing himself to sit perfectly still he scooped Morgan up off the rug and snuggled her up to his chest, letting his daughter’s squirming distract him from the otherwise irresistible urge to start fidgeting and drumming his fingers against his leg as he waited for Pepper’s verdict.

“This is…wow.” Pepper didn’t even know where to begin. She was awed by the sheer scope of the project, at the amount of time Tony must have put into making this for her - there were pages and pages of plans, intricate renderings of every piece of the suit from helmet to gauntlets to boots and every bit in between, all painstakingly (and gorgeously; with so much of his work done in holograms and machinery, it was easy to forget how much of an artist Tony really was) hand-drawn and neatly labeled down to the most precise measurements. “How… You drew all of this?”

Tony shrugged. “I’ve had the image in my head for years, this was just letting it all out, finally. Like an exorcism.” Pepper cocked her head at that and Tony laughed. “Ok, maybe that’s not the best metaphor, but you know what I mean. Besides, it was kind of nice to go analog again, break out the old pencil and paper. And it wasn’t all me! Morgan helped too.”

"Oh really?"

"Yep! Very helpful design critic, our daughter. Here, I'll show you." Tony flipped forward to a sheet that displayed detailed close-up and exploded views of the suit's helmet. "She really liked this part, see?" He pointed out the signs of Morgan's interest - a wrinkly spot on the corner of the page where the baby had clearly drooled on the paper, and a few smudges the exact width of her tiny fingers streaked right across the center of the main drawing. "Tried to grab your helmet right off the page!"

While Pepper fondly examined this father-daughter collaboration, Tony turned his attention to Morgan, giving the pint-sized engineer a playful bounce in his arms. “You really are your Daddy’s little girl, aren’t you?” Morgan smooshed her hand onto Tony’s face in response and he pretended to nibble at the tips of her fingers, making her (and Pepper) laugh. “You want a suit too, baby girl?”

Pepper stopped laughing at that and looked sternly at her husband. "Tony, please tell me you aren't…"

"Of course not," Tony retorted, making sure to sound appropriately scandalized at the very notion. “I told her, I said, not until you’re at least six-” he waited for Pepper to glare, right on cue, then finished with an impish grin, “-teen.”

Pepper rolled her eyes at that, but affectionately, and focused back on the schematics. “What’s this mean, here?” she asked, pointing out the title block at the corner of the page.

“Oh, that’s what I’ve been calling her, Rescue.” Tony explained. “You can change if you want something different though!” he hurriedly added. “Maybe something a bit flashier - you don’t know how tempted I was to go with Iron Maiden; a bit more my speed than yours, of course, but you’re welcome to it. Anyway, I just kept coming back to that first time I saw you suited up, remember? In the Mark 42 armor, how you saved me…” How you’ve saved me so many times, in so many ways over the years, he thought, but left unspoken. “It’ll still have all the usual defensive and attack capabilities, of course, and we can add in whatever fancy tricks and toys you want, but the primary intent is, well, rescue.”

“Did you start building it already?”

“No, I-” Tony’s eyes met Pepper’s and she could see the vulnerability there, the kind he only ever let her see. “I did this for you, Pepper, only for you, and it’s your choice. It doesn’t need to go any further than this, it can just be some art for our bedroom wall, if that’s all you want it to be. But I needed to show it to you either way. So…what do you think?"

Pepper traced her finger lightly over a little inset drawing on the last page of the blueprints. It was an image of Iron Man and Rescue flying next to each other, more of a sketch than a schematic really (although, knowing Tony, more likely than not still to scale and accurate in all technical aspects). There was probably some mundane reason for that picture to be there, maybe to show a size comparison between the suits, but all Pepper could think of as she looked at it was Tony sitting at his worktable in the garage, lovingly drawing the two of them twirling through the air together. Maybe telling Morgan about it, spinning her stories of her parents as knights in shining armor, off to save the world. She could see how much he wanted this - for her, for them - in every line, in every detail so lovingly rendered, and to her surprise she realized she really did want it too.

They’d talked so much, over the years, about the negative side of Tony and his suits - the obsession, all the ways he’d hidden away and almost lost himself in them - but that’s never been the whole story. There’s freedom there, and joy too and this...this, she understood, was Tony trying to share all that with her. It wasn’t insecurity or a distraction, it was calm and careful - and beautiful. Invention born out of love, not fear. And just like that, Pepper knew what her answer was. She shifted her gaze back towards Tony’s tentative, hopeful face. “I think…” she gave him a soft smile and nodded. “Yes, Tony, I’ll be your Rescue.”

[evilqueens]

OQ | legendary

For SpookyOQ 2019. // Set in late 1800s New Orleans. There's something odd about Regina's new betrothed, and she has every intention of figuring out what that something is.

AO3 link / FFnet link

--

The mud caking the bottom of Regina’s dress quickly accumulates as she treks further into the cemetery. The air is thick with moisture, and heavy grey clouds block out the moonlight above her. They’ll give soon, and she would do best to make this trip brief lest she make it back home thoroughly rain-soaked.

She pays the mud and the rainclouds little mind though as she inspects the engravings on each tombstone she passes. Thomas, Blanchar, Letissier, Dupont… She’s a ball of nerves as she reads through each departed name, not sure what to feel when they don’t match what she’s looking for. And even less sure of how she’ll feel if she does find what she’s looking for.

This is silly, a small voice inside her chastises. It’s persistent — it’s been present from the very moment she met Robin Locksley, doing its best to soothe her worries and shut down her growing suspicions. Insisting her nerves are nothing but the result of cold feet, nothing more.

However persistent it may be though, it’s gotten quieter in light of recent revelations.

It’s not that she believes Mr. Locksley to be a bad man, not exactly. But something about him sets Regina on edge (and that, in turn, has awoken an intrigue that feels impossible to quell).

She’s hardly the only one obsessing over this man. He’d caused a lot of talk when he first stepped onto the New Orleans social scene three months before. Originally from London before crossing the Atlantic to settle in New York, he had arrived here from up north with an impressive amount of money to his name and a desire for a wife. He’d taken up residence in a manor not far from her own, saying it had been owned by distant relatives of his for years, and had immediately begun his search for a companion — and the eligible ladies in his circles had been all too willing to comply.

He’s handsome, successful, charming — a dream of a prospect for every young woman Regina’s age. And to her surprise, she seemed to be exactly what he had been looking for.

She remembers the first night she met him with vivid clarity: his stunning blue eyes locking with hers as she’d entered the ballroom; the soft tenor of his voice as he introduced himself to her parents, charming them both almost immediately; the unexpected chill of his hand through her glove as it took gentle hold of hers and brought it to his lips.

Though the memory was clear as day, her thoughts had been hazy that entire night. Mainly it had been by the surprise — she didn’t exactly have a long line of suitors asking for her hand.

Admittedly, that was in great part her own doing. Though she’s been longing for the day she could escape the stifling grip of her mother’s control, she knows better than to make any rash decisions. She has no interest in trading her current cage for a new one. And so, she’s made sure to leave every potential suitor she’s been unimpressed by feeling even less impressed themselves (much to her mother’s dismay).

But Robin Locksley had been different. He’d charmed Regina into conversation with an ease she’d never experienced, and much to her pleasant surprise, he’d listened aptly to every word that left her lips. She didn’t feel the need to censor her words nearly as much as she usually does, and thankfully, he seemed to have no qualms with her honesty as she admitted she didn’t hold much enjoyment for these balls. That her preferred pastimes involved the quietness of her room with a good book, or lending her attentions to her horse Rocinante. He had seemed rather pleased with her answers, his dimpled smile never leaving as he’d fired off questions to keep her talking.

The candidness had been refreshing, as was having someone being interested in her for something other than what her name could offer them amongst society. Robin hadn’t been put off by her sass, had met every quip with wit of his own, and the feeling of finally being listened to had given her a pleasant rush that had nothing to do with the wine being served — but was just as intoxicating.

But the night had fallen just short of perfect. As charming as Mr. Locksley was, he’d answered her own round of questions with a vagueness that had left her feeling a bit unsatisfied, and the chill of his touch on her waist as they danced prompted a swirl of unease in her belly that has yet to fully settle even now.

Rather than being put off by these things however, they had sparked an intrigue. One that had her oddly preoccupied with Mr. Locksley’s every move. And one that currently has Regina traipsing through a muddy graveyard late in the night looking for answers to her convoluted puzzle.

There’s the little things: he doesn’t eat — every dinner they’ve spent together, she’s watched him expertly move his fork through his small portion of food to make it seem touched, and never once does he raise the fork to his lips. He politely turns down appetizers offered to him. The most Regina’s ever seen Robin put into his system is a sip of red wine from a glass he mostly nurses throughout the night.

Feeling bold, Regina had asked him about his lack of appetite one night. He’d given her a playful smirk, as if enjoying a private joke she wasn’t in on, and told her, “I prefer my steak just a touch more rare.”

He also doesn’t venture out of his home during the day — any and all socializing is done after sundown, either at balls, during dinners, or down at the local bar. Her father had been the one to point this one out to her, mentioning idly how odd it was that he never seemed to run into the man during the day. Her mother had caught on as well, feeling indignant at rejected lunch invitations, and only somewhat placated by Mr. Locksley’s smooth proposals that he join them for dinner instead.

It was strange — that much Regina was certain of. But she’s always had an overactive imagination. Mary Margaret had been quick to point that out one night when Regina couldn’t resist mentioning the oddities of her new suitor.

“You sound like Ruby when we were ten, going on and on with her ghost stories and werewolf lore.”

“Not a werewolf…,” Regina had hedged, avoiding Mary Margaret’s stare.

“Right, a vampire,” Mary Margaret had corrected sarcastically. “Much more realistic.”

Regina had started at the word. “I didn’t say that either,” she’d pointed out.

At that Mary Margaret had raised a knowing eyebrow. “But you were thinking it.”

She was right, sort of. Though Regina had been avoiding the exact word, her thoughts had inevitably found themselves going back to those very stories and lore they would tell each other as young girls, despite the rational part of her ridiculing that trail of thought. She’d agreed, reluctantly, that her suspicions were childish and impossible. But that didn’t stop her gut reaction from insisting there was something off whenever Mr. Locksley was near.

And so in silent, she continued observing him, and saying nothing more of her suspicions. Watching him stealthily give his food to the dog during dinners, and noting the way he smoothly dodged her questions about his past, about his family, his former homes. She didn’t mention the chill of his fingers as she shyly slipped hers through them, and she walked past his manor during the bright, sunny days and endlessly wondered how he spent his mornings and afternoons secluded in his big, empty house (was he sleeping? was he lonely?).

Then Keith Nottingham happened.

It had been just after sundown, and Regina was running late. She could practically hear her mother already, livid at the thought of her daughter being out at that time of night on her own. But she wasn’t far. Just two more blocks, if she cut through this alleyway…

“What’s the rush, Miss Mills?” a voice had cut through the silence. To her left, she saw Keith Nottingham appear from the shadows of the alley, his gaze trailing up and down her figure in a way that gave her goosebumps.

“Just trying to get home for dinner, Mr. Nottingham,” she’d answered brusquely, backing out of the entry to alley and out onto the sidewalk. She’d looked uneasily around for anyone who could help, but alas, this particular street was abandoned for the time being, as dinnertime got started.

One look back at Mr. Nottingham had showed he too was well aware they were alone. And whatever he decided to do about that, Regina knew her word against the word of the Sheriff’s son be of no use.

Mr. Nottingham had grinned at her. “How about I walk you there, darlin’? It’s not good for a young lady to be out on her own.” He’d stepped closer to her, his grin widening as she instinctively backed away. He’d grabbed hold of her upper arm as he told her, “We’ll take this shortcut…”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Nottingham,” she’d told him forcefully, attempting to pull her arm out of his hold. But he was stronger, and his grip had tightened as he pulled her to his side and brought his arm around her shoulders.

“No need to be nervous, Miss Mills,” he’d said, easily overpowering her attempts to break away from him as he walked them into the alleyway. “I’ll take good care of you…”

“I believe she said that wasn’t necessary,” a familiar voice had said behind them.

Though Mr. Nottingham had made no move to loosen his hold her shoulders, a wave of relief still poured in Regina’s stomach as she’d turned her head to see Robin standing on the sidewalk.

“Mr. Locksley,” she’d breathed, trying again to rip herself away from Mr. Nottingham’s side. She’d almost managed, but the man was quick to grab a hold of her arm again before she could get out of his reach.

At that, Robin had silently stepped forward, ignoring Mr. Nottingham’s forceful assurances that Robin not worry himself with Nottingham’s intentions of walking Regina home. He’d held out a hand that Regina gratefully took without a second thought, and it had been only then that Mr. Nottingham released his hold on her arm.

“Your chivalry is appreciated,” Robin had said wryly, “but you needn’t worry yourself. I’ll take the lady home, if she’ll have me?”

“Yes.” Regina had smiled brilliantly at him, hooking her hand around his elbow. “Much appreciated, Mr. Locksley.” Without a further glance back at Mr. Nottingham, they’d both made their way back onto the sidewalk and quickened their pace.

“Do you make a habit of wandering dark alleys in the evenings?” he’d quipped.

Bristling, she’d answered coolly, “I had the situation under control.”

Rather than call out her rather blatant lie, he’d replied with, “Y’know, a simple thank you would suffice.”

Regina had rolled her eyes, but tightened her grip on his arm. “This is the earliest I’ve ever seen you out,” she’d changed the subject.

“What do you mean?” he’d asked, sounding genuinely confused.

She’d side-eyed him at the question. “I don’t usually see you out until well after dinnertime.”

“We’ve spent plenty of dinners together, m’lady,” he’d pointed out, but it did nothing to deter her.

“They’re all late dinners. As per your request.”

Robin had turned his head to look at her then. Regina had returned his stare, worrying briefly if she’d made a mistake in voicing her observation. She’d banished the thought immediately. Whatever Mr. Locksley’s secrets were, she knew with a strange certainty that he had no intentions of hurting her.

Intentions aside, a still panic-ridden part of her had whispered when he’d turned away without a response, still best not to provoke him.

After a few moments of walking in silence, he’d mumbled, “I suppose I’ll have to brave the evenings for m’lady from now on.”

She’d quirked an eyebrow in response, but any further conversation on the matter had been halted by her father’s voice coming from their porch. She’d startled, not having realized they’d already made it home.

“Regina!” her father had sighed, in both parts relief and exaggeration.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she’d been quick to apologize. “My dress fitting ran later than expected.” She’d glanced at Robin and added, “And I ran into Mr. Locksley on the way back.” She’d stared meaningfully at him, hoping he wouldn’t mention what had happened with Mr. Nottingham.

“It was fortunate,” Robin had told her father. “It’s not very safe to be walking home alone this late in the evening.” He’d smiled innocently at her, and she couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. Thankfully, he’d said nothing more on the matter.

Her father had thanked him for walking her home, inviting him to stay for the dinner that had been delayed waiting for Regina’s return. But Robin had politely declined, saying he’d eaten early — a claim that she couldn’t help raising a dubious eyebrow at.

Saying their goodbyes, Regina had started up the porch steps, but hung back as her father disappeared inside. Taking hold of his hand, she’d looked him in the eye and told him seriously, “Thank you.”

He’d brought her hand to his lips, and she’d shivered. “Have a good night, m’lady.”

Butterflies had swarmed in her belly for the rest of that night, and woke up bright and early with her the following day. But they’d been promptly replaced by a heavy weight by the time breakfast was finished, when news had reached her father that the sheriff’s son had been found dead in an alley early that morning.

“He had two bloody puncture wounds on his neck, but no other injuries,” she’d heard Mr. Blanchard tell her father in the parlor. Regina’s heartbeat had picked up in response, and she’d forced her breath to steady as she’d eavesdropped for more information. Apparently a quick inspection had showed Mr. Nottingham still had most of his valuables, save for a golden pocket watch that had been a family heirloom.

“I’ll give my respects to the sheriff later today,” her father had said, and Regina had held her tongue, knowing it was best to forget the incident from the night before and move on. And so she did.

Or, she tried to anyway. She’d made no comment of Mr. Nottingham’s death aside from a petty, “It was for the best,” when Robin had casually brought up what a shame it had been. The corner of his lips had quirked at her response, but he’d easily let the subject drop. Idly, Regina had wondered if he was relieved she had no desire to speak on it.

Truthfully, despite her suspicions, she had found she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of Robin actually hurting anyone. So it had been easy in the following days to shy away from the thought, especially since she had no concrete evidence to condemn him. Not at the time, anyway.

But then had come his proposal earlier tonight. She’d known it was coming eventually, and vaguely, she’d known she would say yes. But then the moment she had, the moment she’d felt the weight of the engagement ring being slipped onto her finger, she’d been overcome by a wave of anxiety over it all.

She had too many questions, too strong suspicions. And she couldn’t marry him until she had answers.

She’d politely excused herself to the powder room once the initial commotion of the proposal had died down. Mary Margaret had given her a confused — and slightly exasperated — look as Regina had left Robin’s dining room. Instead of walking towards the bathroom downstairs however, she’d made a sharp turn towards the stairs and hastily made her way up to the second floor of his manor.

She’d never been in this area of his house, but she moved quickly down the hallway until she reached what she assumed was the master bedroom. The door was closed, but thankfully not locked, and she went inside without a second thought to how inappropriate she was being.

She’d stood in the middle of the bedroom, unsure where to start. The room had an odd feeling of not being lived in, and she’d noted the tightly made bed with the idle question of whether or not he actually slept here. And if she’d find a darker form of sleeping arrangement if she’d had more time to further explore his house.

Aimlessly, she’d looked through the drawers of his dresser, a blush creeping up her cheeks as she found items of clothing and realized he did use this room for something, even if it was just getting ready for the day — or night. Finding nothing in his dresser, she’d moved on to his night stand, and then the bottom drawers of his wardrobe. Snooping through the final drawer, she was just about to give up when something shiny caught her eye.

Mr. Nottingham’s pocket watch.

The same watch now sits heavily in her dress pocket (right next to a pocket knife and a sharpened piece of wood) as she continues her search through the dark cemetery. She straightens up when she finally finds a name relevant to her search: Little, the name of Robin’s supposed distant relatives that had owned the manor he currently lives in. The tombs are simple, but well-kept, and she reads through the names of the family plots: John Little, father, husband, grandfather; Sarah Little, mother, wife, grandmother; a son named after his father who’d passed away not too long ago.

Regina starts at the next tombstone, which is not a part of the Little family name. It’s Roland Locksley, born in 1803 and died in 1876. Regina’s heartbeat picks up as she continues on to the next name: Marian Locksley, born in 1775 and died in 1834.

Regina knows the next name before she reads it.

Robin Locksley Beloved husband, father, leader, and friend 1774 - 1804

He died at thirty years old — eighty-five years ago.

Regina can hear the loud pounding of her heart in her ears, drowning out her heavy breathing. Distantly, she hears the sky above her roar with a bout of thunder but it barely registers.

“It’ll rain soon,” an all-too familiar voice says from behind her.

Regina whips around, breathless as she meets those familiar blue eyes. “Mr. Lock—Robin,” she croaks, but she doesn’t know what more to say.

Robin smiles ruefully at her. “I had a feeling you suspected,” he told her. “I didn’t think I was being too obvious, but you are far more perceptive than I’d originally thought.” He stands not too far from her, but further than she’s used to having him. He makes no move to come closer as he continues, “Still, I thought I’d have more time to ease you into the truth.”

“You killed Mr. Nottingham,” Regina says shakily. She doesn’t dare break their stare, and neither does he as he nods wordlessly.

“Might I ask why you decided to investigate the cemetery alone in the middle of the night?” he asks, clearly thinking back to the alleyway incident.

Regina steadies her breath before answering, much more calm than before, “I came prepared.” Her hand finds its way into her dress pocket, fiddling with her makeshift stake for a moment before letting it settle on the pocket watch instead. Derisively, she adds, “And Mary Margaret didn’t believe my suspicions.”

Robin’s dimples peak out at the tight smile he gives her, and her heart starts pounding for other reasons. “Well that’s a relief.”

“What are you?” Regina asks.

Robin arches an eyebrow. “I believe you know the answer to that.”

“A vampire.” The word startles her just as much as it had when it had fallen from Mary Margaret’s lips weeks before. It’s the first time Regina has said it aloud, but she feels oddly lighter once it’s finally out. Robin neither confirms nor denies the word — and she decides that’s confirmation in itself.

“Have you killed any more?” Regina can’t help asking.

Robin’s face grows somber at question. “The serial killer that had been on the loose when I’d first arrived. A few men with similar hobbies as Mr. Nottingham. And Ms. DeVille, who’d been mistreating her servants and skinning puppies on the side.”

Regina grimaces, but clarifies, “Only criminals?”

“A man’s gotta eat.”

At this she nods, her heartbeat calming at these revelations. “Do you plan to eat me?” she asks, though she knows the answer already. She feels a slight pang of guilt as she watches his eyes widen in shock.

“Never,” he asserts. Then he hesitates, and she raises an eyebrow in question.

Robin sighs. “I’d meant to take the time to ease into all of this. I hadn’t imagined you would jump so quickly to lore theories.” His dimples peak back at his small tease.

“My father says I have good intuition,” she boasts. She smiles back this time as his own grin widens. The pounding of her heart has lightened to flutters by now.

“You’re taking this rather well,” he notes, taking a small step closer to her. She thinks of the small wooden stake in her pocket, and decides it’s best not to mention its existence.

“You only go after bad people,” she states again, and at his nod she adds, “And you don’t plan on hurting me?” Again, he hesitates, and this has her tensing once more.

“I have… a proposal for you,” he starts.

When he doesn’t continue, Regina remarks, “I thought the proposal was already given earlier tonight.” Her hand leaves her pocket to run her fingers absently over her new engagement ring.

“That’s part of it,” Robin hedges. Then he sighs. “This life… it gets to be rather lonely when you don’t have someone else like you. I told you, I came here to find a companion. Someone to love, who would hopefully love me back. Someone willing to join me in this world of immortality.”

Regina blinks. For all of her suspicions of his intentions, she hadn’t once considered that. “You want to… turn me?”

“Only if you wish,” he clarifies. “I know this has all fallen out of my control. But I care for you, Regina. If you’re interested, I think we’d be a good match.”

“As your vampire lover?” She weighs over the idea, surprised to not be the slightest bit repelled by it.

“You told me you wish for freedom,” he says carefully. “This could give you exactly that. If you don’t mind having me by your side.”

The corners of Regina’s lips twitch up as she fights a smile. “I think the ring on my finger already shows I don’t mind having you around all that much.”

Robin grins in response, a further closes the space between them. He moves his hands to rest on her hips, relaxing when she moves her own to settle on his chest. “So what do you say, m’lady? Are you ready for a new adventure?”

She looks into his eyes for a moment before nodding. “I think I am.” She watches his smile widen to show his white teeth.

And she tenses in anticipation as he lowers his face to drop a soft, icy kiss on her cheek before moving his mouth to the pulse on her neck.

[evakuality]

Make a clear statement, straight up: Communication in Druck s3 (part two)

This is part two of my ongoing discussion of the theme of communication in s3 of Druck.  You can find part one over here: You look good tonight: Communication in Druck s3 (part one)

If episodes 1-4 were characterised by a growing buildup of trust and communication between Matteo and David, and were contrasted quite heavily with Matteo’s lack of communication with other people in his life, then episodes 5-7 take almost the opposite tack.  Matteo becomes much more able to communicate with the other people around him and David pulls back from it (and Matteo) in a lot of ways.  Since this got really long again, I’m splitting it in two parts: Matteo and David, and Matteo and everyone else.  I’ll post the ‘everyone else’ section in the next day or two.

Matteo and David

This episode starts, of course, with a very intimate scene of the two of them getting to know each other better.  Among the kissing etc there’s a lot of talking and laughing.  But an important point to note here is that we’re not privy to what they say for a lot of it.  We see it happening, but we’re not allowed to hear it.  As with episode two, this allows us to watch the build up of a connection but it still keeps us and them a little distanced.  We can’t tell what they’re talking about, or what sort of communicating they’re doing.  All we know is that they’re relaxed and happy and the focus here is on both of them whereas in episode 2 we got more of Matteo than David.  This is contrasted quite strongly in the later episodes, where we do see almost all of what they say, and which we’ll talk about in more detail when we get there.

Of course, once things turn more serious we do get to hear what is being said, and more importantly what is being communicated.  We, along with Matteo, learn that David is concerned very strongly with his own ability to have control.  He doesn’t like things that come in and take over, removing his ability to make his own choices and he says very clearly that if things went badly he’d run away, hide, wait out the storm.  He’s very clear about this.  To him, this is a specific and logical plan, but Matteo fails to pick up on what he’s actually saying.  To him it’s a philosophical puzzle: well, what about in a natural catastrophe?  How would you deal with that?  You can’t choose that happening.  To be fair to Matteo, David did pose it as a philosophical thing with the idea of believing in fate etc, and it seems like this is an extension of what he was doing in their first conversation: saying real stuff behind a mask or a curtain.  He’s more open, more willing to explain himself here, but there’s still enough here holding him back from being completely open.  And the way he’s choosing to talk about it, as a hypothetical possibility, means that Matteo and therefore by extension the audience doesn’t realise just how serious he is.  This is despite the fact that his body language is communicating exactly how important this is to him.  His hands in particular say a lot; the way they twist and the way he holds them and then the rest of his body, rigid and tense really gives a sense of how serious this is, but it’s done in such a low key quiet way that Matteo doesn’t really pick up on it and by extension the audience doesn’t either.  Of course, this is exacerbated by the show itself, when it does Matteo’s voiceover about the situation with his parents over a very light, silly, easy montage of them wrestling and having fun.  It undercuts the message and directs us away from it: very much as David has been trying to do.

This scene also tells us two clearly communicated things about the two of them which define who they are and how and why they act the way they do.  Matteo says specifically that being alone is bad, and David says in his usual convoluted way that living with non-family counts as being alone.  To Matteo, you need people and connection and it’s fairly clear that the isolation he’s been feeling from others is damaging him, and has been for a while.  This is presumably why the connection he’s creating with David is so important to him.  David, on the other hand, is making it obvious that connection with new people outside his family circle doesn’t ‘count’ - at least not in the same way.  To him, being alone is safe and secure; it’s a situation where you have total control and can rely on yourself, and this connection he’s forming with Matteo is difficult and scary because it’s undercutting that.  So what’s happening is that while they are being open with each other and communicating their thoughts and feelings, there are things hiding behind the words that aren’t necessarily being picked up on.  Having said that, the nonverbal communication between them is telling them both (the laughter, the easiness of the physical bond, the stupid playful fighting etc) that they enjoy each other, and they’re on the same wavelength, which is at least partly why the actual words are not being communicated as effectively as they might be.

In this episode we also get the start of David’s new way of communicating: through art.  Even though he still thinks he needs to isolate himself, he wants that connection despite it being something difficult and potentially scary in terms of what he has to say for it to something real.  This shows progress from episode two where he just left, but it’s still a certain unwillingness to really embrace that connection with Matteo.  Still, he keeps making visual connections with him.  Things like the ‘breathing underwater’ post that literally no-one but Matteo would get, and of course the little vampire pictures.  There’s a sense that even though he’s still holding himself aloof, he’s also wanting that connection to Matteo and is actively communicating that through these reasonably obscure things.  Things that will mean things to himself and to Matteo but won’t communicate anything to the rest of the world even as some are very public.  He continues to share himself with Matteo (in the form of a song he likes as well as his art) even after he’s made his decision to pull back.  So, to be clear, it’s important that David still makes these gestures after he’s told Matteo he’s not interested in anything with him.  There’s a reason why Matteo says he ‘can’t believe’ David isn’t interested, and it’s not just because of the way he acted when they were together.

The date they have together is also important in terms of their communication and their reactions to the connections they’ve been building.  It starts well, with them once again enjoying being together, playful and laughing.  Clearly spending a lot of time together and talking etc.  Once again, though, we’re not privy to those conversations.  All we see is the delight they have in each other and in being together.  When we do tune into their conversation it’s once again with a more serious, less cheerful message.  Matteo has been heartened by the time they just spent and he very clearly tells David that he broke up with his girlfriend for him.  One thing Matteo is actually very good at (with David) is clearly articulating what he feels and what he wants.  David, who has been probably consoling himself with ‘well he has a girlfriend, this can’t be too serious’ is suddenly confronted with reality (and again as people have pointed out, the things they do are often tinged with the ‘fake’ because there’s an air of unreality to it all that means he can pretend like this).  David now gets a clearly communicated declaration of intent from Matteo, both verbal ‘there’s this guy’ and nonverbal, the kiss, and he’s now faced with a dilemma.  His actions have all been communicating what he really feels: a deep connection to Matteo, but his words have been a little more obscure.  He says things he thinks he should be saying: I need to be alone, free will, hide and wait it out etc, but Matteo hasn’t picked it up (again, fair enough, since the body language has been saying something different). So it becomes imperative here, in David’s mind, to preserve his safety, and he does.  As Matteo did before him, he chooses to send a text with some truth in it ‘it’s gone a bit fast’ but also with some kindness ‘I need some time; don’t be angry’.  But, as Matteo learned before him, that text didn’t work and his partner comes to him to get answers.  And so we have a harsher text, this one a genuine lie.  Matteo doesn’t believe the content, but he sure believes the door shut firmly in his face and the intent behind the text.  He knows David likes him, but he also knows that he’s shut Matteo out, literally and figuratively, and he’s not sure why.

The fact that Matteo continuously uses the small pieces of David that he left for him (the song, the pictures etc) to feel closer to him is also important.  This allows him to easily go back to David; he’s got tangible reminders of exactly what he means to David.  Despite being out of contact during most of this next section of the show, and despite the seemingly clear ‘I’m not into you,’ Matteo takes and uses those things he knows, those things David has communicated about his true feelings, to settle himself.  Even at his most vulnerable and depressed, he still has those pieces there close by him, either listening to them or keeping them near him wherever he is in his room.  The connection they made has not been severed despite David’s attempts.  Partly because his nonverbal communication has been telling the real truth and Matteo knows it.

That means, of course, that Matteo is willing to fall into a hug when he sees David again.  He can see that there’s something wrong, see that he’s not his usual self and tbh he seems to have noticed during the end of their date as well; David is quieter, less able to talk properly, far less communicative than usual even in his body language.  There may not be any verbal communication in this final scene of this section, but they don’t need it at this point.  Matteo’s text to David was clear, thanks in part to his friends’ help, but also because as I said before, Matteo is very good at communicating his thoughts and feelings to David.  David sends a cryptic picture of them both running away to Detroit with other in-jokes that mean nothing to others, and Matteo finally thinks ‘well, that’s just not cutting it; I need clarity on what this all means’ and so he immediately does what the boys suggest: makes a clear declaration.  You either communicate with me properly or you leave me alone.  David hears it, gets it and comes.  Therefore they don’t need anymore words.  They just need that hug to know that things are still there.  It’s not perfect, they’re not ready to give themselves over entirely.  There are still things that are hiding (literally as David hides his face in Matteo’s shoulder), but they know they’re on the same page now.  

The title of this part is ‘make a clear statement, straight up’ and Matteo has actually been pretty good at doing this with David right through; it’s also somewhat ironic because the person saying it is literally not being ‘straight up’ in his communication with Hanna, and nor is Abdi with Sam.  However, Matteo’s ‘straight up’ communication with David does come to a head in this last scene, when he gets fed up with the back and forth, seemingly wishy washy, communication.  When he sends the message ‘stop sending me drawings if you don’t want to be together with me’ (a clear call back to the harsh text where david tells him this) we know Matteo isn’t fooling around, and so does David.  He’s been clear to this point, but now it’s not hidden behind a joke ‘sandwich fetish’ or light heartedness; it’s serious and direct.  There’s no room to mess around anymore.  This is giving a good set up for (mostly) good communication between these two in the final section of the season.  They get much better at making ‘a clear statement’ as the rest of the season continues.

Part three can now be found here: He doesn’t talk to me: Communication in Druck s3 (part three)

[maevefiction]

Your Light in the Mist - Chapter 39

I dumped my bag and the baked goods on the counter, then leaned back against it.

“He never joins your family for the holidays? But this year…he IS? Did someone tell him that you all know what he did? What the actual fuck, man?”

He shook his head. “Em and Sarah insist they haven’t said a word, and I sure as hell haven’t, and I don’t think Mum has…so we’re all completely blown out of the water by this. He called Mum earlier and essentially said ‘I’ve decided to join you Thursday and Friday’ and that was that. After the divorce, he showed up two years running, but once Em was ten he decided that his presence was no longer necessary because Christmas was for children and surely she’d grown past such foolishness by then. He never even bothered to show up last year, when Sarah and Ansh were finally able to join us at Christmas for the first time since having Saachi.”

I crossed my arms. “So, he doesn’t turn up for a first Christmas with his only grandchild but this year, he does? Is it because she’s a little older, maybe? Eh, that sounds ridiculous so I’ll say that is totally not the reason. What’s your take on this? Any ideas?”

His gaze fell to the floor, then returned to my face. I didn’t wait for him to speak.

“Oh for fuck’s sake you think it’s me, don’t you?” My arms uncrossed, one hand rising to my forehead and resting there, palm down. “But WHY? Why does he give even the remotest shit about you and I, if he hasn’t cared about anything else…OH MY FUCKING GOD, IT IS ME, isn’t it? Jesus…listen, babe, if you want me to sit this one out…”

Closing the distance between us, he took me in his arms, resting his chin on the top of my head. “Not. A. Chance. If you don’t feel comfortable going, I’m staying right here with you.” He leaned back, staring into my eyes. “And yes, I do think it’s related to you in some way. I just can’t quite figure out how or why.”

“Is that what your mother thinks? Is that who you were talking to?”

His head shook again. “No, that’s not what she thinks…I was talking to her and my sisters on a conference call. None of them know what to think. They’re just trying to figure out how to flow with it and not let it ruin the holiday. Which is a challenge and a half, after this past summer.”

I released him and grabbed the bakery bag from behind me. “Let’s have some cookies and put on our thinking caps and try and puzzle this out.”

A dozen over-sized chocolate chip delights and an hour later, we were no closer to solving the equation, likely because, as Tony Stark explained in the Avengers, we didn’t have all the variables.

Tom’s head was in his hands, elbows on the dining table amongst the crumby mess we’d made, and he spoke without looking up. “Bottom line is no matter what the man throws at you, IF he throws anything at you, that is…I know you can handle it, Maude. You on your weakest day is a thousand times more powerful than him on his strongest.”

As he glanced through his fingers at me, across the table, I raised a brow. “Uh, a thousand? Hyperbolize much, Tom?”

He sat up, smiling. “I do not. You simply underestimate your strength, my love.”

I rolled my eyes. “Puh-leaze. Stop it. Honestly, it’s all totally confusing and makes no sense and I’m slamming myself up against a logic wall at this point. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Which, as you know, fucking drives me bat crap crazy so…feel like going out for some burgers and wrapping supplies?”

Standing, he stretched, arms up toward the ceiling, his lower belly and happy trail peeking at me yet again. It was a view I would never tire of, for sure. When my eyes made their way up to his face, he was grinning. Caught, I was…red handed. Eyed? Something.

“That sounds perfect, actually. I’ll go put some pants on.”

I bit my lip. “Good. You do that. I’m going to use the facilities.” His mouth opened, but I cut him off. “I’m PEEING. Nothing else, you bastard. I am capable of restraint, you know.” A chuckle. “Oh, MAN…”

He jogged up the stairs, and shortly thereafter we were out the door and on our way.

****************************************

My alarm went off at six AM on Wednesday, and I left Tom all warm and naked in our bed to grab a cheese danish and a cup of tea before heading downstairs. I’d wrapped my gifts for him last night, having locked myself in the over-crowded spare room. At points I could hear him breathing heavily outside the door, and knew he was doing it on purpose to distract me in hopes of getting a look at what I’d gotten for him. He gave up after three attempts, and I was able to continue in peace. Diana had come to my aid, providing me with a list of all she could recall of the Jurassic Park toys Tom had played with as a child. One by one I’d tracked them down on eBay and had them sent to the office, and Simon had hidden them for me in our flat while we’d been gone. I’d even managed to score the rare Electronic T-Rex, Jungle Explorer Vehicle and the Command Compound, new and sealed in their boxes. The action figures weren’t quite as hard to find, and I’d gotten a set that included five of the main characters still in their original packaging. In addition to those, as a sort of gag-but-not-really gift, I’d found a very cool strap-on set that included six dildos, sized from kinda small to bigger than Tom’s own cock. THAT one I put off to the side so I wouldn’t accidentally bring it with us to Diana’s house…plus, I was hoping he would want to try it out, like, immediately after opening it. Part of me wanted to save it for Loki’s next visit, but I’d been thinking about it for months, and he’d mentioned it several times, so, no time like the present, right? The pièce de résistance was obtained via the most convoluted network of human beings I’d ever had to wrangle, a daisy chain that included Stephen Spielberg which had started with me and ended with Harrison Ford writing a letter and signing one of the fedoras he’d worn in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The only downside was that I was aware that it was likely a feat I would never, ever be able to top.

The shipment arrived as scheduled, eight AM on the dot, and the driver even schlepped it all downstairs for us. Everything had been prepped and ready to go, so Trudy and I set about getting all the servers in place so they’d be ready to connect once the utility company was done installing the T1 line…they’d turned up just after we’d opened the cartons. Everyone else was off for the day, so we cranked some tunes while we set up the network itself and installed all the software. As soon as our internet was accessible, we updated the newly-installed software, then began adding our own. Trudy and I had written the client management program together, though the base code was hers alone. It had functioned perfectly during previous testing, so we focused mainly on it running cross network and left it at that. Tom brought us lunch at around two, and after our break we dove into external DNS access, connectivity and security protocols. It was the most time-consuming and intricate part of the process, but by midnight we had a functional, locked down system that was ready for intensive testing, which was set to begin first thing Monday morning. From the look on Trudy’s face, though, I was reasonably sure that she’d be at it over the weekend if she got the chance. The only other remaining obstacle, other than testing, was the installation of security devices and alarms, and the company providing us with those was scheduled to come in on Tuesday. We celebrated our victory by inhaling an entire bag of truffles, high fiving each other and bragging about how we’d accomplished in a single day what Mark hadn’t been able to achieve in months. It was just after one AM when I dragged myself upstairs, then up the flat’s steps, stripped, and crawled in next to a slumbering Tom…and I would have thought he’d remained there for the entire day if it weren’t for the fact that he’d brought Trudy and I lunch.

Thursday afternoon found us on the road, quickly nearing Oxford, gifts tucked into the trunk of the Jaguar, our season’s greetings having been exchanged with Luke and Simon right before we’d left. They were spending the holiday with Luke’s parents, and Roland would be joining them for Boxing Day. U2 performing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) was on the radio, and I was watching Tom’s hands as he manipulated the steering wheel. An elegant man guiding an elegant machine. The brief feeling of positivity about the holiday I’d experienced on Tuesday had faded after the whole ‘dad’s coming’ thing, and I really, really felt like asking him to turn around so we could go back home and have our own private, peaceful Christmas….but I knew he’d say yes, and I didn’t want to be the one responsible for him missing out on time with his family, which, in spite of all the insanity, had always been precious to him, even more so since he’d started travelling for his career.

He turned to me, smiling. “All set for your first holiday with the future in-laws?”

“Sure. Yep. You betcha.”

His right hand left the wheel and pressed gently into my thigh. “I’m sorry it’s gone a bit off the rails, my love.”

I snorted. “When we write our joint biography, that’s SO going to be the title.”

“Oh, I like that. Fitting.”

“Unlike this damn bra.” I reached down the V-neck of my blood-red sweater and shifted my boobs back into place. The color was the closest I could force myself to come to being festively dressed, whereas Tom was wearing a bright green monstrosity that his mother had given him last Christmas. Apparently, that was her thing…new holiday sweaters for everyone each year. Shaking my head, I reminded myself to be grateful that it wasn’t one of the infamous UGLY Christmas style sweaters, and also that I needed to say a hearty thank you and pretend to like the one that was surely lying in wait for me to open tomorrow. I heard a car horn honk, and realized that Tom had drifted off to the side of the road because he was staring at my tits. “Dude. Eyes on the road. EYES ON THE ROAD.”

“I know, I know. Sorry. But surely you can’t expect me to look away when you’re fiddling with them so artistically and they’re shifting around with such buoyance like…like…”

“Like, boobs?”

He nodded. “Yes. Boobs. Do shut up now, Maude. Safety first, you know.”

“Oh, safety…speaking of, you know this seat belt really rubs against them something fierce…”

“Behave, lest Father Christmas decides you belong on the naughty list after all.”

I sighed in mock exasperation. “You are really, really mean, you know? But let’s be real, I’ve GOT to be on that naughty list already because what I bought YOU is…”

“NO SPOILERS. WE AGREED NO SPOILERS.”

“But it’s…”

“My lord, woman, NO. NO NO NO NO NO.”

I chuckled, then reached over to rest my hand on the nape of his neck, rubbing gently with my thumb. “No spoilers, babe. I promise.” He moaned quietly as I pressed harder. “How are you coping with this? It’s all strange and new for me, but you’re used to it being a certain way. You okay?”

His right hand returned to my thigh as he turned onto the street that would take us to his childhood home. “You’re right, I am accustomed to the holidays being as they’ve always been since he stopped coming, and if I’m honest, it’s been vastly better that way. But it is what it is, and I’m just going to focus on the fact that it’s our first Christmas together and…well…fuck everything else.”

“Fuck everything else. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

He grinned, rotating the wheel to the right as he pulled into the driveway, two other cars already neatly parked in front of the garage. “No, you couldn’t have…because it’s essentially the exact phrasing you would have chosen, is it not?”

“You are correct, sir. Did you perchance buy me a thesaurus for Christmas so I can expand my vocabulary?”

He put the car in park, leaned over and bit my neck. “I did no such thing. I happen to both admire and adore your vocabulary. Especially your habitual overuse of things like ‘oh yes’ and ‘oh god’ and ‘fuck me’.”

I bit my bottom lip and smiled, left brow raised. “I love you, you ridiculously horny dork.”

He laughed and pinched my cheek. “Lobbing that right back at you.”

We were grabbing our first load of stuff from the trunk when the yelling started. It was faint at first, and high pitched, and then I saw an adorable tiny human running towards us.

“Uncle Tommy! Happy Christmas! Happy Christmas!”

She was gorgeous, big dark eyes, dark brown hair, two shoulder-length braids bouncing and flying out behind her as she drew closer. I knew she was four, and thought she was probably of average height for that age, but in truth I had no fucking idea because children were like creatures from another planet to me. The way Tom squatted down to catch her in his arms then lifted her up, first spinning her, then popping her onto his shoulders and running a few laps around the driveway as he screamed ‘yay’ right along with her made my heart melt, and when I imagined him doing the same thing with our own child, I found it hard to breathe. Tom ran back to me, Saachi still on his shoulders, both of them grinning like fools. An unfamiliar voice caused me to inhale sharply, and I saw a woman approaching us quickly. She was about my height, though I was wearing my Diva Darcies so that stacked the deck a bit, slender, bearing a strong resemblance to Tom but with a different nose, a good amount of visible freckles across her cheeks and strawberry-blonde hair. I’d only seen her in pictures until this moment, and her hair had been much longer, down to her waist, as opposed to the chin-length bob she was sporting was now…but there was no doubt it was Sarah.

“Saachi, what did we decide? We decided that we’d wait for Uncle Tom and Aunt Maude to come INSIDE before throwing ourselves at them, did we not?”

Aunt Maude. Not helping with the breathing difficulties. Sarah strode toward me first, arms wide open, wrapping me in a snug embrace that I was barely able to return. She pulled back, hands grasping my forearms as she looked me up and down, smiling beatifically.

“Maude, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’d like to formally welcome you to the insanity that is every single Hiddleston holiday. And pretty much every Hiddleston gathering, come to think of it.” Her hands slid down to hold mine, lifting the left one up to examine my ring. “My word, this is so unique and stunningly elegant.” She released me as she turned to Tom. “Well done, little brother. Saachi, have you said hello to Aunt Maude yet?”

Saachi shook her head, and Tom lifted her off his shoulders and placed her gently on the ground. She held out one tiny hand, looking up at my shyly. “Hello, Auntie Maude. ‘S nice to meet you.”

I leaned down and took her hand in mine, shaking very gently, terrified that I’d somehow break her. “Hi Saachi. It’s nice to meet you too.”

She paused, glancing down at my feet then back up at my face, nodding, still holding my hand. “I like your shoes. Come inside and help us decorate the tree. Grandma has lots of pretty things we have to hang today so Father Christmas will come tonight.”

And with that, I was led up the driveway by the adorable tiny human, her mother and uncle following behind me, both giggling, their arms around each other’s waists.

An incredibly handsome man with dark hair to his shoulders and nearly-black eyes was waiting in the doorway. He squatted down, hands on the knees of his jeans. “Well, my Saachi, I see you’ve brought us a new friend. Thank you.” He ruffled her hair as he stood, then extended his hand toward me. “Hello, Maude. I’m Ansh, but you likely knew that already. Lovely to meet you.”

We shook briefly, as Saachi was tugging on my other hand. “Good to meet you as well, Ansh. I’d stay and chat but I think someone has other plans…”

He laughed. “She always has some sort of plan. Gets that from her mother.”

Sarah and Tom had caught up to us, and she reached out and slugged Ansh in the shoulder. “If I didn’t always have a plan, where would you be, Ansh? Back home, that’s where. At the airport, eight hours late.”

He kissed her cheek. “You speak the truth, my love. I am grateful for your plans. Unquestionably.”

She chuckled, and they led the way into the living room. Saachi pulled me forward, and Tom took hold of my other hand. The staircase had been done up with fresh pine garland and white lights, and the tree was directly ahead, at the front-facing portion of the living/drawing room. It had white lights as well, and plastic tubs full of decorations were scattered around it, and on the closest couch as well. Diana was bent over one of the tubs, Emma was holding another and rummaging through it, and behind her was David, her fiancé. She’d shown me pictures of him on her phone, and I hadn’t thought he’d be so tall…same height as Tom, stockier build, and an honest-to-goodness genuine ginger with green eyes. He’d taken a single step toward me when Diana and Em noticed we’d arrived, both rushing ahead of David to dole out hugs. Diana reached me first, and Saachi let go of my hand in order to move out of the way, skipping over to stand at her mother’s side.

“Maude! Welcome, welcome! I’m so glad you came.” She squeezed me, then kissed my cheeks. “You look beautiful in that color. How are you? How’s your new project coming along?” Laughing and shaking her head, she released me. “You can answer over dinner…I’m sure you and Tom want to finish unloading the car and getting everything up to your room. Same as last time for you both so you have your own bath. Sarah and Ansh are in my room, Em and Dave are in Sarah’s old room, James will be in Em’s old room, and I’m in Tom’s.”

I could feel my eyes widen, remembering what havoc we’d wreaked on Tom’s bed during our last visit. “You know, we’d be just fine in Tom’s room…”

Diana grinned slyly. “No, no, it’s all right. I’ll be perfectly comfortable in the new double I had put in last week. Long overdue, truthfully. That old single had seen far better days.” She winked at me, and I tried to not die on the spot as she switched places with Em, who stared at my rapidly reddening cheeks, then giggled as she embraced me, whispering in my ear.

“Never underestimate Mum’s ability to find things out, Maude. She’s like Sherlock, but…worse.”

We released each other, my neck and chest now flushed as well. “Oh. My. God. Sooo…does EVERYONE know we broke the bed? Distant relatives? Friends from work? Random strangers? Should I start wearing a ski mask when I’m out in public?”

Em doubled over, laughing. “Oh, Maude…you are hilarious.”

Tom and Diana had separated, her attention diverted to Saachi, who was peeking out from behind Diana’s legs and waving at me. I waved back, feeling Tom’s hand come to rest on my lower back.

“What’s hilarious, Em?”

She pointed at me, trying to compose herself and failing. “Her. Ask her. I can’t.”

And with that I grabbed Tom, pulling him back toward the door. “Let’s get the rest of the stuff now, m’kay?”

As soon as we were outside he turned his head in my direction, in step with me as we headed for the car. “So, does our hasty exit have something to do with what was hilarious?”

I nodded. “Yup.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And I thought this was the part where you tell me what was…”

“Your mother knows we broke your bed.”

We’d reached the car, and he had the keys in his hand, ready to open the trunk, but promptly dropped them onto the pavement upon hearing my words. His mouth hung open, then snapped shut before he reached down to pick them up, then spoke.

“I’m sorry…what was that again?”

“Your mother. She knows. That we broke your childhood bed. While having sex.”

He leaned on the car for support. “Well fuck ME.”

I snorted. “Exactly the root of the problem.”

He shook his head, eyes wide, now standing erect, hands out to the side at shoulder level. “And to think I spent all those years managing to not get caught tossing off, yet a single visit home with you…”

“Mmm hmm. Sorry, sunshine...joke all you like, but I have no idea how I’m going to go back in there.”

He reached out a hand, which I grudgingly accepted, then pulled me into his arms. “I’ll be right there with you, by your side, your eternal partner in familial mortification. We’ll take the mickey together.”

I sighed, gazing up at him. “This isn’t ever going to go away, is it?”

“Oh, no. Never. We’ll be a hundred and fifty and they’ll still be going on about it.” His eyes closed briefly. “My mother knows I had vigorous sex in my childhood bedroom with my wife-to-be. That’s not so awful, is it? I mean, it’s obvious that we HAVE sex, is it not? We’re adults, in our thirties, we live together…one should assume…”

“And your sister. Don’t forget about your sister. And probably your other sister. And…”

“Good lord, my sisters. Get in the Jag, my love…next stop, home.”

I pulled him down to me, kissing him gently at first, then sucking his bottom lip into my mouth. He groaned when I released him.

“Maude.”

“What?”

“Now I’m sporting a raging hard-on. Lovely accompaniment to my other problem, that.”

Grinning, I took the keys from him and opened the trunk, loading myself up with bags. “Figured maybe that would give them something else to discuss besides the bed, you know?”

“Fantastic.”

“I thought so, anyway.”

He rested one hand on my shoulder and I turned to find his face an inch from mine. “My mother knows I have sex.”

I nodded. “Your mother knows you have sex with ME. We’re just going to pretend this never happened and if anyone mentions it I’m going to feign a fainting spell and you can carry me out to the car and we’ll escape. Sound like a plan?”

“Yes, but then they’re likely to think you’re pregnant…”

“Shut the fuck up, Tom.”

Laughing, he kissed my cheek and grabbed the remainder of our luggage. “Yes, ma’am. Will do."

****************************************

We shot right upstairs to our room upon re-entry, sat on the bed for a few minutes, then walked down the stairs to meet our fate. Everyone was busy decorating, and we helped hang ornaments, Saachi picking them out and instructing me where to place them. Just when I thought we were in the clear, Tom pressed against me from behind to put a fragile bauble higher up and I lost my balance, falling forward and almost taking out the eight foot spruce. He caught me by quickly wrapping one arm around my waist, but the tree was left shaking like mad.

Sarah broke the brief silence that followed in my clumsy dork wake. “Easy there, you two. Beds we’ve aplenty, but there’s only one tree.”

Everyone burst out laughing, including the man holding my sorry ass up…though he tried to disguise it, I could feel his chest vibrating against my back. I was in the middle of turning around to take a bow when the doorbell rang and the room fell silent yet again.

Diana cleared her throat and spoke, her voice bright and cheery. “Well, that’s Dad, then. I’ll see him in.”

My eyes met Tom’s, then noted him swallowing repeatedly before smiling at me. I stood at his side, our arms around each other’s waists, waiting, listening to distant voices that drew ever closer until their source came into full view. Tom’s father was around his height, strikingly handsome, hair gone completely white. I could see bits of Tom in his face, and similarities in the way he held himself. Elegant, just shy of regal. He was wearing a light blue button down shirt under a navy blazer, paired with khaki slacks and toffee brown deck shoes. His accent, though not as strong as it likely was before relocating to England, was still present, and the melodic Scottish lilt combined with the pitch of Tom’s voice reminded me of Sean Connery.

“Hello, all. Happy Christmas.”

His greeting seemed to hang in the air, creating an undercurrent of tension, awkwardness and uncertainty. No one replied, except for Saachi.

“Happy Christmas, Granddad. Your hair is very white. Mummy says we’ve met before but I don’t remember because I was a baby then and babies aren’t good at remembering.”

He went to her instantly, squatting down before her and taking her hand, then planting a kiss on the top of it.

“My, you’ve grown into a beautiful young lass, Saachi. I’m very glad to see you.”

She giggled and pulled her hand away, eyes narrowing. “Have you brought me a present?”

Sarah groaned. “Saachi, remember your manners, please.” James stood, and Sarah embraced him tentatively. “Hello, Dad. Good to see you.”

Ansh garnered a handshake, as did Dave, and Em was the recipient of a hug, which she returned with visibly shaking hands. That left Tom. And me. James closed the distance between himself and us in four striding steps. He reached out and patted Tom’s upper arm.

“Thomas. How are you, son?”

Tom returned the gesture. “Fantastic, Dad. You?”

James nodded. “Quite well, quite well.” He turned to me. “And you must be Maude.”

I faked a smile. “Lovely to meet you, Mr. Hiddleston.” When I extended my hand, he accepted and shook vigorously.

“The feeling’s mutual. And please, call me James.”

I nodded as he released me and turned to Diana. “I believe I was promised some of your famous fish and chips, Di. It’s been far too long…”

She rolled her eyes. “All battered, the fryer’s been ready for an hour, waiting on you.”

He laughed, she laughed, and the rest of just stared at each other, heads tilted like a pack of confused puppies.

Dinner was delicious, but the undercurrent of strangeness permeated the atmosphere. Desert was assorted puddings served with coffee and tea, as well as the sugar cookies Diana had baked and decorated to make me feel more at home, as it wasn’t part of their tradition. Saachi decided that from that point on, they would be. She began to doze off at nine-thirty or so as we all sat in the living room after a round of caroling, her head bobbing and finally coming to rest on Sarah’s upper arm. Ansh scooped her up, and when she woke briefly she mumbled something about presents then was out cold again. When he and Sarah came back downstairs after tucking her in, James cleared his throat and stood, moving to the center of the horseshoe of couches, hands extended, palms up as he addressed the room.

“Well then. I’d imagine you’re all wondering what in heaven’s name I’m doing here, and I aim to explain as best I can, but wanted to wait until the little one was off to bed first.” No one moved, no one spoke, and after he was certain things would remain as such, he continued. “Simply put, your mother invited me to join the family for Christmas.”

Sarah, who was seated closest to Diana, turned to her, eyes wide. “Mum. You invited him? Is he serious?”

Diana nodded. “Yes. I did. He is.” She glanced pointedly at each of her progeny in turn. “And as a favor to your Mum, I’m requesting that you please allow him to continue.” Sarah returned her gaze to James, nodding curtly along with Tom and Emma.

James cleared his throat again. “Back in August, she reached out to me and asked me over for dinner so we could discuss a few…things. She advised me of what you all had spoken about, making it clear that the reason for our divorce was no longer a matter just between the two of us. Since then, we’ve been talking frequently. About the past, mainly, but also about the future. And we’ve…well, we’ve become rather decent friends.”

It was Emma’s turn for an outburst. “Friends? Surely you’re joking. Or I’m dreaming, or I’m in some parallel universe. Friends? Mum? Have you both lost your minds?”

Diana laughed. “Sometimes I wonder, love. But yes. We’ve spent a good bit of time going over everything, from the moment we met until we divorced, trying to figure it all out, what went wrong, the why of it, and…it just seemed it was something we needed to do, once and for all, I suppose.”

Sarah shook her head, eyes on Diana, left index finger pointing at James. “After everything he’s done…you’ve FORGIVEN him?” Her voice was raw, full of emotion she was struggling to contain.

Diana shook her head as well. “Sarah, it isn’t always about forgiveness. Sometimes it’s about closure. And acceptance.”

James nodded, his expression grim. “I would never, ever expect your mother to forgive me for my actions. They were unconscionable. Indefensible. Deplorable. Nor would I expect any of you to forgive them. That’s not why I’m standing before you. I’m here to apologize, though I understand that such a thing is likely too little and too late. But I’m doing it anyway. Sarah and Emily, I’m sorry you lived your lives without me when you needed a father most, though perhaps you were better off, and I’m sorry you were left wondering what went wrong between your mother and me. It was wrong, of both of us, to deny you your own closure, to not tell you the truth. And Tom…the way you found out what I’d been doing, that you carried that with you for so long, a burden so heavy, all on your own…and that you thought at some point you were to blame for the divorce…I…” He cleared his throat, overcome with emotion he likely didn’t want to display. “The three of you deserved better. Your mother deserved better. Over the past few years, as I’ve begun to not recognize the old man I see in the mirror every morning because he can’t possibly be ME…I started to view the past with new eyes. I can see my selfishness, the pain I’ve caused, the destruction I’ve wrought. I’ve lain awake many a night wishing I could go back and change it. But I can’t. And that’s the worst of it. I can’t take it back, I can’t make it disappear. And I’m not going to make excuses for myself, but I feel that I need to be honest, for a change…my first marriage ended, but the hurt…didn’t. And that was not something a man like me admits, especially to himself. So I told myself that love was useless, that it was pointless frivolity. And I believed it, like a religion. From that point forward, that’s how I lived my life. I liked, respected and enjoyed your mother, but I wouldn’t allow myself to become emotionally attached. Same thing with all of you. I focused on my career, and I permitted myself to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh, but love…that had left me betrayed and broken, and I maintained a firm, albeit foolish, resolve that I was never going to let that happen again.”

Again, silence fell over the room.

“So. Here we are. I suppose the point of what I said there is that what I’ve learned is that allowing your past to walk with you in the present does irreparable harm to the future, and not only yours, but that of those around you. As I said, I expect no forgiveness from you. I’m unworthy of it. But I came, because…because I wanted to tell you, in person, that you three, my children, you are all intelligent, talented, loving, caring people. And I am grateful for that now, each and every day. And I thank your mother for doing all the work of raising you, for being there for you, and teaching you how life should properly be lived. It’s not about money, it’s not about success, it’s not about power…it’s about the connections you form with the people around you. It doesn’t matter so much when you’re young and you have, seemingly, nothing but time…but when you get to be my age, time is short, and you look back and see all you missed, all you wasted…” He paused, inhaling deeply before continuing. “And now, all of you have your own connections, love in your lives. I’m grateful for that too. And I know it’s far too much to ask of you, after everything, but I shall do so anyway as your mother said I should, but if you would allow me to participate in events such as this, and, perhaps, eventually, to get to know you again, to learn all the things I should already know…well, I would welcome the opportunity. Very much so.”

And with that, he sat back down, arms crossed in front of him. What he’d said about the past walking with you in the present struck a chord with me, and I focused on that for the moment. It was still completely quiet, Tom’s hand now in mine, his eyes fixed on the floor, jaw clenched. Diana rose from her spot.

“Well, what say we put presents under the tree?”

Sarah got up so quickly that Ansh jumped, startled. “Great idea, Mum.”

And then, as so many families do, we simply carried on as if none of it had ever happened.

****************************************

Sarah and Ansh said goodnight first, reminding us that Sacchi would likely be up at a ridiculously early hour, which led to a mass exodus toward the second floor. There were hugs all around, but for James hanging back, and good tidings shared. After closing the door behind us, Tom half-jogged to the bed, sat down and rested his head in his hands. I walked to sit at his side, placing one hand on his lower back, then slowly circling, hoping to soothe.

“Maude. Did…I just…I really don’t know what to DO with all of this. I’m not even sure what I heard. This is…it’s…”

“Don’t put any pressure on yourself to do something right now. Take your time. Process it.” I snorted. “Said the woman who took an eternity to come to terms with her own familial bullshit.”

He lifted his head, a tiny smile upon his lips. “I adore you.”

“Of course you do.” I reached out with my free hand and cupped his chin, thumb gently stroking his stubbly cheek. “In all seriousness, though…how can I help? Do you need to vent? Rant?”

His head shook back and forth. “Not sure what I’d rant or vent about…too confused, because I just received an apology that I never saw coming nor ever imagined getting. I truly believed it would be about you, his reason for being here. But I think that might have been because of my own fear, that my father wouldn’t like you, that he wouldn’t approve of you, and it makes me sick to think that after all he’s done and all this time, that deep down, his opinion matters to me and I still crave his approval and his respect and his blessing and…and…” His voice broke as he began to sob. “And…and…his…lo…love.”

I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him to my chest, and he wept upon my shoulder, uncontrollably, struggling to silence himself but unable to do so completely. Every time a gasp or muted wail escaped him I had to rein in a wince, as it reminded me of how both he had broken down in our hotel room in New Orleans and how I’d done the same at my mother’s house. This time, at least, I was fully present and able to offer him comfort. He clung to me as I stroked the back of his head and rocked him, and as he began to calm I whispered in his ear.

“I’m here. It’s okay, baby. I know. I know how it hurts. I understand. I love you.”

My sentiments were repeated until he spoke, his face buried in the crook of my neck. His voice was ragged, but soft. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I love you too.”

Just as I opened my mouth to say for what seemed like the millionth time that he need not apologize I felt his own mouth open, teeth sinking into my flesh, lips pressing, followed by suction so powerful it made my toes curl.

“Well hello there, Hiddleston. Damn. This is…unexpected. But please, do continue.”

He growled, fumbling with the hem of my sweater, working his hand inside to caress my left breast through the satin of my bra. Right after he began to pinch my hardened nipple, he pulled away from me, yanking his own sweater off over his head and blowing his nose in it. The snarky comment on my lips was suppressed by his tongue thrusting into my mouth as he guided me into a standing position. I bit down on it and he moaned, hips jutting forward and grinding against me. The kissing continued, sloppy and wet, a long string of saliva still connecting us when we finally came up for air and attempted to separate. Neither of us said a word, the only sound in the room the discordant noise of us removing our shoes and stripping off our clothes as quickly as humanly possible, flinging them everywhere. I looked away from my bra hooks for a moment to find him watching me, pupils blown, jaw clenched. My nether region did some clenching of its own as I completed the task at hand, spun the bra around on my index finger, then let it fly through the air to land on the dresser top. He remained where he was, and I strode toward him, biting my lip as I noticed his cock twitch. Leaning forward when I reached him, I blew on his chest hairs, the initial shiver intensifying as my tongue snaked out and circled his right nipple, then his left. When I added teeth, he pushed me up and off him, then walked me backwards to the bed. His voice was dripping with desire when he spoke, as was his cock.

“Hands and knees for me? On the bed?”

I nodded, mouth agape, panting at the thought of him taking me from behind. While there wasn’t a single position I didn’t like, doggy style was one of my favorites. Just a flash of what it always felt like, his hips slapping against my ass, was enough to cause a rush of wetness that began to trickle down my thighs. I turned and clambered onto the bed, scooting up far enough so he had room to join me, wiggling my own hips suggestively and peeking over my shoulder back at him. He was on me in a heartbeat, pulling my cheeks apart, one nimble finger dipping into me, then pulling out to circle my clit.

“The view from back here, woman. I wish you could see it, see yourself spread wide…open and ready. Ready for me. For my cock. Are you ready for my cock, Maude?”

I whimpered, quietly, I thought, but he heard me anyway.

“Oh, I’m of a mind that you’re MORE than ready.” The head nudged my entrance. “Are you? More than ready? Have you reached the point of desperation? Is it driving you mad, feeling me so close but not where you need me to be most?”

With that I slammed backwards, taking him all in, and the sound he made was half scream, half moan and entirely too loud. He grabbed my hips and began thrusting, hard, fast, and grunting with every single re-entry. I felt his fingers intertwine with my hair, then tugging on it gently but firmly and holding my head in place. He slowed, regaining some semblance of control, which I snatched away by rolling my pelvis and pushing back against him, parrying his thrusts. The hand that had been in my hair disappeared and his arm wrapped around my chest, pulling me up and back, until my ass was resting on his thighs, my knees bent and spread wide, feet resting on either side of him. He ran his tongue up and down the back of my neck as he began to massage my clit, and I squealed. His response was a whisper, and his hot breath on my ear making me clench around him.

“Ride. Me.”

“Yep. Sounds good. Will do.”

I lifted myself off his cock slowly, then sank back down, then again, and again and again, my tempo increasing with each instance as I drew closer to orgasm. As it began he propelled us both forward again, me coming to rest on my elbows with my cheek pressed to the bed, him on top of me, body covering me like a blanket, holding himself up with one arm at first so he could continue playing with my clit, then shifting as the need for additional support arose when he came, hips jerking erratically, mouth open and lips on my shoulder, moaning and whimpering as he spent himself inside me, my walls squeezing and pulsing, leaving me without words, or thoughts, feeling nothing but the pleasure in that moment.

We remained as we were until our panting returned to simply breathing, his chin resting on my shoulder. Tom regained the power of speech first, which was not a single bit surprising.

“Sorry if the timing of that appears questionable. I just…I…”

I pushed myself up on my hands, and he lifted himself off me and rolled us over. I pulled away from him, his cock slipping out of me as I did so, then rolled again to face him, index finger tracing the line of his jaw.

“No need to say it. I understand what you ‘just’.” And I did, absolutely. Receiving comfort, wanting to lose your pain in pleasure, the desire for closeness, fulfilling that desire via the act that brings you as physically close to another human as you can possibly be, reminding yourself of what’s good, affirming that you love and are loved.

He reached out to bring me closer, and I buried my face in his neck, and he buried his in my hair, stroking my back as he murmured how much he loved me and I did the same. It seemed like we’d just fallen asleep when we heard Saachi screaming excitedly out in the hallway.

“It’s morning! It’s morning! Father Christmas came! And he left presents! PRESENTS FOR ME!”

Tom and I donned our pajamas and robes, which I’d made sure to bring when he informed me that no one in the Hiddleston house dressed on Christmas day until it was time for dinner, which was actually lunch. No official breakfast, either, just chocolates and sweets and fruit and caffeinated beverages, which sounded acceptable to me. As we descended the stairs the smell of roasting turkey hit my nostrils and my stomach growled loudly. Tom snickered, and I punched him in the arm.

“It’s like, not even 6 AM yet, dude. How long has your mother been up?”

Diana’s voice sounded from below. “Birds went in the oven at 4:30.” She came into view as we reached the bottom few steps, standing in the living room doorway, wearing a Christmas apron over a fluffy green robe. “This lot is not exactly patient when it comes to food, sad to say. Happy Christmas, Maude. And you too, son of mine. Treats are all laid out…grab a handful and come on in and see what Father Christmas brought for our darling girl. Or our tiny whirling dervish, which is more fitting for today.”

We were the last ones down, everyone else seated either on one of the couches or on the floor, all pajama-clad. A group shout of ‘Happy Christmas’ ensued, and I felt like I was starring in the British version of A Christmas Story, which was amusing until I realized that I was the prime candidate for pulling a Ralphie and saying fuck. Tom and I sat on the couch facing the fireplace, next to Dave and Emma. Sarah and Ansh were on the floor, helping Saachi with her gifts, among which were puzzles, books, various stuffed creatures, and an iPad. Sarah noticed me staring at it, not realizing it was with awe.

“I know, I know…we’re going to limit screen time, but we just think there’s so much for her to learn…”

I blinked, slowly comprehending what her comment meant. “Oh, sorry, Sarah…not why I was gawking. I just really, really love the design of Apple stuff. It’s like high art…flawless, seamless, feels as if it’s an extension of you when you hold it.” Tom chuckled, and I elbowed him in the ribs. “The kid stuff…no clue. But I guess I need to GET a clue.”

Emma shrieked. “OH MY GOD, MAUDE, ARE YOU PREGNANT?”

My brain short-circuited, and I realized Tom hadn’t been kidding about them thinking that if I fainted, and he graciously jumped in to do damage control.

“Christ, Em. It’s too early for that decibel level. No, she’s not.” He turned to me, silently asking if I thought it acceptable to discuss our plans. Though it made me incredibly nervous, it being said out loud, and the fact that it would now be obvious if we weren’t successful, it was my own carelessness that had opened this particular can of worms, so I nodded for him to continue. “Or I should say, not yet. We’re going to start trying soon, once I’m done filming, most likely.”

Within seconds I found myself being hugged and kissed by all of them in succession, with the exception of James, who simply said ‘jolly news’ but remained seated, drinking a glass of milk. Saachi rescued me by stating that all her Father Christmas gifts had been opened and now it was time to see what we’d all gotten for her. Tom went to the tree to retrieve our gifts, and she followed him back to the couch and climbed into his lap, tearing open the first one before she was fully seated. It was a giraffe-printed T-shirt with a cartoon giraffe on the front, munching on some leaves.

“Oh, a giraffe! Look, Mummy!” She held the shirt up. “It’s beautiful!”

Next came matching pants, sweatshirt, and sneakers. Tom saved the best for last, and when she removed the paper and saw a plain cardboard box she gazed up at him. “I do like boxes very much, Uncle Tommy. Thank you.”

The room erupted in laughter, and I reached out to help her open it. When she saw what was inside she gasped, reached inside and pulled out the eighteen-inch high plush giraffe I’d found for her. Unlike most, its proportions were correct, which she noticed immediately. “Oh, he’s just like a REAL giraffe.” She turned to her parents. “I have my very own real-like giraffe. His name is Charlie, and we’re going to be best friends.” Snuggling him to her chest, which was adorable because he was so giant, she turned back to me. “Thank you, Auntie Maude. I love you now.” And with that, she hopped off Tom’s lap and onto mine, hugging me tightly, Charlie between us. As I returned the embrace, the fragility of her, the smallness, this little person, putting her trust in me was incredibly overwhelming and I found myself both struggling not to cry and beaming like an idiot.

She left me soon after when Ansh said her iPad was ready to use, and the rest of us began to open our presents. There was no rhyme or reason to it, other than Diana matching gifts with each individual and piling them nearby. Tom and I were lost in our own little world, choosing to open our presents to each other before ones from family. He insisted that I go first, and I argued, but he smiled that smile and I had no choice but to give in.

The first was a team Jersey, navy blue, and I wondered if he’d lost his fucking mind until I unfolded it and saw my name on the front left breast in white, with the number 31 smack in the center. The back was the same, but across the top over the number was ‘TEAM HIDDLESTON’. I stared at him, and he grinned.

“That’s your team jersey. We’ve all got one. The number is…”

“My birthday.”

He nodded. “Yes. Your birthday.”

“All the swear words.”

His head tilted. “What?”

I raised my left hand, palm towards him. “That’s me using profanity without using profanity.”

“Oh, I like that. Here, do this one next.” He handed me large, flat object, heavier than I expected. I removed the wrapping, and realized it was a frame. Inside was a poster. A movie poster. The Matrix. One of my very favorite films. And when I finally really LOOKED at it, I noticed that there were signatures. Three of them. Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Laurence Fishburne.

“Thomas. Are these real? They can’t be real. Are they REAL?”

He nodded again, chuckling and licking his lips.

“ALL THE SWEAR WORDS TIMES A MILLION. How did you…my god, this is AMAZING. You are amazing. Thank you. Wow. I cannot EVEN.”

There was one more for me, a small item, the size and shape of a CD case. I peeled back the paper, and there I was, mid-song, from Hawaii karaoke. Down at the bottom was my name, with the words ‘Back to Black’ under it, and a logo. Skrillex. My mouth dropped open. “Dude. What. Is. This.”

“That’s you. From Kauai, doing Back to Black. Remastered by Skrillex. If you’ll look at the back you’ll see he did a remix for you as well.”

“NO HE DID NOT.”

Tom laughed. “Oh yes he did. Shall we listen to it now?”

I threw my arms around him. “Hiddleston, you are so thoughtful and kind and sweet and I love you, you bastard.” He hugged me back, and I pulled away. “But no, we’ll listen to it later. You have to open your stuff now. Plus I don’t think I want present company to hear me singing about a dude keeping his dick wet.”

“Excellent point. In addition, your voice does things to me…”

“Yes. Duly noted. Later. Anyway. Open the giant box first.”

I’d put all the Jurassic Park toys inside a single box, because I felt if he saw one it would be like he’d seen them all and let’s face it, there’s nothing quite like a box full of toys just waiting for you to love them. He peeled back the paper, popped the tape, lifted the flaps and the expression he wore when he realized what was inside filled me with such joy I thought I’d burst. He turned to me in disbelief.

“How did you…where did you…are these really…” He removed the electronic T-Rex from the box. “IT IS. ORIGINAL.” The rest followed suit quickly, and he placed them gently on the floor after giving them the once-over, alternating between grinning, giggling, and shaking his head. “Maude. It’s like I’m a kid again. On Christmas. This is incredible. Thank you.” With that, he kissed me, and it went on long enough for Sarah to feel the need to tell us to get a room already.

We laughed, blushing, and I decided to fess up. “I can’t take all the credit, you know. Your mom made me a list of what she could remember you having. All I did was find the stuff on eBay.”

He pinched my cheek. “Yes, but you’re the one who thought to do it.” He glanced at Diana. “Thanks, Mum. You’re becoming a regular Sneaky Pete, aren’t you?” She nodded, and I pointed to the other box, smaller than the first.

“Dude, open it. I can’t stand waiting another second.”

Of course he removed the paper at a snail’s pace just to torture me, and then pretended to not know how to get the lid off properly. His face lit up like a thousand suns when he saw the fedora.

“My very own Indiana Jones fedora. I hope you realize I’m going to where this everywhere we go forever and ever from this day forward.” As he lifted it out of the box with the intent of putting it on, I figured I should draw his attention to what he was actually holding. I reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“You might want to take a gander at the inside before you wear it.”

His puzzled gaze met my mildly impatient one, and he flipped it over.

“My god. Oh my god. OH. MY. GOD.” He stood, hat in his hand, his last comment so loud that everyone was staring at him. Emma snorted.

“Tom. It’s a hat. It’s lovely. Pipe down, won’t you?”

Tom shook his head. “It’s not just a hat. It’s a fedora signed by Harrison Ford. Indiana Jones.”

I tugged on his robe but he didn’t notice, so I stood, pausing to pull out a framed letter I’d hidden under extra tissue paper in the bottom of the box. He read it quickly, and when I saw his Adam’s apple bob I knew he was holding back a sob. A deep breath followed, then he spoke.

“It’s a note from Harrison. It says ‘Tom – Steve told me how much Indy means to you, but what really sold me was the story from your fiancée about you cutting off your sister’s braid and using it as a bullwhip. Here’s a hat. Wore it for the Last Crusade. You do good work, kid. Keep it up and you might be able to buy a real, actual bullwhip someday. – Harrison’.”

He sat back down, hat in one hand, frame in the other, staring at them both as his siblings and their significant others came over to get a better look. I sat as well, and as I did so he looked up at me.

“You did this. For me. How? How did you pull this off? I would have never expected this, for him to send one of the fedoras he actually wore. I…my god…my mind. So completely, utterly blown.”

I grinned. “I am tenacious and don’t take no for an answer.” He laughed. “Actually, I had lots of help. Friend here, client there, Steven Spielberg, and here we are. You like it, then?”

“It’s the best present…and it has a deeper meaning than me just being a huge fan, because of how we met, and what I said, and…I love you.”

My grin widened and I patted him on the shoulder. “I know.”

He roared, catching on to my Star Wars reference, and I joined in, Saachi finally looking up from her iPad to comment.

“I want a funny hat next year, please.”

Everyone laughed at that, and once the giddiness wore off it was back to the matter at hand. We’d gotten Diana a set of eight mugs, two tote bags and four T-shirts with her art printed on them, which she marveled at and said she finally felt like she might actually be a genuine artist. For Em and Dave we’d purchased a couples spa weekend, and for Sarah and Ansh we’d arranged for a date night out to see a show and spend the night at a five-star hotel in London, grandma set as the babysitter.

Diana put together a beautiful photo album that included pictures of Tom as a child, as well as other family shots for us, and she’d done a painting on canvas of Tom and I on the red carpet at the Cube gallery. And, as predicted, there was my Christmas sweater, bright blue with snowmen on the front. It was actually kind of cute, and I thought it might even be fun to put it on our first married people Christmas cards next year. Then I shook my head and decided I was going insane and that I needed some more tea immediately. Before I had a chance to get up go grab it, Diana handed me a thick greeting card envelope.

“Here, love. This one’s from me, Emma and Sarah. Technically for you and Tom, but mainly for you.”

I opened it slowly, reading the brochure and the open-ended tickets and where to call to book dates, not quite understanding what I was looking at straight away. It was something I’d never thought of, never would have thought of on my own, but wished I had and was grateful someone else had done it for me. They’d arranged for a week-long vacation for us at the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel. Which was in Ireland. In Dalkey, Ireland, to be exact. Where my father had been born and lived until he met my mother and moved to the US. I didn’t speak. I couldn’t speak. The idea of seeing where he’d grown up, walking the streets he’d walked, visiting the bar his family owned…MY family owned? I didn’t know. He’d cut all ties with them, likely at my mother’s insistence, and that’s all I knew. Did he have siblings? Were his parents still alive? He never spoke of family, not once that I could recall. I’d been so angry, so hurt, that it never occurred to me that they could be out there somewhere in the world. And that they were my family, too. Which led me to the next step…what of my mother’s family? They knew there was a child, that I existed, both sides, but did they know it was…me?  Suddenly, and much to my surprise, I felt compelled to find out.

Diana was standing in front of me still, her face full of concern as I looked up at her.

“Maude, if that was too forward of us, I’m terribly sorry…we just thought you might want to, since you’re close by now…”

I passed the papers to Tom, who had been reading them over my shoulder, stood, and wrapped my arms around Diana, a muted ‘thank you’ spilling from my lips before I began to weep. Sarah and Emma made it a group hug, and I realized that while it would be wonderful to have my questions answered, it would be icing on the cake, as they say, because I’d already been blessed with a family, the people right there in that room, who had opened their lives and their hearts to me, because I loved their brother, their son, and he loved me. And what a miracle that was, especially on a day made for such things.

[beelieveinfandom]

A Better Birthright - Chapter Seven

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9                          AO3 Link  8000 words

“You seem excited,” Mizar said to Alcor.

Sitting in the tent that was among the things that the Pack of Even Hands had given her for her help, she looked up from the sigils she was methodically drawing on a pile of paper.

*Of course I am. It’s been forever but we’re finally practically there!*

“It’s been two months since I first summoned you at most.”

Alcor hung his head back. *For-ev-er,* he drawled.

“You do realize that things aren’t going to get any more exciting once we get there, right?”

*But we’ll have finally accomplished step one. Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the Falls; it’ll be nice to go there again.*

“You can go anywhere you want. Why haven’t you gone back to the place already?”

Alcor drew in some air. *I’ve been kinda avoiding it since the Great Calamity, to be honest. The town that used to be there meant a lot to me, and the thought of seeing it destroyed… It’s been long enough now, though. I can’t avoid it forever, and the history is still there even if the town isn’t.*

Mizar set down the sigil she was holding. “Wait, if you haven’t been to this place since the Great Calamity, how could you possibly be sure the library is still intact?”

*Because some of us aren’t mortals dependent upon practically useless senses for all our information. I can know things about something without being in its physical proximity.*

“Well, all right, but if we go all this way just to find that it’s been gone for centuries I’m going to be pissed.”

*Look,* said Alcor, *the library has a connection to my Dreamscape, which is still there, and since it’s not like a building can get up and walk away, there really isn’t any way that it won’t be there. It’ll be fine.*

“It better be fine.”

*And it will be. Now, do you wanna head out or are we going to sit here talking all day?*

“It’s barely light out,” Mizar said.

*How is it that you’ve been evolving for almost 4 billion years and you still have forms that are dependent on external light sources? Grow up already.*

“We can’t all be perfect spirits.”

*Well, that sounds like a personal problem.*

She grinned. “Not as personal a problem as your face!”

*If you want my face to be a problem, I can certainly make it one.* Alcor’s face started to melt, parts of it dripping onto the floor. *I could make it acidic and then it would very much be your problem.*

“Could you take an insult for once in your life?” Mizar set her sigil papers aside, stood up and stretched. “Anyway, I think you’re right in that it’s about time to be going. I wanna see this library already. So get your face back together and let’s go!”

The morning went quickly, and soon they were back on the road. The woods that surrounded the crumbling interstate were thin here, largely coniferous but interspersed with maples and oaks.

The trees were getting thicker, and becoming more predominantly pines and spruces.

As the sun approached its zenith it illuminated a fairly nice day. It wasn’t too hot or cold, the birds were singing, and some flowers bloomed among the underbrush, filling the air with their fragrances. They were almost at their destination, and everyone was feeling pretty good.

A large faded sign ahead had just enough of its paint left on it that Mizar could make out the words ”Gravity Falls”.

“This is it,” she said. “We’re about to enter one of the most historically magical places on the planet.”

“That was surprisingly easy,” said Fred as they approached the billboard. “Way Catreena was talking… I wasn’t expecting the trip to be such a simple sandwich.”

“Well, it’s not over yet,” Mizar said simply. “Like I said, historically this was a very magical place, so who knows what it became like when the Calamity happened. We should really be prepared for anything - ”

They passed the billboard.

Very abruptly, the world shifted. Alcor became visible, the road they were on was gone, and around them were pine trees, all equally spaced apart, that seemed just ever so slightly off. There was no more birdsong. There was no more underbrush. The sky was an illuminating uniform grey, as if clouds had rushed in to cover the afternoon sun.

“ - once we get there,” finished Mizar. She looked around, and turned to Alcor. “You wouldn’t happen to know what just happened, would you?”

“Oh, I remember this!” Alcor said. “I set it up to protect the town if things went wrong. Couldn’t save anyone from the Calamity, unfortunately, but I guess it must have been triggered when everything went south.”

“If you set it up then you’d know how to get through it, right?”

“Of course I know how to get through it,” Alcor said, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s really quite simple. The woods are smaller than they appear: if you go off of the path you’ll end up back where you started, and since everywhere here looks the same this creates the illusion that the place is infinite, but really it’s only a few square kilometers. If you follow the true path, you’ll find there are eighteen special trees that have keyholes in them. At the base of six of these trees is buried a key. Each key corresponds to a different lock than the one it’s buried next to. Unlocking all six of the true locks will trigger a door to appear at the far end of the forest, but if you put any key in the wrong lock it will make the whole puzzle reset. Once the door spawns you need to activate the four crystals that are located one third of the way to the top of select trees. Now it’s very important that you activate the Northernmost one first, then the one to the East, followed by the one to the West then the Southernmost one. Unless one of the crystals flashes chartreuse: then you need to go South-North-East-West. I don’t remember what happens if you get the order wrong but it’s bad. Anyway, once all the crystals are activated all you have to do is get to the door before the purple fog reaches the forest floor!”

Mizar narrowed her eyes. “So how do you actually get through here?”

“I just told you. Were you not listening? I could go though it again.”

“No, I was listening,” Mizar said slowly. “I was just wondering what the actual way to get through here was because what you just described is the single most bullshit puzzle I’ve ever heard and I refuse to believe that it’s the only way.”

Alcor shrugged. “Your lack of belief isn’t my problem.”

“Okay, so just to be clear,” Nav said, “there is one path that progresses you through the forest, but outside of a few trees with holes in them everything is identical, and if you step off the path you go back to the beginning?”

“Yep,” said Alcor.

Nav thought a moment.

“So in order to tell if you’re making any progress,” they said, “you would have to do something along the lines of leaving something on the ground and seeing if you run into it again?”

“Pretty much yeah.”

“For several kilometers of path.”

“Yes.”

“Mizar’s right: this sounds literally impossible.”

Alcor drooped a little. “Oh come on, it isn’t that bad.”

“We will run out of food,” Plessy said.

“Oh. Right. Food. Mortals need things like that, don’t they?”

“You made this,” Mizar said. “Can’t you just get us past it without going through all of that?”

Alcor looked away from her. “Um. No. No I cannot.”

“Why would you ever make something like this that you can’t bypass?”

He twiddled with his hair.

“Well you see, sometimes I get a little… overcome with destructive desire, and lose sight of things I care about, or the consequences of my actions, or really anything besides wrecking things, and I tend to be rather impatient when I get like that, so I figured if I ever got like that too close to town, I could protect it by surrounding it with something that requires a lot of focus to get through.” He scratched his head absently. “And then I might have forgotten about it just a little.”

“Okay whatever,” said Nav. “This is clearly a dead end, sorry Mizar. How do we get out of here?”

“Oh come on, you’re not even going to try to solve it?” he whined.

Nav’s aura went dark and they glared in a way that Alcor didn’t even realize they were capable of.

“Leaving is much simpler,” Alcor explained. “If you keep walking past where the door will spawn there’s an exit.”

“So we still have to navigate kilometers of invisible path,” they said.

“Oh yeah, that is a bit of a design flaw isn’t it?”

“I officially hate you now.”

“So I don’t mean to be brightly clad at the funeral or whatever, but shouldn’t there be like, a lot of bodies? If people got here and got stuck and couldn’t get out and there’s no food…”

“Oh, I didn’t want any progress I made on previous attempts to stick so the whole thing resets to factory state once a month.”

“What happens if someone’s inside when it resets?” asked Nav, looking around concerned.

“Hmm, I guess they would just get dumped out into the nightmare realm, since that’s what’s between dimensions.”

“That’s not going to happen anytime soon, is it?”

“Oh no, we still have like two weeks.”

Mizar had pulled her staff out and stood tense, looking into the woods.

“You guys can leave if you want,” she said. “I’m solving this.”

“You’re going to die,” said Plessy.

“I’m going to get to that library. I’m going to heal the corruption. I’m not going to let some stupid convoluted puzzle change that!” she shouted. “But I’ll get you to the exit first - it will be good to have the whole path mapped out.”

“What are we going to use to mark the path anyway?” asked Nav. “I certainly don’t have several kilometers’ worth of crap that I’m willing to leave behind.”

“Leave that to me!” Mizar said with a grin.

She reached her arm deep in her pouch and pulled out a wonky looking rock, painted bright pink and glittery.

Nav tilted their head. “Why are you carrying a bunch of stuff you don’t want?”

“What else are you supposed to do when you get a pouch that has a room’s worth of space in it?”

It quickly became apparent that the path was a twisted, winding thing, making everything even more difficult than it already was. The uniform grey sky gave no hints at the passage of time, but after what was probably an hour or two they had only progressed down maybe a few hundred meters of path.

A strange noise could be heard in the distance. A continuous creaking groan, like something massive was getting pushed aside.

“You didn’t add any sort of consequence for taking too long, did you?” asked Mizar.

“No. I didn’t. There shouldn't be anything here that can be making noise except us.”

“Well, something clearly is making noise, and it’s not coming from behind us,” she said. “How could something be further down the path without us knowing about it?”

The noise continued, building in volume.

“They must have already been here. Catreena did say people had disappeared looking for Gravity Falls.”

“But how could anyone have possibly navigated this fucking piece of shit path without leaving shit behind?” asked Mizar.

“Maybe they’ve been here a long time and just… figured it out?”

“How‽” she shouted. “There is absolutely no way of telling if you’ve made progress unless you leave some landmarks for yourself!”

“How’s unimportant,” Plessy said. “What now?”

“Well, I can kill anything, so it’s not really cause for concern.”

The sound was getting very loud.

“This is something that invaded your ‘puzzle’ and can navigate it better than you can. How can you be sure it’s not more powerful than you?” asked Nav.

“Because nothing’s more powerful than me.”

Nav crossed their arms. “Then how can we get out of here by walking in a straight line?”

“Look, some entities have specific skills that I lack. That doesn’t mean that they are more powerful than I am.”

“Nav.” Plessy grabbed Nav’s arm and pointed towards where the noise was coming from.

“Holy shit,” said Nav.

Just barely visible past the eerily identical trees of the puzzle was a truly massive entity. It was a titch taller than the trees of the area, with a vaguely humanoid body plan overgrown with moss and vines. It looked like a very large dryad, with legs like tree trunks and huge arms. Its head was adorned with massive branches, or maybe antlers, that together were probably about as long as the entity was tall. Something was hanging from the mossy branches, but at their distance it was hard to tell what.

The entity was coming towards them, the earth - or whatever the ground here could be called accurately - shifting around them to make room. They didn’t appear to be walking - their legs seemed rooted - they just plowed through the ground.

“The Stormwalker,” Nav breathed. “They’re real.”

“How?” Alcor asked no one in particular. “This isn’t even a real forest. This isn’t... And just… ignoring the rules of the land. There are rules here! There’s no reason you should be able to waltz through my pocket dimension like it were a public park! How do you always do this?”

“Should we be worried?” Plessy asked. “Don’t they take hands?”

“Nah, they’re pretty cool,” Fred said. “I mean, there definitely is an awful lot of hands following them, but I don’t think they feel the need to take the hands of any random person they meet. I coulda just gotten lucky though, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

“You’ve met them before?”

“Yeah.” She scratched at her neck. “There was a time a while ago where, well, it wasn’t a good time. There were some guys and I think they wanted to sacrifice me or something? They were very insistent that I come with them and they were less than respectful of my personhood. Um. Anyway. This guy shows up like a blister on a blue moon and chases ‘em off. Showed me the way to town too.”

“It’s fine; it’s just the Woodsman. He helps people who get lost in the woods, and occasionally chops off the hands of those who would do harm unto others, but more importantly he shouldn’t be here! He always does this!”

“The Woodsman?” Mizar asked. “Isn’t that what you called the entity that you said was receiving the energy Fred was absorbing?”

“That’s the one. Don’t you see the resemblance?”

The Woodsman reached them and stopped. He stooped over and looked at Fred.

Mizar looked at the two.

The Woodsman was tall and menacing. At this distance the hands hanging from his antlers could be seen, as well as the massive axe, as tall as a person, that his left arm turned into. Mizar’s heart raced looking at him, even though she was fairly sure that she was safe.

Fred was short and could probably look less menacing if she really, really tried. She was looking into the dark pits of the Woodsman’s eyes, her own eyes wide and curious. She didn’t look like she was even mildly worried about the giant that towered above her.

“You know, I really don’t,” Mizar said.

“You’re saying that all that energy I absorb goes to this guy?” Fred asked. “How does that work?”

Alcor spread his fingers wide. “Magic,” he said.

“Well yes,” Fred said. “That is the assumption that I would make about the basic process that would allow something like this to happen. The question I was meaning to ask, I think, was how that magic would actually, from a more mechanical standpoint, actually function.”

Alcor waved his hands back and forth a little. “Shenanigans,” he said.

“So it would seem that you either don’t understand, or, if you do understand, you don’t feel like explaining it, which is fine. I probably wouldn’t understand an explanation anyway.”

Alcor shook his head. “I miss the good ol’ days when you could just say something worked by magic and people would leave it there. Now it’s all ‘what magic? How does it work? Could you draw a schematic diagram of the mana system?’ You all don’t even have electricity and you expect me to explain how magic works? It just does, okay?”

Mizar smiled slyly. “You have absolutely no idea how the Woodsman works, do you?”

“No! I don’t! By all accounts he shouldn’t exist!”

“Can you show us a way out of here?” Fred asked the Woodsman.

The Woodsman straightened up and turned around.

“I think he wants us to follow him,” Fred said.

“Well that sounds like a much better plan than trying to solve this awful puzzle,” muttered Nav.

“There’s nothing wrong with this puzzle. You guys are just boring,” Alcor muttered.

“Well you can stay and complete it if you really want,” Mizar said. “But we’re getting out of here.”

“There’s no way I’m abandoning you right before you get to Gravity Falls. I’ll solve this later.”

“Alright, it seems we’re all ten dimes to the dollar,” Fred said to the Woodsman. “Lead the way.”

The Woodsman started moving, and the group followed after him. Watching him move was a strange experience; he seemed to hold still and the world warped around him. He would go through a tree, and the two halves would stretch around him, revealing their unnaturally smooth insides, and then close back together behind him. The warping effect trailed after him a little, and the group made sure to stay close in the giant’s footsteps in case leaving the warping effect would subjugate them to the infuriating laws of the puzzle they were in again.

Returning back to the real world was just as abrupt as leaving it had been. There was no obvious barrier; there was simply an endless looking forest of identical trees one step and a very real forest with underbrush, a non-uniform sky, and real-looking trees the next step.

The trees here were almost entirely pines, with one major exception. Rising high above the other trees in the area, with a small clearing under its mighty branches, was an apple tree. Bunches of golden apples weighed down its branches. A smaller pine was grown into the side of the apple tree.

“So is this it?” Mizar breathed. “The woods of Gravity Falls? Where’s the library from here?”

Alcor was staring at a clearing in front of the apple trees.

“Hello? Earth to Mr. Demon?”

“Where is it?” he asked.

“That’s what I want to know,” said Mizar.

Alcor threw his arms up. “It’s supposed to be right here! Where did it go?”

She crossed her arms. “You’re telling me that the library, that we’ve been traveling over a month to get to, isn’t here. The library that you assured me wasn’t destroyed, that you specifically said would be here, isn’t here.”

“It should be right there! I don’t understand.”

Mizar turned around. “It’s fine,” she said. “We’ll figure something else out.”

“No it’s not fine,” Alcor said. “That building still has a presence in my dreamscape. I want to know where it is on the physical plane.”

“Hey, where did the Woodsman go?” asked Fred.

“Oh he probably just buggered off and did his own thing.”

“But how could he have done it without us noticing? He’s so loud when he moves,” Fred said.

“He’s always doing things that don’t make sense. Why bother worrying about it? You’ll never understand it anyway.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

“So does anyone else really want an apple or is it just me?” asked Fred.

“Are those apples safe to eat? The tree looks magic as all get out,” said Nav.

Alcor looked at the apple tree, at Henry’s tree. It was a lot bigger than the last time he saw it. The apples were much more golden, almost metallic now. It was different. The shack was gone and everything was so different. The town that he grew up in was gone, forever. He had already known that, he had, but the reality of it was now staring him in the face like some eldritch horror.

He shouldn’t have come. But he had, and there was no going back now.

“They’re perfectly safe to eat,” Alcor said absently.

He didn’t say that they made excellent cider that could make him drunk and how once drinking it caused Henry’s antlers to grow around a tree, getting him stuck. That they made the best pies he’d ever had, to this day, and how Acacia once traded all the ones the family had made for the holidays for very temporary invulnerability so she could see what it felt like to jump off the roof. Pies that he hadn’t had in so long, because there was no one left to make them. And now there wasn’t going to be anyone left to make pies to share with him, to talk about their ancestors, his family with.

He missed them all so much. He missed having a family that knew about him. There were still people descended from Mabel and the Pleiades alive; a good percent or two of the people originating from Earth had some of that lineage, but they didn’t have the history to go with it, didn’t have the Pines name, weren’t the same at all.

He picked an apple an bit into it. He had forgotten how bitter the skin was, how much more rewarding that made the sweet flesh taste.

Mizar was sitting cross-legged on the ground, staring at the massive tree, thinking. She wasn’t sure what to do next. She had been counting on the library lead going through. She had been counting on her ultra powerful demon companion actually knowing what he was talking about.

Still, disappointments aside, this had been the most magical place in the world, pre-Calamity. There had to be something here that was useful. They should probably get away from this old tree and to the real town.

Mizar stood up, stretched, and turned around.

There was a building there.

There was clearly no building there a minute ago, but there was now, clear as day, a three story wooden building, with a large sign reading “Stanley Pines Memorial Library of the Supernatural”.

Mizar eyed it. The building felt inviting, suspiciously inviting.

She was glaring now.

“So I don’t suppose this is normal?” she asked.

“What’s norm-” Alcor stared.  “What?”

He flew over to the shack and touched it. “What?” he asked again.

At his touch feelings of excitement and warmth filled him. The shack had an aura now, pleasant greens and blues swimming about.

The shack had a soul now.

“What‽” he said, yet again.

“So this is some kinda trap, right?” Mizar asked.

“No, this is the shack, I mean the library. The Calamity must have done this, somehow. Or maybe it just happened with time? It always did have some amount of personality…”

“Wait, for real?” Mizar turned to look at him. “That’s the place? The real place, not like some weird thing pretending to be the place so it can eat us?”

“Yes. This is absolutely the place.”

“Well then let’s go! Before it teleports away again.”

“Does the thought of being in a building that can teleport not alarm you in the slightest?” asked Plessy.

“Not when it’s the place I want to be. It can go wherever when I’m in it just so long as it takes me with it.”

“But what if it goes someplace dangerous?” said Nav.

Mizar grinned. “I doubt it could find a place that’s more dangerous than I am.”

“I do realize you’re probably talking about inhabited places and your ability to hold your own against other people, but now I’m imagining you trying to fight a volcano,” said Fred.

“I’ll kick that mountain’s butt. I’ll make it bleed,” Mizar said. “Anyways, who cares about that? I’m going in; you can do what you want.”

“I don’t want to be stuck someplace surrounded by that awful puzzle if this thing teleports out of here, so I think I’ll join you,” said Nav.

“It shouldn’t be able to teleport past out of the Falls,” Alcor said with the confidence of someone who hadn’t been wrong about half the things he said today. “The whole point of the puzzle was to make it so that I couldn’t teleport in, so if it left it couldn’t get back.”

Nav shrugged. “You also didn’t think that the Woodsman should have been able to get in or out of your puzzle, so I’m not sure I trust your understanding of the situation.”

“Oh, the Woodsman’s never made any sense. This is just a house… that also never made any sense, come to think of it.”

“I’m going in. Y’all can keep talking about shit if you want.”

Mizar walked up to the door and strolled inside.

The inside didn’t look much like a library. The room wasn’t very large and was mostly occupied by a large table with numerous chairs surrounding it, although a large wooden staircase ascending to the upper levels also took up a fair amount of space. The thick top of the wooden table was scratched and worn like a gladiator’s shield, an aesthetic shared with the chairs and floor. It didn’t smell like what Mizar was expecting, like dry paper and time, but like freshly baked bread. There wasn’t a layer of dust covering everything.

This didn’t feel like a building, long abandoned in the Calamity. It felt very much in use, like at any moment someone might walk through one of the three doorways into the room.

Alcor entered behind her, followed by the others.

“The actual library portion of the place is in the front,” he said, touching the wood of the ceiling, trying to get a feel for everything that had changed in the few centuries since he had last been here.

Before Mizar could do anything with that information, the far door burst open, revealing an unshifted doppelganger in a simple pale yellow dress, probably in their upper teens, whose eyes were closed in a pained expression.

“Jaxerto,” they said, “what have I told you about -”

Their eyes opened. Their finger remained held in the air accusatorily.

“You’re... not Jax,” they said, their finger falling slowly from its aloft position.

“Nope!” Mizar said. “And you’re not dead!”

“Why would I be dead?”

“Dunno. Why would I be Jax?”

“I just thought that she was in the room…” they said. They shook their head, and then stopped, looking hard at Mizar. “Hold on a moment… that symbol! Are you a Pines too?”

Alcor’s focus flipped from the shack to the teen.

Before Mizar could answer, another person entered the room. They were a short and stout human with pale skin and a mess of curly brown hair. They were a bit younger than the doppelganger looked, wearing a baggy shirt and pants with holes in the knees.

“Whoa! Newbies!” they exclaimed. “There’s so many of them. And they’re so old!”

“Jax, don’t be rude. I think they might be family.”

“I’m not a Pines,” Mizar said. “I’m the Mizar!”

“The Mizar? As in the reincarnation of Mabel Pines the Mizar?” The doppelganger’s eyes were wide. “Mizar the twin star Mizar?”

“That’s me!” Mizar said happily.

“Oh my. That’s amazing! I never thought I would meet a Mizar! What’s it like? Oh that’s probably a dumb question, what am I saying?”

Alcor was beaming, his hands cupping each side of his grinning mouth.

“You’re a Pines?” he asked. “I have niblings?”

The doppelganger turned upwards to Alcor, their mouth hanging open. They put a hand over their heart. They were breathing very heavily.

“Salvael?” asked Jax. “Come back to me, buddy. Be cool about this. You’re going to make us all look like dorks in front of our gruncle.”

“Mizar! I have niblings!”

“It’s Alcor!” Salvael explained, their hands waving from side to side. “Jax, it’s Alcor! He came back to us!”

“Yeah, I got that,” Jax said. “There can’t be that many floaty dudes who dress like that. It’s amazing there’s even one.”

“This is so great!”

“This is so cool!”

“I thought you were all dead!”

“We thought that… it doesn’t matter. You’re here! After all these years you finally came back!”

“Can I hug you?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, can somebody please explain what’s going on?” Nav asked, as the demon and doppelganger hugged. “How does a spirit have niblings that are, as far as I can tell, normal people?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say any of us are normal people…” Jax muttered. “Just look at Salvael. They’re hugging a demon.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” said Salvael. “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life and got excited. This must be seem very strange.”

“Just a bit,” Nav said.

“I’m Salvael, they/them, and I’m a family historian. And this is my many time great uncle. By adoption.”

“Ah.” Nav nodded. “Adoption. I probably could have guessed that.”

“Yeah, Jex here’s related by blood, but as the original Mizar was human my ancestors had to join the family a little later. My lineage goes all the way back to the original Pleiades!” they said with pride. “Which isn’t to say that people who were added to the family later are any less a part of it, I just think it’s really cool that my ancestors knew the one and only Willow Pines.”

“How can anyone be related to a spirit by blood? They don’t have blood?”

“Shenanigans,” said Alcor. “Don’t worry about it.”

Mizar smiled at Savael. “So my preincarnation’s your great great etcetera grandmother huh? Cool!”

“And a remarkable woman on top of everything else. She’s responsible for almost all the family records of the era: she pretty much single-handedly preserved two generations of family and world history in a fascinating and personizing way. We don’t have such good primary sources for centuries after her death.”

“That’s cool. I should do something about recording my journey,” Mizar said. “Or maybe I could get someone to do it for me? Sounds kinda boring to do myself…”

“You really should,” said Savael. “Your descendants will appreciate it.”

“Pff,” Mizar rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to have any descendants. It’ll be the world that appreciates it.”

“You think you’re going to make history?”

“I know it.” Mizar stood tall. “I’m going to cure the world of corruption.”

Savael clapped their hands together. “Oh that’s great! I would love for it to be safer to get away from Mysha every now and then, when we’re not in Gravity Falls. Not that I don’t love zir, but I do feel a little cooped up at times.”

Plessy poked Nav.

//Why do we keep running into people who seem to think that this is plausible?\\ she signed.

Nav shrugged.

“Who’s Mysha?” Mizar asked.

“Oh, of course you wouldn’t know, you just got here. This,” Salvael waved their arms around, “is Mysha. I’m sure ze’s very excited to see you.”

“Didn’t quite follow that.”

Salvael’s grey skin flushed blue. “Right. Mysha’s the house. All around us. Which is what I was trying to gesture.”

“So you’re going by Mysha now?” Alcor asked, stroking a beam. “I like it.”

Alcor felt a rush of warmth flood through him.

“Look at you, communicating. I don’t suppose you’d care to put that new skill to use and tell me how this is possible?”

He got the distinct image that the house was sticking zir tongue out at him, somehow.

“Yeah, I kinda figured that would be the case,” he said. “Can’t be that easy, can it?”

“Can somebody please explain why watching a spirit have a conversation with a house is not the weirdest thing to happen to me today?” asked Nav.

//Some days it just be like that.\\

“Hold on a moment, Salvael,” said Mizar. “You mentioned that you don’t like getting too far away from Mysha when you’re not in Gravity Falls, presumably because of the corruption. What does being in Gravity Falls have to do with anything?”

“There are never any storms or corruptions in Gravity Falls.” They shrugged. “I don’t know why, but it’s safe here.”

She turned to look at Alcor. “I thought you said that your puzzle couldn’t save the town from the Calamity?”

“I did. It only stops things with the cognitive strength to have a dreamscape. It wouldn’t do anything to stop a storm, or a corruption.”

“So what’s going on then?”

His grin stretched across his face. “You really want to know?”

Mizar shook her head. “I’m not paying you to find out if that’s what you’re asking. Not after that fucking puzzle.”

Alcor drooped. “Aw, come on, it’s a really good answer. You’ll love it.”

“So just tell me.”

“But… it’s a really important piece of information. It’ll be worth a deal, I assure you.”

“No, I can work this out myself.”

“But, you don’t have to.”

“So? I Can,” Mizar said pointedly. “And I Will.”

“Fine.”

“Alright,” she said. “So we now know of two things that can part storms. Fred and Gravity Falls.”

“Three,” pointed out Nav, “if you count the legends of the Stormwalker, who’s pretty obviously the Woodsman.”

Mizar clapped her hands together. “Right! Thank you! Three things, two of which we know to be connected. Which would imply that there is a permanent fixture in Gravity Falls that is also connected to Fred and the Woodsman. Salvael, are there any books here on the Woodsman?”

“Well, there would be an entry on the Woodsman in the New Dictionary of Cryptids, and probably a few other books, but those are mostly speculative, and would probably be unhelpful for what I’m guessing you want.”

“Well, could I look at them anyway? Speculative knowledge is better than no knowledge.”

“I might be able to do you one better,” Salvael said. “Not about the Woodsman, and I could be wrong, but… hmm… I’m not sure it would actually be okay to show you that… but you are the Mizar, and you came here with our Grunkle, so I’m sure it’s fine. It’s basically your birthright. How about you come with me? Do the rest of you feel comfortable just exploring the library?”

“Well, I can’t read the script of the ones who came before, but this seems like a comfortable enough place to spend some time,” said Nav.

“I can’t read any script but I agree that this seems like a nice place,” said Fred.

“Alright,” Mizar said, “lead the way.”

They led her and Alcor through the house to the part of the building that held the library.

It was impossible to ignore the size of the library. Its central hallway stretched on forever, terminating at a wall that seemed impossibly far away in the dim lighting. The ceiling was twice as high in here as it had been in the living portion of the building, and tall shelves towered above the visitors. Side hallways and rooms jutted out from the central room like branches on a tree.

“Whoa,” Mizar said. “This place is awesome! Are all these books still in readable condition?”

Salvael smiled. “Mysha keeps them well. We have to keep them dusted and the space clean, but ze keeps the humidity down, the lighting at safe levels, and I’ve never seen any pests in here. I would highly recommend having a sapient library for all your book storage needs, especially if some people you live with don’t take the responsibilities they’ve inherited very seriously.”

“And you’re telling me that with all these books here, none of them have anything useful to say about the Woodsman?”

“He was a very mysterious entity. No one knew much of anything about him, and he never seemed interested in sharing anything about himself. And I don’t know every book in here - there might be one that would have something useful, but I suspect what I’m going to show you would be better than anything else we could find.”

Salvael lead them to a side passage, which quickly turned into a maze of twists and turns. The warped wood and peeling wallpaper of the walls made the narrowing hallways they were passing through seem much older than the smooth-walled main chamber of the main library had been.

Finally, after walking for what was probably ten minutes, Salvael led them into a room that was large, although nothing compared to the main library. A line of shelves started at the back of the room and reached for the front, leaving space for a pile of bean bag chairs, a small table, and a couch in front of them.

“This is the Pines History Room. It’s where we keep everything related to our family history!” they explained. “Personal journals, photo albums, cookbooks, sketchbooks, everything that anyone in the family has made for over a thousand years. Assuming they didn’t request it not get added, of course.”

Alcor stayed in the doorway for a moment before slowly floating to the nearest shelf and running his fingers along the spines of the books.

Salvael walked to the furthest shelf and pulled something out from the bottom.

“So I couldn’t help but notice that one of your friends had horns.” They flipped through the large red plaid binder they held. “And with the mention that they’re connected to the Woodsman I couldn’t help but think that they might be a reincarnation of a different Pines.”

They set the book they were holding down, revealing a series of pictures. They were all of a group of smiling people, five adults and three similar-looking children, who looked to be about a year older in each progressive picture. They were all wearing oversized green and red sweaters with script on them even older than Mizar could read. One of the adults had antlers with colorful balls hanging off them.

“That,” said Salvael, pointing at the antlered person, “is Henry Pines. No one is entirely sure where the antlers came from - they first started appearing in pictures around the time the triplets are in their early teens so we’re pretty sure that he wasn’t born with them, but they weren’t always corporeal so it’s hard to be sure. The general consensus is that he got them as a byproduct of some deal with Alcor, who - wait a second, who is you! What happened all those years ago? Why would you give someone antlers? What does Henry Pines have to do with the Woodsman?”

“Mizar said that she wanted to figure this out herself,” Alcor said, paging through a journal.

“But… I didn’t say that. I’ve been figuring this stuff out on my own for most of my life, and it would be really cool if I could get the input of someone who was there.”

“Tell you what. We’ll jam about it once this is all good and settled. And I’ll probably start laughing if you say anything too out there.”

“I would really like that. The jamming that is, not being laughed at. I have all these theories and stuff but it’s hard to get to know who people really were from just the things they left behind. And we’re related to some really fascinating people, whom I would love to know more about.”

“They’re far more than fascinating, you know. They were wonderful, each and every one of them.”

“So what’s the significance of Fred being this Henry person’s reincarnation?” asked Mizar.

“Right. So Henry’s antlers could grow apples. This is pretty well documented: the Transcendental Pines would make pies and cider from them. And this -” Salvael flipped to a page that had, among other pictures, a picture of a sapling, “- is labeled as ‘Henry’s apple tree’. So my thought is that they grew a tree using the seed of Henry’s fruit. And if a Henry reincarnation’s horns somehow absorb the energy of magic storms, the apple tree might have the same properties.”

“Is that the same tree as the one outside?” asked Mizar.

“I haven’t found any record of anyone replanting it, so probably.”

“Do apple trees normally live that long?”

“Well, magic apple trees planted in the most magical place on the planet can live a very long time for sure.”

“It’s definitely a magic thing; apple trees live a century or two normally.”

“Fascinating,” Mizar said, tonelessly. “I thought that you weren’t going to tell us anything because I said I could do this on my own?”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you anything useful. I’m not just going to ignore you completely.”

“That’s great.” She shook her head. “Anyway! You’re telling me that the tree in your yard is capable of protecting the whole town from corruptions and storms?”

“Well, that’s my best guess for what’s doing it,” said Salvael.

“The tree outside that’s currently bearing fruit?” Mizar was beaming. “Oh this is going to be so much easier than I thought it would be! I thought this step was going to take like, years!”

“We’ll you’re still going to have to find some way of testing that it is the tree. It’s possible that something else in the town is causing it.”

“Right, right.” Mizar nodded. “And even if it is the tree, trees take a long time to grow, and I bet the younger the tree the smaller the effect is.”

“If only you had an entity of great power on your side,” Alcor said without away from the journal.

Mizar turned to him. “Could you predict where a storm is going to hit in, say, a year?”

He looked up. “For the right price I could.”

“So we could bring some seeds to a place a storm is going to occur, plant it, give it a season to grow, and see if it has a null field at all.”

“Sounds like a plan. A little dangerous, but with Fred and me there it shouldn’t be too bad.”

“I should probably go make sure that Fred is actually okay with this,” Mizar said. “Could you show me the way back? I’m not sure I remember.”

“You wanna leave already?” said Alcor. “We just got here; there’s a lot to see.”

“I didn’t come here to learn about my preincarnation’s family history,” Mizar said. “I came to make a plan. And I would like to finish making that plan before I waste time reading about the dead.”

“I thought you liked history?”

“I like knowing the specifics of what I am going to be doing more. History is fun and all, but the future is far more important.”

“But -”

“You can stay here if you want,” she said. “I’ll summon you if we need your input.”

Alcor drifted to the front of the room and ran a hand over the scrapbook on Henry, and looked at the frontmost shelf, full of names and stories that he didn’t recognize.

“I’d like that,” he said. “I have a lot to catch up on. And if you want to come back when you’re done showing Mizar the way, Salvael, I think I really would like to talk.”

Salvael perked up.

“Really?” Their voice squeaked a little. “That’d be great! Come on Mizar, let’s get you back to the main library.”

Salvael went quickly down the hallway, all but skipping.

Mizar followed, matching their pace. It felt good to move quickly, each step bringing her closer to her final solution.

She was coming up with an actual solution.

This was really happening.

Her heart and mind raced. She felt light and giddy. She wasn’t walking, she was floating, she wasn’t real, she was dreaming, this was too easy. She tried to ground herself - they didn’t know this was going to work, there were many unknowns, many things that might go wrong or just not go at all, and this was going to take time to implement - but she couldn’t get rid of the giddy energy.

This was really happening.

She could see the future; she could see a world where people didn’t live in fear of corruptions, of storms, of the epicenters of chaos that spawned them. A world where each community held a massive tree at its heart, weighed down with golden apples.

She could see it.

It was going to be real.

This was really happening. She barely noticed when Salvael stopped, almost walking into them.

Her traveling companions were scattered about the room. Plessy and Nav were in the corner, signing and giggling at each other. Fred was deep in a bean bag chair. Mizar went up to her.

Her throat suddenly felt dry.

“Hey,” Fred said. “You find what you were looking for?”

“Maybe,” she said. “We have a working theory at any rate. It might be totally wrong. But it might…”

She took a breath.

“Would you be willing to go someplace that we know a storm is going to strike to test a theory with me?” she asked.

“I don’t have anything better to do,” said Fred. “And if you found something that might even work to fight the corruption, well, that would really be the governor's feather now wouldn’t it?”

“The theory is that the tree outside is protecting Gravity Falls. So if we take some of the apples and plant the seeds we might be able to create more trees with null fields protecting stationary communities, and maybe if we’re really crazy we could like, plant some in the epicenters? Or something? We’re going to have to deal with those eventually.”

Fred broke eye contact. “I uh, don’t really think that’s a good plan.”

“You’re right, going to the epicenters is probably a suicide mission. We’re going to have to come up with something else.”

Fred shook her head. “No, no, no, there’s nothing wrong with that, I mean, there probably is, but I don’t have a problem with it. No, I was referring to the planting of apple seeds.”

Mizar opened her mouth, speechless for a moment. “What’s wrong with that‽”

“You don’t grow apple trees by planting apple seeds,” Fred explained. “I mean, you can. If you know what you’re doing and plant some apple seeds, you’ll get an apple tree, but it probably won’t produce the same type of fruit as the parent does, and who knows if magic properties would transfer. What you want to do is wait till late spring, take cuttings, and plant those. Probably in a pot at first, so you can make sure it grows roots before you plant it someplace that’s gonna be counting on it taking. I’d recommend a nice peat soil; that drains well.”

“Right. You were partially raised by a dryad, weren’t you?”

“I know a lot about plants.”

“So we’re going to have to wait till spring?” asked Mizar.

“Well you would have to wait till spring no matter what,” Fred pointed out. “Can’t plant seeds in late fall and expect them to take.”

“Right. Right,” said Mizar. “But now we have a plan. Even if we have to wait a little, we finally have an idea about how we’re going to do this.”

She was smiling.

This was really happening.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

HAPPY TAUIVERSARY EVERYONE!

Sorry about how long this took, I completely ran out of steam for it. Unfortunately, it might be a while before the next chapter comes out, as I have no idea how I'm going to approach half of it. However, I recently came up with a new thing to add to it, and might cleave it in two in which case it should actually be relatively quick before the next. I did, however, just started writing several new stories, because I have more ideas then common sense, so that relatively quickly might still be a few months as I don't know how I'm going to be prioritizing things. It won't be another year though, I promise that.

[lpdwillwrite4coffee]

CHILDREN OF LILITH CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“I guess… now we wait,” Boz said, threading his fingers together and pressing his elbows into the tops of his thighs.

Lisa shifted, the hard plastic chair squeaking as she moved. “What about… when we can’t wait anymore?” She asked quietly. “We only have twenty-four hours to get out of the city. To pack up our lives…” She bit her lip. “What do we tell the others?”

“The truth?”

“But how do we convince a whole group of Hunters to leave a city. Their city. Especially if Griffin’s still…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t imagine trying to do any of this without Griffin.

Boz took a deep breath and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “We need a plan.”

“Griffin’s family is still in Massachusetts,” Lisa offered. “We could go there.”

Boz shook his head. “He never wanted them to know he’s a Hunter. It’s why he’s stayed away this long.”

Lisa thought a moment. “Doesn’t he have a friend in Connecticut?”

“Yeah, Cheryl, out in Hartford,” Boz said. “Except…”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d really call them friends.” A small grin played at the corner of his mouth. “She’s Griffin’s ex-girlfriend.”

Lisa huffed out a laugh. “Good ol’ Griff.” She paused, looking at her hands. “Do you think they’d help us though? If they knew the situation?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Boz ran his fingers through his hair, glancing down the hall. “Hey, I’m gonna get some coffee from the cafeteria. You want anything?”

“Coffee sounds good.” She watched him stand up. “I’m gonna go make some calls.”

Boz nodded, starting to walk away when he stopped and turned back. “Ah, don’t tell them how bad Griff’s condition is…” He winced faintly. “Not yet.”

“Okay.”

When Boz rounded the corner, Lisa pulled her phone from her pocket and stood up. Phones weren’t allowed in the ICU but there was a small outdoor area the floor below them she figured would be private enough for a call, so she headed that way, already scrolling through her contacts.

* * *

Lilith’s white satin flats muffled her footsteps as she strode down the hospital corridor. The pull at the center of her chest drew her around the corner, where she hurried past a brunette woman looking down at her phone. Griffin was close… close enough for her to feel his heartbeat under her skin.

She stopped short in front of a closed door and she glanced at the chart hanging on the wall next to it. O’Connor, Griffin, she read.

Looking to make sure no one saw her, she slipped inside and locked the door. The glowing heart monitor was the only source of light, but Lilith moved easily through the shadows. Going to the window, she opened the blinds, fragments of ever-present city lights illuminating the room. She glanced over her shoulder, watching Griffin sleep. It made that pull in her chest ache.

She could feel his agony, pressed right underneath his skin, threatening to drain the life from him. But his pain wasn’t from the beatings he’d taken, though she knew each one of his injuries as if they screamed out how they’d been ma No, his anguish marred his soul, and that was far more dangerous than the wounds to his flesh.

Lilith slowly settled on the edge of his bed, white cotton dress fluttering around her legs. Brushing his right cheek with her knuckles, a trail of healed skin appeared where she touched, sickening purple fading away to nothing. She ran her index finger across the jagged cut at his hairline, knitting the torn skin back together. With her thumb, she sealed his cut lip and repaired the small fracture in his jaw.

At that, Griffin stirred, eyes dancing behind his lids. With considerable effort, he blinked at her.

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered.

He glanced all around her, trying to understand. “Are you… Are you an angel?”

Lilith breathed a laugh, ducking her head. A lock of hair fell in her face and she tucked it back, looking up at him. “No. I am not an angel.”

“Oh. Okay.” Griffin swallowed, throat painfully dry. “You’re a hallucination. I can handle that.”

Cupping the side of his face, Lilith said, “I’m not a figment of your imagination, Griffin.”

“Then who are you?”

“This may be difficult to understand, but I’ll try my best to help you comprehend,” she told him, pulling her hand away. “My name is Lilith. I’m your first mother.”

Griffin stared. “My mother lives in Boston.”

Lilith shook her head, smiling ruefully. “You misunderstand. I know I’m not the one who birthed you.” She faltered, playing with the hem of her shawl. “My story is… complicated.”

“Try me.”

Meeting his gaze, she inhaled deeply and nodded. “Have you read the book of Genesis?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a part that was left out. My part. I’m Adam’s first wife.”

Griffin’s brows drew down. “You’re the Lilith?”

“You’ve heard of me?” She asked, surprise coloring her words.

“Um, yeah, actually. A lot of people have.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up but the smile soon faded. “The interpretation of my existence is… muddied. Convoluted at best. As I said, I was Adam’s first wife. But I wasn’t a very good one.” She paused, twisting her fingers together. “I fled from the Garden, leaving everything I had been given behind. It was a mistake. One that still ripples out, affecting everyone to this day.”

Griffin watched as memories shadowed her eyes. He cleared his throat. “They called you… a demon,” he said, afraid of offending her with the word. “Said you turned against God and became this… horrible creature.”

Lilith met his gaze with no heat in her eyes, only sorrow. “That’s because I did.”

The muscles in her delicate throat worked before she spoke. “I was found by a fallen Angel. Some theologians speculated it was Lucifer, but in fact it was a comrade of his in the war of Heaven. His name was Samael.” Her eyes fell to a spot on the hospital issued blankets. “I joined him, and we dwelt together, commiserating in our hatred and anger towards God. He promised me everything I had been denied before. All I had to do was give myself to him.” Inhaling a shaky breath, she forced herself to look up at Griffin. “Samael didn’t turn me into a horrible creature. I turned myself into one.”

Lilith fidgeted at the edge of the mattress, and Griffin wanted to reach for her, but his arms were too heavy to move.

“He made me immortal,” she murmured. “Gave me freedom. I became his queen. And I gave him children. Seven of them; four sons, three daughters, and they were all monsters.” Her voice broke, eyelids fluttering. “They were the first.”

Realization gathered in Griffin as he watched her. “They were Vampires.”

Lilith dipped her head. “Yes. But they weren’t like the ones you know. They were… a plague. More demon than human, they ravaged everything. If it breathed, they devoured it, and nothing satisfied them. And then they discovered their ability to create.”

“They sired more.”

She nodded. “They weren’t the same as my children, but they were still monstrous. And the scourge multiplied.” Her fingers tightened in the fabric of her dress. “I saw what was happening, what they did, and I begged them to stop, but they wouldn’t listen. And Samael… He thought it was funny. He said, that if God could throw them out of heaven, then they were allowed to rape the earth and take whatever He put there, as retribution. He used my children as a weapon against the divine, and all I could do was weep.”

Lilith was silent for a long time as grief flowed out of her so tangible Griffin could taste it at the back of his throat. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and trembling.

“Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked into the desert, crying out. Not for me, but for the people wounded by my sins. I screamed for days, wailing into the sandstorm around me, begging to be buried alive. Instead, I was rescued. Gabriel found me and gave me shelter.”

Griffin faltered, staring at her. “Gabriel… the Archangel?”

Lilith nodded. “The Messenger. The mouthpiece of God.” Absently, she touched the carved moth broach pinned to her shawl. “He wasn’t sure what his purpose in being there was- he hadn’t been given a vision- but that didn’t deter him. He stayed with me, watched over me. I couldn’t go back to Samael, and the Garden no longer existed. I was homeless and afraid, but Gabriel persevered.”

A small smile curved her lips. “I thought he would hate me for what I had done. I was already well aware of my reputation. But it didn’t matter to him. Somehow, he saw past all that. He saw my ugliness, and loved me more for it.” She shook her head, as if still confused by it all.

Griffin attempted to push up on the bed, still watching her. “You said… you were my first mother,” he started. “What does that mean?”

Lilith averted her eyes, playing with the corner of her shawl. “Gabriel had shown me something I had never had before: unconditional love. And I found that I loved him too, just as much. I honestly hadn’t thought I was capable of it.”

Griffin could see where this was going…

“That spring, I gave birth to triplets.”

Yup. Definitely saw it coming.

“So, you and Gabriel were, um…”

Bright green eyes met his. “Lovers. The one time, at least.”

“Right.” Griffin cleared his throat. “Guess you got a lot of bang for your buck,” he muttered and immediately cringed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

Lilith laughed, truly laughed, and it was one of the most melodic sounds Griffin had ever heard. A blush tinted her cheeks and her eyes sparked.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I’ve heard worse.”

“So… your triplets…?”

“Two girls and a boy,” she said with a smile.

Griffin nodded, beginning to understand. “They were special, weren’t they?”

“Unlike my children with Samael, they were mortal, but obviously different. They grew fast, were stronger than other humans, and they had gifts very similar to Gabriel’s.”

The biggest puzzle piece imaginable thunked into place in Griffin’s head.

“They were Hunters.”

“We didn’t know that at the time,” she said. “Like I said, we only knew they were different. We didn’t know the extent of it until much later, after we had given them up.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t safe to raise them ourselves. I knew Samael would come looking for me, and if he’d found them…” she trailed off. “It was better for them to go where they did.”

“So you gave them to normal families?”

“Yes. We split them up thinking that if Samael tried to find them it would make it more difficult. But Gabriel kept watch, just like he always did.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “They grew up happy and healthy, and soon had families of their own. And with each generation, more of Gabriel’s traits came through. And soon they found a purpose for those gifts.”

The heaviness in her voice made the explanation clear, but she still uttered the words. “I gave birth to monsters,” Lilith whispered. “And to those strong enough to slay them.”

There was a beat of mournful quiet before Griffin said, “You never told me why you came here.”

“Gabriel asked me to,” she replied. “He said there was something I could give you… something I could do for you that no one else could. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me what that is.”

The morphine must have been wearing off, because Griffin felt torn asunder by pain. His eyes watered and he couldn’t breathe.

“Shh,” Lilith murmured, leaning closer. “It’s alright…”

She laid her hand over his, and the puncture wounds at his wrist healed.

Griffin gaped down at the new pink scars on his arm. “What did you just do?”

“I healed you.”

“How?”

“It’s one of my few gifts that have lingered,” she explained. “I can heal my children.”

Griffin went from not being able to take in air, to taking it in too quickly, and he vaguely noticed the uptick on the heart monitor.

“You can… You can heal me?”

Lilith frowned. “Yes, I-”

“If you heal me, I can get out of this hospital.” Griffin looked around for a clock. “What time is it? Do you see the time?”

Lilith glanced above his bed. “Not yet ten,” she said. “Why-”

“There’s still time. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” he said, trying to sit up.

Her hands planted on his chest, holding him still. “What are you talking about?”

“Nikki. She made a deal with an Alpha to save my life. They gave her twenty-four hours, and then…” His throat closed up, cutting off the words. Inhaling through his nose, he tried again. “After that, they plan on killing her.” He locked eyes with Lilith. “But if you can heal me, I can get out of here, and go back for her.”

“Griffin…”

“Please. I can’t let her die in there. Not like that.” He gulped. “I love her,” he said firmly. “I love her, and I can’t leave her to die, scared and alone, at the hands of-” He broke off, suddenly aware he was talking to both his mother and Rex’s.

Lilith seemed to know, however, and she understood. “I applaud your bravery Griffin, but your injuries are severe…”

He felt himself sink inwards. “You can’t heal them.”

She shook her head. “No, I can, but the price-”

“I don’t care.”

“Griffin, I can heal your wounds, but the pain… I can’t take all of that away, not when you’re so badly hurt. Maybe some of it but not everything. And the scars…”

“I don’t care,” he cut her off again. “I don’t care about the scars or the pain.”

“It wouldn’t be as bad if you let your own abilities heal you-”

“Please, I’m begging you. Just get me up and mobile, so I can get out of here.”

Lilith’s mouth fell open as her own realization hit her. “This is what I was supposed to give you,” she whispered, barely audible. “This is why…” Her eyes widened as she stared at Griffin. “I will heal you-”

“Thank you.”

“But I must warn you,” she added, shaking her head. “Healing you like this… It will not be pleasant. In fact, it will probably hurt as much as it did when you received these wounds.”

Griffin wrapped his hand around her wrist, holding her tight. “Lilith, if you are who you say, and you can do everything you’re talking about, then please, do it. Help me get back to her. Please.”

Lilith leapt up and bent over him, cupping his face and kissing him gently on the forehead. When she pulled back, she looked close to tears.

“I will help you, Griffin,” she murmured. “I will help you be with her.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Flattening her hands on his chest, Lilith caught his eye one more time as reassurance. He gave her a short nod and inhaled deeply.

“Good luck, Griffin,” Lilith said before pressing down.

Sheer agony thundered through him, and Griffin was plunged back into darkness.

* * *

Lisa stepped out of the elevator and rounded the corner just as she heard mechanized alarms going off. Three nurses jogged past her, shoving into Griffin’s room.

“No,” she breathed, taking off after them.

Through the scrub-clad mob she saw the top of Griffin’s head and the pale gown falling off his shoulder. He was upright.

And then she heard his voice.

“No, I don’t want to lie back down,” he said to one of the nurses. “I’m fine.”

Griffin was yanking at the tangle of wires he’d found himself caught in, swatting away anyone trying to ease him into a horizontal position.

“I don’t need to see the doctor, okay? I’m alright. I just want out of this,” he said, waving to the web of cords.

When one of the nurses tried to put his blood pressure cuff back on, he glared at her and tore it off.

“I’m telling you, I’m fine,” he snapped. Jerking his thumb towards the ringing monitors, he said, “Can somebody please turn that off? It’s driving me nuts.”

“Griffin,” Lisa called over the other voices. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” he said, pulling off one of the leads from his chest. “I took myself off the heart monitor and the damn thing went off.”

“Are you kidding me?” She asked, pushing past one of the nurses.

“Does it look like I’m kidding?” Catching the same nurse trying to replace his BP cuff a second time, he stopped and stared at her. “Really?”

“Griffin, please, just relax,” Lisa said. “You just woke up.”

“I am relaxed,” he said. “But that noise is pissing me off.”

Sighing, she strode to the electrical outlet and pulled the cord out of the wall. The beeping continued.

Griffin rolled his eyes. “These things run on batteries Lisa.”

Cursing, she went to the monitor and tried to find the right button. “Can someone just turn this damn thing off before he goes full-on Frankenstein’s monster and chucks it out of a window?”

An older nurse with a deep set frown stepped over and pressed a series of keys, turning the alarm off.

“Thank you.” Lisa and Griffin said together.

“Frankenstein’s monster? Really?” He said, arching an eyebrow. “I’m not gonna go on a rampage through the hospital, Lisa.”

“Well that’s what it looks like right now,” she said, gesturing to the mess he made. “Griffin, what are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

All the nurses began talking at once, ordering him to stay.

“Mr. O’Connor,” a voice called over the chatter.

Doctor Chen came over with his chart in her hand. “What’s this I hear about you taking yourself off the monitors?”

Griffin stilled, his lips pressing into a tight line.

Doctor Chen motioned to the door. “Give me the room, would you?”

The pink and teal group filed out and the doctor shut the door behind them. Tossing his chart on the foot of the bed, she folded her arms and stared at him.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll be straight with you, if you’re straight with me. Okay?”

Griffin nodded, giving his full attention to the doctor.

“Good.” Pointing at the folder, she said, “Would you like to know what kind of shape you were in a few hours ago? Broken bones, severe lacerations to your back and torso, extreme blood loss, and oh yeah, the tiny detail of us having to shock your heart back into a healthy rhythm because you were going into shock.”

The frown on Doctor Chen’s face stayed firm as she gave him a cursory glance.

“The fact that you’re awake, and not still in the medically induced coma we put you in is already cause for concern and a hefty dose of suspicion.”

Griffin cleared his throat. “Look, doctor-”

“Did I say I was finished?”

“Sorry,” he murmured, ducking his head.

Doctor Chen continued. “Now, I should sedate you and put you on lockdown for your erratic and aggressive behavior.” Her glare softened. “But I won’t.”

“What?” The question fell from his mouth.

She tilted her chin towards his right wrist and glanced at Lisa’s.

“I’ve seen those tattoos before,” she said, noticeably quieter than before. “A few times actually, in my twenty odd years of working here, and every time the people who had them were the biggest pain in my ass.”

Lisa snorted a laugh and coughed to cover it up.

“I don’t know what you do,” Doctor Chen said. “I don’t need to know. But somehow, miraculously, the injuries you came in with-the ones that should have taken weeks to heal- look to have healed in less than an hour, since the last time I made rounds.”

Lisa blinked, her brain finally catching up to the present. She had just been so relieved to see Griffin alive and awake she hadn’t noticed the extent of his condition. She felt like an idiot.

Yanking at the back of his hospital gown, Lisa arched over him.

“Lisa,” Griffin muttered, trying to move away from her.

“Oh my God.”

Her fingers traced over one of the scars along his shoulder. It was solid, as if he’d been wounded years ago, not earlier that day. She’d seen him heal fast before, but never like this. She didn’t think it was possible…

“How…?” She started to ask.

Griffin pulled the fabric back over himself. “I’ll explain later.”

“Yes, you will,” Doctor Chen interjected. “But you’re gonna save that discussion for when you are far, far away from here.”

“You’re letting me leave?” He asked.

She nodded. “I’m going to give you a quick check just to be sure you’re not going to split at the seams and spill your guts in the hallway, and then I’m going make a few very illegal alterations to your records. You are then gonna sign the hell out of some paper work because I’ll be damned if I get sued for malpractice because of you.” She picked up his chart and leveled her gaze on him. “And then you are going to get out of my hospital, without causing another scene, and you’re going to go do whatever it is that’s so important to you, that you inked it on your skin.”

Turning, she headed for the door and glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t usually say this but… I’ll pray for you Mr. O’Connor.”

She jerked open the door and was met with Boz on the other side, his arm raised like he was about to knock.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, dropping his hand. “Sorry, doctor.”

He skirted around her and kicked the door shut, balancing the tray of coffees he had. His eyes lifted and the soles of his boots squeaked on the tile as he halted. For a moment Boz didn’t even look to be breathing. Finally, a smile broke over his face.

“So those pissed off nurses in the hallway were talking about you,” he said, moving closer to the bed.

“What?” Griffin frowned.

“Oh, just ranting about some belligerent jackass taking himself off the heart monitor,” Boz said, smirking as he handed Lisa her coffee. “And I thought ‘huh, that sounds like something Griff would do,’ and whaddya know!” He waved a hand at Griffin, chuckling.

“I wasn’t belligerent,” Griffin muttered. “In fact I think I was pretty civil given the circumstances.”

“Yeah but ‘civil’ coming from an overly muscled giant like you is still pretty intimidating,” Lisa commented over the lip of her cup.

Griffin rolled his eyes but caught the gentle look Lisa gave him. Boz handed over his coffee to Griffin and tossed the cardboard tray.

“Seriously though,” he said, pushing his hands into his front pockets. “Glad you’re up man.”

Griffin nodded, fingers closing around the warm cup. “Thanks.”

It was real. He was awake, alive. He was whole again.

Lisa hummed, gesturing to his back. “And you’re gonna fill us in on the details of this when exactly?”

“Once we get me the hell out of here,” he said.

“I’ll go get an extra set of clothes out of the van,” Boz said, starting towards the door. “Don’t want you having a hospital wardrobe malfunction. ‘Cause buddy, I love ya’, but that’s a boundary I’d rather not cross.”

Griffin chuckled, lifting his coffee and taking a sip. Quiet enveloped the room and he felt Lisa staring at him.

“What?” He asked, looking up.

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “We thought we were gonna lose you,” she whispered. “We thought…”

Griffin caught her hand in his, squeezing her fingers. “Hey… you haven’t lost me yet.”

Lisa swallowed hard, inhaling shakily. She opened her mouth to speak but no words would come. So she just nodded and tightened her grip around his.

* * *

Lilith paused outside the hospital exit, looking to the sky. She wished she could see the stars…

A shadow behind one of the concrete pillars near the ambulance bay shifted, whispering to her it was angelic. Tilting her head, she waited for him to step into the light.

The zipper on his leather jacket glinted, and Lilith’s heart plummeted.

“Hello, Michael,” she said, trying to calm the tremor in her voice.

There was no warmth in his eyes as he scanned her face, expression teetering on indifferent and cold. The longer he waited to speak, the more the muscles in her legs quaked.

“Lilith,” he said finally. Reaching into his jacket pocket for his Marlboros and gold lighter, he stared as if able to bore a hole through her.

She forced herself not to glance away from him. He would have taken it as a sign of weakness.

“Did Gabriel send you?” She asked, though she already knew the answer.

Michael placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it. “No.”

“Then why are you here?” She tightened her shawl around her arms, pretending it was the night air that caused her chill, and not the darkness that skirted across his eyes.

Holding his cigarette between his knuckles, he gestured behind her to the hospital and leaned against the pillar.

“I’m keeping watch,” he said. “You know, doing the whole guardian angel, Roma Downy routine.” Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he continued. “I’m making sure your great, great, great, great, grand-whatever makes it through the night.”

“I healed him,” she said, feeling a hint of confidence return. “He’ll be fine.”

Michael chuckled darkly. “A few broken ribs are the least of his worries.”

“What are you talking about?” Lilith frowned.

Flicking ash on the ground, he smirked. “You just auto-tuned your boy back into fighting shape. And that’s what he’s gonna go do. He’s barreling towards a war at lightning speed, and he has you to thank for that.”

“He’s going after the woman he loves,” Lilith countered. “I consider that a just cause.”

He gave a quick derisive snort and shook his head. “You would.”

Anger flared in her chest, hardening her stare. “Does Gabriel know you’re here?”

“Nope,” he answered casually. “I told him I didn’t want to be involved anymore, and I made with the disappearing act.”

“So you lied to him.”

Michael narrowed his gaze on her. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s something you know a little bit about, huh?”

Bitter rage rose in her throat, but Lilith refused to spew it forth, no matter how badly she ached to.

“Good night, Michael.” Turning on her heel, she strode towards the parking deck of the hospital.

“Tell me something,” Michael called after her. “Does it hurt you too?”

She halted but didn’t face him.

“Seeing him,” Michael continued. Pushing away from the concrete, he tossed his cigarette on the wet ground, following after her. “Does it kill you? Tear you up inside for months, years, afterwards?”

Taking a full breath, she slowly turned to meet Michael’s gaze. Her skin burned from the heat of his anger.

Unflinching, she whispered, “And then some.”

Michael nodded, satisfied with her answer. “Good,” he said, starting towards the building.

Lilith’s resolve fractured. “You can hate me as much as you want, Michael,” she called. “But it was Gabriel’s choice too.”

He paused, shoulders stiffening, before twisting to look at her.

“You’re right,” he said, icy indifference returning to his expression. “I can hate you as much as I want.”

The angel strode back into the same shadow he had emerged from and with a pop of electricity, he vanished.

Lilith exhaled until her sternum ached. Touching the moth pinned to her shawl, she started walking again, and didn’t stop until the hospital, with all its shadows, was far behind her.