Athwart History (Closed)

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

That’s more than Vivienne’s ever said on anything related to powers that wasn’t a jab at Elias or an art critique-and it makes Jenna think as her eyes flick back to Ellie’s drooped shoulders and downcast gaze, fumbling with her napkin and looking out of sorts and vaguely miserable. It made her think about both of them, honestly.

She’d made Laura a promise, gave her word-and then later confirmed the decision when she decided to keep with Velocity- even if it lost her her dad’s esteem or meant eventually fading into...whatever place Laura was apparently trapped in.

Ellie hadn’t really gotten to make any choice. And if she decided not to be a hero, where was she going to go? All she had was the Tower. Which made Jenna seriously doubt she really was happy there-going from abusive parents to homeless to foster care-of course she thought she was happy in that prison. She hadn’t known anything better, yet.

And that was awful.

But you know what? It’s not just hero stuff that had her befriending Ellie and worrying about Peter. It’s people stuff.

“You guys like movies, right? Elias has like-a whole slew of them in there.” That was...well, maybe not anything Peter would be for right now-she half felt like, as much as Elias had intended to get more inside info on the Tower, Peter in turn wanted information on him. She can’t quite figure the young teenager out. He wasn’t like Ellie, and that somehow unsettled her-because a fourteen year old should be doing...she doesn’t know, fun stuff. Roller skating, something.

What Ellie needed wasn’t what Peter needed, and it put her out of sorts with them together sometimes.

Ellie frowned, peering up after a moment, watching Jenna-and then a shift of her gaze to Adamant. “...I do like movies.”

~*~

Marie had gotten a lot done during the upstairs social call with the Wards. Her drone had shown up and the box safely delivered as well as the dinner Elias had made-which she forgot about almost immediately in favor of reassembling the six or seven servers she’d opened up on the work table. She tries not to let herself find solace in the work-but it’s impossible. Her gadgets and machinery, computer parts and systems-like cars, they made sense, pieces fitting together to form a larger, useful item. Protagonist hadn’t really picked up hobbies-but this could count for one of them, she supposed.

It has her in a relatively good mood, despite being outside of her lair. She doesn’t even mind Jasper sitting on one corner of the work table, watching her work and wisely not messing with any of the screws or tools laid out neatly in rows. She would have thought that kind of tempting for a cat, but luckily not.

“Pretty clumsy spy, straight up asking if you hated Cid. I do, by the way.” She says matter of factly and without much emotion-as if a spy wouldn’t have offended her much in the first place, and her hating Cid was pointless information. Just what was. “If he was sent, probably wouldn’t have revealed himself in the first place. Maybe keeping an eye on Sanderson of his own accord. Seems likely.” Jenna was wasting her time on that one, but Marie doesn’t say that. Jenna would worked better as an unwitting trojan horse than one coached and deployed by her-infinitely better. Her motivations were purer and made her more earnest-and therefore more palatable.

“Like I said, sister is a security risk. Ten dollars Cid is exploiting it without considering just how much of a risk she is. You remove that bit of power, and there you are-no more Ward, or at least not as loyal of one.”

She’s removed high ranking officials in a similar fashion, in Samson. It was rare to find one motivated by anything but greed and ego, but occasionally...occasionally someone was being blackmailed or forced to desperate measures. It’s nothing she would had admitted to in a million years-wasn’t any good for her image. But it had been effective, and therefore worth doing when fear wasn’t enough...or the exploitation particularly irritated her.

Hn.

She straightened up in her chair-there was no leaning back, not with the back of it only half way up on a chair that lacked handles-and glanced over her work on the machine she’d been working on. She picked up the metal casing and lined it up neatly over the exposed innards, snapping another screw to her magnetized screwdriver and promptly affixing it properly.

 

[Obuzeti]

The kids had fortified the couch - after Elias had given permission, Peter had angled the TV towards one of the walls instead of the open middle of the lounge, and had pushed the couch to that wall instead, then blocked off the side closest to the door with a strategically placed armchair. It was a haphazard sort of corner in the otherwise open area, but Peter in particular looked a lot more comfortable now that he had somewhere to lurk. The sounds of their movie marathon echo faintly into the kitchen, where Elias now sits on the communicator with Marie.

"He's fuckin' stupid," Elias agrees, leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. His instincts tell him to be in there, with the group, but he understands intellectually that this is a group that needs safety, not the conflict he'd already provided. They find comfort in each other and in spaces away from others, and at least one of these things he can provide. "I don't hate Cid, necessarily, but that's most because - well. He's not big enough. He's weak and insouciant and takes advantage of others, and of all things in this world I could loathe, human failure is so common as to be asinine. It's not worth it. Fuck 'im."

The way Elias talks drowsily wanders from accented Southern drawl to sharp Northern eloquence, to biting disdain. It's a hard mixture of completely different styles, influenced by all the defined and varied personalities he'd brushed across in the hero business.

"Not a spy either," he decides. "Too - inflammatory. Cid has subtlety, I'll give him that much, but he doesn't have balls either. No way he'd tell anyone to be that straightforward, and you know he'd micromanage the fuck out of it. No, he's got fire in 'im. Wants to be something. Not just useful to someone. He's got ideals. Twisting his ear probably just pissed him off."

Elias sounds proud.

"The other kid's probably a no-go, too fucked up. I'll give her a room and call it done. At least that's two people out from under Honcho's thumb."

He rocks back and forth in the chair for a moment, then admits, "I don't have room for them all, here. League was never more than thirty at a time, usually around twenty. Tower's got - what - five times that, easy? I never kept count."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"I, meanwhile, have more than enough to go around." Was the sardonic response. Unlike her black hatred for Mindmelt and other scum however, this sounded almost...aaaaalmost like a joke. He was right, Cid was beneath them. Still, he was something of a threat, even if largely inconsequential-impotent as he was, he could certainly talk. He'd make a move soon, she was sure. He had had years to enjoy being the reigning 'authority' on heroes, and couldn't be pleased with Adamant's return to the world stage. But noise in the papers was just that-noise. Without Daybreak, he couldn't compete with Adamant and Velocity's popularity. Plus, full on denouncing Velocity was political suicide in today's climate, by her best guess. Adamant he had argued as dangerous for years without naming names-but Velocity was a speedster with a much smaller footprint, no matter the angle.

In addition, Sarah Danvers seemed to have taken a particular liking to her. That was as much protection as anything, wasn’t it?

"I'll see about the sister, then. Jenna's too scattered to run much of my systems. He might not be." It's a thought, anyway.

Between her ruminating on the murky hero politics (noise), the work she was doing, and the promising sounding recruit Elias apparently found worth in, she’s idly considering the range of accents and affectations to his words, absently weighing his shifting speech patterns. It went beyond code switching-not that she’s entirely sure what her own ‘code’ would be, frankly-and was multifaceted, a puzzle.

Which is a distraction that makes her feel somehow irritated. Work to do.

"I don't have room for them all, here. League was never more than thirty at a time, usually around twenty. Tower's got - what - five times that, easy? I never kept count."

“97. Average age 19/20.” Room for them all…?

Marie stops what she’s doing, glances to Jasper-who gives that odd half closed look before her eyes open fully again. She shifts her gaze to her clothed legs, visualizes the scars beneath. “...old Front flat has another eight rooms.” She hadn’t been there since everything happened. She’s also thinking resources, not people, and certainly not non heroes like Sanderson. But he’s worrying about conditions in that place, which makes sense.

“Once we have a few of her ‘kids’, Danvers will make contact.” Marie says flatly. Not a guess, not a hope-just that matter of fact tone. Protagonist was difficult to surprise-she considered and reconsidered angles endlessly, made backup plans for her backup plans. When she made a prediction, it usually rang true.

Silence, a brief moment of hesitation. Marie realizes she’s again looking at Jasper, who peers back at her, calm and relaxed-but offers no ideas on what to say next. She had been dismissive of Daybreak before, considered the heroine a lost cause. She’d certainly been as impotent as anything else in that damned Tower. But in light of how few of them were left...

“The both of you will find a better way.” She decides on as she slides the current server aside, draws the next one over. What was Cid going to do, sideline the reason for his powerbase? No, cooperation was a good goal. The Tower might never send its heroes into as much action as their revitalized League being formed and Marie would never let them be limited by it or it’s supposed leaders-but it would be better for the cause to be communicating, be effective together. The War effort could certainly fucking use everything they could muster up.

 

[Obuzeti]

"You need an agent that's not as loud as us, anyways," Elias notes with some amusement. "Me and Jenna aren't really suited for reconnaissance, and you could use a forward scout that doesn't break the sound barrier somehow. This one just happens to turn invisible. He'll take some polishing, but presuming Peter shakes out, he'll complement our respective specialties rather well."

His breath whistles in between his teeth. "Probably can't even keep thirty, then - that's two a room, and I don't imagine I can keep a bunch of hormonal teenagers in a place like this, rooming together, and not have one pregnant by the end of the month. Especially not after breaking them out of jail, pretty much. I'm not running a co-ed dorm."

He's not an idiot. He remembers what it was like. A lot of adrenaline, the unfettered freedom of it - but multiplied by the idiocy of puberty, it'd be far worse. Elias shakes his head and refocuses. They've got bigger issues than teenage hormones.

"Make a shortlist of candidates you'd think would be worth recruiting and send it on to me. I'll feel out Jenna on whether we can start approaching them as well. I appreciate the thought on the flat but definitely we need to check on it before we send any kids there, and that is a we. Marrane laid traps all over Maestro's place. He might well have done the same in your absence."

The thought of Marie in Marrane's grasp - what that twisted fuckwipe is capable of - makes his gorge rise, and he immediately changes the subject.

"I hope Sarah does," Elias mutters, "Because the more I hear about what it's like in the Tower, the more I wonder what it would have done to her to watch it happen."

~*~​

Cid allows himself one indulgence of time. He works over seventy hours a week, driving himself without a day off or a vacation for years on end, his dissatisfaction with everything burning just as deeply with himself as anything else. But on late Sunday nights, he shuts all the screens off, folds them back into their seamless slots; puts away the desk - sits in his chair, leaned back, and looks at the sunset. It reminds him so much of the world they're living in: that thin line of fire, holding back the night. It's his ritual, as pure as religion, since he'd taken command of the Tower. A wineglass dangles in his right hand.

Things aren't unspooling - not yet - but the situation is rapidly worsening. Cid had gotten used to the concept of Elias sitting in the North by himself (he had to. Who could do anything about it?), but by all reports he'd started gathering others to him again. Lana and Vivid, definitely, possibly others -

Cid grimaces, and takes a swallow of wine. Well, what others are left.

The point is that he's not a lone rogue anymore, that can be dismissed and minimized. Lana's influence alone is tremendous, as an honest to God ambassador from another nation. Her presence also shuts down a great many options he'd been considering, as her welfare is critical to relations with Atlantis.

Cid shakes his head and exhales. Instead, he opens up a slim folder in his other hand and looks at a sheet, with a series of unlabeled numbers - blank in explanation, simply printed in unmarked rows.

There's always a price.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Sarah Danvers was in costume, despite there being no patrol scheduled, despite being quite alone in her starlit quarters. The white suit contrasted with all the modern, shiny black surfaces, her golden boots and sash belt complimenting the bits of starlight. On her chest was the golden sun emblem, the circle surrounded by golden tendrils.

From the top shelf of her closet, tucked behind a stack of folded afghans she hadn’t used in ages, her graceful fingers touched on either side of a simple paperboard hatbox, nearly two decades old and more than a little battered looking, the patched, ‘quilted’ print faded and worn. She hears paper rustling within, sliding around as she takes it down. There’s dust on top, despite everything else in the starlit quarters being immaculate. It’s been a long time since she’d last looked at it.

She carried it back to the foot of her bed, settled on the edge of the mattress and tucked her long legs beneath her, the box on her lap. She sat looking at it for a long moment, just...looking. And then she came alive just long enough to lift the box, light glowing in a soft ebb around her trembling fingers.

The contents were anything but mundane to her, and yet someone else might have thought it silly momentos and bits of scrap. Cid would have probably thought it silly and pointless.

Candid, happier photos of her and Grace and Elias, lives intertwined and shared, treasured. Tommy started to appear in them at some point, and then the cards and his letters, a pressed bloom she had nearly forgotten about-newspaper clippings of her friends and family, the League. She fingered a publicity photo, traced over the smiling faces that peered back at her, demure ones and bright ones, grins and close lipped pleasant smiles-all of them young and there and alive, no shadows beneath Cid’s eyes and the world to defend and protect, the public at their back-they had made it.

They had made it.

And then Rahab had come and taken it all away.

Her eyes trailed to the open, large manila envelope Jenna had given her the other day. The crisp white papers and the black ink, the color coded data tables-so professional despite the cheerful, quirky girl who had presented them to her.

”Just some stuff I gathered up talking to the other Wards, Miss Sarah.”

That grin, the salute-but it hadn’t reached those dark eyes, this time. Watchful. Worried. Wary. She’d been studying law, Sarah remembers. Liked to generate reports, make information easier to see, to understand. Facts didn’t lie, she had said once before, explaining her witness statements, the little reports and first person accounts. They didn’t have political leanings or ulterior motives, they just were.

It’d taken her a full day and a half to finally look inside. Were it not for Peter’s ‘Something real’ still lingering in her mind somewhere, the boy’s concern and seriousness-she might have neatly set it aside. He didn’t shy away from the truth, what mattered. Jenna was terribly earnest in all she did, too. She didn't want to let them down, as hard as it was for her to have to...tune in.

”Kinda...felt you oughta know, in case you didn’t.”

The watchful wariness, the uncertainty. Potential...mistrust? She still remembers how the speedster had flitted away from her that night before she had left for a time, the misunderstanding with the keycard, with what she had felt had been imprisonment.

She had read and reread the reports, and then she had had to wash her hands, and then her entire body, and put on her costume- even then she had hesitated. She should be better. She should be better than this. When did she become so weak? Why was there an anxious pit in her stomach at the idea of speaking to her own husband?

How had she let things get this bad?

She set the box aside and came to her feet, caught her own reflection in the mirrored doors of the closet. She studied the golden sun emblem emblazoned across her chest, the fiery tendrils of light around that shimmering circle. She should be better.

She was better than this.

~*~

“Cid, we need to talk.” It’s his time of solitude, but she doesn’t care. It was hard to garner his attention these days-not that she was very often after it. Last they had talked, he’d been immersed in his data centered world. Now she wants his full attention, didn’t want to compete with anything else.

She had the manila envelope in her right hand, at her side opposite the knotted golden sash at her other hip.

“Are you aware there are entire wings of Wards who haven’t been outside the Tower in months?”

 

[Obuzeti]

Cid exhales. He slides the bizarre sheet of paper back into the folder, and then sets it aside. He tosses back the last of the wineglass - Montoya Cabernet 1978, a waste of such a fine vintage - and then spins his seat around so he can look at Sarah. He debates his answers for another moment, sliding through probabilities to find the best result, and for a moment he's so tired of all these fucking interruptions. But Sarah deserves an answer, at least.

"If I recall correctly, D2, D3, and E1 wings haven't been out in three and a half months, coming up on their semester-end sabbatical in a little over a week," Cid says - and he does recall correctly, because his greatest talent is his mind, a thing like a steel trap. He turns around and primes the desk to rise up with a touch of his foot on a touchpad below, where he pops up a holoscreen with another touch and flips it around to display for Sarah. "Most wings get out every other week. I only push it back when the Wards in question are consistently insubordinate and likely to cause some kind of trouble."

D2 is Ellie's wing. D3 is Peter's. E1 is Blaise's, and Cid will admit in that particular case he's resorted to sending the Wards out individually and just leaving Blaise behind. The boy is a lunatic, and even Sarah should know that.

"It's not that much different from grounding a child, and we are raising children here, Sarah," Cid says, patiently reasonable. "Except these children can level buildings and wreak havoc by accident, so the standards are higher. I'm legally responsible for them. Of course I'm going to limit their free time if they're untrustworthy."

It's such a basic fact that for a moment Cid lets that exasperation leak into his voice, and he reaches up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, the cool synthsteel of his gloves cold against his forehead. "Why is this a surprise to you? I keep disciplinary records posted in the main hall."

Admittedly, it's buried in a huge clipboard full of other notices, and he mainly uses it as a tool to shame wings that can't get their shit together, but it is posted openly. He had thought she knew about this sort of thing already.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Untrustworthy…? Sarah can think of Wards that might need supervision-and which of them didn’t with monsters like Paul roaming around?-but she can’t think of any she’d deem ‘untrustworthy’.

These are her kids he’s talking about, not some sort of at risk hoodlum gang.

"Why is this a surprise to you? I keep disciplinary records posted in the main hall."

“I'm sorry. I’ve been…” There’s that pang of regret again in coming up here, and she slides the crisp reports out of the envelope again, not really seeing them as she stymies. She’s so tired. She’d been hiding and leaving the bulk of the work to him, but that had been wrong. He had always been on the stricter side, and shame on her for not paying more attention, working to balance him out.

“It doesn’t matter.” She finished softly, setting the reports down on his desk. He was aware and he didn’t need them-but she set them down anyway, because unlike his postings it was real and it was in front of them, a physical totem to ground her. Three months. Her fingers tense on the edge of his desk, on either side of the neat stack of papers-and her resolve solidifies. They can fix this.

“Jenna made me aware, and now I’m here so we can work on it together.” She straightened up off his desk, crossed her arms in front of the emblem on her chest. Met his gaze again, straight on and unmoved by his explanation. Three and a half months was just too long. They weren’t running a prison.

“If entire wings are that problematic, I think we should break them up. Mix them into other peer groups, get them with the kids doing better, heading out more often. The situation right now has us unintentionally creating a bunch of ostracized black sheep. I know you don’t want that.” She ran a hand through her blonde hair, strands of gold falling into place. The last thing she wants is for Wards to be bullying other Wards.

“Ellie’s in D2. When’s the last time you sat down with her, Cid? If anyone deserves your attention, I would think it’d be your own foster daughter.” She’d aged out a year ago, but the point stood.

 

[Obuzeti]

Jenna, again. His teeth grit, and his eyes flick back over to the folder again.

No. No rash decisions. That'd been what repulsed him so much, in the first place. Cid forcibly calms himself down, his shoulders going from rigid to relaxed again as he leans back in his chair. The body language is as important as anything else - he needs to de-escalate, calm down Sarah again. Get to the root of what keeps her coming back here, pecking away at him again. Because it does matter; she doesn't want to commit to the time and bother of actually getting shit done, doing all the paperwork and politicizing and kowtowing involved in keeping this place afloat and out of legal troubles, in this post-Rahab age where everyone's got a fucking lawsuit and a pet peeve about being 'above the law', and taking it out on him instead of so much at glancing at the guy who wrecks entire oil rigs and just walks away without giving a damn.

Cid exhales, again. His temper gets the better of him, these days. Bringing up Ellie doesn't help.

"I'm supposed to be in charge of almost a hundred super-powered teenage maniacs, and I can't be there all hours of the day by definition," Cid says, but his voice is low. He does - feel something, when it comes to Ellie. Appreciates her in a way he doesn't, with most. She's so easy to move; pliable, quiet, reliable. "I play favorites, and she'll get run over by half a dozen Vets the next day when I'm not looking. It happens anyways with what little I do. They're kids. I have to project authority - I leave it to you to handle things that need a personal touch. I don't . . . do personal, well."

He knows about Sarah's little club. It's one of the few things he can safely turn a blind eye to.

"I suppose that's workable," he grumbles, but honestly he'd been meaning to do that anyways. People get too comfortable, start getting discontent. Uncertainty breeds stability. "Who are you thinking about?"

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

-super powered maniacs.

There it was again. Something stirs somewhere, eats at her. She wants to protect them all, was terrified of the world for them. The Tower was safe. She’d been a near wreck thinking about her kids being anywhere she wasn’t. But Cid sounded almost as if...almost as if he was keeping them in to keep the world safe. She...must just be misunderstanding.

Right?

He asks for individuals, but this is not a small problem, ‘looking out for’ one or two of her kids-this was an epidemic and it had to be fixed. “The entirety of D2, D3, and E1.” She says point blank, ignoring the monitor in favor of the printed papers, sliding each one neatly aside until she finds the right table. “E4 also has a long period cooped up, two months.” Sarah bites her lip, eyes moving down over the numbers again. “Basic privileges shouldn’t be things our kids need to compete for. Team cohesion is important...and right now I’m not sure we have that, down there. If you're worried attention to Ellie would get her bullied, something is already very wrong." These were future heroes, not-not whatever it was she's slowly coming to think the veteran Wards are. They need redirection.
Gentle, but firm redirection.

"You’re overworked as it is, and I understand that...so I’ll take care of reassignments with a bit of help from the Senior Wards. ” Do something. Needed to be better. Needed things that were real.

She’s watching him. Remembering the things he had said about Elias. About…her, or rather the long, soul flaying pause. Was it possible for a metahuman to be...prejudiced against metahumans? Her disquiet grows, but somewhere in there...somewhere she almost feels-

“And they’re not maniacs.” She says, and somewhere she gains traction, feels ground beneath her feet, however uneven and loose. “They are not untrustworthy. We are not running a prison, Cid.” She thinks about Jenna’s accusations on the night she tried to quit. Not for the first time, but somehow forgotten about-she wonders.

"I'm taking these kids to the movies. D2 and D3 tonight, E1 and E4 tomorrow." Action. Not a patrol assigned to her, not a press conference, not some weak effort within the confines of the Tower-but decisive, firm action to right something that mattered.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Not Blaise," Cid says, flat. "Anyone else, fine, but even you know that Blaise is - "

He gestures, emptily. The kid leaves him at a loss for words. Scares him, honestly. He's got doll eyes. Black, and empty. He remembers another black mask, and a voice flat as a knife, and has to suppress a shudder.

" . . . The rest are fine, though," Cid says eventually. "I am hard on them. I have to be. Maybe it shouldn't be all there is, though. That's your area of expertise, though. I barely know what I'm doing when it comes to sentimentality. I'd be glad to have some help from you."

He sighs and looks at the wineglass, then sets it on the desk and looks up at Sarah. "Be careful," Cid says, quiet and serious. "I have the Wards escorted when they go out - keep an eye on every trip, myself. I know you won't want the same, but there's things out there hunting us, now. Keep your eyes peeled. Keep your guard up."

He doesn't feel a lot. Doesn't see the point of a lot of things. But he can't lose Sarah, not on top of everything else. The thought of it puts a quake in him he can't quantify - his oldest ally, his greatest treasure. With Sarah everything came together, and without her everything would come apart.

The wine's made him maudlin, it seems.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Sarah’s eyes flicker, her traction shifted as she glances away. She doesn’t quite know what to do or how to handle Blaise either. She can’t...she can’t be around him. He wouldn’t leave certain topics alone, and she just…

“Not Blaise.” She agrees with a slight incline of her head. “I’m sure there’s...we’ll think on that some other time.” And the topic of Elias and his building team, Jenna’s other associations...that still needed revisited but...hasn’t she taxed him enough?

“You work so hard.” She murmurs, eyes returning to the Knight. He’s not unreasonable. He sees what she is saying, trusts in it. He loved these kids. They both did. “So much so that I don’t have to.” She reaches for the wine glass, golden light off center for the bottle itself. She refills it halfway, then slides it back to him. He had saved her life, and left her alone to her quiet and her memories, doing what it took to keep the lights on and keep these kids secure and safe.

She should love him. She should adore him. But instead she feels empty. Even this ‘victory’ somehow feels hollow, exhausts her. But at least she was doing something.

“I’ll be careful, and I’ll keep them safe. Goodnight, honey.” And the word is wrong in her mouth and the shame heavy in her chest, but for right now-it’s what she can do for him. Today and tomorrow, outings for these kids she’d let him lock up for weeks on end. A rearrangement of Wards and cliques. And then, hopefully sometime soon-they could revisit the topic of Elias. What might come after the Tower for their kids.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

It took a bit of doing, but she had a charter bus on site in short order, something special. Mac Arden was thrilled to hear from her-he didn’t ask any hurtful ‘how have you beens’ or questions about Grace, just told her to bring as many kids as he could fit in a theater, free of charge.

He remembered her, and being remembered on a personal level was…

“Still looking for Bordet, ma’am.” Clair Marshall informed as she stepped off the elevator and into the lobby, the slew of excited kids in pajama pants and tops lighting up as soon as she did so.

“We really are going out with Daybreak!”

“I’ll go up after him in a moment.” Must be hiding somewhe-

Sarah stopped, turned to face the stocky man in full. “You said Bordet?”

“Peter Bordet, yes ma’am.”

He wasn’t running his powers, then. She helped direct kids onto the bus, the excitement and ribbing and whispers making her feel validated and guilty at the same time. They looked like they had won the lottery.

By the time she got a proper headcount from both Marshall AND Ashley Reynolds from Ellie’s wing, she was missing two kids and two kids only (the third was on strict ‘probation’, and Sarah had that undone in an instant.)

And she couldn’t find them anywhere. Peter could slip out the front door unnoticed anytime he wanted and she never really thought hard on it before, but at this hour? And Ellie…Ellie’s communicator was tucked into her pillowcase where Sarah knew she liked to squirrel things, along with one of her sketchbooks. What if she got into trouble? How would she call for help, how would they find her if something happened?

Frowning, she re-exited the Tower and tried not to panic at the idea of the two of them off somewhere she wasn’t. Raising the alarm also seemed like-she’d track them down. She had a pretty good idea who they had to be with. Who she hoped they were with, because otherwise-

~*~

Marshall and Reynolds were on strict orders to hail her on the comm if anyone other than Mac tried to enter the theater, checking all others at the door. Marshall was a heavy hitting frontliner, and Ashley had pyrokinetic abilities-they could handle it until she got back. On the roof of the theater she popped open the newer, sleek gold communicator that had replaced her old one a long time ago. In her other hand opposite she had the old one, beat up and a little worn, the painted sun faded and worn in the upper right corner.

She’s tried it here and there, but it’d been years. There was never an answer and...maybe she deserved that. There wasn’t one now. But suddenly, somehow...that seemed...suspicious? She shook her head with a frown and tapped out another message to Jenna’s civilian phone.

She kept thinking about Jenna’s keycard mishap, and every time her mind drifted to it, the worse it somehow seemed. And the kids downstairs-thrilled to the gills over a trip to a budget movie theater out in the middle of nowhere. Three and a half months.

And eight years.

~*~

"Nothing wrong with volunteering."

"R-right, and I like animals...they just want to be loved and have somewhere warm to sleep..."

"See? That's something worth doing, and something you want to do, so-"

There was a knock at the door, which was-well, that was weird. Jenna’s head snapped up and over in a blur. And oh, her phone had a message. Probably her mom-uh, nope, ten missed texts and three missed calls from Sarah.

Jenna was suddenly on her feet, from curled up on the couch against the arm to standing in an instant. “Uh oh.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias looks up from the kitchen, still idly cooking a series of blueberry muffins for Jenna to wolf down whenever - she's like his dream kid, eats everything he makes, laid-back, good-hearted - when Jenna makes a noise of such alarm that he pokes his head out of the kitchen. "What?" he asks, brushing off the apron he's donned in the meantime, with a quote that perfectly matches his sense of humor scrawled across the front:

THINGS AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR:

1. THAT

"Your dad show up to take you home, Jenna?" he pokes with a smile, and crosses to the front door with a rambling stride and then pulls it open. The person on the other side is someone he hasn't seen in more years than he spent with her, and Elias still recalls every moment. He swallows once, throat dry, and looks at the blonde vision at his doorstep, his mouth open just the slightest bit. Then he steps back, and his smile cracks wide across his face as he swings the door open to let her in.

"Come on in, Sarah." Elias says, as he blinks at the moisture starting to gather in his eyes. "Welcome home."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Uh, no, maybe worse-” They are dead caught-Miss Sarah knew the two were missing, rightly suspected they were with her, and NOW-. Actually, maybe this isn’t the worst thing.

Ellie’s wide eyed, but she can’t just step and leave Peter behind, and she can’t take him with her either, and she doesn’t want to demand Jenna teleport them back, and-who was at the door? Jenna’s mom?

And then Elias opens the door.

~*~

Sarah lets the light from her recent flight fade until it’s just to that little, uncontrollable bit at her trembling fingertips, and stares back at him as they look at each other a moment, eight years of cruel and terrible silence, silence because that’d been easier than arguing with Cid, silence because she’d catered to her husband at the expense of her best friend.

The one she’d thrown through a monster, buried in magma and rock and fire that had taken her sister at Immolation and killed Tommy before even that-and not her. Cid had saved her life. He still had the awful burns. But Elias, Elias hadn’t deserved his scorn, either. He still didn’t.

And he certainly hadn’t deserved her silence.

"Come on in, Sarah. Welcome home."

All her shame felt heavier than ever, pounds and pounds of it-if she wasn't so numb, so deep in this dream she'd bawl her eyes out. The light at her finger tips ebbs a little further, glows around her hands as she steps through into another time-and then there they are, tucked in a corner (which confirmed Peter’s presence before she even saw the boy), the girls wide eyed and staring. Wayward kids located.

She can smell some kind of something in the oven. Elias is wearing one of his silly aprons. There’s a movie playing on the television and she recognizes the music-and she’s a decade in the past. At any moment Grace would come downstairs toweling off her hair. Tommy would step up behind her, the usual handshake and crack, that easy smile...

And then they'd sit down with whoever else was around, and shoot the shit while the world turned safely outside of them.

She can’t stop her hands from trembling. She turns to face Elias in full and just-stands there a moment, swallowing past the lump in her throat. She touches at the printed words on the apron as if they contained some deep and hidden message to puzzle out-and then glances back to his face and- she just hugs him. Tighter than she’s ever hugged anyone in her life, undeserving and so, so piteously sorry because she had killed him, she had killed him to save the world, and on his miraculous return, turned him away. But he’s alive, he’s alive and he’s here from the silly apron to that warm pine scent, not beyond her reach in the grave, the mass burial up and down the strip that had been Rahab- Her best friend. Her brother.

He's alive and her kids are with him, safe and sound and watching a movie like normal, happy kids-no awful, easily explained away trade offs for security.

“Thank God they were with you,” She hears herself say, choked and as relieved as she's ever been, stepping back but not letting go, as if he'd disappear or she'd wake up to find herself as alone as ever. Ellie, Peter...she’d been terrified for a very real, very primal second, on the verge of either a break down or a nuclear explosion when Jenna hadn't responded, when she'd assumed the worst. Paul Merrane, Rush, Mindmelt-any and all of them at once.

Now she's not sure if she was on the verge of bawling her eyes out in relief as much as guilt.

But not in front of the kids. She’s said enough already.

Her eyes flick to them and she smiles-but she’s both exhausted and teetering on the precipice and she's sure it's weak and thin. "Return of the King wouldn't wait, hm?" She manages-but she's not sure she can be anything right now. Nothing they needed.

Jenna doesn't even respond with anything, the usually bubbly, social speedster serious faced and without her trademark grin-her eyes shifting from her to Elias and back again, the phone loose in her right hand.

“Uh...those muffins might...they might burn.”

“Yes. Muffins.” It’s all the excuse Sarah needs-she feels numb, would have never come up with anything on her own, right now. “We'd better..." The kitchen, the pantry-she has no idea what she's going to say, but she's been crafting her apology for years, so surely there'd be something she'd remember in it, somewhere.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias's arms snap up around Sarah's back and he pulls her in - not hard, not with that terrific strength, but like she's a newborn baby that's been handed to him, too small and precious to fumble, not now. Regardless of the fact Sarah's a full-grown woman, he holds the embrace with almost terrified gentleness, open amazement writ on his features in the open mouth and blinking eyes. Instead he just nuzzles down into the blond fall of her hair and breathes in the reality of her.

Jenna says something about muffins, as Sarah turns back, and that gives him a little bit of sense, as he turns around and gives her a one-hundred percent side-eye. "Jenna," he says, serious. "Fuck the muffins."

He exhales; rolls his shoulders. Looks back at Sarah, eyes suspiciously bright, one hand still on her waist, unwilling to release this moment in any way.

The corner of his mouth quirks, as a glint of ridiculous humor enters his eyes.

"I found them out back," Elias says. "Can I keep 'em?"

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Sarah threads a hand through her hair and a near dazed smile curves her lips, a shake of her head and a laugh. “Well, not if you’re going to withhold muffins.” His warmth leeches through her numbness, her exhaustion. The curtain of isolation peels back and she’s something of herself again.

“C’mon-the smoke detector will go off, and then I'll make fun of you for forgetting how to bake in your old age.” Sarah's jibe does a lot to settle Jenna. It's also kind of unreal, because Sarah was ribbing Elias and it's the first she's seen of any sort of humor from the withdrawn, warm but exhausted heroine.

The speedster returns back to the couch. “See? All good.” She says to the Wards as the two veterans disappear into the kitchen. Finally, something good. Finally, some healing.

She can't think of any two people more deserving of it than they were.

~*~

Sarah wipes at her eyes pulls down the pink, silly cat print apron that was still somehow here, the horrendous thing clashing badly with her costume but she doesn't care-she's no ornament, here. Muffins. "Jenna's silly, but she knows people." She finally says. "I've only been able to handle her being out here because I knew she was working with you."

"I love them all, Elias. All my kids. But in there, sitting on that couch..." She shouldn't have favorites. But she does. "I'm glad they're here." A pause. "Especially Peter." Especially Peter.

There’s so much else unsaid here, her grief and shame, the warmth and love and welcoming-it’s overwhelming. It’s real.

She sets the muffins on the stove top to cool. They looked like they were blueberry. She mostly made cakes and brownies, chocolate chip cookies. All things Elias had taught her to make, way back when. She takes off the oven mitts.

It’s real.

“I missed you so much." She says quietly, turning back to him again. "So damned much, and I'm sorry I didn't just come home.” She might cry. She was crying. Not the wracking sobs of heartbreak, not the endless nights of tears alone in her room-just a steady stream of them she can feel on her cheeks and see clinging to her eyelashes. He doesn't hold grudges. He wasn't like Cid. And that only makes it worse, the years she's allowed to pass her by without reaching out.

But oh, poor Elias. Alone. Alone for years. Grace was gone, and she'd left him to grieve alone.

And Cid blamed him, didn't understand, couldn't understand. She was ashamed for that too. That she'd let it happen. That she hadn't defended the big man properly, couldn't make the knight understand.

They stood here in their frumpy aprons and the kitchen felt both full and empty at the same time.

"You deserved more from me." Is what she says. Her selfishness had known no end, but she won't continue it. Cid could rail all he wanted-Elias should have never been turned away. "I'm sorry. I don't even know where to begin to atone, but I'm so very, very sorry."

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shakes his head. "She has faith in people," he corrects, if gently. "She's doesn't really believe in the evil of man, yet. There's aberrations, but she doesn't really think of them as people. The banality of cruelty hasn't occurred to her yet, what people are capable of doing to each other only on a whim. I've tried to give her a place safe from all that, at least."

Mindmelt and Rush are such examples; criminals, rather than people. Marrane, in all his twisted might. But that's not what they're here to discuss, and he shakes the thought out of his head.

He listens quietly, but it's more the sound of Sarah's voice that he hears; the smooth dulcet that he's listened to on communicators, old broadcasts and commercials, but not heard in person for more than half his lifetime. It still feels unreal, and when she talks about atonement, of all fucking things, he just turns at looks at Sarah like she's silly. Because she is.

"You think this isn't everything I wanted?" Elias says, reaching up to cup Sarah's cheeks in his broad hands, smoothing away her tears with his thumbs. "What else could I want? You think I want an apology, instead of having you here, knowing you're safe and warm and happy, again?"

Elias shakes his head, and his eyes tear up too as he pulls Sarah into another hug, and this time it's tighter as he begins to believe that it's real.

" . . . it was bad," he says, cheek against her soft hair, talking past her head. Elias, acknowledging the existence of pain, as rare a thing as possible. "It was bad, there, for awhile. But things get better. And you came back, and I don't fucking care about the rest of it so long as you come home. That's a-all I want."

There's a racking catch in Elias's chest, as he stumbles on the words and he starts to just genuinely cry, holding Sarah tight as one, then two silent gasps of air tear through him. "Shit," he says, thick, and releases her long enough to pull a Kleenex from a box near the stove, then blows his nose in it. He's a leaky crier - his whole face is wet. He pulls another one and offers a second to Sarah with a wry smile, little trembles still running through him.

" . . . Don't shut me out again," Elias says, blinking rapidly as he looks out the window, at the little ponds that fill out the back of the Coulee, and the swans that live there in perpetuity, returning every year to lay their eggs. "God, please don't. Even if we don't talk. Just let me know you're alright."

He's almost begging.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Happy." Sarah repeats, her hands lifted to either of his much larger ones, the light glowing around and through her fingers warm. She doesn't even try to stop the tears. Here, at least, she's allowed to -feel- without consequence. She hasn't been happy in a long, long time. Little islands of flitting joy, lifelines in her kids-but alone, cold, and so very, very tired.

He draws her into another hug, and it's everything she didn't even know she needed. All the way back to when she first woke up in the E.R., no one but Cid in attendance.

She accepts the kleenex with a near laugh, mops at her own face. God. God, it all hurts so bad, and at the same time she can't remember when she last felt this real, this present, this -alive-.

"I've been living some kind of... some kind of walking death without you, without-" She chokes and her mouth is instantly dry, lips forming the first syllable in a name she cannot bring herself to say. Not in a place she still, somewhere, half expects her fallen sister to appear. She shakes her head, lips forming a trembling line.

"Just so alone.” She admits instead, barely above a whisper. “And so ashamed.” Of so much.

“You being alive is nothing short of miraculous. I thought I had killed you. I thought -I- had killed you." She says, again touching him because he is alive and she is really looking at him again, standing in this kitchen and being with someone who understood. "Leaving you alone, letting you be turned away-” No. It wasn’t all Cid. She did this. She left him alone. “...shutting you out. Worse. That was worse. No more, not ever again. We will talk. I will visit.” And by God she's never made more solemn a vow.

“You're my best friend. The silence is over."

 

[Obuzeti]

"Grace," Elias says, voice throaty. "Yeah. It's all been a mess."

He sighs a trembling sigh and leans back against the fridge, pulling Sarah with him to lean against it and just - hold each other, the chill of absence brushed back by each other. It's with Sarah that the keenness of their tragedy really starts pushing on him - how many people they've lost that he won't see again. It hadn't really hurt until he had Sarah back, because what was fucking anything, besides that? What could hurt more?

But now this is it. This is everyone he can have, anymore, that he can draw from the wreckage of his past. Grief pulses in Elias's heart.

"I would have felt better," he admits, abruptly. "If it had. Waking up in -"

Elias shudders, and cuts himself off. Twisting away from the words, physically recoiling. He is silent.

He eventually takes a shaking breath and leans his head against Sarah's, basking in the warmth and light that had eluded him in his terrible resurrection, buried alive.

"And then knowing I didn't find you in time to keep Cid away from you," Elias says, soft with grief. "After everything you buried, to watch him put you up on a shelf. Maybe I suffered, but I can forgive myself for pain. You could never let go of guilt, Sarah, and that hurt you worse, in the end. So it's just all a mess. At least we're still both here, in the end."

Elias takes another breath, his voice steadying. "We move forward, now. Alright? No more of this. No more being miserable alone."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"I would have felt better. If it had. Waking up in -"

Sarah hugs him tighter. The imagining is too terrible to consider. Buried alive. Buried alive. Oh, why hadn’t they looked for him? Why had they left him behind? It didn’t matter if they thought him dead-so many were still there, a mass and lonely grave in a warzone. Grace would never come home. Tommy wouldn’t. And Elias had had to dig himself out, recovered even from-she hugged him tighter. No, no, he was alive, he’s here in front of her, in her arms.

“I shouldn’t have done it.” Sarah murmurs about Cid. “I should have asked for more time. I was just...so lost. He had saved my life and I...I don’t know. I owed him, I was clinging to anything at that point, and he was all I had. But all I could think about was how it should have been Tommy up there, and then the fight with you and I-I don’t know what’s the matter with me. All these years later I still feel...nothing. It’s awful. It’s so awful, and I’m always so exhausted and so cold and I just want to be left alone. He deserves better. He works seventy hours a week and asks for nothing.”

The shame is heavy there, too. She didn’t have to marry him. But she had, and she parroted back the things he said and invented more, a robot in a half aware dream-and kept up the farce for eight years.

“Did everything so that I didn’t have to. Things have...gotten away from me. I wasn’t paying attention, and I should have been. But we’re fixing them, I think. He’s listening, we are a team there. I have a bus load of kids at Mac’s old theater right now.” Kids who hadn’t been out in three and a half months. She can’t fade away into dreams and memories again. They needed her. Cid needed her. And Elias needed her too.

“But he’s got to let go of his...I don’t know what it is. He tried to blame you for Rahab. He tried to blame me, and it-I just-” Sarah might lose it completely if she thinks about that again.

“...I feel like Rahab was a tar I can’t get unstuck from, but I’m finally resolved to...to try. To be better. Move forward, instead of sleeping in a stasis.” She pulled back a little, a haunted, exhausted look to her-but also a flicker of determination, of will that had been so very fragile for so long.

“And you’re doing good work, out here. Peter brings me articles and...well, I think it might be the next step for a few of the Wards. I can’t stomach them being on their own, but Jenna’s right-I can’t keep them in the Tower forever. They’re going to want to branch out. They’re going to want to be out there.”

 

[Obuzeti]

"You're naturally empathetic, Sarah," Elias murmurs. "I don't think you're capable of not loving someone back, at least a little. But in all the time we spent together, it wasn't love that Cid was after. I doubt that's changed, now."

He's done with this standing around thing. Elias hops back up onto the counter - it doesn't even creak under his weight despite the wood paneling, a testament to Rowan's work back in the day - and pulls Sarah up beside him. He's taller than she is; the overhead cabinets brush his hair, here, but the big man just ignores it, leaning back amidst the pots and pans. A saucepan fits the back of his head perfectly.

"I can't fight your marriage for you," he says, a little slow. "You've - always known my opinion on that. But whatever you choose to do, you and Cid should be working together for it. If he's working seventy hours a week, and has been for awhile, then clearly he's not got a problem with it; it's being with other people that wears him out, that he has to struggle to understand. Maybe he wears himself out, but always think about why people do what they do: if he finds that preferable, then step up in the places he can't, or won't, cover."

It's hard because he just wants to tell Cid to fuck off, looking at this damaged and curdled Sarah, that hasn't healed at all in eight years.

"A marriage is a thing of mutual support, for better or for worse," he says. "And maybe I'm out of touch and I don't know the situation, but I don't see where he's supported you at all, instead of merely - permitting you do to do things on your own."

That's all he can say. He hasn't met Cid either, in all that time. Maybe things have changed, but the scent of stasis hangs in the air around Sarah, antiseptic and impersonal. No, this feels too familiar to dismiss.

As for Rahab. Elias's lips tighten, and he slings an arm around Sarah's shoulders.

"It is very easy," he says, "to accept blame for Immolation. It's easy to forget, how close we all came to annihilation. There is no blame, only who is left. And all the spite and regret in the world can't change what we've lost. I'm tired of taking on anyone else's."

He sits for a moment to let that percolate, and then changes the subject. "I could talk to Lana, see if she can organize an exchange, too. She's been up here on the surface, but we've never sent anyone back. Maybe a couple of the Wards could head down, see something no one's ever seen. Another world. I think they'd represent us well, and I think they deserve such a thing."

"I can certainly take on another dozen kids up here, anyways. You know how much room I've got."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Permitting her to do things…

Sarah frowns. She just...hadn’t been doing things. She’d withdrawn from the world it half felt like, from heroes-and he’d kept it turning since.

But then she thinks about how hard it had been to go and talk to him about wanting to cooperate with Elias, about wanting to see Elias, even if they saw him together. How she had worn her new costume just to muster up the energy to do so. How she had donned it a second time just to discuss the fact so many of her kids were on perpetual lockdown.

Was Elias right? Was she overly grateful for permission?

"It is very easy to accept blame for Immolation. It's easy to forget, how close we all came to annihilation. There is no blame, only who is left. And all the spite and regret in the world can't change what we've lost. I'm tired of taking on anyone else's."

And there, finally, the wound of that awful pause was finally cauterized. Sarah nods as she takes his hand, leaning into him as she stares into the nothing of the kitchen for a moment. They had done all they could. It had taken everyone and everything to beat Rahab, but they had done it. They would have never managed alone. The losses were steep and terrible, but the world was saved.

It had come down to the wire, and even then...even then it had been so very, very close. Some part of her settles. If she believed, one hundred percent, that Elias deserved no blame, then she could also believe that neither did she.

They were powerful, but they were not omnipotent, and they were not ‘other’.

“Imagine having that on your resume.” She says, grateful for the topic change and glad to look ahead into brighter futures. “Ambassador to Atlantis. My goodness…I don’t think her father would ever approve of that, though. From what Lana always said, it didn’t seem like he was a big fan of ‘mainlanders’.” It’s a thought. A very good thought. “I’m glad she came back. I’ve missed her, too.”

She’s considering who might be ready for the next step, who would most benefit. Cid wouldn’t like it, but she’s sure she can get him to see the logic in it. They all needed to cooperate. He had to see past his personal biases.

“It’s hard for me.” She says, slowly. “I’m afraid for them in ways I never knew, before.” The hold on his hand tightens a measure, her eyes shifting to him. “We have to keep them safe. Safe without…” Her mind flashes on Jenna retreating away from her, on Ellie’s communicator tucked beneath her pillowcase. Of the reports, of three and a half months without being outside the Tower. “Without being the threat ourselves.”

It’s an unsettling thought, and suddenly Sarah feels unsteady again.

She has to stay awake. She has to find the energy to improve things, gently redirect the efforts of Cid, of the Senior Wards, of the entire system. The Wards aren’t maniacs, they aren’t untrustworthy, and they aren’t to be feared. They were kids in a world that had sent their forebears to die, in a world with monsters like Paul Marrane, a world with lingering pockets of villainy the likes of Mindmelt.

“You’ll help me find the balance, won’t you?” She murmurs, and suddenly the haunted look made more sense-Sarah was terrified of losing anyone else, any of those under her charge. Terrified, and coming to realize she may have been party to the unintentional harm of these precious souls. With the addition of his perspective, she could find the right path.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shrugs. "Well, we've never talked to the guy, have we? We've sat over here and talked to his sister, and got the shit kicked out of her a lot, but never crossed over the fence ourselves. Of course he's standoffish. We are too. Maybe it's time to change that."

As for being the threat themselves - he just doesn't get it. "Is that a thing?" he says, confused. "I mean, don't put anybody in a box, and make sure they use the buddy system with someone that kicks ass. That's not hard, right?"

It occurs that a Tower run by Elias would be unrecognizable.

He squeezes Sarah with the arm looped around her shoulders. "Look, the only reason I didn't come there is because I thought you didn't want me there. That's what Cid told me, and I could never get ahold of you - the communicator wouldn't patch through, and obviously letters didn't work, and I'd have to throw Cid to another state to see you personally."

Elias ducks down and nuzzles against Sarah, forehead pushing against hers like an overfriendly dog's. "All I needed to know was that I was welcome. The rest of it's hogwash. You want my help? My advice? Me living down the street? Let me know."

He draws back, and his smile is rueful and at once full of wonder, at this. At being complete, again. "I will never give you up, again."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Is that a thing?"

“Jenna asked around and...she generated a few data tables on what was reported. There were kids who hadn’t left the Tower in months. Entire wings. Ellie’s wing. Peter’s wing. Cid thought that was-well, it doesn’t matter.” She exhales, tired, so very tired. “It won’t happen again.” She says softly. “I’ve got a slew of them at Mac’s theater right now. Tomorrow I’ll take another group...” God. She shouldn’t have ignored things for so long.

His drawing her in makes her feel a little better, but the guilt was heavy. No, not again. And-Cid told him she didn’t want him there? Sarah’s shoulders square a little, straightening with a deep frown. “Couldn’t get-I tried to contact you before too! I thought-I thought-” Her mouth was open, a look of confusion and then stark realization. That he wasn’t answering? That he was angry?

Had she lost her fucking mind?

The glow to her hands had spread along her forearms and to her elbows, the color draining from her face before an angry flush came to her cheeks. She pulled the shiny gold communicator and the battered old one from where they were clipped just behind the golden sash around her hips. “I tried them just tonight.” And she’s angry, a tightness to her chest that has her on the verge of storming back into Cid’s office, without even the usual anxious pit in her stomach.

“No. No, he wouldn’t-” Would he? He had kept entire wings indoors for months. He had ‘accidentally’ disabled Jenna’s keycard. Christ. Christ. “He wanted to make sure I stayed away from you.”

Sarah looked up, and she briefly has no idea what to say. She was his wife. She’d been withdrawn, but she was his wife, and he thought that-what? She’d run off with Elias? She already chosen him, as awful as that had been.

“We need-something else. Something that works. I can’t believe it. Who does he think-what is his problem.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias considers this. His brows draw down, and the watery catch to his voice smooths out as bubbling anger replaces incredulity. "You know, I always thought Cid did things like an asshole, but I'm starting to get pretty goddamn angry," he says, conversational, and then hops down from the counter. "I can't fix all that time, but we can damn well fix the communicators now, or at the very least get you a burner phone that you can use to talk whenever."

"Come on," he says, and aids Sarah down as well. "We got a tech expert in the basement, she'll know how to look for anything shady in the damn things. Remember Marie?"

He ambles out of the kitchen and into the living room - the kids are still clustered on the couch, watching Lord of the Rings, Rorrhim assembling on the Plains - and swoops over onto Jenna to scoop her up in a bearhug, squeezing her affectionately for no damn reason at all.

"You're adorable," Elias says, fond, and then sets her back down and waves Sarah on after him. "Kids, be good, we're going to go poke the bear in the basement. There's popcorn in the kitchen if you want it, which you do, because you're human and butter is good for the soul. Go get some."