a/n: Here's chapter 2, darlings! (For those who are returning, I edited chapter 1, thanks to a thoughtful review from SlytherinDayDream about potential improvements). This chapter is from Kady's POV. I was so fascinated with her character arc and how expertly the writers made it parallel Quentin's entire storyline from S1 (I've literally been rewatching S1 and finding the alignments between the first season and the fourth season has been thrilling bc they're so perfect). I do adore Kady & her growth has been amazing, so she's a big player here. This chapter provides a bit more insight into her emotional state and her connection to the others, after everything that's happened.
For right now, we're just establishing the state of things post-Monster, and letting the characters have a bit of breather before bringing on another Baddie.
Let me know your thoughts - I appreciate you! :)
**I own nothing except the idea for how things play out – characters, etc., are all property of their rightful creators (Lev Grossman, SyFy, etc.)**
Kady was the first to wake up. It was early still, and the living room held a comfortable air about it, with the quiet sounds of Kady's sleeping comrades filling the space.
The hedge witch ran a hand through her curls and rested her head on her hand. She shifted her gaze to Quentin. He was curled up on his side, his face nuzzled in Eliot's neck. She had originally guesstimated that the boys would be body-thumping by the end of the week. Seeing them now, she made a mental note to move up the timeline to within the next couple days.
With a sigh, she sprang up from the armchair where she'd slept. After brewing herself a cup of coffee, she went into Marina's library with a pen and notepad. Dropping into the chair at the café-style table in the room, she opened the notebook and started writing.
Just the night before, Pete and the other hedges had asked her to become an informal leader, and a formal emissary, for the hedge witch cause. She'd accepted and immediately, ideas started pouring into her head about changes and improvements to make. So, she sat in the library and she wrote – jotting down notes, which developed into detailed plans. When she had finished putting her initial ideas to paper, she leaned back and read through everything.
"Okay," she mumbled to herself. The first and foremost item on her list was to implement policies for all hedges to adhere to. "Then, the Library. They need to. . ." she paused, thinking. "Stop being douches?" She asked out loud. She shrugged and scribbled that in the margins of the paper.
Kady chewed on the end of her pen, then tapped it against her teeth. An idea suddenly popped into her head. "Fogg!" She exclaimed, louder than intended. She quickly dropped the pen and clasped both hands over her mouth. Then she rolled her eyes and put her hands down, picking up the pen again. "Dumb-ass," she said, directing the insult to herself. She then set pen to paper, frantically writing down ideas about convincing Fogg to give her some authority at Brakebills – maybe giving hedge witches second chances at entrance exams or making the University more open. . .
Suddenly, the door to the library creaked as it opened. Kady's eyes shot up, matching green with brown as Penny partially entered the room. Realizing that she must look like a mess, hunched over piles of paper and her fingers ink-stained, scribbling wildly with the pen that looked like a puppy had gotten hold of it from how much she'd been gnawing on it. In an attempt to regain composure, Kady set down the pen and sat up straight.
"Sorry. I heard someone talking in here. . ." Penny muttered from the door. He furrowed his brow as he looked around the room. "Are you talking to yourself?" He asked suddenly, not even bothering to hide the judgment.
Casually, Kady leaned back and crossed her legs, flinging an arm across the back of the chair. "Yeah. It's a trait of genius. You wanna make something of it?"
Penny held his hands up in mock-surrender. He looked down at the floor, rubbing his toe into the floor and looking like he wanted to say something. Kady dared him to speak first, waiting in her seated position and staring, menacingly, at the stranger who wore a familiar face.
Finally, Penny sighed. He shook his head, almost to himself, and backed out of the room in silence. Kady scoffed and inhaled sharply through her nose. Then, she stood up and let out a frustrated, primal growl, sliding her arm across the table and sending the papers and notebook flying. With a rueful laugh, Kady dropped to her knees. Her hands flew to her face, swiping at her eyes to make sure that no tears had dared to escape. After a moment, she sighed and started picking up the papers sprawled across the floor.
~!MAGIC!~!MAGIC!~!MAGIC!~
A few hours later, the apartment was bustling as everyone was awake. Everyone except Quentin. So, maybe it was less bustling and more stealthily maneuvering while trying to allow their fearless, albeit overly anxious, leader to continue sleeping.
It wasn't long before Josh and Margo announced that they were heading off to Fillory, determined to find a way to rescind Margo's banishment and reclaim her throne.
"I suppose I have to take you?" Penny offered dejectedly.
Margo declined with a shake of her head. She then held out her hand and closed her eyes, letting a big smile spread across her face. "Damn, that feels good!" she purred.
Kady's arm shot out in front of her. She wiggled her fingers in the air, measuring the level of ambient magic. She gasped and felt warmth radiating through her body, her smile matching Margo's. "Hallelujah, magic truly is free again!" Kady announced, fist-pumping the air.
Margo held a hand up in response, "Mm, preach!"
They knew the Library had agreed to remove the strict magic rations, but no one had really bothered checking the levels or testing their abilities. Apparently, the Librarians were feeling very generous.
Right then, with impeccable timing, a bunny dropped onto the kitchen island.
"ALICE. LIBRARY. NOW." The bunny commanded in a harsh rasp.
Apparently, Alice didn't need to be told twice. She nodded in the general direction of the bunny before making a few rapid, almost sloppy gestures. A shimmering void opened in the middle of the room. Waving her hand in a half-hearted farewell, Alice wordlessly stepped through the portal which quickly closed behind her.
"Oh-kay," Margo sniped. She sighed in annoyance and snapped her fingers. "Josh! Let's roll," she barked.
Josh hurried over to the counter, gingerly picking up the bunny. "Let's get you back to your friends in Fillory," he whispered to the critter, tucking it under his arm as he approached Margo, who was starting the handwork to build a portal of her own.
Once the portal developed, she stepped part of the way through, turning back to Josh, asking, "Ready?" Without waiting for an answer, she stepped the rest of the way through.
Josh turned to wave to everybody, but could barely squeak out a quick "Bye!" before Margo's arm reached through the portal, grabbed him by the shirt-collar, and dragged him through into Fillory.
The quartet stood silently for a moment. Eliot absentmindedly started toward the stairs, shoving past Penny as he did.
"Whoa, dude, what's your deal?" Penny asked, grabbing Eliot by the shoulder. In a single motion, he jerked away from the touch and smacked Penny's hand away.
"Hey!" Penny let out a frustrated growl. "Look, we just spent months with a vague-as-shit Monster walking around in your body. We went through a lot to save your ass. And I think I speak for everyone," Penny spread his arms wide, gesturing to the remaining members of the group before continuing, "when I say that we're tired of games. So, we need you to be straight with us. Can you do that?"
Eliot smirked, folding his arms across his chest. "Sorry. Straight is one thing I actually can't do."
Penny scoffed. "You think this is funny?" He asked, intensity in his eyes. Then he took a small step toward Eliot.
Obviously, a big mistake.
Suddenly, Penny was forced backwards, dropping off the small ledge separating the kitchen area from the living room and landing on his ass with a loud smack. Julia and Kady both whipped their heads toward Eliot, shock and awe evident in their expressions.
"—the fuck was that?!" Penny exclaimed from the floor, panting slightly from having the wind knocked out of him.
Eliot stared down at him, but the look on his face wasn't menacing. In fact, he looked even more shocked than the rest of them. El inhaled deeply and then, seemingly unable to come up with a response, raced up the stairs, followed only by the sound of a slamming bedroom door.
Once he was gone, Penny pulled himself up to his feet. Kady clenched and unclenched her fists at her sides. "What's wrong with you?" she asked.
"Me?"
"Yeah, dickwad," she said, charging forward and shoving the Traveler, hard, in the chest. "You were provoking him!"
"He just threw battle-magic at me!" Penny pointed to the empty space Eliot had been occupying.
"Oh, please." Kady rolled her eyes. "He knocked you on your ass. It was embarrassing, but hardly qualifies as battle-magic."
Scoffing, Penny pulled a crystal out of his pocket. "Call it what you want. I have protection charms and amulets by the shit-ton. Somehow, he managed to bypass every single one without even lifting a finger! Doesn't that worry anyone?"
"I had one of those Monsters in me, too," Julia said quietly, still standing across the room, near the refrigerator. "Those siblings were. . . something else. And I was only possessed by one for a couple days. Eliot was trapped with one controlling him for months, Pen."
"Yeah, I know – I've been here the whole time," Penny retorted. "That's my point, though. What if that thing did something to him?"
"Just, shut up," Kady said with a snarl. "Of course it did something to him! He was violated in the most intimate possible way, for months, by an evil, murderous thing. I'd be worried if he wasn't fucked up."
Penny groaned, throwing his hands in the air. Apparently giving up, he stalked away from the girl, settling onto a bar-stool at the kitchen island to sulk.
Julia and Kady exchanged concerned looks. Then, Julia cautiously approached Kady, standing on her tiptoes to look past the taller girl.
"How is he still asleep?" Jules queried, nodding toward Q's still-slumbering body on the couch.
Kady shrugged and made her way into the living room, content to keep the sleeping young man company. Putting distance between herself and Penny was an added bonus. Julia followed her and they sat together in silence for a while, on the end of the couch opposite Q. After a while, Julia decided she would go to Brakebills to do some research.
"Maybe see if I can find some books or if there's anybody I can talk to—Lipson, Fogg, anybody—who can help me with. . ." Jules paused. Finally, she gestured to herself and said, "Well, with me."
"Fine," Kady said sharply.
"I'll take Penny with me. He can give me a ride and maybe help out. You'll be okay here with Q & El?"
Kady gave another short reply: "Yup."
"Okay. See ya later then," Julia said with a small little wave. She approached Penny and talked to him quietly. Apparently, he agreed with Julia's plan because there was a small whoosh and then they were gone.
~!MAGIC!~!MAGIC!~!MAGIC!~
It was late in the afternoon. Kady sat on the coffee table, staring at Quentin. He had, somehow in his sleep, contorted himself so that he was flopped on his stomach across the couch, with one leg stretched out behind him and the other dragging on the floor. Both arms lay flat and prone at his sides. He was, essentially, laying on his face. In a puddle of drool, no less.
Suddenly (finally) Quentin opened his eyes, squinting at the brightness of the sun shining in the window.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty," Kady said smugly. She chuckled as Quentin struggled to get up, which proved insanely difficult since both his arms were asleep.
Finally, Q managed to right himself and he wiggled forward to sit on the edge of the couch cushion. He worked at shaking out his arms, trying to regain feeling. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at Kady, who had an amused look on her face.
"Mmmmmmm. Wow." Quentin groaned as he stretched his arms in the air. He looked out the window and saw that the sun was hanging low in the sky. "Uh, Kady? What time is it?"
She glanced at her watch and gave Q a sympathetic look. "It's, uh, 4:30."
"In the afternoon?!" Quentin all but shouted.
Letting out a sheepish little laugh and nodding, Kady told him, "You must have been really tired."
"I had no idea. . ." Quentin mused, blinking a few more times as he tried to shake off the lingering grogginess of sleeping for what bordered on 16 hours.
"You've had a lot going on lately. Worrying about your friends, fighting magical monsters, saving the world." Kady shrugged, counting off the items in her list as blasé as she could.
"So, just the usual," Quentin replied through a yawn. "Still," he continued, "I can't believe I slept so long."
"Yeahhhhh," the hedge witch grimaced slightly. "Everyone tried really hard to let you sleep." She stood up, placing her hands on her hips. "Then, everyone tried to wake you up."
"Great," Q mumbled. He stretched and stood up, giving in to another yawn and popping his neck to relieve the tension that had developed from his odd sleeping position. He was still in his clothes from the day before, although the slacks were now quite wrinkled and a few buttons had come undone from his shirt.
"Where is everybody?" he asked, flipping his long hair out of his face.
Kady quickly recounted the location of their friends: "Alice – The Library. Margo & Josh – Fillory. Julia & Penny – Brakebills."
Q looked at her, somewhat expectantly. "And, uh, wh-where's Eliot?" Quentin asked timidly.
"Upstairs," she replied. Q nodded absentmindedly before dropping back down on the couch.
Finally, Kady couldn't contain herself anymore. With a loud groan, she sat on the coffee table again. She scooted forward to sit on the edge of the table, positioning herself directly in front of Q. "All right, Coldwater. It's time for some real-talk."
"Uh-oh." Quentin's eyes widened and he leaned back against the couch.
"It's painfully obvious that you're hardcore jonesing for Eliot."
"I'm what, now?" Quentin asked innocently.
"Oh, please." Kady frowned. "Even a blind, deaf, and dumb idiot can tell how bad you two have it for each other. The only question is why the hell neither of you will do anything about it."
Quentin's brows furrowed and he exhaled sharply. "It's not—you make it sound like it's so simple."
"It kind of is," Kady stated plainly. "Everyone sees the way you look at each other. I mean," she chortled, "the sexual tension between you two is so thick, you'd need a fucking machete to clear it."
Q opened his mouth to speak, but Kady stopped him, holding up a hand. Then, she leaned forward and put her hand on his knee. "What the hell are you so afraid of, Quentin?"
"Um, everything?" Quentin answered, as if it was obvious. "That's kind of the gist of who I am. Ya know – depression, anxiety, general disinterest and dissatisfaction, fear, indecisiveness, apathy. . ." he counted off his maladies by holding up a finger for each one.
"But, what scares you about Eliot?" Kady clarified.
The question made Q pause. He considered it for a moment, trying to decide first whether to answer at all and then to figure out how best to respond. He exhaled slowly, finally looking up to make eye contact with the girl. "I tried with El before and. . . he shot me down. After that, I thought we could just be friends. Except I didn't really have time to even deal with it because we had so much going on with keys and all. Then, the Monster took over."
Quentin paused, biting his lip. "I feel like such a piece of shit for saying this, but the Monster and everything that's been going on actually made things easier for me."
"Easier?" Kady asked.
"Y-yeah," Quentin muttered with a shrug, feeling self-conscious. "I mean, there was so much happening, so I didn't have time to think about things. I got kind of. . . numb, I guess?" Running a hand through his hair, Q sighed. "Now that the dust is settling, there's nothing to stop me from thinking. And feeling. And wondering, theorizing, weighing options, worrying, panicking. . ." Quentin put his face in his hands, groaning.
"Okay, okay, I get it. Chill." Kady cooed, grabbing Q's hands and pulling them toward her, clasping them tight. "Can I give you my perspective?"
Quentin nodded.
"If there is any part of you that wants to be with Eliot, that thinks it's still possible for that to happen? You should act on that. You owe it to yourself – and to him – to at least try." Kady stopped, licking her lips as she thought about what to say next. "You have something I never had, Q. You have hope."
"What do you mean?"
With a deep sigh, Kady steeled herself against her emotions and continued. "Look, I lost the man I loved. And he's gone. For good. Now," she leaned back, putting her arms behind her and resting on her palms on the tea table. "When 23 came here, everybody got Penny back - everybody but me, because he wasn't the same, wasn't mine. In fact, he's Julia's. He made that clear to begin with, and now even she seems to have embraced it."
Suddenly, Kady held up a hand. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for Jules, I guess. But the fact still stands that 23 has managed to serve as an effective stand-in for our Penny – my Penny. Except I still want the OG Penny back."
"Kady," Quentin said sorrowfully. But Kady cut him off, standing up and placing a hand on her hip as she looked down at Q.
"I know that it's impossible. And I have to find a way to move on. But I'll never stop wanting it." She threw her hands up in a very exaggerated shrug. "And I have a constant reminder of what I lost, of what someone else gets that I'll never have."
Quickly, feeling frantic like her emotions were getting ready to get the best of her, Kady sat back down, so she could look Quentin in the eyes again. "I have to spend the rest of my life watching a stranger taking Penny's place. Having him within reach, and yet millions of miles away. Now, you had just a tiny taste of a few months of that, when the Monster was parading around in Eliot's body."
Quentin squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, like he was trying to get a bad taste out of his mouth. "It was torture. Especially since he knew – he fucking knew – that he could manipulate me by threatening to hurt El. I hated him. Like," Q searched for the words, "I felt physically sick every time I was near him, knowing what he was. But then I'd look at him, and I'd see Eliot. Knowing that he was being used like that, that he wasn't able to control himself. . . having him physically present, but still so out of reach."
Then Q looked at Kady, sympathy in his deep brown eyes. "Just like you feel with Penny, I guess."
"Yeah," Kady agreed. "Except you got lucky. Because you did what I couldn't: You saved him. Now Eliot's back, and he's still Eliot." With her next words, Kady spoke slowly and deliberately, "We all got him back. But he's yours."
Neither magician spoke. Kady let her words hang in the air between them and Q took them in, letting them settle and process.
After a minute, the hedge witch's face felt hot and her vision blurred slightly as she could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She willed them to stay in place. Finally, she grabbed Quentin by the shoulder – more to steady herself than anything. Kady wasn't totally sure why she cared so damn much, except that the parallels between her and Quentin were so strong and she couldn't help over-identifying.
"Quentin, you've got a second chance. Please, promise me you'll do something with it? Don't waste it. You owe it to each other." Quentin was looking down, at Kady's hands in his own. But Kady kept her gaze focused on him anyway, letting her green eyes bore into him. There was an unmistakable hint of desperation in her voice as she added, "If nothing else, you owe it to me to not just walk away from something that I can only dream of having."
"I'm afraid of opening up or of being rejected, and absolutely terrified of losing the people I love – especially El, but all the rest of you, too."
"You don't wanna lose people?" Kady asked, seriously. "Then don't waste a second that you have with them."
"Okay," Quentin whispered. When he looked up, he sniffled and quickly reached up to rub a tear from the corner of his eye with his sleeve. "All right, Kady. Okay," he said again, a bit more confidently this time.
Q nodded and then, without thinking, he grabbed Kady and pulled her into a tight hug. She seemed a bit thrown-off at first, tensing up, but then she relaxed and returned the embrace. When they pulled apart, Kady stood up and busied herself with straightening out her shirt.
"So, um, yeah. That's all I wanted—needed, to say."
Quentin stood, too. "Thank you," he told her.
Kady only nodded, repeating one of her nervous tics of running a hand through her thick hair. With a small laugh, she said, "It's nice, not having something trying to kill us, for a change."
The Mending Magician laughed out loud in reply. "How long do you think that'll last?" he asked her.
"Pfft," Kady scoffed. "Who the hell knows? Not long enough, probably. Guess we should enjoy the peace while it lasts."
So, with that, both let out long exhales and dropped onto the couch. It felt good to have a friend like Quentin and Kady was secretly grateful for the chance to get to know him better. She nudged him with her shoulder, smiling. Then, they settled into a comfortable silence as they watched the sunset out the high-rise window.
TO BE CONTINUED. . .