#I’ve just settled with what this body would fit…… unless I do surgery on my full face and still get mistakenly as a butch

[ugaa]

I’ve never specifically talked about this to anyone since a trusted irl literallly said to my face” well I’m gonna ignore your choice of gender you’ll be a girl to me forever cause that’s what I see you as deal with it” after I came out to her

[bffsoobin]

Windflower

01|02|03|04|05|06

↳ after a heartbreak you find yourself in a small town looking for purpose. you find employment with Choi Soobin and his impressive ancestral home. when you start to fall in love again, there’s no way for you to predict what you find in the depths of the home and Soobin’s mind.

➤ hanahaki au, fluff, angst

Word Count:1,568

Warnings: mentions of food, some swearing, mentions of past relationships/unrequited love, mentions of surgery (not in detail). General warning that its 11 pm here and for me that’s late (old lady alert) and I didn’t proofread as usual.

A/N: Another character building chapter! There is very important info about both Soobin and reader in here, so make sure you pay attention and read well!  

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•

Dinner was surprisingly good, given the two of you had just thrown a frozen pizza in the oven. He had fussed adorably over adding extra cheese to the meal before popping it into the shiny appliance. It was easy to tell Soobin still felt awkward due to almost seeing you naked because he kept at least 5 feet of distance between your bodies for a long while. His skittish nature made it difficult for you to help set the table, but you let it slide. You don't know much about him; so it felt wrong to pass judgement on the way he couldn’t even keep eye contact for a while. It was okay, though, because his behavior still managed to rustle up glee in your stomach. The pizza was one of the best meals you had eaten in days, and you thanked Soobin profusely for it. He smiled awkwardly, waving you off with a joke about owing him breakfast in the morning. His personality had brightened ten shades with the help of food and his favorite tv show on the big screen television mounted on the wall of the living room. He had a whole pint of Half Baked ice cream open on the coffee table that was just for him. He had offered to share, but you turned him down upon seeing the absolutely ravenous look on his face; worried that he would combust on the spot if you didn’t let him have the pint to himself.  So you settled for watching the show absentmindedly until your mind began to wander. Intrigued by the contrast between the home’s age and the modern interior, you finally decided to ask Soobin. 

“Did someone do renovations here?” You mentally slapped yourself. Well duh, Y/N. Soobin’s ancestors who posed for oil portraits that now hung in ornate golden frames certainly didn’t install the stainless steel refrigerator and pick out the large leather sectional you were currently lounging on. He didn’t seem to catch the poor wording of your question as he nodded from his spot on the couch next to you with his legs tucked underneath him. You couldn’t help but notice how adorable he looked sitting that way.

“Yeah, my cousin did most of that kind of stuff. He’s a few years older than me so he was able to update the house for us when he was still living here. That’s his whole thing,” Soobin wiggled his fingers in the air, “interior design. Consulted at the shop a few towns over and everything.”

“I heard that he moved, why?” The back of your neck grew hot when you realized how insensitive that question really sounded once it was said out loud. “You don’t have to answer me, by the way,” you hoped that the attempt to backtrack would be enough to curb potential awkwardness. God knows the two of you couldn’t afford any more of that. 

“He met a girl online who lives a few states away and fell in love with her. He was wasting all of his money traveling back and forth to see her, so he finally decided to just move. The only things keeping him here were me and taking care of the house. I miss him sometimes, but I can’t blame him. He was starting to grow flowers for her, and she made it very clear that unless he could move to live with her, he would have to get the surgery.” Soobin’s voice had taken on a very odd tone that felt too complicated to unpack at the moment. Besides, your own chest began to burn at the mention of growing flowers. 

The boy must have noticed the way you gently grasped the soft fabric of your t-shirt between your fingers as his eyes widened like a deer in headlights. He made a miniscule scooch over the leather cushions to get a bit closer to you and place a hesitant hand on your shoulder. His voice was extremely soft and quiet even for as close as he was to you. 

“I’m sorry Y/N, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, I didn’t know that you…” he licked his plump lips as he hesitated, “Did you have surgery? You don’t have to answer me either, by the way.” Of course you had seen the question coming, but hearing it in the softest tone of voice you had ever heard from a human being struck a different chord in your heart. You couldn’t find it in yourself to confess your woes to his face, so you turned to your left to admire the garden from the window view. Earlier, he had happily told you the names of some of them and their meanings. Buttercups signifying innocence, Forget-me-nots representing true love, Marigolds standing for bliss. Flowers; dictating so much of your life. 

“Yeah, I had surgery.” You cursed the shaky edge in your voice. “I was in love with my best friend from college, we were roommates and he was everything I ever wanted from a boyfriend. And I thought he liked me back so,” you swallowed thickly and finally turned your head to see a confused furrow in Soobin’s brow. You knew why he looked so confused, but he would understand your emotions soon enough. “So I thought I had just caught some kind of bug when I started to grow flowers, and he was taking care of me. One day I went to the bathroom to puke and out came little purple petals. It was so confusing. He thought they were for someone else, so he comforted me and I didn’t understand why that only made me cough up more.” A hot tear escaped down your cheek and you cursed at it. Soobin’s whole body was rigid, as if your story was enough to stop all of his bodily functions in their tracks. You supposed your societally unusual show of emotions for a past love would be more than enough to elicit that response. 

“Obviously, I found out that he didn’t love me back so I went for surgery. They deemed it successful and I moved back in with him so we could just live as best friends. No flowers, no icky feelings, right?” The question was obviously rhetorical yet Soobin nodded as if cheering you on. “And everything was great, for close to a year. Until one night I woke up in a coughing fit when he wasn’t home and ended up with another god damn purple petal in my hand.” Your fist clenched at the memory of the disgustingly wet petal that had landed in your palm just to mock you. “So I went back to the hospital and they did all their tests. There’s nothing left for them to remove. No new growths, just. There’s something wrong with me. The doctor said he had read about it before, people who can’t fully move on even after removal. That was just two weeks ago. I couldn’t stay there and pretend the first surgery actually ended my feelings for him. That’s how I ended up here, with you.”

Soobin’s face was unreadable. A horribly timed laugh track blasted from the tv speakers and made you cringe. How awkward could this first day as an employee and roommate be? He had nearly seen you naked and now he knows all about your past heartbreak and medical anomaly. You inhaled a shuddering breath through your nose and busied yourself with watching the sun slowly disappear behind the trees of the property. 

“I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even relate with,” he gestured awkwardly toward his own chest, “growing flowers. I never have. That’s why I grow so many in the garden. Well, that and the family traditions. But mostly because I have always wondered what I would grow if I were in your position. And I memorize what they mean because one time I read a story that said your flowers can signify the kind of relationship you have with that person; especially since they change with every relationship. But I guess it’s kind of a blessing I’ve never loved anyone yet, huh?” You scoffed at his confession. 

“You have no idea, Soobin. I’d give everything to fall in love with someone who loves me back and push those stupid purple petals out of my system. Or to just have normal anatomy. But we live in a cruel world sometimes.” The atmosphere of the living room existed in direct opposition to your statement, as warm hues of sunset casted over every surface in a blissful haze.You could see particles of dust falling through the air as if in slow motion. Soobin hummed thoughtfully and got up to stand in front of a window. The light framed the outline of his body like a halo. 

“Lets hope,” his voice sounded just as light and airy as the room looked, “that the only flowers you encounter from now on are just the ones from the garden. No pain included.” You weren’t sure how much stock you should take in his insinuation that being here, with him, wouldn’t end in you growing flowers again. Was that an underhanded confession of attraction? You certainly didn’t have the guts to ask, but the idea made you feel weightless. 

“That would be very nice, Soobin. No pain included at all.” 

[hearthandhomemagick]

Cottage Witch Journal Entry

I have a longing for Tennessee. 

I have a pure, unadulterated and wild attraction to the Tennessee Mountains. This is a dream I’ve had, and a yearning I’ve felt, for years. A need to be hidden deep in the mountains in a tiny cottage/cabin of sorts. I’m sure this is an affinity very popular in mainstream culture today, and all I can think of when I hear people say they want a cottage or cabin in the mountains is, “How the Hell does everyone expect to FIT on these mountains?!” But, this is my Shadow Self, the over realistic and overthinking side of myself. And I easily get discouraged from my own wants thinking of others wants. 

This is a side of me to notice in myself. I need to be able to move past thoughts of, “If everyone wants it, I’ll never have it.” and move forward with thoughts of, “This is something I want for myself, and I deserve to work hard for it.” And that’s a goal I have with myself. 

You see, this post isn’t just about my want to be in Tennessee in the woods, it’s much deeper than that I feel. It’s about improvement and wanting to grow. 

I bring up Tennessee because that is not a goal I can easily obtain within a couple of weeks or even a month. But, it is something I want to build up to obtaining. Something I want to do right so that everything is exactly as it needs to be. And I can’t fully accomplish this until I accomplish other goals that take precedent first. For Example, my physical health.

As a witch, I truly believe in loving every part of yourself, the good and the bad. The exciting and the terrifying. The understood and the neglected. Part of this acceptance process is learning what is and is not acceptable for my body. Now, I have struggled with my weight and how I see myself since I was a child. I remember a little boy seeing my tummy in a bathing suit in 1st grade and him telling me I was fat and that his dad said fat girls were ugly. Comments like this, stares and whispers were constant when in regards to my weight. It felt like an overwhelming amount of attention was directed at the way I looked, even if no one was looking at me I felt as though everyone was thinking about it. Over the years, this mental state took a tole on a lot more than I expected, even affecting me today with my Significant Other. The consistent attention to my own weight pulled me into depression, our of depression, into anxiety and out of anxiety. What I mean is I had an up and down relationship with my tummy. 

I felt abandoned most days. I would get this idea that I was too much and not enough all at once. A gentle and cooing tone from my toxic thoughts led to a lot of issues and concerns for me and my health. Some days, I would read something that made me feel as though I was a Queen. A bad bitch lurking in this cruel world and taking it by the throat to stare it in the eyes and say, “I love my body fat.” 

The sad part is your heart, mind and body know when you are lying to it. I didn’t love my body. Not in those confident moments and not in those depressed moments. I was locked away in a cage in my mind that gave me two illusions to choose from, while hiding my third option under the rug. I neglected my feelings because I didn’t want to experience them. I neglected my health because I didn’t want to deal with it. And I neglected my body because I hated it. 

Reality here is that this is the only fucking body I have. Do you understand that? Let me repeat this so maybe you can understand how harsh of a reality this was to me. 

I am on this Earth for goodness knows how long. 50 years, 20 years, 72 days. I don’t know, and no one does. I was literally forced into owning this body, whether I like it or not, it is mine. I can move houses, I can get a new car, I can get a new job. I cannot get a new body. 

I heard this in High School and started what I called my weight loss journey. I lost maybe 20 pounds while attending a workout-boot camp of sorts and trying to maintain a healthy diet. That sentence resonated so much with me that I repeated it every day to myself. My motivation was on point. Then, I stopped going. There are multiple reasons why I stopped, but none of them are rightful excuses.

I just stopped. 

Now, during those days I had lost weight, I was starting to gain confidence in myself and was attempting to genuinely look out for my health. I had more energy and felt amazing! But like I said, I had stopped for terrible reasons. 

Fast-forward to college and you will find a very anxiety filled, sleep deprived and mentally exhausted Carly. Some nights I wouldn’t sleep but for 4-5 hours. Other nights I didn’t sleep at all. I believe my stay up streak was 3, going on 4 nights. All due to homework. My coping technique has always been eating food, too. So when you have a sleep deprived student settled next to a 24/7 pizza joint with half baked cookies, you gain 30-40 pounds. 

At 245 Pounds, I was at my heaviest. This weight gain came on as my roommates were saying I was fat, stupid and were making me question myself frequently. Self hate festers among others who don’t value your worth, remember that. So, through those years of college I weighed an uncomfortable amount of weight that made my body start shutting down physically. 

Mental Health had a lot to do with my physical health, here as well. When I was in a really bad place, I would stop moving completely and just sit still. If I had a terrible feeling, I’d cook something to make myself feel better or would just grab a processed, quick snack. It was a pattern of mine. I’d get just enough motivation to do one or two things, and then I’d stop all together and feel as though that was enough for a few weeks. 

Eventually, when I was done with college, I started back on that rollercoaster of healthy and unhealthy. I’d lose 5 pounds, then gain 7 pounds right back. I started detail critiquing myself and stressing myself out. My weight never could get under control, and I couldn’t break the 200 mark to save my life. I would see pictures and videos of myself and feel as though I had eaten an entire buffet. Not too long after getting with my S/O and starting my job as a Sexual Violence Outreach Advocate, I got sick.

It started as a birthday dinner at a Korean Barbecue in 2019. I was with my two best friends at the time and having a blast. We all ate the same food, but when I woke up the following morning I was throwing up everything in my tummy. 

The throwing up went on for 4 days before I was taken to the hospital, only for them to release me saying it was virus. My personal doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong and it eventually became an everyday thing. I would wake up between 3-6 in the morning, go to the bathroom and be sick for hours before pulling myself together to make it to work. 

Weeks turned into months, and months turned into a year. 

I lost 50 pounds from this thing that no doctor could seem to figure out. I got x-rays and everything, but nothing and no one could tell me exactly what was going on with me. I couldn’t eat anything friend, only raw fruits and veggies, or broth. I only drank water and ginger based drinks, and could not for the life of me stop what was going on with my body. Many doctors tried to pass it as a virus, stomach ulcers, GURD, or even Heart Burn (?). None of them were right. 

After a long time, my mom finally confessed that every woman in our family has Endometriosis. If you don’t know what this is, it is the build up of scar tissue on the outside of your uterus. This leads to nausea, ovarian cysts (which they found on me in x-rays) and sub or infertility. No doctor can diagnose it, either, unless you have a surgery to see if there is scarring. So for many, suffering on your own is easier than seeing a doctor. 

I discussed this with my doctor, and it was as if a light flashed in her brain. This is a disease she cannot say I have, but can say it sounds very much like that. It is hereditary and once you have it, you have it for good.

After this information entered my line of though, I decided the stress from my job was too much for too little pay, and chose to leave. Leading up to my leaving the job, I was sick almost every second of every day. The moment I left, I felt better.

I still feel pain in my ovary area, but because I don’t have the money to see a doctor, and can control my pains with eating habits and physical influence, I choose to work through it alone. 

I said ALL THAT BACKGROUND BULLSHIT JUST TO SAY THIS!!!!!

This is the part that marks my new journey. It is the Journey to Strength and Well Being. The Journey to Feeling Good. The Journey the Choosing my happiness over anything else. And the Journey to choosing the health of my body over my insecurities.

I wrote this because a couple of days ago I had a very graphic and vivid dream about my boyfriend falling in love with the woman I wanted to be. In other words, I seen him with a woman who literally presented all of my insecurities to me. Small, lithe and dainty, gentle and calming, and everything I wasn’t. She was beautiful. And he seen this, and did things for her that he never did for me. I woke up almost in tears, because my emotions were raw, but I had no idea that my insecurities were still very deeply rooted. 

I pondered over the last few days of this dream. What it could mean, what I should do, how I should feel and I have finally come to a conclusion.

This dream is a depiction of my fears. My brain was saying, “You need to address this shit right now.” and did it in the most face slap kind of way I could think. 

I still, even after learning to love myself genuinely, have image issues that need to be nurtured and tended to before I can move forward in my life.

So, I’m making 1-3 goals every month that are attainable and reachable. This will be a brick road to my obtaining that cottage/cabin in the Tennessee Mountains. 

This months Goals start today! 

GOAL 1 -  Learn to do a split, find a healthy yoga sequence, be able to do 15 pushups, & 30 Squats by the end of December. 

GOAL 2 - Make a conscious effort to what you eat/making a new dish once a week to try.

GOAL 3 - Save $100.

This is a process, and I am only human. I don’t want to fall back into the habits of toxic mentality. I don’t want to neglect myself or how I feel and I don’t want to lose myself in to the world in the process of searching for freedom from myself. 

I expect myself to exude self control, self love, and empowerment. I expect to expect better from and for myself, and I expect to accomplish my goals.

I manifest it here, I can do a split. I have a healthy maintainable yoga sequence that I have committed to growing expanding and changing. I can do 15 push ups and 30 squats. I have 100 dollars saved up already and make concious decisions that better my health rather than hurt it. This is part of my lifstyle now! 

And it is for the better!

Thank you to anyone who read this through. These entries are more for my benefit and thought process, but appreciate anyone who recognizes it or even relates and wants to talk about it. It’s personal to me and means a lot. I intend on being on here more often to update my challenges and express how I use my witchcraft in the process of this Journey.

I love you all! Stay safe, warm and full to the brim! Later Witches! xx

[bangchanshehe]

The Trespasser pt.4

You were on top of the world with the new title of leader of your family’s clan. You were the strongest clan in all of the orient and you were proud. But your family feels that there are threats still lurking around making you a target. When they introduce you to a potential man for a business and marriage merger will it help your clan or make matters worse?

Word count: 3.7k

Wonho x Reader, Shownu x Reader, Jooheon x Reader

The past few days had flown by and you did lots of menial and dumb tasks to make time go by. Everyone around the house questioned you when they noticed you cleaning the house up or doing lots of overtime, thinking that something was bothering you. But like the holed up and skeptical person you typically are in these types of situations you smiled and replied with a total lie.

The truth was that you were technically okay regardless of how the entire “proposed marriage deal” went, but you just felt still so insecure about how a baiter for a very powerful family would want to get into a marriage at such a young age. Sure, if it had to do with the family business and Marriage for profits it would make sense. But baiters are notoriously known for being completely cut of from their emotions, which is why they can lie and sleep around with people the way that they do. They take but never give anything in return and it made you question Hoseok’s authenticity.

And although you were not looking for an emotional, and legitimate marriage of love you did want for your legal husband real or fake, to be loyal to you and your business and have honest intentions. You could care less if Hoseok was the leader of his family’s clan or not, you just wanted the mutual benefits of being partnered with a Shin.

You went over everything that you wanted to ask Hoseok as you got ready for your meeting at Icon. It was 8:30 and you looked over your figure in the mirror and smiled to yourself. You looked damn good, suited up in a solid black fitted pant suit, and jacket… minus the shirt underneath allowing for your black lace bra to be the focal point of your outfit. You put on your fire engine red lipstick and matching red heels and then strut out of your bathroom.

You felt your phone vibrate and you looked down at the screen

Shownu: Just arrived

You smiled at the text from Shownu and your body instantly relaxed a little bit. You had planned to have him there for a little bit more security, but asked him to blend in with the crowd, so you could talk to Hoseok without any uncertainty on his end.  You grabbed your keys waved bye to the boys and then stepped out into the night air, ready for what was next to come.

  The drive was only 20 minutes from your secluded house and you pulled into the parking lot of Icon in what seemed like no time. You put the car into park, scanned the parking lot to see if you could recognize any vehicles or people walking around and then picked up your phone to text Shownu.

Me: just arrived, about to go ins-

You dropped your phone, when a sudden knocking on your window startled you. You let out a huff and looked over with a glare to whoever caused you to be scared and then relaxed a little when you recognized Hoseok hunched over, looking inside at you with a wide smile.

You picked up your phone, took out the keys and stepped out of your vehicle giving Hoseok only a polite head bow and smile.

“Sorry to scare you” Hoseok said rubbing the back of his head and giving you a smile  “I pulled in at the same time as you and figured it’d be easier to go in at the same time instead of having to look for one another inside.”

“ah, no worries “ you gave in. what he said did make a little sense from a logical standpoint “shall we?” you asked him pointing with your hand towards the building

“yes, please” he said with a megawatt smile  

You walked silently for a moment and as you got closer to the front doors Hoseok cleared his throat and leaned in closer to your ear.

“By the way… you look really good tonight.” He confessed

You turned your head to look at him and then scanned his outfit. He looked really good in black trousers and a black button down shirt tucked into his pants with the top few buttons undone. He knew what he was doing trying to draw attention to his chest and then you laughed to yourself. You were doing the same thing weren’t you? Marketing yourself. His hair was parted nicely and styled back, and his skin looked flawless.

You would typically respond with a polite response back, but Hoseok knew that he was good looking and it was no use using flattery on him.

“thank you” you responded with a small smile before turning back to the doors and entering the loud and busy club, bypassing the people waiting outside to get inside.

As you entered you felt the pulsing of the bass of the music vibrate through your body, and the lights strobe and dance across the club in a hypnotizing manner. The smell of alcohol, cigarettes and sweat clouded your nose and countless bodies, swayed on the dance floor. You lead Hoseok towards the back of the club where there were private booths and took a seat in a corner booth were there were few people and privacy curtains.

As you sat down Hoseok smiled and reached for the curtains, making sure to close them tightly as to block out as much of the music as possible.  You watched his arms as he worked on the fabric, unfashioning it and pulling it to a close.

“Do you want to order anything?” Hoseok asked you

You gave him a small smile and shook your head no.

“I don’t drink in public.” You answered his question

Hoseok raised his eyebrows and nodded his head “good, neither do I, unless its important for a job” he responded. “so… what questions do you have for me?” he asked right off the bat

“lot of things, as I’m sure you could imagine….” You stared off “ first… my parents mentioned that you had seen me many times when I was a child, but I never met you? Why is that?”

Hoseok raised a single eyebrow and contemplated for a moment on how to respond before he gave you a very simple one. “I had a very busy schedule as a child”

“look… I don’t mean to be rude. But if I am even going to consider a contractual marriage with you then I need to know a little bit more about you.” You spoke up and Hoseok shifted in his seat and looked down at the table before looking up at you with a stern expression. “I know that you were in some sort of accident and had an injured back, but why would you even bother coming to see me if you had to leave for such a said busy schedule”

“okay that’s fair” he replied with a deep sigh “when I was 12 I was in a drunk driving accident. The driver hit our car and it caused us to flip and the car caught on fire. I had to have 2 spinal surgeries, jaw reconstruction, titanium plates in my arms and a knee surgery.”

You looked at him with wide eyes as you processed what he told you. You could not even begin to imagine the amount of pain that he had to be in.

“It took a long time to heal and for a long time I was completely wheelchair bound, because my spine and body wasn’t strong enough to support me. I had lots of physical therapy, and because of my condition I wasn’t able to tolerate lots of moving around from place to place or sitting in one spot for long.” He continued

“I’m sorry that happened. That had to be very difficult to get through at such a young age.” You spoke up “but I’m still curious as to why you would still come to events involving me”

Hoseok’s serious demeanor suddenly dropped a little and he let out a small smile and chuckle “actually I’ve been told from a very young age that you would be my wife. Our parents have been planning our marriage for a long time.” He confessed

Your jaw dropped a little and you sat back in your seat remembering your mother call Hoseok her “Son-in-Law”. Had it been anyone else you would have not been so convinced so easily, but you didn’t doubt it for a moment after the whole spectacle your parents put you through at their house.

As soon as you let that idea settle in your mind you decided to ask Hoseok more questions that had been weighing on your mind.

“so is it still true that you have no intentions of pursing the leader position of your family clan?” you asked him

“it’s true. After my accident I had a lot of time to think about my future and what I wanted to do, and I decided that I was lucky enough to get a chance at life so I wanted to do something that would allow me to have a little more time to enjoy my life and the finer things.” He answered

“so then what does this marriage do for you?” you asked him

“well…” he said and then cleared his voice and adjusted his posture “since im physically unable to be the leader, the marriage allows for the clan to stay in control of the shin family. It essentially puts me in the most control without having the title or workload of leader if anything happens to my brother.”

“your brother Is in control now?” you asked and you received a nod in return “and what exactly is your position now?”

“I handle some business deals and negotiations with my brother behind closed doors, but on an everyday basis I usually just bait.” He confessed

“and it doesn’t bother you that you cant take the position?” you asked him

He gave you a smile, but you could tell that he was straining his jaw. You could imagine how difficult it would be to constantly struggle with your position and health. And then to top it off he had to be here with you because he had no other choice, if he wanted anything to do with maintaining the family’s control.  

“of course it bothers me… I’ve been trained since young how to run the business and now all I can do is sit back and watch other people do what I was supposed to do. And don’t get me wrong my brother makes a great leader, but the way he executes some deals really gets on my nerves.”

“that’s understandable” you agreed “since this would be a contractual marriage, how would you expect our family to benefit your business and vice versa?” you asked him

“money and business isn’t an issue, the only thing we are wanting to take from your family through the marriage is a healthier reputation, and if absolutely necessary allyship in times of warfare with other clans.” He answered sincerely

You nodded your head and concentrated on his request “then our needs are similar. This marriage in most needed in our case for reputation as well”

“good” Hoseok said softly

Hoseok gave you a polite smile and you returned one to him. Prior to the meeting you felt very uneasy about the possible outcomes of this meeting, but after talking with Hoseok you realized that they two of you were here for pretty similar reasons.  Hoseok’s clan has a reputation of having the weak son, and your clan was labeled weak because you were a woman. Which made both of you an easy target, but with each other as reinforcement you both become closer to indestructible.

“so lets talk more about you and I and not the business…” you started giving Hoseok a more relaxed impression. Hoseok looked you up and down and gave you a small smile before leaning into the table and crossing his arms Infront of himself “how long do you ideally want for this marriage to last?”

He thought the question over for a minute and then responded “honestly, the longer the better. And I think that stands for the both of us if I’m being honest”

You rolled your eyes slightly at his response  “I’m not saying that I’ve agreed to anything yet, but an indefinite contract marriage is a little… excessive” you said “how would you feel about starting off at 1 year to get comfortable and familiar with one another and the business and then if we still feel as if we can get along and be beneficial to one another we can extend and redraw the contract?”

Hoseok considered the proposal for a solid minute and you held your ground and you gave him a serious look as you maintained eye contact. Finally, he gave you a small smile and then broke his silence.

“do you find me to be unsatisfactory as a potential husband?” he asked you seriously

You laughed and shook your head before giving him a small smile “my request has nothing to do with you not meeting my standards, but everything to do with whether or not I find it to be a good business move.” You answered and Hoseok sat back in his seat a little “to be quite honest the only reason that I’m here is because my family requested it of me and I think I might potentially be extra security for the clan, not because I have any interest in getting married. In fact, I have never considered marriage or even a serious relationship to be in my near future.” you answered

Hoseok nodded in understanding “so you aren’t seeing anyone?” he asked

You were about to nod your head but you hesitated for a moment unaware of how to go about addressing your relationship with Shownu and Jooheon. It wasn’t like you were completely single because you did have somewhat of a relationship, even if you didn’t have titles for each other. You weren’t together but you also weren’t just friends. Friends with benefits?

“something you can’t put a label on?” he asked you

You gave him a small nod in response, and he smiled back at you

“if we do proceed with things is it going to be an issue with your friend?” he asked

“they already know about this arrangement and what it could possibly mean for the future…” you said without think twice about how much you just shared

“THEY?!” Hoseok asked with wide eyes and a shocked look on his face “like two people at once?” he asked you looked up at his with wide eyes at his reaction “do they know about you seeing more than one person?” he continued to ask

You scoffed a little pissed that he would insinuate that you were a cheater “of course they know about one another.” you answered “and yes… I didn’t plan it but it just happened to be this way”

“wow” was all he said as he looked you up and down “okay just a few more questions…and don’t get mad at me for what I’m about to ask” he commented making you curious as to what he could say to piss you off

“how realistic do you want this marriage to look to other people?” he asked you and you relaxed

“realistic enough that people won’t want to fuck with either one of us” you answered

“okay then what would the living arrangements look like?” he asked

You stopped for a moment caught off guard by his question, and quite unsure not having ever considered the question.

“do we have to live with each other?” you asked

“of course, if you want it to look real….” he replied “I live at home with my parents so its probably not ideal for the kind of lifestyle you want”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked him

“well… you live on your own and you have… partners” he answered honestly

“if things proceed then I would be willing to open up a bedroom and office for you” you replied

“and would things be strictly business or would we be open to pursuing one another?” he asked and your eyes went wide at how brazen he was being

“just business!” you quickly replied “as I said earlier I have no intentions of being in a relationship. Anyways… being a baiter wont make things complicated for you after the contract begins right?” you asked him

“no… not at all” he said with a small smile “usually the baits take anywhere from 2 to 6 months and at most I would be gone for only a few months at a time but that is only for the tough and rare cases” he explained

“as long as you can insure that my home and clan won’t be in danger from your baits following you to my home then I am totally fine with whatever you need to do” you answered

“usually during the job I stay in an old apartment so that there aren’t any issues or slip ups.” He answered and then was silent for a few moments “okay well I think that you and I have some things to think about now… and decide if we want to seriously continue to the next step” Hoseok said with a smile

you nodded your head and gave him a polite smile. “you can stay if you like, but since we are done here I will go home.  and I will try to get back to you soon with more information” you politely bowed to him and then stepped out of the private booth.

“Wait!” Hoseok called after you

You hand just made eye contact with Shownu as Hoseok called you and you turned your head to address him

“I’ll be leaving too…. This isn’t really my scene” Hoseok said with a smile “let me walk you out!” Hoseok offered and you gave him a smile

As the two of you made your way across the club you noticed the vibe had shifted in the crowd of people. The music had gotten more seductive, the clients were drunk, and people were no longer just having a good time. Most were partnered off and grinding on strangers, giving them a look like they were ready to fuck on the floor if they could.

When you finally reached the front of the club you took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of clean air. You clutched your arms and looked up at the night sky to see the stars and moon hanging just above you, happy to just be out of the sex fueled building.

As you stepped as much as ten feet away from the front door you hear it open once more, and without even looking behind you could tell that it was Shownu. Hoseok however decided to look back and he scoffed before turning back around.

“is he one of your guys?” he asked calmly under his breath just loud enough for you to hear

You just barely peeked over your shoulder to confirm and then hummed as an answer.

Hoseok chuckled and then gave you a smile “I’m guessing that he’s one of the two that you mentioned?” he asked and you turned to give him a look of curiosity “he looks like he wants to bite my head off, so I figured that it was safe to assume”  he joked

Now you completely turned to look back at Shownu and chuckled at the look of disgust and unhappiness on his face. You were sure to get an earful when you got home about all of his opinions on what type of a person Hoseok is. You let out a soft sigh and then smiled down at the ground. This night could have taken many different turns, but you were relieved that things were at least starting off on a half decent track.

 When you had finally arrived in front of your car, Hoseok gave you a soft smile before pulling his phone out of his pocket and handing it over to you. You took the phone and looked up at him with wide, curious eyes. Did he want for you to save your number in his phone? You unlocked the phone and quickly added the number for a second phone.

Of course things were starting off well, but you weren’t dumb enough to give him your personal number. If he needed to contact you he could email or text your spare, unregistered phone.

You handed the phone back to him and he quickly tucked it back into his pant pocket.

“thanks for meeting me tonight, it allowed me to understand you and the contract a little bit more” he said politely

“yes, thank you as well. It was very important for me to have some clarity before I decided to move forward” you said as politically and general as possible, hyperaware that you had a nosy Shownu lingering over your shoulder.

Hoseok gave you a smile, looked you up and down once more and then turned to Shownu and gave him a cheeky grin, before yelling out a little too confidently

“Hey buddy, take care of her for me tonight”

He winked at Shownu and then moved on to find his own vehicle avoiding the death glares and cursing that was falling out of Shownu’s mouth like fire. You turned to give Shownu a secret glance before you quickly got into your car, avoiding having to have any kind of conversation with Shownu while he was this annoyed.

Shownu stared at you with a frown through the windshield for a moment before he resigned and finally got into his own car, ready to follow you home.

You let out the breath that you didn’t know that you were holding in and turned the volume to your music up slightly, because you had exactly about a 20 minute car ride until the second hard part of the night begun.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Melt VI

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: Kayo Kyrano, Virgil Tracy, John Tracy, Brains, Grandma Tracy, Scott Tracy

Part 6 of my entry for @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Smell. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

I give up.  This fic wants to do its own thing and I am simply the helpless scribe.

A soft hand on her arm alerted Kayo to the fact she was trembling.  Not from cold or fear, but anger.  She knew Brains, trusted his genius; their Pods were all well-tested and reliable. John said something was afoot, and she fully agreed.

If Grandma hadn’t put her foot down and firmly request she stay and keep her company, she would have been on the mountain by now.  John hadn’t been able to find any sign that anyone else had been there, but there was only so much a space station could do, even if that space station was Thunderbird Five.  Some detailed scans of the area using her own hand-held scanner, and they’d find something.  What that something would be, Kayo didn’t yet know, but it would be something and they’d have a trail.

Someone had tried to kill her brothers.  Of that, Kayo had no doubt at all.  The question was who, and how?

She rested her hand over Grandma’s, and waited.  They hadn’t been able to see Scott before he’d been taken in for surgery, despite John’s guidance through the corridors, but Grandma insisted that she wait for him to come back out before ‘haring off’ on her investigations.  Despite her fury that anyone would dare attempt anything like this, the little sister in her wanted to see him for herself, and she’d agreed.

From what she’d gathered from John, Virgil was in no hurry to rendezvous with her, anyway, and Thunderbird Shadow was both faster and closer.  She had plenty of time to sit with the elderly woman who had lost so much but refused to give up yet, and wait.

Hospitals were unpleasant places, full of the sick and dying.  It tore at her every time one of her brothers ended up in one – this was not the first time, and nor would it be the last.  The sterile stench of antiseptics couldn’t quite disguise the prevailing illness of the place.  It was almost certainly her imagination, but she could even pick up the congealing scent of burnt flesh, taunting her with the knowledge of what had happened to her brother.

Kayo wasn’t naïve. With her estranged half-uncle and many years investigating the underbelly of the world, she had seen many things that a woman of her age could barely imagine.  She’d seen men and women with horrific scarring, with stories of fire to go along with them.  If it was so bad that Scott needed surgery – and he did, was in there right now – all the money in the world wouldn’t stop this incident from adding another collection of scars to his skin.

A nurse approached them, informing them that Scott was out of surgery, and despite her clear intention of keeping them away from him for a while longer, there was no arguing with Doctor Sally Tracy.  Kayo slipped into the room on the heels of the diminutive yet formidable lady.  It was a private room; the boys might dislike using their money for privileges but this was something instilled in them by her father long ago.  It was easier to maintain security that way.

Scott was still asleep, too soon out of surgery to have shaken off the anaesthetic, but that made it easier.  If he was awake he’d be arguing, refusing to let her go back to the mountain and throwing an absolute fit over Virgil also going back.  In an induced sleep, there were no nightmares plaguing him, and the ever-present frown that seemed to be settling as his permanent expression these days was gone.

She ran her fingers through his hair, gel stubbornly clinging in there but losing its battle to keep his preferred hairstyle intact after the day it’d had.  If not for the bandages on both his fingers, she might have held his hand, but that wasn’t possible and besides, she had places to be. This visit was a quick one of simple reassurance for her; he was alive.  A more sentimental, emotional, visit could wait until she’d got to the bottom of what had happened.

“I’ll be back,” she promised.  She met Grandma’s eyes, got a nod, and left.

“Virgil’s fifteen minutes out,” John told her the moment she left the hospital, appearing above her wrist uninvited.  He didn’t ask redundant questions – how is he, how did the surgery go?  Like her, John had one priority – find out what happened, and make sure it wouldn’t happen again.  He probably already knew the answers to those questions, anyway. Kayo had long since accepted that the combination of Thunderbird Five and John Tracy was enough to terrorise anyone who knew the full extent of their reach, and that was before EOS entered the equation.

She didn’t know how much John saw, but she trusted that he saw enough, and that he ensured she knew everything she needed to.

Closer and faster, she got to the mountain first.

“Don’t land or leave Thunderbird Shadow until Virgil arrives,” John told her firmly.  Even if she didn’t know the Tracy’s personal history with avalanches, Kayo would have been wary.  As it was, she appreciated that their already fierce protectiveness was ramped up to the extreme in this environment and additional situation. She could handle this herself, but out of respect to a family that had never fully healed, she didn’t.

Instead, she had Thunderbird Shadow lazily circle the peak, keeping far enough away that her engines wouldn’t trigger another avalanche, and set the scanners going.  Immediately a signal jumped out at her, Thunderbird Shadow locating her buried sister.  That was where Scott and Gordon had been found; presumably, that was also where they and the HeliPod remains had landed.

She spiralled down lower, until she could see disturbed snow with her naked eye.  Tell-tale signs of something heavy on otherwise loose snow told her where Virgil had landed to retrieve them, with the hole he had melted leading down towards Thunderbird One’s signal.

Her brothers had been buried there.  She tightened her grip on the yoke.

“Thunderbird Shadow, I’m on final approach now,” Virgil said, his hologram appearing above her console. He looked tense, and she remembered John mentioning the family bear being unhappy with the return mission. That didn’t seem to have been an overstatement – in fact, from the look on his face it was almost certainly an understatement.

“F.A.B., Thunderbird Two,” she responded, turning her ship around to see the green craft appearing on the horizon.

“What’s our plan?” he asked her.  His voice was clipped; no, Virgil was not happy.

“I’ve already done a fly-by of the mountain.  No signs of anyone except our climbers,” she reported, scowling at the peak.  There had to be something.  There was no way Brains’ well-used invention would have exploded like that otherwise.  “I’ll keep looking, unless you need a hand with Thunderbird One?”

“Keep looking; I’ve got MAX with me for extra hands,” Virgil grunted.  “Brains also wants him to retrieve or at least scan the remains of the HeliPod once we’ve got Thunderbird One secure.”  Kayo rather suspected that Brains’ priority was less the Thunderbird and more the HeliPod, but said nothing.  There was a time and a place to poke an angry bear with a stick.  This was neither.  As long as they got all the information they needed, the order in which they gathered it probably wouldn’t matter.

“F.A.B., Virgil,” she said instead.  “I’ll leave Thunderbird Shadow hovering and-”

“No,” he interrupted. “Stay in that cockpit.”  The glare she got through the hologram told her that if she even tried to leave Thunderbird Shadow, she’d find herself plucked out of the air by a grappling cable.

She’d forgotten just how touchy Virgil could be when Scott was hospitalised.  Their brother’s hospitalisation, combined with their current location, had him entirely on edge.  If it was Scott, she’d have argued.  John could be dealt with via a ‘communications blackout’, while Gordon and Alan were straight-up ignorable as long as it wasn’t their speciality environments.

When Virgil was in this mood, it was best to just obey him no matter how much her instincts screamed that she’d get better information if she went EVA.

If push came to shove, she could always come back again later.

As it turned out, push did not come to shove.

Her circling remained fruitless all the while Virgil and MAX worked together to extract a battered Thunderbird One from the snow – it was a good thing Scott wasn’t there to see the damage the avalanche had inflicted on his precious ‘bird.  The side facing the downslope was near enough intact, but from the sky it was painfully obvious that the perfectly cylindrical shape of the main fuselage was no longer perfectly cylindrical.  The right wing was crooked and clearly wouldn’t be retracting into its sheath any time soon, and the side of the hull looked like it had been punched repeatedly by a giant.

There was a painful symmetry in how both the right side of Scott’s body and the right side of his bird were injured.  Kayo immediately decided not to dwell on that and watched from a hovering position higher up the mountain as the silver Thunderbird was hauled clear of the snow by her big green sister.

“MAX is scanning now,” Virgil told her after a moment.  “Is something wrong?  You’ve been hovering in the same place for a few minutes.”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” she assured him.  “Just-” An unwelcome thought struck her.  “Virgil, where were the climbers trapped?”

“You’re hovering right there,” he told her, and the unwelcome thought spread wings.

She was hovering here because it gave her a good view of the mountainside and the crash site.

Neither she nor John had found any evidence of anyone else anywhere near the mountain.

“Virgil, where did you drop off the climbers?”

“The hospital,” he shrugged. “Didn’t have a chance to check them over myself, and we were going there any- Kayo?”

Dammit.

She gunned the full throttle.

“Kayo?”  John had joined in again, and she caught a glimpse of Alan behind him.  When had John gone home?  “What’s going on?”

“Brains, once MAX is done scanning the HeliPod, have him scan the mountain immediately below where the climbers were rescued,” she ordered.

“W-What?  W-Why?”

“Think about it!  We’re not showing up evidence of anyone else, and the climbers could see everything in the valley from where they were,” she pointed out agitatedly.  “We were so busy looking for something else-”

“We forgot about the climbers,” Virgil finished, his face a dawning horror.

“Put me through to Grandma,” she told John.

“Already done,” he said, as the older woman appeared over her console.

“Dear, what’s going on?”

“Don’t leave Scott’s side, and don’t let anyone you don’t recognise in,” she said quickly, pushing her ‘bird to go faster.  Someone had tried to kill Scott and Gordon, and if she was right that same someone was in the hospital with a now unconscious Scott, whose only protection was his grandmother.  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You think they’ll try to finish the job?” Alan asked her, his voice small.  She’d forgotten he was with John.

“I’m not taking chances,” she replied grimly.  No point sugar-coating things at this point.  “John, my ETA’s two minutes; what’s EOS got from the security cameras?”

“Nothing yet,” he said, equally grim.  “But we’ll keep looking.”

“Let me know what you get,” she replied.  “Brains, what’s MAX found?”

“MAX is still w-working on the scans of t-the HeliPod,” he said somewhat apologetically.

“I’ve got Thunderbird Two scanning,” Virgil interjected.  If she’d thought he was angry earlier, now he was downright thunderous, not that she could blame him.  “You’re right, Kayo.  There’s something here that doesn’t look like it should be.”

He didn’t share the scan results with her, but John and Brains simultaneously let out noises that could almost be hisses.

“That’d do it, alright,” John muttered darkly.  “This whole mission was a trap.”

The hospital loomed in front of Kayo and she grit her teeth.

You should never have left Scott and Grandma alone in an unsecure hospital.  That was a rookie mistake, Tanusha Kyrano.

She just hoped it wasn’t a mistake that would cost a life.

Part 7

[ladyseaheart1668]

Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 50)

Description: Tahira awakens! And she has a plan. 

Tagging: @endlesshero1122 @mysteli @feartheendlesssummer @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @tigerbryn11

Chapter 50: Between the Cracks

Tahira

I can't breathe...I can't breathe! I push against the Endless' grip, trying to reach the surface, but she only holds me tighter.

“It's all right, Tahira. It's all right. Just watch.”

The images are still coming. Quinn Kelly, motionless on a bed her hands folded in a funereal pose atop a large, shining stone. She turns into Alodia, clutching the Prism Crystal, but she's no longer lying in repose. Her face is twisted with fury, her eyes gleaming fuschia with the Crystal's power as she attacks an unseen opponent. I can't breathe. I want to get out. Someone get me out of here! I flail, pounding the Endless' arms feebly with my fists. I can't perceive the images anymore. There's only a vague itch at the edge of my mind, telling me that I know something that I didn't know before.

“Tahira...?” I don't recognize the voice at first, but everything around me is fading. The images. The Endless. The ocean. Then, as I finally draw in a desperate breath, I feel something warm and soft on my cheek. “Tahira, baby, can you hear me?”

“...Mom...?” I realize that I have my eyes closed. I open them carefully, squinting against a sudden assault of florescent light. A figure, blurry but definitely my mother, hovers over me. I hear her choke on a sob as she strokes and kisses my face.

“Oh, baby, thank God!”

I become aware of a pressure on my hand, and turn to see Grayson perched on the edge of my bed, holding my hand. His clothes and hair are rumpled, and there's a layer of fuzz on his face like he hasn't shaved in a day or two.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asks anxiously.

“Got stabbed,” I mumble. My mind feels surprisingly clear, but it's taking my body a bit to catch up, I think, because my tongue feels heavy.

“Yeah. The surgery went well, but you took awhile to wake up afterwards. You had us worried. How are you feeling now?”

“Fine,” I answer without really taking stock. As soon as I say it, I realize that my side still feels like it's on fire. But I feel fairly confident I'll heal quickly now that I'm awake. “...Alodia...she was abducted...”

Mom and Grayson exchange a look of mild surprise.

“...Yeah...” Grayson confirms. “And Diego. How did...?”

“Crystal stuff. I'll explain later. ...I gotta talk to the Catalysts. I think I might have an idea about finding her.”

* * *

“You want to...use the Prism Crystal to find Alodia?”

It feels risky to be on a video call with all the Catalysts plus my team while I'm still in my hospital room, but I've got Grayson standing guard, ready to signal me if any staff get too close.

“Hear me out here. Quinn, when you were...possessed by Vaanu, you could feel the Island's Heart, right? You could feel where it was?”

“Vaguely,” Quinn confirms. “I could feel it pulling me toward the other half.”

“And there were other instances of the crystals leading you places, right?”

“Quarr'tel,” Jake says, nodding. “They slipped a crystal into Raj's pocket and it lit up like a firefly when we were headed in the right direction.”

“And when we had three of them staked together, they literally just showed us the path when we looked through them.”

“The Prism Crystal is specifically Alodia's life essence. But it didn't react until I came in contact with it as her blood relative. Maybe that connection will help me use it to track her.”

“I believe your idea could work in theory,” Varyyn says cautiously. “...I would be extremely hopeful, if not for the fact that her abductors have managed to block her psychic link with me. Suppose they have figured out a way to block any link with her that the Prism Crystal might give to you? What if that was a function of the poison you were dosed with?”

“It might well be,” I admit. “But what do we have to lose by trying?”

“Nothing,” Jake says. “If anything, we'd be failing Alodia and Diego by not trying. If there's even a chance it could get them back sooner...”

“I'm not disagreeing with you, Jake,” Dax chimes in, “But there are a few logistical problems to consider. For one thing, Tahira, you're still in the hospital with an abdomen full of stitches. Even with your enhanced healing, it's going to be a process. You won't do anyone any good if you tear out your stitches and bleed out searching for Alodia and Diego. Two, this isn't La Huerta, where you guys were on your own with only Vaanti authority to deal with. If this works, how do we explain it? How do we explain Dragonness disappearing after these two people she presumably has no connection to, and how do we explain how she found them without giving away too much?”

I wave a hand impatiently. “We'll chalk it up to a mystery of the Prism Crystal and assure the public that we're looking into why the Crystal led me to these people. The public have been remarkably accepting of the idea that the Prism Crystal turned people into superheroes.”

“But why Alodia and Diego in particular? Why not any of the other thousands of missing persons in the US? Why would the Prism Crystal choose two people who went missing in California when it's on the East Coast?”

“You're overthinking this,” Jake says. “Look, my sister's a cop. People go missing every day, and most of them don't get half the attention Alodia and Diego have gotten. The only reason they're getting as much media attention as they are is because they were on the La Huerta trip, and the fact that Alodia's pregnant makes people more sympathetic. Once they're safe home, the media and the cops ain't gonna care too much about how they got there.”

“I can't say that I completely agree,” Poppy says. “I know I'm only a fashion journalist, but that doesn't mean I don't know how the media works. Alodia and Diego are still high-profile people, and there are high-profile people involved in their kidnapping. Dax is right. If this does work like we want it to, we do need to consider how we're going to spin it so that the attention doesn't go anywhere we don't want it to.”

“Let's not get too far ahead of the game,” Michelle cautions. “Dax is also right that Tahira needs a little time to recover before she's fit to go chasing anyone down.”

“Simple solution to that,” Jake declares. “If she gets a lead off the Prism Crystal, I'm going with her.”

I try not to grimace outwardly. I should have seen this coming. “Jake...you know I'll be faster on my own. Considering that I can fly without a plane.”

“Not while you've still got a hole in your gut. If this is gonna work, we don't have a lot of time for you to be on bed-rest here. We got a small window, and it's closing fast.”

Michelle nods. “Jake is right. Whether we find her or the authorities do, we really don't have time to just wait if we're going to take any action. She's due in a matter of weeks, and we can't assume she won't go into labor early. At the same time, Tahira, you can't just go on your own in your present condition. Apart from the stab wound, we don't know if that poison is fully out of your system. So, I'll come too.”

“Can the hospital spare you?”

“I've still technically got a week and change of vacation I haven't used, and I haven't officially put myself back on the schedule yet.”

“Well, you know I'm not letting you go without me,” Sean says firmly, taking his wife's hand. “I can't. Not just now.”

“I expected as much, and I won't argue.”

“I will go as well,” Varyyn declares. “Not least because my partner is among the missing, but also because if Alodia or I somehow managed to break through the barrier they've put on our psychic link, it would not do for me to be miles away.”  

I sigh. This is kinda turning into a plan for the world's most batcrap-crazy road trip, but I honestly can't say that I mind. In fact, I feel a wry smile tugging at my mouth. “...Anyone else want to join in?”

“You know Kenji and I are at your disposal,” Eva says, winking. But I shake my head at that suggestion.

“No, not you two. Someone needs to stay to protect Northbridge. We can't just leave DA Katsaros completely high and dry and expect to stay on her good side, especially given the situation with Caleb and the kids.”

“I'll come instead,” Estela says. “In case you need another fighter.”

“I'm rather handy with a fencing sword,” Aleister offers a bit reluctantly. But his sister shakes her head.

“Stay with your wife and son. There will be enough lonely doves among the Catalysts as is, and you and Zahra need to look after the company and field any questions from the authorities.”

“Besides that, we should keep our numbers as small as possible,” I point out. “Even if I can't go on my own, we will go faster the fewer we are.”

“In the meantime, what should the rest of us be doing?” Raj asks. “I mean, I'm good to stay in California if that's where I'm most needed...”

“We'd appreciate that,” Jake agrees. “Keep looking after our folks for us. I'll see if I can send Rebecca back with our parents, but it's possible they won't be willing to leave me alone unless I bring her with me.”

“Well...I guess we're mostly settled then. We can work out the necessary details once I'm discharged.”

“That's assuming this really works...” Aleister says soberly. “We've begun speaking of it as a certainty...”

For a moment, no one says anything. I hear myself speak first. “We'll know that as soon as I'm discharged, too.”

Jake

I'm not surprised when my parents are reluctant to let me go to Northbridge without them. I'm an adult, they say, and they can't stop me, but they do their best to discourage it. I don't hold it against them. I've disappeared on them too many times for them not to be nervous, even after I promise to check in with them. As I predicted, it's Rebecca's promise to go with me and keep an eye on me that finally convinces them to go back to California and look after Alodia's parents. I vow to go back there myself if Tahira's idea with the Crystal doesn't pan out, though of course I don't say that to my parents. I need them to think my visit to Northbridge is open-ended.

The meager bags Mike and I packed for what we expected to be a night or two away from home were retrieved from the motel we were staying at the night before our abduction. By now, I've been discharged and Mike's finally in recovery after surgery, so I bring him his bag as an excuse to visit before I take off. I wouldn't normally think I needed an excuse to visit, but the hospital staff are still hovering like flies, and the pretense of dropping off the bag gets me access to his parents, who manage to finagle a few minutes for Mike and me to talk privately.

He turns his head toward me as I slip into the room and smiles wanly. He looks pale and exhausted, and he's still got an IV in the crook of his arm, but he's awake and propped up on his pillows. Still, the sheet below his thighs is flat over the mattress. I pull up a chair beside him.

“How're you feeling, kid?”

“...You know those old clothes press things that they used to feed clothes through after they were washed to get all the water out? In the olden days before washers and dryers?”

“I think I know what you mean. I think they were called 'mangles'.”

“Appropriate name. Anyway, I feel like I've gone through one of those.”

I cover his hand with mine and nod down at the flat sheet beneath his thighs. “No new legs yet?”

“Apparently they gotta let the nerves heal or something first. I dunno. They got some metal things on the stumps to keep 'em fresh or whatever. The science blinded me a little. All I really know is they hurt like a bitch.”

“Fuck.” I squeeze his hand. “Sure feels like a shit time for me to be taking off...”

“Where are you heading?”

“Northbridge. ...It's not looking like Alodia and Diego were on the island. But Tahira has an idea to track Alodia using the Prism Crystal. Hopefully it works, and hopefully where we find Alodia, we find Diego.”

“No question you gotta go, then. Not like you'd be doing much good bumming around the hospital with me.”

“Probably not. ...Don't know how much good I'll be doing following Tahira around, either. But if there's even a chance of finding her...”

“You don't have to explain. We both know where you're most needed right now.” He turns his hand over to grip mine, his eyes finding my gaze and holding it. “Find your wife. Bring her home.”

* * *

Rebecca, Varyyn, and I get a private flight to Northbridge, compliments of Aleister and Estela, of course. I'm glad not to be in the pilot's chair on this one. I'm probably still not totally clear to operate heavy machinery after that blow to the head, and I'm not sure I could concentrate, even if I were. Problem is that I can't really sit still, either. I know I shouldn't be wandering more than necessary while the plane's in the air, but I feel like I'm gonna lose my shit if I try to stay seated too long. Predictably, Varyyn is perfectly still—almost stoic. Though I know him better than to assume he's not just as much of a hot mess as I am right now.

“...How're you holding up, Varyyn?” I ask, as much to distract myself as to check in.

“As well as you, I expect,” he sighs. “...I am afraid. I am afraid this will not work. I am afraid of what they might be suffering right now. ...I am afraid that if this does work, we will find Alodia alone and have nothing left to lead us to Diego.”

I grit my teeth, shaking my head hard. “Won't be like that, Varyyn. Don't think like that. They're together. They gotta be together.”

“...We don't know that,” he says softly. “We hope it. But do we really have any evidence that it is true?”

“Why else would they have taken Diego?” I demand. “They weren't together at the time of the abduction, so it wasn't just convenience like with Sean and Michelle. No offense to Diego, but I don't think Rourke really has much use for him in this timeline. He probably doesn't have much use for any of the Catalysts besides Alodia anymore, except to control her. And maybe Diego is useful if he wanted to bait you for some reason, but even then, wouldn't it still make more sense to keep them together, since you could track her if they hadn't blocked it somehow...”

“...It all makes sense...” he admits. “...I just...I can't help but fear...”

I sigh, rubbing my hands over my face. “Of course not. I won't lie, it scares me, too. ...But it makes more sense that they're together. Remember that.”

He nods. “...I feel powerless. I should be able to reach them. I should at least be able to speak to her and confirm that they are unharmed...”

“We all feel powerless here,” Rebecca says. “I'm a detective. I should be able to track and investigate. But because it's a member of my own family, I'm not allowed to help...” She trails off, and the silence that follows is heavy. I think we all want to try and say something comforting or optimistic here, but there's not really anything to say that we haven't already said. We all feel powerless. There's a chance that when we get to Northbridge, we'll have our path made clear for us, but there aren't any guarantees. If this doesn't work...what next?

Grayson

“Are you sure you're up for this, Tahira? You only got out of the hospital yesterday...”

Tahira grits her teeth as she carefully makes her way to her dresser, using crutches to support most of her weight and to keep her stitches from tearing. She's healing fast. Fast enough that eyebrows were raised at the hospital. But not fast enough to have her in fighting shape yet, and she's clearly still in pain. Michelle has cautioned her against heavy lifting, even with her super strength. The only way we were able to confirm that her strength was still intact was by having her bend an iron bar that Dax brought over from the lab. Flying, too, is out right now, though she is still capable of it.

“If this works,” Michelle said last night, “You're basically going to be our tracker, at least for a few days. Let the rest of us do most of the work until I give you the all-clear.”

I cautiously place my hand between her shoulderblades and let my palm move in slow, gentle circles. When she doesn't pull away, I increase the pressure just a little.

“When a person goes missing, the first twenty-four hours are the most crucial,” she says lowly. “...That window has already closed. There's no more time to waste. What we have is already borrowed.”

She pulls out a T-shirt and a pair of jeans from her drawer, and maneuvers herself to take off her pajama top. I sigh.

“Here, let me help you with that. I can't really help with the rescue mission, but I can help you get dressed for it.”

“I think providing us with travel vehicles is extremely helpful,” she says, smiling a little as she carefully raises her arms over her head to let me take her shirt off. I help her on with her clothes, finishing just as the buzzer to her apartment door sounds.

“Tahira? It's Eva and Kenji!” I go to let them in as Tahira settles herself down on the couch. Kenji grins at her as they walk in.

“How's our fearless leader doing? You look like you'll be ready to kick ass again in no time.”

“With any luck, I will at least be ready to do my part when we finally track down Alodia and Diego. Do you have the Crystal, Eva?”

“Haven't let it outta my sight since Caleb tipped us off it they were going after it,” she replies with a mischievous smile, trailing a finger over the chain around her neck. My eyes follow her finger down to where her low-cut top clearly reveals that the pendant on the end is nestled between her breasts. Tahira makes a face as Eva draws the Prism Crystal out of her cleavage.

“That cannot be comfortable...”

Eva shrugs. “You get used to it. Besides....” She grins, waggling her eyebrows. “No way anyone gets to it without me noticing.”

“Yeah, but have you been, like, showering with it in there? Sleeping?”

“Not like water will hurt it. And like I said, you get used to it.”

Tahira rolls her eyes, smirking a little. “Still...maybe I should ask you to wipe off the boob sweat before I try to do anything with it.”

“Tahira, I'm insulted. The very suggestion that I would ever break a sweat...” But she does grab a washcloth out of the basket of clean laundry beside the dresser and rub it over the crystal before handing it to Tahira. “So...what are you going to do with it exactly?”

“I'll start with holding it. Then...I guess I'll think about Alodia...” She shakes her head with a frustrated sigh. “...I'm flying mostly blind here...”

As she closes her hand around the Crystal, we fall silent, not wanting to risk disrupting her concentration. How long will it take, I wonder, before we know if anything is going to happen? I don't have to wonder long. In fact, the thought is barely out of my head before the crystal begins to glow brighter. I hold my breath. For a moment, everything is still except for the bright purple flame dancing beneath the Crystal's surface. Then Tahira's eyes fly open and she gasps softly. I instinctively rush to her side.

“Are you all right? What happened?”

“I'm okay...” she replies dazedly. “...I...think...”

“Did you see anything?” Eva asks. “Do you know where Alodia is?”

“Not exactly, but...” She looks down at the Crystal balanced on her palm, softly pulsing with fuschia light. “I did see her. In flashes. And...I think...”

She stands up and turns a slow circle, keeping her eye on the Crystal. I watch it carefully. It takes a few more circles before I realize what's actually happening, but when I do notice, I feel my heart skip a beat.

“Tahira! The light!”

“Yes!” Tahira cries eagerly, a grin splitting her face! “It dims, except when I start facing this direction! ...What direction am I facing?”

“Northwest-ish,” Kenji says. “Which probably means she isn't on the island...”

Tahira nods. “...If she's even what the Crystal is pointing toward. ...Either way, it's our best lead so far.

* * *

A few more little experiments prove that using the Crystal as a tracking device is a viable option. Although it goes dull when I touch it, Kenji and Eva can both make it react—as can Varyyn and any Catalysts who come in contact with it. And the pulsing light consistently gleams when the one holding it is facing northwest, dimming as they turn south. As soon as is humanly possible, Tahira and her team gather with me and a handful of the Catalysts in the empty executive level of the Prescott Industries parking garage. Two seven-seater SUVs that I rented are the only two vehicles in the place.

“They're both fueled up,” I assure Tahira. “Tire pressure has been checked and there are spares, jacks, and tire irons under the floors.”

“There are also pillows and blankets so you can sleep and drive in shifts and not have to stop as often,” Dax says. “I've also fitted the cars with adaptable communicators so you can communicate through the radios, just in case everyone's cell phones die at the same time. Do you know who's going to be in what car?”

“I'll be with Sean, Tahira, and Jake,” Michelle says. “Since Tahira and Jake aren't cleared to drive just yet, Sean will take the first shift, and Tahira will hold the Crystal to navigate.”

“And Varyyn, Rebecca, and I will follow in the vehicle behind,” Estela adds.

Michelle nods. “I've also got a medical tote stocked. No one mess with that, please. It's not your standard first aid kit. I've also got some sterile towels and blankets double-wrapped in plastic, so hands off those, too. If we find Alodia close to giving birth, we'll need clean towels to lay down for her and something to wrap the baby in.”

“There are also coolers of water, fruit, sandwiches, and about twenty pounds of trail mix,” Quinn adds. “It's not Raj's cooking, and it obviously won't last, but it should mean you don't have to stop for food for a handful of days.”

“I guess we're all set then,” Tahira says. “There's no time to lose. Everyone pile in.”

“Wait...” I catch her hand as she turns toward the car, and pull her in for a kiss, holding her mouth with mine as if I can store up enough of her taste on my lips to tide me over until she gets back. I break away reluctantly and press my forehead to hers. “Good luck. I love you.”

Eva

Kenji and I meet at his apartment that evening. We don't exactly feel safe going back to the clocktower right now, but we don't have a new base of operations yet, either.

“...How much does Caleb actually know now?” I ask him over a cup of heavily-sugared coffee.

“Almost everything. He knows our powers are connected to our DNA, which is connected to the island of La Huerta and a crystal alien that crash-landed here however many billion years ago. He knows that Alodia is that alien's daughter and that Tahira is Alodia's cousin. ...I also basically confirmed that most of what Rourke told him in those interviews is true.”

“And...where is he now?”

Kenji shrugs, talking a long swallow from his coffee mug. “Processing, I guess. He says he can't go back to Gigi anymore. And based on the way their last encounter went, I'm not surprised.”

“And you don't have any reason to think it might be a trick?”

“Just doesn't add up to a trick,” he admits. “He told me he'd originally told Gigi he was going to try to get in good with us to get information out of us, which I know was true. ...But if he was never actually going to turn on her, he probably would have done something to keep us from securing the Prism Crystal once he realized we knew she was going after it. Plus, she was angry enough to try and frame him for burning down the priest's house.”

“...He's out of the hospital, by the way. Don't know where he's living with his house burned out, though.”

“No sign of the kids, either. ...Maybe he's gone after them.”

“Quite honestly, I hope he has. Scoundrel he may be, but I think his intentions towards the kids are good. At least good enough that I'd rather they have him in their corner than be wandering around out there alone. Especially given what's going on now.”

Kenji smiles wryly. “They will have to come back eventually, won't they? Since you still have their dog.”

I snort. “Good luck making me give up that puppy. I think we've bonded.”

“You'll give her up the moment one of those sweet little kids flashes sad doe eyes at you.”

“...Yeah, probably,” I admit. “My cold heart has been defrosting lately. Maybe proof that there's hope for Caleb.”

“There had better be. ...Because if we can't actually trust him, we might be screwed.”

Estela

I am in the office with Aleister and Zahra when the phone on the desk rings. It just barely registers at first, like an acquaintance I give a nod to as I pass on the street. Aleister picks it up.

“Aleister Rourke speaking,” he mutters absently. Then his posture changes. I take notice as he sits up a little straighter. “Raj, hello. Has there been any news.”

My heart wedges in my throat as I sit up to attention. Zahra visibly stiffens as well, her eyebrows knitting as she meets my gaze with anxiety flickering in her dark eyes. Aleister's eyes widen.

“What? Are they sure it's the same one?...” His shoulders sag slightly as he listens to Raj's extended reply. “...Dammit. Does Jake know? ...What are they planning to do?”

There's a longer pause now. Aleister's expression is difficult to read. Zahra stands up from her desk, then awkwardly hovers there as if she's not sure she should come closer.

“...I expect that is the wisest course of action. If the Crystal can track Alodia directly, it would be a waste of time to chase down a lead like that. ...I see. ...Of course. I'll make sure everyone is updated. Thank you. ...I will. ...Goodbye.” He replaces the receiver on the cradle and looks up at me and Zahra in turn. “...That was Raj. The police believe they have found the stolen ambulance that Alodia and Diego were transported in, but it has since been abandoned. They were able to determine that a helicopter took off nearby and they believe Alodia and Diego were on board, but from there, they're having difficulty picking up the trail.”

Zahra and I exchange anxious glances. “...Where was the ambulance found?”

“Cascade mountain range in Oregon. Near Crater Lake.”

“Oregon!” Zahra gasps. “They drove a stolen ambulance from southern California to the Cascade mountains in Oregon and no one noticed until now?!”

“Raj tells me the region around Crater Lake is fairly remote.”

“Maybe, but...” Zahra is already tapping furiously on her phone. After a moment, she turns the screen toward us. “Look, the fastest path to Crater Lake from Riverside is about a twelve-hour drive, straight up through California.”

“They were driving an ambulance,” I point out. “If they had the lights and sirens going, they would have been able to speed and run red lights with impunity. Few people are going to want to impede an ambulance that they think is on the way to save someone's life. Even with the authorities knowing they were likely in a stolen ambulance, I can believe they got as far as Oregon without anyone wanting to risk stopping them. Especially if they swapped the license plate.”

“They still would have needed to stop for gas at some point. And twelve hours trapped in a vehicle can't be good for a pregnant woman. We're still operating under the assumption that Rourke wants Alodia and her baby alive, right?”

“It makes the most sense,” Aleister confirms. “If he just wanted her dead, there are easier ways than kidnapping.”

“What else do we actually know? They found the stolen ambulance, but are they sure Alodia and Diego were inside?”

“They found more than a few hairs inside the vehicle. They matched DNA samples from both Alodia and Diego.”

I nod. “...From what I overheard, I'm guessing Jake and the others aren't going to try to find them in Oregon.”

He shakes his head. “It would be a waste of time, driving some place they have already been removed from when they believe the Prism Crystal can lead them to where Alodia is currently.”

“Why Oregon, though? Why not the island? Why was the Crystal leading them northwest instead of toward the island?”

“...I don't know, Estela. The truth is that we don't know for sure that they don't mean for her to eventually wind up on the island. Maybe the plan is to throw us off the trail.”

I sit back with a frustrated sigh. “...It always feels like our dear father is ten steps ahead of us. The only person who has ever really managed to get the better of him was Alodia when she chose to sacrifice herself for the world.”

“Not entirely true,” Zahra mutters. “...I shot him in at least one timeline.”

“He is a genius and a master manipulator, but he is still human,” Aleister says firmly. “And humans are flawed enough to be outsmarted. Sooner or later, he will make a mistake. I am sure of it.”

Alodia

Something doesn't feel right here. I'm in Elyys'tel. The armor of Andromeda encases my body and gleams gold in the Caribbean sunset. Beneath it, I am wearing my Vaanti warrior's attire. In my hands, I clutch the mask I won in the Valinorim. One hand drifts towards my chest, and my fingers brush the cold metal dogtags that hang on a ball-chain around my neck. My chest is tight, and my head throbs with grief, but I don't cry. I can't cry.

“This isn't going to help, Alodia,” Aleister says solemnly from behind me.

“...They're all dead, Aleister,” I hear myself reply coldly. “He killed them all. Maybe not directly, but he's responsible for all of their deaths.”

“I don't disagree. But killing him won't bring them back.”

I turn to face him, fully prepared to chew him out for his platitudes when he should want his father dead as much as I do. But then I realize what is actually happening.

“...You're going to say that if I insist on joining the battle, you're going to come with me.”

“Of course I am. We're the last Catalysts left. I'm not going to abandon you.”

“...No. You're not. You didn't even betray us this time. You played your father as a double agent. ...When Zahra blew up the MASADA complex, Jake tried to save me. But he was killed in the process and you got me out instead.”

Aleister doesn't seem put off by my explaining what must be recent history to him. “I'm going to die in the coming battle. I have learned that you're the one my father needs to complete his Janus Project. I don't know why yet, but I know that much. I die to keep you from falling into his hands.”

“...And then I bury the last of my family. And I die...and the timeline resets because I can't let it end like this...I can't let any of you die...”

Aleister reaches out to place a hand on my shoulder. “You can't change what's already happened, Alodia.”

“...I don't want to watch it happen again...”

“You don't have to. You know that.” His eyes flick downward. “Don't waste your time on a battle that's already been fought when you have a much more important one to worry about in the here and now.”

I follow his gaze downward, and dark static floods my vision.

The soft flutter of tiny limbs inside me brings me back to consciousness. The pressure on my bladder is unbearable. I push back the itchy blanket that barely keeps out the cold and struggle off the cheap cot I fell asleep on. The thin plastic mattress creaks as I get to my feet, and I hear a gasp and small movement from the cot beside me.

“Allie...?” Diego's voice is anxious, but still clumsy with sleep.

“I'm okay,” I call back. “I just need to pee.”

I make my way to the corner. We've been moved again. There's no en suite toilet in this concrete basement we've been stuck in this time. Only a plastic toddler toilet—the kind Jake and I will be buying in another year or two. ...That is...if I ever see him again... If we ever get to go back to our home in California and lay our daughter in her crib in her jungle-themed nursery...

Lowering myself onto the seat is an arduous and undignified process. I feel tears on my cheeks by the time I manage to relieve myself, and my hand trembles as I wipe with a cheap, rough paper towel—the only thing we've been provided with. By the time I have gotten through the equally undignified process of standing back up and dragging my gray sweatpants back up over my bulging waistline, I am sobbing. I only get a few steps closer to my cot before Diego takes me in his arms and gently draws me against him. I bury my face in his shoulder. When he leans his head against mine, I feel the subtle prickle of facial hair where his cheek briefly brushes my ear.

He doesn't say anything. Our supply of comforting words has all but dried up. Escape seems impossible with me as I am, especially when we don't have any idea how many of them are actually guarding us or how far we are from civilization. We've all but admitted aloud that rescue is our only hope.

I don't want to obey them. I want to defy them. I want to fight them tooth and nail. But I can't fight them while I am sheltering a child within me. And disobedience only gets Diego hurt. So far, the damage has not been permanent. But I don't know if I can keep him safe indefinitely, even if I kill any will to fight that might be left in me.

It's only a matter of time. If help doesn't come for us, it's only a matter of time before they break me.

Diego

I wish I had access to a razor. Or some scissors. The scissors more than the razor, I think. I don't really mind the growth of hair over my face as much as the hair on my head, which is shaggy enough now to get into my eyes, but not long enough to hook behind my ears. It's funny the things I think about when I'm trying not to break apart.

I'm scared. I'm really scared. I'm scared for Allie. I'm scared for her baby. I'm scared for myself. I'm scared of the fact that I can't rely on Allie right now like I almost always could before. It's not her fault, of course. She just needs me to be the brave one right now, and that terrifies me. But damned if I'm not going to do it. Damned if I'm not going to swallow my fear and hold her hand to get her through this nightmare. Damned if I'm not going to look for an opportunity to escape at every new prison they move us to. I know our best option is probably going to be to wait for someone to find us. But I have to keep watching. It helps me keep it together.

We're bound and blindfolded every time they move us. Sometimes we travel by chopper, sometimes by car or van or whatever they're driving. Maybe an ambulance again. We're not long in the concrete basement prison, which I appreciate, because it's really freaking uncomfortable. It's some kind of van that moves us this time. At least we're actually seated and buckled in this time, even if our hands end up tied to what I think must be the handles of the hooks a lot of cars have on the ceiling for hanging up dress clothes.

“Hey, Allie...” I say lightly, turning my head vaguely toward the weight on the seat beside me. “Is there a name for these things we're tied up to?”

I don't know if there's a partition between us and the drivers. I don't know if they can hear us. I am guessing there aren't any windows to either side of us since two people blindfolded in the back seat with their hands tied to the ceiling would probably be conspicuous. But if the driver can hear us, I don't want them to hear us scared.

“I...I don't know,” she replies. Her voice shakes a little, but she's trying to sound nonchalant, so it seems she's picked up what I'm putting down here. “Dress hooks, I guess? Handles? Before cars had seatbelts, some of them had handles for passengers to hold onto, but I don't think there was any special name for them.”

“Where do you think we're going this time? Another nice farmhouse?”

“I hope so. The farmhouse has definitely been my favorite on this vacation. The last place was shit, though.”

“Total shit,” I agree.

We let our conversation be sparse after that, and when we do speak, it's about silly memories from our childhood. We try to remember the rules to a game our first grade P.E. teacher had taught to the class that was like a slightly more complicated version of group tag, except it involved us all playing characters from Star Wars. We try to name all the seasons of Power Rangers that we grew up with. We try to recite the poems we had to memorize for our last literature class in high school.

Allie is nearly through Rudyard Kipling when the van stops and the engine turns off. Although my adrenaline spikes, I can't help but feel a little relieved, too. My hands are starting to go numb. I'm cut loose and I flex my fingers a few times, hissing softly as the feeling floods back into them. I don't resist as they hustle me out of the van and into whatever prison awaits us now. The air outside is bitingly cold, and the ground beneath my feet is hard. The sound my shoes make slapping against it makes me think pavement. Then, the cold air is replaced by surprisingly pleasant warmth. Central heating. A good sign. A less good sign is the way the soles of my shoes are squeaking and sticking against the floor now. I'm thinking this is tile I'm walking on.

We are finally allowed to stop, and my blindfold is removed. The florescent light might as well be sunlight for a moment, but when my eyes start to adjust, a deep, cold dread settles in the pit of my stomach.

The windowless room we're in resembles a doctor's office, with an exam table, cabinets, a sink, and medical instruments hanging from the wall. There are no decorations, though. Nothing to make it welcoming. Which makes the woman standing beside the exam table in full surgical gear—including goggles—all the more ominous. I can't really see anything about what she looks like. I mean, I can tell she's white, and her eyes look brown behind the goggles, but the blue surgical cap isn't giving me a good look at her hair color, and average height aside, I can't tell anything about her build under the shapeless surgical gown.

I don't like where this is going one bit. Neither does Allie judging by her sharp gasp as she takes in the scene. I press close to her, putting my arms protectively around her.

“What is this?!” I demand. “What are you doing?! Who is she?!”

The strange woman spreads her hands, taking a cautious step toward us. “Calm down, Alodia. I am not here to hurt you. I only want to give you a proper exam.”

Allie grips my arm. “Bullshit,” she hisses.

“Watch it, brat!” Fiddler snaps. “Unless you want your friend to suffer for your rudeness.”

“Stay your hand, Jeanine,” the surgeon-woman says mildly. “Just this once, let's try to work with Alodia instead of against her. I am sure she can be made to see reason here without resorting to violence against Diego.”

I can't figure out what it is, but there is something about her voice. My anxiety is ebbing away as I rack my brain trying to place it, but I'm still alert enough to keep my arms firmly around Allie, who glares at the woman.

“Don't touch me!” she snarls.

“I will not touch you if you don't want me to,” the woman promises. “But it would be in your best interests and your baby's best interests to let me give you an examination. Why don't we make a deal, hmm? Jeanine and her soldiers wait outside. Diego can stay in here with you. And you and I can figure out from there how close you want me to get. Sound good?”

“Hardly!” Fiddler scoffs before Allie can answer. “Leave these two alone in here with you? With no one to make sure they don't stab you with your own scalpel?”

“I don't have a scalpel in here, Jeanine,” the woman replies, sounding amused. “And killing me would hardly do them any good with you and your troops standing outside the only exit. Lock the door if it makes you feel better. I will knock when we're finished. ...What do you say to that, Alodia?”

Allie hesitates, looking uncertainly at me. I shrug helplessly. This is crazy. This is totally crazy. Somehow, Rourke has hired an evil obstetrician who is apparently totally okay with the fact that Fiddler and her goons have kidnapped a pregnant woman, but still wants to act like a not-evil doctor by respecting patient boundaries? I can't even comprehend the level of insane that is happening in front of me right now, and I once fought an actual three-headed sea monster. But what kind of choice do we actually have here? This weird woman's offer certainly sounds preferable to any possible alternative. Allie seems to agree, because she slowly nods.

“Excellent. It's decided then. Jeanine, if you would be so kind as to clear out and give the patient a little privacy?”

Fiddler looks like she's going to argue at first, but then she purses her lips, turns on her heel, and stalks out with her goons following behind her. The woman goes to shoo them out, and that's when I see it: a barely detectable green shimmer at the edge of her mask.

Before I can quite process what I've just seen, I hear the door lock from the outside, and the woman turns back to us.

“All right. Now that we have a little privacy...”

The woman touches the stud sparkling in her earlobe, and her white skin dissolves into green as her holographic disguise melts away. She pulls off her surgical cap, revealing her hair underneath—half-lavender and half-bubblegum pink—swept back into a french braid. Now I know why her voice sounded so familiar.

“...Clockmaker...?!”

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Chapter 48: To The Secret Lab!

Becoming The Mask

Stephan's footsteps echoed more loudly than usual in the base's deserted hallways. He was tempted to change his gait, to step lightly so he'd make less noise, but on the other hand it wasn't smart to sneak up on a Changeling you weren't planning to fight. Anyway, the bag of canned goods he was carrying would clank no matter how he carried it.

"Bernie? It's Stephan," he called when he neared the laboratory. The doors were standing open.

"Excellent timing, I need some fresh eyes."

Stephan gulped. He was pretty sure Bernie meant 'a new person to look over things, because fresh perspective can catch something an older, more tired perspective missed', but it was also possible the Alchemist actually needed eyeballs for something.

"There's goggles by the door," Bernie continued.

Stephan put on a set, and after a moment's thought grabbed a hairnet as well.

His hair wasn't long enough to tie back easily but it was long enough to potentially get caught on something. It felt a bit silly to put goggles over his mask, but the lab safety rules were clearly displayed by the goggle rack – goggles and close-toed shoes were mandatory for entrance. There were some modified goggles and plastic booties for use while troll-shaped.

He left the grocery bag on an empty shoe-rack. It would be out of the way there.

"I wasn't sure what your food situation was, so I brought some stuff. Canned tuna, mostly." Cans were shelf-stable and could be eaten in troll or human shape.

"Thanks, Stephan. I'm well supplied, but it was thoughtful of you." Bernie was currently human-shaped, surrounded by neatly sorted rubble and writing something on a clipboard. "Xe/xir at the moment, by the way."

"Is that with an X or with a Z?" asked Stephan, not sure if there was a significant difference, but ready to believe there could be since Bernie was bothering to bring this up.

"An X. You know, you're one of maybe five people who've ever asked me that."

"Okay. Cool. Uh, he/him for me, still."

"Got it." Bernie made a decisive last pen stroke, clicked the pen, and turned to xir guest-slash-assistant. "I've been sorting pieces, checking to see if anything's recognizable. As you can see," gesturing towards on grouping of stones, "the hooves, legs, and loincloth can mostly be identified, as can the claws," indicating another, pointier collection. "But I can't seem to find Bular's horns or face. I keep recounting the skulls from his belt and checking our video footage of him to make sure I didn't mix him up with one of them somehow."

A set of skulls, on the table in front of Bernie beside the probably-legs, were either surprisingly intact or mostly reassembled.

Stephan was suddenly, vividly reminded of his early days on the surface, sorting jigsaw puzzles with his Familiar's family. His youngest sister in particular had had a knack for seeing which edges ought to match up.

"Do I need gloves?"

"Wouldn't hurt. I haven't been using them. They don't switch over properly." Bernie crackled blue, and the tall, hefty human became a tall, hefty troll – still small compared to a Gumm-Gumm, but probably quite respectably sized for whichever group xe'd been taken from – and held up xir hands to demonstrate.

Stephan could see why Bernie might have trouble with gloves. Xir hands were bigger now, for one, which would stretch out the latex if xe carried the gloves over through the transformation rather than having different gloves on as a troll, and then xe would have to change xir gloves once they changed to human – plus, Bernie had four-digit rather than five-digit hands as a troll, so the extra glove finger would either flap loose or need to be taped down, which would also increase the odds of the gloves being damaged after shapeshifting back and forth.

It was a lot of trouble to go through when you weren't working with something caustic or reactive to the oils in human skin.

"Why are you wearing … that, though?" Stephan asked, gesturing up and down.

Bernie's lab coat had carried over between forms. It was loose on xir as a human, and now fit better. The lime green coat, with neon pink and yellow flowers printed around the hem and on the cloth-covered buttons, had looked odd on a human and even stranger on a purplish-blue troll.

"Oh, I keep a bunch of colourful ones in stock, in case I'm ever running tests on someone who's had a bad experience in a lab and doesn't like the white coats. Attempted vivisection, usually. Gets people all mixed up, conflating Mad Scientists and Evil Scientists."

Bernie shook xir head.

"Vivisection is the stupidest starting point for a xenobiological study. Surgery is complicated. Aside from risk of infection and the complications of dosing anesthesia for an unknown organism – since they'll definitely die of traumatic shock if you don't anesthetize – looking at organs only makes sense if you already know what you're supposed to be seeing."

Xe paced around the lab, gesturing with the clipboard.

"At best, you'll set yourself up for confirmation bias about any superficial parallels between the new and the known, and at worst you'll have no idea what you're looking at and kill off your test subject. I mean, I understand if it's just a thinly-veiled excuse to commit torture for the sake of torture, but as a scientist that offends me for other reasons."

"… So, why are you wearing it now?" Stephan looked around, suddenly wary. "Do you have a live test subject down here?" How restrained are they? How vengeful are they?

Bernie seemed startled at the reminder xe was having a conversation rather than talking to xirself.

"Oh – no, I just got bored of how monochromatic the base is. Plus changing how I'm dressed helps keep the days from blurring together."

"Ah."

Stephan made a mental note to visit more often.

He started looking through the shattered remains. He didn't shapeshift. Stephan had a lot of protruding teeth in troll form, not just tusks, and it could be a challenge not to drool on things. His mask would catch some of it if he kept it on, but then he's be stuck in a slimy mask when he changed back.

He picked up each stone, one by one, and turned it this way and that. Sometimes he found an identifiable feature – an elbow spur, a shoulder ridge – and pointed it out to Bernie. That got part of one arm put back together, or maybe a smaller percentage of both arms. If Stephan didn't find anything distinct, he would carefully put the stone back exactly where Bernie'd had it before, and move on to the next one.

"It's weird that his swords aren't here," said Stephan after a while.

"He could've been disarmed in the fight."

"Yeah, but then Stricklander would've brought the swords back along with the body. And if they'd turned to stone with him, there should be – some sheets, or plates, or something. Flat rocks matching up to the blades. Those things were huge."

Unless …

"Unless the Trollhunter took them, after killing him," Stephan said slowly. "You know, battle trophies." His eyes were drawn to the row of skulls Bular had worn to show off his own battle prowess. "Hunting trophies … What if the reason we can't find his head, is because the Trollhunter has it?"

"Well, that would probably narrow down the cause of death to decapitation," said Bernie, in a detached, academic sort of tone. "Although that can also be done post-mortem, it would be more difficult to remove an intact head, since the stone is more brittle once it dies."

"Which could explain the state of the rest of the body." Stephan shuddered. Gunmar was going to be so angry …

+=+

After two searches through Bular's remains, Stephan could barely tell the stones apart anymore. It looked like there should be more than enough to rebuild Bular, but jigsaws always looked bigger than they were when the pieces were all spread out, and Stephan and Bernie still couldn't find Bular's head.

Stephan was leaning on his 'hunting trophy' theory. There had to be a reason their greatest enemy was called the Trollhunter, right?

Something beeped. Stephan, more tightly wound than he'd realized, jumped and turned trollish in a flash of silver.

He was dark grey, as a troll, with a crown of stubby lighter grey horns instead of hair. His mask got pushed away from his face by his overlong teeth. His goggles clattered to the floor. His ears went back at the additional noise.

"It's okay, Stephan," said Bernie, gently, as though to a spooked animal. "That just means it's break time. Come on." Bernie reached out as though to pat Stephan on the arm, though they were on opposite sides of the room. "I'm going to meditate. I'd rather not leave you alone in the lab, no offence."

Stephan blinked a few times and tried breathing slow and deep, to settle his heart rate.

"Okay. Yeah. Let's go."

Both of them changed to human form as they left the laboratory. Bernie sealed the blast doors and herded Stephan to the next floor up, to a small square room with a gramophone in the center and low white benches around the walls.

Stephan picked the bench opposite Bernie's, both Changelings with their sides to the door.

The record was moving slowly, though the needle wasn't touching it and neither Changeling had wound the crank on the side.

Bernie seemed entirely at ease, waiting, listening for the Pale Lady's voice.

Stephan tried to let go of the resentment that kept bubbling up inside him.

For all Bernie had seemed to be lonely and pining for conversation when Stephan first arrived, xe certainly didn't seem to need Stephan around anymore. Stephan had hardly proven his mettle with how he'd overreacted to a harmless alarm. Helping with the 'rebuild Bular' project was the one thing Stephan could do for the Order right now, and he had barely contributed.

He didn't know how to help.

He just wanted to help.

Please … he begged Morgana in his mind. My Queen. Your Ladyship. Mother. Tell me what you need of me. Let me know how I can help you.

A side compartment of the gramophone table opened. A drawer slid out.

Both Changelings got up and leaned in to look without touching anything.

The drawer held an orange crystal, faintly glowing. The room hadn't changed temperature or décor, but somehow felt more comfortable. Bernie got out a pen and touched the crystal with the button end. Nothing happened.

"Is this …" for us? Stephan couldn't quite say out loud. "Are we supposed to take it? Do something with it?"

"I think it's Heartstone." Bernie touched it with a pinkie finger this time. Again, nothing appeared to happen.

Stephan backed off and sat back down. Heartstone? Really? Here? How? That stuff was legendary. He'd only half-believed it was real.

Bernie turned trollish and touched the stone with xir last finger, to no visible effect, and then picked it up. The drawer closed itself and the compartment shut over it.

Bernie held the crystal out to Stephan and urged, "Touch it."

Stephan got up and followed Bernie's lead, transforming and tapping the crystal cautiously with one finger. He staggered back and sat again.

"Whoa."

If Heartstone was a thing, that was definitely what this thing was. Stephan had been overloaded with a sense of safety and contentment. It was actually kind of scary to think about once he wasn't touching it anymore – he would have let his guard down entirely to bask in whatever the stone was radiating.

Maybe it was actually some kind of trap?

Except a trap – if it was a lotus-eater type trap – the trap would logically drain his energy, and Stephan felt invigorated. He wanted to do something. He felt like he could do anything.

"It's supposed to enhance a troll's life force, somehow," said Bernie, waving vaguely with xir free hand. "Possibly like how reptiles need warmth to regulate their metabolism, or how humans need sunlight to produce Vitamin D. Or it could just be a stimulant."

"I heard Lord Gunmar was born from the first one," said Stephan. "Maybe that was a metaphor and trolls need … Heartstone radiation … to be fertile? That would explain why we aren't."

'We' meaning 'Changelings'. Although, if Stephan was right, maybe that meant Changelings could … become fertile? Probably not from a brief touch of a small stone, but, in the future, with regular contact?

Bernie was still holding it.

"If it feeds trolls, maybe it eats them as well," xe speculated. "Feeding troll remains into it could make it grow. Like how plants do best if there's decaying animal matter in the soil."

Stephan nodded. He'd skimmed an article in a gardening magazine a while back about using blood meal to grow better roses.

"There's some connection, I don't know what exactly, but I know it's there." Bernie turned the stone over with a thoughtful expression. "I wish I had more to experiment with. Ideally five. A control group with nothing, of course, one fed with analogous minerals that weren't sourced from a troll, one fed with Changeling dust –"

"You have –? What am I saying, of course you do."

"– one with Grave Sand, and one with Bular's remains."

Wait, what?

"I don't know if Otto would like that."

"That experiment would have to wait until after the autopsy," said Bernie, reminded once more that xe wasn't just talking to xirself.

"… Do you think it could bring him back to life?"

"Unlikely but possible."

Stephan had never encountered the undead, to his knowledge, but he made a point of bringing garlic-rich food into work at the crematorium, and keeping a box of salt in his desk. (He'd read somewhere that, if a zombie tasted salt, they would remember they were dead, go back into their grave, and resist further attempts to summon them.) He probably wouldn't have much to worry about in his troll form, but his coworkers did not share this advantage.

"You know," said Bernie, "if this is emitting anything, I could probably adjust a Geiger counter to pick up on it. Let's get it back to the lab."

+=+

Bernie's first step was to scan the Heartstone with every instrument the Janus Order had and record its exact dimensions. Stephan was more of a witness than an assistant for that part.

He felt much more useful during the Geiger counter modifications. Bernie needed an extra pair of hands for some steps, and neither of them were a troll type with more than two arms. Stephan did have a prehensile tail, but it had broken a few times back in the Darklands and he couldn't flex it very well anymore to deal with things in front of him.

The alterations to the machine were more magic than tech. Bernie opened up a few sections and moved things around, extracting wires and inserting crystals and writing tiny cramped symbols here and there. Stephan held things out of the way that weren't being fully removed, and balanced pieces while Bernie attached them, and moved the Heartstone around the room for Bernie to recalibrate various settings.

Bernie put in something like a compass below the dial, so the holder couldn't only see how strong and close the Heartstone's readings were, but also which direction it was in. The compass was a sphere of rutilated quartz, with the gold-coloured acicular inclusions all going the same way. The sphere's mounting let it indicate directions in three dimensions.

It took four tries and six hours to cobble together a working model. Short-range only. Despite the Heartstone's properties, which did not seem to fade after prolonged contact, Stephan was barely keeping his eyes open.

n a surprising show of trust, Bernie let him nap in the apartment connected to the lab while Bernie typed up a report on today's findings.

Well, maybe it wasn't so surprising. Stephan, asleep, would be in a far more vulnerable position than Bernie would be from allowing another Changeling unsupervised in xir private space. If Stephan tried to leave some sort of trap, or go snooping while tired and set off a trap Bernie had left, well …

Bernie was also the Changeling primarily in charge of making any poisons the local Janus Order branch couldn't get through human channels. Stephan taking advantage of Bernie's trust would end far worse for him then it would for xir.

In any case, Stephan accepted the risk and took the nap, not wanting to drive home while tired. Bernie woke him half an hour later, and they went together to return the Heartstone piece to the gramophone room and to drop off a report in Otto's office.

Stephan carried the Geiger counter so Bernie could get a better idea of its range. It lost track of the Heartstone piece once they were most of the way down the hall. Bernie's hands were occupied with paperwork and a set of lockpicks. It was funny to see lockpicks carried so openly.

"Do you often break into the offices?" asked Stephan.

"I'm nearly certain I've been in every room of this base at least once."

"Recently?"

"I have been living down here. It's in my interests to double-check the security systems."

Stephan kept his eyes from rolling too obviously, but felt his mouth twitch in a small, brief grin.

When Otto's door opened, the Geiger counter – Bernie said xe was going to rename it, xe just hadn't yet – began beeping up a storm. The Changelings looked at each other and followed the compass needle to a bookcase, then a specific shelf, and finally behind a book.

"Well," said Bernie, "now I can double-check all my readings. I'll have to revise my report."

"How many more Heartstones are hidden around the base?" Stephan wondered.

"We should do a sweep. It'll probably take a couple of days. When do you have to leave and when can you next be here?"

"I have this week off. I can stay until," Stephan checked the date on his phone, "nine tomorrow evening before I'm expected anywhere." He and some work friends were planning to go to a bar for trivia night.

"Alright. We'll head back to the lab and you can take another nap while I do the scans and report revisions, and once you're awake we can sort out the order of the sweep."

"I should be good to go for –"

"You can't collect accurate data while sleep deprived."

"When's the last time you slept?"

"I woke up about ten minutes before you got here."

That explained why the laboratory had smelled of coffee.

+=+

Previous Chapter (Shattered King backstory, as commemorated by the Quagawumps)

Table Of Contents

Next Chapter (Jim gets Gunmar's Eye)

[rachelanne2018writes]

Vignettes of Love: The Turner Family; A Sick Day for Shelagh- Early Marriage, Winter 1959-60 (Part 2)

If you haven’t read Part 1 of this Particular Story it can be found on my here (Link to another Tumblr post!)

" Good Morning Shelagh." Patrick began kissing her gently on the lips.

" Good Morning, Patrick dearest." Shelagh returned before initiating a kiss of her own.

Suddenly, several hard, deep coughs rattled Shelagh's body and left her breathless for a few moments.

" Shelagh, are you feeling alright?" Patrick asked as he put his hand to her forehead." Shelagh, you're burning up!"

"Patrick, I feel a little under the weather, but you need your breakfast, Patrick."

"You're ill, Shelagh. You need to rest; I don't want you to get any worse."

"You're not exactly the best cook, dear," Shelagh countered before dissolving into another coughing fit.

"Tell you what Shelagh, if you promise you'll rest and allow me to listen to your chest, then I will allow you downstairs to make breakfast and lie on the settee."

"Alright, Patrick. Could I also have a glass of water?"

"Sure thing Shelagh, I'll be back in two ticks."

Patrick quickly made his way down the hall of the flat, retrieving his stethoscope and a glass of water as Shelagh had requested. Unfortunately, Patrick could still hear Shelagh coughing from the kitchen.

"Thank you, Patrick," Shelagh whispered before sipping her water slowly.

"Shelagh, I'm still worried about you." 

"I know, once I've finished this water, I'll let you have a listen to my chest," Shelagh reassured him as she finished off her water.

"Alright, Breath in Shelagh. Out now, dearest, and In again, finally back out."

"What is the Doctor's opinion?" Shelagh sputtered before another coughing fit claimed her.

"Shelagh, I want you to stay home and rest today. I'm afraid it looks as though you may be developing a case of Pneumonia."

"Patrick, It's getting late, I should get breakfast started and get Timothy up.'

"I'll get Timothy up; you focus on getting breakfast ready, as you've reminded me- my cooking skills have yet to be improved."

Patrick could hear Shelagh coughing still as he entered Timothy's room, and she headed into the kitchen to make breakfast. It was apparent during breakfast that Shelagh was exhausted and feverish, and she could barely hold her head up and was slow to answer the questions he and Timothy asked as they conversed. 

Once Timothy was off to school, Patrick decided that he needed to call in reinforcements to get Shelagh to rest and fight this illness. After quickly phoning the Maternity home to alert the nurses that he would be later than usual arriving for the morning surgery, Patrick made an unexpected phonecall to Nonnatus House.

"Nonnatus House, Sister Julienne speaking."

"Sister, It's Patrick Turner. I was wondering if you would mind coming by and helping Shelagh rest."

"Oh dear, is she ill, Dr. Turner?"

"I'm afraid so Sister, I believe she might be on the brink of Pneumonia, but she has a fever, cough, and nearly fell asleep at the breakfast table this morning."

"Haas Shelagh, let you listen to her chest?"

"Yes, she's breathing very shallow, and I would prefer that she not be left alone, but I would also not want to risk the health of the nurses, Sister Monica Joan, or the mothers at the Maternity Home unless necessary."

'I see Doctor; I shall be there soon."

'Thank you, Sister."

After quickly hanging up the telephone, Patrick went to find Shelagh to get her settled before Sister Julienne arrived. He found her trying to wash the breakfast dishes, but ultimately being interrupted by frequent coughing spells.

"Shelagh, let's get you settled. You need to rest, and I don't like the sound of those coughs."

Shelagh turned to Patrick with tears in exhaustion ridden eyes.

"Alright."

"How about the settee? You can catch a bit of sleep now, and then later on, when Timothy and I return home, you're right here, and we can both sit with you."

A coughing spell, followed by a vigorous affirmative nod, was Patrick's answer as he gently guided Shelagh to the bedroom to change out of the dress she had turned into before making breakfast. 

"Here Shelagh, how about this," Patrick asked Shelagh as he appeared with the blue and white striped PJ shirt she had worn two years prior, the last time she slept on the settee. 

"Okay," Shelagh answered weakly.

Once Shelagh was changed, Patrick helped her on the settee with a duvet and pillow before slipping into the kitchen and making fresh tea.  Patrick hoped that a warm cup of tea, well sugared would help Shelagh's cough lessen and allow her to sleep for a bit. 

"Shelagh, I've brought you a cup of tea. It's well sugared and steaming hot."

"Thank you, Patrick," Shelagh answered in a raw voice before a coughing spell claimed her.

Once Shelagh was finished, she and Patrick sat together in silence and sipped away at their cups of tea. The silence was friendly and almost a balm for the two weary souls it captured. Nearly fifteen minutes later, this sense of serenity broke with a pair of sharp knocks on the door of the flat.

"Hello, Sister, come on inside."

"Thank you, Doctor Turner."

"Shelagh's just in the sitting room, lying on the settee. I'll just say my goodbyes and be off to the surgery."

"Are you sure, Doctor Turner?"

"Yes, Sister, I'm afraid all I will do is cause Shelagh to overwork herself, at least with you Sister she might feel more inclined to rest so that she can fight this illness."

"I suppose you're right, Doctor Turner, I hope she will rest."

"Thank you, Sister. I suppose I should be going."

"I'll wait here if you'd like to say goodbye to Shelagh."

"Shelagh, I'm off to the surgery now, but I've asked someone to come and keep an eye on you for today," Patrick told Shelagh before gently kissing her forehead.

"Patrick, I'll be alright on my own, but if you insist." Shelagh weakly protested before succumbing to sleep.

"I'll take my leave; I'll be back later tonight. Thank you, Sister."

With that, Patrick headed off to his day of Surgery Appointments and rounds across Poplar. While he was off enduring the daily agony of living, Shelagh wasn't making any improvements. After sleeping most of the morning, Shelagh's coughing continued to worsen.

"Here, my dear Shelagh, a glass of water."

"Thank you, Sister," Shelagh answered as a coughing spell wound down, and she accepted the water.

"How are you feeling?" Sister Julienne asked as she put a hand to Shelagh's forehead.

"A small bit better, Sister." 

"Shelagh, I'm just going to get the thermometer," Sister told her before retrieving her bag from the hall. "Open wide Shelagh, Oh dear. You've got a high fever."

"Sister, I'm so cold."

"Shelagh, I think it's time we call your husband home."

"Please, Sister, I'm fine. It's…" Shelagh's attempt to put her own heath off was interrupted by another coughing fit.

"Shelagh, you've hardly been recovered from triple treatment for two years. You really can't afford to get sick. How would Timothy feel if you ended up at The London and he couldn't visit?"

Shelagh coughed for a few minutes before finally giving in, "Okay, Sister."

"Doctor Turner's Surgery, receptionist speaking."

"Yes, this is Sister Julienne of Nonnatus House. Please let Doctor Turner that his wife needs him."

"I'm sorry, Sister, Doctor Turner is on a very tight schedule today."

"I'm afraid she needs him in a medical capacity; his wife is very ill."

"Oh, I see. I will pop into the Doctor's office and let him know."

Fortunately for Shelagh, Patrick made his appearance shortly after Sister Julienne's phone call. After nearly a fortnight of rest and Penicillin Shelagh began to feel better. Almost a month after Shelagh fell ill, Patrick deemed her officially ready to return to work. From that day on, both Shelagh and Patrick became incredibly mindful of Shelagh's health. On occasion, Shelagh would remain home if she wasn't feeling the best, especially during Influenza Season.

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Disliked About Red vs Blue: Season 2

When I decided to do this series, I knew it was gonna be hard to do lists for Blood Gulch. Not because I can’t think of anything I like or dislike specifically, but as I said before, BGC is mainly comedic driven. The worst I can say is ‘this isn’t funny’ and critique the earlier production standards. Which that’s kinda mean since they were working with what they had and trying to learn to do the show. As such, I have to reach on Dislikes for these and S2 was a tough one in that regard. I managed to come up with five, but GOD I had to stretch haaaard on it.

But still, I did it. Just remember, take this with a grain of salt. So here we go, Top 5 Things I Disliked About RvB S2.

#5. Doc

If you asked me which of the BGC to write out and never bring back… I’d probably have to pick Doc. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate him, but I’ve also never loved him. He comes off more whiny than funny, and most of the time he’s only funny due to the back and forth with O’Malley. Otherwise, usually… he’s just there. Even here in S2, while having a pacifist medic in a cast where several are trigger happy could lead to some funny stuff, Doc was just an annoyance. The situations he got into were funny, like getting knocked into the Warthog when the Blues unknowingly made it go rogue, but he was literally just there for the ride. Something IDT later season really improved aside form 16 and 17, which tbh I think is stretching it.

IDK, I just find Doc whiny and kinda boring. Even if he’s meant to be the annoying, disrespected nice guy, doesn't Donut kinda fit that slot already? Heck, they both even have the recurring ‘disappear for seasons and then suddenly comes back’ joke. The only times that I feel invested in Doc is when he has O’Malley, which is how he re-entered the plot here. I’m gonna save more about that in the S3 posts, but on his own? Doc just… doesn’t really work and I didn’t really miss him in between the Reds dumping him and him reappearing when O’Malley infected him. It’s also a flaw IDT recent seasons have really fixed, though they are trying. Plus I don’t hate Doc and some jokes with him do work (the gag of his naming made me giggle), I'm just… indifferent. But that’s why he’s at the top of the list since the most I can say is I find him whiny and not as funny,

#4. The Cyborg Subplot

So due to losing Lopez and because he’s Sarge, Sarge decides to turn one of the Reds into a cyborg to do all the stuff that Lopez did. He settles on Simmons. Now in and of itself, the subplot is fine. It leads to a good few jokes, like Grif trying to ruin Simmons’ parts after the surgery or a few gags like Simmons shooting his own foot and of course, faxass. While IDT the season would have been hurt without it, it has plenty of funny bits. Sow hat’s the problem. Well… like I said, cutting it wouldn’t have hurt anything. It kinda is just there to give the Reds something to do during the O’Malley and Tex stuff since otherwise, they’d just be standing around and taking… well, more than normal. Otherwise, it’s only significance plot-wise is Tucker tuning into their frequency, which is important in the finale when he picks up Vic and Sarge’s conversation.

So yeah, the subplot isn’t all that important. But it is still funny, so I don't mind it being there. But nowadays… how much so we see this come up? I mean Grif got mutilated by a tank and got another guy’s body/organs haphazardly stitched on. Simmons, while he possibly gave up those parts to Grif willingly, was otherwise forcibly converted into a cyborg. This… hasn’t really come up again. I mean the only time I think Simmons mentioned it in-show was as a brief joke in S11. Nine seasons later. I don’t think Grif’s side of it has come up at all ever again. Though… considering you can only get so many jokes out of this setup since everyone is always in armor, I do understand why. Though I feel with Simmons’ side at least, they could play with it some more, both comedically and maybe even storywise. But that may be my need for Simmons content talking…

So yeah, the subplot was okay. It’s at Number Four since I don’t hate it and it was funny. I just feel like nothing would be lost without it, especially since it pretty much never comes up again. Maybe one day though, who knows? At least the fanfic writers keep it alive XD

#3. The Caboose Forgetting Church Thing

Okay this is brief, but it does annoy me. During the whole trip into Caboose’s mind, Caboose’s memory of Church gets shot. As such, Caboose forgets who Church is. Makes sense, O’Malley killed the personification of Church in Caboose’s mind, so his mind would forget it. It also explains why Caboose got, well… for lack of a better way to put it, intellectually challenged later on due to having three AI’s in his brain and all the chaos that broke out. But Caboose forgetting Church lasts like… one episode? Maybe two? Anyways, Burnie explained on the commentary that it was just too hard to write out so they did one joke with it, and then just dropped it. Probably for the best... but then we have to figure out how this works in-continuity... damn it.

Really this is only on here because it forces me to try to figure out how this is possible in a show sense. Which yeah I probably don’t need to, but I am a continuity loser who tries to piece together these things. If I had to guess, maybe the memory of Church fixed itself somehow or Caboose was able to recall after being around Church for a little while. But I honestly really don’t know, and trying to think it through hurts my brain. It also did little to nothing either story-wise or comedy-wise, at least we got a few jokes out of the cyborg subplot. IDK, I feel like they gave up on it too soon. But then again this is the saga where they’ll break/ignore continuity for the sake of a joke and that’s just how these seasons worked. Hence why I put it smack-dab in the middle.

#2. Some Holdover S1 Issues

You can tell that there was a mass improvement in terms of production for Season Two. Pacing felt stronger, more was going on, characterizations began to settle in, and they even began to form more of a plot. They clearly had a much better idea of what they were doing now that they got through Season One and I think things like Matt becoming more involved in writing and production as well as Gus moving back to work on the show really helped as well. That being said, not everything got resolved. Most did, but there are still a few holdouts.

Audio mixing is a LOT better, especially when it comes to effects. The filter is still a little distracting, though better compared to S1. Not all the characterizations really set in. Grif and Donut are about 75% there and Simmons and Tucker are probably the least set in stone. The traits are there, like Simmons clinginess to Sarge and Tucker actually showing some competence when forced to, but nothing set in stone. Donut’s also on the right path with his hobbies and tendency to babble into TMI territory, but the voice is still off and his personality isn’t quite there yet. There’s some other, but I’ll touch on it in the Likes list. Some jokes could also still drag, like the whole switch joke where some of Church and Tucker’s back and forth went on a little too long.

We’re clearly making progress, but the mark hasn’t quite been hit. It’s still an improvement over S1 though, the pacing especially. This is nitpicky, but still it’s there. But hey it’s progress, and that is never a bad thing. So yeah, RvB is still evolving here, but the progress bar is loading steadily and trust me, by S3 I think we’ll be settled in… well, for the most part.

#1. Some Outdated Humor

The BGC was made from 2003 to 2007. Obviously, there’s gonna be some stuff that is outdated. Take the graphics themselves for example. Halo has evolved, so the game can look a little outdated, especially when you compare the original footage to the remastered footage. Let's put it this way, VIC is uncanny in the remaster… and is utterly horrifying in the original version. Thank God that the DVD is the remaster and I was spared of looking at that monstrosity. Visuals aren’t the only thing though, some pop culture references can also come off as outdated, like Creed joke in the RL vs Internet PSA. So can some of the humor that shows how stupid we were back only two decades ago.

There are… some jokes that are uncomfortable to listen to. For example, there’s the Grif shaming himself joked by saying he’s a girl and likes ribbons in his hair. It’s not the worst joke and clearly, it isn’t made to offend… but nowadays I think it could look offensive to certain individuals. It didn’t necessarily offend me, but it did kinda make me feel uncomfortable when I first watched it, but it could be me thinking it over too hard. There’s also the casual usage of the R word. Last season it came up a bit, but I noticed it came up more frequently here. Not excessively, but there were quite a few instances where it was treated as a casual curse word. Obviously back in 2004 we didn’t realize this was an offensive term, and I think they’ve even said that they regret the casual usage of it during the early years. You certainly would probably not hear that word used unless maybe to emphasize how terrible a character is, but even then I think they’d be more careful.

Now obviously RvB uses a lot of adult and offensive humor, especially in this era. I guess you can kinda call it the web version of South Park, only RvB has never really resorted to shock humor. It puts it above many, /many/ animated adult comedies in that regard. Still, when you run for this long, you’re gonna have some outdated elements. It’s not necessarily their fault, it just shows that times has changed. Still, it does make some stuff hard to look back on without cringing, and I imagine that the Founders would agree. So yeah… there’s just some stuff that wasn't fun to look back over and S2 isn’t the only offender, but this was where it stood out to me and took me out of the moment. As such, it is Number One.

(Top 5 Likes)

[mearcatsreturns]

Hope for Dummies, chapter 2

There's not a guidebook to hope, but they could sure use one.

Abby’s and Luka’s feelings deepen, even as the reality of being a med student and attending physician starts to sink in. 

Look, I should just accept who I am as a person, and know that it's 50/50 that a one-shot will stay that. @somekindofflowergirl did egg me on, but really, I didn't want to leave this 'verse just yet. I'm planning for 4 chapters now, sigh.

Also, I'm not a medical professional, so please excuse any errors you find in that regard.

Also on ao3. Over 5k words this chapter.

Ch. 2

Luka ends up staying in the hospital a few more days than he’d like. Of course, anything more than overnight qualifies, but his pleas to leave are met with emphatic no’s from all the doctors who see him, especially when they find out he sold his bed and was planning on sleeping on his couch.

Finally, Abby offers to let him sleep at her place until he’s well enough to buy a new bed for his apartment. “Besides, I’m a nurse and can check on him to make sure he’s following doctors’ orders,” she tells his ICU doctor and Kerry.

Both of them judiciously ignore Kerry’s eyerolls. They cannot, however, keep from blushing when he’s okayed to leave, on the condition that they “keep...activities...to a minimum” while he heals.

She still has work, so it’s not like she’s waiting on him as his own personal nurse or anything, though the mental image of that does make his eyes glaze over in a way that has nothing to do with illness.

She drives him back to her apartment and helps him up the stairs, which does manage to quench his ardor. In fact, by the time she assists him into her bed—a place he’s dreamt of being again for the last two years—he’s so tuckered out that he falls asleep immediately.

When he wakes up and wanders out, she’s in the living room watching television, and he startles her with his quiet, “Hey.”

“Shit! You’re awake!”

“Slept a whole lot, but I think I’m hungry now. And besides, you need to go to bed soon too, don’t you?”

“Luka, I was planning on sleeping on the couch. You don’t fit, and you’re healing.”

He sighs. “But you need your rest. You’re working a lot and need to sleep better.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just trying to take more shifts before I start med school again so I’ll be a little better off financially,” she says.

“Abby…”

After a couple moments, Abby throws her hands up in concession. “Fine, but I’m not kicking you out. For the little bit that we’re both here, we can share. Unless...you hate that idea.”

Luka really didn’t have words for how much he opposite-of-hates the idea, even if his vision of sharing a bed was very different. “No, I just—I take up a lot of space, and I still get feverish sometimes.”

“Hopefully the fevers will subside soon. And I know how much space you take up, it’s fine,” she says, cheeks his new favorite shade of red.

He smiles. “I’ll try not to be all over you. And it’s just until I get a new bed.”

Looking very much like she’s about to protest, she eventually just says, “I have next Tuesday off, and I can take you shopping for a bed if you’re feeling up to it.”

“That will be nice.”

“Okay. Oh, and there’s some chicken noodle soup from the deli in the fridge for you.”

“Okay.”

&&&

He is feeling better on Tuesday, so they head out mid-morning to a mattress store. It’s simultaneously torture and bliss sharing Abby’s bed, but he really is doing far too well to do so without it being a flimsy and transparent excuse at this point. She’s just as ornery in the mornings as he remembers, but the soft warmth of her nestled up to him in slumber is so comfortable. And it occasionally also makes for uncomfortable moments while he tries to will away his body’s reactions to her nearness.

So yes, it’s time for him to buy a bed and go back to his apartment, though he doesn’t really want to be away from her again.

As soon as they go into the retailer, a salesperson comes up to them. “Looking for a new bed for you two, Mr. and Mrs…?”

Luka can feel the color heating his cheeks, and Abby undoubtedly matches. “Oh, ah, we’re not married.”

“Well, that’s certainly not a problem for us,” the salesman says with a wink.

He glances over at Abby, breathing a sigh of relief at how obviously torn she is between mortification and amusement. She leans into amusement. “Well, show us your king-size beds. I mean, look at this giant.”

With a knowing smirk at them, the salesman leads them to that section of the store, Luka just shaking his head all the while.

Eventually, Luka settles on one that’s firm enough for his taste, but Abby still sighs happily when she sinks down into it. A few blocks away, he manages to find a bedroom set he likes and some bedding. While she doesn’t weigh in much, he does try to pick things that she doesn’t grimace at (she did not care for the black leather headboard he’d been eyeing briefly, alas).

By then he’s tired, and they go back to her place for one last evening together like this. His new furniture is to be delivered the next day while she’s at work, though she promises to come over when she’s off to make sure he gets settled in and isn’t overdoing it.

Back at her place, they change into their pajamas and settle onto the couch to watch TV before going to sleep. Luka aches at the simple domesticity of it, and for a moment, he wishes he didn’t have to leave, or that there were some loophole for them to pursue this right now.

Instead, as they climb into the bed that night, he just says, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me stay here, and for looking out for me so that I didn’t have to stay at the hospital.”

She reaches out and squeezes his bicep as she gets comfortable beside him. “It’s no trouble, Luka. Consider it my way of trying to pay you back for letting me stay with you for two months.”

“Mmm, you don’t owe me a debt or anything. Besides, you didn’t sleep in my bed back then,” he says, taking her hand in his.

“I think...that would have gone very differently.”

He laughs. “Yeah, probably.” There are a million things he wants to say, but now isn’t the time so instead, he just sighs, adding, “Good night, Abby.”

“‘Night, Luka.”

&&&

Due to a scheduling snafu, it’s a couple days after he’s moved back into his place before Abby can come over to see how he’s getting settled in again.

She arrives at nearly ten, and after he shows her how his new furniture is set up, they go for a walk. It’s a nice late summer night, they’re young-ish, and it shouldn’t be wasted.

They end up walking near the lake along the same path they took on their first date, and Luka laughs, pointing this out to Abby as they sit at one of the benches.

Her mouth quirks upward. “Well, I kept an eye on the shadows. No muggers tonight.”

Snorting, he changes the subject. “You start med school again tomorrow. Excited?”

“Yeah, it should be good. I’m doing a surgical rotation, so I won’t be in the ER as much, unfortunately. When do you start back at work?”

“Next week. I wanted to go in sooner, but Kerry wants me to take it slow at first. Why surgery?”

“Oh, I promise I’m not defecting to become a surgeon. I just think it’s really useful if you’re an ER doctor,” she says.

He nods. “It is. Though I’m glad you’re not wanting to be a surgeon. You’re not arrogant enough.”

“Do you think I could get there with some practice, though?”

“No, it seems like a skill they’re born with.”

She giggles, and he beams, glowing at having amused her. “Oh, the new nurse who’s taking over for me started today.”

“Yeah?”

“She seems okay. She’s a single mom, so...all the respect, but she’s kind of intense.”

“And she’s the nurse manager?”

“Nah, I think they’re making Connie do that for now, but they just needed someone else since I am abandoning nursing.”

“I’m sure she’ll get used to it, but no one can compare to you,” Luka says loyally.

Abby huffs. “That’s very sweet of you to say, but honestly, I hated being nurse manager. I’d rather just be with the patients.”

“I understand. I know I could maybe have bigger prospects if I wanted to do something in administration like Kerry, but…”

“Yeah.”

The bask in the relative calm of the evening, staring out at the water. Finally, Luka breaks the comfortable silence. “So, nervous?”

“Yes and no. It’ll be weird to start med school again after three years. I won’t know any of the other students anymore, and in some ways, the approach to medicine between nursing and doctoring is completely different. But, you know, I’ve done it before, and the faces will be familiar.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says with a grin.

“Oh, shut up. Some of those faces are very nice,” she says, lightly punching his arm.

“Hmm, I wonder who you can be thinking of.”

“Susan, obviously.”

“I never knew you felt that way about her.”

“I would have said something sooner, but you know how it is. She and Chuck are actually still seeing each other, by the way.”

“Her ex-husband, the flight nurse?” Luka asks, glad the streetlights aren’t bright enough to show how he’s blushing. Catching Susan and Chuck together always reminds him of when Susan caught him, which now just makes him think of someone catching him and Abby...he shakes his head before he can get too distracted.

“Yep. I don’t know how serious they are, but that’s a thing.” Abby shrugs as if to say she doesn’t get it.

“Hmm. Well, you’ll have to tell me all the gossips at the hospital. You know I don’t know anything unless people tell me.”

She smiles, scooching closer to him to bump his thigh with her knee. “Of course. I’ll tell you all about the new med students and residents so you’ll be prepared.”

“Shit, is Romano still the acting Chief of the ER?”

Abby groans. “Unfortunately.”

“Ugh.”

“On the bright side, he probably won’t be for long. I’m taking bets for who murders him first.”

They exchange a look before saying in unison, “Kerry!” He can’t help laughing, and soon she joins in.

&&&

Abby’s kind of glad Luka isn’t there for her first week back in med school. It goes well enough, but it’s a little bit of a struggle adjusting to all being new (again) and yet not. She’s up in surgery, so working with Elizabeth is a nice change of pace.

Elizabeth is finally starting to dip her toes back into the dating world, which, good for her. Abby’s glad to see her moving on, even if she still seems hesitant. Then again, Abby can’t imagine losing someone like that she loved, had committed her life to. If Luka hadn’t come back from Africa, if his malaria had been worse...and they weren’t even dating. She pushes it out of her mind, unwilling to dwell on the ramifications of that when she has patients to see.

Luka is coming back today. Well, he’s already back, Abby just needs a reason to head on down to the ER to say hello. She hasn’t seen him since their walk the previous week, but they’ve talked on the phone a couple of times. She’s filled him in on the other two med students she sees a lot, Neela and Lester. Neither of them are exactly outgoing or social, but maybe she’ll warm up to them.

“Abby, I have to do this emergency appendectomy, but the ER is calling for a surgical consult. Do you think you could head down?” Elizabeth asks apologetically.

Jumping at the opportunity, Abby tries to respond as casually as she can, “Sure. Absolutely. Who needs the consult?”

“Dr. Kovač, I believe. There’s a trauma with a penetrating knife wound.”

“Okay, I’ll head down.”

“And Abby? Say hello to Luka for me,” Elizabeth says, visibly holding in a laugh at Abby’s excitement.

Abby’s face burns, but she hurries to the elevator nonetheless.

She heads over to Trauma 2 as quickly as she can, smiling at the sight of Luka showing Pratt and Lester one of his techniques for maintaining a patient’s status when the severity of the injury is still unknown while Sam keeps an eye on the patient’s vitals. “Hey, I heard someone needed a surgical consult?”

Luka’s face lights up at the sight of her. “Yes, that’s us. Nice to see you down here.”

“Thanks. What have we got?”

“Penetrating wound to the lower abdomen, but we need to know if the metal missed the organs or if he’ll need surgery.”

“Is this an assault case? I heard it was a knife.”

“Accidental and not a knife, actually, but his work foreman removed the metal when he panicked?”

“Okay, well let me take a look,” she says, pulling on a pair of gloves, still smiling at Luka.

“And Abby?”

“Yeah?”

“The white coat looks good on you.”

&&&

They all start to get back into the swing of things. Whenever Abby’s and Luka’s shifts intersect or overlap, they get in the habit of going for coffee together at the Jumbo Mart or at the Roach Coach before shifts start or during breaks. Abby wonders if Luka gets nearly as many knowing looks as she does, or if he simply doesn’t notice. Maybe he’s just better at ignoring them.

“When are you coming back down from surgery? We miss you,” he says, putting on his best puppy dog look. They’re sitting at the dinky little table in the lounge with their styrofoam cups of steaming coffee.

That face should be illegal, she thinks. “I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder.”

“Well, I’m plenty fond already. When are you done with your rotation?”

“Um...a couple weeks, at the beginning of October. I still have a couple more six-week non-ER rotations to go, though, and I’m not sure if I want to leave them to the end.”

“You should leave them for the end.”

“I should?” She’s uncertain. While he wouldn’t lead her astray as a doctor, she needs to make sure his reasons are...professional.

“Yes. Next year, you’ll be in the ER all the time. For the rest of your life you might be. So save them for the new year, and enjoy the little break before the ER takes you back.” Luka’s unflagging confidence in her as a doctor, as always, warms her.

She smiles at him. “That makes sense. I’m thinking...NICU and Psych? My experience in OB could help, and god knows I’ve been around Psych enough.”

“Those sound good,” he says with a smile, before he looks away. “Uh, listen, Abby...speaking of absence and fondness…”

Her heart sinks and she just looks at him.

He clears his throat and continues, “Carter and I have, ah, been keeping in touch.”

“Oh, okay?” Is he leaving (her) again?

Luka runs a hand through his hair, and she represses the urge to reach over and straighten it. “He’s started seeing someone. And...he thinks it might be serious.”

“Wow, already?” She’s not hurt, not really. It’s just fast, and she resents that she can’t exactly pursue what she wants with Luka right now. But there’s also relief in knowing that this is the news, not that Luka wants to go back.

“Yeah, apparently they met in Kinshasa after he took me there. I don’t know her, other than what Carter has told me.”

He still sounds nervous, so she reaches over and places her hand over his. “Luka, it’s fine. I’m just glad he got you back safely.”

“You’re not upset?”

“I mean, I’m not thrilled, but Carter and I are done.”

Leaning back in his char, he considers her, though he places his other hand over hers, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “I just...I know you lo—cared about him a lot, and you put a lot into your relationship. I didn’t want you to be hurt if you found out from someone else.”

“I did care a lot, and I loved him—as a friend. But we were pretty doomed from the start. He wanted to change me, and I was, I don’t know...looking for stability? It felt like we should work because we were such good friends, so it was hard to admit that we both fell short of each other’s expectations.” Her throat is a little dry at offering up so much, but Luka needs to know.

“He did care about you too, though.”

“I know. But he also had this vision of me that wasn’t—isn't—who I am, and he tried to get us to fit this idea he had of us.” She blows out a breath and takes a gulp of coffee before continuing, staring down at her cup. In for a penny, in for a pound, she decides, continuing, “I kind of mentioned it before—before you went to the Congo, but one of the things I regretted from when you and I were dating is that I let Carter come between us. If I had kept you closer, the same thing would have happened between Carter and me, and I didn’t want that. Not because...not because he mattered more, but I just—I don’t want to be the girl who doesn’t learn from her mistakes. I did so much to make that relationship with him work, Luka, but I don’t think it should be that hard.”

He pulls his hands away from hers and wraps them around his cup, not meeting her eyes. “We tried before and didn’t make it work.”

“I know. But I also don’t think it’s that simple. We didn’t try as hard as we could have, and we just didn’t talk about stuff, and there was so much going on. I cared so much it scared me, but I...I didn’t really know how you felt.”

Luka sets down his cup and reaches for her with both hands, turning her to face him. “I don’t want you to doubt that I care. Ever.”

“Then tell me. Talk to me.”

“I’ll try. But sometimes I’m better at showing,” he says, leaning toward her. His lips are an inch away when the door bursts open, and Susan comes rushing in. They jump apart.

“Hey guys, sorry, but we have multiple GSWs coming in. Luka, I need you out there. And Abby, stick around in case we need a surgical consult.”

Giving each other one last longing look, they follow after Susan.

&&&

Luka wants to bring up that they nearly kissed again, he really does. Or better yet, actually kiss Abby. It just doesn’t happen that day, or the following. Then they’re not scheduled together for a while or are busy with other things for so long that he just about loses his nerve.

Meanwhile, Alex—the son of that new nurse, Sam—starts coming around more, trying to spend time with him. Luka can’t say no to him, no more than he can to any child. Sam doesn’t seem to like it or him, but he doesn’t much care.

Finally, Abby is done with her surgical rotation and comes back to the ER. He comes in one day to find her at the admit desk, going over something on the computer, and he can’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. “It’s a stranger!”

Her brow furrows in confusion before smoothing out, her lips twitching with amusement. “Generally, it’s ‘hey, stranger,’ but sure.”

“Good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back.”

At that moment, Romano comes by, snapping his fingers at him and Abby. “We don’t pay you to stand around and make time with nurses, Mr. Croatia. Or nurses pretending to be doctors, whatever you are this month, Lockhart. Let’s go, people.”

Luka clenches his jaw, but Abby catches his eye and places her hand on his forearm as they head away from the admit desk.

“Well, Dr. Kovač, can I observe the patient that just came in?” she asks with a roll of her eyes.

“Not only that, but you can place the chest tube,” he says, relaxing at how easily she brushes off Romano’s nasty words.

They get the patient taken care of, then head to lockup to get the meds the woman will need. He lets Abby handle it to make sure she can handle prescriptions. She can, of course, so when she’s about to leave, he reaches for her hand, pulling her back into the small space.

She squeaks as she nearly crashes into his chest. Steadying her, he pulls her closer.

“We got interrupted a couple weeks ago.”

Her eyes drop as a blush spreads across her cheeks, though she doesn’t pull away. “I thought you’d forgotten. It’s been a while.”

“I didn’t forget, I just…”

She looks up at him questioningly. Ah, to hell with words. Luka lowers his head and brushes his lips across hers. He pulls back, raising his eyebrows to see if he’s overstepped. When he sees that her eyes are closed and she just leans into him further, he presses his lips to hers in a far more demanding kiss. She returns it with enthusiasm, and he’s running through his extensive knowledge of the hospital’s layout to think of the closest supply closet when he hears a giggle.

They pull apart and freeze at the sight of Haleh laughing as she walks away from the entrance to lockup. Turning toward each other, they stare helplessly.

Finally, Abby clears her throat. “So, that was…”

“Yeah,” he agrees, letting out a breath.

She hesitates, then says, “Um, maybe we should continue this—this discussion!—later?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” he says, missing her as soon as she walks away to get back to work.

&&&

It doesn’t happen, at least not in the way they intend. It’s the next day when they’re working together that what’s growing between them sputters to a halt.

He’s supervising her when she tells their patient that the procedure that will help him is a simple one, a quick fix with no lasting repercussions. Abby’s heart sinks when he makes a face and asks to speak to her outside the room.

“Abby...it won’t be as simple as that. It looks like he probably retained some infected tissue from his last procedure. Surgery is going to have to operate, and they may even need to amputate.”

She pales. “I—I didn’t realize...it didn’t seem…”

“That’s why it’s important to take a thorough history and not make any promises before you know the full extent of the injury or illness,” Luka says, eyes searching her face.

“I’m sorry. I just thought...nine times out of ten…”

“I know. You’ll learn, Abby. We’ve all had to.” He’s still looking at her as if there’s more he wants to say, but that this is also horrifyingly embarrassing and he doesn’t know how.

She looks down. “Thanks.”

“Now for the hard part.”

Taking a deep breath, she nods. “I have to go in and tell him I was wrong.”

“Yes.”

So Abby goes in, feeling all the while that she’s lost something. She only hopes it’s not Luka’s respect.

&&&

Luka finds Abby in the lounge when her shift is over. She looks so glum and sad, and he knows that what he has to say probably won’t help, and he aches. He just can’t see a way around it.

“Hey,” he says.

She looks up, and her mouth twists in a half-hearted smile. “Hi.”

“Want to get coffee? You can tell me how the rest of the shift went.”

“Sure,” she says. She’s the farthest thing from an idiot, so she obviously knows their conversation will be more than that.

They walk over to the Jumbo Mart and he buys her a coffee. They head out from there, walking aimlessly. He’ll have to go back in, but they need to talk, and he prays with everything in him that he doesn’t mangle things.

“It...it went okay. I sent Mr. Johnson up to surgery, and they’re going to try to go in and remove all the infected tissue before considering amputation. He was upset, but not really with me. Which was worse, somehow,” Abby says when they’re nearing one of the parks.

“It’s hard,” is all he manages for a while. Finally, he clears his throat, toying with the sleeve on his coffee cup. “I...I want nothing more than to kiss you and tell you it’s going to be okay, but I can’t. Kiss you, that is.”

Her face falls, and she turns her head away from him. “Right.”

“Not because I don’t want it, eh? I-I just can’t be your teacher and this. I’m not objective, and it’s not fair to you or the other med students.”

“I know,” she says, letting out a sigh. “It’s for the best, probably. I really did miss you as my friend, Luka. We’ll still have that, right?”

He sets down his coffee cup and reaches over to place his hand on her shoulder. “You can never lose me as a friend. You just, well...even when we weren’t connecting a lot, I always knew I could count on you, even when I didn’t deserve it.”

Her answering smile is bittersweet, and she puts her hand over his. “That’s how I feel too, you know. And there’s no ‘deserving’ in friendship, okay?”

“Okay. Uhh, want a ride home?” He forgets that he has to go back in his desire not to part from her, then decides he’ll make it work if he has to.

“Um, no, but thanks. I need to swing by the store on my way home.”

“Send me a text or page when you get home? It’s late.”

She stands, stepping away from him. She’s still smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Will do.”

Luka watches her until she disappears from sight, then finally turns back to walk to the hospital, his heart heavier than it has been in months.

&&&

They’re doing okay at this friendship thing, Abby thinks with a smile as Luka walks away. It hasn’t been without its awkward moments, but they can still get coffee and talk and joke, and they even went to the movies a few days ago. It works.

It’s Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t mean they get the day off, especially not with Romano on his bitter rampage against happiness and joy. Still, it’s not enough to dampen her spirits. She’s back from her lunch break that she spent reviewing for her boards with Luka’s help. It’s strangely invigorating, having him quiz her, in a way it isn’t when she and Neela try to help each other out.

She’s interrupted in her musing by Sam coming up beside her. Sam follow’s Abby’s gaze to Luka and raises her eyebrows. “So, what’s his story? He’s been spending a lot of time with Alex, and he’s obviously a good guy, but...I have to ask.”

“He’s a wonderful man,” Abby says firmly.

Sam’s look turns speculative. “Is he single? Alex is pushing that hard, and I’ve heard enough that it seems like he might be a good time. I haven’t gotten laid regularly in forever, and I sure wouldn’t mind if he’s willing.”

Abby tries not choke, even as she fights the urge to yell, “Mine!” Luka is her friend, but that’s all they are right now. She has no claim over him, and yeah, he probably misses female companionship, since he sure hasn’t had any that she’s aware of since getting back from the Congo. “Um, you’d have to ask him.”

She didn’t hear her approach, but Chuny comes up behind them. Abby jumps at her loud snort. “He might not be dating anyone, but he sure isn’t single,” Chuny says, giving Abby a blatant once-over.

“I don’t—that’s not—well…” Abby sputters, but can’t think of how to end the sentence without telling them things that are frankly none of their business. She wouldn’t mind telling Chuny, probably, but she hardly knows Sam.

Sam flushes and winces. “Oh, sorry.”

Chuny just smiles at Sam. “Trust me, it’s not worth it when he’s hung up on this one here,” she says, gesturing at Abby, “and has been for like three years.”

With that rather enigmatic interjection that she’ll have to think about later, Chuny leads Sam away, and Abby is left staring, feeling distinctly out of sorts.

And she’d been doing so well.

&&&

After their shift—their crazy shift involving a helicopter crash, explosions, and saving Susan’s ex-husband/boyfriend—is finally over, Luka heads toward the L platform. His heart skips a beat and he lets out a sigh of relief when he sees Abby there, staring blankly at the tracks. “Abby?”

She starts at the sound of her name and shakes her head, “Luka? Are you okay?”

He grins at her. “Boring shift, eh?”

“Piece of cake,” she agrees with a laugh. “But hey, speaking of cake, or pie, I guess, what are you doing here? I thought I overheard Alex and Sam talking about inviting you to dinner. It’s Thanksgiving.”

He slides down next to her on the bench. “It is. And I’m thankful to be here.”

“And...you said no to Sam and her son?”

“I wanted to spend the evening with people who I care about,” he says, bumping her shoulder lightly.

A smile spreads across her face slowly. “Well, I can’t offer you anything but leftovers and freezer meals.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off hers. “I’m okay with that.”

She blushes, but doesn’t look away from the steady heat of his gaze. “Or, uh, we could go somewhere?”

“That works too,” he says, unable to keep from smiling back at her. “In fact, the hotel—the one I used to live at, you remember—I think it serves a Thanksgiving meal.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!” She’s bouncing on her feet, and it’s the cutest thing he’s seen in...well, since this afternoon when he last saw her. “It’ll be faster to walk than take the train.”

“It will be,” he agrees, then offers her his arm.

After a moment’s hesitation, she takes it, and they head back down the stairs. It’s snowing, but it’s the light kind that Luka always enjoys early on in the winter. They’re quiet until Luka says, “Sam told me about a conversation she had with you and Chuny today.”

“Oh yeah?” He smirks at the forced casual tone of her voice.

“Mmhmm. She said Chuny didn’t think I was single, but that you weren’t sure.”

Abby opens her mouth, but looks to be at a loss for what to say. Luka knows the feeling all too well, so he continues, “And I told her that while I might not be dating anyone, I’m only interested in one woman.”

His heart speeds up at her sharp intake of breath. “Oh.”

He puts his gloved hand over her small hand tucked into his elbow. “Yeah. The only reason I’m not pursuing that woman is because I can’t right now. But I probably will in June, unless she doesn’t want me to.”

“She wants you to,” Abby blurts out.

“I don’t mind if you change your mind, okay? But I meant what I said when I got back. I’m fine with waiting for you.”

“Yeah?”

He wants to erase the uncertainty he hears, the uncertainty that he’s partially responsible for. “You’re worth it, Abby.”

They keep walking in silence, then she squeezes his arm. “You are too. Worth the wait.”

He pulls them to a stop. “Really?”

“Yep. We...I’m scared, Luka, but I’ve used fear as an excuse to push you away before, and all it did was hurt us both. I—I want to try. In June, of course.”

“Of course.”

She takes a deep breath. “But what does that mean? Do we just...keep going like we are?”

“I like spending time with you like this, and I’m glad we talked about this. Just if we change our minds we can tell the other person, yeah?”

“Deal,” she says, beaming up at him, and it’s all he can do not to whoop loudly with joy.

He might not be completely successful, if her giggle is anything to go by.

Friends hold hands at dinner, right?

[lexinthelibraryofdreams]

An Unlikely Chance

Imagine: “Imagine getting shot by an Unsub after pushing Spencer out of the way and him staying by your side in the hospital until you’re better

Words: 2594

A/N: So I finished this first even though I wanted to do part 2 for the Dad!Spencer. Still, this took long enough due to school and stuff. Plus, the part 2 takes quite a lot of research, since I have no experiences with pregnancy myself  :p. I’m thinking about cutting it short and splitting it into two parts as well... whatever, I hope I can upload it on Friday

I’m not 100% satisfied with this one but I wanted to finish it, so, hope you still enjoy it

Also, let’s not talk about my titles, I’ve got no inspiration

Warnings: -

When the door opened, you squinted against the light, readying yourself for whatever was about to come. Only when the figure called out your name, you realized the differences in stature and started to relax. “Spence,” you mumbled and then he was next to you, face full of worry. “I’m so sorry, Y/N,” he said quietly, “We should have been more cautious. I should have noticed him earlier and-” You cut him off with the shake of your head. “Don’t,” you said, then tried to stand up with his help. He supported you, his arm around your waist. 

“Did you get him?” you asked and he shook his head. “He left before we got here.” You furrowed your brow and he looked down at you. “What is wrong?” he asked and you bit your lip. “I don’t know, it just doesn’t fit. He just isn’t one to give up easily. It isn’t over yet.” He nodded slightly, a stern expression on his face. Once you were out of the house, you took in a deep breath, sucking in as much air as possible. “God, that’s good. I was almost sure, I would never breathe fresh air again,” you mumbled and he tensed up. You stopped and looked at him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Hotch interrupted you, when he came over. “(Y/N), I’m glad you’re alright,” he said and lightly patted your shoulder. “I’ll be even better once we get our hands on that asshole,” you replied and he nodded. “We’re scanning the entire area for him. There is no way he got far with this much police around.” Spencer helped you sit on a stretcher and a paramedic started to examine you briefly. “I don’t know if he really wants to get away. He has a mission and it isn’t finished yet,” you stated and Hotch exchanged a gaze with Rossi, who had just joined your little group. “Any clue what he’s up to?” the older agent asked but you only shook her head. “I only know we shouldn’t underestimate him. He is as much of a skilled marksman as he is a ruthless killer. We made the mistake once and we can’t allow ourselves to make it again. Also, he didn’t kill me immediately, so there must be a reason for it.” The other agents nodded in agreement, then Hotch and Rossi left you alone. You looked back at Spencer. “You don’t have to stay, you know. I’m sure they could use your help.” 

Whatever he answered, you didn’t hear it. A red dot was dancing across his chest, almost teasingly. You knew a warning would come to late.  In an impulsive moment, you pushed the paramedic aside, just out of the way and used your own body weight to tackle Spencer to the ground, just as the shot rang through the air. Hot pain spread across your back, shortly paralyzing you. Your ears rang, the sound drowning out every other noise from outside your head. It was quickly accompanied by the thrumming of the blood in your head and suddenly Spencer was above you. He looked panicked and said something but you couldn’t hear him. Your eyelids felt heavier with every second and in that moment you knew, with an unusual clarity of mind, you were dying.

To your own surprise, you were calm despite that. You felt someone turn your body, fingers pressed onto the bullet wound on your back. A sudden surge of pain following that motion finally knocked you out.

You slid back into consciousness for a moment and were immediately blinded by harsh lights, causing you to squint against it. Your entire body was heavy. A mask covered the lower half of your face and you could feel something sticking to the skin on your chest. When your head lolled to the side, your eyes fell on Spencer, who was sitting next to the paramedic. You noticed blood on his hands and the bottom of his sleeves, initially worrying that he was hurt until your brain caught on and you realized, it was yours. 

You tried to say something, to catch his attention but his eyes were glued to the heart monitor, steadily watching over your vitals while the paramedic worked on something on your arm. It probably had only been a few minutes but your head started swimming again and you slipped back into unconsciousness.

When you woke up the next time, your body felt light, almost as if you were floating. The pain had vanished, just like the ringing sound. Slowly, you pried your eyes open, willing against the heaviness of your mind. You were in a hospital room - of course you were - and hooked up to several monitors that displayed your vitals. You also spotted you were given morphine through an IV tube, which explained the lack of pain. 

Only at second glance you noticed Spencer, sleeping on a chair in the corner, a book leaned against his chest. A small smile crossed your face and you looked back at the ceiling. After the harsh light in the ambulance, you were grateful that someone had partially closed the curtains. You spent another few minutes trying to assess your situation before your exhaustion pulled you back to sleep again.

The third time you woke up, you were alone in your room. The book had been put down on the small table next to your bed, Spencer’s bag was sitting next to the chair so you suspected he was just outside for a moment. 

Just as you finished your thought, the door opened and your favorite profiler stepped in. His hair was messier than usual and he had dark circles under his eyes. Someone must have brought him a new shirt since the current one didn’t show any blood stains. And of course, there was a cup of coffee in his hand. Obviously lost in thought, he only noticed you were awake when you tried to move, the sound of your arms dragging across the cover catching his attention. 

At first he looked like the might drop his coffee but then he was next to you, setting down the cup by the book and placing himself on the edge of the bed. “Y/N,” he said quietly and you smiled at him, trying to sit up but stilling when you felt an unfamiliar pull on your back. “Careful,” he said and gently helped you sit up a little, propping the pillow up on the headboard so you could lean against it. “We don’t want you to pull out your stitches.” You hummed and he reached towards the table again, filling a glass with water and helping you drink until your throat didn’t feel like sand paper anymore. 

“Are you alright?” was the first thing you asked and surprise crossed his face. “Me? I wasn’t the one who got shot,” he replied and you smiled again. “Yeah, that was the plan. You wouldn’t have survived it, so I decided for an alternative. And since I’m still alive and you seem unharmed, it seems like I made the right call.” He bit his lip but didn’t say anything. You paused for a moment, studying his face, before asking, “Did you get him?” 

He looked back at you and nodded. “Yeah, he gave his position away when he shot you and the others arrested him. I kind of wish I could have been there but I wanted to make sure you were okay first.” You reached out and took his hand in yours. “I am. It takes more than that to take me out,” you said with a slight grin, trying to lighten the mood. He only shook his head slightly. “Your heart stopped once in the ambulance and twice during surgery. It didn’t look good and you were out for almost five days,” he replied and you could see pain in his eyes before he turned away.

In this moment it hit you how worried he really had been. “Spence,” you said quietly and tucked on his hand. “Hey, look at me.” When he still didn’t respond, you leaned forwards slightly, ignoring the tension on your back and cupped his cheek, then used that to turn him back to you. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you,” you said earnestly and he swallowed thickly, nervously licking his lips. You knew that, had seen him do it on a regular basis, mostly when he was stressed. “I know,” he said after a moment of silence and without thinking, you reached upwards and brushed some of his locks back. 

“I just... after everything that has happened, I don’t think I would have been able to cope with losing you, too.” Silence settled down between you. You had talked about that... situation between you. The rest of the team was running not-so-secret bets on how long it would take for you two to get together but after talking to Spencer, you settled on staying friends and colleagues.  To be fair, it had been mostly your decision. While Spencer didn’t seem to mind the thought of a relationship, it was connected to too many possible dangers. You were afraid to get too attached, especially due to the high-risk nature of your job. Also, one of your principles was to never get in a relationship with a colleague again, after some bad experiences in the exact same situation. 

Still, after the last weeks your opinion had started to change. You didn’t want to miss out on anything anymore, just because you were afraid. When he wanted to say something, you gently put your finger on his lips. He looked at you confusion and you took a moment to shuffle into a different position. “I know that we talked about this and that I had my opinions on the matter set in stone but... Even I can change my mind.” You looked up at him. “I’m not sure how, yet, but I want to make it work. Unless you changed your mind, of course, which I would understand.” 

Before he could answer a doctor and a nurse entered the room, presumably to check up on you, and suddenly you were caught up in answering questions and running tests. Spencer stepped back to watch and wait. It seemed to drag on forever until most of them left the room. “There is something else I have to talk to you about, Miss,” the doctor said and you looked up at him with a tired expression. What more could there possibly be?  He pulled out a tablet that he had tucked under his arm and unlocked it. "I’m sorry to tell you but the bullet entered through your back and damaged the spinal cord. It is possible that you don’t feel it now due to the medication you’re on but the nerves leading to your left leg are permanently damaged. We are positive that you will be able to walk again after extensive therapy but you will probably always need walking aids.”

You stared at him for a moment, then blinked slowly and shook your head. “I know that is a lot to take in for the moment. If you need someone to talk to, our staff from the psychiatry is more than willing to help.” He left after you nodded slowly and asked him to be alone. Spencer stepped a little closer, worry etched onto his face. “Should I leave as well?”  Swallowing sharply, you shook your head and lightly patted where he had sat before. He sat down again and looked at you. “If you want me to leave-” he started but you interrupted him. “No. I don’t.” 

You inhaled deeply and rubbed your hands across your face before leaning back with an exhale. “I don’t want to be alone now,” you admitted. In the last two weeks you had been kidnapped, beaten and - to an extent - tortured then shot in the back but none of that had affected you the way those new information did. “Well, I suppose it could have been worse,” you huffed after a while and he tilted his head sightly. “How is that?” he asked quietly and you looked back at him. “I need to sort out some things but I believe I can work with that.” He raised an eyebrow in question but you shook your head. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you in on it soon enough. For now, I need to get my mind off of things,” you said and gently took his hand. “We were unfortunately interrupted earlier,” you muttered and he nodded slightly. “Yeah... right.” 

His eyes searched your face and you looked back at him. “You wanted to say something,” you said after a moment of silence and he nodded slightly. “I haven’t changed my mind. If you really think we can make it work, I- it would make me extremely happy.” You smiled and intertwined your fingers with his. “I’D be happy as well,” you said and tucked him closer. His lips met yours for a second, soft and warm but he pulled back too quickly, presumably not to hurt you. Still, it was the best kiss you ever had. You smiled up at him and squeezed his hand. Whatever was about to come, you could handle it together.

Six months later

You watched the last student leave the room and leaned back with an exhale, rubbing across your thigh subconsciously. “Exhausted?” a voice asked from the door and you looked up when you spotted Spencer standing there. He walked over to you and you pushed yourself into a standing position, greeting him with a short but deep kiss. “When did you get back?” you asked, leaning onto the table. He sat down onto the edge and put his bag down. “About two hours ago. I wrote my report on the plane and came here after dropping it off. Also, I brought some lunch,” he said, holding up a bag with takeout. You pressed another kiss onto his lips. “You’re an angel.”

He laughed and set it down onto the desk. “Want to eat it here or somewhere else?” You turned and started to put your things back into you backpack. “It was the last class I held for today, so we can go home and eat it there,” you replied before shouldering the backpack and grabbing your cane before leaving the room with him. After months of therapy, you were almost back to normal though you knew your leg wouldn’t improve further. The nerves leading to your left leg were permanently damaged, causing it to feel numb. You had good and bad days, sometimes being able to walk with minimal support, other days you could barely stand without any. That didn’t mean you were unhappy, it was the opposite actually.

Once you had been out of the hospital, you resigned from your position in the BAU and went to each at a local university. Since then, you had Spencer at your side. You had moved in with him quickly, mostly because it was easier in the beginning with someone there to help and even though you were fine on your own by now you didn’t plan on moving out soon.

You looked over at him while he was walking next to you and smiled. Maybe this wasn’t how you had expected your life to go but you also didn’t mind the way it turned out to be. And as long as you were with him, it was worth it.

CM Tags: @cynbx

[runthejoint-blog]

The Perfect Storm



Treatment begins



Sitting in the Consultant’s office on July 1st, 2 and a half weeks before my 30th birthday I was told that my anti-CCP antibodies were strongly positive at 189. A normal reading of 0-17 is considered normal, if it had been 25 there might have been some doubt, a test here or there may have been done. But 189 was definitive. My diagnosis is seropositive rheumatoid arthritis.

What follows is a blur of medical jargon, various definitions of ‘normal’, numerous explanations of how for now I am ‘abnormal’ or have a ‘new normal’. Very little is known about what causes rheumatoid arthritis. It can be genetic (there is no history in our family), it can be the result of stressful events (hi there, last 12 months of my life), putting your body under too much high intensity physical exertion (guilty as charged) or a plethora of other factors. I will never know how or why I became classified as seropositive rheumatoid arthritis. I’ve decided there is little point dwelling on it or speculating, it makes an already stressful and frustrating situation even more so. As my dear friend Debra who herself has suffered a life-changing physical event over the past few months (and far more catastrophic than my own) says: This is our new normal. As my Consultant summarised it; everything has come together in a perfect storm for you and right now, as you sit here, you are in the eye of that storm, but it’s my job to help you weather it.



And then he said something that I appreciated more than anything else he could have said at that moment. He told me it was ok to feel angry and frustrated. For someone who doesn’t sit around for long (unless I have a good book in hand), who feels that I haven’t lived the day without getting my heart rate up to threshold and who is more comfortable in cycling kit/running shoes/a swimsuit (not in the glamour photoshoot sense, more submerged in water) being on enforced rest partly through medical advice, but also because my body just can’t do it right now it is the most frustrating, dare I say, depressing prospect. He told me he knew it was deeply unfair. That someone who was referred to a cardiologist earlier in the year for having a heart rate so low it scared my own GP was now confined to a largely sedentary period. 



Signs of a great doctor, in my opinion, are if they take the time to explain a condition and its treatment, but most of all, that they leave the decision-making for treatment with you. After all, it is your body after all. So I could start a course of steroids (they work well short term, but we all know steroids long-term is a really terrible idea), I could start on the most common form of treatment - Methotrexate (it is the magic pill for many, but has some horrific-sounding side effects and takes quite a while to build up into your system), I could take on a combination of daily steroids for a short term period of a month or two with a weekly dose of Methotrexate with a chaser of folic acid (to help reduce the risk of toxicity to the liver - told you the side effects didn’t sound a barrel of laughs) or I could do nothing (he didn’t advise this, if I thought I felt bad now, come back and see him in a few months, crippled and begging). So unsurprisingly we settled on the combination therapy of steroids in the short term whilst I get Methotrexate into my system. So now I have a drug diary (I am yet to take the plunge and buy a natty plastic pill organiser with the days of the week on - the OAP version of pants with the days of the week on from when you were a small child?!) and have a fortnightly visit to the GP surgery for blood tests to keep an eye on liver and kidney function and blood toxicity. In a couple of weeks I will have my follow up appointment with a base chest X-ray - partly to monitor whether the RA starts to affect my lungs, but also to spot whether the drugs damage them too (win-win, or lose-lose) and have had to enter territory hitherto unknown to me: being kind to my body and listening to it.


A new normal

For too long my training strategy for cycling or more recently running was to push through the pain. Don’t worry if your lungs/knees/hamstrings/shoulders/feet hurt, the pain will be temporary. Just finish this effort. Get that PB. Shave all of a second off your previous time. No one else is probably at all interested, but to me (and someone whose own addiction to similar behaviour had too much of an influence on me at the time) that was what mattered. I may agonise for hours, days, weeks afterwards that I hadn’t done well enough in my (or their) eyes. When I finished running a 5k, 10k, 10 mile or half marathon distance I found it impossible to say to myself: well done for getting out there, that head wind made it tough, still further than you’ve run before. Instead it was, why didn’t I run as fast or easily as before, why can’t I run as well as so and so, why do I feel so tired? I actually probably felt so tired because I was overtraining, not eating enough and not getting enough rest. Unlike cycling where you can tuck in with a pack or sit on someone’s wheel, it’s very hard to fake it with running. It has to be your own effort and only your mind and body can really be in control of what happens.

I have no training strategy right now. I have some ideas. I have hopes (many) and dreams (a few). I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago and rather than celebrating with an epic bike ride as I would have done any other year I had a quick dip in the sea before focusing my celebrations on cake consumption. I’m trying to swim as much as I can, initially I would swim in the sea before or during my work day as a relaxation for both body and mind. Some recent storms and a busy period at work have meant that I’ve started swimming in the local lido instead. It’s taking some adjusting going from an empty, endless ocean to swimming in a busy and chaotic pool. It’s not just the number of people that are different though. I have to force myself to relax when swimming in the pool, to not focus on what others are doing, not panic that I’m not swimming fast enough. I am trying to only look at my watch to see what time I get in and then make sure I’m out in time to shower and get to work. My addiction to pace is never far away though. I try and force it from my mind. Breathe deeply and say it doesn’t matter, but it lurks in the shadows, wanting to overtake my thoughts. This worry about not doing well enough and not putting in as much effort as others or getting as good a result as in the past (when I was at peak fitness) at times can be all-consuming and soul destroying.

A couple of months ago a very close friend said they had quit Strava (the cycling, running and swimming recording app) as they were fed up with the negative feeling that had when they couldn’t cycle following an operation and seeing others out and about made them feel worse; not to mention feeling like they had to agree to cycle with people for fear they would see their ride and would feel cut out. I said I had toyed with the idea for a while, and the closest I had got at that point was to stop following a huge number of people and focus instead on those who I was really interested in seeing out and about and who I didn’t feel I had to ‘compete with’; both in terms of cycling and running performance, but increasingly with sport:life balance. Then another friend on hearing my diagnosis and my frustration said to throw away the Garmin, stop looking at Strava and cycle based on feel and not by numbers. And so I did. I logged out on my phone and have filed the app away. I don’t miss it in the slightest. My only regret is that there are some people who aren’t on other social media platforms that I actually used Strava to keep in touch with. I know a number of you reading this probably use Strava and for a long time it kept me motivated, particularly when I moved to the States and didn’t know anyone or have the confidence to join the local bike club. Waking up and seeing that friends at home had gone out for a ride got me moving. But then the pleasure went. I would spend too long looking at it, comparing my times and in the end not being able to see why I might not be improving at something. Getting frustrated seeing that other people (who were at a completely different stage of life to me) could spend so much more time cycling and running than I could. Now I see Strava very negatively as a platform for people to log their rides and get boosted by those around them. It’s not real interaction. For many it’s not a healthy tool; it’s something that makes them feel inadequate, for others it’s a way to show off their results - yes you got a PR at your ParkRun, but do you really need to tell the whole world. When did running or cycling have to be dictated by your watch or a little screen on your handlebars? Why not just get out there and enjoy being with those you are with, or focus on the no doubt beautiful surroundings? There are t-shirts that say ‘If it’s not on Strava did it even happen?’ and ‘If I crash, someone pause my Strava’… I get that these are tongue in cheek, but for some people this really is their concern. This little orange app on their iPhone increasingly rules their life, their training routine is dictated by it. Not only is it concerning to me from a mental health point of view, but from a physical standpoint too. I will never know whether my RA was caused by too much physical exertion, it’s certainly a possibility. The number of people I know who have chesty coughs they can’t shift because they feel they need to keep cycling even though they are ill (to hit their Strava weekly mileage target), who end up with aches and pains by trying to keep up with their friends’ annual mileage and work beyond their physical limits or in the most extreme cases take unnecessary risks on the bike to get a KOM or QOM on a ‘segment’ increasingly astounds me. I know that these thoughts may not be popular, and it’s just my personal opinion of Strava from experience. If you use it and enjoy it, keep at it. But take a few minutes and think, do you enjoy it for the right reason? Do you ever do stuff you shouldn’t in hope of seeing a little gold circle, cup or crown? Is it really worth it?

What a difference a year makes…

This time a year ago I was completing day one of 14 days and 1,000 miles of back-to-back cycling to complete Land’s End-John o’Groats. I was probably at one of the fittest points of my life, certainly in terms of cycling. Little phased me. The lumpier the ride, the better. The longer the distance, the bigger the challenge, the more it would push me physically, the more appeal it had. And then my body said enough. 

Looking back there may have been signs as far back as a year ago that I was beginning to have some issues with my body, but on the whole the 14 days whilst a challenge were totally achievable. Today I feel exhausted if I work a full day in the office and try and do some form of gentle exercise whether swimming or Pilates (two sessions in and I’m disappointed to report there is no sign of a six pack yet). The sofa is my territory on weekend afternoons. Not out of choice, but out of necessity when I run out of steam.

I don’t know what lies ahead in terms of physical challenge, whether I can expect to be able to sign up for some multi-day challenges next year or some one day classics. I am trying to focus on the here and now, getting out there if I feel good, but also not chastising myself if I feel whacked. At the beginning of July I ran a 10k trail run with a very good friend. We had planned it pre-diagnosis and I thought of it as a kind of last hurrah (I still don’t know if I’ll ever be allowed to get back to running), and how hard could 10k be? Well to say I ran it would actually be a complete lie. I managed two miles before my lungs, heart rate and feet started to wail and the heat of the hottest day of the year got too much. And so began a highly frustrating walk-run routine. I would walk and recover and think I could run, only for a few minutes later to feel completely wiped out once more. As we eventually neared the finish line (a 10k course which was actually over 7 miles) I was told there was a small climb to the finish and I spurred the man next to me on to run to the line and in the last moment managed to get my foot over the line in front of him (the finish strong mentality is still very much there, thanks Kevin!). As we crossed the line and I hugged my friend, something completely unexpected happened. My face and clothes that were soaked through with sweat and from being hosed down by spectators, were now being moistened by salty tears, uncontrollable tears flooding down my cheeks. I was frustrated. I was angry. I was mourning my former self. I mourn the fact that a few months ago a 10k was effortless, that a few months ago I had planned to run the 50km ultra marathon of the same event, that I will go home and be wiped out for days by it. 

I constantly have to tell myself that it’s good I can still exercise at all, that I still have a fairly normally functioning body that means in time I will be able to cycle again, that I can swim, do yoga, Pilates and walk. And I should be grateful for that. I feel bad that I moan so much when a couple of close friends have become stricken by incredibly unfair events in recent months and currently are not able to use their bodies much at all. I feel guilty and selfish that I get so angry at feeling so restricted. I laugh when friends tell me they admire my positivity (I feel so lacking in positivity). Nothing stops the emptiness and inadequacy I feel at not being able to get out and live the life that until a few months ago I thought was unlimited.

[lfthinkerwrites]

A Riddle for a Bat, pt. 4

Title: A Riddle for a Bat

Fandom: Batman

Pairing: Riddlebat

Rating: T for canon-typical violence

Chapter Summary: Bruce and Dick speak with Carmine Falcone, but an attack by the bomber forces Bruce to make a decision that will change the course of his life.

Previous Chapters: 1/2/3

AO3 Link

Bruce parked the Batmobile in an alleyway adjacent to Gotham City General Hospital, then gestured for Robin to follow him. The two men climbed up a fire escape of the building to the immediate right of the hospital and soon made their way up to the roof. The building was perhaps half the size of the hospital, which gave the pair a direct line of sight to the fifth story of the ten-story hospital. Once they were settled on a vantage point, Bruce pulled out a pair of binoculars and scanned the hospital, floor by floor. The first nine floors were brightly lit and Bruce could make out the usual traffic of medical staff, patients, and visitors. The tenth story, by contrast, was darker. Bruce spotted just one doctor walking in front of the window.

“Think that’s where Falcone is?” Dick asked.

“Most likely,” Bruce answered as he continued to scan the floor for any other sign of activity. “Being the head of a mafia family has its perks, including having a private floor of a hospital.”

“Do you know what Falcone’s being treated for?”

“Nigma said chest pains, but he wasn’t any more specific than that. My guess is he doesn’t know.” If he did, he would have said so back in his office, Bruce thought. The man couldn’t seem to resist showing off what he knew. Bruce waited until the doctor was out of sight, then he placed his binoculars back in a compartment on his belt. “Let’s go. We’ll get up to the roof and then make our way down.” He took his grappling hook, aimed for the rooftop of the hospital and fired. Robin followed him a moment later, pulling himself over the rooftop ledge and making his way to the rooftop door that served as a service entrance to the hospital. Dick waited to the side as Bruce picked the lock and opened the door. Bruce walked down the stairs and Dick followed.

"Do you think that Falcone was behind the Maroni murders?"

"No," Bruce answered as they made their way down. "But I'm sure he's got information about whoever was." The two of them stopped in front of a door and Bruce held his hand up. "Wait." He slowly opened the door and the two saw an empty hallway. Bruce stepped out, then silently gestured for Dick to follow. They walked down the hallway past empty hospital rooms and a vacant nurses station. In the distance, Bruce could hear the faint beeping of medical equipment.

"Sheesh," Dick muttered. "And I thought Crane's last hideout was creepy. This place feels haunted."

Suddenly, the pair heard footsteps coming from ahead. Bruce and Dick quickly darted into an empty room. They hid out of sight, one of them on each side of the open door as the footsteps grew louder. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce caught a glimpse of a figure approaching. As they drew closer, he recognized them as Louie "Brass Knuckles" Brazini, Falcone's personal bodyguard. To his right, Bruce could see Dick's eyes widen in recognition and his hand go to his belt. Bruce caught his gaze and shook his head. Not yet. Brazini was a large, formidable man with a well-deserved reputation for violence. While Bruce knew he and Dick could take him down, the ensuing ruckus would attract unwanted attention from any other man Falcone had stationed on this floor. The best way to take him down would be to use the element of surprise in their favor. Dick gave a quick nod and stilled his hand. The two waited as Brazini came closer. He was about two feet away when Bruce nodded at Dick. Get ready. Bruce's body tensed and he took one step away from the wall. Dick mirrored his actions. Brazini was about to walk directly in front of the doorway. Bruce gave Dick a sharp nod. Now.

As soon as Brazini was in front of the doorway, Bruce stepped forward and grabbed Brazini by the elbow, dragging him into the room and slamming him up against the wall. Dick quickly shut the door behind them and propped a chair up against it.

Brazini's face went white when he saw the pair, then he scowled. "What's the big idea? What the Hell are you two doing here!?"

"Just thought we'd stop by to give your boss a get well card," Dick sassed. "We just need to know where to deliver it."

"Oh no," Brazini spat. "I'm no squealer you little brat. I'm not telling you where the boss is!"

Bruce's grip on Brazini's shirt tightened and he could feel the man flinch. "It's about what happened at Maroni's restaurant tonight. I'm sure you heard about it, Louie."

"The boss had nothing to do with that-"

"Carlo Ricci's dead too," Bruce growled. "Unless you want your boss to join them, tell us where he is."

Brazini gulped. "Ok, ok! He's in room 1012, down the hall! But don't tell him I told you!"

Bruce dropped Brazini to the floor. "Thank you for your cooperation." He then dragged him back up to his feet and shoved him towards the door. "After you."

Dick moved the chair out of the way, then stepped to the side to allow Bruce to 'escort' Brazini out. He followed the pair out, keeping a hand on his belt in case Brazini tried to fight them after all. Brazini contented himself with muttering as the three of them walked up the hall. "Man, you guys got some nerve bugging the boss like this. He only got out of surgery yesterday."

"Surgery? What's wrong with him?" Bruce asked.

"Somethin' to do with his heart, I think. I ain't a doctor, how should I know?" Brazini stopped walking when they reached a large room at the end of the hall. The marker on the door read 1012. "Here it is," Brazini said. He opened the door and walked in, Bruce and Dick following close behind.

The room was large on the inside as well and empty, with only a few token mementos on the drawer in the far right corner of the room. In the center of the room, lying propped up in a hospital bed, was Carmine Falcone. Bruce narrowed his eyes as he took a step closer to the bed. Carmine Falcone had been one of the leading figures in the Gotham Underworld for over thirty years. He was a formidable man by reputation and by physical presence as well. The man lying in the hospital bed was a far cry from that figure. Falcone was pale as a sheet and his face was sunken in, showing just how much weight he'd lost in recent times. He was only in his early sixties, but his thinning, almost white hair and the deep lines on his face made him look at least twenty years older. His eyes were closed, but Bruce could faintly hear the faint, labored sound of his breathing over the sound of the monitoring equipment posted next to his bedside. Bruce hesitated for a moment, looking over Falcone's prone body. He'd dedicated his life to making sure that men like Falcone saw their influence in Gotham dwindle to nothing, but he still felt a twinge of pity for the man in the bed. Falcone was a shell of who he used to be.

"Falcone?" Bruce asked.

Falcone stirred, then slowly opened his eyes. His dark brown, almost black eyes focused on Bruce, then closed again. "Goddammit," he groaned out. "You. Figures."

Bruce leaned in closer. "I need to talk to you, Falcone. It's about what happened tonight."

Falcone didn't open his eyes, but he weakly nodded. "Carlo and Maroni's guys. I heard. One of my guys came by and told me an hour ago. You think I did it?"

"No," Bruce answered. "But I think you know who did."

For a long moment, Falcone said nothing. Finally, he spoke. "Louie?"

Brazini stepped forward. "Yeah, boss?"

"Leave us alone."

"Are you sure boss?"

"Yeah. Stay outside the door in case anyone else comes."

Brazini looked from his boss to Bruce and Dick, then reluctantly left the room, shutting the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, Falcone spoke again. "I didn't have anything to do with what happened to Sal's guys. And I know Sal didn't kill Carlo."

"How?" Dick asked.

Bruce thought for a moment, then realized the truth. "You and Maroni are negotiating a truce, aren't you?"

Falcone weakly nodded. "Yeah. About a week ago, before I went in for surgery, Sal and I met at the old courthouse. We'd been pulling back for a while, but we were going to officially declare a ceasefire."

That would explain why there had been a decrease in street-level crime. "You and Maroni have been fighting each other for years. Why a ceasefire now?"

Falcone sighed. "Look at me. I just had to have a heart bypass surgery. It bought me a little time, but I'll be dead in a few years anyway. Between the other gangsters, the freaks, the cops and you, I've got almost nothing left. I don't want to spend the time I have left fighting with Sal over crumbs. Sal agreed with me." Falcone shook his head. "All those years, all those men we lost. We should have teamed up a long time ago." He opened his eyes slightly to glare at Bruce. "We might have actually stood a chance against you."

"So it's not just a ceasefire," Bruce said, crossing his arms. "You're entering an alliance with Maroni."

Falcone laughed a bit before he dissolved into coughing. "Yeah," he admitted once the coughing fit had passed. "Sal and I...we put too much into this city. Even if I'm not long for this world, I'm not gonna let the freaks, or thugs like Thorne push me out. Would've brought Arnie in too, before you got to him. We three, we're the last of our kind. We're the last people in this town with any sense of honor. Thorne? He's a two-faced coward. He doesn't have any regard for his people or for anything else."

Dick snorted. "Yeah, you sure have regard for your people, Carmine. How many of your people got killed in this gang wat between you and Maroni before you decided to call it quits again?"

Falcone snarled. "Don't try to put that all on me boy! You don't think you or your boss here had anything to do with that!? You, Gordon and Dent before Thorne blew off his face...you put the hammer down hard on us. Too hard. There were too many people and not enough to go around. Then when the families started to fall, the freaks came in." Falcone glared back at Bruce. "There was order in this city before you came in. Now, instead of guys like me, you've got clowns and plant women and scarecrows poisoning people for no good reason except they think its fun. You really think you're making this city better? All you did was trade one group of crooks for another. And your new group of crooks does more harm in one week than I did in a whole year." Falcone began to cough again and leaned back to catch his breath.

Bruce had, more than once, considered the impact of his actions. After Harvey especially, he had his moments where he would be up until the crack of dawn, wondering if he was really doing the right thing. He shook his head. There was no time for that now. "We don't have the time for this. Did anyone in your crew know that you met with Maroni?"

Falcone shook his head. "Carlo did," he said. "No one else knew. I don't know if Sal told anyone." He weakly looked back up at Bruce. "You think someone ratted on us to Thorne and that's why Carlo and Maroni's guys got killed?"

So Falcone at least was convinced it was Thorne. Was that just a suspicion, or did he have any kind of evidence? "Why do you think it was Thorne?"

Falcone rolled his eyes. "I thought you were supposed to be a detective. Who else would do it? If Sal and I go down, he's the one who benefits. Everyone else is either dead, retired or in jail. Thorne ordered this. I guarantee it."

How would Thorne have found out though? Either he was having Maroni and Falcone tailed, or he had a mole in one or both of their organizations. If it was the latter, finding that mole would take time. Bruce thought back to the conversation he had with Nigma back in the man's office and an idea came to him. Nigma had an information network that had eyes and ears on Maroni and Falcone. It was very possible that Nigma's informants had crossed paths with this mole. Bruce rubbed his chin. It seemed like he would need to pay the private investigator another visit. "We'll look into that," he said to Falcone. "In the meantime, you need to be moved to a more secure location."

Falcone shook his head. "No one knows I'm here except my most senior crew, Gordon, and you now, I guess. Did Gordon tell you I was here?"

"No," Bruce answered, and he noticed Falcone's already pale face become even more drained of color. "You're not as secure as you think. I can call Gordon and have you escorted to a different hospital."

"The GCPD?" Falcone asked. "You know how many guys at GCPD that Thorne has in his pocket? It'd be open season on me. I'm staying right here."

Bruce opened his mouth to argue with the man when Brazini's voice yelled out. "Hey! Who are you!?" A single gunshot rang out. Bruce grabbed a batarang and threw the door wide open. Brazini was lying on the floor next to the door, holding a hand over a bleeding wound in his side. Another man stood maybe ten feet away, holding a revolver in his hands. He was between 5'10 and 6'0, with neat blond hair and grey eyes that were as wide as saucers when he realized that the Batman himself was standing in front of them. Bruce took advantage of his surprise to throw his batarang, knocking the gun out of his hands. The man backed up, then turned around and ran at full speed towards the stairwell Bruce and Dick had entered the floor through earlier.

Bruce paused to examine Brazini's wound as a doctor ran up. "What on Earth-" His jaw dropped when he saw the scene before him.

"This man is wounded, take care of him!" Bruce shouted. Dick came out of the room then and took off after the gunman. "Robin! Wait!" Bruce left Brazini in the care of the doctor and chased after his ward down the hallway. If this was the same person who had murdered Ricci and Maroni's men, odds were good that he also had a-

Bruce was just about at the stairwell when an explosion rocked the floor. Shrapnel flew out of the stairwell and Bruce only avoided being hit by it and dropping to the ground, covering his face and body with his cape. Bruce lowered his cape and got to his feet when he heard a groan of pain. Dick! "ROBIN!"

Bruce ran into the stairwell, his boots crunching on pieces of metal as he carefully made his way down the mangled stairwell. There was no sign of his ward. "Robin!"

He made it down two flights of stairs when he saw Dick, lying sprawled by the doorway to the eight floor. Bruce ran to his side. He had a cut in his face that would require stitches and he was holding his leg close to him, but he was alive. "Batman..."

Bruce took his cape off and wrapped it around Dick. "What happened?"

Robin hissed in pain. "I followed him down to the ninth floor, I almost had him but...he had the ninth floor doorway ready to blow. I saw the detonator before he pressed it and jumped down a flight...I think I broke my leg..."

"You'll be alright," Bruce soothed. "I'm getting us out of here."

Dick weakly laughed. "Figures I'd get hurt in a hospital of all places."

Dick's leg was indeed broken. After being looked over, having his cut treated and getting a cast put on, Bruce had driven straight back to Wayne Manor. Dick was lying on the living room couch now, being tended to by Alfred.

"Guess I should be glad it's just a broken leg," Dick said. "But still."

"You should be glad that you're still alive Master Dick," Alfred lightly scolded, putting a cup of tea in front of him. "That's more than seven other men tonight can say."

"I guess," Dick said. "What about Brazini?"

"He'll live," Bruce said. "This should be enough to convince Falcone to let Gordon take him into protection."

"But we still got a killer out there and who knows what Thorne will do now that Maroni and Falcone are basically off the streets." Dick looked up apologetic at Bruce. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run after him. Now I'm not going to be able to help you out there."

"It's not your fault Dick," Bruce assured him. "You can still be plenty of help here."

"After he gets plenty of rest of course," Alfred said pointedly. Then his face took on a concerned expression. "Will you be quite alright handling this sir?"

"I'll be fine Alfred," Bruce said. He inwardly sighed. This was not the course of action he wanted to take, but now it seemed he had no choice. "I won't be out there alone."

Alfred looked confused, while Dick's eyebrows raised. "You're going to take Nigma up on his offer, aren't you?"

"Nigma?" Alfred asked. "That gaudy private investigator? What does he have to do with this?"

"Nigma's been investigating this as well, Alfred," Bruce explained. "I spoke with him earlier this evening. He has an information network that's been keeping tabs on Maroni and Falcone's men."

Alfred nodded. "My word. It seems then sir, that it may be quite beneficial to work with him."

It may be, Bruce thought. Something told him though that he was about to make one of the worst decisions of his life.

[chochmah-binah-daas]

The months since elul 5777 has been a hugely transitional time for me for so many reasons. I’ve been meaning to write about this since, well, late elul, early tishrei but I never had the energy to do so. I broke this up into chunks for easier reading but this is still quite an essay…

I know this is long but please like if you read even a part of this and if you have any insights or advice to offer me, my askbox is open and I’d love some support of any kind!!

Children

I always wrote off the idea of having children, even to the point of being one of those people who thought it was funny to be somewhat hostile towards kids. I did have some legitimate reasons for this, mostly sensory issues, being that I’m autistic and am sensitive to many sensory experiences; however, most of it was me just stubbornly holding onto a general distaste for children. Through the course of my retail job, I found myself more and more warming up to the kids who came into the store to the point where I would go out of my way to make faces and wave at babies at the expense of doing my actual job (not to worry, my job was literally completely ineffective). As I realized just after the High Holy Days began, I didn’t just not hate children anymore, I liked them. I actively like and desire to have children now.

If someone had asked me if I really thought I never wanted kids, I would pretty adamantly say I didn’t, though sometimes I’d admit that I could see myself maybe adopting one child in the future. Now it actively pains me that I don’t have children. Plural. Children. My only image of my future self is me, happily married and raising at least 3 or 4 good Jewish children.

I’m only 23 so I know that I’m not expected by secular society to have kids but seeing my more observant Jewish cousins around my age pursuing marriage really gets me down a lot of the time. I want nothing more right now than to marry a nice gay Jewish man and adopt a few kids. This leads me to my next sections…

Career goals

I never settled on one single thing I wanted to do with my life. I was one of those kids who, probably due to being autistic, was always getting deeply invested in something and then flitting off to another after a couple months. For the last year or two I did have a decent idea in my head that I wanted to get a Master’s of Library and Information Science degree and work in a library or archive. I’m good at that kind of work. It allows me to be quiet and a bit neurotic about my workstation because I’d largely be working alone, away from the general public and most of my coworkers.

After my graduation, my mom and grandma suggested that I consider going to law school. I agreed to at least take the LSAT, which I will be doing in February and oy am I nervous!! My mom, who went to law school, says that she thinks I’d be great at it, that my mind is so well-suited to that type of thinking. I don’t disagree with her but I also can’t imagine myself doing anything with a law degree.

In fact, I can’t imagine myself doing anything in the future. People think I’m joking, but I really do just want to marry someone with a steady, well-paying job and be a house-spouse. I have a deep passion for learning but I have no passion for an actual career that comes along with any path of study. In a perfect world where my mental illness didn’t destroy my ability to read, I would love to go get an MLIS and/or a law degree. I’d even consider going to a yeshiva and studying Torah, Talmud, contemporary Jewish issues, all that. But once I’m out of school, I have no clue what I’d do besides sit at home with all that knowledge swirling around in my head.

Education is never a waste in my opinion, but also formal education is expensive and I’d never be able to afford it without having a prospective career in my future to provide the income for paying off the student loans.

Gender

I never understood the concept of gender. All I know is what language I’m comfortable with, how I like dressing, and what I want my body to be. I am AFAB (assigned female at birth) and I medically transitioned through hormones, chest surgery, and a hysterectomy. My pronouns are they/them or he/him. I am now legally male with a traditionally male name. On most days, I enjoy wearing skirts though I do occasionally choose to wear pants. I could never be cis-passing unless I stuck with wearing pants all the time, which would make me very uncomfortable. If you asked me to get dressed without thinking about it at all, my first choice would be to throw on a skirt, t-shirt, and cardigan. It’s comfortable, psychologically and sensory.

None of this changed during elul 5777; what did change was how my gender and my Judaism were connected. Before, they weren’t. Now, I am working on becoming shomer tznius which involved a major overhaul of my wardrobe, particularly the skirts and dresses. I got rid of almost all of my short and revealing articles unless they could be easily layered and bought a lot of long skirts, three quarter sleeve shirts, cardigans, and other tznius layering essentials.

When it comes to my religious observance, I mix and match though I do mostly connect with the mitzvos for men. In shul and at home, I prefer not to light the shabbos candles if there is a woman who would be able to do it instead. I wear tallis and tefillin to daven and I leyn torah. But I also enjoy occasionally wearing a tichel and being the one who cooks for shabbos, plus the aforementioned movement towards being shomer tznius.

Religious observance

I currently attend, and work for, a Reform shul. I adore my community and the rabbi there. It’s such a loving and supportive community with a small but fantastic group of regulars at Torah study. I’m fortunate in that my community has no problem with the way I present myself. They accept me as a queer Jew who expresses their queerness and their Jewishness in a unique way. But I worry about how other Jewish communities might react towards me, especially since I can see myself being much more observant than I currently am.

Ideally, I would have a kosher kitchen and fully observe shabbos. I would live close enough to walk to shul and I would make sure to raise my children with a strong Jewish identity, and of course a Jewish education. I don’t know if I could have that kind of life while being involved in a Reform community, largely because they don’t tend to celebrate every holiday and also when they do, it can be too lax for my tastes. For example, even in the winter our shabbos services don’t start until 6 or 7 PM, a solid 2 or so hours after shabbos actually begins.

As a queer Jew, who is very obviously gender nonconforming, I don’t know how I would fit into a more traditional community that would probably be more regimented in its separation of genders into a binary. I wear tallis and tefillin when I daven but I would be seen as a woman by some men so I would be immediately singled out as an other. I do wear skirts but I also have a deep voice and facial hair (and my name is Zack) so I’m automatically too male for women-only spaces. Not that I feel entitled to men- or women-only spaces, but I do fear how I could become more observant, when doing so tends to mean an increase in that kind of separation.

Relationships

This is probably the trickiest and most personal portion of this whole shpiel. I’m currently… somewhat in a relationship, I guess? When I transferred to HSU, I thought I was aromantic-asexual and I have since realized that I am neither of those and now identify as someone generally attracted to men. But soon after starting at HSU, I met someone else who identifies as aro-ace and we became really close friends, hanging out all the time in one of our dorm rooms. They were in a non-romantic, queer-platonic relationship with two people and suddenly, they started including me in this relationship. I didn’t mind this so much at the beginning but the more I come to understand my identity and my vague goals and dreams for the future, the more I realize that I just can’t go where I want to go in life and be tied to this relationship.

I know that the longer this goes on, the worse it will be to break it off but I’m terrified to do so, for various reasons I don’t want to get into here. As I said earlier, I want to marry a Jewish guy and have Jewish kids and live a Jewish life. I obviously can’t do that in a household with two pagans and a Catholic, none of whom want kids at all. I know I’m probably becoming one of Those Converts who gets super zealous about Judaism and defensive of their Jewishness but over the last year or so, and especially since elul, I have had this image in my head that I just can’t shake. And that image doesn’t include the people I currently feel tied down to.

[kaitymccoy123]

Unimaginable

(the title is a Hamilton reference **surprise surprise** from the song “It’s Quiet Uptown - “going through the unimaginable”)

Intro: I am going to preface this fic by saying I am so sorry.  Like holy moly.  I honestly have no idea where this came from but I guess I was in an angsty mood and this just put itself together in my brain.  

This is for the ever-so-lovely @trekken81‘s Ed Sheeran Challenge and I chose the song Dive.

I didn’t know the song before writing this fic, and honestly struggled for a while with it.  But then I thought of one of the drabbles that I wrote for 400 followers, and it really connected with this song.  It is The One Where Leonard Drowns - you can see already where the angst is coming from.  Feel free to read that one first, as it may give you some context into the ‘memories’ that are dispersed through the story, but you should be able to read this without reading the drabble. 

Pairing: Bones x reader

Word Count: 1,700

Warnings: Heavy on the angst.  Small amounts of fluff but it only makes the angst hurt more.  Sorry.  Brief description of CPR.  A lot of sadness.  

ALSO: The formatting for this one is pretty weird.  It makes sense in my brain but that’s probably because I wrote it lol.  So if it doesn’t make sense I’m sorry. The italicized words are memories, the non-italicized words are current events, and the lyrics for the song are italicized and indented.  

-Enjoy!-

“Tell me what to do!  I need you to tell me what to do!”

His ribs crunched beneath your hands as you pounded on his chest. 

“I need you, Leonard.”

You dug the heel of your palm into your eyes, trying to dispel the images. 

The feeling of his lips, strikingly cold, unnaturally cold against yours as you forced air into his lungs.

Gasping, tears stinging your eyes, you scrubbed at your lips with your hand until they were numb. 

A knock.

The snap of a twig, the aliens approaching, and you curled over his un-moving body protectively. 

You looked through watery eyes to see a silhouette at your door. 

The form was leaning against the frame, and it struck another memory into your brain. 

Maybe I came on too strong Maybe I waited too long Maybe I played my cards wrong Oh just a little bit wrong Baby I apologize for it 

“Is this seat taken?” 

Hazel eyes glided into your view, framed by a tan face, dark hair, and a gentle smile. 

“Yes, actually, it’s reserved for my feet.” You smirked up at him and stuck your feet up onto the chair. 

“And why aren’t those feet out on the dance floor?  Especially since they are connected to a beautiful young woman such as yourself.” A handsome smile curled at his lips.

You rolled your eyes and huff, but you couldn’t hide a grin, “Are you asking me to dance...”

“Leonard.  Leonard McCoy.”

Another knock, and a soft voice, indecipherable behind the closed door. 

“You’re an asshat, Leonard McCoy.”

Footsteps were following close behind you,“Wait, Y/N, I can explain. Just stop.”

You didn’t. 

“I always meet douchy guys at that bar, I thought I was wrong for once.  Guess the streak continues.”

You fumbled with your keys, frustrated with your shaking hands. 

“Come on, darlin’.  Let me explain.” He appeared at your side, taking your keys and deftly unlocking the door in one controlled movement. 

“No.” You stepped into the room, blocking Leonard from entering, “And don’t call me ‘darlin’’.”

You slammed the door in his face. 

Stepping in, you threw your bag against the wall and pressed your hands to your forehead before dragging your fingers through your hair and letting a few tears fall.  Looking back towards the door, you saw his silhouette just outside the translucent glass, leaning up against the door frame, as if he was pressing his forehead against the door. 

“Hey, Y/N?  I’m sorry.  Listen, I really am.  Y/N?”

Another knock woke you from your memory. 

“Y/N? Are you in there?” An voice just outside the door. 

Your tongue was thick in your mouth, your limbs heavy, and you couldn’t bring yourself to move from your fetal position on the bed. 

I could fall or I could fly Here in your aeroplane I could live, I could die Hanging on the words you say I've been known to give my all And jumping in harder than 10,000 rocks on the lake

“Y/N?” The swishing of the door. 

A splash.  You didn’t realize at the time but every moment after that sound would be the worst moments of your life. 

You twisted in the sheets, your legs getting tangled and you felt like you were trapped. 

You were dragged under again.  No air.  You struggled against the dead weight that you had your arms wrapped around and you barely managed to breach the surface.  Air. 

Your toes finally found purchase on the sheets and you were able to kick them off.  Air. 

Through your kicking and thrashing you somehow managed to move to where your tip toes touches the sand below the freezing water.  You couldn't let go of the weight that dragged you backwards.  You couldn't let go. 

A hand on your shoulder, a face hovering over you.

"Hey, did you hide my socks?" A warm breath tickled your hair and you peeled your eyes open. 

"What?" The words slid out of your sleepy lips. 

"My socks." Leonard's face was inches from yours, his body hovered over yours, "You know, the yellow-striped ones, I can't find them." 

"Ohhhh." You sighed, turning over under the blankets, pulling it up under your chin as you settled back into the bed, your eyes falling shut again, "Havn' seen 'em."

"I need them, darlin', my shift starts in 5 minutes." Leonard carded his hands through your hair and pulled at the blankets. 

"Nooo." You groaned, sliding deeper, away from his caressing hands, "Iz not my fault you need your stupid lucky socks."

"They're not stupid, and I have a really important surgery today so just tell me where they are.  I know you know." He revealed your head from under the blankets and started nuzzling around your face, his voice vibrating off your skin, making you giggle. 

"I don't know, you weirdo." You leaned into the soft kisses he was pressing against your neck, sinking your fingers into his hair. 

"You're lying." A kiss to your lips. 

"And how would you know that?" 

"Because, darlin', I know every inch of you, I can tell when you're lying." His hands slid under the blankets now, dancing his fingers down your arms, and you jumped at the coolness of his fingers against your skin. 

"If-if you know everything inch of me, how could you miss...THIS?!" You teased, tugging down the blankets in one swoop and revealing your body, and your yellow-striped-sock-covered-feet.

"You..." Leonard teased, growling before nearly attacking you with a kiss, setting fire to your skin. 

And before you could stop him he was pulling at the socks on your feet, and you were sent into a fit of giggles.  You screeched as his hands roughly slid up your legs, having freed your feet from the socks, and reached your upper body, pinning your wrists to the bed.  

"You are so going to pay for that, darlin'."

“Lass?  Lass?  Y/N?” A hand smoothing down your spine. 

You struck out, connecting with something soft and hearing a quiet “oof”. 

Springing your eyes open, you saw Scotty, a hand pressed to his arm. 

“Scotty?” Your voice scratched at your throat. 

“Aye.” He rubbed his arm.

“Did I hit you?” You sat up on your elbows a bit. 

“No worries, lassie.”

Moving to the edge of the bed, you touched your toes to the ground, focusing on the feeling of the steady floor beneath your feet.  You weren’t drowning.  You were okay. 

Then, a voice.  You weren’t sure if it was Scotty’s or your own. 

“It’s time.” 

His name was the last thing on your lips before the world went black.

“Leonard.”

You met Scotty’s sad gaze. 

The force it took to tilt your head into a nod was unimaginable. 

So don't call me baby Unless you mean it Don't tell me you need me If you don't believe it So let me know the truth Before I dive right into you

"Don't say that."

"Say what?" 

"That you love me."

"Why not?"

"Because of your face."

"My face?"

"You look so serious."

"So?"

"It means you mean it."

"I do mean it."

"Well that's not good."

"Why not?"

"Because I love you, too."

Every step next to Scotty was excruciating.  His hand on your lower back was basically the only thing keeping you upright. 

Then, the room, too white, always too white, too clean, too familiar.  A figure in the bed, too silent, too peaceful, too still, too familiar.    

A shiver went down your spine, the cool wind rustling the treetops stung your soaked skin.  A gray form was splayed out on the beach.

“Leonard.”

You fell next to him, somehow making it onto a chair, somehow not falling to your knees as you took his hand, as his fingers didn’t close around yours.

You leaned in, resting your head on Leonard’s chest, praying to hear anything, any sign of life.

His breathing was even and steady, his heart was beating, not as strong as the the day before, or the day before that, or the day before that.  

Your heart was beating, not as strong as the day before, or the day before that, or the day before that.  You wondered if it’d stop today.

“You stupid idiot.  Why did you have to make me love you?” You spoke to an empty room, to empty ears. 

“Because this would be a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t love you.” Tears created crevices on your cheeks. 

“But I do.” You smiled. 

“See my face? This is my serious face.”

You leaned in close, touching your nose to his. 

“Tell me what to do!  I need you to tell me what to do!”

A kiss to his unconscious lips. 

“I need you, Leonard.”

A knock.  

A twig snapping.

A sympathetic gaze. 

Dark forms appear deep in the forest. 

Panic.  This was not happening again. 

Fear flashed over your skin and you ran your fingers over his chest, pressing down as hard as you could, trying to get blood moving, is that what you're supposed to do?

"Wake up!  Please wake up!" Hot tears dripping down your cheeks. 

“Wake up, Leonard.  I need you.”

A buzzing made you lift your head and you realized that the doctor was talking to you, explaining what was going to happen.  It was like it was another language.  

Monitors were being shut off, wires disconnected, a curtain pulled back.  You were drowning. 

You curled closer to him as a dark form loomed over you. 

“Please, Leonard, come back to me.”

Then, he wasn’t connected to anything anymore.  He looked like him.  Like he was sleeping  

And then you were alone. 

Beep.  Beep.  A heartbeat. 

I could fall or I could fly Here in your aeroplane

"I don't deserve a second chance, I know."

"That's the problem.  You do."

Beep.  Beep. 

I could live, I could die Hanging on the words you say

"You have bewitched me, body and soul..."

"That's from Pride and Prejudice."

"Doesn't make it any less true."

Beep.  Beep. 

I've been known to give my all And lie awake, every day

"You did all this?  For me?"

"Oh, darlin', have you not been paying attention at all?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Anything."

"What-?"

"I would do anything for you."

Don't know how much I can take

"Come back to me."

Beep. 

-Thanks for reading!  I hope you liked it!-

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[bunysliper]

Without Hesitation

 A Season 3 AU ficlet (Set in the weeks after Knockdown)

For my amaaaazing friend @rickcastlefromthailand, as a late birthday gift. I hope you like this, Rachel! <3

(Photo not mine - to reblog just the picture, reblog it here.)

She's already seated when he slips into the diner, his shoulder glancing off the metal bar between the doors as he dodges a stout man in a puffy coat and an oversized wool beanie. He offers the guy a hurried apology, turning a wry smile in his partner's direction to find that Beckett doesn't seem to have noticed the commotion.

 With her head bent over her clasped fingers, she almost looks peaceful, as if she's meditating or finding some sort of peace in the middle of the loud, bustling eatery. It's only the furrow of her brow and the downturn of her lips that ruins that illusion and solidifies what he'd known since his phone buzzed in his pocket less than an hour ago: something is up.

 First she asks him to meet her out of the blue, and now she's waiting for him like this, like the world has added another weight to her shoulders. Something is definitely going on with her, and he's going to find out what it is.

 "Hey," he says, careful to keep his voice low so he doesn't startle her out of her contemplation. She still jolts, pressing her hands to the tabletop and offering an almost embarrassed smile at being caught drifting.

 "Hi, Castle," she murmurs, meeting his eyes after a second's delay. "Thanks for coming all the way over here."

 Rick shakes his head, lowering onto the chair across from her. "Of course. It's not that far from my publisher's office, really, and I was there to–"

 He stops himself from explaining further after she squeezes her lips together and nods; she doesn't really care what he was doing before she called. Or maybe she does, but she's too distracted right now to show it. Either way, he doesn't need to talk about it.

 "What's wrong?" he asks instead, resting his forearms on the table. His fingers twitch, ready to reach for hers, but he refrains. They don't do that. They don't touch, save for times of serial killers and daring rescues, and he's hopeful that this isn't one of those moments.

 Beckett looks away, nodding to the woman behind the counter. "Coffee first."

Castle nods, studying her as silence settles between them. Her hair falls around her face, tousled, but not unkempt. More like she's been running her fingers through it over and over. Even her makeup has a soft, smudged look to it, barely concealing dark circles under her eyes. She's beautiful, of course she is, but she's tired and there's no disguising that.

 He hasn't seen her in a few days, but he's sure if he had, he would recognize her clothes from yesterday. But he waits to ask again until a waitress with a kind smile and a soft lilt to her voice has taken their order of coffee and a plate of waffles.

 "Beckett, what's going on?" he tries, asking this time for the story, not an announcement. "Unless you just missed me, in which case, I'm glad to be here." That earns him a tiny smile.

 "You flatter yourself, Castle," she drawls, sounding more like herself. She also doesn't deny it, he notices. She's stopped denying a lot of things in the past few months.

 Maybe she did just miss him. Maybe she's having a bad day and asking him to come to her somewhere neutral and new helps more than showing up at her apartment with takeout, or something.

 "Yes, well, I am pretty fantastic."

 Rick mentally pats himself on the back when her lips twitch again. Whatever is on her mind, he can help distract her, if nothing else.

 After a moment, she drops her eyes, worrying her lip between her teeth once again. It's maddening when she does that, when she draws his gaze to lips he's only had the privilege of tasting once, and today is no different, the gesture churning his guts, making him want her so damn badly.

 "You ever been here before?" he asks, forcing himself to focus on their surroundings, on the classic 50s decor, the rush of people in and out the doors, anything but the tantalizing, reddened bow of her mouth.

 Beckett shakes her head. "I was walking by a little while ago. Saw it and decided to come in."

 Castle nods, giving the room another look. "It's nice."

 One of her shoulders lifts. "It's not Remy's, but it came through in a pinch."

 Her wording is interesting, but he lets it go for the time being. Beckett talks in her own time, she always has. Whether it's about her mother, or a story from her childhood, she tells him when she wants to, and not a moment sooner.

 She seems steadier once their coffee arrives and she's able to curl her fingers around warm ceramic, but the troubled cloud hasn't left her eyes.

 "It's my dad," she blurts finally, as he's lifting a syrup and whipped cream covered bite of waffle to his lips. "He's – I left him sleeping at New York Presbyterian. I needed to get out of there."

 Rick's fork hits the plate, the bite forgotten. "What happened?"

 Beckett's lips purse, her fingers tightening around her coffee mug. His own fingers twitch, eager to reach for her, but he doesn't take her hands or otherwise disturb her.

 "We were having dinner," she says, her voice thick. "He'd been quiet all night, but he's not much of a talker in general, and with it being close to her birthday... I didn't think much about it, you know?"

 Castle nods. He has looked a Johanna Beckett's file enough times to know her birthday had been a few days ago. Even if he hadn't practically memorized the file, Beckett herself had been somber that day, giving him just enough context to figure it out for himself.

 "Yeah," she breathes. "I just thought he was… but when I got up to leave, he collapsed as he was walking me to the door."

 Kate looks toward the ceiling, giving herself time to gather her thoughts.

 "The doctor said it was a myocardial infarction, a heart attack. A pretty severe one, at that."

 Oh, God.

 "Beckett, I'm–"

 "He made it. He made it. The doctor said it was because I called a bus and it got to us so quickly. He was in ICU overnight, but he was conscious – just sleeping – when I left."

 "That's good," Rick says. "See? Abusing your power has its merits."

 Her laughter comes out strangled, but it loosens something in his own chest to hear it.  

 "Yeah," Kate agrees, glancing down at her hands. She sniffs, clenching her fingers around her mug again. "I swore to her that he was healthy. He doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he left his crazy, high-stress job years ago, but she thinks… she thinks because of his history, his heart was weaker, and everything just snowballed from there."

 This time, he does reach out for her, cupping his hands over hers on the mug. Her brave face falters, but doesn't fall, and it's all he can do to refrain from joining her on her side of the table and wrapping her in a hug.

 "But he made it," he says, watching her nod. "And he's stable now, otherwise you would've never left his side."

 "Yeah," she answers, swiping her thumb against his. "Dr. Paul said if he responds well to the medication, he won't need surgery. He'll be moved to a regular room and monitored like normal."

 His breath comes a little easier at that news. "That's really good. Did you ask Josh for a second opinion?"

 Beckett tilts her head, opening and closing her mouth a few times before she speaks again, "No. I didn't ask him. I'm not even sure if he's in the country or not."

 His fingers tighten around hers. From what he knows of their relationship, Josh is gone pretty often; but who leaves the country without at least letting their girlfriend know?

 "We broke up," she adds, putting an end to his musings. "Last week."

 They – oh, wow. That's not what he expected her to say.

 "Huh, a guy goes away for a couple of book signings, and things start happening."

 Beckett snorts. "Sorry the world didn't stop turning while you were gone, Castle."

 His fingertips brush her knuckles. "Yeah, I've never been very good at stopping time. If I were, Alexis would still be tiny."

 Kate smiles a little bit, shaking her head. He watches her hair fall into her face and lifts a hand, ignoring their usual set of boundaries to brush it back.

 "Why didn't you call me last night?" he asks, dropping his hand to cover hers again.

 "You'd just gotten back, and you'd mentioned you were going to dinner and a show with Alexis. I didn't want to–"

 His head whips back and forth, emphatic with what he's about to say. "I hope there's never a next time, but if there is? Next time, Beckett, don't hesitate. Don't ever hesitate."

 Her hand slips out from underneath his, landing on the table with a dull thud. His heart stammers against his ribs, and he expects her to get to her feet and declare their moment over before she leaves to go back to the hospital to be with her father. Instead, she turns her hand over, offering him her palm.

 Rick curls his fingers around hers, holding on with unapologetic strength. His partner nods, fitting her hand against his, returning his squeeze without a word.

 "Will you come back with me?" she asks after the silence has stretched on a little too long. "To the hospital? I don't know what you have going on today, if you need to get back to Alexis or–"

 "Of course. Kate, of course. For as long as you want."

 Beckett exhales, her body sagging as relief works its way down her spine. Her shoulders drop, and she sits up in her chair, locking soft eyes with his.

 "Thank you. I know it's probably not how you imagined spending your afternoon, but thank you."

 Castle shakes his head, tightening his grip on her hand. She could've called half a dozen other people – her best friend and her cardiac surgeon ex included – but she had called him. He's not turning her away.

 "Why don't we get some coffee to go and head back?" he suggests.

 "You didn't eat your waffle," Beckett protests.

 "That's okay. I don't want to keep you from your father for too long."

 His partner shakes her head. "At least take it with you? Or get a fresh one with the absurd amount of toppings on the side? There's an ICU waiting room at the hospital; you can eat there."

 "Only if you eat with me."

 "I'm not hungry," she says, repeating her earlier assertion. "I can barely handle the coffee, to be honest with you."

 "Some fruit, maybe?" he tries. No doubt she hasn't eaten since the night before; she needs to consume something far more than he needs a stupid waffle.

 "You're not going to give it up, are you?" Her voice is wry, but not annoyed, and he counts it as a victory.

 "Nope." He pops his lips for emphasis. "Regretting asking me to stay yet?"

 Beckett snorts, but shakes her head. "No."

 She sits back, easing her hand away from his with a soft caress of her fingers. He doesn't miss the tender glimmer in her eyes, even after she turns her attention to the counter to signal to their server.

 "Put your wallet away, Castle," she murmurs once the young woman has come and gone, leaving them alone again, "my treat."

 His fingers still at his pocket. How had she even seen him move? He'd been trying to sneak his card out. "Even though I annoyed you into getting the fruit?"

 Her lips twitch, not quite a smile, but more so than it would've been an hour ago. "Yeah, even though you did that. Still my treat."

 "Thanks."

 She waves him off, lifting her coffee to her lips to drain the last of it before their takeout order is ready. They don't speak again until the bill has been paid and she's sliding her credit card back into her wallet.

 Rick stands with her, reaching for the bag of food while she lifts their travel cups, flexing her fingers at the heat, despite the cardboard guard.

 "Shall we?" he asks.

 "Yes," she says, though it holds none of the confidence he's accustomed to hearing from Kate Beckett. Still she walks ahead of him, her stride careful, controlled, until they reach the sidewalk where they stand shoulder to shoulder for a moment.

 "Lead the way," Castle murmurs, looking both ways before letting his eyes settle on his partner. Exhaustion and worry still lingers on her face, but she doesn't wear it like a shroud any longer.

 Beckett nods, squaring her shoulders. "Okay."

 They walk together, bumping arms when the crowd becomes dense, never straying far from each other's space when it thins.

  Although he's never met the man and he has no baseline to compare it to, Castle's still surprised by Jim Beckett's appearance when Beckett stops in the doorway of his hospital room. Even asleep, Jim looks worn, the lines on his face more pronounced than they should be. His face is pale, his hair limp against his forehead, and Kate deflates as soon as she sees him.

 "His coloring is better," she murmurs, taking a careful step into her father's room.

 "That's probably why they moved him in here," Castle says, waiting only a beat before following her. She had asked him to come with her, hopefully that means she won't mind him being in the room with them. "He's doing better."

 Kate nods, settling their coffee cups on the tiny table beside an uncomfortable looking couch they've tucked under the window. "That's what the nurse said when I asked her: he had improved enough so they took the opportunity to move him when the room opened up."

 "That's good." He steps closer, curling his fingers over her shoulder in support. She hums, relaxing at the touch, fitting the ball of her shoulder into the warmth of his palm.

 "Yeah," she breathes, glancing up at him. He lets his lips lift in a soft smile, hoping to coax one out of her as well.

 She doesn't smile, but she does turn into him, wordlessly slipping her arms around his waist beneath his jacket, embracing him with tender desperation. Her palms land against his back, pressing closer, branding him with the residual warmth her skin holds from carrying the coffee. The bag with their food lands on the chair cushion in a haphazard heap as Castle bands his arms around her, touching his cheek to her temple, pulling her chest flush with his, close enough for him to feel her shuddering breath, the hot spill of tears as she surrenders to her emotions.

 He doesn't let go, doesn't even think of loosening his hold on her. When she gulps air back into her lungs and uses his shirt to wipe her eyes, he draws her closer, burying his mouth in her hair and whispering promises he doesn't have the power to make.

 His eyes dart to Jim Beckett's bed, watching the steady rise and fall of the man's chest.

 Screw helplessness; whatever it takes, whatever deals have to be made, whatever the price tag, he'll do it. Anything to spare Kate Beckett from further heartache.

 "Thank you, Castle," she whispers a few minutes later, her voice husky against his throat. Her hands slide along his spine, locking at the small of his back instead of retreating the way he expects. "For being here, for letting me get your shirt wet."

 Castle's lips brush her temple, his hands sweeping gentle circles over her back. "Wet patches on a nice shirt are no match for this man," he says, feeling her shoulders shake – with amusement this time, he's pleased to note – before he continues, "Always, Kate. Always."

 She nods, stealing his breath as her lips purse against his skin. It's not a kiss, but it's not not a kiss either. Just like her, it's a mystery.

 "Always," she echoes, squeezing him once more. "That extend to sharing your waffle with me?"

 He gasps, leaning back just far enough to find her looking up at him, her eyes red-rimmed from her tears but soft with affection. Her lips quirk, widening into a smile that sends his heart tripping in his chest.

 "For you?" he drawls, matching her smile with one of his own. "Of course."

 "Kay," she says, slipping out of his embrace to reach for the bag before he forgets it's there and sits on it. "Then let's eat."

 Later, once the food is gone, Kate's hand creeps across the space between them. Her fingers trip over his wrist, plucking his nearly empty coffee cup from his grip and replacing it with the warmth of her palm.

 Looking her way, Castle finds his partner facing ahead, watching her father sleep. Beckett shakes her head, her hair falling around her face, her chin dipping at his scrutiny.

 He wants to say so much, wants to thank her for allowing him to be the one at her side, but as their fingers lace, slotting together, connecting them, he's content with sitting in comfortable silence until Jim opens his eyes.

A/N: Happy late birthday, Rachel! <3 <3