(no subject)

[the_lioness]

The night air hung still and cool in Olau's keep. The fires had burned out hours before, silencing the comforting crackle of flames and cracking wood that had helped coax so many of the castle's inhabitants to sleep, lost to Gainel's realm until dawn.

All except one.

Try as she might, Alanna could not keep the wooden door to her chambers from creaking as the latch caught. She swore under her breath, realizing as she did so that this was pointless and additionally problematic, but it made her feel better. Then she heard Adam stir and cursed again.

"Can't sleep?" he mumbled from the cocoon of blankets he'd quickly wrapped around himself in her absence, a luxury his perpetually cold wife never allowed.

"No," Alanna answered, already pulling off the boots and heavier layers she'd haphazardly put on an hour ago, when frustration had driven her from their bed. In the darkness, she pressed her lips together and reminded herself of what she wanted to say. If a hard gallop through the valley in the moonlight hadn't banished the words from her mind, prevarication certainly wouldn't work either. "Adam."

"'Lanna?" A blanket stirred; resettled around the lump to which she was speaking.

"Adam," she repeated, climbing up on the bed and shaking what felt like an arm. He grunted. "It's serious."

"Must be, if you can't sleep."

Alanna turned her head and looked at the faint light streaming in the window, then pulled back the covers. She felt his hand on hers and eventually found his eyes. He was wide awake.

"It's past time we told them," she said in a near whisper, wanting to soften the blow as best she could. "We have to tell them. It's become far more of a lie than a means of protecting them. If they get back and someone else lets it slip, we'll have nothing left to salvage."

Adam's breath caught. He held it for a moment, longer than she could manage and longer than she could stand to remain silent, but his thumb pressed her wrist when she started to speak again, asking her to wait a moment more. "I know," he said at last. "I know."

Aware it hurt him and hating that it did, she pointed out "We've agreed on this before," in a tone that was far more reasonable than she felt.

"I know," he replied, firmly. "The time wasn't right."

"It has to be right now."

"Right now?"

Alanna huffed at his half-hearted attempt at humor. Adam squeezed her hand and pulled her down, kissing her forehead. "I'll do it. Promise. Like ripping off a band-aid, right?"

"Okay," she whispered, focused angrily on a spot of moonlight on the wall. "I wish it didn't matter."

"But it does," he whispered back. "It always will."

The words seemed to fill the silence far longer than made sense.

~ ~ ~

Breakfast, they decided, would provide the opportunity they needed, not to have the conversation itself but to inform the children they would have to abandon their hopes of scattering to the winds until supper. Today they would stay together. Jamie groaned, Thom shrugged and Grace radiated suspicion. Alanna and Adam looked at each other and offered no explanation.

Chores, lessons and training happened as usual, without the eager anticipation of free time in the recently arrived spring sunshine that usually kept the triplets energized. By the time Alanna gathered them together in the library, they were as excited and alert as a trio of napping cats. Adam, on the other hand, was jittery. Agitated. His foot tapped, he ran his fingers through his hair until it stuck up and his eyes were red from nervous rubbing. With a sigh, Alanna steeled her own nerves and started to speak.

Ranulf knocked, making sure they had their tea. Adam's jerky nod sent him away again.

"We've a story to tell you," Alanna tried anew.

Now Myles entered, jovial and red-faced from a walk, quickly taking himself and a book elsewhere when he caught sight of his daughter's expression. A messenger rode up and interrupted next. Adam exhaled through his teeth and pressed his steepled fingers to his lips; Alanna knew the moment had passed.

We'll wait, her eyes told Adam. His said: thank you.

Grace remained suspicious.

~ ~ ~

A persistent silence was their only reward for finally speaking the truth aloud. The trees rustled in the breeze and the stream continued to trickle over its rocky bed, but their three children said nothing yet, and Alanna was almost thankful for the time to draw a soothing, centering breath. Strange, she thought, how the words were out but she felt as if they were still choking her. She sat alone, not touching Adam, because it was important not to set themselves apart from the children. The five of them already felt like a waterskin that had been strained to bursting, in danger of exploding outward at any moment.

Alanna watched the shock fade from her daughter's eyes and the fury settle in its place. She knew, just before Grace let out an angry sob and stood up, that something fundamental and possibly irreparable had shifted between them. When Grace's eyes slid away and she ran, Alanna felt like mourning.

Jamie looked back and forth between them, brow furrowed, and said nothing more than, "I'll go." He followed his sister, best equipped of all of them to ensure she returned.

And then there was one.

They waited, knowing Thom would work around to what he wanted to say in his own time, and whatever it was it would be crucial that they gave it the same attention he had.

"I want to know more about the beginning."

Adam frowned at his wife, who nodded slowly and said, "When I first found Milliways?"

"Earlier."

She raised an eyebrow. "When I told Jon I wanted to spend time in the desert?"

"Earlier still," Thom insisted, green eyes huge and solemn in his small face.

"The attempted coup," she said softly, already suspecting. Thom shook his head. Earlier. "All Hallows, then." When her twin had brought her greatest enemy back to life.

Thom was still as he thought. Apparently satisfied, he pulled his knees up and rested his chin on them, staring at his mother as she began to speak, imagining a similar face framed by shorter hair. It didn't seem like the face of a traitor.

~ ~ ~

Grace ran until her side ached and she was sucking at the air, looking for relief; then she ran further still. She didn't trip and fall, or become so blinded by tears that she got tangled in branches and vines. When she stopped it was because she'd had enough. Pushing her hair out of her face, she heaved several shuddering breaths and continued at a more leisurely pace. Furious, but not stupid.

The ruins weren't far.

Jamie caught up with her near the edge of the woods, not nearly as out of breath. Silently he slowed to her pace and shoved his fists in the pockets of his simple trousers. All around them Olau was exactly as it had always been: the trees were still tall, the sky still blue, the grass still green and turning thick again; and the ever sweet scents of apple trees and grapevines hung in the air around them. Yet they were both thinking in their own ways that nothing would ever be the same again.

They reached the ruins without speaking or even looking at each other, already fully in agreement as to why they were there. Jamie stood back and chewed on his thumb, letting his sister try the door first. Nothing happened. She made a low sound in her throat and only just refrained from kicking it. Jamie's attempt was equally futile. Together, they slumped down against what remained of a marble wall.

Jamie was calm, if uncharacteristically thoughtful. He held on to his sister in case her simmering anger and hurt erupted again, which he knew it eventually would.

Feeling betrayed, Grace glared at the door and thought that her world suddenly felt entirely too small.

~ ~ ~

Later that evening Jamie found Adam in his storeroom, quietly going over his records with a quill and a glass of cider. He shuffled in, not so much uncertain as taking time to examine the charts and figures on the worktable, and sat beside his father.

Adam slowly put down the quill and swallowed hard. "Jamie," he said by way of a greeting, voice rough.

"Da."

"Grace?"

"She'll be okay."

"Good."

With that out of the way, some of the tension drained out of the room. Adam gave a weary sigh and stood, crossing to a tapped barrel with his glass and another in his hands. He topped the first off, filled the other halfway and passed it to his son. As he sat back down, Adam ran fingers through his messy hair and almost smiled when Jamie, after watching him, did the same to his own. They drank in silence, comfortable in this cool, dimly lit place, with each other and their deepest thoughts.

"Da? You said you had powers. Where you were from."

"I did," Adam confirmed, and took another drink. "S'all part of it."

"You could read minds and make things happen or change," said Jamie, waiting for a nod before continuing. "Did you ever see things? Like paintings, but with motion. Like Uncle George's Sight, I guess. Kinda."

Adam glanced at him. "Yeah. A little similar, I guess. I'd just know some things, if I looked."

Jamie studied the color of his cider and smiled to himself. Puzzle pieces falling into place always gratified him, no matter what they implied.

"Never here, though," Adam continued. "Different beliefs."

Nodding, Jamie let the subject be. He had the answers he'd wanted. "Grace will want to hear more," he warns his father, however. "A lot more."

"I know she will."

Turning his head, Adam gave Jamie a grateful smile. Jamie smiled back, feeling a bit more grown up sitting here with his cider and his Da's work spread out before them than he had just that morning.

~ ~ ~

Darkness fell and Grace still didn't want to go inside, with walls and stale air and more lies. She'd rather sit here, in the orchard full of trees just starting to show signs of leaves and life, chilly and alone, than go home. Besides, they would be there.

Grace was miserable.

Alanna approached slowly, running her eyes over Grace where she was huddled against a tree trunk not much wider than her torso. Eyes red and stormy, her daughter was shivering and absently rubbing her thumb over a large spot of dirt on her otherwise pristine tunic, as if it and not her parents was the subject of her ire. Her hair looked as if it had been combed out with determined fingers, but there was a leaf toward the back of those reddish waves that Grace had missed. Calmly, Alanna plucked it out and sat down almost but not quite out of reach.

A few moments later, she slung a blanket around Grace's shoulders without asking. Grace shrugged it off, obstinately keeping her face turned away; changing her mind, she soon pulled the blanket back enough to cover her lap.

"I'm sorry," Alanna offered, two words she didn't utter often.

She watched her stubborn, proud and intelligent daughter go to war with herself over whether or not to accept her apology and waited, with far more patience than she thought possible, for the verdict. Only now was she beginning to understand the trust she and Adam had broken. She should have known after the way Grace reacted to discovering Milliways that this would be a much larger issue than they had ever thought possible. Grace had always known who she was. She had always been comfortable, confident and happy with that knowledge, even when Alanna herself had wanted her so desperately to be someone else. And now, all of a sudden, everything she'd thought she was and to be true is fundamentally different. To Grace, it mattered. It mattered that there was more.

Grace was perfectly capable of being thrilled at the possibilities and simultaneously resenting that she hadn't known about Earth all along -- hadn't experienced it and hadn't planned for what it might mean.

"I want to go there," Grace said at last. Her voice was hoarse and quiet with determination. "England."

"Okay."

Surprise made Grace forget that she didn't want to look at her mother. "What?"

"Okay," Alanna repeated, glancing at her. "I'll take you. There are... people you deserve to meet."

Grace swallowed, a new intensity in her eyes. "Yes."

Lucifer, they both thought in very different ways.

"Aziraphael will be happy to see you," Alanna remarked, as if the thought of the angel could erase the memory of Lucifer's mocking smile. "Your father can't wait to show you three off."

"Apparently he could."

Alanna winced. "Grace..."

Grace didn't wait for her to finish. "Thom will love him, if his business is books. Maybe he has one of those bible books Da mentioned lying about. Maybe he won't mind if we give it a look."

Another silence steadily built up between them. Chagrined enough to care, Grace eventually broke it. "I have a lot of questions."

"I never expected differently, daughter mine," said Alanna, managing a tight smile.

With a nod, Grace wrapped her hands in the blanket and drew it over her shoulders. "Ma?"

"Yes?"

"Someday I will keep a very great secret from you and you will know how it feels," Grace said with all the conviction of a solemn vow.

"Don't think I'm not already aware," Alanna answered. It wasn't unexpected, but it hurt all the same. "Revenge is rarely as satisfying as it sounds, lass."

Alanna stood, briefly touched the top of her daughter's head and walked back to the castle.

Grace followed, trailing the edges of the blanket through the dirt.

~ ~ ~

"That went well."

Adam was already in bed, hands folded behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.

Alanna didn't so much get in bed as fall on top of him. "It could have been worse."

He lifted his head to eye her, arm coming around her waist.

"Truly." Alanna propped her chin on his chest and sighed, then smiled. "At least she came back. I'm in no mood to mount a search party."

After a moment, Adam remembered how to laugh. "Yeah. She did."

"She's vowed revenge."

"Shit," he said succinctly, with feeling.

Alanna had to laugh, too. "I suspect she'll aim higher than putting grasshoppers in our bed."

Adam snorted.

"Still, I'm glad it's done." She glanced at him, waiting.

He simply smiled and curled his arms around her tighter, and she pretended not to notice the way he grasped and held on.

~ ~ ~

The next morning, the triplets were waiting for their parents in the library, having sent word via Cook and Ranulf that breakfast would be served after. At least there was tea, as everyone knew Alanna would be nonfunctional without it.

"What's going on?" Adam asked, keeping an eye on his wife's scowl.

"Well," said Thom, as if delivering a rehearsed line. "We have lots of questions... most can wait."

Grace arched an eyebrow at him and held her head high.

"But one's important."

"It's about family," Jamie clarified. "Family is important."

Grace nodded approvingly.

It was far too early for questions about Lucifer and Thom. Adam held in a breath, then nodded.

Folding her arms, Grace asked, "What do you mean you don't have a mother?"

Alanna was suddenly very grateful she'd managed to swallow her tea, as the helpless laughter bubbled up her throat. Of all the questions she'd expected first, it wasn't that. Adam shot her an exasperated look and seemed to consider how best to explain, Grace waited expectantly and Alanna started to feel better about their chances of weathering this storm.