The Family that Slays Together || Gen and Penelope
Gen had been up to her head in books from almost the instant they’d returned from the pocket dimension. She studied the way Penelope trained: relentlessly and with enthusiasm. And perhaps falling off the radar and into her books was fair play for all the weekends and late nights Penelope had put in while she was growing up. They were a talented family like that. Always vanishing at the oddest moments. Always reappearing just in time when they were need. And, occasionally, simply wanted for a break from their separate paces.
Penelope picked Gen up from headquarters and suggested they walk to the Red Dragon. It was only a block away and she was still getting used to being out in the night air again. The best of summer had faded while she’d been under her self-imposed solitude. All they had left was the slow, tripping spiral into autumn before winter took over. At least here it was drier.
It had been so long since she’d even been out to eat that the restaurant had changed their menu design. Everything was sleek and modern and pristinely styled. Business must be doing well. She ordered her usual, relieved that some things hadn’t changed. Even with her power restored and the dust settling from the latest crisis, the ground still felt shaky under her feet. She hadn’t had a good, proper night’s rest without interruption. When she hit the punching bag it didn’t move in quite the same way.
Her arms felt like her arms again. When she ran, her heart felt like her heart again. Whatever had been unhinged or ripped open had been fused back into place. She didn’t feel like she was hanging onto the world by a single thread. Drifting. Only one push away from breaking off. She’d been tethered back to safe harbor. So why didn’t the other little things feel right too?
Penelope shook the feeling off. It was...insecurity. Internal repercussions. After-effects. Expected, manageable things. She wasn’t invincible, after all. But she didn’t have to deal with every little thing on her mind all at once. Perhaps she’d decide to worry about it after she stopped flinching every time she looked at her bloody hand. What did it matter if this god-forsaken town had finally given her some scars? She was out with her daughter. She was making an effort to enjoy herself. That had to count as more important, surely. At least for this relatively early hour of the night.
“Darling, do you really have to get back straight away?” she asked Gen. They’d nibbled their way through most of their dishes by this time, but Penelope couldn’t help but feel that it was all over so fast. “We are still close by that coffee place we both like. Besides, you can’t expect me to let you go before I’ve heard the rest of the details on your latest project.” She took another bite of her meal, savoring carefully. If roots ever came up from the ground again, she might actually weep over the loss of this place. It was simply too good.
Morning came again, white and hot and terrible. Penelope stirred from her rest by her daughter's bedside with a groan. Another day, another nap. Another mind-splintering headache as she took in the blinding cleanness of it all. The shine of the machine that drummed out Gen's heart like a metronome. The wax polish on the floors. Shrill squeaking wheels on gurneys and trolleys rumbling close by. A stirring of sheets. Faint, muffled mumbling. Mumbling?
Penelope turned her head. She had seen the image so many times in her imagination she couldn't be sure she was truly seeing it now. Gen stirring to life, her dry lips starting to mouth at the air. But was it even real? Gen? Her little girl? "Gen...?"
The girl groaned, low and pained. Penelope had never imagined this part. In her dreams, Gen always woke with a simple flutter of her eyes, and sat up with that petulantly bright energy she sometimes had. This was an anguished girl, a girl still struggling to reach the surface. It was real. "M-mum?" she croaked.
"Yes!" She knew her. Somehow she already knew. "I'm here, I'm here, sweetheart. I'm here, you're okay." Every tear she had refused to shed over the past week came spilling over now. She fumbled for her daughter's hand and pressed her cold knuckles to her face, kissed them frantically. It wasn't enough to see her to be sure. She needed to feel the hands she'd held when they were twice as small, to watch as those wide green eyes swiveled around the room and squinted to make sense of the world. She needed to hear her speak again, just one more time. Just a little more.
"....water..."
She should have thought of that before. How stupid... She rushed to the pitcher and cup on the side table.
When she'd had her drink and wet her throat at last, Gen tried to speak again. "The demon..."
"Is long gone," Penelope replied. Escaped. The word still stung so badly in Penelope's chest, she couldn't even say it. And pheromones or no, she still hated Izel for forcing this hand on her. She placed all the blame and consequences on her little shoulders. All Penelope was guilty of was showing more bloody mercy, perhaps more than she should have. Would it really have been the worst thing in the world to leave Izel's fate to chance? She might have picked up the trail again if she'd just left her there. And for Gen, the person who she loved more than anyone else, she should have been able to do anything needed. "You're--you're going to be alright now," she made herself say. That was the important thing. That was what she wanted to focus on most.
Gen nodded and reached out for her mother.
"You had us worried there for a moment, my girl," Penelope whispered. She wrapped her up in her arms and let their heads rest against each other. "So very worried for a moment..."
"Don't cry, mum, I'm okay." Gen croaked back. "I am okay....aren't I?"
"Yes. It's just a matter of time before you're right as rain again, yes."
But now that Gen's mind had latched onto the idea, she couldn't drop it again so quickly. She puzzled over her thoughts before finally asking with firm, quiet seriousness, "How long was I asleep?"
"A while," her mother replied, shards of tears cracking her voice. "Some...some several days."
For any other girl, that might have been a miracle. But Gen had a slayer's power in her blood, and slayers didn't stay down like this. They just didn't.
Gen knew this well without reminding. Her eyes widened with awed disbelief. "Oh my god...it was...it was close, wasn't it?
More than you know. "Yes," Penelope admitted. "But you made it my darling." She ran her fingers through Gen's hair the way she had when she was younger, steady and soothing. Now if only she could make the horror of this go away so easily. But she could try. By heaven, she could try. "You were so strong, sweetheart. And just the right amount of lucky. It just so happens that Estela shares your blood type. She gave you some as soon as she heard."
"Thank her for me."
"Of course. And you'll be able to tell her yourself when she comes to see you, and when you come home--"
"I don't want to go back," Gen said, shaking her head. "Not to that one."
This surprised Penelope. She had thought that anything would be more appealing than this hospital bed, but apparently living within smelling distance of Keegan's apartment was worse. "Do you want to come back to the house with me?" She suggested.
"No."
"Where then, sweetheart?"
"I don't know, but I can't go home. Keegan is there. He let the demon hurt me. Izel too. I just--I don't want to see them. I don't want to see this town, I'm tired..." She was working herself into a tearful panic, all but spiralling into distress. Every thought Penelope might have had of getting the full story from her flew out the window. She just wanted to make it better. She hadn't been there when it happened, but she was here now. She could make it better. She could think of something.
"Shhh..." she soothed. Her arms wound tightly around her, grounding her in place. "You won't have to see them." And not just because she would throw them out herself if they so much as stepped out of the elevator on this floor. "We'll get you somewhere safe to rest. Wherever you like." She thought of the family they still had left, the regular summer holidays they weren't taking this time around. "Darling, this is the time of year we usually go see your Auntie Izz and Jeanne, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Gen murmured quietly.
"Would you like to go, perhaps? When you're well enough to travel? I know you've been wanting to visit each other anyway." Like a good girl, Gen was nearly always up to seeing one of her aunts. It just so happened that this time Penelope trusted Isabella and her crows more than Kate and her aggressive regime of human normality with her child’s well-being. Gen might want to talk about this with someone. She would need people who would understand, who would listen and give her good counsel.
"...I would like that," Gen decided. "Just for a little while."
"Just for a little while," Penelope agreed. "I'd miss you too much if it was any longer." She squeezed her daughter's hand affectionately. "Just don't come back with too many books."
For the first time since waking, Gen's face cracked a little grin. For a moment she was light and almost herself again. But just as quickly, the floodgates opened behind her smile. Water welled behind her shining eyes and she buried her face in her mother's shoulder. Some things couldn't be mended all at once, and others not at all. But Penelope was here now, and that meant something. It had to.
