A/N: To make up for last week's wicked short chapter, here's a (very) long chapter! Also, Canadian readers (do I have any?), feel free to correct me if Wikipedia told me lies about Toronto-area geography.
Response to anonymous reviewer "RP911": Oh, wow, I didn't realize I had crossover fans here! That's awesome. I am definitely planning on updating "The Lady's War and the Gentleman's Engagement" soon(ish). I'm about to finish a final companion piece to Breathe that I'll be uploading once I've posted the last chapter here, and then I can start working on Gúthwyn's story. I maaay decide to go for broke and catch back up to my usual ten-chapter gap (I let it slide down to seven or eight because I felt bad for not updating), but that depends on how fast I go. So, tl;dr I'll be back to writing "The Lady's War and the Gentleman's Engagement" within the week, and then hopefully soon after I'll be back to posting! Many apologies for the ridiculously long wait.
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Exile
Keira broke every speed limit on her way home, driving so recklessly that only sheer luck kept her from being pulled over. By the time she slammed the brakes in Jason's driveway, she had carved out a significant lead in front of him and their mother—enough time for her to pack her belongings and get the hell out.
Once she was in her room, she grabbed the nearest duffle bag and started shoveling necessities in: enough shirts for a week, a couple pairs of pants, nightclothes, toiletries. As she worked, her anger grew until her muscles trembled and her face became hot. She was throwing things towards the end, unsatisfied even when her shampoo bottle struck the back of the bag and knocked it onto the floor. When she was done, she stood there, panting, and took stock of her surroundings. Everything she owned was in this room, and in a few minutes her mother would have access to all of it.
Which meant that she needed boxes.
She went downstairs, raided the garage, and returned with a container in each hand. She then set about systematically gouging her room of its contents. In one box, she put the "important" things: tax returns, bank statements, her passport, her laptop, and all the slips of paper she'd written various passwords on. She also threw in all the certificates from the professional courses she'd taken over the years, which were important in the sense that they would tell her mother what she'd been doing with her life—and Keira very much intended to keep her in the dark on that matter.
The second box received personal belongings: every photograph she could find, especially the ones of her and Brian (like hell is that bitch getting her hand on those, she thought viciously); everything that Brian had ever made for her, from squiggly rainbow drawings to a curious conglomeration of Popsicle sticks that she'd never been able to figure out; and then, in a separate bag, all the lingerie that she could find in both her dresser and her laundry basket.
When both of the boxes were full, she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork. Her room looked significantly emptier than it had when she'd started. Though she hadn't had much to begin with, by now it was practically Spartan. There was only one thing left for her to do.
Opening her closet, she stood on her tiptoes and nudged a large box with dented corners out from the top shelf. It fell into her arms, making her grunt on impact; she'd forgotten how heavy it was. With a muffled curse, she staggered out of the closet and deposited the box next to the others. Even though Jason and her mother were going to arrive at any second, she couldn't resist taking a peek at the contents.
She didn't allow herself to look at anything other than what was on top; she knew that if she started sifting through the rest of the items, she'd easily lose an hour to the rush of memories that would follow. Instead she gazed at the folded-up sweatshirt she'd worn hundreds of times in high school, but not once during the past ten years. Her fingers lingered on the white laces, slightly yellowed from age, then traced over the surname embroidered on the sleeve.
She bent over, reflexively, to smell the fabric—but Will's scent had faded years ago from everything he'd given her, even his prized hockey sweatshirt. She reluctantly closed the box and stood up, just as she heard the front door open.
"Keira?" Jason called.
Shit.
"Auntie K!" Brian's near-hysterical voice grew louder as he ran up the stairs. "Auntie K!" He skidded to a halt in the doorway, then saw the boxes at Keira's feet and burst into tears.
"Oh, sweetie…" Keira hurried over and scooped him up in her arms, feeling distinctly like a candidate for the shittiest aunt of the year award. At the very least, she was a grade-A asshole. "I'll be back before you know it."
"I don't want you to leave," Brian sobbed, clutching at her neck. "Why can't you stay?"
Keira forced herself to keep her voice steady. "Because your grandmother needs a place to sleep," she explained. "So I'm going to be with Will for a while. You remember Will, right?"
Brian sniffled. "He knows all the Disney movies."
"That's right, he does. And I'm going to be at his apartment, but I'll call you every night and you can tell me about how your day went. How does that sound?"
"But what if I make a Lego house and I want to show you?" Brian wailed.
"Then maybe you can save it for me so I can see it when I come home." Keira gently rubbed his back while she spoke, trying to calm him down. "Or you can ask your father to take a picture with his phone, so I can see it right away."
"Please stay," Brian begged her.
"I'm sorry, sweetie, but I can't." She heard Jason's footsteps reach the door and glanced up, still holding Brian close. Her brother was leaning against the frame, examining the boxes she'd packed with soft frown. Their eyes only met for a brief instant before she turned away, overwhelmed with guilt. "I'm going to have to put you down now, okay?" she whispered to Brian. "I have to take care of these boxes."
A fresh wave of tears cascaded down Brian's cheeks, but there was only minimal clinging when she carefully lowered him to the ground.
She had been avoiding her brother's gaze, but a few seconds later he asked, "What's all this for?"
"So she can't go through my stuff." Keira hefted up one of the boxes and shot Jason a challenging look, as if daring him to accuse her of being childish, but he didn't take the bait. "Where is she, anyway?"
Jason stepped into the room and bent to pick up the remaining boxes. "I told her to wait in the kitchen."
"Daddy…" Brian's lips started trembling.
"Your aunt's going to be back soon," Jason promised him as Keira surreptitiously used her shoulder to wipe at her eyes.
"But, Daddy…"
It took five minutes to calm Brian down enough for them to be able to start moving Keira's things into her car, which was five minutes more than she had ever intended on being in the same house as her mother again. As they headed downstairs, she forced herself to keep her head turned away from the kitchen. Diane's presence was a tangible menace in the air, the mere knowledge of it enough to make her blood boil.
"Keira…" The quiet whisper reached her ears when she was almost at the front door. Every muscle in Keira's body froze, torn between flight and fight—the urge to run and the urge to kill. She hated that voice, hated everything it represented; she wanted to choke her mother until she couldn't hear it anymore, until there was only silence.
"Keira."
The voice was Jason's this time, and it was laced with apprehension. Keira looked over her shoulder and saw that he was waiting for her to open the door, which he couldn't do with two boxes in hand. Next to him, Brian stared up at her with watery eyes.
Shaking herself out of her stupor, Keira moved forward and twisted the doorknob. Jason and Brian followed her outside, neither of them speaking. It took only a moment to load her possessions into the car, Brian more of a hindrance than a help. When they were done, Jason closed the trunk and looked at her. "I'm sorry this had to happen," he said quietly.
The urge to make a nasty retort died when she saw the anguish in his eyes. She knew Jason was genuinely torn between her and their mother, that it bothered him to have pushed her—even unintentionally—out of his house. He wasn't doing this to spite her, or to hurt her; he was doing this because, for some reason that was completely beyond her, he thought their mother was worth saving.
"It's not your fault," she muttered.
Jason looked like he wanted to say something, but the right words were hovering just out of reach. "I'll be in touch," he finally told her. "I want to see you at some point this week, so we can talk about…" He glanced at Brian, and Keira understood what he meant: visitation.
"Yeah." She forced a smile on her face. "That's fine, I have a lot of free time on my hands now."
"I'm sorry—"
"Not your fault," Keira cut him off. She didn't want to think about work anymore, or she'd storm right back into their house and take it all out on their mother. "I should be going—"
Her words were drowned out by the loudest fit Brian had thrown in recent memory.
After a quick scramble to make sure his apartment looked presentable—which included killing two spiders and removing the last few photographs from his relationship with Cassie—Will sat down on his couch and buried his face in his hands.
It had been a day longer than he'd thought possible, longer than even that terrible call when he'd found out the truth behind Keira's disappearance from his life. Because while he should have realized something had happened to her that night, there was no way he could have known what it was; and yet for years he had obliviously borne witness to the aftermath of Jim's worst attacks against Keira, never once guessing what had caused the bruises and the tears.
How much of an idiot do you have to be not to figure that one out?
It was the question he asked himself over and over again, not once coming up with a satisfactory answer. All those times he'd snuck her into his house at night so she could fall apart in his arms, even after the morning his parents had caught them sleeping together…
His parents.
Will stiffened, feeling as though a wave of cold water had just swept through his insides. Had his mother and father figured out the truth about Keira's family? His teenage self had naively accepted all the lies about her bruises, the established consensus that they were never to go over the Fords' house; but his parents had been adults, with eyes sharp enough to read between the lines. And they had practically adopted Keira into the family, always happy to set out an extra plate for her at the dinner table, never once complaining about how much time Will was spending with her…
Soon, he was going to have to make that call to his parents. But not now, not when everything was still raw and potent, when his childhood memories were being torn apart and even that was nothing in comparison to what Keira was going through. He needed time to process it all, to figure out the best way to help her—because the only thing he knew for certain was that she wouldn't want to talk about any of it tonight.
He stood up and headed towards the kitchen. When in doubt, there was one thing he could give Keira—the one thing she had gone far too many years without.
A home.
Will was renting an apartment in Etobicoke, which was almost a straight shot down the Gardiner Expressway. It took Keira less than twenty minutes to reach the complex, even when she made a wrong turn and had to backtrack. She pulled into the visitors' section of the parking lot and double-checked to make sure she had the right address. Then she got out of the car and stretched, examining her surroundings.
Etobicoke had a somewhat uneven reputation, but this particular neighborhood looked fairly safe. The apartment building itself was unremarkable: a square-shaped brick structure about five stories high, with fire escapes climbing down the sides and a few pockets of light coming from the occupied rooms. Keira surveyed the parking lot until she found Will's car; only then did she take out her duffel bag and head up the walkway.
Though every step brought her closer to Will, her mind lingered on the home she had left behind—once a safe haven, now ruined by her mother's presence. She wondered if Diane had started insinuating herself into Brian's good graces, if even now her nephew was in his grandmother's embrace without the slightest idea that those same arms had once refused to protect Keira and Jason.
Don't think about that, she chastised herself. All that's going to get you now is obscenely high blood pressure.
She jabbed at the buzzer, wincing as she bent her thumb backwards. It was a relief when Will's voice came out of the speaker.
"It's me," she said.
A moment later, she was in front of his door. She took a deep breath and knocked, instinctively smoothing out her hair while she waited. This was the first time she had been to Will's new place, and she realized that, until now, she had only been imagining his old bedroom. Obviously his apartment would be different—and she was unable to repress a grimace as she wondered how many nights Cassie had been here before her.
When the door opened, however, all thoughts of Cassie flew from her head. Will in civilian clothes was, if possible, even more attractive than Will in uniform, and she found herself smiling for what felt like the first time since her mother had shown up at the SRU. "Hey," she said softly.
Will stepped aside to let her in. "How are you holding up?"
"Trying not to think about it," she replied, looking around. The entranceway was small, with just enough space to hang a few coats and umbrellas; but the living room beyond was spacious, with a large television and a gently-used couch. She bit back a smile as she imagined Will sitting there and watching the Canucks, filling the apartment with alternating cheers and anguished cries.
Will led her out of the entranceway, enabling her to see a brightly-lit kitchen and a modest dining area. Beyond, a short hall led to his bedroom. Keira's eyes roamed over the walls, bare except for a few pictures his father—a professional photographer—must have taken: the Vancouver skyline, Will in a cap and gown beside his mother, two children crouching in a sandbox with their heads bent together.
"That's us," she said in surprise, recognizing the wild mess of curls that her hair had once been. Her younger self was pointing at a pile of sand, which Will—God, how old were they? Three? Four?—was busily shaping into a castle.
"Yeah, it's a good picture." A grin tugged at Will's lips. "I bet you were bossing me around, as usual."
She elbowed him. "Funny how I never heard any complaints."
Will chose not to respond to that. "Come on," he told her instead, motioning for her to follow. "You can have my room."
"Wait a second." Keira stopped in her tracks, forcing Will to do the same. "I'm not taking your bed. I'll be fine on the couch."
When he saw that she was bracing for an argument, he conceded—but only a little. "Just for tonight, then."
Sometimes, it was better to let Will have his chivalrous moments. Besides, she had to admit that a mattress sounded nice after one of the longest days in her recent memory. "Okay," she agreed, before sending him a warning look. "But tomorrow we're switching back."
Will nodded, but she had a feeling that she would have to take a firmer stance later on. For now, however, she let it go, allowing him to show her to his room. "And the bathroom's that door over there," he said, gesturing, once she'd put her duffel bag down.
Keira gave a general murmur of acknowledgment, but she was more interested in examining Will's room. It was scrupulously neat—a stark contrast to the piles of clothes perpetually strewn across her floor, rising and falling in tandem with her laundry cycles. Even when they were children, Will had always been the organized one. Her eyes flicked over a navy blue comforter, a book on the nightstand that he'd probably been reading for months, the hockey stick and skates propped up in a corner.
"I don't know if you're hungry," Will began after a moment, "but I started making dinner earlier."
"Oh—" And no sooner had he said it than she realized she was hungry; starving, in fact, not having eaten for close to eight hours. She couldn't even remember what she'd had for lunch. "That sounds great," she replied. "Thank you."
His eyes sparkled when he smiled, almost enough to make the afternoon's events seem like a distant memory. "If you want, you can take a shower or settle in while I finish—it'll be another half an hour. There's towels in the bathroom and all that."
Normally Keira might have teased him, saying something along the lines of Good to know there's towels in the bathroom, but the words never came. Instead, she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Will had opened up his home to her without a second thought, had given her his own bed, and was now ready to make dinner for her while she rested. It wasn't because he was whipped—she would do the same for him in a heartbeat, if their situations were reversed—but because there was no one else like him, no one else who cared for her the way he did. And she had no idea what she'd ever done to deserve his friendship.
When Will was gone, she stepped into the bathroom and shed her clothes, keeping her eyes averted from the mirror. But she couldn't avoid looking at her own body, and the scars on her torso reminded her all too well of the secrets she'd spent her entire life trying to hide—the ones that her mother had exposed to her coworkers, ruining everything in a single instant.
The water was too hot, but Keira gritted her teeth and slipped under the punishing current anyway. She felt the water burning down her skin, mimicking the blood that pumped furiously through her veins whenever she thought of her mother. Unable to bear it any longer, she twisted the knob until fire turned to ice. Then her teeth were chattering, bones grinding in frigid protest.
It was too much. Her mind was reeling, torn between rage and grief; and until one of them triumphed over the other, she was a prisoner of her own emotions. She waited for tears, screams, any form of release—but nothing came, nothing, and it was all trapped inside of her and she didn't know how to get it out.
Her mother was back. The team knew everything. Will knew everything. Jason had betrayed her. Brian was in danger—if not now, then when Diane moved on to her next abusive relationship. And she was powerless to stop any of it from happening. It had all blown up in her face, one carefully-hoarded secret after another, leaving her stripped and exposed for the world to see.
Napping on a bed of nails would have been more refreshing than that shower. When she stepped out, the mirror thrust a startling image back at her: a red-faced woman with bloodshot eyes, stiff shoulders, and an expression that would have cut through a lesser opponent. Her gaze dropped to the mottled skin of her torso, the flesh that rippled and twisted in unnatural ways; and suddenly she wondered how Spike could bear it, how he could have sex with her and not feel repulsed by the monster she had become.
You're not a monster, she told herself without conviction.
It was the music that pulled her from her thoughts. Gradually she became aware that Will had turned on the stereo, the strains of a country song filtering through the bathroom door as he chopped and sliced away at the cutting board. In spite of herself, she smiled when she heard him mimicking a guitar solo—the closest he ever got to singing. No matter how chaotic her life was, some things could be counted on to stay the same.
She dried off and changed into her customary sleepwear: a long-sleeved shirt and shorts, though she had been careful to select a more modest version of what she'd worn when Will had stayed at her house. Then she followed the music and wandered into the kitchen, where Will had begun setting the table.
"Can I help?" she asked, watching him work.
He glanced up at her and frowned slightly. "Are you okay?"
Keira felt her throat tighten. Somehow, Will, Jason, and Spike all had that effect on her: whenever she was upset, and one of them noticed and made an inquiry, it became that much harder to suppress her emotions. She swallowed, wincing at the burning sensation that made speaking suddenly difficult. "I'm fine. Can I help?"
He must have known she was lying, but for now he let her maintain the façade without comment. "I think we're all set," he answered, placing the last of the utensils on the table. "Just grab a drink and—oh, yeah, I should show you around the kitchen."
She obligingly accepted the impromptu tour, but she was less interested in the location of the plates and glasses than she was in listening to him speak. The familiar lilt of his voice eased away some of the tension, reducing the throbbing in her temples to a tolerable ache. God, she was so tired.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked when they sat down.
Keira nodded, biting the insides of her cheeks so she didn't say something she might regret. She didn't have the energy to talk about what had happened anymore; instead, she served herself some pasta—a dish she recognized from countless dinners at the McKnight house—and passed the bowl to Will. "This looks amazing," she said, finally unsticking her throat.
Grinning, Will heaped some onto his own plate. "Didn't you used to call it 'spaghetti crack'?"
"Crack spaghetti, yeah," she replied softly. The smell was transporting her back to the McKnights' kitchen, where she and Will had spent countless hours finishing their homework while Mr. McKnight prepared dinner and—sometimes—let them sample everything beforehand. Those nights were long past, and she could barely recall the specifics anymore; all she remembered was feeling happy. Like she belonged.
She wondered if Will had remembered, too, when he picked the recipe for tonight.
"Will, this is—"
She wasn't sure what she'd meant to say. Amazing, really nice of you, too much; none of it seemed right, and in the end it didn't matter. Because when he glanced up at her, the words snagged in her throat and her eyes welled up instead, a prelude to the breakdown that hadn't come in the shower. Whether it was the memories that the food had stirred within her, or the knowledge that it was finally safe to let her guard down, she found herself almost choking on the spaghetti as she struggled to clear her airway.
"Keira?" Will yanked his chair closer to hers, ready to be there for her if she needed him. And right now she did, just as she had in those long years when Jason was gone. Just as she had during the months after that horrible dorm party, though she'd been too ashamed to admit it. Just as she always would, in one way or another, because he was Will and she couldn't imagine ever going back to a life without him.
"I-I'm sorry," she gasped, trying and failing to pull herself back under control. "I don't—I can't—"
Will didn't need an explanation; then again, he never did. He simply reached out, then said nothing when she squeezed all her frustration and hurt into his waiting hand.
Around midnight, Will awoke to the sound of shattering glass.
Disoriented by his unfamiliar surroundings, it took him a moment to realize that he was on the couch in his living room. Keira was in his bed, though she'd insisted it was only for this one night. He blinked, his eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness; then he saw a shadow moving in the kitchen. "Keira?"
There was a muffled gasp, then a hiss of pain. "I'm so sorry, I didn't meant to wake you—no, go back to sleep, I'm fine—"
But he'd already thrown back the covers and turned on the light. "Are you okay? Did something break?"
Keira was crouched on the kitchen floor, rubbing at her head and sweeping the tiles with a paper towel. "Yeah, I'm sorry—I just dropped a glass. It's fine, most of the pieces were pretty big and I'm getting the rest of them now—I probably should have just stayed in bed, I'm sorry—"
He noticed that her hands were twitching as she scooped the glittering shards into her palms. "You okay?" he repeated.
"Um… Yeah." Not looking at him, she carefully deposited the glass remnants into the trash. "Just some stupid nightmare. About Jim."
While her tone was dismissive, her jumpiness told another story—one that reminded him of all the nights she'd shown up at his house, pale-faced and shivering. "Want to talk about it?"
She shook her head, then winced at the abrupt motion.
"What happened?" he asked, tapping his own temple to reference hers.
"Knocked my head against the cabinet. I'm fine."
Will hesitated, wondering how best to navigate Keira's current mood. Finally he said, "I'm having trouble falling asleep, too. I was thinking I'd turn on the TV. Want to watch a movie or something?"
It was a lie, of course—he'd been sleeping soundly until she'd woken him up. But she looked like she could use the distraction, and he didn't want her to feel guilty about it.
Keira finished cleaning and stood up, her arms automatically folding across her chest. She was only a few inches shorter than Will, but suddenly she seemed a lot smaller. She swallowed before replying. "Yeah, that'd be good. Um… on the couch?"
There was room for awkwardness here, because Will had already unfolded the sofa bed—and the last mattress they'd shared together had been the one in his single dorm, so crowded that Keira had always wound up sprawled on top of him by the morning. "We can put it back together," he offered as her eyes scanned the sheets.
"It's fine. I don't mind."
He let her situate herself while he spent an unnecessarily long time searching for the remote, turning on the television, finding a movie channel. When he turned around, Keira was already curled up under the covers, her face even whiter in the glow of the screen. "That's Audrey Hepburn, isn't it?"
"Uh… yeah," Will answered. He'd never been one for black and white films, but since she'd expressed a modicum of interest he decided to leave it on.
"Huh." Keira gathered the blankets more tightly around herself. He could see her shuddering beneath the sheets, still unable to shake off the remnants of her nightmare. "Never seen anything with her." But she wasn't looking at the screen; she was looking at him, silently observing as he came over to the couch. In the moment of indecision as he wondered whether to join her under the covers or sit on top of them, she unwrapped one of the blankets and extended it towards him in an unspoken invitation.
Probably not the smartest idea, a nagging voice warned him as he slipped in beside her. The boss just gave you an ultimatum over her. But those thoughts vanished when Keira scooted closer and leaned against him, just like she had when they were growing up, and he couldn't deny her such a simple comfort.
She was trembling against him, enough that he could feel the vibrations in his own body; but he didn't comment, knowing from experience that the tremors would simply have to run their course. Instead, he put an arm around her, adjusted the blankets so that they were tighter around her small frame, and settled in to watch the movie.
Neither of them spoke, and before long Keira's breathing began to even out. Then she was still, her muscles finally relaxing, and Will didn't have to glance over to know that she was asleep. He looked anyway, and found himself smoothing her hair away from her face. A few seconds later, he realized what he was doing and pulled back. Not only was he making things more complicated for himself, but Keira sure as hell didn't need anything else to worry about.
All the same, the thought of his impending conversation with Greg weighed heavily on his mind. He didn't know how to choose between the SRU, his dream career, and Keira, the woman he loved who was in a relationship with someone else. If he resigned from Team One, she would still be with Spike—and, more importantly, he would barely ever see her. Yet the SRU had a priority of life code for a reason, and his feelings for Keira (there was no point denying it anymore) were a very real threat to others' safety.
Don't worry about that now, he thought, his tiredness getting the better of him. You still have two weeks to figure it out.
But as he drifted off to sleep, Keira in his arms and Audrey Hepburn murmuring indistinctly in the background, he knew he would have to make his decision sooner rather than later.