About two hours before the dawn arrived, Roxy groggily roused herself by way of the insistent shrilling of the alarm she'd set on her communicator the last night, sighing loudly to the empty, still room and staring at the ceiling. Staying here didn't feel like home as much as she'd thought it would. No, it was too big and too empty. The hideout was actually a large network of rooms that over a few years they'd refitted for their own means, mostly by Roxy conjuring pieces of furniture that Jake had eagerly put together, bits of gadgetry that Dirk had fiddled with for weeks, and of course all the fancy kitchen equipment and some pranking apparatuses at Jane's insistence. The other girl had also been the one to point out pragmatic concerns, like perhaps putting beds in a few of the back rooms in case they ever decided to stay the night—though at the time, she'd thought that if they did that, it would be for fun and games, not because they were being hunted down—and stocking sheets, blankets, and toiletries, among other things, in the storage closets. These things were a bit dusty and untouched, unused enough to feel impersonal, but they were useful and they served the purpose that Roxy needed, so she made it work.
That didn't change the fact that it was just really, really lonely in here, she mused, looking around at the drab four walls. She kind of wanted to decorate, but they had only furnished two bedrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls, and it kind of felt like it would be rude if she decorated without Jane here. And if she just decorated her half, well, it would be even more of a slap in the face to remind her that Jane was, in fact, not here.
The question that she was now debating, other than whether it would count as decorating if she repainted this whole drab place, was the importance of whether she put on a show of still being a good student at university. Most students were out for a few more weeks of vacation before the fall classes started, if they weren't taking summer courses. Her closest friends there were among those who were away, and surely no one else would really notice if she took a leave of absence, right? She could always just say she'd gone traveling, and leave it at that.
The only thing that left for her to take care of, then, was her apartment, which was presumably quite ransacked. That was something she should go ahead and do while she was still under cover of darkness, so that it would be less obvious. But as much as it pained her to admit, most of her things would have to be left behind. The cover story that she'd decided on, with a little aid from AR, was that while she was out of town, someone must have just broken in and stolen most of her valuables, which she actually was going to steal herself. Everything else, like the furniture, would have to stay. But at least she might take a few comforts, like her knitted sweaters and scarf and some of her favorite items. And maybe she could conjure some of the others. The block of green genericness that she'd conjured in her panic would have to go, though. It was a sure mark of a mage's presence, and after the scare with Jane, that wasn't anything she wanted a part of.
Man, the boys had it easy, not having magic and all. Although... Roxy had suspicions that they had some of the more subtle kinds, the ones that were a little more common but always harder to find. At least, over the past few weeks, she'd begun to notice more now that she was looking for it, but Jake seemed to have a way of always inspiring trust and uplifting people even when it made no sense for them to feel uplifted, like the night of the march when she'd broken down sobbing in his living room and he'd soothed her with a simple "It's not your fault", and that had been that. If anyone else had said that to her, there would have been no way she would have accepted it and trusted that those words were true.
She sighed and pushed herself out of the bed finally, abandoning the warmth of the covers for the cool floor. Note to self: obtain a rug at the first opportunity. This shit is way too cold to walk on first thing in the morning!
Shuffling to the bathroom, she readied herself for the day with remarkable lack of enthusiasm, wondering why exactly she'd ever thought waking up this early was a good idea before she grumbled her way to the kitchen, where a hastily slapped together chocolate-spread sandwich served as a kind of disappointing breakfast.
So, what were her plans for today? One: go clean out the apartment and get everything that she wanted to bring back here. Two: check out the purported support march going on today, but don't participate. Three: figure out the next move of the Rogue.
God... she was being like the Masked Maiden and Shaded Prince now, wasn't she? But more enigmatic and mysterious. Rogues worked in the shadows. Maidens and Princes seemed to enjoy the limelight more. Either way, she had to figure out her plan. Oh, and four: catch up with Jake. That poor kid was pretty dang out of the loop now, wasn't he? It had been over a week since they'd last talked, because he'd had to work overtime last weekend thanks to that damn slavedriver of a supervisor he worked for.
Recently, the Batterwitch had released a statement saying that she was not responsible for the deaths on the day of the march, which was now often referred to as the Grand Square Massacre, citing the systematic slaughter of her own troops as well. She had not, Roxy noted, indicated anything about who had been responsible, or for that matter anything other than that she was innocent but the situation was "under control".
Riiiight. Roxy was willing to bet the scarf her mother had knitted for her long ago that that was absolute, utter bullshit.
This, of course, meant one of several things. It was possible that the Batterwitch actually didn't know of the operations of Lord English. However, Roxy was willing to discard this notion—surely in her collection of mages and their forced labor, she had a few seers! There was pretty much no way that she didn't know. But the fact that her wording seemed to ask for pity, to say oh no, look, I'm no less hurt than you was interesting. It implied, at least to Roxy's analytical mind, that she was trying to gain the support of the citizens, however subconsciously and slowly it might be.
And that seemed a hell of a lot more likely.
But that too had some kind of scary ramifications, one of which was the thought that... if they had the Batterwitch of all people on the defensive, just what kind of people were these running Lord English, anyway? Who was it that held Dirk and Jane, and even more broadly than that, who was trying to... trying to what? Oust the Batterwitch and take over Skaia? It was certainly possible, and this wasn't the first instance of someone trying to overthrow the Witch. Other empires than the Skaian one existed; a few star systems over, Roxy knew there was the rapidly-expanding Feltian-controlled sector, locked deeply in combat with the smaller but vicious Midnight Empire. Perhaps Lord English's group was related to one of these?
Either way, she wasn't sure that she liked the fact that the Batterwitch was trying to gather her citizens' support. She knew how much everyone hated her. If she was trying to gain their sympathies again and invoke Skaian nationalism, it meant that she was on the back foot and still being pressed. Whatever it was that was pressing her wasn't obvious—god damn it, this was one of the days when Roxy really wished she was a seer or something, it would make being a revolutionary so much easier if she could see the entirety of the chessboard rather than just one corner of it!
Thoughts like this were what made being a political science student just so damned fun, she grumped as she crossed through the dark streets, avoiding the bright, bright lamplights as best as she could, melting from shadow to shadow. Being invisible all the time was kind of tiring and required conscious focus on it, while just being unnoticed, she'd found, was a lot easier. It really does explain my luck getting a boyfriend, she snorted. Fuck, I sound all cynical like Janey.
Nope, fuck everything, it was about four in the morning and all reasonable people were still asleep unless they'd stayed up. No one in their right mind got up this early. She had every right to go cynical at the world.
Four. In the goddamn. Morning.
And of course, her damn apartment just had to be on eighth floor. Taking an elevator might draw attention, too, because no one is supposed to be awake to take the fucking elevator at four in the fucking morning, so she had to climb all the stairs.
Fuck you, and you, and you, she told each one as she huffed and grumbled and complained her way up, albeit as silently as she could.
Her apartment door was, as she suspected, broken, but so was the block of greenness and the chair she'd jammed in the way. Well, she could just... hey, if she could conjure stuff, could she unconjure it too? Did it work like that?
A few attempts at unconjuring the green stuff were unsuccessful, and she honestly was too tired to keep going at it. Instead, a moment's focus allowed her to create a bag, a simple fabric bag with a strap for her shoulder, that she then proceeded to dump everything she wanted into.
Dress she'd worn to the dance with Dirk last winter, yes. Jewelry box, yes. It would look suspicious if thieves left jewelry and fancy clothes that could be worth a lot. That shirt that she'd stolen from Dirk forever ago, also yes. The seashell comb that Jane had bought her a few years ago, definitely. A portrait of the four of them laughing, of course. The scarf and blanket her mother had made for her, for certain. Also Rose's knitting needles and a copy of her books.
Roxy paused as she picked up a picture of her mother, the same picture that she'd seen earlier when she had almost gone back to drinking but hadn't. She gently traced the outline of her mother's face, blowing softly at the slight coat of dust that had gathered on the picture glass since last time she'd cleaned. In the dimness, only lit by the reflection of the streetlamps below, Rose's face was mostly in shadow, all the crisp details hidden and softtened by the dark. She looked more at peace, more... happy, really, than Roxy could recall ever having seen her in life, save a few times.
God, she missed her mother.
They had had their differences, and their fights, always the passive-aggressive arguments with the two of them, but they'd been a family and they knew it. It was like she was slowly losing everyone she loved now, all her life. First she'd lost her mother and Dave in one day, that awful day—why did you look? Why do you always have to look?—when they'd been executed—murdered, more like—and she could never forget it, not ever. That had been the first day Roxy had ever seen death. And then Jane's grandfather and father had died in the car accident, and she'd almost lost Jane to the grief, but for a while things had seemed alright, and she'd thought it would be okay! But... but now, she had lost Dirk and Jane, too. How long was it going to be until something happened to Jake, too?
Would she end up alone?
Fuck, fuck fuck fuck, fuck it all, she thought angrily, wiping tears before they could fall. It is four in the morning and you are not going to have some kind of breakdown over your own failures and all the shit that you've dealt with while stealing your own stuff from your apartment. Get it together, Lalonde! Make Mom proud.
With a shaky breath, she skimmed her fingers over the glass again, wishing that she could just talk to her mother one more time, and then shoved the picture deep into her bag.
By the time she finished sorting through all her things and lugged her bulging bag back into the underground hideaway, the sun was rising over the Imperial City. Roxy groaned. That was one of four things on her to-do list accomplished, at least... now, she had a few hours to kill until the support demonstrations were beginning. She had to admit, she was curious. Was the Batterwitch going to crush them? If her suspicions were correct, probably not. In fact, the Witch might even officially sanction this one, in some ironic twist of fate, because she wanted to commemorate her fallen soldiers—and more importantly, remind everyone that her soldiers had fallen.
But a few hours to kill meant one important thing: naptime. Her task was finished under cover of darkness, and though she did want to organize everything to be more homey and less... a big pile of junk, she was way too sleepy. Besides, she could just sleep for a few hours or so, and then get back to work, right?
... Okay, fine, she wasn't going to sleep until the actual demonstration. But a nap for an hour sounded tantalizingly appealing, and her bed, still rumpled from when she'd groggily rolled out from the blankets earlier, was beckoning invitingly. Roxy blew out a tired sigh and trudged over, carefully placing her bag of valuables on the ground before she curled up under the covers, closing her eyes.
After a moment of lying there and enjoying the absolute bliss of her soft bed and warm blankets, she cracked her eyes open to set another alarm on her communicator, telling it to wake her in an hour and a half, and then allowed herself to fall happily into the realms of slumber.
When she awoke a while later, having snoozed right on through the alarm she'd set, she felt a lot more refreshed. It was amazing what another sleep cycle could do for one's temperament. Still kind of tired, she walked to the kitchen, pulling her hair into a short ponytail as she did, and used the coffeemaker to brew herself a nice, strong cup. As she blew on the steaming liquid—after adding heap after heap of sugar, of course—she smiled sadly, thinking of Dirk and Jane again. Were they alright? Were they still alive? She missed them so much. And even though Jake said it wasn't her fault and her tears had been assuaged for one night, she knew she would never be able to forgive herself if they actually were hurt or ... or killed.
A few gulps of scalding liquid later, she felt a lot more awake and a lot more ready to tackle the remainder of her day. A check of the clock informed her that it was about three hours until midday, and the demonstrations were scheduled to start three hours after midday. Well, she still had time, and quite a lot of it. If she gave herself an hour or so to get this place cleaned up and organized and generally more homelike than it was right now, that would also give her four hours to keep digging through that large bank of encrypted files that she'd unencrypted and stolen copies of, and then another hour to walk over to the Grand Square to see the proceedings. At some point today, since it was a weekend, she was going to pop in to see Jake, too, if he couldn't make it over here. At the very least, they could have a purely social visit, without her talking about her Rogue exploits. It had been way too long since they had last gotten together!
Okay! Now, she was going to tackle that pile of random precious junk that was sitting on the floor. But first... Roxy turned around and reached over to flick on the music player, her face brightening as it began to croon some of her favorite songs into the room. This was a much better atmosphere for working, really.
An hour or so later, just like she'd predicted, everything was in order, or as close to "in order" as it was going to get. She looked around, hands on her hips, and nodded with satisfaction once before flopping onto the couch, digging out her computer. It was now time to get cracking on these files... ooh, that was a good pun. She had to remember that for future reference.
Four hours passed infuriatingly slowly. This was heavy reading and slow going, neither of which Roxy was a fan of, and even though there were things that interested her in the documents, there was still nothing pertinent on "Lord English" or any relevant dissident factions or warring groups, etc. They didn't seem to exist!
With a frustrated groan, she almost slammed her computer closed, halting the motion at the last second and instead shutting the lid gently before she placed it on the floor and hurled a pillow across the room.
"Why are you so fucking difficult to find?" she asked aloud. "Why?"
The room, of course, declined to answer, so she just huffed and let her head fall back against the cushions for a minute before she pushed herself to her feet. It was about time for her to head out of here anyway, if she wanted to be early enough to the demonstrations. They were supposed to be a peaceful protest of some sort.
Because, you know, those always went well.
She had to admit, though, she was pleasantly surprised. As the Rogue, she'd scrawled more paint messages, signing her alias sometimes, and just leaving a distinctive enough message others, and she'd hinted that there should be another march, but she had not actually organized this one. This had been people who replied to her paint writings with papers taped to the wall, or painted their own responses and questions for her. They were the ones in charge of this particular demonstration. The Rogue would not be putting in an appearance in the public eye. The Rogue was no one and everyone, and she only worked in the shadows. The idea was that anyone could be the Rogue, really, because perhaps if Roxy, too, vanished, some inspired person might take up the mantle and follow in her footsteps.
Well, her political science theory class certainly helped her to plan a revolution, if nothing else, she thought amusedly as she walked out of the tunnels into the streets, making her way for the Grand Square. Wouldn't her professor just be so proud?
Actually, it was possible, because that professor was the same one she'd convinced to let Dirk pass not only with a barely-scraping-by grade but with flying colors for boycotting the final, because she'd argued that he was putting the things they learned to practical use, unlike all the other classmates. The professor had found this hilarious and agreed. Roxy smiled to herself at the memory—Dirk himself had expected a failing grade, and when he'd received the score he was so confused. Roxy had been leaning in the doorway as he read the report card, and when he finally raised his eyes to her, she had just waved, and he'd automatically assumed she'd hacked the system to pass him instead. It had been a funny conversation, to say the least.
Jane had laughed until her sides hurt when she heard that story. The two of them had gone out for a picnic in one of the little parks that dotted the border between upper and lower districts, and Roxy had done what she figured was a stunning impression of Dirk trying to impress upon her that no matter how much he wanted to pass a course it was not right for her to break into the system to change his grades because she might get kicked out, all while he wouldn't shut up long enough for her to get a word in edgewise to say that that hadn't been what she did.
She just missed them a lot, okay?
Shaking her head, she looked around herself. The demonstration was, in fact, going well, and like she had suspected, the guards posted at the gate to the road leading up to the Imperial palace were not doing a thing against it. She did wonder what the timeframe was going to be, though. How long were they going to be out here? How long was the Empresswitch going to take before she released another statement of sentiment? She couldn't ignore the unrest in her own city long enough; even though most of her media was heavily censored and covered things up, there would be no way to hide this from the rest of the world forever. People talked from city to city, and if something rocked her power enough, her grasp on the coverage of the conflicts would slip. In a way, being a despot was a very fragile position.
Roxy joined the protestors for another two hours, staying among them until evening and shouting and chanting just as passionately. She, too, had lost friends that day, she told someone, and was rewarded with a hug, empathy forming bonds between almost everyone there, even though they didn't know each other's names. It didn't matter. They were here for their friends, for the cause, and for everything they believed in, and that was really all there was to say on the matter. Words didn't mean as much as actions.
Finally, she extricated herself, starting to feel a bit queasy because of how much it reminded her of last time, when everything had been happy. Yeah, it was time to go see Jake, probably, because he hadn't yet messaged her to say that he would be coming to meet her at her new home in the underground. If she went using the road by the university, she could also drop by the market and grab a bite to eat. Things were always a little cheaper there because of all the hungry students who came without as much money to spend, but only a little. Still, a little was better than not at all.
It was when she had just bought a sandwich from a vendor when a bright laugh caught her attention in all the hubbub of people bustling around this way and that. It came from near the fountain, and just out of curiosity she looked up, smiling slightly to see that at least someone was having a good day, to see a dark-haired girl who looked vaguely familiar, leaning against a boy whose face was turned away just a bit, looking up into the crowd as if watching for someone,. He was saying something to her, and pinned her against him, as she feebly batted at his hand and laughed again. Roxy was about to walk away, smiling at them, when he turned back to the girl, and she saw his face.
He was the spitting image of Dirk's older brother, Dave, down to the most minute of details. The only difference was that he looked years younger than when she'd last seen him, closer to her own age, but he was unmistakably Dave. Roxy froze, unable to look away, when two more figures approached, and she felt herself go weak in the knees for a second.
A dark-haired boy and a light-haired girl joined them, hand in hand and holding two bags, presumably of dinner. Feeling vaguely like she was intruding but unable to help herself, Roxy edged closer, finding it impossible to tear her gaze away from the other girl, who had the same hair and profile and style of dress and oh god she turned her face to say something to the dark-haired girl and she looked exactly like Rose Lalonde.
"Dave!" the dark-haired girl was saying, a smile still on her face. "I admit, I was asleep, and you are a good pillow—"
"I'm the best fucking pillow there ever was, is, or will be," Dave said, giving her a little smirk that Roxy knew from years ago when he would tease little Dirk and then try not to laugh. Oh god, what was going on here? That was Dave, that was somehow Dave, she knew it, and... and that girl was...
"Yes, mister coolest pillow ever, but either let me sit up properly so I can eat, or feed me," the girl giggled. Dave seemed to consider this, actually holding up a forkful of pasta for her. She seemed surprised, but went with it.
"I see you're feeling a bit better, then," Rose Lalonde observed. From a distance, it was hard to hear, but her voice sounded exactly the same, too, and Roxy couldn't help but stare, her eyes widening.
"She took a nap on me while we were waiting on you," Dave said. "Of course she's feeling better."
"Thanks for the food, Rose," the dark-haired girl said. Roxy choked just a bit, as if it was confirmation even more that somehow this was Rose, this was her mother, her dead mother, younger and alive and sitting right in front of her, how was this possible, what was going on, what was this?
"I bought you a cookie," the dark-haired boy said, handing a small paper bag to the girl. "You said some sugar might give you a pick-me-up, right?"
"Thanks John!" she smiled brightly. "That, and you know I love cookies."
"Yes, I know," he said sardonically. "All of you weirdos like cookies way too much."
"I think that makes you the weirdo," Rose pointed out.
They kept talking, but Roxy couldn't really listen anymore. She was too caught up in the fact that her mother was sitting on the edge of the fountain that she'd eaten lunch on almost every day for the past few months, Rose Lalonde was here and alive and not dead and so was Dave Strider and how was this possible and oh shit Dave saw her, of course Dave was going to see her.
Well. Shit.
There was nothing for it now, so she took a small, tentative step forward, and another, and another. Rose turned around, probably wondering what her three companions were looking at, and Roxy froze. So did Rose.
"Mom?" she finally asked, startled even further when Rose said the same thing. "Wait, what?"
"Ohmygosh," the girl being held by Dave said, one hand having leapt to her mouth in shock. "I never—Dave, am I awake?"
"Yeah," he replied, not taking his eyes from Roxy.
"This is happening then?" she persisted.
"Yeah," he said again. "Sooner than you expected, huh?"
Rose seemed to be recovering from her shock, in the meantime. "Oh... I see. This is the not-quite-doppelganger thing you both were talking about a few days ago, isn't it?"
"I think so," the other girl said. "I mean, she looks way too much like your mom to be a coincidence!"
"Okay, hold up," Roxy frowned, holding up her hands. "What is going on here? And what do you mean I look like her mom? That's not right."
"Good question," the blue-garbed boy next to Rose muttered. All four of them were still staring at her.
"Um... the short answer would be that you're her mom and she's your mom but not from this universe," the dark-haired girl said. "Oh my gosh that sounds so stupid!" She buried her face in Dave's shoulder for a second. "I'm sorry, I'm too tired to be talking, apparently."
"Just go back to sleep, Harley," Dave patted her shoulder.
"What?" Roxy asked. "Can we take this from the top? Long answer, please."
The four of them in front of her gave each other long glances, as if communicating something that they'd discussed earlier that she wasn't privy to. Well, of course she wasn't, she had just met them! Even if she had kind of known two of them all her life and the other two still seemed like she'd seen them somewhere, even if she couldn't place it.
"This will be a long talk," Rose said with a long-suffering sigh and then a smile at Roxy. "I must say, I am surprised. It is such a coincidence that we both happened to be here right now. But... I confess, I have been looking for you, though I don't know whether I realized it."
"What does that mean?" Roxy asked, bemused. She'd almost forgotten how Rose liked to speak in riddles and confusing statements all the time.
"It means that you both are family, in some weird time-loopy nonsense way, and we should all go talk somewhere else," Blue Boy said. "Jade, can you walk?"
"Um... if we take it slowly?" the girl who must have been Jade answered. "Or my coolkid pillow can continue to support me. I like that idea."
"Of course you do," Dave snorted, but he helped her stand.
"Where are we going?" Roxy asked.
"Outside," Rose answered, and then to Roxy's surprise and delight, she tentatively held out her hand. Roxy looked down to it, and then back up to her momdaughtersomething's lavender gaze, her eyes shining, and then placed her own hand in Rose's. "I am glad I found you," she said.
"I ... I am so incredibly confused," Roxy laughed. "But I think I'm happy too."
"Guys, let's go already," Blue Boy urged.
"What's your name?" Roxy asked him.
"John," he said with a grin. "John Egbert. That's my sister, Jade Harley, and Rose's cousin—"
"I know who Dave is," she said. "You're Dirk's brother."
His head snapped up. "You know Dirk?"
"Um... like Johnny here said, we have a lot of talking to do, so let's get going," she said with a too-bright smile.
They ended up leading her outside the city itself, to her surprise, and into the forest. A little ways into the woods, there was a small campsite set up, with one tent and a firepit that currently had no fire, and several packs that sat near the entrance to the tent. The four of them sat in the center, Rose gently pulling Roxy down next to her, and then everyone kind of awkwardly stared at Roxy.
And then, they began to talk.
AN: Whoop whoop, this is less of a cliffie right? (I was thinking of going on, but it was looong and I have homework and nope haha!) I don't think it's a bad cliffhanger. I mean, they're just telling Roxy the story of "At The Break Of Dawn" but with no romance, pretty much :P so it's not like you're missing much!
We had a whopping seven reviews for last chapter, so I'll be replying to those via PM.
Also, the 100k celebration giveaway is over! The people who can ask for fics are: MLP Mike (received), LordPeanut (received), Snowy, divis5, Rouge (by the way, I cannot make a oneshot out of the thing you asked me for last time, so expect it to show up as like a twoshot or a threeshot or something soon xD I've been trying to shorten it but no, not happening), Pony, Smartbrainmonkey, and Ravens-Rook. Either put your request in a review or PM me about it, and thanks so much for your support, guys! :D
