Chapter Twenty-Nine: An Event Called Death
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Unlike Emily, Spencer didn't run far. Just home, to where his mom was and, he'd thought, would always be when he needed her.
And, just this time, she was.
Diana found him in her bed, curled up small under the covers. Surprisingly, when she pulled them back to look in at her overheated son in his blanket cave, he wasn't crying. Just curled up there, watching her miserably, betrayal written over every feature.
"You should read Hamlet again," she told him as she slid into bed beside him and let him snuggle into her arms, worrying over how small and slight he felt to her. Always a boy in her head, she suspected, no matter how much he grew—he would always be this age, this perfect age, her most favourite of all his ages. Except, perhaps, when he was seven and enraptured by poetry of hares. Or three, when his mind had revealed itself to be truly unique in every way, her special boy. "That is a cautionary tale against eavesdropping that I think you would do well to heed."
"Emily started it."
"Emily, as darling as she is, is a demon in a child's body. That girl was born to be contrary—if eavesdropping was encouraged, she'd cover her ears just to show her disdain for it. If she 'starts something', my boy, I implore you not to jump aboard."
Spencer sniffled, a small smile appearing. "She does like being troublesome," he whispered. "Garett says I'm a 'calming influence' on her."
"You're a calming influence on many things. Now, look at me, talk to me. What do you need to hear from me to shake that panic from your eyes?"
Spencer took a breath that shuddered all the way through his skinny body, his fingers curling tight into Diana's shirt as he pressed close. "Are you sending me away because you don't want me?"
Oh, how her heart hurt to hear him say that, as he looked at her like she was William.
"Absolutely never, there isn't a single molecule of me that doesn't want you—not even a hair. I would carry you across this earth if that was what it took to be your mother, Spencer—there isn't another child I could possibly want but you. You know this, I've told you before, when you've asked me for a sibling—what do I say?"
He smiled a little glassily, some measure of calm overtaking the panic as he took in what she was saying and believing her. "Why mess with perfection…"
"Exactly. Spencer, I need you to look at me." He did. "This decision hasn't been made yet, not without the input of one very important opinion."
"Mine?"
"Absolutely. Did you really think I would allow you to leave my sight if you had no desire to leave? I'm not going to throw you out of the nest unless you assure me that you can fly, baby… you know this. I'd wished you could learn about it in a less haphazard way, but here we are… will you listen to what we've discussed?"
He nodded, so she told him what would happened if he stayed, and she told him what would happen if he chose to leave. To fly away, quite literally, without her.
If he stayed, they would move together. Find a nice quiet home somewhere and live. Diana couldn't promise him that she would be well for this. She couldn't promise him what it would be like. The only thing she knew was that it would be hard, and that a lot of that weight would fall on his shoulders, but she would stay beside him for as long as she was able.
She couldn't promise that that would be forever, because, much like many other things in her life, she just didn't know if that was true.
He would attend the same school. Be close enough to visit Balthy. Be able to visit Ethan. He'd have his mom.
He'd have the weight of his mom.
If he left, he would go with Emily—and Elizabeth, who'd become one of his legal guardians, which was not the same as being his mom, he was reassured. Diana was still his mom and always would be: it just meant that Elizabeth was allowed to take care of him when Diana wasn't there to do so, without having to consult her for every decision. He would go to London for the next three years, or however long her posting went, but he would also go with her beyond that. He was startled to discover that this wasn't just a little bit of time—Diana told him quietly that, if he went, he wouldn't be coming back to live with her ever unless it proved to be absolutely untenable for him with Elizabeth. If he went, Diana would be going to a sanatorium in Vegas: an option which horrified him at first, the thought of her locked away, until she told him that it was her choice, and her wish.
"They're not prisons, baby," she told him, showing him via a glossy pamphlet the place she'd chosen. "They're places of care, of rest… I know I'm going to decline, although not how quickly. If I go to them now, while I am still somewhat cognitively able, they can begin catering treatment to me early… we may gain time in taking action sooner."
If he went, his mom would be somewhere she would be taken care of… she might get better, he parsed from that. Or, at least, she might not get worse?
And he'd have Emily.
But not Ethan, or Balthy…
"It's your choice," she told him. "And you don't need to answer straight away. You have until the beginning of September to cement your decision. Elizabeth will accept it either way, I promise."
"I'll think about it," was all he replied.
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He decided to decide, and he decided to be logical about it. In order to be logical and rational, he had to not be emotional—which meant that, until he made his choice, he was avoiding Emily.
Emily, naturally, was confused and hurt over this, at first trying to be gentle about how much she didn't like being avoided and, eventually, being angry about it. For a week, while Spencer worried constantly over his choice, she stormed around the house with such a face that, soon enough, everyone else began to avoid her as well.
But Spencer barely noticed, because he was very busy trying to make his choice without being swayed by how much he didn't want to lose his best friend. Instead, he visited everything else he loved, even if he didn't love those things quite as much as her.
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He visited both libraries that were dear to him; the one in the big house, where Balthy's first litter had been born so long ago, or so it felt to him, and the one in his house, where all the books he'd known since his first conscious thought were lined in untidy rows of well-loved words. He read as many as he could, of the ones that he'd read before—which was almost all of them—and the few that had escaped his grasp. He read them fast and he read some slow, pausing over his most favourite bits.
The last book he found wasn't in either of the libraries. It was beside his bed, a battered, adored copy of Watership Down, with the rabbits on the front faded from wear. He picked it up and looked at the cover for the longest time, deliberately not turning back to study the wall where Fiver adventured with the bravest Blackbird, and then he opened it to the page it fell naturally to: the one that held the photo of their first day of school.
He was trying to ignore Emily, but Emily—much as she always would—was refusing to be ignored.
He moved the photo aside and studied the passage below. Human beings say, "It never rains but it pours", he read. The page continued: This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits' proverb is better expressed. They say, "One cloud feels lonely": and indeed it is true that the sky will soon be overcast.
If he stayed, he'd have his mom, but he would be lonely, again… maybe it wouldn't be so bad, to take the option that seemed cloudier right now. And, no matter where he went, there would always be stories to consume. He'd always have books.
He went to bed feeling thoughtful, and dreamed that night of flying.
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He visited Ethan's home for the first time. Ethan's home was as vibrant as Ethan was, and it occurred to Spencer as he was led through the domicile just why Ethan was the way he was. The place was a haphazardly tidy mess of living, of a life that was right in the middle of being fantastic. Photos clung to every wall, hardly any of them the polished staging of the ones that Elizabeth displayed. They were snapshots of life, of smiling and laughing, with Ethan and his sister in every one of them, always looking to their family and happy to be doing so. The bookshelves were filled with books and games and trinkets that Spencer wanted to examine closer, two cats chasing Ethan down the stairs as he galloped down to meet Spencer there.
"Hi," said Spencer nervously, looking from the stooped, bespectacled figure of Ethan's portly father to Ethan himself, wondering how this librarian-esque figure had created his long-haired, silly friend. "Um. Want to hang out for a bit?"
"Shit yes!" Ethan yelled in reply, clearly overjoyed to be able to show Spencer around his house, his swear earning a soft, "Ethan," from his quiet father. Spencer, with a guilty grin at Mr. Ethan, followed his friend up the stairs and down a cluttered hall, to a room that exploded with his friend's personality. Clothes and magazines and books and musical instruments on every available surface; Spencer found a slim space to seat himself on on the bed, after disturbing a keyboard from within the blankets that he assumed Ethan slept with.
"Want to see everything I own?" Ethan asked with obvious hope that the answer would be 'yes'.
But Spencer couldn't say yes, not yet. He had a reason he was here, and that reason came first.
He told him about the choice he'd been given, his friend's ever-present smile finally vanishing as he sat there petting the fatter of the two cats and staring at a Frank Zappa poster on the wall.
"So, I guess now I have to choose…" Spencer finished lamely, trailing off at the silence in the room that didn't feel like it was ever this quiet. Down the hall, he could hear someone singing. More voices floated from downstairs, playful bickering and laughter, someone calling out down, Django, drop the fish! to what Spencer assumed was the other cat, since the one on Ethan's lap had a tag reading 'Reinhardt'.
"I don't want you to go," said Ethan finally.
Spencer swallowed hard and felt the pain of that choke him.
"I know," he managed. "I…"
"You don't want to go, right?" Ethan was staring at him hopefully, his eyes dangerously bright, his fingers tight enough through the ginger cat's fur that it grumbled a little unhappily at him, tail flicking.
Spencer couldn't answer that. He didn't know.
"We can write letters if I do…" He shifted on the bed, the keyboard clinking beside him, something else crunching.
"Yeah, well, it's not the same… you know that."
He did. Even with Emily, despite how much he'd loved their letters, it hadn't ever been the same.
"I'm sorry." And he was. He was so sorry. Before he could say anything, leap right into promising he'd stay because he couldn't bear the devastated look on his friend's face, someone thumped twice on the door before bursting in.
"Ethan, where's Rein—oh, hello." Ethan's sister smiled distractedly at Ethan, her hair a startling array of colours tied back with a black headband. Spencer stared, fascinated. "What's wrong with you? You look miserable." This was aimed at Ethan, who wasn't hiding how upset he was; Spencer switching his attention away from the older girl and back to his friend, surprised that Ethan didn't seem to mind his sister seeing him almost crying. Spencer thought that he'd mind a lot, Emily seeing him cry—or any of the kids at school. Maybe with sisters it was different.
"Spencer's moving away." Ethan shrugged with a kind of effort that suggested he was angry as well as upset, although Spencer didn't think it was aimed at him. He was correct in this supposition: Ethan was angrier at himself for resenting his friend's potential happiness than he was angry for his friend for wanting what was offered. "It's fine, Fi."
"Oh. That sucks." And then Ethan's sister did a—to Spencer—surprising thing.
She hugged him. Spencer blinked, staring openly, something deep in his brain latching onto that moment and clinging on tight. Even though he didn't really conceptualise just what was so important about this moment right then, he'd always remember it: this was the exact memory he'd recall whenever his brain meandered over the idea of 'family'. This cluttered, almost untidy home filled with people who were entirely unalike but loved each other anyway, enough that no one was scared of hurting in front of the other.
And it wasn't something he had, despite his mother's love. It wasn't something Emily had either.
But he wanted it dearly.
When he left there that day, it was with a feeling like he didn't want to lose this, but not really knowing what this was.
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When he got home, he wandered aimlessly. Across the grounds and away from his home, passing below their tree and running his fingers on the rough trunk. He found the oak tree Emily had been climbing the day so long ago and he found the first ever tunnel through the hedges they'd made. Past Garett's work-shed he went, skirting by Balthy's hare-house and not being surprised that she wasn't there—she rarely was anymore. Finally, he made his way into the big house, avoiding the hall where Emily's room was and instead creeping through the lower floor until he found himself standing outside Elizabeth's office like he'd been summoned there.
He knocked politely, feeling a tremor of nerves pass through when a voice called for him to enter. Despite how long he'd lived here, how many Christmases he'd spent in the company of this woman, despite her teaching him to skate… he still felt wary of her, never sure if he had her approval or just her tolerance. She was a kind of dragon too, filled with all the power to withhold parts of his life he held dear.
Despite his nerves, he slipped inside and stood in front of her desk, feeling small and slight as she looked down at him.
"Is your mother okay?" was the first thing she asked him, concern in her eyes. That concern bolstered him.
"Yes," he squeaked. Voice shrill and sweaty hands clasped behind his back, he didn't know what he was going to say before he said it. "Um. Can we talk? Please?"
Maybe he expected her to say no, but she didn't. Instead, she placed her pen down and gestured to the chair in front of her desk—the one Emily had spent many miserable afternoons in being scolded or instructed on all the ways she was going wrong or could be going better. Much just she had, he took up very little of the chair, his feet not touching the floor and his hands tiny on the arms. Elizabeth looked at him in the chair and felt a pang of nostalgia for when Emily had looked at her so innocently, with no guile on her face, just anticipation of her mother's attention.
"How may I help you, Spencer?"
Needing to move to settle his nerves, he swung his feet below him, focused hard on what he was thinking as he tried to straighten out his own mind. "I was wondering, um. Why?"
She looked at him like she was expecting more, so he tried again.
"Why are you offering me this? It's… it's big, I guess. I don't know exactly how much, but I know that it's big. I mean, what you're… it's a parents' job but you're not my parent and I don't know—I guess I just need to know why before I can decide whether it's big and good or just big."
He suspected that maybe he'd gone a little off the rails towards the end there, but she seemed to understand anyway.
"Your mother is very dear to me," was her answer. Unlike Spencer, she didn't need to fidget or bounce to calm her nerves, which hid the fact that she was nervous. For Elizabeth, hiding that she was nervous was an important part of her career. But, in this moment, perhaps it would have been better that her hand had shaken—it would have been some comfort to the small boy in front of her facing a life-changing decision, although to her the correct answer seemed obvious. She'd never been good at emphasising completely with the emotions of children. "She has been for a very long time. When she first suspected that she was ill, we were dearer still to each other. At the time, I promised her my support—and I fully stand by that promise—despite that there is a distance between us there hadn't been then."
"Dear like Emily is to me?" Spencer asked, thinking that through. He'd do a lot for Emily—if she had a son and she was sick, would he look after her? If they were grown and she needed him too? Absolutely. Just like she'd looked after him when his leg was broken, even if she hadn't been very good at it.
"Perhaps dearer… we were considerably older, which brings a certain complexity into the relationship we had that your friendship with Emily naturally lacks. You are children with a child's notion of love, you couldn't possibly understand."
Spencer thought about that, the quiet waiting but not painful. Both Spencer and Elizabeth were alike in their comfort in silence, when Emily needed noise to feel comfortably grounded.
"I don't think there's anything different about a friend loving a friend whether they're grown or not," he decided finally, his legs stopping swinging as he made a choice to be firm about what he'd realised he believed. "If Emily was sick, I'd do anything for her. And if you love Mom like I love Emily, that must mean you think this is good for Mom, right?"
Elizabeth nodded, watching him carefully.
"So…" He looked at his shoes, heart sinking. "The right choice is to go with you… even though you're doing it because you love my mom but not me, I don't really factor into your decision at all."
Elizabeth couldn't comfort him in this moment, because to say she loved him at that point would have been a lie. She merely said, "It would be a great weight from your mother's shoulders."
Spencer nodded, standing. He didn't thank her; she hadn't really helped, just added guilt to his misery. But, before he left the room, he asked one last thing. "If you loved Mom so much, why did you guys move so far apart? I was seven when I met you… seven is a long time to be without your best friend."
But all Elizabeth answered was, "Your father," and wouldn't answer anymore.
Spencer suspected that this was something he wasn't quite old enough to understand, leaving without saying another word.
And he still didn't know what he was going to do.
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Tired and no closer to an answer, Spencer trudged back to his home, stopping only once when he saw a familiar grave shape sitting in a tree nearby. Emily looked miserable, her back to Spencer and one arm hooked over a branch as she watched nothing in particular. He thought of going over there and telling her everything he'd learned today, about the comfort of books and his new burning wish that his family could be as wildly hectic as Ethan's and what he'd learned about love from her mom… but he didn't. Tomorrow, he decided. He'd talk to Emily tomorrow, and then they'd decide.
So he turned his back on her and simply went home. The front light was on for him despite the sun still being low in the sky, and it was a comforting reminder that he didn't have to decide yet—even as the garden-bed near his door twitched and Balthy appeared. She looked up at him, twitching her nose busily as he stopped and crouched, holding his fingers out for her to sniff if she wanted a pat. With no real hope that she'd let him pat her, since she'd been weird and hiding lately, he was pleasantly surprised when she hopped right up to him, putting her paws on his knee and watching him solemnly.
"Hi, Baltharog," Spencer greeted his first friend at the Sometimes Homes, petting her back gently and smoothing her ears back, her eyes half-closing at the touch. "Would you miss me if I left?"
She didn't answer, just huffed softly and tried to jump onto his knee, startling him almost into falling back. Not since she'd been barely a baby herself, living in Michael's office, had she been so openly affectionate. She even let him pick her up, lying placidly in his arms as he looked around for his mom and found no one was watching him.
Just for tonight, he decided, carrying her carefully inside despite the threat of fleas.
She didn't fight him or make a mess in his room, just lying beside him on the bed as he told her everything he'd found out today, everything he hadn't told Emily yet. He told her about the books and about Ethan and about Elizabeth and about how scared he was to leave, but how scared he also was of staying. And she listened, her eyes almost closed but without making a sound, and he curled around her with her little heart thumping against his chest and thought that Elizabeth was definitely wrong: he knew he loved Balthy with as much intensity as he loved everything else in his life—so fiercely and furiously that he knew he couldn't bear to lose any of it.
"But isn't that what I told Emily?" he asked the hare, who seemed to have gone to sleep, yawning once, whiskers still twitching. "That we have to face what we're scared of, our dragons… but I'm scared of every option, so how do I pick which to face?"
Balthy, unfortunately, had very little to say on the subject.
"I'm trying to keep everyone," Spencer admitted to the sleeping hare and his darkening room, the nightlight by his bed now brighter than the light outside. "I know I can't, but I'm trying anyway… I need to stay with the people who need me best, not the ones I want the most…"
And that, he decided, was why he had to stay. His mom needed him. Balthy needed him. No one else would feed her during winter or make sure she had at very best biscuits—especially if Emily was gone.
Emily didn't need anyone. She never needed anyone, and maybe that's why her and her mom were how they were with each other. Spencer didn't want to be that independent, not yet…
He wanted his mom, and he wanted his pet, and he guessed the weight of those wants was worth the choice.
"I'll stay," he promised Balthy, closing his eyes and hoping to sleep, because tomorrow he'd have to tell Emily. "I'll miss her, but I'll stay…"
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But when he woke, Balthy hadn't moved from her spot beside him and never would again.
