I don't own it. End of story.
The man climbed the hill slowly. No matter how many times he scaled it, the slope always seemed to tax him with everything it had. But the woman waiting at the top made it worth it.
She turned to see who was coming to meet her, and his heart swelled at the mere sight of her. Her hair was pulled up in a snood with only the pale bangs escaping over her forehead. The sight sent a wave of longing through him; he wished that he had enough time to pull it free and run his hands through the long tresses that were bundled up underneath the knitting.
Her dress was a simple gray outfit with a pleated collar and black buttons, but the dimmed fabric made her skin radiate with inner warmth. He wanted to admonish her for wearing hosiery, but reminded himself that this wasn't the 1940s anymore—nylon wasn't needed in this day and age.
She caught sight of him and her blue eyes lit up radiantly. She smiled and threw out her arms as he began to run. He caught her up in a tight embrace, burying his face in her neck and taking care not to cut her delicate skin with his magnifying glasses.
"My darling, how I've missed you these last few months," he murmured against her skin, feeling her quickening pulse beneath his lips. She sighed happily, her arms nearly cutting his air supply as she crushed his body into hers.
"Avondale," she whispered blissfully. "I thought you wouldn't come today." He chuckled and untangled himself from her arms, but didn't dare let her go. She was so light and frail—he almost worried that if he released her, she'd float away like some phantom image in a fairy story.
"Why would you think that?" he admonished, pinching her cheek and laughing when she blushed. "I would never miss one precious moment—the minute I'm able to get away from my work, I'll always be running to your arms."
"He works you too hard," she insisted, running her hands up his neck. One cupped his cheek while the other worked itself into his hair, mussing the neat strands he'd brushed so carefully. He didn't mind in the slightest; when it came to his beloved Evelyne, he'd allow her to touch him anywhere she pleased. His entire being belonged to no other but her. "I hate that you spend so much time there. I wish that you'd find another job; I don't like what that Major is doing. He's—"
He silenced her, his fingers on her mouth as he shook his head sadly.
"You know why I must do this," he argued gently, and her eyes filled with tears. His heart clenched; he'd rather face the fires of Hell a thousand times over than do anything to make her cry. "Be patient, liebchen. I'm so close to a breakthrough." She shut her eyes, shaking her head and he pulled her close again. "I promise, as soon as a find a cure for Elke I'll find a way to leave."
She sniffed and hid her face inside his lab coat, ignoring the bloodstains. He petted her head, his other arm snaking around to rub her back soothingly. After a moment of silence he turned the conversation away from such helpless topics. "How is my little mausi? You haven't spoken a word about her yet."
"She's still so pale, Avon." Evelyne pulled away from him, wiping her eyes as she gained her composure. "I'm afraid the air is too chilly for her on that cliff. It doesn't seem to do any good; she always says to me "Mama, I'm so tired." It breaks my heart." She sniffed. "She also asks for you. She wants you to come to live with us."
"Don't worry, my love." He brushed the platinum bangs from her forehead. "The seaside air will do her good, just like I told you. And you tell her that when I'm through, you both will be coming back to live with me here in the city. I'll take her on a zeppelin ride, and she can see the world from the sky just like a bird!" he beamed. "Won't that be wonderful?"
"Those zeppelins can be dangerous," his wife protested, but she was smiling too and he knew that if their daughter would ask to be taken on a ride, she would never say no. Their darling Elke, thirteen years old and already so weak… they both would give anything for her health. That's why he had her snuck away to the seaside, but more importantly: out of the country where being an invalid was a death sentence.
"Nonsense," he brushed off her fears. "I'm taking one to England to-night, and I assure you I'm more than certain that I'll get there in one piece." She looked thoughtful for a moment.
"I should like to see England," she said at length. "I've heard the moors are very beautiful and wild country."
"My darling, the English are our enemy," he reminded. "Their moors do not matter in the slightest. Besides," he continued, kissing her cheek softly, "you have to stay here. No family allowed on board, Major's orders."
"Please," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I wouldn't step on a zeppelin to save my life. I'd rather go by boat."
"Or just not go at all, until our mission is complete." She huffed and then gently touched one of the magnified lenses of his glasses.
"Take those off, Avon. I don't like not being able to see your eyes. You look frightening with them on." He obliged her, tucking the extra lenses down and sliding the compacted glasses into the pocket of his lab coat. She tugged him down until their foreheads touched.
"I miss you when you're gone."
"I know; I miss you too. I hate that we can't be together." She worked her fingers through his hair, pressing herself as close as she could get. "I'll be happy when this talk of war is over, and we can come home again."
"Don't worry liebchen. I'll make every sacrifice; I'll do anything, in order to get my two darling girls home safe and sound. The sea can't have you forever, now can it?" She giggled and he remembered the way she used to look, back when they first met.
"You still remind me of that beautiful girl I saw riding her bicycle," he noted. She blushed, the pink hues of her cheeks making her eyes all the more cerulean.
"I remember you, too. That strapping young man that offered to walk me to school. You always were the best in your form." He smiled good-naturedly.
"Don't you listen to my bosses? I am brilliant, I am a genius!" he mimicked their pompous, overly excited tones. "Of course I'd be first in my form." She smacked him playfully on the arm, rattling his name badge. She unclipped it and fixed it before smoothing the bloody lab coat and grooming him, picking the dust and grass that had attached itself to him on the walk up.
"Must you go?" she asked quietly, her eyes downcast as she continued to clean him up. "Must you? England is far away from me, from Elke."
"Yes, I'm afraid I must," he answered, voice solemn. "I'll try to come back as quick as I can, and then I'll have the cure and we'll be a family again. I promise." He leaned in to kiss her, his breath catching with unshed tears in his throat. He hated being separated like this; he wasn't the platonic sort of man. He needed her to love him as much as he loved her, and he needed his daughter with him.
Damn that Major; if he'd only hurry up and go for the gold, instead of lagging about badgering everyone about his precious war! He could have had the cure by now, and brought his family to his house, and been the father and husband he loved to be!
"Doctor! Hey, Doctor!" The voice, young and whiny like all boys' voices before they hit puberty, carried up the knoll to where he stood with his darling wife.
The cat boy skipped up the hill, turning cartwheels at his leisure until he reached the summit. His creator, the most brilliant doctor and mad scientist, stood alone next to a tall grave, his arms holding the cold stone. The doctor glared blades at him, but the boy pretended not to see as he held out a hand in greeting.
"Don't you know? T-minus thirty minutes to liftoff, Herr Doctor!" he purred. "We only have half an hour before leaving for England and mein Major is asking where you are. He wants you on the bridge by his side."
"I'll be there when I get there," the doctor snapped irritably. "Go away; I need time to say my farewells." Schrodinger shrugged and flipped into a somersault, tumbling and flailing all the way down the hill and dodging gravestones along the way until he found himself at the bottom. He then dusted himself off and skipped all the way back to the opera house. Even if he could be everywhere and nowhere, why would you just appear someplace when skipping and using your energy was all the more fun?
"Zorin!" The heavily tattooed female turn to see what the problem was. Even though she hated looking after the other werewolves, she took on the task like she did all others; as something that just had to be done.
At the moment, she was in the Doctor's lab searching for bandages and gauze. Apparently, the little weasel of a cat-child was skipping and fell on the cobblestones in the city. He then decided the best option would be to run to her, crying about the blood dripping down his leg and into his socks. Why he didn't pretend the wound didn't exist and make it so, she'd never know. The cat-child was a strange one, even if he was her comrade.
"For Christ's sake, it's only a skinned knee!" she barked, but to her surprise that wasn't what he wanted. Instead, he was pointing to an old photograph hanging above the Doctor's bunk, where he had been unceremoniously dumped until Zorin could find the bandages. "What?! That's belongs to the Doctor; don't touch it with your bloodied hands, whelp!"
"Is that the Doctor's family?" he asked softly, looking at it with a certain sense of awe. Zorin glanced quickly at the photograph before shouting and triumphantly holding up the bandages she found stashed in the far back corner of a drawer.
The doctor, not looking a day younger but with shorter hair and a tamer pair of bifocals that had a startlingly normalizing effect on his eccentric grin, had his arm around a beautiful young woman with her hair tied back under a snood. She wore a gray dress, stylish at the time, and they both had their hands on the shoulder of a preteen girl. The child looked pale and sickly, but was smiling as happily as her parents.
"Ja, ja. That's the Doctor and his wife and daughter." She took the bandage and a wet cloth and began to clean the cut. Schrodinger let out a purr of happiness and she wondered if he allowed himself the pain in order to be touched by another living soul. She supposed that if she were as young as he was, she would pull a stunt like that too.
"I never knew he had a wife," Schrodinger said, wincing as the cloth rubbed roughly against his scraped knee.
"Not anymore," Zorin corrected. "They died back in the late 30s, sometime before he created you." She took the other side of the cloth, which she'd left dry, and began to mop up the watery, bloody mix now on the boy's calf. "That's how the Doctor started work here," she added. "He was searching for the cure for his daughter's consumption."
"But there's a vaccine for that, isn't there?" Schrodinger asked. "Ow! Das schmertzt, Zorin! Be careful!" he cried, jerking his knee away. She jerked it back with a scowl and continued her assault on his gory leg.
"Back then, it wasn't well known. Only after World War II. Besides, by that time they were already dead." She threw down the cloth and got the bandages. "There was a horrible tragedy. The Doctor sent them to a house on a cliff by the ocean, so that the air could help his daughter's condition." She paused, remembering herself that time, long ago, when she'd first heard the news.
"There was an earthquake, and the house, the cliff, and the girls all fell into the sea. Their bodies were found washed ashore the next day, and they're actually buried here in Germany. It broke the Doctor's heart—he went crazy for a bit." She finished the bandaging and ripped the rest of the roll free with her teeth before tucking the edge underneath the padded wound.
"They're buried on a hill." Zorin nodded.
"That's why he stayed; first, he searched for a cure. Now, he's trying to find the chip's full extent of powers." She looked at the photograph. "He doesn't care about war. He only wants to bring his family back to life."
Afterword: As Ketti says; "Poor deluded Doc."
I know. I'm heartless for writing this. But it kept pounding away at my brain. I couldn't get it to leave. So I had to write it. Plus, anyone with a supposed name of "Avondale" is immediately cool enough to write about in my book.