A/N: double update bitch who the fuck am I goddamn
Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail
Future Timeline
Magnolia, Fiore
Monday, October 25nd, X797
3:45 PM
"I don't like this," Rogue mutters.
"Neither do I, but if it helps with the effort…" Lucy trails off, running a soothing hand over his permanently tense shoulders. Despite her outward calm, Rogue can see where she's bitten her lips bloody in the corners.
Cynthia, oblivious to the plight of her parents, stares deep into the cracked surface of a crystal Midnight procured for the task. Cobra observes them all with a carefully bored eye, tapping a staccato rhythm on his knee. He stops every so often before resuming; Rogue assumes those pauses correlate to something he hears from Cynthia's soul and desperately wishes he could hear her, too.
Truth is, nobody likes this. Every person in the room has experienced first hand what throwing a child out on the front lines of an adult's battles can do. How many times had they sworn never to involve a child? To do their best to shield them from the horrors outside with as many walls as they could build between them?
And yet.
And yet, here they are anyway.
Rogue only wishes he could've let her be a child for a little longer.
Present Day
Wisteria Bar
Oak Town, Fiore.
Saturday, October 23nd, X792
10:00 am
Rogue in this timeline is both less and more twitchy than in the other. He doesn't jump when he hears a chair squeak, but he does keep toying with shadows by his feet that jerk forward whenever the door chime jingles.
"So," he begins again. If the last three awkward start-and-stops are any indication, he'll gape for a second and return to his drink before trying again ten minutes later. Cynthia spears a tiny blueberry into her mouth and waits for him patiently.
"We talked last night." She perks up just a little; finally, they're getting somewhere. "We...recognize we've been difficult regarding this situation and would like to apologize. It's not fair to you if we keep arguing back and forth while you're caught in the middle at no fault of your own."
"I know I wasn't expected," she says, meeting his gaze with equally guarded eyes. There's so much of the dad she has hazy memories of in his face - a softer set to his face, less angular cheeks, and relaxed forehead. It's like at any moment, dad will break composure and this'll be an incredibly elaborate prank to break the news: the dragons are gone, we're free, this is home, welcome home.
"You weren't," he agrees, "and I wish this could've been under better circumstances."
"I wouldn't be here then, would I?"
Rogue deflates a little, looking as world-weary as she feels. "No, you wouldn't."
"I'm sorry if this is making things weird between you and Uncle Sting," she says. It's a weird thing to wrap her head around, that mom and dad aren't in love, they never have been, and they're involved with other people. Totomaru had called it a divorce and then Aunt Juvia'd smacked him over the head for forgetting she had no idea what a divorce was. This doesn't seem like one of those, though, because a divorce would mean that Lucy and Rogue had even liked each other in this timeline and from what she's been able to gather, they could barely sit in the same room until her.
Maybe that's why she's here. To fix this, whatever this is. Make them be friends again. There has to be a reason she's here and not with her mom and dad. The ever-present dullness in her chest sharpens, threatening to break the thin layer holding her together. Why is she here? Why? She should be dead. Looking at the mess of a family before her, she wants to be dead. Or at least not here. Dragons and explosions and the looming threat of the world ending are familiar and comfortable compared to living with people who never wanted her in the first place.
Being unwanted is its own kind of death, after all.
"It's not your fault," Rogue says, his hand hovering awkwardly in the air above her own. Her lips twitch a little. It seems there is one constant no matter the timeline: Rogue Cheney cannot do physical affection if his life depends on it.
Cynthia offers him a blueberry. "It's not yours, either."
Present Day
Wisteria Bar
Oak Town, Fiore.
Saturday, October 23nd, X792
11:00 am
The best thing about Sting is that, no matter the timeline, he's a motormouth. He'd given Rogue a tight hug as they switched off, and then started going on and on about the weather in Crocus and the schools in Crocus and the food in Crocus and Cynthia's not exactly the smartest wizard in the room but she thinks this is his way of trying to convince her to move to Crocus so he and Rogue can stay together physically.
"Totomaru said I should stay here," she says when his food finally arrives. Ikuha plops a bowl of sliced melons in front of her and snorts, muttering something about idiot firebreathers under her breath as she saunters away. "But it's okay if you and Rogue go back home. I'll stay with…" 'mom' is on the tip of her tongue, but what comes out is, "Totomaru and Juvia."
Sting is somehow understandable past the glob of food in his mouth. "Thay wif 'oocy?"
"Or that," she amends, picking at the melon. "I was just thinking out loud."
"Y'know Lucy wouldn't mind having you. I mean, none of us mind. We like you, kid! Sure these are not exactly like...what's the word I'm looking for...ideal? Sure, these aren't ideal circumstances, but you gotta make do with what you got, you feel? Gonna suck ass, but these are the cards we're dealt and even if we're short a few of a deck, we can still make a house of 'em, eh?" Sting chirps, grinning at her widely.
It's not that the pain of losing her parents goes away under his warm aura, but for a brief moment, she's at peace with it.
"So, kid, tell me about all your weird little ticks. I see a lot of Rogue in you, which means you and I are gonna get along great. Wait, before that, did we ever tell you about the time we almost got eaten by a mutant venus flytrap?"
Present Day
Wisteria Bar
Oak Town, Fiore.
Saturday, October 23nd, X792
12:00 pm
The switch from Sting to Cobra is a lot cooler than from Rogue to Sting. The blond bops him on the shoulder, ruffles her hair, and disappears into the day. Ikuha comes over with a drink for him and a plate of apples and a pitying smile for her.
Cobra can read minds, which means this meeting is going to get both incredibly hard and easy all at once. She doesn't have to explain herself, but that's the whole problem - she doesn't have to explain herself. He'll just know.
"You and Lucy seem to have the same problem with me," he says sardonically, eyeing her curiously. "You're confused and have no idea why you're here, which makes five of us, kid."
"Maybe I was-"
"Put here to make amends? Unlikely. But likely all the same. The Fates are annoying like that. You could've been born just to be thrown here to make everyone get along, or this could just be their way of saving the remnants of a doomed timeline. Or this could just be shit luck, who knows?"
"I wish I did," Cynthia sighs, biting off a chunk of apple and wiping her fingers off on her red poncho. Aunt Juvia insisted that she wear it because the rest of her outfit was too bland. Her whole life had been spent in hiding, and now there was no reason to. According to her, anyway. There's still plenty to hide from even if it isn't going to kill you immediately.
"We all wish we did, but we don't." Cobra downs his glass and exhales sharply, scratching the bottom of his scar. "I know emo prince and sunshine gave you the spiel we decided on, but just to reiterate...yes, we didn't plan for you to be here and this is hell for everyone involved, but this doesn't mean the end of the world for all of us."
"Do you really believe that?" Cynthia challenges. She's mad now. Not seething mad, but it makes it hard to sit still when there's so much energy boiling through her. Everybody says it'll be okay, that they'll be fine in the end, but her parents are still dead. The ones who loved each other and her and wanted her are gone and she's the only person who remembers any of them. Nothing will be okay ever.
"They're only dead as long as nobody remembers them. They're alive as long as you are," Cobra says quietly, looking older than he is as he slouches forward. Cynthia wonders how old he really is when he's carrying the memories and lives of the thousands of people he's met along with his own.
"Getting a bit philosophical there, kid," Cobra says, the faintest hint of a smile on his face. "The way I see it, doesn't matter how many memories you hold, you live your life for yourself. Living with ghosts gets old fast, hm? You've been given a second chance. Lots of people don't. I can't tell you what to do with it, but if I were in your place? I'd be sad for a bit and move on. What's done is done. The dead are dead, you're alive. So keep living."
"Are you? Living?"
"Nah. But I'm everyone's therapist and being a hypocrite is in the job description."
Present Day
Wisteria Bar
Oak Town, Fiore.
Saturday, October 23nd, X792
1:00 pm
Like Rogue, the similarities between this Lucy and her mom begin and end at how she deals with stress. Mom used to plan. Lucy babbles.
"So, yeah, this is a terrible situation-"
It's the same speech touched up for a fourth time. It got tiring the first time around. Cynthia is aware that this is a terrible situation. She's at the epicenter of it, how could she not be? It sucks and sucks and sucks and it feels like every apology is less an apology and more a cry for forgiveness that she can't grant.
Ikuha brings her strawberries this time. Ikuha also rolls her eyes when she hears Lucy talking about how they've been unfair to her and steals a man's drink on her way back to the bar. He sighs a little but goes back to reading the paper and nibbling at...seeds.
"-doing?"
"Huh?" Cynthia blinks.
Lucy smiles, rubbing nervous circles into her arms, and repeats, "How are you doing? I get this is a bit overwhelming."
"Oh, um. I'm okay," she says, avoiding eye contact. It feels too much like looking at mom and she's not ready for that yet.
"That's not 'fine' though. I mean, okay is better than bad but...it's still not a hundred percent, you know? So. How are you, really?"
Hurt. Sad. Lost. Confused. Trying to adjust. She doesn't know enough words to explain how heavy her heart is and how her throat will tighten up without warning and she doesn't know what to do about it.
"I miss home," she says, swallowing back that lump in her throat. "I miss mom and dad."
"I know. I…" Lucy exhales sharply. "I hated it when people said 'I'm sorry' when my mom and dad died. I know it's all they could say, but I hated it."
"Cobra said I have a second chance. Totomaru says that, too."
"You do," Lucy agrees. She reaches over and holds her hand. "I'm not her and Rogue's not him. We're versions of them, though, before things got hard. So we'll grow together. Learn things about one another. Mourn together. I'm not Future - I'm not your mom from then, but from the time we spent together, we were a lot alike. We wanted the best for the people we loved, and...I don't want to presume, but I think she'd want for you to grow up happy here.
"That's probably what all parents want for their kids, though, isn't it? Your parents loved so deeply they tried their best to fix the future for the rest of us, and you're here, in that future they let us preserve. This is their gift to you, and when you're ready, we'll be here to help you enjoy it to its fullest."
Cynthia learned early on not to cry. People die, homes are destroyed, sadness is a permanent state of being. This is - was - her reality. She hasn't cried since she was four years old, but she thinks this is the first time she's come close to it since.
People are alive, homes are broken but mending, and maybe, just maybe, there's a chance at hope.
Present Day
Wisteria Bar
Oak Town, Fiore.
Saturday, October 23nd, X792
6:00 pm
"Yo, kid. Totomaru just sent me a message, he can't come get you 'cause there's some emergency thing going on at the hospital right now, so he asked me to take you to Wendy's office and he'll get you from there," Ikuha says as she adjusts the off-shoulder, billowy sleeves of her black crop top. The night is oppressively hot again, a whole five degrees warmer than what the meteorologist predicted, which means she can cash in on the news network's 'if we're wrong by more than three degrees, you can win' policy. Maybe she'll buy some lotion or something.
The kid nods and buttons up her poncho, ready to go. Ikuha doesn't do the hand-holding thing and she's pretty sure the kid's in the same boat, so they close up shop and head up Pine Road towards Magnolia with a safe two feet between them. It's not a long walk (for her, anyway) and it's not a bad night for a walk (arguable), but she's too on edge to enjoy the trek.
It is unnaturally warm out for October at night.
"What's your magic like, kid?" she asks suddenly. "I know you can do the water thing, but are you any better at it?"
"Yes. I can levitate a ball of water for a minute now."
Ikuha nods. A minute. It takes four minutes of oxygen deprivation for brain damage to really kick in, but if it's with water then there's always aspiration to account for...she roves her eyes over the kid and frowns. Red poncho, black-and-white checkered top, black jeans, and not one skein of water on her.
"Until you can start yanking water out of the atmosphere like Juvia, carry around your own supply of water. You never know when you'll need it," Ikuha says. The kid nods solemnly, mumbling under her breath. Years of dealing with Hound means she's got supersonic hearing, so even if the kid didn't mean for her to hear her say 'scrying, too', she does.
"Totomaru know you can scry?"
To her credit, the kid doesn't look fazed. Probably 'cause her dad's got freakish hearing, too. "No. I didn't tell."
"Oh? Why's that?" There's an ethics professor out there waking up in a cold sweat because Ikuha's building a profile on a goddamn seven-year-old, but that's not her problem.
"I'm not good at it."
"And he's a teacher whose job is to make you better at it. How the fuck'd you get scrying as a magic? I mean, you're a fucking anomaly as is considering you flipped the bird to lineal magic and went and got your own, but scrying...guess it's kinda connected to what your mom does…"
"Midnight taught me. Then he died. I'm not good at it," Cynthia says, keeping pace without complaint. Even Totomaru gets bitchy when she starts speedwalking. She supposes the kid's used to following the leader without asking twice. A good quality in canon fodder, not so much for somebody ripped through space time.
That, or she's also picked up on the undeniable taste of magic in the air.
Her eyes flick up to the rooftops, where Hound is undoubtedly tailing them. Not that she'd asked for backup, but she asked him to mind her six once ten years ago and he's stayed there ever since. She pats the little pouch tied to her waist, just to assure herself that her gloves are in there.
"Midnight's alive in this timeline, kid. Might wanna look into it, yeah? Scrying's a pretty dope ability to have. I can get you a crystal for it," Ikuha offers, tacking on a hasty, "For a price, of course. My services don't come cheap."
"I don't have any money," Cynthia says.
"Eh, call it an IOU. I'll cash in in about...eh, whenever you can lay Totomaru flat on his ass."
"Sounds good."
Ikuha can't slap her forehead, but Hound can on her behalf. He doesn't, but it's the thought that counts. She can hardly remember the last time she'd been this serious or this gullible. The kid's fucking adorable in a 'god, you're gonna wind up in a trainwreck one day and I've got front row tickets' kind of way.
Nothing good ever comes of being front row. Hound's living proof of that.
Present Day
Precht Gaebolg Hospital
Magnolia, Fiore
Saturday, October 23nd, X792
7:30 PM
Ikuha yanks Cynthia out of the way of a rushing stretcher as they squeeze their way through the crowd. The hospital back home was a cramped room led by Wendy, and then Cobra when Wendy died. There wasn't much of a hospital after Cobra was killed.
She narrowly avoids getting flattened twice more, channelling a lifetime of making herself as small and undetectable as possible to slip through the chaos. It's comforting in an odd way. She's used to this, to people in pain, running around, a cacophony of screeches and orders being barked out.
The crowd thins out near the stairwell, and by the time they reach the fourth floor, it's a ghost town. Cynthia's seen a lot of them. They might not be dead yet, but she knows a dying person when she sees one.
This whole floor is a graveyard.
Ikuha opens a door all the way at the end of the hall and ushers her in. It's a lot neater than Totomaru's office, but it still looks like a tornado swept through it.
"Yeesh, this is a goddamn mess," her guardian says, toeing a pot that's fallen over. "Imagine living like this...can't relate."
"That would be because you can't relate to anyone, but I digress." Totomaru shuts the door behind him and tosses his white coat on the sofa. His shoulders drop almost immediately and he groans, rolling them in big circles. "I hate being on call."
"It looks like an apocalypse movie downstairs, the fuck is going on?"
"Some chemical factory explosion yesterday. Nobody contained the area properly so the agents leaked and everybody in the area got sent here for testing, because what's hospital administration if not terrible at planning? So, of course they brought samples and who am I if not the resident waste destruction expert? I've been burning contaminated materials and everything else for hours now…" Totomaru sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose before he turns his attention to her. "So, how'd it go?"
"Okay," Cynthia says, just as Ikuha snorts, "Fucking awful."
"Yeah, I figured as much."
Future Timeline
Magnolia, Fiore
Monday, October 25nd, X797
7:22 PM
"I'm tired," Cynthia whines when he puts her down for the night. Rogue brushes one of the errant spikes of hair out of her face and presses a cool hand to the dark lines that rim her eyes. She sighs happily and his heart breaks a little.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly, "I'm sorry we got you involved in this when it wasn't your fight to begin with."
"Will it help?"
"Yes. But you shouldn't need to-"
"Then 's'okay. 'M happy I can help 'cause then you an' mom an' everybody else can stay alive, an' that's all I want."
A/N: AAAAAND with that we've hopefully shelved all the shitty angst from years prior ok now we can move onto fun stuff. See ya in like two months gang. Or more idk probably after April that's when I booked my MCAT.
r&r please
-eien