The house has that Sunday morning hush, a golden peace and he feels a little guilty for breaking it so he moves softly, fingers skimming over the countertop of the kitchen sink. He swipes a jar of jam off the table, fiddling with the lid. Herbs and half empty pots sit on the table, she must have been potting them before going to bed. Magic thrums through the air, like music and it makes his hair stand on end. From what he has gathered Abby Bennett is weak in magic but he knows that can change. He does not want any trouble, unless she wants to play, he just wants to know the whereabouts of one Bonnie Bennett, whose presence is so well cloaked not even he can find her.
Bonnie. Even the thought of her name sends a flash of something white hot through him, so intense he can't tell if it's rage or something sweeter. Probably a mix of the two. It's been four years since he was fished out of a New York harbour half dead, four years he has been comatose until two weeks ago when suddenly all his faculties came back like someone had flipped a switch.
Four years since 1903...Kai shakes his head, which buzzes with a white noise, and looks up when another noise catches his attention. He walks forward, tapping his fingers against the jam jar. Two children sit on the floor before a television set, their small slippered feet folded under them. Kai frowns, he hadn't known that Abby had anymore children. Their backs to him they are so engrossed in the cartoon that they don't hear him. The two girls are dressed in pyjamas, one depicting sunrays and rainbows, the other moonbeams and shooting stars and he smiles when they start to sing along softly, wiggling a little.
The crack of the jam jar opening makes them turn in unison. They are around three and identical. Bright green eyes peer at him curiously but when they see his fingers in the jam jar the girl in purple wrinkles her nose.
"That's unhygienic," she struggles to get the words out, a slight lisp on her tongue. Adorable.
"Not if you're the only one eating it moonbeam," he answers playfully and the other twin, who he has already christened sunbeam, is clearly a little more reserved. She takes her sister's hand and gets to her feet.
"Are you here to see our mommy?"
"I am but I'll wait. I want to surprise her," he grins at the twin in sunshine yellow, who seems to soften. He offers the jam jar to them and they giggle.
Abby belts her dressing gown closed and stretches, eyeing the street below quickly before heading down to make breakfast. She hears the faint crackle of the television and the twins laughter and smiles but it dims a little when she hears a man's laughter too.
Must be the weather man...
The girls are always up with the sun, Celia neatly making her bed while Amelia usually gives it a cursory glance before skipping after her twin. Abby thinks she'll come down one morning and they would have made the breakfast for her.
Now I wouldn't put anything past them. The things they could do...she sighs, remembering recently when she had awoken during the heat of summer to find snow falling into their garden and only their garden. That's what you got for having Frozen playing on a loop…
"Lucky it wasn't the entire state," she mummers, rounding the corner as the twins talk animatedly to each other, or so she had thought. At first nothing seems amiss but then she glances at the wildflower patterned wallpaper and does a double take. The green stalks sway as if caught in a breeze and a flock of birds that have previously been frozen for the last decade are now migrating North.
"That's so cool!" Celia says excitedly and Abby smiles, shaking her head as she comes into the kitchen as painted petals flutter in her wake.
"The wallpaper is alive girls, wallpaper tends to not -"
Abby stalls, eyes going wide. A man is leaning against the sink, the twins sitting on top of the table before him. His hands trace through the air and with every movement of his fingers the wallpaper stirs. His eyes flick to her and he grins.
"Oops."
"Who the hell are you?!"
"Granny! This is our friend!" Amelia says, smiling at the man, already half in love. Whoever he is he's got magic and she had not even felt his presence. As she rushes to them the man blinks in confusion.
"Granny? You - you're their grandmother?" he looks back at the twins, his gaze intense and his hands drop slowly, the petals and swallows freezing. "I thought they…" he loses his voice and his now oddly desperate eyes flick between them. A cold dread floods through Abby as she realises who the man is, a man they had been sure was long dead.
Abby, who now wishes with all her soul that she had never taken the Cure, places herself before the girls. "Get. Out."
"Where's Bonnie?" his voice shudders, as if all the air has escaped.
"Right here," a vicious voice says and Kai has no time to react as a pair of hands clamp onto his head and he buckles to the ground without a sound. Bonnie, coming in from her nightshift, pants above him, her eyes crazed. Those eyes flick to her mother, who has each twin pressed to her. They remain in silence, Bonnie's ragged breathing filling the air until Abby finds her voice.
"It's him, isn't it? What - what do we do?"
Bonnie looks at Malachai Parker at her feet, her mouth twisting until her beautiful face becomes something awful. The twins gaze sadly down at him through the crook of their grandmother's arms.
"He made the birds fly…"
a.n: Hey Bonkai shippers! Very new to this ship but it's got me good! I plan to switch every few chapters to show what happened in 1903 and how they got out and to this scene in the present and what they decide to do with Kai.
Hope you'll enjoy what's to come :)
