Mixed Feelings

by Khilari

Co-written with Persephone Kore. AU. The fight between Mechanicsburg and the Baron is abruptly derailed when Barry returns partway through it. But amid all the people celebrating the return of one of the Heterodyne Boys, three people find themselves with mixed feelings about the situation, and one of them is Barry himself.

Barry's return had been, from just about everyone's point of view, extremely well timed. Now the world would be on the side of Mechanicsburg, the Baron would open negotiations, and everyone in the whole world was happy to have one of the Heterodyne Boys back (everyone in Mechanicsburg was just happy to have found not one but two Heterodynes after so long). Agatha was happy too. Of course she was. She loved her Uncle Barry, she had missed him, and right now if she didn't get away from the celebrations she was going to spontaneously combust.

She slipped into the closest empty room — an ancient parlour, home to some armchairs and a lot of dust, by the looks of it — and shut the door with a sigh of relief before realising she wasn't the only one who had had this idea. There was a Jäger curled in one of the chairs, face invisible between his knees and the brim of his hat.

'Maxim? What are you doing in here?'

'Nottink.' He didn't look up at her, and his claws had been digging into the arm of the chair hard enough that stuffing was leaking up between his fingers. She didn't think he'd noticed.

'Fine,' she said, walking over to one of the windows. In the courtyard a party was going on. Given that it was a Mechanicsburg party it seemed to be going on with an attempt at building firework cannons in the middle of it. At least some people were happy. 'Want to know why I'm in here?'

'Vhy?'

'Because I'm angry. He just — slapped this stupid amulet on me and left.' Agatha's hand went to her locket, careful not to clutch at it. 'And I'm sure he had good reasons, dozens of reasons, but I don't want to hear them. He left me with nothing not even my own Spark, and now…' She swallowed. 'I've had to manage as best I could with people trying to kill me when I didn't even know what was going on, and I have managed, and I finally have something of my own, something I can be proud of, and then he comes back.'

Maxim was looking at her now, the kind of stare that was always unnerving even from a Jäger you'd trust with your life. 'Ve needed him too. Und he neffer even say he vas alive.'

'No. He didn't tell anyone.' Agatha turned away from the window and rested her back against the cool glass, brushing dampness from her eyes with the back of her hand. 'I'm sure he had a reason.'

'Hmf.' For a moment she didn't think Maxim was going to say anything else, then he added. 'If he ask hyu to leave, hyu go vit him?'

Agatha gave him a startled look. Her first impulse was to say No, of course not! - but she bit her tongue on it, hesitated, and then said more honestly, 'I guess it would depend on where and why. I mean, if... if he was asking me to help rescue my father, say.' But having Uncle Barry show up alone again left her certain in her bones that Bill Heterodyne was dead. 'Or stop the Other.' Although that was going to have to happen right here. Especially if Tarvek's suspicions were true.

'But hyu vould come beck? Hy mean...not just to check on tings and go avay again.'

'This is home,' said Agatha, more fiercely than even she'd expected. She drew a deep breath and told herself she was not going to complain about Uncle Barry's frenetic traveling with her for two or three years to someone who'd been searching for much longer. 'That's something I always wanted.' She loved Mechanicsburg, homicidal Castle and all, because it loved her and she'd fixed it and it was hers. She belonged here, finally. And there were surely reasons if Uncle Barry hadn't loved it back as much - she supposed he'd never had to be reminded of the Old Heterodynes - but...

Maxim relaxed, uncurling enough that she could see more of him than intent eyes under the brim of his hat. 'Dot's goot. Der Heterodynes haff alvays been at home in Mechanicsburg. Except...' His gaze flicked to the door. 'Hyu iz kind of like dem. Iz goot hyu still vant to be here.'

From most people, comparing her to the Heterodyne Boys would be a compliment. From most of the rest she'd take it that way anyhow. 'I don't know that I'd have been as much at home here the way it was when they started,' she admitted. 'I am now.' She turned to look out the window again. An astonishing number of people had voluntarily entered Castle Heterodyne but even more were still out having a riotous party in the rain. As she watched, they got the first firework cannon working, and she spotted the familiar broad silhouette of her uncle stepping back from it and the blaze glinting off his glasses and silvered hair as he turned. Of course she'd known her uncle would be almost sixty, but the figure from the stories kept overlapping him in her mind and making it a strange thought. Would he even still want to go adventuring now? 'If we do go anywhere,' she said, 'I want you to come.'

'Effen if he doesn't vant us to?' It wasn't an objection. It sounded more like he didn't want to hope until he'd got an answer to that.

She felt prepared to be stubborn on that point. Yes, Barry was a hero and her uncle and there were legitimate reasons for people to be nervous about Jägers... but after everything they'd been through looking for her and everything they'd done to help her, not to mention the number of people who currently wanted to either kill her or marry her off, Agatha didn't really feel inclined to go anywhere without them. Well, not the whole army. That was probably impractical. 'You and Dimo and Oggie. Yes-' She stopped, frowning. 'Ah. Would you have to listen to him instead?'

'No,' Maxim said quickly. 'Hyu is der Heterodyne. Unless he toks hyu into leaving us behind, ve come.' He was leaning forward in the chair now, claws digging into the upholstery again.

'Oh,' Agatha said, startled. 'I'm still-' She was the one the Castle had acknowledged, the one the Doom Bell had rung for, but the Heterodyne Boys were nearly always spoken of as a pair. A package deal, on relatively even footing. She supposed her father had been the Lord Heterodyne and Uncle Barry... well... a Heterodyne, but she'd been thinking as if the other Heterodyne Boy would still take precedence.

'Of course you are, my lady,' the Castle said, sounding nettled. 'You repaired me, and have already been acknowledged... And besides, your uncle was only the Lord Heterodyne's heir in the absence of children.' Thoughtfully, it added, 'And despite his overall lack of family feeling, I believe the scruples he's chosen as a substitute would prevent him from trying to kill you for it.'

Agatha blinked. 'Uh, no. I'm really not worried about that.' She had plenty of plausible things she could worry about. Uncle Barry murdering her to rule Mechanicsburg was just not going to make it on the list. She pushed her hair back, inhaling, feeling freer - and then coughed slightly. This room definitely needed dusting. She cleared her throat. 'Well. In that case. You're definitely coming.'

Maxim smiled at her, not the overwhelming Jäger grin although still distinctly fangy. And determined. 'Hy vill tell der others. Und ve vill make sure hyu alvays come home safely.' Considering how they'd lost Bill and Barry it was no surprise he found that thought reassuring. Agatha wondered if things would have gone differently if Uncle Barry had taken some Jägers along, and then wondered whether the Jägers wondered that too.

'I know you will,' she said warmly. She wasn't about to start imagining she was invincible, of course, that was just asking for trouble. But she had no doubt they'd do everything they could, and that was a lot.

She turned back to the window, fingering the locket gingerly again. He'd made that. It was useful now, but she could feel the pulse throbbing in her temples and part of her still expected that to hurt. Her hand stilled. She was the Heterodyne. She didn't believe Uncle Barry wanted to be in charge of Mechanicsburg. But he was still her uncle, and she wouldn't be surprised if he still expected to be in charge of her.

He didn't have to like Mechanicsburg. The idea that he'd disapprove of her for it, though - or for loving the Jägers back - made her feel reflexively guilty and then, smoldering under that feeling until the slow burn devoured it entirely, quietly and inexorably angry.

Well, she wasn't a child anymore. And she loved him but she wasn't going to let him push her around any more than the Castle got to do it. She was just going to have to make that clear.

Not during the party, of course. She wasn't going to start by making a scene. But soon. When having a private conversation wouldn't require first hauling him away from his adoring public.

Huh. He wasn't anywhere near the fireworks cannon anymore. There wasn't any knot of focused people in the courtyard that seemed likely to centre on him. Agatha frowned and trailed her fingers down the glass. It wasn't that she thought he had vanished off the face of the Earth again, but there was still a frisson of unease at losing track of him. Probably he'd just gone in out of the rain... but he'd been tense and wary the whole time inside the Castle, and gone back out for 'fresh air' at the first chance. 'Castle,' she said, 'where is Uncle Barry right now?' Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Maxim sit up alertly.

'He is on the roof, my lady,' it replied promptly.

On the one hand she was relieved that he could be located easily. On the other hand, what the heck? 'The roof? Which roof?'

'The highest tower, with the lightning collectors.' The Castle sounded distinctly peeved. 'He climbed.'

She was not quite sure why this would have given offense. 'I should think he'd have to-?'

'Outdoors!'

Agatha exchanged a bewildered look with Maxim. 'They didn't make a habit of that, did they?'

He shook his head. 'They use der stairs like everyvun else.'

'I made stairs,' the Castle said rather sullenly. 'Improvised, of course, but they were perfectly good stairs. He kept dodging them.'

'I remember when I was living with him he'd build secret passages into everything,' Agatha said, 'even when there wasn't really anywhere for them to go.' The masterpiece had probably been fitting a secret passage into a small tent. Agatha had slept in it. And rather alarmed him once by hiding in it while he was trying to pack the tent away. 'But I don't recall an objection to stairs.' She pushed away from the wall. 'I suppose we ought to talk. I was going to wait, but I'm starting to think I should check on him.'

Maxim looked out the window at the rain, which while not dampening anyone's enthusiasm for the party had pretty thoroughly streaked the glass. 'Sounds like a goot idea. Should Hy come?'

'I don't think you need to...' Agatha snorted quietly. 'Especially as this time, I'm going up from indoors.'

'At least someone appreciates my stairs,' said the Castle.

Maxim nodded. 'See hyu later.' There was a pretty good chance later would be tomorrow at this point.

Agatha smiled at him, squared her shoulders, and set off for the rooftop.

Given the way he'd escaped, Barry had assumed there was trouble. The Geisterdamen had received some form of exciting news, and moved out. In the process their watch on their lone human prisoner had weakened. Just a little. This was a mistake. He'd spent some time getting around monsters and eventually managed to get out above ground - almost a mistake in itself, after this long closed up in the caves, but he couldn't make himself go back regardless of the dazzle - and get ahead of them.

He wasn't prepared for what he found. The year was the first shock. The rumors were... complicated. Someone claimed to his face to have seen him and Bill. (In defiance of basic arithmetic, nobody expected the younger Heterodyne Boy to look like a sixty-year-old man. Let alone a pallid one with a knife-trimmed beard.) Any number of people were buzzing with contradictory information about the Heterodyne girl. The Storm King, the Baron, Mechanicsburg embattled, rebels... the rebels perplexed him. If rebellion was possible...

He reached Mechanicsburg running on Spark and adrenaline and found the Wulfenbach forces outside a ring of giant mechanical brambles, within which the Castle and the town walls could be glimpsed gleaming whole and proud in the rain. He ghosted past the chaos and into the town, but exhaustion and success made him careless. He was caught by a patrol of Jägers inexplicably bearing eight-legged weasels, and then it was all over. Which was not all bad, as the proclamation interrupted the battle.

Most of the rest of the day refused to resolve into anything except a very loud blur, except for occasional shocking moments such as when Castle Heterodyne had greeted him with a pit trap - well, that part was familiar - and, as he somersaulted clear and jinked left to avoid the backup one, Agatha (a grown woman now, of course she was, he'd been gone eleven years) screeching at it to 'Cut that out!' He remembered watching the stones close sullenly under his feet. He was fairly sure every Jäger in the pack had come around to take an incredulous sniff. Everybody had asked where he'd been and nobody had waited for an answer yet. He remembered smiling and humming to himself as he lent a hand with one of the firework cannons, and the roar of cheering that had kept anyone from noticing when his voice failed with the sharp pain slicing into his chest and throat because Bill wasn't there to join in.

There was definitely still a party going on. Two concentric parties, arguably, because Klaus's soldiers were celebrating almost as ecstatically as Mechanicsburg. Barry could tell this because he'd crept back out of the crowd after the incident with the fireworks and scaled the castle walls, unwilling to go back inside stone walls and away from the sky longer than he had to. He'd have to get used to it again eventually, he supposed. He was back home. Agatha had fixed it. Despite the locket at her throat, Agatha had evidently fixed everything...

A sharp clunk behind him made him look around. Agatha was standing on the roof, beside the trapdoor she had just thrown back. The rain was bouncing off her, forming a silvery aura, and she was standing on the Castle roof as if she owned it. Which, of course, she did. Barry could see she was Sparking slightly, and angry, and focused in a way that seemed to make the whole world a background for her. Whatever the locket was doing now, it wasn't suppressing her personality or her Spark.

She strode down the roof and stopped in front of him, and it was only with her this close that he could see the nervousness underneath it all. 'We need to talk,' she said.

Barry took a breath, and a reluctant look at the trapdoor, and got to his feet. 'Yes, we do, don't we? I imagine you'd probably rather do it indoors.'

'Here is fine. If this discussion gets loud I'd rather not ruin everyone's party.' Possibly that was a warning as much as a concession.

Barry nodded, a little, without taking his eyes off hers. 'Considerate of you.'

Agatha took a deep breath and continued, somewhat more calmly than he'd expected under the circumstances. 'Firstly, where have you been?'

Barry winced. 'I got caught.' Stupidly. 'The Geisterdamen had me in some caverns under Sturmhalten. Under very close guard, until a few days ago.' And he might have run away from the party, but he owed Agatha an honest explanation. 'I don't have an excuse for the first year, or at least, not more than a few months of it. I was chasing clues - they'd started kidnapping little girls - but after a certain point I honestly can't explain what I was thinking.'

Agatha brushed a lock of wet hair back over her shoulder. 'Your last letter was rather...I don't know why I didn't realise you must be in trouble. No, I do know.' She raised her chin, and for a moment she managed to give the impression of looming. 'Because I was stupid. Because you made me stupid. I thought you'd given up on me, decided I was too - too damaged to bother with. I know it was to keep me safe, to give me a normal life. But how could you do that?'

Barry managed to suppress the flinch at the mention of the letter, mostly. He had spent much of his imprisonment having nightmares about that letter, imagining that its existence and delivery must have got his last few friends killed and his niece taken away and... subsumed. He couldn't hide the one when Agatha suggested he'd given up on her, and his hands came up without his consciously willing it to grasp her shoulders.

She stiffened, and he froze and let her go instead of hugging her. 'I couldn't give up on you,' he said. 'I was terrified for you. And of what you might do by accident, and what would happen then. When-' He hesitated. 'Let's sit down. Please. This is going to sound enough like I'm raving as it is.'

Agatha nodded and dropped easily into a sitting position on the roof, legs drawn up and arms resting on her knees. There was something about the easy assurance of the motion that made him think she'd had training, from someone, but at the same time the position she ended in left her looking more vulnerable than he'd thought possible when she'd stormed out to confront him. 'Go on,' she said.

Barry swallowed. 'Lucrezia was planning to replace your mind with her own. She'd made sure - I could tell by the voice harmonics, especially after you started breaking through and got excited - that you'd be able to command her servants. And there were a lot of them around. A lot of hive engines still waiting to be activated. Other... things. And the revenants, of course, but not just the obvious ones.' That was more than bad enough, as revelations went, but Agatha was looking peculiarly unsurprised. 'And the worst part was I had no idea if she'd already done it.'

That did surprise her, but she didn't say anything to it for a moment. Then she looked up at the sky and sighed. 'Okay. About Lucrezia wanting to replace my mind with hers. It...kind of happened. The locket suppresses her, that's the only reason I'm still wearing it. The Baron -' She rubbed her forehead, anger disappearing under worry for a moment, '- met me when I was her. And he's not going to believe I'm doing more than acting.'

That was a shock. It had happened, but... recently? 'I'd hoped it could do that,' he said. 'That if she was really in there, it would give you a chance to... live, at least, although I think "normal" was probably out of the question. I was... always, always sorry it hurt you.' He'd adored her, before and after, even as he had to contemplate the terrifying possibility that his precocious, sweet little girl was actually what happened when you pasted a devious grown woman's mind into a three-year-old brain. He looked away, and his thoughts fastened on a curious point in her evaluation of Klaus as an enemy. Why would he... but there were the rebels. And the troops were celebrating his return, not falling into line to try to wipe him out. 'Agatha,' he said. 'You think he thinks he's attacking her?'

'Yes. That's pretty definite. Although Tarvek thinks he's been wasped, now. He sent a coded message to Gil about it.' She looked at him and smiled, very slightly, and without any happiness behind it. 'And you thought you'd sound like you were raving.'

Barry swore. Judy - Lilith - would have had his head for doing it in front of Agatha, or at least looked deeply disapproving. But Agatha wasn't a child anymore and the whole shape of what he'd believed was going on was breaking, shattering, taking new and brighter shapes - damn it, sixteen years thinking Klaus had turned on them, sixteen years of making them all hide, completely unnecessary - and now that he'd found out, it was too late. 'I thought he was working for her,' he said, in answer to Agatha's arched eyebrow. 'Else we'd have gone to him first thing.'

'You thought I was taken over by Lucrezia and the Baron was working for her,' said Agatha flatly. 'Well, you're right now.'

'I wasn't sure about you. Obviously I should never have taken up pessimism,' Barry said, hardly listening to himself. He dropped his head into his hands and listened to the rain pelt the roof, felt it run along the back of his neck, and tried to think. The back of his throat felt too thick to hum but the raindrops blocked out everything else except Agatha anyway, so that didn't matter. What an unbelievable mess.

Agatha shifted beside him and a tentative hand was placed on his shoulder. 'You're making it very hard to be angry with you,' she said softly. Then, more firmly, 'It's not hopeless. The locket is suppressing her for the moment, and Tarvek thinks he can manage something more permanent once he has time. I don't know if there's anything we can do about the Baron, but I'm sure Gil will want to try.' This pause was for some reason slightly embarrassed. 'Once I've retrieved him.'

He really hadn't meant to. She had every right to be angry with him. Barry caught himself leaning into her hand anyway, and then felt guilty about that too. He was supposed to be the one who-

Well, he wasn't, and it was hardly going to be any better for her if he pretended she wasn't actually being comforting. Barry sighed and sat up. 'You obviously don't do hopeless,' he said. 'And I'd like to do something about Klaus too. He was... a very good friend.' He swiped a hand across his face. 'Gil. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, I take it? I heard he'd been fighting for you. He needs retrieving?'

'She told Franz to take him out of Mechanicsburg before she utterly destroyed him,' said the Castle approvingly.

Agatha tensed. 'He was attempting to kidnap me for my own good. He's not always that high handed, although he is very stubborn. I'm sure we can work things out once I've made a few things clear to him.' She leant back, and when she spoke again the Spark was back in her voice. 'Talking of which, I don't know if this is necessary, but I think I'd better make them clear to you. I am The Heterodyne. This is my town, my Castle, my people and my monsters. No one will try to take any of that away from me, or me away from them. And no one will make my decisions for me ever again.' She took a deep breath. 'I'm hoping you weren't going to try.'

Barry just looked at her for a moment, startled. Not by the flash of temper, past or present - he and Bill had certainly never been immune to that, and obviously in Gil's case she'd been both provoked and remarkably controlled in her actual reaction - but by the fierce possessive love in my town, my Castle, my people and my monsters. It wasn't just that she was The Heterodyne, she wanted to be.

He couldn't say he was without some misgivings about that. Mechanicsburg had a long and horrific history and she hadn't seen the worst of it, but she'd certainly met the Castle. And the Jägers. But Lilith and Adam had raised her; the town was currently accommodating an astonishing number of captives and voluntarily surrendered enemies; and everyone he'd spoken with kept enthusing about her - well, that was only to be expected, but they kept enthusing that she was nice. Practical, and protective, and a brilliantly talented Spark... and nice.

He took a deep breath, and looked around again, checking their immediate surroundings and then taking in the Castle and town that looked like they had never been damaged at all, with the rejoicing in the courtyard and streets that the ongoing rain couldn't quench. A renewed burst of fireworks punctuated the thought. 'The last major decision I made involved trying to go after the Geisterdamen by myself,' he pointed out. 'I'm not sure I should even try to give you any advice. You seem to be doing rather well.'

She looked at him, eyes large behind rain streaked glasses, and then hugged him suddenly. 'I am glad you're back,' she said, as if she hadn't been entirely sure of it until that moment. 'And advice is fine, although I already have quite a lot of it.'

Barry jolted - for most of the past several years, he'd only been touched when the Geisterdamen found it necessary to handle him, and the crowds had been simultaneously comforting and jarring - and then recovered enough to hug her back, hard. 'I'm sure you do. I don't even know what's going on yet - except what you told me, a little observation, and a lot of rumour.' His eyes were stinging. 'I mean it, you know. I'm very impressed.'

'It's been touch and go a lot of the time...and I've had a lot of help...and...' She grinned up at him. 'It is very impressive, isn't it?'

'Yes.' He smiled back. It felt less unnatural than he'd expected. 'And the first two parts are pretty normal.'

'So I've heard,' she answered, sounding oddly amused. 'Would you believe I wound up travelling with a Heterodyne Show for a while?'

Barry absorbed the thought for a few seconds. 'That sounds... potentially surreal.'

'It was mostly only odd when I remembered the people in the plays were real. And that I knew some of them.' She straightened up out of the hug and pushed her glasses back into place. 'I can see why Adam and Lilith don't like the plays. And Klaus - the Baron - certainly isn't anything like his character. He did travel with you a lot, though, didn't he?'

Barry sat back. He... well, he hadn't been going to let go first. 'More often than just about anybody else. He was one of the first friends Bill and I ever made... which took a lot of nerve, at the time, since I think everybody was still waiting for us to explode or something. One of the best, too.'

'Why did you think he was serving the Other? If you were that close you must have had a very good reason.'

Barry winced. Things he still didn't know how to explain, if Klaus wasn't. 'Windows through time,' he said. 'And some things Lucrezia said - to the Geisterdamen while we were spying, and when she was screaming at us - about sending him somewhere. I didn't want to believe it, but it fit disquietingly well with the timing. He had, ah, also been somewhat in love with your mother; he disappeared when she agreed to marry Bill...' He trailed off and grimaced, recalling their other theory at the time. If it had been about what Barry said to him... But it wasn't as if that had been by any means their first disagreement. 'We'd argued over methods and philosophy sometimes, but he'd always been... very grounded. I think... he didn't worry about going too far because he was used to knowing what that meant.' It was hard to explain. Klaus had grown up with two remarkably reasonable parents, a family that had been living evidence their mother had not in fact made up her whole theory of morality as an elaborate form of revenge for her family's being conquered. (Not that they'd really thought so. But it had crossed their minds once or twice in the first ravages of grief.) He'd been readier to cross the lines they'd been taught and less forgiving of people who lived their lives on the other side of them. 'But his approach when he came back had changed in some of the same ways hers did as the Other. More ruthless, no arguing, raised his game by a few orders of magnitude... Although in his case it was really more scale than skill. Lucrezia was doing things I never guessed she was capable of.' Maybe he should have recognised that difference as a clue, too. Barry sighed. 'The timing worked out - she'd obviously been making plans for a while - and then I got back, with you, and he was taking everything over and collecting her inventions.' He rubbed a hand across his eyes. 'I believe you, but why are you so sure he wasn't?'

'For one thing, I'm told Lucrezia was not remotely enthusiastic about his presence, or about being anywhere near him.' She considered then added more slowly. 'I grew up as...not a Spark. And the Baron is ruthless, but things are usually better under him. The Other just destroyed everything. But he quarantines revenant infestations, cleans up places ruined by Sparks, stops battles. I may not like his methods, but for ordinary people it's better than the alternative.' She sighed. 'I don't know that I would have challenged him if he'd given me a choice about it. Even though some of the things he does to Sparks -' She cut off abruptly, biting her lip.

'A lot of his methods look... well, not necessarily good, but better, if they don't actually involve most of the population being secretly wasped in his wake,' said Barry. 'Er, what has he been doing to Sparks?' He didn't recall burning them alive being an actual pattern.

'Brain coring,' she said, sounding a little guilty, as if she didn't want to be telling him this about a friend. Even one he'd believed to be an agent of the Other. 'One of my friends is Krosp - a cat construct - the Baron destroyed his creator's Spark. And most of his mind. The Baron does employ a lot of Sparks too, and they seem fine, but the ones he doesn't know about really don't want to come to his attention.'

'I can see why not,' Barry said, a little numbly. The two obvious reasons would be analysis and control - well, those were the usual non-medical reasons for poking around in anybody's brain - and he could imagine Klaus being interested in either but he would have expected him not to do it to live subjects. 'He always used to be interested in how the Spark worked, but the invasiveness usually topped out at wanting to stick electrodes to his friends when we were working.'

'I wonder if Gil and Tarvek would let me do that,' Agatha said, sounding intrigued, and then shook herself. 'I'm sorry. I am sure he wasn't an agent of the Other. But I've also been running from him for a reason, even before I wound up with Lucrezia in my head.'

'Understood.' Discouragingly enough. Which was absurd, really, since it was still better than the idea Barry had been trying to get used to for years. 'I'd still like to try to free him, if-' He paused, frowning. 'You know, if he's a revenant and thinks you're Lucrezia, I'm surprised he can attack.'

'I don't really know how it works, but you're right that that seems odd. The weasels can detect revenants, but we don't know much about them. Tarvek knows more, I think, but even that's probably not going to be enough.' Her eyes were distant, contemplating the future with determination. 'We're going to need to find out, one way or another. And we are going to need to free him, or at least not leave him in control of the Empire while under Lucrezia's control. Besides,' she added less dispassionately, 'he's Gil's father. And your friend. If we can find a way to get to him that isn't a suicide mission I'll do everything I can.'

At least that explained the weasels. Jägers smelling him had been one thing; watching them present weasels to do it had added new levels of bafflement to an already overwhelming day. 'That's good to hear.' He raked a hand through his hair, shedding water. 'He's certainly not going to want to meet with you to negotiate, under the circumstances...'

'No,' said Agatha. A burst of fireworks overhead coloured her glasses red and gold for a moment. 'Gil and the Jägergenerals will know more about how things work on Castle Wulfenbach. And I need to talk to the Vespiary Squad too. In fact, tomorrow I intend to talk to everyone.'

'Sounds like a long day,' Barry said. 'Good plan, though.' Likely to contribute to the surfeit of advice, but he was keenly feeling the value of information. 'May I join you? Where I wouldn't be a distraction,' he added quickly. 'Nor risk undermining your authority, although that shouldn't be an issue with anyone from Mechanicsburg.'

'Someone to help keep track of things would be welcome,' said Agatha. 'I'm almost certain to have some Jägers with me, but I never know how much they're going to pick up. Usually more than you'd think.'

'Almost certain?' Barry wasn't sure whether this was in the sense that they would probably want to follow her around in general, or if she had more specific plans. 'I don't know how much I'd expect either. They're... not less intelligent than the general population, really, but it's a question of priorities. I wouldn't count on them to pick up things that would help avoid carnage.'

'Maxim, Dimo and Oggie usually turn up. They're three that had left the group to look for a Heterodyne heir, so they were travelling with me for a while after we met, and I think they've declared themselves my bodyguards. Unofficially,' she said. There was an affectionate note in her voice that was somewhat worrying applied to Jägers.

'You sound fond of them.'

'I am,' Agatha admitted. 'I do know what they did under the Old Heterodynes. But they've been loyal and...they were so happy to find me.'

'Loyal. They-' Barry broke off as a thought process based on sixteen-year-old impressions ran headlong into the evening's revelations, and shook his head. 'Hired on with an old friend after we disappeared, and have evidently been fighting slaver wasps, not spreading them. Right.' That was... actually completely reasonable behavior. It wasn't as if principled objections to continental conquest were common. For that matter, it wasn't as if he and Bill had ever objected to relieving somebody of their sovereignty if they were attacking their neighbors or oppressing their people. They'd sort of made a career of it, they just hadn't kept the lands in question. Even when invited. 'I'm sorry. I did see how our father used them. It's not as if they're at any greater fault than, say, Carson... but it made an impression.'

'I can imagine,' said Agatha quietly. 'But they've been very good about taking prisoners since I told them to. I was more worried the Castle wouldn't, it can be a bit...liberal in its interpretation of orders, sometimes.'

'Don't I know it. Sometimes I think it still considers itself the real family patriarch.' He eyed the roof they were sitting on. 'I'm still surprised it's only tried the one trap on me. Two,' he amended, at a noise somewhere between throat-clearing and grinding rock. 'One occasion. Seems to be listening to you pretty well.'

'I'd hate to see what it's like when it isn't listening, then,' Agatha grumbled. Then she yawned, and shot him an apologetic look. 'You're right, it is going to be a long day tomorrow. And I think I need some sleep in preparation.'

'Sleep well.' Barry gestured toward the door. 'I think I'll stay out here for a while.'

Agatha gave him a slightly doubtful look, but she went in. Barry lay back against the shingles for a little while, gazing at the sky until the rain ran off his glasses into his eyes a few times too many.

Keep track of things. Well, that he could do, once he found out what they were. He was starting to wonder how much help he'd be with anything else, though. He'd been so drastically wrong about nearly everything that was going on. Including Klaus... who might actually be willing to meet with him, if only to shout at him or try to warn him... Barry briefly entertained the idea of a little kidnapping for Klaus's own good, but unless they developed a treatment it seemed unlikely to help. It certainly wouldn't reassure him. Neither would the number of people surrendering or voluntarily joining Agatha, if he thought Agatha was the Other, any more than the cities turning to Klaus for protection had reassured Barry. The sense of desperate futility that had haunted him ever since he got back to Earth loomed up - the world was wrong and he couldn't see a way to start fixing it anymore, and the thought made him tired.

He was going to be a complication for Agatha, himself. Aside from the things he'd actually done for her to be angry about. He really didn't have any intention of starting an inheritance dispute - she was Bill's daughter, she'd been recognised, she wanted it and she'd earned it. She was obviously a very capable young woman. But inheritance rules varied quite a bit and there were likely to be a lot of people outside Mechanicsburg who expected a brother to inherit before a daughter, especially a famous brother and... relatively speaking... a known quantity. A young daughter, at that, even if she was older than Bill had been. And he didn't have enough illusions about himself to think his lassitude would last if she started a course of action he seriously disagreed with. (At least... he seriously hoped it wouldn't. Alarming thought.) They were just going to have to keep any arguments private, if they had them.

It felt strange to be this still under the sky. That was for caves and prisons and lying in wait, and there was no one to hunt here. No one hunting him, either - unless Lucrezia's hatred for him could compel Klaus to send assassins, he supposed, or the Geisterdamen sent someone or something after him. The Castle would probably swat down any attempt anyway, at this point. He wasn't in hiding anymore. He was supposed to be in public.

It still felt wrong, and Barry rolled restlessly to his feet and started pacing, careful of the steep slope and slick shingles.

He was going to have to get used to feeling watched.

The roof of the Castle hadn't really been designed for walking on, which may have been a design flaw considering the lightning collectors were there. Currently it was slick enough with rain for Maxim to be annoyed by it, although he wasn't really having trouble keeping his footing. The fact that both Heterodynes were out here, on a sloped roof in the rain and without Jäger reflexes or indestructibility, was enough to confirm his decision to go and lurk nearby, though.

When he got close enough to lurk properly, however, it turned out that only one of them was still out there. And it wasn't Agatha. Barry Heterodyne was still on the roof and was, improbably and unwisely, pacing. He actually climbed up to walk along the ridgepole - balance unmarred in spite of visible age and poor conditioning - but then gave an uneasy twitch of his shoulders and moved down far enough that his head was below the roofline. He was still looking around, and Maxim stilled reflexively, melting into the shadow of a gable.

Barry took another step, looked straight at him, and then started and slipped. Maxim leant out instantly and grabbed him, hauling back toward the gable where he could get a decent grip. Barry's eyes went wide and startled but his hand closed solidly on Maxim's wrist, and he turned his feet sideways on the roof and found his balance again. And then, sensibly, and rather to Maxim's relief, sat down. 'Ah... thank you.'

'Iz fine. Hy didn't mean to startle hyu.' Another burst of fireworks exploded above them, lighting the roof blue and green for a moment. 'Did Miz Agatha go back inside?'

'She did. I think she sensibly decided she'd spent enough time in the rain lately already.'

Maxim glanced back at the trapdoor he'd come through. But if Agatha was inside then she was fine, whereas Barry was still outside on a slippery roof. The Castle would almost certainly catch him if he fell, but even so. 'Und hyu haven't?'

The muscles around Barry's eyes tightened a little. 'I seem to have spent ten years underground,' he said. 'The rain still feels pretty good.'

'Oh.' He'd probably just had this conversation with Agatha. At least it explained where he'd been, even if eighteen minus ten was still enough time to not tell anyone he was alive for eight years. Maxim shifted slightly, not wanting to leave, not sure he had permission to stay, and fairly sure he was going to say the wrong thing if he said anything.

Barry's gaze traced the arc of another firework rising, then flicked away to a darker part of the sky as it burst, showering golden glimmers through the raindrops. 'Maxim. You're one of the ones who's been traveling with Agatha.'

'Dot's right,' said Maxim, more cheerfully. He wasn't sure why Barry was bringing it up, but didn't think he could object to them having helped Agatha. 'Ve found her...or she found uz. But it still counts.'

'Counts?' The puzzlement cleared after a second. 'Ah - she said you'd been searching for... us.'

The hesitation in Barry's voice suggested that she hadn't actually said that. It was still tempting to pretend it was true, but lying to Heterodynes was a bad idea. 'Ve was preedy sure hyu was dead. Seemed like hyu would haff said someting otherwise.'

It was more obvious how much Barry had been scanning the sky and their surroundings when he stopped doing it to look at Maxim steadily for several seconds. 'It seemed like all of Europe was looking for Agatha,' he said. 'Plus the Geisterdamen, and including - I thought - Klaus.'

'He vas your friend.' It was part of the reason the Jägers had thought it would be all right to go with him. Possibly they'd been wrong about that, considering what had happened since he'd known about Agatha. Maxim looked away. 'Vouldn't haff told him, anyvay. Not if hyu told us not to.'

'It's not as if I wanted to believe he'd-' Barry began, vehemently, and then simply stopped, staring away into the rain and breathing hard and not quite steadily, as if he were going to cry. When he spoke again he'd abandoned the whole sentence to actually answer Maxim, and sounded almost normal again. 'I wasn't sure of that.'

'Vhy not?' It was a terribly plaintive question. But the Jägers had been relied on by the Heterodynes for centuries. They'd protected their town, fought their enemies, kept their secrets. What had they ever done to earn the Heterodyne Boys' distrust?

Barry looked pained. 'I had - I thought I had - compelling reasons to believe Klaus was working for the Other. And you had gone with him, and he was giving you more of a chance to fight than we ever did.'

Maxim dropped into a crouch, leaning over Barry, too angry to care that this was definitely the wrong thing to be doing. 'Did hyu think ve knew ve vas working for the Other? Or did hyu think it vas hokay to let us do it by accident?'

Barry stared at him. He didn't freeze or start or smell afraid - not that it was possible to smell much in the rain, but this close and with Maxim blocking part of the sluicing water there was a low hint of anger and the intensified, faintly electrical smell that went with a Heterodyne starting to roll into the madness place, and a lot of surprise that was only making Maxim angrier. Barry sat up a little and his chin came up, the kind of motion that had gone with defiant and sometimes ill-advised honesty to his own father, which seemed horribly out of place now, and he said, 'I didn't realize you'd care.' The anger wasn't in his voice. He sounded more like he had found something strange to study and hadn't made sense of it yet.

'Of course ve care! De Other killed Master Bill's baby.' That had been terrible. None of them had been in the Castle when it happened, all they'd been able to do was dig survivors out of the rubble. And then bodies. They certainly hadn't been in time to even try to protect Klaus Barry. 'Und Master Bill. Und even vitout that -' Faced with the task of trying to explain why the Other's approach to inducing loyalty made his skin crawl Maxim was unable to come up with anything beyond instinctive revulsion. '- iz creepy.'

Barry blinked. 'That she certainly is.'

Maxim pulled back and dropped down to sit on the roof properly. 'She alvays was.'

'Well, yes.' Barry swiped rain off his face, which didn't accomplish much. 'Although I would have to say she took it up a notch. Or maybe I just didn't see what I should have.'

'Der mind control is new. Ve would haff told hyu about that.'

Barry focused solely on Maxim again for a moment and then said, in a carefully neutral tone, 'That sounds as if there was something specific you didn't tell us about.'

Maxim forced himself to look back. 'Mebbe ve should haff told hyu, but der Generals were against it und der Kestle vas chust glad vun of hyu got a gurl.' He twitched his cloak into a new position, the movement nervous. 'No vun got hurt. She chust...treated us like furniture, pushing us because she could und because ve wouldn't push beck.'

Barry's eyes went quietly bleak before he looked away, fingers flexing against the shingles. 'I realise we never gave you much reason to like us,' he said, 'but we would not have asked you to put up with that.'

'Hyu neffer asked uz for anything. At least ve could giff hyu that.' Below them music was starting up - out of time enough to suggest alcohol had been involved first. 'Hyu vere our Heterodynes. Ve luffed hyu.'

'We asked you to stop doing - being - what you'd done for most of your lives,' Barry said dubiously. 'I can't say I'm sorry about it, because I don't regret not ravaging the countryside and so forth, but that doesn't seem like much of a foundation for love. We weren't exactly surprised that you weren't happy with us.'

Maxim considered that. The idea that you needed a reason to love specific Heterodynes was a new one. Maybe you'd stop loving them if they were bad enough, but being boring wasn't even close. 'Ve were bored. Hy don't think ve were unhappy vit hyu.'

'Well... Vole certainly was.'

Maxim winced. He'd sort of known at the time that Vole wasn't happy with the Heterodyne Boys, and after his reaction to Agatha it was pretty clear that the worst rumours were the true ones. Maxim had still almost forgotten about that. 'Vot did he do?' He wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

'He tried to kill us.' Barry sounded oddly startled. 'You, ah, didn't hear?'

Maxim shook his head, causing a brief spray of rain from his hat. 'De Generals said he vas gone. Hy thot they meant he left, he had been tokking about it. Until a few days ago Hy thot he vas dead.'

'We actually sent him to Klaus to...' Barry trailed off. 'Why did you think he was dead?'

'A lone Jäger outside Mechanicsburg doesn't liff very long. They only haff to catch hyu asleep vunce. Or use poison, or trickery.' It was slightly embarrassing how often Jenka's role had been less relaying information and more rescue followed by yelling. And that was with three of them.

Barry scowled. 'I hadn't thought about that. I should have; it's not as if everybody who tried attacking Mechanicsburg in our generation was mad about something recent.' Although there had been quite a few who were. The Heterodyne Boys had made plenty of friends but they had also insisted on leaving an awful lot of their enemies alive.

'Iz goot to be home.' Which was, really, part of what was being celebrated down below. As well as why he'd avoided the party rather than risk passing on his own worries to other Jägers who were enjoying themselves.

'The search parties were a high-risk assignment, weren't they,' Barry said quietly. 'Even in groups. And regardless of whether you were actually causing trouble.'

'Someting like dot.' Less high-risk assignment than very slow suicide mission. Or, at least, he'd thought so before realising they could actually succeed. He flexed the fingers of his right hand half consciously, the clank glove augmenting the movement and making it work despite damage that had never properly healed. 'Ve got by.'

Barry's eyes dropped, drawn to the motion, and then ticked over the joints of the glove and the dull red lights of the power supply, analysing. 'Right,' he said quietly. 'Gkika's been the limit of medical treatment for any of you since we left.'

'Ve haff Miz Agatha now. But she has had enuff to do.' And Maxim could still fight, which put him pretty low on the priority list for repairs.

'She's certainly been busy.' Barry looked more awake suddenly, more present. 'And unless I miss my guess, nobody's told her about it. Because she hates letting anybody suffer and even if she'd stuck to the Castle as more strategically urgent, it would have bothered her.' He got to his feet abruptly and extended a hand to Maxim, looking oddly... hopeful. 'But you do have me now too. And it's about time I did something more useful than brooding on rooftops.'

Maxim took his hand and stood up, finding himself smiling 'Vell, if hyu is offering.' It would be good, to have a fully working arm again. And it was good to know that Barry was still theirs, in some way, enough to want to fix them.

'I might have to try to get some sleep before any of the really tricky ones.' Barry was already past and dropping through the trapdoor as he spoke. 'But I can certainly get started.'

'Hy tink everyvun else is at der party, anyvay,' Maxim said, helpfully, following him in. Probably there was no such thing as a Jäger too injured to attend a party.

Barry glanced toward the nearest window. 'No need to interrupt that for now, I think. At least short of another army showing up.' He turned toward a medical lab. 'Why aren't you?'

It was a bit embarrassing, even though both his Heterodynes had also been avoiding the party in favour of brooding. Maxim shrugged. 'Vorried about schtuff,' he admitted, vaguely. 'Tings is looking better now.'

Barry gave him a thoughtful look. 'Oddly enough...' He turned up the lights and stripped off the clank glove to examine where things had gone wrong. 'I feel that way too.'