Jacen
As soon as I got the chance, I ran as fast as I could till I was in a secluded corner. I couldn't be trusted around any of them. Not with what Grindelwald was doing. I didn't know when it would come, but I knew sometime soon I would be forced to betray them all.
Jacen?
I tried my best to shut her out but I couldn't. I could hear her begging me to stay, begging me to talk to her. I burrowed my head into my knees, and hugged them tightly. I could see the green eyes glowing every single time I closed my eyes.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Mara-Jade towered over me, her amber eyes blazing.
"Mara-Jade," I said hoarsely as I scooted myself farther away. "You shouldn't have come here."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She strode over to me with the regal imperiousness of a queen and the ice of a killer.
"Look, I-" I sighed. "I can't tell anyone, but you're all in-" immediately, my hand shot up to my mouth, and in attempt to try to spill my secret, to try and save everyone from myself, I bit my hand. Hard.
I pulled my bloody hand away.
"Jacen, what are you doing?" Mara-Jade's face reflected my own horror within. "Something isn't right. You've changed."
"What do you think happened?" I snarled. "Honestly, what was your first clue?"
She shook her head, sending her curls swaying over her chest. "You need help, Ace."
"Tell who you want, I'll only be able to tell them as much as I told you. Which was nothing. I can't," I tried to explain. "I don't want to hurt anyone."
Annoyance and anger surged into her face, and she raised a clenched fist, when she stopped, her chest heaving, and much to my surprise, sat down beside me, and took my hand into hers, and held her wand over it, biting her lip in concentration.
"Sapis." The skin instantly knitted together in a scar that would fade in time. For a moment, I had a good look at her hands, calloused and scarred, but capable.
"What are you looking at?" She began to unwrap her hand when I tried to hold it a little tighter and her face softened.
"Look, Ace, you need to talk to someone." I looked away.
"I can't."
"I don't care, Ace. You've been in a prison for four months, pretty much. It's almost the end of the term, and you've hidden in a back corridor, trying to keep away from everyone, and you're hurting yourself! I can't let you sit back and act like this!"
"Mimble Wimble!" Her hands went to her mouth. I clapped a hand to my mouth, too late. I had been controlled again for whatever reason.
"What the hell was that for?" Fire danced in her eyes and hair, and a part of me regretted doing that to Mara-Jade.
"I-I-I-"
"Save it, Jacen." She stood up and narrowed her eyes as she whipped out her wand. "I can see now that you've changed, and it's not in a good way. Something dark is within you, and I'll tell you right now: you're going down the wrong path!"
"You think I don't know that?" I resisted the urge to leap to my feet. "You think that maybe that's why I hid here? I know! As much as I can't tell, I don't want to-"
My hands clapped to my mouth, and I took them away.
"Seriously, Jacen? Go die in a hole," she said, and she rolled her eyes and walked away.
Ella
I was distraught to hear what became of Jacen.
"He cursed you?" I cried.
"Yeah, I can't tell you what he was up to," Mara-Jade stormed, pacing the lengths of the balcony.
"This isn't good," Kieran offered.
"We got that," Mara-Jade snapped, and Kieran didn't shrink for once, like she usually did. Instead, she eyed Mara-Jade rather coldly for a girl on fire.
"No need to be mean about it," she scolded. "I'm just trying to help."
"Bickering won't help us," I interrupted, placing both palms up. "Where is my dear brother?"
"Last I checked, in some back corridor," Mara-Jade informed me with a mixture of a glare and regret at Kieran, who had fire and ice in her eyes.
"Alright. I'm going to take care of him," I promised. "Try not to kill each other." I closed my eyes and let the twin sense take over. I stumbled through the crowds of the students, trying to get to him. I finally opened my eyes when I was outside, smelling the sweet scent of apples, and I looked to see him hugging his knees to his chest, and vines were wrapping around him as fairies rested in his shoulders, nested in his hairs, and other magical creatures were drawn to him, despite his shaking chest.
I dived in on my knees, and they all flocked away, and I put my arms around him, and I tried to penetrate his mind. I missed being fused together with my brother, I missed being with my best friend all of the time.
"Ella-you-shouldn't-have-come," he managed through thick sobs, trying to push me away. I only held him closer, placing my chin on top of his hair determinedly.
"Let go," he sobbed. "Let me go. I'm not-"
"Never," I promised, and tears of my own were falling. I could sense it, he wanted to reach out to me, but for some reason, he couldn't. Then the penetration hit, and I could feel his emotions like tidal waves, regret, fear, self-hatred, remorse, guilt, and sorrow, but for what exactly I didn't know.
"Y-You won't tell anyone, will you?" He finally asked, golden eyes into mine.
"Tell anyone what?" I asked, confused.
"Tell anyone that I cried," he finished, sitting up.
"You know I wouldn't."
For the first time since he came home, granted, only a few hours before, he smiled.
"Want to meet some of my friends?" He asked.
"Of course," I said, a grin spilling across my face, and I got to my feet with him.
Alice
"My son is back?" My knees felt weak as I held my other son to my chest. Ever since Jacen's disappearance, I'd dismayed nannies and such, and insisted on taking Bello with me to work. I could afford to stay in the office. I wasn't needed in the field anymore.
"Your daughter and her friends went against orders and disappeared, but they brought him back from Germany, they say," Darklighter told me.
"T-This is wonderful!" I cried, and I forced myself to sit down before I dropped Bello. "I can't wait to see them."
"I'm glad to hear that, Madam Emrys. Now, about the child army-"
"I don't have much choice about that, do I?" I demanded coldly. He looked like he'd been slapped. "You have been making the choices for the most part, and I have no power around here."
"Alice, I-"
"Don't you dare refer to me by my first name ever again," I snarled, holding Bello protectively close. "Never again, not after you sent my children to war, not after you let my son get captured. You will only address me by my proper title and surname if you want to keep your fingers."
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, and disappeared into the fire.
I sat down as Ky brushed past Darklight into the main office slightly out of breath.
"I-heard-that-Jacen's-back," he panted as he stumbled over to my desk.
"He is," I confirmed with a small smile.
"Th-That's wonderful." He rested against the wall that wasn't glass, and managed a smile as well.
"Hopefully Ella will be better," I added.
"Eywa an' Jaysa sad?"
I was startled to hear it was Bello talking.
"They were," I told him, looking him in the green eyes. "But they're happy now."
"Yay! Yay Eywa an' Jaysa!"
I smiled at his childish innocence, and back up at Ky, who scooped the little guy up in his arms.
"They're coming home," Ky said.
