What happens when you're obsessed with fiction and fantasy? This blog. Multi-fandom trash—mostly anime, ALTA, and SU. Other randomness thrown in regularly.
From the moment of birth, ice apparitions are taught not to cry.
The hiruiseki stones their tears create are the coveted treasure of greedy and evil men. That is the reason the elders give for conditioning even their infants to repress emotion. Their severe and cruel methods are justified if done to ensure the village's protection. Protection - a more palatable word than isolation or subjugation.
But Hina has none of this in mind when two twin teardrops slip down her cheeks. There is one moment, every hundred years, when an ice maiden is permitted to cry. Normally there would be someone here to catch the sparkling blue gems as they solidified. An elder, perhaps, to wrap Hina's child up and still them into silence with a face-full of snow. Her friend Rui to help clean her up.
The hiruiseki stones fall into in the snow.
"Please," she begs weakly, "please don't cry."
The small cave is filled with the stench of blood. She's drenched in it. The labor was much longer, much more difficult than any she's ever witnessed. Bringing one child into the world alone would have been demanding; ice maidens were not meant to have two children at once.
A fresh wave of pain rips through her, dragging a broken moan from her lips. She's bleeding still. The blood won't stop. Her daughter unleashes a fresh stream of wails. Hina pulls the small body to her, making hushing sounds, kissing the girl's head, trying to clean her body off with her own ruined robe.
"Please don't cry," she repeats, begging, trying to catch the baby girl's eyes with her own. She doesn't pinch her, like Hina's own mother had. Not that it would have helped, according to the elders. Her upbringing was too soft, and that was why she ended up so wild - so they had always said.
She doesn't see how physical pain will calm her daughter. The girl is cold, hungry, and afraid. She can sense her mother's distress and is trying to bring help. Help that Hina doesn't want. There is a reason she fled to this secluded cave, far away from the village, to give birth all alone. That reason is lying on her other arm, quiet and still as night.
Hina manages to slowly turn her head to the other side. A pair of large, dark eyes stare back at her. She lets out a small sigh of relief. Alive, just silent. He hasn't made a sound since Hina tore him from her body, just looked around with those eyes like he is taking the whole world in and deciding what to make of it.
Hina is about to repeat her plea, but before she can, the boy's lips turn upwards into a smile and his tiny fingers reach out to curl around hers. A rough, broken laugh catches in her throat and she pulls her son - curious and quiet and completely unafraid - close. She settles him on one side of her chest, and her daughter on the other.
The furious snowstorm continues to howl outside, but the cries of Hina's daughter wane into sniffles. The little girl curls into her brother, seeking his warmth. That's when Hina consciously notices, for the first time, that her son is giving off heat. Alarmed, she trails her hand up to his forehead, expecting to find a fever.
It's like putting her hand into an open flame.
Hina gasps and draws her hand back. A burning tingle remains on her fingers, but no visible damage.
Maybe the shock from the burn gives her mind clarity, or maybe the stress on her body stops her from repressing the truth she's long known. She comes to the realization far quicker than she should in her weakened condition. This is why the elders didn't want them to have children outside the established order of things. The man she mated with was a low-level demon with no extraordinary gifts, yet she has birthed a son with powers in complete opposition to her kind. Once he has control of his body, he could bring ruin to their domain of snow and ice with a single thought.
Yet here he is, using those fearsome powers to warm her and his sister. Not trying to harm them, but to protect them.
Hina is not afraid of him. Her fear is what awaits beyond the cavern walls: an entire world that will seek to destroy her son if given the chance.
If she listens, she thinks she can hear their footsteps crunch in the snow and their angry voices on the wind calling her name. She covers her babies as best she can and holds them to her heart.
"Don't let them see you cry," she whispers. "Be strong. Be strong and rely on yourselves. Don't ever let anyone break you." Her daughter's breathing is deep and even; she's lulled herself to sleep. But Hina sees the gleam of her son's dark eyes, an echo of two blue gems shining in the darkness. Somehow, she thinks he understands.
Her blood spreads beneath them on the snow like a crimson carpet. The cold feels like a thousand sharp needles in her body. She hears the mob marching closer, coming to murder the life she risked so much to create. More than the pain in her body, her spirit feels the crushing weight of an unfathomable dread and sadness. But if her own children—just hours old—are forbidden to shed a tear, then neither will she.
No. 4: “I see the danger, It’s written there in your eyes.”
Cattle Prod | Shock | “You in there?”
Fandom: Harry Potter
Whumpee: Sirius Black
He watches as the taillights shrink into pinpricks and are finally swallowed up by the thick night clouds. It’s then, when the darkness and silence close in on all sides, that the tension building inside him pops—like a balloon filled to bursting.
The strength in his legs gives out and he wobbles backward. His foot catches on a large piece of debris and he falls. His muscles and reflexes fail to either catch him or brace for impact. He hits the ground like an overripe tomato.
The air is snatched out of his lungs. His body doesn’t fight or struggle against the loss of oxygen. He lies sprawled on the ground, peacefully drowning. His vision gets sort of watery and distorted, rendering everything as wavering shadowy masses. His neck goes limp, dropping his head back with a snap he vaguely hears but doesn’t feel. His eyes loll around in his skull and drift upward. The sky is as dark and murky as everything else. All except the lurid green streak that seems to be engulfing the night itself.
The dark mark.
He doesn’t need to see it clearly to know what it is or what it means.
His shoulders twist to the side and he vomits. The lack of breath catches up to him and all of a sudden he’s gasping for air and spewing at the same time. His lungs are burning and his throat is burning and he’s choking on the disgusting mush that just keeps coming and coming, up from a well of horror somewhere deep inside him.
Acting on impulse, he balls his hand into a fist and hits himself in the abdomen. A cough—surprise, pain—disrupts the choking, heaving cycle his airway is doing. He coughs several more times, clearing out the mess. At last, when only saliva is dripping from his mouth, he manages to gulp in some desperate breaths.
The blurriness around his vision sharpens. He can see the grass, the dirt, the broken walkway. He can smell the acrid stench of his stomach’s upheaved contents. He rolls to the other side, trying to escape the odor, not keen on being sick all over again.
His hand is wet. Rotating his wrist, he sees a long bloody gash in his palm. He must have cut it open when he fell. He flexes his hand and watches as blood streams out of the wound and down his wrist. He feels neither pain nor disgust. Actually, he feels so removed from the action that it might as well be someone else’s hand, someone else’s blood. It’s the tangy copper triggering his raw sense of smell which causes him to stop.
He rises from the ground, as though pulled by marionette strings. He teeters for a moment on unsteady feet, trying to find his balance. He pivots slowly, mindful of the rubble all around him.
The scene behind him is awash in ghostly green. He barely recognizes Potter Cottage, and that’s not all to do with half the roof being blasted off. Life itself has gone from the little house, sucked out by something even darker than a dementor.
He drifts like mist up the ruined walk. The door hangs crooked, hinges broken by magic. It creaks under his hand, issuing a warning he does not heed.
The floor of the front room is showered with glass. It’s been blasted out of every window, light fixture, and picture frame. The fireplace is cold, full of logs barely charred. The cat that always comes up to greet him is nowhere to be seen. There are no smells from the kitchen except cold, damp air. Everything is still and silent. Even the grandfather clock has stopped.
James is lying on the sofa. It’s comical, for him to be resting so peacefully amidst such destruction. As Sirius moves towards him, he hears a sickening crunch under his foot.
Lifting his shoe, he finds a pair of glasses—frames mangled, lenses shattered. They must have been lost either when James fell or when he was moved to the sofa. Sirius bends to pick them up, but he knows it won’t do any good. James would be better off with an entirely new pair.
Sirius weaves his way over to the sofa. He looks down at the form lying there. It’s definitely James: dark messy hair, long thin nose, proud chin. Sirius leans down and places the broken glasses on top of an unmoving chest.
James Potter has been his best friend since he was twelve years old. He knows James better than his flesh-and-blood brother. James Potter loves scotch eggs and Quidditch, runs his fingers through his hair when he gets riled up, writes terrible poetry, transforms into a stag, and has loved Lily Evans since the moment he saw her. He could pick James’s voice from a crowd of thousands and smell him from a mile away during a full moon. He would know James Potter anywhere.
The longer he looks at the body on the sofa, the more wrong it looks. It’s like a grotesque mannequin put together by a creature who had never seen a human being face-to-face. All the parts are there, but everything is slightly off. James had never been so quiet, so still, so small, or so pale.
This thing is not James. It may resemble him, may be something that he once owned like the glasses or a place he once inhabited like this cottage, but the essence that had been James Potter is gone. All traces of mischief, bravery, and the exhaustion of these last months have been obliterated, leaving a vacant expression on a waxy face that grows stranger to Sirius by the second. He turns his head and stumbles away, not wanting to look any longer at the empty shell.
His head is spinning again. The walls of the cottage are getting narrower. The empty silence fills with the sounds of ragged breathing that must belong to him; there is no one else. He catches sight of the staircase as he wades backward over the sea of glass. Up those stairs, he knows, there is another body like the one on the sofa. Another husk of a person. A not-Lily. He can’t bear to see it. He’s too much of a coward.
He staggers back the way he came, desperate to escape the mausoleum. It takes so long to reach the door, like he’s caught in a dense bog. His limbs are heavy. There is a thick film over his vision. His body feels pulled down and anchored, but his mind is untethered and so far away. He has to rely on touch and instinct since his thoughts can’t keep up. His hand finally brushes the wood of the busted door and he latches onto it with an iron grip, following its tilted swing back into the cool, open air. He whirls around on one heel, away from the hollowed-out house, and drops to his knees on the ground. He holds his head in his hands and tries to catch a breath.
What is he supposed to do?
His mind is blank. His emotions have shut down. His body is barely responsive, only loosely connected to the rest of him. Maybe he is dying and just doesn’t know it. He wishes he was dead. It should have been him who died anyway. He was supposed to be the Secret Keeper. They were supposed to come after him.
Peter.
A faint spark flickers in his brain. Peter was the Secret Keeper. Only Peter could tell someone where the Potters were hidden. Voldemort had found the Potters. Ergo…
Peter had given the Secret to Voldemort.
No one had known of their switch. Not even Dumbledore. Even if Peter had been captured in the last few hours, no one would have thought to ask him where the Potters were. And Secret Keepers were immune to Legilimency.
A Secret could only be given willingly.
Peter had given the Secret to Voldemort. Peter had sold them out. Peter was the traitor.
Sirius laughs. He throws back his head and barks with laughter. He clutches his sides when his ribs begin to ache. It’s simply too funny.
He had accused Remus of being the traitor. Not because he really believed it, but because he had been so hurt and angry when Remus had cast suspicion on him. Now that he looks back at it, all his so-called “evidence” of Remus’s defection had been whispered about by Peter. The motive is obvious in hindsight.
He cackles as he uses one hand to push himself to his feet. He laughs as he stumbles across the lawn, tripping and tearing his trousers on broken brick. It’s hilarious. He backed out of being Secret Keeper because he hadn’t trusted himself. In his heart, he believed himself braver than the threat of death or torture. But his heart had led him astray once before. What if something went wrong with the spell? What if all the books were wrong, and a Secret really could be compelled? What if his will wasn’t strong enough? What if he turned out to be a Black, in the end? Better to get himself killed and take the truth about the real Secret Keeper to his grave.
Except the real Secret Keeper had been a rat, in every sense of the word. The aptness of Peter’s Animagus form births a fresh wave of snorts and chortles.
Peter was the Secret Keeper. Peter betrayed them. Peter should be dead.
Sirius swerves down the lane like a man who’d had too much firewhisky, running into hedges and bins and laughing his head off all the way. He had failed! He had failed in every single conceivable way. He let a traitor into the Order. He accused Remus of being a Death Eater spy. He let Harry be taken away by Muggles. He let James and Lily be killed. None of this would have happened if he had stuck to the plan. He doesn’t deserve to live, not while James and Lily are lying dead back in that smoldering ruin.
He should be dead and Peter should be dead, so he will kill Peter and then himself—a very simple arrangement. If only he had thought of it sooner. He could have saved them all a lot of trouble.
No. 1: “But now this room is spinning while I’m trying just to fill in all the gaps.”
Safety Net | Swooning | “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Fandom: Hamilton
Whumpees: Alexander Hamilton (and Philip Hamilton off-screen)
Alexander Hamilton considered himself a man of strong mental fortitude. During his two-score tenure on the earth, he had borne witness to destitution, injustice, and fatality in all its forms. He had seen catastrophic forces of nature obliterate dozens of lives in an instant. He had seen mankind do the same with slavery, only much more slowly and cruelly. He had seen corpses pile up in bloody battlefields and in streets through which plague had swept with an uncaring hand. He had learned the realities of death at a tender age, waking in the icy embrace of a corpse that had been his mother hours before. Every subsequent loss he endured had further fortified him against the terrors of mortality.
Lytton. Laurens. Washington. Neighbors. Comrades. Men he had shot or bayonetted with his own hands. Death never became less ugly to experience, but he learned to bear it. He accepted that it could come at any moment, for any person.
He had seen many young soldiers fall in the war. He had almost been taken by illness, himself, as a boy.
He knew that children could die.
And yet all his theoretical knowledge, all his peripheral experience would leave him woefully unprepared on Doctor Hosack’s doorstep.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Hosack’s negro servant—slave; a sensitive topic—informed him. “Doctor’s out right now.”
“Please.” Despite their urgency, the words he needed were difficult to produce. “Do you know where I might find him? It is a matter of the gravest importance.”
“I couldn’t tell you, sir. He went out in a mad hurry, not long ago. Such a rush, he almost forgot his coat.”
Anxiety and impatience tumbled together in his gut. Should he persist in seeking Hosack, whose knowledge and methods he knew to be beyond reproach, or should he conserve precious time by seeking a different doctor whose person and practice were less well known to their family? The sound of blood drumming in his ears made it impossible to concentrate on logical thought. He made an aborted movement either to rest a hand on his chest or to rub his temples and settled for clearing his throat instead. He drew the action out, trying to buy time to decide on a course of action.
Perhaps he dithered too long, as the doorkeeper began to regard him with a look teetering between wariness and concern. Conscious of appearing quite unbalanced, Alexander grasped for some kind of response. Words, which had always flowed from him like water, seemed quite dammed up now. But he needed to produce something or risk the label ‘lunatic’. He had just drawn the prefatory breath when another figure appeared beyond the doorway.
“General Hamilton?” The doctor’s younger brother stopped short, frozen, before lunging to the door to throw it wide. “What are you doing here, sir? I would have thought you on your way to Manhattan by now.”
The other man’s frenetic energy sparked life back into Alexander’s maelstrom. Mind whirling and rushing to catch up, it latched onto the initial question and completely disregarded the supplementary statement. “I must find Doctor Hosack. My son was called out to New Jersey this afternoon on a matter of honor. I fear the affair may have been taken to its most severe conclusion. If we need the services of a doctor, Hosack is the man I would have.”
The younger Hosack stared at him, blinking. At once the color drained from his face. His chest expanded, lungs filling with air, then deflated. There was a pause, then he took a new breath and tried again. “We’ve already had word from the Church’s, sir. David is travelling there with all possible haste.”
“To…the Church residence?” Alexander backtracked, picking up the information he had fumbled before. “In Manhattan?”
“Yes, sir. That was where your son was taken.”
“Taken? To the Church’s?” He took refuge in confusion, unwilling to accept the horrific dawning realization until he had confirmation from a source other than his panicked imagination.
The younger man finally took pity on him. He drew his shoulders back and reached out to put a hand on Alexander’s elbow, steadying him. His expression creased with compassion—a doomed look Alexander recognized from a bygone time. “General Hamilton, your son has been shot. It was a serious injury.”
How many times had Alexander written letters on Washington’s behalf to that effect? Dear Sir, I regret to inform you that your son has been…
Young men could die. He knew that, intimately. He had seen it. He had been the cause of it. Boys could die. Children could die.
But his child?
The ground underneath him gave way. Darkness swallowed his senses.
He felt heavy, bogged down, as though he were deep underwater and heavy waves were preventing him from resurfacing. On the other side of this stupor, several muffled voices spoke back and forth.
Something touched his lips. A sweet, woody flavor filled his mouth. His body remembered first how to swallow, then how to cough when the liquid came too quickly. The flask was withdrawn and Alexander caught his breath enough to groan and pry his eyes open.
He had been moved from the doorstep to inside the doctor’s home. His cravat and collar had been loosened to allow him more air. As his blurry vision focused, he recognized the face of Mrs. Hosack next to her brother-in-law. They regarded him, with both expression and posture, as one might a frightened animal.
Alexander’s aversion to inaction and powerlessness took control. He gripped the arms of the chair and attempted to pull himself up. A rush of wooziness spread through his head and limbs, knocking him back down. Two pairs of careful hands rushed to prop him up.
“Steady there, General.” The younger Hosack offered him another sip of brandy. “You’ve had a shock. You need to sit down.”
Alexander shook his head. He certainly did not need to sit down. He needed to be in Manhattan. He needed to be with his son.
Dear God. His son. Philip had been shot.
A strangled gasp burst from his lips. He collapsed in the chair, arms unable to support him.
He had built an impregnable fortress around his heart—all his past sorrows the brick and mortar—to protect himself from grief. Several misfortunes of these last years had not touched him as keenly as they otherwise would have. On these occasions, there were many who had termed ‘coldness’ what he knew to be self-preservation. If he poured his soul out for every adversity he faced, there would be nothing left of him.
However, his stronghold could not stand in the face of Philip’s mortal danger. It crumbled to dust, his whole heart laid bare for the world to see. What did any of his other tragedies or triumphs matter, compared to this? For Philip to be hurt was bad enough, grave enough. What would he do…how would he muster the strength to go on if…
The possibility was unfathomable. He could not hold back, this time, from placing a hand over his heart to stem the pain.
“Mr. Hamilton?” Mrs. Hosack called to him in a gentle voice, so like his own dear Betsey. Oh God, how would he tell his wife about this?
“Philip…” he rasped. “I must go to my son.” Nothing was more important than that. Everything else could be dealt with later.
His caretakers shared a look. Some message was conveyed by way of head gestures and eye movements. The exchange ended with Hosack’s brother standing. “I will go see about a carriage.”
The promise of action, of progress, gave Alexander succor. He tried again to rise, but Mrs. Hosack’s hands guided him back down. “My dear sir, you must recover some of your strength first. You are not fit to travel in this state.” He began to protest but she cut him off. “I must insist. You are barely able to sit upright at present. On those roads, in this weather, you might incur an injury. Then you might not make it to Manhattan at all. And poor Mrs. Hamilton! It would not do, to have two of her boys wounded. I will not have it, sir. Not on my watch.”
So, Alexander was compelled to take a few more minutes in the chair. He even accepted some food, which Hosack’s sister-in-law graciously brought from their dinner table. She came trailed by a curly-haired little duckling, who grasped onto her skirts and peeked at Alexander curiously.
His heart ached at the sight of the boy.
It seemed just yesterday that his own Philip was that age: still small enough to be held and protected from the world.
Now his little boy, who had tottered about the house and clapped while his mother played piano, was suffering cruelly, miles away.
Alexander’s throat closed up and he set his fork down with more force than was necessary. Mrs. Hosack, who had pulled up a chair beside him, endeavored in vain to coax more meat pie into him. The child crawled into her lap and she ran a hand absently through his curls.
The boy was her first child, but not Hosack’s. The doctor had been married once before, and widowed. His firstborn son had been a sad victim of the yellow fever epidemic. Two years after this tragedy, Philip had taken ill with an infectious fever of his own. That was when the Hamiltons were first introduced to Hosack, and he had seen them through the crisis. He had saved Philip’s life, sparing him from the same fate as the doctor’s own son.
And that was how Alexander had, so selfishly, seen death until now: something that took other men’s children. He had been arrogant enough to believe that his deeds and accomplishments were a guarantee paid against the safe and happy future of his posterity. He had thought so highly of himself and the position he had achieved that he believed he could shield his children from any danger. Death might dog him at every turn, but it would not touch his precious little ones.
What godless pride and presumption. What callousness.
And all for nothing, because Philip had been injured despite his paternal affections. Philip was shot despite, even partially because of, his father’s grandiose feats and public renown. Alexander had thought he was doing the honorable thing by advising his son not to fire at Eacker, when he should have counseled against the duel all together. He had allowed Philip to be caught up in a squabble of vicarious honor, one such as Washington had always forbidden his aides from taking part in. Only now did Alexander understand the general’s mind. Not even the vilest of slander, the like to make Callender blush, would justify Philip dying for an insult that was never meant for him.
This had been Alexander’s fight, from the very start. He had acted unforgivably thus far, but he was done watching the battle from the hilltop.
“Ladies,” he cleared his throat, “I thank you for your hospitality, and for your concern. Your attentions have had a great reviving effect.”
Mrs. Hosack sensed his intentions; it was clear in how she tried to rise, though she was encumbered by the child who had begun to doze on her lap. “Are you certain you can stand?”
“Positively.” Alexander knew he possessed the determination, even if his physical faculties were not fully restored. His dominant hand grasped the chair arm with a white-knuckled grip and he pulled himself to his feet. For a moment he perceived the floor to be rocking and listing as the deck of a ship would. He closed his eyes tightly and allowed his sense of equilibrium to settle. When he opened his eyes, the room had stopped spinning and his legs felt more sturdy.
He handed his plate back to Hosack’s sister-in-law with a word of thanks. He tidied his clothing and bowed to the women. “Thank you again for your many kindnesses.”
“Godspeed.”
“You are in our prayers, sir.”
He dashed out of the house to where the younger Hosack and two negros were loading several items into a carriage. The former almost dropped the bag in his arms when he glimpsed Alexander over his shoulder. “General!” He came leaping up the front steps to offer his assistance. “Do you need a hand, sir?”
“I am fine now, thank you,” Alexander politely waved him off, climbing into the carriage. “I apologize for the dely.”
“No apologies necessary. It gave me time to gather the necessary provisions.” His companion made sure all was accounted for and gave directions to the driver before seating himself opposite Alexander and shutting the door firmly. “We should have everything we need to make ourselves comfortable. I also brought some extra linen and alcohol, for your son’s care.”
“Your whole family has done us extraordinary service. Words cannot express how grateful I am.”
“Do not even think on it.” The younger Hosack gave him a comforting smile and set his hand on a pile of blankets. “We are happy to be of service. You just rest and steady your mind, General. David will see to your boy until we get there. He could not be in better hands.”
“None better,” Alexander agreed, returning the smile with a weak, polite one of his own. He turned out the window, watching the sky as the carriage began to rumble along the streets. The evening was gray and dismal: a reflection of his own spirits. Rest sounded an easy enough prospect, and perhaps it would be to a man whose whole world did not hang in the balance.
Nevertheless, Alexander did close his eyes. Dear God, he prayed, hands cupped tightly together. Please watch over my son Philip. Please prolong his life. Please, have mercy dear Lord. This is a cross a cannot bear to carry. Please do not take my son.
The last of Harry’s screams gets choked into nothingness as Umbridge lowers her wand. His legs buckle uselessly beneath him and he collapses against her desk. His frantic gasps for air mix with groans of pain he no longer has the strength to bite back. Over his heavy breathing and the blood pounding in his head he can faintly hear the Slytherins laughing and his friends’ muffled cries of protest.
Umbridge’s high, girlish tone rings in his ears but can’t make out the words. He can guess what she’s saying, though. He’s had lots of practice making guesses this year.
No, he isn’t ready to talk. No, he won’t tell her who he was trying to contact. No, he has no clue where Dumbledore is or what his plans are.
The white-hot fire that had consumed him settles into his bones as a persistent ache. His head hurts the worst, like he’s been split open along his scar. His throat is raw from screaming and there’s a sharp stinging in his hands around the words etched there.
Black dots swim in his vision. The desk feels like it’s tilting under his hands and his throat is tight against a sick feeling rising in his stomach. He shuts his eyes tight, trying to ride out the discomfort.
He floats for a moment in the darkness before he feels a pull—the same tugging feeling behind his navel he gets from traveling by Portkey. He’s yanked away from Umbridge’s office to somewhere cold and dusty and glowing with blue light.
No!
No! He doesn’t want to be here!
A pale hand stretches out from his arm. There’s a wand clutched between the bony fingers. Harry points the wand into the air and flicks his wrist in a downward motion.
There’s a sickening, wet crunch as a body smashes into the ground. A brief shout of pain on impact is cut short as the breath gets snatched out of Sirius’s lungs.
No, stop!
Harry glides across the floor to where his godfather is twitching weakly, his limbs bent and twisted in unnatural angles. Harry’s bare foot lifts just off the ground and connects with Sirius’s side. The kick throws Sirius onto his back and Harry stares horrified at the man’s battered and bloody face. He almost doesn’t recognize Sirius, his injuries are so severe. But even worse than the way he looks is the way he sounds.
His breathing… He sounds like… Harry would recognize that haunted, rattling wheeze anywhere.
Something must be very damaged in Sirius’s chest or throat for him to sound like a dementor.
“The longer you resist, the worse things will be for you.” Harry’s lips move around the words and a raspy voice that isn’t his pierces the air. Sirius can’t move much, but he does turn his head away from Harry.
A cold, high-pitched laugh tumbles from Harry’s mouth. “Tired of my company, Black? A pity I cannot bring some of your old friends here to join us. Bellatrix, in particular, has been most eager to see you.”
A prickle like pins and needles runs up Harry’s neck. Bellatrix Lestrange. Sirius’s cousin. A Death Eater who had escaped from Azkaban.
Her name sticks in Harry’s mind. He can’t shake it out, no matter how he tries. An image forms in his mind’s eye like a scene from a movie he half-remembers.
A group of teenagers stand in a circle, laughing and pointing their wands as they take turns calling out spells. He’s reminded of the DA practicing magic, expect there’s something sinister in the laughter that sounds more like Dudley and his friends ganging up on someone.
Suddenly he’s part of the ring and can see clearly what they’re up to. In the center of the circle is another boy. He’s blindfolded and his hands are tied in front of him. He stumbles around the circle, propelled by the force of jinxes and hexes being hurled at him.
The ringleader of the group, a tall girl with curly dark hair, cackles loudly and hits the boy in the knees with an arc of red light. He sprawls across the floor and lands at her feet. The other kids laugh as she raises her wand, a sneer on her face. She spouts a piece of magic that Harry has never heard of before and the boy screams.
The image disappears like a snowflake falling into fire. The details of the room and the teenagers’ faces melt away and Harry can’t get them back, though he had seen them clearly just a moment before. All he can recall is a dark-haired boy lying on the floor in the same crumpled position Sirius is in now.
Harry’s stomach lurches as he realizes he just used Legilimency on his godfather. The horror at what he witnessed tangles together with a feeling of twisted pleasure. Something inside him enjoyed seeing Sirius powerless and hurt.
“Such fond family memories.” The words drip from Harry’s lips like poison. “Perhaps after you fetch what I need, I shall turn you over to them. Regulus is gone, of course, but I know they could find a suitable replacement. Perhaps Severus. He still hates you something dreadful. Or Wormtail, maybe? He has no problem sacrificing you to save his own skin.”
Rage flares deep in the pure, primal part of Harry’s emotions. There’s old, familiar anger towards Snape. There’s disgust for Wormtail, which would have driven Harry mad if he didn’t always suppress it. He imagines a flesh-and-blood version of the portrait at 12 Grimmauld Place berating and insulting her son the same way Uncle Vernon did him. And those awful kids from Sirius’s memory…
He’s furious. He’s livid at all the people who made Sirius suffer. He’s angry at everyone who should have done something to stop it but hadn’t. And, despite everyone’s assurances that it isn’t him doing things in his visions, Harry feels a rush of guilt as he points a wand at Sirius and says “Crucio.”
Sirius screams and writhes violently on the floor.
No, no, stop! Stop! Don’t hurt him!
He waits for Sirius’s voice to go hoarse before waving his wand and lifting the spell. “You know there is no point screaming,” he taunts. “No one is coming for you. Not Dumbledore or your precious Order. You are not valuable enough to be saved. The werewolf Lupin? He tolerates you, probably pities you. But your bond is fractured beyond repair. He will not risk himself by coming here. And James Potter cannot save you anymore—”
Sirius howls and scrapes his overgrown nails along the floor. He tries to pull himself up, but Harry’s foot stomps hard on his back, keeping him pinned.
“You have no one. They all left you behind. There is not a single person who wants you to be alive.”
That’s not true!
“What’s not true?”
“You have been completely useless since the Order reconvened. They need your house far more than they ever needed you.”
Shut up!
“Still insolent after all that? Maybe another round is in order…”
“The only useful thing you can do now is to bring it down for me.”
“You,” Sirius spits, spraying blood, “can go to straight to hell.”
Harry raises his arm.
No! Don’t!
“Oh? Are you finally ready to behave yourself? Tell me what I want to know, Mister Potter. Then we can put this whole unfortunate incident behind us.”
“I honestly do not know what you think you are being so brave for. The boy, perhaps?” Harry’s lips part in a malicious grin. “Do you honestly think he does not blame you? Are you fool enough to believe that he would not trade your life, in an instant, to have his parents back? You are nothing to him. Nothing.”
“That’s a lie!” Harry shouts. He thrashes and fights against the invisible power holding him in this body, forcing him to spew such vile and cruel words and hurl the torture curse like it’s nothing. At last, his legs move of his own accord. His brief triumph is cut short when they collapse under him, unable to hold his weight—weak and wobbly like Lockhart had vanished the bones from them.
He collides face-first with a solid object. The shock and the sharp pain that shoots between his nose and upper lip send him bolting upright. Pink, nauseating and overwhelming, floods his vision instead of ghostly blue. Panic spreads through his veins, freezing him in place.
“Unlike you, Mister Potter,” a hand in a pink fluffy sleeve clutches his left wrist, firmly yanking him back to his current time and place, “I have no need to tell lies.”
Harry’s head clears and he wants to yell in frustration. Not at Umbridge’s blatant dishonesty—he expects that by now—but at the fact he’s still here. How much time has gone by? The curtains on the window are tightly drawn and he can’t raise his head enough to find a clock. Every second he wastes being interrogated by Umbridge is one less second he has to save Sirius.
Because Sirius is there, in the Department of Mysteries. He’s seen it twice now. He doesn’t even think he was asleep this time.
He struggles against Umbridge’s grip. He doesn’t have time for this! He doesn’t have time for exams or potions masters or crazy house-elves! He’s spent the entire year hiding in Hogwarts, doing nothing and knowing even less. But now the tables have turned and he’s the one who knows where Voldemort is and what he wants. Harry is the only one who can rescue Sirius—and the one who should.
Because he’s Harry’s godfather. Because there’s a painful tingling in Harry’s hand where he, in Voldemort’s body, had held the wand that cast the Cruciatus Curse. The taunting and laughter and dark thoughts were real, even if they weren't truly his.
He needs to be at the Ministry. He needs to be the one who shields Sirius and drives Voldemort back. He needs to be there, so he can tell Sirius all the things that he wanted to but never did. And while he’s at it, he needs Sirius to know that everything Voldemort said was a lie.
Because he needed Sirius. He wanted Sirius to be alive. He wanted them to live together, like Sirius had promised. Even though Harry kept his distance this year, it was only to protect his godfather. Surely Sirius understood that? Guilt churns in Harry’s gut and suddenly doubts whether Sirius did understand. What if he thought that Harry hated him? Or that Harry was disappointed in him for being away from the action? Nothing could be further from the truth! Harry didn’t care one bit how useful Sirius was to the Order. All the little things—his letters and visits and stories—were worth far more to Harry than any secret mission. He didn’t blame Sirius for his parents’ deaths, hadn’t for two years. And while there were many things he would give to see his parents, Sirius’s life would never, ever be one of them.
“So, what will it be, Mister Potter?” Umbridge simpers wickedly in his ear. He hears a sinister echo in her question, one lit by frosty blue light.
Harry clenches his hands into fists. He’s going to find a way out. He won’t let Sirius die. Because the worst lie of all was that Sirius Black was nothing to him.
Did Sirius know? Even if Harry had never said it? Even if those three difficult words stuck in his throat every time he tried to get them out? He can’t consider the possibility that Sirius might never hear them.
He refuses.
He pushes all those doubts and fears away. He just needs a little more time. He just needs the proper opening. He’s laid low for a whole year. What’s a few more minutes?
“Just get it over with,” he barks at Umbridge defiantly. She tuts and raises her wand.
He hopes he sounds like Sirius. He hates hearing Voldemort’s voice come out of his mouth.
Scrooge McDuck has known Bentina Beakley for ages. He’s taken on many roles in their relationship—been her partner, her freelancer, her landlord, her employer, her friend. Her presence in his life is familiar and well-worn. He knows that underneath a serious, no-nonsense exterior she can be awkward, warm, or even fun.
So how can a single glare from her still strike fear into his heart?
“Do something about this.” She points a finger at the offending sight.
He rubs the stress lines on his forehead. “Do we need to do anything about it? It’s just a harmless little one-time—”
“Four times,” Beakley holds up the number on her fingers for emphasis. “Four times in the last week I’ve woken up to this mess. Cleaning up after a grown adult is bad enough, but she’s giving new meaning to the phrase ‘eating us out of house and home.’”
“Come now, Beakley. That’s a bit of an exaggera…” Scrooge stops short as Beakley pulls a receipt out of her pocket. When she holds it up to her eye level, it unrolls to a length extending past her waist. He sees the name of a local supermarket at the top and doesn’t insult either of them by asking what all that money had gone for. He sighs and takes the receipt from her, folding it up and stuffing it in his own pocket for later. “I’ll handle it.”
Beakley crosses her arms over her chest. “Right now.” Neither her tone nor her immovable stance leave him any room for arguments or excuses.
“Right now.” He concedes. She nods, seeming satisfied for now, and brushes past him, closing the door firmly behind her.
Scrooge wouldn’t put it past her to camp outside just to ensure he follows through.
He sighs again, turning his attention to the scene of carnage in his kitchen. The cupboards and pantry are wide open. There’s a stack of dirty dishes piled high in the sick. The kitchen table is surrounded by empty Pep cans and littered with wrappers. And in the middle of this chaos, snoring loudly without a care in the world is…
“Della.” Scrooge puts a shoulder on his niece’s shoulder and shakes her. She shifts, a little sound of protest rumbling in her throat. “Della,” he repeats, louder.
She turns her head. Her eyes open on a squint and look blearily up and him. “Uncle Scrooge?”
“Yes, lass. It’s time to get up.”
The hand Della had been resting her temple on presses against her eyes. “I never meant for this to happen,” her voice, unusually soft, quavers. “It was an accident.”
Scrooge raises an eyebrow. “Which part was an accident? Greedily gobbling enough food to feed the city? Or was it leaving the kitchen a disaster area on par with Pompeii?”
“What?” Della snaps upright. She sweeps her head feathers out of her eyes and twists her neck and shoulders back and forth, surveying the wreckage as if seeing it for the first time. Eventually her darting gaze lands on Scrooge. Her mouth opens and closes several times as she swallows her half-formed thoughts without speaking them. She blinks, and the spell over her seems to break. “Oh, hi Uncle Scrooge.” She smiles and waves innocently. “What are you doing up so late?”
“It’s five-thirty in the morning, lass.”
“…Oh, really?” Della’s laugh is reedy and off-key. “Guess my internal clock is still off.” She hops up and drags a trash bin over to the table, dumping handfuls of garbage in as fast as she can. “Moon time, you know. Hey, did you know that a day on the moon lasts—”
“Della, what is all this?” Scrooge gestures to the remaining disarray with his cane.
“Late night snack!” she replies, way too peppy for the situation and time of morning.
“A snack,” Scrooge rolls a runaway can back in her direction, “is a granola bar or a cup of yogurt. Not microwave burritos, an entire variety pack of chips, and whatever died on my stove.” He can’t tell if the bubbled, burned, congealed mass spewed over the burners and down the front of the oven is one culinary disaster or several.
“It’s no big deal, Uncle Scrooge.” She tosses a half-dozen Pep cans into recycling. “I’ll clean it all up.”
“That’s not the issue here.” He thinks of a certain scowling housekeeper and quickly amends his statement. “Well, it is an issue. Leaving your mess around for Beakley to deal with is very inconsiderate.”
“I said that I would clean it!”
“But hiding the problem doesn’t make it go away,” he points out. “You cannae go on binging sprees like you’re still twenty. It’s neither healthy nor frugal.”
Della’s shoulders drop and she breaks eye contact. Her voice is quiet when she speaks again. “I’ll pay you back for the food, Uncle Scrooge.”
He wants to tear his head feathers out. Of course Della would latch onto one word and ignore everything else he had said. He had forgotten how utterly frustrating she could be sometimes. “It’s not about…!” he cuts himself off because It’s not about the money was an obvious lie that would not help him get through to his obstinate niece. He takes a deep, calming breath. “I’m trying to help us both, lass. Are you not getting enough to eat at mealtimes?”
It’s her turn to raise an eyebrow. “You see me at most mealtimes.” Which is true. They’ve tried to have family breakfast and dinner since Della got home. Scrooge thought dining as a group would help her acclimate to their family dynamics.
She doesn’t eat as much as that first day back, but Della’s appetite is much more voracious than Scrooge remembers. Back in the old days, she could go a month on hardtack and jerky sticks. Now she loads up her plate and makes sure they never have leftovers. Beakley always prepares well-balanced and nutritious meals—none of the empty calories Della has been stuffing herself with on the side. So breakfast and dinner aren’t the problem.
Della is turned away from him, loading the dishwasher. He should have the advantage, with her not being able to read his face—and therefore his tactics—but Della has always been too good at seeing his angles. “Are you having lunch?” It’s the one meal where they follow the every duck for themselves principle.
“Yep!” Her response comes too fast, like she’d anticipated the question and predetermined the answer.
“What did you have for lunch today?” he volleys.
“Sauerkraut.”
“Sauerkraut,” he repeats, voice dipping skeptically.
Della whips around. “Yes.” She looks into his eyes defiantly, daring him to call her a liar. It’s an old tell of hers—as a child trying to avoid punishment to an adult playing cards with him. She wants him to call her bluff because then she’ll have an excuse to stonewall him and leave the conversation.
He doesn’t fall into that pit. He gives her a nod along with the retreat she obviously wants. “Good. Lots of fiber in sauerkraut. You know, if you ever want anything specific for lunch, I’m sure Beakley can make it for you.”
Della gives him a half-smile, half-grimace. “I think Mrs. B has had enough of me.”
“Nonsense,” Scrooge waves his hand. “That’s just how Beakley is. You needn’t take it to heart. Why, you should have heard how she scolded me when she first took this job—nonstop criticism on the state of my file cabinets and draperies.”
The corner of Della’s lips quirks upward. “She must have had a heart attack when she saw the garage.”
Scrooge barks laughter. “You’ve seen the garage. Does it look like I let Beakley set a foot in there?”
Della grins and shakes her head. “Not for an instant.”
“Exactly. So don’t worry about Beakley.” He crosses to the dishwasher and puts a hand on Della’s shoulder. She inhales sharply. Scrooge’s own breath catches. Has he made the wrong call? But his worries are allayed in the next moment as Della closes her eyes and the tension in her shoulders bleeds out. Then, surprisingly, Della brings a hand up to wrap around his arm, preventing him from drawing his own hand away. Not that he had planned to. She breathes slowly, deeply, and there’s a strange expression on her face.
“Is there anything you need, right now?” he finds himself asking, spurning his morning plans. “Is there anything I can do?”
Della’s eyes open, flitting up to his face. Her lips part. She draws breath. Scrooge can almost see the shape of illegible words on her tongue.
Something changes.
Della pulls her hand away. She shrugs him off and maneuvers out of their narrow proximity. “No.” She gives him an empty smile. “No. There’s nothing.” She walks backwards towards the door and yawns a bit too big. “I’ll let you get on with your day. Gotta go catch a few z’s before the boys are up and ready for adventure.”
Scrooge’s fingers twitch after her. He restrains himself from following her, from getting his hands back on her and keeping her in his grasp until he’s solved her. “If you’re sure…” He leaves his sentence open. Leaves his arms open.
“Have a good morning, Uncle Scrooge.”
She closes the door behind her. The sound echoes and he feels it in his teeth. The tremor from his hand spreads up his arm into his elbow.
He needs tea.
He grabs his teabag out of a cupboard Della had neglected to shut. He stares at the black mess on his stove, absently wondering if it would be easier just to replace it.
His stomach churns, and it’s nothing to do with the thought of spending money. He’d let his niece leave without ever finding out what was wrong.
---
Della pulls the door tightly shut behind her, barricading it with her body. Her breathing comes in puffs: stilted and broken. She hides her face in her hands and feels a mortified heat on her cheeks.
She got caught. It was inevitable that she would, eventually, but the confrontation still has her reeling.
She presses her hands to her stomach, assessing the status of the near-constant ache that’s settled there. She’s bloated and, when she moves her hands in small circular motions, she hears gurgling. Digestive pain she diagnoses, sighing in relief. She isn’t hungry right now.
But she will be.
She shakes and slides to the floor. Her fingers curl into the feathers above her temples and pull. Why? Why? Why? Why can’t she stop?
Why can’t she stop eating?
She remembers her first day home—how excited she’d been at the prospect of having real food for the first time in a decade. She’d gleefully spit out Gyro’s awful Oxy-Chew and gorged herself on meats, cheeses, fresh fruits and vegetables. She shoveled mashed potatoes into her mouth with a fork in one hand and shoved muffins in with the other, alternating between the two with every bite. When Beakley tried clearing her plate, she pulled it back to retrieve one remaining pea. She’d eaten and eaten until the taste of black licorice faded and her stomach felt so pleasantly full that she might never have to eat again.
She’d been yanked from her sleep the next morning by the feeling of hot knives in her stomach. She cried her way to the kitchen, hungrier than she’d been in her entire life. The knot of confusion in her throat choaked her as she ate. She tried to reassure herself, to rationalize that the huge meal she’d eaten the day previous had stretched out her vacant stomach. As soon as she was back to a normal meal schedule, these hunger pangs would cease.
The pain, thankfully, did dull into something more manageable and not nearly as debilitating. But the hunger never went away.
She eats all the time now. She eats at breakfast; she eats at dinner. When she forgets lunch—which is, admittedly, often—her body thoroughly chastises her. She snacks on trail mix during flying lessons with Dewey. She pulls open a new bag of chips whenever she and Huey sit down for a gaming session. She and Louie have popped so many bags of popcorn for their Ottoman Empire binges that the couch has absorbed that warm butter smell.
Della tries to fight her urges, with mixed results. Maybe once a day she can make it between two meals without snacking in between. These wars of attrition between her mind and stomach are long and merciless. Her body will fight back with fevers, full-body shaking, and cramps in a growling abdomen. If she’s with the kids, she pretends to be tired or coming down with something. If she’s alone, she chugs a liter of water and curls up in bed, staving off her cravings as long as she can. Her mind goes fuzzy and, before she knows it, she’s in the pantry consuming whatever she can lay her hands on. On a handful of horrifying occasions, she’s come to herself while digging food out of a trash can because it’s perfectly good still and she can’t let it go to waste because who knows when…
It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. She’s not on the moon. She’s in the literal mansion of her literal trillionaire uncle. But when she wakes up from her nightmares, the only thing that can calm her down is a grilled cheese or a toaster strudel. The food envelopes her in warm arms and grounds her, reminding her that she’s home, safe, and doesn’t have to worry about running out of the essentials.
Oxy-Chew has ruined her, she’s sure of it. For ten years she was getting nutrition every time she chewed, and she had to chew to breathe. This must be some stupid intense withdrawal. She’s considered going back on the gum, to see if that would take the edge off her hunger, but she can’t bring herself to put that bitter black monstrosity back into her mouth.
There’s no one she can turn to for help. Gyro would call her an idiot and follow with an overly-technical lecture she wouldn’t understand. Beakley already thinks she’s difficult and immature and trying uselessly to explain this dilemma won’t help Della’s case. The kids are only kids; Della can’t bother them with her problems. Donald is off relaxing who-knows-where. And Scrooge…
Della’s eyes sting and her throat tightens.
Scrooge wouldn’t understand.
How could he, when she doesn’t even understand it?
She touches the still-tingling spot on her shoulder where his hand had been—warm and comforting. She had been so close to giving in when he asked if there was something she needed. She was one slip of the tongue away from asking him to hug her. To hold her and anchor her and give her the security and feeling of being wanted that a ten-course banquet could never provide.
He had been the first one to hug her when she arrived home. The first familiar person to touch her in a decade. She’d been shocked when he picked her up and spun her around. Her heart couldn’t stop pounding as her distant, proper, Victorian-era uncle hugged her not once but three times. A younger, pre-kids Della would have never pulled away. She would have burrowed into the embrace and tried to stretch each second into an eternity. But this Della had waited a lifetime to hold her boys. Nothing was going to keep her from them in that moment.
Well, she didn’t know it then, but when she broke that last hug to find her kids a door had slammed shut behind her. Scrooge was too busy with work or adventuring for one-on-one time with her, something she had taken for granted earlier in life. And while he would pat her on the shoulder occasionally, Scrooge hadn’t hugged her again.
Maybe he thought she didn’t need it. Maybe she shouldn’t need it. But for ten years she’d been stranded in the cold vacuum of outer space. She tried to stay positive. To stay busy with her escape plans. To repeat Nothing can stop Della Duck like a magic spell that might grant her wish if she said it enough. But every so often, the gravity of her situation would consume her thoughts.
I’m going to die here, all alone. I’ll never see my family again. No one will ever know what happened to me. Sheer terror would seize her heart in a cold grip and her lungs would heave and spasm until the gum caught in her throat and her survival instincts overrode her panic.
She would have given anything in those times to hear another voice or see a face that wasn’t frozen in picture form. She would wrap her arms around herself, like she’s doing now, and pretend it was Donald or her parents. She only tried to imagine Scrooge’s embrace once. The experience sent her into such terrible hysterics that she’d never done it again.
Now she takes every opportunity for a hug that she can get. Dewey throws himself into each one with enthusiasm. Huey likes to take his time; his hugs are like a cozy blanket. Webby seems shy about asking for one, but will nestle into Della’s arms once she’s worked up the courage. Louie’s are usually quick, but tight. She’s even let Launchpad bear-hug her a few times.
It’s great, and it chases away the empty loneliness she’d felt for so long. But in all those hugs, she’s an adult. The mom. Sometimes she wants to be the kid. And maybe Beakley is right; maybe she is way too childish.
She just wants things to be okay again. She wants someone to tell her that she will be okay again.
Her stomach rumbles. She sighs. Maybe Donald has something to eat in the houseboat.
Sirius slowly turns the key until his bike’s engine sounds like a simmering potion. He looks up at Peter’s flat. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. There’s candlelight spilling from the windows and clumps of windswept leaves around the doorstep. He can hear the excited squeals of children on the next street over as they run from house to house chanting trick or treat!
The war has made him paranoid. That’s why the flickering shadows make his stomach feel cold. That’s why the rustling wind feels thick and sickly around him. That’s why the happy, innocent shrieks sound too much like screams for his liking.
It’s the war. The darkness. It’s been a poison to minds much wiser and more experienced than his, warping and distorting their fears until they saw peril lurking behind every corner. But there’s no danger here. It’s Halloween and he’s visiting a friend. There’s absolutely no reason to be ill at ease. He’s just being foolish and jumpy.
That’s what Sirius decides as he pulls the key out completely. His bike stutters to a stop and he slips the key into his coat pocket. He dismounts and heads up the walkway to Peter’s door, ignoring the needling sensation that crawls up his spine and prickles his neck. He does shift his arm against his hip to make sure his wand is there—just a precaution. It’s highly unlikely that Death Eaters would bother with someone like Peter, but they are getting more brazen lately. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Constant vigilance and all that.
It’s a good thing he’s here, really. He could protect Peter if things did go sideways.
He taps his pattern against the door—they all have a secret knock—and waits. It only takes a moment for the door to open. Sirius sees one round cheek, one dark eye, and half of a pointed nose through the crack. “Sirius?” a high voice squeaks.
“Were you expecting someone else?”
Peter doesn’t laugh at his lame quip, just shakes his head and opens the door wider. “Come in, come in,” he emphasizes with a beckoning hand. Sirius does just that, squeezing through the narrow opening between Peter and the doorframe. Peter quickly shuts the door behind them and clicks no less than three locks into place. It’s almost a relief to know he’s not the most anxious one in the room.
“No offense Pete, but I don’t think those locks will keep a Death Eater out,” Sirius snorts. It’s another terrible joke, but teasing Peter is relaxing him. His nose fills with the gentle, wafting aroma of warm vanilla and he breathes it in deeply, releasing tension on the exhale.
“They’re reinforced,” Peter replies softly. “Runic magic.”
Sirius’s nods absently. “I see. Slow them down and keep the element of surprise for yourself. Nice.” He plops himself onto a wooden chair in Peter’s cozy little kitchen and leans back. “It’s a quiet Halloween this year, huh?”
“Yes.” Peter remains by the kitchen door, fidgeting with his hands.
“Not like when we were at Hogwarts, eh?” Sirius continues, trying to distract them both with memories of better times. “Remember the year we charmed all the sinks to run red water? I think MacDonald almost died of fright.”
Peter nods. It’s not the reaction Sirius hoped for, so he tries again. “What about the year we swapped all the Slytherin’s candy apples for candy onions?”
Peter’s lips twitch into a small smile. “Or the army of cursed dolls,” he adds.
Sirius tosses back his head and laughs. “They were popping out of cabinets for weeks!” He shakes his head fondly. “We’ll have a proper Halloween next year, with plenty of tricks and treats. Harry should be old enough to remember by then, so we’ll have to go all out.”
Peter stops smiling. His face pales.
“Are you feeling all right, Pete?” Sirius cocks his head. “You seem a bit off tonight.”
“I’m fine. It’s just—” Peter presses a hand to his belly and groans. “Stomach ache.”
“Pete! The candy is for the kids!” Sirius hops off his chair. “For the sake of health and welfare, I’ll have to confiscate all sweets on these premises.” He takes another whiff of the delicious air and purrs. “I’ll start with whatever you have brewing on the stove over there!”
That perks Peter right up. “You want to try some? It’s very good. Warm milk with vanilla and pumpkin spice.”
“You had me at ‘you want to try some,’” Sirius grins. “Pour us both a mug.”
“I think…” Peter presses a hand over his mouth. “I think I should wait awhile before drinking more.”
“You already had some? Pete, you’re such a child sometimes.” He rolls his eyes affectionately and accepts the steaming cup Peter serves him. “Oh well. You could have worse habits.”
The mug is warm in Sirius’s hands. He closes his eyes and slowly inhales the fragrant spices that waft up to embrace him. His favorite is the scent of vanilla. It’s the warm blanket, the cozy fireplace, the snuggle-hug of smells. Back in fifth year, he’d almost failed an assignment to make Amortentia because the soothing aroma had lulled him to sleep. His potion would have burned had Lily not chosen that moment to scold him for dozing in class.
Sirius raises the cup to his lips and takes a sip. It tastes as delicious as it smells—the blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger perfectly complementing the vanilla and spreading a pleasant toasty sensation through his insides. He sighs, content and comfortable. “All right, Pete. I can see how you drank enough of this to get sick. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.”
“Drink as much as you want,” Peter coaxes him. “There’s plenty more.”
Sirius is happy to oblige. He takes longer sips, draining half of the mug. It’s still delicious, but he begins picking up the undercurrent of something bitter in his drink. It doesn’t ruin the flavor, but the sour note becomes noticeable the longer he drinks. Peter probably got distracted and let the milk curdle. Sirius decides to finish this cup, then politely decline any offers for a refill.
“Would you like some more?” Peter asks when he places the empty mug on the table.
Sirius’s tongue feels heavy, like it’s covered in paste. “No. Thanks.”
“Something else, then?” Peter’s voice grows reedy. “Maybe some shortbread?”
“Sure. That sounds—”
“Incarcerous!”
Black cords appear from somewhere behind Sirius. They wrap tightly around his wrists and ankles, binding him to the kitchen chair. More cords secure him around the shoulders and upper torso, cutting off any attempts to struggle. Sirius’s body reflexively fights against the unexpected threat. His mind, however…
There’s an immense pressure in his head. The crushing heaviness closes around his brain, strangling every rational thought. Sirius’s heart beats rapidly, urging him to remember the counter-charm to release his bonds. He knows he knows it. But his brain is being wrung out like a sponge, everything but his vital functions ruthlessly squeezed away.
He can’t shake the thick fog in his head away. He’ll have to follow his body’s lead and act on instinct. He diverts energy from wrestling with his mind to working open his tight jaw. “Eman—”
“Orisobtruo. Boy, how many times have I told you? When you use the Binding Spell, you can’t wait to muzzle them until the end.” A familiar, wicked voice fills the air and chills Sirius’s blood. His neck whips back and forth and he shouts wildly into the gag that wraps around his mouth. “A more ruthless opponent will turn you to ashes, with the time you take.”
“Go easy on the kid, Bella.” Sirius also knows this deeper voice. He tries to kick, to rock the chair, to get any kind of leverage. Knuckles press into his back when he leans; there must be a hand on the chair keeping it upright. “Even if Black got loose, he couldn’t put up a fight in this state.”
“Fools who underestimate their opponents wind up dead.” A figure circles around Sirius and forces his chin up at wandpoint. Bellatrix sneers down at him, her dark eyes glittering with fiendish delight. “I won’t make that mistake, cousin. Believe me.”
He glares at her, attempting to ignite her curly hair with his mind, but his attention catches on something else. Just behind his cousin’s shoulder is the plump form of Peter Pettigrew, frozen in shock. Sirius yells muffled warnings at him, tries to communicate with his eyes that Peter needs to Run! Get out of here! Peter doesn’t budge. His eyes meet Sirius’s.
Dread weighs heavy in Sirius’s stomach. Peter looks fearful, but he doesn’t look frightened. Sirius has known him long enough to understand the distinction.
Fearful is going into final exams without properly studying. It’s sitting in McGonagall’s office as she interrogates them about their latest prank. It’s listening to Dumbledore speak during Order meetings, his sheer power commanding the room and reminding them that he is the greatest wizard alive
Frightened was watching Remus transform for the first time. Frightened was finding the mutilated body of their Muggle-born Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Frightened was facing down a pack of hooded, masked figures with green light perched at the end of their wands.
Peter is neither surprised nor threatened by the group of Death Eaters in his flat. His shoulders sag. His expression settles into quiet acceptance.
There’s a traitor in the Order.
Sirius’s eyes widen. The pounding in his chest stops short.
It can’t be.
“Ah,” A smirk curls Bellatrix’s lips into a bow. “Did you finally figure it out? I hoped you would. I wanted to see the look on your face.”
If Sirius’s face looks anything like his heart feels, he must be a pitiful sight. A torrent of emotions bombards him, pulling him under relentless waves of shock…disbelief…anger…hurt.
Peter is a Death Eater.
Peter Pettigrew. Wormtail. Their friend. Their friend of nine years.
A traitor. A spy. A follower of Voldemort.
How? When? Why? How long?
The bands around his mouth are tied too tightly. He tastes blood where his teeth dig into his lips. He can’t ask any of the questions swirling around his muddled mind.
Peter’s face and Bellatrix’s gleeful one merge in his vision. The composite points a wand at him and mouths something he can’t make out.
A searing agony burns through Sirius’s bones and then darkness takes him.
---
He wakes screaming.
His torso is impaled on a dozen serrated spikes which move back and forth, sawing away at his insides. His hands are nailed together at the palm and wrist, his feet at the ankles and arch. An invisible force has his arms and legs in a vice grip that crushes each of his bones one at a time, increasing the pain exponentially. If he tries to pull his limbs free, the nails tear jagged through muscles and flesh. His fingers are smashed, the fingernails torn out one-by-one; the process repeats with his toes, toenails ripped individually from bloody beds. A garotte screws tighter and tighter around his neck, causing his lungs to spasm and throb. A dowel has been shoved in through one ear and out the other, cutting off all sounds except his anguished wailing. There’s a fire in his eye sockets that burns viciously, boiling his eyeballs in their own fluid.
He thrashes desperately against the pain, which intensifies the very suffering he wants to escape. He’s being crushed, mangled, torn apart. He can’t get away from the pain. It’s inside him. It is him. He has no name, no memories, no identity. Where he is or who he is doesn’t matter. He’s been consumed by the never-ending agony that invades his every pore and rewrites who he is down to the cellular level. He’s nothing—just a slave to a merciless master. A lowly being who exists only to be tortured. It hurts so unimaginably. He wants it to end. He wants to die.
Then suddenly, without warning, the torment stops.
Sirius comes to himself, gasping and spluttering for air. His hearing returns with a loud pop, like he’s surfaced from deep underwater. He’s exhausted and cold. Every bit of him aches. He looks down. There are no spikes or nails—no torture implements of any kind. His bare feet are chained together and suspended a few inches off the floor. He’s lost his coat and shirt. His arms are secured above his head, presumably by more chains. Aside from a few bruises and scrapes, he has no visible injuries.
He knows he was hurt, but there’s not a mark on him.
“Ease up, Bellatrix,” a velvety voice slithers into his ears. “I will be very angry if you break his mind before I get the information I need.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
His head snaps up. His vision sharpens. The damp, dimly-lit room is filled with black-clad specters. On the right he sees Bellatrix and the Lestranges with a younger boy—all four grinning nastily. On the left are two more figures, their faces obscured by shadow. And in the middle of the room, eye-to-eye and just feet away from Sirius, is the ringleader himself.
The haze in Sirius’s mind clears and he remembers what happened. He realizes how he got here and why he has no wounds. He also knows what it is they want from him.
He presses his lips together in a thin line. He’s not telling them anything.
“So happy you could join us, Sirius Black.” Voldemort smiles coldly at him. It makes Sirius’s stomach churn. “You are comfortable, I hope?”
Sirius glares at him silently.
“I see you’re not one for small talk,” Voldemort chuckles. “Very well. Let’s skip these pleasantries and get down to business, shall we?” He turns and motions one of the shadowy figures forward with a bony white finger. “Come here, Wormtail.”
A hot prickle runs up Sirius’s spine. That’s their nickname. Voldemort has no right to use it. And Peter—shuffling cowardly out of the corner where he’d hidden—had no right to put it in the mouths of Death Eater scum.
When Peter is within arm’s reach, Voldemort places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. Peter tenses and his Adam’s apple jumps. “Wormtail here had something very interesting to tell me the other day.” Voldemort’s casual tone is undermined by the smug cruelty in his eyes. “He says you’re the Potter’s Secret-Keeper.”
Sirius turns his angry expression on Peter. His old friend has the decency to drop his eyes and stare at the floor.
Sirius’s chest hurts like someone thrust their hand in and ripped something out. How could Peter do this to him? To James and Lily? To Harry? How long has he been planning to betray them? Since before Harry’s birth? James and Lily’s wedding? Their Hogwarts graduation?
Peter knew he’d been lonely and stir-crazy since becoming Secret-Keeper. Peter knew how to get him to relax and lower his defenses. Peter knew that he hated Bellatrix Lestrange and the perverse pleasure she took in causing him misery.
He remembers Peter fastening the runic locks on his door. He remembers the bitter taste in his drink.
Sirius feels sick. He feels violated and used. His childhood friend sold him to a deranged murderer. And for what? Nothing he could have gained from this seems worth it.
“If you would be so kind, Sirius,” —he hates the way his name drips off Voldemort’s tongue like poison— “you would save everyone in this room a great deal of time and trouble by telling us where the Potters are.”
“I don’t care about your time or your trouble,” Sirius snaps with a hoarse voice. “In fact, you and everyone else in this room can go to hell for all I care.”
Voldemort’s eyes glint. He makes a slashing motion with his wind. A sharp, stinging pain blooms across Sirius’s chest, from his collarbone to below his ribs. He bites his swollen bottom lip to cut off the reflexive hiss that follows.
“Now, now. That isn’t very polite,” Voldemort shakes his head, feigning disappointment. “I know you were raised to have better manners than that. Your brother was always so well-behaved.”
Sirius inhales sharply as the old wound that was Regulus flares up. Their relationship had broken irreparably, but he still has a few memories from before his brother had been corrupted by their parents. Those memories are enough to make the loss of Regulus ache within him. They are enough to make him furious with Voldemort for mentioning him, for reminding Sirius that Regulus had been nothing but a disposable pawn to a monster.
“Why do you resist?” Voldemort asks, breaking Sirius’s tense and angry silence. He glides closer and presses a clammy hand to Sirius’s cheek. Sirius fights the urge to squirm. The Lestrange faction would find that hilarious. “Why choose to suffer? No matter what you do, we will find the Potters eventually.”
“You’ll find sod all unless I tell you where to go. So I guess you’re out of luck.”
He expects Voldemort to be angry, to hit him with another spell. He doesn’t expect the dark wizard to look amused. “How long do you think you can last?” The hand on his cheek slips up into his hair. Sirius growls, but they both know it’s a bark with no bite to back it up. “Everyone has a breaking point. It’s just a matter of finding yours, Padfoot.”
Sirius’s gut twists with rage.
The nerve. The sheer bloody nerve.
That’s what James calls him. It was never meant for this creature to have.
He spits in Voldemort’s face.
He gets no satisfaction seeing his own fury reflected back at him. “Confractus!” Voldemort snarls, pointing his wand at Sirius’s arm.
There’s a loud crunch and Sirius cries out—doesn’t get to breathe before his first scream is interrupted by another.
His entire body weight is suspended from his arms. Pulling himself up shreds his wrists and has his muscles howling with strain and exhaustion. If he lets go and hangs, the fetters pop his shoulders, threatening to wrench them from their sockets. His lungs compress painfully, unable to expand when his stretched arms squeeze his chest cavity. Wounded little gasps punch out of his chest as he struggles to draw breath. And none of this is helped by one of his arms being weak and injured.
“I see you still don’t understand your position.” Voldemort takes a step back, vanishing the spittle from his face with a wrist flick. “Let me explain it to you. You will be kept here and tortured day and night until you are willing to give me the secret. Should that fail to produce results, I will turn to other methods. Perhaps we can coax the Potters out of hiding if we send you back to them one piece at a time. Or maybe we’ll invite one of your Order friends to come and visit you. Wormtail,” he casts a glance at Peter over his shoulder, “what is the werewolf’s name?”
“Remus Lupin,” he answers without hesitation.
“You no-good lying, scheming, dirty rotten, pathetic coward!” Sirius shrieks at him. “You are a dead man, you hear me? Dead!”
The thought of gentle, troubled Remus in the hands of these savages is unthinkable. Sirius is horrified that Peter could out their innocent friend so easily. The very reason Sirius became Secret-Keeper was to keep his friends away from this mess. Now, thanks to Peter, they were all in danger.
Remus will never let Sirius break the Fidelius to save him. And Sirius cannot sacrifice three lives to save one. He will have to watch as Remus is tortured and killed and be powerless to stop it.
“We need not resort to that,” Voldemort offers, false reassurance poorly cloaking calculating manipulation. “Tell me where the Potters are and no one else will come to harm.”
It’s an outright lie, and it knocks Sirius out of his tormented mental spiral. Betraying the Potters will not guarantee safety for Remus or anyone else he loves. He could give Voldemort the secret right now and Remus could still be taken by Snatchers or murdered by enemy werewolves or blown up in a terrorist attack or killed by an overzealous Auror. His family is at risk as long as the war continues and giving up the secret won’t change that. All Sirius can do is protect James and Lily and hope Remus will be protected in turn.
“Hang your threats,” Sirius pants. “Hang your cult and your war. Hang your rubbish beliefs. And hang you, maggot-meal.”
Voldemort’s eyes turn blood-red and he swishes his wand upward. An explosive pain tears through one side of Sirius’s chest, reducing him to choked tears.
“You fool. I suppose you fancy yourself very brave, but you will beg for death in the end. I assure you.” His dark robes billow as he turns his back on Sirius. “Severus, see if you can loosen his tongue.”
Sirius is appalled and disgusted, but ultimately unsurprised, when his old enemy steps from the shadows. Snape’s face is impassive, but his eyes blaze with a festered hatred. Sirius wonders if he’s been waiting, ever since he became a Death Eater, for this very moment. The tables have turned, and now he has all the power. Sirius is completely at his mercy.
Maybe Snape will go overboard and kill him. Unlikely—Sirius’s luck has never been that good. But he can hope.
“My lord, please give the blood traitor to me!” Bellatrix begs. “I know how to break him better than anyone!”
“I don’t doubt it,” Voldemort replies with a glance in her direction. “In fact, I fear you would do the job too well, Bellatrix. Extracting a secret from an unwilling Secret Keeper is a delicate business, better suited to Severus. I have need of your service elsewhere.”
Bellatrix’s expression changes from disappointed to gleeful. “I am yours to command, my lord.”
“Come,” he motions to his followers. “We must work quickly, before word reaches Dumbledore’s fools that Black has been captured.” Sirius is all too ready to see Bellatrix leave; her constant groveling is making him nauseous. But then Voldemort turns his head just enough to catch Sirius’s eye. Just far enough that Sirius can see the end of his lips draw into a smirk. Sirius knows he is going to hate whatever comes out of that foul mouth next.
“Wormtail.”
“Yes, my lord!” Peter squeaks. It’s such a little thing to dwell on, but Voldemort’s continued use of Peter’s nickname makes Sirius grind his teeth together. It’s salt in an open wound. And he would rather listen to nails on a blackboard than hear Peter sycophantically respond to it.
“Send word to your friend Lupin that Black was supposed to meet you and never showed. Ask him to meet you somewhere in private. Tell him…yes, tell him that you suspect the Potters to be in danger.”
Sirius’s blood boils. They likely planned his capture in the same fashion. He’d waltzed right into it, blissfully unaware. They’re going to use Remus’s loyalty and protective nature to lure him into the same trap. And—
“Yes.” Peter’s head bobs. “Yes, my lord.”
—Peter, their friend and brother, is going to help them do it.
Why? Why? Sirius still doesn’t understand. What happened, to make Peter turn against them this way? What offense had they committed that would justify this betrayal?
When Voldemort dismisses Peter with a wave of his hand, his dark eyes meet Sirius’s for a moment. In the dim light, Sirius scrutinizes his face, looking for some kind of sign or answer. There’s none of Bellatrix’s sadistic pleasure in his expression. None of Snape’s anger. None of the Lestranges’ disgust.
He looks…regretful, perhaps. But not frantic. There’s that pained acceptance in his face again, like he’s already resigned himself to everything that will result from his actions. He doesn’t look like he wants to do it, but there’s resolve that says he definitely will do it.
Sirius realizes that Peter isn’t doing this out of spite or anger. He isn’t motivated by revenge or by cruelty. He’s doing it for one simple reason: their lives are not worth saving at the cost of his own. Fear and cowardice are the roots of his treachery, and ones Sirius should have noticed long before.
Because Peter has always hidden behind the strength, intelligence, or bravery of his friends. None of them minded because there was a tradeoff. Peter was protected and James got attention. Remus got to be needed. And Sirius finally had someone in his life who was completely nonthreatening.
He’s ashamed. He’s ashamed to be afraid.
Maybe that’s something he and Peter have in common.
“Don’t…don’t do this…” he rasps, desperately trying to reach that remorseful part of his former friend. “If I have to die, fine…but please. They’re…our family, Peter. You can’t.”
Peter swallows hard. His expression twitches uneasily. He takes a deep breath, then shakes his head. He turns away from Sirius, ignoring the pleas that turn into screams and not turning around once. Not even when the door slams shut behind him with the finality of a coffin lid.
Katara can feel her heart pulsing in her throat, matching the rhythm of her feet pounding across the cavern floor. She focuses on the movement of her legs, the burning in her lungs, and her tightly clenched fists. She puts all her energy into running. If she stops to think, if she looks back over her shoulder, she thinks she’ll start crying again. She can’t cry. She has to stay strong. If she falls apart here…
Then everything will be lost.
It’s all up to her. Everything, everyone’s hope rests on her now. She has to keep running. She has to do this. Aang’s already…he’s already done so much. Given so much, risked so much. She has to…has to…
“Do you have any idea where you’re going?”
A hot rush of anger and agitation cuts through her desperation. “I’m following the canal,” she calls backwards. “There has to be another outlet somewhere.”
“It looks like we’re just going deeper and deeper underground!” the voice responds.
“If you have a better idea,” Katara snaps, “I’d love to hear it!” How did she get stuck with him anyway? She certainly hadn’t invited him to come along.
“I’m just saying—”
“Well don’t!” Who does he think he is? She lets her guard down around him one time and suddenly he thinks they’re, what? Comrades? After chasing their group for so long, after putting them through so much, he thinks he can suddenly switch sides and tell her what to do like he’s always been one of them?
Katara doesn’t need his doubts right now. She needs to focus. They’re coming to a fork in the path and she needs to focus. She needs to focus because she needs to decide which way to turn. She needs to decide which way will lead them out and how is she supposed to know when everything looks the same and it’s dark and way too earthy and she has Zuko breathing down her neck and he’s carrying Aang, who’s so unnaturally quiet and still and this is her fault so she has to fix it and she has to do it alone and she doesn’t need…
“Look out!” The warning comes too late as a Dai Li agent rounds the corner and pounds his fists against the ground. The cavern floor buckles beneath Katara midstride and she loses her balance. Before she can catch herself or bend any water from the underground river, the displaced rock and dirt rise up on her right side and slam her into the wall.
Ringing—that’s all she’s aware of—the deafening ring that fills her ears and drowns out her thoughts.
Her vision goes blurred and patchy. Her head spins and she sees only colors: a constant luminous green, chunks of brown and gray, and occasional bursts of orange.
Something wet trickles down the side of her head. Slowly, like she’s moving through mud, she reaches up to touch it. When she draws her hand away and holds it in front of her face, she sees blood.
Huh. She’s hurt. She can’t seem to do much about it, though, other than stare at the crimson on her hand.
She hears a loud grunt of pain, then heavy breathing and footsteps running toward her. “Hey, are you all right?”
A scarred face swims in her vision. She blinks dumbly up at it.
“Okay, that’s a ‘no.’” His head turns around, scanning the area. His eyes come back to her and he bends down. “I’m going to pick you up, all right?”
She opens and closes her mouth a couple times, but nothing useful comes out. There’s an indecisive pause before an arm wraps around her back, under her shoulders, and another slips under her legs. When she’s lifted up, her right leg swings a little. She hisses.
“Sorry! Sorry.”
She’s carried a short way before she’s lowered back down. Her hand is wet again, but this time it feels cool instead of warm and sticky. She feels an instinctive tingling along her fingertips. She raises a glowing hand to her head and rests it there. In a moment, liquid relief pours into her head.
The bleeding gash closes. The pain and dizziness subside. Her thoughts become clear again.
Katara snaps to attention, sitting up and getting her bearings. The first thing she sees is Zuko’s face. His eyebrow is slanted upward and there are small furrow lines above the bridge of his nose. They must be sitting close if she can see those details.
She looks down and realizes that they’re sitting next to the canal and she’s in Zuko’s arms. She makes a surprised sound and pushes against his chest, scrambling backward. Or at least trying to. The minute she puts pressure on her right leg, a stabbing pain shoots through the entire limb. She cries out and grabs her leg, trying to keep it still while she rides out the pain like a particularly vicious wave.
She hears shifting and looks up. It’s just Zuko. He’s teetering on one knee, looking unsure whether to approach her. He probably has reason to be hesitant after how she reacted before. Being that close to him was just…
Katara’s cheeks feel warm. It was unexpected. Too much all at once. And besides, how did he carry her when he was supposed to be carrying…
“Are you—”
“Where’s Aang?” she demands, panic returning. Did Zuko lose Aang when they were attacked? How can he look so calm when Aang is…
“He’s all right,” Zuko assures her. “He’s over there.” He turns and points over his shoulder. Aang is lying on his back, surrounded by a ring of fire. It doesn’t seem like the best or most stable protection.
“Well, you’ve helped me. Good for you. Now can you please just—”
“Your leg,” Zuko interrupts her, more of that infuriating calm in his voice. “Can you walk?”
Katara winces, remembering her injury. She bends more water from the river and runs it over her leg, assessing the damage. The longer her examination goes, the tighter her throat gets.
The bones in her right leg are completely shattered. Some of the pieces are big, some are extremely tiny. She has the skill to heal it, but neither the time nor the concentration right now. The longer they wait here like tortoise sloths, the better chance the Dai Li have of finding them. She’s made them a sitting target because she hadn’t reacted fast enough. Just like she hadn’t reacted fast enough when Azula shot that lightning bolt right through Aang’s…
“How bad is it?” Zuko asks softly. She hates the pity in his voice.
“I can’t walk,” she tells him bluntly. He nods.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll carry you.”
Katara’s eyes widen. That wasn’t a response she’d expected, nor close to any solution she’d been trying to formulate. “No,” she refuses. “You have to carry Aang.”
“I can hold the Avatar under my arm,” he explains in a tone that says he’s already made up his mind. “If you ride on my back, we should be fine.”
Katara’s cheeks burn so hot that she could be a firebender. Being carried to the water and held upright while she healed had been awkward enough. Riding on Zuko’s back? The idea makes her uncomfortable for several reasons.
Zuko, however, doesn’t seem to have such qualms. He’s crossed the gap between them and crouched with his back towards her before she can even stammer out a response.
They’re in a standstill: Zuko expecting Katara to climb onto him and Katara not able to move or refuse the offer. He finally turns around and gives her a quizzical look. Her hesitation must show on her face because his puzzlement softens into a smooth, nonthreatening expression. “Do you trust me?” he asks.
Katara blinks. A breath catches in her chest. “I…” She thinks about the firebending prince who threatened her Gran-Gran, burned Kyoshi Village, stole her mother’s necklace, and captured Aang at the North Pole. Her old bitterness and anger surface and she has to look away from the earnest face in front of her. “I don’t know.” How can she trust him—their former enemy—to get them out of here when she might not even trust herself?
She hears Zuko inhale deeply through his nose. “I’m not the Fire Nation.” There’s fresh conviction in his voice. “I’m not your enemy.”
She wants to believe it. She wants to believe that Zuko is the boy from the crystal cave and not like the monster who killed her mother. She feels her leg throb and looks at Aang’s pale, unmoving body and knows she to try. Her hands twitch, then she curls them into the cloth of Zuko’s tunic.
He clears his throat. “You should, uh, probably put your arms around my neck. It’ll be easier to hold on that way.”
Katara ignores the weird flippy thing in her stomach and tells herself she’s already done the hard part. Besides, Zuko finally sounds nervous too. They’re both embarrassed; no need to make it worse.
She loops her arms around his neck and clasps her left wrist with her right hand. She shifts, trying to find a secure position that won’t hinder Zuko’s movement. When she finally settles against him, he slips an arm under her good leg and slowly rises. He takes a moment to adjust to her weight. “If you start slipping, tell me. I can support your right leg if I have to. It’ll probably hurt, but…”
“I get it. Let’s just go before more of those guys show up.”
Zuko nods. He treads carefully over to where Aang lies on the floor. He bends his knees, keeping a firm grip on Katara the whole time. He places a hand against the ground and breathes in. The fire around Aang dissipates, leaving only smoke and scorch marks. Zuko grabs the back of Aang’s shirt and hoists him up. Once Zuko is standing again, he maneuvers Aang under his arm. “Hold on tight,” he tells Katara. Then they’re off.
At the fork that had vexed her, Zuko turns right.
“Shouldn’t we have gone left?” she asks in his ear. “I mean, that’s where the Dai Li guy came from. Wouldn’t there be a path out through there?”
“Not necessarily,” he answers, a bit breathily. “They’re earthbenders, remember? He could have dug that tunnel from anywhere. Or collapsed it behind him.”
Just like they had blocked off Katara’s first possible escape routes.
“Well, how do you know this way is better?”
“The air’s warmer. Warm air rises. Our chances are better near the surface.”
She’s surprised, and a little impressed, that Zuko could feel the subtle temperature difference. No wonder he was able to follow them all over the world.
Another thing: Zuko is fast. He’s got a lot of power in his legs—Katara can feel it every time his feet push off the ground. Even carrying her and Aang, she feels like they’re covering a lot of ground quickly. The one downside to Zuko’s speed is that her injured leg keeps jostling against his side. She bites her lip with each fresh twinge, not wanting to distract Zuko or cause him to stop and check on her. They’re getting close to an exit; she’s been paying close attention and has indeed felt a gradual change in warmth as they followed Zuko’s chosen path.
The branch of the river they’d been following disappears under a narrow crevice. The tunnel becomes narrower and curves upward. They’re about to find out whether this is a way out or a dead end. And soon enough, Katara sees it: a reflection of golden light off earthen walls. Fledgling hope bubbles up inside her.
“Do you see—”
Zuko cuts her off with a ssh. He signals for her to be quiet. He’s obviously seen the light too. His pace slows to a cautious, light-footed creep. There’s a bend in the tunnel, behind which must be the source of the light. But it’s a blind spot; they have no way of knowing what’s beyond until they turn. Zuko hugs the corner as close as he can without pinning Katara or Aang against it. He stops right before the curve. Katara can feel his upper body tense, can hear him inhale but not exhale.
Fingers tap against her leg, getting her attention. She looks down and notices that Zuko’s other hand is crooked inward, finger pointing at himself. He mouths something to her. Pocket.
She nods and dips her hand downward. Her fingers close around an object and pull it out: a dagger. Katara gives Zuko a quizzical look, as if to ask how he intends to wield a dagger while carrying the two of them.
For you, he mouths again.
Katara feels a twinge of offense. It’s her leg that’s broken, not her arms or her spine or anything that would keep her from bending. She can fight just fine without the dagger. But then she considers that she has little to bend. She’d lost her water skin when she was captured and there’s nothing around them now but rock and dirt. If there is something around that corner, she’ll have a better chance with the weapon. She nods to show she understands and Zuko nods back.
She feels him take one more deep breath, then they round the corner.
There’s a lamp hanging from the ceiling and next to that, a ladder. Katara and Zuko exhale at once.
“Can you keep it steady while I climb?” Zuko asks, shifting his arms like she needs a reminder that his hands are full.
“I’ve got it,” she assures him.
It’s slow, cautious work. Zuko checks his footing twice before putting their weight on each successive rung. More than once he adjusts his grip on Katara and Aang. When they reach the top of the ladder, Katara reaches up, feeling along the ceiling. Her fingers brush over something wooden. She presses upward and the trapdoor opens and falls back with a quiet thud.
She and Zuko peek their heads through the opening. They’re in a small one-room structure that’s empty besides a few jars and dusty rugs.
Zuko hops the last two ladder rungs. Katara winces at the impact when they land, but they’re moving again before the pain can sweep her up.
Katara recognizes their surroundings once they get outside. They’re at the edge of a large stone courtyard. Behind her is the palace, in front of her is a red and gold brick wall with treetops visible just beyond. Her first instinct is to get far from the palace as quickly as possible, but what if Sokka and Toph are still here looking for them? They need to find them first, but how to search around the palace without being—
“There they are!”
—caught.
“Oh Agni!” Zuko groans in frustration. He ducks as he runs towards the wall, barely dodging the stone spikes that come flying at his head.
There are Dai Li swarming the courtyard from all directions. The only clear path is up the wall.
Zuko races up the stone steps. The ascent is hurried and rough; every stair sends new agony through Katara’s leg like she falling down—instead of going up—and hitting each and every single step on her way down. It hurts so badly that she has to bite her tongue to keep from screaming. She pants and gasps and chokes and whimpers, but she doesn’t scream.
They’re at the top of the wall now. Katara looks over Zuko’s shoulder at what lies beyond. What she’d mistaken for a decorative tree line bordering the wall is actually a grove so dense that no ground is visible through the foliage. If they jumped, she guesses the drop would be at least forty feet. Forty feet right into thick tree branches and unknowable terrain beneath. It’s not a good option.
But what choice do they have? There are Dai Li scaling the wall right now. They’ll be on top of them in no time.
“Zuko, we have to jump!”
“What?” he whips his head around to stare at her. “Are you crazy?”
“It’s our only chance!”
Zuko’s response dies on his lips as the section of wall beneath his feet buckles and throws him off balance. He stumbles and nearly loses his grip on Aang, only recovering in time to snatch him out of the air and pull him back to the relative safety of the wall. Zuko crouches, bracing himself the tremors and the shower of rock fragments that rains down on them in the aftermath.
There’s a sickening crunch beneath them as the ground distorts and reforms into chiseled hands. They lock tightly around Zuko’s ankles and squeeze until Katara can hear popping and cracking, along with the grunt that gets pulled from Zuko’s lips. He shudders underneath Katara’s hands and the hope she’d been clinging to withers inside her.
It’s over. Zuko is trapped, Aang is…not conscious, and she only has one working leg. She clutches Zuko’s dagger to her chest. She’s not going down without a fight. She grips the hilt with one hand, the sheath with the other, and prepares to draw the blade out.
“Do…” Zuko rasps, strained and breathless. His hand fumbles along the ground and closes around a piece of rock. “…Do you trust me?”
His question wraps cold around Katara’s heart. Barely any time has passed since he first asked her that. Not much has changed since then. The most noticeable differences are in Zuko. He can’t seem to take in a full breath. There’s a sheen of sweat above his ear, plastering hair to skin. There’s blood dripping off his chin onto the stone beneath. The arm around her leg is spasming under her weight.
How did she become so used to touching Zuko that his sudden twitching feels like being caught in a choppy sea?
Katara’s thumb rubs over the gold stone on Zuko’s dagger. She swallows the lump in her throat. “I want to.”
Zuko nods. The nods dissolve into coughs and he doubles over for a moment. Katara hears him wheeze and prays that he hasn’t sustained internal damage.
Lake Laogai. Jet. Her eyes sting.
Footsteps close in on them from both sides. “Surrender!” a deep voice calls to them. “You have nowhere to go!”
Katara draws the dagger and brandishes it in the speaker’s direction. “Stay back!” she shouts. “Don’t come any closer.”
“No,” Zuko counters her. “He’s right. We’re out of options.” Katara’s heart sinks as his head turns towards the Dai Li. “We surrender.”
No!
“Put your hands on the ground,” the same agent instructs him. “Slowly. No sudden movements, firebender.”
“That’s kind of hard to do with my hands full,” Zuko points out.
“Put those two down, then,” he orders.
Katara’s hands ball into fists, Zuko’s clothing pinched between her tight fingers. “Don’t do this,” she pleads. “We can fight them.”
Zuko shakes his head. “We can’t. We’re exhausted and outnumbered. You have to let go of me.”
His words squeeze her heart in a vice grip. “Is this why you wanted me to trust you? So you could give us all up?” He’s Fire Nation. He stands a chance if captured. He can always explain away his actions as cunning strategy or a moment of panic.
But he doesn’t agree to her accusation. “Trust me,” he repeats simply. “I have a plan.”
“We’ll make you drop them if we have to,” the Dai Li agent threatens.
“No! She’s going!” Zuko insists. Katara lets him shrug her off. Maybe because she’s angry at him for surrendering. Maybe because she’s curious to see what his so-called plan is—whether it extends any further than throwing the rock still curled in his hand. Maybe, maybe because she still has a sliver of faith that they can escape from here.
Zuko swings his torso around and hands Aang off to Katara. She pulls him close, protectively, to her chest. He’s cold. She rests her forehead against his. A tear rolls down her cheek. If only she’d been stronger…
Zuko’s hand brushes hers. He presses the rock into her palm. She doubts it will work any better than the dagger as a defensive weapon.
“Hands. On the ground.”
“I’m doing it!” Zuko snaps.
“Well, quit dawdling! The princess wanted you brought to her immediately!”
Azula
Katara grits her teeth. Azula had attacked Aang, seized control in the Earth Kingdom, and dashed their invasion plans to pieces. And the Dai Li had helped her do it. Maybe she’ll throw the rock at them after all. It won’t fix anything, but it might give her an instant of petty satisfaction.
She grips the stone tightly. But it’s not jagged, and it’s not stone. It’s smooth and wooden. Katara opens her hand to reveal Aang’s bison whistle.
It must have fallen from his pocket when Zuko caught him.
She looks up, a question in her eyes, just in time to see Zuko lunge as far as he can with his bound feet.
He grabs her by the shoulders and shoves her and Aang over the side of the wall.
She’s dazed. Surprised. Shocked. All she can do is watch Zuko’s regretful face as she falls.
Betrayal. How could she have been so foolish? Zuko hadn’t changed. Firebenders couldn’t change.
Her back makes impact with a large object below. She waits for the pain. Waits to roll off the tree branch and plummet to the forest floor, colliding with every branch on her tumble down.
But the sky remains constant and dark above her head. She doesn’t crash through the canopy. The surface underneath her hand is soft and furry. Two faces pop into her vision. Familiar faces. She sees and hears their mouths moving around her name.
“Katara!”
“What…?” She pulls herself into a half-sitting position. Sokka and Toph stare at her, their expressions flickering between concern and relief. She looks down. Aang is lying safely against her, Appa’s fur cradling them warmly. The bison whistle is still clutched in her hand.
“Zuko…” Katara snaps upward and looks behind her. In the growing distance, she sees several balls of fire flash brightly against the oncoming nightfall. Then, all at once, the flames are abruptly cut short and swallowed up by the darkness.
“Zuko!” she screams. She jumps to her feet, letting Aang’s head slide off her lap. “Turn back! Appa, turn around! We have to go back and help Zuko!”
“Are you nuts?” Sokka blurts. “We helped save that guy and he pushed you and Aang off a wall!”
“That’s not what…” Katara knows that’s what it looked like. Even she’d thought so. But Zuko did have a plan: the bending over, the wheezing—it was a ruse. He’d been using the whistle to call for Appa. He knew he couldn’t escape, but he’d refused to let her and Aang become captives too. “I know it’s hard to believe, but Zuko isn’t our enemy anymore! And if we leave, he’ll be handed over to Azula!”
“Going back is probably what they want you to do!” Sokka points in that direction to for emphasis. “You think they’ll just hand him over? They’ll capture Aang and then Azula will have them both!”
“Speaking of Aang…” Toph voice cuts across Sokka’s, softer than Katara has ever heard it. “What’s wrong with him?”
The siblings look down. Toph switches from poking Aang in the shoulder to feeling down his arm. Her fingers stop just above his wrist and Katara knows what Toph is looking for, knows why her face goes pale and vulnerable.
“Aang?” Sokka tries, voice breaking. “Aang, come on. This isn’t funny.”
“Katara!” Toph shouts, whipping her head and staring off past Katara’s ear. “Do something! Heal him!”
“But…”
This is water from the spirit oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I’ve been saving it for something important.
Katara drops to her knees and yanks the pendant off her neck.
She thinks of her mother, kneeling in the snow before a cruel-eyed firebender.
She thinks of Jet, lying on his back in a dark cave, never to see the end of the war he’d fought so hard for.
She tries not to think of Zuko. She tries not to imagine what will become of him—the price he’ll pay for trusting her.
You have to let go of me.
She couldn’t help them. But she still has a chance to help Aang.
She uncorks the pendant and bends the glowing spirit water. She ignores the pain in her leg and in her heart for now. She’ll have plenty of time to blame herself later.
Ford twists his wrist to look at the time on his watch. Stan’s detention should be done in about fifteen minutes. He doesn’t mind waiting. It’s easier to read here than at home.
He turns to the next chapter of his book on theoretical physics. He lets himself get lost in the complex sentences and the feel and smell of the pages. He leans back against the inbuilt bench and feels the stone dissipate as he’s sucked away from the deserted schoolyard and into another world: a world of dark matter, black holes, extra dimensions…maybe even a multiverse beyond that. He wonders if there’s a place—in the theoretical multiverse, or in any of the millions of galaxies beyond theirs—where he would fit in. Be normal. When he drifts like this, he can almost picture it: a world of anomalies, a world filled with the fantastic and unexplained. What would it be like to go there? To a world of mystery and adventure away from the mundane and everyday? Away from cigarette smoke, broken bottles, and disappointed frowns?
He can almost see it. Can almost step through the invisible rift and be there.
Then the book is ripped out of his hands and the dream world falls to pieces like a shattered window.
He blinks, confused by the loss at first, then looks up into an unfortunately familiar face.
Crampelter. The guy must have no hobbies for all the time he spends harassing him and Stan. His expression twists into a familiar sneer as he glares down at Ford. “Hey there, nerd.”
Ford’s brow furrows in annoyance. “Give it back, Crampelter.” He tries to grab the book back, but the bigger boy holds it up and out of his reach.
“Got left behind today? Only one seat left on the Loser Bus?”
“Give it back.” Ford stands and reaches for the book again. Crampelter holds it over both their heads.
“Why don’t you come and get it?” he taunts, waving the book back and forth. “You need your big dumb brother here to fight your battles for you?”
Ford’s cheeks burn. “He’s not dumb!” he shouts out Crampelter, focusing on that instead of the embarrassment coiling in his gut. He lunges forward, trying to snatch the book midair.
Crampelter catches him in the stomach with his foot, kicking Ford away and into a wall. The air whooshes out of Ford’s lungs and he doubles over, clutching his stomach and riding out a wave of nausea and breathlessness.
“Your brother thinks he’s a real tough guy now that he’s learned to throw a punch.” Crampelter spits into the dirt and rubs his jaw with the back of his hand. He rubs right over a dark bruise that Stan had given him a few days ago when they’d gotten in a fistfight. “We’re gonna show him what happens when he tries to be a hero.”
A cold prickle crawls down Ford’s neck. When they were kids, Crampleter’s antics never went further than insults and a bit of roughhousing. But they’re older now. Crampelter’s altercations with Stan have escalated to full-blown physical brawls. And right now, as Ford looks into their old bully’s face, he sees the logical progression of a kid used to pull the wings off bugs for fun.
Ford braces a hand against the ground. He has to get up and out of here. He’ll wait for Stan somewhere else, preferably somewhere with more people. He pushes off the ground and rises to his feet.
He doesn’t get far.
His face smashes into warm concrete. His vision blurs instantly; he’s lost his glasses. His mouth tastes like copper. There’s a sharp pain in his back, between his shoulder blades. He tries to roll onto his back. There’s a weight on him, above his waist, and a barrier at both his sides.
He’s trapped.
He struggles against whatever is holding him down, but it feels like his body has slowed down and the outside world has sped up. He can’t keep up. Before he can get his bearings, his arms are grabbed and pulled behind his back. He hears a loud ripping sound and laughter before something wraps several times around his wrists, securing them tightly together. He shouts something—maybe a stop! or a what are you doing? or even a someone, help me! The only response he gets are fingers in his hair, yanking and snapping his neck backward. The ripping sound again. Something rough and sticky covers his mouth and seals it shut.
“Let’s take this somewhere a little more private,” Crampelter’s voice hums. Ford hears heavy footfalls tread closer and closer. He sees two dark shapes enter his vision, just inches from his face. The weight lifts from his back and a moment later Ford is hauled to his feet by a pair of arms on either side.
Through the daze of shock and pain Ford’s panic suddenly cuts through. He doesn’t want to know what plans Crampelter—and his goons, presumably—have for him. His feet aren’t bound; he doesn’t have to go with them. When they try to drag him off, he digs in his heels and refuses to budge. When they try to lift him, he lashes out with flailing legs and feet. He hears a yelp and a curse and knows that he must have kicked one of them.
Slap
The hit is forceful enough to knock his head to the side. He feels his cheek stinging right before he gets another blow to the stomach. He chokes behind the gag. He can’t breathe. There’s a tight pang in his sternum. It feels like there’s a rubber band around his lungs. He already can’t get air through his mouth, and now his nose is rejecting every frantic breath he tries to take.
He feels so dizzy. He shuts his eyes, but that does nothing to help. The world spins like a tilt-a-whirl he can’t get off of.
He’s moving and bobbing and being jostled back and forth. When the temperature changes and the sunlight disappears behind his closed eyes, Ford realizes he’s been taken inside somewhere. The hands holding him upright drop him onto the floor. He whimpers and curls into a ball, trying to ease the fresh surge of pain. He’s hurting, but it’s better to be on the ground. At least he has a solid surface to brace against.
“Aw, is the nerd twin crying already?” one of Crampelter’s minions cackles at his sounds of distress.
“Your brother can’t help you now, six fingers.” The click of a lock turning into place echoes in Ford’s ears like a gunshot. His eyes shoot open and he tries to get his bearings.
It’s dark. There are lots of objects filling the space, but Ford can’t tell what they are. The air has a cramped feel to it that Ford recognizes from the pawn shop: the odor of too many things crammed into too small a space.
When he shifts, he feels an unsteady object teeter against his foot. He kicks at it, hoping for some kind of distraction so he can…okay, he doesn’t have a plan. But he feels more in control doing something rather than lying on the floor and letting his tormentors have their way with him.
Whatever he kicks falls with a loud clack and he can hear one of the boys jump backward. They recover quickly, though. They’re the ones holding all the power.
“That your best idea, loser?”
“Maybe he only looks smart ‘cause his twin’s an idiot.”
“You’d think you’d have learned your lesson the last time you waved those useless twig legs around,” Crampelter scoffs. “Looks like someone’s gotta teach you.”
The weight is back, now on his upper legs. He’s not been taken by surprise this time, so Ford can finally identify the pressure as another body pinning his down. He hears the dreaded ripping sound again—duct tape—and knows it means nothing good. He kicks his legs against the floor, but whoever’s sitting on him leans forward to press Ford’s shins into the ground. He’s helpless as the duct tape wraps once, twice…three times around his ankles. The weight shifts forward onto Ford’s quads so that the one with the duct tape can bind him above the knees too.
When they’re finished, when they’ve climbed off him, Ford flexes in his bonds. He can’t move. Can’t escape. His eyes do sting now. He tries to blink the tears away. He won’t give them the satisfaction of really seeing him cry.
“He looks like a chicken, all trussed up like that,” one of the bullies snickers, then begins bwoking loudly in Ford’s ear.
“He went down so easy, too! What a pussy!”
“Where’s your brother now, Stanford?” Crampelter asks mockingly. “Not coming to save you this time, is he? Finally realized what a weirdo you are and ditched you.”
It’s not true. Ford knows it’s not true. Stan would never ditch him.
“I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be seen with a freak like you.”
Ford’s stomach churns. Freak. He’s heard the word countless times, but it always sounds exponentially worse in Crampelter’s mouth. It makes him feel like a creature, like something you would dissect in science class. It makes him feel worthless.
“That’s why you don’t have friends either. ‘Cause you’re disgusting.”
“You should do everyone a favor and disappear.”
Ford inhales sharply through his nose. You should do everyone a favor and disappear.
He knows he’s weird. It’s not just his hands, either. He likes weird things. He talks weird. He actually likes going to school and learning. He’s not good with people. His dad thinks he’s a wimp. His mom thinks he’s annoying. And Stan…
Maybe Stan wouldn’t draw so much bad attention if he didn’t have a twin. Maybe he wouldn’t get pummeled as often if he didn’t have Ford to protect.
Why couldn’t I have just been born normal?
Ford gets literally yanked out of his self-pitying mess. The lackeys pull him onto his knees. Crampelter crouches in front of him, close enough that Ford can smell tuna on his breath. They’re close enough that when Crampelter holds up an object in the narrow gap between their faces, Ford can tell what it is without glasses.
He squirms, trying to twist himself out of his forced position. He shrieks muffled protests into the gag.
“Stop moving,” Crampelter growls into his ear, “unless you want me to cut you on accident.”
The fear is enough to stop Ford from thrashing around, but not enough to keep him from trembling. He’s never seen Crampelter with a weapon before. Unless rocks and soccer balls counted as weapons. But those were nothing compared to a knife.
Crampelter shoves his head down and leans over the top of him. Ford feels a light pressure travel down his arm, over his sleeve. His breath hitches as he feels the knife push into the narrow gap above his bound wrists. For a terrifying moment he’s sure that the blade is going to dig sideways into his arm. That moment stretches on and on until he loses it and lets out an involuntary high-pitched while that would have been a please if he could speak.
The knife slices straight down through the duct tape, freeing Ford’s hands.
Ford blinks, confused. Why would they tie him up only to free him when he was finally defenseless? Was this some kind of twisted psychological warfare? If so, it was horrendously affective.
He brings his hands around, intending to rub some circulation back into his wrists. He doesn’t get that far. His left arm is seized and twisted behind his back, eliciting another cry of discomfort. Crampelter grabs his right, rolling up Ford’s sleeve with the dull edge of the knife.
“I’m gonna make sure you remember what you are. Gonna make sure your brother remembers what I can do.”
Crampelter presses Ford’s palm into the floor, holding his wrist in a crushing grip. The stooge twisting his other wrist pushes him forward into a hunchbacked position, keeping him bent and pinned.
The blade flashes and Ford screams.
---
Stan groans and stretches his arms over his head. Finally, freedom! Old Ms. Carbuncle sure knew how to make detention feel like an eternity. Ford probably hasn’t even noticed how long it’s been—too engrossed in some new nerd book to care about Stan’s suffering.
Stan thinks he’ll sneak up on him. Just for kicks. Just to even things out a little.
“Heyyy Sixer!” he jumps out from behind the corner, pouncing on the stone bench where Ford always waits for him.
But Ford isn’t there.
Stan turns his head right and left, thinking that maybe Ford heard him coming and moved to avoid the sneak attack. “Sixer?” he walks around the area, looking over and under and around everything that Ford could possibly use to hide. “Ford?”
No answer. He’s not there.
Stan flattens down the rising feeling of something like worry in his throat and replaces it with annoyance instead. So Ford hadn’t wanted to wait for him. Too smart and well-behaved to stay behind and walk with his delinquent brother. Stan sees how it is. Oh, he’ll get Ford for this later. He’ll hide his favorite telescope or eat the last pudding cup in the fridge and maybe that’ll teach Ford it’s not nice to ditch his twin.
He sighs and hefts his backpack over his shoulder, walking to the school entrance. He’s almost to the wire fence when he sees a figure sitting on the curb past it. The bubble of irritation and not-worry in his chest pops and he jogs down the walkway to reach his brother.
“Ford!” he exclaims, bending over to catch his breath. “You could’ve told me you were waiting someplace different today!” He lifts his head to look at Ford, expecting some dry quip or—more likely—a huh? Oh, there you are Stan as he blinks up owlishly from his book.
But Ford isn’t looking at him at all. Or at a book. His eyes are glued to the ground. He looks a mess: clothes rumpled and hair askew. His glasses sit crookedly on his nose. Bent again. Stan’s surprised their mom can still twist their glasses back into shape, considering the damage they’ve taken over the years. Ford’s hands are in front of him and he’s wringing them nervously.
“What in the heck happened to you?” Stan forces himself to laugh, ignoring the ache in his gut. “Alien abduction?”
“Let’s go home.” Ford sounds exhausted. He wobbles a little when he stands up. There’s no way sitting on the sidewalk took that much energy out of him.
“Hey, c’mon man.” Stan grabs his twin by the shoulder and turns him in his direction. Now that they’re both standing, Stan can see that the skin around Ford’s lips looks swollen. He’s about to either praise or scold Ford for getting some action while he wasn’t around, but then he feels his hand start shaking.
No, it’s not his hand that’s shaking. It’s the arm under his hand. In fact, Ford’s whole body is trembling like a leaf.
“Stanford…”
“Let’s just go home, please?” Ford’s voice is hoarse. He must be getting sick. Stan feels terrible for scolding him.
“Yeah, sure. Let’s go this way; I know a shortcut.”
He reaches down to take Ford’s hand. Ford jumps and pulls his clasped hands out of Stan’s grasp.
“Don’t!” he shouts.
“What is wrong with you?” Stan yells back, a little annoyed and a lot frantic. “I just wanted to help! Why are you acting so…?”
He trails off as he takes a good look at Ford’s hands. He’s not wringing them. It’s just one hand pressed tight over the other, rubbing occasionally. And the fingers of the top hand are stained with something rust-colored.
“Ford, you’re hurt!” Despite his previous bad results, Stan reaches for his brother again.
Ford stumbles backward. “It’s nothing…”
“Like hell it is! You’re bleeding!” He can see in the panicked dart of Ford’s eyes and the tensing of his muscles that he’s about to bolt, but Stan is stronger and has faster reflexes. He grabs Ford’s wrists and pulls the top hand away.
The back of Ford’s right hand is crossed with angry red cuts. They don’t look super-deep, but they are welling with blood. Stan’s about to freak out and demand to know how Ford got his hand messed up, but then he notices something that makes his heart drop into his stomach.
The cuts aren’t just random lines. There’s an F shape along the ridge of Ford’s knuckles and an R disappearing under his sleeve cuff.
His own hand tenses, and Ford must know what he’s thinking because he shouts, “Stanley, don’t!”
But Stan does.
He pulls up Ford’s sleeve as far as it can go. Traveling up his twin’s forearm are the letters E A K.
FREAK
Stan freezes for a good second before he feels his blood boil over. His head snaps up and he looks into Ford’s pale face. It’s no better than looking at the bloody letters. “Who did this to you?”
Ford presses his lips into a tight line and shakes his head.
“Stanford Pines, you tell me who did this right now!”
He shakes his head again. Tears escape from the pinched corners of his eyes and run down his cheeks. Stan is horrified. Ford doesn’t always take pain or disappointment well, but he never cries. It’s a side-affect of being raised by Filbrick Pines.
“Tell me so I can go bash their faces in!” He’s furious and he feels sick and so, so guilty. This would have never happened if he’d been there. If he hadn’t gotten that stupid detention…!
“Please…” Ford’s fingers curl into his Stan’s shirt. “Please just drop it. I just want to go home.” He sounds so small and helpless and lost. “Please, Stan.”
Stan’s anger crumbles. He’s sure to revisit it later, but right now he has a brother to take care of.
“Okay. Okay. Let’s go home. Oh hey, hold on a second!” Stan reaches down and pulls his shoe and sock off. He stuffs his bare foot back into the shoe and wraps the sock around Ford’s injured hand. “Yeah, I know it’s gross. But it’ll do for now, right?”
Ford nods tightly. His body looks ready to fold in on itself. Stan wishes he knew what to do. All he can do is wrap an arm around Ford’s shoulders as they walk home and tell him that it’ll be okay. That they’ll be okay.
He’s not sure which of them he’s trying to convince.
Without fanfare, a cell door morphs open and the topaz guard tosses her inside.
“Pearl!” She hears the familiar rustle of Rose’s dress as the entrance seals up again. A warm hand rests on her shoulder, steadying her as she pulls herself upright. Pearl sucks in a breath, trying to regain the energy that being hurled at the ground had knocked from her. She had almost forgotten how brutish Homeworld gems could be.
She looks up into Rose’s face. Whatever relief or happiness she expects or hopes to find there is absent. Rose’s expression sharpens for a moment before it crumbles. Pearl can see small beaded tears forming in the corners of her eyes. The curve of Rose’s bottom lip trembles—a contrast to the taut tension lines in her forehead.
“What…” Rose’s voice shakes. She takes a split second to recover. “What are you doing here?” she demands. “Oh Pearl, what have you done? How could you have been captured?”
“I wasn’t captured.” Pearl raises her chin, the defiance she’d learned during the war rising within her. “I sneaked onboard the ship before it took off.”
Rose’s eyes widen and a bolt like lightning flashes through them. “That’s even worse!” Hands place themselves on either side of Pearl’s face, holding their shared gaze steady. “Why would you do something so foolish?”
“I wasn’t going to just let them take you!” Pearl exclaims, a bit aghast that Rose seems not to understand her actions. There’s nothing complicated here. It will be just like the war again: the two of them side-by-side, cutting down their enemies left and right and fighting their way to freedom. They’ve been in much worse scrapes before. Why is Rose looking at her like she’s lost her mind? “I’m here, right here with you, so everything will be fine. We’ll just wait for an opening and then…”
“Pearl!” Rose grabs her by the upper arms and shakes her. Pink curls fall into her face, ringlets unusually loose and wild. There’s something frantic and desperate in Rose’s eyes that Pearl hadn’t seen since…
Since the corruption.
Pearl’s stomach flips. No. No. This wasn’t nearly as dire a situation as that. She opens her mouth to tell Rose so, to offer reassurance.
“Stop!” Rose cuts off the attempt. “Listen to me, Pearl!” she shakes her again. “You need to get out of here. When that door opens, make a run for it. Find a ship and get yourself back to Earth as fast as you possibly can.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been say—”
“Without me.”
Pearl can feel her war face go slack, falling into an expression of disbelief and horror as the words sink in. “I’m not going to leave you here, Rose! You know what we—” Her hand covers her mouth, stifling any further remarks in that vein. She waits impatiently for the effects to pass before trying again with different phrasing. “You know what they think happened! Who knows what they’ll do to you?”
“And if I run?” Rose stares into her eyes, into her very core, “Then they’ll hunt me down, destroying every world I hide on and every gem who helps me. And when they’ve finally caught me, they’ll still do whatever they plan to do now.” She sighs and her head drops down, bangs obscuring her face. “I could have fought back on Earth if that’s what I wanted to do. But I gave myself up. I wanted them to take me if it meant the rest of you would be safe.”
“Rose—”
“So why,” Rose’s head snaps back up, tears streaming from strained eyes, “didn’t you listen to me! I told you to stand down! That I would handle it!”
“And this is your way of handling it?” Pearl snaps back. “Surrendering? Giving yourself up to them?”
“What was I meant to do?” Rose throws her hands up, as though challenging Pearl to drop a solution in her lap. “That reconnaissance team was going to tell the diamonds there were rogue gems left on Earth. What if they’d sent an army or another corruption wave to wipe us out?”
“We would have fought back!” Pearl protests. “You would have protected us, like you did back then!”
“Back then everyone got wiped out!” Rose starts out shouting but the heat and volume get strangled halfway through. Her eyes widen—she looks surprised at herself—then she drops her head into her hands, resolutely not looking at Pearl. “I tried so hard. But I couldn’t protect anyone, and I couldn’t fix what I broke. I thought at least this time, no one else would get hurt because of me.”
Pearl braces herself against the wall. Her head reels. She has been Rose’s confidante for thousands of years. Rose told her everything, things that no one else was allowed to know. In all their time together, Pearl has never heard Rose talk like this.
“That’s…that’s not…it wasn’t…”
“It was.” Rose counters before she can even finish. Pearl is completely transparent to her eyes, while Rose is much closer to opaque. She had seemed content on Earth, with Pearl—and with the others. They had a whole life together there. It wasn’t perfect, and the planet was full of reminders of what they’d lost, but Pearl thought Rose was happy. Had she only been pretending?
Pearl’s rush of battle-ready energy plumets and she begins to feel real fear. The two of them are trapped. On Homeworld. And Rose has no intention of fighting. “What are you going to do?” she whispers, piercing the heavy silence.
Rose lifts her head. Pearl feels an electric shiver run down her spine. She can see a ghostly trace lurking behind those dark eyes.
“Something stupid.”
Pearl and Rose stand in the center of the courtroom, a very nervous blue zircon to their right. The chamber is guarded by four massive quartzes, destabilizers at the ready. Escape will be difficult, but Rose still wants her to run at the first chance. Pearl hasn’t quite decided whether to listen yet. She’s a free gem, after all. She doesn’t take orders.
A yellow zircon warps in on their left. She glances at the blue zircon and snickers. “Defending a rebel? Isn’t that treason?”
“I was assigned to this!” the blue zircon snaps defensively.
“Excuses, excus…wait.” The yellow zircon points in Rose’s direction, looking surprised and a little…offended? Pearl shifts protectively in front of Rose and the yellow finger, oddly, seems to follow. “Since when did you have a pearl?”
Pearl feels an embarrassed prickle in her neck. The blue zircon waves her hand dismissively.
“I don’t. She belongs to Rose Quartz.”
“No I don’t.” / “No she doesn’t.”
The zircons look quizzically at Rose, then Pearl, then at each other, then back at Rose. “Then whose is she?” the blue zircon scratches her head in puzzlement.
“She belongs to herself,” Rose answers firmly. The blue zircon’s jaw drops. The yellow zircon jumps back, features twisting in repulsion.
Pearl’s lips press into a thin line. She had not missed this.
The unwanted attention ends, though, when a burst of light draws everyone’s gaze to the front of the room.
“All rise for the luminous Yellow Diamond!”
“And the lustrous Blue Diamond.”
They are smaller, somehow, than Pearl remembers, and they’re pressed together in a way that isn’t exactly commanding. They look more like Ruby and Sapphire than two gem-crushing, planet-obliterating tyrants have any right to be. But despite the intimate pose, the sight of Blue and Yellow Diamond brings out every deeply-ingrained feeling of subservience and inadequacy that Pearl has worked so hard to smother. Her first instinct is to get on her knees and grovel. She fights against the impulse, mind warring against every photon in her being that screams you’re a pearl, you’re nothing. Her eyes dart to Rose, who had always been her source of strength.
Rose, well…Rose looks more tense than Pearl feels. She’s bracing—maybe to run, maybe to take a hit—and it’s brief, but Pearl sees her hand twitch. Her right hand.
The diamonds finally separate and stare down from their high vantage point. They’re large enough that Pearl can see every detail of their exaggerated features. Yellow is grinding her teeth together. Blue keeps half-blinking like there’s something wrong with her eyes.
“Rose Quartz…” Blue says in that wispy voice of hers that seems to chill the room.
“So, you were hiding on Earth all this time.” Yellow’s fists ball at her sides. “Blue, let’s forget the trial. She’s outrun justice long enough.”
“No.” Blue shakes her head. “I want to hear her make her case. I want to know what she thinks we’re going to do with her. Because I want to do something worse.”
It’s an old habit, and one born of affection instead of terror or duty: Pearl leaps in front of Rose, spreading her arms out like a shield. “Don’t touch her!” she shouts.
“Pearl.” Rose says her name low and warningly. She’s failing to be inconspicuous, but she doesn’t care!
Blue blinks and her eyes focus on Pearl. Her head tilts to the side, asking the question her mouth can’t quite form.
“Who let this ill-mannered pearl in here?” Yellow demands, looking around for the culprit. A low growl rumbles in Rose’s chest and Pearl can see blue zircon sweating and fumbling for an explanation she doesn’t have. With no answer forthcoming, Yellow continues, “Whoever her owner is, it’s obvious they don’t know how to contr—”
“I don’t have an owner!” Pearl’s indigence gives feeds a courage she can almost claim. “I’m a Crystal Gem!”
Yellow Diamond’s eye spasms. “This is absurd. Taking a pearl as a war prisoner? What incompetent buffoon is responsible for this?”
Pearl bristles, anger and pride boiling in her chest. These Homeworld gems are so stuck on the notion of pearls being servants and nothing else that they won’t even take her seriously as a prisoner! She’s about to whip out her spear and wipe that incredulous look off Yellow Diamond’s face, but she pauses when Blue Diamond lifts a hand.
“Wait. I recall there was a pearl with Rose Quartz when she and my entourage skirmished on Earth. Her presence may be of use here.”
Yellow huffs, unimpressed, but doesn’t argue the point. “Fine. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?” She waves her hand and she and Blue take a seat on their respective thrones.
The yellow zircon as all too pleased to get started. “My Diamond,” she chirps. “My brilliant, opulent, radiant, glimmering—”
“‘My Diamond’ will suffice,” Yellow interrupts, mercifully cutting the bowing and scraping short, “or we’ll never get through this.”
“Of course, My Diamond.” The zircon clears her throat, recalibrating. “Rose Quartz,” she begins, gesturing to her right, “committed a crime so unprecedented that one can’t help but wonder why. Exhibit A:” She materializes a large screen with an image of the Earth on it. “This is what Rose Quartz turned on her own kind for—a small, insignificant planet of no use to the gem empire.”
She snaps her fingers and the screen changes to show footage of Beach City: humans running down the boardwalk, throwing water-filled projectiles, screaming and stuffing their mouths with goo. Pearl cringes at the accurate but unflattering depiction of Earth life. “It’s quite clear,” the zircon continues, “that any gem who could become attached to a useless planet filled with hideous organics and…” she side-eyes Pearl “…defective gems isn’t—”
“Pearl is not defective.” Rose barely raises her voice, but her tone is so clear and fervent that the words echo around the room. Pearl shivers, and she may even blush a bit. “What’s defective are Homeworld’s backwards ideas about—”
“There it is!” the yellow zircon points an accusing finger at Rose. “The passion! The fury that caused the diabolical Rose Quartz to shatter her own diamond!” She makes a show of hysterics while the blue zircon tries to downplay what Rose has said and…Pearl has had enough of this whole thing.
“Listen here, you twerp! You don’t know the first thing about—” Pearl’s hand claps over her mouth. The zircon takes advantage of her silence to continue as if Pearl had never spoken at all.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. How can we be sure this rose quartz is the same Rose Quartz who led the rebellion? We could go to the trouble of calling witnesses, but I believe a demonstration will be more effective.”
Pearl is still riding out the physical aftershocks of trying to mention their secret. She’s still irked that the yellow zircon keeps treating her like a non-sentient object. Rose is caught in a staring match with Yellow Diamond, who has been glaring daggers since Rose’s censure of Homeworld. Blue is still attempting to keep up the appearance of this being an impartial trial.
They are all caught off guard when a heavy object abruptly collides with Pearl’s head.
Rose must call to her—Pearl can see her lips move around her name—but all she hears is a high-pitched ringing. The horrible sound is splitting her head open; she feels dizzy and ill. It feels like that one time she’d made the mistake of eating human food and spent the next several hours spewing it back up: thick and burning and vile. Pearl presses her hands to her ears, trying to muffle the sound, but her hands are suddenly too big and her head to small and her feet are where her knees are meant to be and…
Oh no.
She looks down at her hands. The glitch and distort and twist into loops.
Oh no.
Rose’s hands wrap around her shoulders. Her eyes fix on Pearl’s gem and her expression morphs from shock to anguish to fury. She shouts something over her shoulder at the yellow zircon, who smugly gestures in Pearl’s direction with an I dare you twist to her lips as she replies. The blue zircon frantically waves her hand in a protest that Rose does not heed. Instead, her grip tightens and she pulls Pearl in close.
For a moment that stretches into an eternity, Rose holds Pearl to her chest. Pearl relaxes and melts into the embrace. Everything around them melts away and it’s just her and Rose and the infinite cosmos. A warmth fills her core and she’s a little surprised they don’t fuse. Maybe her form is too unstable. Maybe Rose is resisting it.
The spell is broken when another spike of discomfort shoots through Pearl’s body from her gem. She lets out a garbled cry that catches Rose’s attention immediately. She tilts Pearl’s chin up and Pearl catches a quick glimpse of something in Rose’s eyes that she can’t name. But that emotion, whatever it is, dissolves into something that Pearl recognizes well.
A shining crystalline tear rolls down Rose’s cheek and falls onto Pearl’s gem.
A tingling sensation spreads through her. Pearl feels the rift in her form mend as the crack in her gem disappears, bringing an end to the pain and disturbance her body had gone through. She gasps and grabs onto Rose’s arms to steady herself.
“As you can see,” the yellow zircon’s voice draws her back to the moment, “the rumors about Rose Quartz’s healing abilities are true. This is how her ragtag group of off-color gems was able to outlast our superior Homeworld armies. It’s an unnatural ability that no other gem in history has possessed.”
Pearl’s palm presses over her lips; it’s not a steadying gesture.
“Rose Quartz did it, and that’s Rose Quartz,” the yellow zircon concludes with a hand wave. “I rest my case.”
“Oh, she’s good…” the blue zircon mutters in defeat.
Yellow Diamond claps loudly. “Well, I’m convinced! Time to execute.”
“Not yet,” Blue Diamond protests, eyes flickering from Yellow to Rose. “The defense still has to speak.”
“Right, well, uh…” the blue zircon stammers. “Before I start my very thought-out defense, I’d like to remind the court that Rose Quartz did turn herself in.”
“The court remembers.” Yellow Diamond crosses her hands over her chest. “And the court does not care.”
Blue and Yellow don’t care! They never have!
Pearl’s hand presses down harder.
“Uh, of course. Uh…innocent! The word ‘innocent’ can mean…oh, many different things…”
“She wanted to stop it.”
All eyes are on Rose as her pure voice cuts through the room again. She looks up at the diamonds and Pearl swears she sees Rose’s eyes flash pink. She wonders if anyone else notices.
“Do you tell that part of the story?” Rose challenges. “That Pink Diamond wanted to abandon the Earth colony?”
Yellow’s hands curl around the arms of her throne in a death grip. “What are you—”
“You remember, don’t you?” A note of frenzy slips into Rose’s tone. “When she came to you, needing help? Begging you to listen? Do you remember what you said to her?”
“Don’t you dare—”
“As long as you are there to rule—”
“Stop!” Blue’s voice interjects. “Stop this!”
“—this colony will be completed.”
“Rose!”
A flash of gold lightning shoots from Yellow Diamond’s hand, straight towards Rose’s gem. Rose swings her arm around, bringing her forearm in front of her torso. Her rose shield appears and absorbs the blast, scattering the light into harmless sparks around the chamber.
“She warned you about the Crystal Gems, but you didn’t take us seriously. Didn’t take her seriously. The colony was such a priority for you both that it didn’t matter to you if…”
Pearl waited until the other diamonds left before letting herself onto the observation deck. Pink’s back was toward her, left hand curled in a fist.
“What did they say, My Diamond?”
Pink made a funny noise. “I’m a fool, Pearl.”
“My Diamond?”
Pink turned around. There were tears streaming down her face. “I should have known it wouldn’t matter.”
But it did matter, didn’t it? Hadn’t it mattered so much that the diamonds razed their own colony to the ground?
Pearl’s other hand comes up to clamp down on the first.
“You never listened! Well, now I am going to make you listen!” Rose’s repressed feelings towards the diamonds are also resurfacing. The well of deep pain that had been sealed off long ago is now gushing everywhere. “You diamonds could have stopped it! The colony, the war, everything! You’re the ones who gave us the ultimatum to finish the colony or depose Pink Diamond!”
“Stop it!” Yellow Diamond hurls another barrage of electricity at Rose that she easily deflects. “Stop it! Shut your mouth!”
“And you have the gall to pretend to be sad she’s gone?” Rose shouts, borderline wails. “You’re only upset that you lost to a bunch of rebels! You never actually cared—”
“Enough!” Blue Diamond shrieks and a blue pall engulfs the room. Pearl falls to her knees, overwhelmed by the strength of Blue’s grief. It’s intense, all-consuming. Like there’s a big empty hole inside Pearl growing larger and larger until it will eventually devour her. Her vision is wet and blurry, but she still lifts her head to find Rose.
Rose is staring, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at Blue Diamond. Her normal delicate tears have morphed into ugly, gushing cascades. A cry of agony falls from her lips and Pearl knows that Blue’s power is affecting her on a far more personal level.
“Don’t you ever speak about Pink Diamond or what she thought or what we felt,” Blue moans. “You have no idea what she meant to us.”
Yellow somehow musters the strength to fight Blue Diamond’s onslaught long enough to reach her, to put grounding hands on her shoulders. Her emotions are becoming too much for even her to handle, and Blue releases them all from her grasp with a sob, burying her face in her hands and weeping as Yellow tries in vain to comfort her.
Rose is still staring at the diamonds. She is still crying, long after the rest of them have stopped. She seems frozen in place and Pearl wonders if she will reconsider, if there is still hope for a positive outcome. Rose presses her lips together for a moment, then shakes her head mournfully.
“You’re right. I don’t understand. I will never understand how you can feel something so strongly, but then act in a way that is completely opposite.” Rose clutches her chest, looking pained and unsure and so vulnerable. “I’m not blameless here. I did as much damage as you did. Maybe more. But Pink Diamond was selfish and thoughtless and cowardly.”
Rose’s shield vanishes. Her arm drops, leaving her unprotected. “And she deserved to be shattered.”
Yellow Diamond’s eyes flash. A furious, aching bellow sounds from behind gritted teeth and a clenched jaw. This time, her attack finds its mark. Rose poofs in a cloud of pink smoke, and they hear the unmistakable clink of a gem hitting the floor.
They all see it before Yellow does. The zircons’ eyes grow larger than their monocles. The quartz guards grunt in confusion and drop their weapons. Blue’s eyes are dry and fixed to the ground in shock. Yellow doesn’t see it. She raises her fist above her head. She doesn’t see, and no one else is saying anything.
Pearl shouts uselessly from behind the iron grip her two hands have over her mouth. She digs her nails into her hands, willing the pain to be so unbearable that she physically has to move them away. She tries to run, to move from her spot, to get in between Rose and the blow, but every photon in her body is focused solely on making sure that she follows Pink’s last order.
No! You don’t understand!
Stop! You’re making a huge mistake!
It’s not what you think!
Don’t you see? She’s right there!
She’s the one you’ve been missing! She’s the one you’ve been grieving for!
Please, please don’t!
I love her! And you love her too!
Don’t make us lose her, please!!
Yellow does see. Pearl sees her eyes widen a fraction before her hand slams down, unable to stop at that speed.
Yellow sees the pink diamond lying on the floor a split second before shattering it into pieces.
Pearl screams. It starts in her core and tears through her physical form and stabs into her gem painfully. Her hands dig into the floor and she screams and wails. The words she could have used to save Rose are gone, unheard.
It’s over, isn’t it?
“Yellow!” Blue shrieks, finally finding her voice. “What have you done?”
“I…I didn’t…I didn’t want…” Yellow stares dumbly and tries helplessly to scoop the shards back together.
“Oh my stars! I prosecuted a diamond!”
“I defended a diamond! And lost!”
“I DIDN’T WANT THIS!” Yellow whips her head around, shouting to anyone who will listen. “I never wanted to hurt her!”
“But you did,” Pearl weeps softly, wondering if anyone will hear either of them or care. “Long before today.”
“What?” John rasps, the breath required for a fully-formed exclamation caught in his chest.
The room tilts on a diagonal. He grasps onto the edges of his seat so tightly that he feels his knuckles pop. The hues and shapes of the room muddy and swirl before his eyes. The only sight that remains constant and defined is John’s father and the cruel, smug smirk on his stupid face.
“Alexander Hamilton will be executed in the morning,” he repeats, seeming to take even more pleasure in the reprise.
John just stares at him, willing the world to stop spinning. Willing his thoughts to order themselves into something coherent.
“Lieutenant Hamilton was already sentenced.” John hears his own voice, tastes the words on his leaden tongue, but is not conscious of saying them. There’s a fog in his brain that won’t clear. He feels disconnected from his thoughts and he feels disconnected from his body.
What is he if neither the physical nor the cerebral aspect of John? Just some metaphysical vapor with no will or determination of its own? Just a spark of human life seconds away from being smothered?
“…stripped of military rank,” he hears from beyond the haze, past the ringing in his ears. “He—"
“He was already sentenced,” John repeats, cutting the muddled, droning sound off. “By an imperial court martial. You cannot overturn—”
“Excuse me?” his father’s voice sends a chill into the air. “Have you forgotten whom you are speaking to?” John hasn’t—how could he?—but his father still gestures to the royal emblem on his chest to illustrate the point. “I am the king. I can amend any sentence as I see fit. And if you were not the crown prince, you would be on the scaffold next to him.”
The menacing words are like an iron vice around John’s lungs. At once, he’s dragged back to those first days after his capture. Stripped down to his breeches and undershirt. Cold, heavy manacles locked around his ankles. Wrists bound together so tightly that the rope cut into his flesh—the tether tied to a metal ring in the ground, keeping him kneeling. Subservient. Trapped. And in this position, bound and gagged and helpless, his father had whirled around him like a cyclone. He had ranted and raved and called down every insult and curse upon John and his dead mother that could conceive. Had spat on him, hurled objects at his head, slapped him across the face and kicked him in the ribs. And over and over, the promise on his father’s lips had been death death death.
The king’s rage had cooled after a few days, but his ice-cold fury was little better than the branding hot one. His new approach involved withholding sustenance from John—placing food and drink just outside his reach, close enough to torment him without providing any relief. And then, when John was weak and fuzzy-headed, he’d been chained to a desk and told to sign an abdication order.
John hadn’t done it. If only to spite his father.
Eventually that scheme had also fallen by the wayside. For all his talk of ultimate power and control, it seemed his father still needed to appease the burgesses. Even fueled by anger and vengeance as he was, disposing of his son and heir was an act too difficult for the king justify. The burgesses’ defense of John was surely more practical than merciful; he knows they will not put up the same resistance for a deposed lieutenant with no surname of dignity.
“He already has a life sentence,” John says quietly, somehow slipping into the old habit of trying to placate his father. As if that will change anything. “He has lost both his rank and his freedom. Is that not punishment enough?”
The king scoffs. “Punishment enough for an officer of the King’s Guard guilty of such gross crimes? If he was let off so lightly, what kind of example would that set? How would the people trust their government to give them protection or justice if we let open treason go unpunished?”
Justice. Treason. Those words stoke the fire within John back to life. Alexander poses absolutely no threat to South Carolina. Who has been hurt by his supposed crimes? Only the king’s pride has suffered; that is nothing worth losing a life over. His father is stubborn and ill-tempered, but surely John can get him to see reason…
“And I am no fool, boy,” the king adds, taking a step back towards the door. “I know full well that his life sentence is void when I die. In ten, twenty years he would be free to corrupt you all over again. I will make certain he never, ever has that chance.”
John sees red.
A furious growl rips its way out of his chest and throat. He lunges across the room. He’s going to tear his father limb from limb with his bare hands, the flames inside him erupting in a violent inferno. His fist is a pace’s length from the king’s face—just a little bit closer—when John’s leg gets yanked from under him. He hits the floor with a breathless yelp as the air is knocked from his lungs. He’s painfully conscious, now, of the fetter still locked around his ankle. There’s enough chain for him to reach either the desk or the toilet from either side of a bed in the middle, but not the door. Not his father, whose expression is caught between disdain and amusement when John can finally raise his head to look properly.
“You bastard!” he shouts when he gets his breath back. “You heartless villain!” John is livid at himself for being addled enough to think he could reason with this demon. Because there is no reason here. His father doesn’t give a toss about justice or honor or whatever lofty ideal he feigns protecting. This isn’t about Alexander at all. It never was. “You’re going to kill him to break me, is that it? You know damn well that it was my plan! Lieutenant Hamilton tried to talk me out of it, but I refused to be swayed!”
“Then it’s you who has killed him.”
The accusation is a bolt straight to John’s heart. He feels it spreading cold, consuming guilt throughout his body.
He had known. He had known from the time his father burned the books Alexander gave him. From the time Alexander had hidden for an hour in the closet because the king had come to John’s chambers unexpectedly. From the first time John had showed Alexander his hand-drawn map and explained his plan for escape. This is defection, Alexander had grinned. His hands had been shaking.
Alexander had been in danger every moment he stayed by John’s side. And instead of letting him go or heeding his cautions, John had put the executioner’s blade right into his father’s hands.
John forces down the sobs that he knows will erode him away if he lets them loose. “I want to see him.” He hopes the demand sounds more forceful to his father’s ears than his own.
Another scoff. “Out of the question.”
“Then I’ll always remember him as he was,” John’s brain works frantically, desperately to weave a snare he prays will be strong enough. “Strong and beautiful and perfect. I’ll worship him as a martyr and one day, when I sit on the throne of South Carolina, I’ll rule in his memory instead of yours.”
John sees his father’s lip curl and eyes flash bright and knows he’s struck a weak point. “You filthy cur,” he snarls. “Fine! Go down there and tell him he’s to die in the morning. Bear the brunt of his fear and hatred for all I care! And since you’re so keen on seeing him, you will be witness at the execution tomorrow. And if you look away when the blade comes down, I’ll mount his head on a pike outside your window and that will be how you remember him.”
John trembles with equal parts fear and anger. The victory he’s won is so small—not nearly good enough—but his heart clings to it selfishly. So instead of striking back, he nods and keeps his mouth shut, not trusting himself to refrain from saying something that will change his father’s mind.
His father must know that the sudden obedience is feigned. His grunt of displeasure proves it. “You will be the next king of South Carolina, John. Neither you nor I can alter that, for all our wishing. You cannot afford to be weak and whimsical forever. I pray for your sake that this incident will be the end to your childishness.” He knocks for the door to be opened and mentions disinterestedly to the guards, “Prince John wishes to see the condemned prisoner,” before strutting away, casting the matter completely beyond his interest.
John seethes. He wouldn’t even give Alexander the dignity of his name.
One guard kneels to release the shackle from John’s ankle while the other watches him warily, hand on his sword, presumably to prevent John from doing something foolish. It’s laughable, that they think he has any power like this. When the cuff falls away, he jumps to his feet, paying no mind to the dull ache in his ankle or the swollen, discolored skin. None of that matters compared to seeing Alexander.
The guards lead him into the lower part of the fortress. It gets darker and damper. Colder. Alexander has always hated the cold.
John’s heart feels sick.
Finally, they arrive at a cell secured by two more soldiers. The guards all murmur among themselves before a tall, broad-shouldered one nods and unlocks the door with one of a dozen keys on his belt. “Be quick, Your Highness,” he whispers to John, who barely hears the warning as he pushes through them into the cell.
John realizes too late that the guard’s words were intended as a kindness, not a reprimand. It takes a shameful amount of courage not to turn and run from the room as soon as he enters.
Alexander is hanging from the ceiling by his wrists with not enough slack to rest completely flat-footed on the ground. His feet and calves are bare and he is completely naked from the waist up. Angry red lash marks wrap around his shoulders and torso, implying there are more such injuries on his back. It must be a trick of the light renders Alexander’s skin translucent, but John swears he can still see the man’s ribs. He doesn’t look like he’s been fed at all since their capture. His lips are tinged blue and he keeps shivering and moaning.
John never wanted to see his Alexander this way: not this picture of deprivation and misery. For a moment he regrets coming. But then Alexander looks up. His storm-colored eyes focus. His cracked lips part and a single raspy word falls out.
“John?”
He’s crossed the room in an instant. His hands fly to Alexander’s cheeks and he lets loose the torrent of sobs he’s kept dammed up. “Alexander…Alexander…Please, Alexander…My dearest Alexander...Please forgive me…For the love of god, forgive me!”
Alexander’s expression is blank for a moment. John wonders if he even understands. Then his eyes soften and the corners of his lips twitch in an attempted smile. “Let me stand on your feet awhile and I may consider it.”
John’s cheeks heat with shame. His hands circle Alexander’s thin waist, mindful of the lacerations, and lift him long enough to slip his feet under Alexander’s smaller ones. Once he’s shifted into a more secure and comfortable position, Alexander’s arms relax in their bonds and he lets out a sigh of relief. The tension in his upper body releases and he takes many full breaths, the first he must have had in a long time.
John’s heart aches. Alexander must be in so much pain, and he can do little to alleviate it.
“I am so sorry, Alexander,” he cannot stop himself from weeping. “I should have…I should have listened to you. You said the plan was too dangerous. If I had only listened to you…”
Alexander hushes him. “I was only worried about the danger to you, my prince. But you were still resolute, even after knowing the risks. You did not force me to do anything contrary to my own wishes. I wanted to go north with you.”
His words are meant to comfort, but they make John feel even more undeserving. “Would that we had never met,” he says mournfully to the ground. He waits for Alexander to concur, to rue the day he laid eyes on John, but the assent never comes. He finally looks up into Alexander’s face and startles at the look of deep hurt he finds. “No! That’s not what I…that is to say…Oh, damnit Alexander!” He learns forward and presses a kiss to Alexander’s lips.
The days he’d spent with Alexander—reading and writing, playing duets, sneaking into the town square to dance and debate with the locals, watching the golden sunrises and the crimson sunsets from atop the palace walls—were the happiest of his life. He would give away his kingdom and everything he possessed to live forever in a perfect, unchanging painting of those times. Tears fall from his eyes and slide down Alexander’s pale cheeks. “I only wish…If you had never met me, you would not be suffering so cruelly now! It’s my fault you are in such pain! My fault that you are going to…going to…”
He wishes he had looked away in that moment when Alexander understands. His lover is brilliant—brilliant enough to discern the unspeakable cause of John’s distress. Likely clever enough, also, to deduce the strategy behind it. It would be better for Alexander to scream and cry and curse his fate. The calm acceptance that settles into his eyes is infinitely worse.
“I want you to do something for me,” Alexander whispers. “A request…”
“Anything!” John croaks, his desire to comfort Alexander in any small way overtaking his grief in accepting a final request from his lover of twenty and six.
Alexander swallows, skin pulling taut around his Adam’s apple. He inhales through his nose and it sounds more like a whimper than a breath. But when he locks eyes with John, his expression is firm. Resolute. “I want you to forget me.”
John’s heart misses several beats. It would be a mercy if it stopped completely. He gapes at Alexander like a fish out of water. “How…how can you even ask that?” He could sooner cut off his limbs or forget how to talk. “No. No, no! I will not!”
“Please, John!” Alexander’s plea sounds high and strained. “I can go with peace to my fate if I know that you will live and be happy again.”
“I will never be—”
“You will.” Alexander manages to smile this time, though it keeps wavering. John thinks he sees something glittering in the corners of his beautiful eyes. “You can be happy again. You can love again. I know you can. But you have to let me go.” John makes a strangled sound; Alexander presses on, refusing to let John’s despair be the victor. He’s always hated losing. “When you leave this fortress, forget me. Never speak my name. Never visit my grave. Become king and make this world and true and good as you. You have to do it, for both of us.”
John shakes his head in anguish, curls and tears both flying in every direction. “I can’t. I can’t. My heart is yours. You are my heart! There will be nothing left of it when you are gone!”
“No.” Alexander’s voice is firm and there’s an edge to it. “You must not be him.”
John is stunned. He nearly has to ask Alexander what he means. But he understands; at least he thinks he does. He feels so humble and unprepared in the face of his lover’s grace. “I won’t.” He strokes Alexander’s cheek with the back of his hand. “I will be a good king. I swear it.”
“I know you will be…” Alexander’s lungs seize up and John lifts him so he can get an easier breath. When the air has cycled through his body Alexander pushes his lips forward, seeking another kiss. John quickly complies, molding his lips against Alexander’s and crafting a sweet, loving kiss. He threads his fingers through Alexander’s dark hair and wishes he could feel arms around him. He realizes that he will never embrace Alexander again and the tears begin anew.
Alexander hushes him again, nuzzling his nose against John’s cheek. “One day, you and I will meet in a better world, with all this pain forgotten and behind us. And then we will have nothing but joy.”
John weeps. He presses kisses all over Alexander’s face. On his forehead, his cheeks, his nose. He looks into Alexander’s eyes and imagines that he can see all the flecks of color that show themselves in the sunlight. “Forgive me,” he begs tearfully.
“There is nothing to forgive.” Suddenly Alexander’s strong expression falters and he shows a glimmer of fear for the first time. “Will you be there when I…when it happens?”
John nods emphatically. It will be agony, but he could not bear to let his Alexander die alone. “I will stay with you until the end.”
Alexander tenses for a moment, bites his lip. He takes a shuddering breath, then smiles. His cheeks look wet. “Then I need nothing more.”
It’s a kind lie. Alexander needs so much from John that was never his to give.
“Your Highness.” A firm hand grabs John by the shoulder. “You really must leave.” He pulls John towards the door, despite the prince’s struggles and protests. He just isn’t physically strong enough to fight him off.
“I love you!” he shouts to Alexander. He has to know; there’s nothing in the world more important than Alexander knowing. “I love you, Alexander!”
“I love you, my prince!” he hears just before the cell door closes shut. “I’ll love you forever!”
I like this subtle parallel between Kakeru and Shigure’s philosophies.
They both have a “tough love” strategy that favors people learning to stand on their own, as opposed to being coddled and protected. Neither one of them approves of “pity kindness” — being nice to someone because you feel bad for them or because helping them makes you feel less guilty.
Opposed to them stand Yuki and Kureno, who are gentle and protective by nature. Yuki acknowledges that, ideally, people should be able to defend themselves. At the same time, he believes that leaving people completely alone and isolated may end up crushing them.
I think Shigure needed a bit more of Yuki’s perspective and Kureno needed more of Kakeru’s. The combination of Shigure’s detachment and manipulation along with Kureno’s passive enablement contributed to Akito’s deteriorating mental state and terrible coping mechanisms.
It was heartbreaking to see how Kureno’s promise to Akito did more harm than good for both of them. It cost Kureno’s happiness and freedom and Akito’s growth as a person. They both ended up destroyed by the toxic kindness that Kakeru and Shigure warned about.
