AN~ Theme song this section: Don't Come Crying by KSM.
Jason and Goldie were finally going on their date, and Daphne wasn't taking it well. Red, who had remained friends with Daphne despite the age difference that came about as Red and Basil grew closer, was mystified. Currently, she was trying to calm Daphne down enough to get her to explain what the problem was. Everyone else was hiding from the wrath of Daphne Grimm.
"Would you just tell me what's wrong?" Red asked Daphne as she stormed around the kitchen.
"They're getting along!" Daphne growled, slamming the last of the dishes into the sink and turning on the faucet with a spin so intense the handle smacked into the full-on position with an audible noise.
"And why is that bad?" Red asked. "You're the one who set them up."
"I did not!" Daphne shouted, grabbing a sponge and squirting half a bottle of detergent onto it. She dropped the bottle back onto the countertop, where it reinflated itself with a slow wheeze. "He asked. I just mentioned that I knew Goldie and offered to bring him up! Setting up is what I did with you and Basil, and with Sabrina and Puck!"
"And like fifty other people," Red said offhandedly, thinking about them all.
"That was just because they all refused to see how perfect they were for each other!" Daphne said. "These two don't need that! They're perfectly fine on their own, even though anyone can see they're not going to work out!"
"So why are you angry?" Red asked, picking up a cloth to dry the dishes Daphne was attacking. "I mean, if they're going to break up anyway..."
Daphne sighed, setting down the sponge. "It's just, well-" She took a deep breath, all the fire leaving her with the air. "I like him. There. I said it."
"I sort of figured that. But if they're not going to work out..." Red trailed off.
"But what if they do?" Daphne whispered.
Red smiled. "You're as bad as your sister."
Daphne shuddered. "Oh, please no."
"All right, not quite as bad." Red said. "Why are you so sure they're not meant for each other, by the way?"
"Because I know Goldie and I know Jason. Goldie's going to think he's a jerk. Especially when she finds out he's a bit of a slob." Daphne said, picking the sponge back up and returning to washing the dishes, much less forcefully.
"He is?" Red asked, relieved for the dishes' sake that her best friend had calmed down. They'd had to replace enough flatware last time Daphne had boy trouble.
Daphne laughed a little. "Please. Have you seen his bedroom?"
Red raised an eyebrow. "No. What were you doing there?"
"Nothing like that." Daphne glared at her. "He doesn't even know I think of him as anything more than a friend."
"Why not?" Red asked.
Daphne shrugged. "He's seven years older than I am, he was in love with my older sister, he's maybe not over her yet, and I'm... not sure I'm ready."
"The ex?" Red asked, understanding, suddenly. There was no need for names. They both knew who they were talking about
Daphne nodded.
"He was... two years ago?" Red asked.
"Not quite," Daphne said. "Two on Valentine's day."
"That's sad," Red said.
"Tell me about it," Daphne said.
Red gave Daphne a close look. "This must hurt, since Goldie's your best friend."
Daphne finished the last dish and shook her head. "It does hurt, but you're my best friend. Goldie's just... more on my level sometimes. But she hasn't been through all the stuff you and I went through together, she's got the whole OCD thing going on, and you just get me better. I can talk about anything with you. Like this."
Red laughed, putting the dishrag down. "Thanks for the ego boost."
"No problem," Daphne said. "So how are you and Basil?"
"Not so good," Red said, smile dropping from her face. "Blue's back."
"Blue as in Little Boy Blue, your stalker?" Daphne asked, raising an eyebrow.
Red nodded. "It makes us both a little tense, and when Basil's tense, he lashes out, usually at me. He yelled at me half an hour ago."
Daphne thought for a minute. "I have... no cure for that, except maybe to beat some sense into him. Want me to talk with him?"
Red shook her head. "I can deal with the yelling. It's Blue that's the issue. I mean, I grew out of him, and when I stopped being crazy, it was over."
"I can talk to him" Daphne offered. "Or get you a restraining order."
"Nah, I think this is something I have to do," Red said. "I never really finished things, I just sort of started ignoring him. He's probably really confused."
"All right, but you'd better bring backup," Daphne said. "In fact, is that him out there?" She nodded out the kitchen window.
Red glanced over and sighed. "Yup. Come on, let's get this thing over with."
The two pulled on their coats and stepped into boots, then headed out to the edge of the yard, where Little Boy Blue, son of Bluebeard, and no longer little or boyish at all, stood waiting.
"What are you doing here, Blue?" Red asked.
"Waiting for you," Blue said, shivering.
"You don't have a coat," Red said. "It's January. You'll freeze! Go home."
"I need to talk to you," Blue said.
Daphne looked at Blue closely. She found it hard to believe that Bluebeard had kept any of his wives around and alive long enough to have a son, but anything was possible, and she supposed some of them had lasted longer than others. At any rate, there was no doubt that Blue was his father's son. He'd inherited the blue hair, the handsomely rugged looks, and the scarily unpredictable personality. This conversation would have to be handled carefully or Blue would explode, and Red would pay the price.
"What do you want to talk about?" Red asked. It was obvious she knew the hazards of talking to Blue even better than Daphne did.
"Why have you been ignoring me?" Blue asked. "We were great one day, then, BOOM, you forgot I existed!"
Red didn't look at him. "People change, that's all," she said cautiously. "I, well, I switched sides, and you were still in the Scarlet Hand, and-"
"But we could have stayed friends!" Blue shouted.
Red sighed sadly. "No we couldn't have, Blue. When they fixed me, I forgot almost everything for a long time. Once I remembered, even if you hadn't been so caught up in avenging your dad, I didn't have time to see you, and I didn't want to leave the only people who ever treated me right!"
"We treated you right!" Blue said.
"No, you didn't," Red said, shaking her head. "You were nice sometimes, but you were just as nasty as your father other times, just as unstable as me, just as crazy!"
As soon as she said that, the mood changed. Blue's face went dark, and Daphne pulled a small wand discreetly out of her trench coat. He was going to explode soon.
"I'm not!" Blue shouted. "I'm not crazy, I'm not!"
"Come inside, Blue." Red begged. "Don't stay out here! We can help you, like they helped me! We can make you better!"
"No!" Blue shouted, tensing, getting ready to bolt. "They've brainwashed you! They want to hurt me, and you!"
Goldie's car pulled up, unnoticed by the two girls. Blue, seeing it, ran straight at Jason, who was emerging from the car. Jason grabbed Blue in passing. He obviously had no idea what was going on, but apparently that wasn't going to stop him. Blue pummeled Jason's chest, thrashing and trying to break out of the stronger man's grip. Daphne, who had been trying to get a clear shot at Blue, yelled for Jason to keep him still, aimed, and fired.
She missed. The wand's shot grazed Jason's forehead.
She cursed under her breath, then fired again, hitting Blue square in the back this time. He fell down into the snow, tranquilized. Jason looked down at Blue with bleary eyes, then up at Daphne in confusion.
"Sorry," Daphne said, running toward them. "Did I hurt you?"
Goldie ran out of the car, coming up to Jason and fixing his hair, that had been mussed in the fight. "What was THAT, Daphne?"
"That would be Blue," Daphne said. "He's been stalking Red, and we had an issue."
"Shouldn't Basil have dealt with that?" Goldie said distastefully.
"If he did it," Daphne said, "Blue would be in the hospital right now, and not the mental ward. Red? Can you go get Mr. Clay and the kazoo?"
Red nodded and ran into the house.
"Who's Blue?" Jason asked drowsily.
Daphne looked at him worriedly. "Are you all right? Did I break the skin?" She dug through the hair Goldie had just flattened, despite the other woman's glare, and looked at his head. "It's not bad, but you'll be lucky if you don't pass out for a few minutes.
Goldie gave Daphne a look that said clearly, stay away from my man! Daphne smiled at Goldie like there was nothing wrong, but backed away anyway.
"I'm fine," Jason said, waving her away tiredly, "But who's this?"
"Little Boy Blue, only son of Bluebeard, Red's ex, and genuine crazy stalker," Daphne said.
Jason raised an eyebrow. "Wow. I've never met a stalker before. What are you doing with him?"
"If Mr. Clay has the kazoo, then we can cure him, and he'll hopefully come to his senses and leave Red alone."
"Wow," Jason said. "You weren't kidding about all that magic stuff."
Daphne raised an eyebrow and rolled Blue over with her foot. "Did you think I was?"
"No," Jason said. "But... well, it's different when you see it firsthand."
Daphne grinned. "I wouldn't know."
Jason shook his head. "Weird."
Daphne grinned. "Yup. So how was your date?" She was proud to say that she choked the words out without sounding too forced. She wouldn't have said it in the first place, but Goldie's glare was getting a little annoying.
"It was wonderful," Goldie said. "How about your evening?"
Daphne shook her head. "You don't want to know."
AN~ Theme song for this section (same evening, Jason's POV): Sweet Dreams by Beyonce.
Goldilocks was not what Jason expected at all. He'd heard about the OCD, and how she was still as stuck on Henry Grimm (over a decade her senior in looks, by that point) as he was on Sabrina, and he'd heard that she could talk to animals, but he hadn't expected her to seem so... young.
She didn't seem to have matured like Sabrina had, even though she was in her hundreds. Also, the OCD thing had not been understated, and it was a little annoying. So was the fact that she stared at Henry the whole time they were in the Grimm's house. Of course, he couldn't exactly fault her for that. He'd done practically the same thing to Sabrina, after all.
That was probably the reason he was attracted to her, more than anything else. They shared the loss of someone they'd really cared about to someone else.
He'd enjoyed the end of the date, if not the beginning, though he wasn't quite sure if the two of them were a good combination. He was a little too laid back, especially where it came to neatness, to fit her right.
Still, everything had started out just fine. Goldi had arrived precisely on time to pick him up, and they'd spent a few extremely awkward minutes in the Grimm's kitchen, while Henry tried to escape, Daphne and Veronica both glared at Goldi, and Relda had tried and failed to keep the atmosphere light.
It hadn't worked well, so Jason hustled out of the house quickly, hoping that things would lighten up once they were away from the love triangle and Daphne's unexplained bad mood.
He'd attempted to start a conversation on the drive over to the movie, but none of his topics sparked anything more than a few sentences, so he eventually lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.
He was glad when they finally got to the theater, and he could simply enjoy the movie without having to worry about Goldi. It was a regular action movie with a bit of romance thrown in, one that, with a few changes, would be exactly like any other action movie that had ever been created. Hero is set up, hero discovers villains, hero meets girl, hero has many adventures and saves world, hero gets girl, hero lives happily ever after, at least until they decide that a sequel must be written to make more money, because two million isn't enough for anybody.
Still, anything was better than that uncomfortable silence.
Afterwards, they'd gone to dinner, and after a few more dead end conversations, he'd hit upon the one topic that caught her interest: Feng Shui.
She could talk for hours about it, allowing Jason to simply smile, nod, eat, and occasionally ask her a simple question. It made the date much less awkward, and, as Jason had already exhausted most of his daily word quota on Daphne that afternoon, he was happy to simply sit and listen.
Of course, not much of what she was saying sunk in. He got the basic gist of the conversation, but the food was too good for him to not pay attention to it, and he kept being distracted by other things. The waitress with the bright blue eyes and the old fashioned hair that served them and seemed to know exactly what he was thinking, or the man with the giant smile, or the sign that proudly proclaimed: The Blue Plate Special: Your wish is our command! Today's special: Blueberry Cobbler.
He felt a little bad, being so easily distracted. He wondered if he had ADD. That would be a wonderful couple, one with ADD and another with OCD. They'd probably kill each other.
Of course, Sabrina and Puck had started out by almost killing each other, according to Daphne.
He doubted that this date would be this awkward if it was Daphne sitting across from him, instead of Goldi. The two of them had always gotten along perfectly, from the time they'd met. They'd been joined by the friendship of, and the weirdness of, their older sisters, and by the way they both liked to make other people happy, the way they read others so perfectly. Actually, the Grimms were some of the few people he couldn't understand after watching them for a few minutes. That was one of the things that had attracted him to Sabrina so much. She was an enigma, a puzzle that needed to be unlocked, and he loved puzzles.
Of course, they'd been separated when he was in the last few stages of REALLY understanding her, and someone else had come along and solved her before he saw her again.
He missed Sabrina. Missed the girl who wanted so much to be older, to be mature, to be on par with the adults and teens she was surrounded by. She'd gotten that, it seemed. She'd done so much, and he felt like he'd been left behind in the dust.
When he realized that he'd just had a bitter thought about Sabrina, he also realized something else: he wasn't in love with her anymore. Of course, he wasn't over her, and probably wouldn't be for a long time, but it was still progress.
He somehow didn't think that Goldie was the reason he was moving on, though. He just didn't think they were right for each other.
Of course, this was just the first date. What would Daphne think of him, judging Goldie so fast?
Why did his thoughts keep circling back to Daphne?
He was distracted from his thoughts then by Goldi's comment, "But I've been talking all about myself. What do you like to do?"
After shaking himself mentally for a few seconds, Jason resumed conversing with Goldie, and was able to keep himself focused on their conversation, now that he was actually really required to participate, for the rest of dinner.
Their conversation continued throughout the drive home, and on the way out of the car, he gave Goldi a short, awkward hug, only a few seconds before he was run over by a mentally unstable teenage boy.
