Luminescence

by ConfettiClockwork

The new witch could not have arrived at a worse time, but something about her being thrust suddenly under the Coven's protection makes Cordelia think that perhaps it is fate's way of an apology. The Coven and the Cajun through the eyes of Cordelia Foxx.

1. Chapter 1

I have been totally absorbed by Foxxay. I can't cope with the series ending and the non-canon nature of this otp. This was so much fun to write, which is why it is so long. I might write a follow-up if the overwhelming feeling is that people are unsatisfied, because I know how awful that feels. If you want me to write an AU continuation/reunion/second chapter PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I'd be happy to, if that's what people want.

Enjoy.

People say that you don't appreciate something until you lose it. She never really agreed with that; there have been moments of shameless appreciation in her past just for the sake of it, as opposed to an awareness of the finite nature of things. She agrees with it now, however, because as much as she appreciated the beauty of the world, she has taken sight for granted her entire life, and now she no longer has it.

The blackness is crushing; the nightmare of being unable to open your eyes and wake up. Throughout her life, she has felt tiny. Her mother and her husband and her painfully obvious lack of ability reassure her that it's almost luck that she is a part of the Coven. She is used to being defenceless, belittled, helpless, but never like this. She sits alone in her bedroom, grasping a cane that must act as her vision. She must place her trust in others now; trust them to guide her safely down something as simple as a staircase, trust them not to turn around and stab her in the back…or in the front, she wouldn't see it coming either way.

Her mother's enemies are her enemies, she realises this. She racks her brains in the abundant time she has, but can think of no one whom she has affected to the extent that they would sear and scorch away a sense so essential that she is left a trembling, anxious mess. She remembers the way the world looked before. Her memories glow and shimmer. There was beauty in everything. It probes the hole in her open even further to think that she'll never look upon her girls again, never see day fade into night, or a cat curled up lazily on a wall, or feel dazzled by the reflection of the sun off water, or relate the scent of blossom to the petals twirling off trees. She would weep if the acid hadn't damaged her tear ducts so terribly.

She isn't entirely bereft, however. The Second Sight came at a high price, but the truth has never been clearer. A single touch, and a person's whole life. It's also a burden, of course. No one will ever touch her thoughtlessly again, never brush past her as she moves around the kitchen, or place a hand on her arm without thinking about it. She will scare all touches away through the fear of what she will see of your soul. She has noticed whenever she clutches the hand of one of her students when they help her around the house that most have taken to wearing gloves, and grasp her clothes-covered forearm instead of her hand. They fear her; it seems there is no one under this roof who has nothing to hide.

When she touches her mother, she sees red, she sees panic. She feels the blade across Madison's throat as if it were her own, yet also feels herself on the other end of the knife, drawing it through fresh skin. It is disorientating, but clear. Flashes of Fiona's crimes dizzy her. Madison, the suspicion of the next Supreme; the anxiety almost matches her own. She sees her mother in a room of black silk and gossamer, drunk, high, cigarette between her fingers, looking brutal and beautiful. She watches as the scientist falls to the charms of a woman twice his age, watches her mother drain the youth out of him as one would do a piece of fruit as if it were her doing it. She jumps away from her poisonous touch, chest tight, and she wishes it were the first time she had been terrified of the woman who had brought her into this once bright world.

From then on, no one touches her voluntarily.

When this new witch appears, she is scared. Scared because she could be anyone. She could be the enemy worming their way into Robichaux's ranks, she could be lying, she could be as twisted and black of soul as everyone else in the cursed Coven. Her accent is foreign; soft and simple, but you get witches from all over the place. Zoe is pleading with her to shelter her, and the girl seems ruffled to say the least, proclaiming attempts on her life, and Cordelia's pretty certain she mentioned that she lives in a swamp.

All the worries ghosting behind unseeing eyes scream all at once. The Coven is under threat, someone threw acid at her, Marie Laveau has already made several attempts to exterminate what few witches remain, witch hunters are everywhere and with the question of the next Supreme hanging palpably in the air, the Coven has never been less stable. This girl could be a threat, and if not, bringing her into the school could put her under threat.

Cordelia blindly extends her hand, she has to see, she has to make sure. There is hesitancy, and then calloused, ring-adorned fingers spread across her own immaculate and delicate digits, the stranger's hand firmly clasping her own, and then it starts.

Visions are becoming commonplace, yet they always manage to rip the air from her lungs and overwhelm her with sensory bombardment. The first thing she experiences is the smell of gasoline, then light, angry and aggressive and bright, overpowering. Flames climb up around her and she screams in agony as the flesh melts and scorches off her bones, engulfed by the fire. Flames turn to mud, ashes to seeds, heat to dampness, and she still cannot see. She feels her skin pressing itself back together, undoing the damage, it's taut and new and relieving, her hair fans out around her in curls and she gasps in the crisp air, a welcome relief to tarnished lungs. She sees swamp and low-hanging trees and languid alligators and humming fireflies. She hears what she identifies as 80s pop rock, rhythms and tunes echoing through healed ears, and cicadas chirping in the bushes. She smells mud and earth and flowers and freshwater. She feels peace.

And isolation. Loneliness.

And that's it.

She is shocked, not by what she saw, but by what she didn't see. No secrets, no shame, no regret, no darkness or murder or evil. This girl is pure, almost entirely, completely open and faultless. Nothing lurks in her past or in the dark corners of her mind. The life she has seen was simple but honest. The realisation of this is overwhelming, more than the vision, and she lets the witch's hand fall from her own, afraid that her less than clean past might taint her.

The fire, the smoke, the tingle of life in this girl, it all adds up, and ultimately reveals her before Cordelia's unseeing eyes.

"You're Misty Day."

"I am so sorry, Delia dear."

"Really, it's fine. The Second Sight has proved useful, so it isn't all bad."

"But your sight! Surely nothing can be worth such a sacrifice?"

Cordelia raises her cup of tea to her lips, sipping gently. Her other senses are heightened by the need to make up for the lost one, and the rewardingly bland taste soothes her tongue. Myrtle sits opposite her, and Cordelia can hear that piteous look on her face.

"No, but it's irreversible. I must learn to be optimistic, and put my new discovery to good use, seen as my mother certainly isn't going to protect us."

She hears unidentified movement, and is momentarily startled at fingertips lightly dusting over the rough damaged skin above her cheekbones.

"Your beautiful face…" Myrtle murmurs mournfully. One would think that she had been the one to have acid thrown at her.

Cordelia says nothing; her beauty was never enough when she had it. Perhaps she'll be worth more without it.

Fingertips trace the fleshy leaves of the plant. The flowers are yet to bloom; it isn't their season. The surface is smooth, the soil soft and damp, the smell like rain and life, the birds and faint hum of cars in the distance the only sound.

She spends more time in the greenhouse blind than she did with her sight, a habit she considers ironic, as it is the most visually beautiful location in the Coven. She feels her throat close up at the colourlessness of her future life. She was never really an overly colourful person, preferring white, black or pastel coloured clothes, and after growing up in the academy with its pristine white walls, it's unsurprising that she prefers purity as opposed to variety, and yet she'd give anything for a splash in the blackness.

"Wild garlic."

She jumps and spins round blindly. It takes her a minute to place the voice and come to the realisation that she isn't in any immediate danger.

"Sorry, I forgot. That was cruel of me." The voice says. "I didn't mean to scare ya."

Cordelia shakes her head. "Don't worry, it takes some getting used to. Even I'm not there yet." She smiles in what she hopes is the right direction.

She feels a hand on her forearm as Misty moves to stand beside her, perhaps to let her know she's there, and the touch is unafraid, unashamed, honest. The skin on skin contact is so sudden, so casual, so utterly welcome that Cordelia has to fight to stop herself from crying in relief.

The girl thinks nothing of it. She stands close so Cordelia can feel her life and magic tingling inches away in a way she's missed. It seems the newcomer is the only one not terrified of getting too close to her and her invasive new power. She craves contact in a way she didn't expect, in a way she never has before, just to feel another human being if she can't see them, but this girl barely knows her, and she barely knows this girl, and frankly she's still scared.

"You must be quite experienced in this area." She says conversationally. Her ears pick up the sound of hands that aren't her own rustling through leaves in a caress.

"Well, back home it's just me and the plants so yeah, I have more experience than actual knowledge probably."

Cordelia wonders how old she is. She was burned at the stake only a few months ago, and was not much older than the girls in the academy…just a child…She talks like an adolescent, uncertain and open and excited about the world. The skin of her hands is rough through her lifestyle, but creaseless and dainty; young hands, though yes, experienced. Cordelia is vaguely curious as to what this girl looks like. She must have seen her on a news report or something similar, but honestly can't recall. She of course has an image in her head; a small, pixie-like creature, with red hair, perhaps freckles, she sees sharp little teeth and a figure draped in shawls and jewellery and long flowing skirts. Of course, she knows this girl is not a little swamp sprite as she pictures; she knows she must be as tall as Cordelia at least, judging on how much of her body she feels nearby, but otherwise she is perfectly happy to let her imagination guide her. She will judge on character, not on appearance, as realistically, this girl is likely to be a bit hectic to look at, living in isolation in a swamp and all.

"Do you know what wild garlic does when mixed with daffodil root?"

"Nope. Never tried it."

Cordelia reaches blindly forward and plucks a leaf of the plant. The smell has not fully set in yet, but she knows it will be strong by the end of the season, so best to work with it when the scent doesn't follow you around for the rest of the day.

"You gonna show me then?" Misty asks, and it's eager and excited and a little playful.

Cordelia smiles. "I'd love to."

When she enters the kitchen one morning, cane swinging ahead of her, hesitant and careful, she hears the daily chatter of what she guesses is most of the small Coven seated round the breakfast table. She's struck by how startlingly familial this all is, considering they're likely all planning each other's murder. She assumes her mother isn't present though, which alleviates her paranoia slightly.

She fumbles around in the refrigerator; the girls know that she doesn't like being assisted on mundane everyday tasks, it makes her feel more helpless than she already does. She successfully pours herself some orange juice, and then hears the embarrassing smash as she knocks it off the countertop with her elbow. She stills in resentment as the room goes graveyard silent.

She hears footsteps come to her aid, and flushes in shame. A voice she identifies as Madison's sharp Hollywood drawl echoes over her shoulder.

"The protection of the Coven really is in great hands, isn't it?"

It's sharp and spiteful and a tone she's entirely too used to, but it stings none the less in a heart that's never been adequate.

There is a strange sound of wind rushing, and then a dull thud from somewhere away to her left. She hears Madison grunt in pain as she hits the wall at the far end of the adjoining room.

She doesn't know who cast the spell, no one says anything, just begin clearing up the broken glass. A set of long, rough fingers grasps her hand and leads her safely out of the proximity of the shards. She is wordlessly guided to the table and the girl makes sure she's seated before returning to help the others clean the liquid away.

Still no one speaks; out of guilt or pity or embarrassment she doesn't know, but she can't bring herself to scold them for Madison.

It's later that night, when the blackness around her mirrors that of behind her eyes, that she realises she never expected Misty Day to be strong at telekinesis.

Blind days pass with the Coven on unsteady ground and Cordelia even unsteadier. She sits at her desk, ghosting fingers feeling the stack of paperwork grow and grow. Myrtle offers to help, Cordelia nods, but feels uncomfortable. She has reached the limit of her usefulness. She can no longer do even the administration of the Coven, let alone be a valuable member in protecting it.

She spends more and more hot afternoons in the greenhouse; her sense of touch and smell are adequate for brewing and concocting, and her memory of the place is vivid. She moves between rows of plants, finding petals and stems and leaves with ease, the silence having the opposite effect that it used to. It is crushing, threatening, it presses on her and reminds her that anyone could creep up on her and there is nothing she can do about it. She doesn't want Hank poking around either; the last thing she needs is more trouble and heartache.

Things start getting better when she discovers the resident swamp witch's penchant for botany, and the resident swamp witch discovers the availability of the greenhouse.

First to go is the silence, thank God. Having someone to talk to is like a breath of fresh air in a stiflingly still situation, and Misty talks freely and happily. She doesn't dwell on Cordelia's blindness, nor does she shy away when the topic must be addressed and pretends that she can't see the sightless eyes and cracking scars. She speaks of her swamp, of the plants surrounding them and the life everywhere, she talks of the Coven and the witches and the strange boy that has joined their school inexplicably. She asks about Cordelia, never enough to touch a tender topic, but just the right amount to give Cordelia an odd sensation of being grilled without being judged, and instead of shying from the invasion, she relishes the idea that someone might be genuinely interested in what she thinks. Misty never talks about herself; well, not properly, not about her past or her deeper experiences, never touching on the crippling loneliness Cordelia saw she feels, and it makes her seem maddeningly unselfish, but also slightly suspicious and gives conversation a strange and foreign feeling. She talks with a dreamy simplicity, like the complexities of the world with which she is intimately familiar are so easily understood that there's no need for complication. It's pleasant, however, and Cordelia cherishes the unabashed joy of discovery evident in the Cajun's voice every time something new comes to life, sometimes quite literally, in Cordelia's lessons in the greenhouse.

She also discovers that once you get Misty Day started on Stevie Nicks, she can go for hours. Cordelia recognised the tune Misty was humming, and brought the artist up. The brief pause between the mention of Stevie Nicks and the sudden tidal wave of appreciation indicated that Misty was seriously considering whether it was a good idea going into a subject she knew she would get trapped in, but Cordelia was there and listening and potentially interested in the swamp witch's opinion, for the first time in years, and she couldn't avoid it.

The passion in her voice when she talks about her hero is enough to mesmerise Cordelia somewhat. It seems that Misty has an unlimited enthusiasm for life, exploding in sharp bursts of appreciation and wonder, and the headmistress can't help but think perhaps Stevie Nicks is lucky to be talked about in such a reverent and adoring way by someone like Misty Day.

Since then, a silent agreement takes place, and the pressing silence of the greenhouse decreases even further when Cordelia starts to hear the distinct sound of Fleetwood Mac drifting through the foliage when she comes to work. It's like background music to announce Misty's presence, and she is rather thankful that there is always something reassuring covering the silence. Stevie Nicks becomes an integral part of their afternoons among the plants, as well as a personal comfort.

She feels that every day is just another 24 hours in the waiting game. She tries to make the most of the time; using her Second Sight to attempt to predict the next threat and think out a plan of attack, or in some circumstances, escape. She slowly adjusts to her blindness, seeing it as an inevitable aspect of her, as opposed to a constant impediment. Myrtle says the scars are healing well, Zoe says she doesn't even notice anymore, Madison rolls her eyes and calls her pathetic, but helps her carefully up the stairs nevertheless. She feels unsettled, but at least she's merely waiting for the final blow these days, instead of convincing herself she can already feel it happening.

She spends most afternoons in the greenhouse, more often than not with Misty. Their relationship has developed into what Cordelia would call a tentative friendship, having known each other for a very brief period of time, but whenever they interact it doesn't feel tentative in the slightest. Misty is tactile, a trait bred from a lifetime of rejected affection and isolation, and for once Cordelia doesn't run from touches, realising that she has nothing left to lose, and if she were to trust anyone not to have ulterior motives, it would be someone like Misty Day. It's simple stuff; hands on shoulders when she peers at what Cordelia is working on from behind her, touches on her back and forearms to let her know Misty is there, brushes of skin as they work around each other. Cordelia cannot see Misty, but she has a distinct feeling that these moments of contact are nothing to the swamp witch; they are delivered with carelessness and casual regularity and Cordelia is certain that Misty is just happy to have someone who will accept her extensive desire for physical contact without comment.

Outside of the greenhouse, she comes across Misty about as frequently as the other girls, if not less. She has no idea what the swamp witch gets up to in the academy, but she is either in her room or with one of the other girls, either way she is rarely alone with Cordelia inside the house. The headmistress is perhaps grateful for this; the greenhouse is their oasis, their escape, and is kept poignant and preserved since their relationship is more distant elsewhere.

In moments of soft Stevie Nicks and the perfume of plants, she'd perhaps say she's comfortable, maybe even content. They work well together, her expertise and Misty's enthusiasm and natural gift complementing each other. She feels momentarily at peace, absorbing herself in something she enjoys and having someone there to talk to, and yet she knows it won't last. Nothing does.

She continues to wait with growing dread.

When she opens her eyes she can see.

And when she does, she immediately snaps them shut again. She doesn't remember daylight being that bright. She thinks she's having a hideous and surreal dream, but no, she gathers herself and sees and her bedroom ceiling has never looked so good and since when has white been so colourful? She sobs out of pure joy for a large part of the morning.

Until Myrtle tells her, she can't fathom what could have occurred. She thinks perhaps she has been blessed, or her mother has finally got her act together and used her powers as the Supreme to do something for her only child for once. But no, of course it was Myrtle, who, through all her piety and righteousness, is good and kind and has enough mercy and determination to achieve what Cordelia had given up on. And her hair is as orange as a sunset and eyes like sapphires and the water she hands to her has the rainbow swirling in clear depths and it feels like an eternity since she last saw sunlight flood into her bedroom and get caught in the crystals of the light fitting and the glass of the mirror. She cannot thank Myrtle enough, and to repay her somewhat, does not press further on the origin of her new eyes.

She sees herself again, her reflection staring back at her out of mismatched eyes. There is still scarring, but it is healing, and one blue one brown eye looks eclectic in her otherwise pristine appearance, but she's just so goddamn thankful.

Even with the threats of impending danger and tension surrounding the Coven and the next Supreme, she's elated, euphoric, dizzyingly exuberant at the return of the world, drinking in the aesthetics of everything around her, at being able to move without assistance, at once more feeling more in control of her life and her academy.

It isn't until she's giddily reunited with the sight of Zoe and Nan, and a less eager Madison, questions and jokes and laughter thrown around the kitchen, that she remembers the girl who came to their Coven. The stranger whom she has never set eyes on, and the only one who would come within a foot of her when she most needed human contact. Misty's in the greenhouse, of course, distractedly watering the plants and humming along to Fleetwood Mac. Cordelia calls out to her from around the corner.

"Comin'!" She hears back in the accent she's come to be almost fond of.

Misty appears from round the corner, grin plastered across her face, and freezes when she sees Cordelia standing, without her cane, her new eyes seeing her, glittering and functional and miraculous. She stands, frozen in shock and disbelief for a moment, before a delighted smile breaks out across her face and she hurries forward to great the headmistress.

Cordelia's taken aback, not necessarily because of Misty's appearance, simply because of the fact that she has one. The voice has a source, the mind has a body, the magic has a core, and it's slightly disorientating.

She's nothing like she had imagined her, apart from her sense of style; she's swathed in layers of thin, billowy fabric, shawls round her shoulders, and draped in jewellery from multiple long necklaces to the thick rings she's felt multiple times. Aside from her 70s hippy look, she's nothing like the picture Cordelia had in her blind mind's eye. She's not small and dainty, but tall and willowy, with the elegance of a water plant and yet a subtle clumsiness of youth. Her skin's pale and smooth, confusingly not tanned by the sun at all, and she has a rather sculptured face; all cheekbones and jawline and arched brows, rather than small and pointy features. Her hair is a wild tangle of sun-spun curls, falling over narrow, pale shoulder in a waterfall of disorder, and her blue eyes are lined with black makeup. She looks every inch the swamp witch, and Cordelia wonders how she ever thought she could possibly look different. She feels slightly put out as well; she had been so ready to judge the newcomer on character and compassion alone and look past an appearance she believed she would never see, but with her restored sight, this crumbles, as Misty has an untamed and undeniable beauty that seems entirely natural and almost unjustly easy for someone who evidently couldn't care less about her own aesthetic appeal.

Long arms pull her into an embrace she wasn't expecting, the smell of damp soil and new leaves flooding her as wild curls tickle her face. She hugs Misty back, grinning to herself at how strangely real this odd girl is. She'd been experiencing such limited aspects of her that putting sight to touch to smell is certainly confusing.

"But, how –?"

"Myrtle. The woman's a genius." Cordelia beams.

Misty pulls away to look at her, eyes still disbelieving as they roam Cordelia's face. She smiles again, and Cordelia is sorry that she's missed all the smiles that were probably thrown her way when she couldn't see them.

"I'm impressed. Wow, must be weird though?"

"It's a relief. I forgot how beautiful the world is. Even Madison's scowl looks like the Mona Lisa right now."

Misty laughs and Cordelia wonders how someone can be so utterly consumed with happiness on behalf of another, of someone she barely knows at that. She supposes that Misty is one of those rare people who feel the emotions of others as if they were their own. She pities this for some reason.

"Well now you ain't got no excuse for messin' the potions up." She dances off to the other end of the greenhouse to turn up the stereo.

"I'll certainly be of more use now."

"They look weird." Says Madison.

"She thinks so too." Responds Nan.

"I wonder where Myrtle got them from…" Zoe sits across the room, staring out of the window, lost in thought.

"Does it matter? Threats get closer every day, I'm just thankful dear Cordy can perhaps be of some use now, since her lovely mother is nowhere to be seen." Madison's sense of self-preservation wins out against her curiosity.

"You got anything to add, Swampy?"

Misty is startled out of a reverie she had been lost in, daydreaming of the golden threads of the life and of re-weaving them, of her swamp and her Stevie and her loneliness, of the tribe she is still looking for, the tribe she might have just found.

"I dunno, I'm just glad she can see again, must be terrible, bein' blind."

Madison, evidently dissatisfied with the answer, continues hypothesising, with Nan's exasperated sighs and Zoe's disinterest. Misty sits and listens, then, feeling slightly suffocated by the white walls, slips out of the room, past the front doors and out into the wider world.

"How did you survive in secret for this long on your own?"

Misty doesn't stop her hypnotic, floating hand gestures as she weaves in and out of the workbenches.

"I got by. I ain't bothered by the simple life. I had my critters and my little shack, what else would I need?"

Cordelia lets out a soft, disbelieving laugh. "I don't know, food perhaps?"

"I grew my own mostly. And I do have some money saved, for backup, ya know?"

"Still can't have been very comfortable without electricity…"

"It was all I needed." Misty says simply, pensively, and it makes the headmistress slightly sad. It was all I had…

"You know, once this is all over, you're welcome to go back."

The swamp witch's head shoots up, blue eyes piercing with something Cordelia can't recognise, so, being who she is, she naturally backtracks.

"I mean, you don't have to, but you can if you wish. Our doors are always open to you, Misty Day."

She smiles at her name. Cordelia thinks fleetingly that she might embrace her again, but she keeps her distance, not responding in anyway to the offer. Cordelia surprisingly isn't offended; the soft, wistful smile has communicated everything.

Misty goes back to humming, pruning a steadily growing bush with care and precision. Cordelia pauses to observe for a moment, biting her tongue in curiosity, drinking in the image she had lacked when she was blind. She watches as earth-worn hands caress the plant as if it were a tiny mouse, watches as blonde curls fall erratically in front of her stoic face, watches the way the sun bends to encompass her ability and knowledge, watches as she winces almost imperceptibly every time the shears snip off a prong, like it is causing her physical pain yet she is steeling herself against it.

Cordelia flushes rather unexpectedly. She can feel a blush rising red in her cheeks, heat gathering in her palms. She feels a little surprised and embarrassed; but on account of what? She has the distinct feeling that she is intruding on something incredibly personal, like walking uninvited into Misty's bedroom or something. It's an odd and uncomfortable sensation, and she wonders how this girl, who has barely been there for a week, can look more at home in the greenhouse than Cordelia has ever felt in all the time she's sought sanctuary within its walls.

It's sights like this that cause her to be evermore thankful for her regained eyes.

She moves to stand next to the young witch, gently taking shears out of her hands and resuming the task herself. Misty says nothing, but her smile is smaller and more genuine than Cordelia has ever seen it.

"I don't trust her."

"I don't care what you think, mother, I've seen her story, and it's all true."

"The past does not dictate the future, Delia."

"You were always the one that said people act out of hindsight, not forethought."

"Well that's even more dangerous. If they did to me what they did to her, I'd certainly want revenge."

"Yes, well we're not all like you, mother, and thank heavens for that."

"Cruelty runs in our blood, all of our blood, we're a sisterhood, we all have our darkness."

"Not her, not even an ounce, she isn't from this poisonous Coven."

"So why is she here?"

"She needed help, and was entirely innocent, burnt at the stake for what she didn't understand and couldn't hope to control without the help of her kind."

"Well, I know we're desperate, but we're dragging them off the bayou now?"

"Under my leadership, this Coven has almost doubled in size. We're dying out, we need to stick together through this."

"That is the first time you've ever tried to prove yourself better than me."

"Fancy that? I am your daughter after all."

When night descends she watches stars prick from behind threatless clouds and the house of fear and family gleams like a sterilised pearl in the dark. She drinks in the glow of the moon, the security of the enclosed feeling she has inexplicably gained this night. As she bids Misty good night, she receives merely a smile and a minimal response in dismissal.

She understands. She knows how one can feel trapped and yet isolated all at once. She knows that the swamp would have felt like a suffocating emptiness to one who understood so little of herself.

She nods and heads back into the academy.

As the lights of her bedroom are turned out and candles flare into life with a careless flick of her wrist, she cannot fight the impulse to glance out of the window. A curtain of religion-straight hair glows luminescent in the darkness, a silk nightgown adding to her pale, ghostly aura, as she stands and observes the sanctuary of the garden.

A gliding spirit of shawls and sunlight makes its way down to the trees at the end of the garden. When her head tilts up to observe the sky from under the canopy of oak branches, golden curls spill down to the bottom of shoulder blades. She approaches a tree and places a white hand against its trunk, and Cordelia feels her breath hitch as the leaves and branches illuminate with the yellow glow of hundreds of fireflies. The hand strokes the bark as if it were a friend, and retracts as the figure stands back to bathe in the serenity of the night's moment.

That is magic, Cordelia thinks from her window. That is true magic, not anger and fire and blood and death, that's power, no, real magic is the kind that causes the heart to flutter and the eyes to widen in disbelief. Magic is the lost gift of the lucky few that are touched by the ability to defy and define nature as they please. Magic is all the beauty and brilliance of the world condensed into an action, a thought, a person. It is the wonder and discovery and love of the world that bore them all, and it manifests itself in the oddest of places.

Misty holds out her arms slightly, and the lights take flight, flitting from the tree to hover in the air around the swamp witch's ethereal silhouette. Cordelia feels her throat close up on account of a woman, of a girl, she barely knows, but can't help it as the fireflies dance around her snowy skin. Her gift is light and life, it's beautiful and pure and limitless and incomprehensible and Cordelia feels tears threaten her stoic visage as she remembers that this girl was burned alive by the people she was supposed to trust, by people who she might have loved, who were simply terrified of what they couldn't explain. The thought of all that raw, beautiful ability going up in flames makes her hate the ignorant as Misty never would. The girl never asked for any of this, but she realized she had no choice, and has evidently accepted herself when no one else did, and has flourished in her abilities. Cordelia envies her strength and optimism.

She casts a sad smile at the none-the-wiser witch in the garden and pulls her drapes shut against the soft night.

She knows she is weak. She knows that even with her sight back, she is still of little use to the Coven, and potentially a burden. She sobs into silk sheets one night, her feeble heart breaking despite the fact that no one, not even its owner, mourns it. She lets her self-loathing and weakness soak her pillow and wrack her shoulders. She cries for the love she had felt for years, for a man she thought might heal her, might actually see her as anything other than the disappointing daughter of the worst Supreme in witchcraft history. She cries for the betrayal occurring under her own roof, the darkness seeping out of virgin-white walls. She cries for her mother and what she has become, over the monster that grew with ambition and jealousy. She cries for her sisterhood being tortured and burned and supressed everywhere with nothing she can do to help.

She cries out of fear of the future in a house where everybody else sleeps.

"It ain't impossible, I told ya. Now, concentrate, and you'll do it fine."

"Misty, you can't just create life, it goes against everything we know of the world."

"We ain't creatin' life, we're just…igniting it. Don't worry, I've done this before."

"Yes, well you have a gift, I do not."

"Nah, it's easy. People don't try it 'cause they don't think it's possible."

Misty waters the soil, dampening it sufficiently before taking a seed and burying it in the centre, fingers moving through the compost like it were fur on a pet.

"Now, there's already ghosts of life around it, you just gotta latch on to it and will it, and a new plant'll grow, I promise."

"But…there's nothing there to go on, no shoot, not roots, no nothing."

"Yeah, well like I said, you gotta will it. It ain't gonna be easy first time, but you'll get it, you just need a push to try it."

Misty rinses off her hands in the sink, dries them on her skirt and returns to Cordelia's side, standing before the plant pot on the bench.

"I hope that one day I'll be able to create simple life outta nothin', but of course that's more tricky."

"If you ever succeed in that we're going to have to call a summit meeting, because let alone Supreme, you'll be considered a god."

Misty laughs lightly. "I sure as hell ain't the only one with this power, I'm certain of it."

Cordelia doesn't add that she's never come across a case as strong as Misty Day in the field of resurgence and vitalum vitalis.

"Look, you're gonna nail it." She places Cordelia's hand on the soil covering the seed with all the precision of an artist.

"Focus."

She tries, narrowing her eyes at the plant pot. Breathe in, breathe out, calm, focus.

"Can you feel it?"

She thinks perhaps she can, a slight tremor, a twitch, a tingle, under the soil. She focuses harder, closing off her five primary senses and relying on her sixth, grasping the tiny thread of life that echoes in the husk of the seed, a ghost, as Misty said. But it's barely there, a sigh, an absence. She tries to force her mind to grasp it, to nurture it, but it's like trying to hold smoke, slipping away, dissipating, but still eerily present. How is she ever going to coax it into life?

"Misty it's – it's so small…I can't –"

"Let it flow through you. Make a connection. Here." A warm hand is suddenly there and resting on Cordelia's chest, directly over her heart. Her eyes snap away from the plant pot and onto Misty's, losing the thread almost instantly.

"No," Misty shakes her head, looking entirely unfazed. "Focus."

Cordelia looks back at the soil and searches for the ghost again. A strange kind of pull flows from Misty's hand to her heart, flitting down her arm and whispering through her hand and into the soil. It's slightly terrifying and her chest feels tight and she struggles to breathe for a moment. Her body reacts to magic that isn't her own, magic that's using her as a channel.

"Focus. Breathe. I'm helpin'." Misty murmurs quietly.

Cordelia tries to obey, tries to intertwine the echo thread of life in the compost to the tingling threads flowing from Misty's hand, through her heart and into her own hand, but it's difficult, like the two don't match. She closes her eyes, shutting off the sense she treasures the most, letting the warmth guide her, so vivacious it's almost burning her from the inside out now. Goosebumps rise over the pale skin of her arms, the tingling becomes a fizzing, the magic causing her to physically tremble slightly.

"I can't – they won't –"

"Come on. Will it. You can do it." Misty breathes from closer than Cordelia expects.

Cordelia breathes in heavily, gasping as her heart thuds out more and more power and her hand begins to itch and shake atop the soil, searching blindly in the darkness behind eyelids for that spark of life that she can latch on to and force into this world. This must be impossible, she thinks, it's like trying to catch a firefly in a maze. She grits her teeth and pushes and clutches at the thread, forcing it into her mind's grasp.

A hand gently pulls her chin up, directing her face away from the pot and towards the other woman. "You're gonna smash it to pieces if you keep that up. Don't look, feel. Feel the life."

Cordelia gasps in a shaky breath, further and further, closer and closer, it's there, out of reach, she lunges, and misses, the ghost slipping away once more. It's exhausting, she's dizzy, her eyes are closed, she feels nothing but the damp soil heating up significantly under her palm, the magic gushing through her veins, the insistent press of the swamp witch's hand on her chest, the spark of her and the reluctance of the seed.

The heat of Misty's hand increases and it knocks the air out of Cordelia's lungs, she feels the magic crackling, begging for an outlet, she thinks she must be about to explode, she's trembling, eyes screwed shut, hand digging into the soil, grasping desperately at the thread, forcing a connection.

The hand on her chest slides up her neck to her jaw, still radiating this strange and foreign heat, and Cordelia would perhaps question it if she weren't exhausted by the pure energy required to simply keep sight of the thread of the seed. Lips come out of nowhere, soft and unexpected and tingling like the rest of Cordelia. There's no awkward hesitance, Misty kisses insistently and wholeheartedly, and Cordelia would evaluate this bizarre turn of events if it weren't for the thread finally twisting with the sheer tidal wave of energy surging through her veins and into the soil. They entangle and ignite, and she coaxes the thread into life, it glows and hums and solidifies and Misty kisses her harder, her lips burning and Cordelia gasps against her mouth at the onslaught of her senses. She reciprocates without thinking, matching Misty's passion, and one person was not built to channel so much life, she's terrified and euphoric and struggling to breathe, but opens her mouth against the swamp witch's and – wow – she wishes she had retained some self-control.

She feels something pushing its way up out of the soil under her hand, but barely gives it a thought as she the sensations course through her and she still feels on the verge of exploding and the goosebumps are back with a vengeance and she can't remember the last time she was kissed like this, perhaps never, like she's too unbelievable not to be kissed, like seeing the sun for the first time after her eyesight was restored. Maybe it's a female thing. Her thoughts are a myriad of confused shouting and colour and light and life and she feels smooth fresh shoots push through her fingers and Misty's hand slides into her hair and pulls her closer, lips unrelenting and she thinks her chest is going to burst.

Then suddenly the lips are gone and the hand is gone and she gasps in a breath as all contact ceases and suddenly she's on her own again. Her eyes snap open and she's panting with the effort of remaining upright. She looks from Misty's eerily cool exterior, to the plant pot where her hand is still firmly planted, only lost in a tangle of shoots that have crept between her fingers and up into the air, flowering out into soft pink petals at the ends; a plant she had just created from virtually nothing.

Misty grins widely and there isn't a trace of embarrassment in her face. "See! Told ya!"

Cordelia plans to remind her that it was Misty's push that enabled her to do it, but the words catch in her throat, chest still heaving, as she glances between the young witch and the plant in amazement and confusion.

"You might wanna lie down, it usually takes it out of you, in my experience anyway. I told ya you could do it!" She says happily, before squeezing Cordelia's arm and skipping out of the greenhouse and into the academy.

Cordelia remains there, leaning heavily against the workbench, hand covered in soil, lips tingling wonderfully and staring in bemusement at the beautiful, alive flower.

"You ok, Delia?"

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm fine."

"You seem kinda off."

"No, I was just thinking."

"Oh. Good, because Madison and Fiona are threatening each other with bread knives and fire again."

"Crap, this Coven is insane…"

"Hey, I'm doing ok!"

"You brought home an undead frat boy. You're top of the high risk list."

"What about Misty? She keeps talking about how much she misses her alligators! At least Kyle isn't going to try to eat you every time you go for a bath."

"No, I'm not worried about Misty. She knows it would be too cruel to bring an innocent creature into this academy."

Cordelia has over analysed her entire life, hence she has a difficult time trying to slip back into the easy routine of the greenhouse and Stevie and Misty.

Misty does not. There is not an ounce of awkwardness in the girl, all vibrant and friendly and tactile as ever, and it isn't like she pretends that nothing has happened. No, she brings it up on several occasions. She gushes about Cordelia's ability and the way that in the end it had been her not Misty who had caused the flower to grow. Cordelia always falters slightly when conversation takes this turn, but she quickly realizes that Misty saw the kiss as a magical transaction, an educational experience and nothing more, and because of this, Cordelia decides to do likewise.

Fiona thinks Misty is the next Supreme. She could be, Cordelia decides. She has power like Cordelia has rarely seen. It's breath taking in its strength, but not in the raw and aggressive way of previous Supremes. Her mother, in a rare moment of kindness, makes Misty's dream come true, and Cordelia sits listening to the 80's white witch diva that is Stevie Nicks give Misty a personal rendition of "Rhiannon", and the girl has stars in her eyes and disbelief on her tongue and she sits beside her idol, motionless, adoring, and Cordelia finds it both touching and amusing. She is proud that Misty remains appreciative without being invasive, praising and conversing with applaudable restraint, and Cordelia can see the lonely young swamp dweller in her bursting, begging to be released and to flood Stevie with gratitude and adoration.

She's given a shawl and Cordelia reckons it will never leave her shoulders, she's hugging Stevie with such happiness and wonderment that the headmistress casts a glance at her mother, who watches with similar placidity and appreciation, and realises that she is grateful for something her mother has done for once, because look at the pure joy she's caused in one who really does deserve it after everything she's experienced in her few years.

And Misty spends as much time as possible with Stevie Nicks, not crushing or overwhelming, in fact after the initial tidal wave she has her emotions under control, simply talking and laughing with the woman who has been her anchor for so many years. Madison makes a request for Eminem, and Fiona bats it away, evidently deeming the movie star no longer a potential Supreme.

No, Fiona thinks she has found the witch who will take her place.

Cordelia isn't quite as certain, but she can't think of anyone who would want the position less, or anyone who would do a better job.

And then she goes missing.

Granted, she may have just floated off back to her swamp, but after the desperate search to belong somewhere, Cordelia is doubtful. There are other problems; bigger problems. Marie Laveau resides among them, Hank is a murderer and a witch hunter and dead and Cordelia is a fool. Her mother's terminal illness is put on hold as she allies with the voodoo queen to take down Hank's family company. Nan is dead, Queenie was dead, then alive and among them again, and there is a palpable tension betwixt Madison and Zoe that appears to be heavily related to Kyle, and could set off an explosion any day now. The Coven is in disarray, and Cordelia feels useless and clueless.

She has to do something, anything that will benefit the Coven in some way. Her second sight left when her primary sight returned and she is actively avoiding her mother, wanting to help but being dismissed as an idiot for falling in love. It seems anything positive is too good to be true.

Misty. She has to find Misty. That's a good place to start. She needs to keep the Coven at close ranks, keep them together. She realises that after the allegiance with Maria Laveau and the upcoming termination of the witch hunters, the greatest threat now is from within, hiding in plain sight, as her mother had said. Bringing everyone closer and closer together could set it all off, as questions of the next Supreme get louder and louder. However, she decides that sticking together might discourage any rash actions between the girls who are not quite friends.

She has no idea where to start.

She can't remember if it hurt more with acid or by her own hands.

Both times she had thought that nothing could ever be more painful than what she was experiencing, but the second time she loses her sight, it's self-inflicted.

She feels blood trickling past her fingers as she howls into her hands. She rubs the mixture she created to stop infection over the damaged area and she's sobbing and shrieking and she can't see anything and it's done, it's over, she is blind again. What's left of her eyes feels unnatural and mangled and she is cruelly proud of herself for finally being brave and going through with it.

When she touches Madison later, she sees nothing.

She feels hot skin and what she thinks might be a panic-elevated pulse thudding beneath, but nothing else. She's still blind. Blind to the world and to truth. It was all for nothing.

Where are you? Tell me where you are.

The scent of summer flowers and hot afternoons and freshly watered soil fills her nose and she breathes in deeper, absorbing each tendril of personality from the shawl. She can see her, a blurred outline, a shadow, a whisper, but she is there, singing softly and sadly to herself. Cordelia can only see the outline of a familiar profile, darkness, and the heart-breaking singing of Stevie Nicks in a voice softer and younger and sweeter.

She's alive, she's trapped, and that's all Cordelia knows. Finding Misty would be the first step to getting the Coven back into some sort of normalcy. An enclosed space isn't enough to go on though.

The prick of her finger, the sting and the blood that soothes it, the sensation drags her closer. She lets Misty's earring fall from her hand as blood drips onto the floor below where she is kneeling and a vision swims before her once more.

There. I'm coming. I'll find you.

There is infinite relief as she feels familiar arms wrap round her once more, crushing her to a thin, willowy body with a palpable desperation for reassurance. Queenie had done well, but only half the job. Misty had been on the brink of death, but not yet there, she kept herself alive, channelled her own resurgence energy.

Cordelia doesn't intervene as Misty launches herself at Madison and beats the shit out of her, and she really wishes she still had her sight, because it's something she has wanted to see for a long time now. Kyle drags them apart before any serious damage can be caused, Misty still fuming and swiping and Madison with her metaphorical tail between her legs.

Cordelia can't help but break the unspoken agreement concerning time spent together being really just in the greenhouse. She is dependent again, blind again, and Misty doesn't have any complaints about helping her. She seems to want simply to reassert that she is alive and attempt to repay her saviour in whatever way she can. Cordelia wants simply to reassert that Misty is here and she's safe and she has seriously got to be more careful with her students.

The swamp witch leads her carefully to her office, sits her down and makes sure her cane is within reach. Cordelia is hesitant at first, but soon slips into instructing Misty on what to put where and what to sort into which pile and what paperwork needs signing and what needs shredding. Mundane office tasks, but it rekindles a sense of normalcy.

Cordelia is explaining a section of her filing system when she senses that she has lost her audience. She feels Misty's presence beside her, and then a calloused fingertip finds her cheek, tracing feather-light touches over the angry red skin around mauled eyes.

"It's gotta hurt somethin' awful." Misty murmurs. She is close, Cordelia feels, her face level with her own.

"It was necessary. My Second Sight helped the Coven more than my primary sight did."

Misty makes no comment on this, but a single fingertip turns into both hands, gently holding Cordelia's face, thumbs brushing under her cheekbones. Cordelia remains still and strangely calm. She reckons there is little left to be ashamed of.

She feels Misty's skin warm up against her own, and the dull, throbbing pain in her eyes lessens considerably, transmuting into a background ache. Finger trace damaged skin softly for a moment before withdrawing.

"Thank you." Cordelia says, and her voice comes out breathier than she had anticipated, and she convinces herself it's just from disbelief at this ability she never knew Misty possessed.

"It's the least I can do. I thought I was gonna spend eternity in that box, I was certain of it. And I would've. No one cares about me enough to actually come lookin' for me, just you, Miss Cordelia, and that's strange for me." She feels her move closer, a hand covering her own on the armrest of her chair, she neither stiffens nor relaxes. "I can't thank you enough, but I'm gonna try. I'll do whatever it takes."

Cordelia finds an unexpected smile tugging at her lips. "You're alive, you're back with your fellow witches where you belong, you're ok, and that's all I need, Misty. You don't have to thank me, I'd do it again, any decent person would."

The pause that follows implies that Misty's thinking how to phrase what she wants to say next, but ultimately fails, moving away and continuing the organising she'd been doing on behalf of the headmistress, humming contently to herself.

She isn't certain if her Second Sight has returned or not.

She sees truth in fragmentations, in glimmering mirages that come and go. Dreams are an issue; she doesn't sleep much at all due to the constant noise in her head when she does.

She sees beautiful and horrible things. Things she knows cannot be prophetic, but things that are disconcerting none the less. She sees Hank coming back to finish off what he started, experiences him murdering her Coven and making her watch before he puts a bullet in her head. She sees Fiona taking a child from its mother and offering it to a voodoo spirit, but she also sees her mother bringing a stillborn back to life, tears streaming from vacant eyes, the joyous disbelief of the mother who thought she was not a mother, as Cordelia's mother walks away, not even casting a glance back at the wonderful gift she has bestowed. She sees Madison killing her stage manager, and sees her being battered by the press on all sides, she feels the trepidation the movie star did when she walked up the path towards Robichaux's for the first time. She sees a bizarre sequence involving Zoe, Kyle and Madison, sharing him like a toy, secretly fighting for affection, bickering constantly, then forgetting everything when they tangle together, Kyle blending momentarily into the background. She feels the boy's frustration at being trapped inside his own mind, not remembering who he is, unable to express his torment. She sees Misty and her swamp shack and feels her society's betrayal like a knife in her back, the rope is coarse and the fire is scorching. She sees Misty gazing longingly out of her bedroom window at the moon hanging over the academy, sees her trying to bake a cake for the first time with mixed results, sees her sobbing pitifully over a tiny mouse she had killed by accident, mourning before breathing life back into it. She sees her spinning Cordelia round the academy; through the greenhouse and empty halls and out into the garden, the warming sound of Fleetwood Mac serenading them in their dance, Misty pulling her closer and closer, herself going willingly, twisting a blonde curl round her finger in curiosity, Misty's mouth falling to her neck, the sensation of soft lips and a warm tongue against her throat as they sway gently together. She sees Nan painting a scene from one of her books, Nan and Queenie playing cards, a game that turns into a bloodbath, she sees Queenie leading Marie Laveau to their doorstep, only to have them both hang themselves over the porch. The images are tangled and she thinks some are probably true, some are the result of paranoia, and some of her active imagination, perhaps mundane everyday observations of the past being twisted and distorted into something grotesque.

Either way, the blackness of consciousness is more comforting.

So much happens in so little time.

Nan is still dead. Queenie is not so dead. Misty is back. Kyle and Zoe are back. Fiona is dead. Marie Laveau is dead. And the Supreme must arise.

The Seven Wonders are approaching with the sunrise and she never thought she could feel so much trepidation for a single event.

She cannot sleep; of course not. Her mother is dead. The thought brings her peace; a sick and twisted and cruel peace. The weight has been lifted, the crippling resentment and expectations gone forever. The scars left by her mother's tactless and frankly heartless abuse will never leave, however. She will carry her mother's disappointment with her until her death.

The Coven has changed so much within the past few months, the most hectic of Cordelia's short life. First it almost doubled in size, and now it is small once more. There have been numerous deaths, numerous resurrections, several betrayals, heartbreaks, surprises, agonies, happy moments, fearful moments; she doesn't think a single group of people has ever lived so much within such a short space of time.

She sits in bed. She would read but she cannot. She would work but she physically cannot. She can barely turn the light off, and really, what's the point anyway? It wouldn't make a difference to her. The twisting nausea in her stomach is worsened by her lack of sight. She can barely sit still through nerves and anticipation of the morning that creeps ever closer.

She's so anxious she doesn't fully register the knock on the door, nor the hesitant entrance of a figure after they receive no conformation or denial from the headmistress. It isn't until footsteps approach considerably closer that she drags herself out of haunted thoughts.

"Miss Cordelia? It's me."

A sad smile graces her lips. Of course, why should she be nervous? She is in no danger. If she is this bad, she can't imagine how gnawing it must be for the girls.

She offers a small nod and feels the mattress sink under Misty's weight next to her. She says nothing, her relationship with the young swamp witch is undefined and she'd like to keep it that way. She would consider them friends, and she's never really had friends, then again Misty probably hasn't either. It is an odd companionship though, they can go from icy acquaintances to overly amiable touches and exclamations in seconds, and it's more than a little confusing, but rather wonderful. She knows Misty would not even consider trying to pigeonhole their friendship, she probably just takes it as it comes and accepts it fully for what it has become, but Cordelia has always been formulaic and she can't help but analyse her reactions to the girl, and their fluctuating, confusing and occasionally inappropriate nature.

Ring-adorned fingers entwine with her own, and she simply holds Misty's hand and says nothing still, offering silent support, as that's all the use she is going to be right now.

"Miss Cordelia, I'm scared." The statement sounds like a plea; a terrified, understated plea for help or salvation or understanding. It creeps past rose petal lips in a restrained and uncertain tone that is unusual for the girl, and it wrenches at Cordelia's stomach and twists an area in her that is worryingly close to her heart. "I'm scared as hell and don't know what to do."

She holds Misty's hand tighter, tugging her arm closer to her, realising, since Hank's death, just how much she has missed intimate human contact, and something as simple as another's fingers entwined with hers fills a hole in her…maybe not fills, but soothes anyhow.

"I ain't the Supreme, I know it. I ain't cut out for leadership. I ain't strong enough to get through this, and I'm so scared, 'cause I have a bad feeling I ain't gonna make it out the other side."

There's a tremble in her voice, Cajun accent so soft and humble and hypnotising. She leans into Cordelia slightly.

"Misty, I don't want to hear such negative thoughts." Cordelia begins carefully. "Not from you. You're the only girl who isn't begging to be allowed to attempt the Seven Wonders, the only girl who isn't using foul play and sabotage to get what she wants, because you don't want it. You don't want to lead because you're scared you will damage the Coven, an attitude that would be extremely beneficial in a leader; to sacrifice glory for the sake of your sisters. That's leadership, Misty. That's the compassion this Coven so desperately needs."

She feels Misty's hair tickle her bare forearm as the swamp witch shakes her head. "I'm weak. I couldn't protect 'em like they deserve to be protected. I couldn't' hurt a fly without healin' it, let alone wage war to keep my Coven safe. I ain't even got all the skills mastered. It feels like I'm walkin' to my doom, Miss Cordelia."

Cordelia shifts towards her, initiating her pep-talk mode. She knows she shouldn't have a preference; they're all her girls, all under her protection, but she can't help that she's rooting for Misty, of course she is, the girl is light and hope and a warm heart is what the Coven needs.

"You are not defenceless, Misty. You can take care of yourself, as you so graciously demonstrated on Madison." She supresses a smirk at the memory, still regretting that she didn't actually see it. "You're tough, a survivor. You healed yourself and brought yourself back after being burnt at the stake. That is the most incredible thing I've ever heard. You have amazing power, and yes it needs some polishing, but it's there, inside you, growing everyday. You survived on your own when the world was against you and you were completely alone. Well you aren't alone anymore, Misty. You have a family now, a tribe, despite how dysfunctional it is. And I don't care what the other girls think they can pull on you, they can't, because I won't let them. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I made a promise when you sought safety here, and I intend to keep it. I will stand by your side through the Seven Wonders, and indeed if you ascend to be the Supreme. I'm not going anywhere, I'm not turning my back, I'm not turning against you. I'm here. And I believe in you and your abilities." She squeezes her hand tighter, turning her face away from the swamp witch beside her. "You shine, Misty Day, and your light is enough to blind everyone else in this goddamn sick world, just as it has me."

Misty's thumb brushes methodically over the back of Cordelia's hand, and she feels the girl shift closer, and wishes she could just see her expression, see if she's done something right.

The hand leaves her own, only to slide up to her bare shoulder. Misty pulls herself against her, the front of Misty's body pressed against the side of Cordelia's. She feels her head rest on her shoulder, breath against her throat as Misty nuzzles into her neck slightly, forehead against Cordelia's jaw. She accepts the contact completely, turning her face to brush her lips against the top of the girl's head, inhaling her unique, floral smell that reminds her of the greenhouse and Stevie Nicks and the desperate search to find her after she went missing.

They don't say anything, Cordelia hopes she has said enough, said the right thing. She turns on her side slightly to face Misty better and, God, she'd give anything for her sight back now, to look upon golden curls and endless, enigmatic eyes lined with more kohl than perhaps necessary. This is definitely inappropriate, she thinks, the girl is basically a student, practically one of her girls, and so young and so innocent seeming, but cannot bring herself to care even a little bit. It feels horribly final, like a goodbye, waving off the enchanting swamp witch she barely knows into the big, scary, unknown world of death and revenge. Her hand slips across to hold a fistful of Misty's skirt, anchoring herself to something solid. Hands have drifted up her neck to cradle her face in a reiteration of the occurrence in her office, and they trace the headmistress' cheekbones and jawline and nose and the curve under her lips, like the very structure of her face fascinates the younger witch.

"I hate what you did to yourself…" Misty murmurs, her voice is husky and quiet, like she's worried of shattering whatever it is that is happening.

"I had to." Cordelia whispers back, feeling rather self-conscious all of a sudden behind unseeing eyes that must be anything but pretty. I had to find you.

She feels the swamp witch press a compulsive kiss to her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose, and she exhales shakily.

"You ain't worthless, Miss Cordelia." Misty says so quietly she may as well have mouthed it. "I know you think you are, but Fiona don't know shit. You're the only one here worth more than I could ever give." Her voice is heavy with what Cordelia thinks must be staved-off tears. It wavers with her next statement; "And I never thought I'd have a home…"

And she thinks her heart breaks a little for this witch and her beautiful gift and beautiful face and beautiful soul, the witch whose situation was even worse than Cordelia's, who was left by everyone she knew, murdered and abandoned and shamed, and who dragged herself back up out of the ashes and started again. And it just made her kinder.

When Misty presses another desperate kiss to her cheek, she thinks she is probably to blame for turning her face in an invitation. Misty takes initiative and she feels lips against hers, softly, quickly, not cautious, just restrained and simple and mournful. Lips repeatedly brush over her own, never lingering too long, not fully committing, in a manner that is brutally innocent and almost impolite in its politeness. Cordelia wants to pull her closer, to kiss her until she's exhausted, to bite her lip and tangle their tongues and forget that they're going to have to face reality and morning at some point. But Misty's scared, and either completely sure of what she's doing or not sure at all, and Cordelia doesn't know what's happening or what she's feeling, just that Misty lingers slightly longer and kisses slightly harder and Cordelia is bemused by her self-restraint at this point. She lets the girl's earthy scent and soft skin placate her, relaxes under her touch, and she can feel Misty's lips pull away then hover millimetres away from her own, foreheads touching, noses brushing, and she's self conscious of her eyes and God she doesn't want anything to happen to this girl and she doesn't know how any of this happened.

"Misty…" The girl leans down and rests her head against Cordelia's chest, tucked under her chin. The headmistress has the impression that she is listening to her heartbeat, and hopes that she can't tell just how erratic it is at the moment.

"You ain't gotta worry about what it looks like. I can't see nothin' but the goodness in your soul." She wonders if Misty can see her thoughts through a recently developed ability, or if she's just perceptive and Cordelia is just obvious. "I'm gonna try, Miss Cordelia, really try. And then your sacrifice won't be for nothin'."

"I'd do it a hundred times over." She manages, and the connotations are blindingly obvious. If it meant I got you back.

She wraps weary arms around the swamp witch and pulls her closer, relishing in the contact she assures herself is simply due to a severe lack of it in the past few months/years/her whole life, but she has a suspicion it is this contact that she doesn't want to part with just yet.

Misty's lips press gently against her pulse point and she tells herself that she will absolutely not start blubbering or gushing or trembling through fear or regret or heartbreak or loneliness or anything else. She'll be brave, be the headmistress Misty, and indeed all her girls, deserve. She'll stay strong and unmoving, helping them through this, but not interfering. She'll be the rock she's always tried to be.

She hopes that will be enough.

Sequere lucem…

Venite ad me…

Please

Follow my voice…

We're all waiting for you…

Please

Come back to me…

Misty…

Sequere lucem…

Venite ad me…

She believes she knew from the moment the words were uttered.

The hollow cavern inside her chest became suddenly a lot more claustrophobic and, though remaining unmoved externally, she knew something was amiss. She clutched her cane tighter, hearing four distinctly different voices chant the same Latin, felt Myrtle guide her to her seat, and sat still, doing nothing, on the sidelines, not even able to spectate. She doesn't think she would have wanted to anyway.

This dread is the most horrific mix of positive and negative emotions. She feels worry, anxiety, fear but also hope, which is deadlier than the other three put together. Her stomach turns and twists, her heart thudding and she can't explain why. A bad feeling. Bad vibes. She cannot describe it.

Yet, she knows something is wrong.

It is fitting, she supposes. If it was going to happen any other way, it would not be quite so poignant, nor would it be as effective. It takes an ultimatum, a terrific feat of willingness to look one's ghosts straight in the eye to escape, to claim her. And there is a certain poetry it.

She disregarded Myrtle's instructions hours ago. It has been hours, she thinks, it must have been. The others are back and shaken and jumpy, all playing it off as nothing yet all trembling and terrified at what may wait for them when their time inevitably comes. They disperse, dealing with it in their own way. She cannot be certain who has stayed, the silence is empty and emotionless.

The worry in her gut has transmuted to genuine fear when all returned but her. She refused to move, remaining firmly seated; a silent and entirely useless sentinel. The night wore on, shadows shifted in front of unseeing eyes until she couldn't take it anymore. Sun-up got closer and closer and she got weaker and weaker.

She asked for no help, asked for nothing, made no comment, simply slid to her knees and crawled across the cold carpet until hands reached softness in the rigidity. The fabric held a memory, sparse and unclear, fragments of blue eyes and green stems. She clung to it as she reached forward, feeling her way across the stationary form, growing ever colder. Her fingers ghosted down the dip of a neck, and up to slip across stoic features, lips cold, eyes closed. She shifted closer, touching skin, seeking a spirit to hint, a soul to rekindle.

We have to help her…

That was hours ago. Since then she'd thrown away her mask and abandoned the delusion that this witch was another student. She'd lifted her head into her lap, running fingers through tangled curls and wishing and wishing that she could see.

And hours creep on and she doesn't return. Her body doesn't shoot back into action. Her eyes don't snap open. She doesn't even stir. Cordelia's heart is locked in a vice, and she's afraid that one false shift in any direction could crush it beyond repair. Not like this, not there, not forever. Please, it isn't fair, I should've – If I'd just –.

Her muscles seize up and her throat closes in on itself and she can hear murmuring behind her in the hallway but doesn't care enough to wonder what it's saying. Her grip gets more desperate, hands holding the young – so young – witch's face, stroking over arms and tangling firmly in wild hair. She had promised. She had promised that it would be alright and that she would be there and she would never let anything happen to her, never let her be alone again. But she is alone, alone in that massive world of unknown and eternal torment, alone because Fiona neglected once again what was her duty and had not identified her successor, alone because Cordelia had let this happen. Well she won't let it continue. There must be very little time left now, and she isn't about to let the swamp witch die on her.

She pulls Misty into her arms and encloses her in her grip, keeping her close and safe and where she belongs. She whispers incantations, whatever she can think of, attempting to get through to her. Sand slips and time passes and nothing happens and she's chanting more forcefully now and when exactly did she start crying? She doesn't know, but a steady stream of tears slip from ruined eyes down her cheeks and fall onto the prone form in her arms and she can't stop, losing control all over again. She's begging into Misty's hair now, pleading with her to return, to fight, to keep fighting even though she's been doing it for so long and exhaustion is no doubt weighing her down.

She remembers how tactile the girl is, this never ending longing for human contact, for a simple brush of skin, anything that indicates that someone is there. She remembers hands taking hers with only momentary hesitation when they first met, the unusual intimacy of hand holding in the greenhouse that Cordelia accepted, but never fully committed to. She feels the hole in her heart deepen once more; this girl wanted family that didn't hate, wanted a home that didn't fear, a society that didn't discriminate. She wanted simply to be accepted as something she had resented, but ultimately accepted herself as part of her since the day she first coaxed a bluebottle back into existence. She wanted someone to see her gift as tolerable, perhaps even interesting, and not something to punish. She never asked for more, never got caught in the glare of her own power like some of the other girls, never asked for the praise and awe her extraordinary ability inspired in people, or should have inspired in people. She didn't even know how unique her magic was, how wonderful her ability was, how strong and good her soul was. Cordelia sobs harder at the thought of this girl's desperate search for acceptance, never even considering that she might deserve anything more than tolerance.

She makes up for lost physical contact now, arms enveloping, pulling the swamp witch as close as possible and not giving a shit about what it looks like. Let them assume, she doesn't care and they're probably right anyway. She doesn't halt her incantations, doesn't slow or stammer or falter, the Latin progresses at the steady rate of tears, voice shaking, body trembling, heart begging. Please, Misty. Please.

And then time is up.

She's run out of time.

They both have.

And she hears Myrtle confirm it and she wants to look upon Misty's face, just once more, just for a second, one last time, it would be enough anyway. She imagines it's serene, the vision of natural beauty stemming and flowering from a heart entrenched in the valuing of life. She could cry over her failure, over her hopelessness and utter uselessness to her girls, her own wretched lack of ability that has let this happen. She could cry over her mother's screaming and venomous words, Hank's betrayal and now this tragedy being the final straw.

She could cry for her own broken heart.

But doesn't give a shit about herself or her own self-pity anymore.

So she weeps for Misty, over Misty, for wasted potential and unrecognised talent, for life lost and dreams never dreamt, for someone amazing who nobody seemed to ever see as such, for a girl now thrice lost, the essence of life and peace, simple and stunning and tragic and it's too soon, too unfair, too sudden. Her body turns to ash in Cordelia's arms and she can barely gasp out breath between wracking sobs.

She's left cradling empty air.

She thinks perhaps she's truly stupid. She thinks perhaps there's maybe hope and all is not lost. She thinks perhaps she's entirely blind. She thinks perhaps she has fallen in love with Misty Day. She feels it claw at her, tearing her heart from the inside out. Screw "perhaps", she must have been in love with Misty Day. That is the only explanation. Trust her to leave it too late. Misty had loved her, of course; she had loved everyone. She had shown it in every gesture and smile and word spoken. She will never tell her. It had taken her disappearing into nothing in her embrace for her to finally figure it out.

The true weight of what she has lost crushes Cordelia into the carpet.

In a twist that no one saw coming, Cordelia is the Supreme.

It happens so quickly. Zoe's dead in the blink of an eye and the temporal shift of her body, impaled on the gate like a rabbit in a trap. Kyle's agony and desperate cries are something Cordelia feels innately in the part of her that can relate entirely.

Madison refuses to bring her back. God help them all if she is the Supreme, refusing to save the life of the girl that fought so hard to give her her own back. Then again, Madison also attempted to bury alive the witch who had physically brought her back to life because she feared she was competition. Talk about ingratitude, the girl's heart is as black as Delphine LaLaurie's, only she does not discriminate; she hates everyone equally.

And then Queenie can't do it and it looks like Madison is the Supreme and the spirit of the Coven plummets and they all haven't slept all night and fatigue and melancholy weighs down the walls and the white looks glaring and the black looks endless and this guilt bubbles under an icy cool exterior, and she knows she should be worrying about her Coven, and she is, but she's just trying to keep it together and not break down again.

"Man, she's hit hard." Comments Queenie, in a tone that is almost sympathetic.

"Well, what did you expect?" Madison throws back. "She was hoping her little girlfriend was the Supreme so we could all run around wearing flower crowns and twirling barefoot in the garden and bringing birds back to life while we're attacked from all sides. Too bad dear Misty wasn't the Supreme."

"Or maybe she just cares about all of us and doesn't like it when we die?"

Madison snorts in dismissal. "Come on, Queenie. Did you see her blubbering her heart out when Zoe died?"

"Zoe isn't stuck in Hell…"

"God, you're as blind as she is! Those lesbians were planning the future of this fucking Coven as if we didn't exist. Well, serves them right, I say."

"Cordelia isn't gay."

"Her ex-husband is enough to put anyone off men, I'm sure. She totally had the hots for that swamp bitch."

"Well then it's sad. Have a heart, bitch."

Madison laughs as she lights her cigarette. "I don't give a shit anymore. There's no one else to compete. You're looking at your Supreme."

Whether or not Myrtle heard this exchange is immaterial, but she recognises fairly quickly that either the world has a sick sense of humour/a personal vendetta against this Coven, or Madison could not be the Supreme with such a cold heart. She gives Cordelia a push she didn't know she needed. She steps up to the Seven Wonders with a detached determination to save what's left of her sisterhood from the Supremacy of Madison Montgomery.

And she succeeds.

Zoe jolts back into life and Kyle is sobbing with gratitude and suddenly everything goes very black very quickly.

And then not so black.

The bitter irony is lost on no one.

The girl that spent her whole life belittled and ignored as a result of being the disappointingly average daughter of the Supreme.

She wonders what her mother would say if she saw her now.

She doesn't have to wonder for long.

Her mother dies in her arms and she can't say she's heartbroken. She's already lost her once, what little regret she may have had is already filtered away. She thinks Fiona is proud of her, at least a little. Of course, the poisonous woman resents her own daughter for draining her of her life force, but at least her only offspring, the one remnant of herself she will leave on Earth, has amounted to something at last. The basis for her appreciation is purely egotistical, as to be expected.

But Cordelia feels truly free, and perhaps like she and her mother have come to some sort of terms with each other in a rare moment of tenderness that actually counted for something.

And when Cordelia looks in the mirror, she does not see a feeble copy of her mother, in fact, the shadow of her mother has finally vanished, and her reflection is just that; her reflection. She is shimmering and beautiful, a vision of elegant serenity and quietly destructive power humming around her, practically glowing in white blonde hair and returned, glittering eyes. She will shoulder the burden gladly, and with grace and kindness, rather than terror and apathy.

Myrtle demands to be burned again. She refuses to be reasoned with, simply stating that it must be done, and Cordelia has no choice. Her composure slips as red material goes up in flames and the sound of her adoptive mother's screams claw at her ears. It is a loss she mourns more than she ever could her birth mother's, and a death she will carry in her heart, heavy with grief, but not guilt.

And now the past is past, the new era the Coven enters under her guidance promises prosperity, and Queenie and Zoe become her council, possibly the youngest ever, and the academy is packed to the rafters and witches are done hiding and are finally stepping into the sun from century after century of shadows and fear. The last toxic ghost of what the Coven used to be vanishes, and Cordelia is finally free to start afresh, burdenless, confident and supreme.

Of course it isn't that simple.

Because she misses her. Time passes and the pain does not lessen. The Supremacy tastes bitter because it's built on her loss. The world got suddenly brighter once all that passed, but it's still noticeable duller. She misses Stevie Nicks renditions on lazy afternoons, and clumsy footfalls outside her door. She misses the wild blonde girl with the dazed, dreamy expression and the flyaway curls and the guiltless smile who twirls and sings and is both within nature and just outside it, flowering inside yet controlling above. Cordelia misses her days, her heart and her life being that little bit lighter, that little bit more alive and colourful. The witch lived up to her power in that she brought things once dead back to life, but not just in the literal sense.

So as the Coven bustles around her and dawns get brighter and life gets better, she is filled with sorrow, but soon afterwards, determination, a kind of fierce determination of the Supreme that cannot be quelled, only achieved.

She will find Misty Day.

She will bring her back to this world, as she had done for so many when she was alive, where she belongs.

She will do whatever it takes, however long it takes, and whatever she must give.

Because she loves her, even now, and she doesn't think she will stop any time soon. Because her sisters need her. Because the world doesn't need people like Misty Day, it needs Misty Day.

Because she knows what crushing blackness feels like, and she will do anything to get her light back.