Disclaimer: I do not own the His Dark Materials Series.

A/N: Coming back to this after season 2 of HDM has finished airing in the UK. I thought the show did BRILLIANTLY and now I am sad that it's over but am excited I get to keep living with the world and ideas through fanfic :)

Chapter 31

Golden Auroras

Will wasn't particularly good at waiting around, especially when he was anxious. It's been hard for him ever since he was a little boy. His mother had various episodes at any given time and they'd frequently have to wait quietly in order to ward off the people looking for them, or else not to leave too much psychological carbon in the air around them, as his mother had said (whatever that meant). That had left a mark on him, Will knew now in a way he couldn't quite have known then. It was what it was, really, but made waiting around a very anxiety-inducing activity.

And indeed it was quite the time to feel anxious, with strange men attacking them and Mrs. Coulter absolutely letting them have it. Will had never seen the women let loose to her fury. It was disturbing, really, although perhaps not as much as it could be since they were on her side in all of this (vaguely, he wondered what it would be like if they weren't). Both Will and Lyra had no control of the situation, and thus had no choice but to wait as Mrs. Coulter figured it out. They'd already sent Dr. Malone back to Oxford via the knife, so it was just the two of them now. They were sitting in the living room in front of the television, although neither of them were watching the show that flickered on the screen.

"I'm going to ask the alethiometer what's going on," Lyra said to him after a while of sitting in uneasy silence. She'd told Will before about how she'd been hesitant about reading the alethiometer, since the machine was finicky with her sometimes. It'd kept her and Mrs. Coulter safe from the spectres and led Lyra over to Dr. Malone, but she was afraid to ask too much of it, potentially because she was afraid of what it might say. Will could certainly understand that, and she'd also told him that the alethiometer had a way of telling her what it thought she needed to hear, and how "truth" was sometimes not always the truth she wanted at any given moment.

She settled down on the sofa and brought the instrument out from her bag, eyes already glazing over as she stared down at it and Pan perched himself on the back of the sofa as a young raven. She seemed to fall into a weird sort of trance every time she did it, and Will was fascinated as he watched her. He still didn't know exactly how the alethiometer worked, or how reliable it was (he knew that Lyra swore by it, though). It seemed strange that she had a tiny little instrument who could tell her whatever it is she wanted, even as it had limitations. Will thought about how much different his life would have been if he'd had something like that growing up. And maybe how much different Lyra's would have been, too.

"It says we have to find your father, Will," Lyra told him, her brow furrowed as she blinked and stared over at him.

"What did it say about Mrs. Coulter?"

"It didn't," Lyra replied, looking frustrated now as she stared down at the device. "That's the thing. When I asked, it just ignored me. It said we have to find your father and it's what we've got to do. It's our mission. It almost felt like it was telling me Mrs. Coulter was…getting in the way."

Will frowned at that, too. He'd admit that he initially hadn't been sure about tagging around with Lyra and her mother all this time, as he very clearly needed to find his father for help and the two of them had their own agendas to attend to. But he also acknowledged that being with them was beneficial to him, too. Mrs. Coulter, first and foremost, was an adult. She knew what to do when bad things happened and also could travel and take them places that would look strange for a child to do alone. Lyra, of course, was useful with her alethiometer. She was also someone he could trust, and who seemed to understand what he was going through. That was special, and something Will was glad to have.

"What do we do, then?" Will finally asked, looking up toward the stairs. Mrs. Coulter was still up there. They'd been there quite a while, he realized, and it again made him feel so incredibly nervous.

"I dunno," Lyra said truthfully, "but all I know is we've gotta find your father, Will. And I just hope Mrs. Coulter understands."

"Do you think she won't?"

Lyra bit her lip, her eyes rounding as she considered him. She seemed to be debating something, as he heard Pan let out a tiny squawk. "I asked the alethiometer about her a lot, Will, before we met you. I wasn't gonna say nothin', but it told me to be careful. It said she wanted to keep me safe and she really cares about me, but it said to watch her. It always says that, so I guess I don't know what she will do. But she can be real good sometimes. So I don't know what to think, really."

Will was silent as he nodded and continued to stare back at her. That was concerning in a way. What did that even mean? If someone kept you safe, then how could they not be trustworthy? Will had heard from Lyra about what Mrs. Coulter had done and he'd admit he also didn't know what to make of it. It all didn't make a lot of sense to Will, but he didn't know what else to do.

When Mrs. Coulter came back, she cut right to the chase and demanded Will send Father MacPhail back to their world.

"He has some work to do," she said sharply, enunciating each syllable. Her eyes flashed at him then. "Don't you, Father MacPhail?"

"Yes," he said, still blindfolded and sounding absolutely furious. Will briefly wondered what they'd talked about up there. The last time Mrs. Coulter had interrogated him she'd kicked him and spat in his face. He thus couldn't imagine that she'd suddenly softened. He also wondered, increasingly, what was going on, as he knew there was something that she wasn't telling them.

"Pip pip," Marisa said, looking at Will then and bringing him back to the present. "Do you think you can open a window to the right world, Will?"

Will didn't know if he could, to be honest. He'd managed to pop in and out of worlds earlier solely because he was going back to his own, which felt as familiar to him as his own shadow. It didn't take an exorbitant amount of thought since he was just so accustomed to it. Each world has its own cut and feel; he'd felt it when he'd cut into random other worlds back in the tower and at the park. He didn't know how to sort through worlds, though. He didn't have time to learn that from Mr. Paradisi. He didn't have enough time to learn anything.

"I can try," he offered, looking to Lyra now. She nodded to him, although her face was tense as she looked at the man and her mother. Will knew she was contemplating what was happening, too, and thinking about what the alethiometer said. Will felt uneasy, too, but not as uneasy as he felt about Father MacPhail and Sir Charles.

So Will closed his eyes, thinking solely about Mrs. Coulter. Part of him thought that maybe he could channel the different worlds by connecting them to certain people. It was worth a try, really. He thought of Mrs. Coulter and her golden monkey daemon. He tried to feel their presence, both here in this moment and from his memory. He remembered her holding him when he'd first gotten the knife. He remembered her grabbing him at Sir Charles and leading him away to the coffee shop. He thought about resting on her shoulders on the train.

But it didn't work. As he cut through the air, he opened a window to a world with a purple sky and mountains jutting up from the ground. He didn't know where or what it was at all, and neither did Mrs. Coulter.

"That's alright," she sighed, although he could tell she seemed frustrated and disappointed. "We can make it work. You had to have gotten here somehow, hadn't you, Father?"

"With Boreal," he grunted, and Marisa smiled.

"Very well then. Will can drop you off, since we've been there before, and then we'll be on our way."

Cutting over to Sir Charles' house would be a lot easier. Will had been there before, after all, and had taken careful note of the inside of his den.

"Wait," Will said right before he reached out to slice into the man's home. After another moment of hesitation, he reached into his backpack and handed Father MacPhail the small object he'd taken from Sir Charles's house. "I stole this from him. Can you...give it back?"

"Will," Mrs. Coulter said quickly, stepping to intercepting to stand between them. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not a thief," he mumbled, feeling himself frown. It'd been bugging him this entire time and nagging at him. "I took this from him when we were there. I don't know why. Thought it might be blackmail or something. But I don't want anything to do with him anymore. I don't want to be like that. Can't he just take it back, if he's going there anyway?"

A strange expression clouded Mrs. Coulter's face then. It was soft, really, as well as surprised. Will got the impression that she didn't often hear anyone admit things like that. And that made him feel sad. But she still looked at him slowly and carefully with her eyes inscrutable before she gave a curt nod and stepped away.

It all happened very quickly. After a few moments of concentration, Will closed his eyes, opened them, and then found the right fabric, tearing an opening to a thin, tiny window.

"Remember what we discussed," Mrs. Coulter whispered to the man before shoving him through. She nodded to Will then, and he quickly pinched the window from the top and then closed it shut, catching wind of Father MacPhail flailing by a gray sofa and hearing footsteps come from the other end of the room.

"Right," Mrs. Coulter said as soon he was done, clasping her hands and considering the two of them. Lyra was still staring and Pan was sitting on her shoulder as an ermine. They both still looked very concerned. "I hate to do this, Will, but we're going to have to spend some more time with that knife now."

"How come?"

"Because we have to make a quick visit to make sure Dr. Malone is alright and after that, I really, really need you to cut us into Lyra and mine's world."