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amiedala · 3 years

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SOMETHING MORE (the mandalorian x reader)

CHAPTER 30: Something More

RATING: Explicit (18+ ONLY!!!)

WARNINGS: sexual content & descriptions of violence

SUMMARY: “I’m ready,” Din repeats, more fortified. You nod, and then beam at him and the baby, pushing your shoulders back. “This is a lot,” he says, his voice still tinged slightly with anxiety, “are you sure?”

You step as close as you can, reaching your hand up to bring his face down to yours, tipping your foreheads together. “Din Djarin,” you whisper, “I’m sure. We were always meant for something more. And,” you continue, smiling, mouth an inch away from his, “I don’t scare easy.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: i am literally sitting here, emotional, crying as i write this. this has been the journey of a lifetime. i hope you all love this last chapter, and i hope it gives you that something more that Nova and Din found together. this last chapter, this grand finale, it's dedicated to every single one of you. thank you for being my readers, supporters, and friends. i hope this ending is everything you've dreamed. more notes, as always, are at the end. <3

A year ago, almost to the day, if you’ve counted correctly, you crash landed on Nevarro and the entirety of the rest of your life shifted somewhere huge and cosmic. You’ve always been a believer—in something bigger, something great, something more—but the second you met Din, and then the baby…well, everything seemed to just click into place. From Nevarro’s molten surface, to Bespin’s back alleys, to the excursions into the Mid Rim, to falling in love on Naator, to saying yes to the most romantic proposal on Yavin, to heartbreak and back on Dantooine, to all of the lives you’ve lost and the ones you’ve lived, all the way straight back into the Rebel Alliance, to losing your kid and your fiancé and then somehow coming out on top of it, ready to unite the remainder of the Jedi and the people of Mandalore and every single Rebel you know to pull off the greatest eradication of evil since the Death Star blew, you genuinely and sincerely can’t imagine your life being any other way.

And when you look over to the man you love, his helmet off, every contour of his gorgeous face in your full view, it makes your heart ache in your chest. Not in the way it did when you stumbled and drowned in the losses along the journey, not the way it did when he left you to protect you back on Dantooine, but in a way that feels just as huge and cosmic as the last year has been. You know war is on the horizon. You know there’s so many battles out there left to fight, and to hopefully win. You’ve come a hell of a way since being bounty hunter and babysitter, respectively. And all of it, every second, you think was worth it to get to this moment.

Because you’re not only about to be the wife of the king of Mandalore, you’re not only about to spearhead an entirely revitalized Rebel Alliance to take down the evil the Empire left over in the shadows, but you’re about to do all of it after meeting Luke Skywalker. And there’s something just as starry and explosive about your old life meeting your new one, just as bright, just as shiny.

Din’s quiet. You’re buzzing with adrenaline and anxiety and everything in between, but you’re trying to stay calm. Mandalore is a serene orb on the horizon, and you watch it through the blinking mirrors on Kicker’s dashboard as you slowly coast through the stars. Everything out here, when you’re not in warp, feels like everything is drawing towards something more. Not an ending. Never an ending. But there’s something poignant in each dazzling ball of gaseous light, as if this journey is a transformation.

“Where’s your head?” Din asks, lowly, and the spark in his voice is enough to break you out of your reverie.

“On you,” you answer, immediately, flashing a wide smile towards him, “as always, my big brave Mand’alor boyfriend.”

Din winces, just a little, but you can see the small beginnings of a smile etched into his face, a reflection of yours. “That one doesn’t seem as catchy.”

You laugh, throwing your head back, your loose hair dancing down your spine. You feel the way his eyes roam over you—not just hungry, not just with desperation—but with ease. So much has changed, and yet this, right here, the two of you in the cockpit, heading into the stars, this is so familiar you could do it in your sleep.

“Give me time,” you answer, finally, grinning back over at him, “I’ll come up with something better.”

Din’s quiet, and you turn your attention back to the space around you. It’s quiet out here. Peaceful, even though so much of the galaxy is rife with stress and there’s evil lurking out there in the shadows you and the rest of the team have to yank back into the light. And you know this is just the beginning—that the last time the Empire won, it took almost twenty full years to defeat them, and even longer to put anything right—but knowing you’re moving forward, you’re secretly married with the leader of a planet, you have an entire squadron of people caught from all haphazard places in the galaxy, and that your family’s going to be reunited in a matter of days, feels like you’re coming home in a way you haven’t felt in years.

“Nova,” Din starts, and then falls back into his silence. You glance back at him. The muted interior of Kicker reflects back onto the beskar, makes it look like it’s camouflaged. If it were anyone else, if you didn’t know him as intently as you do, you’d be on edge with Din disappearing into the ship. But you can feel his steady heartbeat, you know he’s right behind you, and, more than anything, he’s yours. Nothing about him scares you. Not even a little bit. Not even at all. “Do—do you really think we can pull this off?”

You sigh, flicking the switch so Kicker goes into autopilot, and then you slowly turn around him in your chair so you can face Din in yours. “Yes,” you say, gently, conviction seeping into your voice. “Yes, I think we can pull this off. You’re going to be the best leader Mandalore’s ever had, I’m going to work with the Alliance, we’re going to get our kid back, and we’re going to eradicate the First Order, whoever and wherever they are. We’re going to pull it all off, Din,” you continue, earnestly, leaning forward in your seat, holding his gorgeous gaze. “It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be quick. But we’re going to do it.”

Din holds your eyes. There’s something strange behind his own. “How are you so optimistic, even after everything?”

You blink, hand finding the Rebel insignia around your neck, fingers pressing down against the smoothness of the metal. You swallow. It holds heavier against your throat than your mother’s did, but something about the beskar carving makes it feel totally indestructible. A small beacon of fortification. Something to bring you out to sea and back to shore again. “Like I told Gideon,” you say, finally, “I have hope.”

He’s quiet. You are, too. Eventually, Din leans forward, hand linking with yours, meeting you right in the middle. “Don’t lose that.”

You shoot a small, guarded smile back at him. “I held onto it even when I thought you abandoned me back on Dantooine. I think I can keep this part of me alive forever, and I think it’s strong enough to keep it alive in you, too.”

Din stares at you. “I need you to know,” he starts, voice low and urgent, “that I’m so sorry. For leaving you. For not including you in my decisions. For—” he cuts himself off, inhaling sharply, “for breaking your trust. I messed up. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to fix it. All I can promise you,” he continues, hand tightening its grip in yours, “is that I’m never going to do it again.”

You look at him. There’s still that burning pyre in your chest, that fear that he’s going to disappear and not come back, that some sort of fate will lightning strike between the two of you, but the anger that lived there for so long has completely dissipated. You love him. You take a shaky breath, holding up your left hand. The beskar encircling your ring finger glints in Kicker’s low light. “I believe you,” you say, finally, laying it all bare. You inhale, biting down on your lower lip. “That’s what this is all about,” you continue, wriggling your fingers, “right? I know you,” you say, leaning closer, hair falling over your shoulder. His eyes track the movement of it, free, unencumbered. “I love you,” you continue, nodding slightly. “And I trust you. So I believe you.”

Din inhales. “Nova,” he starts, “do—do you ever think you’ll forgive me for leaving you back on Dantooine—”

And then he’s cut off, because Kicker starts screaming. It’s not the same warbled screech that haunted the comm back on Khubeaie, not that desperate kind of wailing. She’s warning you, you realize, as you let your hand drop out of Din’s and whirl back around to man the controls yourself. Din reacts almost completely in sync, but you saw the spark of ache in his eyes before he finished asking his question. Your stomach flips over.

Something’s failing. You know that. You’re not sure why, but the ship starts flickering and sinking, even when you’re supposedly moving on a full fuel tank, and even while you know you fixed all the major issues before you left Mandalore. Bo-Katan had even given the ship a very begrudging once-over, and you know her seal of approval is very hard to come by. Frustrated, you press all the right buttons, trying to calculate what exactly the issue is.

Your comm blinks. “Come in,” a voice rings, and for a second, everything floods into fight-or-flight. You’re running completely on adrenaline, still high from saying your wedding vows the night before, and you haven’t had more than one consecutive night of good sleep in months. Quickly, you flash your eyes on Din. “Come in,” the voice on the other end of the line says again, and it’s urgent enough for you to raise your wrist to your mouth, make you speak.

“Who am I speaking to—”

“Your ship’s haunted.”

You stare into the comm, back at Din, and then into your comm again, as if any of this will somehow crystallize the absolute nonsense that’s ringing in your ears. “What?” you say, still thinking you’re losing it, and then, before you can do anything else, you hear blaring on the other line.

“Not haunted,” another voice says, tiredly, and it’s not until Slave I pops out of warp that you realize you’re talking to Boba and Fennec. “Ships don’t get haunted,” she continues, “you just didn’t fix your disabled comm system when we first scrambled your signal. That’s the issue.”

You squint. You can’t see her, of course, everything about the ship is covered in tinted windows, but you want Fennec Shand to feel the full force of your disapproval and confusion. “You scrambled my signal? But that was days before—”

“Had to get a hold of you somehow,” the other voice says, and you exhale, shaking your head. “That was her doing. Not mine. The ship’s comm system is, for lack of a better term, haunted. Land on this planet.”

“We have to go to Hoth,” you protest, halfheartedly. “That was the plan.”

You can hear the wry smile in Boba Fett’s voice. “Oh, they won’t like me on Hoth, Rebel.”

You raise your eyebrow over at Din. By the way his helmet’s cocked, you know he’s laughing under there. “Too bad,” you shoot back, flipping switches on the dashboard as Din’s plugging in the coordinates to the ice giant nearby, “they’re gonna have to deal with it, because you’re with me.”

With a relatively boring flight and endless grumbling from Boba Fett, the two of your ships touch down on Hoth. It makes your stomach flip over. Everything in you is still buzzing—all that emotional resonance, all that fluttery anxiety of standing on the precipice of something more—and you can barely hear Din as he slips his helmet back on and gestures you to slide down the ladder after him. You feel alive. Dazzlingly, excitedly so.

Everyone complains about the cold. It assaults all of you the second the gangplanks are lowered, but there’s something so warm inside of you that you barely feel the bite of the chill. You flash a big smile at Wedge and the various members of the New Rogue Squadron as they greet you at the thermalock door, the warm breeze that greets you the second you step into the light downright summery compared to the ice.

“Did you talk to Luke?” Wedge asks, his voice low and complicated, as he leads your ragtag group to the control room. You don’t know why he’s whispering, but you follow suit.

“All I got from his last hologram,” you sigh, rubbing your icy fingers together, “is that he wants to see me in person.”

Wedge raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

You glance back over at him, eyebrows furrowed down the middle. “Yeah. Was that not what he told you?”

Wedge chews on his bottom lip. “He didn’t really say much of anything,” he admits as you round the last corner, “just that he needed to speak with you, as soon as possible, and that it was important. I’m not used to him being so secretive.”

You shoot him a small smile. “Is that unlike him?”

Wedge’s expression is wry, but his eyes sparkle. “The Luke Skywalker I know could talk to an empty moon for years before he realized there’s no one talking back.”

A grin breaks across your face. As Wedge walks around to his usual command spot on the other side of the holotable, you bite back your smile and stand at yours, feeling a very strange sense of pride as your unlikely team lines up behind you. Din is fully armored, but the set of his shoulders is much more relaxed than the last time he was there. Boba, especially with his newly refurbished armor, sticks out like a sore thumb. The generals across from you are defensive, not taking their eyes off of him for a second. Fennec doesn’t look like she belongs, either, but you have a very strong feeling that Fennec Shand doesn’t belong to anything except the chaos she craves. Still, there’s a determined set to her face that shows you she’s on your side. Mixed in with the rest of the semicircle are Cara and Karga, who don’t exactly blend in, but wear the same proverbial colors of the rest of the people at the table.

“New Rogue Squadron,” Wedge starts, his eyes dancing all over everyone stationed at the holotable, “meet our newcomers.”

“We’ve met,” one general says, disapprovingly, looking Boba Fett up and down.

Wedge lets Boba step forward menacingly for exactly two seconds before he steps forward, just an inch, and retakes command. “Refamiliarize yourself, then. We’re all on the same side here. We are,” he cuts himself off, lowering his voice, looking straight at you, “all on the same side here, right?”

You nod. “Who here wants the Empire eradicated for good?” Everyone’s hands go up. You cross your arms over your chest, raising an eyebrow at Fennec, the only one in the room that doesn’t have her hand in the air. “Fennec?”

She looks back at you, her eyes alive, a reflecting pool. “I like to be on the winning team.”

“Well,” you level, “here, you certainly are.”

She cracks a grin, and then her hand extends in a perfect line above her head. “I have a feeling,” she says, tongue snaking out and wetting her bottom lip, “that you don’t break promises often.”

“She doesn’t,” Din chimes in from behind you. You feel the heat rush to your cheeks, and you look back at Wedge, turning back over command.

“Alright then,” Wedge says, leaning forward, bracing each hand on the glimmering edge of the table, “let’s get started.”

The two of you talk first. You recount a very abridged version of the events, starting from when you and Din left Hoth last, all the way up to everything that happened on Mandalore. You glaze over the more unsavory bits back on Cantonica, only wincing slightly when you smooth over the fight in the back alley, the way that you were close to death. You can still smell that creep’s breath if you focus too hard on the memory, so you think instead of the way Din plunged the Darksaber into his chest. You bridge the gap by introducing Cara and Karga to the rest of the group huddled around the table, talking about your reunion on Nevarro, and how they were tracking down ex-convicts and members in the Guild, respectively, to uncover any new information on the Order. You finish, warily, with Gideon’s final statements, how he promised you the Order was going to come and take anyone with power they could manipulate for their own, how his eyes glinted when he told you that all Jedi would either be eradicated or turned into weapons. Finally, you close with his death, Bo-Katan’s measured rage, the battle over the Darksaber that chose Din again and made both of you basically royalty. Wedge’s face shifts as you tell him the last bit, your eyes very focused on his and not anyone else’s. You know that being associated with the current Mand’alor puts even more of a target on your back than it did when you were simply an exiled Rebel and bounty hunter, but you keep your chin up. You don’t care about the royalty aspect of it, don’t love the idea of being in charge of other people, especially after fighting for so long to be your own autonomous being. But you like the idea that Din is the rightful leader, and there’s not a chance in hell anyone—especially not the First Order—is going to take that from him.

You turn it over to Wedge, who’s still looking strangely at you. It’s not judgment. It’s not questioning. It takes about halfway through his opening remarks for you to classify it as pride. You step back as he talks, hiding a small smile.

“We have our work cut out for us,” he sighs, and you tune back in. “None of this is going to be easy. I’m going to ask you all one last time,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, a flurry of orange against the stark, cool interior of the base, “if you want out, this is where you leave. No hard feelings. But it needs to be now.”

No one moves an inch. Not a single general. Not Cara or Karga. Not Boba or Fennec, who both seem to be much more involved with this idea than they showed at first glance. Behind you, Din steps just an inch closer, and you feel your body filling up with warmth in his close proximity.

“That’s what I thought,” Wedge says, that smile of pride etched into his face again. “Here’s what we’ve found out. There isn’t a lot of information on anything related to the empire left, save for libraries and research archives, and of course, the lived experiences of everyone in this room,” He pauses, bringing up an image on the holotable. You see the flickering images of both Death Stars, and you hide a small shiver at how impending and filled with doom they look, even on this imitation of a screen. “We knocked both of these out,” Wedge continues, pointing at the rotating stars. “We made extra care to do it the second time,” he says, gesturing at the bigger and more reinforced of the two, “and then we tried to eradicate every single building plan the Empire had stashed away. I can’t promise that schematics didn’t survive, because I think there were parts of their regime that were a lot smarter than others. But we’ve made it our major effort over the last few years to put in as many annoying and massive roadblocks as we possibly can so that nothing can rise from the ashes. And yet,” he sighs, bringing up an image of Gideon on the screen, “this Order survived.”

“What makes you think they didn’t start after the Empire was eradicated?” Din asks, which causes more of the generals to mutter to one another.

“Because—” Wedge starts.

“I’ve seen this before,” you interrupt, gently. “Almost everyone associated with the Alliance did, too. I wasn’t alive when Darth Vader rose to power, but it didn’t just happen out of nowhere. It was calculated. It was planned. There was a large league of evil hiding under the surface, they were just good at hiding it. We wouldn’t have any idea that the Order exists now, except everyone we’ve fought has huge egos and can’t stop shouting it from the rooftops.” You glance back at Wedge. “I’m sorry. I cut you off.”

“You hit the nail on the head,” Wedge says, approvingly, giving you a quick nod. “With Gideon dead, it’s easy to think that most of the evil that’s terrorized the Outer Rim is gone, or—well, at least dormant. But that’s not the truth. They’re strategic in their darkness because they won’t survive without it.”

“Do we know exactly who we’re dealing with?” Cara asks, stepping forward. You watch as her strong, full figure fills the frame of the holotable. Everyone’s eyes are on her. “With Gideon dead, we don’t have much to go on.”

“I know,” you agree tiredly, dragging a hand over your face. “That—that was not the plan. But in that moment, it was what had to be done,” you amend, chancing a look back at Din. “No. There’s no new figurehead that we know of. From my experience—our experience—though, they wanted Grogu and me for a reason. It wasn’t to use our Force sensitivity as a weapon, like we had originally thought. They experimented on the baby when they took him,” you say, voice shaking a little, “and extracted something from his blood. Midichlorians. I don’t know, exactly, what they are or how they work. I’m a little new to the Jedi thing. But I know they have something to do with how we harness our energy, whatever it is that makes the Force up. Back on Cantonica, the people who tried to grab us insinuated using us—or our power—as weapons wasn’t their current mission, but it would be. And then when we spoke to Gideon back on Mandalore, he said the same thing. But his motivation may not have been the same.” You swallow. “He was scared,” you say, slowly. “Of them. The First Order. He admitted it. He was never in charge. He was a pawn, the same way they want to make us.” You stare at his rotating image on the table, tinted blue. You hate it. Even in this mugshot, he looks smug. It’s an expression that you know won’t go away for a long time after his death. “Whatever’s out there,” you finish, quiet, “it’s big, and it’s coming. We need to be ready. Because when it does, we’re going to have to give them everything we’ve got.”

“Well said,” Wedge says, looking around the room. “Anyone else got an update?”

A few of the other members of the Alliance step forward, confirming and denying a flurry of half-baked theories. Cara fills the rest of you in on what she’s learned from the people that are out of the prison system, which is really a whole lot of nothing. Most of the more dangerous criminals with the heinous crimes are still in prison, and those who have gotten out want to life a quiet, peaceful life. She talks about the refinery explosion back on Morak, the way she knows a few spots of Empire sympathizers, but other than surface-level information, she hasn’t gotten deep into any of her contacts. Karga and the Guild is the same. You can feel the way Din’s eyes are boring into him, the measured way he’s scrutinizing his face. Karga’s slippery, but he’s never posed a real threat, and there’s a kindness to him you wouldn’t expect in a bounty hunter.

Then again, you just secretly married one of the most dangerous bounty hunters in the galaxy, and under all that beskar, there’s nothing but a heart of gold.

You smile, hiding the grin under guise of your hand stroking your lip. As if he can read your mind, Din steps so that the plate of beskar on his thigh bumps up against the back of yours. Even through your pants, you can feel how cold it is, how unyielding. How different it is than the man who wears it. The rest of the Alliance turn in small bits and pieces of information. Wedge uses the holotable to input everything, to keep as both map and record. You stare as it projects more and more of blue data. If you unfocus your eyes, it looks like stars.

Eventually, the conversation dies down. “One more time,” Wedge calls out, “do we have anything else to update, or shall we divide and conquer before our next rendezvous?”

Again, no one speaks. The slowly cartographed map projecting up from the table stands as proof that even without a ton of information, you’re starting a long and valiant fight. You feel fortified on that alone. Wedge dismisses everyone, and then you hear a modulated voice behind you.

“Actually,” Din says, his voice rough through the modulator, “I have something.”

Wedge raises his eyebrow, nodding to encourage Din to continue.

“I…” he starts tiredly, sighing, “am the ruler of Mandalore now. I didn’t want it, nor did I ever ask for it, but it’s a responsibility I have to deal with. But I made a promise to Nova,” he continues, knocking his knee slightly against yours. To the outside eye, it doesn’t look like he’s moved at all, but you know it happened. “And I’m going to follow her. I’m in this fight as much as the rest of you are, now, and that’s not changing. So, I would like to move the Rebel base to Mandalore,” Din finishes, finally, to a mixed crowd.

“Mandalore,” the older general says, gruffly, “is not ours to claim. They don’t take kindly to strangers of our kind.”

“I know that’s the history,” Din answers evenly, “but it’s going to be different now. This…this First Order, they don’t seem to only be after Rebels. If we’re not careful and strategic about the way we fight back, they might slip through the cracks. I think cracking down on another fascist regime is something that the Rebels and the people of Mandalore could agree on.”

“I beg to differ,” Wedge says, but his voice is light. “Listen, we’ve been base-hopping since before the first Death Star was blown to bits. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s not a ton of us left. I don’t know if relocation is the smartest idea, not right now.”

You can feel Din’s anger underneath the suit. It’s not directed at Wedge, but the complication of accidentally becoming the ruler of an entire planet isn’t easily dissolved.

“What if we don’t move the base?” you step in. “What if we kept the order of operations on Hoth, but we have a small squadron of people who work out of Mandalore so we keep in touch? The commute is short,” you continue, bringing up the distance between the two planets on the table, “and scattering our protection across the Outer Rim is probably smart, anyway.” You look from Din to Wedge. Everyone else is quiet. “None of this is ideal,” you press on, slightly worried about the tension floating up around everyone in the room, “but I think we’ve more than proven that we’re on the same team, and that we’re going to fight like hell. If the First Order emerges from more than just these shadows,” you continue, chancing a glance around the rest of the room, “then we revaluate where the base is. But right now, I think we should focus on communication instead of relocation.”

“Fine by me,” Wedge answers, easily, and you feel the rest of the anxiety in the room lessen. “Does that work for you?”

Din turns to you. You nod, just once, pleading through your eyes alone. Finally, he gives a swift nod, agreeing without saying a word of contempt or assurance. You smile over at Wedge, nodding again.

“Then the rest of you are dismissed,” Wedge says, with a note of finality. Murmurs fill the room as people start flowing outside of the doors. He looks over at Boba, who, like Cara, Fennec, and Karga, haven’t moved an inch. “You’re really in this?” There’s something complicated in his voice. You can’t quite place it. “You’re not going to try to sabotage us? Or take any of us out?”

Boba steps forward. If you weren’t well-trained in Mandalorian body language, you’d take his commanding presence as a threat. Wedge bends his knees a little, lifting his chin. “I’m not a bounty hunter anymore,” he answers, voice low and smooth. “I’m just a simple man, trying to make his own way in this galaxy.”

You can tell from Wedge’s expression that he doesn’t trust a single word out of Boba Fett’s mouth. “If you won’t cause any harm to us,” he continues, “can you promise me that you’d say the same for Luke Skywalker?”

Boba crosses his arms. Wedge stands taller. “I want to knock Skywalker into that Sarlacc pit and come out in one piece,” he says, and even though his voice is even, it’s not filled with the malice it was when you first met him on Khubeaie. “I don’t care if he lives or dies. I just assume that he’s integral to this whole…eradication of the First Order. So until they’re dead and gone, I won’t touch a pretty blonde hair on his head. Afterward?” He pauses, as if to seriously ponder it. “I can’t promise you what I’ll do next.”

Wedge regards him. Because you’ve known him practically your whole life, you can see his tell of fear. It lives on, like a little flame beyond the blackness in his eyes. Finally, he nods. “That’s fair.”

Boba nods, relaxes his stance. He turns to you. “We’ll keep searching,” he promises, and you flash him a quick smile. Fennec nods, confirming his words. “We do still have unfinished business on Tatooine. But send us a hologram when you’re about to be coronated,” he continues, turning to Din. You can hear the wry humor hidden in his voice, “I want to see the look on the Kryze girl’s face when you’re officially Mand’alor.”

You want to placate Din by telling Boba that they’ve firmly agreed to a truce, but Din doesn’t rush to explain any of this to the other Mandalorian. “You got it,” he says, easily, and then the two of them are gone, heading back to where Slave I is parked. You look over at Cara, whose arms are still exposed in this icy room. She’s not even shivering. You think maybe she’s the only person in the galaxy who could literally intimidate cold and dissuade it from touching her. Karga, on the other hand, is practically turning blue. He’s swaddled up in furs and a very fancy jacket, and yet, you can hear his teeth chattering. “Back to Nevarro for us,” he says, his voice a lot more strained than usual. “We’ll keep looking, too. I know this isn’t going to be easy,” he continues, turning his gaze to you, “but we don’t give up.”

“Ever,” Cara enunciates, knocking her shoulder into Din’s, giving your hand a quick squeeze. “Really. You’re in good hands,” she finishes, dropping her voice an octave, glancing up at Din.

“Oh,” you say, grinning brazenly, “I know.”

She flashes you another smile before the two of them depart the briefing room, too, and you’re left with Din and Wedge. You look back at your old friend, and you still see that vaguely disguised concern in his eyes. For a few moments, no one speaks. You exhale through your mouth and watch as the cold lights it up into frozen air.

“What did Luke say?” Wedge asks again. His voice is urgent. “When he sent you that second hologram?”

You look at him, eyebrows furrowed. “He just—he told me that he needed to speak with me, and that when I saw you next, you’d give me the coordinates of where to meet him. That’s it.” Wedge inhales, his breath slightly shaky. “Wedge, what—?”

“There’s something wrong with him,” Wedge finally says. “There’s this…sadness to him, now, this quiet. When I first met Luke, he talked my ear off for three days before I was able to get a word in edgewise. He whined. He was oppositional. More than anything, he had the biggest heart of almost anyone else I’ve ever known.” His eyes meet yours. “You give him a run for his money, though, rebel girl. We—the last time I was…with him,” he continues, guarded. You have a feeling that he’s intentionally censoring himself, but you don’t push it. You know the way his face lights up whenever Luke is mentioned. And you haven’t met him yet, but you’d be more than willing to bet that Luke feels the same away about Wedge. “The last time we were together,” Wedge continues, “he…he told me that he was going to try and rebuild the Jedi Order, that he wanted to locate all of the sacred texts and find anyone else out there. To create a sense of community. Then he basically disappeared. I had to get to him through Leia, which wasn’t an easy feat, either, and she finally told me he was off on a planet none of us had never heard of before.” Wedge sighs. Something in you sparked when he mentioned Leia, and you’re trying your very hardest to keep your cool, because if there’s anyone in the Alliance you hold in higher regard than Luke Skywalker, it’s his twin sister. “When he contacted me again, he just seemed…heavy. Haunted,” Wedge amends, “and urgent. Like he’s running out of time.”

You stare at Wedge until his eyes find yours again. “I’ll help him,” you say, gently, stepping forward. “I don’t know what he wants from me. I only know him from stories. But whatever it is, I’m here to help. Okay?”

Wedge sighs. “Okay.” He looks back between you and Din, and then the small, easy smile he regularly sports flits across his face. “He’s on Ahch-To. In the Unknown Regions. He wants you to meet him there, and he wants the two of you to come alone.”

“That,” Din finally says, breaking his silence, “will not be a problem.”

Wedge smiles up at him, too. “I like you,” he says, gently slapping Din’s forearm. “Stay alive and don’t let this one go, Mandalorian.”

“Trust me,” Din assures him, as Wedge pulls the data drive from the holotable so that the two of you can keep a copy of everything in your journey to Luke and back to Mandalore, “those are my two top priorities.”

Hoth is cold. Space is colder. Usually, by the time you’re out in the stars, it’s impossible to feel empty and chilled, but you’re hurtling through warp to the Unknown Regions, and there’s something so dark and desolate about this corner of the galaxy. It’s ancient, from what you can tell, and largely abandoned. Something here is bringing you an odd sense of quiet, but mostly, you feel that haunted, desperate feeling associated with the lurking, looming threat of the First Order, and you’re trying your best to ignore it.

Din rises up out of his seat and stands beside you. He dangles both of his hands into your line of sight, and you gently undo his gloves, letting them drop to the floor. His fingers slip under the fabric of your shirt and start pressing on where the ache has blossomed and hardened. “You carry all of your stress here,” he murmurs, digging his thumbs into the knots that line your shoulders.

“Hard to feel stressed,” you hum happily, “when you’re doing this.”

He tips your head back. You stare upside down into the visor, and then his hands disappear from your shoulders to pull the helmet off. You hide your small sigh under the noise of the hiss that his mask makes, and when you’re face to face, something kickstarts like a drum in your chest.

You’ll never get tired of seeing Din’s face. Not now, not ever. It’s complicated and etched with so much worry, but when he looks at you, everything has quieted. It’s just the two of you, the crush of space, and the promise of being a real family on the horizon. It makes everything in you swell and burst like a eager tide against the shoreline. “I love you,” you whisper, and he strokes his thumb over your cheek.

He smiles. It’s such a rare thing, that genuine smile. It shines on long after it’s left his face. “Ni kar’tayl su,” he agrees, and then, so softly you may have imagined it, “Novalise.”

When he comes in for a kiss, he spins your chair around so fast that you don’t even have enough air in your legs. He kneels down so that his face is level with yours, knocking his forehead gently against his. You wrap both of your arms up and around his neck, staring into his deep, brown, expressive eyes as he holds both of your cheeks with the palms of his large hands, breathing in his scent of cleanness and metal and smoke and, still, cinnamon.

“Do you remember,” he starts, his voice thick, “when we…we first met, and I asked you how old you were?”

You nod, quietly, feeling his hair brush up against yours. “Yeah,” you say, softly. You can feel your heart beating quickly in the left side of your chest.

“That,” Din sighs, “was a year ago today.”

You look up at him, startled. “You counted?”

He nods, still with his forehead against yours. “You’re not twenty-five anymore,” he says, quietly, “and I didn’t get you a birthday gift.”

You smile, pulling away, only slightly, so you can see his eyes. “We have been a little busy,” you say, grinning. “I think I can forgive you on that one.”

He meets your gaze, low and intense. “Can you?” Din asks, and as you’re registering the weight of the words of forgiveness, he’s taking off your pants. There’s something desperate and hungry in his eyes as he works them off of you, dragging his bare hands up and over your thighs. You gasp with the lightness of his touch, and when his mouth moves up in between your legs, you think his tongue can work miracles. Huge ones. Devastating ones. You’re pretty sure Din’s mouth alone could bring about galaxy-wide peace, except you don’t want it anywhere except for buried in your pussy.

You let out a strangled moan, low and wet, and right as his tongue starts furiously circling your clit, Kicker starts fucking hollering.

You could kill her. You love her, the home you’ve made in her, how she’s kept you safe, but right now, if ships could be strangled, you would absolutely throttle her. Sighing, you wrench your pants back up over your hips.

“I’m not done,” Din warns, and the image of him wiping the slick off of his lips replays in the back of your mind as you try to yank your attention back to your screeching ship.

“What’s wrong?” you mutter, checking through the laundry list of flips and switches and buttons, trying to figure out why Kicker’s on high alert. It takes a second, but then you see it—black TIE fighters, wicked and sharp, arachnid and blending into the crush of space. “Shit,” you murmur under your breath, strapping yourself back in. Before you can warn Din to do the same, lightning-quick, he bolts his safety belt. You crack your neck back and forth, shaking your fingers free of the cold cabin interior and any leftover jitters you’re still feeling from Din’s mouth on you.

“Where did they come from?” Din asks, and you recognize that his voice is modulated, his helmet back on in a flash. “We’re in the middle of nowhere—”

“Warp,” you call back, as the first one fires. It’s not their stereotypical light blast—something about it is just as dark and insidious as their ships are. You escape it, but narrowly, and you yank Kicker up to evade the shot. “Every time. Every single time. How the hell,” you call back at him, firing off a few rounds of your own, “do they find us this easily?”

“Well,” Din answers, over the noise, “your ship isn’t exactly the most inconspicuous, even with the modifications—”

“Hold on,” you interrupt, barrel rolling over on yourself, evading another blast. It careens into some debris of a nearby asteroid field, and you wince as it collides. “Do you think it’s because they know that Gideon’s dead?” The word feels heavy in your mouth. You gulp, setting everything to stun, dropping some of your height so that you can avoid the new shots they’re volleying at you.

“How could they?” Din yells back, and then a blast hits Kicker. You scream with the impact, loud and uncontrolled, as it drains your shields. You can’t tell how bad the damage is, but nothing is burning or smoking, even though Kicker’s screeching at you again. You’re almost positive she’s a sentient being, at this point, because she’s always so humanoid in her reactions. You grunt, hauling the ship as far right as you can get, blasting one of the three fighters with your own artillery. “I’m going to arm the cannon,” Din says, and you don’t have time to tell him that the defense system at the back of Kicker is a mess of wires and buttons, and that you’re not even sure if the rear artillery works, before he’s gone in a flash.

It turns out, the rear artillery does work. It’s no masterclass in shooting, but Din knows his way around his weapons, even ones he’s never used before. You’re exhausted, but you yank Kicker up and over, avoiding another blast. You stare at the fighters as they whiz around you. There’s a darkness to them that you don’t entirely understand, but when they start shooting again, you’ve had enough. You hate killing. You still carry the tally marks of the lives you’ve ended deep inside your chest. You know all of them by heart. But you’re willing to let these people take a few punches with Kicker’s best cannons, because you’ve had enough of them trying to take everything you love away from you for what feels like the millionth time.

“Up!” Din yells from the back of the ship, and you take every single atom of strength you have last in your body to wrench all of the thrusters upward, careening Kicker dizzily into the mess of the stars above. The fighters follow you, lightning quick. Din shoots, hard and heavy, with what feels like all the ammo left on the ship, but then you’re out and the one right on your tail shoots another blast. Everything in Kicker shakes, screams, and then slowly starts to power down. You can feel her sliding into sleep.

“Not like this,” you mutter, furious, flipping every switch you can think of, trying to make it the right way up so you can recalibrate your defense, if you have any left, or at least punch in new coordinates so you won’t die out here, lost in the crush of space. That same, awful feeling that filled you when you crash landed on Dagobah is running through you again. The last thing you think before you start moving is how horrible and lonely your parents’ deaths must have been when they were spinning to their terrible, fiery end.

The fighter closest to you fires again. You unbuckle. If you’re going to die like that, out here in the middle of nowhere in the Outer Rim, you’re going to get to your secret husband first and you’re going to tell him that you love him, that you don’t want to die alone, and that after this, after everything, of course you forgive him.

But you don’t have a chance. You slide across the floor, and scramble towards the ladder, and you can hear the uncharacteristic noise coming from Din down in the hull, and then everything quiets. It’s not possible. It can’t be.

A single X-wing comes out of nowhere. You stop your struggle to get downstairs. You forget everything else. Your jaw drops as your eyes track the ship. You know it before you see him. You know it because literally everything in you is shaking and screaming, every single last part of you that harnesses the Force is kaleidoscoping in the shape of Luke Skywalker, but you watch, stunned into complete silence, as he delivers three blasts, knocking each fighter down into space. You watch their trails dizzy down to nothing as everything filters back in. Din hurls himself up the ladder, promptly crashes into you, and then you’re both tangled up on the floor together.

“Nova,” Din mutters.

“That’s—” you stop, blinking, trying to take the image in, still, everything locked on the X-Wing you can see out of the starboard window, jabbing at the shape of his ship with a shaky finger, “that’s—Luke Skywalker—”

“Kicker is failing,” Din says, patiently, and then, not nearly as patiently, he grabs your face. “Hey! You either need to get her down on the nearest planet or I will, but either way, I’m not dying out here.”

“Not dying. Right,” you say, dazed, and then the adrenaline kicks back in. “Um—” you get up, heaving yourself back to a standing position with all the weight you can on the heels of your hands. You throw yourself back into the pilot’s chair. Kicker is screaming. Your comm blinks, and you raise it, still not entirely aware of what you’re doing. “Hello?”

“You need to help me ground your starfighter,” the voice warbles across the intercom, and you choke back a sob. It’s him. It’s him. You have absolutely no idea what he means, but General Luke Skywalker is talking to you. “Your kid told me he did it before.”

You squint. “My kid—?”

And then, like the sound of a million tiny, glorious bells ringing all at once, you hear Grogu’s laugh. You choke back a sob. Din’s hand finds your knee, clenches it in something that feels an awful lot like relief.

“It’s too big for us to do it alone,” Luke’s voice rings through again, “you need to use the Force.”

And, holy Maker and all the stars above, you do.

It’s not easy. You have no idea how Grogu did this alone, especially since the Crest was so much larger and clunkier than Kicker, but you let Din pilot the controls as you work with Luke and Grogu to bring the ship down as easily as you can to the closest planet. It’s not the most populated place, and you have no idea what the terrain will be like, but you put everything out of your mind except for getting to the ground in one piece.

Kicker isn’t in the best shape when you ground her, but she’s alive and, like her namesake, still kicking. You’re going to need more fuel, and definitely some repairs on the starboard side, but you’re on the ground and alive. You disembark down the gangplank, shivering even in your Rebellion-issued parka, because this ice giant is just as frozen and formidable as Hoth is, and even vaster. Din looks completely untouched in his usual beskar, but he grabs and releases his hand as Luke Skywalker’s X-wing soars through the cloud cover, touching down a good distance away from your ship. Everything in you is alive and anxious, your heart beating out an intense staccato rhythm inside your ribcage. You know this isn’t a trick, that this is really Luke, that he has Grogu, that everything you’ve been working toward for the last year is meeting you face to face, but it’s still making your knees buckle under the weight of it. When you see him moving down the ladder, you can’t help yourself, running straight towards the ship. Luke turns around, and you skid to a stop in the snow, staring at him. When he shifts, you can see Grogu safely nestled in his robes, and you choke back a small sob.

The second your child sees you, he starts crying. You do, too. The chill freezes the tears on your face, but you don’t care, and you’re running again. Grogu stretches out his tiny green arms toward you. You vaguely register that Luke Skywalker has a smile on his face, but the only thing you’re focused on at all is Grogu, and when you pick him up, he smiles at you, sniffling, latching his small body against yours as tight as he possibly can.

“I missed you, bug,” you whisper. Your words are whisked away by the howling wind, but you don’t even care. You know he can hear it. “I missed you so much.”

He warbles, and you hold him even tighter, tipping your forehead against his tiny, wrinkled green one. Din catches up to the two of you, and you turn around, beaming, eagerly passing the baby to his dad. Grogu throws himself against Din’s armor, with zero regard to how cold the beskar is, happy to simply share in his warmth.

You’re still crying. Ugly sobbing, really, slobber all over your face, and you drag the sleeve of your jacket across your nose, hoping that it’ll amend some of your tears and the remnants it left behind.

“He’s missed you for a long time,” Luke’s voice rings out, and you turn around. You stare at him. He has a warm, big smile on his face, an unencumbered one, which is in high demand these days. His blue eyes are kind and endearing, and he tracks Grogu’s movements with great care. You stare at him, mouth slightly ajar, trying to dream up any words to string together to express your gratitude. “I’m—”

“General Skywalker,” you interrupt in a rush, wincing. “M—Master Skywalker. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

He smiles at you. “You can just call me Luke.”

You nod profusely. You have the strange feeling that you’re meeting royalty, and you don’t know what to do with your hands. “I—I’m Nova. Novalise. But you can call me Nova.”

His gaze drifts from your face to Din and the baby. He nods once at Din, and you can tell there’s something yearning behind his kind eyes. Luke looks back at you. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time,” he continues, stepping toward you. “I’ve seen you. In visions. In the baby’s head.”

You nod, swallowing. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

The wind howls. You shiver, feeling your nose turn red from the chill. Luke shakes a bit, too, which seems notoriously human from someone so legendary, before you remember he grew up on a desert planet and probably has zero resistance to the cold. He takes another step toward you. “How long have you been having premonitions?”

You blink at him. “How did you—?”

Luke offers a tired smile. “I can sense them in you,” he answers, gently. “You’ve been in mine. I can only assume you’ve seen me in yours. When did they start?”

“A few months ago,” you answer, honestly, sifting your weight more evenly between your feet. “I’ve always thought I was tapped into…something else. Something more. But this was different. It showed up in dreams, then the baby would show me his, then I started having them of my own. Sometimes, they’re clear, like before we met Ahsoka Tano. Sometimes, though, they’re vivid and completely nonsensical. You started showing up in them recently,” you tack on, faintly, “both how you look now and…what seems to be you much older. I can’t make sense of them.”

Luke tilts his head a fraction of an inch. “Have you ever met anyone else like you besides Grogu?” He offers up another small smile. “Or me?”

You shake your head. “No,” you say, earnestly, “no, it’s just…the three of us. Have you?”

The expression on his face changes, shifting enough for you to categorize the difference. “My nephew,” he answers, but there’s something slightly off about his voice. “I train him, sometimes, too. But he also has these visions, these—premonitions. For a long time, I was the only other Jedi I knew, and I just thought that was normal. I’ve been researching, and those types of premonitions aren’t the typical vision.”

You stare at him. “What—what are we seeing?”

“The future,” Luke says, grimly. “I think. I don’t know if it’s set in stone. But there’s this darkness coming. I know you’ve felt it. Wedge told me about your visions, but he didn’t need to.” His eyes search over your face. “I can see it. You’re like me, Nova.”

Despite everything, you grin back at him. “I can think of worse people to be like. Lucky me.”

And then you see it. What Wedge was talking about. A conflicted darkness flitters across Luke’s face, and then he does his best to absolve it. He does look so much older than you were imagining him to be—not by much, because he’s only a handful of years older than you are—but his eyes are haunted with an emptiness that comes with accumulated loss. And if he’s right, there’s more to come. Din steps in closer, carrying the baby. Grogu coos, and the youthful smile that Wedge talks about spreads across Luke’s face when he looks at the kid.

“I wanted to meet you,” Luke says, finally, turning his attention back to you, “because I wanted to see it in your eyes. The Force. I wanted to show you that…you’re strong, and you’re unique, and that can very easily make you a weapon. I’m here to tell you,” he continues, leaning in, “that you can choose not to be.”

You nod, locking eyes with him. “I’m a Jedi,” you say, slightly winded, but strong. “Or at least, I’m going to be. I’m not going to let the First Order take me.”

He blinks. “You know about the First Order?”

You nod again, then slowly shake your head. “No,” you admit, finally. “Nothing really beyond their name and their plans to use us as their weapon.”

Luke studies you carefully. “I thought—I was naïve, when I first started. I thought that turning my father back to the light and letting him kill the Emperor would end things. I was wrong. There’s more to come,” he says, gravely, looking out at the barren wasteland of the planet you’re on, “and I don’t think what died fully stayed dead.”

The familiar words rush over you, seizing in your diaphragm. “What did you just say—”

And then you’re cut off by the screech of TIE fighters. You flinch, grabbing the Darksaber off of Din’s belt, unsheathing the blade. There’s five of them. Luke, immediately, unholsters his own lightsaber, a piercing green. You’re captivated by it, by the determined set of his young face. He just looks like an expert. You take stock of his fighting stance, adjusting your legs to match his position. When the first blasts come, you brandish the Darksaber in front of you, sizzling away their attack. They swoop and soar around you. You hear the impact when one hits the beskar, Din knocked to the ground.

“Hey!” you call, running over to him, dropping the saber down by your side as Luke jumps and slices at the arachnid ships in the air. Your heart is in your throat. You didn’t see the hit, but you heard him fall, and frenzied worry is burning in your chest.

“I’m fine,” Din says, gruffly, “Fine, I promise. Go be a Jedi.”

You stare at him. He nods, wrapping Grogu up in his cloak, letting his tiny hands soar out in the open. Tiredly, the baby drags down one of the ships. More artillery is fired, and you pull Din and Grogu beyond a large shoal of ice, trying to avoid the blasts.

“Go be a Jedi,” Din repeats, and you shake your head. The fighters are so aggressive in their assault, but you watch as the swoop and soar around Luke, barely shooting anything in his direction. They want Din, you realize, like a lightning bolt in your chest, they want to attack Din and the baby because they’re after you. “Nova—”

“They’re trying to kill you,” you say, grabbing either side of the helmet as more blasts shake free some of the ice above your heads. “I’m supposed to be here—”

Before you can do anything, Din wrenches the helmet off. You stare at him, dumbfounded, trying to shield his face from the low, swooping fighters above your heads. “No—”

He kisses you. Full force. His lips are so much warmer than yours are, his tongue gentle and slithering into your mouth. You lean into the kiss, grabbing at him with everything you can, and then he’s pulled himself away. “I meant it when I asked you,” Din whispered urgently, “do you think you can forgive me for leaving you?”

Your heart is pounding. You can feel your eyes fill with tears. “Yes. But what are you—”

“Good,” Din answers, shoving the helmet back down, “then you can forgive me twice.”

And then he’s running, with Grogu in his arms, making a beeline straight for Kicker. You scream, but the sound gets ripped away in the wind. Terrified, you stare at Luke, who makes eye contact with you and extends his left palm, focusing on the first TIE fighter. You sheath the saber and run towards him, focusing all of your energy on the one that’s after Din. For what feels like forever, you stand back-to-back with Luke Skywalker, fighting off the evil surrounding you with nothing but the Force and each other. It feels huge in a way you can’t quantify, and even though you’re terrified with what Din’s doing, you don’t take your focus off the fighter for a second. When he’s back up the gangplank in Kicker, you help Luke tank the biggest one in the shoals of ice.

Two of them are grounded. You heave a heavy breath, trying to catch air in your lungs, and then the other three are delivering an array of artillery in your direction.

“Don’t let them touch my ship!” you scream, and Luke nods. You pull the Darksaber off of your belt, and swing it at the fighter that soars overhead, searing off their blasts.

“Nova!” Luke shouts back, and you turn to watch the holster of his green lightsaber fly through the air. Seamlessly, you grab it. The blade ignites immediately in your hand.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” you yell, and Luke twists around to stand by your side. You watch him as the three remaining fighters soar in above the two of you again, heart pounding.

Luke gives you a small smile. “What you’re meant to,” he answers easily, closing his eyes and lifting his hand to the three skeletal fighters in front of the both of you, “be a Jedi.”

You close your own eyes. Two people spill out of the fighters you’ve grounded, and you let Luke shoulder the three in the sky as you run, determined, towards the two men running angrily towards you. One of them lunges for you. You use the green blade to scare him off, but he doesn’t pay it any attention, just roars at you and tries to tackle you down to the ice.

“No you don’t,” you seethe, swiping the saber at his arm. It barely cuts anything, but the burn of it makes him howl. “You don’t get to have me.”

The other one is huge, menacing, built. You stare up at him, trying to only portray strength, not showing him a sliver of weakness, but when he comes for you, he’s vicious. This one’s smarter. He brought his blaster with him, and the bolts that he fires off are lethal and dangerous.

“You have no idea what you’re up against, little girl,” he smirks, and then, lightning quick, his hand closes around your throat. You’re not even sure how it happened, because you were brandishing Luke’s blade, and you’re much faster than the large figure in front of you, but the light behind your eyes starts to fade as he lifts you into the cold air, choking you out. “I’m not going to kill you,” he whispers, a horrible grin on his face, “what we’ll do will make you wish you were dead.”

You gasp, feeling the black spots in your vision slowly pinprick. You can barely see Luke. You don’t know where Din and Grogu went in Kicker. You can still hear the jeering of the soaring TIE fighters, and you know there’s only one thing left to do. You close your eyes, let everything run out of you backward, and then offer one, singular word to the universe.

Help.

Your consciousness fades back in. The man holding you drops you to the ground, and you wheeze and retch, trying to pull all of it back, stumbling away from his grip. It takes you a second to register what’s happening. Kicker comes out of nowhere, Din fires a series of blasts to the remaining fighters, Luke takes his lightsaber back to strike down both of the men, and above them all, Grogu has his eyes closed, his ears pushed back, and his little hands up in the air, using all of his tiny powerful body to Force choke the man who tried to throttle you.

You love him. Maker, you love him, so much. You cry up to him in relief, and the second he hears your voice, he stops, leaving the thug unconscious. Din uses up the rest of the artillery to blow the remaining fighters to bits, and then he grounds the ship.

The man, strangled, warbles out, “the First Order won’t forget this.”

Luke, icily, rises one eyebrow and his right hand, coaxing the man into a faint. “Neither,” he says, coolly, even after he’s sure the other guy’s out, “will we.”

“Thank you,” you say, warmly, rocketing the baby up in your arms. “Thank you, thank you—”

“His idea,” Din says, and you look up at him, both irritated and relieved. “I’m sorry I—”

“You,” you say, voice shaking, “are not forgiven.” But you jump on him as well, wrapping your arms around the cold beskar of his shoulders. “But thank you,” you whisper, in a voice so quiet that you know only he can hear it.

“This isn’t the end,” Luke says, behind you, and he tosses the Darksaber over to you. Din catches it midair with a singular hand. “This is just the beginning.”

“I’m not tired,” you say, exhausted, holding out his saber in your hand. “Thank you. For everything, thank you.”

“No. You hang onto that,” Luke says, finally. He has a strange expression in his eyes. “Keep the lightsaber. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you again, soon enough.”

Grogu, nestled up in your arms, stares up at you. You know, even wordless, what his huge eyes are asking. “Can we—” you start, voice shaking, “can—can Grogu come back to Mandalore with us for a few days?”

You wait with bated breath. Luke nods, meeting your eyes. “When you bring him back to Ahch-To,” he agrees, the ghost of a smile sparking up his face again, “bring my lightsaber with you. I’ll teach you a few things.”

You nod, profusely. Luke nods at the both of you, and right as he’s turning to go back to his X-wing, you find the rest of your question from earlier.

“What did you mean?” you call out, after him. “When you said what died didn’t stay dead?”

Luke’s eyes are haunted with something you don’t entirely understand. “Evil has a way of rising again,” he says, finally, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if the people I killed find a way to come back.”

It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. “The people you killed?”

He looks at you. You know what he means. The Emperor, or at the very least, the horrible people who surrounded him. You swallow, trying to regulate your breath. “What—what can we do?”

Luke glances from Din to the baby to you. “Be a Jedi,” he repeats, his voice faraway. “I’ll see you soon.”

You nod, watching him, dazed, walk back to his ship.

“And Nova,” Luke continues, bracing himself on the ladder, “May the Force be with you.”

“And with you,” you whisper, watching as the X-wing disappears into the cloud cover, staring at the trails as they evaporate, as you hold the only tangible proof in the form of his lightsaber that Luke Skywalker was ever here at all.

The trip back to Mandalore is probably as cold as the one here, but you don’t even notice. You have the baby in your lap again, and all of the warmth in the whole galaxy is sitting here with you, green, adorable, and alive. The three of you spend the entirety of the trek cuddled up together, and when you finally land on the planet, you’re exhausted but safe. Your legs hurt from running, your scar aches from the residual cold, but you barely notice them. They’re such small hurts in comparison to all the good nestled safely in your arms.

Grogu, as always, is exhausted from using the Force to ground your ship and choking out the guy trying to do the same to you, and he falls asleep in your arms before you make your way back to the suite that Bo-Katan gifted the two fo you the last time you were here. You lay him down in the tiny bassinet in the adjoined room, his little snores just as quiet and angelic as they were the last time you heard him.

Your heart, still ran over from all the danger you’ve spent the last year fighting off, is full. You walk into the fresher, staring at your reflection. You’re positively disheveled, your clothes dirty and torn, your hair hanging half out of the braid you tied it in multiple planets ago, but that smile on your face is still lighting up even the darkest parts of your eyes. You stare at yourself, running your fingers across your lips, taking in every single inch of yourself. You don’t look like a normal twenty-six-year-old. You certainly don’t look like royalty. But you look like you. Nova, Her Highness Rebel Rouser Pilotess of the Outer Rim. Nova, wife, mother, Rebel. Nova, yourself.

That alone makes the grin stretch even wider. Din walks into the bathroom, staring at your reflection in the mirror, wrapping his big arms around your waist, letting his helmeted face rest on your shoulder blades.

“You are,” he sighs, “so beautiful.”

“I’m a mess,” you insist, giggling.

“Beautiful,” Din repeats, and when you tentatively hook your fingers under the rim of his helmet, he lets you gently pull it off. You stare at every sinch of his handsome, rugged face in the mirror, your eyes roaming over the valleys of his lips, the mountain of his nose, his gorgeous brown eyes that hold the stars.

“You are, too,” you whisper, faintly, and then he’s turning you around, his strong hands on your hips.

“I never finished giving you your birthday present,” Din murmurs, and he starts pulling his worn gloves away from his fingers. You watch as he lets them drop to the floor, breath hitching in your throat. “Do you think you could let me do that, cyar’ika?”

You nod, breathless. When he strips you down, you’re expecting to be perched on the cold metal of the sink as his mouth returns, again and again, between your thighs, but his warm, rough hands hook underneath your thighs and he carries you out of the fresher.

Din lays you down on the bed. He’s still fully clothed side from his helmet, and for what feels like an eternity, you just stare into his eyes, thanking the Maker and all the stars above that you’re the one that gets to know him like this, that he trust you to look at his face, that you broke down on Nevarro all those months ago.

And when Din dives between your thighs again, you know he’s thanking everything in the universe for the same exact things.

His mouth is an omen, a prayer, a miracle. You’ve never been particularly religious, but he makes you want to be. You can feel the way he’s opening you up, letting no part of you go untouched or untasted. You sigh, moaning loudly into the soft flesh of your arm, trying to stifle the animalistic noises he’s evoking. When his tongue finally, finally finds your clit, you can feel what he’s spelling. First it’s mine, then it’s your name, and then it’s I love you. You gasp. You could recognize it anywhere, even in the dark, and still, your pulse is absolutely racing.

“Din,” you start, strangled, “fuck—I’m—I’m gonna—”

He pulls his mouth away from you, an obscene smacking noise filling the rest of the room. “Good,” he enunciates, and then his tongue is back on you.

You’re pretty sure you see heaven. Your fingers knot tightly in his gorgeous dark hair, whimpering as he coaxes another orgasm out of you, then another, then another. Your legs are shaking, and you’re infinitely grateful that he carried you out here instead of trying to eat you on the edge of the sink, because you wouldn’t have been able to stay standing. You swallow, gasping harder and harder as his mouth pulls off your pussy and roves up your stomach, decorating your scar with the sweetest kisses, pawing gently at your tits before his mouth licks love bites into the underside, above your nipples, in the middle of your chest. You think that if he asked, you’d let Din plant hickeys literally anywhere he wanted, to put his claim on you, to prove that he’s yours. When his mouth meet yours again, it’s like you’ve died and come back to life.

You can taste yourself on Din’s lips, salty sweet. He licks into your mouth. “Taste so good,” he croons, mouth dropping to the pulse point behind your ear. You shudder as he teases you with his mouth, two fingers dipping in your slick and then pushing inside of you. You clench and moan around him, and faintly, you hear him moan about how tight you are before the rush of another orgasm rips into you and everything goes starry and skyward.

Finally, you come back to your sense, reeling. “Din,” you try again, but his name comes out in a breathless puff of air. You’re writhing under his touch, every inch of you alive and his. You feel electric.

“I’m gonna fuck you now,” he grunts out, and you don’t even have time to try to bargain for a taste of his cock, to touch him, to put your mouth in places that’ll make him feel as good as you do. For a second, he pulls you up so you can wrap your mouth around him, but the second he thrusts into your throat, he’s gone. “Not gonna last,” he murmurs, fingers tangling in your loose hair, “I have to fuck you now, cyar’ika.”

Your eyes roll back. “If—if you must,” you manage, but your voice is so thick and laden with lust that the joke doesn’t deliver. Din uses the head to rub against you a few times before he goes in, teasing your swollen clit before he pushes everything inside of you.

It’s everything. He’s not gentle, this time, which is exactly what you wanted. You don’t think you could see straight for days if he tried to pound you with ease. You want to be absolutely annihilated, to have the breath taken out of you. Wordlessly, Din does just that. He fucks into you hungrily, without remorse. You’re both moaning. His lips press up into your ear, but you can’t even recognize what he’s saying as he fucks everything out of you. Eventually, his words register-feel so good, my sweet thing, fuck, Nova—and you cry out as you clench down around him for what feels like the hundredth time. Din plants a singular kiss against your lips, moans, and whispers, “that’s it, sweet girl,” and then both of you are sent to the stars at the same time, gasping, moaning, screaming, like you’re colliding stars, like you belong to nothing but each other. It’s everything. It’s huge. It’s that something more you’ve always felt, that cosmic connection, that dual astral projection. For what feels like hours, you lay together, breathing in each other’s air, satisfied and happy.

Both of you end up in the shower, although you can’t remember either one of you asking to move towards the fresher. You let Din drag the soap over your sore shoulders, cleaning between your legs, frothing the suds in your hair. You don’t know when he had the time or the energy to do it, but he got that lavender soap you love, and the scent fills up the place with steam.

You do the same, wordlessly, dragging his soap over his broad shoulders, across his toned stomach, down both of his legs. You kiss Din as he presses his lips against yours, over and over again, and when you leave the shower, you’re both inches from sleep, happy, exhausted.

The bed is so much more comfortable than the one on Kicker. You sink into it, completely naked, shifting as close to Din as you possibly can. It’s dark in here, but you’re close to the window, and you see the foreign shapes of the buildings of Mandalore, and everything filters back in.

“Did you ever believe,” you whisper, not even sure if Din is still awake, “that when we met, we would end up both being Rebels and the leaders of a whole planet?”

“No,” he answers, immediately, his voice muffled against the back of your neck. “Not a chance in hell.”

You grin, into the darkness. “And now?”

“Now,” Din sighs, pulling you closer, “I truly can’t imagine our lives being any other way.”

You nod, in silent agreement. The night beckons you in closer and closer, and you let yourself fall onto the edge of sleep, heart full, eyes closed, exactly where you’re supposed to be. When you drift off to dreamland, you hear Din whisper he loves you, and you replay the words over and over in the back of your mind until they forge a promise stronger than the one living on your ring finger, content, together, on the precipice of something more.

Morning comes quickly, and it comes with Grogu jumping on the bed and waking both of you up with his abnormally loud cooing. You wake first, not even sure how the little guy found his way up on top of a bed that’s easily five times his height, but you pull him into the nest of sheets and blankets you and Din made in your sleep. When he wakes up, it’s slowly, and you touch your fingertips over to his face, tracing lines of love into his skin.

“Good morning, Mand’alor,” you say, and Din’s eyes open slowly.

“Not yet,” he answers, voice flat. You look over at where Bo-Katan must have left your outfits while you were gone on Hoth. His is typical—the Mandalorian beskar he’s been wearing for as long as you’ve known him, but with a neutral blue cloak to replace all that black. Your dress is gorgeous. You didn’t even know if you would have anything new for the ceremony, because all you’re doing is standing there, but you have to admit, Bo-Katan went above and beyond with this one. The color of the dress is shimmering, a dark navy blue that’s almost completely black. The fabric hugs the top half of your shoulders, and as the dress flows down the rest of your body, the blueness lightens into the same color Din’s cloak is made of. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, rivaled only with Yavin’s sunsets and Naator’s pink skies, and when you put it on, you feel like a princess. It’s not practical, but it’s also functional, and as you interrogate the chair full of things Bo-Katan brought you, you find a matching garter, shimmering in the same impossible way the dress does, embroidered with twin silver stars. When you slip it on, the lightsaber Luke’s letting you hang onto fits perfectly, flush against your legs. There’s a small slit trailing up the dress, so hidden by the starry, shimmering fabric that no one would catch it if they weren’t looking for it, and you grin as you put it on, thanking the Maker above for the Mandalorians being so effective in their aesthetic.

“Holy fuck,” you hear behind you, and you turn around. Din’s only in his underclothes, the tiniest bit of his belly peeking out from under his new tunic, and he’s staring at you.

“Bo-Katan,” you say, shyly, taking stock of his shocked face, “does not miss.”

Din walks toward you, taking in every inch of your shimmering dress, mouth slightly ajar. “No,” he murmurs, and then he’s striding towards you, holding your face in his hands, his lips feverish and frenzied against yours. “She certainly does not.”

“Neither do you,” you whisper, dazed, touching your lips, staring at him as he shoulders the cloak. “You look—”

“Strange,” he mutters, checking out his reflection critically.

“Amazing,” you correct, walking closer. The two of you look like royalty—outfitted in all the blue bells and whistles that Mandalore has to offer, standing tall in all that silver regalia—and when Grogu tugs at the bottom of your dress, you lift him into your arms, adjusting his own blue outfit. You don’t look like a rebel and a bounty hunter and their strange baby. You look like a family, a real one, and something else. You look like you belong here.

When Bo-Katan meets you at the door, she looks equally as regal. Her eyes roam over Din’s helmeted face with slight disdain, but she looks at you like she sees stars, and when her gaze flits over to Din again, her expression has molded into something that faintly rings out excitement.

“Are you ready?” she asks, leading the three of you down the staircase at the back of the quarters. You can tell by the shift in architecture that you’re heading straight for the throne room, and your heartbeat is knocking itself dizzy. Everything feels alive and electric, that buzzing of something more loud in your ears. You know this isn’t the ending. You know that by all accounts, that this is truly a beginning—you’re about to be married to the new leader of Mandalore, you have an entire shadowy fascist regime to beat, you know practically nothing about being a Jedi—but everything that started when you crash landed on Nevarro all those years before feels like it’s settling cosmically into place. Your breathing is quick and shallow as you hear your heels click against the empty hall, trying to take everything in, and before you know it, you’re at the door.

Bo-Katan looks at you and Din. “Everyone’s in there,” she says, and her voice is gentler than you’ve ever heard it. “They’re likely not going to be happy with this. But I’m going to go out first, and I’m going to introduce you and…” she looks over at you, and then back to Din, “and then you three will come in.”

Din nods.

“Are you ready?” Bo-Katan asks again, and there’s no greed in her voice. She’s not wanting for him to fail. You watch as she stands up straighter, and you notice the same color cloak flowing out from all of her beskar. You don’t know if you fully like her, yet, but you trust her, and you know that’s far more valuable in a situation like this. She offers you the tiniest of smiles. You return it, tenfold.

Din nods again, and then opens his mouth to speak. His voice is calm through the modulator, calmer than you would have expected. “Yes,” he says, finally, “yes, I’m ready.”

Bo-Katan nods at both of you, catches your eye one last time, and then shoulders herself through the double doors. The cheering and noise of the whole planet filters through the wide doorway, and then they click closed, leaving you and Din and Grogu together with nothing but each other.

“We can still run for it, you know,” you whisper, trying to shake the jitters out of your voice. “Think about it. We could disappear back on Yavin. Or Naator. That tiny little village. Pink skies, beautiful yellow trees.”

Din looks over at you, and you know you’re looking straight into his eyes under the visor. Your heart is beating so fast. “You made a promise to me, cyar’ika,” he says, “that you won’t run.”

You grin back at him. “True. I did say that. But I meant it in the context that I was never going to run from you. I never promised I wouldn’t run with you.”

“That’s quite the loophole.”

“I’m good,” you say, giggling, “and smart. I have like ten thousand contingency plans.”

“Well,” Din says, facing back to stare at the doors, reaching his gloved hand out to meet yours, “you don’t need them here.”

You look at him. “We’re gonna pull it off,” you repeat, trying to make your promise shine just as bright as all the ones he’s given you. “All of it. You are going to be the greatest leader that Mandalore has ever known. Grogu,” you continue, looking down at your adorable, green child nestled safely in your arms, “is going to become a Jedi.”

Din turns to you again. “And you?”

You smile. “Maybe both. I contain multitudes.”

Din laughs, and the noise is so light and so free that it makes every single inch of you melt. You beam up at him. “You certainly do,” he says, quietly, and then, after what seems like a moment of deliberation, he lifts his fingers and pulls his helmet off. He doesn’t look relaxed, but he doesn’t look particularly fearful, either.

“Are you sure?” you ask, breathless, as he brings his helmet all the way off, staring back at the double doors that Bo-Katan disappeared through a minute ago. You can only faintly hear what she’s saying, but you know it’s nearing the time when the three of you—your strange, wonderful little family—have to meet her in there.

He nods. “We’re both done running,” he sighs, his voice thick with resolve, “and I’m done with hiding.”

Your eyes fill with tears. “I love you. Ni kar’tayl su, darasuum.”

“Forever, Nova,” Din whispers back. He turns to face you one last time. You stare into his eyes, that warm, eternal state of brown, and as he moves closer to you, his hands around your waist, you don’t take your eyes off of him. Not even to blink. Not even for a second. You just stare, drinking in every single inch of his gorgeous face, knowing that you know him. It pulses and burns inside you like a shared, glorious star. “This is the beginning, you know.”

“I know,” you repeat, softly, feeling as his hand gently strokes over your perfect hair. There’s a headband as part of your outfit, made out of glittering spikes of beskar, and when Din touches his hand to it, it feels like a crown. “We’re going to change the world. Stop the order. Bring peace and good things, and then when we’re done, we can retire knowing we made all of this better for the rest of the galaxy. And then,” you inhale, staring into his eyes, “we’re going to have a real wedding. Flowers. Grogu presenting our rings. Boba Fett marrying us.”

“Absolutely not,” Din cuts you off, but you can hear the lilt in his voice. “Cara or nothing.”

You grin back. “Deal.”

“And where are we retiring?” There’s a tiny sparkle of humor hidden in his voice.

“We’ll have homes on all our favorite planets,” you decide, “but we can live on the ship for good, if you like.”

“No,” Din says, his voice faraway, his thumb stroking over your cheekbone. “When I make our next home with you, it’s going to be permanent.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Nova—”

“We’re ready,” you assure him, stepping closer, tipping your head back. “I’m ready. Are you?”

After a moment, Din nods. The way he’s holding you—protective, possessive, wholly yours—it makes everything fade out. For a moment, a dazzling, fleeting moment, everything else fades out. You see the two of you on Nevarro the first time, the way his hands felt when he was patching your wounds, all the promises you both made and broke back on Dantooine, the vows to each other on Naator, the proposal on Yavin, every single time you’ve saved each other, which is now an even tally, standing together at the Rebel base, standing together through the darkness, through the light, still standing together here. You love him. With all of your heart, you love him, and you know it’ll last even longer than forever. There’s war coming, but for now, you’re with your husband and your baby, about to step into the next phase of saving the world. And after everything, after all of that, you know the perfect thing to say before moving through those gilded double doors.

“I’m ready,” Din repeats, more fortified. You nod, and then beam at him and the baby, pushing your shoulders back. “This is a lot,” he says, his voice still tinged slightly with anxiety, “are you sure?”

And as Bo-Katan opens the double doors, you lean into your embrace, everything rushing back to the present, the entire galaxy evaporating and colliding at once. You hear the crowd in the throne room. You don’t know what’s coming next. But, you think, as you prepare to move forward, as long as you’re doing it with Din and Grogu, you’ll be okay.

So, regardless of the open door waiting for the rest of your lives in front of you, you slide your hand down Din’s face, lean into his kiss, and whisper that you forgive him.

I HOPE YOU ALL LOVED IT!!!! writing this has been the adventure of a lifetime. it's given me peace, solace, happiness, giddiness, and, most importantly, all of you. thank you all endlessly for coming along on this journey with me. i love each and every one of you with all of my heart. thank you for supporting me and my story, for leaving incredible comments and analysis, for being my friends, and for jumping off this crazy cliff with me. SM turned into the story i was always meaning to write when introduced Nova as her whole character, and your love for her has filled my soul up with so much joy. thank you, endlessly, for coming along this ride with me. i know this isn't a "real" ending, and that not every single little plotline was tied up in a neat little bow, but i hope you'll forgive me because i have PLANS for the sequel. give me a month or so to get writing and planning, and the next installment in the SM series will be up as soon as possible!!!! as always, i'll give ya all the updates on tumblr (amiedala) and tiktok (padmeamydala) when writing starts!

you are all so important to me. thank you for reading, thank you for loving my words, and thank you for seeing this through with me.

onward and upward; the next adventure awaits!!!

all my love always,

amelie

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eldrai · 3 years

Text

Like Father, Like Son

Whumptober 2021 - day 2 - prompt: garrotte

Character: Hotch

Warnings: implied/referenced domestic abuse, implied/referenced child abuse, strangulation

Word Count: 1.5k

Summary: Vincent Perrotta is violent. He is dedicated. He is brutal and efficient. His potential pool of victims includes a handful of asphyxiation deaths.

He has nothing to lose.

ao3 link / masterpost

In cases of domestic violence, strangulation is one of the strongest predictors for homicide: a nonfatal strangulation incident makes the victim seven times more likely to be killed by that partner.

Of everything he’s learnt on the job, this stays with him.

Strangulation requires the physical strength to do so, as well as the intent. It’s much more personal than something like poisoning or even shooting and therefore more difficult to carry out. The same principle stands for any homicide. It indicates a deeply violent, deeply dedicated unsub.

(Is it inaccurate to say he learnt on the job? The exact statistics were new to him but he’d known how violent hands around a neck are. How it was never limited to just that.

He’d had a lot of ‘sore throats’ as a kid.)

Vincent Perrotta is violent. He is dedicated. He is brutal and efficient. His potential pool of victims includes a handful of asphyxiation deaths.

He has nothing to lose.

The junkyard is cluttered and their line of sight fragmented by the heaps of trash jutting out every which way; the impaired visibility has them spread out to cover the most ground. With backup waiting on their signal, everything is in place for Perrotta’s arrival.

It is a concentrated quiet: there isn’t much to do other than keep an eye out for their unsub or wait for the comms to crackle to life as someone else finds him. Aaron steps into place behind the rusted shell of a car; enough cover it isn’t immediately obvious he is there, but he’s got a good shot if Perrotta turns up.

His bet is on the man hopping the fence on the west, too clever to waltz through the front gate but arrogant enough to assume he’d outwit them. Morgan is positioned over there ready to intercept, and Reid and Greenaway take the small building at the opposite end of the yard.

“Anyone got anything?” Morgan’s voice comes through strong.

“Nothing on our end.” That’s Greenaway.

“He’ll be here,” Aaron says.

He settles back into position, both hands on his gun, carefully still. Wrappers rustle as the wind agitates them, whips dirt around on the chipped concrete. The chain-link fence rattles.

No movement.

He waits. Time slips by interminably slowly, as it tends to do on sting operations, with no distraction but nothing to be distracted from.

A rattling, tinny sort of noise to his left stops just as suddenly as it had started. Gun drawn, he picks his way through the junk. The silence settles in once again. Likely something blown loose in the breeze, a can rolling down the pile, any number of mundane things which shouldn’t register at all.

It’s a rat. In the corner of his eye, a blur of brownish-grey fur streaks past and he catches a glimpse of the tail before it vanishes under (into?) a different heap.

Jesus. He must really be bored if something so commonplace has him actually investigating it.

Gravel crunches and Aaron glances over his shoulder. Gideon must’ve heard it too. His main interest is his birds but he doesn’t doubt the man probably has a soft spot for other small creatures. They say rats are fairly intelligent – or is it mice? – after all.

His head jerks backwards.

Stumbling to maintain his balance, it is a dizzying moment before the pain sets in: a sharp pressure curving around his throat.

It throws him for a loop. He’s used to hands.

Aaron crashes into someone behind him and they stagger sideways. The impact knocks the air out of him. The pressure pulls taut.

He can’t breathe.

Shoes scuff against the ground. The sour smell of sweat. Heavy breathing.

(is this gonna be the time it goes too far is it feels like it)

The wire is thin and twice as effective as human hands. Instead of whittling away his ability to breathe, pressing in more and more and more, it disappears in an instant.

Hands are breakable. They are skin and muscle and bone. Push a finger back until the muscles twitch; jam a thumb into the wrist’s bony hollows; a thumb at the base of the neck hurts like hell.

Easy to read intent in someone who stands right in front of him. Someone whose eyes spark with malice right before he clamps down harder. The telltale twitch in their cheek in the moment they step forwards. To guess whether they’re going to let up or not.

Behind, Aaron has no idea. His best guess might be entirely wrong.

(go for the eyes that works he won’t let go but he’ll get weaker)

Gasping for oxygen and drowning in carbon dioxide, his chest burns even as he strains to breathe. His eyes water. Aaron breathes in and in and in. Nothing happens. He’s just making rasping, croaky sounds at the back of his throat.

He almost loses his footing, his knees going weak and his ears ringing, a high-pitched shrill scream. Aaron can’t. He can’t leverage his weight on that. He’d never breathe again. Never get back up.

Perrotta grunts. Must not have expected this resistance.

(what if he never wakes up this time what if what if what if)

His gun clatters to the ground as his hands go to his throat. For something so painful, the wire is remarkably small, his fingers sliding over it. Perrotta draws the ends together. It cuts into the sides of his neck, bearing down on the arteries.

Aaron turns his head sharply and the momentary slack in the wire is enough to get his fingers hooked around it. Perrotta kicks out at his knee and he stumbles, resists the instinct to let go.

It’s not enough.

Having his hands between the wire and his skin does nothing if he can’t move them, if he can’t buy himself some space to breathe. Instead of the wire, his own hands press down on his throat. He pulls with all the strength he can muster. It cuts into his fingertips. Every muscle from his shoulders to his hands burns.

It’s not enough.

Dark spots blot his vision. He’s running out of time.

(if he dies they better notice adult-sized handprints better ask questions)

Aaron jerks his head back. Perrotta’s teeth clash and he lets out a muffled grunt.

The wire loosens.

Half a breath and Perrotta regains his composure. Cuts off his air before it reaches his lungs.

Tugging at the wire burns oxygen he can’t afford to waste. Doing nothing just guarantees he’ll pass out. His hearing fades out as the sensation in his hands and feet turns into vicious pins and needles.

Fear and adrenaline keep him standing, keep him fighting when oxygen deprivation turns his joints weak and head sluggish. Aaron hasn’t got much chance of wrestling it out of Perrotta’s hands.

He kicks everything he can reach. Metal jolts against metal; precariously balanced junk crashes down; his shoes drag in the gravel. Sound. Sound is what got him into this and if he’s loud enough, it’s going to draw their attention. With Perrotta outnumbered, he’ll run.

It’s hard to think.

The black spots compose most of his vision and he misses half of what he’s trying to hit. His pulse beats sickly against the wire. Having the chance at breathing stolen like that has strained something vital in his chest. Burning is too mild a word for the tearing pain.

(why doesn’t she stop it he’d let go if she said to)

Half-formed thoughts flit through his mind, too fast to catch, too fragmented to use. Aaron can’t see. Can’t breathe. He almost lets go of the wire, his hands aching and weak. The last vestiges of his strength go to keeping himself upright.

His knees hit the ground and sharp stones jab his legs. Something in his throat itches and spasms and he’s coughing and taking in great long breaths between and he’s breathing.

When the coughing fit passes, his heart slows its assault against his ribs and his vision clears up. Aaron steadies himself and waits for the dizziness to come to an end. He blinks once, twice, until his eyes aren’t watering.

His hearing kicks in all at once when the ringing ceases, and he twists around just as Gideon manages to wrestle Perrotta into handcuffs. Someone shouts in the distance. Back-up, or the rest of the team.

And Gideon’s in front of him, crouching down, telling him to take off his tie for once. Aaron nods, loosens it before he does, because the idea of hands near his throat – even his own – is dicey at best right now. He feels around the small indentation in his skin, feels the flat tenderness, and that’s going to bruise quite deeply.

“I’m—” Aaron swallows and a sharp pain lances across his throat. The motion aches, as if it’s been rubbed raw with sandpaper. Nonetheless his voice is much less raspy the second try. “I’m fine.”

Gideon hums a token agreement but doesn’t have time to press him on it as Morgan materialises behind them, and Greenaway and Reid a few moments later.

Perrotta snarls, his eyes wild with animalistic hatred.

(It is this, Aaron will realise, which reminds him so much of his father.)

#whumptober 2021 #no2 #garrotte #criminal minds #fanfic #eldrai does whumptober #cm fanfic #hotch #aaron hotchner #whump #angst

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ssa-sugar-tits · 4 years

Text

Ten Years (ch. 2)

Ch. 1 Ch. 3 Ch. 4

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Content warnings: a curse, anxiety, injury

Spencer's 6 am alarm shrieks in his ears, making his eyes shoot open. Tangled with Y/N, closer than he ever dreamed of being to you he realizes he's in the same impossible situation as the night before. His breath shakes lightly as if any harder and you'd break.

"It wasn't a dream." He mutters softly. Your lips part slightly and a strand of hair falls over your nose. He can't help but start to admire the sight in front of him. She looks so peaceful. He thinks. And beautiful. Eyes following your figure, he trails down the hickeys he noticed the previous night. On your exposed neck, collarbone, breasts, and thighs. Letting himself wonder what it'd be like to taste you between his lips and graze your skin with his teeth, he doesn't notice you wake up. You don't say anything, enjoying the way he's looking at you. It's clear that it's a look of love and you welcome it happily. Licking his lips swiftly, his gaze drifts back up to your face and he quickly averts his eyes when he sees you looking back at him.

"Don't stop enjoying the view just because I woke up!" Almost contagiously, you start to laugh quietly and so does Spencer. He's pleasantly surprised when he finds that his hands instinctively fly to your waist and pull you into the crook of his neck. Even more so when he hears you sigh contently against him.

"I-I love you." The shaking in his voice startles you but you choose not to acknowledge it. Returning the words, you mumble against his bare chest.

"I love you too Spence." You usually live for moments like these. When the terrors from work can't hurt you, when you're safe in his firm arms away from the rest of the world. But today something's... off. You suspect it more when he breathes heavily in what you think is disbelief. That can't possibly be right. Forget it, enjoy the moment Y/N, you mentally scold yourself. Brushing your lips on his neck and leaving a delicate kiss, you lift yourself up to straddle him. A tired grin meets you and you bring your hands to his face, cupping it gently. You kiss him roughly enough to push his head back slightly but it's still sweet and innocent. He almost doesn't register it but hastily kisses back, inhaling your breath and tasting the warmth of your lips. It may be the thousandth moment the two of you have shared a kiss but to Spencer it's the first. He's imagined this countless times but the real sensation and taste is like none other he's felt. Heat rises in his cheeks as he grips your head firmly as if to keep you from escaping reality, which he isn't sure this even is. Tilting his head against your open mouth, his tongue begs for further access to yours but you don't grant it. Instead he's left frowning when you pull away giggling softly.

"As much as I'd love to keep doing this, and trust me I do," You start while playing with a lock of his brown hair, "we'll never make it to work on time if we get caught up in our morning activities."

Work. The word hits him like a bullet train. Being here with Y/N is risky and terrifying enough but work? Endless possibilities. New additions to the teams, cases he doesn't know about... someone could even be dead. He watches as you remove yourself from his lap before placing a quick kiss on his cheek.

"I'm going to take a shower." You smile and close the bathroom foor behind you. But something still feels heavily off and you can't shake the feeling. The worry in your stomach lessens as you study yourself in the mirror and take note of the love marks he's given you. That's all the reminder you need that everything's alright as long as you're together. When you finish showering and changing, you step out to see Spencer fiddling with his wedding ring, a blank expression on his sharp face.

"Spence, you haven't gotten ready. Everything okay?" As if you flipped a switch, the golden rings in his sweet caramel eyes come alive and he scurries to get changed. Your mouth forms a round, confused shape as you wonder what the hell just happened. In the car, you say nothing while his head lays on your shoulder. Arriving at the BAU is when the panic starts to set in again. Spencer and you walk to the bullpen and he freezes in his tracks. This isn't right. JJ has her own desk and a dark haired woman staring intently at a case file sits where Elle should be, across from Derek. He doesn't even know her name or what relationship the two have, how is he supposed to interact with this woman? From what he can gather, JJ is for whatever reason no longer the communications liason and Elle's been replaced. But why? It's okay, act natural. Your hand reaches up to his shoulder when you see he hasn't sat down.

"Babe you alright?" You whisper. There's a sense of fear and panic in his eyes and you worry he's going to have an anxiety attack but can't wrap your head around what triggered it. Starting to nod for fear of giving himself away, Gideon's office catches his eye. The door reads "David Rossi" and it's the final push he needed to effectively fucking lose it. Face flushed and legs wobbling, He's suddenly peppered with words he can't make out while he struggles to breathe.

"Spencer!"

Everyone rushes to his side as he collapses, hitting his head on the hard ground and starting to bleed rapidly. Derek yells for Hotch, his voice booming through the entire floor. The Unit Chief hurries to join you all and Spencer doesn't budge. He jolts violently when his breathing hastens turning into a hyperventilating mess. It doesn't last long however because he loses consciousness. Your chest tightens as Emily calls for medical attention and so does your heart when a tear streams from your husband's unresponsive eyes. Ambulance sirens wail in the distance and you're pulled away by Emily who tries to stop your heaving and crying with no such luck. Burying your head in her arms, the salt of your tears sting at your nose and lips as you watch Spencer be loaded into the ambulance. Please be okay, is the last coherent thought you can string together. Please be okay.

#criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds self insert #spencer reid #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x y/n #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x you

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hotchley · 3 years

Text

that’s okay

Oh my god it’s out before midnight!! Are you proud of me?? Once again, it has not been proofread, but that’s fine, this is for fun! Also, the same line where Aaron says he doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore is also where I lost the plot so erm... yeah

Once again: little plot. Not much point. Low-key hate the ending. May have fucked up Hotch’s character. But I had fun writing it so we’re just... yeah we’re going with.

Title comes from That’s Okay by The Hush Sound (would 10/10 recommend), and I have to thank Caitlin ( @themetaphorgirl ) for that one because I was sat there like: I have everything but a title and then I remembered That’s Okay and was like AHA

Trigger Warnings: trauma, trauma responses, child abuse, religion, religious trauma

read on ao3!

When he finishes his speech, he meets Erin's eyes, determined and angry. At her, for pushing him and doubting his abilities in the one place he felt like he could maintain control in. At Jason, for once again putting him in a situation where he has to take the fall and piece things back together. Because he has to play this stupid game of politics. At the team, because it is easy.

But most of all, he is angry at himself because he shouldn't be angry at them. He shouldn't be angry at Jason or Erin. He shouldn't be angry, because anger means he's creeping closer and closer to the line that separates himself from his father and if he goes too far, he will lose everything and he won't be able to come back. Ever.

"Aaron," she says, and his glare loses its power. She says his name, his first name, like it means something. With a gentleness that he had never felt before Haley softly repeated it to herself, as though she was trying to test out each syllable before she got too close.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "That comment about your son was unfair. I know you love them all equally."

She shakes her head. "Don't apologise. You know I don't enjoy doing this. Undermining you like this. Asking these questions, saying these things. But if we are both going to keep our jobs, then I have to."

At that moment, she is not Strauss. She is Erin, just another victim of bureau politics, trying to keep her head above water. It's what causes Aaron to reply, instead of just walking out.

"I know," he says. "I know."

"Why don't you ever let Jason take the fall for his mistakes? I'm not an idiot, I know these things aren't your doing. He's a grown man. He can accept the consequences that come with acting the way he does. You don't need to take them."

She doesn't understand. He does. He needs to take them because taking punishment is the only way he can atone for the multitude of sins he commits every single day. He needs to take the blame because he is the only one that can come back from it. The only one that can be replaced with ease.

He needs to take the blame because it reminds him that this, just like everything he has been stripped of in his life- his childhood, his ability to love, his warmth, his innocence, his faith in both something else and humanity- this can and will be taken from him the moment he puts a foot wrong.

The Bureau, much like the small town in Virginia that he will never refer to as home because he never once felt safe, not even when Haley held him with gentle and unblemished hands, does not show anyone mercy. Least of all those that dare to speak out against injustice.

"I do. Jason Gideon is nothing without the BAU. I can't take that from him," he says.

He hates to be vulnerable with her, but she is the only one left that he truly trusts. That remembers the boy he was when he first joined. That knows the lock on his drawer is not because there is alcohol, but because he keeps the file with his incomplete profile of George Foyet in there.

"And you?" she asks.

"And I?"

"What are you without the BAU?"

And isn't that the question he wishes he knew the answer to? He is not a father, he knows that much. A real father wouldn't have hesitated to transfer after Jason returned. A real father would kiss their son goodnight without feeling guilty and hug them without fear. And he is not a husband. On a technicality, he is, but even he can see that Haley isn't happy. The day where she leaves will be sooner rather than later, and he will be powerless to stop her.

A part of him doesn't want to fight. It will be easier on both of them if she leaves before the inevitable happens. Before the pieces of himself he gives up to do this job become irretrievable. Before he is more than just his father's mirror, he is his father's son.

Before the job he is nothing without ruins her life beyond repair.

"I don't know," he confesses. In some strange way, he feels like a child again. Being asked by the priest what he thinks his punishment for lying about what really happens in the Hotchner family home should be, even though he wasn't lying. He was never lying. They were all just too afraid to confront the truth.

The same way he was.

"Get some rest. I'll speak to the Director and other higher-ups. You'll have a job to come back to. I promise."

It is an impossible promise, one she may not be able to keep, but her tone is gentle and her words soothe him the way a parents' declarations of love never had, so he simply nods and exits her office.

He doesn't look at any of the team when he gets back to his office. He doesn't bother to knock on Jason's door to make sure he isn't looking through the Book of the Damned. When Derek calls his name, he speeds up, knowing that out of all of them, he owes him the most answers, but finds himself completely unable to give them.

Haley doesn't know that he is returning. He doesn't have the energy to tell her. As he turns onto their road, he is almost tempted to keep going. Past their house. Past her sister's apartment. Past her parents' house and his father's grave. Past everything that keeps him grounded.

The idea of giving into temptation was something drilled out of him long ago. So he turns into their driveway, wondering what the neighbours will say when one of them inevitably moves out. Will they find it sad, that the young couple they had all hoped would last, had fallen apart? Will they wonder what the final straw was?

Haley is still in her work clothes when he enters the living room. She had already picked Jack up from his daycare on her way back, and her son- as far as he's concerned, he's nothing more than the sperm donor- babbles away happily as he plays with the toys his mother and aunt had picked out for him on their last day out together.

"You're back early," she says, without any malice.

"Strauss told me to get some rest," he replies. "How are the students?"

She smiles at the mention of her class. "Glad to have me back. Excited for your next Southern treat, because no matter how many times I tell them I also lived in that town, they only want it if you made it."

"Well you moved there for your junior year, so I can understand why," he jokes, but instead of wiping away the bad memories of the case, it leaves him more exhausted than before.

"Aaron, what happened today?" she asks him, so attuned to his moods and feelings that he often wonders why she doesn't become a profiler.

"It's nothing," he tells her. No matter how many times she begs for him to tell her why he wakes up in the middle of the night, to share why he can't touch her without showering for a longer amount of time than can be healthy, he won't.

"You don't need to say specifics. But please don't lie to me."

"I'm sorry. I- can we eat first?"

Her mouth parts with shock. Of course they can eat first. She would do whatever was needed if it meant he would finally, after so many years of being married, tell her the truth about his job. She understood his need to keep it a secret. But when he came home, looking more defeated than he had at sixteen, she worried.

He puts Jack to sleep before climbing into bed beside her. She puts her book down- she hadn't really been reading it, just holding it to give her something to do- and turns so she's laying on her side. Absent-mindedly, she starts drawing circles on his stomach. His hand trembles as he removes it, placing it on the bed sheet.

"I profiled the team today," he begins.

Haley sits up properly. "I thought you had a rule against that."

"We do. But Erin… pushed. And before I knew what was happening I was sharing information about all of them. Things that- I don't know if they know that I know. And Erin is too good to use it to blackmail any of us but she isn't a profiler. They'll realise she knows."

"What did you tell her?" is all she says. She knows her husband. Knows how he takes everything personally, and how he will hold himself to unreachable standards because he was never allowed to be anything but perfect, and anything less than that is failure.

He tells her, in almost perfect verbatim, the same words he told Erin. Towards the end, his voice starts to get choked up. She knows he stutters when he feels under pressure or anxious and she knows he hates it. So instead of speaking, she takes his left hand, clasps it with both of hers and rubs circles over the knuckles.

For a moment, he stops speaking, staring at their interlocked hands instead with a look of slight wonder. Like even after all this time, he still couldn't believe he got to touch her. That she wanted to touch him, in spite of his devils and darkness.

It gives him the strength to finish.

"And you?" she asks, after it becomes clear he won't offer any more information as to why it hurt him so much.

Her question is an echo of Erin's, and he closes his eyes, giving himself a few moments to get lost in his head, where it is not necessarily safe, but is where he can be alone and not pretend to be good.

"And I?"

"What did you say about yourself?"

"I said that if she could find someone better, then I wished her luck," he says, voice completely flat and monotone.

Haley tries to not be offended that he is speaking to her like she is an officer of the law, or a suspect, instead of her husband. "Why didn't you say more?"

"More?"

She nods. "You're feeling guilty because you profiled the team, but you didn't. You shared the pieces of them that make them human. That make them good agents and even better people. You didn't say anything like that about yourself. Why not?"

"Because I'm not like them. My trauma- I'm just not like the rest of the team, okay?"

"I know enough about trauma to know it affects every person differently, so I won't dispute that one. But if you're saying that you're not like the rest of your family, not team, then what are you like? Because from where I'm sitting, you are."

"I'm not," he repeats, growing slightly agitated.

She needs him to understand he is. "Aren't you?"

"No." this time, there is venom in his words. But it doesn't frighten her. It never has. The only time his words have such hatred injected into them is when he's afraid of himself. She's never been afraid of him. She never will be. Because to her, he is good. He is trying.

"How?" she pushes one last time.

And the dam explodes.

“I’m not soft! I’m not beautiful or kind or good or any of the things those stupid, stupid motivational quotes say! I’m not- I’m not like the others and all I want to know is why. Everyone else is good. They’re light and sweet and good. We’ve all been- we all have trauma. Why can’t I- why am I different? Why did mine make me violent and scared and- why can’t I move on?”

It was not what she was expecting. It was not what she thought he was going to say, and now she doesn't know what she is meant to do. She doesn't know how to piece him back together. Not this time. Not when his words are a confession he has been clinging to since the day he met Spencer.

"Aaron," she begins, for lack of other words to say.

"Don't," he cuts her off. "Please. Just don't. I can- I'll sleep in the guest room. You shouldn't have to deal with me when I'm like this."

"You're having a bad day. It's what I signed up to deal with," she says.

He shakes his head. "Not like this. Not like- Haley, what kind of father avoids his son the way I do because they're afraid? What kind of man doesn't know the difference between safety and happiness? How broken am I if my twenty-five year old subordinate can move on better than I can?"

"You're scared. You're a victim of child abuse. It's not- it's normal that you feel like this. I think. Aaron, I don't know. I don't know what kind of person this all makes you. But when I look at you, I see the man I married, the one so terrified of everything, thriving. I see someone that suffered atrocities that nobody should ever be put through fighting with everything they are, to break that cycle. I don't know how to make you feel better, but I vowed to be honest with you. And this is me doing that."

"You're the first person to tell me it wasn't my fault," he whispers. "Everyone else always said that I must've done something to deserve it."

"You were a child Aaron. You all were."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"We were all children, but they're all better. They haven't closed themselves off. They- I see them, with their unfailing faith in humanity and it hurts. It physically hurts. What am I doing to them? What happens when the evil they see outweighs the goodness?"

"It's okay, Aaron," she laughs, because if she doesn't, she will cry and she will not do that. Not in this moment. "It's- the trauma and the hurt and the heartbreak doesn't always give you faith. It doesn't always make you a better person. Yes, they are still positive and happy and beautiful and good, but so are you. It's just buried somewhere. Because sometimes the trauma just hurts."

He stares at her eyes, and she sees the tears that had been threatening to fall since he got into the bed start to spill over. With one cautious hand, she wipes it away. She counts it as a win when he leans into the touch without flinching.

"I don't know what I did to deserve you," he whispers.

"That's the beautiful thing about love. We are all entitled to it. It's just about whether or not we'll take it."

"I don't know how to stop being so broken," he adds.

"You're not- people are not broken. Not ever. They are damaged by life and the terrible things that other people do, but they're never broken. Not beyond repair. Do you hear me? You are not broken. You never were. You were just hurt. But there are so many people that love you. That want to help you. All you have to do is ask."

"I know. I just- I wish he didn't have such a tight hold on me. I wish I could be more like Penelope. Or Derek. They're so beautiful, with their faith in love and goodness. Derek didn't have anyone. Not in the way I had you."

She didn't have to ask to know who he was talking about. "He was your father. Even despite everything, he took time off work when you had chicken pox and played with you when you were old enough to remember the snow."

"I know. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Do you think I'll always be like this? Cold and unapproachable and full of darkness?"

"The only people you are ever cold and unapproachable with is unsubs. Suspects. And there's nothing wrong with darkness. There's no light without it." she can't say anything more than that. Not without lying.

"You always know what to say," he says to her, hesitantly pulling her closer towards him.

She smiles. "It's because I love you."

His own smile fades, and he doesn't reply, instead brushing her hair off her face. She tries to not let it sting. The words had never been something said freely in his house. Never used to actually express love, only as a plea for mercy. There are a few minutes of silence, and she think he's finally fallen asleep.

Then he speaks.

"Haley, what if I can't save them? I've already failed once. What if this, part of me, means the next time they need me, I can't be there? I can't save them?"

She thinks her answer over for a few minutes.

"Sometimes the way to save other people is to save ourselves. You need to save yourself first. But listen to me."

She can tell he's fighting sleep now, so she speaks quickly.

"There is nothing wrong with you. Yes, you are flawed and you make mistakes, but that is because you are human. We all make mistakes. We are never perfect. You are not the only one to screw up. But this part of you-" she places a hand over his heart "-this part of you is not broken. It is not wrong or anything that you were led to believe it was. You are exactly what and where you need to be. And I love you for that."

"Do you promise?"

She swallows. "Of course I do."

She's not entirely sure whether she's lying, but he drifts off with a smile, so she decides she doesn't care. There are certain lies she is willing to tell, if only so her husband has one night of peace.

Thinking of him as her husband is painful, because she knows it is only a matter of time before one of them snaps. Before this balance he has fought so hard to achieve topples like Jack's building blocks. She knows which way it will topple. She isn't angry.

But the balance hasn't toppled yet. It won't for a few weeks. So maybe it is wrong, but instead of pulling away, she lets herself hold her husband, the steady beating of his heart sending her to sleep.

She is right though. Even when she's no longer there, he knows she is right. That sometimes the pain is not poetic or character-building. Sometimes, it is just pain, and the only way forward is directly through it. It is not easy, but it is possible.

Everything is possible, so long as he lets himself feel without guilt.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner #hotch x haley #haley hotchner #erin strauss #tw trauma #tw trauma response #tw child abuse #tw religon #tw religious trauma #sad aaron hotchner #hurt aaron hotchner #sumayyah writes cm

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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 3 years

Text

Riding the Lightning: Part Two

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Word Count: ~2.1k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill, fluff and angst

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated.

Feedback is gold, and it’s the only currency I take

The couple’s house hasn’t been treated well. It has so much graffiti and damage that the city had to put a chain-link fence around the place to keep trespassers away. However, if more came, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. The place is so badly damaged, you’re shocked it’s still standing. This place holds a lot of memories, and none of them are good.

This used to be a good house--you can see it. Years of ignored care left it in the state it’s in. The outside walls used to be bright white but now are a dirty color. The wood is falling apart at the base of the house. The windows are smashed and shattered, so to keep people out of the house, they board it up haphazardly.

“Jacob's workshop is out the back,” Derek says.

“I don’t know about this place, Derek. I have a really bad feeling,” you say with an uneasy feeling.

Derek leads you onto the property and towards the back. The closer you get to the place where his workshop used to be, the more the uneasy feeling comes back. All that’s left back there is just dirt, but you can clearly see the workshop as if it were standing right now. Everything is perfectly clear as to what used to be here.

“He claimed that Sarah Jean would lure the victims from mall parking lots. She'd invite them to smoke pot in her truck. They'd find Jacob but no pot. They’d bring them here.”

“This is where the workshop stood,” you state, looking around as if it were actually here.

“What do you see?”

“It’s a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be. It’s big enough to not warrant concerns from anyone else but small enough to hide away from the street’s view. It looks homey like a guest house, but not too scary to throw off any of the people who passed by the house on a daily basis. There are high cabinets with a ton of tools inside like a mechanic would have. There are some tools hanging on the far wall, a few desks around, and a big bench saw,” you whisper fearfully when you see what’s on it.

Right on the blade is red liquid, and you know it’s blood.

“The blade has a ton of blood on it. He used it to cut up his victims,” you say.

As you get out the last word, you see a mystified version of Jacob standing by the saw with one of his faceless victims on the table. She is squirming, but he cuts her up anyway. Sarah Jean is nowhere to be found, but you have a feeling that she didn’t know he did this to these poor girls. Killing, maybe, but killing them this way, absolutely not. Sarah Jean was a victim herself--and she still is.

“I can’t look at this anymore,” you whisper and look away from the crime scene that’s no longer there.

“We know that Jacob was abused as a child. What about Sarah Jean?” Derek asks.

“Her mother refused to give any testimony in her defense. She never talked to anybody,” you state.

When you look back at Derek, the workshop had disappeared. Your mind is focused on something else, so it doesn’t have the energy to conjure up what was, but instead, focuses on what is.

“Maybe she's willing to talk now. Let's go pay Sarah Jean's mother a visit.”

“Despite what happened, she doesn’t live far. It’s within walking distance.”

“I wonder why she didn’t move halfway around the world.”

“She’s a mother, Derek. A Mother doesn’t abandon her children,” you say with sadness.

“You say that like you know that. Do you have children?”

“No.”

You don’t say anything more on the matter, not like you would if you could. Your past promised to stay in the past, so there is no use in digging up things that have been locked away for almost a decade now. You two quickly head over to Sarah Jean’s mother’s house to see if she’ll talk to you now.

Her house is still standing, but it looks like there is a lot of work still left to be done. Its as if she wants to repaint and redo the house to give it a new start so she can somehow move on from all this. No matter how much work is done on the house, you can still sense the sadness within the foundations. Right by the door is ‘Rot in Hell Sarah Jean’ spray-painted loud for anyone who walks by. You ignore it and knock on the door, looking at Derek when she doesn’t answer.

“She’s sad, Derek--in more pain than anyone I’ve seen in a while,” you sigh.

“Hello? Anybody? Hello! Mrs. Mason?” Derek yells, knowing she is home.

The door opens and Sarah’s mother, Deborah Mason, stands there with a small teacup in her hands.

“Yeah?”

“Are you Sarah Jean Dawes’ mother?” you ask.

“Who the hell are you?”

“FBI. We are from the behavior analysis unit,” you state and flash her your badge.

“My daughter and her son of a bitch husband buried a thirteen-year-old girl under my floor. What more do you need to know?”

“Ma'am, Sarah Jean has agreed to meet with our colleges to talk about why they killed those girls. We'd like some background information if you don't mind,” Derek says gently.

She has nothing to lose by letting you two in and talking, so she just shrugs and lets the door open as she heads back inside. The inside looks the same as the outside, but with more work. Plastic covers virtually everything as she gets ready to repaint the house. There are some parts torn up from the floor, so you’re careful as you walk inside to where Deborah is in the kitchen. This is an open floor plan, and you can see into the dining room on the other end of the kitchen right through an arched entryway. Almost every doorway is an arch.

“Extensive remodeling. Jacob built the original extension?” you ask and point to the arch separating the kitchen and the dining room. “I see he liked arches.”

“Teenage girls, agent, that's what he liked.”

“How was Sarah Jean growing up?”

“Fine, until she met Jacob. She was shy, quiet, and also smart.”

She picks up a bottle of vodka and adds more to her small teacup, and you exchange silent glances with Derek.

“What about her relationship with her father?” you wonder. “Was Sarah ever abused?”

“He was strict. He was a military man. They didn't always see eye to eye. That's all history. He's dead. She's about to die,” she sighs and drinks from the cup.

“Mrs. Mason, if we better understand the dynamics of her relationships, we can get a better idea of why and what actually happened,” Derek says.

“Dynamics?” she scoffs and moves away from the kitchen to the living room where her purse is.

“Well, it might answer why Jacob never killed Sarah Jean. They shared something.”

“They shared pain.”

“How strict was your husband? How did he discipline Sarah Jean? Was he physical with her?” you pry.

“He was a mean bastard, but he only hurt me… never her.”

“Why didn’t you leave with her?”

“Because we had no place to go,” her voice falters as she takes another sip.

“An anonymous caller tipped the police off about Jacob, was it you?” you ask.

“No, but I know who it was,” she says and pulls out a letter from her purse. She hands it to you, and you take it gently from her hands. “This came this morning.”

You open the letter, and your mouth hangs open just a bit when you read exactly what it is.

“What does it say?” Derek asks.

“It’s a statement of innocence,” you reveal. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to call Gideon about this.”

You quickly head outside and dial Penelope so she can patch you through to the older agent.

“Garcia,” she says once she answers.

“Hey, it’s Y/N. I need Gideon please.”

“Yeah, I'll pass you through,” she puts you on a brief hold until she can get the older agent on the line for you.

“What?” Gideon mutters quietly.

“We're at the mother's house, and she gave me a letter. A statement of innocence. I want to read to you.”

“Read the letter, Y/N.”

“Mom, I know how difficult this must be. Things between us were never what they should be between a mother and a daughter. I want you to know that the best part of me, the most important part of me, is now in a better place than you and I will ever be. I'm responsible for the death of those girls. I neglected my duties as a woman and as a mother.”

There is more to it, but you can hear Sarah Jean get upset over the line. You don’t know what is happening, but you feel like you need to get over there right now. Screw prisons and your fear of them. You need to help this woman, and it sounds like you can, based on what you hear over the phone.

“I’m coming over there. I’ll be there soon,” you say to whoever is listening before hanging up. Derek exits the house, and you put your phone away and hand him the letter. “I’m going back to prison. You’ll be okay here? I can send Elle to help you.”

“Yeah, that’d be great. I’ll see if I can’t get anything else out of Deborah.”

“Okay, stay safe.”

“And stay sane,” he quips back as you head to the car.

When you get to the prison, Gideon and Spencer are done talking to Sarah Jean. She didn’t know you would be reading her private letter, so she needed to clear her head before you go and talk to her. If she is truly innocent, then why is she fighting so hard to stay here? Why not fight to get out and separate herself fro Jacob? She is scared of something… or she’s trying to protect someone. You sent Elle to go to Derek when you arrived, and the team gathers where Penelope is to watch the tapes of the interviews to see if they can’t spot anything that they might have missed.

“They died as a result of my neglect,” Sarah Jean whispers regretfully.

“This letter suggests to me that an innocent woman is about to be executed for a crime she did not commit.”

“I could tell you right now, it's not enough to get a stay,” Sam Shapiro sighs.

“Well, facts. Reid,” Gideon says.

“Human sexuality is a complex dynamic of three components: biological, physiological, and emotional. Jacob's needs were informed by the emotional, sexual abuse that he received at the hand of his mother. Long term appetitive abuse informed the template of his love map. Something we refer to as a signature. Jacob was an only child, so he was alone when the abuse occurred. So, in order for him to fulfill his fantasy he has got to be alone with his victims.”

You look from the tape of Sarah Jean to the one with Jacob, and you just narrow our eyes in anger for him. He’s not a good person at all, and you refuse to even be in within sight of him. There is no way you’ll survive talking to him about anything.

“If I told you that what would I have left for myself?” Jacob says over the tape.

“He said ‘myself’. If Sarah Jean was present, it would have destroyed his fantasy,” you note.

“She confessed to killing her son,” the warden, Charles Diehl, states.

“Yes, true, but we are also convinced that she is the anonymous caller that made the phone call that nailed Jacob. In fact, I know she is.”

“Guilt-ridden and filled with remorse, she called the police. It's not the profile of a woman who would then kill a child,” Gideon sighs.

“What else do you need?” you ask the attorney.

“Evidence.”

“So, if we prove Jacob killed Riley, would that get a stay?”

“Absolutely.”

“She protects the painting, she protects the boy,” Gideon mutters.

“What?” you ask.

“Paintings are her statement. We need to figure out what they say.”

“Get me into her room, and I’ll find that out. I have to be alone though. I can’t have her influence on this.”

“You’ll get it,” Gideon confirms with a single nod.

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geniusgub · 4 years

Text

don’t leave me//spencer reid

600 follower celebration!! my first one shot in months because ive been so consumed with north. enjoy!!

also I didn’t edit this at all and worked on it for like five hours straight so excuse the mistakes plz and thx

genre: so much angst

pairing: spencer reid x female oc

warnings: drugs, withdrawal, overdose

word count: 5.2k

It isn’t hard to tell when something is wrong with Spencer.

Spencer is generally a sweet, patient, and quick-thinking person, especially at work. I joined the BAU when Elle Greenaway departed from the bureau and left a spot open for a profiler. Spencer didn’t seem to take well to the change in the team dynamic and it seemed like he shut down whenever I was around him. He didn’t talk to me much at all and when he did, it was strictly business. No banter about personal lives occurred between us like it did between Spencer and, well, the rest of the team. I chalked it up to an anxiety over change and I respected that. I gave him the time to warm up to me and thankfully, after a while, he seemed to take a liking to me.

Penelope Garcia is the queen of stirring up drama and once Spencer and I started to bond over our geeky tendencies, like using Doctor Who as a comfort show, and always searching for nerdy apparel in stores, she had no problem stirring the pot. To my understanding, she watched Spencer and I play cards together on the jet one day (on one of the rare days she came in the field with us) and then told Emily that we must be in love with each other. Emily told JJ, JJ told Morgan, Morgan told Hotch, and Hotch told Gideon. Suddenly the whole team became convinced that Spencer and I were madly in love and it only took about ten minutes.

I would never admit it, not yet at least, but Penelope was dead on. Once Spencer and I talked more and spent time together outside of work, I fell hard and fast for him. He truly is unlike any other man in the world. He has no problem with staying at home for a night, in fact, he prefers it. He likes to open the windows when it’s raining to hear the noises of the water making contact with his fire escape. He wants to stay up with me until the middle of the night just so we can make sure we finish every Harry Potter movie on binge days. It’s hard not to fall in love with Spencer Reid. He makes it so easy. Of course, he’s oblivious and his brain is filled with thoughts of self-doubt and inferiority in the looks department, but I don’t need or want him to look like a model. He’s all I need.

But one day, all of this stops. It wasn’t hard to tell that something was wrong with Spencer. It wasn’t a secret that a piece of Spencer’s soul was left in the grave he dug for himself under the watch of Tobias Hankle. It wasn’t a secret that Spencer struggled immensely upon returning home and having light withdrawal symptoms. I tried my best to help him, making trips to his apartment to bring him anything he might need while he was on his mandatory two weeks leave. But he would also give me an unconvincing smile and push me right out the door. He never let me spend more than five minutes inside his apartment. I never saw him sweat, or vomit, or shake, or yawn. I never saw his pupils dilate.

When he returns to work, a bit too soon for my liking, that’s when I start to notice the withdrawal symptoms. And for a little while, I’m okay with it. Withdrawal, although painful and torturous, is a step in the right direction. The drugs are making their way out of Spencer’s system and he is detoxing. I pay extra attention to him to ensure his safety, but nobody else on the team seems to give Spencer any care. They surely get pissed off when he snaps at them and sweats all over the case files and is far too nasty with possible witnesses. Nobody, besides me, gives his attitude any slack. But I continue to keep a close eye on him during the case.

Keeping a close eye, however, reveals to me that Spencer’s withdrawal symptoms continuously disappear and then reappear during the three days we are away. I don’t need Spencer’s level of genius to figure out what is going on.

My heart pounds against my chest when Spencer goes running of the jet the moment it touches down in DC. Not a single pair of eyes follow Spencer’s movements but my own. The others on the team just stand to pull their bags out of the overhead bins. They’re chatting about whether they should go out for drinks or to a restaurant for dinner but they’re not chatting about their friend who clearly has a problem. But I love Spencer more than anything and seeing him struggle makes me hurt inside. Once I retrieve my own carry on and go-bag, I drive straight to Spencer’s apartment. I ignore my fellow team members when they ask me if I want to join them for dinner.

“Spencer?” I knock on his front door and rock back and forth on my feet, waiting for some type of response from him. I saw his car outside and I know he’s here and if he doesn’t open the door within ten more seconds then I’m going to kick it down.

Thankfully, I don’t need to risk breaking the heel of my shoe today because the door swings open a second later. Spencer stands before me, looking the most disheveled I’ve ever seen him. His shirt is untucked, his pants are wrinkly, his hair is half curly from his excess sweating, and he isn’t even wearing socks or shoes. His long sleeve shirt makes my heart drop to my stomach.

“Olive?” His voice cracks when he speaks. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to-” I choke on the words I truly want to say and suddenly I’m pushing back tears. I try to swallow the lump in my throat and give him a smile. “I’m gonna make you dinner! The team is going out together but I’m in the mood to stay in after that horrible case.”

“Uh,” Spencer glances behind him and then whips back to me, “I’m actually really tired and I just wanna sleep. So thanks for coming by-”

My hands fly out when Spencer tries to close the door in my face. I’ve underestimated his strength up until now because I have to use all of my strength to keep him from pushing me out. But Spencer isn’t able to keep up his strength much longer and concedes, letting the door fly backward and unintentionally letting me inside. I drop my bags to the floor, eyes locking with Spencer’s and watching a fire light in them.

“Spencer,” my voice is still far too weak for my liking, “I’m not leaving.”

Spencer scoffs, slamming the door shut, just barely grazing my shoulder as it passes me. “Yeah, well, I want you to.”

“I’m not leaving.”

Spencer’s jaw tightens and his hands ball into fists at his side. He’s trying to stand tall and strong in front of me but he’s starting to crack by the millisecond. His chest heaves when he tries to choke back his tears and his eyelids start to flutter. If I wasn’t sure of the situation before I stepped inside, it surely has been confirmed right now. Spencer opens his mouth to speak and his chin trembles. “I want you to leave me alone.”

“Absolutely not,” I step closer to him but he steps backward, not allowing me to diminish the distance between us. “Spencer, please. Let me help you.”

His head drops, his shoulders caving in. “I don’t need help,” With his eyes on his feet and no longer on me, I take the opportunity to grab his arm. He tries to jerk away from me the second my fingertips brush the fabric of his shirt but I told him as tightly as I can. He whimpers in my hold and his crack start to get wider and wider. “Olive, please.”

“Just let me see, Spence,” I’m already begging and I’m already crying. “Let me see. Let me help. I’m here for you.”

Spencer squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head away from me, his first tears dripping down his cheeks. He stops trying to escape my hold and just cries, his clothes clutched in his hands. It’s not an invitation whatsoever but I take it as one, rolling up Spencer’s sleeve past his elbow. The crook of his elbow is covered in track marks, some fading and some bright red and bloody. It takes every ounce of my energy not to break down right then and there as my worst fear comes true. But Spencer breaks down when his biggest secret is revealed, his knees giving out and his body tumbling to the floor. I follow him down, cradling him in my arms as he sobs into my chest. I shush him and stroke his hair, rocking him back and forth, like a child, to calm him down.

“It’s okay, Spencer, shh,” I coo, my fingertips coated in sweat as I coax my fingers through his knotty locks. “Everything is gonna be okay, my love. I’m here and I’m gonna help you.”

“No.”

“Yes. Spencer, look at me,” I don’t give him the option of where to bring his gaze to. I grab his cheeks and force his gaze up, his eyes bloodshot and his face soaking wet. “You can’t keep doing drugs. You’ll lose everything, you know that. You’ll lose your job, you’ll lose me, you’ll lose your life, you’ll-”

“I’ll lose you?” He’s never sounded more like a child than he does now. He’s whimpering and whining and crying out and clinging to me as tight as he can.

I give the hardest answer yet and I feel my heart break in my chest. “Yes, Spencer, I’ll leave. I can’t-”

Spencer starts to scramble to his knees, legs wobbling under his weight. “You can’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I love you, Olive. Don’t leave.”

I know it’s the drugs talking but it doesn’t make the confession hurt any less. The confession is what I’ve waited so damn long to hear. But it’s wrong right now. Admitting my love will do nothing but hurt both of us. Spencer isn’t in a good state of mind right now. He probably won’t even remember that he hastily confessed his love while trying to convince me not to leave him. I find myself forcing down tears yet again.

“I won’t leave you if you get clean,” I brush back his hair again and this time, it slicks back with sweat. “You can’t keep living your life like this, shooting up in bathrooms and hiding from your friends. Get some help and get clean. I can’t sit back and watch you destroy your life, a life that you worked so damn hard to get.”

Spencer collapses under his own weight, no longer able to sit up on his knees. He falls onto all fours, his head hanging between his shoulders and his tears falling onto the carpet. “I can’t do it. It’s so painful to stop. I need it to be happy. I need it to escape.”

I smooth my hands over his shoulders and where other people would probably feel tensed up muscles, I feel relaxed muscles as Spencer melts into my embrace. “Then let me take you to the hospital. They can help make the detox less painful. They can give you medication and you can get counseling and I’ll be there for as long as I’m allowed to be.”

“No, none of that. Here. I wanna do it here.” Spencer lifts his head, sniffling and huffing through his tears. “I’ll do it alone. Please leave. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Absolutely not,” I rise to my feet and lean down to help Spencer to his feet, baring all of his weight on my shoulders as we trudge towards his bedroom. “I’m not leaving you like this. I’m gonna call Hotch and get time off for both of us.”

Spencer lets out his millionth whimper of the night when he falls onto the bed, immediately curling up on his side and squeezing his eyes shut. “Please. Go.”

I kneel beside the bed, bringing my hand to his cheek and stroking his soft skin gently. The simple motion actually seems to calm him for a millisecond before he starts to shake, clearly being hit with an onslaught of chills from his inevitable fever. So I tug the blanket over his body and tuck him in, pressing my lips to his forehead. “I’m not gonna abandon you, Spencer. I’m gonna help you through this and you’re gonna return to your happier, drug-free self. You’ll feel better soon. I promise.”

I stayed true to my promise. I didn’t leave Spencer alone for a single second while he suffered through withdrawal. I washed his vomit and sweat-soaked sheets. I wiped his tears and held him when he cried. I dragged him from room to room when he didn’t have the energy to carry his own weight. I cooked him food on the rare occasions that he was actually hungry. I whispered sweet nothings in his ear when he needed the reassurance that someone actually cares. I located his stash of needles and excess vials and threw them in the dumpster outside, not even wanting to risk leaving them in a trashcan in the apartment. There is no doubt in my mind that Spencer wouldn’t have gotten through this without me. I was harsh with him when he begged for ‘just one more hit’ and I held him when he woke up screaming in the middle of the night. There is no doubt in my mind that Spencer would have given in to his cravings and started this mess all over again.

After two weeks, Spencer starts to get better. He is able to walk without assistance and he can eat two meals a day without throwing it up ten minutes later. It’s a relief and the sun finally starts to shine through the clouds that had been lingering for too long. He still needed at least another week off of work to work up his strength and catch up on sleep in order to not look like the living dead and Hotch starts to get suspicious of such an extended time off. I tell him not to ask and for some reason, he listens. Maybe he just knows and is glad that someone else dealt with Spencer at his lowest point. Yeah, that’s probably it.

After three weeks and a promising night where Spencer makes me dinner for the first time in weeks, we return to work. The team is happy to see us and they don’t question why we were both gone for so long. But I’m almost positive it’s the same reason that Hotch didn’t question the time off.

I made sure to visit Spencer in his hotel room and I always, somehow, made sure that he was never in a room alone. One night of being alone could make him spiral and that is the last thing he needs. So if he was in a room alone then I would sneak out of mine and sleep with him. It seemed like he started to enjoy sleeping in the same bed as me, opting to cuddle me close to his chest instead of turning his back to me. His confession always seemed to echo in my mind when he would kiss my head or squeeze my waist but it was just the drugs talking. He didn’t mean it.

One month clean and Spencer seemed to be doing amazing. He boasted about how he deleted his drug dealer’s number from his phone and how he would eat meals without me reminding him to and how he could be on his feet for more than twenty minutes without being winded and needing to sit. I don’t think I had ever felt so proud of a human being until I shoved all my pride onto Spencer. Sure, he didn’t necessarily want to get the help that I gave him, but he went along with it and it’s a joy to see him return to his old happy-go-lucky self.

But then the team gets called into a meeting. The phonecall wakes me up in the middle of the night and sends me rushing to get dressed in something other than pajamas, but I just wind up putting on new sweats. I rush out the door and to the vacant building, throwing my holster on my hip and riding the elevator up. I blurt out a load of apologies for y lateness as I stumble into the conference room and realize I’m the last two arrive.

“Aww,” Morgan coos sarcastically as I sit down beside him, “it was so nice if you to get dressed up for us!”

“I swear to god,” I hiss, but he knows I’m just teasing, “if you don’t shut up right now then I’ll-”

“Okay,” Hotch shuts me up far too easily, standing at the front of the table with his arms crossed, “we’re all here. Let’s start.”

“Is this a new case?” Emily wonders, eyes darting between Hotch and the table that is usually filled with case files.

“No,” he sighs and looks down at his feet, and this is probably the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him before. “Tonight-”

“Wait,” I sit up and glance around, suddenly alarmed, “We’re not all here. Spencer isn’t here.”

Hotch holds his hands up to me in his second way of telling me to shut up. “I know that. He already knows what I’m about to tell you all.” This does absolutely nothing to erase the red flags in my mind. “I know we all struggled with our last case, and Gideon struggled the most, for obvious reasons. Tonight, Spencer went to his cabin to check on him. It turns out that Gideon had left a note for Spencer to say goodbye and he has sent in his resignation. He has officially left the BAU.”

Okay, listen, I barely knew the man. I haven’t been on this team for too long and Gideon favored talking to Hotch and Spencer. He didn’t interact with me much at all, except to correct me, so I’m not too torn up about his departure. Yes, he just created a huge hole that needs to be filled but that’s not my main concern. Spencer is. He isn’t here and he just learned that the man who has been his father figure for years just abandoned him in the same way that his father did when he was a child. Nobody should be alone at a time like this, and Spencer especially shouldn’t.

JJ is the first to ask a question but I don’t even hear it. Hotch answers and Emily follows and then Penelope is squealing and Morgan shouts over everyone and it’s far too crazy. I just need to know that Spencer is okay. He is the only thing I care about. He made so much amazing progress and he absolutely can’t erase that.

“I need to go.” I blurt out suddenly, standing from the round table and rushing out of the building. I call Spencer relentlessly and get no answer. I go straight to voicemail every time. I slam on my gas pedal.

I don’t lock my car and I barely remember to close my door before I’m bounding up the stairs and to his apartment. I couldn’t care less about the other residents who are probably fast asleep by now. I bang on Spencer’s door, shouting his name once, twice, three times, and get nothing. I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

“Spencer! Come on, open up!” I cry out, jiggling the handle and hoping it’s unlocked. “Please! Let me in!” The energy radiating from the apartment makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I take two steps back and breathe in a deep breath, preparing me for whatever could be on the other side of this stupid door. I’ll never be ready to see what I know is waiting for me. I lift my foot up and slam it against the door, the lock snapping and allowing the door to fly open. I burst inside, shouting Spencer’s name frantically as my eyes search desperately for his adorable curls and his soft cardigans.

It takes me no more than thirty seconds of frantic running to find Spencer. When I do, I wish desperately that I hadn’t.

His body is slumped against the bathtub, head hanging backward and his mouth wide open. His shirt is off and a rubber band is still tied around his bicep. The bathroom wreaks of vomit and there’s a needle in the sink and a broken vial on the floor. He looks haunting similar to the crime scenes we observe every day.

I drop to my knees in front of him and grab onto his cheeks, lifting his head up. “Spencer?” My sobs are uncontrollable as my thumbs stroke his freezing cold skin, searching for some sort of life. “Come on, baby,” I resist the urge to shake his head in my hands. “Spence, please, wake up!”

I wait for another second. I get nothing. No eyelids fluttering. No sniffles. No coughing. No vomiting. No screaming. No crying. Nothing. There’s nothing left.

Working through my sobs, I reach into my backpack and fish out the little box I’m searching for. I set it aside momentarily and try to gather Spencer in my arms as best as I can, pushing and dragging him until he is laying on his back in the most comfortable way his lanky body will allow in the cramped bathroom. Gosh, if only Spencer was conscious. He would be freaking out about being on the bathroom floor.

I pull out the nasal spray and administer the Narcan into Spencer’s nostril, tossing it aside and then rolling Spencer onto his side. I don’t dare to tear my eyes away from him, even as I fish my phone out of my backpack and call 911. I babble on about there being a federal agent down and how I’m a federal agent who administered a dose of Narcan and how someone needs to help Spencer now but it all seems like a foreign language to me. Nothing is right anymore. The operator tells me someone will be there soon and to stay on the line, so I set my phone down and lean closer to Spencer.

“Spence?” I wait for a reaction. “Sweetheart, come on, don’t do this to me,” my tears fall onto the floor and create a puddle beside his hands. My trembling hand reaches out to push his hair back, admiring the way his locks curl around my fingers. I admire the way for eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks and how beautiful his lips look. I wish I kissed him when I had the chance. Now I might never get the chance to be with him. The thought makes me cry harder and I double over in agony, crying out for the love that I will never get to have and for the life I will never get to live. I should have told him I loved him when he said it first. How could I be so stupid?

I have no recollection of the paramedics arriving. Being pulled away, kicking and screaming Spencer’s name, is a complete blur of smeared lines and flashes of light. I do what I can to erase the image of Spencer being carried out on a stretcher, his rubberbanded arm dangling off the side, and into an ambulance. I clutch Spencer’s hand and shut out the words of the paramedics as the ambulance speeds to the hospital. I barely even recall being plopped in a waiting room and being told to await further instructions.

I slide down the wall and tuck my head between my knees, hoping that being bent over will minimize the volume of my cries. But it doesn’t and sobs take over my body, leaving me shaking and quivering. If Spencer were with me, he would hold my hand and quietly tell me how many germs are on this floor and statistics on how easy it is to catch and infection in a hospital. He would talk to distract me from the horrible situation going down. But he’s not here and I’m alone and there’s nothing I can do to help.

“Olive?” I ignore Hotch’s voice when I hear it. I pay no attention to his softer than usual tone and I don’t dignify his presence by acknowledging it. I keep my head down and clutched between my knees and try to quiet my cries. Hotch crouches down beside me and tells me how he was notified of the situation and how the team is on the way but I ignore him. He never cared about Spencer before so why should he now?

True to his word, the rest of the team has arrived at the hospital within ten minutes. They form a circle in front of me and bounce around questions about what happened. Is he alive? How much did he take? What did he take? Where is he now? They never address me directly and just keep shooting questions around and receive no answers. It’s exhausting to listen to. I’m exhausted.

“Hey, Olive?” Penelope crunches next to me in the same way Hotch did, placing her hand on my shoulder. I shake it off. She pauses before speaking again. “Could you tell us what happened?”

For the first time, I lift my head. Everyone is in their pajamas and looking just a little less distressed than me. I’m sure I look horrendous. I surely feel horrendous. I’ve never felt worse in my life. I’ve never loved a person so much just to have them ripped out of my life. If Spencer doesn’t recover from this, I know I never will.

“He,” I lift my hands to wipe my cheeks but stop mid-air, wondering just how many germs are on my skin, “overdosed. To my knowledge, he’s been clean for a month and-and-” my lips quiver again, “I guess Gideon leaving was too much for him to handle. He thought he needed drugs to make him feel better.”

JJ leans into Emily’s side, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why didn’t he just call one of us instead of going straight to drugs? We all would have dropped what we were doing and gone to help him.”

The absolutely idiotic statement sets me on fire. I clamber to my feet, sadness replaced with anger within a millisecond. “Really? Would you have?”

JJ furrows her eyebrows and looks to the team for more support. “Of course. Spencer is one of my best friends.”

“We all would have helped him,” Morgan adds.

“Oh, really?” I sneer at them. “Were you there to help him last month when he was detoxing? Did any of you come to see why Spencer and I took three weeks off from work without warning? No! None of you texted or called or visited like real friends do. Did you even care that he obviously had a drug problem? Did any of you notice?”

Emily scoffs at the accusation, her anger starting to rise to mine. “Of course we did! I even asked him about it once and-”

“Once!” I let out the most sarcastic laugh that has ever dripped from my lips. Sleeping patients be damned, I will let out my anger at these inferior ‘friends’ and tell them the truth they need to hear. “You asked him once? Well, I spent three weeks living at his apartment, cooking, cleaning, holding him, reassuring him that he would be okay. And all you did was ask him about it once?” The realization is starting to set in on their faces that maybe this issue is bigger than they thought. “He needed real help and support from his friends, and yeah, he had me but he would have done a lot better if he had all of his closest friends supporting him.” They all fall silent, as they should. They stare at me and each other and everyone cries over their friend who they should have helped.

“Olive,” Hotch murmurs, “when you gave him the Narcan, did he wake up?”

This prompts more tears. “No.”

“Spencer Reid?”

I whip around as fast as I can at the sound of a doctor approaching, leaving the team in the dust to approach him. “Hi, yeah, I’m here for Spencer Reid. I’m his emergency contact.”

The doctor smiles at me and he waves me along, leading me away from the blabbering BAU and towards a room. “So,” the doctor says, “he’s extremely lucky. You administered the Narcan just in time. A few more minutes and Mr. Reid probably wouldn’t have made it.” I barely pay attention to the looming fear of Spencer’s death. If I hadn’t gone running out of the team meeting, Spencer would have died. “We’ve given him the proper medication, he’s in this room, and he should be waking up soon. When he’s feeling better, we can talk about proper treatment and recovery for Mr. Reid.”

I thought that maybe I cried all the tears my body could handle but that is proven wrong. He’s going to be okay. Going through detox again will be hell but now he can get professional help. He’s going to be okay.

I step into Spencer’s room. The sight of him lying in the bed is reminiscent of him lying on the bathroom floor and it makes my head pounds and my heart break. His elbow is bandaged up so his track marks are hidden and his hair is a matted down mess. But even lying there, helpless and in pain, he still looks like the man I fell in love with. The man who learned to braid hair and actually drove a car a few times and went shopping with me just to make me happy. He’s a shell of the man I love but he’s there and I know we will meet again soon.

Spencer starts to stir a moment later, tossing his head side to side gently. I creep over and slide my hand in his, squeezing softly. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet but there are tears streaming down his cheeks, soaking the top hem of his hospital gown. His hand tightens around mine and suddenly, my cheeks match his.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I breathe out, bringing our hands up to my lips and pressing a kiss to his knuckles, “you’re okay. Everything is gonna be okay.”

Spencer lets out a high pitched moan, his head rolling over to face me. “I’m sorry,” he slurs out. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know you didn’t mean it, Spence. I’m not mad. Just relax. I’ll be right here,” without letting go of his hand, I reach over and push a chair against the side of the bed. “Get some rest.”

“You won’t leave me?”

“No, Spence. I’m never gonna leave you.”

#nikos writing #spencer reid #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x oc

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avasharpe · 4 years

Text

Honey, There Is No Right Way

Chapter: one/four

Summary: Sara’s blind and now that the hellhound has been taken care of and the ship is up and running Sara must find out how to adjust and adapt to her new disability. Along the way, she finds out that there is no right way to adjust. Starts right after Ship Broken.

Fandom: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

Relationship: Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe.

Characters: Sara Lance, Ava Sharpe, Gideon.

Chapter Rating: Explicit

Additional Tags: Blind!Sara, Fluff and Angst, Co-showering in the communal bathroom ;) Lemons.

Read at AO3

Read at FFN

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“I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do,” Gideon said.

“No, there has to be something that can be done,” Ava said as Sara heard her pick up a tablet.

“I am truly sorry,” Gideon said from above. “I can run a full eye to brain diagnosis, but I fear the same result.”

“Do it,” Ava said and Sara can hear her getting more frantic by the second. Sara reached out her hand to her and Ava picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

“Captain Lance?” Gideon asked, waiting for Sara's permission.

“It wouldn't hurt to try,” Sara said, with a shrug.

Ava carefully adjusted the eye goggles over Sara's face. Although Sara couldn't see anything, she could feel as Gideon ran the scan over her eyes.

Sara closed her eyes after Gideon finished. “I’m sorry Captain Lance.”

Sara waited for a second after Ava took off the goggles, before opening her eyes again, but she still couldn't see. Her world is entirely black. She couldn't even tell if the lights are on or off, it's just an endless black void. Sara put her hands over her face, her eyebrows, her eyelids, even her eyelashes all felt the same. There were no rough scars or raised angry cataracts, just soft eyelashes that bushed her fingertips.

“We'll just have to keep trying. We can figure this out. I'll have Constantine and Charlie and Nate do some research. There has to be something, maybe there's a spell or a potion, or…” Ava trailed off and Sara trailed her hand up Ava’s arm and neck to Ava’s face, and Ava held her hand to her cheek. “The loom. We’ll use the loom and get your sight back.”

Sara just nodded and rubbed Ava’s cheek with her thumb. She had heard of how blind people would run their fingers over the facial structures of people they loved, but Sara didn't want to feel Ava's face, she wanted to see it.

Sara sat up and Ava put her hands on her shoulders, rubbing up and down her arms. Sara took a deep breath, in and out as she tried to calm her anxiety and settle into her unseeing world. She settled into her skin for a moment before she realized how itchy she was and scratching at her arms.

“Can I take a shower? I've kind of been in these clothes for a week.”

“Of course honey,” Ava said, Sara can't see Ava's expression, but she can imagine how Ava tilted her head and drew her eyebrows together like she always did.

Ava walked her down the hall and stopped in front of the bathroom door. Gideon opened it for them and Sara moved towards it, feeling the wall for the doorway.

“Why don't you hop in the shower and I'll go grab your towel and bring you a change of clothing okay?” Ava said letting go of her.

“Ava wait,” Sara reached out again and managed to grab ahold of the back of Ava’s shirt.

“What's wrong?”

Sara bit her lip and stopped herself from admitting that she needed Ava there with her. The shower was always a mess of everyone's different products and nothing was ever in the same place. Mick had some weird body wash that always smelled like oil and wood that ended up where her shampoo should have been. She didn't know where anything was and she couldn't even remember where she put her loofah, whether it was on the faucet or one of the hooks along the wall.

Plus, the only way she can tell it apart from the one that Nate used was because of the color and she can't exactly see that right now. She needed Ava to pick it out for her and It was stupid, she knew that, but she didn’t want to use Nate’s loofah. Sara hated that she had to have help right now, when all she wanted to do was try and figure it out for herself, but that option seemed equally hard.

“Can you come back and shower with me?”

Sara can hear Ava take a step forward and she felt Ava put her hands on Sara’s shoulders before she felt Ava’s lips on her own. It was just a quick kiss, but it was just enough for Sara to relax, as she knew Ava would help her.

“Of course, are you okay waiting for me to go grab our stuff, or do you want to come with me?”

Sara took a deep breath. She wrapped her arm around Ava's waist and leaned into her for a moment. Ava grounded her in a way that Sara loved. Every time Ava held her, she felt safe enough to take a breath and recharge. In Ava’s arms, she could take on the world, again.

“I'll be okay, you go grab our stuff and I'll meet you in the shower,” Sara said letting her smile rest playfully on her lips.

“Well I guess I'll have to hurry back then,” Ava says her voice going up an octave in excitement.

Sara let her fingers dance up Ava’s sides and Ava let out a laugh. Sara wondered if she smiled too. Ava pulled away and Sara heard the door to the bathroom open and close, signaling that she was all alone.

Sara took a deep breath and turned around. She knew that the toilet and shower were to her left so she put her hand on the wall. The waved metal was smooth under her fingers as it dipped and crested as she walked to the shower door. The toilet was to her right and the shower stall was to her left. She quickly used the toilet and stopped as she realized that the sink was in the middle of the wall across from her. It would be easier to just walk forward and she could do that, right? Sara e took a step towards the sink, then another, and another until she ran into it with her hip and her toes. She pulled back and rubbed the spot on her hip, as she cursed the ceramic sink. Who puts a ceramic sink in a metal ship? Rip Hunter that’s who.

Sara shook her head as she washed her hands and dried them off. She took off her rings and put them in a dish by the sink. As she placed them in the dish, she heard the telltale sign of one ring falling off of the sink and onto the floor. Sara paused and listened to it roll around before it stopped. Sara ran her fingers through her hair, she had no idea where it was.

Maybe she could use her sight to see it. Sara squeezed her eyes shut and tried her hardest to envision it in her mind, but nothing came of it. No visions of the future, no answer to where her ring was. Sara doesn't give up, she couldn’t, she got down on her hands and knees and tried to feel around for the ring. Nevertheless, all she found were strands of hair from Zari and this weird gel that smelled like what Nate puts in his hair. After spending what felt like forever, running her hands over the dirty bathroom floor, she's about ready to scream as Ava walked in.

“Hey babe, did you lose something?” Ava asked and Sara can hear her light hearted tone and her footsteps as she walked over to hang up their towels.

“Just my stupid ring fell off the sink,” Sara said sitting back on her legs.

“Oh, here it is,” Ava said and Sara can hear her pick up the ring that clinked on the floor as Ava picked it up.

Sara reached up to where she thought Ava was and tried to grab the ring from her fingers but just ended up swiping her hand through the air.

Sara swore and stood up, reaching out for Ava. Ava met her halfway and took Sara's hand, turning it over and putting the ring in her palm.

“Since we're about to shower do you want me to put it in your ring bowl?” Ava gently asked as she rubbed the back of Sara’s hand.

“No I can do it myself,” Sara insisted and pulled her hand away to reach for the sink. she ran her fingers along the side of the sink until she reached the dish, but in her anger, she was more forceful than necessary and knocked it onto the floor. Sara heard all the rings scattered across the floor and the glass bowl shatter with them.

“Hang on Sara, don't move you're standing around the broken fragments, just let me grab a broom and I'll clean it up.”

Ava ran out of the room and Sara just stood there. She felt so stupid. She broke something, she’s never done that. She couldn’t even find her ring and put it in the bowl without somebody else's help. Is this what her life would be like now? Would she need help doing the simplest of tasks? Would she ever get her independence back? Tears collected in Sara's eyes, but she was determined not to cry.

Sara heard the door to the bathroom open again and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. She tried to take a deep breath that only came in staggered broken sobs. Sara hid her face from where Ava could see.

Sara heard Ava take a deep breath and then her footsteps across the room and she wrapped her arms around Sara. Ava just held her and Sara was able to take another deep breath more easily in Ava’s arms. Sara felt ready to pull away and let go, but Ava pulled her back and gave her one extra squeeze before she let Sara go.

“All right, I got the broom and vacuum, so I'm going to put your rings in the pocket of your jeans and I'll get this all cleaned up.”

Ava quickly got the mess cleaned up and Sara stripped and headed straight for the showers. She felt along the wall until she reached the door and pushed it open. She reached for the knob and turned the water to the setting she liked, feeling the water before hopping in and standing under the waterfall. Ava wordlessly got in behind her and wrapped her arms around Sara's waist before pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

Although Ava’s hug had helped, it still hadn't chased away the thoughts and Sara began to sob. Her chest heaved with her shaky breath and she struggled to take in enough air after every sob. Ava just held her tighter and whispered in her ear that she was there for her. They stayed like that, with Sara sobbing and Ava holding her as they stood under the water. Sara cried herself out and let the warm water wash away the salt from her face.

“I know this is hard, Sara. I know you wanted to do it on your own like you used to. I'm going to try and help you make sure you are able to do that okay. I want you to know that if I help you it’s not because I think you're weak. It’s because I love you and I want to take care of you, but I’ll only help if you ask, okay.”

“Okay,” Sara breathed out. “Can you help me find the shampoo?”

“Yeah,” Ava said as Sara heard her reach out for the shampoo.

Sara heard the snap of the cap as Ava squeezed out a dollop of shampoo oh her head. Before she put the bottle back, she put it in Sara's hand and then guided Sara's hand over to the ledge in the shower.

“I am putting off shampoo on the very left on the top shelf next to your conditioner and next to that is your body wash, and your loofah is on the hook underneath it,” Ava said, leading her hand over each item. “If you want to use your razor let me know and I'll get it.”

Sara shook her head, she only shaved her underarms about once a week if that. She was planning on doing so today, but just didn't feel like figuring out how to do it and didn't want Ava to do it for her. Sara did let Ava wash her hair though, the act of care was something Ava had occasionally done for her when Sara was too tired to do it herself.

Ava reached out and wiggled her fingers under Sara’s arm, tickling her and making Sara giggle. She turned around and tickled that one spot on Ava’s hip that always sent her into a fit of giggles, but Ava captured both of her hands and helped them above her head.

“Hey that's not fair, you started it,” Sara said, with a pout on her lip that she knew was hard to resist.

“And now I'm ending it,” Ava said and Sara felt her lips against her own. It was a quick kiss and Ava pulled back again before grabbing Sara's shoulders. “Now turn around I haven't even conditioned your hair yet.”

Sara complied and turned around. She reached up and felt along the bottles, before pulling out the conditioner and handing it to Ava.

Ava leaned in and Sara could feel her lips smile against her shoulder. “See, you're already adapting. You're going to be just fine Sara, and it’s only temporary.”

Temporary, Sara thought she held onto the idea that one day she'll see Ava face again. Sara knew that Ava was right, but a twinge of sadness ran through her heart at the thought of never seeing Ava smile again. Sure she could feel it through her fingers or if Ava pressed her lips against her like she had just done, but it wasn’t the same. Sara took a deep breath and tried to focus instead on Ava's nimble fingers as they massage the conditioner into her scalp.

Ava took the showerhead from off the well and ran it down Sara's hair, gently washing away the conditioner before collecting Sara's hair and pulling it over her shoulders. Once she was done with Sara’s hair, Ava grabbed something and Sara felt the loofah in gentle show circles over her shoulders. Ava gently scrubbed every inch of Sara's body, going down her shoulders to her back, over her butt, to her thighs, and eventually her feet. Sara turned around and Ava came up the other side, over her mound, her belly, her breasts, and her collarbone. Ava then gently took the showerhead and put it back before Sara stepped under the stream again. Sara couldn’t hear Ava move around, but she wasn't sure what Ava was doing, she only assumed that she was washing herself.

It was only a few moments before Ava stepped behind her and wrapped her arms around Sara's waist, resting her head on Sara's shoulder. It feels so good to be held. It was so lonely to be blind. Sara could hear those around her, but she couldn't see them and it was hard to know who was there unless they talked or touched her. Sara's love language had always been touch, and she held Ava's arms around her waist, wishing she could hold her there forever under the warm water of the shower.

Sara felt Ava’s lips against her shoulder and Sara moans. She moaned and leaned against Ava, tilting her neck to give her more access. It’s a silent signal for Ava to continue and Ava kissed her neck more intently. She moved to suck a hickey into Sara's shoulder and Sara responded more intently, moving Ava’s hands that were resting on her belly down to her mound of blond curls. Ava smiled but she only touched her outer labia, never dipping further to actually touch her as she continued to kiss Sara's shoulder.

Ava pulled away, as Sara whined in protest before she could feel Ava move down. Ava's lips moved over her collarbone before Ava put her hands on Sara's hips and turned her around. The shower ran warm against Sara's back as Ava leaned in to kiss her labia. Sara stepped back, putting both of her hands against the wall, and leaned against it as Ava followed her.

Ava finally parsed Sara’s labia to lick her clit. Sara threw her head back, the shower was hot and the steam filled her lungs as she moaned Ava’s name. Ava pulled her closer, holding her hips and pulling Sara’s leg over her shoulder. She lapped at Sara's clit with her tongue alternating between swirls and licks all driving Sara crazy. She got worked up so fast, her muscles tense as she stood on her toes, but Ava seemed to hold her just before her pleasure could reach the cliff.

Sara had been eaten out by a lot of women, but with Ava, it’s not just different, it's Ava. Sara didn't like to compare her flames or girlfriends; each one was good and unique in their own way. Like people who were authoritative but secretly thought for her Ava wasn't dark and brooding, Ava was soft and a dork. Sara liked that Ava didn't force Sara to be something she wasn't. She took Sara as she was and she tried.

Right now, Sara knew that Ava wasn't prolonging things to tease her or control her pleasure, Ava was trying to get Sara to relax further before it ends. Sara melted against the wall, putting her back and her ass against the warm shower wall. Sara sank down from her toes and put more of her weight into Ava's shoulders and arm. That's when Ava becomes more persistent.

Sara’s fingers tangle in her hair as Ava leaned in to suck on Sara's clit for a moment before swirling her tongue around the swollen bud. Sara moaned, the sound was louder than the fan and the water hitting the floor. Ava’s hands grip her hips and Sara finally goes over the edge, coming on Ava’s tongue. Sara called out her name as Ava licked her through it.

As the pleasure ended Sara caught her breath and she felt Ava’s grip loosen underneath her. Ava cleaned her up, licking away every last bit of cum, before trailing her kisses back up Sara's body.

Sara wrapped her arms around Ava’s neck and leaned into her, her legs still unsteady from her climax. She was content to stay there, under the warm water with Ava and Ava made no move to ask Sara to return the favor. When she was younger, Sara used to think that one-sided sex was selfish, but as she stayed in Ava’s arms, Sara knew she wasn’t being selfish. What Ava did was selfless by giving Sara what she needed, comforting her and relaxing her, and just being there for her as Ava always did.

Ava sensed that Sara needed to stay there and they stood there under the shower until the water turned cold and one of the boys banged on the door to let him in to pee. Ava led her out and wrapped her up in a towel. Sara didn't mind being babied just this once as Ava quickly dried her off before slipping her robe onto her shoulders. Ava quickly tied it and patted her shoulder, before opening the door for Nate, who quickly thanked her as the door to the toilet slammed close.

“Do you want to do your hair?” Ava asked as Sara heard her open the cabinet and the products clinked together.

Sara nodded and Ava handed her the products in the correct order, letting Sara do her hair herself as Ava hadn't quite gotten Sara’s curl routine down. Sara finished with Ava helping her plop her hair and she heard Nate exit the toilet. They finished the rest of their nightly routine and headed back to their room.

Despite the fact that Sara just got out of a coma it had been quite an eventful day. The second that her knees bumped up against the bed, she leaned down to crawl under the covers. She hears Ava walk around the room pulling open drawers and cabinets and she tossed Sara her favorite pajamas. One of Ava's old long sleeved shirts that smelled wonderfully like her. Sara quickly changed and rolled over to face her nightstand. She reached out for her water bottle and her fingers brushed up against her book of crossword puzzles.

“Do you want to do one before bed?” Ava asked as Sara heard her get in as the bed creaked and dipped.

“Not exactly,” Sara deadpanned as she put the book back and reached for her water bottle. As she took a sip of her water, Ava reached across her. When she pulled back Sara could hear the sound of the book being opened.

Ava snaked a hand around her waist and pulled her over to rest up against her chest. She put her arms around Sara and settled the book in her lap. “Come on, I’ll read the clues and you can tell me the answers.”

Sara smiled as Ava read off the first clue. It didn't take long for them to finish the puzzle as Ava contributed with her own answers although they weren’t always correct.

“I told you that the answer was roam,” Sara said as she heard Ava write in the correct answer.

“I still think that rove worked just as well,” Ava said as Sara heard her turn the page to the next crossword and put the pencil in between the pages before shutting the book.

“While the weird vocabulary does come in handy, let's stick to actual words next time.”

“Oh, so you let me play with you next time?” Ava asked, referencing how Sara had sworn she never let either continue to play with her again if she continued to give her wrong suggestions a few minutes earlier.

“The benefit outweighs the doubt.”

“You're just happy I thought of the word gazebo,” Ava whispered her breaths hot in Sara's ear.

“I would have thought of it eventually,” Sara insisted.

Ava just leaned down to press a messy kiss to her cheek and tickled her side. Sara giggled as she kicked her legs and wiggled around in Ava's arms. Ava had a death grip on her and Sara eventually retaliated by reaching for Ava's weak spot.

“Okay, okay uncle,” Ava shrieked as Sara tickled her. Sara immediately pulled her hands away and sat back on Ava's thigh.

Sara heard Ava sigh and felt her fingers drift up her arm to hold her cheek. Her thumb brushed her cheek as Sara closed her eyes. She sank down and buried herself in Ava’s chest. Ava leaned back and pulled the blanket up to her neck. Sara heard the click of the lamp, although she noticed no difference in the change of light as her world was still black.

Ava wrapped her arms around her back and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Goodnight my love.”

“Goodnight,” Sara whispered.

That night Sara dreamed of how things looked. She walked through the halls of the Waverider in her mind and she saw the lights in the floors and the faces of each Legends as she walked past them. She saw Ava’s smile and her expression of love. Sara woke up still wrapped in Ava’s arms, but her world was just sound, feeling, taste, and smell. A few tears dripped down her cheeks and she laid her head back down on Ava’s chest. A part of her grieved for what she suspected she would never have again. Then she heard any of Ava’s heartbeat, strong and steady, she felt her warm arms around her, and Sara let herself find comfort in Ava's arms. It wouldn't fix anything, but she knew that with Ava by her side she could take on the world and Sara drifted off to sleep with this on her mind.

#Sara Lance #Ava Sharpe #Avalance #legends of tomorrow #DC's Legends of Tomorrow #otp: I love you ya goober #DC #My Fanfics #my writing #my work #lemons

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fallen420 · 3 years

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Rebel Spy Chapter 14: They’re Back

gif by @carricfisher

Masterlist

WARNING: mandalorian spoilers, some rebels spoilers

"Does this look Jedi to you?" Din holds Grogu as we walk up to what we assume is the stone Ahsoka was telling us about.

I look around at the rocks that are at an angle being held up at other rocks surrounding the stone that's in the middle, "It's mysterious so- yes it looks Jedi."

Din walks up to the stone and places Grogu on top. Din backs up a little, "This is the seeing stone, are you seeing anything?"

"Give him a minute, you can't rush the force Din."

After a few moments, blue butterflies fly around the kid and it makes me remember what Ahsoka said, It's an energy field created by all living things.

The group puts his hands up trying to touch the butterflies, "Oh come on kid, Ahsoka said we just had to get you here and you'd to the rest."

All three of us get distracted by a ship approaching. At first, I think it might be imperial Din and I go to the edge of the mountain to see who is it. When it lands I can see the ship clearly.

"Din that's the slave 1."

"I don't know what that means."

"That's Boba Fett's ship I've only seen it once but there's nothing else like it."

"Should we go?"

"I mean you have his armor he probably wants me dead so maybe." Din and I turn around to grab Grogu but the force seems to be surrounding him. "Uh, you see what he wants I'll the kid." Din nods before running down the hill.

I can't hear a thing they're saying but I watch as Boba takes off his hood revealing his face. I never saw his face before because like Din he always had it on but when I see it faces it surprises me because I've seen it before. I met a couple of clones that survived the clone wars during my rebel days. At first, I actually think it's one of them but then how would they have the slave 1? No, it has to be Boba, meaning Boba is a clone but he looks younger than they were all those years ago so that would mean his aging is slower? Honestly, it's too much to unpack right considering what I'm currently assuming is an imperial ship just showed up because stormtroopers start pouring out of it. Oh, and some woman is standing next to Boba.

I pull out my blaster and I turn around to see Grogu still doing something with the force. Din starts running up the hill with his blaster also in hand, "Time to go!"

Din starts to try and go through the field surrounding Grogu, "I wouldn't-" I try to warn him but it's too late but it makes him go flying. He hits the ground hard bouncing a little before staying still. I run to his side to making sure he's okay. I put my hand on his chest and I feel his breathing he's just going to be out for a minute.

I try to shake him awake a few times but he doesn't budge. I tighten my grip on my blaster now that I have to defend Grogu and Din but looking up I'm not even sure I am too considering I just watch Boba literally break the stormtroopers helmets with his staff.

I spot a trooper behind Boba about to shoot him, he doesn't seem to notice considering he's too busy smashing skulls. I quickly but carefully aim my blaster hitting the trooper in the head. Boba looks up to where the blast came from. His eyes find me and I nod and he nods back which hopefully means we're going to forget we tried to kill each other just about five years ago.

I see another imperial ship land as I feel Din starts to move beneath my hand, "Hey easy," I say as I help him up.

Din looks down to see more troopers. "That's it we got to get out of here!" He tries again to get through the force field only to get pushed back.

"Why would you try that again?" I ask him.

"What do you suggest we do?"

"Protect him."

Din nods and we run down the hill ready for a fight.

We find Bobas's friend surrounded by troopers. Din stands on the rock right behind us and lets off his charges which are able to take down a few. He jumps off the rock and we start to move in closer. We stand behind Din because blaster shots can't go through beskar. From behind, however, we are able to get a good amount of stormtroopers but its not looking good for us. We are severely outnumbered. Before I can lose all hope a charge drops out of the sky causing some troopers to blow up.

Before I can even process what happened Boba Fett in his Mandalorian armor drops out of the sky and saves the day. The three of us continue shooting at the troopers, not one of us missing. I turn to get the last of the troopers but I see them running away from Boba pilling inside their ships.

As their ships take off Boba titles his head making a rocket shoot out hitting one of the ships and making it go down in flames. Boba walks over to us, "Nice shot," Din compliments him.

"I was aiming for the other one," He turns to look at me, "Are we good?"

"Promise not to try and push me into a Sarlacc pit?"

"I can do that."

We hear a blast causing all of us to look up at the sky to see a red charge coming down and before I know it, it hits the razor crest causing it to go up in flames. I gasp my hands covering my mouth in shock as I feel sadness and angry flow through me. If this is how I feel I can't even begin to imagine how Din is feeling. He's standing in front of me stiff as a bored showing no sign of emotion but I know underneath there he's hurting but we can't stay here and mourn for long because the kid is on that rock alone.

"Mando the kid!" Din turns around snapping out of it as he darts up the hill. Boba leaves to get his ship leaving the three of us here.

Out of the imps ship in the sky comes what seems like four droids and I know exactly who they are going for. We try our hardest to run up this hill but having to navigate around these rocks is slowing us down and whatever is coming for the kid is gaining on us.

I see them get to the top before us. My heart starts to race in fear. All of for of whatever is it surrounds the kid whos just laying on the rock. I feel like I'm close I feel like I should be there already but I'm not. I'm not there before one of them grabs the kid off the rock and they all fly away.

"No!" I scream trying to run forward but Din wraps his arm around my waist holding me back, "Let me go! No!" but it's too late because the kid is out of my sight. I quickly wipe away the tear that escaped and Din lets go of me.

"They've got the baby. Don't let them get away," Fennec says to Boba through her comlink.

"Affirmative." after a few seconds he says he has a lock on them.

"Stop him," Din says, "I don't want the Child hurt."

"Abort pursuit. Disengage," Fennec tells Boba, "Do not harm the child."

"Copy. I'll do a loose follow, see where they're headed." We watch as the ships fly above the clouds, "They're back."

"Who?"

"The Empire they're back."

Din and I stand in the wreckage of the razor crest. Everything is gone. "Guess I'll have to make use of these clothes for a while." Humor lingers in my voice. "You know if you think about it., it's funny, this is twice my home as blown up. I mean how many people can-'' Din steps in front of me putting his hands on my shoulders stopping my babbling. I see the little ball Grogu played within one of Din's hands, "What are we gonna do? We have no ship, we don't-"

He puts the ball in my hand and he closes my fingers around it, "Aurora we'll figure it out okay?"

I nod, "Okay."

Bobba and Fennec offer to help us get the kid back, right now they are in the cockpit while Din and I are in the hull of Bobas ship.

"How do we find Gideon's ship?" I ask Din.

"Do you know anyone imperial?" I just stare at him because he knows the answer. It looks like he's thinking for a moment for saying, "Remember when we went to that prison-"

"No."

"Aurora-"

"He tried to kill us. And we left him to die why would he help us?"

"If we break him out of jail he might."

I scoff, "How do you suggest we do that?"

"Do you think you have any pull with the new republic?"

"I'm one of the reasons they even exist so I better."

We land at the scrap yard the republic has the prisoners working on. I walk up to the women in the republic uniform who is probably overseeing things.

"Can I help you?" She asks.

"Yeah um- I'm Aurora Janren-"

"Wait like the rebel spy the commander?"

"That's the one yeah, you see one of your prisoners has information I need," the look she gives me is not very hopeful but I'm desperate, "Look whats left of the empire took my kid and one of your prisoners here can help me get him back. Please."

"Tell the droid the name of the prisoner and it'll take you to him."

"Thank you. So much." She nods and goes back to work.

I tell the droid his names and like she said it takes me to him.

We walk through the scrapyard of from what I can tell broken-down tie fighters. It's loud, every prisoner basically banging on the rusty metal. The prisoners give me dirty looks but I ignore used to being stared at now since I met Din.

We finally get to Mayfeld, "Inmate three-four-six-seven," The droid says causing Mayfeld to turn around

He groans, "What? What?" he rips off his google annoyed turning around. He spots me and freezes like a statue.

"Mayfeld it's good to see you."

"A-Aurora, what- what are you doing here?"

"Getting you out of here." He looks at me confused, "We need your help. You're the only one we know who can."

"What do I get out of it?"

I look around, "Getting outta here."

"No, it's fine sounds dangerous I'm good." He puts his goggles down turning back around.

"They took my kid. I don't know what else to do."

He faces me again, "The little green guy?"

"Yeah. Your imperial-"

"That was a long time ago."

"But you still remember your protocols right?" He nods, "Will you help us?"

He steps off the tie fighter he was standing on, "Yeah."

On the ship, Din tells him that we need the coordinates to Moff Gideon's cruiser.

"I can't get those coordinates until I have access to an internal Imperial terminal. I believe there's one on Morak."

"Morak? There's nothing on Morak," Din points out.

"It's a secret Imperial mining hub, okay? If you can get me in there, I can get you the coordinates."

Din looks at me, "Sneaking onto imperial bases is my thing."

"Alright, let's go."

Standing on a hill overlooking I go over the plan, "Mayfeld and I will take out the drivers once we're on the base he gets the coordinates. Boba you fly the ship to the roof and pick us up." Boba nods accepting his task.

"As much as I would love to go with you Aurora this base is run by ex-ISB which means they scan genetic code and that's something tells me-"

"That I used to be wanted by them yeah. You know things were much easier when they would just scan a card I could steal." I sigh, "Fennec?"

"Also wanted."

I look at Boba, "They'll recognize you won't they?"

"Yeah," He agrees.

"I'll go," Din says.

"Don't you think a Mandalorian walking in there will be suspicious?"

"I'll just go in alone," Mayfeld says.

"You're not going alone," Din says, "I'm going with you."

After easily taking out the drivers we strip them of their armor. Din is changing behind me there's a wall covering him but he insists that stand in front just in case.

I hear rustling for a few minutes, "Okay." I turn around to see him in the grey imperial armor, "How do I look?"

"I'm sure you've looked worse." His head hangs low a little. I put my hand on the side of the helmet, this one is a lot less could then the beskar, "Hey your not breaking any codes. No one will see your face. You're still a Mandalorian. Just get in there and get out and you can put the beskar back on in no time." He puts his forehead to him and I hear him take a deep breath before handing me the bag of his armor.

"Protect this for me." "With my life."

I made sure to put Din's armor on the ship where I know it'll be safe.

Fennec and I stand on a hill overlooking the roof with blasters waiting for them to come out.

"And then they were gone just like that and no one has seen them since."

"I didn't even know purrgil were real."

"Neither did I but my friend took a liking to them."

"Did you ever go looking for him?"

"We tried but we had a war to fight. I looked for about a year after the war but it was no use I just accepted the fact that he's gone forever."

Before she can respond we hear shooting out of the window comes Din and Mayfeld. Fennec tells Boba to make his way over here. Both of us aim our weapons. I look through the scope trying to see a trooper about to shoot at Din and Mayfeld who are climbing up a ladder to get to the roof but before the trooper can aim his weapon I get him easily.

Fennec fires two shots, "Three shooters top deck."

"Got it." I aim my weapons. I shoot one in the shoulder making him fall off the roof. I get the other two in the head.

Above I hear Bobas ship coming in to pick them up. Fennec and I keep successfully hitting all the troopers never missing once. The ship stops at the edge of the roof. Boba drops the ramps and Din and Mayfeld jump on.

Once they're inside Fennec and I put our guns down. As we wait for the ship to pick us up the whole base just explodes?

Fennec and I look at each other in confusion.

"Okay then."

Din is back in his armor. Instead of taking Mayfeld back to prison, we decided to let him go. Fennec and Boba are in the cockpit taking us to wherever these coordinates are leaving me and Din alone.

"Something happened," Din says catching me off guard.

"What was it?"

"I got the coordinates I had to," he stops for a moment and I just wait, giving him time to say it on his own, "I had to take off my helmet." He practically whispers the last part.

I take a deep breath, processing the information, I grab his hand, "You did what you had to do and now we can get him back." I squeeze his hand, "I cannot imagine how you must be feeling. I'll never truly understand but I need you to know that you are still a Mandalorian and nothing I mean nothing can take that away from you." When I first met Din the most important thing to him was the creed and his code but today he broke that to save Grogu. I feel bad wishing that I could have gone to help so he wouldn't have to. So he wouldn't have to be going through this right now.

"When I imagined taking off my helmet for the first time in front of a living thing I always imagined it'd be you."

My heart raced at the thought of finally seeing his face, "Really?"

He removes his hand from mine to hold my check, "Of course cyar'ika, I love you. Soon. I promise. As soon as we get him back."

"I can live with that."

taglist: @tortles

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myheartrevealedocs · 4 years

Text

Untouchable Ch 12- No Way Out (S2E13)

Warnings: murder, death threats, mentions of mental illness, Lydia having a death wish, and... a disembodied head?

Ch 11 | Ch 13

~ ~ ~

The small diner was a quaint area to conduct her first interview with a serial killer. She would have appreciated different circumstances, like no bystanders or some sort of upper hand over him, but her choices were limited at the time. There was a calm murmur around the single-room restaurant. As they entered a waitress approached them, but Lydia paid her no attention.

You walk in first. Look like you’re in charge. Don’t look to me for any help. You know what you’re doing. If he doesn’t respect you, he won’t tell us where she is. Make him respect you.

A man sat alone in a booth, facing away from the door. Gideon had told her all about this man. He doesn’t feel fear. He doesn’t know how. When you speak to him, neither will you.

A man in his late 50s. Average height. Grey hair.

She stood next to the table and waited for him to acknowledge her. When he didn’t turn away from the window, she said, “Is this seat taken?”

He was completely smug to see her standing there beside him. It was sickening. But she acted as though she reveled in his attention.

“Please,” he replied, gesturing to the cushioned seat across from him. “You should try Fat Sam’s milkshakes.”

She shook her head, leaning back comfortably in the booth. “Not in the mood. I’m cold and tired.”

“You’re also not from around here.”

She shrugged in acquiescence. “Where are you from?”

Gideon silently stood beside the table, watching the man across from her intently. He gave away nothing as they spoke, but his serene composure was evidence enough. They knew he had done it. That’s not why they were there.

Morgan stayed by the door, glancing outside at the cop cars surrounding the building.

The waitress approached, dropping a milkshake with the extra in a separate cup on the table in front of them.

“You really should try the shakes,” he tried again, pulling the pink drink towards him.

“Is that an offer to have some of yours?”

He shook his head, sternly. “What’s your name?” When she didn’t respond he tried again. “Come on. Names are a hobby of mine.”

“Lydia.”.

“I’ve never met a Lydia before,” he admitted. Then, he nodded towards Gideon. “What’s his name?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

Gideon didn’t wait for him to decide, putting his hands down on the edge of the table. “My name is Jason Gideon.”

“Jason. From Greek Mythology. To heal.” he said, sounding like he was reciting from a textbook. “Gideon. A hero from the old testament who led the Israelites against the Midianites. Your parents had great ambitions for you.” He looked back at Lydia. “I’m Frank. Germanic. Third century. Deprived from the name of a type of spear. I wonder what aspirations my parents had for me.”

“Why don’t we cut the crap, Frank?” Morgan interrupted, walking over to their table. “Where is she?”

He didn’t take his eyes off Lydia. “Now, that’s direct.”

“You’ll have to excuse Morgan, he doesn’t have our patience,” she said, sizing him up for a moment to show him she wasn’t intimidated. “If you’d prefer that I’d be more forward, though, I can work that out. You were right, I’m not from around here. I work for the FBI.”

The whole room went silent, many turning to stare at the group. She pulled out her badge, sliding it across the table to Frank.

He didn’t touch it, just stared for several moments. “You’re not an agent,” he remarked.

Bad idea. She was losing his respect. “I’m not old enough. You’re too old. They’re picky at the Bureau, like that.”

“How do you know how old I am?” he asked curiously.

“You can learn a lot about a person by who and how he kills others. We were looking for a male in his mid- to late-fifties. Listens to Beehtoven. Wears a corduroy jacket with a fleece-lined collar.” She glanced at his coat, then back at him. “He’s left handed. In his right, inside jacket pocket will be a notebook,” as she said this, Morgan reached across Frank and pulled a small, black notebook from the very spot Gideon had told her it would be, “and it will give the extensive detailed accounts of the torture inflicted on every one of his victims… Do you know anyone like that, Frank?”

He smirked. “That’s quite the magic trick.”

She had him back. He was impressed. She grabbed her ID from the table and slid it back into her pocket.

“No magic trick, Frank,” Morgan growled. “Just the profile of a sadistic serial killer.”

People nearby started to look around frantically. Lydia knew that Morgan and Gideon would have to get them out soon, else they might cause a panic that interrupted the investigation. But Gideon told her that no matter what happened, she had to keep her focus on Frank. So, she did.

“Ambers, this thing is brand new,” Morgan said, flipping through the booklet. He followed Gideon’s instructions, speaking to her like she was in charge. “There’s only 2 entries in it: ‘black male, 220 pounds, portly; white female, late twenties’. This doesn’t prove anything.”

She raised an eyebrow at Frank. “Hm. Were you scared, Frank? Why hide the work that you were so proud of?”

“Guess what,” he continued, ignoring her question. “When I’m finished with my shake, you’ll get what you’re here for, but then… I’m going to get up… And I’m going to walk out of here… And you and your lap dogs are going to let me.”

This was good. Calling them her lap dogs indicated that he completely believed their act. So, she matched his pompous attitude. “You know what, Frank? That would be a magic trick.”

For the first time since sitting down, she turned away from him and looked out the window at the cars and officers surrounding them. There was no way for him to get out alive. But clearly, he didn’t care about that. They needed some other way to get him to tell them where the sheriff was.

“He’s looked at that clock three times in as many minutes,” Morgan noted. “He’s waiting for something.”

Frank glanced at him. “If I had your looks, do you know how much easier my life would be?”

“If you think you’re going to negotiate your way out of this one, you’ve got a whole ‘nother thing coming.”

Lydia sat up. The deputies told her she had 15 minutes to talk, and then they were coming in. If Frank really was waiting for something, might as well keep him busy until it happened. “Do you want to know how we caught you?”

“Please,” he nodded, but he knew. He had been the one to lead them there.

“Ambers, those men out there want to kill this guy,” Morgan argued. “We’re in the middle. We don’t have time for explanations.”

“You have the time it will take me to finish this shake,” Frank told her.

The milkshake again. He was planning to finish it before leaving. She wondered if there was a way to stall or speed up the process. And what would Gideon want? He could be waiting for something awful to happen, but at the moment, they had nothing to do, but wait.

“That’s all I need,” she informed him. Keep talking. “We got a request from Sheriff Georgia Davis. She had two victims in the Desert Rose National Park that had been dismembered. They asked the BAU to determine if this had been the same killer who left a dismembered body in the park 10 years ago. You see, serial killers don’t usually just stop killing. So, 10 years with no bodies was strange. And we like strange.

“A little research and we discovered hundreds of unsolved cases. Spanning 30 years and the whole country. All of them were people who lived on the outskirts of society, not a lot of friends. They were all left along the I-80 highway. And every dismembered torso that was recovered was missing a right rib bone.” She tsked. “That’s dedication. I believe Gideon’s exact words were, ‘the most prolific serial killer ever’.”

“Wow,” Frank replied, more to Gideon than her. “You truly think-”

“I know it,” Gideon snapped.

“And so,” Lydia continued. “We came to Nevada.”

Finally, Morgan and Gideon split up, telling the patrons of the restaurant, one by one, to get up quietly and leave in an orderly fashion. Lydia watched Frank closely, making sure he wouldn’t have a negative reaction to them letting innocent people out. But he just stared back, waiting for her to keep talking.

“You were saying?” he pressed.

“You dose them with ketamine and bring them to your trailer. The ceiling has a mirror, so that they can watch you mark where you’re going to cut them and as you dismember them, you cauterize their arteries, so that they won’t bleed to death as you torture them. It’s excruciating, they’re trapped in their own bodies, completely helpless. And you look them in the eyes as you do it. It’s how you get your high off the kill. They look so scared and you love it, don’t you?

“Although,” she reasoned, “I don’t think love is the right word. You are a psychopath. You can’t feel anything, can you? You’re incapable of remorse, compassion, and even love.”

He looked away when she said that. But not at the clock. Not at Gideon or Morgan. Just off into the distance. It was the first time he’d done that. What she’d just said had hit a nerve with him. She wanted to cry with relief, knowing she was getting somewhere.

“Do you disagree?” she inquired.

“Beauty can cover a multitude of sins,” Frank explained. “But underneath… we all look… exactly the same.”

“You are not leaving this diner,” Morgan hissed.

Frank just shrugged. “I don’t want to. Not until her story is done.” And then, he glued his eyes onto Lydia again, taking a sip of his milkshake.

“Thirty years ago, you picked up a girl on the side of the road. She was barely twenty. Her name was Jane. When she woke up in your trailer, she thought she’d been abducted by an alien. I spoke to her yesterday. She told me how beautiful it was. And how she looked into your eyes and felt completely relaxed. And you couldn’t kill her. Because she wasn’t afraid of you. People in town call her Crazy Jane, because no one believes her story, but she didn’t make it up. She just couldn’t understand at the time what you really were.”

“I read about a woman whose body was found in her apartment-- upper east side, I think.”

“If this is a confession,” Morgan interrupted. “Start with the woman you just took.”

“She had killed herself. But her body wasn’t found for more than a year. Surrounded by over a million people, and not one of them missed her. What does that say about society?”

“Don’t act like you care about her,” Lydia snapped. “Those that society forgets-- the throwaways, the runaways, destitute, disenfranchised-- they’re the very people you target… But not last night. Last night you took someone of prominence. Someone that mattered to everyone. Why?”

“That’s an interesting question, Lydia… Why?”

There was a commotion outside. But Gideon had promised that he would deal with any outside factors. So she stayed completely engaged with Frank.

“Gideon,” Morgan warned, pulling out his gun. A man had just entered the diner with a shotgun.

This was not part of the plan. She still had 5 minutes to talk to Frank before the deputies came in.

“Sir, do not come any closer,” Morgan ordered, but their newest threat was not in the right headspace. His eyes and gun were pointed at Frank.

“That man has my wife!”

Mr. Davis. Not good, not good. In her peripheral vision, she could see Gideon and Morgan blocking the aisle towards her and Frank, but if he decided to shoot from there, Lydia was in trouble.

“Please, put the gun down,” Morgan continued.

Lydia could feel Gideon’s eyes on her. Frank may have been closer, but she was still in the line of fire. Perhaps he wanted her to break, in order to get out of harm’s way, but she wouldn’t. She had to convince Frank she was powerful. She wouldn’t back down yet.

“Tell me where my wife is or so help me, I will shoot you.”

“Sir, I said put the gun down now!”

“Where’s my wife?!?”

The yelling back and forth continued. Without breaking eye contact with her, Frank leaned down, picking up something from the floor and dropping it on the table. It was a carpet bag.

He smirked at her. “You know what’s an even more interesting question? What’s the psychopath got in the bag, Lydia?”

She shrugged, unimpressed, but her heart was trying to leap from her chest. It was the size of a head. And knowing Frank, it probably was one. Could she keep her poise if she came face to face with the head of Sheriff Georgia Davis?

“Open it,” Mr. Davis demanded.

“Put it down!” Morgan insisted.

“Open the bag!”

Lydia rolled her eyes dramatically and asked Frank to excuse her for a second. Then, she looked up at Mr. Davis for the first time. He was so scared. He needed to know if Frank had killed her. But Lydia could not drop her face for him.

“Mr. Davis, I cannot open this bag until you put the gun down.”

His hand was shaking, but finally, he lifted the barrel towards the ceiling and Morgan was able to ease it away from him. With the threat finally diminished, she focused herself once more.

“May I?” She shrugged towards the bag.

Mr. Davis kept repeating ‘I’ll kill you’ from the door and Frank just smiled at her.

With no disagreement from anyone in the room, she reached forward and unzipped the bag. She was holding her breath, preparing herself for what she’d find inside. And she’d been right about one thing.

Frank had brought them a head.

The head belonged to a black male. Nothing like the blonde, tiny sheriff. Her heart clenched at the sight of it, but the fact that it didn’t belong to someone she recognized saved her from losing face in front of him.

“It’s not her,” Morgan told Mr. Davis, who began crying on the spot.

“Oh, thank god,” he was murmuring.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“I believe the correct question would be: who was this?” Frank sneered.

“You’re one crazy son of a bitch!” Mr. Davis shouted and Morgan started to usher him off the premises.

“We are all sons of bitches.” Frank looked disgusted by the sight of Lydia. Something had changed when she opened that bag. He stopped enjoying her presence. He didn’t like talking to her. But so long as he didn’t look down on her, she could work with him.

“Who is this, Frank?” she demanded, more forcefully.

“He’s irrelevant. Beyond being my ticket out of here.”

“Your ticket out of here?” Morgan cried, finally getting Mr. Davis out. “Even if you think you can get out of that booth and past us, I promise you those men out there will tear you to pieces.”

“I rather doubt that,” he grumbled. “So… finish the story, Lydia.”

“What do you want me to say?” she asked, calmly. “We set up a tip line for people to call. A nation-wide APB. We searched Golconda for an RV, later amended to truck and trailer, that was muted in color, in perfect working order, with a CB, radar detector, and police-band radio. And then, we got a call from Katherine Hale’s cell phone. That is, the Katherine Hale that you, so graciously, dumped in pieces two days ago. And we tracked her phone to Sheriff Davis’s house, where you had followed Crazy Jane. But Jane got away. And you, in your desperation to have her, took Sheriff Davis. Then, you came back here and turned on Katherine Hale’s cell phone so that we would come to you. But something has to happen first, no? You can’t tell us your deal until you’re done with your damn milkshake.”

“I thought you were interesting, Lydia,” he said, out of the blue. “People have such deep emotions. I knew you were going to act all stoic, but I figured I could break you. Make you angry, sad, confused, afraid. I wanted to see how that mind of yours worked. But you saw that head and barely blinked. You’re just like me, aren’t you?”

Lydia couldn’t stop a small twitch of her eye. He thought she was a psychopath? That’s why his demeanor changed all of a sudden?

She smirked. “Sorry to disappoint, but you’re the only psychopath in this room.”

“That’s why they sent you, isn’t it? No one could look me in the eyes, knowing all that I’ve done, and keep up a conversation, but you. That man who came in had a gun on the two of us, and even when your partners stepped out of the way, you didn’t break eye contact. Don’t you have to be just a little insane to be able to do that?”

“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand. It doesn’t look good on you.”

He didn’t argue with her, finally leaning forward and taking the final sip from his drink. All eyes were on him as he slurped loudly and sighed, dropping the glass on the table.

“One is perfection. Two is decadent.”

This was it. Final showdown. Whatever he’d been waiting for, it would happen now.

He turned away from the booth, sliding out, but Morgan had his gun out in a second.

“You take another step and I will shoot you.”

“No you won’t,” Frank argued, but Lydia’s words did keep him in place.

“What was it that Jane said to you?” she inquired. Poor Jane had survived this guy’s wrath only to live pitifully for the rest of her life. “She looked into your eyes. But that wouldn’t be enough for you. She must have said something. What was it?”

“I’m a sexual sadist,” he sneered. “I can’t feel anything. Remember?”

Morgan’s phone started ringing and he started talking to Hotch in the background.

“Are you trying to argue that? Did you feel something?”

“They just found his trailer,” Morgan announced to the room. “The remains of another woman and the sheriff, alive.”

They did it. They caught him. They saved the sheriff. But nothing about this was right. And Gideon knew it, too.

“He doesn’t care about the sheriff. To walk out of here with Jane, he’d need more than that.”

More hostages? Someone more important than the town sheriff? If someone like that disappeared, they’d already know about it.

“Jane said… how beautiful my eyes were,” Frank told Lydia, answering her question from earlier. “I looked at her like I’ve never looked at a woman before. My hands began to sweat. I dropped the knife. I tried to pick it up, but it fell again. I got butterflies in my stomach. Isn’t that love?”

“She was fascinating. More interesting than me. Or than all those you’ve killed.” More noises outside. Her 15 minutes were definitely up. “But sometimes, fear and love are easy to confuse.”

“Gideon. Ambers,” Morgan warned, watching people approach the door.

“What are you suggesting?” Frank inquired.

“We got George! She’s alive!” Deputy Silo announced as he burst in, the rest of the officers following him. “Get on the floor!”

“Take it easy!” Morgan stepped in front of them.

“Move!”

“Don’t ask dumb questions,” Lydia whispered. “You know I won’t answer them.”

“Take it easy!”

There was so much going on, she didn’t even register the entire group's cell phones beginning to ring. The high pitched buzzes echoed around the room.

And Frank smiled.

“No…” Silo sighed. “That’s impossible.”

He winked. “Magic time.”

~ ~ ~

Spencer listened as Emily softly comforted Sheriff Davis in the backseat. Being stuck in a trailer, in a coffin, all night was reason enough to be shaken up. But Frank was completely sadistic. She had seen his work. Probably first hand. There was no forgetting that.

Hotch pulled up to the diner where they had surrounded Frank abruptly. As they helped the sheriff out of the car, Spencer put on his sunglasses and surveyed the wall of cars and armed men set up around the building. They had him trapped alright.

“George!” her husband cried, pulling her into a hug. “Thank god. Thank god.”

“He killed Tommy’s teacher,” she sobbed. “I saw it. Annie. She was just 22.”

22… He couldn’t imagine Lydia dying so horrifically at her age. Spencer saw some horrible things in his everyday life, but he’d never been the center of it. Being able to compare the body they’d just found to Lydia was not a comforting thought.

Where was Lydia?

The sheriff’s husband started to explain their recent findings. Looks like Frank had killed the school bus driver on a kids field trip and abducted the kids. He’d been waiting all day for them to find the body of the bus driver and the abandoned bus.

“How?” she demanded. “We had the whole town shut down. There was no way out.”

“What was the one vehicle we weren’t looking for?” Hotch reasoned.

“School bus,” Spencer murmured.

Hotch stepped away from them towards the diner. “More importantly, where are the children?”

Spencer’s eyes followed him, then stopped upon looking into the diner windows. Frank was seated in a booth next to a window. There were multiple sheriff’s inside with guns pointed at his back. Gideon and Morgan stood to his side. And seated across from him, was…

“Oh my god, Lydia,” he breathed.

Emily followed his line of sight, seeing her in the window and felt a wave of sympathy for him. Followed by fear.

“If they shoot, they’re going to hit her,” she realized.

Spencer nodded frantically. “What is she thinking?!”

~ ~ ~

Lydia wanted to drop her head into her hands. “You have the town’s children.”

Silo had looked like he was going to faint upon admitting that the school bus for the kids’ field trip was just recovered outside of town. The kids had never made it home.

“Only the little ones,” Frank teased. “You profiled me. You know I have no interest in harming children.”

“We will find them,” Morgan snapped. “We have helicopters, dogs-”

Frank kept his eyes on Lydia. “The desert is over 25,000 square miles. And what with the rising coyote population…”

“If it’s Jane you’re after, we don’t have her,” Morgan insisted.

“Yes, you do.”

He looked out the window just in time to see a new cop car approach. And low and behold, Crazy Jane stumbled out of the backseat.

Lydia turned back to him. There was a way to win this. She didn’t like it, but there was a way to get those kids back. “If you want us to make a deal for Jane, you are going to get up slowly and let Agent Morgan handcuff you. You follow our orders and walk out of the diner peacefully before we discuss your terms for getting those kids back. Are we clear?”

His lips pulled tightly around his teeth in what could hardly be called a smile. “Crystal.”

As he promised, he got up, his hands in front of him for Morgan to handcuff. And he said nothing as Gideon and Morgan roughly shoved him down the aisle and to the door.

Lydia’s eyes stung just knowing that his gaze wasn't fixed on her anymore, but she had to keep the act up for just a while longer. She allowed herself one deep breath before standing up and following them out.

Everyone’s eyes were focused on the group as they left. Mostly on Frank, but she caught a couple of the officer’s gazes as she stepped down. She could see Spencer, Hotch, and Emily standing with Jane. She couldn’t tell where any of them were looking, due to the fact that they were all wearing sunglasses, but if she had to bet, she was certain Spencer was scared for her. When Gideon had taken her away from the crime scene to talk to Frank instead, she didn’t even believe it. He had been training her to interrogate suspects for almost a year now, but she’d never had the opportunity before. Why now?

“Jane!” Frank shouted.

They both tried to run to each other, but were held back.

“Tell them, Lydia,” Frank insisted. “Tell them I’m not interested in harming children. Have I ever once harmed a child? It does nothing for me. Give me Jane… and they’ll have their children back.”

“Is she part of this with you?” Silo accused.

“Look at her, Rick,” the recovered sheriff said. George had just gotten back from Frank’s trailer with tear streaks down her face. Lydia couldn’t imagine what her night had been like. “She’s not a part of anything. She’s as much his victim as you are.”

“With Jane in my life, I will never harm another human being,” Frank tried to argue, but no one believed him.

“Take me with you, Frank,” Gideon began. “Just you and me.”

“And my Jane?” It wasn’t a question. With all the town’s kids at his disposal, it was a demand. And Jane looked thrilled to throw herself at him.

“You’ll take me to where the kids are?”

“Happily. I couldn’t have that on my conscience,” he joked.

Lydia’s stomach flipped, but she was immensely relieved. What Gideon was about to do was insanely dangerous, but if they got those kids back, she did her job. She’d talked to him, gotten him to comply. And she’d been terrified for a moment that he was going to insist she come along. With his agreement, she was done with this heartless, tiresome act.

She stepped away from the group as Frank clarified his terms, wanting to collapse somewhere private, but was overcome by dread when he called her name.

She shivered as she flipped around, putting her unimpressed face back on. “Mhm?”

“I look forward to seeing you again.”

It was a sickening thought. She had no clue what he could possibly mean by it. But she couldn’t worry herself about anything else at the moment.

She smirked. “You better hope you’re that lucky.”

She didn’t make eye contact with anyone as she stormed away. Every interaction demanded something from her and after today, she had nothing left to give.

She got around the black SUV so that no one would be able to see her and promptly fell against the door, clutching her stomach. She just wanted to be able to take a breath that felt like enough. Smell something that wasn’t the dry dust coating her nose.

She thought she’d give herself a second to recover, then compose herself and reemerge, but as soon as he could sneak away, Spencer went after her.

He hesitated to say anything for a moment, seeing her so shaken. He didn’t want to startle her and make it worse, but he needed to speak to her.

“Hey,” he breathed.

Lydia glanced around him for others, then launched herself into his chest. And it was like her lungs cleared, just taking in the feel of him. Her breaths were shaky, but they weren’t so shallow anymore.

“Hi,” she replied. “Sorry, I just… that was weird.”

He was surprised by her sudden reaction, but pulled himself back to his senses and wrapped his arms around her back, one of his hands gently stroking her hair. “It’s okay. Are you… Is everything alright?”

“So much better now,” she mumbled into his chest. “We’re gonna do something fun together when we get back to DC, okay?”

“Of course.”

She leaned back to look at him, not dropping her arms from his waist. “Someone’s going to check on us if we stay here any longer.”

He nodded and slowly let his hands slip to his sides. “I, uh… I was so scared when I saw you in the window. No one said anything about you talking to Frank one on one and the deputies had guns trained on you. It was a lot.”

“It was a lot for me too,” she admitted. “He’s terrifying. He was convinced I was a psychopath-”

“What? Lydia, you’re not a psychopath!”

“It feels like it sometimes,” she grumbled. “He had a head, just sitting in a bag and I didn’t even flinch, Spence! I was just trying to do what Gideon told me, but that’s not human, is it?”

He sighed. “This job can desensitize us to things like that. But it doesn’t make you less human. I mean, now that you’re away from him, you understand how horrific he is.”

“I don’t think there’s a word to describe the things he’s done. And if there is, I don’t want to know it,” she added. “I just wanna go home.”

“Soon,” he promised. Then, he stepped away. “I’m gonna head back now. Take as long as you need.”

She nodded watching him go, before taking out her phone. In the time she’d been with Frank, her sister had called her seven times. It was unusual for Beck to be so persistent. There were a few texts, as well:

Beck: Call me.

Beck: Lydia.

Beck: As soon as you get this, please call.

Beck: NOW LYDIA!

What the hell…?

Lydia clicked on her sister's contact and put the phone up to her ear.

Beck answered after a single ring. “Oh my god. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call-”

Automatically, something stood out to Lydia. Beck didn’t sound mad at her. At all. In fact, she sounded like she wanted to cry.

“I’ve been working,” she explained. “Is everything alright?”

“You need to come home, Lydia. Mom- Sonia’s had a stroke.”

Oh god. She might actually puke from stress at this point. “What happened?!” she cried, already searching for Hotch. “Did you get her to a hospital?”

“Yes, yes. They did a CT scan. They say her chances of surviving are high and will be even better once they dissolve the blood clot. But, oh god, Lydia it was so scary. She started having a seizure and I didn’t know what to do-”

“It’s okay… She’s in the hospital now. You did everything you could.”

“You have to come home, Lydia. Tonight.”

“I’ll catch a flight as soon as possible-”

“I have Katie and Adam with me. Please, get here now. I need you. She’s going to be in the hospital for at least the night and I don’t know what to do with them. They don’t understand what’s going on. Katie started crying when the EMTs got there and she’s been stressed ever since. And Adam is bouncing off the walls of the waiting room like a maniac.”

Lydia couldn’t even imagine how freaked out Beck was. Katie and Adam were twins that Sonia had been fostering since Lydia left for college. They were seven now.

Finally, she caught a glimpse of Hotch and made a break for him. “Beck, I’m going to be there as soon as I possibly can. I promise you. But I have to go now and figure this out, okay? Just stay there, text me any updates, and I’ll call once I have a flight.”

“Okay. Please hurry. I love you.”

“Love you,” Lydia agreed before hanging up and reaching Hotch. He was talking to the sheriff, still wrapped in her shock blanket. They both looked startled to see her running at them, but she didn’t let them say anything. “Hotch! My foster mom just had a stroke. I need to go home. Is there-”

He was automatically understanding, trying to problem solve with her. “That’s fine. Go. Sheriff, can one of your deputies take her to the nearest airport?”

George nodded immediately. “Stay right here,” she ordered. “I’ll discretely explain to them what’s going on.”

Lydia thanked her as she left. It took a strong woman to help others after what she’d been through.

“Do you need anything?” Hotch asked her.

She shook her head. “According to my sister, she’s okay so far. But she still has the blood clot. Hotch, it’s going to take her a few weeks to recover, at least. Someone has to be in the house, looking out for her and the other kids she’s fostering. I can try to get back to DC soon, but-”

“Take all the time you need,” he insisted. The sheriff came back with an officer in tow. “Call me once you get to the airport. When we get back to DC, you can send me a list of things you want shipped to California and I’ll grab them from your apartment, okay?”

Lydia had never felt so compelled to hug Hotch before, but she figured now was as good a time as any. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Then, she followed the deputy to his car and took off, forgetting to explain herself to anyone on the team. Or, more importantly, forgetting to explain herself to the one person on the team who deserved to hear it from her.

Spencer.

~ ~ ~

Tags: @kris-stuff @wooya1224 @spencerelds

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sasskarian · 4 years

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Fanfic Masterpost ... sort of

In honor of Fanfic Appreciation, I put together a list of my fics for anyone who’d like to look

Under the cut, because length

Dragon Age:

After the Glitter Fades (Glitterverse): Hawke x Fenris, modern AU. (Long fic, WIP) Hawke and Fenris are movie stars in a torrid love affair. Fenris has a mysterious past. Also Cassandra is investigating a murder mystery? Varric, as ever, is a delight. (*this is borrowed from @nug-juggler‘s excellent and shorter summary!)

Memorable quote: Fenris observed candidly was something sacred. For a moment, Hawke fiercely wished she were an artist. The scene in front of her was too… every word she could think of— beautiful, elegant, breathtaking— was trite, a pale description of perfection.

In the Heart of the Woods: Lavellan x Fairbanks rarepair. (WIP) Inquisitor Lavellan’s heart is broken by a certain Commander, Fairbanks has an appreciation for her, and a love story blooms like elfroot in the Emerald Graves.

Memorable quote: This kiss, she thinks, two mouths moving in perfect unison, is a spell of its own. Not quite love, not yet, but close enough she can pretend it is. Hope wells up, a solid thrum beating in counterpoint to her heart, and for one perfect moment, the world just bows down and… stands still. All that exists, all that ever has existed or ever will exist is wrapped up right here, right now, in Fairbanks’ lips on hers. Motes of dust turn golden in the sunbeams splashing through the roof, and a touch— his thumb, her cheek— says a million more words than words ever could.

Yesterdays: Surana x Zevran, mild Surana x Alistair pining. Post Origins, complete. A Warden’s sacrifice means something only as long as someone remembers it. A king looks back, balancing regrets with happiness.

Memorable quote: With a half-sob, he realizes he’s forgotten the sound of her voice. Oh, he remembers how it made him feel, all those years ago, all the glorious, shining moments where happiness dwells still. But what she truly sounded like, what sounds she made as she buried herself in books, the snap of her magic, the low buzz of her and Zevran whispering in their tent, all of that is gone. He knows it happened, but the memory is lit dimly in his mind, a torch burned too low to be flame but not low enough for embers yet.

If You Ever Did Believe (for my sake): Lavellan x Cullen. (On temporary hiatus) A wary Commander. A lost Dalish mage. Two hearts beating alone and exhausted on a battlefield, their only rest coming from each other.

Memorable quote: “Does your Maker hate us so much?” Isera asked bitterly, and for a moment, Cullen felt as though years had rippled, bringing his past self— still clanking through the halls of Kinloch Hold in Templar plate— and his current together. He’d asked Ser Greagoir the same question once, after a Harrowing went wrong and the body of a former apprentice lay at their feet. So much potential wasted, so much fear in the mages’ eyes after that. For once, Greagoir had shown a hint of emotion, clapping Cullen’s shoulder briefly before walking away, but hadn’t answered.

Voiceverse: Lavellan x Solas/Dread Wolf. (WIP) Building off of the great works of @khirsahle and @athreehundredthirtythree. All mages are born with a soulmate--a voice they hear in the darkness of the Fade all their lives. The lucky ones find their soulmates and forge a bond strong enough to threaten the very foundations of the Chantry. At least, that's what they claim. So what happens when a Dalish mage hears the voice of their most reviled and feared god shaping her dreams?

Memorable quote: Accompanying the thundering voice, great fissures ruptured around her hiding spot, green light streaking upward as they gathered into a roiling cloud. A wave of raw sound— howls, cries, pleas— rolled over her, forcing her to her knees. Iveani clapped her hands over her ears, losing her own scream among the agony thundering through the Fade. All caution, all her hard-won lessons about walking the Fade, vanished into the back of her mind under the need to simply ride out the explosion and survive.

Mass Effect:

Home is Where You Are: Ryder x Jaal (WIP). Ryder didn’t cross two galaxies and 600 years in search of love. But damn if she didn’t find it anyway.

Memorable quote: “I should take a shower,” he mumbled, as the same time as Sara said, “Would you like to stay?” Both of them broke off, staring at the other, and she laughed nervously. That feeling was back, the one from the tech lab, fragility and strength and affection turned fierce and bright tumbling over and over one other.

A Song of Sea and Stars: Garrus x Shepard x Thane (WIP). Our favorite turian badboy sees right through the mask the galaxy’s most famous Commander projects. Neither of them expected to fall in love on a host of impossible missions. And both are taken by surprise by a pious Drell who steals both their hearts.

Memorable quote: (He opens his eyes, shocked how it feels to look into her face, intimate and hungry. He hazily notices that up close, her eyes are thulium-gray. There's a hot, tight knot in his chest and she's pressed so close, he thinks he could count each faint freckle on her face.) (They look like tiny stars.) (…there are twenty-eight on her right cheek. Thirty on her left. And fourteen, right across the bridge of her nose.) (Those are his favorite. They remind him of his own markings.)

the sound of shattering glass: Generic Shepard, post-Tuchanka, pre-Citadel II. The Shroud explodes, taking a beloved friend with it. Shepard only has herself to blame.

Memorable quote: “Damn Reapers,” he said, striving for nonchalance. “Always throwing us around.” “Banged us up pretty good,” she agreed, and he knew she wasn’t talking about their bumps and bruises. “So what do we do about them?” “Get back on our feet. Keep fighting.” Garrus hummed as she shifted closer, pressed her forehead against his neck. “Maybe find a way to use some really big canons I spend half my time adjusting.”

Star Wars:

He Might Like That: Mandalorian x Cara Dune pining. So they argue. So they took down Gideon, and have a magic green frog baby older than both of them. That doesn’t make them a thing. Does it?

Memorable quote: He tunes back into the not-so-friendly argument in time to hear Greef splutter. “You trash talked while holding hands! If that’s not flirting, I’m a kowakian monkey lizard.” “It was arm wrestling, not holding hands,” Din points out mildly.

Star by Star: Post TRoS. Ben x Rey pining, Finn x Rey x Poe. Can three hopeless idiots in love fill a wound as deep as the death of a dyad? Maybe not, but they’re out to try anyway.

Memorable quote: “You know,” Poe whispers, a glint of mischief in his eyes, “if we ever did tell him we loved him, he’d probably sleep right through it.” Rey touches her fingers to his lips, tracing the shape of his questioning smile. It’s an invitation to play, that smile. A careful offer of love, of comfort. And though she’s not sure if he can really understand when even she doesn’t, she’s finally ready to try a little.

Counting The Days (Since Exegol): Finn x Rey x Poe, Ben x Rey. Its been 42 days since Palpatine’s death. 42 long days since she felt the surge of light in Ben Solo. And in her dreams, something whispers on the edge of the Force. But she’s shut it down too tightly to hear it.

Memorable quote: True to form, Poe can’t resist the urge to kiss away Finn’s troubles whenever possible, and Rey looks away to give them a moment. Some love stories work out, yes, and she loves Finn and Poe more than almost anything else. But that doesn’t stop the way bitterness floods her mouth as the memory of Ben surfaces, and it isn’t until Poe gently squeezes her knee (and she throttles back the near-instinctive urge to break his fingers from a lifetime of fending off handsy scavengers on Jakku) that she comes back to the moment. His brow furrows and she reaches for him, smoothing out the lines of his frown with her thumb. “I’m okay,” she says, answering his unspoken question. It’s mostly a lie, but she has to say it. Most days, she’s okay enough.

A Language Made for Lovers: SWTOR (NSFW). Torian Cadera x Bounty Hunter, gender neutral. Reflections on love and marriage under the glow of hyperspace.

Memorable quote: He murmurs in your ear, words that should sound harsh in that still-new tongue scalding your mouth, molding you from aruetii to mandalorian. But the love in his voice softens them, steeps them in warmth and adoration. Still the language of a hunter, of those brave souls willing to be reforged, but with a gentle side, a language reserved for lovers. Words like cyare and riduur, words that mean I love you and forever and home.

Malicious Compliance: SWTOR (NSFW). Malavai Quinn x Sith Warrior, gender neutral. Far away, in an apartment no one knows about, a Sith Lord plays dire games of control... and trust.

Memorable quote: It takes a man with the courage of an entire fleet of Mandalorians to love a Sith, and oh, how he loves you. Like you hung the moons and the stars and all the spaces between. Like you are his other half, like loving you is his sole purpose in life, does Malavai Quinn love you. Your old masters spoke nothing of this, of this enraging hunger gnawing at your bones and curling into the hollows of your rib cage. ... Is it really even love if you don’t want to devour him just a little?

Misc:

Tumblr Prompts: Grab bag of every fandom and series listed above. Prompts filled originally here on tumblr.

Visual Files: Collections of art and commissions from talented friends and artists here on tumblr.

Every Beautiful Thing: Crimson Peak. Thomas x Edith, Edith x Alan. Edith learned, in the dark halls of Allerdale, not to take ghosts lightly. But still she waits, every year, for a chance to see Thomas again. Until the night their son tells her he can see him too.

Memorable quote: Snow heralds nothing but pain in Edith’s world: first her mother’s funeral, smothered in fat white flakes wet on her lashes like tears, then her father’s. Smaller ones, then, rain slowly freezing and scattering on the ground; the ones that night at Allerdale were the smallest yet, more ice pellet than snow. Jagged, hateful things scraping at her with a cold that burned through skin and encased bone.…God, how she has come to hate the snow.

Where I Can’t Follow: Co-authored by @suspendnodisbelief. show!Witcher, mild Geralt x Jaskier. (Temporary hiatus) Drawing from a variety of inspiration, including greek mythos. Geralt takes a blow meant for Jaskier, finally granted the death by battle he expects Witchers to end by. And Jaskier is not having it, at all. It’s his turn to save Geralt, even if he has to walk the entire bloody underworld to do it.

Memorable quote: “Geralt, get up. Come on, open your eyes. You’re going to upset Roach if you keep this up, and she’ll bite me. You know you aren’t allowed to be dead, because Yennefer didn’t give you permission, and neither did the Princess, and I’m pretty sure they both outrank you.”

#dragon age #Mass Effect #star wars #the mandalorian #the witcher #crimson peak #swtor #my fic #fanfic writer appreciation day

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rumbelleshowdown · 4 years

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Author: Porcelain Elephants

Prompt: A lucky penny; dark cave; flexibility

Group: B

Flowers for Her Grave

Izzy French didn't believe in luck, whether it was in the form of horseshoes, shiny copper pennies, or anything else. After all, she had little reason to. She was stuck keeping her father's flower shop afloat in a town she thought she'd never return to after she left for college. If there was any luck in the universe, Izzy would be a librarian somewhere by now. Her mother wouldn't have died of cancer when she was six, leaving her with a man who couldn't care for himself let alone her. Papa would stare blankly ahead for months, his hand on his drink, his mind on his dead wife, and not on the little girl who needed him.

So Izzy had made her own luck. Even when her heart ached for a simpler life, one that didn't involve cooking lessons from Granny or sitting with her homework at the flower shop counter, learning geometry as she cut roses, she kept going. She kept herself afloat and grew up fast like the heroes in her storybooks, although Izzy hoped only to see the world and for a library of her own to run one day instead of magical powers or grand adventures. (Secretly, Izzy thought she deserved powers, a little compensation from the universe for the hand she'd been dealt, but Izzy knew fairness like luck and magic was nonexistent.) She'd thought she'd done it for a while, found a way to force the world to work in her favor. But then Papa had his heart attack her Junior year of college and everything she'd so tirelessly built came crashing down.

Still not everything is bad, Izzy thinks to herself as the bell on the shop door rings. She wipes her hands on her ragged jeans and looks up at her Tuesday regular. He's been coming here every Tuesday for as long as she remembered, precisely at 11:30 like clockwork. Most people would be frightened of Mr. Gold given his reputation (a reputation she's sure he's helped manufactured), but Izzy can't fear a mourning man though.

Gold looks better than usual today. His fingers are still white from how tightly he's gripping his cane, but his limp is less pronounced today. His hair frames his face, instead of completely covering it. He has a blue pocket square, as opposed to a black one. There are a hundred little things that let Izzy know today is a good day, or at least as good a Tuesday as she's ever seen.

"The usual, Mr. Gold?" She asks with a smile. It's not hard to smile at him on good days. On bad days, she barely forces herself to. A part of her just wants to hold him, cradle him to her chest and never let him go. She can't explain why. Their interactions are short, and he's never sought her affection. But still, Izzy wants to give it to him, wants to know him.

"Do you have anything a little brighter today?" Gold doesn't meet her eyes. He never does.

"I'm sure we can find something. Otherwise, we always have your roses." She turns her back to him and lays out the blue paper for the bouquet before she asks her next question. Their relationship has always been an odd one. He occasionally offers her answers that make her own heart twist in her chest, but she can carry some of his pain, especially if he offers it so hesitantly, coded in answers to simple question.

"What sort of flowers do you have in mind?"

"She was wearing gold the day we met. She looked radiant, like a brief flicker of light in an ocean of darkness, and her smile..." Gold trails off as if he remembers she’s still listening.

Izzy doesn’t push him; she never does. She knows the rest of the town hasn't heard Gold talk about his wife because they would never be able to believe he was a heartless monster after that. He speaks so reverently.

"If it was summer, I'd recommend sunflowers even if they are untraditional, or more so because from what I'd heard she'd like untraditional." She sees a tentative smile. "However I think daffodils will do nicely."

Every Tuesday Izzy waits with a bouquet of roses at the ready. Occasionally, he’ll need delphinium (because they remind him of her eyes), daisies (because she always insisted they were lucky), snapdragons (because she’d drag him into their garden to dance barefoot as soon as they bloomed) or lilacs (because they’re her favorite). But most of the time, it’s red roses, a symbol of both love and the first gift he ever gave her. He offers these tidbits tentatively, but Izzy treasures them.

When school is out for the summer, his son joins them, a little boy with deep brown eyes like his father. Gold speaks little of his dead wife when Gideon is around, always staying strong even on the days when Izzy just wants to usher him into the backroom so he can just sit and cry in peace. Not that he’ll take her up on the offer for even something as simple as tea. They keep going, their lives completely separate, except for every Tuesday when Izzy finds herself falling a little more in love with a man who loves so deeply that he’s already buried his heart.

Until suddenly their lives aren’t so separate anymore.

Gold practically races into Game of Thorns as soon as it opens, the door slamming behind him. Maybe it’s because she isn’t properly awake yet, but Gold looks different. He doesn’t lean as heavily on his cane and there’s a certain swagger in his step. But mostly it’s his eyes. They’re the happiest she’s ever seen them, like he’s found hope again. He studies her face desperately. If Izzy didn’t know any better, she’d think he was trying to memorize it.

“I’m surprised to see you here on a Friday, Mr. Gold.”

He gives her a half-grin. “I simply couldn’t wait.”

Izzy wonders what sort of day it is that he needs flowers so desperately. She searches for memory for anything important. She’s clung to the dates the way she clung to his flower choices; everything just seems so important. But there’s never been a day that makes him this happy. All of the dates with his wife - their anniversary, their first meeting, their first date, her birthday, the day she died – those days make him shrivel into himself. This is something different.

“There seems to be a newcomer to town, a Miss Emma Swan.” Gold stares at her intently. He looks her in the eyes despite always avoiding the eye contact before.

Izzy taps her fingers against the counter. She feels like Gold just said something important, like he’s telling her the secret to her happiness. And she wants to remember desperately but there’s nothing there. Just the beginnings of a headache.

“Belle?” He whispers the name like a prayer, speaking as reverently as he does when he’s talking about his wife.

Izzy’s confusion evaporates instantly. She wants to scream. He’s been here every week for years. She’s practically fallen in love with him and he doesn’t even know her name.

She points to her name tag far more aggressively than strictly necessary. “Izzy. My name is Izzy. Not even my father calls me Isabelle anymore, and no one’s ever called me Belle.”

He steps away from the counter like he’s been burned. “Of course, Izzy. I didn’t mean anything- I just…”

She’s seen him lose his focus before, heard his sentences trail off in a million difference ways. But this time feels different. In the past, Izzy knew exactly where the pain was coming from, a small grave covered in flowers and books, a life half-lived and a grieving family. She understands that sort of pain. She’s prepared flowers for every funeral in Storybrooke since her own mother’s. This pain is something completely different.

When Gold leaves just as quickly as he came, Izzy can’t help but feel like it’s her fault. When he doesn’t come to the shop on Tuesday, her guilt grows.

On Wednesday, Izzy leaves her father in charge of the shop (It is after all his shop even if it would be bankrupt without her. He can handle a few hours.) She grabs the bouquet of roses and marches toward main street. She figures it’s late enough that Gold will have dropped Gideon off at school and returned to his shop.

Izzy pauses outside, the sudden reality of the situation hitting her. She has never entered his domain before, even when the show windows contain something that piques her interest. Their friendship has always been a fragile thing, stolen hours when a broken man allows himself to be seen. It didn’t seem fair to force that sort of thing on him. But still, even though Gold knows nothing about her, she can’t let him run away from this. Do the brave thing and bravery will follow. Izzy forces herself to push the door open.

“I’ll be with you shortly“ Gold exits his backroom at the sound of the bells, but he stops dead in his tracks when he sees exactly who his new customer is. Clearly he hadn’t expected to see her. Part of her wants to laugh at the comical look of shock on his face, but she’s far too nervous for that.

“I thought you would want these.” She holds up the flowers weakly.

“Izzy.” This time it’s her name that’s said like a prayer, like it’s something special, like she’s special.

“I didn’t like where we left things last week.” Her voice is small and hesitant. She wishes she’d thought this through more. Izzy had just acted.

“I didn’t either. I wasn’t sure if I’d be welcome back.”

Gold shifts his weight from side to side and she briefly wonders if that hurts his bum leg at all.

“Of course, you’re welcome back. What would we do without our number one customer?”

The smile he gives her doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Would you like to stay for a while? I have tea in the back.”

Izzy agrees without hesitation, because even though there’s something new between them, this is what she’s always wanted.

Tea comes more often after that and the conversations get easier. Izzy hears him laugh for the first time at a silly joke she made, and it feels like there might be a chance for them after all. They talk about everything, books, music, art, but the conversation always swings back around to Gideon. The boy is eight and the brightest part of his father’s world. Gold seems desperate to share every bit of Gideon’s life with her. She learns how much he loves history and sleeping in dinosaur footed pajamas, how he only eats his sandwiches with the crust cut off and how he follows around Henry Mills like he’s a prince.

"He’s a good kid." Izzy remarks after hearing another of the boys’ fantastical adventures.

"Remarkable considering who raised him."

She doesn't know why she leans toward him, but Izzy cups his cheek like she's done it a million times before. "You know as well as I do that there’s always the possibility to be better than our parents. Their actions do not define us.”

The earthquake shook the flower shop. Only a few of the vases were broken, so overall not too bad. Izzy would have been able to go about her day if it hadn’t been for Gold bursting in looking out of his mind with worry.

“Gideon. He’s gone. I can’t find him.” The poor man is close to hyperventilating, barely keeping himself upright. “I can’t lose him. I can’t do this again.”

Izzy hugs him tightly to her and kissing his head. She takes the keys from him and helps usher him to the Cadillac. She can’t explain the ache that’s going through her own body. Every inch of her feels like its screaming, but she needs to be the calm one for this. Izzy drives to the newly formed sinkhole on the edge of town. The crowd is already fairly large. Sheriff Graham and his new deputy are already hard at work trying to find a way to rescue Dr. Hopper, Henry and his little shadow, Gideon.

Despite her small stature, Izzy can’t find a hole small enough to sneak through. She knows it’s dangerous, but she would gladly contort her body into whatever shape necessary just to get her son back. No her mind corrected. Gold's son. All the stories in the world don’t make you his mother. You've only met the boy a few times. You need to stay strong for him. He's already lost one child; he can't lose another. Izzy doesn’t know where that last thought came from. Gold never told her about another son, but she knows. She’s never been more certain of anything.

So Izzy cradles him and whispers soothing words as they wait. She asks the necessary questions when it’s clear Gold’s worry for his son makes him more prone to violence toward the mayor than usual. Something neither of them need, because for once they’re on the same side.

When Emma is hoisted the last few feet out of the elevator shaft, two scared boys clinging to her, Gold’s face is positively alight with love for his son. Gold must not be thinking about his own limitations, because he runs and picks up the boy like he’s still a small child, cradling him close and peppering his face with kisses.

Izzy tries to stand as close as she can without intruding on the moment. This is not her family as much as she longs for it to be. Gold has a wife. Yes she lies in a cemetery with flowers Izzy helped pick out, but there’s no doubt in Izzy’s mind that Gold still loves his wife. Izzy can’t replace her, and she fears how much she wants to. Even now, despite not knowing him, Izzy longs to embrace Gideon too, to check over every inch of his body to make sure he is truly okay.

Maybe one day, they can be a family, she thinks to herself as she trudges back to the car. One day she’ll be worthy to stand in his wife’s footsteps. But for now, Izzy counts herself lucky she gets to stand so close, lucky for tea with Mr. Gold and stories of Gideon.

#rumbelle showdown 2020 #round three entry #author: porcelain elephants #rumbelle fic

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wolfoftheautumn · 4 years

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Belladonna was sitting in her Mothers room. She had been there since she awoke she looked over to her Mother who seemed to be scanning a document while writing something down. She missed the privacy of her own room but understood their fears and concern. Valkyrie was on the bed with her as she pet over her. She had gotten a little stronger in the last couple of days but not enough to feel safe.

She sat there thinking, Amara and Ameiral came to eat and see her as her aunts and uncle. The only problem was she was growing restless and on top of that bored her Mother went everywhere with her even the bath but she could understand that since she had a problem moving still. She had fallen stiff in her joints and she was slower. Gideon said it would take a few weeks to get back up but she didn’t want that she wanted to move now.

Since she had awoken her Mama seemed to be in meetings from the time she awoke till almost time to sleep she knew she was stressed they both were. Her thoughts had started to creep back in. She wanted to speak but was afraid to break her mothers concentration. “Mother?” She asked softly looking at her. Her Mother put the document down “Yes darling?” She asked “I’m sorry about everything" She said looking down “This is all my fault" She said softer.

Xenia was shocked she quickly got up and went over to her sitting down and taking her hand. “No this is not your fault it never was. You are a target you have nothing to be sorry for my sweet girl" She said. Belladonna frowned “Everyone is stressed and overworked” She said “Mama, Aunt Ruelle, Amara, Ameiral and you" She said. “My sweet girl overworked yes but only because we want to see you safe" She said softly rubbing her back. “I know you hate staying with us, I know you enjoy your privacy. I also know you are bored but your body is still healing" She said.

Belladonna nodded “Do you think we can go to the garden today I would like some fresh air" She said softly. “Of course darling I think it would do you good" She said smiling. Belladonna bit her lip “Are you upset that I turned down your old title?” She asked in a soft tone. Her mother shook her head “I was actually relieved in hearing it. I have done things I am not proud of. I’ve hurt people close to me to keep up a façade once and I never want you to ever do that" She said. She nodded “I understand" She said closing her eyes “Can we visit the garden after dinner with Mama, I miss her" She said. “Oh course darling anything you want" She said. Belladonna pulled away yawning “Unfortunately, I think a nap is in store" She said.

Her Mother smiled and nodded “Sleep is good for a healing body" She said softly “Get some rest I will see if your Mama will eat lunch with us" She said as she stood. Belladonna laid down and it didn’t take long for her to succumb to sleep. Her mother covered her up and she heard a familiar pattern on the door. It opened and Ruelle came in. “My queen there has been a break through and also a loss" She said she looked over seeing Belladonna asleep. Xenia motioned her to come over to a corner where they could talk. Ruelle followed “What is the news first?” Xenia asked. “We were able to get some information out of them using one of your many talking agents. They come from the kingdom of serpents. Their was a priest or wise woman that had a prophecy it included the Wolf of Autumn and the location of our Princess. They did not go into details other then a mention of a sacrifice.” She said softly. Xenia frowned she didn’t like any of that, it meant this was no random attack but a planned one. “And the loss?” She asked concerned even more. Ruelle frowned “Our captive burst into a blue flame, nothing is left but ash" She said.

Xenia frowned that was not news she wanted to hear. “I see but at least we have a kingdom to search and look for" She said that was good. “How is she doing?” Ruelle asked looking over to the sleeping Belladonna. Xenia frowned “She’s growing restless and bored, though stronger every day. How are the talks going in the council?” She asked, normally Xenia would be there but with these circumstances she was not. “So far our idea has everyone on agreement to get her out of here but where is what everyone is fussing over" She said. Xenia nodded “I understand that" She said. “She is worried about everyone other then herself.” She said softly. Ruelle smiled “She has a heart of gold" She replied “I will go back to the council and urge them to recess for the day everyone is stressed” Xenia nodded “Belladonna wants some family time so I believe that would be in our best option" She spoke Ruelle bowed and left. Xenia went over sitting on the bed gently. “My sweet girl" She said softly. She started to remember when she was young how carefree she was always wanting to be by their sides doing what they were doing.

Xenia was extremely worried now a kidnapping she could handle but a sacrifice that chilled her. She watched as Belladonnas chest rose and fell. She had no idea how much danger she was in and yet for once in sixteen years Xenia was unsure if she could keep her safe. That fear paralyzed her the thought of losing her the frown was evident on her face. Would she wear a mourning veil once again would she ever take it off this time. “Get a hold of your self" She whispered to herself. Belladonna shifted from the whisper and Valkyrie looked up yawning she went over to Xenia to comfort her. “Please keep her safe in my absence young one" She said. The door opened and she was ready to pull out a blade when she noticed her wife. She shut the door and walked over. She knew that look the news she had received from Ruelle. She sat on the bed putting a hand on her daughters sleeping face.

“ I have always came to you for personal council but now I am unsure what we can do" She spoke softly. “I can tell you are just as worried possibly even frozen with anxiety of the future “ She spoke. Xenia nodded resting a hand on her wife’s back “I’ve always played a deadly game but this is one I wish I could opt out of" She spoke softly. River turned to her and buried her head into her chest as the tears flowed freely. Xenia rubbed her back “We will think of something darling” She said softly. “What if it’s not enough I cant….I don’t want to lose her" She cried harder. Xenia held her tight “We wont” She said “I will not allow it" She whispered. She held her wife for a long time it seemed time had frozen and she wish it could. River pulled back “How is she?” She spoke softly drying her tears.

“She is growing bored and quite restless. Then again she’s been a handful ever since she could walk. Always on the go but she is growing stronger which is a blessing" She replied softly. Belladonna started to wake up she could hear voices whispering she started to rub the sleep from her eyes and rose up. As she did Valkyrie started to lick her face and she laughed “Good nap for you to girl?” She asked petting the pup. She looked over and was surprised she seen a medium size table in the room with her mothers', aunts, Amara and Ameiral “Did I miss a memo?” She asked as she got up and started to stretch. “We all wanted to have lunch with you" Ruelle said “Also we have come to a solution, come sit and eat with us as we explain" She said smiling. Belladonna nodded as she came over sitting in between Amara and Ameiral. “We are opening trade back into the city, people can come and go as they please.” She explained. Belladonna nodded “That’s wonderful but I feel there is a catch to this all" She replied studying their faces. Amara looked over “You will be in a trading cart going away for a while some where safe" She said. Belladonna bit her lip “Just where is safe exactly?” She inquired. “My home town no one really visits it except traders and on top of that it’s in the middle of no where no one would think to look for you there" Ameiral said. Belladonna was quiet as she started to nibble. “Mother, Mama will you be safe?” She asked her Mama was shocked “Of course we will be your our main concern. You wouldn’t be going alone either Ameiral and Amara will be accompanying you” She said softly.

Belladonna nodded as she ate more “When do we leave?” She asked softly. “In a few days” Ruelle said. She nodded “Alright if you all believe this is the best course of action I will go with it" She said. She was sad in a way but understood they were thinking about her and her safety. As they ate there was small chit chat, Belladonna kept drinking the strange blue liquid Gideon had made and it seemed every bite and sip she took she was starting to feel like her old self again. After lunch Amara and Ameiral stayed in the room as her Mothers’ went to make the final preparations. She sat on the bed cuddled into both of them she had missed human contact “So are you two ready for our adventure?” She asked softly. Amara smiled “I am, a change of scenery is always nice and healthy" She said. Belladonna nodded “So what’s it like there?” She asked “Its medium sized, a lot of mines lots of farm land as well. Beautiful mountains, lakes and waterfalls.” Ameiral said. “It sounds beautiful" She said softly. As she laid with them “So where are we staying?” She asked curious. Amara was curious as well. “I have a small house there that I was renting out not like anyone grabbed it up but there.” Ameiral said. “This sounds fun" Belladonna replied and then sighed “Do you think anyone will know who I am?” She asked. Ameiral shook her head “We know of the royal family but that’s it, I mean we’ve heard stories of Amara but yeah. If anyone recognizes you I will be amazed" She said. Belladonna smiled “Then Alpha has a fresh start" She smiled. Amara laughed “True but your armor is not coming with us" She said. Belladonna whipped her head around “What! Why?” She asked. “Your still weak I fear if you wear it you will get worse or sickly" She said. Belladonna sighed “Anything else I should know?” She asked. Ameiral smiled “Well you wont be able to wear those nice suits either trust me you would stick out like a sore thumb" She said. “Well I’m not wearing a dress either" Belladonna said.

Ameiral laughed “I never expected you to dear" She replied as she kissed Belladonna on the lips. She smiled kissing her back “So did you guys volunteer or were you promised something to go with me?” She asked. Amara kissed her shoulder blade “We volunteered plus there was no way I was leaving you.” She said. Belladonna smiled she felt tired again “Please stay while I sleep?” She asked softly as her eyes started to close. As she slept both Woman held her close as if she would float away if they didn’t keep her there. Ameiral ended up falling asleep as well. Amara laid there smiling watching the two.

She heard the door open seeing the Queens return. “How is preparations?” She asked softly. “Finished when the shipment comes in, in two days you will all be set you and Ameiral will act as guards. Belladonna will be in the cargo chamber with what few things of hers.” Xenia said. “I promise I won’t allow anything to happen to her. I promise to protect her with my life" She said in a serious tone. “Amara we don’t blame you for the attack for her getting hurt” River said. “I feel like I failed, I’ve done it once before and this time with the one I cherish and love. It will not happen" She said. River thought “Will you stay for a bit longer I want to go to the winter temple with Xenia for a little bit" She said. “I will gladly stay you two need to relax together I will stay here till you two return” She said smiling

Belladonna opened her eyes a few hours later she seen Ameiral asleep and felt Amara drawing patterns in her back she smiled “Amara?” She asked “Yes darling” She said softly “Did you nap?” She asked softly. She chuckled “No but I relaxed so it was good" She said softly. She nodded “Where are my mothers'?” She asked. “Winter temple to relax in the bath house” She said softly. She nodded. Ameiral moved a little and opened her eyes she blushed “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” She said softly Belladonna smiled “You needed your rest nothing wrong with that" She said smiling.

Belladonna rose up and started to stretch she got up and got a drink she took a sip of the blue liquid and smiled she felt good. She heard the door open and seen her Mothers' they smiled “Feeling better?” She asked them. They smiled looking at her “Much better" They replied “Are you still wanting to go to the garden?” Her Mother asked. She nodded “I would like to have some fresh air" She said smiling. “Amara, Ameiral would you like to join us?” Her Mama asked. “I would love to my Queens" Amara said. Ameiral nodded “As would I" She said softly.

As they all made their way to the garden Belladonna smiled. Once out she smiled the fresh air made her smile more she missed going out. Valkyrie and Leoa were running and playing around. She went over to her usual seat and sat down enjoying the sun on her skin. She smiled she had no idea her Mothers’ were briefing Amara and Ameiral on final arrangements she just sat there enjoying herself. That was till she heard Valkyrie and Leoa growling and hissing. She opened her eyes going to where they were she seen a very odd looking snake one she had never seen. She thought this was curious as she leaned down to look at it the snake tried to bite her Valkyrie jumped at it. Biting it and started to shake her head beating it on the ground. Belladonna was pulled back by Amara and held so tight she didn’t think she could breathe. Xenia was over in an instant and grabbed it she had something in her hand and jabbed it the snake went limp. “We aren’t even safe in the garden" She growled “Amara, Ameiral follow me” She said. Belladonna was taken back to the room and she sat there with her Mama and Valkyrie. She sighed what little air she had gotten had been nice. She sat on the bed and started to write her thoughts she was frustrated. “Mama, why am I being targeted. What do they want with me why am I so special?” She asked looking at her from her journal

River looked up “I'm not sure my darling” She said lying she knew the reason so did those who needed to know. She would never tell her daughter though never. Belladonna nodded as she looked back down as she wrote. She missed her freedom and she hated that. Did the enemy want money? Supplies? What why her. She sat there thinking she wanted to know more about the snake What had her Mother done to it. She sat there watching Valkyrie she seemed to be on edge and that worried her the door opened and her Mother returned both Ameiral and Amara were in their armor she frowned. “I’m sorry Belladonna but I believe you need to leave tonight" She said.

She nodded “I understand" She said as she rose from the bed and hugged her “Stay safe my sweet girl" She said. Belladonna turned and hugged her Mama as they left. Xenia led them through a secret passage and to a place that Belladonna had never seen she seen a carriage just a regular one nothing fancy. Amara and Ameiral got in and she hesitated for a moment. Before picking Valkyrie up getting in as the door closed and they were off. Belladonna watched her Mothers’ get further and further away till they disappeared. It was quiet and she looked down at the floor “So our adventure has begun" She spoke softly.

“How are you feeling?” Amara asked Belladonna shrugged “Wishing my mothers were here honestly. I’m just glad I was able to have lunch with everyone I guess" She said. “Don’t worry we'll be back before you know it" She said. Belladonna nodded she truly hoped so. It was a quiet ride and she was growing sleepy. “ We will be at a inn soon we’ll get food and drink and beds there" Amara said. She nodded “Ameiral will it still be a two weeks journey with carriage?” She asked. “No just about a week and a half I would think. When we get there I’ll show you one of my favorite trails I like to take to the lake" She said. Belladonna smiled that cheered her up. As they sat there Belladonna pet Valkyrie who was sleeping by her side

Luckily the trip only lasted a week it could have been shorter but everyone needed breaks to walk around. When they arrived at the house Ameiral smiled as they all got their luggage and she showed them in “Its not much but its home" She said as she went in and went to the bedroom it was nice and large with a giant bed the three could easily fit them. “You two relax I’m going to go to the market and get food for us for the next week" She said. Belladonna looked up “I want to go" She said. Ameiral chuckled “Tomorrow I’ll give you both a proper tour. Rest it will be good if you want you can look around the house" She said. Belladonna sighed but nodded “Alright” She replied as she kissed her. Ameiral kissed her back and kissed Amara on the cheek as she left. Belladonna went exploring the house the kitchen held a small table that was perfect for the three and the bath was medium sized she wanted to go outside but waited for Amara as they went; she found a forge near the barn and that made her smile. The barn housed their horses that had been brought along who were resting eating oats and drinking water.

Belladonna yawned she was still sleeping she hated that. She was still not at full health either. They returned to the house where she laid down Valkyrie next to her and she fell asleep. Amara watched over Belladonna she had to protect her Ameiral and her had decided they would protect her with their lives and she would not know the full truth. She started to unpack their things to give her mind something to do. She worried for Belladonna since they had not had time to make the potion even though Gideon had wrote everything down it would take time to make and Amara was not good with things like that.

When she finished she laid down. Belladonna snuggled into her and held her close. She closed her eyes to rest them Ameiral had promised them a small adventure when they got here but it was getting late and she didn’t know if Belladonna could go in a small hike her health was slowly getting better but she knew even little things wore her out still. She heard a wagon and horse she got up going to the door looking out she smiled seeing Ameiral back. She watched as Ameiral unhooked the horse and took them to the barn. Valkyrie was next to her and she whined Amara looked down “What's wrong dear?” She asked. Valkyrie pulled at her pants to come back in she followed and she was led to the bedroom. Belladonna was up looking around she seemed frightened.

“Dear?” She asked, Belladonna turned looking at her “Your okay" She said “Is Ameiral back?” She asked. “Yes she just returned what’s wrong you looked frightened" She said. Belladonna wrapped her arms around herself “I had a nightmare" She said softly. Amara came over wrapping her arms around her “Its alright my little wolf everything is alright we are safe" She said rubbing her back. She nuzzled into her “My mothers they were dead, so was Ameiral and you.” She said as she nuzzled into her “It was so real" She said. “Everyone is fine dear, how about we go help bring supplies in" She said. Belladonna nodded “That sounds good" She said as she followed her to the door. Ameiral was bringing things in and they went outside to get the rest.

After everything was in they started to help put things away with Ameirals help and guidance . Soon the three of them were cooking. A knock came to the door and Ameiral went to see who it was. She opened the door to see a tall man with grey in his black hair and gold eyes “Dad?” She asked. “ I heard from going to town you were back I had to come see my baby girl" He said hugging her.

She hugged him back as she let him in “Who are these two?” He asked “My traveling companions" She said “Master Alpha of the Autumn and Amara of the summer" She said. He smiled “Nice to meet you both I am Ameirals father they call me Stone" He said. Amara and Belladonna shook his hand “So what brings you back dear the city life too much?” He asked.

“I’m only back force couple of weeks Master Alpha and Amara wanted some time to relax a bit before the winter so I offered them to come here for a few weeks" She said smiling. “ That’s great we never get visitors” He said smiling. Valkyrie didn’t leave Belladonna side Amara noticed she felt Valkyrie was trying to tell them something. “You three should come to dinner at the house sometime your mother misses you terribly" He said. Ameiral nodded “We will" She said. He smiled “I’m going to go home and tell your mother your home" He said. He hugged her again before leaving.

Belladonna sat there she felt drained and had no idea why. Amara noticed “ Ameiral do you have a place I can grind up those ingredients?” She asked. Ameiral nodded “Yes, follow me" She said as she took her to a small room. Amara thanked her and she went to get the bag that Gideon had made. Ameiral looked at Belladonna “So you met father I guess next mother and maybe my older brothers" she said. “ Your father was charming I cant wait to meet the rest of the family" She smiled.

“Thank you" She said as she and Belladonna continued to cook Belladonna smiled she liked this. Most of the time the cooks shooed her away when she wanted to make food. She adored this honestly she knew Amara was worried but she was fine. “I seen you had a forge maybe I can help you with your smiting I’m not a master but I do a good job" She said. She smiled “If you like but when your stronger" She said. Belladonna sighed “ What If I don’t get any stronger?” She asked “Its been two weeks" She said.

Ameiral shook her head “Your getting stronger everyday just be patient." She said. Belladonna nodded “Mother always told me I was always getting into something when I learned to walk” She said. “That’s a rather adorable image" Ameiral said smiling. Ameirals imagination went wild as she imagined a little Belladonna. Soon the two were plating up the food and sitting it down. Amara came from the room smiling “Try this” She said handing the blue concoction to her. Belladonna sniffed it before sipping it. “It’s just like Gideon but extra berry tasting its amazing" She said. Amara smiled “I added a bit more berries then Gideon did he said just a few but I know you like berries so I added a bit more" She replied smiling.

Belladonna smiled “Can we do something tonight?” She asked them. Ameiral smiled “I was hoping you would ask that, there is a hill not to far from here that is perfect for star gazing" She said. Belladonna smiled and so did Amara “That sounds fun would you like to do that Alpha?” Ameiral asked. She nodded “Yes I love looking at the stars" She said. Ameiral smiled “Then that’s what we will do" She said smiling. As they all sat eating Valkyrie and Leoa were eating together they seemed to be taking turns out of the same bowl. Belladonna smiled as she ate it was good food and all three of them had made it. She couldn’t wait to see the stars either she wondered what it would be like out in the country.

When they finished they all cleaned up. Ameiral went and got cloaks just in case it got to cold. The three of them left the house going up the hill finding a perfect place to sit. Belladonna had the cloak on looking up smiling. Amara and Ameiral stealing quick glances at her smiling. “Have you always liked stars?” Ameiral asked. “Yes me earliest memories are of my Mothers taking me out to look at them. When I was a little older I would sneak out and watch them. I don’t know how many times I fell asleep watching them but I always woke up in my bed somehow" She said softly she laid back on the ground watching.

Valkyrie started to howl and Belladonna smiled “You like the night to don’t you girl" She said smiling Valkyrie ran over getting on her chest and laying there she laughed as she pet her looking at the stars smiling. They stayed like that for a while and Belladonna fell asleep. Amara and Ameiral looked over “Amara I’m scared” She said watching her sleep “I’m scared we'll lose her” She said softly “I cant imagine a life without her, it really wouldn’t be a life. She has taught me so much in these past few weeks" She said. “We wont lose her I wont allow it. We'll keep her safe and protected were the royal guard it’s our duty" She said. “Plus she’s not defenseless she can handle herself.” She said softly.

Valkyrie got off as Amara picked her up letting her head rest on her shoulder as they walked back. She seemed to smile. As they walked back into the house Amara took her to the bed and gently undressed her putting her in her robe as she and Ameiral started to undress. They dressed and Amara put Valkyrie on the bed she laid at Belladonnas feet. As Amara and Ameiral got in they cuddled up to her and fell asleep.

Belladonna woke up in the morning with arms around her. The last thing she remembered was looking at the stars. She smiled as she looked down at Ameiral who was asleep and she felt Amara stirring from behind her. She felt Valkyrie walking up her legs sitting on her legs. She smiled she wondered what they would do today she had an idea and she wiggled out of the twos hold; she dressed silently and went down the stairs she then entered the kitchen looking at what they had. Eggs and meat sounded good for breakfast so she decided to start making that. She was cooking away with Valkyrie and Leoa watching what scraps of fat she cut off the meat she gave them.

Amara opened her eyes as she finally woke she seen the space between her and Ameiral empty she then seen Belladonnas robe hanging up. She wondered where she was and she nudged Ameiral awake she opened her eyes “Where’s is she?” Ameiral asked. “I’m not sure I just awoke" She said. Both got up and dressed and went down stairs there they found her cooking and they let out silent relieved breaths. She looked back seeing them. She smiled “Good morning you two come sit I almost have breakfast finished" She said both nodded going over sitting down Amara noticed she was sipping the drink which was good. Soon she had everything plated up and brought the three plates over she sat a plate down in front of everyone before she fed Leoa and Valkyrie then sat down.

“You didn’t have to make breakfast you should have waited for us” Ameiral said. She smiled “I wanted to surprise both of you" She said softly. “Well a surprise it was, next time please wake one of us we were worried” Amara said. She nodded “I’m sorry" She said as she started to eat. They ate in silence enjoying the food. “Since we slept in we’ll clean up" Ameiral said smiling and you make a mean breakfast" She said laughing. Belladonna laughed “Thank Amara, when I was younger my mothers' let me spend the night with her and in the morning she let me help her" She said. Amara smiled “You always loved helping me in the kitchen when you were younger" She said softly looking back on the memory. Belladonna smiled “While you two clean up do you think I can sit outside I really enjoy the sun" She said. They nodded “Of course just stay by the door" Amara said

Belladonna nodded “I will" She said softly as she finished up the last of her food. She picked up the plate and put it in the sink she then poured another cup of the potion and went outside sitting next to the door with it and Valkyrie. She sat there sipping it thinking hopefully they could go into town. She sat there as Valkyrie sat on her lap she smiled. She felt better with the sun on her skin and then wondered if she could eavesdrop on Amara and Ameiral talking. She closed her eyes focusing she heard nothing. She sighed as she decided to enjoy the sun.

It had been a while out in the sun she had finished the drink and was growing a bit sleepy she felt Valkyrie get up and she rose up as she picked the glass up going inside. She seen them both sitting at the table. She smiled as she sat with them getting a half of a glass of the potion. “Do you want to go into town?” Ameiral asked. Belladonna smiled “I would love to can we Amara?” She asked looking at her. Amara smiled “I don’t see why not" She said smiling. She was excited all the drowsiness gone from her “I thought we could have lunch at the tavern as well I think you’ll like it" Ameiral said. Belladonna nodded as she sipped the drink.

They loaded up in the wagon Leoa and Valkyrie in the back with Belladonna. She sat there watching the scenery she liked the country the life of the city was always fast paced. as they got closer she smiled seeing the town insight. Once they stopped at a building Belladonna jumped out of the back followed by Leoa and Valkyrie. She stretched and followed Amara and Ameiral inside a shop. Belladonna looked around it held different things from weapons to jewelry. “My baby girl" She heard a woman say. She looked up seeing a woman come from behind a work bench she had pink hair like Ameiral and the pointy ears. Her eyes were gold as well. She watched her bring Ameiral into a tight hug that made her smile. “Hey mom it’s like you haven’t seen me in years it’s only been a month in a half" She said hugging her in return.

“It feels like forever, your father said you were in tell me about your friends" She said as she looked at Amara and Belladonna. “Mom give me a second this is Amara of the summer, this is Master Alpha of the Autumn" She said. Her mother was shocked “You mean Amara of the summer the captain of the royal guard. And Master Alpha the wolf of the Autumn “ She asked she seemed visibly excited “Yes mother captain Amara and Master Alpha of Autumn" She said Belladonna didn’t know what to expect next other then she felt herself being pulled into a hug “The guards told us of your fight Master Alpha they say you were impressive" She said. “Thank you but you have to thank Amara I’ve been training with her since I could hold a stick" She said laughing.

“How have you been mom since I’ve been gone?” Ameiral asked. She sighed “Swamped with commissions, the local guard was able to pull money together to get new armor and weapons and I just cant get everything done” She said with a sigh. Belladonna looked up “If you have a forge I can do it. I have training in it. I’m not a master but close enough" She said. “Oh Alpha thank you but I don’t know if I could pay you" She said frowning. “No payment is needed as a Master and knight it is my duty to help those in need of help” She said. “Well… If your are sure getting that out of the way would be a great help" She said. She smiled “It would be an honor to help you" She said. She smiled “Thank you" She said. Ameiral smiled “I’ll help as well" She said. Amara nodded “And I" She said. “Oh girls you make an old woman want to cry" She said hugging them again. Valkyrie was chewing on something and Belladonna leaned down getting it, it was a small piece of snowflake obsidian Valkyrie whined and took it back swallowing it. Belladonna freaked out and then watched as she started to grow blue she started to grow a little. She looked to be a few months older maybe more. “Darling didn’t you know when a wolf like hers is ready to grow they eat the gem” Ameiral mother said “No, I didn’t that’s amazing" She said. “ what is their name their so cute I've seen them far away but never up close" She said. “Her name is Valkyrie “ She replied smiling. Valkyrie ran over licking her face she was happy which made her happy. “Tonight you girls come to dinner I’ll make it like a holiday meal" She said smiling. Ameiral nodded “Alright mom I’m going to continue showing them around we'll be here bright and early in the morning" She said. Her mother hugged them all again before they left.

Ameiral showed them around all the shops and market place she smiled as they went to the tavern for lunch. They sat there laughing as they ate and drank. “Alpha are you sure about helping my mother your still healing” Ameiral said. Amara looked at her concerned as well “I’ll be fine plus it will be good I can teach you more about blacksmithing.” She said. Ameiral nodded “Promise you’ll take breaks" She said. She nodded “I will, promise" She replied. After they ate they were on their way back. Belladonna was exhausted she had so much fun plus they had an excellent lunch. She laid back with Leoa and Valkyrie she smiled as she relaxed she was excited about tomorrow as well. Finally she was able to do something that was physical. The sun made her sleepy as she closed her eyes. Once back she hopped out going to the door Ameiral unlocked its they went in. Amara smiled “I don’t know about you two but I could use a nap" She said yawning. Belladonna nodded “I second that" She replied yawning.

Ameiral smiled “Let’s take a nap" She said. They went up the stairs to the bedroom Belladonna got in the middle. Amara at her back and Ameiral at her front as they put there arms around her. She closed her eyes “That was fun but I cant wait for tomorrow to be able to do something" She said. “Just rest now dear" Amara said as she nuzzled into her back and Ameiral under her chin. Belladonna fell asleep first then Ameiral Amara was starting to doze when she felt Belladonna shake she opened her eyes. She watched her for a moment Belladonna was indeed shaking. She knew from when she was young she was having a nightmare. She rubbed soothing circles in her back and started to whisper in her ear that everything was fine and they were both there.

Belladonna started to calm down and she kept it up till she was still again before drifting off to sleep. When Belladonna opened her eyes she was alone in the bed other the Valkyrie she rubbed the sleep front her eyes and seen Ameiral at the mirror putting something away. “Hey" She said softly, Ameiral turned smiling “Did I wake you if so I’m sorry" She said. Belladonna shook her head “ Nope woke on my own" She said smiling.

She rose up and started to stretch “Where is Amara?” She asked. “Making more of the potion for you she wants to get a few jugs fixed for tomorrow and when we help mom" She said smiling. Belladonna smiled as she got up “I cant wait to help" She said. She walked over and smiled “How are you feeling?” Ameiral asked Belladonna smiled “Much better after a nap" She replied as she wrapped her arms around Ameiral “How was your nap?” She asked. Ameiral smiled “Just what I needed as well" She said smiling. Belladonna nodded as she stood straight again “So how far is your family estate?” She asked “Not very far actually I think you'll like it" She replied.

#chapter four #reigning passions #Belladonna #xenia of the autumn #amara of the summer

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wetalkinboutbooks · 4 years

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Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

Summary: The sequel to Dread Nation is a journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you're a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880's America.

What's more, this safe haven is not what it appears - as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won't be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by - and that Jane needs her, too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane's back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it's up to Katherine to keep hope alive - even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:

→ Geena: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

→ Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ x1000

Overall: A killer sequel to Dread Nation, you’re constantly on the edge of your seat and each chapter is a new layer of stress. There’s never a moment of rest and repose because Justina Ireland hooks you with the first chapter and doesn’t let go until you’ve turned the last page.

~ Check out the spoiler-full review/plot discussion below!

The Bad:

→ Redjack and Redfern

Geena: We’re starting with the bad because as Kae said ‘So much bad happens before the good’ and that’s the best way to describe this book. Let’s start off with our fave rogue from Dread Nation who turns out to be a WHOLE BITCH!!! Once Jane and Katherine and Co. get out of Summerland and meet up with him to plan their next move, Jane and them want to go to Nicodemus (a safe town run by a black man and a council of freed slaves and indigenous ppl). Redjack is like ‘it’s an overpopulated place let’s not’ but Jane isn’t dumb and sniffs out that there’s something else, and after Katherine and Jane both needle him we find out that… THIS BITCH IS MARRIED… AND HAS BEEN FOR A WHILE?????? ALL THE WHILE HE WAS FLIRTING AND MACKING ON JANE HE WAS MARRIED????????????? This is the start of the downfall of men in this book, it only gets worse from here… Jane confronts him about being played and he’s basically like ‘Jane you’re fun and all but like you’d never settle down, I seen you fighting and stuff just because you want to… I need a home for Lily’... and like… ok.... Jane is immediately like ‘He wanted a doormat’ and I DIED… but karma works fast and he gets bit by a shambler literally the same night lmao… and guess who kills him? JANE.. though it’s quite emotional because she had feelings for him.

Jane also steals one of his letters when she kills him and kjnsfdskj we find out his wife is preggers but who’s gonna tell her that Redjack is capital d DEAD...

Kae: Alright. MF’n REDJACK. This man… With his cute ass… He was just TRASH. A real fuckboy and Geena summed him up perfectly. I was like, a lil sad to see him go? But good riddance to him for playing my Janey Jane. She may be a tough-ass, but she absolutely has feelings (THAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO COPE WITH) but still. She has feelings.

So now, let’s talk about Redfern’s shady ass. I’ve always side-eyed Redfern. I didn’t trust him. I had a very hard time trusting him because how you gone help The White Man ™ help enslave black and other indigenous peoples for your own gain? Like, boy fuck you. Shady ass. He’s the one that transported Jane, Katherine, and Red Jack to Summerland in the first place. So it was definitely a shock to see his fool ass in Nicodemus as the damn SHERIFF. LIKE WHO TF?

Geena: RIGHT I WAS LIKE WHY IS HE EVERYWHERE? IS HE CLONING HIMSELF??

Kae: And like, he jails Jane because when her and the gang arrive, the surviving folks of Summerland blame her for the small settlement falling to the dead. Redfern is like “Look, Jane. I know you ain’t do that shit. But I gotta jail you so they can stfu. You’ll get a fair trial.” And Jane doesn’t trust this and neither do I. Because black people didn’t get a fair ANYTHING back then. (We still don't) BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY. ANYWAAAAAAAY. Jane catches Redfern shooting the breeze with Miss Duncan and they eventually set her free. All the while, Katherine, a few homies they met in Summerland, and a few homies from Miss Prestons, are planning to break Jane out and BOUNCE. When Jane and Katherine finally reunite, Katherine is like “JANE. MY BESTIE. I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU!” And Jane is like “Lol, yikes. We’re not even friends wtf?” Because again, Jane can’t handle feelings or people genuinely caring about her. That has a bit to do with mommy issues. NOW. Jane has been trying to tell the council of Nicodemus that the horde of zombies will break down the wall that protects the city. But they’re like “HURR DURR SHUT UUUUP. We have machine guns. And that Gideon scientist boy has been keeping up gucci.” And Jane knows walls don’t hold forever. So she’s like we need to get TF up out of here. So she starts making a plan… And that’s when shit starts going south.

Geena: Like Kae said, Redfern is a traitor in all sense of the word… The only time he seems normal is when he’s hardcore crushing on Miss Duncan, but even then… He ends up telling Jane that he only cares about self-preservation and that’s why he’ll stab even his own mother in the back if it means he’ll be safe… OKAY HE DOESN’T SAY THAT BUT REDFERN 100% WOULD… Well kARMA GOT IT’S KISS FOR REDFERN TOO bc when Nicodemus falls, Miss Duncan also turns shambler so kjndsfkjsdfnsd

He ends up being a double agent near the end of the book, pretending to be Jane and Katherine’s ally, only to turn them over to the VILLAIN.. But then also helps them escape? A very morally questionable character and also another example of Deathless Divide saying ‘men aint shit’.

Kae: He triple crossed their asses. Triple agent mf

→ The Fall of Nicodemus

Kae: WHEWWWW. The fall of Nicodemus was something else. I knew it was going to happen, but damn, it was bad. So, we have bitchboy Gideon, who Jane has taken a bit of a liking to. And he wants her to convince the rest of the town to get a ‘Shambler Vaccine’ to protect them. She refuses because she has no idea if the vaccine really works. At least, not yet she does. So at some point, Gideon convinces all the people of Nicodemus to get vaccinated. But he vaccinates all of the original inhabitants of Nicodemus first, then the assholes from Summerland. But the thing is, he runs out of vaccines by the time he has to vaccinate the Summerland folk, and they’re being PISSY about it like “waaaaa, you vaccinated all the black folks before us, WAAA IM A FUCKIN BABY” so he hurries and makes a quick vaccine. Well, THIS QUICK BATCH TURNS THE FOLKS OF SUMMERLAND INTO ZOMBIES. THIS DUMBASS BITCHASS GIDEON TURNS THE DAMN PEOPLE. So he and Miss Duncan stuff them all in a barn or whatever, then DESTROYYYYYY the fence/wall in the back of the town to try to lead them out. Redfern helps too, I think. And then shit. Gets. Real. The machine gun they had isn’t holding them off and some damn zombies done came around the back entrance they created by destroying the fence, and they start CHOMPIN.

Geena: AS KAE SAID… GIDEON AND DUMBITCH CO. MADE A WHOLE BACKDOOR FOR THE ZOMBIES IN AN ATTEMPT TO COVER UP HIS OWN MISTAKE… Reading about the fall was really sad, because this group of well meaning people WHO BTW AREN’T WHITE, that established a community where black and indigenous folk can find SOME SEMBLANCE of justice is overrun by zombies bc of a bitchass white boy’s hubris. So, the zombies get through the backdoor and as Jane and Katherine are slicing and dicing they stumble onto the group they traveled with.. Who also turned.. And Jane has to kill that little baby boy because he too, got turned into a zombie… Also, during the fall of Nicodemus Jane gets bit :( and separates from Katherine and Co. to die alone at the sheriff’s office… But then she doesn't… because back in book 1 when Gideon gave her a vaccine… it worked. So, Jane wakes up to Gideon… the last person she wants to see… who is basically gloating about his vaccine working and he’s making excuses for himself? Callie (a new friend) tries to kill Gideon, but he escapes and she ends up helping Jane instead… where Jane loses her arm :(

Literally, a White Man’s ego can destroy a whole town built on the blood and sweat of freed slaves and indigenous people, JUST BECAUSE he thinks he knows better…

Kae: So like, when Jane wakes up, she threatens to kill Gideon, even though she’s sick and basically puking the zombie virus out of her. While Gideon is gloating, Callie (Jane’s friend and future girlfriend) shoots towards Gideon, but misses. She then cuts off Jane’s bitten arm. The two of them spend a bit of time in the fallen Nicodemus, looking at all of the zombiefied townspeople and healing so they can leave. They both want to track down Gideon and KILL HIS ASS. Which I support. And now we venture into PART 2 OF THE BOOK BAYBEEEEE.

The Ugly

→ Gideon

Kae: WE’RE GOING TO OFFICIALLY TALK ABOUT BITCHASS, SKANK-ASS GIDEON. Dawg, when I tell you I HAAATED this man, I mean it. I have never wanted a character to die more than I wanted Gideon to parish. This man caused the fall of not one, but MULTIPLE TOWNS AND THE WHOLE DAMN CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO.

After the fall of Nicodemus, Jane and Callie set out to track down Gideon. On their tracking adventures, Jane becomes a bounty hunter in order to make money so she can continue on her search for Gideon. Jane is like, a hundred times more badass now. She’s a one armed, zombie slaying, bounty hunter that kills people who have done immense wrong to others. She and Callie learn through their travels that Gideon escaped safely and went on to get funded by some rich folk. In Gideon’s own escapades, he has caused the fall of another small town. And guess how he did that? This IDIOT vaccinated another town and they all turned ‘Shambler’ (zombie). Then he fucks off and escapes so he can’t get in trouble. Jane and Callie make it to California, where Jane hopes to reunite with her mother. There, she kills a man, which pisses Callie off. So while they’re shacked up in a hotel, Callie leaves while Jane is sleeping. And Callie’s punk ass takes all of Jane’s money with her, leaving Jane without anything but the clothes on her back.

Geena: We don’t stan Callie in this house. If she loved Jane that much she would’ve left her SOME money wtf

Kae: TRUE. SO FUCK, CALLIE. LIL BIIIEEETCH. But yeah, Callie dips tf out and leaves Jane with nothing. Callie DID give Jane the option to come with her and start a new life, but Jane is kind of being fueled by her revenge and it’s blinded her. I feel bad too because Jane is also being haunted by Redjack’s ghost. So there’s that.

Geena: Gideon the perfect example why ~intellectual~ men don’t deserve ANY rights. He’s so obsessed with his own research and bullshit, he thinks that no one knows what’s best for humanity other than him, that he brings about death and destruction wherever he goes. He’s the reason Nicodemus falls, he’s also the reason that the West Coast (which is seen as shambler free because it’s protected by mountains) also falls… BECAUSE THIS BITCH CAUSES ANOTHER SHAMBLER OUTBREAK with a faulty vaccine. When Jane and Callie decided to hunt him down I was like LIVING!!! LIKE KILL THAT WHITE BOY!! Who cares for nothing other than being successful… Also, the fact that every boy Jane has thought to be cute was trash is killing me… Girl… needs better taste HONESTLY…

Also, while trying to make himself look like a Sad Boy he forcefully injects his vaccine into Katherine… WHICH ALMOST KILLS HER, but SIIIKKEE because Katherine ends up killing him instead 😎 I personally wanted his death to be WORSE and more PAINFUL for all the shit he’s done but Justina Ireland kept it SHORT and Sweet.

The Good

→ Jane and Katherine

Geena: THE ONE… THE ONE GOOD THING THAT CAME OUT OF THIS DUOLOGY… JANE AND KATHERIN’S FRIENDSHIP… LITERAL RIDE OR DIES... BC JANE TECHNICALLY DIES AT ONE POINT LMAO

Like Kae mentioned earlier, Katherine has fully accepted Jane as a friend by the time they get to Nicodemus, but Jane is still unsure (kinda thinks she isn’t a friend type of person). Katherin reaffirms that she will be there for Jane, but Jane is like Sideyes… But, as the story progresses, after Jane “dies” Katherine spends the rest of the novel constantly thinking of Jane and wishing she had said more. ALL THE WHILE JANE is killing her way to the West Coast.

When they do meet though it kinda hurt because Jane is essentially like ‘Sorry, the old Jane can’t come to the phone right now... because she’s dead’ and Katherine is like ?????????. Jane believes herself to be a monster, because um… she’s just been bounty hunting bad people and because she’s driven by her rage against Gideon - IMO I don’t think that would’ve made her heartless or a monster, but Callie reiterates that she doesn’t like Jane like that (as a killer)… obviously, her resolve was weaker than Jane’s but n e ways. Katherine is also like ‘omg Jane killed that dude without remorse’ (Jane kills a r*pist in front of her, but Katherine doesn’t know what he did). REGARDLESS, uNLIKE SOMEONE (Callie) Katherine doesn’t give up on Jane and accompanies her wherever Jane goes because she knows she can bring back the old Jane and… when I tell you a bitch was emotional :’) AND ALSO THE ENDING WAS BEAUTIFUL though bittersweet

Kae: Okay, let me just say, from the bottom of my heart, that I absolutely adore Jane and Katherine’s friendship. Jane thinks it was built on their shared experience of being kidnapped, but in reality, it was built on their respect for each other. When Kate first saw Jane, she was SHOOK. And Jane was like ‘oh fuck, be cool. Act like you don’t care.’ and so that happened, as Geena explained above. But Katherine stuck around because that’s her best friend and you never give up on your best friend when they’re going through something.

Jane continues to be a meanass to Kate, but Katherine ignores it to the best of her ability and pulls her knickers up and keeps by Jane’s side. In this, Katherine notices that Jane calls her by her full name instead of just “Kate”, which was something Jane always did because she knew it annoyed Katherine. So when Jane starts to let down her guard, she slips up and calls her “Kate” and this takes Katherine to the moon! She’s so excited to see her Jane coming back! But Jane is like “whoops, I'm showing feelings. Can’t let that shit happen” and she hunkers back down.

While Jane was off being dead and bounty hunting, Katherine was on a boat (but I don’t remember doing what) with Lily and Sue (Sue is from Miss Prestons and Nicodemus) and her new friend, a man named Carolina. When they get to California, they realize that it’s not as black friendly as they’d hoped, but it’s presumably safe so that’s what matters. Katherine here’s that San Francisco might offer them a better life, so she and her gang make the trip to get there. That’s when they run into Jane and all the above happens.

One of my favourite parts is Carolina not liking Jane because his first introduction is killing a man without hesitation. But Katherine is like “Pfffft, oh that’s just Jane! It’s FINE!” all the while internally she’s like ‘omgomgomg wtf’. And that’s when Katherine agrees to help Jane kill Gidon and also find her mother.

In the end, they kill Gideon’s horrible ass and end up finding Jane’s mother safe and sound in a small settlement in the mountains called New Haven. Jane’s mother is happy to see Jane, but is totally dismissive of Jane's experience and all she had to do to get to her mother again. I felt really bad for Jane because she did EVERYTHING to get back to her mother and her mom was a DICK. Anyway, Jane leaves with Redfern so they can find a new place (as reluctant homies, not as a couple) and Katherine is like “AYO, YOU JUST GONE LEAVE ME WITHOUT SAYING GOODBYE, BITCH? I SAID I’M YOUR BEST FRIEND SO WHERE WE GOIN!?” And then all three of them prance off into the sunset with a new goal of finding a better life and man, a bitch (aka me and Geena) were CRYIIIIING because it was so sweet and we just love two best friends who are down for one another.

Geena: YEEEEEEESSSSSSS, the ending was bittersweet because like Kae mentioned, Jane had been searching for her mother and her Aunt Aggie hoping to find comfort in their arms. But.. when she got to New Haven, the old life she had been desperately longing for was no longer there. Aunt Aggie was dead and her mother had remarried, and like Kae said, she ignored everything Jane had been through- not wanting to share in her daughter’s sorrows. Jane quickly realized that this wasn’t the place for her, and up and leaves, and this is where the sweetness comes in because the whole scene of Katherine running after Jane 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 Like I had been so scared Justina Ireland wouldn’t give them a happy ending, because how can a zombie story end happily, but this was A LOT better than what I had expected… a bitch (Kae and I SDJKFNSD) teared up.. Just wanna thank Kae for hyping up this sequel before I read it because wow… IT REALLY LIVED UP TO THE HYPE

Conclusion

Geena: Like I said before, this is one of the best sequels I’ve read. Usually, books end up falling flat when you get to the second but Justina Ireland didn’t fall into the same trap. We finally get Katherine’s POV and get to learn why she insists on wearing a corset, and that she’s not as perfect as Jane believed. There’s heart-stopping action and Jane kicking major ass and truly being The Devil’s Bride. Overall, once I finished this I was like Head Empty because I couldn’t read anything afterwards because I had to take time to digest the wild ride the book had been. Also, one of the biggest takeaways (other than ‘white ppl ain’t shit’) was ‘Men don’t deserve rights’ and honestly? Same.

Kae: So there we have it! The story ended beautifully and I really, really enjoyed it. I still haven’t been able to read anything after finishing it because it was just THAT GOOD. It’s been about a month since I finished it and I’m still reeling from how beautifully written it was. It was really refreshing to read about two black women who had FEELINGS and were able to express them to the reader (because they had a hard time expressing them to each other lmao) and it was just really nice. Katherine’s backstory was great about how she was born in a brothel house and her mother tried to teach her that if she found the right man, she’d be fine. But Katherine didn’t want that. She wanted a life where she could provide for herself and be independent. What she brought with her from her old life was her corset and she wore because she basically felt it would hold her together and suppress her anxiety.

Geena: Also, reading about the corset again can I say one of my fave details was Sue helping Katherine loosen it whenever they were in a fight… like the moment Jane disappeared Sue was there to help Katherine and support her …. Sue… the most underrated character AND THE FACT SHE GOT HER HAPPY ENDING MARRIED TO A MANS!!!!

Kae: Jane learned, unfortunately, that not all things are golden. Her old life that she so desperately wanted a taste of, had gone sour. Her mother was no help to Jane and couldn’t even give her the smallest of sympathies. Those two things were initially what kept Jane going (along with her Aunt Aggie), until Gideon showed up and started doing dumb shit. What Jane also learned though, was that people do care about her and even though Katherine wasn’t blood, she was her family and truly loved Jane for who she was, flaws and all.

It’s a beautiful story about two black women finding themselves and forming an unbreakable friendship. It’s more than fighting zombies and more than surviving. It’s about LIVING and finding a way to deal with all of the problems and anxieties they face along the way. It's a great story and I urge everyone to read it. Yes, it’s fictional history about zombies. BUT, it is very telling of the time period it takes place in and Justina didn’t sugar coat any of the prejudices Black people and Indigenous peoples went through back then and I appreciated that. Deathless Divide is beautiful and poetic and heartwarming in the best of way. <3

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