Title: Family
Fandom: The 39 Clues
Summary: Everything that makes up the world's biggest extended family in 100 stories.
Disclaimer: The 39 Clues (c) its respective owners. I'm only playing around with characters.
Author's note: Based on 100 writing prompts found while surfing the Web. Genres will vary wildly, crack pairings and self-made fanon will abound, and updates may be sporadic, but I hope you'll all have fun reading this, as I intend to have writing it. Unless otherwise noted, none of these take place in the same universe and nothing past The Medusa Plot is canon. Moreover, as is usual for me, nothing found in the trading cards, the Black Book, or the website will ever be regarded as canon. All characters will be respected. Prompt ratings are unlikely to go past a high T. Requests (for pairing, characters, etc.; as detailed as you like) will all be considered, and those that are written will be dedicated to whoever requested them. Reviews and favorites will be met with gratitude.
Prompt: 7. A TV screen covered by a pink blanket
Rating: K
Genre: Friendship/Tragedy
Characters: Grace Cahill, William McIntyre
Note: What is this, I don't even. The next oneshot will be a great deal lighter than the two preceding it, in any case. This takes place directly before the prologue in A Maze of Bones. Enjoy.
.oOo.
It didn't quite make sense anymore.
In days not long gone by, the drone of the comparatively plebeian news channel had almost comforted her. Strange how she'd worked tirelessly throughout her life for the reuniting of this family, yet at the end she turned from the elite Madrigal channels to this slow, sputtering mockery that the rest of the world hung upon day by day. Now, though, even the simple syllables forming the news of some trivial passing thing – what the weather this weekend was going to be like, perhaps, or a minor legal battle over the cutting down of an obstructive dead tree – required intense concentration to catch.
The words faded into white noise, then bravely resurfaced again in attempts to convey their message before again being submerged in an audile blur, a fuzz of meaningless sound. Grace allowed herself to settle back against the wrinkled pillow, eyes drifting almost completely shut as she felt rather than saw or heard her cat leap up onto the bed beside her. Saladin was back by her side after only a brief sojourn, so perhaps that meant…
Abruptly the reporter's brisk tones, which had again tried to leap out from the haze of noise, ceased, along with the humming and popping and distortion of the background accompaniment. Instinctively, Grace's spine straightened insofar as it was possible and her keen eyes snapped open, immediately resting on William McIntyre, whose forefinger still ghosted over the power button of her practically archaic television.
Well, come on in, then, McIntyre, she wanted to say, but couldn't yet find the strength, so instead she tilted her head briefly to one side, her right hand reaching out and stroking Saladin's dappled silver head softly.
William looked at a loss for a moment – perhaps, she thought idly, he felt that strange respect for the dying that was so alien to a Cahill who'd lived to be as old as Grace herself. It wasn't as if that was going to hurt him, exactly, but there was business to attend to and an uncertain but uncomfortably short amount of time to attend to it in. With a feeling akin to impatience, she tapped the coverlet briskly with her left hand. Get moving, William.
He very nearly flinched at the direction, surprised, maybe, by the sudden near-sharpness of the movement. His quick movement became a jerk towards a thick knit pink blanket, folded lopsidedly, that had been perched on the edge of a dark wooden chair in a haphazard manner. With a brisk shake, the lawyer had it unfolded, and with another quick movement he'd tossed it over the television.
And what is that going to do, my old companion? Grace wanted to ask drily, but she saved her breath. It had never been in her to question others' absurdities, and certainly she wasn't going to take up that habit now, with so few sentences left for her to speak. And so the impromptu covering of the television lingered, a thin but sacred veil between even the most innocuous of eye-like devices in the shadowy room, and very nearly a guardian in its own right.
.oOo.
